If SCOTUS voids the ACA, (I agree with John that they’re reasonably like to) there’s going to be a lot of talk about how liberals need to moderate their attacks on the court for the sake of the sanctity of our institutions, how even the liberal Joe Nocera and Kevin Drum agree that all the problems started when Bork was Borked and so on.
Fuck that.
If Republican judges void ACA, liberals need to launch an all-out assault all the credibility of the Roberts courts (I have to think more about this). It can’t always be liberals need to bend over and take it to keep our society from unraveling. It already is unraveling anyway.
Take this to heart.
Update. I rethought the impeachment stuff but the site no longer supports the strike through feature on front page posts, so I just deleted that part.
Politically Lost
Yep. If this isn’t a time to fight, whether for the ACA or women’s health etc., we might as roll over and allow Mitt and Rick the Dick run the show.
geg6
Oh, get real Doug. I’ve been viciously assaulting the integrity and credibility of the SCOTUS non-stop since 2000. Nobody gives a shit.
As I said in another thread today, there are days when I hate this country and most of the people in it. Today is one of those days.
flukebucket
Count me in.
Brachiator
Uh, no. You got some real impeachable offenses in mind, or you just want to pull a Newt and haul justices up before Congress if their votes don’t go your way?
__
Re-elect Obama and get some more Democrats into the Senate. Quit yearning for the Great Demographic Shift to rescue you sometime in the future and rock the vote now.
__
Because you can bet that conservatives will press every advantage hard. And there will be idiot progressive wingnuts jumping ship, if the Supremes dump health care reform, whining about how Obama’s failure to get single payer is proof positive of bad intent.
__
.
DougJ, Head of Infidelity
@geg6:
Me too. I went to a protest in 2000 about Bush v Gore.
DougJ, Head of Infidelity
@Brachiator:
I suspect that Thomas’s refusal to recuse himself from cases touching on his wife’s interests are impeachable.
No Fortunate Son
Also too, someone should introduce a lawsuit in MA arguing for the repeal of Romneycare.
One side uses frivolous lawsuits as a political cudgel when there is no basis in jurisprudence. Shouldn’t turnabout be fair play?
peach flavored shampoo
Impeachment for what? Other than Thomas’ tax shenanigans, you cant impeach the other judges for ruling against you. That would be a banana republic.
TK-421
No no no, that would be counterproductive because it would distract from the REAL ISSUE which is getting everybody with a D next to their name elected…and especially getting President Obama reelected because Supreme Court, that’s why…blah blah blah.
Actually, for once I think the Rah Rah Dems may be right on this one. Repealing ACA actually does mean that the elections are the only thing that matter, because the Supreme Court is where everything ends up anyway. Of course, even though that makes some sort of sense, all I can muster is a ‘meh’ as I pull the lever for D. Is this really the best we can do? Really?
existential fish
Franklin Roosevelt hit turbulence with the court too. He didn’t give up – he declared war (and really, went too far, but still, WAR)
geg6
@DougJ, Head of Infidelity:
Yeah, in retrospect, we should all have piled into buses, driven to that pasta-forsaken hellhole of a state and staged our own fucking riot. It could have been called the “Totebagger Riot.” I’d so have signed up for that.
Rommie
The counterattack involves throwing the word Treason around, like they’ve wanted to since day 1 of this administration. DO NOT WANT that close a view of the Wingularity.
MikeJ
Impeach Earl Warren!
Citizen Alan
If the Dems retain the Senate and/or retake the House, I do think Clarence Thomas’s financial relationship with his wife’s employer is suitable for inquiry by the relevant committees. Certainly, there’s a lot more there than in the idiotic Solyndra investigation.
SteveM
The Obama administration will, of course, rapidly distance itself from such talk.
And the thanks he’ll get for that is the filibuster of every left-centrist High Court nominee he proposes in his second term, even though all will have been assumed likely to receive a swift confirmation.
And when this happens, he’ll make a tentative stab at talking tough.
And he’ll be denounced for that by the even-the-liberals.
Rinse. Repeat, ad infinitum.
Steve
The problem with liberals trying to flip the script on standard conservative lines (“activist judges!” “media bias!”) is that liberals, some of them anyway, don’t actually believe this stuff. It’s a lot easier to get a crowd of fundies worked up over black-robed tyrants than a crowd of totebaggers. And I genuinely don’t know whether tearing down institutions like the Supreme Court and the media is to our advantage in the long run.
If the Supreme Court hates us, why not elect a Democratic President and get some better Supreme Court Justices? I’m not sure what your alternative game plan is. Do you seriously believe John Roberts and Clarence Thomas are going to be so intimidated by cries for impeachment that they’re going to stop making wingnutty rulings?
Tractarian
You can’t impeach them, but you can regulate the sh*t out of them.
kindness
Torches & pitchforks time?
@SteveM: You misunderstand. Most of us like and respect President Obama. But he isn’t our King, only our President. We’re allowed to do things he doesn’t agree with.
Bondo
From the sound of it Scalia acted like an undisciplined and undignified asshole. They don’t deserve any respect, regardless of the ruling.
JC
I wonder what it would take to convince the media, the press, etc, that the current crop of conservatives don’t give a rat’s a$$ about any type of consistency. Everything is political will. Law is subservient to political conservative will, in these guys eyes.
Bush v Gore was ‘bad law’ – and really, was shortcircuiting COUNTING THE VOTES, so GAVE Bush the presidency by fiat – but you could argue that it was a one off.
This? For any ‘centrists’ out there, it makes clear that one side is playing for keeps, no matter what the law says.
beltane
@Bondo: Yes, it is the conservative justices themselves, not liberal critics, who have eroded the legitimacy of the Court. When you have justices like Scalia taking a big dump on the institution we have every right to refer to it as a toilet.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Bondo: Depending on how much play it gets, I think Scalia’s adolescent demeanor may increase pressure on Roberts and Kennedy. If they are the politicized partisans I think they (especially Roberts) are, they may be wary of making the supreme court a big issue in the upcoming election, the way it hasn’t been, to my eye, since ’96.
ETA: this is what I hope may happen, not what I think will happen. I remain pessimistic, in the hope of washing down Burnsie’s crow with a pricey bottle of champagne when the 6-3 confirmation of the mandate is announced.
Ben Franklin
@SteveM:
The Obama administration will, of course, rapidly distance itself from such talk.
Hey, if Obama can tell Medvedev to cool his jets until 2013, who are we to carp.
R Johnston
If the ACA goes down it will be time for liberals, moderates, genuine conservatives, and any other non-wingnuts to channel their apocryphal Andrew Jacksons. Scalia has written his opinion; let him enforce it.
The fact is that any opinion knocking down the ACA will essentially invalidate the entire administrative and regulatory states, leaving a government that’s completely unable to function if the decision is allowed to stand, and that simply can’t be allowed, whether that means ignoring the Court, impeaching the Court, or shooting them for treason. Striking down the ACA would be an act of violent revolution and must be treated as such. Note that a Constitutional Amendment is out of the question as a solution not only because it’s much less possible than any of the other solutions but also because the Justices will have proven themselves unbound by the Constitution.
PeakVT
Here’s a look at some research on JSCOTUS questioning and voting.
El Cid
In our history, the power and prestige of the Court varied. Their ability to decide the Constitutionality of laws is self-decided by the Court, and the Founders weren’t at all clear that that’s what they wanted.
They depend not just upon the Constitution and bureaucratic agreement, but prestige and legitimacy. Court systems do. They do here. They do elsewhere.
The ‘failed’ court packing scheme of FDR (the Court didn’t begin with 9 justices but his attempted expansion was clearly cause-directed) sent a clear message that these pricks weren’t invulnerable and it wasn’t their magic job to declare any and all New Deal social reforms ‘un-Constitutional’.
So they shut up and stopped trying to govern as if FDR and the Democratic majority of the New Deal era had to act like they were the Redeemer / Lost Cause / Robber Baron governments of the late 1800’s to early 1900’s, which is what the Court wanted.
If the justices want to make it clear that on any significant legislative challenge they will rule to overturn any Democratic power and Democratic legislation, then, fine, but they should expect a broad range of chaotically unpredictable consequences throughout the nation should it be revealed that the “Supreme” Court is happy to act as a cheap partisan stamp for one political party.
Brian
@No Fortunate Son: Yea but i like the law up here.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@JC: I think when people start being told that their children are no longer on their insurance, or that they’ve lost their recently gained insurance due to preexisting conditions, or when Medicare disappears due to a challenge, some people will wake up.
There is a bottom; it might consist of bodies on the street, but there is a bottom.
Steve in DC
It wouldn’t work.
Republicans have free reign to attack institutions because their entire mantra is that government is the cause of all problems and can’t ever do anything right. Democrats advocate that government is the solution to our problems.
This makes it far easier for Republicans to attack government and be ideologically consistent while Democrats look like hypocrites doing the same sort of thing.
I’d say we need more of an angry base. In the past the lords and nobels only gave the commoners anything when they were terrified they were going to kill the lord, feed him to the lady, gang rape the lady, murder the kids, and then run around with peoples heads on pikes, and it often happened. People in power on both sides seem scared shitless about the repulicans and don’t seem bothered by the democrats.
Brian
@Steve: Yea shit. WTF can liberals think for themselves, that screws everything up.
Ari
Kevin Drum:
Yeah, that turncoat!
ellennelle
the impeachment thing, i brought that up in a comment on john’s post.
seems to me scalia’s admission (not that he had to admit what was so obvious from his stupid points and questions) that he had not even read the damn bill is impeachable.
it offends the court itself, it offends the lawyers arguing the case, it offends the congress who passed it and the president who signed it, and it offends the american people.
seems more offensive even than lame fraud by clarence.
Turgidson
@Bondo:
And he holds himself out as some pious defender of the Founders’ intent against all the peons, including his fellow justices – most notably the liberals. As if he had a damn time machine to go back to the late 18th century to consult with them. When what he’s often doing is justifying his right wing vomit with “it’s what the founders wanted” an little else.
He’s always been a fucking hack IMO. A witty, occasionally amusing hack certainly. But still a fucking hack.
geg6
@Bondo:
He’s been doing that for years. And they (Kennedy, O’Connor, Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas) haven’t deserved an ounce of respect since December 12, 2000. And they’ll get none from me, ever. Zero. In fact, I’m hoping to get the chance to piss on Rehnquist’s grave before I die. It’s definitely on my bucket list. And I’ll add the rest if I’m so lucky as to see them all die before me.
gaz
@geg6: hear hear. I’d do the same to clarence. I’d rather not wait until he’s buried though. =)
Kathy
@geg6: Me too. And yes this is anger talking but a small part of me wants the medicare of every single lame ass, scooter riding ignorant Fox foagie immediately withdrawn. I want every scooter repossessed and want them to have to thank the insurance companies for restoring their “freedom.”
I don’t really want that because intellectually I know a lot of good innocent people would be hurt, but damnit, I am really pissed at these Foxbots for pissing away every single thing that used to make us civilized.
Lex
@No Fortunate Son: THIS.
Lex
@peach flavored shampoo: The majority in Bush v. Gore arguably committed an impeachable offense. Vincent Bugliosi, the LA prosecutor who put Charles Manson away, wrote a book about it. At the least, I’d love to see the congressional debate about it.
OzoneR
@Steve:
I really don’t understand why its so difficult for progressives to see that a major problem are those who hold left wing views, but either vote Republican for irrelevant reasons or just don’t feel like rocking the boat and being called a hippie.
PeakVT
the liberal … Kevin Drum agree that all the problems started when Bork was Borked and so on.
Do you really believe Drum thinks that way?
Loneoak
The worst part of the PPACA, and many of our laws, is the bullshit federalism that leaves 45% of the population at risk to the whims of semiliterate GOP state legislatures. It’s a fairy dust sort of wish given the current House, but I sometimes wonder if the best outcome is having the contemporary model of federal power fall apart and see us get on with the business of becoming a modern nation state. Fuck the Commerce Clause if it can’t hold up the basic duties of government, just use nationalized programs that would appear to be Constitutuonal under the wingnut view.
DougJ, Head of Infidelity
@PeakVT:
Yes. He’ll cite Tyler Cowen block-quoting Megan McArdle on any topic. Add in some dickiess Dionne-style pearl-clutching, and it’s his whole fucking blog.
danielx
Moderate the attacks on the Court, my skinny white ass. The Supreme Court has had no credibility since Bush v. Gore, and it’s gotten worse since 2000. The term “judicial activism” has no meaning or relevance for Scalia in particular, since he apparently thinks that judicial activism or complete disregard of precedents are offenses only in cases where he disagrees with the decision.
Aaron
If Justices break their oath of office and violate the constitution they need to be impeached.
Thomas has already committed impeachable offenses.
Ben Franklin
@ellennelle:
It’s been my contention that the usual suspects have been looking for a redemptive moment, wherein their soiled robes (Bush v Gore) could come out of the wash without shrinkage. I still think all this cloakroom insider chattiness is giving cover for their Tea Party promises gone sour.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Loneoak:
You’re in the wrong country. Our constitution was written with federalism all over it. If you don’t like it, you’ll have to get a new constitution written.
PopeRatzo
@Brachiator: See, now that’s the truth. It’s way past time to put aside our hurt feelings at the perceived lack of respect for progressives from the Obama administration.
We need to get this guy re-elected if we have to carry him over the line ourselves.
Imagine what this court’s going to look like if Ruth Bader Ginsburg gets replaced by another Alito or Scalia.
If nothing else Obama has done appeals to you and if you think he’s a corporatist hack, at least he picked a couple of reasonable people to sit on the Supreme Court. We need two more such reasonable people or we’re screwed for a generation. I don’t even care so much for myself because I can always go retire in Montenegro, but my kid is 21 and I can’t retire in peace if I know she’s got to live in a fascist Scalia paradise.
Now I’ve just got to convince the hysterical dames over at Firedoglake that sitting on their manicures this November is not really in their best interests.
PeakVT
@DougJ, Head of Infidelity: Hmm. So what’s this, then?
liberal
@Brachiator:
Does the Constitution precisely delimit what an impeachable offense is for a justice?
IIRC Cass Sunstein claimed somewhere that the President could only be impeached for actual statutory crimes. IMHO this is completely wrong; the impeachment power was added to allow the President to be removed for political crimes. E.g. IMHO Bush’s pushing for an invasion of Iraq under false pretenses was impeachable.
I haven’t read the text on impeaching justices, but unless there’s something in the wording distinct between cause for impeachment between different sets of officials, I don’t see why the horseshit trotted out by the majority in Bush v. Gore shouldn’t be impeachable.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@El Cid:
But the context for that shift is the massive political victories that FDR and the Dems won in two consecutive elections in 1932 and 1936. Nobody today wins landslides like that even in one election, much less two in a row. The divided state of our electorate gives the courts (and to a slighly lesser extent the Senate) much more scope for giving the rest of the country the middle finger. Which is why it is no coincidence that the SCOTUS today is acting more and more like they did back in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Courtesy of the GOP’s Southern Strategy we’ve come full circle back to our post-Civil War political alignments, with a court to match.
liberal
@Loneoak:
Agreed. I don’t see how you can run a modern state this way.
One thing that drives me crazy about paeans to the federal model is the “50 laboratories of democracy” bullshit. If there was a Darwinistic process whereby policy failures and successes in various states led to the decline (resp., spread) of such policies, it’d be a selling point, but AFAICT that doesn’t happen at all.
KG
@ellennelle: the court isn’t required to read all 2700 pages of the law. they only need to read the portions that are being challenged. the central issue is the mandate, so that’s the part they have to read.
@geg6: wow, just wow. Bush v Gore was not terribly decided. You may not like the outcome, but 7 justices decided there was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause under the rules that Florida had (Breyer and Souter joined the five conservative justices). The problem was the remedial issues. The majority determined that the counting had to be done by December 12 under Florida law and 3 USC 5. The dissenting opinion of returning it to the Florida Supreme Court to determine a statewide standard is nice, but there was no time. And you know what, it wouldn’t have mattered if Gore had won his homefuckingstate
kooks
@ellennelle: No, that’s not what Scalia was saying – go read his quote in context. He was saying that the Court was not about to go through the ACA and pick out which items were constitutional and which were not. This was actually pushing back against the anti-health care arguments regarding the mandate and serverability.
Steve in DC
@OzoneR
What left wing views? Most people have a grab bag of views from all over the political spectrum. And people assign different values to those views. For example I’m pro-choice and pro-marriage equality, but those views do not impact how I vote on any level. I vote straight civil liberties and economic issues. I also strongly support the right to bear arms but that doesn’t factor into my voting at all.
Many people agree with a lot of Democratic policy points but do not agree with them on social issues, and aren’t all that happy with some of the identity politics in the party. Or they might just be more hawkish.
Those reasons are irrelivent, they are are obviously relevant enough to take priority. And screaming “but the economics” starts to sound like “throw away the things you really care about and I’ll put money in your pocket”, they take it as a bribe and get rightly pissed.
Asshats like Maher and others that spend most of their time mocking “fly over country” don’t help.
Gary
If the conservative Supremes strike Obamacare, Dems should call them out on it as the Dems should have done when five justices stole the election in Bush v. Gore.
If Scalia et al. want to act like partisan hacks, we should honor that wish.
priscianusjr
@Steve:
ellennelle
@Ben Franklin:
good point, and i’m inclined to agree; they have to feed the rabble.
Pavonis
“You break it; you buy it”
If the Supreme Court voids the PPACA, then any future increase in premiums, any person with pre-existing conditions kicked off insurance, and the re-opening of the Medicare Part D donut hole (the most significant politically?) will all be blamed on the Supreme Court. Democrats, from the president on down to anonymous internet trolls, will all drive home the fact that it is all the fault of political hackery by the conservative justices which caused all this. And remember that the Supreme Court lacks the legislative legitimacy offered by democratic elections. Roberts may not care at all, but the reputation of the Court will be ruined for decades by voiding the PPACA.
geg6
@Kathy:
You are obviously a much better person than I am because it’s a lot bigger part of me that feels this way than your small part. I will be laughing in their faces when it happens. Not the poor bastards who will be the collateral damage, but every one of those fucking Teabaggers who lose their Medicare and Medicaid will be told by me to suck it and I will laugh at their plight. Just like they have done to the rest of us for the last thirty years.
TK-421
@PopeRatzo:
It’s weird, because as one of those pouty pouty liberals, I buy in to the Supreme Court argument. I just feel like if that’s the big motivation, then, you know, MAKE IT THE BIG MOTIVATION. Make the Supreme Court a central issue of the campaign. Talk about it all the fucking time, don’t wait for it to be a question in one of the debates that is just a checkbox. Talk about how awful a conservative Supreme Court would be. Make up a scary hypothetical, and run with it. Otherwise, I’m not sure how successful a Supreme Court argument is with anyone.
In a vacuum, Americans aren’t going to vote based on who gets to pick the next Supreme Court justice. But would that be true if Dems totally demonized conservative judges and talked about how if you don’t vote D then they’re going to turn your sisters, daughters, and wives into handmaidens and state rape and citizens united and EPA/dirty air/climate change etc.?
I know we get mushy about scare tactics, but I think we’re running out of time here. And it’s not like the scary hypotheticals are that hypothetical, so…
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
@liberal:
The ’50 laboratories’ metaphor also presupposes an electorate that votes its own interests with respect to State-level matters. When a few incredibly wealthy actors can essentially hijack the political process in multiple states using National-level wedge issues to win elections (as the Kochs and CoC did in 2010), this model breaks down.
__
We’re exactly where we were ~100 years ago: Too much private power (money), concentrated in too few hands. Teddy Roosevelt realized this, and intentionally grew the government with the openly declared intention of protecting citizens from overlarge private actors.
__
Until you get an electorate that’s truly, rationally self-interested and Populist, and politicians brave enough to openly run and govern against arbitrary plutocracy, there will be no change.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
If it gets repealed, then label every single flaw in the system from then on in as “TeabaggerCare”. Medical bankruptcy? TeabaggerCare. Parents unable to afford medicine for kids? TeabaggerCare.
Hang the albatross of the American medical system around their necks, fairly or unfairly, and make them wear it while it rots.
geg6
@KG:
You, sir, are full of shit. What the hell do you mean “no time?”
Shit. You are no better than they. And, yeah, Tennesee is always a swing state that goes to any Dem who is from there. Jeebus. Even O’Connor regrets the whole thing.
Brachiator
@DougJ, Head of Infidelity:
OK, so you’re just joking. Concern about cases touching on his wife’s interests is not the same thing as judicial or ethical misconduct, unless you can point to some actual favoritism in outcomes, and maybe not even then.
__
Even so, impeachment begins in the House. The Republicans control the House. This would seem to take care of impeachment.
__
@Steve in DC:
In English history, you’ve have the Peasant’s Revolt, the Kentish Revolt, the Norfolk Rebellion and others. Kett’s Rebellion in the 1540s is kinda interesting.
Of course, as usual, the peasants got their butts kicked, and “was only in the 19th century that more sympathetic portrayals of the rebellion appeared in print and started the process that saw Kett transformed from traitor to folk hero.”
__
The nobles grudgingly gave up on some of the worst of their excesses, but it was a long, slow, slog to progress.
__
Some Loser
Supreme Court justices do not have to recuse themselves. If that was the case, we wouldn’t have judicial review in the first place, just saying.
Yeah, so, no impeachments. It is stupid to even talk about! We can do more productive things like talking implementing and developing alternative energy, improving infrastructure,
and unifying Americans under some nice ideals like “I’m my brother’s keeper”.
Also, what happened today that made everyone so melancholy? Do they already repeal the law, or are we just talking out our asses again?
dm9871
Hey Doug, this has long been the direction things are moving:
https://balloon-juice.com/2011/02/02/lawyer-up/#comment-2407226
slim's tuna provider
my seat of the pants feeling is that if it goes down 5-4, the court will take a measurable hit with the chattering classes. this is not like bush-gore, where the outcome was not explicitly policy-based. the chattering classes (i hate the derogatory “totebaggers” label, however much i agree with the sentiments that animate it) were a little afraid of touching bush-gore, because it was too difficult to separate from “my guy should win”. ACA is about real policy, one that aligns with moderate liberal aims. if it goes down on party lines, people will be able to stand up for it easier and not feel dirty about it. citizens united already causes a lot of discomfort in chattering class discourse — this might tip the cart further.
which is why i read roberts as looking for a narrow (maening cheek-covering) way to uphold.
JPL
Blah, blah, blah..Roberts will be concerned with the reputation of the court… Blah, blah, blah
To all of those who think Roberts is concerned about the reputation of the court, I say bullshit. He’s in love with the fantasy version of the country that Ayn Rand painted.
I wish someone would give me an example where Roberts show concern about his legacy. Was it during the inauguration?
penpen
@DougJ, Head of Infidelity: Doug, as a regular Drum reader, that caricature seems well off the mark. However, if I was shown evidence of him regularly approving of McArdle operating at her usual level of analysis I’d gladly swear off him forever.
El Cid
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Yes. I would not argue that the political context of today is like then. I was merely making the general point that the power and action of the Court is at times politically conditioned in very obvious ways by actions of other levels of government. I wasn’t intending to suggest that, aha!, we can now be like then.
For one thing, we don’t have the Democrats as the locked-in party of Southern Segregation such that FDR could help forge the northern ethnic / labor / liberal coalition with them and have the super-long-term Southerners dominate committee positions by sheer longevity.
But the general nature of the situation remains, as does the knowledge that the power and aggressiveness of the Court (as the do the other branches) wax and wane.
KG
@geg6: 3 USC 5 set the deadline as December 12, 2000 to resolve any dispute concerning a State’s electors for that determination to be given conclusive effect in Congress. That’s the Florida Supreme Court’s interpretation. So, the Florida Supreme Court thought all manual recounts needed to be done by then otherwise Florida’s electors may not have been able to vote in the electoral college. The majority of the US Supreme Court agreed and ruled that the recount had to stop, or rather couldn’t restart.
If there was a fuck up, it was the various courts ordering the recounts to stop.
And since Clinton/Gore won Tennessee in both 1992 and 1996, yes, it was a state that Gore could and should have won – Bush won it 51-47 in 2000, after all. So, yes, in 2000, Tennessee was very much winnable by a Democrat who had won there several times before.
beltane
@Phoenician in a time of Romans: Not “teabagger care”, but “Republican care”. Since it is the Republican party as a whole that is pursuing policies that will inflict pain, death, humiliation and bankruptcy on working Americans, it is only fair that they be blamed for these policies.
I also wish the Left had the stomach to try some of its own divide and conquer tactics against the Right. Surely there must be some diabolical genius who could devise a strategy to marginalize the 27%ers and make them the objects of fear, disgust, and scorn they deserve. The way I see it, these people are setting our country on fire and are intentionally blocking all the exits. If they refuse to get out of the way, they need to be treated like the threat to our survival that they are.
kindness
See and I don’t think Kevin Drum is a liberal. I think he’s progressive but I think he’s more a moderate than a liberal.
Elie
This is a test for this court more than ACA.
ACA also reflects big big money — health plans, insurance companies and all sorts of health related consulting have gone down an expensive track and have reorganized themselves to accomodate ACA. Its really hard to go back even if they could. ..And the Medicaid expansion piece is just bullshit — there is nothing new here — CMS has been expanding and contracting Medicaid eligibility long before now.
If they scrap it, the chaos that results on huge parts of our economy and the bad juju – will rain down on the court way more than many think. They know it too.. they absolutely know it. So does Obama. And Obama plays a hard cold game — remember OBL that no one had the guts to go get? He is putting this down to Roberts and looking him in the eye real hard.
middlewest
And if they don’t overturn could people maybe try harder next time not to fall for Jeff Toobin’s schtick before they start slobbering over the revolution? Is that too much to ask?
It is, isn’t it?
Some Loser
@Elie:
The optimist in me wants it to be upheld 7-2, but I think 6-3 is much, much likely and reasonable.
I have some faith that good sense, or at least self-preservation is at work here in our Supreme Court.
Martin
@beltane:
Um, that’s already happened. That’s why they’re the 27%ers and not the 47%ers. They’re blocking all of the exits because they’re cut off. Dems have gotten them to turn against automakers and made-in-America vehicles, turn against securing loose nukes, turn against health care legislation that even business largely supports, turn against monetary policy that business supports, turn against job creation, infrastructure building. Forced vaginal probes? Denying access to contraception?
They’re flailing at everything that moves, including things that they should support. They’re now down to flagrant efforts at voter suppression. This resembles the white south flailing right before Civil Rights came down. They knew they were losing.
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
Am I the only one who foresees total political disaster if this really does end up ass end up in favor of the Tea Party?
We’re going to get months on end up “SEE!! SEE!! OBAMA TRIED TO KILL AMERICANS WITH SUPER UNCONSTITUTIONAL SUPER COMMUNISM! GET HIS FUCKING ASS OUT NOW NOW NOW FUCKING NOW!!!!” And people will end up buying it because they see the Court gave Obama a boot in the ass and made him look like a fool, even if it took more stretching than Dhalsim from Street Fighter to do it.
This isn’t about actual constitutionalism. It’s about giving Obama and the Dems a black eye they’ll supposedly never recover from because only Republicans deserve respect for any fucking thing in this country.
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
@Martin:
Except despite facing demographic existence failure, the GOP is WINNING BALLS OUT on almost fucking everything but the court of Public Opinion, and that may not even matter if they get the PUblic on their side on things assured to drive up their votes or drive down our votes.
The Dems may own the White House and the Senate, but it seems like the 27%ers Golden Boy leaders still own the rest of the entire fucking country and they’re steamrolling everything accordingly.
Fuck this country.
fasteddie9318
@Brachiator:
Yes, this, but more and at lower levels. Conservatives did decades of work in the dregs, getting people elected to local party positions to take over the Republican Party, then moving on to local government, school boards, judgeships, state legislatures and sub-gubernatorial statewide offices, and producing reams of intellectual-sounding right wing bullshit via the wingnut welfare machine, so that when they moved on governorships and DC they could do it in force and with great effect. Too many progressives would rather elect a Democratic president and then call it a day and bitch about his supposed failures than put in all that unglamorous long-term work. Even the Great Demographic Shift isn’t going to move this country to the left unless the groundwork has been done in advance.
That said, if raising hell about a Supreme Court majority that gets its legal research done by listening to Glenn Beck’s radio show helps advance the effort, great, go for it.
Catsy
@liberal:
I wish more people would point this out. This model works if every state is run by an administration and lege that honestly evaluates facts and outcomes. Then they would ideally respond to failed ideas by ditching them and trying something else.
But that’s not how it works when you have a party that spends most of its time arguing about means rather than goals. They don’t care, for example, what kind of policies actually reduces the number of abortions performed–they have already decided what policies they want and reject any evidence that indicates those policies might be bunk.
Hungry Joe
Maybe, just for a moment — I mean, what the hell, right? — could we discuss health care if ACA goes down? As in, what’s going to happen to people who can’t get it, and what can we do about it? I’m thinking (hoping) that a GOP wipeout could elect enough statehouse progressives for some states to go for single-payer. Start with, say, Vermont. And it works: Vermonters have Vermontcare (or whatever), state-based Medicare until the real thing kicks in at 65. Then California tumbles …
I know, I know: castles in the sky. But we gotta do something.
slim's tuna provider
@Hungry Joe: state budgets are always less robust than the federal and they can’t run a deficit. so the political degree of difficulty is higher.
beltane
@Hungry Joe: It won’t work like that. There will inevitably be legal challenges to the implementation of Vermont’s single-payer law and this Supreme Court will be highly likely to find the program unconstitutional according to wingnut law. Conservatives have a clear vision of how they want our country to work and they will not tolerate blue state non-compliance with their vision.
I have no problem with the country being partitioned into a modern, blue-state area and a third-world red state Freedom Zone, but this will never happen because they want to force their views on all Americans, not just the white wingnut base.
srsjones825
In 1866, Charles Sumner, the great 19th Century human rights advocate in the U.S. Senate, having successfully led Congressional efforts to prevent a bust of the late Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, author of the Dred Scott Decision, from being appropriated and installed in the Supreme Court.
In preventing the bust from being installed Sumner accused Taney and the rogue majority of that Court with “a judicial baseness” where “the Constitution of the United States and every principle of Liberty was falsified, but historical truth was falsified also.”
“Let such a vacant space in our court-room testify to the justice of the republic. Let it speak in warning to all who would betray liberty. Sumner said”
This current crew in the Supreme Court needs to be dragged into the streets and dumped into the same rat hole with the bust of Mr. Taney.
fasteddie9318
@Hungry Joe: Nothing is going to happen for people who can’t get health care, at least not at the federal level. Nothing happened for them for decades prior to the ACA. The average Merkin voter, who probably has some dim appreciation for suddenly being able to keep his or her kid on their health plan through 26, or who may at some remove be aware of a case of somebody benefiting from the new high risk pools or some other part of the law that’s already been enacted, likely cannot connect these things to COMMIE OBAMACARE KENYA BLARG! and will almost certainly blame Obama and the Democrats if and when these things are eliminated. Even if they are somehow able to connect all the dots, that article in the Times or wherever it was a few weeks ago about the self-loathing glibertarian government benefit recipients made it clear that the people I’m talking about will just shout “FREEDOM!” and then go back to dying and/or going bankrupt as they were pre-ACA.
Some states will move on something, but the bigger ones like CA will be lobbied hard by insurance companies not to go single payer, and anyway @liberal is right that even if some states manage to push through single payer and have a wonderful outcome (which is questionable considering how much of those states’ health care systems may still be dependent on the fucked-up federal system for major items like prescription drug pricing), the idea that states seriously try to adopt best practices from other states is patently false.
Tom Betz
@TK-421: Agreed. Push for a big enough rebound that we put enough real Democrats in the COngress that Blue Dogs no longer matter, and then start applying (for the fist time since Marbury v. Madison) this part of Article III, Section 2: “the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.”
Congress has to pull the Supreme Court back from being 9 little hitlers and limit its ability to undo the will of the people; requiring a 2/3 judgement — hell make it 7/9 or even unanimous — to overturn legislation might be a good start.
J. Michael Neal
@DougJ, Head of Infidelity: Your perpetual need to slander Kevin Drum is pathetic.
dp
Impeachment isn’t a criminal procedure, it’s a political procedure, and I think it’s highly appropriate here, even though I don’t think there’s a snowball’s chance of it happening.
fasteddie9318
@beltane:
Sadly, yes. At least in 1860 these people had the decency to secede rather than try to impose on the rest of us.
DougJ, Head of Infidelity
@J. Michael Neal:
McArdle apologist?
fasteddie9318
Stop it, you guys, my gastritis is acting up.
Carl Nyberg
We should pass an amendment that allows the states and citizens to overturn specific court decisions.
If 2/3 of the states go through the following process, a court ruling shall be considered void.
The majority of the legislature have to vote to put the matter on the ballot. And then 6/11 of the citizens have to vote to void the ruling.
Hungry Joe
The problem with red state/blue state partition — and I hope you know we’re playing a fantasy game here — is that even in the reddest states a significant minority is blue and progressive. That’s millions of people in Texas and a hell of a lot even in Wyoming. I’d hate to abandon them to their redneck fascist overlords.
fasteddie9318
@Hungry Joe: I think you give it a year to wind down common infrastructure and let people relocate wherever they like. Being in the blue bit I imagine we’d be willing to pay relocation costs for those who wanted to move but couldn’t. Anybody still left in the red zone a year down the pike is on their own.
And while, yes, this is a fantasy, I feel like I have more in common with just about any other population anywhere else in the world than I do with right wingers in my own country. There are many days when I would happily vote to dissolve this country.
PopeRatzo
@TK-421:
So go ahead. Who’s stopping you?
Oh, I see. You want Obama to do that. You want him to give you motivation or do you want him to give motivation to other people? Like I said, we’re going to have to carry him over the line ourselves. In 2010, when teabaggers were out getting in the faces of every politician with a public townhall meeting, Dems were waiting for something to happen. The baggers carried the Republicans over the line while Democrats were wondering why Obama wasn’t doing what they wanted him to do.
So, by all means, make the Supreme Court the main motivation. Go out and talk to people all the time. Don’t wait for Obama to do it. Talk about it so much that it filters up to the weak-ass Democrats who look out their windows and see teabaggers everywhere and poop themselves in fear. Make them afraid of YOU this time. Only two things motivate a politician circa 2012: money and fear. If we don’t have the money, we’re going to have to make them afraid and we do that by making them hear our voices.
Stop expecting politics to be done for you.
TenguPhule
Why not both?
danimal
@J. Michael Neal: Agreed. Pathetic.
I have no idea why DougJ needs to put words in Drum’s mouth on topics he has addressed clearly.
It’s a real blind spot, and I usually like DougJ’s perspective.
Brachiator
@liberal:
The idea of impeachment is a dead letter since the Republicans control the House of Representatives.
__
Even so, the only Supreme Court Justice to be impeached was Samuel Chase. It was a BS case instigated by President Thomas Jefferson (who could be a little shit when he was angered). The outcome was good all around:
Maybe the Court needs a little jolt, but you don’t want to go in for dumbass extreme measures that may cause greater harm down the road in eroding the integrity that the Court should have.
__
Some Loser
@PopeRatzo:
Why?
If you do things yourself and fail, you can only blame yourself, but if you do nothing, you can blame the other guy.
It ain’t like we are supposed to actually do something about our politics or politicians other than complain, complain, complain.
TenguPhule
Dying and Rioting.
SATSQ.
Because elections will not change a thing, the Rat Party will not let ‘liberal’ justices into the courts no matter how many yes votes there are for it.
Brian
Give it *up*, DougJ. Or provide something to actually back up your claims about Kevin Drum.
The most apt point I can find searching for Drum’s view on Bork is a discussion of Sotomayor’s nomination, where he claimed that one consequence of the Bork confirmation fight is that nominees shut up and refuse to discuss any actual specifics. I don’t know how true that is — were confirmations a model of specific wrangling before Bork, and not afterwards, in a sharp inflection? How did this tie in with the rise of televised hearings? — but it’s a clear factual point that benefits from analysis, not just yelling louder (as if politics were a cheerleading competition). The sort of analysis that Drum, you know, generally provides.
And I’m not going to complain because I quite admire Levenson’s takedowns, but this blog quotes and responds to McArdle (and Sullivan, in the same vein) more than any other blog I read.
Downpuppy
I’m pushing Barbie for the court. What does Thomas do that she can’t?
Amanda in the South Bay
@Brachiator:
Not having any SCOTUS justices impeached ever seems a really bad precedent. I swear, the American Constitutional system is sclerotic in the extreme.
ETA: Like Ford pardoning Nixon, it sets the precedent that certain branches of government can get away with anything and act with impunity. Me, I’d rather have a Westminster style parliamentary system, and term and age limits for Federal judges.
TenguPhule
Leave pubic hairs on other women’s drinks.
Omnes Omnibus
I may have to take a break from this blog for a while. There has been no decision yet. Oral argument is not a good predictor of the ultimate decision by the court. I find it difficult to say that an institution is broken beyond all repair until it has been shown to be so. What are the the case on which people rely to say that the Court has gone ’round the bend? Bush v. Gore? No argument from me; pure partisan hack work. Wheat else? Citizens United? I think the Court got it wrong but it is not completely outside the scope of precedent; in other words, they didn’t just make shit up. It was a terrible but not lawless decision. Those are the examples I keep seeing. Anything else?
TenguPhule
how about the “can’t sue for discrimination because the clock ran out because we count the clock as starting before said woman even knew about the discrimination taking place?”
an oldie but goodie from the Roberts hacks.
Heliopause
Can you be more specific about what you mean? Because the left side of the blogosphere I read has been unrelentingly hostile to the conservative wing of the Court, and before the blogosphere left contributors to Usenet were, and before Usenet all the left publications I read were. I really can’t think of anybody on the left side of the spectrum having much positive to say at all about these people, going all the way back to the 80s when I first started paying attention to this issue a little bit.
Dem politicians, on the other hand, have a mixed record when it comes to opposing these extremists. I think that’s where your true problem lies, not with lefties failing to scream loudly enough. Scalia, for instance, was confirmed without even a whimper. I knew what he was because I read about him in the pinko publications, Dem politicians declined to take a stand. Alas.
So we’re already doing our part, agitating in blogs and so forth, but if you have a practical plan for getting the bulk of Dem politicians to give a shit I’d like to hear it.
eemom
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m with you, Om.
A mere 2 hours ago I thought the “discussion” on this couldn’t possibly get any stupider. Now that we’ve moved on to impeachment of the Justices, that seems almost laughably naive.
Sorry to say this, DougJ, but you are truly a fucking idiot if you think that impeachment of a Justice for rendering a wrong decision is something we should “fight for.”
Omnes Omnibus
@TenguPhule: Fits in with standard bad decision in my view, but that’s a fair point. It was rather horrible.
dlnelson
I would love to see these leaders give up federal health care, when they turn 65, no more perks, no more back massages, no more make up rooms. Let them fight their way through the paperwork, no more air ambulances, no more top of the line health care. There are very few advocates I believe in, Sanders is one, and a few females. I honestly believe the votes are rigged in the senate, they are wholly owned by the corporations, both sides. I do believe the demos are more socially in touch, but the votes are not there. These folks are so insulated, and so out of touch, I am losing hope. The demos have been poked in the face for so long, I cannot take it much longer. When a child throws a fit, you address it, this group of misfits, keep poking and poking, and they never have to pay the price. It is time to pay the price. When did it change. They have to be the minority, and they get all the press. I am ready to rock and roll, I have had it. We need a new infusion of young folks, these guys in the senate are just protecting their jobs. Most of the dems talk like they are meek mice, or have marbles in their mouths. Screw decorum. I am done. I will support Obama, but honestly, he has to get busy, this stuff is crazy, I know he is protected by secret service, but the rest of this country has to be protected from these nutty folks. When the police forces of this country are being political, and armed to the teeth, and assaulting college students (UC Davis) we are in trouble.
eemom
@Omnes Omnibus:
A couple of other thoughts. I agree with you that Bush v. Gore was pure partisan hack work, but the more I think about it, the more true it seems that that decision really was sui generis. Not in the chickenshit sense where they said it couldn’t be cited as precedent, but the circumstances which produced it, e.g., the crisis of uncertainty the country was in the middle of; Sandra O’Connor’s impending retirement (may she rot in hell), etc.
The other thing that has struck me is the idiocy of people assuming that the conservative justices are nothing more than Koch puppets. WTF?? These guys don’t need money, and they don’t need votes. They have a lifetime gig in the ultimate ivory tower — they don’t need ANYTHING from ANYBODY.
They do, on the other hand, have a deeply vested interest in their legacies, and in NOT having the Court as an institution, not to mention themselves as individual Justices, perceived as having rendered a politically motivated decision on a matter as important as this.
OzoneR
@Steve in DC:
People like my family who think corporate money in politics is the worst thing ever, but won’t vote for Obama because he’s anti-Christian.
Or those who want the rich to pay their fair share, but go out of their way to blast Occupy Wall Street.
Ben Franklin
@eemom:
Half-a-loaf was supposed to be better than nothing. But even this is not worth fighting for?
The broccoli court likes to feed kangaroos.
Ben Franklin
Really. Does anyone wish to extol the competence of Verilli?
Omnes Omnibus
@eemom: I agree with all of that. In some ways, B v. G makes legacy protection more important for some of these guys – particularly Kennedy. I know some people here argue that the Justices are more concerned with their legacy on the right than their place in legal and Court history, but that does not fit my experience with federal judges. I have not met any Justices, but I have worked for and known a number of District and Circuit Court judges. Awareness of who they are in the grand scheme of things is never far from their minds. When they leave the bench, their legacy consists of their opinions and their clerks. They tend to take both quite seriously. I may be wrong, but I don’t expect hack work here.
Ben Franklin
I think there’s a lot of folks here who applauded when Gore and Lieberman did the right thing and capitulated to the raison de’tre.
Brachiator
@Amanda in the South Bay:
Samuel Chase was impeached and acquited. And it set a pretty good precedent.
__
Supreme Court Justices have been tossed out at the state level (e.g., Rose Bird), and usually for crappy reasons.
__
You have to take a second look at anger, now matter how righeous you think it is. You might be righteous, or you might only be a mob.
__
Omnes Omnibus
@Ben Franklin: Raison d’etre or raison d’etat?
Ben Franklin
@Omnes Omnibus:
If that’s the justification; sobeit. It’s still capitulation.
trollhattan
@TK-421:
Citizens United and overturning ACA would be two giant dog turds to bookend the Court with, and promising far more of same under an R-money presidency would make a compelling campaign point for fall. Obama was smart to call out the court in front of them and congress.
Amanda in the South Bay
@Brachiator:
Given the sparse precedent of impeaching Supreme Court justices, I’d say there’s room for some righteous anger. Being bound by 200 year old precedents is just like the worshipping of the founding fathers by the right.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ben Franklin: I asked a question. I was not sure which you had meant to say. FWIW, I was not at all pleased by the Gore campaign’s handling of any of the post election shit.
Lee Hartmann
Doug J, I share your feeling of angst and anger.
Borking indeed. The conservatives/repugs made it an excuse to prevent any vetting of any candidate for years. As my old favorite Dr. Hunter S. Thompson once said, this is the attempt to reduce the Supreme Court to “a piss-poor bowling team from Memphis.” With, unfortunately, massive destructive power beyond that of any bowling team.
Ben Franklin
@Omnes Omnibus:
Sorry if I misinterpreted. ‘Reason of State’ sounded like ‘surrender.’
ABL
@eemom: I agree with this. Having listened to all of the oral arguments, I really think it’s going to be a 6-3 decision. Maybe 7-2.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ben Franklin: The question mark didn’t indicate a question?
JGabriel
__
__
Steve:
__
It’s not.
__
Someone should get SCOTUS’s conservative block to stop doing it.
__
How do you suggest we go about doing that?
__
.
jenn
Okay, this is a step (or 3000) over the line, here. I’m not overly trusting of the current SCOTUS, and I can deal with a certain amount of concern trolling about which way they might rule. But can we PLEASE stop with the pitchfork/impeachment/whatever calls until AFTER they fucking make the ruling?! Good god. I’m avoiding all the ACA/SCOTUS threads from now on, unless it’s Kay who’s writing it.
Cacti
Well…
You always have the Andrew Jackson example.
There’s little more than a gentleman’s agreement that the Congress and Executive abide by the pronouncements of the SCOTUS. Or in other words…
“John Roberts has made his decision. Now let him enforce it.”
AA+ Bonds
That is one hell of a workaround
AA+ Bonds
@jenn:
That’s like saying we should wait on the treatment until after we see if you die from the disease or not
Ben Franklin
@Omnes Omnibus:
Since when does a question mark indicate the intent of the question?
AA+ Bonds
Well if you had chipped your question mark we could just wave our phones at it to find that out
AA+ Bonds
Here, use this quantum mark, it should be able to handle the array
AA+ Bonds
Who is excited to get a microchip in them, me, I am
Omnes Omnibus
@Ben Franklin: Dude, while I am not the typo police, the fact that you had a typo in the original comment that left it open to question should come into play here. I wanted to know exactly what you were asking before I considered responding. I know that is weird around here, but, nevertheless, it happened.
AA+ Bonds
*~kids begin to gather in a ring about the English-go-round as a cloud obscures the sun~*
Omnes Omnibus
@AA+ Bonds: No it isn’t. It is like sitting around saying, “OMG, I have cancer! I am going to die!” when the doctor has just scheduled you for a biopsy.
Ben Franklin
@Omnes Omnibus:
Queston; asked and answered, dood, with an apology, to boot. When was the last time you responded to one of my comments? I admire your attention to detail, but this is ridiculous.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ben Franklin: Fine, my bad.
eemom
@AA+ Bonds:
hmm….let’s see…..how can I put this tactfully…..
You are dumber than a box of bricks.
eemom
@Omnes Omnibus:
Not quite. Because even a sane person who is not dumber than a box of bricks might do that.
It is more like sitting around saying, “OMG, I have cancer! I am going to die!” on the day you reach the age where you have an increased RISK of cancer.
Ruckus
@KG:
I think the key to Gore losing was Joe fucking Lieberman
Ben Franklin
The Posse is in town,
David Koch
@eemom: wasn’t Citizens United a politically partisan decision?
samara morgan
O DougJ, Commander of Lies.
the only thing that matters is evolution and the biological basis of behavior.
ReadME
Ben Franklin
@David Koch:
Only if power and legacy is their aim. Money doesn’t interest them. :>)
liberal
@Heliopause:
Sadly enough, you’ve got a point there.
David Koch
I don’t get why some liberals want to play by the Marquess of Queensberry Rules – they don’t.
According to Harvard, 45,000 people die every year because of the lack of health insurance.
45,000.
That’s 9/11 X 15.
If there was a credibly threat that Al Qaeda was planning on killing 45,000 people, this country would be filled with rage.
But it’s only two white guys (Kennedy and Roberts) in an ivory tower who have issued the credible threat and it only gonna happen to the working class not the upper middle class, so lets keep our powder dry.
rea
The simple solution (requiring disciplined Democratic majorities in Congress sufficient to enact legislation and confirm judicial nominees) is Franklin Roosevelt’s idea. The federal court system is horribly overworked–the Chief Justice himself says so–add a couple of hundred judgeships. And the Supreme Court is overworked, too. Nine justices are only a relatively recent tradition. Congress has the power to change the number, and at times the Court has been smaller or larger. Add two new justices.
eemom
@David Koch:
So you’re gonna go DougJ one better and suggest we start clamoring for their impeachment because they MIGHT issue a bad decision?
Forget “peak wingnut.” We need to start talking about Peak Stoopid being reached right here on this very blog.
KT
@Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor:
I’ve thought for awhile now that one of the best things that could happen to our voting process would be to disallow ALL out of state political contributions. It would neuter fanatical billionaires like the Koch’s.
It could also be a powerful argument to throw back at the Federalist fetishists. What could be more Federalist than prohibiting outside interference by the monied royalty? A large percentage of our current Congressmen and Senators would be out of a job if they were forced to solicit funds only from people in their home districts or home state.
David Koch
@eemom: I’d start with an occupy the fucking court movement, before going to impeachment.
but wasn’t Citizen United a politically partisan decision?
Do we want to just sit around and wait for yet another crap decision.
Xenos
Does anybody else here remember how in 2009 the conservative press and leading GOP politicians kept claiming that the best possible reform to be put in the ACA would be to allow insurance companies to sell policies across state borders, without all that troublesome state-level regulation bothering them?
It is funny how you never hear anyone say that any more.
Xenos
@eemom:
I thought it interesting when these Rassmussen poll results came out a week ago: 28% Give Supreme Court Positive Ratings
You would think this would give Scalia pause. Instead, he sounds like he has been watching Hannity for pointers.
mclaren
The problem with impeachment is that we’d have to start at the top. The Quisling in Chief has thrown out the rule of law that has served as the foundation of Western society for 900 years since the Magna Carta. So Obama would have to be impeached. Then we’d have to impeach the Quisling General, Eric Holder, for violating his oath to defend and protect the constitution of the united states with his insane claim that firing a missile at an American citizen who hasn’t even been accused of a crime is “due process of law.” Then we’d have to impeach the Vice Quisling Joe Biden for authoring the most treasonous document in American history, the USA Patriot Act, which voids and nullifies the fourth amendment guarantee that citizens are secure in their persons and premises against unreasonable search and seizure and the fifth amendment right to due process of law and the sixth amendment guarantee of a jury trial for anyone accused of a crime and the eighth amendment prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment and the fourteenth amendment guarantee that citizens are to be secure in the persons against the violation of their civil rights.
At that point, the entire executive branch would be impeached and in jail. Then we’d have to move on to impeach Nancy Pelosi for her refusal to impeach the Bush criminal gang and for her part in handing over the NDAA, one of the greatest assaults on the constitution in American history. Once Pelosi was impeached and convicted and imprisoned, we’d have to move on to impeach Boehner for his role in passing the NDAA, which wipes out 900 years of rule of law and makes the president into an unaccountable emperor no different from Caligula, with the power to murder any citizen anywhere anytime without even providing a reason.
Then we could move on to impeach Chief Quisling John Roberts and the associate Quislings on the Supreme Court who voted to void the ACA.
Well, you can see where that’s going. The problem is systemic. Everyone in the American system of government from the president to the Vice President to the Attorney General to the Speaker of the House to the justices of the supreme court have decided to throw out the rule of law. American citizens are now being murdered by order of the president without even being accused of a crime, U.S. citizens are being kidnapped and held without trial indefinitely without charges, shadowy paramilitary units like JSOC and drone squadrons and SWAT teams are murdering women and children in other countries and it’s all secret… America has descended into barbarism, and the problem isn’t just the Republicans.
Everyone in the system has simply decided to abandon the basic principles of civilization that have served as the foundation of Western society for 900 years. When William the Conquerer asserted the prerogative to torture and murder his subjects, he at least agreed that he had to provide an accounting to his barons after the fact to explain why we was murdering and torturing his subjects.
But George W. Bush and now Barack Obama claim they don’t even need to provide that much accoutability.
America is spiralling down into a Hobbesian war of all against all, and we’ve thrown out the rule of law. We’re torturing and murdering our own citizens without even accusing them of a crime. Is anyone surprised that the supreme court has now become emboldened to abandon the rule of law and just make shit up and start legislating on their own in defiance of the constitution?
That’s what happens when the president and the vice president and congress throw out the constitution. The judicial branch figues, hey! What the fuck! We might as well throw out the constitution too!
This is not going to end well, folks. Remember Argentina’s “Dirty War” against its own citizens, where dissidents got hauled into C47 cargo planes and dumped out in the ocean from 10,000 feet? That’s where America’s headed, and you won’t like it.
If impeachment is the answer, we’re gonna have to impeach a fuckload of a lot of people. Starting with the president, the vice president, all the way down. It’ll be a goddamn long time before we get to the supreme court. The Pnetagon is swarming with war criminals who are murdering innocent women and children in other countries where we haven’t even declared war. This is heading toward a Pol Pot type of situation. Correct me here, but I don’t think Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge got turned back into a civilized society by impeaching a couple of guys in their fucking court system.
Sauce
Why are we talking about things that are just not going to happen like Impeachment? Why don’t we use the tools they’ve forced on us like Citizen United? Set up a Super PAC, flood media markets with ads showing what a partisan joke they are, and let the SC have a taste of the evil they’ve let loose. Do you think the Koch brothers or Murdoch or the Chamber etc. has pulled any punches? I don’t know why the left has to play nice while the crazy run rampant. Because as it stands now the left fights with it’s hands tied and the right brings tanks.
David Koch
http://media.caglecartoons.com/media/cartoons/180/2012/03/29/109052_600.jpg
Sauce
@mclaren: Wow well said. What you wrote goes to the heart of the problem. The Govt isn’t even pretending anymore to follow the law, they make it up as they go. It started with unaccountability and moved to disregarding the law and now just flat out breaking the law. Every one of them, and when there’s even a little pushback the sycophantic media backs them up and beats down the dissenters. Without real consequences I don’t know how you start to fight this.
john s.
“You got some real impeachable offenses in mind, or you just want to pull a Newt and haul justices up before Congress if their votes don’t go your way?”
Why does Congress need impeachable offenses in order to impeach the [illegitimates]? They don’t play by the rules — they merrily throw not only logic, but 200 years of law and precedent out the window when it serves their agenda.
Hey — maybe that’s an impeachable offense.
Not to mention lying to Congress. Anybody believe Alito and Roberts didn’t lie when they said they had no opinions about abortion? Anybody believe Thomas didn’t lie about his tenure at the EEOC?
Anybody believe that Roberts, Alito, Scalia, and Thomas don’t violate their oath regularly?
“I, [NAME], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as [TITLE] under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God.”
Throw Kennedy out too. Bush v. Gore was an impeachable decision.
Uncle Cosmo
@john s.: This:
If Bill Clinton could be impeached over lying about a blowjob in a civil action (& remember, he was, just not convicted) those bastards ought by all rights to be at least as impeachable.
Not that I’d counsel ;) impeachment at the moment. I share the feeling that most of the verbiage from the oral arguments’ Q&A is merely the Gang of Five using the media to play to the teabaggers, that the vote will be 6-3 to uphold (Scalito & Sockpuppet the naysayers), & that the majority opinion (written by Roberts) will go out of its way to say something like
Mark Anderson
@Brachiator: And those progressives will be absolutely right.