U.S. Supreme Court: Post-Ginsburg Edition

Biden inspires no passion ANYWHERE. There are no lawn signs or bumper stickers for him because people are, at the absolute best, moderately satisfied with him. This will be his undoing when he loses in November to the syphilitic nightmare that is a Donald J. Trump

― beamish13, Tuesday, August 18, 2020 12:11 PM (two years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Beaming with insight.

I’m an outsider to America at this point, and I freely admit that.

Why am I the focus, though? Guys ran out of things to say?

return of the mack.xls

Leaving America is the only sane option at this point.

I know you’re super proud of moving to Canada, but maybe some people here don’t have that option.

Hey bearish, pretty please, shut the fuck up.

Oops. U know who I mean.

Why am I the focus, though?

utterly bewildering. here's a thought. stop posting to the thread for an hour or two and see if you're still the focus. so crazy it might work!

Here we are on rerun #6,704 of "I'm leaving this country," and its close companion "but that will leave the vulnerable people even more vulnerable," lather, rinse, etc.

mmmm right

yo pouring one out for thems that already left. and now another one, for me. and another for me. hey, maybe i'll try a negroni, what is that anyway? *hic* will i have enough for later, better slow down.

Today's not over. After that last decision, the Supreme Court announced they'll now consider whether the government may disarm people subject to restraining orders for domestic abuse.

FWIW, the case will be heard in October. Details:

The case, United States v. Rahimi, No. 22-915, concerned Zackey Rahimi, a drug dealer in Texas with a history of armed violence, according to court records. In 2019, Mr. Rahimi assaulted his girlfriend and threatened to shoot her if she told anyone, leading her to obtain a restraining order. The order suspended Mr. Rahimi’s handgun license and prohibited him from possessing firearms.

He threatened a different woman with a gun, leading to charges of assault with a deadly weapon. Then, in the space of two months, he opened fire in public five times.

Upset about a social media post from someone to whom he had sold drugs, for instance, he shot an AR-15 rifle into his former client’s home. When a fast-food restaurant declined a friend’s credit card, he fired several bullets into the air.

The shootings led to a search warrant of Mr. Rahimi’s home, which uncovered weapons, and he was charged with violating the federal law.

After a judge rejected his Second Amendment challenge to the law, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to more than six years in prison. The Fifth Circuit initially affirmed his conviction in a short decision, rebuffing the argument that the law violated the Second Amendment in a footnote.

But the appeals court reversed course after the Bruen decision last June.

Here we are on rerun #6,704 of "I'm leaving this country," and its close companion "but that will leave the vulnerable people even more vulnerable," lather, rinse, etc.

I live only about 60 miles from the border now; unfortunately, that short trip north would land me in the worst part of Canada.

this hypothetical website designer ruling is total bullshit.. there were no injured parties, what the fuck

Just in case she decides to start a wedding website design service, and in case one of her prospective couples is gay, she is preemptively reserving the right to deny them services, and then covering her ass in the event she gets sued.

Alliance Defending Freedom are also the legal shit-stirrers involved in recent medical abortion drug controversy.

Also two decades ago, Alliance Defending Freedom urged the Supreme Court not to overturn a Texas law that made homosexual activity illegal. (The court ruled 6 to 3 in 2003 that the law was unconstitutional.) Truly disgusting sacks of shit.

the SPLC designated them as a hate group

Good read: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/30/christian-hate-group-funding-us-anti-lgbtq-anti-abortion-organizations

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/coney-barrett-christian-law-fellowship-blackstone/2020/09/27/7ae41892-fdc5-11ea-b555-4d71a9254f4b_story.html

Barrett was a paid speaker five times, starting in 2011, at the Blackstone Legal Fellowship, a summer program established to inspire a “distinctly Christian worldview in every area of law,” tax filings show. It was founded to show students “how God can use them as judges, law professors and practicing attorneys to help keep the door open for the spread of the Gospel in America.”

The Blackstone program is run by Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal advocacy group whose founding leader has questioned the “so-called separation of church and state” as it is often understood. In the years Barrett spoke there, the fellowship’s suggested reading list included a book co-written by the same leader that lamented how Christians for too long had been “AWOL from the courthouse.”

When Barrett was before the Senate in 2017, to be confirmed as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, she was asked about those speaking engagements and grilled particularly on ADF’s stance on gay rights. Senators did not address the program’s goal of connecting Christian teachings to the practice of law, which has been little noted in the context of Barrett’s role on the courts.

“I would never impose my own personal convictions upon the law,” Barrett said at the time, when asked whether her deeply held faith was at odds with her ability to render impartial judgments.

oh never

RECUSE AMY, RECUSE

Biden about to announce new student loan actions

Barrett was a paid speaker five times, starting in 2011, at the Blackstone Legal Fellowship, a summer program established to inspire a “distinctly Christian worldview in every area of law,” tax filings show. It was founded to show students “how God can use them as judges, law professors and practicing attorneys to help keep the door open for the spread of the Gospel in America.”

Constantly shocked that right-wing religious nuts are true believers and not just running a 250-year con.

Not so shocking to me. The vilest posts I've seen on social media from people I distantly know (mainly bigotry against the LGBT community and Muslims) all come from people who wear Christianity on their sleeves and try to "outpious" everyone else. To be clear, I think they're in the minority - most practicing Christians I know do not remotely have the same prejudices - they just seem like moronic assholes who warp religion to mentally justify their own disgusting beliefs.

Also per Alfred, some more details:

In his remarks just now, Biden said using the Higher Education Act would take longer than his original plan, but he called it “legally sound” and said, “In my view, it’s the best path that remains to providing as many borrowers as possible with debt relief.” He said that he had directed his team to move forward as quickly as possible, and that Education Secretary Miguel Cardona had just taken the first step to start the process.

(Some people had proposed that the Biden administration use the Higher Education Act to grant student debt relief before the administration instead used the pandemic emergency law to do so. In February 2021, for example, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York and Representative Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts introduced a resolution urging that step.)

Here’s a seven-page paper from September 2020 by Harvard Law School’s Legal Services Center, commissioned by Senator Warren, explaining how the Higher Education Act could be used to cancel student debt. (One of the authors of that paper, Toby Merrill, now works at the Education Department as a deputy general counsel.)

Not so shocking to me. The vilest posts I've seen on social media from people I distantly know (mainly bigotry against the LGBT community and Muslims) all come from people who wear Christianity on their sleeves and try to "outpious" everyone else. To be clear, I think they're in the minority - most practicing Christians I know do not remotely have the same prejudices - they just seem like moronic assholes who warp religion to mentally justify their own disgusting beliefs.

Yeah i mean tbh God is love and if people don’t want to live in communion with their fellow humans because they believe some hateful shit, that’s on them.

The US and western society in general tends to make people believe that there are only so many resources to go around, when in fact, there is plenty. So much of the hatred and lack of understanding of others comes from this sense of false scarcity, a false consciousness that all resources need to be hoarded. Getting people out of this mindset is really the only way things will change, and tbh, I’m not hopeful. I just don’t understand why people don’t want to live in fellowship, even tolerance, of the people around them. It’s not Christian— it’s nihilism. It’s the very root of evil.

yes i am stoned and spent three hours climbing today, my hippie is coming out

That’s okay, just don’t tell Mary Woronov. #onethread

I want to rant here and am sorry in advance if it offends people

I don't blame RBG. She should have retired when she had the chance, yes, but that wouldn’t have changed the current ideological make-up of the Supreme Court or the recent decisions, it would just have meant 5-4 instead of 6-3 decisions for the conservative majority.

I blame Mitch McConnell, who for a whole year blockaded Obama’s Garland nomination until Trump was elected, and then when RBG died in late 2020 shoved Barrett’s nomination through the Senate in a record 8 days just before the 2020 election! He considers it his crowning achievement, and I guess it is if you’re looking at from a completely predatory partisan point of view

I also blame the voters in 2016 who sat out the election because they didn’t like Hillary’s laugh or thought she was shrill (exactly like with Harris today), or who believed all of the malevolent propaganda that the GOP had been repeating about her over and over again since the 90s (I remember it vividly, since 1992!), or who sat out the election because ‘Bernie was shafted’ or who voted for Jill Stein out of protest, or who actually thought Trump would be the lesser of two evils.

I know many people in my dark blue state who just couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Hillary, and all I could think was, are you that brainwashed? I see those voters now, some of them my family members, as narcissistic, selfish, uncaring and unwilling to see the future consequences for other more vulnerable people. It was just incredibly disappointing.

People should really examine where their received ideas are coming from, seriously, because a lot of them are hammered down from right-wing propaganda over years and years, filtered through mainstream media

I agree with most of your first three tweets.

ok rant over, want to say just be strategic and vote for the lesser of two evils likely to win whenever you get the chance, and VOTE!

People in a dark blue state voting for Hilary wouldn’t have changed anything

I think he was ranting about the mindset more than the strategic implications within the electoral college.

that wouldn’t have changed the current ideological make-up of the Supreme Court or the recent decisions, it would just have meant 5-4 instead of 6-3 decisions for the conservative majority.

Roe v. Wade would have been a big exception. They needed five to rule specifically overturn it, but Roberts did not join the majority on that count. (Barrett did.)

I blame Mitch McConnell, who for a whole year blockaded Obama’s Garland nomination until Trump was elected, and then when RBG died in late 2020 shoved Barrett’s nomination through the Senate in a record 8 days just before the 2020 election! He considers it his crowning achievement, and I guess it is if you’re looking at from a completely predatory partisan point of view

This above all, but what's really galling is that the GOP gets away with it. McConnell's big concern was repercussions in the form of voter backlash, but he kept rolling the dice because more often than not, it did not materialize. (see 2016 when the GOP held on to Senate control, or rather the post immediately following the one I just quoted)

*rule specifically to overturn

Many actual leftists refused to vote for Hillary because, well, her actual record? Believe it or not, Dan, there are people who don’t think feminism, the environment, or gay rights end at the borders of the US, and admitting to aiding and orchestrating a coup from arch-conservatives in Honduras was enough for me to say, “I will not vote for this person.” HRC seemed perfectly fine with government death squads killing lesbian and indigenous environmentalists in Honduras, so excuse me if I take such policy at its face value and refuse to excuse it with my vote.


(I also knew that my vote in a deep blue state didn’t mean much, and blaming individuals for this shitty quirk of our system is about as petulant as one can get).

I do blame RBG for not retiring — I blame her a lot! 5-4 is a lot different than 6-3, not least because it's only one justice away from flipping the balance. There's no excuse for her not stepping down in Obama's second term, none at all. That said, of course I also blame all the other people Dan S cites. And more broadly I blame a tremendous amount of white liberal complacency that for a long time didn't understand how fragile the gains they they assumed were set actually were. (In some cases, still doesn't, even as they are literally being systemically erased.)

Fwiw, Dan S, I do agree that many of the more mainstream complaints about Hillary— her being “shrill” and so on— are absolutely sexist and I always found it surprising when supposed “liberals” bought into that obviously misogynistic BS.

My issue is that it seems as tho any criticism of Hillary’s actual policy and politics have been irrevocably reduced in many minds as associated with this vile sexism. At times this association exists, but the idea that one can’t have legitimate and serious criticisms of Hillary without being called a “sexist” is absurd and a sign of the failure of the mainstream liberal imagination both in looking beyond the more facile notions of representation as well as demanding more from the people who are supposedly on our side.

I think you can recognize Hillary's many faults and still think she mostly (barely) lost because of sexism.

well now it hardly matters who's in office as any progressive gains are likely to be wiped out indefinitely by SCOTUS unless one or more justices dies/retires (the latter ain't gonna happen).

it will still matter who's in office imo

I mean obv it would be much worse to have a Republican in office, but when it comes to D-candidates, not so much.

(do not take that as a treatise against running more progressive candidates, because we obviously should and quit thinking about "electability" when nominating candidates, and progressive candidates are STILL more likely to fight harder and find creative ways to respond to shit SCOTUS rulings instead of the Biden shrug. just frustrated that many of us will be dead before the court is restored to any normalcy of operation)

Life was never not going to be an incredible, awful struggle, is basically my worldview the older I get

demanding more from the people who are supposedly on our side.

This.