U.S. Supreme Court: Post-Ginsburg Edition

So many of the questions were like "That would make a lot of work for us, don't you think?"

When they were asking "Well, what if some states decided to throw Biden off the ballot?" and the lawyer responded, "You guys could strike that down, since it's obvious nonsense," the Supremes had no comeback.

So many of the questions were like "That would make a lot of work for us, don't you think?"

That was literally the only hopeful sign in that recent case (yet to be decided) revisiting the Chevron doctrine. The conservative justices were all ready to overturn it in theory, the only real concern was the deluge of litigation that would follow.

Anyway, that was a really fucking depressing hearing, but not a surprise - Lawrence Lessig pretty much raised many of the same concerns last year.

xp They were too busy being hypnotized by the lawyer's comical, stage winking in their direction

I thought Murray made a poor case.

Justice Alito takes aim at Obergefell again, warning that the decision means "Americans who do not hide their adherence to traditional religious beliefs about homosexual conduct" are being "labeled as bigots and treated as such" by the state and "society." https://t.co/R7bbBPwrPy pic.twitter.com/HgS6X6opKY

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) February 20, 2024

Fuck that guy. If you're a bigot, own it, don't ask everyone else to make you feel better about your shameful bullshit.

The right to not be called a racist or bigot is very very important to these guys. They can think of nothing worse, and it is so unfair that it happens to them so often.

I hope Alito winds up in a persistent vegetative state until he's 163 and nobody pulls the plug

Well they passed a law in '64, so you can't call me a bigot no more,
but it only goes so far...

I love how conservatives essentially hinge their hostility to racial justice on the idea that we "solved" all of this 60 years ago. By which they literally really only mean, MLK had that one dream. They never even talk about the Civil Rights Act or Voting Rights Act, because of course they've been trying with some success to roll them back ever since.

I mean come on, slavery ended 160 years ago, all that you had to deal with after that was peonage, Black Codes, Jim Crow, what's the big deal

They also don't talk about how "MLK had that one dream and then WE MURDERED HIM FOR IT."

Which proves that progress is dangerous

we solved racism and it's racist to say otherwise

I don't know. Maybe we have gone too far. My uncle got sent to the bigot camps just for telling a joke about people with dandruff.

those snowflakes

Interesting how he defines hatred of homosexuality as a traditional religious value but not say opposition to the death penalty as one

Old Testament vs. New Testament

The death penalty is as Old Testament as it gets.

Jesus, take the cross.

Jesus was a squish

He only wants to protect religious values that coincide with his ones and with his political views of course

How is the government treating these people like bigots? The SC has ruled that they are allowed to do basically anything they think their religion tells them to do.

I assume this is about public schools talking about tolerance

How is the government treating these people like bigots? The SC has ruled that they are allowed to do basically anything they think their religion tells them to do.

Meanwhile:

Months after authorizing subpoenas for Leonard Leo & Harlan Crow — two key figures in the Supreme Court’s ethics crisis — Senate Democrats have yet to issue them.

“Still working on it," Sen. Dick Durbin told ProPublica when asked about the subpoenas

https://www.propublica.org/article/why-hasnt-senate-judiciary-subpoenaed-harlan-crow-leonard-leo-scotus

Will we hear from the US Supreme Court this coming week re Trump's appeal of the DC Court of Appeals decision rejecting his immunity claim?

After Trump asked the Supreme Court to stay proceedings in the trial court, Special Counsel Jack Smith focused on the timing issue by filing a response long before a deadline set by the chief justice: “Delay in the resolution of these charges threatens to frustrate the public interest in a speedy and fair verdict—a compelling interest in every criminal case and one that has unique national importance here, as it involves federal criminal charges against a former president for alleged criminal efforts to overturn the results of the presidential election, including through the use of official power.”

As of today, the justices have not issued an order that summarily denies Trump’s motion or grants it, either setting the case down for review on either a regular or expedited basis. The Court’s action will determine when and even if Trump will face trial.

...The best-case outcome for Smith is, of course, recognition that the well-reasoned circuit court opinion does not merit review. But if the justices decide to have the case briefed and argued, there is ample precedent for the Court deciding the issue in time to permit a trial before the summer campaign season. That is, if the justices want to...

https://prospect.org/justice/2024-02-23-beating-the-clock-supreme-court-trump/

ate: "On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a pair of cases ....that could force major social media platforms to carry posts from Trump or others who lie about elections being stolen or obliquely encourage election-related violence."

been following those cases for a while. lord, if SCOTUS rules the way I fear they might, the First Amendment won't make sense anymore, if private corporations are required to dismiss their own TOS

I listened to the last half of that hearing, when justices were questioning the plaintiffs (lawyers for Facebook etc), so I didn't hear to what degree they raked the Florda lawyer over the coals. But I wasn't super impressed with the justices' keen grasp of First Amendment law and the way media companies operate. Even some of the liberal justices. Granted, they're "just asking questions," but there was some serious concern about Facebook or YouTube or whoever "censoring" content. One of the conservatives — I wasn't taking notes, so I don't remember if it was Thomas or Kavanaugh — sneered at the plaintiff lawyers for using "euphemisms" like "content moderation" instead of "censorship."

I may or may not have been shouting at my laptop as I listened ...

I was reading some live reaction on Bluesky and it seemed like the Florida lawyer got bludgeoned pretty hard, particularly by Kavanaugh and Barrett (and Sotomayor and Kagan, but that was to be expected). A lot of the judges had "old person mystified by the internet" reactions and questions, but I really don't think Florida's gonna win that one.

Yeah, Barrett for sure was pretty clear on the free speech issues, though she thought there could be some applications where the law would be legal. Even just from what I heard it seemed likely the injunction will remain in place, but maybe with some asterisks or highlighted questions for the trial court to resolve. But I mean, even Brown was struggling with whether social media should be considered a modern "public square" and therefore subject to some anti-censorship protections.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/26/opinion/constitutional-law-crisis-supreme-court.html

this is a very cute article. oh how nice it must be to believe in the rule of law!

it's a meet-cute then, because your comment is adorbs

Bump

Supreme Court decided not to dismiss Trump immunity petition today , but decided to hear arguments on it. But of course they didn’t decide to hear them on an expedited basis as the Supreme Court has done in years past, but to wait until April 22. The January 6 trial for Trump has to stay on hold until the immunity issue is resolved. So however long it takes to reach a decision after April will influence whether that trial can start before the election. Ugh.

Today’s hearing on bump stocks sounded bad too. Conservative justices were insisting that prior Congressional law banning automatic weapons should not apply to bump stocks for various reasons including an argument that one has to manually push on the stock in order for it make the gun fire hundreds of rounds. Therefore it’s not automatic.

Bump stock ban was, ironically, one of the few actual Trump achievements.

Listening to some the justices think aloud about getting rid of the bump stock was fucking pathetic, like listening to a sociopath resort to mental gymnastics to rationalize dismissing moral logic.

*to some of the justices think out loud

*bump stock ban

sorry, posting while traveling

https://x.com/steve_vladeck/status/1762992602373034400?s=46&t=u2ZSlsY3trRV36IPP6jNDQ

Sorta giving Court benefit of doubt re delay on Trump immunity pleading

because that's worked out so well in the past, smdh

what does it say. x no longer even works for me as a link.

you need a big big demonstration abouuuuut now.

Tweet said delay was not as long as Trump wanted .

... and why that's good, actualluy

... but is bad news for President Biden.

Two different things can be true:

#SCOTUS *isn’t* moving as fast as it possibly could/as fast as many folks want it to in resolving Trump’s immunity appeal; and

SCOTUS *is* moving much faster than Trump wanted it to *and* much faster than it does in virtually all of its cases

Two different things can be true:

#SCOTUS *isn’t* moving as fast as it possibly could/as fast as many folks want it to in resolving Trump’s immunity appeal; and

SCOTUS *is* moving much faster than Trump wanted it to *and* much faster than it does in virtually all of its cases

Two different things can be true:

#SCOTUS *isn’t* moving as fast as it possibly could/as fast as many folks want it to in resolving Trump’s immunity appeal; and
Nottingham Forest should be relegated