Faithful minion @Blacknsam reminded ‘Puter that he has not yet provided his thoughts on today’s rulings. ‘Puter retorted that he had in fact done a write up of the last week’s goings on at the United States Supreme Court, to which @Blacknsam replied “Nuh-uh, dipstick.”

It turns out @Blacknsam was correct. ‘Puter’d provided his writeup on the Facebooks thing and not on the intarwebs.  So, @Blacknsam, here’s ‘Puter’s thoughts, verbatim from this morning’s brain-dump on Facebooks.

DOMA: The majority reached the correct result using a federalism/states’ rights analysis and should have stopped there. Marriage is the province of the states to define, and if federal government is to usurp the states’ power through federal legislation, it must do so thoughtfully and narrowly to achieve a necessary end. Reaching the Fifth Amendment Equal Protection issue was unnecessary and will likely only inflame gay marriage opponents further. The majority, using polite legalese, basically called gay marriage opponents unenlightened bigots. Majority should have taken its win with dignity, regardless of what it thinks of gay marriage opponents.

Prop 8: This is a deeply conservative decision based solely on federal procedural issues, namely standing. Having read the opinion, I still need time to digest it. The court did not reach the question of whether California voters could amend its Constitution to ban gay marriage. If it had reached the question, my guess is that Kennedy and the four conservative justices would’ve upheld the right of California voters to do what gay marriage proponents find offensive. This is not a “win” for gay marriage, despite its effect. It’s basically a statement that the federal courts are not in the business of protecting Americans from their own legislative and electoral stupidity.

Voting Rights Act: Again, the court reached the correct answer and additionally decided only as few issues as necessary to reach its determination. The Court held election laws are uniquely the province of the states, and that the federal government can only invade such province for compelling reasons, and then only to the extent absolutely necessary. Sound familiar? It should. It’s the same reasoning used in the DOMA decision. For those disagreeing with the Court’s holding here, do you disagree with the Court’s holding in DOMA? Also, for those caterwauling that this is TEH MOSTEST RAYCISS DUHSIZHUN EVAH!!1!eleventy!!, please shut up. If you want to blame anyone, blame Congress. The Court in a decision issued four years ago telegraphed its intent to strike down Section 4(b) if Congress didn’t update it. Instead, Congress (run for a large chunk of this time exclusively by Democrats) chose to give us ObamaCare.

Affirmative Action: The Court reached the proper decision here for the proper reasons. Again, the Court decided as few issues as it needed to in order to reach a result. The Court reaffirmed that affirmative action admissions policies are subject to a strict scrutiny analysis (compelling reason, necessary to enact, no other non-discriminatory method suffices). The Court DID NOT reach the issue of the constitutionality of affirmative action (i.e., making decisions on the basis of race or racism), leaving it to the lower courts.

All in all, this session has shown the Roberts Court to be profoundly conservative in a good sense that both right and left should celebrate. None of these controversial decisions were legally overreaching. Each decided the issues on a very limited basis. Regardless of what one believes, all Americans should be pleased that we have a Court dedicated not to usurping Congress’ legislative function, oppressing/ignoring states’ rights and/or protecting voters from themselves.

'Puter

Always right, unless he isn’t, the infallible Ghettoputer F. X. Gormogons claims to be an in-law of the Volgi, although no one really believes this.

’Puter carefully follows economic and financial trends, legal affairs, and serves as the Gormogons’ financial and legal advisor. He successfully defended us against a lawsuit from a liquor distributor worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid deliveries of bootleg shandies.

The Geep has an IQ so high it is untestable and attempts to measure it have resulted in dangerously unstable results as well as injuries to researchers. Coincidentally, he publishes intelligence tests as a side gig.

His sarcasm is so highly developed it borders on the psychic, and he is often able to insult a person even before meeting them. ’Puter enjoys hunting small game with 000 slugs and punt guns, correcting homilies in real time at Mass, and undermining unions. ’Puter likes to wear a hockey mask and carry an axe into public campgrounds, where he bursts into people’s tents and screams. As you might expect, he has been shot several times but remains completely undeterred.

He assures us that his obsessive fawning over news stories involving women teachers sleeping with young students is not Freudian in any way, although he admits something similar once happened to him. Uniquely, ’Puter is unable to speak, read, or write Russian, but he is able to sing it fluently.

Geep joined the order in the mid-1980s. He arrived at the Castle door with dozens of steamer trunks and an inarticulate hissing creature of astonishingly low intelligence he calls “Sleestak.” Ghettoputer appears to make his wishes known to Sleestak, although no one is sure whether this is the result of complex sign language, expert body posture reading, or simply beating Sleestak with a rubber mallet.

‘Puter suggests the Czar suck it.