U.S. Supreme Court: Post-Nino Edition

Intentionally burning down a neighbor’s house is arson, even if the perpetrator’s ultimate intention (or motivation) is only to improve the view.

https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/104435162_10163654192200304_7525541803262283713_o.jpg?_nc_cat=107&_nc_sid=dbeb18&_nc_ohc=68-04CRt3ikAX8OePDC&_nc_ht=scontent-lga3-1.xx&oh=8ee017cf244aaf8c813ad98c687f4575&oe=5F0C3929

i made that for u guys

*bows*

NY Times op-ed by U. of Texas Law Professor re one of the things the majority of the current court is doing--

But for all of the attention that we pay to these “merits” cases on the court’s docket, the Trump administration, with a majority of the justices’ acquiescence, has quietly racked up a series of less visible — but no less important — victories by repeatedly seeking (and often obtaining) stays of lower-court losses.

Such stay orders are generally unsigned and provide no substantive analysis. But they nevertheless have the effect of allowing challenged government programs to go into full effect even though lower courts have struck them down — and often when no court has ever held them to be lawful in the first place.

Until the Trump administration, they were exceptionally rare. But they have become almost commonplace in the past three years, clearing the way for the president to proceed with many of his most controversial policies without a final determination of their legality.

during the 16 years of the George W. Bush and Obama administrations, the government asked the justices for such emergency relief only eight times — and the justices granted half of the applications. Moreover, none of the eight decisions to grant or deny such relief was 5-4.

But in just three years, the Trump administration’s Justice Department has sought 29 emergency stays from the Supreme Court — including 11 during the court’s current term alone. And the justices, or at least a majority of them, have largely acquiesced, granting 17 of the applications in full or in part, rulings that have had significant and lasting ramifications on the ground — and that have often been quite divisive on the court.

It was a partial stay from the Supreme Court that allowed President Trump to put much of his travel ban into effect until the policy was revised in late 2017. A stay from the Supreme Court allowed the president to divert military construction funds to help build his border wall. And stays from the court have allowed the administration to keep enforcing an array of asylum policies — like the “Remain in Mexico” program and the public-charge rule — that have come under fierce legal criticism.

At the very least, if the justices mean to change the rules for when government litigants should be allowed to obtain emergency relief, they should say so. Otherwise, the court’s behavior in these cases gives at least the appearance of undue procedural favoritism toward the government as a litigant — a “disparity in treatment,” as Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned in February, that “erodes the fair and balanced decision making process that this Court must strive to protect.”

Especially when that disparity seems to repeatedly favor conservative policies over progressive ones, it gives at least the appearance that the court is bending over backward to accommodate a particular political agenda — a message that, now more than ever, all of the justices should be ill inclined to send.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/17/opinion/supreme-courts-trump-relief.html?action=click&algo=bandit-story&block=more_in_recirc&fellback=false&imp_id=156040531&impression_id=639045339&index=0&pgtype=Article®ion=footer

court rules against Trump’s plan to end DACA!

BREAKING Court invalidates Trump Administration's recission of DACA

— Todd Zwillich (@toddzwillich) June 18, 2020

(It bore repeating.)

Well the ruling was against how he went about it, so I guess they can take another run at it if he wins in nov

Second (and *not* last) #SCOTUS decision is in June Medical. Court *strikes down* Louisiana abortion ban.

4-1-4, with Chief Justice Roberts concurring in the judgment:https://t.co/4VQgovHgjK

— Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) June 29, 2020

Money quote from Roberts' concurrence in the judgment, which goes on for 16 pages: pic.twitter.com/1s5D2d0VhJ

— Cristian Farias (@cristianafarias) June 29, 2020

I think I actually feel a trace of optimism for this country for the first time since Reagan was elected

has someone awakened Susan Collins from her faint

You're saying because she voted for him, thinking abortion safe? I'd love to have her gone, but didn't she spike up in her polling again? You think people will be sophisticated enough to turn this against her again?

She’s like nine points behind her democratic challenger according to what I just read

https://d279m997dpfwgl.cloudfront.net/wp/2019/03/AP_18334546967309.jpg

oh I see Roberts has now gotten back to destroying the country

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/06/supreme-court-espinoza-montana-religious-schools.html

correct!

he's only interested in preserving the reputation of the court as being free from outside influence. in these lower public profile cases, he's more than fine with shitting out these garbage rulings.

really didn't need to read this before it was time to sleep but thanks for sharing, cos I would have otherwise missed it tomorrow.

"Thomas, joined by Gorsuch, asserted that the very concept of separating church and state “communicates a message that religion is dangerous and in need of policing, which in turn has the effect of tilting society in favor of devaluing religion.”

you're saying that like it's a bad thing, guys.

does he not know what happened in europe after… the reformation

the Cerberos of SCOTUS needs to choke on a chicken bone.

After reading my latest Post report, @hughhewitt tells his radio audience this morning that he hears from several leading conservatives that Justice Alito, 70, is considering retirement, and adds that he also hears the Alito family is ready to leave Washington, D.C.

— Robert Costa (@costareports) July 1, 2020

make way for Justice Pirro

I heard on MJ this morning the news about a potential vacancy.

If the Republicans push through a replacement between now and January I will go insane.

No, of course McConnell wouldn't, duh.

At least it would be swapping a conservative for a conservative

And, some speculate, a man for a woman. (LOL, pundits.)

Maybe NOW is Harriet Miers' time

Alito just leave in January man

https://i.imgur.com/OG8GqtO.gif

https://i.imgur.com/OG8GqtO.gif

poor Sonia has to breathe in his farts

https://www.politico.com/interactives/2017/politico50/neomi-rao/

The 538 people who cast the actual votes for president in December as part of the Electoral College are not free agents and must vote as the laws of their states direct, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday.

Would take an American history class from Justice Kagan https://t.co/iwiB06PoKe pic.twitter.com/Cu94ohrJVp

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) July 6, 2020

Did the media articles have misleading titles earlier today? Saw a bunch of people celebrating, thinking SCOTUS was requiring electors to vote for the winner of the Federal popular vote, then blaming a confusing headline, but every article I've seen clearly says state popular vote.

Note though it really just ruled states with laws on the books against faithless electors can punish the electors, but not mandating that they have to, or that any of the states with no such laws must follow suit

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/08/supreme-court-says-trump-administration-can-let-religious-employers-deny-birth-control-coverage.html

Today is a good day for those who believe that religious employers, from churches to private corporations, should be allowed to impose their beliefs on employees, even when doing so inflicts real harm. The court's expansion of (what it deems) religious liberty is breathtaking.

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) July 8, 2020

Such a twisted view of freedom of religion.

if it were possible to encourage even more suburban women to turn out to vote against trump & the GOP, this seems like it ought to help

At this point I’m basically yelling Retire Bitch at every Justice except Sotomayor

(After 1/21/21 obv)

xp please refrain from further yelling until late december
okay you're forgiven

This is some Kafka-esque shit:
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/07/supreme-court-ministerial-exception-religious-employers.html

The upshot of this new constitutional rule is that religious employers now have carte blanche to discriminate against workers. After all, if anyone sues, their employer can simply deem them “ministerial” under Alito’s deferential test, thwarting litigation. (Indeed, that appears to be exactly what happened to Biel and Morrissey-Berru.) As Sotomayor pointed out in her scathing dissent, Alito’s “laissez-faire analysis appears to allow that employer to make employment decisions because of a person’s skin color, age, disability, sex, or any other protected trait for reasons having nothing to do with religion.”

The court, Sotomayor continued, defeated the very purpose of civil rights laws by allowing employers “to decide for themselves whether discrimination is actionable.” In short, it “traded legal analysis for a rubber stamp.” Alito’s opinion, she concluded, “absolves religious institutions of any animus completely irrelevant to their religious beliefs or practices and all but forbids courts to inquire further about whether the employee is in fact a leader of the religion. This sweeping result is profoundly unfair.”

Morrissey-Berru comes on the heels of Espinoza v. Montana, a 5–4 decision that will force a majority of states to fund parochial schools. Taken together, these two decisions mark a startling expansion of constitutional “religious liberty.” Most states must now provide taxpayer money to parochial schools—yet they are handcuffed from enforcing their own civil rights laws against the institutions they fund. The Supreme Court has not only bulldozed the wall separating church and state; it has also handed religious institutions a trump card they can use when the state asks them to follow the rules that apply to the rest of us. Religious liberty is a fundamental American value. But in the hands of this court, it has become a weapon that employers can use to make the rest of us less free.

fuck this fucking country and burn it to the goddamn ground

is it safe to say this is the most damaging decision since citizens united?

This one wasn't even close, either... 7-2?

Constantly don't understand how "religious freedom" keeps getting expanded legally

The public funding parochial and religious schools I find even more upsetting, that's going to be the source of a lot of corruption

were the liberal concurrences just referencing Hobby Lobby v Burwell and respecting precedent they didn't agree with, or something else