Can We Trust the Supreme Court?

CLAY: Earlier today when the Supreme Court’s hearing their vaccine mandate, the three most left-wing members of the court — Justice Sotomayor, Justice Stephen Breyer, and Justice Elena Kagan, all of them — developed and shared totally false information about covid which makes me wonder: Why in the world do we think they’re going to reach a rational, intelligent decision when they can’t even get the basic facts of covid correct?

BUCK: How can you trust people who take almost unlimited power into their hands on the premise that they know what’s best and they’re correct? Not that they have better judgment, but they are right’ you are wrong. Then they are wrong, we all see it and they never even stop to say, “Wow, we missed that one just a little bit, maybe we should approach this with a lot more humility going forward.” That’s why you know you can’t trust Fauci, you can’t trust Biden, you can’t trust Walensky, go down the list, no humility and no accountability.

CLAY: Can we trust the Supreme Court?

BUCK: I don’t think so.

CLAY: I am cautious. I understand that perspective. I am cautiously optimistic that we will see a 6-3, essentially… They’re not going to allow the vaccine mandate to be put in place. And my hope is that by the time we get to the spring and summer, we’ll be in a different place where the argument for a vaccine mandate will be hard to justify.

BUCK: I don’t think… You’re thinking it’s going to be 5-4? I don’t think Roberts is gonna overturn the mandate. We’ll see.

CLAY: The challenge is the precedent that is being set if OSHA. Regardless of the pandemic precedent, the precedent that is being set is so incredibly expansive if OSHA is allowed to put this vaccine mandate in place, not just for OSHA and certainly not just for vaccines, but for the regulatory state in general. And one thing that I didn’t hear enough discussion about that I wanted to see is, Congress has spoken on this. The Senate said, “We do not support a national vaccine mandate.”

So they completely went head-to-head with Joe Biden’s authority and not only did they say that they reject it, they did it at a time when it’s almost impossible to get 51 votes for anything. Two Democrats joined with all of — I think, was it, yeah, two Democrats joined with — 52-48, I believe it was — all of the Republicans to shoot down the idea that Joe Biden had the authority to do this.

BUCK: We mentioned this in the first hour. We didn’t play it for everybody, I thought they should hear it and we should also bring it up with Shannon Bream in a few moments when she joins us, but here you have Sonia Sotomayor, who I just think… I don’t say this out of political ire or anything. I just think she’s not at the same level as a lawyer as the other members of the court. I just honestly don’t believe she’s at the same ability of legal analysis as the liberals and the conservatives on the rest of the court. But here she is making a comparison that got a fair amount of attention today.

SOTOMAYOR: So what’s the difference between this and telling employers — where sparks are flying in the workplace — your workers have to be — wear a mask?

NATIONAL FEDERATION FOR INDEPENDENT BUSINESS ATTORNEY SCOTT KELLER: When sparks are flying in the workplace, that’s presumably because there’s a machine that’s unique to that workplace. That is the —

SOTOMAYOR: Why is the human being not like a machine if it’s spewing a virus, bloodborne viruses?

BUCK: We’re all spewing viruses all the time.

CLAY: Constantly, all day long, every day.

BUCK: I think she probably doesn’t recognize that we live in environments where there are literally billions and billions of viral particles all around us, all the time. This also came up today in the discussions, in the oral arguments — they’re regulating something as though it’s unique to an office environment when it’s actually omnipresent in all aspects of life.

And the remedy to it is something that isn’t limited to just the office, right? A vaccine is in you and with you and part of your health profile. Once it’s in, it’s in, right? Once you got the shot. Putting on a mask so you don’t get sparks burning your eyeballs out, that is a limited-duration event that is specific to one thing that is clearly safety in the workplace, to your point about the expansiveness of this.

CLAY: No doubt, Buck, and what I wish we’d had more discussion of was — and Clarence Thomas kind of hinted at this — let’s talk about the fact that the vaccine doesn’t stop from you getting or spreading the virus. So if the vaccine stopped you like we initially were told back in February and March and April, “Hey, if you get this vaccine, you will never get covid, and you will never spread it,” that would be an interesting argument, to say nothing of the fact that OSHA has never mandated any vaccine for any illness before. But if that were the case, it would be an argument in favor of it. All this does is basically provide some cosmetic theater because you’re still able to spread and get the virus even after the — in quotation marks — “vaccination.”

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

CLAY: Buck, we’re talking about a lot surrounding the Supreme Court and whether they are willing to actually stand up to the Biden administration as it pertains to vaccine mandates. And certainly, having this case take place in the middle of Omicron and the surge impacts this a bit. But you said you don’t have faith in John Roberts to actually stand up and go toe-to-toe with the Biden administration. Do you have faith in the other five?

Because obviously in a nine-court Supreme Court, we know based on the questioning that Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan will effectively allow the Biden administration… You asked a good question: What is the limit to federal regulatory agency power. Based on the questions that they were asking, they would effectively allow anything for the executive branch to be able to do. Do you think the other five will stand strong and combat this mandate?

BUCK: You ever see those sumo suits that a people wear sometimes at carnivals and stuff, and they do like the wrestling with the giant suit on?

CLAY: Oh, yeah.

BUCK: I think want to know for the libs on the court, that would be probably prevent some injuries because you wouldn’t be able to bump into things the same way. So can you just mandate from the federal level that everybody has to wear them at all times in all offices? I just want to know. What are the outer limits that’s one part of it? As for your question, do I trust…? No.

I don’t think that Amy Coney Barrett believes in freedom enough that she will stand up to this machinery. Remember, they’re concerned about the legacy of themselves as individuals as well as the legitimacy of the court. And there’s a big part of the country that are a bunch of neurotic lunatics over covid still. They really think that if we don’t do everything that we’re being told by Fauci and Biden all the time it’s the equivalent of murder or something. They’re out of their minds.

CLAY: It does make me wonder to a large extent, how much different would America be if the Supreme Court were based on in Nashville or Atlanta or Orlando or Houston or Dallas? Because I think there is a neurotic fear and anxiety that exists on the East Coast and the West Coast that is not reflected in the middle part of the country.

BUCK: Chicago.

CLAY: Yeah. (chuckles) Everybody to some extent, though, Buck, is a product of the community in which they live, and I wonder how much… If you live in Montgomery County, Maryland, for instance, or you live in Washington, D.C., or you live in Northern Virginia, there is a fear that is so paramount about covid that I wonder how much it infects (and that, honestly, is probably the best way to describe it) the thought processes of the Supreme Court justices and how many are willing to stand up to the Biden. I think they’re going to strike this down — I really do — and I hope it’s 6-3.