This was a week when national health insurance was equated with cruciferous vegetables; when purveyors of deadly gun violence played the victim and had the law on their side. What a week, eh?
First, the Affordable Care Act being considered by the gang of nine (robes division). There are a great many things that might be said of the judicial theater we were all treated to this week, but from my perspective – a limited one, to be sure – they boil down to the following points:
Health Care: Still Not A Vegetable. This is one of those vacuous, tea-party type arguments that has been thrown around since the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was considered by Congress. Jesus freaking christ on a bike, Justice Scalia … no, health care is not the same as freaking broccoli. You can live your whole miserable life without eating a single floret of broccoli, but god damn it you will certainly end up in a hospital at some point, and someone is going to pay for it. And no, it’s not a cell phone either, damn it. Some people have never used one; my 85-year-old mother for one. Neither cell phones nor broccoli are essential or inevitable like medical care in America.
Pick Your Constitutional Overreach. Justice Kennedy – a.k.a. he who will decide whether millions can see a doctor or not – appears to think that the ACA fundamentally changes the 
relationship between the government and the people. Many take this as confirmation that it is constitutional overreach. But even if it were, why pick that out of the crowd? We have undeclared wars that last ten years and more. We have routine violations of fourth amendment rights. Our government kills, detains, and spies on people at will without any discernible limit. Why aren’t these same people attacking those excesses? Or is it just that they are attacking the ACA because they disagree with it politically? Thought so.
Where’s Thomas? I’ve heard the audio from these sessions, mostly on NPR, and I have heard comments from every justice but Thomas. Every single one had something noteworthy to say except Thomas. Has someone tried shaking him or poking him with a stick lately? I’m not sure he’s responsive at this point. Strange, strange justice.
The outcome of this life or death question could take any of a number of shapes, but my money is on their striking it down, mostly because conservatives (i.e. reactionary statists) are in the majority, thanks to George W. Bush and the ignorant people who re-elected him. They showed their impartiality with Bush v. Gore and Citizen’s United … and it doesn’t bear close scrutiny.
Re: Trayvon Martin. The police video shows that Zimmerman is not only an extreme exaggerator, but also a good deal more athletic than we’d been led to imagine. But the real perps here are the Florida legislature, former governor Bush, ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council), and the NRA – authors of the “Stand Your Ground” legislation that has made such slaughter legal. Time to shoot the law, Florida. It’s a question of self defense.
luv u,
jp
