The Top 15 Most Antonin Scalia Quotes From His New Obamacare Dissent
Never one to mince words, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissents always make for interesting reading. His dissent in the King v. Burwell decision announced today was no exception.
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Scalia was confounded by the majority’s twisted logic, writing that the court “accepts that the ‘most natural sense’ of the phrase ‘Exchange established by the State’ is an Exchange established by a State” but then “continues, with no semblance of shame, that ‘it is also possible that the phrase refers to all Exchanges—both State and Federal.’” This analysis Scalia dubbed, “Impossible possibility, thy name is an opinion on the Affordable Care Act!”
Here are the top 15 quotes we pulled from his scathing rebuke of the Roberts court’s ruling that saved Obamacare’s federal exchanges. It is Scalia at his Scaliaiest (emphasis added):
No. 1: ‘SCOTUScare’
“We should start calling this law SCOTUScare.”
No. 2: Supreme Court Plays Favorites
“But this Court’s two decisions on the Act will surely be remembered through the years. The somersaults of statutory interpretation they have performed (‘penalty’ means tax, ‘further [Medicaid] payments to the State’ means only incremental Medicaid payments to the State, ‘established by the State’ means not established by the State) will be cited by litigants endlessly, to the confusion of honest jurisprudence. And the cases will publish forever the discouraging truth that the Supreme Court of the United States favors some laws over others, and is prepared to do whatever it takes to uphold and assist its favorites.”
No. 3: Making a ‘Parody’ of The Federalist Papers
“Just ponder the significance of the Court’s decision to take matters into its own hands. The Court’s revision of the law authorizes the Internal Revenue Service to spend tens of billions of dollars every year in tax credits on federal Exchanges. It affects the price of insurance for millions of Americans. It diminishes the participation of the States in the implementation of the Act. It vastly expands the reach of the Act’s individual mandate, whose scope depends in part on the availability of credits. What a parody today’s decision makes of Hamilton’s assurances to the people of New York: ‘The legislature not only commands the purse but prescribes the rules by which the duties and rights of every citizen are to be regulated. The judiciary, on the contrary, has no influence over . . . the purse; no direction . . . of the wealth of society, and can take no active resolution whatever. It may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL but merely judgment.’”
No. 4: ‘Quite Absurd’
“The Court holds that when the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act says ‘Exchange established by the State’ it means ‘Exchange established by the State or the Federal Government.’ That is of course quite absurd, and the Court’s 21 pages of explanation make it no less so.”
No. 5: ‘So Obvious’
“This case requires us to decide whether someone who buys insurance on an Exchange established by the Secretary gets tax credits. You would think the answer would be obvious—so obvious there would hardly be a need for the Supreme Court to hear a case about it.”
No. 6: ‘Pure Applesauce’
“The Court claims that the Act must equate federal and state establishment of Exchanges when it defines a qualified individual as someone who (among other things) lives in the ‘State that established the Exchange.’ … Otherwise, the Court says, there would be no qualified individuals on federal Exchanges, contradicting (for example) the provision requiring every Exchange to take the ‘”interests of qualified individuals”‘ into account when selecting health plans. … Pure applesauce.”
No. 7: Court’s ‘Overriding Principle’
“Under all the usual rules of interpretation, in short, the Government should lose this case. But normal rules of interpretation seem always to yield to the overriding principle of the present Court: The Affordable Care Act must be saved.”
No. 8: ‘Not Our Place’
“This Court holds only the judicial power—the power to pronounce the law as Congress has enacted it. We lack the prerogative to repair laws that do not work out in practice, just as the people lack the ability to throw us out of office if they dislike the solutions we concoct. …
“Trying to make its judge-empowering approach seem respectful of congressional authority, the Court asserts that its decision merely ensures that the Affordable Care Act operates the way Congress ‘meant [it] to operate.’ … [T]he Court forgets that ours is a government of laws and not of men. That means we are governed by the terms of our laws, not by the unenacted will of our lawmakers. …
“Even less defensible, if possible, is the Court’s claim that its interpretive approach is justified because this Act ‘does not reflect the type of care and deliberation that one might expect of such significant legislation.’ … It is not our place to judge the quality of the care and deliberation that went into this or any other law. A law enacted by voice vote with no deliberation whatever is fully as binding upon us as one enacted after years of study, months of committee hearings, and weeks of debate. Much less is it our place to make everything come out right when Congress does not do its job properly. It is up to Congress to design its laws with care, and it is up to the people to hold them to account if they fail to carry out that responsibility.”
No. 9: ‘Interpretive Distortions’ Ignore the Constitution
“The Court’s decision reflects the philosophy that judges should endure whatever interpretive distortionsit takes in order to correct a supposed flaw in the statutory machinery. That philosophy ignores the American people’s decision to give Congress ‘[a]ll legislative Powers’ enumerated in the Constitution.”
No. 10: ‘Jiggery-pokery’
“The Court’s next bit of interpretive jiggery-pokery involves other parts of the Act that purportedly presuppose the availability of tax credits on both federal and state Exchanges.”
No. 11: Increasing SCOTUS’ Power
“The Court’s insistence on making a choice that should be made by Congress both aggrandizes judicial power and encourages congressional lassitude.”
No. 12: ‘Unheard Of’
“Ordinary connotation does not always prevail, but the more unnatural the proposed interpretation of a law, the more compelling the contextual evidence must be to show that it is correct. Today’s interpretation is not merely unnatural; it is unheard of.”
No. 13: ‘Feeble Arguments’
“Faced with overwhelming confirmation that ‘Exchange established by the State’ means what it looks like it means, the Court comes up with argument after feeble argument to support its contrary interpretation.”
No. 14: ‘Why Context Matters’
“Context always matters. Let us not forget, however, why context matters: It is a tool for understanding the terms of the law, not an excuse for rewriting them.”
No. 15: SCOTUS Cannot ‘Rescue Congress’
“Perhaps sensing the dismal failure of its efforts to show that ‘established by the State’ means “established by the State or the Federal Government,’ the Court tries to palm off the pertinent statutory phrase as ‘inartful drafting.’ … This Court, however, has no free-floating power ‘to rescue Congress from its drafting errors.’”
Tag:The Aaron & Margaret Wallace Foundation
An Event Honoring Dr. Charles H. Townes, the 1964 Nobel Laureate in Physics and 2005 Templeton Laureate
An Event Honoring Dr. Charles H. Townes, the 1964 Nobel Laureate in Physics and 2005 Templeton Laureate
The Aaron & Margaret Wallace Foundation Sponsors and Supports:
The nonprofit International Institute of the Bengal and Himalayan Basins, or IIBHB, is getting the word out to people who would appreciate an event honoring Dr. Charles H. Townes, the 1964 Nobel Laureate in Physics and 2005 Templeton Laureate.
The keynote and guest speakers will include some of the other giants of modern physics. We would be very grateful if you could attend as well as make the event information available to your colleagues and graduate students. We would like for as many people as possible to attend this free event. Refreshments will be served.
There will be free admission to the reception and talks which will take place from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturday, the 21st of July, is free. Prices for the Himalayan dinner which will be from 8-9 p.m. are $10 for advanced tickets and $100 for a seat at the laureates’ table.
Dr. Townes, the 1964 Nobel Laureate in Physics, whose life and work we will be celebrating, invented the laser. Guest Speakers include Dr. Townes, Frances Townes, Martin L Perl, the discoverer of the tau lepton and 1995 Laureate in Physics, and Dr. Douglas Osheroff of Stanford, who was awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work with Helium 3.
The International Institute of the Bengal and Himalayan Basins located in Berkeley, is devoted to the purification of drinking water in the developing world and beyond. The current focus is removing arsenic from the ground and surface waters of the Bengal Basin of India and Bangladesh. The Director- Rash B. Ghosh is widely respected for having accomplished much of the early work on canopy chemistry, the role of trees in offsetting carbon released into the atmosphere, which contributes to global warming.
Click on the following and you’ll find the venue, the Genetics and Plant Biology Building, clearly indicated on a campus map.
The Genetics and Plant Biology Building is within walking distance of BART, as you can see on the map.
Here’s additional info on transit and parking in downtown berkeley — has map
Free Tickets to Regina Belle 10/28-29,Yoshi's- Oakland; Omar Sosa 11/4-5,Yoshi's- Oakland; Brenda Wong Aoki 10/30,Yoshi's- SF; The Velveteen Rabbit 11/26, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission St, SF; Business Strategic Plan; Entertainment Jobs Nov
Are you interested in growing your business? We are offering a FREE Business analysis and will discuss your needs for an overall Strategic Plan including a Website upgrade with a national media campaign, after you have completed the Strategic Planning Client Questionnaire on our website and schedule a meeting to contract our services and move forward to SUCCESS!
We can mount a media campaign for you with events and advantages your business offers to potential clients as the centerpiece of that effort. This could not only provide exposure and build your new brand, but could also build your business development with corporate sponsors, business partners, non-profit organizations and donors.
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From the great success that we have had with our Free Food Programs established in the 1950’s by my Parents, Aaron and Margaret Wallace, we have since been instrumental in the founding and supplying of other free food service organizations around the country.
With the demand for our help in creating these organizations being driven by the skyrocketing need for the services, we have decided to open up our efforts to all interested in starting a food pantry for the needy.
We can provide access to the training necessary to qualify your organization and partner you with the local organizations and businesses that can support your efforts. Contact us and we will help you through the RED TAPE and push your program to success!
We were honored in Miami, Florida and Port Au Prince, Haiti last month for the Relief Missions that we have sent to Haiti since the earthquake and are currently up for an EMMY with “OUT. The Glenn Burke Story”, have already won several honors for it and expect more.
Special “Thanks” to all that have supported our efforts over the years!
FREE tickets to Regina Belle w/ Special Guest Chris Walker, Friday and Saturday, October 28-29, 2011, 10:00 pm, Yoshi’s Oakland, 510 Embarcadero W, Oakland Ca 94607; Omar Sosa Afreecanos Quartet, Friday and Saturday, November 4-5, 2011, 10:00 pm, Yoshi’s Oakland, 510 Embarcadero W, Oakland Ca 94607; Brenda Wong Aoki and Mark Izu KABUKI JAZZ CABARET, Sunday, October 30, 2011 5:00 pm,Yoshi’s, 1330 Fillmore Street, San Francisco; The Velveteen Rabbit, Choreographed and directed by KT Nelson, Saturday, November 26, 2011, at 2:00 p.m., Novellus Theater at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission Street (at 3rd Street), San Francisco, CA.
Free Tickets to BRANFORD MARSALIS 9/21,Yoshi’s; Return To Forever 9/22, Warfield; KBLX Stone Soul Concert 10/1, Noon, Sleep Train Pavilion, Concord; Business Strategic Plan; Entertainment Jobs Sept.-Oct. 2011
Free Tickets to BRANFORD MARSALIS 9/21,Yoshi’s; Return To Forever 9/22, Warfield; KBLX Stone Soul Concert 10/1, Noon, Sleep Train Pavilion, Concord; Business Strategic Plan; Entertainment Jobs Sept.-Oct. 2011 Business Strategic Plan; Entertainment Jobs Sept.-Oct. 2011
Abdul-Jalil and Aaron & Margaret Wallace Foundation honored in Miami, Florida and Port Au Prince, Haiti last month for the Relief Missions that we have sent to Haiti since the earthquake and are currently up for an EMMY with “OUT. The Glenn Burke Story”, have already won several honors for it and expect more.
Special “Thanks” to all that have supported our efforts over the years!
Free Tickets to BRANFORD MARSALIS 9/21,Yoshi’s; Return to Forever IV and Zappa Plays Zappa
with Chick Corea – Keyboards, Stanley Clarke – Bass, Lenny White – Drums, Jean-Luc Ponty – Violin, and Frank Gambale – Guitar, 9/22, Warfield; KBLX Stone Soul Concert 10/1, Noon, Sleep Train Pavilion, Concord; Business Strategic Plan; Entertainment Jobs Sept.-Oct. 2011; KBLX Stone Soul Concert II , Sleep Train Pavilion At Concord, 2000 Kirker Pass Road, Concord, CA 94521, Saturday, Oct 1, 2011 12:00 Noon. KBLX proudly welcomes a great collection of Northern California homegrown talent, featuring: MC Hammer, En Vogue, The E Family, Tony Toni Tone, ConFunkShun, Lenny Williams.
The Aaron & Margaret Wallace Foundation (A&MWF) is a non-denominational, multi-cultural,100% volunteer financed and operated relief organization that provides FREE food, medicine, clothing, educational and employment opportunities, mental and physical health referrals, legal aid, shelter and other necessities to individuals, children, families, and organizations who lack these essentials for any reason. We provide private school and college admissions educational opportunities; assists with referrals for job training and placement; rental assistance; social services assistance; homelessness assistance; mental and physical health assistance; medical assistance and legal aid assistance referrals FREE for ANYONE whom has the need at the Aaron & Margaret Wallace Foundation website.
A HipHop Ad Agency specializing in advertising, strategic planning, promotions and marketing targeting the hard to reach, but extremely lucrative, X-Y and Baby Boomer generations urban and suburban markets using Hip Hop culture, it’s sound, it’s fashion, it’s speak, it’s bravado, it’s image, it’s way, as the vehicle. We have registered the services of Hip Hop, Rap and RB’s elite artists, producers, directors, writers, choreographers, dancers, graff artist, B-boys, photographers, actors, models, and professional athletes to participate in this ¿eX-whY AdVentures?. We are producing commercial ads from concept, to creation, to production, to placement in media, – the entire process-, while owning our product!!!
Free Tickets to Amel Larrieux 9/11, 8pm,Yoshi’s, Oakland.; KBLX Stone Soul Concert 10/1, Noon, Sleep Train Pavilion, Concord; Business Strategic Plan; Entertainment Jobs Sept.-Oct. 2011
Free Tickets to Amel Larrieux 9/11, 8pm,Yoshi’s, Oakland.; KBLX Stone Soul Concert 10/1, Noon, Sleep Train Pavilion, Concord; Business Strategic Plan; Entertainment Jobs Sept.-Oct. 2011
Abdul-Jalil and Aaron & Margaret Wallace Foundation honored in Miami, Florida and Port Au Prince, Haiti last month for the Relief Missions that we have sent to Haiti since the earthquake and are currently up for an EMMY with “OUT. The Glenn Burke Story”, have already won several honors for it and expect more.
Special “Thanks” to all that have supported our efforts over the years!
FREE tickets to Amel Larrieux, September 11, 2011, 8:00 pm,Yoshi’s, 1330 Fillmore Street, San Francisco; KBLX Stone Soul Concert II , Sleep Train Pavilion At Concord, 2000 Kirker Pass Road, Concord, CA 94521, Saturday, Oct 1, 2011 12:00 Noon. KBLX proudly welcomes a great collection of Northern California homegrown talent, featuring: MC Hammer, En Vogue, The E Family, Tony Toni Tone, ConFunkShun, Lenny Williams.
The Aaron & Margaret Wallace Foundation (A&MWF) is a non-denominational, multi-cultural,100% volunteer financed and operated relief organization that provides FREE food, medicine, clothing, educational and employment opportunities, mental and physical health referrals, legal aid, shelter and other necessities to individuals, children, families, and organizations who lack these essentials for any reason. We provide private school and college admissions educational opportunities; assists with referrals for job training and placement; rental assistance; social services assistance; homelessness assistance; mental and physical health assistance; medical assistance and legal aid assistance referrals FREE for ANYONE whom has the need at the Aaron & Margaret Wallace Foundation website.
A HipHop Ad Agency specializing in advertising, strategic planning, promotions and marketing targeting the hard to reach, but extremely lucrative, X-Y and Baby Boomer generations urban and suburban markets using Hip Hop culture, it’s sound, it’s fashion, it’s speak, it’s bravado, it’s image, it’s way, as the vehicle. We have registered the services of Hip Hop, Rap and RB’s elite artists, producers, directors, writers, choreographers, dancers, graff artist, B-boys, photographers, actors, models, and professional athletes to participate in this ¿eX-whY AdVentures?. We are producing commercial ads from concept, to creation, to production, to placement in media, – the entire process-, while owning our product!!!
A List Celebrity Comps for Kentucky Derby May 5-7, 2011
If you are or have “A List” Celebrities that would like to attend the Kentucky Derby, May 5-7, 2011you may be able to attend as a select V.I.P. The “A Lister” could receive: air transportation or Private Jet service from major U. S. cities, hotel suites and accommodations, ground transportation, VIP tickets to the Derby, special V.I.P. guest invitations to the exclusive events, Contact us ASAP with Celebrity bio for consideration. Millionaires Row.Throughout the years of the Kentucky Derby, the race has had a special appeal to the celebrity set. The rich and famous that mingle among the Derby Day crowd add a unique dimension to the spectacle of the “Run for the Roses.”
