Trump's SCOTUS

[K@th]

No one cares about your fantasy lineup. You are predictable,

[Martin Hash]

Ya know, Kath, I think you might like this... (Your avatar reinforces that impression.)

[Speaker to Animals]

Funny how the never-trumpers still pretend as if we had a choice but to elect him.

[clubgop]

No one cares about your fantasy lineup. You are predictable,

The ole concession by way of meme. As I said, predictable.

[Fife]

I'm looking forward to seeing how this summer's cases come down, and to reading some opinions.

It could have been much, MUCH, worse than Gorsuch. I'm hoping the predictions hold up.

Gorsuch Is More Liberal Than Garland
For civil libertarians, the newest Supreme Court justice is better than the nominee who never got a hearing.


and

What we know of Gorsuch on the issue of life comes from his personal views, as well as his rulings on issues tangential to abortion. Regarding his personal views on the dignity of human life, we know that he believes life is "intrinsically valuable and that intentional killing is always wrong," according to his 2006 book "The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia." While the book does not explicitly talk about abortion, one chapter addresses the inviolability of human life and what it means to respect human life as a basic good. That he was willing to write and publish a book on this topic, even at the risk of backlash, should tell us something about his convictions on the respect for human life

https://www.usnews.com/opinion/civil-wa ... -advocates


:goteam:

[Fife]

Well, we got Gorsuch's first opinion today.

Henson v. Santander Consumer USA : SCOTUSblog page; http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/ca ... r-usa-inc/ ; opininon; https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/1 ... 9_c07d.pdf

It's a nice, clean 9-0 opinion about statutory construction and the meaning of the term "debt collector" and some other words in the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act of 1977.

Gorsuch gives us a good grammar lesson ("Past participle" is a misnomer--I'm not eating any burnt toast), and makes not one but two references to the Repo Man (Ordinary fuckin' people, I hate em), but most importantly takes the opportunity of his first SCOTUS opinion to make it clear that he will not abide making up new meanings for statutes out of whole cloth.

And while it is of course our job to apply faithfully the law Congress has written, it is never our job to rewrite a constitutionally valid statutory text under the banner of speculation about what Congress might have done had it faced a question that, on everyone’s account, it never faced. See Magwood v. Patterson, 561 U. S. 320, 334 (2010) (“We cannot replace the actual text with speculation as to Congress’ intent”). Indeed, it is quite mistaken to assume, as petitioners would have us, that “whatever” might appear to “further[ ] the statute’s primary objective must be the law.” Rodriguez v. United States, 480 U. S. 522, 526 (1987) (per curiam) (emphasis deleted). Legislation is, after all, the art of compromise, the limitations expressed in statutory terms often the price of passage, and no statute yet known “pursues its [stated] purpose[ ] at all costs.” Id., at 525–526. For these reasons and more besides we will not presume with petitioners that any result consistent with their account of the statute’s overarching goal must be the law but will presume more modestly instead “that [the] legislature says . . . what it means and means . . . what it says.” Dodd v. United States, 545 U. S. 353, 357 (2005) (internal quotation marks omitted; brackets in original).

. . .

In the end, reasonable people can disagree with how Congress balanced the various social costs and benefits in this area. We have no difficulty imagining, for example, a statute that applies the Act’s demands to anyone collecting any debts, anyone collecting debts originated by another, or to some other class of persons still. Neither do we doubt that the evolution of the debt collection business might invite reasonable disagreements on whether Congress should reenter the field and alter the judgments it made in the past. After all, it’s hardly unknown for new business models to emerge in response to regulation, and for regulation in turn to address new business models. Constant competition between constable and quarry, regulator and regulated, can come as no surprise in our changing world. But neither should the proper role of the judiciary in that process—to apply, not amend, the work of the People’s representatives.

Not a bad start.

Gorsuch needs a nickname. For now I think I'll just go with "the Repo Man." Get my stuff back for me, Neil.

[Speaker to Animals]

Well, we got Gorsuch's first opinion today.

Henson v. Santander Consumer USA : SCOTUSblog page; http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/ca ... r-usa-inc/ ; opininon; https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/1 ... 9_c07d.pdf

It's a nice, clean 9-0 opinion about statutory construction and the meaning of the term "debt collector" and some other words in the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act of 1977.

Gorsuch gives us a good grammar lesson ("Past participle" is a misnomer--I'm not eating any burnt toast), and makes not one but two references to the Repo Man (Ordinary fuckin' people, I hate em), but most importantly takes the opportunity of his first SCOTUS opinion to make it clear that he will not abide making up new meanings for statutes out of whole cloth.

And while it is of course our job to apply faithfully the law Congress has written, it is never our job to rewrite a constitutionally valid statutory text under the banner of speculation about what Congress might have done had it faced a question that, on everyone’s account, it never faced. See Magwood v. Patterson, 561 U. S. 320, 334 (2010) (“We cannot replace the actual text with speculation as to Congress’ intent”). Indeed, it is quite mistaken to assume, as petitioners would have us, that “whatever” might appear to “further[ ] the statute’s primary objective must be the law.” Rodriguez v. United States, 480 U. S. 522, 526 (1987) (per curiam) (emphasis deleted). Legislation is, after all, the art of compromise, the limitations expressed in statutory terms often the price of passage, and no statute yet known “pursues its [stated] purpose[ ] at all costs.” Id., at 525–526. For these reasons and more besides we will not presume with petitioners that any result consistent with their account of the statute’s overarching goal must be the law but will presume more modestly instead “that [the] legislature says . . . what it means and means . . . what it says.” Dodd v. United States, 545 U. S. 353, 357 (2005) (internal quotation marks omitted; brackets in original).

. . .

In the end, reasonable people can disagree with how Congress balanced the various social costs and benefits in this area. We have no difficulty imagining, for example, a statute that applies the Act’s demands to anyone collecting any debts, anyone collecting debts originated by another, or to some other class of persons still. Neither do we doubt that the evolution of the debt collection business might invite reasonable disagreements on whether Congress should reenter the field and alter the judgments it made in the past. After all, it’s hardly unknown for new business models to emerge in response to regulation, and for regulation in turn to address new business models. Constant competition between constable and quarry, regulator and regulated, can come as no surprise in our changing world. But neither should the proper role of the judiciary in that process—to apply, not amend, the work of the People’s representatives.

Not a bad start.

Gorsuch needs a nickname. For now I think I'll just go with "the Repo Man." Get my stuff back for me, Neil.

"Suck it, Franken"

[C-Mag]

Bloggers on both the Right and Left are tweeting that Justice Kennedy is retiring soon, very soon, like in a week or less.

[Fife]

Volokh:

Gorsuch appointment looks like a win for gun-rights supporters

Then-Judge Neil Gorsuch hadn’t written anything squarely dealing with the Second Amendment when he was nominated to the Supreme Court; and while it seemed likely that he’d take a relatively broad view of gun rights (just based on his being a conservative, in an era when conservative jurists tend to lean in that direction), that was just a guess. We now have more evidence, from his vote joining Justice Clarence Thomas’s dissent from denial of certiorari in Peruta v. California — he, like Thomas (and, before his death, Justice Antonin Scalia), seems to be a strong gun-rights supporter, indeed likely more so than some of the other conservative justices. Like it (as I do) or not, but that’s the information we now have.

Also: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/vol ... 67f5a0a411

[Speaker to Animals]

Bloggers on both the Right and Left are tweeting that Justice Kennedy is retiring soon, very soon, like in a week or less.

They are really going to lose their shit when this happens. I mean.. it will be epic. Then when they lose the midterms, it will escalate. But when Trump wins his reelection.. lol. Mass suicides?