Octopus Overlords

LawBeefaroni wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 9:27 am

Little Raven wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 12:58 am Time to impeach!

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Sunday said she believes it's an "impeachable offense" for a Supreme Court justice to lie under oath.

...

Ocasio-Cortez, speaking in an interview with NBC News' "Meet the Press," said she believes the court is facing a "crisis of legitimacy" and justices must face consequences if they lie under oath.

"If we allow Supreme Court nominees to lie under oath and secure lifetime appointments to the highest court of the land and then issue, without basis," she said, "we must see that through. There must be consequences for such a deeply destabilizing action and a hostile takeover of our democratic institutions."

"To allow that to stand is to allow it to happen," she continued. "And what makes it particularly dangerous is that it sends a blaring signal to all future nominees that they can now lie to duly elected members of the United States Senate in order to secure Supreme Court confirmations and seats on the Supreme Court."

That she believed what they said under oath is more telling of her than them. Hopefully lesson learned for next time, although it's likely too late now.

Isgrimnur wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 10:38 am

The District stated that it had no objection to Kennedy returning to the stadium when he was off duty to pray at the 50-yard line, nor with Kennedy praying while on duty if it did not interfere with his job duties or suggest the District’s endorsement of religion. The District explained that its establishment concerns were motivated by the specific facts at issue, because engaging in prayer on the 50-yard line immediately after the game finished would appear to be an extension of Kennedy’s “prior, long-standing and wellknown history of leading students in prayer” on the 50-yard line after games. Id., at 81. The District therefore reaffirmed its prior directives to Kennedy.

El Guapo wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 10:00 am Well, she's 100% right about the Thomas part.

The Roe part is IMO conceptually reasonable, but not worth the trouble most likely.

LawBeefaroni wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 10:58 am Welp, every high school football game will now be able to have a religious purity test. Things are going great.

Oh, but don't you fucking dare take a knee during the Anthem. That's treason.

El Guapo wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 11:03 am So basically they're saying that the Free Exercise clause means that the government can't favor secular conduct over religious conduct for their employees?

Little Raven wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 12:58 am Time to impeach!

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Sunday said she believes it's an "impeachable offense" for a Supreme Court justice to lie under oath.

...

Ocasio-Cortez, speaking in an interview with NBC News' "Meet the Press," said she believes the court is facing a "crisis of legitimacy" and justices must face consequences if they lie under oath.

"If we allow Supreme Court nominees to lie under oath and secure lifetime appointments to the highest court of the land and then issue, without basis," she said, "we must see that through. There must be consequences for such a deeply destabilizing action and a hostile takeover of our democratic institutions."

"To allow that to stand is to allow it to happen," she continued. "And what makes it particularly dangerous is that it sends a blaring signal to all future nominees that they can now lie to duly elected members of the United States Senate in order to secure Supreme Court confirmations and seats on the Supreme Court."

malchior wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 11:11 am And @AOC knows this. She is just using the "absurd" argument to get the sound bite out there which is valid as any other reason nowadays to do it.

Octavious wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 11:31 am They are going to have a field day with the next session. They have to have a huge wishlist of things they want to rubber stamp though. How have they not gotten Obamacare in there yet?

In Moore v. Harper, the speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives, Timothy Moore, asks the Supreme Court to consider what has come to be known as the “independent state legislature” theory — which holds that the Constitution gives state legislatures alone the power to regulate federal elections in their states, without the oversight of state courts. Moore notes that the Constitution’s elections clause states that the “Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof.” Moore argues that unlike other constitutional provisions, the clause does not refer to the state itself, but a particular institution of government.

Last November, the North Carolina legislature enacted a new map for congressional elections in response to the 2020 U.S. Census data. Respondent Rebecca Harper and 25 other North Carolina voters sued in state court to prevent the new map from taking effect, arguing that the map violated various provisions of the North Carolina constitution and represented an unlawful partisan gerrymander. In February 2022, the North Carolina Supreme Court enjoined the new map, concluding that although the state legislature “has the duty to apportion North Carolina’s congressional … districts,” the legislature’s “exercise of this power is subject to limitations imposed by other [state] constitutional provisions,” and “the state judiciary … has the responsibility to protect the state constitutional rights of the citizens.” The court further concluded that the map was an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander. On remand, the state trial court issued an order adopting a different congressional map proposed by three court-appointed experts.

El Guapo wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 11:48 am If they endorse the independent state legislature theory, does that mean that state election decisions can have zero oversight by any court?

Little Raven wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 11:50 am

El Guapo wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 11:48 am If they endorse the independent state legislature theory, does that mean that state election decisions can have zero oversight by any court?

Federal courts could still intervene.

Little Raven wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 11:50 am

El Guapo wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 11:48 am If they endorse the independent state legislature theory, does that mean that state election decisions can have zero oversight by any court?

Federal courts could still intervene.

El Guapo wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 12:04 pmIt seems conceptually weird to reach a conclusion that would put federal courts in a position to review state election decisions while cutting out state courts entirely.

Proponents of the inde­pend­ent state legis­lature theory reject this tradi­tional read­ing, insist­ing that these clauses give state legis­latures exclus­ive and near-abso­lute power to regu­late federal elec­tions. The result? When it comes to federal elec­tions, legis­lat­ors would be free to viol­ate the state consti­tu­tion and state courts could­n’t stop them.

Extreme versions of the theory would block legis­latures from deleg­at­ing their author­ity to offi­cials like governors, secret­ar­ies of state, or elec­tion commis­sion­ers, who currently play import­ant roles in admin­is­ter­ing elec­tions.

LawBeefaroni wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 12:06 pm What I don't get is the how the dissenting judges can continue to play by the rules when the majority is clearly not doing so. It's similar to our legislators continuing to sit in the same room as their whackjob colleagues, clinging to traditions of civility and common decency until there essentially rendered powerless.

LawBeefaroni wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 12:06 pmWhat I don't get is the how the dissenting judges can continue to play by the rules when the majority is clearly not doing so.

Little Raven wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 12:13 pm

LawBeefaroni wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 12:06 pmWhat I don't get is the how the dissenting judges can continue to play by the rules when the majority is clearly not doing so.

Alito is 72, Thomas is 74. What is now will not always be.

Little Raven wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 12:13 pm

LawBeefaroni wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 12:06 pmWhat I don't get is the how the dissenting judges can continue to play by the rules when the majority is clearly not doing so.

Alito is 72, Thomas is 74. What is now will not always be.

Little Raven wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 12:13 pm

LawBeefaroni wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 12:06 pmWhat I don't get is the how the dissenting judges can continue to play by the rules when the majority is clearly not doing so.

Alito is 72, Thomas is 74. What is now will not always be.

El Guapo wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 12:20 pm

Little Raven wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 12:13 pm

LawBeefaroni wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 12:06 pmWhat I don't get is the how the dissenting judges can continue to play by the rules when the majority is clearly not doing so.

Alito is 72, Thomas is 74. What is now will not always be.

Yes, BUT:

(1) the Senate is structurally biased against Democrats;
(2) the norm that a justice will be confirmed if within some broad range of "qualified" is so completely eroded that it's unclear whether a Senate will confirm a nominee from the opposite party in the near future, especially if the Senate is Republican;
(3) Alito and Thomas are still young enough and healthy enough that one or both should be able to retire only when there is a Republican president. Possible that one of them holds on too long Ginsburg style or dies unexpectedly, but not likely that both will.

So it's incredibly unlikely that Democrats will be able to get a liberal SCOTUS majority at least for the next few decades. By that time it's pretty likely that the democracy crisis we're in will be over one way or another anyway.

Octavious wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 11:31 am They are going to have a field day with the next session. They have to have a huge wishlist of things they want to rubber stamp though. How have they not gotten Obamacare in there yet?

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act for the third time on Thursday, leaving in place the broad provisions of the law enacted by Congress in 201o. The vote was 7 to 2.

The opinion, written by Justice Stephen Breyer, was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch dissented. They would have struck down the most popular parts of the law, including the provision barring discrimination based on preexisting medical conditions.

But the majority decision threw out the challenge to the law on the grounds that Texas and other objecting GOP-dominated states were not required to pay anything under the mandate provision and thus had no standing to bring the challenge to court.