Strange Days For American Jurisprudence

I'm not saying that being a judge is easy, but two recent judicial developments have me scratching my head.
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1.  The Supreme Court has agreed to review a lower court decision regarding Obamacare's premium subsidies.  Undisputed facts:  The ACA established income-based premium subsidies, and it established both federal and state health insurance exchanges.

Lawmakers believed most states would set up their own exchanges, but it's been the other way around.  That's because pissy Republican governors made a symbolic "Fuck you, Obama!" gesture by flatly refusing to create an exchange in their states. There are currently just 14 state-run exchanges, with 36 states relying on the federal HealthCare.Org exchange.

At issue is a single sentence which authorizes subsidies for insurance obtained on an ". . . exchange established by the state . . . "  It doesn't say "state or federal," just "state."

So the legal challenge, pushed by the Cato Institute and other right-tard organizations, asserts that because of those few words, only those insured through state exchanges qualify for subsidies.  The 5-to-6 million Americans in the 36 states on the federal exchange --which includes your humble correspondent -- would be ineligible for any subsidies.

Federal courts have twice upheld the validity of the subsidies for all states, no matter what the exchange.  And the crystal-clear intention of the ACA law itself is to offer subsidies in every state, via both state and federal exchanges.

The legal challenge is a crock, a cheap trick, a semantic gotcha, but four SCOTUS justices (you can guess which ones) believe it has merit.  If they can persuade one more old robe to see it their way, Obamacare is dead.

The Scalia-led faction of strict constructionists will insist that a card laid is a card played, that the sentence doesn't mention the federal exchanges, and therefore they cannot be expected to infer intent or interpret meaning.  And if as a result millions of people in 36 states lose their health insurance, too friggin' bad.

These are of course the same legal linguists who so easily interpret the 2nd Amendment's train-wreck language to mean that the Founders intended all of us to individually possess as many military-grade assault weapons as possible.

It's laughable and dangerous at the same time, and proves yet again that the right-wingers just won't let us have nice things.
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2.  In Cincinnati, a 3-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that state bans on gay marriage in Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky and Tennessee are indeed constitutional.  This decision flies in the face of a number of other federal courts who've recently found gay marriage prohibitions to be unconstitutional, not to mention the Supreme Court's invalidation of DOMA.  

Sutton

The 6th Circuit's majority opinion was written by Judge Jeffrey Sutton, an appointee of George Dubya Bush.  (That explains a lot, doesn't it?)  Judge Sutton is a Scalia disciple, a big-time advocate for state rights (every time I hear states rights, I think slavery and secession), and a member of the Federalist Society, an organization of arch-conservative Constitutional originalists.  (Can you say cult?)

In his opinion upholding gay marriage bans, Judge Sutton wrote that "people may need the government's encouragement to create stable relationships within which children may flourish."

So, Jeff, you believe that gay people are unstable and shouldn't be allowed to raise children.  Really?

Sutton went on to say that his court didn't have the authority or responsibility to even consider the issue, let alone make a decision to right the obvious wrong.  Instead, he suggested the plaintiffs petition their state legislatures -- who enacted the stupid, hateful bans to begin with -- to change their laws.  In other words, "It's not my job, and you've come to the wrong place."

Judge Jeff is living in the past, in some sort of Rovian time warp where the wheels of progress fell off the axles and no one cared.  Somebody send this asshole a calendar and a clue.
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This is what passes these days for American jurisprudence.  Juris?  Yeah, I suppose so.  Prudence?  Not so much.