SCOTUS: No longer content with stacking, they're now dealing from the bottom of the deck

[The Evil Genius]

 

[Cooked Crack]

Great system of checks and balances we got here

 

Edited October 25, 2023 by Cooked Crack

[China]

And nothing will happen.  There's already a ****-ton of evidence of Thomas' corruption and nothing has been done.  Another quarter million won't move the needle.  The system is broken.  No penalties for obvious and blatant corruption.

Edited October 25, 2023 by China

[PleaseBlitz]

****ing disgraceful. 

[TheGreatBuzz]

Special counsel time?

[China]

He should at least be being investigated for his tax evasion crimes.  That's not something that needs a partisan Congress to investigate.

[samy316]

17 hours ago, China said:

And nothing will happen.  There's already a ****-ton of evidence of Thomas' corruption and nothing has been done.  Another quarter million won't move the needle.  The system is broken.  No penalties for obvious and blatant corruption.

 

Of course nothing will happen.  You actually think that THIS congress in particular will be bi-partisan enough to start an investigation??  Congress won't act, and the DOJ will do NOTHING.  Thomas will continue to be in that seat until the day he dies, or he retires (which probably won't happen until he's in his late 80's or early 90's and a vegetable at that point).  There will be no penalties or investigations.  Sorry to pop the balloon here, but anyone thinking that there'll be some accountability or justice (no pun intended) is just naïve or uninformed.

Edited October 26, 2023 by samy316

[Cooked Crack]

 

 

[China]

Who enforces it and how?
 

I imagine it's just empty words on paper with no teeth.

 

[The Evil Genius]

12 minutes ago, China said:

Who enforces it and how?
 

I imagine it's just empty words on paper with no teeth.

 

 

We should all create our own non-enforceable code of ethics and claim everything we've wrongly done in the past as a misunderstanding.  

Edited November 14, 2023 by The Evil Genius

[tshile]

2 hours ago, The Evil Genius said:

 

We should all create our own non-enforceable code of ethics and claim everything we've wrongly done in the past as a misunderstanding.  

Wait you’re not already doing this?

[China]

The Supreme Court won’t allow Florida to enforce its new law targeting drag shows during appeal

 

The Supreme Court said Thursday it will not allow Florida to enforce its new law targeting drag shows, while a court case proceeds.

 

The justices refused to narrow a lower-court order that has prohibited the law from being enforced statewide.

 

Florida had asked the court to allow its anti-drag show law to be enforced everywhere except at the Hamburger Mary’s restaurant in Orlando, which challenged the law’s constitutionality.

 

Three justices, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas, said they would have granted the state’s request.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Cooked Crack]

 

[@DCGoldPants]

 

 

 

[The Evil Genius]

Seems like affirmative action really helped Clarence. 

Edited December 18, 2023 by The Evil Genius

[The Evil Genius]

 

[China]

So the first formal ethics complaint isn't against Thomas, it's against...

 

Ketanji Brown Jackson slapped with ethics complaint over husband’s income

 

A conservative group is asking the Judicial Conference to refer Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to the DOJ after revelations of “willful” disclosure requirements violations.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[The Evil Genius]

 

[Fergasun]

Well, in light of Harvard's President being forced to resign over a plagarism scandal that the NYT and WAPO treated as huge issues.  I highlight below:

 

 

[China]

Gorsuch urged to recuse himself from supreme court case over ties to oil baron

 

Two days before oral arguments in a US supreme court case set to have a major impact on federal health and environmental regulation, a leading government watchdog called on Neil Gorsuch to recuse himself over close links to a billionaire oil baron who has hosted the rightwing justice at a mountain resort called Eagles Nest for weekends of dove shooting and who stands to benefit from the ruling at hand.

 

“Not only would overturning Chevron deference strip power from federal agencies, harming their ability to serve everyday Americans – but now, we know billionaire oil baron Philip Anschutz would score big from a favourable ruling by his friend on the high court,” said Caroline Ciccone, president of Accountable.US.

 

“It’s far past time for these justices to stop putting their billionaire pals over Americans. Recusal from cases where they have glaring conflicts of interest is the very least they can do to restore some semblance of credibility and integrity to our supreme court.”

 

The case at hand, Loper Bright Enterprises v Raimondo, considers whether the National Marine Fisheries Service can compel fishing vessels to pay the salaries of federal observers ensuring stocks are not overfished.

 

But the case has much wider implications because it is thought likely to remove the Chevron deference, a principle named for a 1984 case involving the eponymous oil giant which established that federal agencies have the discretion to issue regulatory rules without congressional approval.

 

Ben Johnson, a professor of law at the University of Florida, recently told the Amicus podcast, from Slate, those who wish to see Chevron fall see “the courts [as] a more reliable enforcer of [their] view of policy [and] don’t want agencies to have the ability to expand or contract their mission”.

 

Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, in Virginia, said: “People and entities championing the end of Chevron deference are hoping it will presage the demise of the so-called ‘administrative state’, which they believe prevents certain interests from maximising profits through ‘overregulation’.”

 

Gorsuch has indicated he thinks Chevron should go.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Fergasun]

Based on the oral arguments, it looks like Gorsuch-Kavanaugh-Thomas-Alito want to overrule "Chevron deference" a 40 year SCOTUS precedent...

 

Just to be clear, this ruling enables Presidential administrations to implement their policies in specific areas as democracy would somewhat dictate and get broad leeway from outside challengers.

 

Kagan-Jackson-Sotomayor are looking at this aghast. Coney B and John G Roberts weren't as readable during oral arguments.  

[TheGreatBuzz]

I recommend a podcast called Strict Scrutiny for SCOTUS stuff. They do a good breakdown of this case among others.

[PleaseBlitz]

3 hours ago, Fergasun said:

Based on the oral arguments, it looks like Gorsuch-Kavanaugh-Thomas-Alito want to overrule "Chevron deference" a 40 year SCOTUS precedent...

 

Just to be clear, this ruling enables Presidential administrations to implement their policies in specific areas as democracy would somewhat dictate and get broad leeway from outside challengers.

 

Kagan-Jackson-Sotomayor are looking at this aghast. Coney B and John G Roberts weren't as readable during oral arguments.  

 

This is a really interesting issue with good arguments on both sides, and it is an INCREDIBLY important issue because Congress makes statutes, but the agencies take those statutes and make regulations, which are far more detailed and are what actually ends up being implemented.  

 

The basic Chevron standard is:

 

Quote

When a challenge to an agency construction of a statutory provision, fairly conceptualized, really centers on the wisdom of the agency's policy, rather than whether it is a reasonable choice within a gap left open by Congress, the challenge must fail. In such a case, federal judges—who have no constituency—have a duty to respect legitimate policy choices made by those who do. The responsibilities for assessing the wisdom of such policy choices and resolving the struggle between competing views of the public interest are not judicial ones ....

 

This (the reference to the wisdom of the agency's policy) is basically saying that the various agencies have A LOT MORE knowledge about their subject than basically anyone else and especially a judge (who is an expert in the law, but probably isn't an expert in the topic at hand).  For example, the EPA probably employs close to 10,000 scientists, many of whom are the absolute expert in their field.  A judge doesn't have that level of expertise, and so should defer to the agency's interpretation of the law. So Chevron defense basically says if an agency reasonably interprets a law passed by Congress and crafts regulations implementing the law based on that reasonable interpretation, then it can't be challenged.

 

That seems reasonable, but the downside is that the Executive Branch (both parties) have used this for years, and appointed leadership to the agencies to carry out their political whims.  This contravenes our core political process as laid out in the Constitution.  In order to pass a law, you should need the agreement of both houses of Congress and then for the President to also agree and sign the bill into law.  What Chevron defense does is give the President a very easy path to making regulations (which are also law) that implement their political will (by telling unelected agency chiefs who they appointed to do stuff) while cutting Congress out of the picture.  Remember when Obama couldn't get much through after he lost the House and he was like "Well, I've got a pen and a phone."?  This is what he was talking about. 

[Larry]

Recall, decades ago, a friend of mine describing a situation to me.  He said that the tax code is complicated.  And sometimes contradictory.  And that if a taxpayer has a complicated situation, he can contact the IRSW for guidance.  And he can even request, and get, written guidance about how to interpret a given situation.  

 

But that, if the taxpayer then follows that guidance, the IRS can then look at the taxpayer's return, cone to a different conclusion, and inform the taxpayer that he owes some different amount.  

 

And that in that case, the taxpayer has the option to go to court.  And stand in front of a judge, and show the judge two written statements from the IRS, giving two different opinions on the right way to determine the tax owed.  

 

And that when the judge gets these two, differing, pieces of paper, the judge . . . 

 

Sets them both aside, and states:  

The IRS does not write the tax code.  Congress does.  
The IRS does not interpret the tax code.  I do.  

Let's see what the law says . . . 

 

[Fergasun]

The issue with the Texas Supreme Court ruling about razor wire is that 4 of them ruled that Federal officials can't cut razor wire.  When the supremacy laws are clear.  This is re-defining the Constitution.