Clear As Mud, Your Honor

Today's Supreme Court ruling recognizing corporations the right to spend unlimited funds on political campaigns.

From the Washington Post - Remember Roberts saying judges were like umpires calling the balls and strikes? In this case, he and his colleagues canceled the game altogether and decided on their own what the final score would be.

“I do think that it is a jolt to the legal system when you overrule a precedent,” Roberts said back then. “Precedent plays an important role in promoting stability and evenhandedness. It is not enough -- and the court has emphasized this on several occasions -- it is not enough that you may think the prior decision was wrongly decided. That really doesn’t answer the question, it just poses the question.”
He added: “And you do look at these other factors, like settled expectations, like the legitimacy of the court, like whether a particular precedent is workable or not, whether a precedent has been eroded by subsequent developments.” He also quoted Alexander Hamilton, who wrote in Federalist 78: “To avoid an arbitrary discretion in the judges, they need to be bound down by rules and precedents.”

Thanks a pantload, Justice Roberts! Do you think you could have bought us dinner before trying to screw us?