#the rule of law and precedent

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

This may be the biggest seizure of power by the federal judiciary in US history. Brace yourself. The Supreme Court conservatives, exuding the heady self-confidence of a team that knows it cannot lose, haven’t been coy about the jurisprudence they want to reshape or tear down. Religious liberty, abortion, guns — the Court has recently taken up and dispensed with a whole swath of cases at astonishing speeds, often dramatically changing the bench’s long-held posture in relative silence through the shadow docket. But perhaps on no topic has the Court telegraphed its intent more clearly than the administrative state, the power of federal agencies to regulate and make rules. The dry name belies a system absolutely critical to every corner of American life.

“If I want to dump chemical waste in a swamp, I’d prefer that the federal government not have power to regulate that,” Julian Davis Mortenson, professor at the University of Michigan Law School, told TPM. “If I want to pay people working in my factory a miserably tiny wage, or employ 12 year-olds, I’d rather the federal government not have the power to make a rule against that.” The Court is now stocked with justices hungry to shift the power back in the direction of those nonregulatory interests. In doing so, they’ll really be shifting power to themselves. “If the Supreme Court truly honored the rule of law and precedent, then they would acknowledge the power of the agencies that was granted to them by Congress in order to save our environment,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) told TPM of a recent illustrative case involving the Environmental Protection Agency. “But this is an extremist Supreme Court, so I’m very worried about the outcome.” Because Congress is already paralyzed on critical issues, the prospect of a future in which the administrative state is rendered toothless is also a future in which unelected, conservative Justices become the arbiters of what the government can and can’t do. It’s a right-wing fantasy, cherished and developed for decades, come to life.

[wonder-worker]

"[Matilda of Boulogne's office as Queen of England], initiated and broadly defined by the coronation ordo, gave her royal power and authority to share in governance. Her obligations and activities were shaped by custom established by previous queens and the ad hoc needs of king and realm. [...] [Matilda's] thorough integration into the governance of the realm was not repeated in [Eleanor of Aquitaine’s] years as queen of England. Eleanor's coronation followed a new model that emphasized the queen as progenitor of royal heirs and subordinate to the king rather than as sharer of royal power. Though Eleanor acted as regent in England between 1156 and 1158 and in Poitou on several occasions from 1165 on, her writs suggest delegated rather than shared royal authority. In England, her power was limited by the lack of lands assigned to her use and by the elaboration of financial and judicial administration. Whereas [Matilda of Boulogne's] inheritance allowed her to play an integral role in politics by securing the Londoners' loyalty and a steady supply of mercenaries, Eleanor's inheritance provided her with more extensive power in Poitou and Aquitaine than in England. Until 1163, Eleanor withdrew funds from the Exchequer by her own writ, but unlike her Anglo-Norman predecessors, she was not a member of its council nor did she issue judgments from the royal court. Eleanor's counsel and diplomatic activities, in contrast to Matilda's, are rarely mentioned. She did, however, encourage the 1159 Toulouse campaign and supported Henry in the Becket affair and the coronation of young Henry. Eleanor was not a prominent curialis; she rarely witnessed Henry's charters or interceded to secure the king's mercy. She did follow in Matilda's footsteps in her promotion of her sons, cultivation of dynastic goals through the Fontevraudian tombs, and patronage that reflected her family's traditions. For Matilda, to be queen encompassed a variety of functions-curialis, diplomat, judge, intercessor, and "regent." Through a combination of factors, Eleanor's role as queen was much more restricted."

-Heather J. Tanner, "Queenship: Office, Custom or Ad Hoc", Eleanor of Aquitaine: Lord and Lady (Edited by Bonnie Wheeler and John Carmi Parsons)

[throwawayasoiafaccount]

when the long night inevitably ends and the previous social structure has crumbled and both westeros and essos are in chaos, do you want characters who genuinely care about creating meaningful change to be in power, or do you want them to die/not be in power because “feudalism is bad” and therefore these characters who derive some of their authority from the class they belong to cannot hold any power after the long night bc that somehow contradicts one of asoiafs most prominent messages. (despite the fact that many of our main characters suffer due to the current social systems in place)

personally, i’d prefer it if the characters who are able to see the good in the undesirables of society (and protect/empower these undesirables) are able to live on in order to restructure society in a way that protects all people.

to be frank, i don’t think it’d even be possible for the world of asoiaf to return to feudalism after something like the long night occurs.

but the thing is, society needs structure and humanity will naturally restructure itself whether people like it or not. so when spring comes, i want the characters who wish for a better tomorrow for all people to be in power in order to create a better world.

so to everyone who thinks that certain characters being in power only perpetuates the cycle of class violence and oppression, i’d like to ask you what you think is a better alternative way for asoiaf to end.

[davidaugust]

“Magna Carta was issued in June 1215 and was the first document to put into writing the principle that the king and his government was not above the law. It sought to prevent the king from exploiting his power, and placed limits of royal authority by establishing law as a power in itself.” And on July 1, 2024 the U.S. Supreme Court ended this over 800 year precedent and now says if they say a President can do it, then it’s totally legal whatever it is.

[pochapal]

"banquet of miracles" sure is an interesting phrase. so too is the notion of rokkenjima being "cut off from the world".

[woolandcoffee]

Another WOTUS decision from an activist judge, and I just can't stress enough how much the U.S. is captured by an activist, right-wing judiciary. If the courts were ever neutral arbiters who's only existence was to settle disputes and occasionally interpret the law, that time is long past. Our government is, in theory, set up on a system of checks and balances. Except that there is no realistic check upon the court system. At least, there is no realistic check upon the court system if the federal government refuses to act (either by ignoring clearly biased rulings, removing activist judges from the bench, or packing the courts with more moderate jurists).

Unless the judiciary is meaningfully reigned in, judges will continue to take more and more power. If judges continue to overrule federal agencies - who are empowered to act by Congress and the President, and employ thousands of experts to make informed decisions - for no reason other than that particular judge disagrees personally with the agency's decision, then we're effectively letting judges run the government. It doesn't matter who the President is, or what Congress does, it matters what some Harvard grad who wears a polyester robe to work and hasn't every worked an honest day in their life is. And that's a fucking problem.

[thottacelli]

I just tried to look this up to read more about the case and Google won't show anything to do with this ruling on the news tab.

I looked up "Florida Hrt" and the news page only has articles from 2023 talking about the original HRT blocking law. I had to change my search setting to "This Past Week" to find anything about it. It feels like Google is suppressing these articles in the search results seeing as how I look up any other topic and I get results from today or the past couple of days.

It seems like Google is trying to prevent people from learning that a fed court judge ruled that banning HRT is unconstitutional.

Florida bans on trans care have been overturned! 🏳️‍⚧️

[lawtoppers]

Supreme Court Strikes Down ATF Bump Stock Ban

Supreme Court Strikes Down ATF Bump Stock Ban In a significant decision, the U.S. Supreme Court has struck down the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) ban on bump stocks. This ruling, delivered on June 14, 2024, in a 6-3 vote, held that the ATF exceeded its authority in enacting the ban following a deadly mass shooting in California in 2018. This case, known as Garland v.…

[my-friends-are-stalking-me]

I don;t consider myself to be someone of unusually strong morals, and yet I still have to many to ever join the Supreme Court

[reasonsforhope]

"Arizona’s ban on transgender athletes has been blocked by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which called the 2022 law “the essence of discrimination.”

Supporters of the so-called Save Women’s Sports Act claimed that the law protected girls and women in schools and colleges from “unfair competition.” However, the federal court found that pre-pubescent trans girls and trans girls on puberty blockers have no significant physical advantages over cis girls their own age, The San Francisco Chronicle reported.

“[The law] to ensure competitive fairness and equal athletic opportunities for cisgender female athletes cannot be squared with the fact that the Act bars students from female athletics based entirely on transgender status,” Judge Morgan Christen wrote in the court’s 3-0 decision.

“[The law] permits all students other than transgender women and girls to play on teams consistent with their gender identities,” Christen continued, “transgender women and girls alone are barred from doing so. This is the essence of discrimination.”

Two trans girls, an 11-year-old soccer player and a 15-year-old swimmer and volleyball player on puberty blockers, sued to overturn the law; 18 states signed court arguments in favor of the law, and 17 states signed arguments against it.

A lower federal court also ruled against the law, and the two court rulings against it can now be cited as a legal precedent to help other trans girls play sports. However, Arizona could also appeal the decision to be heard by an 11-judge panel on the appeals court or ask the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on the matter.

“A student’s transgender status is not an accurate proxy for athletic ability and competitive advantage,” said Rachel Berg, a lawyer with the National Center for Lesbian Rights who represented the two girls in court. “Our clients are thrilled to be able to continue to play on girls’ sports teams with their friends while this case proceeds to trial.”"

-via LGBTQ Nation, September 10, 2024

[consolecadet]

Big news: Google has lost its first antitrust case. Via Matt Stoller:

So what happens now? In this case, the judge will come up with remedies next year. The order could be broad, and will likely loosen Google’s control over the mobile app ecosystem. Google has already announced that it will appeal, so the case isn’t over.

That said, Google is likely to be in trouble now, because it is facing multiple antitrust cases, and these kinds of decisions have a bandwagon effect. The precedent is set, in every case going forward the firm will now be seen as presumed guilty, since a jury found Google has violated antitrust laws. Judges are cautious, and are generally afraid of being the first to make a precedent-setting decision. Now they won’t have to. In fact, judges and juries will now have to find a reason to rule for Google. If, say, Judge Amit Mehta in D.C., facing a very similar fact-pattern, chooses to let Google off the hook, well, he’ll look pretty bad.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Mike Luckovich AJC

* * * *

Chief Justice Roberts is a liar and a racist

LUCIAN K. TRUSCOTT IV

JUN 29, 2023

You knew it was going to be him, didn’t you?  To write yet another Supreme Court decision basically saying, this whole race thing – we’re finished with it, and racism is over.  He wrote the last decision saying the same thing, Shelby County v. Holder, when he declared, essentially, that racism was a thing of the past, so we don’t need the enforcement provision in Article Five of the Voting Rights Act because it is “based on 40-year-old facts having no logical relationship to the present day,” and “our country has changed.”

That’s what Chief Justice Roberts said again today in the decision he wrote ending affirmative action in college admissions: “The student must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual—not on the basis of race,” he wrote.  Taking into consideration “the color of their skin” when deciding who to admit into college is wrong because, in words I hope he’ll be remembered for after he is long in the grave, “Our constitutional history does not tolerate that choice.”

This is, to put it simply, a bald-faced lie.  Our entire history as a country from the day arguments began at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 has been about race.  The Constitution that was ratified in 1788 and put into force in 1789 dodged the issue of slavery with the infamous three-fifths clause, that not only permitted white people to own Black people in the Southern states but allowed slavery to spread west with the expansion of the country, directly leading to the Civil War in 1861.  That brutal conflict, which caused the deaths of more than 600,000 American citizens, led directly to the passage of the 13th and 14th Amendments, by which this country tried to make amends and deal with the original sin of slavery.  The South fought back with resistance to Reconstruction, leading to the years of the Jim Crow laws, which essentially stripped Black people in the South of rights granted to them as citizens, including the right to vote.  Segregation not only in public accommodations but in education was imposed by law in the South, leading to Brown v Board of Education, which declared that segregating students on the basis of race was illegal.  So-called massive resistance to integration followed in the South, leading directly to the passage of the Civil Rights Laws of 1957 and 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which Roberts dismissed so handily in 2013, which led to the nearly immediate imposition of restrictions on the right to vote in multiple states, the legacy of which we are still dealing with in every election since.

Is that enough “constitutional history” and just plain old history for you, Mr. Chief Justice?  I would just like to point out that you can dismiss the history of race in this country and declare racism over only if you are a white man and you have power.

The decision of the Supreme Court today had all six Republican justices voting to end affirmative action and all three justices appointed by Democratic presidents voting against and signing a dissent.  The court’s decision and Robert’s blinkered opinion reflects an ongoing, yes historical, problem we have as citizens of the United States:  an abiding unwillingness or inability to put on the cloak of our brothers and imagine ourselves walking in their shoes.  That is all affirmative action is or ever has been – an attempt by colleges to imagine what it is like to be black or brown and do something about it. 

What we did about race for the first 175 years of our history was to use it against those whose skin color was not white.  The color of one’s skin was the one thing that many states, most of them but not all in the former Confederacy, considered when making decisions not only about college admissions, but about who to educate and how they should be educated:  white schools get this amount of money and new school books; Black schools get that amount of money and hand-me-down school books from the white schools.  Before that, during the years of slavery – part of our “constitutional history” as well, in case the Chief Justice hadn’t noticed – laws were written in the South making it illegal to educate the Black people who were enslaved by white people.  There were laws against integrating schools by race, allowing people to discriminate on the basis of race in renting or selling houses and apartments, allowing businesses to ban Black people from coming inside a restaurant, for example, and requiring them to order and pick up food from a window on the side or back of the restaurant’s building.

I could go on for the benefit of the Chief Justice, who seems to have forgotten our history of organized and legal discrimination on the basis of the color of one’s skin, but I know you get the picture. 

The court’s decision and Roberts’ decision is a lie, but worse than that, it violates what we might call the Constitution’s first commandment, found in its preamble:  We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union…”

This Supreme Court’s entire jurisprudence is an outright rejection of that commandment and an assertion that the Union is perfect enough for them, thank you very much, and if the rest of you don’t believe the way we do, then to hell with you.  Our Union is not perfect, and this decision intentionally and purposefully turns back the clock to a time in our history when discrimination on the basis of skin color was not only allowed, but in many cases, written into the laws of our states and tolerated by our courts, including the Supreme Court.

Race in this country started out as our crime, and then it became our burden.  If you don’t believe that, ask any person whose skin is not white.  Ask Black people in the South who went to schools that did not have central heating systems and cafeterias while white schools just a short distance away had both of those things.  Ask Black people who applied to colleges, or applied for jobs, or applied for a loan at a bank, or applied to rent or buy an apartment or a house. 

I’m talking to you, Chief Justice Roberts.  Take off your robes and get off your ass and go out on the streets of Washington D.C. and ask any Black person you encounter how the color of their skin has affected them.  Then go back and read your own opinion and ask yourself if “our constitutional history” has tolerated what happened to them during their lives.

[osshisan]

i used up all the energy i had for being upset about all the wrong i have to deal with in life while i was in middle & high school and now im just numb to all of it instead. don't really like it but what can you do

[tpwrtrmnky]

alternative treatments

[ID: Four panel pills that make you green comic.

Panel 1: A plain stick figure is on the left, while moss green is on the right.

Plain: "I'm just concerned, I mean you've heard about the conversion therapy laws, haven't you?"

Moss: "Hm?"

Plain: "I mean it's really ridiculous, they'd criminalize simply encouraging other alternatives to turning green!"

Panel 2: Zoom in on Moss' face, which reads "(having a flashback)". The plain stick figure continues talking from offscreen:

"I mean you need to be able to pursue a variety of options, these experimental drugs should really be a last resort. I sent my own child to a very nice therapist and they came back so much more well behaved and obedient and- Hello? I am talking to you."

Panel 3: Framed as a thought bubble from Moss' head in the preceding panel. A smaller stick figure is strapped to a chair wearing a helmet with wires coming out of it, connected to the chair. A larger stick figure has their hand on a lever.

Small: "It's been over a year, when are you actually helping me?"

Big: "Soon, honestly. We just need to rule out a few more possibilities."

Small: "Like what?"

Big: "Uh... Compulsive green ideation."

Small: "I was already evaluated for that."

Big: "Just sit back and let me zap you, you little shit."

Panel 4: The flashback ends and the plain stick figure is still talking, while Moss is putting on a bandana.

Plain: "I mean it would be ridiculous if I had to go to prison for that."

Moss: "Sure, yeah."

Plain: "Ah, I'm so glad you agree."

Moss: "Prison would be too merciful, yeah. It's good that I'm here I guess."

Start - Previous - Next

[chongoblog]

Wanna give a quick shoutout to the federal judge last week who struck down the Arkansas law that tried to outlaw gender-affirming care for minors, not only ruling it unconstitutional, but including 311 statements of fact all going against the gender-affirming care ban in a ruling that was 80 pages long. Especially since these statements make it harder for transphobes to appeal and iirc this is considered precedent.

[reasonandempathy]

Walz has served as Minnesota’s governor since 2019 after 12 years in the House of Representatives and now chairs the Democratic Governors Association. He has built a reputation as a folksy politician who can get things done, as Minnesota has adopted a number of progressive laws during his tenure. According to a poll conducted earlier this year, Walz enjoys an approval rating of 55% among Minnesotans. Since Minnesota Democrats achieved a legislative trifecta in the 2022 elections, Walz and his allies have used their power to push a slate of progressive policies. The governor has signed bills protecting abortion access, expanding background checks for prospective gun owners and legalizing recreational marijuana. “Right now, Minnesota is showing the country you don’t win elections to bank political capital,” Walz said last year. “You win elections to burn political capital and improve lives.” That philosophy has endeared him to progressives, who threw their support behind him as the veepstakes kicked into high gear over the past two weeks. They reshared clips of Walz lovingly mocking his daughter’s vegetarianism and tinkering with his car to paint him as the dad that America needs right now.

This is fucking awesome! Honestly, sincerely good news and a very promising pick for the potential Harris Administration. An aggressive, unabashed, popular, populist left-winger with a track record of enacting real, substantive help for people is capital-G Great.

What has he done, specifically?

Abortion rights

In a 1995 ruling, the Minnesota Supreme Court upheld abortion rights in Minnesota. In January 2023, Walz signed the PRO Act (Protect Reproductive Options Act) into law, making abortion a "fundamental right," as well as access to contraception, fertility treatments, sterilization and other reproductive health care.

The law made Minnesota the first state to codify abortion rights in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court's 2022 ruling in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which nullified Roe. v. Wade after nearly 50 years of precedent. In April 2023, Walz signed the Reproductive Freedom Defense Act into law, shielding women and providers from any legal action originating from the patient's state.

Pro-LGBTQIA+ legislation

In March 2023, Walz signed an executive order to protect the right of residents to have access to gender-affirming health care. Weeks later, he signed the "Trans Refuge" bill, banning the enforcement of arrest warrants, extradition requests and out-of-state subpoenas for those who traveled to Minnesota for care.

"When someone else is given basic rights, others don't lose theirs," Walz said. "We aren't cutting a pie here. We're giving basic rights to every single Minnesotan."

Paid family, medical and sick leave

In May 2023, Walz signed a law creating a state-run program to provide paid family and medical leave for Minnesota workers, funded by a 0.7% payroll tax on employers, by 2026.

Legalization of recreational marijuana

In May 2023, Minnesota became the 23rd state in the nation to legalize recreational cannabis use. Three months later, people 21 and older could start to possess certain amounts of marijuana at home and on their person, in addition to legally growing up to eight plants at a time.

Restoration of voting rights for former felons

In March 2023, Walz signed a bill that restored the right to vote to more than 50,000 convicted felons who had already served their time.

Universal school meals

Amid the increase in food insecurity for many Minnesotans during the pandemic, and the subsequent strain on the state's food shelves that remains to this day, Walz signed a bill in March 2023 that ensures all K-12 students in the state have access to free breakfast and lunch on school days.

Do you know what makes this even better?

Fuck 'Em. I know negative partisanship is important and can help motivate right-wingers to vote, but they're going to vote anyway. And him being afraid of Walz is just a sign that he's a good pick, in policy and politics.