Antonin Scalia - who believes we need more exorcists - referred to the Roberts' decision as "jiggery pokery".
Huzzahs and kudos to Chief Justice John Roberts, for clearing the air on the Affordable Care Act, and leading a 6-3 Supreme Court decision to allow subsidies for millions of people who otherwise would have been excluded given they don't live in states with health care exchanges. Of course, all the heads of the Reepo presidential candidates and conservative hacks and lackeys simultaneously exploded in the wake of the decision - making one wonder what these mutts will do after the next SCOTUS decision to likely allow same sex marriage. In the wake of the Confederate flag being margnalized and removed in multiple forums, plus the Obamacare decision, I believe these punks will be all out of outrage by the time of the next big decision.
But maybe not. One thing the Right's babies - from Lush Rimbaugh to Bill O'Reilly - are really famous for is mock outrage and playing the 'poor widdo me' victim card. You see it everywhere, from the "victimized" Confederate sympathizers getting their flags taken down, to the other whiners trying to make the gullible believe the ACA was a "socialist invention". Errr no, a real socialist invention would be single payer Medicare for all, as Bernie Sanders has proposed, no insurance companies involved.
Look, the ACA - otherwise known as "Obamacare" - is not the greatest health care deal around. It was instead an original center -right proposal first advanced in the Nixon era then revived in the 90s (by the likes of Dole and Gingrich) as an antidote to "Hillarycare". Then it was actually put into practice in Massachusetts under then Governor Mitt Romney and became known as "Romneycare".
When the Obama-ites first proposed it, most of us who are true liberals screamed our heads off- demanding the public option, as at least a viable alternative. But a committee of seven headed by cornpone corporate Dem Max Baucus - plus three Reepo members - ensured that option died. Meanwhile, the great "socialist" Obama didn't lift a finger to come to the option's defense - and thus the insurance company-dominated ACA emerged as the only reality. So don't believe the Right's screech monkeys for one second when they yap about "socialism". The fact they do indicates they don't know beans about the evolution or history of this scheme.
Getting back to Roberts, and realizing fully that torpedoing the ACA subsidies would mean 6.4 million people would have nowhere to go, he delivered the only legal decision available and also scolded the critics for their too literal reading of the law (as well as congress for sloppy writing of the specific section to do with the exchanges).
Roberts noted that the three parts of the law are "interlocking" and that the insurance cannot deny coverage of pre-existing conditions, everyone must get the insurance to spread the risk and the subsidies (for low income people) make it more affordable. Take away the subsidies, and the system collapses. As the Chief Justice put it:
"Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them"
.
In other words, blowing away the garbage from the protestors, the Court has clearly said the ACA conforms to constitutional law, it's told us what it means and the Obama administration has interpreted it correctly.
Which is just common sense. However, we know the court's three objectors - especially Antonin Scalia - don't possess that commodity. Scalia, in his reckless and hysterical dissent, wrote:
"The decision shows the court favors some laws over others. "
And:
"We really should start calling the law SCOTUScare"
Scalia also referred to the process by which the decision was made as "interpretive jiggery pokery and pure applesauce". Now this is a character who once pondered what happened to the Devil, as I noted in my post of Oct. 12, 2013. His own words, from an October 6, 2013 remark:
"In the Gospels, the Devil is doing all sorts of things. He's making pigs run off cliffs, he's possessing people and what not. And that doesn't happen much anymore. He used to be all over the New Testament...What happened to him? He got wilier!"
Bill Maher's take on this REAL jiggery pokery on his REAL TIME show on Oct. 11, 2013 was:
"I don't care why someone acts like a fool, only that when they do we keep them away from decision making. It would be one thing if Mr. Scalia sold pizza for a living. But this is a man we go to to interpret our laws. It's like smelling a gas leak and calling an exorcist."
Maybe the best thing Scalia can do in future dissents, is let that dimwit Clarence Thomas (lowest academically -ranked justice to have ever been appointed - in other words, a true token black) have the say. At least a dumbed-down dissent is probably preferable to a psychotic, Devil mongering wacko's jiggery pokery!.
Of course, the whole clown cavalcade of Repuke presidential contenders has insisted they will now work to repeal Obamacare. Good luck on that, you bozos, especially after the WSJ reported four days ago a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) finding that if Obamacare is repealed a budget deficit of $141 billion would result.
So these jerks ought to be getting on their knees and thanking Roberts for saving their bacon, because frankly they have nothing to replace the ACA if it was repealed. Would they really be so stupid as to alienate over 16 million potential voters to get the ACA knocked out with nothing to replace it? (Marco Rubio suggests "putting health care in Americans' own hands", which translated means give 'em "premium support". To see more on that go here: http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/03/premium-support-medicare-still-terrible.html )
Well, they're Republicans, so the answer is 'maybe'.
See also:
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/tina-dupuy/62827/congratulations-conservatives-you-won
And:
http://www.salon.com/2015/06/26/scalia_thomas_alito_have_totally_lost_it_the_complete_and_utter_incoherence_of_the_conservative_supreme_court_justices/
Addendum:
On cue - let the conservatives' heads explode some more: The report now coming in on CBS is that the Supreme Court has just ruled 5-4 that the states do not have the right to outlaw same sex unions. The Court also ruled that all 50 states must recognize same sex marriages performed in other states.
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