SCOTUS

[Shirley]

[Shirley]

[KUTradition]

drip, drip, drip…

https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/20 ... hing-trip/

[ousdahl]

Yeah, but how was the fishing?

[Sparko]

Fishing was great. Considring they just couldn't find anyone to fill that last seat except the guy who ruled on their business interests. Nobody wants to fish for Kings after a yacht and private plane ride.

[Shirley]

Fishing was great. Considring they just couldn't find anyone to fill that last seat except the guy who ruled on their business interests. Nobody wants to fish for Kings after a yacht and private plane ride.

A $2.3 billion dollar ruling here, a $2.3 billion dollar ruling there, and pretty soon you're talking real "business interest"*.




*With thanks to Senator Everett Dirksen.

[zsn]

Yeah, but how was the fishing?

Have you seen Brokeback Mountain? What are the chances that the fishing was similar to that? Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

[ousdahl]

Not bad.

[Shirley]

To the surprise of no one with a brain, there's more:

Last July, Alito was feted in Rome by Notre Dame’s Religious Liberty Initiative, which has in recent years joined the growing ranks of conservative legal activists who are finding new favor at the Supreme Court – and forging ties with the justices. The group’s legal clinic has filed a series of “friend-of-the-court” briefs in religious liberty cases before the Supreme Court since its founding in 2020.

After the high court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, the group paid for Alito’s trip to Rome to deliver a keynote address at a gala hosted at a palace in the heart of the city. It was his first known public appearance after the decision.

At the start of his speech, he thanked the group for the “warm hospitality” it provided to him and his wife, which, he later said, included a stay at a hotel that “looks out over the Roman Forum.”

During various parts of the address, he gleefully mocked critics of his ruling overturning the constitutional right to abortion. What really “wounded” him, the conservative justice said, was when Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, “addressed the United Nations and seemed to compare ‘the decision whose name may not be spoken’ with the Russian attack on the Ukraine.” [...]

[Shirley]

And you might ask yourself: What next?

[Shirley]

Praise Allah!

Supreme Court Rejects Theory That Would Have Transformed American Elections

The 6-3 majority dismissed the “independent state legislature” theory, which would have given state lawmakers nearly unchecked power over federal elections.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a legal theory that would have radically reshaped how federal elections are conducted by giving state legislatures largely unchecked power to set all sorts of rules for federal elections and to draw congressional maps warped by partisan gerrymandering.

The case, Moore v. Harper, No. 21-1271, concerned a voting map drawn by the North Carolina Legislature that was initially rejected as a partisan gerrymander by the state’s Supreme Court. Experts said the map was likely to yield a congressional delegation made up of 10 Republicans and four Democrats.

The vote was 6 to 3, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. writing the majority opinion. The Constitution, he said, “does not exempt state legislatures from the ordinary constraints imposed by state law.”

Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Neil M. Gorsuch dissented.

The case concerned the “independent state legislature” theory. The doctrine is based on a reading of the Constitution’s Elections Clause, which says, “The times, places and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof.”

Proponents of the strongest form of the theory say this means that no other organs of state government — not courts, not governors, not election administrators, not independent commissions — can alter a legislature’s actions on federal elections

The state court rejected the argument that it was not entitled to review the actions of the state’s Legislature, saying that adopting the independent state legislature theory would be “repugnant to the sovereignty of states, the authority of state constitutions and the independence of state courts, and would produce absurd and dangerous consequences.”

Republicans seeking to restore the legislative map last year asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene, arguing in an emergency application that the state court had been powerless to act.

The justices rejected the request for immediate intervention, and the election in November was conducted under a map drawn by experts appointed by a state court. That resulted in a 14-member congressional delegation that was evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, roughly mirroring the state’s partisan divisions.

The Republican lawmakers appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, saying the state court was not entitled to second-guess the Legislature. When the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in the case in December, the justices seemed divided, if not fractured, over the limits of the theory....

It's from the NY Times, but I "gifted" it so anyone can access it if they care to.

[jfish26]

Very, very significant.

[zsn]

I’ll donate a substantial sum of money to the favorite charity of the first lawyer who says “Your Honor, how much were you paid and by whom to ask that question?” to a SCOTUS judge. Or “how much does Harlan Crow pay you not to ask any questions” to Clarence Thomas.

[twocoach]

Very, very significant.

Glad to see the basic concept of judicial checks and balances be allowed to remain in place as allowing the individual state legislatures to answer to no one would be a disaster and would give voters no method to challenge their actions should they decide to act outside of the will of the voters.

[Shirley]

Very, very significant.

Glad to see the basic concept of judicial checks and balances be allowed to remain in place as allowing the individual state legislatures to answer to no one would be a disaster and would give voters no method to challenge their actions should they decide to act outside of the will of the voters.

But, without the "states rights" dogwhistle to appeal to our weak, scared, bigoted white constituents, how can we hope to keep the ____ers, wet backs, gays, trans, etc., etc., etc., down? As in, like, voting, and stuff?

[jfish26]

Very, very significant.

Glad to see the basic concept of judicial checks and balances be allowed to remain in place as allowing the individual state legislatures to answer to no one would be a disaster and would give voters no method to challenge their actions should they decide to act outside of the will of the voters.

But, without the "states rights" dogwhistle to appeal to our weak, scared, bigoted white constituents, how can we hope to keep the ____ers, wet backs, gays, trans, etc., etc., etc., down? As in, like, voting, and stuff?

I've thought (and posted) for a while that the macro battle here is a race against time.

Simply put, what happens first, (1) the MAGAs complete the Death Star (including a non-moron at the controls), or (2) the libs (and common-cause sympathizers) hold off the MAGAs long enough for changing demographics and popular opinion to change the electoral landscape.

This SCOTUS holding is a massive, massive boost to #2.

[KUTradition]

just received in the mail a large envelope labeled DO NOT BEND from the ACLU:

_____, you’ve been selected to represent Utah by sharing your opinion on the Supreme Court, the future of access to abortion, and strategies for defending our fundamental freedoms.

fuck yes; don’t mind if i do…though, i don’t think i’m all that representative of the “average” Utahan

[Shirley]

Glad to see the basic concept of judicial checks and balances be allowed to remain in place as allowing the individual state legislatures to answer to no one would be a disaster and would give voters no method to challenge their actions should they decide to act outside of the will of the voters.

But, without the "states rights" dogwhistle to appeal to our weak, scared, bigoted white constituents, how can we hope to keep the ____ers, wet backs, gays, trans, etc., etc., etc., down? As in, like, voting, and stuff?

I've thought (and posted) for a while that the macro battle here is a race against time.

Simply put, what happens first, (1) the MAGAs complete the Death Star (including a non-moron at the controls), or (2) the libs (and common-cause sympathizers) hold off the MAGAs long enough for changing demographics and popular opinion to change the electoral landscape.

This SCOTUS holding is a massive, massive boost to #2.

You might have been referring to this broadly in #1, but this is what keeps me up at night:

March 24, 2023 The Republican Plan to Make Voting Irrelevant

On Tuesday, it was reported by NBC News that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell continues to recover at a rehabilitation center after his fall at a restaurant in Washington earlier this month. McConnell spoke with fellow Republican Senators over the phone from the facility and “sounded like Mitch,” according to Senate Minority Whip John Thune.

The news brought to mind McConnell’s exceptional instincts as a political calculator, and in particular his past cynical and perhaps prescient deliberations concerning his own health. In 2020, amid reports that McConnell had visited Johns Hopkins in Baltimore after concerning photos were published showing intense bruising on one of his hands, the Kentucky Republican began a campaign to pressure the GOP-controlled Kentucky Legislature to change that state’s law to remove from the governor—who is a Democrat—the authority to select a candidate to fill the unexpired term of a departing U.S. senator. The ability of the governor to appoint a nominee to fill the unexpired term of a senator without restrictions is the law in 35 states.

But McConnell urged, and the Kentucky Legislature took the step of changing that state’s law—overriding the veto of the governor to do so—in a way that assured that Republicans would maintain control of McConnell’s seat should it become vacant.

This effort—to remove powers from elected representatives who are Democrats—has become the new method of disenfranchising voters and maintaining perpetual Republican political power. And it is being undertaken with alarming frequency and speed across the country. This may be the most dangerous and efficient structural attack on our democracy. Its threat, and pernicious ingenuity, lies in its ability to make voting itself irrelevant. Voters may turn out in high numbers and elect their candidates of choice, but if the official is not one whose views align with those of the Republican Party, they may find that their powers of office are removed by antagonistic GOP-controlled legislatures.

We have seen this phenomenon most readily applied to so-called progressive prosecutors who have run successfully on platforms of criminal justice reform across the country. Progressive prosecutors have refused to prosecute low-level marijuana possession crimes, have embraced diversion programs, have opened conviction integrity units to review prior prosecutions for violations of law, and have prosecuted police officers for brutality. For embracing these and other reforms, progressive prosecutors have been confronted with an array of efforts to remove their power. Prosecutors who prosecute or investigate the wrong kinds of criminal suspects in the eyes of Republican legislators have also received this treatment.

[...]

[jfish26]

But, without the "states rights" dogwhistle to appeal to our weak, scared, bigoted white constituents, how can we hope to keep the ____ers, wet backs, gays, trans, etc., etc., etc., down? As in, like, voting, and stuff?

I've thought (and posted) for a while that the macro battle here is a race against time.

Simply put, what happens first, (1) the MAGAs complete the Death Star (including a non-moron at the controls), or (2) the libs (and common-cause sympathizers) hold off the MAGAs long enough for changing demographics and popular opinion to change the electoral landscape.

This SCOTUS holding is a massive, massive boost to #2.

You might have been referring to this broadly in #1, but this is what keeps me up at night:

March 24, 2023 The Republican Plan to Make Voting Irrelevant

On Tuesday, it was reported by NBC News that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell continues to recover at a rehabilitation center after his fall at a restaurant in Washington earlier this month. McConnell spoke with fellow Republican Senators over the phone from the facility and “sounded like Mitch,” according to Senate Minority Whip John Thune.

The news brought to mind McConnell’s exceptional instincts as a political calculator, and in particular his past cynical and perhaps prescient deliberations concerning his own health. In 2020, amid reports that McConnell had visited Johns Hopkins in Baltimore after concerning photos were published showing intense bruising on one of his hands, the Kentucky Republican began a campaign to pressure the GOP-controlled Kentucky Legislature to change that state’s law to remove from the governor—who is a Democrat—the authority to select a candidate to fill the unexpired term of a departing U.S. senator. The ability of the governor to appoint a nominee to fill the unexpired term of a senator without restrictions is the law in 35 states.

But McConnell urged, and the Kentucky Legislature took the step of changing that state’s law—overriding the veto of the governor to do so—in a way that assured that Republicans would maintain control of McConnell’s seat should it become vacant.

This effort—to remove powers from elected representatives who are Democrats—has become the new method of disenfranchising voters and maintaining perpetual Republican political power. And it is being undertaken with alarming frequency and speed across the country. This may be the most dangerous and efficient structural attack on our democracy. Its threat, and pernicious ingenuity, lies in its ability to make voting itself irrelevant. Voters may turn out in high numbers and elect their candidates of choice, but if the official is not one whose views align with those of the Republican Party, they may find that their powers of office are removed by antagonistic GOP-controlled legislatures.

We have seen this phenomenon most readily applied to so-called progressive prosecutors who have run successfully on platforms of criminal justice reform across the country. Progressive prosecutors have refused to prosecute low-level marijuana possession crimes, have embraced diversion programs, have opened conviction integrity units to review prior prosecutions for violations of law, and have prosecuted police officers for brutality. For embracing these and other reforms, progressive prosecutors have been confronted with an array of efforts to remove their power. Prosecutors who prosecute or investigate the wrong kinds of criminal suspects in the eyes of Republican legislators have also received this treatment.

[...]

Yep, that and things like it. And the REAL goal is to make America like other autocracies/oligarchies, where there are "elections," but they're rigged beyond recognition to the point that the people simply submit* and stop trying to participate.

* Every accusation. EVERY. LAST. ONE.

[Shirley]

By a guy who is, (used to be?), a heavyweight to many conservatives: