Tag: Supreme Court

An “Ethical Crisis”

For years now many of us here in the blogosphere have been telling the world that there was a moral and ethical crisis within our Supreme Court….now a report has been issued but it will be attacked as misinformation and just naysayers popping off.

Some of the judges have been taking favors from special interests and some have been openly partisan and others….well you get the jest….

The report of which I spoke….

A report released Saturday by Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee after a 20-month investigation declares the Supreme Court “has mired itself in an ethical crisis of its own making.” The report lists a series of ethical lapses and failures and estimates the value of gifts accepted by Justice Clarence Thomas in the millions of dollars. “The number, value, and extravagance of the gifts accepted by Justice Thomas have no comparison in modern American history,” the report says, per the Washington Post. Those gifts sometimes came from people with issues before the court, it adds.

Congress needs to enact an enforceable ethics code that would provide for an independent panel to review complaints, the report says. The committee approved such a bill this year along party lines, per NBC News, but Republicans prevented a Senate vote. “It’s clear that the justices are losing the trust of the American people at the hands of a gaggle of fawning billionaires,” Chairman Dick Durbin said in a statement. Republicans on the committee did not take part in the investigation.

The report lists previously documented gifts as well as free travel by Thomas that hadn’t been disclosed, including a yacht trip to New York City sponsored by Harlan Crow, a Texas billionaire and Thomas benefactor. Thomas did not answer investigators’ inquiries but previously maintained he wasn’t obligated to report many gifts because they were covered by a “personal hospitality” exemption in force at the time. As polls have shown its public popularity falling, the court approved an ethics code a year ago, per the Post, that has no enforcement mechanism.

More than few people have been calling for some sort of true reform of SCOTUS….from term limits to retirement age to recusal mandatory when appropriate….things need to change the court is NO longer the ‘referee’ of our government but the spokesman for one party.

This is just a wish list as we head into yet another dismal 4 years and all I can do is just fight back as I see fit.

When I read the report I thought ‘seriously?  How long did it take to come up with this conclusion?  A conclusion that many already have.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

SCOTUS, The New Term

It is that time again when the political hacks we call the Supreme Court get together and do whatever it is they do…..

The Supreme Court starts a new nine-month term on Monday, and the first major case will come Tuesday, when the court hears arguments in a case involving “ghost guns”—untraceable firearms assembled from kits, often with very little effort involved, Reuters reports. In Garland v. VanDerStok, the Biden administration is appealing a lower court’s decision to strike down a rule that defined certain gun parts as firearms, meaning serial numbers and background checks would be required. Other big cases:

  • A death row inmate in Oklahoma. On Wednesday next week, the court will hear arguments in Glossip v. Oklahoma, which “presents the odd question of whether the state of Oklahoma must execute a man that it very much does not want to kill,” Vox reports. The state’s attorney general believes Glossip was wrongly convicted of murder, but Oklahoma courts have refused to grant Glossip a new trial
  • Transgender rights. US v. Skrmetti will probably be the most closely watched case of the term, CBS News reports. The Justice Department and three transgender teens are challenging Tennessee’s strict ban on gender-affirming care, including hormones and puberty blockers, for people under 18 with gender dysphoria. They argue that the ban, one of dozens in GOP-led states, violates the Constitution’s Equal Protection clause. Arguments in the case have not been scheduled yet.
  • Porn websites. In Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, the court will hear arguments on the constitutionality of a Texas law requiring people who visit porn websites to submit personal information for age verification, Time reports. Opponents of the law argue that it fails to account for privacy concerns and restricts adult access to constitutionally protected material. Seven states have similar laws.
  • Flavored vapes. FDA v. Wages and White Lion Investments will look at the FDA’s policy of refusing to approve flavored vapes, on the grounds that they have a “serious, well-documented risk” of getting underage users hooked.
  • Nuclear waste. The court agreed to step into a fight over plans to store nuclear waste at sites in rural Texas and New Mexico. The justices said they will review a ruling by the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals that found that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission exceeded its authority under federal law in granting a license to a private company to store spent nuclear fuel at a dump in West Texas for 40 years, the AP reports. The outcome of the case will affect plans for a similar facility in New Mexico. Political leaders in both states oppose the facilities.
  • Reverse discrimination. The court is also taking up the case of an Ohio woman who claims she suffered sex discrimination in her employment because she is straight. The justices agreed to review an appellate ruling that upheld the dismissal of the discrimination lawsuit filed by the woman, Marlean Ames, against the Ohio Department of Youth Services, the AP reports. Ames, who has worked for the department for 20 years, contends she was passed over for a promotion and then demoted because she is heterosexual. Both the job she sought and the one she had held were given to LGBTQ people.

How will the Roberts court go?  Will it put politics aside for a change?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Impeach The Bastards!

There has been a lot of lip service to how bad our cracker jack Supreme Court is and now someone has stepped up to try and repair at least some of the damage it has done to our society.

That someone would be AOC….

As promised, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has introduced articles of impeachment in the House against Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas. The New York Democrat cited their failure to disclose gifts from people with matters before the court and their refusal to recuse themselves from cases “in which their benefactors and spouses are implicated,” CNN reports. Although impeachment has little chance of going anywhere in the House, given that it’s controlled by Republicans, Ocasio-Cortez called the justices’ behavior a constitutional crisis that requires action. “Congress has a legal, moral, and democratic obligation to impeach,” she said in a statement.

The accusations against Thomas include his lack of recusal from Jan. 6 cases despite the involvement of his wife, Ginni Thomas, in trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Ginni Thomas has falsely claimed the election was stolen, per USA Today, including to the House committee that investigated the attack on the Capitol. The gifts that went unreported include luxury travel. “Justice Thomas and Alito’s repeated failure over decades to disclose that they received millions of dollars in gifts from individuals with business before the court is explicitly against the law,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

Several Democratic colleagues cosponsored the articles, which CBS News reports are a part of the party’s preelection moves against the court in light of its recent rulings on abortion access, guns, and presidential immunity. A spokesperson for the Supreme Court did not immediately comment on the filing.

Before you go off on some diatribe….I realize this has little chance of success but at least someone has the cajones to make a move….for that I salute her.

That was from the House and the Senate has acting on these two slugs as well….

After a slew of jarring stories tying Clarence Thomas to multiple undisclosed gifts, loans, and other perks from ultra-wealthy friends, two Democratic senators are now trying to get to the bottom of it. The Hill reports that Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Ron Wyden of Oregon have requested that Attorney General Merrick Garland appoint a special counsel to investigate the Thomas allegations, specifically on ethics and tax law fronts. “The breadth of the omissions uncovered to date, and the serious possibility of additional tax fraud and false statement violations by Justice Thomas and his associates, warrant the appointment of a Special Counsel to investigate this misconduct,” the two senators note in their letter to Garland dated July 3.

Whitehouse and Wyden add that “the scale of the potential ethics violations by Justice Thomas, and the willful pattern of disregard for ethics laws, exceeds the conduct of other government officials investigated by the Department of Justice for similar violations.” The senators note that Thomas has been given the opportunity to answer questions about what happened, and that he maintained a “suspicious silence” or provided otherwise “uninformative” answers. Whitehouse and Wyden add that although Thomas “has claimed that some omissions were ‘inadvertent,’ and he has amended some past reports accordingly … [he] has not disclosed all of the gifts that have been uncovered, and there may well be more.”

“No government official should be above the law,” the senators conclude. “Supreme Court justices are properly expected to obey laws designed to prevent conflicts of interest and the appearance of impropriety and to comply with the federal tax code.” The New York Times notes that their request comes as Senate Democrats “are trying to force Supreme Court justices to comply with stricter ethics and financial disclosure rules.” Last year, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said changes that would boost public confidence in the high court were on the way, though Chief Justice John Roberts hasn’t exactly seemed to want to discuss that.

Again these efforts will go unfulfilled for we know what cowards there are in our do-nothing Congress.

I salute anyone who has the gravitas to seek justice for the crimes committed by political hacks……where it will it go from here?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

SCOTUS Out Of Control

In the last days of June SCOTUS has made several rulings along with other for the past few years that point to it being out of contro0l and partisan when it should be the neutral referee….

Bernie has called for it to be stopped before it does even more harm to our nation…that is if it is not already too late…..

In the aftermath of the right-wing U.S. Supreme Court’s potentially deadly rampage against federal regulators, its ruling in support of the criminalization of homelessness, and its decision to grant former President Donald Trump sweeping immunity from criminal prosecution, Sen. Bernie Sanders said late Monday that nation’s highest judicial body is “out of control” and must be reined in before it can inflict even more damage.

“Over the years, among other disastrous rulings, this right-wing court has given us Citizens United, which created a corrupt, billionaire-dominated political system,” Sanders (I-Vt.) said in a statement. “It overturned Roe v. Wade, removing women’s constitutional right to control their own bodies. Last week, the court chose to criminalize poverty by banning homeless encampments in public spaces—forcing more poor people into the cycle of debt and poverty.”

“With the Chevron case,” the senator continued, “they have made it far more difficult for the government to address the enormous crises we face in terms of climate change, public health, workers’ rights, and many other areas. And, today, the court ruled in favor of broad presidential immunity, making it easier for Trump and other politicians to break the law without accountability.”

Such far-reaching and devastating decisions, Sanders argued, highlight the extent to which unelected Supreme Court justices—with the backing of right-wing billionaires and corporations bent on sweeping away all regulatory constraints—have arrogated policymaking authority to themselves with disastrous consequences for U.S. society and the world.

“If these conservative justices want to make public policy, they should simply quit the Supreme Court and run for political office,” said Sanders. “At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, billionaire control of our political system, and major threats to the foundations of American democracy, it is clear to me that we need real Supreme Court reform. A strong, enforceable code of ethics is a start, but just a start. We’ll need much more than that.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/bernie-sanders-supreme-court

SCOTUS has given corporations personhood, taken away the freedom of choice, tied regulators hands in holding corporations accountable for shoddy practices, and went on to making a king for this country….

While I agree that it, SCOTUS, must be stopped from destroying the very fabric of our nation I also recognize that an impartial referee is desperately needed….party politics should have NO bearing on who serves on the court.

So I agree with Bernie these d/bags need to be stopped in whatever way possible.

I cannot think of much more to say about SCOTUS….I have said it all.

Since tomorrow is a holiday there will not be many visitors to IST so let me wish all those people to have a safe and fun day/weekend.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

A Couple Of Takes On Immunity Thing

Now that it is official on the Trump immunity thing there are a couple of takes (not mine but others….given as a info service)….

The Supreme Court’s blockbuster ruling that presidents have immunity for “official” actions continues to resonate, with all kinds of analysis on what it does and doesn’t mean.

  • Carte blanche: In the view of Elie Mystal at the Nation, the ruling means that a sitting president can go on a crime spree that includes everything from rape to murder without being held accountable. Court defenders will say that’s not the case, because presidents can still be prosecuted for “unofficial” acts, he predicts. “But they will be wrong, because while the Supreme Court says ‘unofficial’ acts are still prosecutable, the court has left nearly no sphere in which the president can be said to be acting ‘unofficially.'” Read his full essay, headlined “The President Can Now Assassinate You, Officially.”
  • In defense: Fox legal analyst Jonathan Turley defends the decision in the New York Post and accuses liberals and Democrats of “hyperventilation” in their reaction. “The Supreme Court was designed to be unpopular; to take stands that are politically unpopular but constitutionally correct,” he writes. And that’s what happened here: Scholars “have long disagreed where to draw the line on presidential immunity. The court adopted a middle approach that rejected extreme arguments on both sides.” Read his full column.
  • ‘Whims of a king’: The court’s ruling essentially says that Trump is “entitled to immunity from prosecution for crimes he has already committed, and for the ones he intends to commit in the future,” writes Adam Serwer at the Atlantic. “The entire purpose of the Constitution was to create a government that was not bound to the whims of a king,” he adds. But the court’s “self-styled ‘originalists’ … have chosen to put a crown within Trump’s reach, in the hopes that he will grasp it in November.” Read the full piece.
  • The trend: Whatever one’s view of the decision, it illustrates a clear trend in America, writes Charlie Savage in the New York Times: It”adds to the nearly relentless rise of presidential power since the mid-20th century.” His piece explores this, including the differing views on whether the ruling risks putting the president above the law as expressed by Chief Justice John Roberts (it “does not place him above the law; it preserves the basic structure of the Constitution from which that law derives”) and Justice Sonia Sotomayor (“in every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law”). Read the full analysis.

Assassination?  Now there is one I have not heard of and believe me I have heard all the dire predictions and conspiracies that awaits us if/when Trump wins the election.

This political charged ruling is a bad idea….period!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

 

Resign Now!

This is for that political hack that hides behind legal garments….Clarence Thomas.

We know of this past gifts and bribes but apparently that was only the tip of the iceberg….

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas took three trips on private jets bankrolled by Harlan Crow that were not disclosed, according to information released Thursday by the Senate Judiciary Committee. The information was contained in documents the billionaire Republican donor had turned over to the committee under subpoena over seven years, the Hill reports. Chairman Dick Durbin, a Democrat, said the committee is still investigating. The latest finding, he said, “makes it crystal clear that the highest court needs an enforceable code of conduct, because its members continue to choose not to meet the moment.”

Elliot Berke, an attorney for Thomas, said the three trips came under the “hospitality exemption,” meaning disclosure wasn’t required. The exemption applies as long as the hospitality is extended by “friends who did not have business before the court,” Berke told CNN. The free travel, all on private jets, per the Washington Post:

  • St. Louis to Kalispell, Montana, and a return flight to Dallas in May 2017.
  • Washington, DC, to Savannah, Georgia, and back in March 2019.
  • Washington, DC, to San Jose and back in June 2021.

On Wednesday, Senate Republicans blocked a Democratic bill to require Supreme Court justices to adopt a binding code of conduct, per NBC News

Oh there is so much more to this crook……and the gifts that pay…..

New details of Thomas’ luxury travel emerged from negotiations between the Senate committee—which authorized a subpoena for Crow last year—and the billionaire’s attorneys.

Documents the committee obtained from Crow “revealed travel and gifts that Justice Thomas has failed to disclose to date,” including a May 2017 private jet trip from St. Louis to Kalispell, Montana and a return flight to Dallas; a March 2019 private jet trip from Washington, D.C. to Savannah, Georgia and back; and a June 2021 private jet trip from Washington, D.C. to San Jose, California and back.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a statement that “nearly $4.2 million in gifts and even that wasn’t enough for Justice Thomas, with at least three additional trips the committee found that he has failed to disclose to date.”

“The Senate Judiciary Committee’s ongoing investigation into the Supreme Court’s ethical crisis is producing new information—like what we’ve revealed today—and makes it crystal clear that the highest court needs an enforceable code of conduct, because its members continue to choose not to meet the moment,” said Durbin. “As a result of our investigation and subpoena authorization, we are providing the American public greater clarity on the extent of ethical lapses by Supreme Court justices and the need for ethics reform.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/clarence-thomas-resignation

There so many rotten apples in the SCOTUS basket that it will take a major effort to clean the garbage out.

It is time for Thomas and Alito to resign and make way for some fresh blood….no telling what we would get but anything is better than these two corrupt d/bags.

Alito?

In case you were jerking off and missed the story…..

The fallout continues for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito over the flying of a symbolic upside-down flag outside his house, a debate possibly complicated by a report of another flag carried by Jan. 6 rioters having been displayed at Alito’s beach house. More:

  • Censure: House Democrat Steve Cohen of Tennessee introduced a motion on Tuesday to censure Alito “for knowingly violating the federal recusal statute and binding ethics standards and calling the impartiality of the Supreme Court of the United States into question,” per the Hill.
  • The symbol: The upside-down flag is widely associated with the “Stop the Steal” movement asserting election fraud on behalf of Donald Trump. Alito says it was his wife, not him, who put the flag up in January 2021, as part of a dispute with a neighbor over political yard signs.
  • From GOP: CNN collects quotes from key Republican senators critical of Alito over the controversy. “Bad decision,” said John Thune. “I don’t know how you explain that.” Lindsey Graham told the outlet “it creates a bad image” and “was a mistake.” However, neither called for Alito to recuse himself from Trump- or election-related cases. Mitt Romey said the flag was “unfortunate and we ought to take a look at it,” but another GOP senator, John Cornyn, said “there are more important things to worry about.” Cornyn is in the mix to be the new GOP Senate leader.
  • Democrats: About 50 House Democrats, meanwhile, called on Alito to recuse himself from two upcoming rulings, one on Trump’s immunity from prosecution and the other on Capitol rioters. “Reasonable people will doubt that you can be impartial in deciding whether Mr. Trump should face criminal prosecution for his actions arising from the ‘Stop the Steal’ movement,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter, per the Washington Post. “This indisputable appearance of a conflict of interest requires that you recuse yourself.”
  • Symbol No. 2: Another flag carried to the Capitol by rioters was spotted at Alito’s vacation house in New Jersey last summer, reports the New York Times, which has photos. The “Appeal to Heaven” flag is a symbol of the “Stop the Steal” movement as well as a plea to make the nation more Christian. It’s also called the Pine Tree flag. Ethics experts again were troubled by a justice taking a public political stance, with one calling it deeply disturbing “when a judge celebrates his predispositions by hoisting them on a flag.” The flag at Alito’s beach house shows up on Google street view.

In case you are not sure4 the judges are suppose to be impartial and these asses fly in the face of justice.

Time for both Alito and Thomas to pack their bags and get the f*ck out of DC…..could we bring back tar and feather as a punishment?

The atmosphere in DC will prevent any change or reform from making the cut….does that not say something about the GOP that fights to keep these slugs on the court

Enough is enough!

Resign Now!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

SCOTUS Takes On Trumpism

Does the president have absolute immunity?

That is the question before the US Supreme Court.

The day had many twists and turns….

The “case is submitted.” With those words, Chief Justice John Roberts wrapped up Thursday’s historic testimony about absolute presidential immunity—and whether Donald Trump can be prosecuted for actions taken while he was in office, reports CNN. The gist of early coverage is that Trump will be pleased with the eventual outcome, even though he may lose the main thrust of the case. Details:

  • A Trump loss: At least five of the justices seemed likely to reject Trump’s claim of absolute immunity, reports the AP. (Especially given extreme hypotheticals such as having a rival assassinated.)
  • But a Trump win: Both the New York Times and the Washington Post agree the court is on track to reject absolute immunity, but both say the court also seems poised to send the matter back to a lower court for clarification between public and private actions. That would likely delay Trump’s federal trial on charges he tried to subvert the 2020 election for months, perhaps until after this year’s vote—an outcome that would “amount to a victory for Trump,” per Politico. For one thing, he could effectively torpedo the case should he win reelection.
  • Key exchange: “Without presidential immunity from criminal prosecution there can be no presidency as we know it,” Trump attorney D. John Sauer told the court, per the Wall Street Journal. To which Samuel Alito responded, “My question is whether the very robust form of immunity that you’re advocating is really necessary.”
  • Roberts’ concern: Roberts “clearly believes that the lower courts did not do enough to suss out exactly what is an official act versus a private act,” says CNN legal analyst Paula Reid. “So what they’re setting up here is likely the justices are going to come up with some sort of test, and then send it back down to the lower courts for more litigation.”
  • Decision: Typically, the court would issue its decision in late June or early July, notes the Times, but the justices may speed things up given the circumstances.
  • Irrelevant? Trump’s lawyers have long expected to lose the main argument, according to Rolling Stone. But merely getting the Supreme Court to hear the case in the first place—and thus delay special prosecutor Jack Smith’s case against the former president—was reason enough for celebration, per the story. They were “literally popping champagne” when the court agreed to take the case, the story says.

The Justices asked some key questions….

  • Justice Elena Kagan: Kagan said the framers of the Constitution clearly didn’t want a “monarch” to run the country, CNN reports. “Wasn’t the whole point that the president was not a monarch, and the president was not supposed to be above the law?” she asked.
  • Justice Sonia Sotomayor: “If the president decides that his rival is a corrupt person and he orders the military … to assassinate him, is that within his official acts for which he can get immunity?” she asked Trump lawyer D. John Sauer. The Washington Post reports that Sauer said immunity was possible. “It would depend on the hypothetical that we can see,” he said. “That could well be an official act. It could.” He gave a similar answer when Kagan presented the hypothetical case of a president who’d ordered a military coup.
  • Justice Amy Coney Barrett: Barrett took issue with the Trump team’s argument that a former president needs to be impeached and convicted by the Senate before a court can convict them, the AP reports. “There are many other people who are subject to impeachment, including the nine sitting on this bench, and I don’t think anyone has ever suggested that impeachment would have to be the gateway to criminal prosecution for any of the many other officers subject to impeachment,” she said. “So why is the president different when the impeachment clause doesn’t say so?”
  • Justice Neil Gorsuch: Gorsuch asked whether presidents can pardon themselves, noting that the court has “happily” never had to deal with such questions. The New York Times reports that Sauer deflected the question, saying the main concern is that a president should be able to make bold decisions without fearing prosecution.
  • Chief Justice John Roberts: During discussion of what constitutes an official act, Roberts gave the example of a president appointing an ambassador in return for a bribe, asking, “How do you analyze that?” Sauer said it would be up to “the court’s discretion,” per the Post.

If my meager breakdown is not enough then maybe this will help you along….

https://www.vox.com/scotus/24140309/supreme-court-donald-trump-immunity-jack-smith

This is proving interesting but I think I already know what will come out of this session….how about you?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Headed Down The Wrong Path

My readers know I have little faith in the Supreme Court….personally I think most are nothing but party ideologues and political hacks…..I have thought for a decade that the Court was on a terrible path….and now a retired justice thinks the same thing…

Stephen Breyer has a book coming out Tuesday, and between that and a new interview with the New York Times, the retired Supreme Court justice has a lot to say, about everything from abortion and the concept of originalism to the high court bench’s current makeup.

  • Abortion: In his upcoming book, Reading the Constitution: Why I Chose Pragmatism, Not Textualism, Breyer devotes many pages to the Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling, which in June 2022 held that abortion wasn’t a right under the US Constitution. He now tells the Times there are “too many questions” around the topic. “Are they really going to allow women to die on the table because they won’t allow an abortion, which would save her life?” he notes. “I mean, really, no one would do that. … And there’ll be dozens of questions like that.”
  • Current justices: Breyer appears to poke at Trump appointees Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. “Several new justices have spent only two or three years at the court,” he tells the Times. “Major changes take time, and there are many years left for the newly appointed justices to decide whether they want to build the law using only textualism and originalism” (textualism focuses on case semantics, while originalism looks at a case the way the Founding Fathers would have).
  • Past colleagues: “Sandra, David … I would see eye to eye not necessarily in the result in every case, but just the way you approach it. And Tony, too, to a considerable degree,” Breyer says, referring to former conservative justices Sandra Day O’Connor, David Souter, and Anthony Kennedy.
  • Two cases: Breyer mentions Dobbs and a big gun-rights case out of New York in his book as two examples of originalism and textualism run amok, per the Washington Post. “Originalism says that judges cannot consider … modern developments and practical realities,” he notes.
  • A warning: Breyer is also now “[sounding] an alarm” on the current court’s direction, per the Times. “Something important is going on,” he tells the paper, which notes he thinks the court has taken a “wrong turn”—though he also thinks there’s still time to remedy that.

Little by little we are losing our rights….and at this rate there are not many left to lose.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

SCOTUS And Social Media

Those political hacks that we call the Supreme Court are about to lay into the Constitution to settle a ‘First Amendment’ issue….

Supreme Court justices sounded hesitant Monday to dismiss First Amendment concerns about state laws that would restrict social media companies’ ability to moderate users’ posts. The court spent four hours hearing oral arguments about laws passed in Florida and Texas that are blocked for now, the New York Times reports. Both laws were approved by Republican-controlled legislatures, a response to complaints from the political right that the companies were censoring comments from its supporters while allowing posts expressing other viewpoints. The court’s decisions could have broad implications for the future of online debate.

A series of issues involved includes censorship and whether to treat social media like a phone company that transmits users’ content and can’t block any of it at will, or like a newspaper, which can decide what opinions it will run. The Florida law is the more sweeping, and Justice Sonia Sotomayor said it could keep the online marketplace Etsy from curating items being sold by its users, per CNN. “This is so, so broad, it’s covering almost everything” on the internet, Sotomayor said. President Biden’s administration agrees with the technology companies that say the platforms have the right to moderate content; Donald Trump’s lawyers filed a brief calling on the court to uphold Florida’s law.

In musing about censorship, Justices Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh brought up George Orwell, per MSNBC. Alito expressed concern about “Orwellian” private conduct, while Kavanaugh said he thinks of government control of media, not private control, as being “Orwellian.” Alito expressed dislike of the term “content moderation,” per the AP. “Is it anything more than a euphemism for censorship?” Alito asked. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson brought up whether the platforms are a public square or a private company. A ruling should be issued by summer.

So are these sites public or private?

It will be interesting to see what the “Hacks” will do.

On a separate issue….is honking one’s horn protected under free speech?

If you’re tempted to honk your car horn in support of protesters, you might want to think twice in California. That’s because on Friday, a three-judge panel for the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit upheld a lower court’s ruling against Susan Porter, deciding that honking one’s horn isn’t free speech. The case saw its origins in October 2017, when Porter repeatedly leaned on her car horn in solidarity with protesters she was driving past outside of GOP Rep. Darrell Issa’s office in Vista, who were demonstrating against Issa’s support of then-President Trump, per the Washington Post.

Porter honked her horn a total of 14 times, in short bursts, as she cruised by the demonstrators—and was subsequently pulled over by a San Diego County sheriff’s deputy, who gave her a ticket and cited her for misusing her car horn. The citation came about because Porter was said to have violated a 1913 law that prohibits anyone from using the horn for anything other than warning other drivers, per Courthouse News. Although that citation was dismissed the following February when the deputy didn’t show in court, Porter brought a lawsuit, claiming her First Amendment and 14th Amendment rights had been violated.

Porter noted that honking wasn’t just for political speech, but also for celebrating good news, greeting people, or alerting someone that you’d arrived to pick them up. The lower court’s decision against her, however, was handed down in February 2021, which the appeals court upheld last week. “[For] the horn to serve its intended purpose as a warning device, it must not be used indiscriminately,” Judge Michelle Friedland wrote for the majority, per the Post. Friedland added that there were other ways to show support for protesters, including waves, giving a thumbs-up, and bumper stickers. Dissenting Judge Marsha Berzon disagreed, noting, per the Metropolitan News-Enterprise: “Honking at a political protest is a core form of expressive conduct that merits the most stringent constitutional protection.”

SCOTUS refuses to tackle this one….

The Supreme Court has declined to hear a case on whether honking a car horn is protected free speech, leaving in place a lower court’s ruling upholding a California law that bans excessive honking. Lawyers for Susan Porter, who was ticketed in 2017 after honking in support of anti-Donald Trump protesters outside the office of GOP Rep. Darrell Issa, said they were disappointed and they hope the issue will be revisited in future cases, the Hill reports. “We continue to believe that sounding the vehicle horn to support a protest or engage in personal expression is a core First Amendment right,” said David Loy, legal director for the First Amendment Coalition,” calling such honking a “longstanding tradition.”

And their term will continue….

I wait and watch.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Did Trump Have A Good Day?

Meanwhile back at the election our favorite Orange man had a pretty good day…..

First the caucus in Nevada….

As expected, Donald Trump won Nevada’s Republican presidential caucuses Thursday after he was the only major candidate to compete, the AP reports. Nikki Haley skipped the caucuses, the only contest in Nevada that counts toward the GOP nomination. Haley cited what she considered an unfair process favoring Trump and instead ran in Nevada’s symbolic state-run presidential primary on Tuesday, where she finished behind the “none of these candidates” option. Trump’s win in Nevada gives him all 26 of the state’s delegates. He needs to accrue 1,215 delegates to formally clinch the party’s nomination and could reach that number in March.

Also Thursday, Trump and Haley did compete in the Republican caucuses in the US Virgin Islands. Trump won the contest by a large margin, picking up the territory’s four delegates.

Go figure!

Then there was the case before the Supreme Court on Trump’s eligibility to be on ballots….it appears he, Trump, got another win for the day….

The Supreme Court on Thursday heard arguments on a Donald Trump case with historic implications: Whether he should be disqualified from running for reelection because of his actions related to the 2021 attack on the Capitol. And the gist of coverage is that it seems highly unlikely the court will keep Trump off the 2024 ballot:

  • This sentiment is typical: The court “appeared reluctant to take the extraordinary step of disqualifying former President Trump from appearing on the ballot during a historic oral argument in which the justices grilled lawyers about whether states have the authority to ban a candidate from running for office,” per the Hill. (The reference is to Colorado: The justices heard Trump’s appeal of a bombshell ruling there that blocked him from the state’s ballot as an insurrectionist.)
  • Ditto: Some version of the above sentiment is all over. “In more than two hours of arguments, both conservative and liberal justices raised questions of whether Trump can be disqualified from being president again because of his efforts to undo his loss in the 2020 election,” per the AP. The justices spent almost no time debating whether Trump actually engaged in insurrection and focused mostly on the authority of states.
  • Liberals, too: “It’s been somewhat surprising to hear that two liberal justices, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, have expressed some skepticism about the argument that Trump should be disqualified,” writes Alan Feuer at the New York Times. Kagan, for example, wanted to know “why a single state should decide who gets to be president of the United States.” In the AP’s view, only Sonia Sotomayor appeared sympathetic to the case against Trump.
  • Roberts skeptical: Chief Justice John Roberts “made plain that he does not buy the conclusion that the 14th Amendment was meant to permit states to determine whether a candidate was an ineligible insurrectionist,” per Politico, suggesting that he tipped his hand, and that of the court’s. “The whole point of the 14th Amendment was to restrict state power, right?” he asked.
  • Trump argument: The Colorado decision “is wrong and should be reversed for numerous independent reasons,” argued Trump attorney Jonathan Mitchell, per the Wall Street Journal. Affirming the ruling would “take away the votes of potentially tens of millions of Americans,” he said, adding that what happened at the Capitol was a “riot,” not an “insurrection.” Afterward, Trump said from Mar-a-Lago that he thinks his team’s argument was “very well received.”
  • Now what? The court typically takes three months to issue a ruling, but a much faster resolution is expected given the circumstances—the Times suggests the court may issue its ruling before Super Tuesday on March 5.

See you thought this election would be boring…..

Well the candidates are f*cking boring but all the antics and theatrics around them is just too priceless to be true.

Ain’t this a crazy old world?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”