The Supreme Court is a joke. This is not funny

On Thursday in their ruling halting the Biden administration’s plan to limit ozone pollution from reaching other states, the Supreme Court justices repeatedly accidentally referred to “nitrous oxide” — also known as laughing gas — instead of the chemicals actually at issue in the case. The opinion, written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, was posted online for several hours before the errors were corrected.

The next day, the Supreme Court struck down a fundamental principle of administrative law, “Chevron deference,” that had long authorized federal agencies to interpret and implement statutes—with the understanding that federal courts would defer to those agencies’ reasonable interpretations of ambiguous laws. Now judges will be able to fill any policy gaps left by Congress: They are true experts – the court ruled.

Taken together, these decisions are a perfect representation of the current Supreme Court: Our country is run by an all-powerful, undemocratic institution that is in many ways a complete joke — except for the fact that it is downright corrupt. As Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her dissenting opinion on Friday, “Majorities despise restraint and cling to power” — and justices are “making a mockery” of long-standing judicial principles.

Overall, Americans seem to realize that the court doesn’t just order and strike, as Chief Justice John Roberts once promised. A poll released Thursday by the Associated Press found that 70 percent of Americans believe Supreme Court justices are more likely to try to shape the law to suit their own ideologies, while only 28 percent expect the court to be fair and impartial. Even most Republicans, whose party controls the Supreme Court, believe the justices make decisions dictated by their ideology.

Many of the court’s rulings this term – and in recent years – have had a distinctly humorous nature.

The text contains five accidental references to laughing gas, nitrous oxide — instead of nitrogen oxides. Ohio v. Environmental Protection Agency a decision that will ultimately cause more people to breathe polluted air.

There was a court opinion invalidating his landmark Chevron decision — a key goal of the conservative legal movement in recent years, but not always; Conservative Justice Clarence Thomas had already authored an opinion in his defense before he changed his mind.

A decision has been made to allow Americans to re-add “stocks” to semi-automatic rifles to allow them to fire faster, with judges finding that the accessories are not covered by the long-standing federal ban on fully automatic weapons – a potentially deadly joke coming to a city or town near you.

In one of the court’s most discreet and scandalous decisions, judges ruled that a garbage collection company did not violate federal anti-bribery laws when it made a $13,000 payment. dollars to the mayor of Indiana who helped her obtain a government contract.

“Is a $100 Dunkin’ Donuts gift card to a garbage collector illegal?” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the court’s opinion. “What about a $200 Nike gift card to the county commissioner who voted to fund new school athletic facilities? Could students take their college professor to Chipotle for their end-of-semester celebration?”

To put it simply, these things are not the same – they would never be covered by the Corruption Act. As Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson noted in her dissenting opinion, the corruption statute “was not designed to apply to teachers receiving fruit baskets, football coaches receiving gift cards, or newspaper delivery drivers receiving tips on Christmas.”

The justices have not yet ruled on former President Donald Trump’s claim to broad, perpetual immunity from prosecution. The court’s decision to take the case delayed Trump’s federal election overturn trial, ensuring it likely won’t happen before the election; the justices have delayed ruling on the case so long that they extended the court’s term until July for the first time in several years.

The Supreme Court’s increasingly absurd antics and overtly ideological impulses are part of a broader pattern. In recent years, the court has used spurious cases to impose its ideological agenda on America.

Last year, the court issued a decision allowing companies to discriminate against LGBTQ customers in what was ultimately a hypothetical case. Apparently, none of those customers ever wanted to hire the web designer at the center of the case. Last year, the court invalidated President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan even though the student loan servicer at the center of the case faced no potential financial harm.

In a 2022 case, justices allowed public school officials to reinstate prayer in public schools, citing the case of a high school football coach who apparently did not want to return to work.

The Supreme Court, the highest court in the land, has become a laughing stock. Unfortunately, the joke is on us and it’s not funny at all.

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