U.S. Supreme Court: Post-Ginsburg Edition

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/02/covid-elena-kagan-supreme-court-kill.html

Late on Friday night, the Supreme Court blocked California’s public health ban on indoor religious services in a splintered 6–3 decision South Bay United Pentecostal Church v. Newsom is the latest in a long line of COVID cases to reach the Supreme Court. The plaintiffs challenged three pandemic-related restrictions on religious worship: a total ban on indoor services in areas where cases are surging (which covers much of the state right now); a 25 percent cap on indoor services where they are permitted; and a ban on singing and chanting during those services.

In amuddled order, SCOTUS shot down the total ban on indoor services, but upheld the 25 percent cap and the singing ban. The majority’s decision—issued as a highly infectious “California variant” of the coronavirus sweeps across the state—allows residents to resume indoor worship, the cause of countless superspreader events since the start of the pandemic. While there is no single majority opinion, five justices supported the proposition that California’s regime violates free exercise because it treats secular businesses more favorably than religious establishments. Notably, no justice in the majority even pretended to apply the appropriate standard for this emergency request, which requires plaintiffs to prove that the legal rights at issue are “indisputably clear” and that an injunction is “in the public interest.” They simply issued a decision on the merits, another example of the court making law through its shadow docket.

...“Justices of this Court are not scientists,” Kagan began. “Nor do we know much about public health policy. Yet today the Court displaces the judgments of experts about how to respond to a raging pandemic. … That mandate defies our caselaw, exceeds our judicial role, and risks worsening the pandemic.” She pointed out that, contrary to the court’s belief, California has not actually treated churches less favorably than secular businesses and assemblies: Political meetings, lectures, and plays are also banned, she wrote—and these “secular gatherings,” like religious worship, “are constitutionally protected” by the First Amendment. The court simply created “a special exception for worship services.”

This guy:

THOMAS' dissent on the decision to deny the Pennsylvania election case adopts the 'prove a negative' argument proffered by Rudy and others:

That the absence of evidence of fraud could just prove that fraud was hard to detect. pic.twitter.com/Xe1taFlGy0

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) February 22, 2021

never met a logical fallacy he didn't want to sexually harass

no election fraud you say? doesn’t that in itself seem.... suspicious?

must I post a photo of Ginny

I just bought www.isclarencethomasdeadyet.com for the next two years for a whopping ten bucks.

who wants to help program it for me.

i have temporary content up

I read the rest of his opinion and it was actually more horrifying than just that sequence alone.

You need 4 to take cert and have oral arguments. Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch were close .

wondering what drove Kav and Coney's "no" vote

so uh having dinner w/my sis at the posh Biltmore's outdoor courtyard I think I saw Sam Alito. Y'all be the judge. The bald spot, Fed society striped tie, and dumbfounded mien gave him away.

https://imgur.com/a/pDCxA16

https://i.imgur.com/4kOL378.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/PgxvxYz.jpg

He got up to ogle the wild parrots.

oh baby I will Venmo you $112 USD if you can make him uncomfortable enough to leave

so was this him? Am I mad?

lol I honestly can’t tell for certain

how bout those pants

well, i certainly didn't see *this* development coming

So close and yet so inconsequential.

Lonely justice thinking baout parrots

I think I saw Sam Alito. Y'all be the judge.

Is this what you said to him

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

among a true embarrassment of binches
he really is the worst one isn’t he

Probably. Alito adjudicates like a Republican Party hack. Beyond loyalty to the current party line, he has no coherent judicial philosophy whatsoever. Even Justice Thomas has a rather eccentric philosophy that seems to guide his votes.

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2021/03/stephen-breyer-needs-to-retire-now

The only problem I see with that argument in favor of Breyer retiring asap is that Breyer would not find it convincing. I say that because it is an argument based solely upon politics and the future composition of the court. In that way it reflects how every ilxor is likely to view the question, but not how I think Breyer would.

He emerged from a period when the court and its justices were idealized as non-partisan and non-ideological, so that the politics of the Senate should not be a vital consideration in whether a justice should retire. But mainly, I'm pretty sure that every single sitting justice believes in their own ability to arrive at the 'most correct' interpretation of a case and that in their absence, no replacement could be trusted to do so to the same degree as as they trust themselves. iow, it's an ego thing.

yeah, Democrats of his generation take the above-the-fray shit too seriously -- as if the last 20 years haven't proved Breyer and Ginsberg wrong. And Ginsberg made a colossal mistake staying on when the whole planet knew she was seriously ill and even if she weren't you don't want to see your legacy in tatters thinking that as an 80-plus-year-old woman you can wait for the next Dem Senate to vote for your successor.

Honestly, I don't know really anything about Breyer as a person. Kennedy joined the court 6 years prior to Breyer, and his retirement was clearly partisan and ideological, but I assume you're correct about Breyer's self-image.

It's depressing though; "cannot adapt to significant changes in society" and "is convinced of his own immutable rightness" are extremely strong arguments in favor of setting term limits on justices, not that there's any enthusiasm for anyone to battle the conservatives over that any time soon.

Clarence and Alito being burned alive in a go-karting accident would also be nice

Kennedy joined the court 6 years prior to Breyer, and his retirement was clearly partisan and ideological

Republicans serving in office are in very consistent in viewing all issues through the lens of power, so that attaining and keeping the greatest amount of power becomes their primary motive in all their actions. Lots of Democrats in office think similarly, but they are far less unanimous and consistent in that regard.

According to NPR, Ginsburg dictated the following statement to her granddaughter, Clara Spera, shortly before she died: "My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed."

these are the last words of someone who knows they fucked up.

Whoa. @SenWhitehouse asks Merrick Garland to investigate FBI's background check of Brett Kavanaugh--alleging that it may have been 'fake'. https://t.co/k9u5B3ecnf

— Mark Elliott (@markmobility) March 16, 2021

iirc, it was definitely “fake”

we don't call them background checks, we call them factground checks.

anything else is fake

Forget the background, just give me the facts, Jack. That’s what I’d say if I were Gordon Cole.

Give me the facts, Jack
Spy on QAnon, Ron
Is there a Deep State, Nate?
Just give it to me

pic.twitter.com/CxkgwkyHTY

— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) March 16, 2021

🙃🙃🙃

lol same guy pic.twitter.com/GPv144dosu

— ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ ❌🍁❌ (@mattgcn) March 16, 2021

Noah Feldman probably gullible enough to believes what he writes. Obviously, this makes him useful as a cat's paw for promoting various publications' unstated editorial stances.

hai boo

🚨Clarence Thomas suggests that social media companies may NOT have a First Amendment right to regulate speech on their platforms, analogizing them to "common carriers" and "places of public accommodation." https://t.co/2zx7nCtIAz pic.twitter.com/ZleTE1aI0S

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) April 5, 2021

I analogize Justice Clarence Thomas to a common carrier.

I have to hand it to him, the man really loves standing up for people who want him dead.

I don't know, it's been pretty dizzying seeing conservatives adopt the longstanding arguments of liberal/leftish social media and ISP critics. This "common carrier" argument is almost exactly equivalent to the Net Neutrality position--though pertinently, those critics were talking about the Internet's network infrastructure rather than specific platforms (indeed, one of the NN fears was a scenario where Verizon makes you pay extra to use Google or Facebook). Still, there are liberal/left arguments that FB and Google have become infrastructural (deliberately) and should be regulated as such.

That said, and I should click through to the whole opinion, but I am very curious how he squares this interpretation of social media with personal-data-driven algorithmic content feeds and microtargeted advertising, i.e., the mass personalization/customization that is the entire business model of these supposed common carriers. Those aren't the forms of speech moderation that conservatives are upset about but I don't see a meaningful legal distinction.

love that Very Serious People jumped through hoops for years to square Scalia’s bald-faced activism from the bench. Thankfully I don’t see much of that any more for these clowns. At least not from anyone very serious. (Or perhaps I’m not looking in the right spots)

The only positive thing one can say about Scalia is that he could write— he was a great stylist.

But, yknow, a lot of evil motherfuckers have been great writers, so...

great post rob.

The only positive thing one can say about Scalia is that he could write— he was a great stylist

Can't agree with this; I think his style was flashy but in the end more attention-grabbing than good.

Jiggery-pokery, come on, that's some warmed over William Safire shit.

he could write

Who hasn't danced a jiggery whenever they're about to pokery?