I haven’t had a chance to react to this week’s Supreme Court drama. So let me just link to some other reactions.
Dahlia Lithwick was reasonably upbeat after the first day of arguments. Not so by the end of it. “It’s not a good day for the Affordable Care Act,” she writes. “This morning’s argument requires the justices to start from the assumption that the court will strike down the individual mandate (the issue argued exhaustively yesterday) and asks them to pick over the carcass, to determine what, if anything, survives.”
The most illuminating comment is by Charles Pierce.
I think Justice Antonin Scalia isn’t even really trying any more….He hung in there as long as he could, but he’s now bringing Not Giving A Fuck to an almost operatic level….
…It is plain now that Scalia simply doesn’t like the Affordable Care Act on its face. It has nothing to do with “originalism,” or the Commerce Clause, or anything else. He doesn’t think that the people who would benefit from the law deserve to have a law that benefits them. On Tuesday, he pursued the absurd “broccoli” analogy to the point where he sounded like a micro-rated evening-drive talk-show host from a dust-clotted station in southern Oklahoma. And today, apparently, he ran through every twist and turn in the act’s baroque political history in an attempt to discredit the law politically, rather than as a challenge to its constitutionality.
See also John Cole, who has a long roundup of many other reactions. Worth reading.
Update: Krugman —
Given the stakes, one might have expected all the court’s members to be very careful in speaking about both health care realities and legal precedents. In reality, however, the second day of hearings suggested that the justices most hostile to the law don’t understand, or choose not to understand, how insurance works. And the third day was, in a way, even worse, as antireform justices appeared to embrace any argument, no matter how flimsy, that they could use to kill reform.
We’re been calling the Roberts court “corporatist,” but the weird thing here is that the insurance industry wants the mandate. This reveals at least some of them to not be so much pro-corporation as pro-Republican Party.
Anyone else who doesn’t get why the broccoli defense is stupid needs to read Krugman’s entire column.
Update: “Justice Scalia is an oxymoron.”
I have no idea what the out come of this case will be but in general I think, basically people are calling this dead too soon.While I have plenty concerns about certain members and the pact with the dark side they no doubt made to get themselves where they are..IMHO it is their job to be the turd in the punch bowl and ask the tough questions. That may make it look bad for one side or another but it is just a question.
I have seen times when I have listened to the questions they pose and thought I knew how they would rule based on the questions only to find what they wrote went a whole other direction.
This kinda got me to thinking some about “mandates” and about the tea baggers who are all sooo for personal responsibility and less government- you would think this would be a no brainer for them- no program or health care to pay for and the government seeing to it you dont have to pay for some dead beat to go to the doctor because they have to pay their own way.
What are OUR responsibilities as good citizens of this great nation?Ask not what your country can do for you, but what YOU can do for your country!For all you get not a whole hell of a lot is asked of you really. Your country is pretty damn safe and all that is asked of you is that you get medical coverage so your not a drain of state and federal resources and the responsibility crowd gets their panties in a dander and screams about the constitution..tell me where the hell in the constitution is it written you have a right send a nation into financial ruin because you dont want medical coverage? And that you not being allowed to is somehow un constitutional? They must be smoking that synthetic stuff
The only certainty I have is that Saclia, Thomas, Alito, and Roberts will decide whatever they decide as a monolithic entity. And it appears that Clarence has been bought and paid for via the honey pot and seven hundred thousand beans
OT, We Grew Apart, terrific graphic about income inequality, and how this has changed over the decades in the USA.
I have absolutely NO respect for these four justices. They are scumbags, the worst I have ever seen as judges–ever. At least three of these four, I suspect have way too prurient proclivites that show their judgment is in question. The Supreme Court these days has a majority that is nothing more than toadies for the Republican Party. It’s too bad that an enterprising person couldn’t find ways to impeach these four unqualified men as soon as possible just as a small step to save our country. And, for my next comment, I will tell you what I really think.
I hate to say but he was right. If allowed to stand, congress can make you buy bibles. Are you ready for a conservative congress to do that?
Justice Breyer said it best: “When you are born, and you don’t have insurance, and you will in fact get sick, and you will in fact impose costs, have you perhaps involuntarily — perhaps simply because you are a human being — entered this particular market?”
Mr Carvin replied: “If being born is entering the market, then I can’t think of a more plenary power Congress can have, because that literally means they can regulate every human activity from cradle to grave,”
So in other words your freedoms are gone, all of them. Because they can compel you into something you do not want to do and if you fail to do it they can imprison you.
Jeff J — no, he is not right. Not about broccoli, and not about bibles. Please read — Here’s why health insurance is not like broccoli.
See also today’s Paul Krugman column:
Scalia, Thomas, and Alito, were specifically put on the court for just an occasion like this – a law passed by Democrats that benefits people.
R Presidents get to nominate and put on the SC at least one rubber-stamping Conservative idealoue. D Presidents, on the other hand, only get to nominate Center/Center-right Justices, who are then treated as traitorous Communist “Fifth Columnists” by R’s by the Senate Judicial Committee.
If “De-evolution” Reagan, “Papa Doc” Bush, “Baby Doc” Bush (Hell – Dole/McCain) signed this very same bill, and it was written and passed by R’s, the only question is, would this VERY SAME SC pass it unanimously, or 8-1/7-2 – with one or two of the more Liberal justices voted “no” because it’s inefficient, and “Medicare For All” is what the Congress should be steering for?
Scalia’s behavior during questioning was beyond disgusting and childish grandstanding – it was openly mocking, churlish, boorish, and pointless, except to keep the spotlight on himself. I think even Roberts was a bit shocked, and had to chastise him to tone it down, and stay on point.
Thomas, as usual sat there like some robed Sphinx.
And Alito chimed in with more talk-radio, Scalia-like questioning.
After this naked display of partisan judicial politics, I’ll pass-out if this law is passed.
The only hopes are slim: Kennedy and Roberts – yeah, I know, but hear me out:
Both men may have an eye on their legacies. Kennedy was on the wrong side of two of the most egregiously horrible decision in the history of the SC: Bush v. Gore, and CU. Roberts was the CJ on CU.
Kennedy, if there’s any sense of decency left in him after constant exposure to “The Terrible Three,” may want to make amends for the two disasters he was one of the deciding votes on. And Roberts, who everyone already knows never met legislation that put money in corporations pockets that he wouldn’t openly salivate to pass, could use that as cover to make-up for “Citizens,” which is now no longer considered an albatross for the SC by Liberals, but also a growing number of Conservatives, who are shocked at the excess that decision allows. Besides all of his hot air, they’ve now seen a single billionaire, ONE MAN’s money, keep that rogue, Gingrich, afloat like a Thankless-giving Day Parade balloon.
And yeah, I know this is a stretch – to the point where “Rubberman” might snap back or break, but I need SOME hope.
Another factor might be, what happens to the millions of people, like those with preexisting conditions, and young adults covered by their parents policies? THAT might very well rebound back on the SC and Republicans – especially in this election. Except for that consequence, no Conservative would care for a nanosecond.
My bet is that they kill the mandate, but leave enough of ACA that R’s can use as a cudgel to continue to use in the coming election. Or, force the D’s to walk-away from their (really the R’s – since it was basically written by Heritage as an answer to HillaryCare) bill.
Either way, ACA is dead,
And Scalia, Thomas, and Alito will have performed exactly what they were put on the SC to do.
Maybe they’ll unfurl a “Mission Accomplished” banner over the bench, and toast one another with vintage champagne for a job well-done.
You can probably count on 1 hand the number of correct decisions by Scalia or Thomas; they’ve been worse than empty seats by far, for their whole tenure. It’s all about Kennedy, and he’s rather academic and out of touch with reality.
Sorry, Jeff, but the broccoli and Bibles arguments are specious.
Krugman, among others, makes the point about broccoli.
And the Bible one is silly on its face – as currently ‘constituted,’ our government (Congress) can’t force anyone to buy one – 1st Amendment, aka: “Separation of Church and State.”
Today, even if we put in a totally Vegan President and Congress, they still couldn’t mandate people buying broccoli.
However, if people keep voting for Conservative religious politicians, eventually, a Dominionist Christian President and Congress, may/will feel empowered to radically change the Constitution, in the name of God and Jesus, and mandate the purchase of Bibles – which, THEN, a Dominionist Christian SC will, I’m more than sure, decide is okey-dokey.
Mandates are (will be) fine for Conservatives.
But not mandates for Liberals.
And NO man-dates for gay males! DAS IST VERBOTEN!!!
PS: Oh – and still no health care!
Though we may all be mandated to have Bibles, health care will consist of how hard you and yours pray. And there, the ‘markets’ still won’t be ‘free’ – Jesus will set the market.
Lest I forget, maybe someone should ask all of the “Constitutional Originalists,” and “Federal Society” folks out there how they feel about John Adams, a member of the Federalist Party – and the ONLY one to be President, signing a law MANDATING insurance for ALL seamen?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2011/01/17/congress-passes-socialized-medicine-and-mandates-health-insurance-in-1798/
Adams and that Congress were a lot closer to the “origins “of the Constitution, so, if they decided they could MANDATE insurance for ALL seamen in 1798, why we can’t we do that for everyone in 2012?
Well, Antonin, you (supposedly) great legal scholar – what say you?
The very first Congress also mandated that all men eligible for militia duty purchase a proper firearm. That was in 1792, I believe. I guess the founders missed having Scalia at hand to explain originalism to them.
From a policy standpoint, they’re quite dissimilar, but the legal reasoning that upholds the mandate would similarly uphold a broccoli mandate: if one’s failure to prepare for future bad health can be regulated currently, then we can compel conduct that improves health just the same as we can compel the purchase of insurance. Similarly, when people don’t buy broccoli, it changes the pricing in the market, thereby impacting the rest of us that are in the broccoli market. The constitutional theory that would OK the mandate is so broad that it easily encompasses a broccoli mandate.
@ cund gulag: the law you’re talking about has absolutely nothing to do w/ the mandate. The 1798 law was a constitutional exercise of the power of the purse. The equivalent of that law isn’t the mandate, but Medicare. So before you go off on the scholarship of others, you may want to brush up on your own.
Theoretically I could cover myself in honey and lay on an anthill, too. But it’s like the arguments people had against the income tax constitutional amendment — they could tax us at 100 percent! Yeah, they could, but they aren’t going to do that in the real world.
The price or availability of broccoli does not have the same grave consequences to the future of the nation as the price and availability of health insurance. We’re looking at life or death, for individuals an also for the future of the U.S. economy. If broccoli disappeared off the face of the earth tomorrow, we could adjust more easily than we could adjust to the failure of the ACA, including the individual mandate.
There’s a faint hope that if the mandate goes down the country would be forced into single payer. That would be grand, except I can’t see that happening in the current political climate. The same
toolsspecial interests pushing fantasy arguments about broccoli that people are soft-headed enough to take seriously would kill single payer even more ruthlessly.Did you bother to read the article, or are you just cribbing your answers from some right-wing talking point sheet? You’ll have to do better than that.
So in other words your freedoms are gone, all of them. Because they can compel you into something you do not want to do and if you fail to do it they can imprison you.
Do the Robot! “Freedumbs,” yeah baby.
maha,
DON’T give future R Presidents and Congresses any ideas!
The NRA and their ALEC’s will be all over that.
I’m sort of surprised they haven’t thought of that already!
If that does happen though, I’m sure “Original Intent” will be sited to limit Black men to only 3/5’s of a gun – all stock, no trigger or barrel. And, certainly, NO bullets!
The broccoli argument is emblematic of the modern republicant party, quick easy to repeat bumper sticker sloganeering. They have been perfecting this rubbish since the days of Ronnie Raygun. Having this FAUX news manufactured dribble repeated by a “justice” sitting the Supreme Court is just the latest example to prove that the modern republicant party really is the party of the ignorant and uniformed.
if one’s failure to prepare for future bad health can be regulated currently
But that’s not the purpose of the mandate at all. It’s 1) to provide financial responsibility in the event of ill health; and 2) to prevent uninsured costs from being paid by the general public. Precedents already exist, obviously: 1) all 50 states require their citizens to provide financial responsibility for at-fault auto accidents, which means most citizens must purchase auto liability insurance; and 2) various laws require citizens to use child car seats, smoke detectors, etc., in order to avoid catastrophic injuries that could impact public funds over the long term.
Hmm, why do all the pro-Scalia arguments sound like they were cut & pasted from those nonsensical handouts disseminated at the town halls via the Koch Bros?
are you just cribbing your answers from some right-wing talking point sheet?
Pretty obvious, isn’t it!
Maha: the government taxed the sailors and the _government_ took those taxes and paid for a _government operated_ hospital. The government’s ability to operate the program, then, derives from its power to tax.
The notion that this has something or anything to do w/ the argument for the mandate is pretty stupid.
jpe — and the Militia Act of 1792 mandated that all men eligible for militia duty (all citizens between the ages of 18 and 45, with a few exceptions) purchase the proper firearm and equipment, and not from the government.
OMG they could have been ordering us to buy broccoli ALL THIS TIME!!!!!
Of course jpe didn’t read it!
A good troll already ‘feels’ he/she knows what it says.
After all, it’s a link from a Liberal blog to noted Liberal rag – “Forbes Magazine!”
Whoops!
Methinks some folks confuse “Originalism” with “Absurdism,” and “Absurdism” with “Reason.”
Should only the mandate be struck down, and the remainder of ACA be upheld, insurance companies could well find themselves in a death spiral.
The more sick people they are required to cover by law, the higher the cost of coverage.
The higher the cost of overage, the more people will not/cannot buy insurance. As fewer people buy insurance, cost of coverage must increase.
Now, I have no faith whatsoever in Scalia’s or Thomas’s ability to figure this out. But I’m hoping Roberts and Kennedy and maybe even Alito can see this is not the way to go. But who knows.
Scalia comes across as rather stupid much of the time. Some argue it’s just his personality; no, I think he’s actually dense. Thomas, who knows what’s up with him.
And from what I’ve read in a number of places, the mistake made was that it would have better to call it an ACA “tax,” rather than a “mandate” – because Medicare and SS are not considered mandates, but taxes, and the passed SC muster.
Can someone link an article that explains that definitively?
Also, maybe someone can enlighten as to me why, if ACA was based mostly on the law MA passed, the SC decided to look at the national plan before the state one – outside of political reasons?
If I read anything about that, I’ve forgotten.
Since 1980, I’ve been suffering from a worsening condition called, “Conservative Outrage Overload,” and I can’t stay focused for too long on one thing before the right commits an outrage in another, and diverts my attention.
Maybe this condition could also be called CI-ADD: Conservative Induced – Attention Deficit Disorder.
And I surely can’t be the only Liberal suffering from this.
The whole broccoli analogy breaks down for me because we do NOT have laws that say that if I am suddenly feeling peckish, I can present myself at the Emergency Kitchen at the local hospital and get fed potentially enormous amounts of food by highly trained chefs who are legally required to not turn me away. And we do not maintain a nationwide emergency number I can call if I get a hunger pang, and know that a vehicle with para-chefs will be sent to my location to provide me with first-food, and take me to the Emergency Kitchen if it seems like my hunger is real and requires more serious feeding.
I’d be far more content to listen to all these rugged individualists who don’t want to be forced to buy insurance if they were fiercely fighting for the right to be tatooed with big DON’T TREAT ME marks on their foreheads, and changes to the laws so that they could really and truly NOT be in the health care market. They want out, fine with me, it’s their stupidity.
But this claiming their “freedom” is being attacked while they’re happily accepting that every day, every second, they’d be whisked into an ambulance and an ER should they get happen to get hit by a car or have a heart attack, is just plain BS.
Their “freedom” to not participate in the market was taken from them years ago, when the laws that mandate treatment got passed. Now we’re just talking about the best mechanism for coping with the free-rider problem.
(And, finally, just for those who keep braying about where the limits of government power would be if the mandate is upheld, I’ll just repeat, it’ll be in the Congressional system of representative democracy, where it always has been. The suggestion that the corn lobby would ever let the broccoli mandate get passed is absurd.)
maha,
Apparently, only D’s would have ordered the buying of broccoli.
I think Conservatives hate it too much – at least, based on the attitudes of “Papa Doc” Bush, recent right-wing talk show hosts, and Antonin Scalia.
Or, maybe that’s a more recent phenomenon – and Federalists, Whigs and pre-Harding/Coolidge Republicans would have been ok with “The Broccoli Mandate?”
Maybe some one can do a Doctoral Dissertation on that: “The Broccolaic Tendencies of American Conservative Leaders?”
Our Constitution begins with the following words:
“We the People of the United States in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
And here’s “Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 of the United States Constitution,” and is known as the ‘Taxing and Spending Clause.’ It reads:
“The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States…”
Hmmm… “General welfare…” In TWO places!
And isn’t the health of citizens, so that they can participate in, and defend this country, about as central to “general welfare’ as you can get?
Apparently not…
Somewhere along the lines, with the help of modern Conservatism, and Libertarianism, we’ve redefined it from “We the people,” to:
“We, each person, in Order to form a more perfect Union, ‘granted by the power given it by each of our States,’ establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America, ‘as we each determine it to be, state-by-state, and individual-by-individual.’â€
Sounds more like that could have been the preamble to “The Articles of Confederation,” I’d say.
I wonder what ever happened to that document?
Hmmm… It was replaced by SOMETHING – if only I could remember what it was called?
Oh, and maybe someone needs to tell Scalia that the government is already in the business, pretty much, of making Americans buy a certain vegetable.
Only it ain’t broccoli – it’s corn. CORN. C-O-R-N!
Try to find gas without corn ethenol.
And try to find prepared foods without corn syrup, corn starch, or corn powder.
I know this is not a good analogy – but it’s no worse than the Broccoli v. ACA one.
And at least I KNOW mine’s not a good one!
Again, that’s pursuant to an enumerated power that isn’t the commerce clause (in this case, the power to raise militias). Like the seaman’s act, it’s just a red herring.
I SEE A TWIT FILTER IN JPE’S FUTURE!
It’s a mandate that people buy something, presumably from a privately owned company, necessary and proper to the maintenance of a militia. Mostly it was ignored, but it was still a law.
Likewise, the insurance mandate is necessary and proper to making the private insurance industry a viable way to provide most people’s health care. Otherwise the insurance industry nationwide is going to go belly up, unless they are relieved of the need to insure people with pre-existing conditions. But now we’re back to square one with health care costs eating the nation’s economy and driving large numbers of people into bankruptcy and/or early graves.
You’ve got to be dumb as a sock to not see how that is an issue of interstate commerce.
jpe appears to be a “one-trick-pony.”
Or a rabid pitbull on a femur.
Neither of those is meant as a compliment there, jpe – in case you were wondering…
Thomas, who knows what’s up with him.
He’s thinking about… other things.
I SEE A TWIT FILTER IN JPE’S FUTURE!
Yeah, even Karnak the Magnificent could see that.
Has any one looked at a recent hospital bill if you have had one? In 1981, I had gall bladder surgery. When I looked at my bill, I found a charge for one box of Kleenex for $23. I asked about that charge. That is when I first heard that hospitals were allowed to do that because there were so many people who didn’t pay bills. I told the person I was talking to that I kind of got what they were saying; but, I wanted to emphasize that at no time during my stay had I ever had any “real” Kleenex. I had some little squares of thin paper that was about one layer removed from the tree bark it was made from and it scratched my tender nose and upper lip to the point of an open sore. I told them if they were going to charge me for Kleenex, I should get “real” Kleenex. Also, I figured out that my anasthesiologist was paid approximately $200 a minute for that surgery. Remember, this is 1981. As I understood the ACA, I had hoped that pricing of anything involved in a hospital stay would return to some honest accounting. If every one was contributing to the pool of the insurance, then hospitals wouldn’t overcharge for a box of tissue substitutes as Kleenex. But, in the end, overcharging every one for health care will always be the norm with or without ACA. Presently, health care in the United States is nothing but a game of ripoff of every American who uses health care in the United States.
“Presently, health care in the United States is nothing but a game of ripoff of every American who uses health care in the United States”
You got that right, I had both my hips replaced last year, the surgury was around $50,000 each by the time I was discharged from the hospital. My insurance company paid around $15,000 for each surgery, if that aint a game I don’t know what would be!
Well, well, well;
Geoge Carlin and Deek Jackson were right.
You only get what the owners say you can have; which basically means we’ll be landless debt slave peasants.You want an education or health care? How much money you got? You got Visa or Mastercard?
Screw them commie / socialist “entitlement ” programs, real men go to Teheran!
New Zealand is looking pretty good right now; far away, no one cares about it, and they have a fair standard of living. Plus they have sheep. You can shear the sheep once a year or eat lamb chops, now THAT”S freedom……..
Uncledad;
You have TWO hips?
Lucky bastard!
Yikes, I’m getting a new hip this summer. I’ll be watching those bills and the insurance payout closely.
“Yikes, I’m getting a new hip this summer. I’ll be watching those bills and the insurance payout closely”
I didn’t have to pay the difference, the fifty grand is what they charge if you don’t have insurance, my insurance negotiated down to fifteen grand, I didn’t pay a cent (deductable had already been met). So they are basically over charging the general public 70% if you don’t have coverage, and this wasn’t some podunk hospital it was one of the best in Chicago.
Sorry my math skills took a poop they overcharge 333%, nice round number half of 666?
uncledad, I tried to explain this to a Republican once; total noncomprehension – he assumed I wanted free medical care.
“he assumed I wanted free medical care”
Well yeah why would a liberal want to give something, unless they want something in return? Everyone knows its the conservatives who really care. Just look at the record.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo_3ZcvbkPI&feature=g-vrec&context=G2c2ee03RVAAAAAAAAAg
ZOINKS!!!
$50,000 without v. $15,000 with?
I’m pretty sure I need hip replacement in like, uhm… PRETTY SOON!
And me without…
OY!
Must see TV!
From the folks at “Reason (‘You keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means…’)” – the Libertarian take, comparing health care coverage to pizza toppings:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cdfn0Wiywk4&feature=player_embedded
It must be nice to get paid to have a “show” to show how stupid you are – and how sophomoric (more like JHS) your “humor” is.
Oh, and this comes from something called, “The Remy Report,” which, I assume is because this Idjit’s name is Remy. And because of the name, it’s predictable, because it makes you want to drink copious amounts of Remy cognac.
I can’t afford their VS, let alone the VSOP, so I think I’ll just put the last few drops from the ketchup bottle into the bottle of cheap vodka we have, call it a “Bloody Mary,” and guzzle it down for breakfast.
OY – the stupid!
Na Zdarovya!
Fade to black…
(CRASH!)
OY! Indeed C.
Is that my permanent gravator or are they random? I do like those canines!
Yeah, it’s pretty much permanent unless you go and choose another one from “Gravatars ‘R us,” or “Oui Be Gravatars.”
The canines are nice!
Try being a perplexed, frustrated, and angry yellow circle, lookin’ like he’s just itchin’ for a fight!
But I like it!
That’s kinda what I look like in real life.
Just needs a goatee…
Icky Sticky Ricky’s back bashing JFK:
“This freedom of religion, freedom of conscience, is the trunk from which all other branches of freedom on our great tree of liberty get their life. Cut down the trunk and the tree of liberty will die and in its place will be only the barren earth of tyranny.”
Well, it THAT doesn’t prove the boy’s dumb as a f’in stump I don’t know what it will take!
But I’m sure he’ll be happy to provide countless more examples in the future.
Here, if you want to ruin your weekend early, read his entire 2,400 word-turd salad:
http://www.realclearreligion.org/articles/2012/03/30/it_is_hard_to_be_catholic_in_public_life.html
Then, after you’re done, have the drink I mentioned above. I’m going to call it a “c u later n d Bloody Morning Mary.”
You’ll be heaving with or without it – so, might as well fill the old stomach with some vodka to spew.
All the better to pass-out, and maybe have some sweet dreams…
I thought ACA was a bad piece of legislation from the git-go and probably wouldn’t pass constitutional muster. All that being water over the dam, what is really troubling is that Supreme Court justices are now getting their talking points from FoxNews. This bullshit argument, comparing ACA to “making people eat their broccoli” was making the rounds on Hannity and O”Reilly’s show back in 2009. It is pathetic that the highest jurists in this country are using nonsense from a brain dead turd who doesn’t even have a legitimate college degree in their oral arguments!