Octopus Overlords

Carpet_pissr wrote: Sun Apr 30, 2023 6:49 pm And Crowe and Thomas were probably watching that, together, laughing right along with everyone else. ‘It’s funny because it’s true!!! LOL!’

The Supreme Court on Monday announced it will hear a case that could significantly scale back federal agencies’ authority, with major implications for the future of environmental and other regulations.

The justices next term will consider whether to overturn a decades-old precedent that grants agencies deference when Congress left ambiguity in a statute.

Named for the court’s decision in Chevron U.S.A. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, the Chevron deference has become one of the most frequently cited precedents in administrative law since the decision was first handed down in 1984.

It involves a two-step test: First, judges decide if Congress has in the statute directly spoken to the precise question at issue. If it is ambiguous, courts defer to agencies as long as their actions are based on a “permissible construction.”

Some of the high court’s conservatives have raised concern about the precedent and how it has expanded the reach of agencies’ authority.

malchior wrote: Tue May 02, 2023 6:56 pm He has no say over whether Grassley is on the committee or not. Each party decides who sits on which committee. I see a lot of people firing at Durbin but he is essentially powerless about the issues he faces whether that be Feinstein (and her endless case of shingles) or which Republicans are there. All he can do is speak which is what he is doing.

malchior wrote: Tue May 02, 2023 11:02 am I knew things would get bad but this is something I don't think I'd ever hear from a US Senator out loud.

Unagi wrote: Tue May 02, 2023 10:21 pm (+25 years and no scandals!!)

malchior wrote: Tue May 02, 2023 7:06 pm Agree with you there - it does feel rigged. This is a problem with the Democrats. They've been completely incapable or willing to deal with this threat. They just always accept the outcome the Republicans deal out.

LawBeefaroni wrote: Wed May 03, 2023 1:52 pm

malchior wrote: Tue May 02, 2023 7:06 pm Agree with you there - it does feel rigged. This is a problem with the Democrats. They've been completely incapable or willing to deal with this threat. They just always accept the outcome the Republicans deal out.

"Justice Roberts, tell the Committee exactly what the hell is going on and what we can do about it!"

"Thank you, but no. Peace."

"Um, OK."

In his letter inviting Roberts to testify, Durbin noted that Roberts’ “last significant discussion of how Supreme Court Justices address ethical issues was presented” in his 2011 year-end report. “Since then,” Durbin continued, “there has been a steady stream of revelations regarding Justices falling short of the ethical standards expected of other federal judges.” The Supreme Court’s “decade-long failure to address them has contributed to a crisis of public confidence,” Durbin concluded.

Roberts’ letter explained that testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee by chief justices has been “exceedingly rare – as one might expect,” he suggested, “in light of concerns” about judicial independence and the division of power among the three branches of government.

On Monday, Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, a Republican, filed a truly remarkable document in the Supreme Court.

“The State of Oklahoma recently made the difficult decision to confess error and support vacating the conviction of Richard Glossip,” the document reads, referring to a death row inmate scheduled to be executed on May 18. But because other parts of the state government don’t agree, and Oklahoma’s attorney general does not have the power to lift Glossip’s death sentence on his own, Drummond is now begging the Supreme Court of the United States to save Glossip’s life.

It’s a bizarre case, where the state’s top prosecutor, who is also the official empowered to speak on behalf of the state in court, can’t actually stop an execution. But he can use the state’s voice to urge the justices to stop that same state from committing a massive injustice.

The case against Glossip, who was convicted for allegedly hiring a coworker to kill his boss in 1997, now lies in shambles. In 2022, Reed Smith LLP, a law firm commissioned by a committee of state lawmakers, released a 343-page report detailing its investigation into Glossip’s conviction and the many errors that led to Glossip being sentenced to die. Its conclusion is scathing:

The State’s destruction and loss of key evidence before Glossip’s retrial deprived the defense from using the evidence at trial (and has deprived the defense today of the ability to perform forensic testing using DNA and technology advancements), the tunnel‐vision and deficient police investigation, the prosecution’s failure to vet evidence and further distortion of it to fit its flawed narrative, and a cascade of errors and missed opportunities by defense attorneys, fundamentally call into question the fairness of the proceedings and the ultimate reliability of the guilty verdict against Glossip for murder.

This report is bolstered by a separate investigation, conducted at Drummond’s request by Rex Duncan, a former district attorney and Republican state lawmaker. Duncan concluded that “Glossip was deprived of a fair trial in which the State can have confidence in the process and result.”

Nevertheless, Drummond has struggled to find someone — anyone — with the power to cure this injustice who is willing to do so. Oklahoma’s Court of Criminal Appeals denied his request to toss out Glossip’s execution, claiming that a crucial piece of new evidence undermining Glossip’s conviction “does not create a reasonable probability that the result of the proceeding would have been different.” Then the state parole board split 2-2 on whether to grant clemency to Glossip, with one member recused because his wife was one of the prosecutors at Glossip’s trial.

In 2008, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas decided to send his teenage grandnephew to Hidden Lake Academy, a private boarding school in the foothills of northern Georgia. The boy, Mark Martin, was far from home. For the previous decade, he had lived with the justice and his wife in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Thomas had taken legal custody of Martin when he was 6 years old and had recently told an interviewer he was “raising him as a son.”

Tuition at the boarding school ran more than $6,000 a month. But Thomas did not cover the bill. A bank statement for the school from July 2009, buried in unrelated court filings, shows the source of Martin’s tuition payment for that month: the company of billionaire real estate magnate Harlan Crow.

Justin Elliott
“Harlan Crow has long been passionate about the importance of quality education and giving back to those less fortunate, especially at-risk youth.”

Octavious wrote: Thu May 04, 2023 9:22 am You should be focusing on Bud Light damn it! It's literally been their main story for like 2 weeks now. I really don't like this timeline and would like to unsubscribe.

LordMortis wrote: Thu May 04, 2023 8:33 am

Justin Elliott
“Harlan Crow has long been passionate about the importance of quality education and giving back to those less fortunate, especially at-risk youth.”

$72,000 a year to the less fortunate nephew raised by a SC justice who takes half million dollar vacations on someone else dime and has his properties paid for and... It's like he's trying to challenge McConnell for worst American in my lifetime and when all is revealed, he might "win" at this pace he is moving.

$iljanus wrote: Thu May 04, 2023 9:29 am

LordMortis wrote: Thu May 04, 2023 8:33 am

Justin Elliott
“Harlan Crow has long been passionate about the importance of quality education and giving back to those less fortunate, especially at-risk youth.”

$72,000 a year to the less fortunate nephew raised by a SC justice who takes half million dollar vacations on someone else dime and has his properties paid for and... It's like he's trying to challenge McConnell for worst American in my lifetime and when all is revealed, he might "win" at this pace he is moving.

I guess I should expand my definition of “at risk youth”.

Sonic Youth, ca. 1992 wrote:Black robe and swill,
I believe Anita Hill
Judge will rot in hell,
It's the song I hate, it's the song I hate.

House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) launched an investigation into directions given to U.S. marshals to not arrest protesters outside Supreme Court justices’ homes after a draft decision overturning federal abortion protections was leaked.

He pointed to a federal law that prohibits demonstrations that intend to interfere with or influence judges.

malchior wrote: Thu May 04, 2023 10:25 am This is where I break with the Durbin's and Whitehouse's on the Democratic side of the Senate. Why are they just bloviating at this point? Make a public call for Thomas to resign. If this was a liberal judge we'd have Ted Cruz jumping up and down from the get go yelling 'RESIGN! RESIGN! RESIGN!'. They don't have to ape that but we have ample evidence now of corruption. Worse by far than Abe Fortas. Much worse. They need to strap on the big boy pants and start calling for a resignation.

malchior wrote: Thu May 04, 2023 10:43 am On the flip side we have this shamelessness.

malchior wrote: Thu May 04, 2023 11:55 am This is what passes as a defense from the right. These people are utterly shameless hypocrites. You can't win against these type of tactics by passively reacting to events.

This is an intentionally deceptive tweet.

malchior wrote: Thu May 04, 2023 10:43 am On the flip side we have this shamelessness.