Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Posted
4 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Unfortunately, that was procedurally a shitty case to overturn Obergefell.  I wouldn't take this as much of a victory.

That said, fuck Kim Davis in her goatse ass.

 

the conservative block wants a better case 

Posted

also ...

One couple whom Davis discriminated against sued her for violating their civil rights, and a jury ordered her to pay $360,000 in damages in attorneys’ fees. She and her lawyers at the fringe-right law firm Liberty Counsel have spent years fighting that award. And that is what Davis v. Ermold is really about.

 

fuck kim davis 

  • Hook 'Em 3
  • Like 1
  • Fuck Around and Find Out 1
  • 2 weeks later...
Posted
1 hour ago, DDD Dad said:

 

BREAKING: SCOTUS Justice Samuel Alito has granted a *temporary* administrative pause on Judge Jeff Brown’s ruling re: Texas’ congressional map. He is requesting a response from the plaintiffs by EOD Monday on whether to pause the ruling for the length of the appeal

  • Haha 1
Posted

I confess I don't understand civil law in this area at all. The district court ruling was a full ruling by a panel of 3 on the merits after a hearing that lasted more than a week. How does the one judge (presumably it comes to Alito for the emergency petition because he's over the Fifth Circuit?) have the ability to overturn a merits ruling, even "temporarily" when this is not at the injunction stage? Is this a Purcell vs. Equal Protection question (as far as which one governs) and what is the legal standard used here to block a ruling for the losing party's benefit... when there hasn't even been briefing from both parties yet?  Seems like bullshit

  • Hook 'Em 4
  • Like 1
  • Rage+1 1
Posted (edited)
8 hours ago, ChuckNorrisActionJeans said:

I confess I don't understand civil law in this area at all. The district court ruling was a full ruling by a panel of 3 on the merits after a hearing that lasted more than a week. How does the one judge (presumably it comes to Alito for the emergency petition because he's over the Fifth Circuit?) have the ability to overturn a merits ruling, even "temporarily" when this is not at the injunction stage? Is this a Purcell vs. Equal Protection question (as far as which one governs) and what is the legal standard used here to block a ruling for the losing party's benefit... when there hasn't even been briefing from both parties yet?  Seems like bullshit

This is an administrative stay, which at least in theory is not based on any evaluation of the decision below. But basically to preserve the status quo for a few days for briefing. 

But it's unnecessary. Nothing is going to change in three or four days. 

Motions like this are made to a single justice assigned to the circuit. Lucky us we have Alito. For a significant issue, usually referred to the entire court. 

A three judge panel for redistricting questions is provided by statute but it seems a party does have to ask for it. Appeal is or may be directly to the Supreme Court. 

Edited by TwiceHorn
Posted
9 hours ago, ChuckNorrisActionJeans said:

I confess I don't understand civil law in this area at all. The district court ruling was a full ruling by a panel of 3 on the merits after a hearing that lasted more than a week. How does the one judge (presumably it comes to Alito for the emergency petition because he's over the Fifth Circuit?) have the ability to overturn a merits ruling, even "temporarily" when this is not at the injunction stage? Is this a Purcell vs. Equal Protection question (as far as which one governs) and what is the legal standard used here to block a ruling for the losing party's benefit... when there hasn't even been briefing from both parties yet?  Seems like bullshit

spacer.png

  • Hook 'Em 1
  • Drool 1
Posted

For some background.  To get an injunction, a court order to do or not do something, you generally have to prove the following:

  • Likelihood of success on the merits, ie you're going to win at trial, most likely
  • Irreparable harm, something that can't be fixed after the fact, as by an award of damages
  • The public interest
  • The harm of any injunction outweighs the harm of the action enjoined

So, when considering a stay of an injunction, an appeals court reviews these things, often focusing mostly on the first two.  The last two things tend to kind of merge, except in purely private lawsuits, like say a patent infringement case.

When the party is the government, it tends to be rather assumed that what's at issue favors the public interest, that is, that what the government is doing is in the public interest and enjoining the government is not.  But the last factor can undo that, as in the case of when the government is attempting something clearly or even marginally unconstitutional.

The grant of injunctive relief by a trial court is usually "fact intensive," like Sara Ellis in Chicago finding Bovino and fICE to be full of shit, or in the redistricting case that Texas' motivation was more racial than political.

Appeals courts and SCOTUS especially, should defer to the trial court's evaluation of factual issues, like credibility.  Thus, the usual way to reverse (on full decision on the merits) or temporarily stay (shadow docket) is to find that the trial court applied the wrong law or misapplied correct law.

The shadow docket is almost always reviewing an injunction and applying some form of the above analysis.  Two places they have gone horrendously wrong in the pro-Trump orders are:

  • when evaluating likelihood of success, they apply law they think they're going to make, not the law as it stands (and then they get mad at the lower courts for following the law as it stands without ever having given an opinion that changes the law or explains how the new law should be applied)
  • their evaluation of the harm, like Kavanaugh's stops that ignore that people are imprisoned for days, weeks, or months on flimsy and unconstitutional premises

From a sort of political science or governing perspective, changes in the law should come slowly or gradually especially when not made by the legislative branch.  By doing the above, the Court is making abrupt changes in the law, or permitting the executive to do so, without due consideration for the status quo ante, the way things are, have mostly been, and in most cases should stay that way.

  • Hook 'Em 3
  • Like 2
Posted

Also, taking it out of the rubric of legal analysis, and putting it purely in terms of politics or even political philosophy, SCOTUS in its shadow docket decisions is valuing the "rights" or power of the executive/government over the rights of the people.  Specifically the executive.

The legalistic excuse is that stays (or unstaying in some cases) are only temporary, pending a full decision on the merits.  But, again in the real world, these stays last months or years before a more permanent solution is reached by a full decision on the merits.  And it may well be that they ultimately rule against the executive/government, but the harm is mostly done by then.

Which tells you that their harm analyses are wrong, ab initio.

  • Hook 'Em 1
  • Like 2
Posted
3 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

For some background.  To get an injunction, a court order to do or not do something, you generally have to prove the following:

  • Likelihood of success on the merits, ie you're going to win at trial, most likely
  • Irreparable harm, something that can't be fixed after the fact, as by an award of damages
  • The public interest
  • The harm of any injunction outweighs the harm of the action enjoined

So, when considering a stay of an injunction, an appeals court reviews these things, often focusing mostly on the first two.  The last two things tend to kind of merge, except in purely private lawsuits, like say a patent infringement case.

When the party is the government, it tends to be rather assumed that what's at issue favors the public interest, that is, that what the government is doing is in the public interest and enjoining the government is not.  But the last factor can undo that, as in the case of when the government is attempting something clearly or even marginally unconstitutional.

The grant of injunctive relief by a trial court is usually "fact intensive," like Sara Ellis in Chicago finding Bovino and fICE to be full of shit, or in the redistricting case that Texas' motivation was more racial than political.

Appeals courts and SCOTUS especially, should defer to the trial court's evaluation of factual issues, like credibility.  Thus, the usual way to reverse (on full decision on the merits) or temporarily stay (shadow docket) is to find that the trial court applied the wrong law or misapplied correct law.

The shadow docket is almost always reviewing an injunction and applying some form of the above analysis.  Two places they have gone horrendously wrong in the pro-Trump orders are:

  • when evaluating likelihood of success, they apply law they think they're going to make, not the law as it stands (and then they get mad at the lower courts for following the law as it stands without ever having given an opinion that changes the law or explains how the new law should be applied)
  • their evaluation of the harm, like Kavanaugh's stops that ignore that people are imprisoned for days, weeks, or months on flimsy and unconstitutional premises

From a sort of political science or governing perspective, changes in the law should come slowly or gradually especially when not made by the legislative branch.  By doing the above, the Court is making abrupt changes in the law, or permitting the executive to do so, without due consideration for the status quo ante, the way things are, have mostly been, and in most cases should stay that way.

So in other words fuckery. 

  • Hook 'Em 1
  • 2 weeks later...
Posted
19 minutes ago, Firemans4Horn said:

This institution is dead. 

I won't believe it until twicehorn comes through to tell us we're all overreacting and yet it's also worse than we thought 

  • Hook 'Em 2
Posted

If the non-MAGA contingent ever regains a majority on the Supreme Court, they should just issue a blanket opinion overriding every opinion that was decided from 2016 on without concurrence by any of Ginsberg, Sotomayor, Kagan or Jackson because the rest of them over this period have shown themselves to be utterly corrupt.  (BTW - I understand that's not the way the SC works, but why bother trying to play by rules when the GOP has made up fact patterns and forced cases up to the Supreme Court to be heard as soon as the court's composition was just right ...)  

  • Hook 'Em 6
  • Like 2
Posted
34 minutes ago, Captainant said:

I won't believe it until twicehorn comes through to tell us we're all overreacting and yet it's also worse than we thought 

Goddamn is that still your schtick?  

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted
1 hour ago, Firemans4Horn said:

This institution is dead. 

This is not how the highest court in a functioning democracy works. This is how it works in a fascist nation. Folks if you haven’t made plans to get out of Dodge yet you might want to. At least relocate to a different state than Texas.

  • Hook 'Em 3
Posted
25 minutes ago, Gap03 said:

If the non-MAGA contingent ever regains a majority on the Supreme Court, they should just issue a blanket opinion overriding every opinion that was decided from 2016 on without concurrence by any of Ginsberg, Sotomayor, Kagan or Jackson because the rest of them over this period have shown themselves to be utterly corrupt.  (BTW - I understand that's not the way the SC works, but why bother trying to play by rules when the GOP has made up fact patterns and forced cases up to the Supreme Court to be heard as soon as the court's composition was just right ...)  

Since rules no longer matter just rewrite them once the US comes out on the other side of this one day. The only thing morons understand is being firm and forceful. Being nice once this is over just invites more of this idiocy. Go through every lower court appointment and nuke anyone that has rulings even resembling anything these six are ruling in favor of. Man what a time to be alive to see the US become 1920’s Italy except with far more money and an actual functioning military.

Posted
3 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

Yes, very important we have the corruption on record.  You know, so we know why we are where we are. Not to stop it in any way. 

Documentation matters. Ask the nazis. 

  • Hook 'Em 5
Posted
2 hours ago, hayden_horn said:

Documentation matters. Ask the nazis. 

You’re correct. It absolutely matters even if the documentation is not directly for the benefit of any of us living through this. We don’t have a lengthy overall history of humans being able to document things on a grand scale, but in the few hundred years we’ve had societies that can read, write and have access to a printing press, the Nazis have had no peer in the documentation of evil. So much has been lost or destroyed, but even with that they left behind so much evidence of their atrocities in writing that people can still write new books about what they did. 

Posted

I wonder what other parts of the Constitution the Supreme Court will allow us to trash, simply because a convicted felon and lifelong conman and child rapists wants to. 

  • Hook 'Em 1
  • Rage+1 2
Posted
11 minutes ago, Red Five said:

I wonder what other parts of the Constitution the Supreme Court will allow us to trash, simply because a convicted felon and lifelong conman and child rapists wants to. 

literally-all-of-it-saturday-night-live.

  • Hook 'Em 1
  • Rage+1 1
Posted
26 minutes ago, Red Five said:

I wonder what other parts of the Constitution the Supreme Court will allow us to trash, simply because a convicted felon and lifelong conman and child rapists wants to. 

What if we get rid of the part that authorizes a Supreme Court?

  • Hook 'Em 1
  • Haha 1
Posted
1 minute ago, LCHorn said:

Speaking of that, there‘s a fun NY Times Op Ed today from someone positing that the Supremes are actually trying to rescue democracy because the Legislative Branch has ceded so much of its authority to the Executive.  They truly are the bulwark against continued despotism!

Actually, the Supreme Court Has a Plan

Quote

Our founders would be shocked by the current constitutional order. Not by a presidency that has ballooned beyond recognition — they were well aware of the threats a power-hungry president could pose — but by the state of Congress, for not more jealously guarding its power and prestige. They would be confused that so many of its more than 500 members seem to have no further ambition than to act like glorified Instagram influencers.

Yes. This has been true for decades. The Founders were wrong and the underlying foundations of the Constitution are flawed. They assumed that Congress would want power. Congress does not. It is weird they assumed this because this exact same process played out in many of the ancient civilizations the Founders were enamoured with. The privledges? The prestige? The wealth? Yes. The power? No. Having power means work and taking risks. Congress is happy to put as much on the President as possible and just keep getting re-elected.

  • Hook 'Em 3
Posted
5 minutes ago, Valmy77 said:

Yes. This has been true for decades. The Founders were wrong and the underlying foundations of the Constitution are flawed. They assumed that Congress would want power. Congress does not. It is weird they assumed this because this exact same process played out in many of the ancient civilizations the Founders were enamoured with. The privledges? The prestige? The wealth? Yes. The power? No. Having power means work and taking risks. Congress is happy to put as much on the President as possible and just keep getting re-elected.

Yeah....this.  It's fucking baffling, yet, now that I've fully realized and accepted that humanity is irredeemably awful....it's not baffling at all.

Congress is a fucking joke, and at this point, if we dissolved it, nobody could tell the difference other than the fact that we wouldn't be subjected to stupid social media posts by Ted Cruz and John Cornyn and nobody would know who Mike Johnson is except for his multiple Grindr hookups.

Posted
14 minutes ago, mchookem said:

i wonder at what point Kagan, Sotomayor and Jackson see the futile writing on the wall and just bail for their own health/safety...

image.gif.ffa4699af32b5fa4716e2dfd888b4da4.gif

They are part of the problem also. At some point they need to stop respecting norms and go out and call this shit out publicly. No one reads their opinions.

  • Hook 'Em 1
  • Drool 1
Posted
5 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Yeah....this.  It's fucking baffling, yet, now that I've fully realized and accepted that humanity is irredeemably awful....it's not baffling at all.

Congress is a fucking joke, and at this point, if we dissolved it, nobody could tell the difference other than the fact that we wouldn't be subjected to stupid social media posts by Ted Cruz and John Cornyn and nobody would know who Mike Johnson is except for his multiple Grindr hookups.

We should remove the senate and massively expand the house. They also should be remote and be forced to have an office in their district with set hours for interactions with constituents each week.

  • Drool 1
Posted

I sort of think the separation of the Executive and the Legislature is a mistake. I think Parliamentary systems might be better...or at least less suspectible to the sort of one man rule our system seems to be.

But, to be fair, I haven't done any deep studies on this. Just my impression.



×
×
  • Create New...