By OcJim

I am appalled to see that at least a couple of members of our esteemed Supreme Court, whom we expect to be the bastions of objectivity, are openly repeating the most biased of the Tea Party type arguments against health care reform. Oral arguments by justices unfortunately are indicative of how the Supreme Court will rule in June. Therefore, we can look for the health care law that is scheduled to benefit so many to be stricken down by feckless conservatives in this court.

While Democrats and the Obama administration have been timid in defending health care reform needed by the American majority, that misinformed majority deems the individual mandate 67% unfavorable, much to the efforts of Republicans, who have saturated the media with rancor and rile regarding health care reform.

Doing everything “Tea Party” but raise the white-faced Obama “joker” placard, Justice Antonin Scalia (1) retorted in oral arguments, “Everybody has to buy food sooner or later, so you define the market as food, therefore, everybody is in the market; therefore, you can make people buy broccoli.” “All bets are off” if the government can regulate an industry by forcing people to buy a private product, said Chief Justice Roberts (2).

Still seemingly uninformed while fashioning himself a comedian, Scalia went on mocking the so-called “Cornhusker Kickback,” apparently not knowing that provision was stripped out of the law two years ago. He also railed that the task of having to review the complex bill violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment: “You really want us to go through these 2,700 pages?” he quipped. “Is this not totally unrealistic, that we are going to go through this enormous bill item by item and decide each one?”

Instead of citing actual principles impacting this very important decision in a serious manner, like “Commerce Clause” jurisprudence, Scalia and Roberts spoke like Tea Party Republicans in the House of Representatives. The clause has always protected the interstate spillover of money between states. A small example is interstate labor mobility. For example, getting hurt in a state where you are not insured would involve one state owing another state money.

Justice Scalia has been recently sniffing the glue of  right-wing propaganda, for his ruling in Gonzales vs. Raich years ago sought to preserve the commerce clause in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3. Siding with the DEA in 2005, Scalia, along with 5 other justices held that the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution allows Washington, D.C. to regulate purely local conduct when  that activity is targeted as part of a “comprehensive” scheme of regulations. Perhaps he too is a flip flopper like Mitt Romney, that is, when it suits him politically.

Raising the count of antipathy toward the Affordable Health Care Act is Clarence Thomas (3). Justice Clarence Thomas has little to say on anything regarding court decisions, but has proven his right wing allegiance. He has taken favors from the Koch brothers,  lied by omission about his wife, Ginni Thomas’s $690,000 lobbyist income from 2003 to 2007,  and has tacitly demonstrated agreement with her private interest group, Liberty Central, which campaigned disparagingly against Obama’s health care reform bill.

The other conservative Justice, Samuel Alito (4) was quiet at the hearings but his hostility toward our fundamental civil liberties and civil rights is well known. He is also an attendee of conservative fundraisers like Michele Bachmann and the US Chamber of Commerce. Add to the four right-wingers, Justice Anthony Kennedy (5), who said, “Are there any limits” on Congress if this stands, during oral arguments.

It would appear that the drama is already over (5 to 4, against). We probably should begin preparing for dropping plans to insure some 40 million Americans, even while private insurance companies drop you for having a history of ingrown toenails – make that cancer, diabetes, alcoholism, drug use, and heart attacks for a start. It’s no laughing matter, Mr. Scalia.

Consider that when they strike down health care, they can also strike down other needed programs like Medicare and Social Security, the difference between well-being and outright poverty and bankruptcy.

Sit up and shake off the narcotics of propaganda you are ingesting from the corporate media, while sitting on your back side!

But then again, maybe Antonin Scalia can open a dial-a-joke phone line to keep you entertained in your poverty.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Follow more from this author on Facebook here ——-> Common Good