This
morning,
the
nine
Supreme
Court
justices
spent
170
pages
whacking
the
crap
out
of
each
other.
Also,
they
declared
Trump’s
“emergency”
tariffs
illegal,
which
everyone
who
listened
to
oral
argument
knew
was
inevitable.
The
Constitution
gives
Congress
the
right
to
enact
levies,
and
the
International
Emergency
Economic
Powers
Act
(IEEPA)
does
not
authorize
the
president
to
unilaterally
enact
a
constantly
shifting
scheme
of
tariffs
based
on
whoever
fails
to
genuflect
sufficiently
on
any
given
day.
No
shit,
dude.
The
only
real
question
was
how
long
it
would
take
them
to
publish
the
opinion
and
how
ugly
it
would
be
—
with length
of
time
between
argument
and
opinion
correlating
directly
with
cumulative
vituperation.
In
the
event,
it
took
almost
four
months,
enough
time
for
Justice
Kavanaugh
to
barf
out
four
pages
insisting
that
Trump
does,
too
have
the
power
to
shout
emergency
and
do
whatever
he
wants,
plus
59
pages
explaining
how
this
does
not
contradict
the
major
questions
doctrine.
The
Calvinball
rule
the
conservative
justices
dummied
up
to
restrain
Democratic
presidents
is
alive
and
well,
he
insists
…
just
not
when
a
Republican
is
in
the
White
House.
Chief
Justice
Roberts,
who
wrote
the
majority/plurality
opinion,
spent
much
of
it
slagging
Kavanaugh
for
parroting
the
Trump
administration’s
arguments
uncritically.
“The
central
thrust
of
the
Government’s
and
the
principal
dissent’s
proposed
exceptions
appears
to
be
that
ambiguous
delegations
in
statutes
addressing
‘the
most
major
of
major
questions’
should
necessarily
be
construed
broadly,”
he
sniffed,
adding
that
the
government’s
briefs
are
“echoed
point-for-point
by
the
principal
dissent.”
The
major
questions
doctrine,
and
its
freckle-faced
sibling,
the
non-delegation
doctrine,
animate
the
entire
order.
Chief
Justice
Roberts,
along
with
Justices
Barrett
and
Gorsuch
agree
that
Congress
could
not
possibly
have
given
Trump
tariff
authority
without
saying
so
with
their
full
chest.
The
three
liberal
justices
refused
to
join
in
the
part
of
the
holding
based
on
shit
conservatives
just
made
up
to
ensure
that
the
EPA
couldn’t
rein
in
polluters,
although
they
agreed
with
the
part
about
there
being
no
secret
proviso
in
IEEPA
that
gives
the
president
the
power
to
screech
tariffs
into
existence
on
social
media.
This
prompted
a
45-page
lecture
from
Justice
Gorsuch
on
the
sacred
virtues
of
the
major
questions
doctrine.
Indeed,
none
of
his
female
colleagues
were
spared;
Gorsuch
heaped
extra
scorn
on
Justice
Barrett
for
suggesting
that
one
might
infer
a
congressional
delegation
of
authority
from
context.
Barrett
crafted
her
own
concurrence,
mostly
as
a
response
to
Gorsuch’s
attack.
“If
JUSTICE
GORSUCH
thinks
that
we
should
forgo
the
most
natural
reading
of
a
statute
because
it
is
preferable
for
Congress,
rather
than
the
President,
to
make
big
decisions,
that
way
lies
‘a
lot
of
trouble’
for
the
textualist,”
she
sighed.
Justice
Kagan
has
clearly
had
quite
enough
of
Gorsuch
patronizingly
douchesplaining
HOW
TO
LAW
GOOD.
“Given
how
strong
his
apparent
desire
for
converts,
see
ante,
at
2–26,
I
almost
regret
to
inform
him
that
I
am
not
one,”
Justice
Kagan
wrote
in
a
dissent
joined
by
Justices
Sotomayor
and
Jackson,
adding
that
“I’ll
let
JUSTICE
GORSUCH
relitigate
on
his
own
our
old
debates
about
other
statutes,
unrelated
to
the
one
before
us.”
Justice
Thomas
spent
17
pages
peering
into
the
psyches
of
the
Framers
to
divine
their
thoughts
on
the
president’s
right
to
levy
tariffs
—
Shocker,
they’re
for
it!
—
padded
with
dozens
of
cites
to
his
own
prior
writings.
And
Justice
Jackson
chimed
in
to
add
that,
if
you
want
to
go
spelunking
to
determine
legislative
intent,
the
proper
inquiry
doesn’t
begin
in
the
1770s
but
in
the
1970s
when
IEEPA
was
passed.
It
was
a
slugfest,
with
the
Court’s
conservatives
bludgeoning
each
other
over
the
issue
of
whether
the
locus
of
power
should
be
in
the
unitary
executive,
or
the
Court
itself.
Why
shouldn’t
the
conservatives
take
this
opportunity
to
block
any
law
or
executive
action
they
don’t
like
when
they
have
a
6-3
majority?
Jesus,
Brett,
get
with
the
program!
And
meanwhile,
no
justice
explained
how
to
unwind
this
mess
and
refund
the
$200
billion
in
tariffs
paid
by
American
companies
and
consumers
—
although
Kavanaugh
cited
the
chaos
as
a
reason
to
let
Trump
keep
violating
the
law
forever.
Probably
something
they
should
have
considered
before
they
let
the
president
collect
them
for
a
year,
even
after
lower
courts
said
it
was
totally
illegal?
Anyway,
here’s
the
president
with
his
very
rational
response.