The Supreme Court's Dismantling of America Continues
It's the end of June! What are we saying goodbye to this year?
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The nine unelected bozos of the US Supreme Court, three of whom Donald Trump planted to carry on his Presidency by proxy through what he assumes to be a temporary hiatus, are rolling out their latest round of precedent-smashing decrees like a shit-stained red/brown carpet for their incoming orange king. Since they can’t kill Roe any harder, let’s take a look at what they’ve decided to take their anger out on so far this year:
They’ve crippled the government’s ability to stop corporations poisoning you
Ah, gotta love that free market radicalism! Breathe it in, it smells like leaded petroleum. The court has thrown out what’s known as the Chevron rule. Without it, federal government agencies lose a lot of the power they had to regulate anything, instead throwing most of these regulatory decisions back to the states and the wealthy companies that may have these state governments in their pockets.
I mean come on, who could possibly know better about what’s best for you regarding tobacco than Big Tobacco, who has it right there in their name?
I hope you live in a state whose governor believes in the germ theory of disease! Even if so, you should also hope you have a government that puts principle above money, because…
You’re allowed to bribe officials now
Given the comical amount of outright bribery that Justice Clarence Thomas has been engaged in—enough bribery to earn an entire John Oliver episode—it was only a matter of time before the court was going to need to address it one way or the other, so they’ve done it in the least shocking way possible: By giving it the stamp of approval!
According to SCOTUS, it’s now 100% kosher to grease the wheels of democracy by paying off public officials as long as the payment occurs after they’ve done whatever it is you’re paying them to do.
See, it’s apparently only a “bribe” if the money changes hands before the favour, otherwise it’s a “gratuity,” a bit of wacky temporal semantics that doesn’t seem to make a lick of difference in literally any other quid pro quo arrangement. But it’s very important to make that distinction during this round of decisions because otherwise eyebrows would rise about all the free shit that they’re about to get for overturning Chevron.
It goes to show that the court isn’t beyond manipulating the rules of time and space to suit themselves, because…
It’s now illegal to be homeless
In an interesting ruling that should be termed the “extracting blood from a stone” decision, the SCOTUS has decided that it’s now reasonable to fine people for being unable to afford a home.
Framed as a measure to get the homeless off the streets and out of sight, it overcomplicates the very simple premise that the best way to do that is to get them off the streets and into a home.
The court had previously ruled that you can’t make it illegal to be homeless in an area without shelters because forcing people to go somewhere that doesn’t exist was deemed to violate the laws of physics, which typically supersede the Constitution. Instead, they have decided to solve the situation utilising the type of canine logic exemplified by this meme:
Of course when the homeless are unable to pay the fines they will likely wind up in prison, which will cost taxpayers a phenomenally larger sum than it would to give them houses. It’s okay though, because the wealthy people who lobbied for this decision won’t foot that bill.
The fun isn’t over yet! On Monday they’ll drop they’re biggest bombshells, including whether Donald Trump is uniquely above all laws of God and Man!