Well! The Supreme Court has spoken on Arizona's reprehensible immigration law — and, unlike Mitt Romney, we cats think we should say something about it.
First, allow us cats to state that Constitutional law was never our strong suit. We went into that college class all fired up and ready to go, and then found to our dismay that we were plunged into an eye-glazing, mind-numbing discussion of — gah— interstate commerce. Those first few weeks just ruined the whole course for us. We escaped, mercifully, with a grade of C.
But that was a hundred years ago, and we've lived many cat lives since.
Therefore, our first impression of the mixed message from SCOTUS today is an overarching one: That, no matter how heated these issues get in the political arena, their constitutionality is usually determined on the incredibly boring, Inside-Baseball principles of things like the aforementioned interstate commerce (healthcare reform, sometime this week) or separation of powers (immigration, today).
Which is why we cats find it intensely interesting that on immigration, by and large the Supreme Court came down on the side of the federal government. Sure, cops in Arizona can ask for somebody's papers if they get pulled over for speeding. But then what? We think, probably nothing — because SCOTUS gutted the rest of the law. But perhaps someone like Jeffrey Toobin can enlighten us further.
And what does this mean, if anything, for healthcare? Perhaps nothing. But, perhaps something. In other words, maybe the jackasses in the GOP who have been getting ready to spike the football on healthcare reform may want to reconsider their plans. (That is, if they're sane, reasonable people, which assuredly they are not.)
After all, if the right wingers on the Court weren't worried about Congress asserting its power over the states, why would Antonin Scalia have dissented so vigorously today?
P.S. The politics of all this, meanwhile, is a horse of a different color. More on that later.
UPDATE: The right-wing haters over at Free Republic are unhappy. We cats have barely begun to surf their comments, but we already love this one: "Un freaken believable! Like the fall of Rome, the will to defend our own boarders [sic] isn’t even there anymore. Sick!"
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