23 July 2014

Seriously, Republican Judges are Just Phoning it in Now

In the Hobby Lobby case, we have Justice Alito pulling a religious privilege for corporations out of thing air, but not for blood transfusions or psychology, because the people who oppose medical procedures are, Jehova's Witnesses and Scientologists,  are icky.

They did the same thing with 150 years of precedent on recess appointments, etc.

Now with the ruling of the DC Court of appeals on Obamacare subsidies, they went off the deep end, and ruled that the subsidies only apply to states that have set up their own exchanges.

2 hours later, the 4th circuit court of appeals ruled the other way.

What's more in the 4th Circuit's opinion has an assent that absolutely nails the amazing level of hackitude in the DC Circuit's opinion:
In fact, Appellants’ reading is not literal; it’s cramped. No case stands for the proposition that literal readings should take place in a vacuum, acontextually, and untethered from other parts of the operative text; indeed, the case law indicates the opposite. National Association of Home Builders v. Defenders of Wildlife, 551 U.S. 644, 666 (2007). So does common sense: If I ask for pizza from Pizza Hut for lunch but clarify that I would be fine with a pizza from Domino’s, and I then specify that I want ham and pepperoni on my pizza from Pizza Hut, my friend who returns from Domino’s with a ham and pepperoni pizza has still complied with a literal construction of my lunch order. That is this case: Congress specified that Exchanges should be established and run by the states, but the contingency provision permits federal officials to act in place of the state when it fails to establish an Exchange. The premium tax credit calculation subprovision later specifies certain conditions regarding state-run Exchanges, but that does not mean that a
literal reading of that provision somehow precludes its applicability to substitute federally-run Exchanges or erases the contingency provision out of the statute.
Seriously, conservative Judges will take any cockamamie fringe idea that some desperate for tenure right law professor, desperate for tenure can scrawl on a bathroom wall, and they are running with it.

They have completely lost it, because, to quote Blazing Saddles, "The Sheriff is a Ni!!!"

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