U.S. Supreme Court: Post-Nino Edition

I'm not a big Breyer fan, I find him unreliable in a lot of ways.

yeah that's a pretty tragic ruling

That Sotomayor dissent does something pretty sharp and important, which is find a way to get around all of the legalistic atomizing of individual microparts of the stop/search/seizure process and puts it all together as a sum total effect.

I don't know if I'd cosign on "least impressive" either, I'd have to really give it some thought.
― socka flocka-jones (man alive), Monday, June 20, 2016 11:19 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

pretty much every legal expert i’ve ever read (in addition to everyone i know who is a lawyer) agrees that thomas is by far the lightweight on the current court and one of the great lightweights in the modern history of the S.C.
xposts

sotomayor is amazing. that ruling is awful. fuck a breyer.

To say that the Constitution as read by Thomas' law clerks doesn't address DNA testing, gay marriage, or drone rockets is the most intellectually vacant approach to law ("It's not in there? No. Next.").

breyer has a deep and abiding trust in the benignity of tha Mayberry police dept

To say that the Constitution as read by Thomas' law clerks doesn't address DNA testing, gay marriage, or drone rockets is the most intellectually vacant approach to law ("It's not in there? No. Next.").

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, June 20, 2016 1:02 PM (36 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think you could defensibly view the Constitution as a limited-purpose document not designed to address every possible new legal wrinkle that can come up. A common conservative view is that the wrinkles get left to the states on most points. I don't agree with that view necessarily but it's not per se intellectually vacant.

Let's just say that it's way more defensible when, say, John Marshall Harlan II writes those decisions.

i.e. it's defensible to believe the Fourteenth Amendment is elastic enough to encompass many rights while being ehhh about incorporation. I tend to think it's the other way around but I'm no lawyer.

TX affirmative action upheld 4-3! (Kagan sat it out)

I like to imagine Scalia's ghost whining somewhere. "The dissenting opinion I'll never get a chance to write!"

alito?!

loooooooool this makes me very happy

oh, nm -- i thought alito had joined the majority for some reason

to the contrary, alito read his dissent aloud for like half an hour or something

Increasing minority enrollment may be instrumental to these educational benefits, but it is not, as petitioner seems to suggest, a goal that can or should be reduced to pure numbers. Indeed, since the University is prohibited from seeking a particular number or quota of minority
students, it cannot be faulted for failing to specify the particular level of minority enrollment at which it believes the educational benefits of diversity will be obtained.

http://i1.wp.com/usatftw.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/gty_541546580.jpg

Yeah this is great. I hope the GOP loses as much ground as possible on their hobby-horse issues thanks to their obstructionism.

KENNEDY, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which GINSBURG, BREYER, and SOTOMAYOR, JJ., joined. THOMAS, J., filed a dissenting opinion. ALITO, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and THOMAS, J., joined.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ClpKM8BXIAARoIo.jpg

(sry if hueg)

what the hell??

Thomas's concurrence in the dissent contains as much disingenuousness as some conservatives take a lifetime to produce.

This was announced today also

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/supreme-court-tie-dooms-obama-immigration-policy-n582961

The U.S. Supreme Court split 4-4 Thursday over a challenge to President Obama's immigration policy, a result that prevents the administration from putting the program into effect during the rest of his term.

The split was reflected in a one sentence statement from the court: "The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided Court."

Announced in late 2014, it would shield more than four million people from deportation. But lower courts blocked its implementation after Texas and 25 other states sued, claiming the president had no power to order the changes.

Washington Post re U of Texas case:

Kennedy had never before voted to uphold a race-conscious plan, but he also had been reluctant to say race may never be used. He was joined by three of the courts liberal justices: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor. Justice Elena Kagan recused herself.

Justice Samuel Alito wrote a 51-page dissent and summarized it by saying the majority’s conclusion is “remarkable — and remarkably wrong.”

Bye Alitia

This was announced today also

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/supreme-court-tie-dooms-obama-immigration-policy-n582961

shitty. hope to see Clinton continue with these efforts + appoint a liberal justice to the court and get this done. Seems like a really important and key thing to do to improve the lives of so many people.

yeah but the Constitution, etc

The 5th Circuit that interpreted the constitutionality of the Texas District court ruling on immigration ruled 2 to 1:

Judge Jerry E. Smith, who was appointed by former President Ronald Reagan, and Judge Jennifer Elrod, who was appointed by former President George W. Bush, voted to deny the request. Judge Carolyn Dineen King, appointed by former President Jimmy Carter, cast the dissenting vote.

https://www.texastribune.org/2015/11/09/fifth-court-strikes-down-immigration-program/

Justice Thomas often cites dictionaries in his opinions, but other books only rarely. He cited one on Monday, “Liberty’s Nemesis,” a newly published collection of essays compiled by Dean Reuter, an official of the conservative Federalist Society, and John Yoo, the former Bush administration Justice Department lawyer. The essays attack “the overgrowth of the administrative state,” in the words of the editors, since the beginning of the Obama administration, “liberty’s nemesis” itself.

Linda Greenhouse's interesting takes on this term

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/23/opinion/the-supreme-courts-post-scalia-term.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region®ion=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region

god fucking damn it

affirmative action decision GRATE but god fucking dammit

all I need to know about Thomas and the intellects he attracts is that Laura Ingraham clerked for him.

Justice Thomas often cites dictionaries in his opinions, but other books only rarely. He cited one on Monday, “Liberty’s Nemesis,” a newly published collection of essays compiled by Dean Reuter, an official of the conservative Federalist Society, and John Yoo, the former Bush administration Justice Department lawyer. The essays attack “the overgrowth of the administrative state,” in the words of the editors, since the beginning of the Obama administration, “liberty’s nemesis” itself.

Linda Greenhouse's interesting takes on this term

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/23/opinion/the-supreme-courts-post-scalia-term.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region®ion=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region

― curmudgeon, Thursday, June 23, 2016 3:31 PM (38 minutes ago)

hey now, it's wrong to suggest thomas is uniquely unqualified for his position

It's wrong to call Clarence Thomas a fucking Uncle Tom unless your viewpoint is "racial slurs are wrong unless I really dislike the person"

idk, I think it would be truthful to say that Pappy Bush found Clarence Thomas to be uniquely qualified for his position on the court

calling him an uncle tom is inexcusable obv

This is the way the term ends,

This is the way the term ends,

This is the way the term ends,

Not with a bang but a whimper.

With apologies to T. S. Eliot, “The Hollow Men”

ugh should I keep reading

based on that? no

anybody who riffs in any way on those hollow men lines should be physically placed into a garbage can

each one in a separate can or all crammed into the same can? would they be confined there until dead or just put there but left unattended - presumably to get back out again and walk away?

they can walk away. if they reoffend they must be returned to the trash can.

then forced to act in a production of End Game

poetic jiggery pokery

whoa! http://www.vox.com/2016/6/27/11713644/whole-womans-health-supreme-court-choice

so happy about this

from SCOTUSblog:

"Only Thomas would have upheld the statutes. Roberts and Alito would have remanded for additional findings." This is significant bc it suggests that Roberts and Alito may be willing to regard some abortion case law as essentially settles for stare decisis purposes."

At 5-3, it at least suggests that Scalia's presence would not have made a difference.

but don't worry: Sam's picking up the slack. From his dissent:

The Court’s patent refusal to apply well-established law in a neutral way is indefensible and will undermine public confidence in the Court as a fair and neutral arbiter.

hallelujah

for the decision, not the dissent