Good morrow, gentles! Verily, have you Heard the News? A Reagan-appointed Fifth Circuit Judge has handed out homework to a government lawyer, because he is so mad that Obama never passed Con Law. Marburby v. Madison! NYT v. Sullivan! Lemon v. Kurtzman! THREE PRONGS! Did NoObAma cheat on that too? Is his Harvard Law degree a forgery perpetrated by his known-forger illegal drunk-driving uncle? Has Joe Arpaio looked into that yet? PROBABLY! See, Obama declined to be on his oratorical game for one second once yesterday, and said that it would be “unprecedented” for the Supreme Court to overturn a law passed by a strong, democratically elected majority, and then everyone fainted because he had “threatened” the Supreme Court with politics, by mentioning them. And then this wackadoo judge interrupted the government lawyer in a fucking NOTHER Affordable Care Act case, a DIFFERENT one, this one heard by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, and was all SHUT YER TRAP AND LISTEN MISSY, AND TURN ME IN THREE SINGLE-SPACED PAGES BY THURSDAY and he wasn’t even kidding.
So then Bamz was all, oh hey guys, what I meant to say was, um, CBS?
Mr. Obama suggested he meant that it would be “unprecedented” in the modern era for the Court to rule the law exceeded Congress’ power to regulate an economic issue like health care.
SO you could see why he didn’t say that in the first place, because it’s way more boring.
What should President Terrible have said? Oh, just this:
John Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it.
Hahahahaha, Andrew Jackson, you fucking dick. [CBS]
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The courts. How do they work?
Badly, it seems. Apparently, our judges may now consider political rhetoric in deciding whether to rape the Negro slave.
Arguments go in, opinions come out. No one can explain it.
Jeezus, ain't that the truth.
Rulings go to the people who contribute most to the appropriate political campaign or cause.
Power and wealth are not supposed to be favored, but thats the way the smart money bets.
Judges go in, judges go out. No one can explain it.
Republican appointees go in, judicial activism comes out…
Fuckin' SCOTUS! How does it work!?
Just wait until Romney gets into the White House and fires all the bitches!
I don't think Rmoney has a chance.
There's an anti-Reptiloid force field there, you see…
~
Does that work on reptloid cyborgs?
well that means the bitches are safe.
Mr. President, I demand that you acknowledge my power even though your acknowledgement in no way affects what I can do.
TELL ME HOW GREAT I AM!
Andrew Jackson was straight up gangster.
I believe that is "gangsta" in the Utah hood.
War criminal and etc., too. Yet, you cannot help but kind of like the guy, if only for shutting down the national bank.
Judge Harry Stone would have never let DA Dan Fielding get away with it.
Andrew Jackson threw the bitchin'est inaugural celebration Evah! Plus he was married to bigamist who smoked a pipe.
But he was still a cunt to the Injuns.
That's putting it mildly.
Huh?
(I must need more coffee.)
I'm witcha on dat
I don't think any amount of coffee is capable of robbing you of enough sanity to make this make sense.
Some shit about messican wrasslin. Fuck if I know.
Myself, I'd prefer a 5th of some nice single malt scotch.
Like you, I plead the fifth
In! Lagavulin, please. Talisker would also be acceptable, or Laphroiag but only if it's really old (had some of the 30-year-old once, yum!).
I can't recall a case within the lifetime of anyone now living in which the Supreme Court held that congress exceeded its authority under the commerce clause, can you, Goodhead? Is Obamacare gonna get Laughnered?
I see your snark and raise it a snarky precedent!
United States v. Morrison (2000).
Wuz that strike down of the Violence Against Women Act handled under the commerce clawz because womenz are the chattelz??
Nah, it was actually because women are insignificant.
Bah, only losers research!
Ah, but what if it wasn't research, but something that leaped unbidden into my mind (including date)? Does that mean I'm a nerdy loser?
…oh wait, it does. Ow :-(
I was just joshing you. I'm just too old and tired to research anymore. Yelling louder works just as well.
Today we are all nerdy losers, my friend.
United States v. Lopez (1995)
Gun cases are sui generis.
No, the Court specifically said that Congress exceeded its authority under the commerce clause when it passed the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990.
And some of these idiots (Thomas especially) actually do want to go back to the bad old days of the aberrant Laughner era, ignoring the fact that it plainly contradicts the text of the Constitution and is just a bad idea.
Yay to no more minimum wage, the return of the 100-hour work week for all, no compensation for getting your warm ripped off by an industrial press, and the return of child labor!
Newt the Visionary Thinker based his campaign on child labor!
…Is THAT how he's going to save money on that moon base of his?!?!
On the plus side, the ensuing class warfare would be bracing, to say the least.
Noone in Amurrica thinks they are a worker. Vast masses of lumpen proles.
Some Raygun-annointed judge opens his yap about the power of the courts and snik-snack our Wonkette is talkin' about womenz & gunz. The Conservtards ain't got nothin' on us.
You are probably a bad person, you just don't seem to understand that the Supremes & Fatherland security is protecting you from your own bad self.
Wake up! Someone must protect you from the (bombed) people what hate you for the freedom that you are told you have. As the constitution cleary states- you have the right up or be prosecuted. Your betters will always have your (their) self interests at heart.
Oh, wait. you are screwed.
John Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it.
Great tag line for an action movie. If we can get Matt Damon or Bruce Willis for the lead MGM will green light it.
This summer, John Marshall is: A Separate Power.
Love it! Hammer out a treatment and have it on my desk by the end of the week. C'mon people let's not lose momentum on this project.
Make sure it's at least 3 pages, single-spaced.
If you google her true name, you can find the original snorg girl's facebook page and see pictures of her with a red cup at frat parties. What, thats not stalking!
LINKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Everyone knows that Bush v. Gore = Supreme Court RULZ American democracy DROOLZ and suck it Dems conservative court 4EVAH Scalia OUTTTTTT
If only Hopey would stick to persecuting whistle-blowers, charging journalists with espionage, and other pro-police state activities, he and the 5 wingnut Supremes would (continue to) get along just fine.
~
Well said.
Don't forget busting marijuana dispensaries.
Order in the court!
I'll have a turkey sandwich!
Dear A-hole judges,
If the government can reward me, with tax deductions and credits, for buying stuff they like (e.g. a home, a hybrid car or a child) then, in effect, the government is punishing me for not buying stuff they want me to buy (e.g. a home, a hybrid car or a child).
Just like with the individual mandate to buy health insurance. So if you're saying the individual mandate is unconstitutional, then so is every other deduction/credit in the tax code.
There, was that simple enough for your Faux-Newz-watching asses? Would it make you judicial hypocrites happier if the government had just raised everyone's taxes and then given deductions to everyone with the right kind of insurance? Or would you still object 'cause there's a nigra in the White's House?
You just brought logic to an ideology fight.
YOU DID NOT ADDRESS BROCCOLI.
Let me remedy that:
Yeah, but that stuff's all under the taxing power, not the commerce clause.
Had Congress decided to call the penalty a tax instead, there'd be no case. They chose to call it a penalty because tax is now a four-letter word among the braindead majority in this country. Fuck you very much, Ronald Reagan, and all your inbred political offspring.
As Ginsberg pointed out, nobody in the Court, including the challengers, was for a moment suggesting that an actual government takeover of healthcare would be in any way unconstitutional. It's precisely because that's not what ACA is that there's an argument to be had, which, as Ginsberg also pointed out, is actually entirely antithetical to the ideology the challengers advance.
So if the executive and legislative branches call a "tax" a "penalty," it's no longer a tax? And then the judiciary will have no choice but to adopt the empty title suggested by the other two branches?
I had no idea that a prerequisite to becoming a judge was a prefrontal lobotomy.
If you were appointed by Reagan or one of the Bushies, it's damn near a requirement. (Sandra being an exception.)
That was the way that part of the argument seemed to be going. Stare decisis (wherein there's ample precedent that the Court considers whether a provision not deemed a tax by Congress has sufficient indicia of a tax to be considered such in a tax power analysis regardless of the name) don't mean shit cuz the Chief Justice is a lying cunt.
You got it. Not to mention the term "fee" which is neither a tax nor a penalty but rather a … Ouch, my head hurts, nevermind.
And so it was that the universe folded in upon itself and Mittens'es $501 million tax increase winked out of existence.
Fuck you very much for introducing sense into a way for the people what am religious.
Religion —- A belief that everything that you invent in your mind is real.
Most people would call it insanity. Well yeah, granted that those people are from a different planet.
They'd still object because there's a nigra in the White's House. Look, conservatives are basically racist, authoritarian scum, the kind of people who would not only keep pushing the button in the Milgram experiment but who would also be bitterly disappointed when they found out that no one was actually receiving an electrical shock. You don't argue with people like this, it's as futile as arguing with a zombie who wants to eat your brains, you just make sure that you have a shotgun and plenty of ammunition.
Wow, that was completely devoid of rational thought and/or wit! Are you sure you're not a conservative?
Gosh Chet, I don't know. Tell you what, I'll check to see if I am as soon as I'm done shaving my initials into your mom's back hair.
Except, in the case of the mandate, the money is going to private insurers instead of the gubmint.
It'd probably be more constitutionally sound if it still had the public option (or been single-payer outright), but then Olympia Snowe happened.
House GOP budget in 3…2…1….
Errrrrrrrrrrr, what?
I mean, I'm sure Editrix typed that in English, but uhhhh, what?
I hate being a downer, but channeling jack kerouac doesn't really work when describing court proceedings, does it?
Round these here parts, judgin' don't pay enough to attract the brightest minds, so it tends to be a sinecure for political hacks, or an honorable vocation for the younger sons of petty nobles, like the clergy was in England.
What a great description of reality.
On the one side you've got your vicious partisan shits, on the other side, your pompous dolts. The Scylla and Charybdis of judicialdom.
Of course there are exceptions, honorable, attentive, intelligent, and fair judges; these include any judge I am currrently standing before.
Then let them put on the fucking lambs wool wigs, like on Law & Order: UK.
Yes, and we can be all "Yes, M'Lud" and "Does my learned friend…" and then we can have universal healthcare and all the womenz will be generous with their favours…
Tell me more about these "favours," as you spell them!
Needz more Judge Dredd.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hyph_DZa_GQ
I do not doubt that Scalia belches "I AM THE LAW" at least once during every Supreme Court case.
The People vs Megacity. Overruled.
Way past time to pack the court!
With a majority in the House and 60 votes in the senate, a constitutional court pack option would exist. Let's just say, it would be within the power of Congress to create a SCOTUS with four more seats for all of the 13 judicial circuits in the appeal system, however, all that would be needed is 2.
Should have thought of that when we were all not voting in 2010, Silly Fucking Liberals!
He's just Stonewalling now.
Different Jackson.
Tito?
Yeah, it's just so horrible for a President to comment on a Supreme Court case and say that one decision would be bad. Unless, of course, that decision involves something controversial, like saying that the ladies are human beings and can't be forced to host a parasite for nine months, or that the cops shouldn't be able to arrest you for oral sex or assfucking, or that the Constitution's rule against imprisonment without trial applies to brown people.
As always, it's OK if you're a Republican.
Here cum de judge
/ ed. fixed linkie
Courts aren't political? How do you interrupt an oral argument to request that an attorney respond to a public comment made by the President? Remind me again, how many armed divisions does the 5th Circuit command?
Of course courts aren't political; I mean it's not like one ever stopped a vote recount to ensure that their preferred candidate for President would get the office despite actually the election or anything.
Good goddamn point. (Minor edit: I think armored would have been a better word than "armed." But I understand. It's hard to think straight when you're furious.)
Never misunderestimate the power of stupidity in the US. How can a whole country live next door to reality & not accept it as a neighbor?
Because they say "about" funny.
They put up a fence.
Best thing they did. The fence & fatherland security ensures that I will never be there again.
Every good constitutional lawyer knows it's necessary to prevaricate, qualify, and specify the circumstances of a statement until no one knows what you're saying anymore. Come on, Mr. President — I thought you were better than this.
Needs moar Newt. Just cold arrest the fuckers who disagree with you. And wheeze something about "liberty". Hook offed.
Arby's Maked Fries!
This is a good saying.
Jackson becoming president was like The Philosophy Club being taken over by the jocks.
It was like the Vandals sacking Rome.
Was it not ever thus?
Good post Becca. Check out McCain on Charlie Rose's show this morning. First segment and he states Obama is a poor constitutional law scholar because he doesn't know the Constitution says judges can overturn congressional acts. But be kind to Old Senator Juan because he was getting it confused with the Panamanian Constitution.
I've been dying to scream this from the roof of the Supreme Court building since law school: balancing tests are fucking bullshit! Fancy name for "whatever the fucking judge wants to do."
My version was, "This is the decision because that's the way we like it. When you sit on the Court, you can have it the way you like it."
Yes Daddy. (And then I get smacked for sticking out my lower lip.)
Bingo….each test is judicial sausage made by 9 effing chefs and then recreated by another 9 down the road. Having things like "intermediate scrutiny" and "rational basis" are as predictable as my weed guy.
Say what you will, but the Affordable Care Act has been a real job creator. Jobs for lawyers. Jobs for judges. Jobs for pundits. Jobs for people how make Obama-as-Hitler posters. Even jobs as wonkette commenters. (Um, Becca … we will get paid someday, right?)
You are paid in p-ness enlargement.
And don't get me started about how John Roberts swore in "President" Obama without checking his ID. You need ID to get on a plane. You need ID cash a check. You need ID to exercise your constitutional right to vote. So you should need ID to be sworn in as POTUS. What a fuck-up.
These judges are just sensitive because everybody hates them and they have to wear girl's clothes at work.
Hizzonor Rageface is hoping the homework doesn't get turned in. Everyone knows that means spankings. Over the knee, under the robe.
Someone has been watching waaaaay too much Judge Judy. She just kind of makes up shit as she goes along too. Then screams at everyone.
I have not had enough crazy this morning to understand this post.
Power tripping asshole is power tripping.
Can you imagine this shit happening to a winger?
The real Constitutional crisis is how 3/5ths of a person can be one whole president.
JFC–first the wingnuts have been pissed when Obama spoke about Trayvon Martin, and now they don't want him to discuss this either. What topics *do* they think Obama should talk about?
I know, I know…none of 'em, Katie…
Suggested alt-ALT-text: "Salon perm?" "No, Ogilvie!" *preen*… *smirk*.. *flips wig*
Bamz was all up in some muthafuka's grilles yesterday. Took Ryan and Romney to the hoop, and stuffed it in they face and said 'Budget THIS muthafuckas'.
The Honorable Eric Cartman presiding…
I'd plead the fifth FOR a quarter…
I blame viagra.
And then the national bank put Jackson on paper money.
Where's your political legacy now, bitches?
Antebellum solutions to modern issues, pure genius. Why hasn't anyone thought of this before?
The hearing transcript is even more disturbing:
"Three pages, Counselor. And in twelve-point type, with one-inch margins. And single-spaced! Ha ha ha! And don't you dare go cut-and-pasting any of that Marbury v. Madison stuff from Wikipedia, because rest assured, Counselor, my clerk will be checking!"
Wher'd all these here LAWYERS come from on my Wonkette?
It WOULD be unprecedented for SCOTUS to overturn a law passed by a Democratically elected Congress. It would also be unprecedented to rule that repeatedly strip searching someone (arrested for what turns out to be a records error) is perfectly constitutional, but the fuckwads went and did that last week, didn't they?
Is it more crazy or less crazy to require an 11 year old girl take a pee test before she can take a music lesson? http://articles.philly.com/2012-03-22/news/312255…
John Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it.
In response, John Marshall wryly quipped "suck my dick".
In the style of the time, I think it would be phrased, thus: "Stimulate my voiding apparatus with your jaw musculature".
"And tell the uppity nigger to write it longhand!!"
Shit like this makes me regret I'm a lawyer, but simultaneously glad I'm not a government lawyer facing a nasty Fifth Circuit panel.
The funny thing is that Bamz is now trying to start a game of 11-D chess with the GOP on what judicial activism really is. I mean, if the Rehnquist court can strike down the Gun-Free Schools Act on the basis that gunz in schoolz have a mimimal, if any, effect on interstate commerce (see US v. Lopez), then how the hell can they say that health care has no effect on interstate commerce? Or will Scalia, et al. wiggle around the Commerce Clause and invoke something obscure to find the mandate unconstitutional?
Tune in for tomorrow's exciting episode of "The Prez v. The Supremes", on this channel.
between the president and pretty much any reagan appointee to the fifth circuit, i know whose expertise in constitutional law i trust more (hint: not the fifth circuit judge).
this particular "jurist" joined a dissent kindly explaining that it was totes okay that the lawyer for a defendant charged with CAPITAL MURDER – like might (and did) get the death penalty – to FALL ASLEEP during the trial. because, you know, it's not like he slept through the IMPORTANT parts. and also, the guy was totally guilty anyway. hooray for freedumb! see burdine v. johnson, 262 F.3d 336 (5th Cir. 2001).
i'm sure the lawyer litigating the case would've been held in contempt if he replied, "i'll give you 3 pages on Marbury v. Madison, if you give me 3 pages on 'effective assistance of counsel' and what that means." but oh, it would be worth writing that check.
"How many Divisions does the Court command?"
Still don't answer my question. Was Red Ryder a prevert?
You wish. The court's 1% Uber alles majority is going to show up their least favorite Con Law prof every chance they get, and the Herd will use Court action to further delegitimize the Prez. It'll be four years of playing defense at best, followed by God-knows-what.
Our Wonket cruel mistress's commenting policy precludes any suggestions that might help the situation, because I can't see how a mere skullfuck or two would change anything for the better.
Yes. Barry is playing 12 dimension chess with the rulers. How sad that there are 300 million pawns to be sacrificed.
Apres' Obama, le deluge.
If the court strikes down Obamacare, the appropriate response would be "Fuck you, Medicare now covers everyone. How do you like your socialist daddy now?"
Oh, if only.
Oh man, I think that is right. Only this time the Bastille does not fall and the aristocrats win.
If only.
Time will tell. The 1% irrationally wants to defund the only thing standing between them and 300 million angry poors. They want to drown it in the bathtub, but they don't realize that if there is a government to be angry at, the 300 million poors won't come after them. Silly 1%.
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