Tag Archives: roberts

Einstein’s Intuition – Thad Roberts

by Myrna Posted on September 29, 2018

READ GREEN WITH E-BOOKS

Einstein’s Intuition
Visualizing Nature in Eleven Dimensions
Thad Roberts

Genre: Physics

Price: $11.99

Publish Date: April 11, 2015

Publisher: Thad Roberts

Seller: Thad Roberts


Presented in clear and accessible language with wonderfully supportive graphics, Roberts offers the reader a voyage through the stages of human knowledge. He then examines the outstanding mysteries of modern physics, the phenomena that lie outside the boarders of our current understanding (dark energy, dark matter, the Big Bang, wave-particle duality, quantum tunneling, state vector reduction, etc.) and suggests that the next step in our intellectual journey is to treat the vacuum of space as a superfluid—modeling it as being composed of interactive quanta, which, in a self-similar way, are composed of subquanta, and so on. With this proposition Roberts imbues the vacuum with fractal geometry, and opens the door to explaining the outstanding mysteries of physics geometrically. Roberts’ model, called quantum space theory, has been praised for how it offers an intuitively accessible picture of eleven dimensions and for powerfully extending the insight of general relativity, eloquently translating the four forces into unique kinds of geometric distortions, while offering us access to the underlying deterministic dynamics that give rise to quantum mechanics. That remarkably simple picture explains the mysteries of modern physics is a way that is fully commensurate with Einstein’s Intuition. It is a refreshingly unique perspective that generates several testable predictions.

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Einstein’s Intuition – Thad Roberts

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Will Justice Roberts stand up to the Supreme Court’s potential Voldemort?

by PatriciaAlcala2 Posted on July 10, 2018

On Monday night, President Trump announced his replacement for retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy — and the news isn’t good for people who care about the planet. Trump’s nominee is 53-year-old D.C. circuit court judge Brett Kavanaugh, a dedicated originalist who has a bleak record on green issues.

“I think of him as the Lord Voldemort of the environment,” Bill Snape, senior counsel at the Center for Biological Diversity and fellow at American University, tells Grist. (No joke, his last name is Snape.)

“Kavanaugh, to me, is another Scalia,” Snape adds. “On all things administrative law, energy law, environmental law, he has been pretty much the worst.”

But while Voldemort targets Muggles, Kavanaugh aims at environmental regulations. In 2012, on the D.C. circuit, he ruled that the EPA could not regulate air pollution that crosses state borders — a decision that was later reversed by the Supreme Court, 6-2. By the EPA’s reckoning, this decision literally saved lives. Had the court followed Kavanaugh’s opinion, the resulting unregulated air pollution could have led to between 13,000 and 34,000 additional deaths per year.

Kavanaugh also appears to have influenced the Supreme Court’s rulings against the Clean Air Act. He is cited in both Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA and Michigan v. EPA.

“He has just been a Clean Air Act disaster,” Snape tells Grist. “And it’s not just with regard to the EPA — he seems to have a very ideological anti-environmental stance.”

Kavanaugh also ruled to limit the power of critical habitat protections, most notably in a 2011 case around endangered fairy shrimp. The first case on the Supreme Court docket for the coming term, Snape warns, is a critical habitat case.

If Kavanaugh is confirmed and becomes SCOTUS’s Voldemort, where does that leave the rest of the court? With Kennedy gone, the court will move hard to the right, and John Roberts — who is not what most people would consider “moderate” — will become the new swing vote.

It could be worse. Roberts, who was appointed by George W. Bush in 2005, has gradually been shifting toward the center throughout his tenure. In recent years, Roberts has been a bona fide moderate. In fact, he’s already credited with casting the court’s swing vote about 30 percent of the time — second only to the retiring Kennedy.

But Roberts has a sketchy record on climate science. In Massachusetts v. EPA, he joined the conservative side in voting against giving the EPA the ability to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant. In his dissent, he wrote that drawing a direct link between individual choices of vehicles and the rising oceans was “pure conjecture.”

Still, some environmental campaigners think that the pro-business Roberts will be open to standardized environmental controls — which could actually be a net benefit to companies’ bottom lines. Moreover, Roberts has indicated that, despite his dissent at the time, he considers Massachusetts v. EPA to be established precedent. He’s unlikely to then want to break that precedent to overturn it.

So it remains to be seen whether Roberts will follow the path of the Dark Arts on issues related to the environment. Will he stick to climate denial, now that his vote matters even more? Or, will he come through like the original Professor Snape and rally to support the light when he’s needed most?

No matter what he decides, the consequences will be enormous — and could affect planetary health for millennia to come. No pressure.

And in case you’re wondering, here’s how the rest of the Supremes stack up in Harry Potter’s world, courtesy of Grist’s resident Potterhead, Caroline Saunders:

Clarence Thomas — Cornelius Fudge. These old boys don’t like to mess with the status quo.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg — Professor McGonagall. She keeps the world in line. Also, don’t cross her.

Stephen Breyer — Remus Lupin. Just like our furry friend in Harry Potter, he provides balance on tough issues.

Samuel Alito — Scrimgeour. Boy, do they both like to prosecute.

Sonia Sotomayor — Hermione Granger. Two badass female champions of the underserved.

Elena Kagan — Nymphadora Tonks. Kagan may not have technicolor hair, but she’s a hip young force on an aging bench. Don’t underestimate her.

Neil Gorsuch — Lucius Malfoy. They even look alike!

So @J.K. Rowling, when are you releasing Harry Potter and the Supreme Court Justices?

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Will Justice Roberts stand up to the Supreme Court’s potential Voldemort?

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This natural gas plant could be a big breakthrough

by XiomaraAlves01 Posted on May 31, 2018

Yesterday, the startup Net Power switched on its 50-megawatt power plant, proving it could burn natural gas without releasing greenhouse gases. If this technology works at scale, it could be the flexible, emissions-free lynchpin the world needs to reverse climate change.

That’s a big “if” of course. After the engineering challenge comes the market challenge: We could make a laundry list of promising energy sources that launch to great excitement, then struggle for years to compete against the incumbent technologies (see cellulosic ethanol).

Net Power captures the carbon dioxide given off as gas burns. That’s the same thing done by carbon capture and sequestration plants already in existence. But the crucial difference here is that carbon capture and sequestration usually uses a lot of energy (and money) to separate the carbon molecules out of all the other gases and particles in a plant’s exhaust.

Net Power uses an elegant trick to simplify the process (David Roberts explains the basics here) so that its exhaust is nearly pure carbon dioxide, which it can capture in its entirety. And the company says it can do all that while operating more cheaply than the best existing gas plants.

The next step? The company is in the process of developing a 300-megawatt plant, which would start providing electricity by 2021 at the earliest.

As the United States has built solar panels and wind turbines, natural gas has expanded even more. The fuel’s ability to cheaply ramp up and down with fluctuations in electric supply and demand have made it an apt partner for renewable energy. If it could do that without adding insulation to the Earth’s heat-trapping jacket, it would provide us a much-needed reprieve.

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This natural gas plant could be a big breakthrough

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The Next Step in the Trump-DeVos Plan to Send Taxpayer Money to Religious Schools

by ScarletXHU Posted on March 3, 2017

Mother Jones

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During his address before a joint session of Congress earlier this week, President Donald Trump paused to introduce Denisha Merriweather, a graduate student from Florida sitting with first lady Melania Trump. Merriweather “failed third grade twice” in Florida’s public schools, Trump said. “But then she was able to enroll in a private center for learning, great learning center, with the help of a tax credit,” he continued, referring to Florida’s tax credit scholarship program that allows students attend private schools. Because of this opportunity, Denisha became the first member of her family to graduate from high school and college.

Trump used Denisha’s story to call for his favorite education policy, school choice, asking lawmakers to “pass an education bill that funds school choice for disadvantaged youth, including millions of African American and Latino children. These families should be free to choose the public, private, charter, magnet, religious, or home school that is right for them.”

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has also been pointing to Denisha and Florida in the past two weeks as a way to promote school choice. “Florida is a good and growing example of what can happen when you have a robust array of choices,” DeVos told a conservative radio host on February 15. DeVos brought up the state’s school choice model again during her speech to the leaders of historically black colleges earlier this week.

So what is it about Florida? For starters, the state offers many different types of school choice, including charter schools, vouchers for low-income students and those with disabilities, and tax credit scholarships. Charter schools, found in 43 states and Washington, DC, represent the most common type of school choice. Vouchers are a little more complicated: They essentially operate like a state-issued coupon that parents can use to send their child to private or religious schools. The amount is typically what the state would use to send a kid to a public school. But vouchers are difficult to implement, because many state constitutions, like those in Michigan and Florida, have what are called Blaine Amendments, which prohibit spending public dollars on religious schools. And notably, only 31 percent of Americans support vouchers.

Tax credit scholarships provide a crafty mechanism to get around these obstacles. Tax credits are given to individuals and corporations that donate money to scholarship-granting institutions; if parents end up using those scholarships to send their kids to religious schools—and 79 percent of students in private schools are taught by institutions affiliated with churches—the government technically is not transferring taxpayer money directly to religious organizations.

While DeVos is best known as an advocate of vouchers, most veteran Beltway insiders told me that a federal voucher program is very unlikely. “Democrats don’t like vouchers. Republicans don’t like federal programs, and would rather leave major school reform decisions up to states and local communities,” Rick Hess, a veteran education policy expert with the conservative American Enterprise Institute said. “Realistically, nobody thinks they’ve got the votes to do a federal school choice law, especially in the Senate.”

This political reality is perhaps why Trump and DeVos are singling out Florida’s tax credit programs as a way to expand private schooling options. While Trump and DeVos have not specified what shape this policy might take at the federal level, most of these changes will come from the state legislators. Republicans have full control of the executive and legislative branches in 25 states, and control the governor’s house or the state legislature in 44 states. At least 14 states have already proposed bills in this legislative session that would expand some form of vouchers or tax credit scholarships, according to a Center for American Progress analysis. (And 17 states already provide some form of tax credit scholarships, according to EdChoice.)

This perfect storm for pushing through various voucher schemes comes at a time when the results on the outcomes of these programs “are the worst in the history of the field,” according to New America researcher Kevin Carey, who analyzed the results in a recent New York Times article. Until about two years ago, most studies on vouchers produced mixed results, with some showing slight increases in test scores or graduation rates for students using them. But the most recent research has not been good, according to Carey: A 2016 study, funded by the pro-voucher Walton Family Foundation and conducted by the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute, found that students who used vouchers in a large Ohio program “have fared worse academically compared to their closely matched peers attending public schools.”

Then there is the issue of state oversight and transparency. Many states, including Florida, have little to no jurisdiction over private schools and don’t make student achievement data public, save for attendance. A 2011 award-winning investigation by Gus Garcia-Roberts of the Miami New Times described the resulting system as a “cottage industry of fraud and chaos.” Schools could qualify to educate voucher and tax credit scholarship students even though they had no accreditation or curriculum. Some staffers in these schools were convicted criminals for drug dealing, kidnapping, and burglary. “In one school’s ‘business management’ class, students shook cans for coins on the streets,” Garcia-Roberts found.

Florida’s Department of Education investigated 38 schools suspected of fraud and in 25 cases, the allegations were substantiated. “It’s like a perverse science experiment, using disabled school kids as lab rats and funded by nine figures in taxpayer cash,” Garcia-Roberts wrote. “Dole out millions to anybody calling himself as educator. Don’t regulate curriculum or even visit campuses to see where the money is going.”

But these on-the-ground realities in Florida won’t tame the enthusiasm of a voucher booster like DeVos. As I showed in my recent investigation, her philanthropic giving shows an overwhelming preference for promoting private, Christian schools, and conservative, free-market think tanks that work to shrink the public sector in every sphere, including education. These past choices suggest that the data—or the fact that there are many stories like Denisha Merriweather’s in America’s public schools—doesn’t matter.

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The Next Step in the Trump-DeVos Plan to Send Taxpayer Money to Religious Schools

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Forget Immigration and Affirmative Action. Chief Justice Roberts Wants to Talk About Peat Moss.

by DeidreBarreto Posted on May 31, 2016

Mother Jones

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With a month left before its summer recess, the Supreme Court has yet to issue rulings on several landmark cases involving immigration, reproductive rights, and affirmative action. So on Monday morning, TV cameras were parked outside, and the courtroom was buzzing with anticipation when the justices convened to release orders and opinions.

Then Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. read an opinion about peat moss.

Reporters in attendance, at least one of whom had driven all the way from Charlottesville, Virginia, for the occasion, hoped at least for a decision in Fisher v. University of Texas, the long-awaited case involving race in college admissions that was argued back in December. Or perhaps an opinion in the state of Texas’ case challenging the Obama administration’s executive action on immigration, which would defer the deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants. Even a ruling in Puerto Rico’s bankruptcy case would have been more exciting than US Army Corps of Engineers v. Hawkes Co., a technical regulatory dispute involving peat moss and the Clean Water Act that was the subject of the first and only opinion of the day.

Reading from the bench, Roberts toyed with deflated reporters by jauntily discussing the benefits of peat, “an organic material that forms in waterlogged grounds, such as wetlands and bogs,” and its uses in gardening and golf. “It can also be used to provide structural support and moisture for smooth, stable greens that leave golfers with no one to blame but themselves for errant putts,” he continued. He ad libbed an observation about peat’s use in brewing whiskey, which was not in the published opinion.

But peat is not all golf balls and highballs, or the case wouldn’t have been at the high court. The Hawkes Co. wanted to harvest about 500 acres of peat moss from swampland in Minnesota for use in golf courses and landscaping. But the Army Corps told the company that the tract in question included wetlands, which it asserted were protected under the Clean Water Act. The Army Corps argued that its decision couldn’t be reviewed by the courts, but the company sued. The suit led Roberts to expound on the virtues of peat and ultimately to rule in the company’s favor by allowing the courts to oversee such wetlands determinations.

After Roberts cheerfully finished reading his opinion, he announced that there were no more decisions in the queue. Further opinions won’t come until next Monday.

While the unanimous Hawkes decision has the potential to weaken enforcement of the Clean Water Act, it isn’t among the court’s pending high-profile cases that could affect large numbers of people and tip the scales in the culture wars—the kinds of cases that make news. The cases that remain undecided are significant, and there are a lot of them. By one count, the court still needs to issue opinions in 24 cases argued this term. Right now there are only four days in June scheduled for the release of new decisions before the summer recess.

What explains the backlog? The court is not a transparent institution, so observers can only hypothesize. But the February death of Justice Antonin Scalia is no doubt a major factor. There’s been some speculation, for instance, that Scalia had been assigned to write the opinion in a case involving Puerto Rican self-governance. Puerto Rico v. Sanchez Valle remains the only case argued in January that hasn’t been decided. When Scalia died, the opinion in that case may have had to be reassigned to a different justice.

It’s possible that other half-written Scalia opinions, especially if they involved other contentious, potential 5-4 cases, are also in limbo or need to be retooled by other justices. As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said last week, eight “is not a good number for a multi-member court.”

Regardless of the reasons for the slowdown, if the justices want to get out of town before the Fourth of July weekend and partake in some of those peat-enhanced activities, they’re going to have to start cranking out a lot more decisions.

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Forget Immigration and Affirmative Action. Chief Justice Roberts Wants to Talk About Peat Moss.

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Friday Cat Blogging – 27 May 2016

by MadisonIliff Posted on May 27, 2016

Mother Jones

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I was going to link to Dave Roberts’ post about Donald Trump’s big energy speech yesterday, but then I couldn’t think of anything to say about it. Before I knew it, catblogging time had arrived. So you’re on your own. Click the link and draw your own conclusions.

Or just skip it and instead admire Hilbert and Hopper peering out from under the rocking chair. For the record, they write all their own speeches.

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Friday Cat Blogging – 27 May 2016

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Trump’s Political Advisers Wanted to Vet Him. He Said No.

by VGEWanda13153970 Posted on May 19, 2016

Mother Jones

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For most major presidential campaigns, it is a routine act: you conduct opposition research on your own candidate. The reason is obvious; campaign officials and candidates want to know what they might have to contend with once the you-know-what starts flying. But not Donald Trump. At least not at the start of the campaign that would lead to him becoming the presumptive GOP nominee. According to a source with direct knowledge, when Trump was considering entering the presidential race early last year, his political advisers, including Corey Lewandowski, who would become his campaign manager, suggested that Trump hire a professional to investigate his past. But the celebrity mogul said no and refused to pay for it.

Marital infidelity, connections to mob-related persons, bankruptcies, the hiring of undocumented workers, policy flip-flops, deals gone bad, legal troubles—Trump’s life is an opposition researcher’s dream. That was no secret to his political lieutenants, who prior to his announcement discussed the need to conduct a deep dive into the tycoon’s background. The point was to go beyond Googling and perusing the many books written on Trump—and mount a full forensic examination of everything Donald. Especially before anyone else did. (Trump’s aides had heard a rumor that wealthy conservative donors, perhaps including the Koch Brothers, were underwriting a private opposition research effort aimed at the former reality TV star.)

“Everyone does this,” says a former Mitt Romney aide. “I don’t know a campaign that didn’t. It’s a standard procedure.” Political research firms specialize in this sort of work. “It’s an off-the-shelf service they provide,” this aide notes. “For X dollars, you get a different level of digging. I’ve never known a campaign that didn’t do this. After all, you’re expected to know your own record. Any responsible campaign would do that.”

The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

One subject on the mind of Trump’s advisers was Jeffrey Epstein, the finance mogul who was arrested in 2006 and subsequently pled guilty to having solicited paid sex with a minor. He ultimately served 13 months in prison and had to register as a sex offender. (Several years ago, alleged Epstein victims filed a lawsuit against the US government claiming Epstein received too sweet a plea bargain.) Trump’s advisers didn’t know of anything in particular to worry about. But they knew that Trump had been linked to his fellow Palm Beach resident. In 2002, Trump had said of Epstein, “I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it—Jeffrey enjoys his social life.” Epstein had occasionally visited Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s estate and club down the road from Epstein’s mansion. Trump also had flown on Epstein’s plane and had dined at his house. And Virginia Roberts, an alleged Epstein victim who tried to join the civil lawsuit, maintaining that Epstein kept her as a sex slave for several years when she was a teenager, was working at Mar-a-Lago as a changing room assistant when she was recruited, at age 15, to be a masseuse for Epstein. (A judge recently denied Roberts’ bid to become a plaintiff in the case.)

Trump has downplayed his association with Epstein. But these connections would be enough to cause any senior campaign staffer to want a full examination. “This vetting process was not for the purpose of looking at Epstein specifically,” a Trump insider says. “It was to be an audit to see what could be found on anything.” (Conservatives have pointed to Bill Clinton’s friendship with Epstein—he often was a passenger on Epstein’s private plane—as possible ammunition to be used in the 2016 campaign against Hillary Clinton.)

Though Trump would not authorize an extensive research effort to identify what oppo might be most harmful to his candidacy, his campaign did prepare responses to obvious lines of attack against the billionaire. Mother Jones reviewed one campaign memo outlining possible replies to expected assaults, but most of these topics were policy and political matters already in the public realm. What about Trump’s 1999 proposal to raise taxes on the well-to-do? Trump merely had proposed a one-time fix designed to erase the national debt, a move that showed that Trump possessed the foresight to see that deficits would become a major problem. What about his past donations to Democrats? Trump was supporting incumbents of both parties as an act of civic participation, and since 2011 he has only contributed to Republicans. What about Trump manufacturing his clothing line in China? He had played no role in the decision to out-source, and China was picked because US regulation and red tape made it too expensive to manufacture goods in the United States. What about his failure to serve in the military? Trump had received student deferments, and as a graduate of a military academy he has been a strong proponent of the US military and veterans.

This memo covered numerous issues. What about the bankruptcies filed by his companies? Trump has never filed for personal bankruptcy. What about Trump’s previous support for universal healthcare? Trump has always called for a market-based system and has been an ardent opponent of Obamacare. What about Trump saying he has a plan to defeat ISIS but refusing to provide details? Trump does not want to tell ISIS in advance how he will defeat it; that would put US soldiers at risk. What about Trump’s support for the TARP bailout of the big banks? Trump believed TARP was necessary to stabilize the global financial system but came to conclude the program was poorly administered. What about Trump’s previous support for Jeb Bush, whom he once called the kind of political leader the United States needs? The Bush presidencies have been failures, Jeb Bush governed Florida as a typical politician who bowed to lobbyists and special interests, and it’s time to make America great again.

These were talking points designed to deal with the existing public record—not responses crafted to address new revelations. At the beginning of his presidential crusade, Trump would not allow his aides to prepare for that. The candidate, who now refuses to release his income taxes, did not want his own campaign scrutinizing his past. He was not willing to be transparent—not even for his own team.

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Trump’s Political Advisers Wanted to Vet Him. He Said No.

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A bill to block GMO labeling fails key Senate vote

by TodWarfield Posted on March 16, 2016

A bill to block GMO labeling fails key Senate vote

By on 16 Mar 2016commentsShare

A bill that would have stopped states from mandating labels for genetically engineered food failed a key vote on Wednesday morning. The measure would have quashed local laws, including one about to take effect in Vermont, that require food companies to label packages with genetically modified ingredients.

The Senate’s rejection of the current bill doesn’t mean its dead. Senators are likely to resume negotiations on the bill after they return from a two-week break and vote on it again. A similar bill has already passed in the House, so the Senate’s approval would put it a short step away from becoming law.

Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) sponsored the bill and got broad support from his party. But Republicans needed the help of farm-state Democrats who wound up voting against it. Earlier this month I predicted that Roberts would need to compromise with Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) to get this passed. Her vote is particularly important, because she has been able to pull in reluctant Democrats to vote on bipartisan agriculture bills. But Roberts never compromised: The bill sailed through committee and straight to a Senate vote without any horse trading. And on Tuesday, after meeting with organic industry leaders, Sen. Stabenow said she was against the bill as it stood. She wants something that will provide eaters with more information than they currently get, but that wouldn’t stigmatize GMOs.

Another bill championed by Oregon farmer Jeff Merkley calls for mandatory labeling. These two bills represent the initial offer and counter offer in the Senate. Now the bargaining will begin in earnest. Before the vote, Roberts sounded like someone playing the long game. “We are working both sides of the aisle very hard and, if we are not successful in getting 60 [votes] … we will have to come back after the [Easter] break and get something done,” Roberts said on Tuesday, according to Politico.

Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) proposed an amendment that could serve as a compromise and draw in those 60 votes. His amendment would give food manufacturers a chance to propose their own method of labeling. If companies failed to come up with a transparent method in three years, then labeling would become mandatory. That kind of middle ground might sway farm-state Democrats to vote for the bill without alienating Republicans who seem dead set against a mandatory-labeling law.

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A bill to block GMO labeling fails key Senate vote

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The 8 Best Lines From the Supreme Court Decision That Saved Obamacare

by LieseloSteffen Posted on June 25, 2015

Mother Jones

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The members of Congress may occasionally be sloppy boobs, but we must defer to them when their intent is clear. That’s the main message of the Supreme Court decision handed down this morning that protects Obamacare. The issue at hand was whether what was essentially a typo—a poorly worded sentence in the law—could be used to deny health care insurance subsidies to millions of Americans in states where the federal government (not the state government) set up an exchange in which consumers can purchase insurance. Writing for the majority in the 6-3 decision, Chief Justice John Roberts told the conservative plaintiffs who had tried to exploit a drafting error (which mentioned only exchanges created by states and not the federal government) to get out of town.

The majority opinion is mostly dry, with Roberts devoting much attention to justifying the court’s decision to consider the full intent of the law and not just the meaning of a few words in a single sentence. Here are some of the best passages:

1. When analyzing an agency’s interpretation of a statute, we often apply the two-step framework announced in Chevron, 467 U. S. 837. Under that framework, we ask whether the statute is ambiguous and, if so, whether the agency’s interpretation is reasonable. Id., at 842–843. This approach “is premised on the theory that a statute’s ambiguity constitutes an implicit delegation from Congress to the agency to fill in the statutory gaps.” FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 529 U. S. 120, 159 (2000). “In extraordinary cases, however, there may be reason to hesitate before concluding that Congress has intended such an implicit delegation.” Ibid.

This is one of those cases… If the statutory language is plain, we must enforce it according to its terms. Hardt v. Reliance Standard Life Ins. Co., 560 U. S. 242, 251 (2010). But oftentimes the “meaning—or ambiguity—of certain words or phrases may only become evident when placed in context.” Brown & Williamson, 529 U. S., at 132. So when deciding whether the language is plain, we must read the words “in their context and with a view to their place in the overall statutory scheme.” Id., at 133 (internal quotation marks omitted). Our duty, after all, is “to construe statutes, not isolated provisions.” Graham County Soil and Water Conservation Dist. v. United States ex rel. Wilson, 559 U. S. 280, 290 (2010).

2. If we give the phrase “the State that established the Exchange” its most natural meaning, there would be no “qualified individuals” on Federal Exchanges. But the Act clearly contemplates that there will be qualified individuals on every Exchange.

As we just mentioned, the Act requires all Exchanges to “make available qualified health plans to qualified individuals”—something an Exchange could not do if there were no such individuals. §18031(d)(2)(A). And the Act tells the Exchange, in deciding which health plans to offer, to consider “the interests of qualified individuals . . . in the State or States in which such Exchange operates”—again, something the Exchange could not do if qualified individuals did not exist. §18031(e)(1)(B). This problem arises repeatedly throughout the Act. See, e.g., §18031(b)(2) (allowing a State to create “one Exchange . . . for providing . . . services to both qualified individuals and qualified small employers,” rather than creating separate Exchanges for those two groups).

These provisions suggest that the Act may not always use the phrase “established by the State” in its most natural sense. Thus, the meaning of that phrase may not be as clear as it appears when read out of context.

3. The upshot of all this is that the phrase “an Exchange established by the State under 42 U. S. C. §18031” is properly viewed as ambiguous. The phrase may be limited in its reach to State Exchanges. But it is also possible that the phrase refers to all Exchanges—both State and Federal—at least for purposes of the tax credits.

4. The Affordable Care Act contains more than a few examples of inartful drafting.

5. Anyway, we “must do our best, bearing in mind the fundamental canon of statutory construction that the words of a statute must be read in their context and with a view to their place in the overall statutory scheme.” Utility Air Regulatory Group, 573 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 15) (internal quotation marks omitted). After reading Section 36B along with other related provisions in the Act, we cannot conclude that the phrase “an Exchange established by the State under Section 18031” is unambiguous.

6. Petitioners’ arguments about the plain meaning of Section 36B are strong. But while the meaning of the phrase “an Exchange established by the State under 42 U. S. C. §18031” may seem plain “when viewed in isolation,” such a reading turns out to be “untenable in light of the statute as a whole.” Department of Revenue of Ore. v. ACF Industries, Inc., 510 U. S. 332, 343 (1994). In this instance, the context and structure of the Act compel us to depart from what would otherwise be the most natural reading of the pertinent statutory phrase.

7. In a democracy, the power to make the law rests with those chosen by the people. Our role is more confined—”to say what the law is.” Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 177 (1803). That is easier in some cases than in others. But in every case we must respect the role of the Legislature, and take care not to undo what it has done. A fair reading of legislation demands a fair understanding of the legislative plan.

8. Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them. If at all possible, we must interpret the Act in a way that is consistent with the former, and avoids the latter. Section 36B can fairly be read consistent with what we see as Congress’s plan, and that is the reading we adopt.

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The 8 Best Lines From the Supreme Court Decision That Saved Obamacare

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Read the 7 Most Ridiculous Lines from Justice Antonin Scalia’s Obamacare Dissent

by LavonneGaines Posted on June 25, 2015

Mother Jones

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On Thursday morning, the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare’s insurance subsidies in a 6-3 decision penned by Chief Justice John Roberts. Legal experts had long dismissed the merits of the case, and it even turned out that the plaintiffs had questionable standing.

But to three of the court’s conservative justices, the court’s decision to side with the government is a sign not only that the court is full of partisan hacks, but also that words themselves hold no meaning.

In a blistering 21-page dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia accused John Roberts of abandoning his judicial independence to defend Obamacare at any and all costs. “Normal rules of interpretation seem always to yield to the overriding principle of the present Court: The Affordable Care Act must be saved,” Scalia writes.

Just how absurd is it, in Scalia’s mind, that the court upheld the subsidies? Here are his other prime quotes of indignation at the majority’s opinion:

“Words no longer have meaning if an Exchange that is not established by a State is ‘established by the State.'”
“The decision rewrites the law to make tax credits available everywhere. We should start calling this law SCOTUScare”.
“The Court holds that when the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act says ‘Exchange established by the State’ it means ‘Exchange established by the State or the Federal Government.’ That is of course quite absurd, and the Court’s 21 pages of explanation make it no less so.”
“You would think the answer would be obvious—so obvious there would hardly be a need for the Supreme Court to hear a case about it.”
“Impossible possibility, thy name is an opinion on the Affordable Care Act!”
“Today’s interpretation is not merely unnatural; it is unheard of.”
“The cases will publish forever the discouraging truth that the Supreme Court of the United States favors some laws over others, and is prepared to do whatever it takes to uphold and assist its favorites.”

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Read the 7 Most Ridiculous Lines from Justice Antonin Scalia’s Obamacare Dissent

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Read the 7 Most Ridiculous Lines from Justice Antonin Scalia’s Obamacare Dissent