Back in the Waiting Place on SCOTUS Watch

Once again we are in Dr. Seuss's "The Waiting Place" from Oh, the Places You'll Go while on "SCOTUS WATCH" this week, waiting to hear the verdict on Obama's Health Care Plan. Will they decide that the mandate is "severable" from the bill, or did they take the draconian measure of throwing out the baby with the bathwater leaving millions uninsured? Without a mandate does any of it work?

Either the verdict will come at 10 a.m. tomorrow, or on Thursday. Or rumor is they might add still another day because they just can't bring themselves to release more information in a day. Haven't they ever heard of Twitter or 24-hour news?

I wish the Justices would be as conscious of time and money as Judge Cleland in the Sandusky case. He made everything run on time, and got it done.

Scotus is also ruling on the Arizona state immigration laws and whether their conservative state government can usurp federal law. As if we need more controversy about Arizona! Wingnuts please stand by. Cue Sheriff Joe Arpaio for CNN once again.

This week may be crazy, and perhaps we can see a metaphorical omen in Hurricane Debby, which was forecast on Friday to move west towards Texas, yet is still churning up the Gulf Coast of Florida and heading northeast instead. Everyone has been caught unaware, mired in torrential rain. The prognosticators were all wrong. The computer models were a hot mess.

A harbinger of the week ahead, perhaps?

People of any persuasion could get bogged down by these verdicts - Democrats, Republicans, Teapublicans, Libertarians, people who just want to be Americans and are sick of bigotry, and people who are actually sick with fatal diseases and don't want to hear anymore broccoli jokes for the little time they have left.

Like Hurricane Debby, I bet the SCOTUS has a few surprises for us yet. No one really knows what is going to happen, except the Justices and they won't give us any warning before the tornadoes hit. But till tomorrow we sit in the dark, waiting for someone to turn on the light.

Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Cryptic Comments About Health Care Ruling

Supreme Court Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg made some rather mysterious comments about the Supreme Court ruling coming up in the next few weeks about Obama's healthcare plan. It's so cryptic because she doesn't want to give away the "surprise, so it's anyone's guess what she means by this. And she makes a broccoli joke? Well, I guess she can afford to joke with her pal Tony Scalia when their health care plan is guaranteed by the government. But what happens if Tony and the other Conservatives have "chopped off" insurance for millions of citizens and the peasants take to the streets in chaos? I'm sure the Judges can foresee that scenario and are buying airline tickets out of the country in expectation of a decision no matter which way they rule.

From Talking Points Memo

“The term has been more than usually taxing, some have called it the term of the century,” Ginsburg said. In the next few weeks, the court must decide around 15 cases, including the high profile cases over health care and Arizona’s controversial immigration law. Ginsburg called it “flood season.”
“As one may expect, many of the most controversial cases remain pending,” she said. “So it is likely that the sharp disagreement rate will go up next week and the week after.”

Ginsburg cracked a joke about the health care case and the individual mandate. “If the individual mandate, requiring the purchase of insurance or the payment of a penalty, if that is unconstitutional, must the entire act fall?” she said, then offering up the alternative to throwing out the whole law because of the mandate. “Or, may the mandate be chopped, like a head of broccoli, from the rest of the act?”

The reference to broccoli was a jab at critics of the individual mandate, prompting laughter from the liberal-leaning audience. The issue of “severability,” whether or not the rest of the law can stand if the mandate is struck down, is one of many questions the Court will rule on in the health care case. Critics have argued that the mandate would create a slippery slope, ultimately allowing the government to require Americans buy broccoli in the name of public health.

Ginsburg also spent time talking about the importance of dissents, causing Court-watchers to perk up. “I have spoken on more than one occasion about the utility of dissenting opinions, noting in particular that they can reach audiences outside the court and can propel legislative or executive change,” Ginsburg said.

 By Jen Sorenson of Slowpoke Comics