SCOTUS 2023: Rice pilaf from Louisiana...is that like an ISIS video?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > SCOTUS 2023: Rice pilaf from Louisiana...is that like an ISIS video?

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Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

ErIog posted:

Scalia's rage is in top form. He's literally arguing that the court just ruled that up is down for political reasons.

Meanwhile the majority of the court, having stumbled on a sign with a crudely drawn arrow which has a stray line that looks like it points down but is labeled "up" in a forest of other signs with arrows pointing up and labeled "up" rightfully concludes that the arrow painter is a twit but we know what he meant.

# ¿ Jun 25, 2015 15:27

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 23:07

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

Ghost of Reagan Past posted:

Wasn't this basically part of Shelby v. Holder? As in, the Supreme Court just said "look, Congress, you can just update the preclearance formula, is that so hard ?"

It was also part of what Roberts and Kennedy expected to happen post Citizens United: Surely congress would pass laws mandating disclosure so that everything is above the table, right?

I saw an article speculating that the clusterfuck of that and the VRA has made Roberts and Kennedy less likely to count on Congress to fix poo poo.

# ¿ Jun 25, 2015 15:38

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

Ghost of Reagan Past posted:

Link?

Sounds interesting, if really, really hard to confirm.

Here's one for Roberts. I can't remember where I read the Kennedy one and it isn't coming up over the tide of various other tea leaf reading articles out there.

# ¿ Jun 25, 2015 15:48

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

Dead Reckoning posted:

The idea is that the congress created the absurd result by writing a bad law, and it's not the court's role to bail them out by re-writing it to what they meant. It's not a bad idea in principle; people shouldn't be convicted of crimes that aren't explicitly defined as such under the law, even if they did something the law was meant to cover, and the executive branch shouldn't be able to exercise powers never granted to it because, "we interpreted the law that way" or "that's what Congress meant when they passed the bill." It also encourages the legislature to actually go through the process of creating logical and consistent law rather than just passing a bill on the assumption that the courts will figure out the details.

The problem is when you start separating individual clauses from the bill as a whole, or invalidate sections of law that have been the basis for years of accepted precedent because "it doesn't actually say that."

But splitting off clauses or words off to analyze them without considering the context is something Scalia has said is bad. He has written in the past "The meaning of terms on the statute books ought to be determined, not on the basis of which meaning can be shown to have been understood by a larger handful of the Members of Congress; but rather on the basis of which meaning is (1) most in accord with context and ordinary usage, and thus most likely to have been understood by the whole Congress which voted on the words of the statute (not to mention the citizens subject to it), and (2) most compatible with the surrounding body of law into which the provision must be integrated-a compatibility which, by a benign fiction, we assume Congress always has in mind."

There is pretty much no way to read the entire law and not come to the conclusion that the Federal Exchanges should have access to the subsidies. That leads to the real truth: Scalia only cares about textualism when it results in the decision he wants. He will adopt other schools of thought when convenient.

Thomas is probably the most consistent Justice in sticking to a particular school of statutory and constitutional interpretation even when it results in conclusions he doesn't seem to like all that much. The trouble is that as far as anyone can tell there is no other person in the entire US that subscribes to it besides Thomas.

# ¿ Jun 25, 2015 20:38

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

Nostalgia4Infinity posted:

I'm expecting it Monday.

Hopefully someone will quote this in 30 minutes to rub my wrongness in my face.

quotin.

ban overturned.

# ¿ Jun 26, 2015 15:01

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

JehovahsWetness posted:

wow

Holy poo poo that's nutter even for Thomas.

# ¿ Jun 26, 2015 15:19

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

Crossposting from the TX thread, SSM is a go in Austin:

The Travis County Clerk's office has started issuing licenses. They will issue to anyone in line as of 6:30PM and will be open all next week including the weekend.

edit: doh meant to post this in the Marriage equality thread. Oh well leaving it here too.

Shifty Pony fucked around with this message at 16:04 on Jun 26, 2015

# ¿ Jun 26, 2015 16:00

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

HAHAHAH suck it GOP.

Seriously I did not expect that at all.

# ¿ Jun 29, 2015 15:28

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

Logikv9 posted:

A never ending train of

And back to :smith:

with Utility Air being written by Scalia.

# ¿ Jun 29, 2015 15:37

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

computer parts posted:

Yeah if that's all they have to do I'm not really seeing an effective status quo change.

Well I would imagine it will add a "you didn't consider the costs correctly" route of attack against any proposed or implemented regulations.

Those sorts of economic impact studies are like environmental impact studies in that you can always find someone to make a study which coincidentally shows that what you want to happen is the only thing that should happen.

# ¿ Jun 29, 2015 15:47

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

Levitate posted:

There's no actual reason why Obama shouldn't nominate a new justice, right? It's literally just the Republicans saying "it's not fair!"

I mean, it's in the job description and Obama is still President for like another year and the next presidential race hasn't even started

Right. Obama will nominate a new justice pretty soon, once he's had time to talk with the potential appointees and likely after Scalia's funeral has occurred. However what will happen is that nomination will get sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee and the chairman Chuck Grassley will just sit on it. Without the chairman's support it won't get brought up for discussion or vote, and as far as I know there is no way to force a vote in the Senate like in the House with a discharge petition.

What is interesting is that, short of another Harriet Myers, if the nomination were allowed to go to a vote it would likely pass easily. There are still enough GOP senators that hold the view that the Senate should maintain decorum in its review of nominations and not reject qualified candidates just because they disagree with their style of jurisprudence. Unfortunately the tea party bozos have more power at the moment and the leadership reflects that. We'll see how far Obama is willing to go to try and get a vote but even if he starter vetoing everything and shut down the government I'm not sure that the GOP would budge. The only way I see his nomination getting a vote is if the person is reasonably center-ish and Hillary or Bernie wins in November. In that case the GOP might try to push through his nominee to prevent the possibility of Hillary or Bernie appointing someone much more liberal.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2016 16:02

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

A recess appointment is also impossible because the Senate doesn't go into recess anymore, specifically to prevent recess appointments.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2016 16:53

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

Platystemon posted:

Do it anyway, have the Supreme Court rule on the constitutionality of the Senate�s chicanery.

I'd rather the focus be on the GOP being assholes refusing to do their constitutional duty and not a really public fight that plays right into their "Obama is ruling by bypassing Congress!" narrative.

Besides this has already been answered - the fake sessions totally count.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2016 17:01

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

computer parts posted:

Because in the event of President [either of those] they probably won't hold the Senate.

Also I would bet on the president eventually vetoing everything until the appointment gets voted on. Government shutdown mk 7 or whatever wouldn't be a good thing for the GOP.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2016 19:18

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

Perhaps now be a good point to close this thread and make a new one for 2016? There are a few more cases outstanding from 2015 of course but I have a feeling those aren't going to be the major topic of discussion for the year.

# ¿ Feb 15, 2016 02:29

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

Hobby Lobby will probably get significantly narrowed.

The other big ones would be overturning the ability of states to opt out of the Medicaid expansion and still keep previous Medicaid funding and likely getting around the VRA ruling by making bailing-in to pre-clearance a relatively easy task.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2016 15:33

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

FAUXTON posted:

Trollbama continues to be best Bama:

"The American people should decide" gives them what they see as a nice out for any of their previous statements.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2016 22:51

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

Discendo Vox posted:

I had dinner this evening with a gentleman who clerked under Garland on the DC Circuit. When asked to give the scoop on his legal temperament, he literally did the robot. My kinda judge.

Garland still isn't getting appointed, though.

I would prefer a judge that weighs how a decision will affect people in the squishy world that is real life instead of going "beep-boop initiating law application subroutine"

# ¿ Mar 17, 2016 04:32

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

RACHET posted:

He won't have to worry about it when he's senate minority leader and the democrats change the rules of the senate.

They won't need to. Gaining the majority gives them the chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee which means that they can start the confirmation process. Once out of the committee (likely on a party line vote) there are enough GOP members in the Senate who will eventually vote for cloture even if they vote against the actual nomination.

# ¿ Mar 21, 2016 16:49

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

evilweasel posted:

I think we also got the first tie vote today, upholding the lower court decision 4-4 on this case: http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/hawkins-v-community-bank-of-raymore/

Which is a problem because the 8th Circuit decision caused a circuit split.

I wonder where Scalia would have fallen on it. Considering that they haven't bothered to take on the prior cases before the split I wonder if they were perfectly happy with courts deferring to the Federal Reserve on the meaning of "applicant".

As a side note I really hate when courts refer to dictionaries for definitions as the 8th did in this case. I just personally feel that it is a way to play dumb and when actually analyzing the words in their context and use would lead to a result you don't like.

# ¿ Mar 22, 2016 19:29

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

AreWeDrunkYet posted:

What about shares held by other companies, shares held by institutional investors, shares held by public organizations, shares held by governments, shared held by trusts and other legal entities? Sometimes there's a person on the other end if you dig through enough layers, sometimes there is not.

I wonder if it would be possible to structure a corporation so that it owned itself through an oroborus of wholly owned shell corporations.

# ¿ Mar 30, 2016 04:04

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

I half expect the organizations to take the absolute position and argue that anything that has the end result of their employees receiving birth control would be unacceptable and a violation of their faith. If buying insurance without birth control coverage automatically triggered the coverage to kick in through some roundabout mechanism they would just argue that meant buying insurance in the first place violated their beliefs because BC inevitably followed. Hell you could say that telling the government via IRS filings that they were not providing insurance would mean the employees would be eligible for subsidized exchange plans so that would be unacceptable too.

# ¿ Mar 30, 2016 05:12

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

Basically it means they assume that if it exists someone must own it. The CAFC seems pretty adverse to the idea that any particular category of knowledge or work would belong to the public.

# ¿ May 10, 2016 13:22

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

It doesn't help that software is a giant square peg that the courts are trying the drive through about a dozen different round holes. It probably is unique enough to warrant not grouping it in with either patent or copyright but instead giving it an entire new Title under the United States Code. But politicians know a dumpster fire when they see one and nobody is going to be dumb enough to start that fight if we can keep things going ad-hoc through court rulings.

# ¿ May 11, 2016 04:54

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

My understanding is that the court is not saying there is anything creative about a round function that takes a floating input, an integer input, and rounds the float at integer digits, but that there is something creative in deciding whether that function should be the 15th function defined in the definition file because it is so basic or instead grouped waaaay down in a section with cryptographic functions because the creators are insane and think that people looking at those functions will often want to see how round works so it would be convenient for it to be there.

I think a good comparison would be cookbooks. The recipes and names of dishes are not copyright-able, but the overall cookbook can be if there is creative effort involved in the arrangement or presentation. I could make a book called Countdown to Party which has menus and recipes for different types of gatherings all arranged by the number of hours/minutes before the event when you'd have to start them to finish them in time. That book would be protected by copyright.

Someone could take all the exact recipes and add them to their own cookbook called Eatertaining by Numbers organized by what color the foods are and where to put each color on the serving table. Someone could even just take all the recipes and put them up on a website in a big alphabetical list and that would be fine (she could not stop others from copy/pasting her website because such ordering isn't creative). But someone wouldn't be allowed to publish Party at 7! keeping the recipes and order from my book while changing the t-minus time countdown to the hour to start the recipes assuming guests arrive at 7PM.

In all cases someone who was looking to make hummus could find the instructions and the result would be the same because the order doesn't affect the individual recipes.

In this tortured analogy written while waiting for lunch the cookbook would be the as written API definition file, the recipes would be the actual function definitions telling the system what to do with inputs when called, and hummus-guy would be a program calling a function.

# ¿ May 11, 2016 19:26

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

NinjaDebugger posted:

Three boxes full of punts today, looks like.

Yeah Spokeo got punted as well, although flipping through the the opinion it kind of reads that Spokeo is going to be in trouble at the when it makes it back.

# ¿ May 16, 2016 15:59

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

There is a reason court watchers consider Thomas to often be living on his own little island of strange jurisprudence completely independent from the other justices.

What makes it really strange is he often pens decisions which are well within accepted legal thought which the other justices join, then he follows it up with a seriously :psyduck:

opinion in the next case.

# ¿ May 23, 2016 18:29

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

evilweasel posted:

patenting a way of entering things into a table, what the gently caress

jesus loving christ, impeach every member of the federal circuit

Watching the guy from the legal department trying to somehow square the results of Enfish with everything else during training this week was pretty hilarious.

# ¿ May 27, 2016 03:42

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

1337JiveTurkey posted:

I hope so. They're probably looking for cases that don't involve whether a juvenile lesbian trying to appeal a capital conviction using evidence improperly suppressed by the prosecution is allowed to join a class action lawsuit so she can have an abortion in spite of the binding arbitration agreement she entered into when the Obama administration decided not to deport her.

The SC seems to loving hate patent cases and they largely stay out of it until one of the circuit courts completely wiff it on one.

I don't blame them for it either as it is frustrating and thankless. As the justices keep lamenting during oral arguments it is really hard to make a hard and fast rule because people just get creative in their claim drafting so they are microscopically on the "patentable" side of it.

# ¿ May 27, 2016 19:23

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

GlyphGryph posted:

Because it wont. It will have cost them nothing. If they lose the Senate it won't be over this, because almost no one actually cares. If the nomination goes through as is in the lame duck, how can they consider it as anything but a success? They stumbled into the worst case scenario and still came out ahead, or at least think they did by "forcing" a moderate choice while almost gaining a conservative Justice.

Which isn't to say withdrawing Garland is the right choice, not at all, but its definitely a victory for the Republican strategy and they WILL be emboldened by its success

Confirmations take time to perform. Thanks to the November and December holidays the senate will only have 16 workdays (four weeks, Monday through Thursday) between the election and the new senate being sworn in. They would have to really fast track things to get Garland through.

# ¿ Jun 19, 2016 04:17

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

Rygar201 posted:

The Senate can do anything it wants in five minutes or less, with unanimous consent. If Cruz feels like being a dick, things take longer.

GOP members of the judiciary committee:

Chuck Grassley, Iowa, Chair- primary in 2022
Orrin Hatch, Utah - primary in 2018
Jeff Sessions, Alabama - primary in 2020
Lindsey Graham, South Carolina - primary in 2020
John Cornyn, Texas- primary in 2020
Mike Lee, Utah- primary in 2022
Ted Cruz, Texas- primary in 2018 (and 2020)
Jeff Flake, Arizona- primary in 2018
David Vitter, Louisiana- retiring
David Perdue, Georgia- primary in 2020
Thom Tillis, North Carolina- primary in 2020

If they don't win the election the GOP base is likely going to be pissed. The senators on the committee are at the very least going to want to have good video clips of them ripping into Garland.

There is also the danger that Cruz and Lee might conclude that they will get more attention and Cruz will have a better shot at winning his primaries if he runs out the clock on the GOP establishment trying to ram through an Obama nominee. And that gets him the chance to be seen attacking/opposing a more liberal Hillary nominee too so win/win! Sure it fucks the GOP long term but when has Cruz not put his personal ambitions first?

# ¿ Jun 19, 2016 17:17

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

Gyges posted:

The Senate has just the kind of dumb rules in place that would let a united minority party grind everything to a halt if they really wanted though. Absolutely refusing to do anything with Supreme Court nominees isn't going to get the majority much help from senators facing an upcoming election either.

Which is why I'm not so certain that a lame duck Garland confirmation will happen if Hillary wins and the Democrats do well in the senate elections. The Democrats should be able to gum up the works with procedural bullshit enough to keep it from getting done in time. Especially if they aren't the ones doing it but instead are just not voting to end Ted Cruz's silliness.

Even if they don't try I have to wonder whether Baracknophobia has so primed the GOP to view his every little action as part of some grand conspiracy to screw us all that they will prevent the vote thinking Garland is some sort of sleeper uber-liberal.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2016 01:50

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

Platystemon posted:

Is it really that simple, though? Cameras can use high magnification/shutter speed/frame rate that�s far beyond the capabilities of the human eye.

A scan with an infrared camera was ruled a search in Kyllo.

No it isn't that simple but the courts like to pretend it is so they don't have to make hard and most likely arbitrary decisions about where the line should be drawn.

An entire bus full of humans couldn't match a single ALPR camera mounted to a squad car, but pretending they are the same thing is a lot easier so that's where we are. I think in most states they compare to an onboard database of plate numbers of interest but with modern storage capacities and the ability to update the database remotely that is pretty meaningless in practice.

# ¿ Jun 21, 2016 03:35

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

Three boxes today. Liveblog here:

http://www.scotusblog.com/2016/06/live-blog-of-opinions-30/

# ¿ Jun 23, 2016 14:57

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

Torrannor posted:

That's surprising!

It certainly is. This was probably the last chance they will have for a long time to overturn race conscious admissions too

# ¿ Jun 23, 2016 15:17

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

Shageletic posted:

So DACA's done then?

EDIT: Slate predicted this would be the most disastrous way to decide this case: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...disastrous.html

My understanding is that this was a fight over a pre-trial injunction and that it now goes back to the district court judge.

But effectively it is dead.

# ¿ Jun 23, 2016 16:22

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

FlamingLiberal posted:

I don't trust Kennedy on abortion, so I'm assuming 4-4 split which would uphold the law but not create a precedent

The silver lining on that very dark cloud is that this guarantees that the court will hear it again because there will almost certainly be a circuit split in short order. And if Hillary wins we could at that point get a 5-4 decision penned by the liberal wing of the court which firmly establishes that trying to ban abortion via pointless regulations not backed by evidence is just as unconstitutional as directly banning it. Kennedy's wishy washy poo poo has just encouraged the TRAP laws.

But odds are we would get that decision anyway because NARAL would get a new challenge on the fast track the instant Hillary made her nomination. So it would be a whole lot better if Texas didn't get to be an rear end in a top hat to women in the mean time.

# ¿ Jun 26, 2016 14:32

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

Slate Action posted:

TEXAS LOSES

gently caress yes!

# ¿ Jun 27, 2016 15:05

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

evilweasel posted:

From the summary (and who wrote it) it appears the Texas decision was a complete win on all counts.

In the discussion on severability states the provisions "vastly increase the obstacles confronting women seeking abortions in Texas without providing any benefit to women's health capable of withstanding any meaningful scrutiny".

Then goes on to reiterate that viability controls when abortion can be limited, which should help in smacking down "fetal pain" bullshit laws.

# ¿ Jun 27, 2016 15:21

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 23:07

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

BiohazrD posted:

The evisceration of the severability clause is sooooo good

They had to abort that genie before it got out of the bottle because had they not a similar clause would be stuck in every single law for any subject from now on.

# ¿ Jun 27, 2016 16:25

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > SCOTUS 2023: Rice pilaf from Louisiana...is that like an ISIS video?

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