U.S. Supreme Court: Post-Ginsburg Edition

Have at it.

I nominate AOC

i nominate tom cotton, a good guy with a gun

get in here, goons

Can Trump nominate himself?

and continuing the SCOTUS term limit discussion, reposting the explainer
https://fixthecourt.com/2019/11/myth-facts-scotus-term-limits/

https://www.texastribune.org/2020/09/09/ted-cruz-supreme-court-donald-trump/

No idea if these proposed changes are ideal or if they could ever plausibly come to pass, but I like that they are being put out there. It's a good step to start getting people used to the idea of major changes to the court.

Bryant Johnson, Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s personal trainer, does push-ups as Justice Ginsburg lies in state in the U.S. Capitol.

Full video: https://t.co/vri1sJcUV6 pic.twitter.com/C11uVFeQlQ

— CSPAN (@cspan) September 25, 2020

He isn’t stupid so wtf is he thinking https://t.co/uyEcGDZRIy

— Doug Henwood (@DougHenwood) September 25, 2020

I'm very sorry but if the pushup video is real it's extremely funny

CNN reporting that it's Barrett:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/25/politics/donald-trump-amy-coney-barrett-supreme-court/index.html

South Bend is really knocking it out of the park this year.

Whoever Trump was going to pick was going to be a horror story, so I expect soon to be reading about the many horrors of Ms. Barrett, which no doubt will be many and hair-raising. Lindsey Graham will love her.

democrats will have grave concerns and strongly worded appeals to decency

democratic fundraising will go through the roof, blood will boil, the election will be won (eventually) by democrats. and at the end, it'll be a 6-3 conservative court for the forseeable future, and possible a 5-4 majority for another 20-30 years, unless the golden boy or gorsuch unexpectedly croak, which would be a tragedy

those are impressive lifespans you're projecting for thomas and alito imo

They get magic life drugs injected in their butts

haha, well it also builds in known unknowns, like republicans preserving a seat in a future GOP presidency. let's role play it

2020 (the present. you are in hell)
barrett is confirmed before election. fuck you liberals
6-3 conservative majority

roberts is 65
thomas is 72
alito is 70
gorsuch is 53
the golden boy is 55
barrett is 48

breyer is 82
sotomayor is 66
kagan is 60

2021 (biden is elected. you are in tartarus)
biden wins. breyer tags out for a younger replacement. i will create SC justice names using this thread Fighting Baseball for Super Famicom: A League of Fake Americans POLL
6-3 conservative majority

roberts is 66
thomas is 73
alito is 71
gorsuch is 54
the golden boy is 56
barrett is 49

sotomayor is 67
kagan is 61
willie dustice is 50

EVENT
2024 election. The democrat has a 70% chance of victory (same as clinton v trump), due to me running this simulation. RNG: no joke, i rolled a random number from 1 to 10, with 1-7 being democratic victory and 8-10 being republican, and i rolled an 8. REPUBLICANS WIN

2025 (tom cotton is the president of the united states. you have killed 2 people now and haven't talked in weeks.)
tom cotton casts Executive Righteousness on thomas, 77 years old, who is replaced by Sleve McDichael
6-3 conservative majority

roberts is 70
alito is 75
the golden boy is 60
barrett is 53
sleve mcdichael is 50

sotomayor is 71
kagan is 65
gorsuch is 58
willie dustice is 54

EVENT
World War III, totally started by tom cotton. 2028 election. The democrat has a 80% chance of victory, due to me running this simulation. RNG: 3, democratic victory

2029 (first influencers on mars)
AOC is the president of the united states of america, fuck yeah. sotomayor, the second oldest justice at 75, taps out. bobsun dugnutt is the new junior united states supreme court justice.
6-3 conservative majority

roberts is 74
alito is 79
gorsuch is 62
the golden boy is 64
barrett is 57
sleve mcdichael is 54

kagan is 69
willie dustice is 58
bobsun dognutt is 50

EVENT
in 2031, the golden boy brett kavanaugh, just 66 years old, FUCKING DIES OUT OF NOWHERE and it's REALLY EMBARRASSING FOR HIM

2031 (VR sex surpasses videogames in revenue generation)
brett kavanaugh fucking dies out of nowhere, best thing that's happened in a generation. president AOC appoints a justice so left-leaning that she's impeached by sergeant ivanka trump, leader of the paramilitary republican subcommittee known as Gold Team. Onson Sweemey, the first justice with a normal name in 11 years, takes the golden boy's spot and shifts the balance toward a near-balance.

5-4 conservative majority

roberts is 76
alito is 81
gorsuch is 64
barrett is 59
sleve mcdichael is 56

kagan is 71
willie dustice is 60
bobsun dognutt is 52
onson sweemey is 50

EVENT
2032 Election. there's no more random numbers, it's just me making it up. the democrats win again. AOC is on the wheaties box.

then, near the end of her second term, the unspeakable happens. Samuel Alito, at the age of 85, just fucking dies out of nowhere.
2035
some observers expect the krang-like brain of mitch mcconnell to somehow delay a democratic confirmation in his spot, but AOC casts total victory and again appoints an extremely-left greatest of time justice named Todd Bonzalez.
5-4 liberal majority

roberts is 80
gorsuch is 68
barrett is 63
sleve mcdichael is 60

kagan is 75
willie dustice is 64
bobsun dognutt is 56
onson sweemey is 54
todd bonzalez is 50

EVENT
2036 Election. it's been 8 years of supreme relaxation and greatness. even gum is genuinely _better_. everything's great. something has to change, so somehow it's time for PRESIDENT CHARLIE KIRK

2037
under PRESIDENT CHARLIE KIRK, roberts immediately resigns. the new chief justice of the united states is SCOTT DOURQUE, 50 years old, catholic conservative
5-4 liberal majority

chief justice scott dourque, 50
gorsuch is 70
barrett is 65
sleve mcdichael is 62

kagan is 77
willie dustice is 66
bobsun dognutt is 58
onson sweemey is 56
todd bonzalez is 52

I actually think that’s not a terrible way of gaming things out. The arc of the moral universe is long. We fight the fights that we have today, and we train our young folks. Good post KM.

DOGNUTT

https://res.cloudinary.com/teepublic/image/private/s--QTcxwhPT--/t_Preview/b_rgb:ffffff,c_limit,f_jpg,h_630,q_90,w_630/v1495739359/production/designs/1624926_1.jpg

in 2031, the golden boy brett kavanaugh, just 66 years old, FUCKING DIES OUT OF NOWHERE and it's REALLY EMBARRASSING FOR HIM

whoa how did he die?!

Shot by one of Dick Cheney's grandkids

Karl, that was perfect (ly horrifying).

Shot by one of Dick Cheney's grandkids

― LaRusso Auto (Neanderthal), Friday, September 25, 2020 6:49 PM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

At a UB40 reunion concert

in 2031, the golden boy brett kavanaugh, just 66 years old, FUCKING DIES OUT OF NOWHERE and it's REALLY EMBARRASSING FOR HIM

whoa how did he die?!

he dies of doing a kegstand in the kitchen of amy klobuchar's wake

karl this is some excellent scenario running and first rate use of the Fighting Baseball thread and i applaud it

i have a rejoinder percolating but it may take a while to get around to crunching the hard numbers so i just wanted to say that for now

_in 2031, the golden boy brett kavanaugh, just 66 years old, FUCKING DIES OUT OF NOWHERE and it's REALLY EMBARRASSING FOR HIM_

whoa how did he die?!

xp thanks doctor c! your questioning of that was really valid, and i don't think my answer is any sort of proof of anything. i got lazy and didn't project it out to 2045 (my original goal), but even though i ended with a slim 5-4 liberal majority by 2037, i don't think it takes much to keep it at a 5-4 conservative majority either. then again, maybe the republicans will truly never win again (lol) and it will be 6-3 liberal by 2040, who knows

So we get 40 some years of this...from an article Barrett co-wrote as quoted by SCOTUS blog

The article also noted that, when the late Justice William Brennan was asked about potential conflict between his Catholic faith and his duties as a justice, he responded that he would be governed by “the oath I took to support the Constitution and laws of the United States”; Barrett and Garvey observed that they did not “defend this position as the proper response for a Catholic judge to take with respect to abortion or the death penalty.”

https://www.scotusblog.com/2018/07/potential-nominee-profile-amy-coney-barrett/

Can't wait for her book, "Jesus is the Speaker of MY House"

@ Karl - okay! you've already gotten there, but yeah basically my rejoinder would be that you didn't actually end up showing "a 6-3 conservative court for the forseeable future, and possible a 5-4 majority for another 20-30 years." but the scenario was worth it anyway. a quibble: you don't game out the Senate, which i respect because that would be even more absurd fanfic work, but it's worth allowing at least dice-roll possibilities that the Dems control the Senate during your Republican admins, AND that they stand firm against prematurely ghoulish ideologues like Sleve McDichael, whose pasty-faced appearance and hot-mic comments during the nominations process turn the public against him. i would not put money on that chance myself, but it's at least possible.

also though, a fair bit hinges on that first d10 roll and some choices about the EVENTS - suppose Biden rolls a 6 in 2024, and is re-elected to a foggy but popular second term, his "Reagan in the late 80s" zone, AND ALSO that during that term, Thomas has a health scare and decides to retire. i don't know that the odds are so heavily stacked against something like that.

obviously in that event, Biden's replacement pick would be the mushy, not-all-that liberal Rey McSriff (48), a former bank-industry lobbyist, seen as a move back in the direction of racial and gender diversity on the court who will at least be a reliable liberal vote in civil-rights and abortion cases.

so in january 2029, we've got:

roberts is 74
alito is 79
gorsuch is 62
the golden boy is 64
barrett is 57

kagan is 69
willie dustice is 58
bobsun dognutt is 50
rey mcsriff is 50

eight years of the biden administration have left many festering wounds unaddressed, but thankfully the republican "gold team" have been mostly braying in the margins without control of either congress or the executive to formally empower them. on the other hand, in the absence of the Cotton presidency, World War III has not happened, but let's say AOC wins in 2028 anyway. why not?!

thus, following B.K.'s horrible death in 2031, AOC's super left-wing appointee is able to remain in office. you didn't name them but it's pretty obvious you had Shown Furcotte in mind. maybe kagan is worried enough about the next election, and spooked by what is by then a Sunday-morning-show conventional wisdom about "the Tragedy of Ginsburg," that she retires too. by this point AOC is not fucking around at all and appoints millennial twitter SJW Raul Chamgerlain, 44. if AOC goes on to win a second term and also grabs the Alito seat, then in 2035 we have:

roberts is 80
gorsuch is 68
barrett is 63

raul chamgerlain is 49
willie dustice is 64
bobsun dognutt is 56
rey mcscriff is 56
shown furcotte is 53
todd bonzalez is 50

... and our biggest problem is that sometimes McSriff aligns with the conservatives to dissent in 5-4 corporate-law decisions, and we see a lot of online left grousing about how Biden wasted a pick on her.

now yes, i admit........... this depends on the democrats winning four straight national elections. IMPOSSIBLE you say? or merely... improbable???! depends how much faith you put in changing demographics etc. but if none of the Dem-appointed justices die in office, they can also afford to lose one of those elections! because it might be that the Republicans can only replace Thomas or Alito with McDichael or Dorque, giving them an edge in age but not a leg up in the balance of the court.

todd bonzalez makes history as the first male latino justice

is there a relevant quote linking Barrett's sect to The Handmaid's Tale?

there must be. ominous lord, truth is stranger than fiction

xp

doc casino, first of all, obviously i had Shown Furcotte in mind. but secondly, the rest of your scenario seems plausible!

obviously gaming it out like that is a goof, but i did actually learn a few things. or maybe not. i feel like just laying out their ages, combined with the fact that they have lifetime appointments, explains 99% of the game:

christmas near-future:

roberts is 65
thomas is 72
alito is 70
gorsuch is 53
the golden boy is 55
barrett is 48

breyer is 82
sotomayor is 66
kagan is 60

that there is a stacked deck, combined with republican weakness (in terms of what we might expect, possibly overoptimistically, from their presidential chances for the next few decades after elevating a white supremacist fascist to the presidency and then ripping the country to shreds in an attempt to keep him there). even with a couple 2-term democratic administrations in a row, through 2036, there is still a decent chance that at least 5 or even all 6 of the conservative majority stays right where they are, their ass-molds worn deep

in unrelated news, just before i fell asleep face down on the couch last night, i ran across a disturbing headline about increasing the maximum human lifespans beyond its current soft limit of 125. apparently the consensus is that it will soon (10 years?) be possible to extend human lifespans using genetic modifiers, physical devices, and secret codes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_extension jfc

agreed, it's a useful exercise to grasp exactly how much the age advantage of the GWB and DJT appointees presses on into the future. but also, focusing too much on that just takes us into a zone of gloom, so unless it's directly useful for motivating present-day action and the long-term fight, i think it's also useful to bear in mind all the ways that the scenario could suddenly break down. nobody saw Scalia's death coming, for example, even though he was 79. that ended up working out horribly for the cause of justice and freedom, but it could have gone differently. so long as our rights are subject to these bizarre matters of fate and circumstance, we may as well remind ourselves that there are ways the probabilistic parts could break our way.

and the stacked deck there does look better the moment Biden can replace Breyer, which i think we all do need to be praying for (or whatever equivalent practice).

and... all these scenarios also presume a successful barrett confirmation. tbh, i'm pretty doom-and-gloom about that, seems like there's no reason to think it won't happen. but it's still probably not good for my head to already accept her as a solid number until 2049 or w/e. like if i'm driving myself crazy with all the bad things that have already happened, and the ones that could probably happen, and the ones that are near-certainties, that's a lot to do to my head, if i'm not also considering the good equivalents of all of those things.

there's also some non-zero chance that, in the event that a Democrat wins the presidential race four times in a row and this permanent 5-4 Court keeps shutting down every exciting thing the people are turning out to vote for, then a mandate for court-packing develops much much more quickly than we might expect right now.

so long as our rights are subject to these bizarre matters of fate and circumstance, we may as well remind ourselves that there are ways the probabilistic parts could break our way.

otm

i know that's not a convincing or comforting thought for everyone, but to me that really is what gives me hope

NEW: Senate Democrats say they will press President Trump’s SCOTUS nominee to commit to recuse herself if the justices hear a case that could impact the outcome of the fall elections, @mkraju reports.

— Ana Cabrera (@AnaCabrera) September 25, 2020

That seems a little dumb

I mean it makes sense but they'd still have a 5-3 advantage anyway

"Will you commit to not doing the exact thing you were hired for" is a dumb question

and... all these scenarios also presume a successful barrett confirmation. tbh, i'm pretty doom-and-gloom about that, seems like there's no reason to think it won't happen

i will continue to return to my dumb "we simulate the future and then experience it in real time, somehow diminished, as something that was already familiar" theory, until someone or something convinces me that it's not accurate. in that line of thinking, you can already see the barrett confirmation and how it happens. i already saw a headline, last night, talking about how barrett was confirmed in October. i looked at the calendar and it was september 25th, then re-read the headline and it still said that she was confirmed in October, past tense. i can't remember where i saw it, and i had a socially distanced hangout with a friend last night and got way too drunk. but still, it was there all the same.

that was just a drunken horror, but i woke up today and it's still there. the republicans have the votes. 2 have been allowed to deviate (murkowski and collins), which just so happens to allow exactly enough remaining republicans to unilaterally install barrett. what a coincidence. this outcome has already been focus-grouped on a national scale - it turns out that most republicans think it's a great idea, most democrats think it's a bad idea, and the majority of "independents" think it's a bad idea. it sounds like most ideas these days. so they'll do it, because they can.

we're currently simulating the outraged response, right now. at least, i am. and then, when it happens, it won't be the first time.

---

^i think all of that is a very bad way to go about thinking about life, believe it or not. but that's what i see happening over and over, lately.

xpost they're not asking her to not be a justice, they're saying 'Hey, you were literally just nominated by one of the President candidates in this election 5 minutes before the election, maybe it's a conflict of interest for you ruling on a case challenging his results".

But this is the primary reason they are in such a rush. If she can't guarantee to hand over the election, it's pointless for Trump. Surely he already told her she needs to deliver that vote, or there would be a different pick.

lol of course it's not going to actually happen but would you rather the Democrats not try it first so that they can frame it as "Justice Coney Barrett refused to recuse, she and Trump win, while Americans lose!"

I mean, compared to other things they should be trying, this is VERY low on my list of importance and I wouldn't want it to take the place of promising to pack the fuck out of courts, but we're kinda fucked unless someone has a McCain surprise during the vote.

@ Moodles - isn't the primary reason McConnell & co. are in such a rush that Trump has a good chance of not being President in 3.5 months? and they want to grab another Supreme Court seat for all the reasons you would expect them to want that? potentially covering his ass in a stolen election would just be the cherry on top.

Trump and McConnell have different motivations, but this is Trump's pick, not McConnell's

technically, but which one of the two is able to exert the most control over 51 republican votes?

(amy barrett, but pure coincidence, happened to be exactly who mcconnell was pushing for)

trump, on the other hand, has the federalist society publish a list for him so that he can make his fantasy list of 25 candidates (which included tom cotton and ted cruz) seem more legit. i'm sure they arranged it in a way so that trump felt that was the crucial decisionmaker who made the tough call, but there are probably a dozen other people that had more to do with this pick than trump

Lucky for them there are so many justices out there willing to both undermine the integrity of a major election and nuke Roe v Wade. Funny how those interests conveniently line up.

xp

I think you are sort of right to extent. Trump is obviously not hand picking justices based on some deep judicial reasoning. But rest assured, he's asking any potential justice one question and one question only, and if they don't give the correct answer, they aren't going in front of the Senate.

by the time it gets to trump, it's like "oh great leader, we just simply can't decide between the bounty of perfect candidates on your list! you are so impressive, you know much more about their judicial record than ANY other person we have ever met! please, decide for us with your strength and genius! we have OPTION 1) Amy Barrett, OPTION 2) Barbara Lagoa, or OPTION 3) Michelle Obama. and also many people are saying barack obama favors Lagoa over his own wife! george bush also prefers Lagoa. Please decide for us with your wisdom and intuition!"

haha, sorry. i am in an extremely goofy mood this morning. i think they'd actually do a version of ^^ in the earlier stages, before whittling it down to a set of "options" where he actually can't mess it up

Perhaps rather than asking "will you recuse yourself?" they should be asking "did the president request you rule in his favor if the election is contested?"

xp

Certainly possible

This goes to a larger pet peeve about these confirmation hearings, which is that there are always questions about how someone might rule in this or that case, and the answer is always that they can't speculate about a hypothetical situation. It's a meaningless line of inquiry designed as a gotcha that no one actually cares about.

The whole notion that these are not political picks driven by an obvious agenda is so out of date and ridiculous, it would be better to drop the pretense.

Yes how can we expect lawyers and judges to speculate about hypotheticals

The point is, they don't. It doesn't matter what we expect. We've seen this game play out over and over, so expecting it to change is folly.

If you are expecting any of this to operate under a set of unwritten norms that were trashed years ago, you are being played.

my homie is seriously sharing this op ed and trying to accept Amy w an open mind and open heart so I guess he’s just a Sorkin Republican now jfc

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/09/26/ive-known-amy-coney-barrett-15-years-liberals-have-nothing-fear/

lol

also by "O. Carter Snead" a name designed to make me want to punch the person
https://www.hoover.org/research/planned-parenthoods-hostages

There is nothing to fear about Barrett’s intellect. She has an incandescent mind that has won the admiration of colleagues across the ideological spectrum.

getting Rich Lowry flashbacks

Sooooo fucking tired of SCOTUS nominees called "brilliant" as if what they do requires anything other than keeping the clerks happy as they cobble your opinion together.

I for one was worried that she was actually illiterate.

The GOP has been functionally illiterate since 1981.

Those concerns assuaged, I look forward to strapping on my legally mandated cilice every morning to get me ready to face the day.

time to invest in chastity belt manufacturers

i think i saw incandescent mind open for gene loves jezebel in '87

time to invest in chastity belt manufacturers

Clasping hands meme with BDSM nerds and Opus Dei

Xpost
Moodles, I wasn’t disagreeing with you

Whatever hearing we get out of this will be pointless

Here's the only likely way she doesn't get confirmed before Election Day:

https://i.imgur.com/HzAVTWk.png

The Hill reports:

The Senate Judiciary Committee will start a four-day hearing for President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee on Oct. 12, two people familiar with the schedule confirmed to The Hill.

Though other nominees have been confirmed in fewer days, they were further away from the presidential election. Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is expected to announce the committee’s schedule later Saturday.

Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, Trump’s first two Supreme Court nominees, both had nearly two months between their formal nominations and the start of their hearings. Under the schedule set by Graham, Amy Coney Barrett will have little more than two weeks.

telling myself O. Carter Snead is a (well, another) Virgil Texas pseudonym.

Snead also wrote this piece of garbage. Fuck them and anybody falling for this ruse of a piece.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/planned-parenthood-will-forgo-payment-for-fetal-tissue-so-now-its-ok-because-its-free

Almost as if perhaps they're just hoping gullible, tired liberals will let their guard down so they can get their way on abortion

Democracy dies in darkness IIRC

oh no

🚨 LIMITED EDITION: Show your support for Pres. Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Amy Coney Barrett, with your very own Notorious A.C.B. t-shirt! Claim yours here ⬇️https://t.co/qi1eWqTz17

— The Senate Majority (@NRSC) September 26, 2020

Great, offensive on two levels and counting

Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who doesn't support taking up a SCOTUS nomination, now says she'll meet with Amy Coney Barrett https://t.co/jSviJQC8u9 pic.twitter.com/Mo443lGUaP

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) September 26, 2020

BREAKING: Contrary to theories advanced by certain credulous journalists, Lisa Murkowski is, in fact, a member of the Republican Party.

A.C.(a).B.

Isn't Question 2b for appointees "Will you invalidate the ACA?"

"do you pledge to merely dismantle the ACA, or will you pledge to completely obliterate it along with any cultural memory of its existence? and i just hope democrats and the lying media don't make a spectacle out of these serious proceedings"

"Judge Barrett, will you invalidate the ACA?"

She'll just look serious and intone that every case is different, so if such a case is argued before the court, she will read all the briefs, consider all the arguments and arrive at the decision that seems to her most in alignment with the US Constitution and established precedent. If she even says that much.

"Judge Barrett, do you believe that God's law is higher than human laws? And is God's law contained in the christian Bible?"

At least this line of questioning will require her to get off autopilot.

According to this article they won’t ask anything tough:

Senate Democrats say they want to avoid a replay of the bitter fighting that characterized Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh's 2018 Senate confirmation hearings, which centrist former Sens. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) thought cost them their reelection bids that year.

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/518669-senate-democrats-want-to-avoid-kavanaugh-20

So no questions re why she always rules for corporations over workers

Her highest-profile business-focused actions on the federal bench have limited the enforcement of age-discrimination laws, restricted federal agencies power to punish companies that mislead consumers and reduced consumers’ rights against predatory debt collectors, according to a recent report from the Alliance for Justice.

[/i]Barrett’s August ruling in the overtime case is particularly significant: It comes as technology companies have been trying to use mandatory arbitration clauses to avoid better remunerating so-called gig workers. Those provisions often force worker disputes to be decided by private arbitrators hand-picked by the companies, rather than in an impartial court of law. [/i]

Dave Sirota website
https://www.dailyposter.com/p/barrett-crushed-gig-workers-weeks

So no questions re why she always rules for corporations over workers

Her highest-profile business-focused actions on the federal bench have limited the enforcement of age-discrimination laws, restricted federal agencies power to punish companies that mislead consumers and reduced consumers’ rights against predatory debt collectors, according to a recent report from the Alliance for Justice.

[/i]Barrett’s August ruling in the overtime case is particularly significant: It comes as technology companies have been trying to use mandatory arbitration clauses to avoid better remunerating so-called gig workers. Those provisions often force worker disputes to be decided by private arbitrators hand-picked by the companies, rather than in an impartial court of law. [/i]

Dave Sirota website
https://www.dailyposter.com/p/barrett-crushed-gig-workers-weeks

I think senate dems would probably be more inclined to attack her rulings if they actually disagreed with them

Invalidating the ACA would at least accelerate the Single Payer debate America should’ve had 70 years ago like the rest of the industrialized world. The West Coast and New York will pass their own versions of it and then wait decades for the rest of the country to catch up

So is this 2006 open letter about Roe vs. Wade worth anything? My guess is NO.

are you surprised

The West Coast and New York will pass their own versions of it and then wait decades for the rest of the country to catch up

I have bad news for you about California's actual politics...

YO, EVERYONE. milo z has bad news for us about American politics.

not holding my breath

Neither is trump apparently

Here's the only likely way she doesn't get confirmed before Election Day:

https://i.imgur.com/HzAVTWk.png

― pplains, Saturday, September 26, 2020 5:07 PM

There's two out of seven. Shaking the monkey paw for two or three more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_Q79lls1f0

Don't you know you have to ... shake the monkey.

Up to THREE out of seven! Plus a bonus one not even at the event!

https://i.imgur.com/I4MRx6S.gif

I saw Ron Johnson. Who's the 3rd Judiciary Committee member besides Lee and Tillis?

Whoops, counted Tillis twice. There's getting to be so many, it's hard to keep track!

McConnell preparing to argue that cardboard likenesses of Senators with walkie talkies attached count towards a quorum

leaked footage depicting mitch's practice run
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8oUIqrOsHs

No Senator who is ill will be allowed to vote. https://t.co/nsvx0Rux5A

— Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) October 3, 2020

I’m betting this going to come down to one vote and Collins will switch over to vote to confirm ACB because the Democrats are being too divisive

In the face of Amy Barrett's nomination to fill Ruth Ginsberg's seat, one has only to recall that the seat vacated by Thurgood Marshall was filled by Clarence Thomas to realize that the Federalist Society are expert trolls.

I’m betting this going to come down to one vote and Collins will switch over to vote to confirm ACB because the Democrats are being too divisive

Yep -- quite possible she changes her vote as needed.

who’s Joy pic.twitter.com/uSpap5qX3O

— Alexandra Petri (@petridishes) October 5, 2020

these people are so intensely creepy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8BaN2xlk00

I'd wish death on Clarence Thomas, but it would mean another Federalist society replacement:

Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito said Monday that Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court case that mandated all states recognize same-sex marriages, is "found nowhere in the text" of the Constitution and threatens "the religious liberty of the many Americans who believe that marriage is a sacred institution between one man and one woman."

The statement was written by Thomas and joined by Alito about the case of Kim Davis, a former Kentucky county clerk who said she would not give same-sex couples marriage licenses. The two justices said they agreed with the consensus of the court that it should not take Davis' case, but only because it did not "cleanly present" the "important questions about the scope of our decision in Obergefell."

*****

Thomas said Obergefell forced Davis to choose "between her religious beliefs and her job. When she chose to follow her faith, and without any statutory protection of her religious beliefs, she was sued almost immediately for violating the constitutional rights of same-sex couples."

“follow her faith” doing all the heavy lifting in that graf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95gP3m-uBHA

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/amy-coney-barrett-people-of-praise/2020/10/06/5f497d8c-0781-11eb-859b-f9c27abe638d_story.html

More details on Coney Barrett--

In 2010, Barrett was one of three handmaids in the South Bend branch’s northwest area, according to the directory obtained by The Post. She and 10 other area handmaids were overseen by the branch’s principal handmaid.

Barrett’s position was in keeping with her family’s prior service in the community. Her mother, Linda Coney, served in the New Orleans branch as a handmaid, the Associated Press previously reported, and her father, Michael Coney, led that branch as principal coordinator and sat on the national group’s all-male board of governors.

...

the group replaced the title of handmaids with “women leaders” in 2017.

Connolly said in a 2018 statement that the title was dropped out of a recognition that its meaning had “shifted dramatically in our culture in recent years.” The phrase took on a particular meaning in popular culture after Margaret Atwood’s dystopian 1985 novel “The Handmaid’s Tale” was adapted for television in 2017. Atwood said in a tweet last month that she was inspired by “a different but similar” group.

the thing no one is supposed to say is, barrett's beliefs and background aren't different from mainstream christian beliefs. the man is the head of the head of the household; women are to defer to men. she's a good pick because if you criticize her on these grounds, you're also against pence and any one of millions of fucked up christians, many of which are your boss or friends. we're all supposed to ignore the bible verses that explicitly advise this kind of thinking

i dreamed that i woke up and before checking my phone somehow was aware that trump, hepped up on goofballs and in a fit of pique, had tweeted out a withdrawal of her nomination. not true sadly :(

karl otm

is anyone else watching the hearings?

kennedy apologizes to barrett on behalf of the people who called her a racist (? i didn't know about this yet), and says that being called a racist is "one of the worst things you can call someone", says it must have been really hard for barrett.

also says that the kavanaugh hearings were a FREAK SHOW!!!!! (emphasis very much kennedy's) that looked like the cantina scene from star wars.

Kennedy is every Looney Tunes cartoon about the Solid South in one gibbering Crisco-fried package.

Sheldon Whitehouse is killing it, laying out how the John Roberts and the Furious Five has dismantled democracy.

but republicans don't care about democracy as an ideal or as a goal. on the whole they seem to despise it.

well yeah

"we're a republic, not a demo-CRAZY amirite" - republicans

even amy klobuchar made an aside today about how she wishes she were a queen, sometimes, because she would be "benevolent" and it would be "easier to get things done"

but she has no problems hurling pencil sharpeners at her slaves staff.

Senator Susan Collins says she will vote against Judge Amy Coney-Barrett being elected to the Supreme Court.

“It’s not a comment on her,” Collins said. “It is a comment on the process of rushing through a nomination in such a short time before a presidential election.”

Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski also said she will be a no vote for the same reason.

Mindy Moderate must have looked at terrifying internal polls.

does that knock this to 50 votes or is this all just pointless posturing?

Romney must be on his prayer mat in the cloakroom.

Two more Republicans would have to vote no beyond Collins and Murkowski, until that happens their votes are pure theater

(and that's assuming that fuckwit Manchin isn't a yes vote)

Doubt it. ACA's too important in West Virginia.

nothing new in this statement but even more than the upcoming election (though that may well change shortly), the apparently unstoppable push to install coney barrett as an agent of retroactivity has been so tremendously depressing that I've worked to tune out daily political conversation.

I read that as agent of radioactivity, and ... that, too.

My favourite video so far.

Under questioning by Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE), Amy Coney Barrett is unable to name the five freedoms protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. pic.twitter.com/U3KFm5FA97

— The American Independent (@AmerIndependent) October 14, 2020

He's flirting with her.

Big 👍

the majority of US Senators are in active opposition to democracy. why should a supreme court justice be a pro at the 1st amendment? being incompetent is not enough these days. it's enough to idly stand by as the republic falls apart. one must take hold of it and bring it down with greater speed. i believe in you amy barrett

otm

the majority of US Senators are in active opposition to democracy

Except for a brief spell in the mid 1950s to the late '60s, so has SCOTUS.

I mentally filled in the missing "not" in KM's antepenultimate sentence.

Showing my hand as a you-know-what even being familiar with the, um, penultimate word in my sentence.

lol

yeah, i missed the "not" in there, whoops! but thank you for putting it back in there

I swear to god I wish people would stop with the "let the people decide" argument. it fucking sucked when it was used on merrick garland and it still sucks. the reason barrett shouldn't be appointed is that she's an unqualified fundamentalist who has indicated destructive court decisions that will last for decades or centuries, not because of "reasoning" pulled out of the collective republican ass because they didn't want barack obama to get his way.

she's an unqualified fundamentalist who has indicated destructive court decisions that will last for decades or centuries

and that makes her smart "brilliant", according to her publicity team

The conservative definition of "brilliant" means "brown nosing intensely enough Fed Society satraps to get Leonard Leo to write your recommendation letters." It also means "not reading the Constitution" and "citing original intent enough to cover your deep contempt for your own profession and learning generally.

Have you guys seen the usage OfMitch yet?

of course, but it's still immensely frustrating, given the dozens of actually real points against, to watch people willingly have zero case (because "the people should decide" is not a case, it's Mitch-issue bullshit)

Prior to the nomination of Justice Felix Frankfurter in 1939, there was a long and solemn tradition of parking legal mediocrities on the SCOTUS. The Federalist Society is reviving this tradition with a vengeance. A very literal vengeance.

What would a figurative vengeance look like?

scowling a lot

Frankfurter's an interesting Earth-2 one-man proto-Federalist Society, though, recommending dozens of his clerks for New Deal positions.

SEN. FEINSTEIN after Judge Barrett explains severability: “I’m really impressed” pic.twitter.com/Qf11molwHF

— Senate Republican Communications Center (@SRCC) October 14, 2020

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_358OhIRqo
#OneThread

Somebody should ask Amy Coney Barrett if she believes Ruth Bader Ginsburg is in hell

— Stan Chera (@neoliberal_dad) October 14, 2020

looool I was saying the other day it’d be funny if someone were to ask her about a pro-Catholic bias on the Supreme Court, oh but this.. this is so much better

i could not watch one minute of this scam

barrett graduated first in her class at notre dame, she knows what the first amendment says. she's playing dumb and lying through her teeth, and that's what's truly offensive.

According to the NYT, 'Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court Could Take Us Backward'. Could. Might. Maybe. Who can say.

I haven’t watched a second of it bc it’s all just so monumentally depressing but unless I missed something filtered through soc media I’m shocked more hasn’t been made of her work on Bush v Gore, particularly in light of uh Trump’s non-concession talk

TBH, I don't find it very significant that she worked on Bush v. Gore as a third-year associate in a large firm.

I just have to say I hate almost every public discussion of "originalism" - conservatives give it too much credit and liberals give it too little. For example I often see stuff like this, which is just blatantly incorrect
https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/121595418_4391209287638758_3925704783184384162_n.png?_nc_cat=1&_nc_sid=730e14&_nc_ohc=ZRAAbE0Lz7YAX_gbBYP&_nc_ht=scontent-lga3-1.xx&oh=a2126ea136cae103c9460aa04143a4ec&oe=5FAF380C

I'm sure there's some constitutional scholar who has put this concept better than me, but I don't believe so-called "originalism" and so-called "living constitution" are entirely incompatible. The very drafting of a lot of the constitution (though not all of it) is so general and vague that it HAS to be interpreted beyond its "original public meaning." In fact I believe it was intended to be treated that way, because it's a constitution, not a statute book. That doesn't mean there are no outer limits on what it can mean. But I think living constitutionalism, within limits, IS an originalist view.

Shhh, Thomas will hear you!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOWO--z1S8A

I haven't been watching the hearings, but from the coverage I've seen, it is such a sham, any consideration of why she shouldn't be confirmed is quickly swept into the dustbin of "but she will be confirmed" and equal time given to Republicans calling her the greatest human being ever. Why can't a Dem just tee off on her archaic religious views, ask her if she would submit to her husband's understanding of the constitution if it differed from hers or something? What do they have to lose at this point?

Im beyond bummed about all this and my lib/ centrist political nerd friends seem to just be shrugging, even mildly defending(!?!?) her. Tbf though they’re pretty preoccupied with a danged Cheeto in the White House and are positive he’ll end up in an orange jumpsuit one day. Then snip snap back to brunch.

actually it’s just one pal convinced she’s not “that bad”.

Why get worked up today about what you can put off until the next forty years or so that she'll be a SC justice?

JUST NOW: On the Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Lindsey Graham is holding a vote to schedule vote on Barrett nomination on Oct 22nd in violation of Committee rules. Sen Durban is only Dem present. Rules require 2 members of minority party are present. Graham holds vote anyway.

— Sherrilyn Ifill (@Sifill_LDF) October 15, 2020

Disgusting, craven garbage people.

What do they have to lose at this point?

Well, if they "tee off" on her religious views they clearly would not lose you, because you seem to think that would be a reasonable strategy and would cheer them on.

otoh, the Democratic senators understand that they have nothing to gain from senselessly antagonizing the very sizable portion of the US population who take their religious beliefs seriously, including millions of BIPOC people, who might see an attack on her religion as tangentially an attack on their beliefs, too.

Yeah I would say you have to pair "What do they have to lose?" with "What do they have to gain?"

Ugh

so there's literally no recourse here? "yeah we violated the rules. so what?".

I mean why abide by any chamber rules then

I think that her particular religious views represent a very small percentage of religious Americans, let alone the American public as a whole. The first thing Republicans brought up on the announcement of her nomination was "Dems should not ask her about her religious views" and it seems like Dems just went along with that. To me, it is a completely valid line of questioning. She is a religious extremist and Republicans are forcing her extremist views on the American public through the highest court in the land for the next 40 years or whatever. Possibly offending a handful other religious extremists hardly seems worth sweeping the whole topic aside.

Make her come out and say that at work she will hold the constitution above her religious views and the she'll be the one offending people who share her extremism.

Make her come out and say that at work she will hold the constitution above her religious views and the she'll be the one offending people who share her extremism.

You seem to think that her saying that she will hold the constitution above her religious views would somehow be important. Saying it would be meaningless, because there would always be a constitutional argument to justify whatever opinion she signed onto. As for those who share her extremism, they will trust her to think as they do, right up until she joins a decision they hate, which seems unlikely.

There's nothing to be done to prevent her confirmation under Senate rules and no way she will answer any direct questions on the issues. The only strategy that makes sense to me, under the current situation is to emphasize the gravity of the issues she will be considering and how the decisions of the court could affect voters personally. This doesn't prevent her being seated, but only lays the political groundwork for making the Republicans pay a price for it.

Christian conservatives have driven our country to this precipice under the ideal that we are a christian nation and the belief that abortion and gay marriage are an affront to that ideal. They also believe that Barrett should be able to come out and say that everything she says and does is driven by her faith. They do not want a constitutional democracy, they want a theocracy and they see her confirmation as huge step in that direction. They do not care if they lose healthcare in pursuit of that goal. It is God's will. If she were forced to deny the prominence of faith over man's law in her deliberations, it would be a huge blow to them. They are not so savvy to excuse it as a political means to an end. Religion is both the means and the end, and Dems are already the enemy, so again, why not force the issue? Why let Republicans continue to pretend to practice democracy and preach theocracy?

And what would that "huge blow" look like, so that I could recognize it if I saw it?

including millions of BIPOC people, who might see an attack on her religion as tangentially an attack on their beliefs, too.

― the unappreciated charisma of cows (Aimless), Thursday, October 15, 2020 1:29 PM (two hours ago)

Idk I have a hard time imagining a significant number of Indigenous people getting mad about this

I have a hard time seeing how we can justify questioning her religion and then arguing against questioning the religion of a muslim or jewish nominee in the future. "This religion is different" is not very compelling.

There are enough Black, Latinx and Asian-American christians to make up many millions, despite the relative paucity of indigenous people.

where is "attack on her religion" and "questioning her religion" coming from? what would be wrong about asking her how religion informs her thinking as a judge?

"How does sharia law inform your thinking as a judge. Do you believe terrorism can be justified in the name of god?"

I mean, fer chrissakes, Nancy Pelosi is a devout catholic and is outright demonized by the religious right, but Dems can't even ask Barrett to explain her religious views because it would offend christian voters? It's insane. A huge blow would be a small rift between the republican party and those Christians currently in lock step with them. You gotta start somewhere.

man alive that is a crazy jump

where is "attack on her religion" and "questioning her religion" coming from?

"Why can't a Dem just tee off on her archaic religious views..." does not conjure up a picture of calm, reasonable inquiry.

but yes, if someone wants to be a SC justice and believes in sharia law, maybe it should come up during the questioning?

if someone has a religious belief that drives their thinking on a public policy issue, why in the world would it be out of bounds?

Because it feels uncomfortably close to asking for a loyalty oath.

What you're basically implying is "Can we really trust that you will put your country/constitution above your religion?" Which is somehow only a question that ever comes up with members of certain religious groups and not others.

btw i'm not trying to side with brianB here, either. i'm not advocating trying to force barrett to admit she prefers a theocracy or whatever, and i certainly don't think that would be any "big blow" to the right or conservative christians. they're in their own universe. barrett's getting that seat. they don't care, why should they?

I'm not arguing that questions of other faiths couldn't be asked of other nominees in the future. It's easy enough to answer that religion is one thing and government is another. I'm saying that they're letting her off the hook here so that some extremist christians can continue to believe that God wants to banish abortion and gay marriage and point to her future decisions on the court as evidence of that.

Karl, I agree that it would be legitimate to inquire whether Judge Barrett would defer to established precedent over her strongly held religious beliefs, but in reality that is a softball question, because as I said every SCOTUS decision will come with a formal constitutional justification, so she will always be able to plead that the constitutional argument was uppermost in her thinking. It's child's play to deflect such a question.

xpost man alive, i don't know. i guess. i understand the problems with asking about their religion. there's a reason that employers are not allowed to ask about religion in the job hiring process. i get that.

but if the position directly influences public policy, and the religion directly influences their thinking on public policy (like conservative christianity clearly do with barrett's opinions on abortion)...? why do religious people get a secret hiding zone where they can put ideas and policies that they don't want to be asked about, while non-religious people don't?

and again, to use the job hiring process analogy - i understand why someone's religion almost has zero bearing on their job. it doesn't matter what divine voices ACB thinks are guiding her when she's working at Autozone.

so that some extremist christians can continue to believe that God wants to banish abortion and gay marriage and point to her future decisions on the court as evidence of that

I confidently predict that nothing Barrett was likely to say in these hearings, regardless of the questions asked her, would even slightly affect their beliefs or deter them from pointing to any court decision they wish to laud as evidence of god's will.

yeah, 100% agreed on the pointlessness of asking those kinds of questions. deflect, deflect, deflect. vote. lifetime appointment. it doesn't matter.

The fact that it gets asked of some religions and not others is further evidence of the problem here. Extremist christians get a free pass.

What religions does it get asked of?

I mean the only question I think would be fair to ask would be "If the constitution or a statute as clearly worded conflicted with your religious belief, would you uphold the constitution/statute regardless?" Anything beyond that strikes me as baiting.

I'm also not saying it would make any difference in the process or ultimate outcome of her confirmation. The result would be in the minds of her christian supporters. They really do believe that she is God's chosen justice sent to right our wrongs and having her deflect, demure or outright deny that characterization would be a very good thing.

As I said above, the right tactic is putting the focus on the issues, how they are decided, and the effect of those decisions on the public. It makes little difference whether Barrett helps a conservative court to screw the public because of deeply held religious beliefs or because she is just deeply wrong-headed, like Gorsuch. The outcomes are what matter.

also I know this is a bit pedantic, but the Supreme Court lacks the power to banish abortion or gay marriage. All they can do is say whether it's constitutional or not for the federal or a state government to banish gay marriage or abortion. And you're not going to wind up with a federal gay marriage or abortion ban if decisions get overturned, you're going to wind up with states deciding whether they want to continue to recognize gay marriage/allow abortion. Which still would be very bad, but would not equate to "banishing abortion" or "banishing gay marriage." There's no question that a judge who is pro-life is going to be more inclined to say "leave it to the states" and a person who is pro-choice is going to be more inclined to say "don't leave it to the states." Same with gay marriage. I don't know what about Barrett's particular brand of catholicism makes the religious aspect more of interest than with a judge of any other religion - the only question is do you put your religion above the law or not. And they will say they don't, and as Aimless points out, may very well find a way to inject their religion into their decisions anyway. But there are, in fact, judges in this world who DON'T inject their religion into their decisions. There are pro-life judges who still abide by Roe v. Wade and its progeny.

and what Aimless said - the outcomes matter, not the religion. Maybe I am extra sensitive to this having seen a lot of wild theories about what my own religion supposedly says and dictates based on texts taken out of context and often mistranslated or misquoted. Religions are vast and complex and no one on this planet abides 100% literally by every word of every precept of their religion.

tbf "leaving it to the states" means "stripping right from tens of millions of people"

also I know this is a bit pedantic, but the Supreme Court lacks the power to banish abortion or gay marriage. All they can do is say whether it's constitutional or not for the federal or a state government to banish gay marriage or abortion. And you're not going to wind up with a federal gay marriage or abortion ban if decisions get overturned, you're going to wind up with states deciding whether they want to continue to recognize gay marriage/allow abortion. Which still would be very bad, but would not equate to "banishing abortion" or "banishing gay marriage."

so they can't banish it, but they can directly open up the door to a bunch of states who are clearly going to do it, as soon as they're allowed to do it. and they're the only ones who can open that door. i think that is a bit pedantic

xp

tbf to man alive it's a fair thing to point out, not as a "it's not THAT bad guys" (which m.a. wasn't saying) but pointing out it's actually way worse than an outright 'ban' in many ways because now you're giving 50 individual state governments the right to set 50 different sets of rules without federal protections for the act itself.

guessing many states that have been relatively pro-choice and relied on the Roe ruling would have to add legislation if they wanted to protect it for their state. and then there'd be criminalizing people who got it done out of state?

it's a nightmare I don't want to even think through

well

how much should I be panicking about the kavanaugh bush v. gore thing

^^ same question

I don't understand. He and Roberts worked on it.

oh they were ... on Bush's legal team. right.

kavanaugh citing/endorsing rehnquist's stance in the other big piece of supreme court news

with Bush v Gore, we have to remember this was actually the Bush campaign playing defense. Bush won the Florida vote on original count, Gore was the party that contested the results and wanted a manual recount, and SCOTUS halted it. Gore winning at SCOTUS unfortunately probably wouldn't have helped as Florida officials were working on selecting electors who would vote the way they felt the vote went, meaning they'd vote for Bush even if the recount found Gore the winner, which would tie more up in court.

In this scenario, Trump would be Gore, and from the looks of it, his move would probably be trying to file lawsuits in several swing states claiming the count from election night should be the prevailing count, a move essentially asking for the remove of legal ballots from the count, which is the opposite of what Gore argued. it's easier to prevail in SCOTUS in a federal election case if you're the party that won.

i get nerves re: SCOTUS, but they're already seated, and voting against Trump isn't going to put them in any kind of jeopardy - no SCOTUS justice has ever been impeached successfully. SCOTUS has sided with Trump on many cases, but that's because many of the conservative jurists are lunatics and probably would have voted the same way even pre-Trump. but some of the more ludicrous cases that have made it to SCOTUS, even the 5-4 conservative court bucked Trump.

i'm no longer going to say something won't happen because that's fruitless, but i'd rather focus on what we have control over at this point.

*justices

there are literally friends of mine now who seem to think all Trump has to do is say "I won, do u agree SCOTUS, how many EVs do you think I deserve?" and SCOTUS hold up cards with numbers on them like they're figure skating judges.

good article: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/09/can-trump-supreme-court-decide-election.html

I'm one of the "discrete majorities" that a liberal Court would've protected under Footnote Four, but since Ginsberg's death I've been numb if not indifferent to the inevitability of Barrett's confirmation. Too close to election, I suppose.

xp -- that article is somewhat out of date; for instance, as of today, the "legal dispute over how long mail-in ballots will be counted for" in Wisconsin is no longer disputed but settled, and not in favor of voters

it's the most recent one I could find, especially considering how quickly the courts are moving through the barrage of state cases. I don't think its general thesis is out of date at all though

this one gets at what I had mentioned before: http://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/10/barrett-election-bush-v-gore-vengeance.html

I think the fear for some people is less that the Court is going to wave a wand and overturn the results, but rather how much fuckery and voter disenfranchisement they will muster up in the next week and immediately after.

lol why is anybody worrying? she's got this, chill out

https://i.imgur.com/otf79gg.jpg

It doesn’t matter what this court does, this court is illegitimate.

If the Dems don’t pack this shit I’m going fucking tankie

this is a pretty grim night in US history. even if we all saw it coming and even if there are possible ways out of it, it is so fucking wrong and unfair and cruel that things came to this.

If the Dems don’t pack this shit I’m going fucking tankie

https://i.imgur.com/mw5dlee.png

Silence on my twitter timeline, pretty much. Had to go to newspapers to look at the confirmation headline.

It is literally the only thing people on my Twitter timeline are discussing, save from the Tory MP's big dinners

Ha, I bet it was the ghost of RBG that gave Bitch McConnell them purple hands! Yaaaaas Queen!

What do you mean I have to file a medical visa if I'm admitted to an out-of-state hospital?

Can’t wait for Breyer not to retire over the next four years and then President Tom Cotton gets to name his replacement

Can't wait for the first "Cotton eyes Joe" headline

BIDEN - It Beats Picking Cotton!

These dueling opinions from Kavanaugh and Kagan on mail-in ballots may be the most important story of the day:

Kavanaugh: late ballots could “flip the results of an election”

Kagan: “there are no results to ‘flip’ until all valid votes are counted”https://t.co/o4Ew6IEQ2C

— Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) October 27, 2020

Bush v. Gore was so weird and seemingly such an anomaly that I feel Dems rolled over partly out of a misplaced sense of honor and partly in shock. If this happened again in even more dramatic fashion in this current climate, I feel the SC might as well be voting to light the country on fire.

BIDEN - It Beats Picking Cotton!

xpost to be honest, this is the type of fuckery that I think is more likely to succeed in the Supreme Court. States basically successfully lobbying to discard late-received votes due to the bullshit narrative of it 'flipping' the election. Obviously Justice Kagan is correct but it won't matter as the conservative bloc will win this battle every time.

this unfortunately means we gotta do our shit and get our ballots back early and show up in person to vote if it looks like we're cutting it close. it's bullshit, it's unfair, but it's the only way to be sure that we exterminate the cockroach in the White House.

Kavanaugh's concurrence in the Wisconsin case is sloppy AF.

(A thread.)

— Tierney Sneed (@Tierney_Megan) October 27, 2020

So Barrett might not even be the most incompetent justice. This is fine.

ACB's opinions will also be sloppy, but mostly because of the stigmata blood dripping all over the pages

Does sloppy matter when they can do whatever the fuck they want?

I prefer fastidious fascism myself

Yeah, the more power they gain and hold, the less they need to pretend to care about correct jurisprudence

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/10/30/conservative-judges-voting-theory/

By
Neal Katyal (who is waking up since his 2017 op-ed saying libs should support Gorsuch getting on the S. Court ) and Joshua A. Geltzer

A novel legal theory is surging among conservative judges and justices. The notion is that, under the Constitution, only state legislatures — without any input from state executives or courts — may set the rules for presidential elections. This theory is clearly a misunderstanding of constitutional election law. But it’s actually worse than that: It fundamentally misapprehends how law itself functions.

Here’s what everyone agrees on: Article II of the Constitution says that “[e]ach State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct,” that state’s representatives to the electoral college, which chooses the president. No one disputes the basic reality that state legislatures typically take the lead in setting rules for the statewide elections that choose electors who, in turn, choose a president.

But in the past couple of weeks, the focus on two words in that constitutional text — “the Legislature” — has been taken to fanatical extremes. Most recent — and most absurd — is a decision on Thursday by a federal court of appeals that, five days before Election Day (too late for the state to do anything to respond to it), abruptly changed the rule for Minnesota voters from a requirement that their mail-in ballots be sent by Election Day to a requirement that those ballots be received by Election Day, thus unsettling at the last moment both the law and voters’ expectations. The two judges voting for that outcome insisted that a state official who’d interpreted state law to allow the more accommodating deadline had intruded on a power reserved to the legislature alone. It’s the same basic notion that Justice Neil M. Gorsuch expressed in voting to halt a decision by North Carolina’s State Board of Elections interpreting North Carolina law on election rules, and that Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. articulated in voting to halt a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision interpreting that state’s election laws. Alito insisted on strict adherence to “the provisions of the Federal Constitution conferring on state legislatures, not state courts, the authority to make rules governing federal elections.”

...this is the opposite of what the U.S. Supreme Court has said — including in a 2015 decision holding that the Constitution’s reference to “the Legislature” means a state’s process of making laws, including a governor’s role in vetoing laws and courts’ role in interpreting laws. And put aside the oddity that this idea means that a ballot could count for Minnesota’s state elections but somehow not for federal ones, even though the same legislature enacted the rules for both of them and the ballot includes candidates for both sorts of offices. Even more fundamentally, this newfound notion that legislatures must, in utter isolation, set election rules alone is impossible to square with the basics of how law works in America....

In grade school, children learn that legislatures write the law, executives implement the law and courts interpret the law. To insist that, in the area of election administration alone, state legislatures must do it all themselves fetishizes the words “the Legislature” in the Constitution and strains them beyond recognition — because that’s never what legislatures do. For judges and justices suddenly to claim otherwise isn’t just a bad take on election law, but a bad take on law — period.

A right-wing federal district court judge will be having a hearing Monday on the petition in Texas to throw out 100,000 plus drive-through votes. This case could end up at US Supreme Court

If this weak ass shithead needs to count on a few thousand votes in Texas he’s fucked.

Every vote suppressed doesn’t count, and this is over 100,000 of em.

Afraid he will somehow apply this:

A novel legal theory is surging among conservative judges and justices. The notion is that, under the Constitution, only state legislatures — without any input from state executives or courts — may set the rules for presidential elections. This theory is clearly a misunderstanding of constitutional election law. But it’s actually worse than that: It fundamentally misapprehends how law itself functions

welp he dismissed case fortunately

They just appealed to the US 5th Circuit.

5th Circuit Court is psychotic but it'll just be appealed beyond them if they rule otherwise.

Chief Justice Roberts says striking down Obamacare, when Congress wouldn't, is "not our job."

— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) November 10, 2020

"...it is our duty"

but yes, i hope that is a good sign

it's not our job. However, if you all ask nicely...I'll do it just this once

Kavanaugh also making comments about severability that make it sound like they aren't yet ready to kill this thing.

"we can stab it with our steely knives, but we just can't *kill* the beast"

Well, yeah

if they don't strike it down, we're gonna hear a boatload of GOP whining about how "the democrats said the supreme court would take away our healthcare" while conveniently not mentioning how barrett votes on the matter

Breyer and Sotomayor are especially sharp in their questions.

if they don't strike it down, we're gonna hear a boatload of GOP whining

true, whining does seem to come by the boatloads these days

in boat parades, even

Aito, the worst justice.

couldn't see that page, but if you're referring to Alito, yes

god that infuriated me today

the comment about Obergefell and people only being only able to whisper their thoughts in the recesses of their own homes was really appalling

it was the 'how dare you try to suppress my right to discriminate against you' argument

a world without God would be nice

a world without God Alito would be nice

For years Thomas has gotten the press as the Cruelest Justice, but I can at least see the through-line of his opinions. Alito meanwhile, unlike even Gorsuch, is the grossest hack, never deviating from RNC policy.

a world without God would be nice

― Lover of Nixon (or LON for short) (Neanderthal), Saturday, November 14, 2020 1:22 AM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

sure does

sorry nvm

i just read https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40081165-the-curse-of-bigness which is a nice short 150pp book of the history US anti-trust legislation/enforcement with emphasis on the obvious gilded age stuff, but also the role of robert bork and what happens next with tech companies.

Bork's pre-they-fucked-me book is on anti-trust legislation, no?

Yeah apparently his came up with a novel interpretation of the Sherman act that was basically: the only thing that matters is does it raise prices? If not then go nuts.

The Supreme Court late Wednesday night barred restrictions on religious services in New York that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo had imposed to combat the coronavirus.

The vote was 5 to 4, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and the court’s three liberal members in dissent. The order was the first in which the court’s newest member, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, played a decisive role.

The court’s ruling was at odds with earlier ones concerning churches in California and Nevada. In those cases, decided in May and July, the court allowed the states’ governors to restrict attendance at religious services.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/26/us/supreme-court-coronavirus-religion-new-york.html

Let's all die so some fucking idiots can engage in idiotic beliefs that betray their lack of belief in the first place!

Seriously, people who think you need a church to worship a higher power are lunatics. Might as well open up dance clubs and bars.

I thought it would take a little longer for Barrett to get some blood on her hands. Well done.

did you miss her actual first vote

Wow. Apparently Roberts and Gorsuch went at it:

“As we round out 2020 and face the prospect of entering a second calendar year living in the pandemic’s shadow, that rationale has expired according to its own terms,” Gorsuch wrote. “Even if the Constitution has taken a holiday during this pandemic, it cannot become a sabbatical. Rather than apply a nonbinding and expired concurrence … courts must resume applying the Free Exercise Clause.”

Gorsuch also accused Roberts of “a serious rewriting of history” for now insisting that his May opinion did not rely on a century-old Supreme Court precedent that allowed mandatory smallpox vaccinations in Massachusetts.

“We may not shelter in place when the Constitution is under attack. Things never go well when we do,” Gorsuch warned.

But Roberts noted that Gorsuch on Wednesday devoted three pages of his opinion to “exactly one sentence” the chief justice wrote in May referring back to the 1905 smallpox vaccination case, Jacobson v. Massachusetts.

“What did that one sentence say? Only that ‘[o]ur Constitution principally entrusts “[t]he safety and the health of the people” to the politically accountable officials of the States “to guard and protect,”’” Roberts wrote.

“It is not clear which part of this lone quotation today’s concurrence finds so discomfiting … But the actual proposition asserted should be uncontroversial, and the concurrence must reach beyond the words themselves to find the target it is looking for.”

one more like this and the laundering of Roberts as the Sensible Moderate by the mainstream (and a cUlTuRaL mArXiSt by the Right) will be complete.

Institution saved!

There was this one too, but I don't like it as much:
Soccer player and fans adored an amigo (5, 8)

Oops, wrong thread!

is it

Heh, knew that was coming

when everybody was wigged out that they'd flip the election, this is the kind of actual lunacy they should have expected. bending legal precedents to cater to religious interests. there's a lot more where this came from.

unless Clarence Thomas, Kavanaugh, and Alito all get the 'Vid and wind up on breathing machines

Lit a novena candle the second I read that sentence.

https://www.theicenter.org/sites/default/files/styles/resource_banner/public/Moses%20and%20Pharoah%20-%20Let%20My%20People%20Go_0.jpg?itok=BzAkNyyu

"Let my people go ... to church ... during a pandemic!"

Don't they usually say 'the constitution is not a suicide pact' or something?

would be something if people could be tested for their ability to uphold the law and practise it. So one could flush out all the bad pseudo judge types that have been impsed on people since nobody's managed to take out mitch yet.
peole with no ability being in roles for life just seems a little unjust, like.

It's the old slippery slope argument. If you let the government even once impose minor limits on the number of people allowed to congregate in a religious gathering during a deadly pandemic that spreads through human proximity, then they're going to want to do it during every deadly airborne pandemic.

The health care workers who will have to deal with the inevitable results of this stupendous idiocy would like to have a word with Justice Gorsuch.

Indeed. I'm immunocompromised, my husband works in an ED, and already one of the biggest communities they served during the course of that pandemic was an Orthodox Jewish community based in Jersey. They're already rationing machines, as well as gowns and other PPE.

As far as I'm concerned, governors should defy the SC. Public health takes priority over the worship of some mythical God, particularly since that worship doesn't need to take place in a specific place to be legitimate.

That, actually, is what pisses me off the most about this. If God is everywhere, if God is a living part of one's experience on this planet, then it doesn't make sense that one would need to visit a church to worship that God. Really puts the lie to the idea that religions aren't mind control mechanisms.

even my Fundie church preached that people made a church, not a building. I think it has more to do with people wanting more food at the potluck and not worship whatsoever

I'm actually totally serious, though— governors should defy these rulings.

You’re right, the rule of law is stupid

Every time the governors change the states should just revisit what laws actually count

Oh I dunno I feel like a good nullification crisis could really liven things up around here

THE RULE OF LAW IS GETTING PEOPLE FUCKING KILLED

Fuck your rule of law. Ridiculous fealty to absolute batshit rulings should be looked down upon by anyone with a conscience.

Oh I didn’t understand you before thanks for shouting

Please explain to me why public health shouldn't overrule this precious "rule of law" in this case?

Does your moral purity score ever dip below 100%? It’s really impressive

Tombot slavery was legal once too, laws don't deserve unquestioning fealty

You're the one who always harps on about the rule of law, Tombot. That's some moral purity BS if I've ever seen it.

even if they disagree it's gonna be tough for governors to really do anything about this

Selective nullification by governors is a stupid and incredibly shortsighted precedent for solving this problem

I'll be so happy that the rule of law is still in place when we hit 1 million deaths because a bunch of wackjobs can't go a few more months of not worshipping their stupid skydad

So what's your solution?

I believe in the rule of law, and slippery slopes, and yet....this ruling will literally lead to the pandemic getting further out of control.

problem is those violating the ordinance were already feeling empowered to do so prior to the SCOTUS ruling, how easy would it be to get anybody to comply now even if they defy.

fuck it all really

Selection nullification of the separation between church and state is a slippery slope that allows religious institutions to pick and choose the rules they want to follow and, potentially, government institutions to pick and choose what they consider religious institutions.

At the same time, the people that want to go to church so badly and give the virus to each other are likely the same people that were never going to follow any mitigation efforts anyway, so if that's how they want to play it, fine with me. There is no vaccine for stupid.

seems kinda arbitrary that kids and teachers can attend school every day but kids and parents can’t go to church once a week

they both fulfill important community functions

(nb i have not read the ruling)

(nb in my ideal world everyone would be paid to stay home, period)

Everything about the approach to this virus has been pretty arbitrary and ad hoc, a hodgepodge of science, anti-science, guesswork, second guesswork ...

At the same time, the people that want to go to church so badly and give the virus to each other are likely the same people that were never going to follow any mitigation efforts anyway, so if that's how they want to play it, fine with me. There is no vaccine for stupid.

The ruling is a monstrosity that Sotomayor and (ye gods) Roberts correctly condemned, but Josh is otm. I knew this Court would rule this way, and I've gotten to the point where I say, "What's a few more thousand deaths?"

i am in favor of ignoring what the supreme court says but as a practical matter, governors can defy all they want, anyone charged with violating the order knows they automatically win in court, even if cops were to come and lock their synagogue or whatever it would be a very very temporary condition. so you're talking about a symbolic gesture that will have absolutely no effect. it's all really arbitrary and nonsensical anyway, you can go to work at a smithfield plant and die because you'd starve if you didn't go to work, the same governors are encouraging people to go to restaurants and eating at them themselves. the governor of colorado told people to stay home for thanksgiving, then got on a plane to see family in another state. we are fucked for 10,000 reasons other than the supreme court. i don't have the energy to get mad at this, i'm tapped out tbh.

Tracer, then clubs and bars should be able to be open, too. They serve important community functions.

bars are open! clubs not so much that’s true. no good answer for you i guess!

Bars are not open, really, where I am.

operation Pelican Brief? xp

i feel like if they can do a “covid safe” service they should be able to. like school. no singing obv. space people out in the pews. communion wafers delivered by robot probably not feasible. hmm.

And there is a good answer: the government should be paying everyone except a strict band of essential workers to stay at home, all places where masses of people could congregate inside for any reason should be shuttered, and there should be a mandatory mask order for the whole country whenever one leaves one's home.

That's wishful thinking though, because the United States is so enamored of its own myths of exceptionalism that it won't back down even when its population is going through a massive fucking slaughter.

What seems weird to me is the argument that a religious service where 25 people are able to worship together is an undue burden on religious practices, just because they are used to having more worshipers together at one time. How about they just deal with it?

I'm actually totally serious, though— governors should defy these rulings.

Orville Faubus to thread! If we crack open this door, it will soon be kicked wide open for every governor to protect every garbage idea they think will play well to the hicks, rubes and racists.

defying the law seems like the least bad option in a sea of bad options tbh

It may seem least bad in a very shortsighted way, but it attacks the entire idea that the Supreme Court's rulings have any validity, which in turn attacks the idea that the federal government has any authority over the states. And that path leads to a madness a hundred times worse than this insane ruling.

That's kind of a funny argument to put to a Canadian tbh, but thank you for pointing out that the Cuomo restriction in question was not a full shutdown of religious services but merely a cap on attendance

pressing public health emergency more powerful than slippery slope argument imho

What seems weird to me is the argument that a religious service where 25 people are able to worship together is an undue burden on religious practices, just because they are used to having more worshipers together at one time. How about they just deal with it?

here comes some skippable rash invective, but it's not a "religious service", it's christians*. and christians can't be christians without claiming persecution. if they weren't persecuted, they wouldn't be christians. a christian has to be persecuted. are there any non-persecuted christians? NYC and DC are the new Rome and Babylon. it would be persecution to ask them to adhere to the same safety standards that others are following, even if it means more people die, christians and non-christians alike.

here are some ideas that i have about how they could safely worship together. all of these constitute persecution to a christian:

- they could limit the amount of people in their racist hangout clubs, holding multiple services on sunday morning, sunday evening services, tuesday shitty music practice, wednesday bible studies, thursday intense study for better christians, and saturday "i have really fucking sinned this time" services. 25 people at a time, staggered at least 6 feet apart. everyone else has to fucking do this, so maybe persecuted christians could take 1% of the effort they put toward making sure they're in heaven while their enemies burn eternally, and instead direct it toward real life for just a minute

- i guess that's my main idea. they can't do it, though, chiefly because of the persecution they're dealing with on a daily basis (mostly from me) as christians, but also because the holy spirit works through direct touching, manipulation, holy magic, magical thinking, and direct psychological warfare on young children who haven't yet processed the reality of every trusted adult they know in a room speaking in a language that they are clearly making up while also claiming to tap into a higher power that can and will influence the real world and lead to enemies burning eternally.

*"evangelical white christians", specifically, because other christians definitely aren't like this

in 1000 years this supreme court will be described as one that careened off the edge because a corruptly appointed majority still held fast in their worship of ancient spirits

of course, the idea that recorded history will resemble what actually happened is the cruelest joke of all. there's an equally good possibility that in 1000 years this supreme court will be described as one that nearly careened off the edge because a corruptly appointed minority nearly brought down the persecuted christians who were fighting very real battles against ancient serpents

*"evangelical white christians"

Plenty of Catholics on the SCOTUS right now.

*"evangelical white christians", specifically, because other christians definitely aren't like this

as always, my sarcasm is at 100% while my honesty is also at 100%, which i admit is confusing for everyone but also serves as a defense mechanism

KM, I agree with you in spirit, will also say that the Orthodox and Hasidic community have been pretty...uh.... irrational in their responses to Covid. I have a friend who escaped an ultra-Orthodox family in Bkln, and she told me that five family members have died and nearly all have gotten Covid since March. She has a big family, but still-- that's wild.

All said, it's definitely evangelical Xtian ideology that drove the SC decision.

honestly, i'd hate on any religion that has actively made the world a worse place, but i try to at least hold myself to the bare minimum of standard of talking trash on where you came from. evangelical christianity is my rural missouri, except imagine if rural missouri was dominating the u.s. supreme court and it was considered impolite to say what it actually is

in the foundational, inner-circle hall of fame texts of christians and jews there are stories about the true believers being protected from the pandemic plague while all the other bad, unbelievers around them suffer greatly.

it's no surprise that they think they're above physical laws of the universe - they are literally asked to think that and made to feel inferior if they don't really feel that way.

Wow. Y'all are writing long paragraphs tonight!

No dialectics with family to distract us

I hung out outside with my parents for an hour or so, it was nice, now I'm drinking a 120 Minute IPA and getting ready to eat some food.

ask hundreds of sweaty dipshits saying "la lalalala SHA lalal ah oh FYE lalal shambala nee EYE, oh nie. oh NIE, oh nie, SHAlalala i love you lord, lay your hands on this child and protect him" around a 10-year-old boy if that constitutes child abuse. massive, socially shared child abuse. cult bullshit, something they've all been through themselves, though likely only as adults.

but no, they're the persecuted ones. they have to be allowed to manipulate children in large groups, and get tax benefits at the same time, or else the persecution will have grown so out of control for them that the apocalypse will then be inevitable and imminent - which would of course mean that they have to pre-emptively strike at any muslims and other infidels who they must meet on the field of battle near jerusalem, as a triumphantly vengeful christ returns on a white horse and a blazing, blinding bloody sword of righteousness. but before all that happens, don't be surprised if the persecuted christians first turn an eye on closer infidels like me who are asking them to stop being so fucking racist all the time

xp nope, just me

but you are definitely not supposed to say the "vengeful returning christ leading the true believers in the end times, which will happen any day now" out loud, because that's persecution

wait, which thread is this?

lol, sigh. it does seem like there should be a separation of church and state, but that's such a progressive idea that i can easily imagine it coming to pass away and die during my lifetime

by the way, alfred, here's a tip on writing at length, straight from the gutter: when you don't have anyone else to talk to, and you don't get paid for writing, and no one's asking to read what you write, and you have a lot of thoughts and no outlet for them, and occasionally you can convince other disembodied voices on the internet to register some sort of acknowledgement that you exist, it's easy to write a lot

(waves) Hi, Karl!

what up Aimless! can i share a few thoughts on Revelation 19? it's one of my favorites.

Jesus will ride a white horse (11).
Jesus will be called Faithful and True (11).
Jesus’ eyes will be like flames of fire (12).
Jesus will where many crowns (12).
Jesus will have a name written on him only he can understand (12).
Jesus will have a robe dripped in blood (13).
Jesus will be called the Word of God (13).
Jesus will lead heaven’s armies (14).
Jesus will have a sharp sword in his mouth (15).
Jesus will release God’s wrath (15).
Jesus’ robe will say King of all kings and Lord of all lords (16).
Jesus will obtain better tax benefits for his believers (17).

https://i.imgur.com/dGqWnZe.jpg

Jesus will have a name written on him only he can understand (12).

(blockchain)

Hey Karl.

do you want a custom image too? i am actually not doing anything right now

sorry everyone, i think my account was hacked..a few months ago

hi Karl

Moe
Moe
Moe
Moe
Moe

Revelations Jesus such an underrated Jesus though.

https://i.imgur.com/elQ3R9b.jpg

revelations jesus says you gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em

revelations

coupla fake jesus girls here

relevations, imo

sic revels

christ, the revelator

I’d like to congratulate @BpDiMarzio and the @BrooklynDiocese on their victory for religious freedom in the U. S. Supreme Court. Our churches are essential.

— Cardinal Dolan (@CardinalDolan) November 26, 2020

^^^ the guy investigating DiMarzio re: multiple accusations of sexual assault of children

by the way, alfred, here's a tip on writing at length, straight from the gutter: when you don't have anyone else to talk to, and you don't get paid for writing, and no one's asking to read what you write, and you have a lot of thoughts and no outlet for them, and occasionally you can convince other disembodied voices on the internet to register some sort of acknowledgement that you exist, it's easy to write a lot

― Karl Malone

And you do it well.

It may seem least bad in a very shortsighted way, but it attacks the entire idea that the Supreme Court's rulings have any validity, which in turn attacks the idea that the federal government has any authority over the states. And that path leads to a madness a hundred times worse than this insane ruling.

― Respectfully Yours, (Aimless), Thursday, 26 November 2020 bookmarkflaglink

Insanity is...good now

The rule of law doesn't mean shit when 45% of the country and 50+% of federal and state gov't simply ignores any law with which they disagree.

should I return the pack of Certs I stole in third grade?

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal Certs.

So if, say, Breyer retired under Biden, or if anyone else suddenly retires or even dies (looking at you Thomas or Alito, how heathy can you be), assuming the Senate stays GOP, can't/won't McConnell just hold up the seat for 4+ years?

You bet!

Of course, because reasons.

xps

thank you alfred. and i'm sorry to everyone who read...that, yesterday. i know it's not cool to keep doing that and keep apologizing, and also that i get a longer leash than most because most of you are familiar with my shit.

anyway...mcconnell's reasoning for not filling a retired SC seat during biden's term will be ____?

a) the longstanding tradition of the senate dictates a SC nominee must not be confirmed by a senate held by the opposing party
b) the democrats broke the sacred trust of the senate by invoking the filibuster during GWB's 2nd term - no more SC justices for them
c) the democrats were the ones that did not confirm gorsuch. they refused to hold a vote on gorsuch, and instead waited until obama was president and then installed SC justice merrick garland instead. Mitch McConnell was there - that's what happened.
d) "i am controlled by a turtle"

(edit: i meant that i sense that i sometimes get a "longer leash" for my bullshit, and although i appreciate it i want to stop doing that.)

If, say, no party controls the presidency and Senate simultaneously for several decades I suppose we could see the SC dwindle to zero as justices die off one after another?

Clarence Thomas is living until 183

guys he's citing the non-indictment of THE COMPANY THAT MADE THE GAS THE NAZIS USED TO KILL JEWS as precedent!!!!!! https://t.co/QeIr6LtmoM

— Alex Kotch (@alexkotch) December 1, 2020

I personally did not have "supreme court greenlights US corporations aiding and abetting child slavery" on my 2020 bingo card but I suppose I should have

Attorney Neal Katyal made the arguments on behalf of Nestle and defending their role in child slavery. He’s a never Trump guy who also though once wrote a NY Times op-Ed in support of Gorsuch.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/02/covid-elena-kagan-supreme-court-kill.html

Late on Friday night, the Supreme Court blocked California’s public health ban on indoor religious services in a splintered 6–3 decision South Bay United Pentecostal Church v. Newsom is the latest in a long line of COVID cases to reach the Supreme Court. The plaintiffs challenged three pandemic-related restrictions on religious worship: a total ban on indoor services in areas where cases are surging (which covers much of the state right now); a 25 percent cap on indoor services where they are permitted; and a ban on singing and chanting during those services.

In amuddled order, SCOTUS shot down the total ban on indoor services, but upheld the 25 percent cap and the singing ban. The majority’s decision—issued as a highly infectious “California variant” of the coronavirus sweeps across the state—allows residents to resume indoor worship, the cause of countless superspreader events since the start of the pandemic. While there is no single majority opinion, five justices supported the proposition that California’s regime violates free exercise because it treats secular businesses more favorably than religious establishments. Notably, no justice in the majority even pretended to apply the appropriate standard for this emergency request, which requires plaintiffs to prove that the legal rights at issue are “indisputably clear” and that an injunction is “in the public interest.” They simply issued a decision on the merits, another example of the court making law through its shadow docket.

...“Justices of this Court are not scientists,” Kagan began. “Nor do we know much about public health policy. Yet today the Court displaces the judgments of experts about how to respond to a raging pandemic. … That mandate defies our caselaw, exceeds our judicial role, and risks worsening the pandemic.” She pointed out that, contrary to the court’s belief, California has not actually treated churches less favorably than secular businesses and assemblies: Political meetings, lectures, and plays are also banned, she wrote—and these “secular gatherings,” like religious worship, “are constitutionally protected” by the First Amendment. The court simply created “a special exception for worship services.”

This guy:

THOMAS' dissent on the decision to deny the Pennsylvania election case adopts the 'prove a negative' argument proffered by Rudy and others:

That the absence of evidence of fraud could just prove that fraud was hard to detect. pic.twitter.com/Xe1taFlGy0

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) February 22, 2021

never met a logical fallacy he didn't want to sexually harass

no election fraud you say? doesn’t that in itself seem.... suspicious?

must I post a photo of Ginny

I just bought www.isclarencethomasdeadyet.com for the next two years for a whopping ten bucks.

who wants to help program it for me.

i have temporary content up

I read the rest of his opinion and it was actually more horrifying than just that sequence alone.

You need 4 to take cert and have oral arguments. Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch were close .

wondering what drove Kav and Coney's "no" vote

so uh having dinner w/my sis at the posh Biltmore's outdoor courtyard I think I saw Sam Alito. Y'all be the judge. The bald spot, Fed society striped tie, and dumbfounded mien gave him away.

https://imgur.com/a/pDCxA16

https://i.imgur.com/4kOL378.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/PgxvxYz.jpg

He got up to ogle the wild parrots.

oh baby I will Venmo you $112 USD if you can make him uncomfortable enough to leave

so was this him? Am I mad?

lol I honestly can’t tell for certain

how bout those pants

well, i certainly didn't see *this* development coming

So close and yet so inconsequential.

Lonely justice thinking baout parrots

I think I saw Sam Alito. Y'all be the judge.

Is this what you said to him

https://i.imgur.com/OG8GqtO.gif?noredirect

among a true embarrassment of binches
he really is the worst one isn’t he

Probably. Alito adjudicates like a Republican Party hack. Beyond loyalty to the current party line, he has no coherent judicial philosophy whatsoever. Even Justice Thomas has a rather eccentric philosophy that seems to guide his votes.

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2021/03/stephen-breyer-needs-to-retire-now

The only problem I see with that argument in favor of Breyer retiring asap is that Breyer would not find it convincing. I say that because it is an argument based solely upon politics and the future composition of the court. In that way it reflects how every ilxor is likely to view the question, but not how I think Breyer would.

He emerged from a period when the court and its justices were idealized as non-partisan and non-ideological, so that the politics of the Senate should not be a vital consideration in whether a justice should retire. But mainly, I'm pretty sure that every single sitting justice believes in their own ability to arrive at the 'most correct' interpretation of a case and that in their absence, no replacement could be trusted to do so to the same degree as as they trust themselves. iow, it's an ego thing.

yeah, Democrats of his generation take the above-the-fray shit too seriously -- as if the last 20 years haven't proved Breyer and Ginsberg wrong. And Ginsberg made a colossal mistake staying on when the whole planet knew she was seriously ill and even if she weren't you don't want to see your legacy in tatters thinking that as an 80-plus-year-old woman you can wait for the next Dem Senate to vote for your successor.

Honestly, I don't know really anything about Breyer as a person. Kennedy joined the court 6 years prior to Breyer, and his retirement was clearly partisan and ideological, but I assume you're correct about Breyer's self-image.

It's depressing though; "cannot adapt to significant changes in society" and "is convinced of his own immutable rightness" are extremely strong arguments in favor of setting term limits on justices, not that there's any enthusiasm for anyone to battle the conservatives over that any time soon.

Clarence and Alito being burned alive in a go-karting accident would also be nice

Kennedy joined the court 6 years prior to Breyer, and his retirement was clearly partisan and ideological

Republicans serving in office are in very consistent in viewing all issues through the lens of power, so that attaining and keeping the greatest amount of power becomes their primary motive in all their actions. Lots of Democrats in office think similarly, but they are far less unanimous and consistent in that regard.

According to NPR, Ginsburg dictated the following statement to her granddaughter, Clara Spera, shortly before she died: "My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed."

these are the last words of someone who knows they fucked up.

Whoa. @SenWhitehouse asks Merrick Garland to investigate FBI's background check of Brett Kavanaugh--alleging that it may have been 'fake'. https://t.co/k9u5B3ecnf

— Mark Elliott (@markmobility) March 16, 2021

iirc, it was definitely “fake”

we don't call them background checks, we call them factground checks.

anything else is fake

Forget the background, just give me the facts, Jack. That’s what I’d say if I were Gordon Cole.

Give me the facts, Jack
Spy on QAnon, Ron
Is there a Deep State, Nate?
Just give it to me

pic.twitter.com/CxkgwkyHTY

— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) March 16, 2021

🙃🙃🙃

lol same guy pic.twitter.com/GPv144dosu

— ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ ❌🍁❌ (@mattgcn) March 16, 2021

Noah Feldman probably gullible enough to believes what he writes. Obviously, this makes him useful as a cat's paw for promoting various publications' unstated editorial stances.

hai boo

🚨Clarence Thomas suggests that social media companies may NOT have a First Amendment right to regulate speech on their platforms, analogizing them to "common carriers" and "places of public accommodation." https://t.co/2zx7nCtIAz pic.twitter.com/ZleTE1aI0S

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) April 5, 2021

I analogize Justice Clarence Thomas to a common carrier.

I have to hand it to him, the man really loves standing up for people who want him dead.

I don't know, it's been pretty dizzying seeing conservatives adopt the longstanding arguments of liberal/leftish social media and ISP critics. This "common carrier" argument is almost exactly equivalent to the Net Neutrality position--though pertinently, those critics were talking about the Internet's network infrastructure rather than specific platforms (indeed, one of the NN fears was a scenario where Verizon makes you pay extra to use Google or Facebook). Still, there are liberal/left arguments that FB and Google have become infrastructural (deliberately) and should be regulated as such.

That said, and I should click through to the whole opinion, but I am very curious how he squares this interpretation of social media with personal-data-driven algorithmic content feeds and microtargeted advertising, i.e., the mass personalization/customization that is the entire business model of these supposed common carriers. Those aren't the forms of speech moderation that conservatives are upset about but I don't see a meaningful legal distinction.

love that Very Serious People jumped through hoops for years to square Scalia’s bald-faced activism from the bench. Thankfully I don’t see much of that any more for these clowns. At least not from anyone very serious. (Or perhaps I’m not looking in the right spots)

The only positive thing one can say about Scalia is that he could write— he was a great stylist.

But, yknow, a lot of evil motherfuckers have been great writers, so...

great post rob.

The only positive thing one can say about Scalia is that he could write— he was a great stylist

Can't agree with this; I think his style was flashy but in the end more attention-grabbing than good.

Jiggery-pokery, come on, that's some warmed over William Safire shit.

he could write

Who hasn't danced a jiggery whenever they're about to pokery?

i have a legal writing book by him which makes me feel bad every time i see it on the shelf. i think i will sell it. i have long hated reading his opinions and think his style is grating and smug. the book does have good advice on writing for lawyers, which is obv not the same as opinion writing.

In the context of footnote-laden and windy legal prose, Nino stood out in the late '80s and early '90s. Read one of his opinions from the last decade of his life. They read like copy-and-pasted Tweets, no doubt by clerks.

Agreed. I was referring to the stuff from the 80s and 90s.

Who hasn't danced a jiggery whenever they're about to pokery?

― avatar of a kind of respectability homosexual culture (Eric H.), M

Not since March '20.

Taken from someone’s tweet re the 5-4 decision released around midnight April 9

As a result of the SCOTUS rule, until April 15 (when the reg changes), Californians can host people from more than three households in their homes ONLY if they are engaged in religious practices. Bible study: yes; BBQ: no.

Religious non-discrimination or religious favoritism?

CALI SANTERIA PARTY IS A GO

The Cali Covid rules previously limited home religious and secular events to 3 households, but conservative majority decided that home religious events should be able to follow non-home rules

I think you could make a fair argument that BBQ is a religious practice

X-post - Yes!!!

Santeria & barbecue both, yes

If at some point the host says "god bless us one and all", would that gathering fall under under this SCOTUS ruling?

How about if somebody sneezes and someone else says bless you?

How about if eating meat is the national religion?

What if you have an apron that says Grill God?

As a nonbeliever, I remain steadfast in my insistence upon being part of whatever secular superspreader event I choose.

If God didn't want me to be a super spreader, he would not have created super spreader events.

If God didn't want me to be a super spreader, he would not have created super spreader events.

see, I just accidentally super spreaded that post, complete act of God.

OL, if you missed out on the big motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota, there's always this year!

Ghoulish

First opinion of the day is in Jones v. Mississippi. By a 6–3 vote with Kavanaugh writing, the court rules that a sentencer need NOT make a separate factual finding of permanent incorrigibility before sentencing a defendant under 18 to life without parole. https://t.co/XS5CPsa2In

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) April 22, 2021

Fucking why?

Easier way to keep propping up the for profit prison system is what it basically comes down to, I assume. Not that it is in any way a defensible position.

the sick thing about this is juvenile detention has been dropping over the past couple decades iirc

some info here: https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/juvenile-life-without-parole/

Kavanaugh ( who has forgotten about his own youthful indiscretions) believes youths who get arrested for crimes deserve life . So-called Christian Coney Barrett too

Fucking why?

Our present SCOTUS has six justices with an inherent bias toward strengthening the current power structure instead of protecting individuals from its abuses. They won't ever admit it, and if questioned would throw up a smokescreen of solemn legalistic nonsense, but a white supremacist oligarchy suits them just fine.

The 2012 Montgomery case Majority that ruled against Juvenile life sentences was : Kennedy, joined by Roberts, Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan

Kennedy is gone, and Roberts decided to stick with the conservatives this time

...
Long before the Trump era, Ruddy was best known as the young New York Post reporter probing the 1993 suicide of Clinton White House aide Vince Foster — and exploring the wilder, false claims that he had been murdered. His work made its mark: Brett M. Kavanaugh, then working for Kenneth Starr's investigation into the Lewinsky affair, circulated Ruddy's articles to lawyers who joined the team.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/ruddy-newsmax-trump/2021/05/05/32b09714-9d32-11eb-9d05-ae06f4529ece_story.html

from a piece on piece of shit Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy. imagine America's Golden Boy Brett Kavanaugh working for Kenneth Starr and Lewinsky, bringing in a fucking NYPost article on Vince Foster, and then he not only doesn't lose his job, but in fact he goes on to be given a blatantly stolen SC seat

"oh wow, what's this New York Post article? GREAT research work, ya golden boy! this is a VERY good source!!"

well, remember when Kav's teary-beery monologue mentioned the Clintons?

i did, but then angry mom lindsey graham came in and yelled at everyone to leave the good boy alone

uncle durbin should have chugged a beer and thrown a table

love that this clown will probably outlive me

Arsehole.

Justice Stephen Breyer — a Bill Clinton appointee who has served on the Supreme Court since 1994 — has chosen this moment to admonish liberals for failing to respect the rule of law.

He’s done so despite the fact that less than five months ago, a violent mob of former President Donald Trump’s supporters invaded the US Capitol in a vain attempt to keep Trump, who had just lost his bid for reelection, in office without an electoral mandate. In the months that followed, state-level Republicans loyal to Trump passed legislation that appears to serve no purpose other than to restrict voting. And now, Republican leaders are blocking a bipartisan investigation into the January 6 riots at the Capitol.

And yet, in the midst of what might be the greatest threat to liberal democracy in the United States since Jim Crow, Breyer warns that liberals are endangering the rule of law because a small minority of Democrats have suggested taking aggressive action to rein in the Supreme Court.

And Breyer is doing this at the same time that he’s urging Democrats to find common ground with a party that refuses to investigate an attack that endangered much of Congress.

In a book to be published this fall, Breyer warns the US will pay a heavy price if it does not show deference to the judiciary — and that even though the Supreme Court is now more conservative than at any point in the last three generations, it is a mistake to think any of his colleagues are rank partisans.

“A judge’s loyalty is to the rule of law,” Breyer writes, “not the political party that helped to secure his or her appointment.”

Breyer is trapped in a bubble into which political reality rarely intrudes itself.

7-2 gonna be wild af

bleak thread about asymmetry in how we make judges:

thankfully, this episode is over. but one outlet has identified the students who made the complaint & those students' future clerkships, which are notable for what they suggest about some asymmetries in the clerkship hiring process. https://t.co/s1AGPyt2iC

— Leah Litman (@LeahLitman) June 4, 2021

^it’s possible I missed it but I wonder if this bullshit or, say, Emily Wilder getting fired from the AP caused the same level of moral panic for the substack trolls or the serious minded centrists littering our esteemed op ed pages that they have on reserve for cAnCeL cuLtUrE

BREAKING: Supreme Court dismisses challenge to Obama-era health care law, preserving coverage for millions of Americans. https://t.co/lIwN9IeEGF

— The Associated Press (@AP) June 17, 2021

surprised Thomas and Coney Barrett joined the libs

Alito is displeased. https://t.co/UZjWJGoPc6 pic.twitter.com/0iTGN38sp4

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) June 17, 2021

any chance at restoring the penalty tax?

As somebody looking for ACA marketplace coverage for the first time, this ruling is a big relief. Our marketplace options are all pretty expensive to what we've been paying for cushy employer insurance, but manageable — and the coverage is pretty good.

pretty cool that it was 8-1 in favor of child slavery tho

i just checked neal katyal's twitter to see if he has commented. weird that he'd be tweeting about the ACA case but not the child slavery case he won. must be very busy.

but lol

Been so busy w/briefs I didn't realize @matsoR and @Jbrekkie both just released new records. Can't wait to listen. And @mountain_goats released like 3 records recorded in 1 month, slackers.

— Neal Katyal (@neal_katyal) June 17, 2021

#onethread

let's file some briefs and be alright

let's fill some briefs

Obama's Solicitor General out here doing work!

Yes We Can (have child slaves)

— Islamo-leftist (@EngelsFreddie) December 2, 2020

The Supreme Court's second decision of the day is in NCAA v. Alston. In an opinion by Gorsuch, the court *unanimously* upholds the district court's injunction against the NCAA based on "established anti-trust principles"! This is a big deal. https://t.co/JcdyRepr9l pic.twitter.com/FlEVHAZhTF

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) June 21, 2021

If only "established anti-trust principles" could be revived against US mega-corporations then we'd be getting somewhere.

why so anti-trust, we need MORE trust in America!!

Fortunately I read the part where Kav endorses collective bargaining before lunch

even a stopped clock etc etc

https://www.npr.org/2021/06/23/1001382019/supreme-court-rules-cheerleaders-f-bombs-are-protected-by-the-first-amendment

The union decision tho

I'm in Clarence Thomas's little home town, ask me anything!

have you considered changing your display name to Josh in Pin Point?

COFFIN FLOP

xpost Too late, already gone. it's a small town.

We're going to end up with a 7-2 court because the calendar of a liberal justice's book promotion tour made it more appealing for him to cultivate suspense around his retirement during the rare window of Dem governance... https://t.co/dmY2cOkD4X pic.twitter.com/h1LfxVQ4ss

— Taniel (@Taniel) August 27, 2021

just an old man thinkin' bout things

yes

The conservative Supreme Court justices argued that allowing the Biden eviction moratorium to remain could pave way for these kinds of outcomes pic.twitter.com/zsJ0rIryik

— Jeff Stein (@JStein_WaPo) August 30, 2021

Not the best day.

https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/amp-video/mmvo119970885688

Supreme Court showing how destructive it can be by doing nothing.

What recourse is there if the court blatantly ignores constitutional infractions? Like, what if a state overturned, say, election results, with no legit legal basis, and the court just let that stand?

Like, what if a state overturned, say, election results, with no legit legal basis, and the court just let that stand?

I don't think we'll have to wait longer than say, a little over one or three years, to find out what happens.

I still think the court is going to rule on this. Not doing so kind of flies in the face of their gutting liberal priorities very slowly tactic that Roberts has implemented. But it’s also possible they don’t care anymore.

Roberts is the dude at the party who signals to his bros to clear the fridge of beer, then, when they've finished, approaches the host and says, smiling, "We cleaned the house. Need anything else?"

We get it, ok? The golden boy likes beer! They ALL liked beer!

So they do not, in fact, care anymore

BREAKING: By a 5–4 vote, with Roberts joining the liberals, the Supreme Court REFUSES to block Texas' six-week abortion ban.

Opinions here: https://t.co/elazEg3xdZ

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) September 2, 2021

It says legal challenges can continue. Anybody with a better understanding that can explain how that will work?

Fuck everyone who called us alarmists and hysterical. Fuck every single one of them.

A) half the states in the country are going to xerox the Texas law's language and enact it in their own states next week.
B) the floodgates are open...

My astonished rage cleared for a second and I realized that, according to this decision, states can pass all kinds of unconstitutional laws as long as they leave the enforcement to bounty hunters.
Jesus, we're back at the Kansas-Nebraska Act again.

— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) September 2, 2021

Woulda been cool if Ginsberg had retired before 2014.

Think Breyer will take a fuckin HINT now?

Depends on his book sales.

Sounds like the existing challenges will proceed in lower courts without the benefit of a temporary injunction. Which means eventually, maybe we get lucky and a federal court rules on the actual legality of the law and strikes it down, and SCOTUS either doesn't hear the appeal or concurs.

None of that is a given, but in the interim, millions of Texas women have lost the ability to get an abortion. Oklahoma already reporting an uptick in abortion patients from Texas.

But not everyone in Texas has that luxury.

A few thoughts from the point of view of Remedies law on the Supreme Court's 5-4 order tonight that has the effect of letting Texas ban all abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy: https://t.co/N9iROS9fqg /1

— Rick Hasen (@rickhasen) September 2, 2021

Good morning!

The majority opinion was unsigned and consisted of a single long paragraph. It said the abortion providers who had challenged the law in an emergency application to the court had not made their case in the face of “complex and novel” procedural questions. The majority stressed that it was not ruling on the constitutionality of the Texas law and did not mean to limit “procedurally proper challenges” to it.

Majority: "Great idea, dudes! We don't mean to strike down the law, so we'll watch to see what y'all come up with!"

on one hand the floodgates theory may be the only thing in favor of this ultimately being invalidated (justices not being ok with the state delegating criminal law enforcement to any random person and therefore escaping any and all constitutional protections for the defendant), on the other hand these people are so evil that they are probably cool with that

I've never seen Roberts write such a fiery dissent when siding with the libs. Guess he thought, "Hey, guys, there's a right way and a righter way to destroy Roe."

it's pure ass covering

whole thing is jaw-dropping, nakedly evil. should be the biggest story in the country until something - court-packing, federal law, constitutional amendment - is done.

I think this will eventually get overturned but Robert's project to kill liberal priorities by 1000 paper cuts will continue unabated

Isn’t enforcement of the Americans With Disabilities Act left up to private citizens?

yes but you need to have standing and it's not a criminal law in disguise, and the main remedy is fixing the thing that is causing harm to the plaintiff. this allows any person to file a "civil lawsuit" where the penalty is a minimum $10k fine and lawyer's fees to the plaintiff if they win. they also can get an injunction but the plaintiff doesn't need to be affected in any way to file, and the injunction doesn't do anything to help them, it just stops the abortion from happening.

I most hopelessly desperate takes I've seen have been all "Hah, the GOP has played right into our hands! What fools! They're like the dog that caught the car! Now abortion becomes the number one gotv mobilizer in all upcoming elections, the new ACA! Texas and other red states will finally turn blue!" Um, OK, sure.

where have you read those takes? I'm not disbelieving you, but, well, that's...not what I'm reading.

On twitter from people.

Might have been this that caught my eye:

To the topic at hand:

There are *far* more voters who support the right to choose — even if they don’t necessarily support abortion — than there are rabid pro-birthers.

Texas just fired up Dems and Independents at what is undoubtedly the low-point of Biden’s Presidency. 2/2

— Angry Staffer (@Angry_Staffer) September 2, 2021

gabbneb lives!

I'm brainstorming a way to do the same thing but with guns.

same thing = apply this bullshit legislative approach

yeah! i'm going to make a list of people i know who have guns and retire on the fines i collect when the democrats win (due to their newly motivated voters) and establish a private right of action to ban them

"We're not banning guns, we just established a private right of action to allow any citizen to confiscate the gun for purposes of destroying them."

Like this would fail scrutiny so fast your head would spin, but in this climate, ugh.

way easier to prove a compelling government interest in keeping my neighbor from having a gun but, you know

Good to see Trump grift accounts are working hard to stay relevant.

????? like what is Biden actually suggesting here

Breaking from Biden:

"I am directing that Council and the Office of the WH Counsel to launch a whole-of-government effort to respond to this decision, looking … to see what steps the Federal Gov't can take to ensure that women in Texas have access to safe and legal abortions."

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) September 2, 2021

...move to a different country?

Council and Counsel launching effort to look at steps! Watch out everyone!

Airlifting women from Texas to states that are marginally less hellish.

is there an actual chance of this being blocked at the 5th Circuit Court and then SCOTUS abdicating to hear any appeal due to wanting to appear impartial?

really just trying to figure out what the path forward is (besides the obvious court packing and filibuster abolition, which I don't see Biden trying w/ his approval ratings declining, even though it's the right thing to do)

harbl answered some of my questions above, and obviously it all hinges on a SCOTUS that doesn't respect precedent, but when it comes to the law, I'm terribly lost.

if they had any interest in not appearing impartial you would know by now

tbh while i am a lawyer i avoid paying too much attention to the supreme court because i hate it so i'm not an expert, but whatever happens in the 5th circuit they will take the case

zomg

Statement from Attorney General Merrick B. Garland pic.twitter.com/r2LrUTGvD1

— Anthony Coley (@AnthonyColeyDOJ) September 2, 2021

Council and Counsel launching effort to look at steps! Watch out everyone!

It's all so much simpler when the Supreme Leader can just make the rules and everyone either has to follow them or else be disappeared in the night.

c'mon, I wasn't criticizing them for not taking a more decisive action, just general handwringing about the situation. anyway I think we all agree the safeguards on the process are not respected equally by all sides

anyway I think we all agree the safeguards on the process are not respected equally by all sides

new USA motto

now it is the Supreme Court that is doing precisely that

xxp

I mean I guess the Judicial department *can* look at legal remedies, SCOTUS didn't make a final ruling or anything.

but short of creating a federal abortion center that visits Texas and basically dares civilians to sue them, idk what they could possibly do.

it'd be fine, the justice department could just counter-sue the hundreds/thousand of individual people/militias that sue them

DOJ's gonna submit one hell of an amicus brief on the court challenge to this law.

what do you suggest the DOJ and president do in this situation?

A lot of furrowing?

I would advise them to abolish the filibuster.

the DOJ?

Biden should send hire doctors under federal authority and send them to Texas to protect constitutional medical services at least until the Supreme Court bothers to figure out what the law may or may not be regarding BOUNTIES.

— Elie Mystal (@ElieNYC) September 2, 2021

Not suggesting anything in particular, but here's a list of all of the pro-life OB/GYNs in Texas
https://aaplog.org/find-a-pro-life-obgyn-search/?frm_search=Texas&show_view=yes

btw this thing operates on some kind of anonymous tip website. Crazy.

I would advise them to abolish the filibuster.

― it is to laugh, like so, ha! (Aimless), Thursday, 2 September 2021 bookmarkflaglink

48 Democratic senators have signed onto this bill. The only holdouts: Joe Manchin and Bob Casey https://t.co/CHapZSQOCd

— Andrew Perez (@andrewperezdc) September 2, 2021

I would put Manchin’s daughter in jail and dare him to cry about it

Like how much under-the-table bank is Manchin making off of GOP donors or whoever, seriously

also put that heart attack gun on Breyer like yesterday

Yep, because when the Senate flips in 2022, Moscow Mitch will make sure no Biden nominee gets confirmed.

Like how much under-the-table bank is Manchin making off of GOP donors or whoever, seriously

When the senate flips Biden is getting impeached AND removed

What should also happen is that out-of-state abortion providers should refuse to provide services to all registered republicans.

Given the chances that the Senate flips AND the unlikelihood of a democrat winning in 2024, I think there's a good chance we wind up with a 7-2 court.

can’t wait to see the 40 year old psychopath they nominate to replace Breyer

It'll be fucking Charlie Kirk.

When the senate flips Biden is getting impeached AND removed

― caddy lac brougham? (will), Thursday, September 2, 2021 3:16 PM bookmarkflaglink

no, this is not happening.

the GOP would have to win 31 of 34 Senate races in 2022 to have the 67 votes to convict, and 8 of them are likely slam dunks already for the Dems.

actually, no, it's not even possible. most seats they could have is 64 and that's if they run the table and take all 34.

as far as flipping, well....

it is a worry. Rs are defending more seats, but most of them tend to be in safer states than Ds. Idk that there's more than 2-3 Ds could flip if they lost any incumbent blue seats.

I'm still just completely dumbfounded by this law. There is no way that this sort of thing passes legal muster.

Next thing you know, half the states will go back to having tip lines about people fornicating or engaging in sodomy.

It would all be tragic if it weren't so stupid, absurdly horrifying.

the "testing the mechanism by passing other reduction ad absurdum laws with civilians as the chief arm of enforcement" might be its eventual undoing, but does anyyyybody really wanna get to that place?

I don't get the impression that SCOTUS wouldn't have blocked a more conservative law using this same mechanism though, obviously.

lol yeah sorry was being needlessly flippant on a thread that doesn’t need it

now, how does Justice Candace Owens strike y’all

The Texas Legislature knows the law couldn't possibly stand scrutiny under the present standards set by SCOTUS decisions. This was a political slam dunk for them and an outside chance that the SCOTUS will take it up and carry them to victory, now that they have 5 ultra-conservatives to nullify Roberts' swing vote.

Con law is mostly far afield from what I do but I’ve been trying to remember if there’s any other legislation that grants standing to someone to sue private individuals by whom they have not even plausibly been harmed. Like even taking Roe out of this, could the NY legislature, say, grant me standing to sue anyone who I believed had violated a copyright, although I had no interest or ownership in the copyright? Could they give me the right to sue someone for trespassing on someone else’s land?

I mean there are whistleblower statutes I guess (closest thing I can think of), but there’s at least a connection to the whistleblower plaintiff there, and also I think the government is typically harmed in those situations. Eg a whistleblower can sue for Medicare fraud that defrauds the government. I can’t just randomly bring a lawsuit against a doctor for Medicare fraud.

A court can always strike down one provision of a law while retaining those parts not dependent upon the part declared void. The six week restriction does not depend on the right to sue, which seems like it was just thrown in there to create an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty.

"Here is federal legislation that would invalidate the Texas abortion law and enshrine Roe v Wade as law of the land."

this might buy some time but it's magical thinking that it would "enshrine" anything given the current SCOTUS.

A court can always strike down one provision of a law while retaining those parts not dependent upon the part declared void. The six week restriction does not depend on the right to sue, which seems like it was just thrown in there to create an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty.

― it is to laugh, like so, ha! (Aimless), Thursday, September 2, 2021 4:19 PM (twenty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Certainly true (not always true but here I think it would be the case), just wondering whether there is also, separate from Roe, a constitutional basis to invalidate the enforcement part of the law, which is creepy and has even broader implications.

Time to retire, Breyer
It's time to leave, Steve
There must be 50 ways to leave your judgeship

― Robert Cray-Cray (Ye Mad Puffin), Thursday, 2 September 2021 19:46 (two hours ago) link

no need to discuss much!

― sleeve, Thursday, 2 September 2021 19:49 (two hours ago) link

Just stick it to Gorsuch!

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Thursday, 2 September 2021 19:50 (two hours ago) link

You're looking long in the tooth, Ruth (sorry)

for this particular statute the six week restriction does depend on the private right of action. one of the things it's trying to do is say that this isn't unconstitutional because there's no state action involved:

Sec. 171.207. LIMITATIONS ON PUBLIC ENFORCEMENT.
(a) Notwithstanding Section 171.005 or any other law, the
requirements of this subchapter shall be enforced exclusively
through the private civil actions described in Section 171.208. No
enforcement of this subchapter, and no enforcement of Chapters 19
and 22, Penal Code, in response to violations of this subchapter,
may be taken or threatened by this state, a political subdivision, a
district or county attorney, or an executive or administrative
officer or employee of this state or a political subdivision
against any person, except as provided in Section 171.208.

which is partially why the supreme court wouldn't hear it. they would not enjoin the court that would ultimately hear the case, and there is no the attorney general or a law enforcement entity to enjoin.

the

And that hot mess is what the justices in their wisdom chose not to issue an injunction to prevent?! Christ on a cracker, they're sending in the clowns.

ty harbl

but what damages could a court assess, if the plaintiff was never damaged? how can standing be conjured out of nothing?

a statute can be written to give a person standing, probably a more appropriate phrase is enforcement authority or right of action, because it doesn't require the enforcing person to be harmed. another way it's not like the ADA where (as far as i know) you have to include in your initial pleading that you are the person harmed.

Sen. Susan Collins emerged from her face-to-face meeting with then-Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh in August 2018 insisting that he had reassured her that Roe v. Wade was settled law.

Two months later, Collins (R-Maine), who supports abortion rights, declared in a lengthy Senate floor speech that Kavanaugh had a “record of judicial independence” and dismissed the notion that he might overturn precedent. She later would vote to confirm him to the lifetime post.

Collins’s past assertions came into sharp relief Wednesday as Kavanaugh joined four of his fellow conservatives on the court in declining to block one of the country’s most restrictive abortion laws, a Texas statute that bans the procedure as early as six weeks into pregnancy with no exception for rape or incest. The court’s action stands as the most serious threat to the landmark ruling establishing a woman’s right to abortion in nearly 50 years.

Collins’s support for Kavanaugh — and her insistence that he would uphold Roe — was crucial in installing then-President Donald Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court as the Senate confirmed him by one of the narrowest margins in history, a near party-line 50-to-48 vote.

His decision late Wednesday night revives questions of whether Collins was misled by the nominee or whether she was intent on supporting him no matter his views on abortion rights. Collins’s full-throated endorsement of Kavanaugh and her swing vote means she will always be associated with this Supreme Court justice, winning praise from conservatives and widespread criticism from liberals.

geeeeee what could it be? it couldn't be both that's for sure!

Q. Could you grant a private right of action to citizens to sue any provider of religious services for $1M? Asking for a friend.

oh man, that would be nice. there are a lot of church people i'd like to sue, including the people that forced me to attend

xposts oh and i meant to add that this statute establishes a $10,000 minimum penalty. it is not in any way damages under the normal definition of damages. it's a fine, just paid to the plaintiff.

right, so that would be like how my former pastor is going to pay me $10K once i prove his guilt