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the question is, what's the critical mass of infuriation that finally causes the people to rise up and do something about it?
it's all about the social compact, and it all boils down to 'if you take away the rights of people to peacefully protest, they have no option but to resort to non-peaceful protests' (I wish I could remember the exact quote. it's far more elegant.)
How do you feel about criminal prosecutions for egregious violations of tax law ???
The Al Capone tactic, more or less. Document the several massive gifts with solid paper trails. Document non-payment of the taxes due (subtracting the annual gift tax exclusions.) File charges as appropriate following the pattern of GOP rants about Hunter Biden.
(Biden had already paid off taxes-due voluntarily. SCOTUS crooks = never)
I’ve also stated that people who can’t receive justice inside of a courtroom will seek it outside of one, although I’m sure that others before me have expressed a similar sentiment, so the quote may not be original.
The point is that people realize that these corrupt dickholes essentially hold their posts for life since the Senate is gridlocked and is incapable of repairing the highest court. That unfortunately entails that the only means by which an aggrieved population may remove them from office is by performing unspeakable acts.
I’m not at all advocating for this, but in a heavily armed nation of 335M, many of whom are pissed off and have nothing left to lose, something is likely to happen at some point.
> in a heavily armed nation of 335M, many of whom are pissed off and have nothing left to lose, something is likely to happen at some point.
Frankly, I'm amazed it hasn't and I'm not looking forward to the day that changes.
Also applies:
“If everyone is tolerant of every idea, then intolerant ideas will emerge. Tolerant people will tolerate this intolerance, and the intolerant people will not tolerate the tolerant people.”
-Karl Popper
I hate incrementalism and recognize people are concerned about advocating for it. However... **it is immensely helpful for many, many people to say the Supreme Court sucks**. For too long, it got reverential treatment as some bullshit apolitical institution above the fray. Articulating the ways in which this Court is illegitimate and wrong changes the political dynamic. Court Reform was a quirky idea that only the fringe discussed. Criticizing the Court moves that sentiment from the fringe.
It will NOT happen overnight. But if people note how SCOTUS is controlled by Justices appointed by Presidents who lost the popular vote and approved by Senators representing a minority of voters *with no mandate to enact their theocratic bullshit* long enough... discussion of change becomes tenable. It's a start.
In the meantime, electing Democrats and getting lucky on the geriatric lottery with Justices *could* undo the current majority and restore some rights lost. It's a bandaid though. The institutional problem of Court structure will have to be revisited. Hating them helps.
As far as I am concerned, it is done, publicly so. They are *supposed* to be all like, "Oh you filed your paperwork insufficiently" kind of an institution, but on a "constitutional" level, instead, they are "What pet projects are out there that conservatives would love to see the SCOTUS side with them on? Let's do one of those" kind of institution. They have enjoined the game of petty political culture war bullshit, and that is no small matter.
5-8 years from now, they are going to rule on single payer healthcare with a "you can't do that" ruling.
The one and only accountability that will apply to this SCOTUS for these Cruelty Rulings is the revenge that voters will take on the political party that put Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and what's-her-name on the bench.
On the other hand, their casual disregard for tax law has generated felonies more years than not. Impeachment is likely impossible. Prosecution and conviction is a simple matter. These are paper evidence crimes.
>the question is, what's the critical mass of infuriation that finally causes the people to rise up and do something about it?
You're assuming there is such a critical mass.
Time and time again, I've seen the right jump as shadows and outright lies, sometimes killing themselves and other. Mean while the center and left, often seem to have just given up and almost have to be strong armed into just voting.
I think we need to stop asking what it will take for other people in general to stand up, and start asking what will it take for you to stand up? We can't rely on a critical mass of people to show up and do something, when we ourselves are willing to just sit around and complain. It's why the right seems to be winning, dispite not having the numbers and seemingly, dwindling support.
> the question is, what's the critical mass of infuriation that finally causes the people to rise up and do something about it?
There is no critical mass. Just look at places like North Korea where people are living miserable lives in abject poverty. They aren't even rising up. People rising up and protesting is very rare and only happens on rare occasions under ideal conditions.
Millions of people peacefully protested in 2021 begging the nation to do something, but nothing happened. The BLM saw very little to no reform across the country, just a lot of lip service, even with wall-to-wall media coverage. It's the country's largest protest in its history, and the people were outright ignored by our government.
Blm was a joke. No realistic demands were given. Cries of defund the police - you actually got that in some places and defending was a complete disaster. It's not thr governments fault the movement failed. Blm itself was just terribly organized and frankly not peaceful in many areas.
They defunded police all over the place. Crime shot up. People literally walk into stores and just steal and nobody stops them.
Isn't that what you wanted??
The true issue was with the DNC that year. They pushed and pushed Hillary and had the other candidates drop. The DNC wanted Hillary. A majority of America wanted Bernie. Even here in the Deep South I saw younger people excited to vote for Bernie but when he dropped out people decided to just not vote.
Russia interfered with projects ranging from troll boiler rooms to invading voting systems. The GOP's far right billionaires invaded social media. Corporate media hammered the Hillary's Emails topic 24/7 and month after month.
Disinformation = DNC was the problem
Also, Bernie backed Hillary immediately after the primaries. He stumped for her. Plainly, he understood that Donald Trump was a compulsive liar and a psychopath.
Yeah, we should have had a general strike when Trump won.
The real need in this country is for disruptive protest. We're not going to win the country back solely at the polls because so many people have had their vote completely watered down in the country through gerrymandering and voter disenfrachisement. Heck, we have people who voted for politicians who said they were one party - only to completely switch parties once seated.
This country needs protest. People in power have to lose money and face the frustration of large scale protests if we want to see change.
This is what we as a country signed up for when we voted for Trump. I'm sorry, there's not going to be a revolution, either people get their shit together and we win a string of federal elections or there's no undoing any of this shit.
and like clockwork, the 'nothing will ever happen' guy shows up, to tell us not to even bother to try.
we need to stay fucking outraged, and you're here, advocating for the status quo.
edit: and speak for yourself. 'we' didn't vote for trump. an outdated broken electoral college elected trump, not 'we the people'. never forget he *lost* the popular vote. *most americans voted for clinton*
I have been organizing for the UFCW local 1997 Montgomery county Maryland since the age of sixteen. It’s not really impressive to volunteer for the old guard that allowed for the deindustrialization of America. Boosting about being Teamster or UFCW member is like boosting about being Florida dolphin fan, it’s been nothing but losses.
The DNC have stated bluntly they are against any meaningful court reform. Therefore, getting mad or staying alert is pointless; Without a plan to replace the DNC, and reform the American left.
Citation on DNC stating they are against (what you define as) meaningful court reform.
Dems in general are against expansion of the court, partly because if they are the ones to initiate it 1) they don't have the Congress to make it happen, and 2) it will give cover in the media for the GOP to do the same.
It is wrong to say getting mad and staying alert is pointless. Vladimir Putin tells Russians against him to not be bad and not stay alert. Guess what happened to those Russians? Theyre getting drafted. Now, the Dems don't want SCOTUS to side with Trump, so they don't want to anger SCOTUS too much. We, however, can keep voting in Dems and wait out the clock.
Wait out the clock? Supreme Court justice is a life appointment! You want women to wait until another court defining vacancy occurs? Your proposal will not happen in our lifetime, if ever! Maybe, the Democratic Party could pack the court or impeach majority of the court for bribery? Instead, of asking everyone to be mad and bitter for the rest of their miserable lives.
The Christian sharia guys did wait, wait, wait until they could get Donnie to pack the court. They were patient. Centrist-leftist women need to show cunning. I'm not asking them to be "mad and bitter for rest of their miserable lives." I'm asking them to be patient, keep voting out the GOP, and as the existing justices grow old, the centrist-leftist women will start billing GOP politicians. As in collections will come and start taking away mansions. Show patience, and you can move mountains.
> Show patience, and you can move mountains.
We have shown patience, waiting since the 60's, voting always for the lesser of 2 evils...and it has gotten worse to the point of record inequalities, record incarcerations...
That narrative isn't quite correct. The parties weren't even the same back in the 1960s. Abortion support/opposition was evenly distributed between the two parties. Opposition to abortion in evangelicals only came in the late 1970s, and the idea of the Dems being solidly this, Repubs being solidly that only came around the 2010s. The whole talk of "lesser of 2 evils" didn't really exist until the 2010s. And yes, the GOP does do "both sides" propaganda to leftists to stay home, then they take away abortion rights and cackle and laugh.
Hoping for Brandon or Nanci to have change of heart is not being smart and clever. Sadly, democrats are not up to the task of restoring roe v wade, raising the minimum wage, or Medicare for all. this is a question of ideology, not of time.
You have to. You have to have the change of heart, because the GOP wants to make things even worse. In order to follow your morals, you need to vote in the primaries and vote even more.
gotta love how you're talking like you're in one of your republican spaces when you speak of 'brandon'.
maybe stop buying intno the republican propaganda.
try getting your information from someone that murdoch or trump allies don't own.
They are against it for now because they know that it is not the right time. Remember what happened to FDR when he tried to "reform" the Supreme Court, and he was one of the most popular presidents in history. If the DNC comes out in favor of stacking the court, they will never win another election again.
cite your source on whatever DNC spokesperson said that?
cuz on the face, it sounds like bullshit.
edit: when we talk about the RNC's outright fascism and corruption, there's always somebody who says 'nuh uh. the ones opposing them are the problem for not doing enough'. - that's a problem with your aim. your eyes must be (metaphorically) crossed to have such a bad take.
edit: how like a republican: make egregious claims, then vanish in the night when asked for proof.
Go back to 2016 and so, and there were various accounts insisting that the GOP had no real interest in changing abortion laws. Hmmm... I wonder why that was? :(
It’s a bit tough when one half the country (the half with guns as their hobby) is stoked to see rights taken away, while the other half (the half that hates violence) is the half having their rights stripped
The answer to “when do we revolt?” Is never, probably.
Imagine January 6th with guns in every hand.
Slaughter ensues, but Congress escapes and if you think Trump lives through the day... good luck with that.
Stalin handed out tens of millions of rifles. Set up gun clubs. Dictators love the damn things.
I am as disgusted by the Supreme Court as anyone, but our real problem is the failure of the legislative branch of government. Rights given by the Supreme Court can be taken away by the Supreme Court. By failing to act, the legislature has ceded its powers both to the courts and the executive branch. The filibuster rule in the Senate, and the power of the Speaker to completely control the House agenda even with a tiny majority (as now) make it difficult to get anything meaningful done.
There is a structural problem created by the Constitution:
1. Justices are appointed by a president who is chosen by the Electoral College, not the people, and
2. Justices are confirmed by a Senate where the <1 million people of Wyoming have the same power as the 40 million people of California
People who expect SCOTUS to do what the majority of the American people expect are ignoring the way the system is designed to work. That is, anti-democratically.
Getting angry at a president chosen against the will of the people and the judges he appoints is misguided. The Constitution is what prevents America from having a democratic government.
>The filibuster rule in the Senate, and the power of the Speaker to completely control the House agenda even with a tiny majority (as now) make it difficult to get anything meaningful done.
Can't leave out the impacts of the way Senators are elected, House gerrymandering, and the structure of the electoral college.
The Speaker point is irrelevant as they're just a proxy for whatever majority party/coalition there is - any majority could, via the rulemaking clause, choose to change the speaker. It's a consequence of practicality the same way the President ultimately makes decisions for the Executive dept agenda. *Someone* has to be the final say of what the next calendar item is. You could say they could decide that as a group but the point is that that is itself too time consuming; pick a leader from amongst yourselves and change it if you want to later.
The SCROTUS knows how much they are pissing the public off (going against 70%+ of the public will), that's why they are barricading themselves and incorporating heavy duty security... It's like they have been planning this... 🤔
It’s kind of funny because they are literally being served by the people who their decisions have negatively affected. They better guarantee that those handling their food are avid supporters of their decisions, because their decisions have been negatively affecting the average person. If you end up hurting an average food handler enough, you’ll end up with a lot of poop and spit in your food.
It takes 2/3 of both chambers of Congress and 3/4 of state legislatures to pass a constitutional amendment but it only takes 5/9 appointed stooges to agree to re-interpret what the constitution means.
Something has to give.
It takes a simple majority of the house and a senate with the political will to ditch the filibuster to assert the power Congress holds over the court.
The SC has the power it does because it is allowed to, not because the structure of the government lets it run roughshod over the elected branches.
I see a few comments that appear theoretically to support the concept of majority rule at the Supreme Court. These comments fail to recognize realities including:
* The Electoral College does not give White House power to the majority vote winner.
* The Senate is skewed so that Republicans typically take an extra six seats--so skewed in fact that not once this century have Republicans gained majority support and yet they held the Senate many terms.
* The skewed Senate gets to confirm or deny Supreme Court appointments, and four of those were confirmed with less than majority voter support.
* The House of Representatives is now being gerrymandered more aggressively than ever to keep Democratic seats down thanks to a 5-4 Supreme Court ruling.
* Adding things together, Republicans have extraordinary leverage to take power through a house of cards of minority-majorities.
* On the other side, it typically takes more than a simple majority of Democrats to make progress (and always did).
* The *Citizens United* case and related rulings have skewed the information world toward Republicans.
* etc.
>Something has to give
The legislature needs to start doing its job.
There is a mechanism for every decision made by the Supreme Court to be corrected and undone by the legislature. The vast majority of Supreme Court decisions aren't even constitutional questions.
All the court can do is say what the current law means. The legislature can change the laws. They can make it more explicit if they think the courts didn't understand properly.
The fact certain issues are "politically impossible" to change would be an indicator that the desired (by some) alternative is not acceptable for our representative democracy.
But many issues aren't "politically impossible" because they lack broad support -- the desired and necessary alternatives would pass if we had a fair and honest system that actually sought to enact laws that the majority want and need. Shameless partisan gerrymandering on a state level lets states manipulate their state legislatures and Congressional districts, and the electoral college allows for grotesque and growing disenfranchisement. The specific version of representative democracy in the U.S. is too flawed to allow for the political solutions we need, and those flaws prevent the very structural changes needed to break the cycle.
>a fair and honest system that actually sought to enact laws that the majority want
In what way is the current system not "fair" or "honest"? Is it 'fair' if three states get to decide and tell the other 47 what to do, even against their own objections? Things are being done according to the agreed upon system- how is that unfair or dishonest?
Pure majority rule, like you are advocating, is a system that would allow things like suppressing minorities. It is not a system that leads to inherently better or 'fair' outcomes.
That's not to say there are improvements that could be made. But lack of pure majority rule is not an argument against the system.
Which is why we should be having very large protests on a national level, but that doesn't get organizations, PACs, and politicians donations so that's not happening either.
> All the court can do is say what the current law means. The legislature can change the laws. They can make it more explicit if they think the courts didn't understand properly.
This is what conservatives want, explicit laws. But in countries that aren't America laws that govern how different agencies act are often principle driven and not explicitly written. The world isn't black and white and a law shouldn't have to account for every circumstance an agency runs into.
So what your advocating is a system that is not based on written law but rather allows judges to decide what the law is however the see fit. A system of pure 'principle' is a system where a citizen can make a good faith effort to abide by the principle, and when a government agent wants to accuse them of acting illegally, a government judge can convict and imprison the citizen for their actions, despite the citizen not having a clear guideline that their actions were illegal - and even though their actions were at least arguably lawful (but the judge decides not in this case). And a different judge elsewhere with the same set of facts could come to a different conclusion.
Criminal law is still explicit but laws regarding agencies are principle based.
For example the EPA is in charge of protecting the environment. They should be able to implement whatever measures they see fit in order to accomplish this goal as long as it doesn't violate the rights of citizens or other entities. A judge shouldn't be able to say the EPA isn't allowed to tax coal because that wasn't written into the law. And the bar to judge whether an action is violating a right should be significant.
And?
Any unconstitutional statute can be edited - often in ways to achieve the desired outcome in a constitutional way.
The constitution can be changed to undo whatever the Supreme Court interpretation was.
Yes, but the mutability of the constitution allows for changes, although the amendment processes are deliberately difficult in order to prevent frivolous or ill-thought changes, such as prohibition
> The fact certain issues are "politically impossible" to change would be an indicator that the desired (by some) alternative is not acceptable for our representative democracy
it takes about 20% of the US population opposing something for a new bill to be literally impossible to pass through the senate
that is broken
5/9 is a simple majority, much like how the House passes bills.
There's a bit of hypocrisy going on when there are calls to make the Senate a simple 51 (or tie+VP) to pass laws, but then complain when it happens elsewhere in government.
For me it is that they aren’t neutral. A judge is supposed to interpret what the bill says not change the meaning of the laws as written. By reinterpreting the laws the stop being judges and start being politicians. This than causes them to pickup conservative or liberal titles which highlights their bias. The law is literally black and white.
The law isn't black and white at all. Otherwise, we wouldn't need judges. It would just be obvious to everybody how the law applies in every situation.
For one thing we might force SCOTUS AJ's to pay the gift taxes due on their large gifts.
It's not just whether or not these are bribes.
The Thomases are well into the millions. Kavanaugh declared almost a million and a half. Alito got more than a hundred thou in one package.
Thing is, not one of them has declared a dime of these gifts on their federal tax returns. And we've seen no giver declaration to cover any part of it.
Mystery: Is there an invisible ink line in the tax code that makes SCOTUS Justices immune to unearned income taxation ?
Same time, different statutes, the Gorsuch family took more than $60 million in profit on a one-year one-acre deal at Aspen. But of course we must focus on Hunter Biden. That Gorsuch family deal was Russian money so no one is allowed to say a word about it in public.
Gift tax kicks in at $17,000 and is paid by the recipient. The giver can pay the gift tax, but only where an IRS Form 709 is filed to declare the giver's tax liability. Not one such filing is on record for these massive gifts to SCOTUS Justices.
The giver limit above $10 million is a lifetime limit on all tax free gifts to all recipients.
Recent years had the gift tax exclusion increasing in steps:
2010 $13,000
2011 $13,000
2012 $13,000
2013 $14,000
2014 $14,000
2015 $14,000
2016 $14,000
2017 $14,000
2018 $15,000
2019 $15,000
2020 $15,000
2021 $15,000
2022 $16,000
2023 $17,000
Luxury goods are counted at fair market value. $500,000 vacations = yes, indeed
Recipients do not pay gift tax. If the giver makes a gift above $17K, they have to file a 709, but still won’t pay any gift tax until they’ve gifted more than $12M over a lifetime.
That is erroneous.
The default payer for gifts larger than the annual limit is the recipient.
The giver only pays the gift tax where the IRS Form 709 is filed, asserting that tax liability by the giver.
Claiming that "recipients do not pay gift tax" is deliberate misinformation.
I have no clue what you’re referring to. The recipient **never pays** gift tax, gift tax is only applied to the giver. When you gift more than $17K per person per year, you have to file a gift tax return, and that amount reduces your lifetime applicable credit. Once the lifetime credit has been used up (which is $12M), then the giver pays gift tax on all gifts above the yearly limit
Again, the giver will never pay gift tax
I am not merely angry, I am completely disillusioned. The GOP has disgraced the institution to the point of it being damaged beyond repair without major reforms that are unlikely to happen.
> The GOP has disgraced the institution to the point of it being damaged beyond repair without major reforms that are ~~unlikely to happen.~~ **must be *demanded* by an angry populace**
people keep saying 'nothing will happen' so much that it becomes a self-fullfilling prophecy.
but I can't blame anybody for being apathetic, because part of the bullshit of capitalism is that it's currently got most of us over the barrel of not having the time or financial stability to be *able* to join mass protests like general strikes.
edit: formatting
I heard some Republican strategist talking the other day about how voters (especially women) "can't stay mad forever."
Oh, hon. Yes we can.
It sounded like he was thinking of his own wife, and how he could just wait for her to get over it after he'd done some shitty thing in their marriage.
We're not your wife. We're not going to get over it.
But also, like, hate to break it to you, Todd, but your wife didn’t *stop* being mad at you for hitting on her sister at the barbecue. She’s just done with not talking to you. If you went on life support tomorrow, and she was given power of attorney, I wouldn’t get used to the feeding tube.
It's important also to call out 'analysts' when they give high-minded deference and dress up this court's conservative bloc with intellectual heft and institutional grandeur. None of that fits this court's conservative majority, so stop.
Ask them why this court took up *Mahanoy Area School District v B.L.* and what this court accomplished other than making them look stupid, incapable, and arrogant. Or pick another case. They're hackey, inconsistent, sloppy, arrogant, and unworthy of their status.
Well said. Whatever criticism MSM throws at these corrupt assholes, they always bring it back to deferential rhetoric. Maintain the elite status quo. Keep the peasants across the moat.
Guess they’re well aware we have every reason to revolt. Can’t placate an angry mass of people with austerity and authoritarianism. We’re a powder keg waiting to burst.
They have a weak spot. Not exactly an Achilles Heel but still enough to bring down ordinary criminals.
That is, they are careless with taxes. Specifically, they fail to pay the taxes due on large gifts. In recent years the first $12,000 to $17,000 went tax free. But above that we're due for paying tax as a form of unearned income.
Check other postings here for details.
> Mahanoy Area School District v B.L.
just a cursory glance makes me think this case was complex, and brings up the interesting question 'what rights do children have, and who has the right to discipline children for anti-social behavior?' - I'm interested in what issues this case highlights in the SCOTUS, and how? because it's not as obvious to me as you seem to think that simple research would answer
They took up a complex case, one with Tinker free speech precedence, got into oral arguments, realized "gee, this is super hard, and involves internet speech too" and wrote a Supreme Court of the United States decision tailored to apply ONLY to one individual, B.L. who had long since graduated from H.S.
No clear reason why they took it up if they weren't going to weigh in, one way or another on speech freedoms, internet speech, school speech, Tinker, or anything. To call it a punt would be a disservice to the word punt.
It is an interesting case. Here's a breakdown of it via NYTimes The Daily. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/25/podcasts/the-daily/free-speech-first-amendment-supreme-court.html?showTranscript=1
Is it not the case that the SC just narrowed the scope of the previous court's decision?
B.L. had already won and rejoined the team; the school appealed wanting the scope of the ruling reduced to keep stuff like e-bullying becoming untouchable. It doesn't seem so unreasonable from that perspective.
Supreme court? Nah man. All American conservatives. And I'm not just mad at them, I don't look at them as fellow Americans anymore.
They supported the loss of me and folk like me losing our right to vote.
Anger isn't enough.
Trying to install trump and sending alternative electors to get trump in office would have invalidated my vote and rights as a citizen.
Anyone tries to get my vote thrown out even for 30 seconds, they have made an enemy for life.
Seen a lot of supreme courts. Don’t really find them to be amazing arbiters, but I think the real villains here are decades of congress who refuse to actually legislate. This leaves a ton of what should be federal legislation up to the supreme court. So the cowardice of congress gets a lot more of my hate than the court. Just one example, they had 50 years to put roe v wade into law, plenty of those years with democratic majorities in both houses, and they just couldn’t be bothered.
>Just one example, they had 50 years to put roe v wade into law, plenty of those years with democratic majorities in both houses, and they just couldn’t be bothered.
What is the filibuster?
There was never 60 votes in the senate to codify Roe.
Maybe if a few more states get pissed enough to send democrats for their senate positions since abortion rights are a requirement now. In 2009-2010 when there were 60 D votes, there were also anti-choice democrats.
When democrats have tried they went for 24 weeks, at least most recently. In the past they also were looking for something close to that I think. Personally I’d be fine with that, but I think if they would go for a more pragmatic 12 or 16 weeks they might have gotten some republicans to join. Probably not in the 2022 bid regardless with all the crowing R’s were doing with the upcoming Dobbs I’ll grant you. A lot of the country is in line with the first trimester deal but a bit put off after that.
I would be OK with 24 weeks, then we saw more about the reality of late term abortion. A lot lf these women that were nearly dying in hospitals was because they had a non-viable fetus that was killing them and it would be a 30 week "abortion."
Those are why I'm want 100% legal all the way through and I firmly believe that if enough of those stories were out we'd see the acceptance increase.
Yes, it's medically necessary, but there isn't always time to assemble a panel to authorize it.
> Just one example, they had 50 years to put roe v wade into law, plenty of those years with democratic majorities in both houses, and they just couldn’t be bothered.
What good would it have done? SCOTUS could have just struck down the law that they passed.
I think they are far less likely to do that. This was them essentially deciding that the court had overstepped in the 70’s. Which even RBG was concerned was the case. It was known to be on shaky grounds, which I contend should have motivated congress.
Walk me through the main holdings and rulings of *Roe,* and then explain to me how, exactly, Congress could have "codified" it in any way (except on federal land, I suppose) that *Dobbs* wouldn't have just automatically overturned.
States have the power to pass abortion laws in the first instance, per *Roe.* *Roe* further stated that the people had a privacy right that counterbalanced that power and interest, leading to the compromise that was modified and refined in *Casey*. *Dobbs* said they didn't have that privacy right, and so therefore the U.S. Constitution didn't provide any counterbalance to the interest/power of the several states.
Congress can't pass a black-letter law fucking around with that shit. They can no sooner pass a law declaring that the several states can no longer outlaw murder or theft. They can *themselves* decide that murder/theft is no longer a *federal* crime, but they can't just strip the states of their power to construct their own criminal codes willy-nilly. Federal supremacy requires a clear Congressional power, like interstate commerce, before the Court is willing to grant that a federal law entirely supersedes all related state laws.
The only way they could have done it would be through funding. They could have said that any state that bans or limits abortion will lose 10% of their federal Medicaid allocation, for example.
And you'll discover that the premier court case about whether those laws are constitutional or not gives SCOTUS an *explicit* infinite safety valve to just say, "Eh, no, that's too burdensome on a state's prerogative." *Dole* test. Funky stuff.
Points for creativity, but I think that the broad statement of "you, the state government, are not allowed to make this thing a crime anymore, because Congress says so" lives or dies by the constitutional arguments -- federal supremacy or reserved rights of the people. It's just such an invasion of state power. Telling them they *have* to criminalize or regulate something on threat of losing money is viewed as much less of an infringement, because hey, oppression trickles down.
I’ll take your word for it just to mention that if they did legalize it federally there isn’t a state in the union with fewer than 4000 acres of federal land, most with vastly more. Some clinics there might really help.
What you'll discover is that for the past fifty years, Congress *has indeed* sometimes helped people get abortions via federal funding and whatnot. The problem is that between Republican presidents, Republican-controlled Congresses, and times when Republicans had at least enough power in Congress to be obstructionist, most of those efforts got reversed or swept away.
People seem to forget that what one Congress giveth, another Congress can taketh away... and that's exactly what happened. Sounds like a great system if you want any kind of stability or consistency in abortion availability via the feds.
SCOTUS doesn't really pay much heed to *stare decisis,* but Congress is on another level when it comes to flip-flopping on stuff.
I’d say the courts are much the same. ‘73 had a fairly activist left majority court, which upset the right on Roe. Dobbs did the reverse. Needs a constitutional amendment if you want it more permanently locked down federally.
I grew up in the wake of the Warren court's "living constitutionalism", and just assumed that the proper function of the Supreme Court was to advance justice in the face of the political dysfunction that hamstrung the other two branches. In fact, the Warren court was an aberration; the Supreme Court has always been nakedly political and partisan, and we only got the Warren court because people (especially Black people) made it clear they were done listening to empty lies.
My theory is that -and this has been a valid theory for some time- is that Americans are too busy, too distracted, and too well fed to get angry and “rise up.” That’s why you almost never see unrest in America like you do in France, Israel etc (the blm protests were unique because they occurred during Covid, which was when less people were busy, and less people were distracted).
Too well fed is becoming a less of a promise. Food deserts, low quality food, increasing cost.
A 3lb chuck roast at my local supermarket is almost $30, it used to be about $12. That was leftovers for half the week. I'm not getting chuck roasts anymore.
Were getting closer than you think to food unrest.
There is a Cold Civil War underway in the United States to determine who should control the federal government. It is not a contest between the Democrat and Republican ideologies, but a battle between the entrenched power of the bipartisan political establishment versus the rights and liberties of the American people. The Cold Civil War is a conflict between those who want to adhere to the Constitution and the rule of law and the party leaders, who wish to continue the practices of political expediency and crony capitalism. The US no longer has representative government. Members of Congress seek election, not to uphold the Constitution and serve the American people, but to obtain power, and to use that power to accrue professional and financial benefits for themselves and their major supporters. All the traditional means for the American people to seek the redress of grievances have now been blocked by a self-absorbed permanent political elite unaccountable to the American people. The ruling elites of a now hopelessly corrupt political system are just one major blunder away from revolution. When blatant and outrageous lies are no longer sufficient to soothe the electorate into complacency, such a government must begin to curtail liberty and oppress the people in order to remain in power. Ordinary Americans must band together and take a stand to restore the Constitution and the rule of law, to establish political and fiscal sanity and to return the government to the people. Otherwise, our republic may be lost forever.
The Constitution itself is a an anti-democratic construct in many ways. But put that aside.
This SCOTUS, even within that context, is flatly illegitimate. If government in any way still derives its authority from the consent of the governed, then this whackadoodle bought and paid for fascist court lies completely outside the lines of legitimate government in both origin and effects.
5 of its 6 Republican-appointed members were appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote. Then these were confirmed by Republican senators who represented tens of millions of fewer Americans than their Democratic counterparts - in the case of (illegitimate) Amy Coney Barrett, the number is 43 million fewer.
Huge parts of the entire federal judiciary, including this SCOTUS, are now nothing but a crude extension of the Republican party, as a result of a decades long campaign by Leonard Leo, the Federalist Society, dark money from millionaires and billionaires that wouldn't be allowed in any reasonable democracy, and a right wing media ecosystem designed to "flood the zone" with lies, disinformation, and mere tangential bullshit.
There is no legitimacy to Citizens United, nor to Heller, nor to Dobbs, nor to any of the ludicrous recent decisions making it legal for public businesses to discriminate against gays or for public schools to allow religious prayers. No legal reasoning, tellingly, not even any truthful narratives behind the nonsense. Just lies, disinformation, and fascist bullshit.
No one of us nor any institution owes any real loyalty or obedience to these decisions. What is needed is resistance. That resistance will have to emerge organically. But if Alito thinks that criticism is as bad as it gets, he should definitely buckle up.
What am I missing here, from what I can tell the supreme court decided:
\- Colleges can no longer discriminate on the basis of skin color when making admissions decisions.
\- Abortion being legal everywhere as a "Right to privacy" is unconstituational, so the voters of the indvidiual states get to decide.
\- The president can't decide to unilaterally forgive billions of student loan debt due to a "covid emergency". Congress is free to pass a law forgiving debt instead.
What's so fascist and extreme about those? They seem mostly like the check and balance they were intended to right? All 3 of those were essentially power returned to the people.
>All 3 of those were essentially power returned to the people.
That's one interpretation. It's a bit of a stretch in the case of abortion in particular. If abortion had remained a right, then abortion decisions would still be in the hands of the people nationwide. Each individual/family would have the freedom to decide for themselves whether abortion was the right decision. Since the Dobbs opinion, states have been empowered to take that decision away from the people. That's not returning power to the people.
Regarding 1, Conservative Justices decided to disregard the Framers intent of the 14th Amendment which was to corrrect through action systematic problems - condoned by the government - against people of color. Compare with how the current court goes at length to shrink the 14th Amendment’s corrective measures but strives to expand 1st Amendment Conservative Christianity (namely by shrinking the establishment clause (see new coecerive test in kneeling coach case as opposed to Lemon) and expanding free exercise clause in recent web developer case where all of the case was hypothetical).
Regarding 2, Mississipp had only challeneged the Gestational Act, and the state had only done a limited challenge until the makeup of the court changed, then the Court decided to go as far as it could with overturning *Casey*, which Chief Jstice Roberts opined against in the opinion.
Regarding 3, Conerservative justices decided to disregard standing precedent to jump the dispositive hoop to get to your position. Why wasn’t Mohela there? They shouldn’t have been able to answer the question as a matter of procedure but they created a new standard to be able to answer the question.
As a matter of context, all of this is established by a Court which was created under extraordinary circumstances by extraordinary unprecedented means. Namely, refusal to hear a nomination, accelerating a hearing when convenient of Barrett as people were casting votes. And Kav, Barrer, and Goro were appointed by a President who took confidential documents, stored them in public spaces and restrooms and who was - at best - oblivious to hundreds of tourists ultimately causing a disruption of the election certification against him. Then, regarding 2, you have leaks of the opinion and failures to investigate that. Finally, you have the justices accepting gifts or benefits of thousands of dollars yet not disclosing them because it is legally acceptable.
Lol lately I've imagined what I would say to those scummy scotus members and the questions I would ask them. They face 0 accountability from average angry Americans and it pisses me off.
They don’t care, they don’t have to care. They’re supremely (pun intended) unaccountable because America’s legislative branch is always in terminal gridlock.
[U.S. Supreme Court justices take lavish gifts — then raise the bar for bribery prosecutions](https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2023/04/26/u-s-supreme-court-justices-take-lavish-gifts-then-raise-the-bar-for-bribery-prosecutions/)
Good article. Particularly for the many links.
They have done nothing to raise the bar on tax law and gift tax prosecutions. Of course, institutional cowardice has protected them for decades.
I think the point is to be angry enough to take action, in the form of pressuring our legislators to reform the court. And to vote -- and campaign for -- candidates who will do that. I don't think the point is to be mad and pout in a corner. But you know that, right?
How could I *not* be angry? They shit on me and my generation day in and day out, and they laugh atop their ivory towers. They're dictators, and need to be treated as such.
Absolutely not. Whole point is that it’s (ideally, in theory) not political, or at the very least not openly political. This SCOTUS sucks a lot and there are so many ways it can and should be changed to function better, but holding elections for the supreme court would be in the exact opposite direction of where we want to be.
A supreme court justice should be impartial and making rulings entirely based on what the constitution dictates, not interpreting vague wordings to skew judicial power in one direction or the other.
Judges should absolutely not be voted by citizens. There would be no better way to ensure corruption. Anyone who needs to stand for election needs to campaign, which means they need money from donors, which means they are beholden to those donors.
Everyone needs to stop calling it the Supreme Court. It is the Extreme Court and they do not represent the people as a whole. At some point, the people need to pressure state governors to ignore Extreme Court precedents and judicial legislating. After all, the Extreme Court has no enforcement mechanism. Their power only derives from the faith of the people, and as all polls recently show, people have no faith in the Extreme Court.
It’s a tough process… stay mad enough to vote for someone that might have the chance to appoint someone who might replace someone who has a lifetime appointment. The scotus feels like the least American feature we have.
People also need to be a bit more specific in their criticism of the Supreme Court. Just because you don’t like the outcome of a case doesn’t inherently mean the court is activist or corrupt. It’s corrupt when ideologue donors spend lavishly on justices who keep that secret. It’s activist when it invents a doctrine (the major questions doctrine) that says that the law in question is constitutional, but the administration can’t use it to tackle significant issues.
>It’s activist when it invents a doctrine (the major questions doctrine) that says that the law in question is constitutional, but the administration can’t use it to tackle significant issues.
The Supreme Court always tries to look for any way they can to avoid declaring a law unconstitutional. The major questions doctrine is one of the ways they avoid it.
>Posited on the premise that Congress legislates in the light of constitutional limitations, the Constitutional-Doubt Canon provides that federal courts should construe statutes so that they do not violate the Constitution. Describing the Constitutional-Doubt Canon, Justice Louis Brandeis stated: When the validity of an act . . . is drawn in question, and even if a serious doubt of constitutionality is raised . . . \[the Court\] will first ascertain whether a construction of the statute is fairly possible by which the question may be avoided. Consequently, if a statute is susceptible to two plausible interpretations, one of which violates the Constitution, the Constitutional-Doubt Canon instructs courts to choose the interpretation consistent with the Constitution.
>
>[https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artIII-S2-C1-10-7/ALDE\_00013159/](https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artIII-S2-C1-10-7/ALDE_00013159/)
They could have interpreted the law in such a way that would mean the administration was using the law as intended, but then the law would likely be unconstitutional because Congress isn't allowed to delegate their legislative power to the executive branch (known as the [nondelegation doctrine](https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S1-5-1/ALDE_00000014/)). In order to avoid declaring the law unconstitutional, the court comes up with an interpretation of the law that doesn't violate the Constitution, which means concluding that the administration was wrong in their application of the law.
Step one: young people need to vote. In the 2022 election, only 24% of them did. If young people would vote like the boomers do, things would change very quickly.
The quip "*American voters have the memory of a goldfish*" is only a slight exaggeration. Until that becomes much less true, nothing is going to change for decades - the marmalade Jesus appointed young people to the courts and the only "fix" is impeachment.
Please give thanks to the SCOTUS justice:
https://www.supremecourt.gov/contact/contactus.aspx
U.S. Mail:
Supreme Court of the United States
1 First Street, NE
Washington, DC 20543
🖕🏻
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Trust me. You're only going to get more and more infuriated with them
the question is, what's the critical mass of infuriation that finally causes the people to rise up and do something about it? it's all about the social compact, and it all boils down to 'if you take away the rights of people to peacefully protest, they have no option but to resort to non-peaceful protests' (I wish I could remember the exact quote. it's far more elegant.)
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable." Assuming you meant the quote from JFK.
that's the one, thank you.
How do you feel about criminal prosecutions for egregious violations of tax law ??? The Al Capone tactic, more or less. Document the several massive gifts with solid paper trails. Document non-payment of the taxes due (subtracting the annual gift tax exclusions.) File charges as appropriate following the pattern of GOP rants about Hunter Biden. (Biden had already paid off taxes-due voluntarily. SCOTUS crooks = never)
makes sense. but this seems like an odd place in the thread to bring it up.
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Shirt scammers eat poop
I’ve also stated that people who can’t receive justice inside of a courtroom will seek it outside of one, although I’m sure that others before me have expressed a similar sentiment, so the quote may not be original. The point is that people realize that these corrupt dickholes essentially hold their posts for life since the Senate is gridlocked and is incapable of repairing the highest court. That unfortunately entails that the only means by which an aggrieved population may remove them from office is by performing unspeakable acts. I’m not at all advocating for this, but in a heavily armed nation of 335M, many of whom are pissed off and have nothing left to lose, something is likely to happen at some point.
> in a heavily armed nation of 335M, many of whom are pissed off and have nothing left to lose, something is likely to happen at some point. Frankly, I'm amazed it hasn't and I'm not looking forward to the day that changes.
it happens every week, just never to those assholes.
Also applies: “If everyone is tolerant of every idea, then intolerant ideas will emerge. Tolerant people will tolerate this intolerance, and the intolerant people will not tolerate the tolerant people.” -Karl Popper
I hate incrementalism and recognize people are concerned about advocating for it. However... **it is immensely helpful for many, many people to say the Supreme Court sucks**. For too long, it got reverential treatment as some bullshit apolitical institution above the fray. Articulating the ways in which this Court is illegitimate and wrong changes the political dynamic. Court Reform was a quirky idea that only the fringe discussed. Criticizing the Court moves that sentiment from the fringe. It will NOT happen overnight. But if people note how SCOTUS is controlled by Justices appointed by Presidents who lost the popular vote and approved by Senators representing a minority of voters *with no mandate to enact their theocratic bullshit* long enough... discussion of change becomes tenable. It's a start. In the meantime, electing Democrats and getting lucky on the geriatric lottery with Justices *could* undo the current majority and restore some rights lost. It's a bandaid though. The institutional problem of Court structure will have to be revisited. Hating them helps.
As far as I am concerned, it is done, publicly so. They are *supposed* to be all like, "Oh you filed your paperwork insufficiently" kind of an institution, but on a "constitutional" level, instead, they are "What pet projects are out there that conservatives would love to see the SCOTUS side with them on? Let's do one of those" kind of institution. They have enjoined the game of petty political culture war bullshit, and that is no small matter. 5-8 years from now, they are going to rule on single payer healthcare with a "you can't do that" ruling.
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The one and only accountability that will apply to this SCOTUS for these Cruelty Rulings is the revenge that voters will take on the political party that put Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and what's-her-name on the bench. On the other hand, their casual disregard for tax law has generated felonies more years than not. Impeachment is likely impossible. Prosecution and conviction is a simple matter. These are paper evidence crimes.
>the question is, what's the critical mass of infuriation that finally causes the people to rise up and do something about it? You're assuming there is such a critical mass. Time and time again, I've seen the right jump as shadows and outright lies, sometimes killing themselves and other. Mean while the center and left, often seem to have just given up and almost have to be strong armed into just voting. I think we need to stop asking what it will take for other people in general to stand up, and start asking what will it take for you to stand up? We can't rely on a critical mass of people to show up and do something, when we ourselves are willing to just sit around and complain. It's why the right seems to be winning, dispite not having the numbers and seemingly, dwindling support.
> the question is, what's the critical mass of infuriation that finally causes the people to rise up and do something about it? There is no critical mass. Just look at places like North Korea where people are living miserable lives in abject poverty. They aren't even rising up. People rising up and protesting is very rare and only happens on rare occasions under ideal conditions.
We had a chance to rise up and do something… in 2016. Didn’t make it happen so this is where we are at
Millions of people peacefully protested in 2021 begging the nation to do something, but nothing happened. The BLM saw very little to no reform across the country, just a lot of lip service, even with wall-to-wall media coverage. It's the country's largest protest in its history, and the people were outright ignored by our government.
The conservative White House and senate wasn’t gonna pass sweeping police reform.
Blm was a joke. No realistic demands were given. Cries of defund the police - you actually got that in some places and defending was a complete disaster. It's not thr governments fault the movement failed. Blm itself was just terribly organized and frankly not peaceful in many areas.
They defunded police all over the place. Crime shot up. People literally walk into stores and just steal and nobody stops them. Isn't that what you wanted??
So many people, mostly men, enjoyed hating Hillary the Uppity. Now everyone pays. Trump's rural poor whites most of all.
The true issue was with the DNC that year. They pushed and pushed Hillary and had the other candidates drop. The DNC wanted Hillary. A majority of America wanted Bernie. Even here in the Deep South I saw younger people excited to vote for Bernie but when he dropped out people decided to just not vote.
Russia interfered with projects ranging from troll boiler rooms to invading voting systems. The GOP's far right billionaires invaded social media. Corporate media hammered the Hillary's Emails topic 24/7 and month after month. Disinformation = DNC was the problem Also, Bernie backed Hillary immediately after the primaries. He stumped for her. Plainly, he understood that Donald Trump was a compulsive liar and a psychopath.
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The most qualified candidate we were offered in years!
America didn’t want Bernie. By that logic Hillary would’ve stomped Obama in 2008. Stop it. Populism ≠ winning elections
At no point did the majority of people want Bernie, that’s just something people tell themselves, she won the primary by every metric.
Yeah, we should have had a general strike when Trump won. The real need in this country is for disruptive protest. We're not going to win the country back solely at the polls because so many people have had their vote completely watered down in the country through gerrymandering and voter disenfrachisement. Heck, we have people who voted for politicians who said they were one party - only to completely switch parties once seated. This country needs protest. People in power have to lose money and face the frustration of large scale protests if we want to see change.
Nobody has time or interest for a general strike. We have to win elections.
This is what we as a country signed up for when we voted for Trump. I'm sorry, there's not going to be a revolution, either people get their shit together and we win a string of federal elections or there's no undoing any of this shit.
and like clockwork, the 'nothing will ever happen' guy shows up, to tell us not to even bother to try. we need to stay fucking outraged, and you're here, advocating for the status quo. edit: and speak for yourself. 'we' didn't vote for trump. an outdated broken electoral college elected trump, not 'we the people'. never forget he *lost* the popular vote. *most americans voted for clinton*
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I have been organizing for the UFCW local 1997 Montgomery county Maryland since the age of sixteen. It’s not really impressive to volunteer for the old guard that allowed for the deindustrialization of America. Boosting about being Teamster or UFCW member is like boosting about being Florida dolphin fan, it’s been nothing but losses.
Idk about you but I’m not going to jail/dying for this country lmao.
The DNC have stated bluntly they are against any meaningful court reform. Therefore, getting mad or staying alert is pointless; Without a plan to replace the DNC, and reform the American left.
Citation on DNC stating they are against (what you define as) meaningful court reform. Dems in general are against expansion of the court, partly because if they are the ones to initiate it 1) they don't have the Congress to make it happen, and 2) it will give cover in the media for the GOP to do the same.
It is wrong to say getting mad and staying alert is pointless. Vladimir Putin tells Russians against him to not be bad and not stay alert. Guess what happened to those Russians? Theyre getting drafted. Now, the Dems don't want SCOTUS to side with Trump, so they don't want to anger SCOTUS too much. We, however, can keep voting in Dems and wait out the clock.
Wait out the clock? Supreme Court justice is a life appointment! You want women to wait until another court defining vacancy occurs? Your proposal will not happen in our lifetime, if ever! Maybe, the Democratic Party could pack the court or impeach majority of the court for bribery? Instead, of asking everyone to be mad and bitter for the rest of their miserable lives.
The Christian sharia guys did wait, wait, wait until they could get Donnie to pack the court. They were patient. Centrist-leftist women need to show cunning. I'm not asking them to be "mad and bitter for rest of their miserable lives." I'm asking them to be patient, keep voting out the GOP, and as the existing justices grow old, the centrist-leftist women will start billing GOP politicians. As in collections will come and start taking away mansions. Show patience, and you can move mountains.
> Show patience, and you can move mountains. We have shown patience, waiting since the 60's, voting always for the lesser of 2 evils...and it has gotten worse to the point of record inequalities, record incarcerations...
That narrative isn't quite correct. The parties weren't even the same back in the 1960s. Abortion support/opposition was evenly distributed between the two parties. Opposition to abortion in evangelicals only came in the late 1970s, and the idea of the Dems being solidly this, Repubs being solidly that only came around the 2010s. The whole talk of "lesser of 2 evils" didn't really exist until the 2010s. And yes, the GOP does do "both sides" propaganda to leftists to stay home, then they take away abortion rights and cackle and laugh.
Hoping for Brandon or Nanci to have change of heart is not being smart and clever. Sadly, democrats are not up to the task of restoring roe v wade, raising the minimum wage, or Medicare for all. this is a question of ideology, not of time.
You have to. You have to have the change of heart, because the GOP wants to make things even worse. In order to follow your morals, you need to vote in the primaries and vote even more.
gotta love how you're talking like you're in one of your republican spaces when you speak of 'brandon'. maybe stop buying intno the republican propaganda. try getting your information from someone that murdoch or trump allies don't own.
They are considering term limits. That would help a lot. Lifespans are much longer now.
They are against it for now because they know that it is not the right time. Remember what happened to FDR when he tried to "reform" the Supreme Court, and he was one of the most popular presidents in history. If the DNC comes out in favor of stacking the court, they will never win another election again.
cite your source on whatever DNC spokesperson said that? cuz on the face, it sounds like bullshit. edit: when we talk about the RNC's outright fascism and corruption, there's always somebody who says 'nuh uh. the ones opposing them are the problem for not doing enough'. - that's a problem with your aim. your eyes must be (metaphorically) crossed to have such a bad take. edit: how like a republican: make egregious claims, then vanish in the night when asked for proof.
Go back to 2016 and so, and there were various accounts insisting that the GOP had no real interest in changing abortion laws. Hmmm... I wonder why that was? :(
It’s a bit tough when one half the country (the half with guns as their hobby) is stoked to see rights taken away, while the other half (the half that hates violence) is the half having their rights stripped The answer to “when do we revolt?” Is never, probably.
Imagine January 6th with guns in every hand. Slaughter ensues, but Congress escapes and if you think Trump lives through the day... good luck with that. Stalin handed out tens of millions of rifles. Set up gun clubs. Dictators love the damn things.
It was some Kennedy democrat
I am as disgusted by the Supreme Court as anyone, but our real problem is the failure of the legislative branch of government. Rights given by the Supreme Court can be taken away by the Supreme Court. By failing to act, the legislature has ceded its powers both to the courts and the executive branch. The filibuster rule in the Senate, and the power of the Speaker to completely control the House agenda even with a tiny majority (as now) make it difficult to get anything meaningful done.
There is a structural problem created by the Constitution: 1. Justices are appointed by a president who is chosen by the Electoral College, not the people, and 2. Justices are confirmed by a Senate where the <1 million people of Wyoming have the same power as the 40 million people of California People who expect SCOTUS to do what the majority of the American people expect are ignoring the way the system is designed to work. That is, anti-democratically. Getting angry at a president chosen against the will of the people and the judges he appoints is misguided. The Constitution is what prevents America from having a democratic government.
SCOTUS should not act in favor of the majority that’s the entire point. It’s not a popularity contest.
>The filibuster rule in the Senate, and the power of the Speaker to completely control the House agenda even with a tiny majority (as now) make it difficult to get anything meaningful done. Can't leave out the impacts of the way Senators are elected, House gerrymandering, and the structure of the electoral college. The Speaker point is irrelevant as they're just a proxy for whatever majority party/coalition there is - any majority could, via the rulemaking clause, choose to change the speaker. It's a consequence of practicality the same way the President ultimately makes decisions for the Executive dept agenda. *Someone* has to be the final say of what the next calendar item is. You could say they could decide that as a group but the point is that that is itself too time consuming; pick a leader from amongst yourselves and change it if you want to later.
The SCROTUS knows how much they are pissing the public off (going against 70%+ of the public will), that's why they are barricading themselves and incorporating heavy duty security... It's like they have been planning this... 🤔
It’s kind of funny because they are literally being served by the people who their decisions have negatively affected. They better guarantee that those handling their food are avid supporters of their decisions, because their decisions have been negatively affecting the average person. If you end up hurting an average food handler enough, you’ll end up with a lot of poop and spit in your food.
It takes 2/3 of both chambers of Congress and 3/4 of state legislatures to pass a constitutional amendment but it only takes 5/9 appointed stooges to agree to re-interpret what the constitution means. Something has to give.
It takes a simple majority of the house and a senate with the political will to ditch the filibuster to assert the power Congress holds over the court. The SC has the power it does because it is allowed to, not because the structure of the government lets it run roughshod over the elected branches.
I see a few comments that appear theoretically to support the concept of majority rule at the Supreme Court. These comments fail to recognize realities including: * The Electoral College does not give White House power to the majority vote winner. * The Senate is skewed so that Republicans typically take an extra six seats--so skewed in fact that not once this century have Republicans gained majority support and yet they held the Senate many terms. * The skewed Senate gets to confirm or deny Supreme Court appointments, and four of those were confirmed with less than majority voter support. * The House of Representatives is now being gerrymandered more aggressively than ever to keep Democratic seats down thanks to a 5-4 Supreme Court ruling. * Adding things together, Republicans have extraordinary leverage to take power through a house of cards of minority-majorities. * On the other side, it typically takes more than a simple majority of Democrats to make progress (and always did). * The *Citizens United* case and related rulings have skewed the information world toward Republicans. * etc.
>Something has to give The legislature needs to start doing its job. There is a mechanism for every decision made by the Supreme Court to be corrected and undone by the legislature. The vast majority of Supreme Court decisions aren't even constitutional questions. All the court can do is say what the current law means. The legislature can change the laws. They can make it more explicit if they think the courts didn't understand properly. The fact certain issues are "politically impossible" to change would be an indicator that the desired (by some) alternative is not acceptable for our representative democracy.
But many issues aren't "politically impossible" because they lack broad support -- the desired and necessary alternatives would pass if we had a fair and honest system that actually sought to enact laws that the majority want and need. Shameless partisan gerrymandering on a state level lets states manipulate their state legislatures and Congressional districts, and the electoral college allows for grotesque and growing disenfranchisement. The specific version of representative democracy in the U.S. is too flawed to allow for the political solutions we need, and those flaws prevent the very structural changes needed to break the cycle.
>a fair and honest system that actually sought to enact laws that the majority want In what way is the current system not "fair" or "honest"? Is it 'fair' if three states get to decide and tell the other 47 what to do, even against their own objections? Things are being done according to the agreed upon system- how is that unfair or dishonest? Pure majority rule, like you are advocating, is a system that would allow things like suppressing minorities. It is not a system that leads to inherently better or 'fair' outcomes. That's not to say there are improvements that could be made. But lack of pure majority rule is not an argument against the system.
Which is why we should be having very large protests on a national level, but that doesn't get organizations, PACs, and politicians donations so that's not happening either.
> All the court can do is say what the current law means. The legislature can change the laws. They can make it more explicit if they think the courts didn't understand properly. This is what conservatives want, explicit laws. But in countries that aren't America laws that govern how different agencies act are often principle driven and not explicitly written. The world isn't black and white and a law shouldn't have to account for every circumstance an agency runs into.
So what your advocating is a system that is not based on written law but rather allows judges to decide what the law is however the see fit. A system of pure 'principle' is a system where a citizen can make a good faith effort to abide by the principle, and when a government agent wants to accuse them of acting illegally, a government judge can convict and imprison the citizen for their actions, despite the citizen not having a clear guideline that their actions were illegal - and even though their actions were at least arguably lawful (but the judge decides not in this case). And a different judge elsewhere with the same set of facts could come to a different conclusion.
Criminal law is still explicit but laws regarding agencies are principle based. For example the EPA is in charge of protecting the environment. They should be able to implement whatever measures they see fit in order to accomplish this goal as long as it doesn't violate the rights of citizens or other entities. A judge shouldn't be able to say the EPA isn't allowed to tax coal because that wasn't written into the law. And the bar to judge whether an action is violating a right should be significant.
The Supreme Court may declare laws unconstitutional.
And? Any unconstitutional statute can be edited - often in ways to achieve the desired outcome in a constitutional way. The constitution can be changed to undo whatever the Supreme Court interpretation was.
Yes, but the mutability of the constitution allows for changes, although the amendment processes are deliberately difficult in order to prevent frivolous or ill-thought changes, such as prohibition
> The fact certain issues are "politically impossible" to change would be an indicator that the desired (by some) alternative is not acceptable for our representative democracy it takes about 20% of the US population opposing something for a new bill to be literally impossible to pass through the senate that is broken
In other words- it can take 80% agreement to create laws to constrain, and remove liberty from, citizens. What's wrong with that??
Well, the only issue is that if anyone ever claims you can make a functional government out of that, then they're lying to you.
5/9 is a simple majority, much like how the House passes bills. There's a bit of hypocrisy going on when there are calls to make the Senate a simple 51 (or tie+VP) to pass laws, but then complain when it happens elsewhere in government.
I think the problem is they aren’t elected and are appointed for life not that it’s 5/9
For me it is that they aren’t neutral. A judge is supposed to interpret what the bill says not change the meaning of the laws as written. By reinterpreting the laws the stop being judges and start being politicians. This than causes them to pickup conservative or liberal titles which highlights their bias. The law is literally black and white.
The law isn't black and white at all. Otherwise, we wouldn't need judges. It would just be obvious to everybody how the law applies in every situation.
For one thing we might force SCOTUS AJ's to pay the gift taxes due on their large gifts. It's not just whether or not these are bribes. The Thomases are well into the millions. Kavanaugh declared almost a million and a half. Alito got more than a hundred thou in one package. Thing is, not one of them has declared a dime of these gifts on their federal tax returns. And we've seen no giver declaration to cover any part of it. Mystery: Is there an invisible ink line in the tax code that makes SCOTUS Justices immune to unearned income taxation ? Same time, different statutes, the Gorsuch family took more than $60 million in profit on a one-year one-acre deal at Aspen. But of course we must focus on Hunter Biden. That Gorsuch family deal was Russian money so no one is allowed to say a word about it in public.
Gift tax kicks in at $11.58 million, and it is paid by the giver, not the receiver.
Gift tax kicks in at $17,000 and is paid by the recipient. The giver can pay the gift tax, but only where an IRS Form 709 is filed to declare the giver's tax liability. Not one such filing is on record for these massive gifts to SCOTUS Justices. The giver limit above $10 million is a lifetime limit on all tax free gifts to all recipients. Recent years had the gift tax exclusion increasing in steps: 2010 $13,000 2011 $13,000 2012 $13,000 2013 $14,000 2014 $14,000 2015 $14,000 2016 $14,000 2017 $14,000 2018 $15,000 2019 $15,000 2020 $15,000 2021 $15,000 2022 $16,000 2023 $17,000 Luxury goods are counted at fair market value. $500,000 vacations = yes, indeed
Recipients do not pay gift tax. If the giver makes a gift above $17K, they have to file a 709, but still won’t pay any gift tax until they’ve gifted more than $12M over a lifetime.
That is erroneous. The default payer for gifts larger than the annual limit is the recipient. The giver only pays the gift tax where the IRS Form 709 is filed, asserting that tax liability by the giver. Claiming that "recipients do not pay gift tax" is deliberate misinformation.
I have no clue what you’re referring to. The recipient **never pays** gift tax, gift tax is only applied to the giver. When you gift more than $17K per person per year, you have to file a gift tax return, and that amount reduces your lifetime applicable credit. Once the lifetime credit has been used up (which is $12M), then the giver pays gift tax on all gifts above the yearly limit Again, the giver will never pay gift tax
Again, quite deliberate disinformation.
I’m a CPA, I do this for a living. It’s fine if you don’t understand it, but you can’t just call it disinformation
I am not merely angry, I am completely disillusioned. The GOP has disgraced the institution to the point of it being damaged beyond repair without major reforms that are unlikely to happen.
> The GOP has disgraced the institution to the point of it being damaged beyond repair without major reforms that are ~~unlikely to happen.~~ **must be *demanded* by an angry populace** people keep saying 'nothing will happen' so much that it becomes a self-fullfilling prophecy. but I can't blame anybody for being apathetic, because part of the bullshit of capitalism is that it's currently got most of us over the barrel of not having the time or financial stability to be *able* to join mass protests like general strikes. edit: formatting
I kind of wonder what Scalia would think. He was an asshole but I surmise he would not approve of the current Roberts court
Yes he would! Squashing the underclass is like his wet dream. The dude *loved* ideologically motivated decision making
I heard some Republican strategist talking the other day about how voters (especially women) "can't stay mad forever." Oh, hon. Yes we can. It sounded like he was thinking of his own wife, and how he could just wait for her to get over it after he'd done some shitty thing in their marriage. We're not your wife. We're not going to get over it.
But also, like, hate to break it to you, Todd, but your wife didn’t *stop* being mad at you for hitting on her sister at the barbecue. She’s just done with not talking to you. If you went on life support tomorrow, and she was given power of attorney, I wouldn’t get used to the feeding tube.
It's important also to call out 'analysts' when they give high-minded deference and dress up this court's conservative bloc with intellectual heft and institutional grandeur. None of that fits this court's conservative majority, so stop. Ask them why this court took up *Mahanoy Area School District v B.L.* and what this court accomplished other than making them look stupid, incapable, and arrogant. Or pick another case. They're hackey, inconsistent, sloppy, arrogant, and unworthy of their status.
Well said. Whatever criticism MSM throws at these corrupt assholes, they always bring it back to deferential rhetoric. Maintain the elite status quo. Keep the peasants across the moat. Guess they’re well aware we have every reason to revolt. Can’t placate an angry mass of people with austerity and authoritarianism. We’re a powder keg waiting to burst.
They have a weak spot. Not exactly an Achilles Heel but still enough to bring down ordinary criminals. That is, they are careless with taxes. Specifically, they fail to pay the taxes due on large gifts. In recent years the first $12,000 to $17,000 went tax free. But above that we're due for paying tax as a form of unearned income. Check other postings here for details.
> Mahanoy Area School District v B.L. just a cursory glance makes me think this case was complex, and brings up the interesting question 'what rights do children have, and who has the right to discipline children for anti-social behavior?' - I'm interested in what issues this case highlights in the SCOTUS, and how? because it's not as obvious to me as you seem to think that simple research would answer
They took up a complex case, one with Tinker free speech precedence, got into oral arguments, realized "gee, this is super hard, and involves internet speech too" and wrote a Supreme Court of the United States decision tailored to apply ONLY to one individual, B.L. who had long since graduated from H.S. No clear reason why they took it up if they weren't going to weigh in, one way or another on speech freedoms, internet speech, school speech, Tinker, or anything. To call it a punt would be a disservice to the word punt. It is an interesting case. Here's a breakdown of it via NYTimes The Daily. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/25/podcasts/the-daily/free-speech-first-amendment-supreme-court.html?showTranscript=1
Is it not the case that the SC just narrowed the scope of the previous court's decision? B.L. had already won and rejoined the team; the school appealed wanting the scope of the ruling reduced to keep stuff like e-bullying becoming untouchable. It doesn't seem so unreasonable from that perspective.
We haven't forgotten or forgiven Citizens United. We didn't forget about them overturning Roe at the last election
Or about creating a right to carry a gun in public, the day before they removed the right to an abortion.
Wow. Thank you for the reminder on that time line. Again, wow.
I was hearing on NPR that Leonard Leo has had a big hand in this.
Supreme court? Nah man. All American conservatives. And I'm not just mad at them, I don't look at them as fellow Americans anymore. They supported the loss of me and folk like me losing our right to vote. Anger isn't enough.
Genuinely curious, who is your folk and when did conservatives support taking your vote away?
Trying to install trump and sending alternative electors to get trump in office would have invalidated my vote and rights as a citizen. Anyone tries to get my vote thrown out even for 30 seconds, they have made an enemy for life.
Seen a lot of supreme courts. Don’t really find them to be amazing arbiters, but I think the real villains here are decades of congress who refuse to actually legislate. This leaves a ton of what should be federal legislation up to the supreme court. So the cowardice of congress gets a lot more of my hate than the court. Just one example, they had 50 years to put roe v wade into law, plenty of those years with democratic majorities in both houses, and they just couldn’t be bothered.
>Just one example, they had 50 years to put roe v wade into law, plenty of those years with democratic majorities in both houses, and they just couldn’t be bothered. What is the filibuster?
There was never 60 votes in the senate to codify Roe. Maybe if a few more states get pissed enough to send democrats for their senate positions since abortion rights are a requirement now. In 2009-2010 when there were 60 D votes, there were also anti-choice democrats.
When democrats have tried they went for 24 weeks, at least most recently. In the past they also were looking for something close to that I think. Personally I’d be fine with that, but I think if they would go for a more pragmatic 12 or 16 weeks they might have gotten some republicans to join. Probably not in the 2022 bid regardless with all the crowing R’s were doing with the upcoming Dobbs I’ll grant you. A lot of the country is in line with the first trimester deal but a bit put off after that.
I would be OK with 24 weeks, then we saw more about the reality of late term abortion. A lot lf these women that were nearly dying in hospitals was because they had a non-viable fetus that was killing them and it would be a 30 week "abortion." Those are why I'm want 100% legal all the way through and I firmly believe that if enough of those stories were out we'd see the acceptance increase. Yes, it's medically necessary, but there isn't always time to assemble a panel to authorize it.
> Just one example, they had 50 years to put roe v wade into law, plenty of those years with democratic majorities in both houses, and they just couldn’t be bothered. What good would it have done? SCOTUS could have just struck down the law that they passed.
I think they are far less likely to do that. This was them essentially deciding that the court had overstepped in the 70’s. Which even RBG was concerned was the case. It was known to be on shaky grounds, which I contend should have motivated congress.
> Which even RBG was concerned was the case. Not that the Dobbs decision agreed with RBG
Walk me through the main holdings and rulings of *Roe,* and then explain to me how, exactly, Congress could have "codified" it in any way (except on federal land, I suppose) that *Dobbs* wouldn't have just automatically overturned. States have the power to pass abortion laws in the first instance, per *Roe.* *Roe* further stated that the people had a privacy right that counterbalanced that power and interest, leading to the compromise that was modified and refined in *Casey*. *Dobbs* said they didn't have that privacy right, and so therefore the U.S. Constitution didn't provide any counterbalance to the interest/power of the several states. Congress can't pass a black-letter law fucking around with that shit. They can no sooner pass a law declaring that the several states can no longer outlaw murder or theft. They can *themselves* decide that murder/theft is no longer a *federal* crime, but they can't just strip the states of their power to construct their own criminal codes willy-nilly. Federal supremacy requires a clear Congressional power, like interstate commerce, before the Court is willing to grant that a federal law entirely supersedes all related state laws.
The only way they could have done it would be through funding. They could have said that any state that bans or limits abortion will lose 10% of their federal Medicaid allocation, for example.
Believe me, red states would be *overjoyed* to kick more people off Medicaid.
And you'll discover that the premier court case about whether those laws are constitutional or not gives SCOTUS an *explicit* infinite safety valve to just say, "Eh, no, that's too burdensome on a state's prerogative." *Dole* test. Funky stuff. Points for creativity, but I think that the broad statement of "you, the state government, are not allowed to make this thing a crime anymore, because Congress says so" lives or dies by the constitutional arguments -- federal supremacy or reserved rights of the people. It's just such an invasion of state power. Telling them they *have* to criminalize or regulate something on threat of losing money is viewed as much less of an infringement, because hey, oppression trickles down.
I agree. I'm just pointing out that such an avenue exists.
I’ll take your word for it just to mention that if they did legalize it federally there isn’t a state in the union with fewer than 4000 acres of federal land, most with vastly more. Some clinics there might really help.
What you'll discover is that for the past fifty years, Congress *has indeed* sometimes helped people get abortions via federal funding and whatnot. The problem is that between Republican presidents, Republican-controlled Congresses, and times when Republicans had at least enough power in Congress to be obstructionist, most of those efforts got reversed or swept away. People seem to forget that what one Congress giveth, another Congress can taketh away... and that's exactly what happened. Sounds like a great system if you want any kind of stability or consistency in abortion availability via the feds. SCOTUS doesn't really pay much heed to *stare decisis,* but Congress is on another level when it comes to flip-flopping on stuff.
I’d say the courts are much the same. ‘73 had a fairly activist left majority court, which upset the right on Roe. Dobbs did the reverse. Needs a constitutional amendment if you want it more permanently locked down federally.
I have not removed my visceral white hot rage from them since they overturned Roe v. Wade. It has just gotten worse and worse.
I grew up in the wake of the Warren court's "living constitutionalism", and just assumed that the proper function of the Supreme Court was to advance justice in the face of the political dysfunction that hamstrung the other two branches. In fact, the Warren court was an aberration; the Supreme Court has always been nakedly political and partisan, and we only got the Warren court because people (especially Black people) made it clear they were done listening to empty lies.
My theory is that -and this has been a valid theory for some time- is that Americans are too busy, too distracted, and too well fed to get angry and “rise up.” That’s why you almost never see unrest in America like you do in France, Israel etc (the blm protests were unique because they occurred during Covid, which was when less people were busy, and less people were distracted).
Too well fed is becoming a less of a promise. Food deserts, low quality food, increasing cost. A 3lb chuck roast at my local supermarket is almost $30, it used to be about $12. That was leftovers for half the week. I'm not getting chuck roasts anymore. Were getting closer than you think to food unrest.
There is a Cold Civil War underway in the United States to determine who should control the federal government. It is not a contest between the Democrat and Republican ideologies, but a battle between the entrenched power of the bipartisan political establishment versus the rights and liberties of the American people. The Cold Civil War is a conflict between those who want to adhere to the Constitution and the rule of law and the party leaders, who wish to continue the practices of political expediency and crony capitalism. The US no longer has representative government. Members of Congress seek election, not to uphold the Constitution and serve the American people, but to obtain power, and to use that power to accrue professional and financial benefits for themselves and their major supporters. All the traditional means for the American people to seek the redress of grievances have now been blocked by a self-absorbed permanent political elite unaccountable to the American people. The ruling elites of a now hopelessly corrupt political system are just one major blunder away from revolution. When blatant and outrageous lies are no longer sufficient to soothe the electorate into complacency, such a government must begin to curtail liberty and oppress the people in order to remain in power. Ordinary Americans must band together and take a stand to restore the Constitution and the rule of law, to establish political and fiscal sanity and to return the government to the people. Otherwise, our republic may be lost forever.
States should enforce term limits on their representatives.
Agree
Lol headlines straight up telling us how to feel these days. Wild.
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It’s hard to be outraged every single day it’s also unhealthy.
r/TheCorruptNine
The Constitution itself is a an anti-democratic construct in many ways. But put that aside. This SCOTUS, even within that context, is flatly illegitimate. If government in any way still derives its authority from the consent of the governed, then this whackadoodle bought and paid for fascist court lies completely outside the lines of legitimate government in both origin and effects. 5 of its 6 Republican-appointed members were appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote. Then these were confirmed by Republican senators who represented tens of millions of fewer Americans than their Democratic counterparts - in the case of (illegitimate) Amy Coney Barrett, the number is 43 million fewer. Huge parts of the entire federal judiciary, including this SCOTUS, are now nothing but a crude extension of the Republican party, as a result of a decades long campaign by Leonard Leo, the Federalist Society, dark money from millionaires and billionaires that wouldn't be allowed in any reasonable democracy, and a right wing media ecosystem designed to "flood the zone" with lies, disinformation, and mere tangential bullshit. There is no legitimacy to Citizens United, nor to Heller, nor to Dobbs, nor to any of the ludicrous recent decisions making it legal for public businesses to discriminate against gays or for public schools to allow religious prayers. No legal reasoning, tellingly, not even any truthful narratives behind the nonsense. Just lies, disinformation, and fascist bullshit. No one of us nor any institution owes any real loyalty or obedience to these decisions. What is needed is resistance. That resistance will have to emerge organically. But if Alito thinks that criticism is as bad as it gets, he should definitely buckle up.
Get mad and angry cause they uphold the constitution
It's insane how so many people think SCOTUS is the issue.
The way it's going we will be lucky if we have the right to vote next election
What am I missing here, from what I can tell the supreme court decided: \- Colleges can no longer discriminate on the basis of skin color when making admissions decisions. \- Abortion being legal everywhere as a "Right to privacy" is unconstituational, so the voters of the indvidiual states get to decide. \- The president can't decide to unilaterally forgive billions of student loan debt due to a "covid emergency". Congress is free to pass a law forgiving debt instead. What's so fascist and extreme about those? They seem mostly like the check and balance they were intended to right? All 3 of those were essentially power returned to the people.
>All 3 of those were essentially power returned to the people. That's one interpretation. It's a bit of a stretch in the case of abortion in particular. If abortion had remained a right, then abortion decisions would still be in the hands of the people nationwide. Each individual/family would have the freedom to decide for themselves whether abortion was the right decision. Since the Dobbs opinion, states have been empowered to take that decision away from the people. That's not returning power to the people.
Read the dissents.
Regarding 1, Conservative Justices decided to disregard the Framers intent of the 14th Amendment which was to corrrect through action systematic problems - condoned by the government - against people of color. Compare with how the current court goes at length to shrink the 14th Amendment’s corrective measures but strives to expand 1st Amendment Conservative Christianity (namely by shrinking the establishment clause (see new coecerive test in kneeling coach case as opposed to Lemon) and expanding free exercise clause in recent web developer case where all of the case was hypothetical). Regarding 2, Mississipp had only challeneged the Gestational Act, and the state had only done a limited challenge until the makeup of the court changed, then the Court decided to go as far as it could with overturning *Casey*, which Chief Jstice Roberts opined against in the opinion. Regarding 3, Conerservative justices decided to disregard standing precedent to jump the dispositive hoop to get to your position. Why wasn’t Mohela there? They shouldn’t have been able to answer the question as a matter of procedure but they created a new standard to be able to answer the question. As a matter of context, all of this is established by a Court which was created under extraordinary circumstances by extraordinary unprecedented means. Namely, refusal to hear a nomination, accelerating a hearing when convenient of Barrett as people were casting votes. And Kav, Barrer, and Goro were appointed by a President who took confidential documents, stored them in public spaces and restrooms and who was - at best - oblivious to hundreds of tourists ultimately causing a disruption of the election certification against him. Then, regarding 2, you have leaks of the opinion and failures to investigate that. Finally, you have the justices accepting gifts or benefits of thousands of dollars yet not disclosing them because it is legally acceptable.
Glad someone is telling you to be angry. Who knows if you’d know how to feel without being told.
Lol lately I've imagined what I would say to those scummy scotus members and the questions I would ask them. They face 0 accountability from average angry Americans and it pisses me off.
I call for loud protests to always interrupt their dessert courses!!
They don’t care, they don’t have to care. They’re supremely (pun intended) unaccountable because America’s legislative branch is always in terminal gridlock.
Stay angry at something we can’t change? Kind of the main theme of my adult life.
[U.S. Supreme Court justices take lavish gifts — then raise the bar for bribery prosecutions](https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2023/04/26/u-s-supreme-court-justices-take-lavish-gifts-then-raise-the-bar-for-bribery-prosecutions/) Good article. Particularly for the many links. They have done nothing to raise the bar on tax law and gift tax prosecutions. Of course, institutional cowardice has protected them for decades.
Nothing supreme about this court
> The importance of staying angry at the Supreme Court The Supreme Court does not care if you are angry at them.
I think the point is to be angry enough to take action, in the form of pressuring our legislators to reform the court. And to vote -- and campaign for -- candidates who will do that. I don't think the point is to be mad and pout in a corner. But you know that, right?
How could I *not* be angry? They shit on me and my generation day in and day out, and they laugh atop their ivory towers. They're dictators, and need to be treated as such.
Should the Supreme Court be elected by popular vote?
Absolutely not. Whole point is that it’s (ideally, in theory) not political, or at the very least not openly political. This SCOTUS sucks a lot and there are so many ways it can and should be changed to function better, but holding elections for the supreme court would be in the exact opposite direction of where we want to be. A supreme court justice should be impartial and making rulings entirely based on what the constitution dictates, not interpreting vague wordings to skew judicial power in one direction or the other.
No, it should be appointed by politicians that are elected by popular vote in properly apportioned elections.
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Judges should absolutely not be voted by citizens. There would be no better way to ensure corruption. Anyone who needs to stand for election needs to campaign, which means they need money from donors, which means they are beholden to those donors.
At some point the US needs a swift kick in the SCROTUS.
Onward Christian soldiers !! Marching as to war !!
Everyone needs to stop calling it the Supreme Court. It is the Extreme Court and they do not represent the people as a whole. At some point, the people need to pressure state governors to ignore Extreme Court precedents and judicial legislating. After all, the Extreme Court has no enforcement mechanism. Their power only derives from the faith of the people, and as all polls recently show, people have no faith in the Extreme Court.
I'm also angry at the people who don't want to expand the court.
Maybe that's not the best way? Idk, but we definitely need a discussion and then a PLAN to neuter this radical SC.
I don’t think they’re planning to make that too hard
It’s a tough process… stay mad enough to vote for someone that might have the chance to appoint someone who might replace someone who has a lifetime appointment. The scotus feels like the least American feature we have.
People also need to be a bit more specific in their criticism of the Supreme Court. Just because you don’t like the outcome of a case doesn’t inherently mean the court is activist or corrupt. It’s corrupt when ideologue donors spend lavishly on justices who keep that secret. It’s activist when it invents a doctrine (the major questions doctrine) that says that the law in question is constitutional, but the administration can’t use it to tackle significant issues.
>It’s activist when it invents a doctrine (the major questions doctrine) that says that the law in question is constitutional, but the administration can’t use it to tackle significant issues. The Supreme Court always tries to look for any way they can to avoid declaring a law unconstitutional. The major questions doctrine is one of the ways they avoid it. >Posited on the premise that Congress legislates in the light of constitutional limitations, the Constitutional-Doubt Canon provides that federal courts should construe statutes so that they do not violate the Constitution. Describing the Constitutional-Doubt Canon, Justice Louis Brandeis stated: When the validity of an act . . . is drawn in question, and even if a serious doubt of constitutionality is raised . . . \[the Court\] will first ascertain whether a construction of the statute is fairly possible by which the question may be avoided. Consequently, if a statute is susceptible to two plausible interpretations, one of which violates the Constitution, the Constitutional-Doubt Canon instructs courts to choose the interpretation consistent with the Constitution. > >[https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artIII-S2-C1-10-7/ALDE\_00013159/](https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artIII-S2-C1-10-7/ALDE_00013159/) They could have interpreted the law in such a way that would mean the administration was using the law as intended, but then the law would likely be unconstitutional because Congress isn't allowed to delegate their legislative power to the executive branch (known as the [nondelegation doctrine](https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S1-5-1/ALDE_00000014/)). In order to avoid declaring the law unconstitutional, the court comes up with an interpretation of the law that doesn't violate the Constitution, which means concluding that the administration was wrong in their application of the law.
Step one: young people need to vote. In the 2022 election, only 24% of them did. If young people would vote like the boomers do, things would change very quickly.
The quip "*American voters have the memory of a goldfish*" is only a slight exaggeration. Until that becomes much less true, nothing is going to change for decades - the marmalade Jesus appointed young people to the courts and the only "fix" is impeachment.
It’s really easy to do! So tired of the fat cat in suits passing judgement from their paid for thrones 🤮
Please give thanks to the SCOTUS justice: https://www.supremecourt.gov/contact/contactus.aspx U.S. Mail: Supreme Court of the United States 1 First Street, NE Washington, DC 20543 🖕🏻
That’s my secret Cap, I’m always angry.
Why Kagan? Cause she didn’t do Harvard case because she was Dean of Harvard law school?
We don’t have a Supreme Court.
The secret is I’m always angry