WHEN the ACA is ruled 'unconstitutional', just remember Scalia didn't ever bother reading it.

[TrollBuster9090]

That might be lost in the noise tomorrow, but don't let it be forgotten. Antonin Scalia, the biggest clown ever to sit on the Supreme Court,...the guy who went duck hunting with Dick Cheney WHILE he was adjudicating his case, thus destroying any concept of justice appearing to be blind...that Antonin Scalia...actually whined "do you really expect us to READ this?" during the ACA arguments.

Not that Scalia is any worse than the four other conservative activists on the Supreme Court. He's just too much of a asshat to worry about trying to HIDE his biases and contempt for democracy and justice. The truth is, he didn't read it, had no intention of reading it, and actually PROVED he didn't read it through his comments about sections of the law that were removed (ie-the 'cornhusker kickback'). He was just intending to do what he normally does. Figure out what would most benefit the Republican Party, and then blow the appropriate ruling out of his ass, as always. But here's the kicker....with any other court, if you have proof that the Judge didn't do his job, you can APPEAL the ruling. And the kicker is that there is nobody to appeal a Supreme Court Ruling TO, which is probably the reason Scalia doesn't bother to hide his flagrant biases and legal transgressions.

Bottom line: if this law is overturned, remind everybody that some of the judges ruled on it without even bothering to read it. And that the obvious political partisanship behind this ruling, the Citizens United Ruling, and a dozen other rulings prove that the Supreme Court is nothing more than a political body which, unlike other political bodies, does not have to face the electorate. It should either be abolished, made more accountable (by ELECTING Justices), or at the very least...TERM LIMITS should be placed on their appointments.

[PoliticAverse]

1. Which of the 9 justices do think read the entire ACA ? n/t

[TrollBuster9090]

2. Kagan, Sotomayor and Ginsburg.

If you were asking for an honest answer.

[NYC Liberal]

3. I totally agree with you about Scalia and the rest of the incompetents on the court. However:

It should either be abolished
Not possible. There will ALWAYS be a "Supreme Court." You can't have an infinite chain of courts to keep appealing to. At some point, some court will be the last court.

made more accountable (by ELECTING Justices)
Very bad idea. If you think the Supreme Court is political now, just wait until they have to stand for election. That makes the problem worse, not better.

[JHB]

5. Agreed. The point that needs to be pounded is how utterly fraudulent...

...conservative claims about "liberal" judges have been. They don't give a damn how "activist" judges are as long as they're activist in certain directions.

"Originalist" isn't a judicial philosophy, it's a marketing tool, wrapping the Founders' names around radical right wing stances.

[TrollBuster9090]

6. Yep, calling yourself an "originalist" or a "textualist" is basically the judicial equivalent of

wrapping yourself in a flag. (Something that FLASHERS do, thinking they'll get a lighter sentence from a 'patriotic' jury.)

And the biggest joke of all is CLARANCE THOMAS being an Originalist. If he was really an Originalist he'd take off that robe, put on a flannel shirt and a straw hat, and go out and start loading riverboats with cotton bails. The Founding Fathers owned slaves, defined them as 3/5ths of a parson for representation by population purposes, didn't think women should vote, and in some cases (ie-Adams) didn't even think men who didn't own land should be able to vote.

You're absolutely right. Any judicial nominee who claims to be an originalist is a liar. Claiming to be that should be an automatic disqualier for a judicial appointment.

[pansypoo53219]

4. what if they let it stand, THINKING it will harm obama?

tho, i think insurance companies need to be out.

[TrollBuster9090]

7. I think the only way they'd let it stand is if they have advanced knowledge that Republicans,

if elected, plan to EXPAND the coverage mandate (thus providing a crony capitalist payoff to the HMOs) while dropping subsidies to the poor for their coverage. Something like Ryan's COUPON plan. Simply force everybody, no matter how poor, to buy coverage from an HMO, while providing everybody with a small voucher. It would essentially be like a 'flat tax' or a 'surcharge' which wealthy plutocrats love as an alternative to a progressive tax, which they hate.

However, as a liberal, I think the best thing would be to simply charge everybody 2% of their income, and then give everybody Medicare. The other thing to do would obviously be to remove the payroll tax cap, which would bring in more money from ppl who earn more than $106K per year, and make it possible to LOWER the payroll tax percentage. Maybe from 6% down to 4%. That should be the new talking point for fixing Social Security. Remove the CAP and you can lower the RATE. (Lower for everybody except the wealthy, of course, who, up until now, have been paying siginificantly less than the 6% regular people pay.

[Angry Dragon]

8. Tony the Black Robed Toad

[TrollBuster9090]

11. "Your legislative mind tricks won't work on me, boy."

[Lionessa]

9. Gosh, will remembering that make any damned difference?

It interesting, though I doubt any of the justices read all bills, particularly ones such as this.

And since only one aspect of the bill is in question, I'm not sure that aspect needs the requirement of reading the entire bill. Reading enough to determine (rightly or wrongly) if the mandate should be separated or the entire ACA is so heavily reliant on the mandate as to effect the entire bill. One may not have to read the entire thing to determine that.

Lastly, even if the court wingers did read it, they'll still be voting exactly how Rove, and his New World Order folks wants them to vote. So reading it would only be a smoke screen anyway.

[TBMASE]

10. The majority of congress didn't read it before the vote

we were told it would have to pass to find out what was in it by the speaker of the house.

The bill wasn't even finalized until 24 hours prior to the vote. I wouldn't expect SCOTUS to do what half of congress didn't do before voting on it

[TrollBuster9090]

12. Yes, that's a standard talking point that Republicans like to use, but

you know as well as I do that that's not really what Pelosi meant. But I accept your premise that most of Congress didn't read the bill in it's entirety (or in some cases, AT ALL) before voting on it. How is that an excuse for the Supreme Court to not have to read it before ruling on it? Two wrongs don't make a right. Furthermore, since ruling on legislation AS WRITTEN is the Supreme Court's ONLY FUNCTION, failing to read legislation before ruling on it is a much bigger wrong.

The other standard trope the Republicans like to use about the ACA is that it's too long. They constantly quote the number of pages (as Scalia did) as if longer is inherently worse, and length is a flaw in it's own right. They like to compare the number of pages in the ACA to the number of pages in the Constitution. Very silly false analogy. Shorter is not better and longer is not worse. The U.S. Constitution is longer than the Magna Carta, but that doesn't make it worse.

Sometimes complicated problems require complicated solutions, and complicated solutions require complicated legislation. The one and only job of the Supreme Court is to read legislation, simple and complicated alike, to see if the text is consistent with the Constitution. And unless Scalia has a pressing engagement to go duck hunting with Cheney again, he should whine about having to do his job.

Having said that, however, I would prefer to have one simple law that says, simply "MEDICARE FOR ALL." But I guarantee striking down the ACA will not bring THAT dream any closer. If the ACE is struck down we'll be back to the old system, and nobody will dare to touch this issue for ANOTHER 30 years.

[TBMASE]

13. I don't really think it's the job of SCOTUS to read the legislation

especially when they were looking at a very narrow argument related to it.

I mean, if many in congress didn't read the bill, why should the courts? A bill that said Medicare for all would have been much simpler, much more acceptable and we wouldn't be having it decided by 5 people on SCOTUS

[snot]

14. Sorry, but term limits would make them even more beholden to those who appoint and confirm them.

The problem is that we've allowed the election of the reps who appoint and confirm them to be hijacked.

I.m.h.o., the solution is campaign finance reform, reforms to ensure election integrity, and media reform, so that the people are actually better-informed about who's really looking out for them and have a fair shot at electing them.

[Jack Rabbit]

15. "Death Panels are unconstitutional."

When we read that in his opinion, we'll know for sure he didn't read the act.

[Eljo_Don]

16. Recall

Is there anything like Supreme Court Judge recall?