Comment by mastax
4 days ago
It seems likely to me the ruling took this long because John Roberts wanted to get a more unanimous ruling.
Additionally, the law in this case isn’t ill defined whatsoever. Alito, Thomas, and to a lesser extent Kavanaugh are just partisan hacks. For many years I wanted to believe they had a consistent and defensible legal viewpoint, even if I thought it was misguided. However the past six years have destroyed that notion. They’re barely even trying to justify themselves in most of these rulings; and via the shadow docket frequently deny us even that barest explanation.
> For many years I wanted to believe they had a consistent and defensible legal viewpoint, even if I thought it was misguided.
Watching from across the Atlantic, I was always fascinated by Scalia's opinions (especially his dissents). I usually vehemently disagreed with him on principle (and I do believe his opinions were principled), but I often found myself conceding to his points, from a "what is and what should be are different things" angle.
Scalia wrote some really interesting opinions for sure. Feel like the arguments are only going to get worse :(
Because in practice the US Supreme Court is a partisan body, the United States is deprived of the potential for excellent jurists you'd expect with a population of hundreds of millions and some of the world's best law schools. Only a subset of your best will exhibit the desired partisan skew.
Despite the larger population and improved access, my guess is that the quality of Supreme Court Justices today is probably worse than in 1927 when it decided Buck v Bell (which says it's fine for states to have a policy where they sterilize "unfit" citizens, straight up Eugenics)
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Amy Coney Barrett has somewhat taken up the mantel, but her legal reasoning is probably superior.
Thomas wants to pretend he's the OG originalist, but I don't think he is anywhere near Barrett's peer.
Kavanaugh clearly isn’t in the same bucket. His votes go either way. I don’t recall seeing a single decision this administration where either Alito or Thomas wrote against a White House position. Not just in case opinions but even in an order. I don’t think we’ve seen a justice act as a stalking horse for the president in this way since Fortas.
Kavanaugh votes either way, but I don't think this is out of principle... I just think he's just kind of an idiot and thinks he can write a justification for just about any of his biases without making those biases obvious. It's kind of apparent if you read his opinions; they tend to be very verbose (his dissent here is 63 pages!) without saying a whole lot, and he gets sloppy with citations, selectively citing precedent in some cases while others he simply hand-waves. Take his opinion in Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo (the "Kavanaugh stop" case): there's a reason why no one joined his concurrence.
Kavanaugh strikes me as principled, but in kind of a Type-A, "well, actually" sort of way where he will get pulled into rabbit holes and want to die on random textual hills.
He is all over the map, but not in a way that seems consistent or predictable.
His dissent in this case was basically "Don't over turn the tariffs because it will be too hard to make everyone whole" Which doesn't strike me as "principled" at all.
Wasn't it JFK who said "We choose to Not do these things bc they're kinda hard actually"? /s
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His reputation will be forever tarnished by "Kavanaugh stops"
That the the four sexual assault allegations (Thomas had "only" one during his nomination):
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brett_Kavanaugh#Sexual_assault...
You need to be cautious with the notion of “his votes go either way”. In Hungary, where I’m from, and a Trump kinda guy rules for 16 years, judges vote either way… but they vote against the government only when it doesn’t really matter for the ruling party. Either the government wants a scapegoat anyway why they cannot do something, or just simply nobody cares or even see the consequences. Like the propaganda newspapers are struck down routinely… but they don’t care because nobody, who they really care about, see the consequences of those. So judges can say happily that they are independent, yet they are not at all.
This fake independence works so well, that most Hungarians lie themselves that judiciary is free.
Well under that theory, this would have been a good time for Kavanaugh to go against Trump, since his vote didn't matter.
Weren’t Sotomator and Jackson the same with Biden? Kagan is much more principled.
In major case, sure. But every last emergency petition? I don’t think so.
> Weren’t Sotomator and Jackson the same with Biden? Kagan is much more principled
Very respectfully, there is no comparison between Trump and Biden in this respect. Indeed, the court adopted a new legal concept, the Major Questions Doctrine, to limit Biden continuing the Trump student loan forbearance.
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Alito is one of the original proponents of the unitary executive theory (way before he was a Supreme Court justice). Everything he does should be looked at as an attempt to impose said theory and destroy America.
its truly bizarre that anyone with this view could get approved by congress. its so antithetical to the entire american political system. just blows my mind how spineless congress as an institution has been for decades.
Repealing the 17th amendment will once again incentivize the Senate to choose Supreme Court justices who seek to strengthen federalism & decentralize power
I don't think that is compatible with his ruling in Biden v. Nebraska, nor some others during Biden's term.
The dissent seems to be "Ignoring whether or not the President acted lawfully, it would sure create an awful big mess if we undid it. And he's gonna try again anyways, and maybe even succeed in that future attempt, creating an even bigger mess. So for these reasons, it shouldn't be undone."
Curious if others have different readings.
When all of your decisions can be predetermined without even knowing the context of the matter you are surely a hack. It goes like this.....'Does this matter benefit Trump, corporations, rich people or evangelicals?'. Yes? Alito and Thomas will argue its lawful. Every single time.
Thomas isn’t a hack, he’s a shill. And he’s not even trying to be subtle about it. He’s somebody’s bitch and he literally drives around in the toys they bought for him as compensation.
If any justice deserves to be impeached it’s him. I can’t believe they approved him in the first place. Anita Hill sends her regards.
I remember being shocked, albeit not surprised, when I read that he had quite a lot of contact with Ron de Santis.
https://americanoversight.org/email-suggests-that-supreme-co...
But the toys are so cheap. It can’t possibly be just a matter of the money, there has to be some blackmail involved. Either that or he was always self hating.
Why would there need to be bribery or blackmail involved? He's ideologically aligned with the goals of the republican party.
His patrons lavish him with gifts because they don't want him to retire, not because they want a specific ruling.
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Then why accept them and face the embarrassment of being found out not reporting them properly?
You are correct compared to the $320k/year salary these empty nesters pull these things seem not that expensive. So why not just save up and buy them himself?
Yes, RED FLAG. Because apparently he likes nice things and spending money so much he can't seem to afford them himself or forgo the gifts and spare himself the scandal.
He was gifted a motor coach worth $80,000, and that’s just one of the bigger things he can’t launder.
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What liberal justices do has no bearing on OP's argument at all. You must be able to recognize the fallacy?
Why are conservatives always so angry?
Why do angry people tend to lean conservative?
Constant fear.
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It’s not an absurd scenario. The law was written specifically to allow blocking imports from a country.
The nuance is that nothing Congress passed granted to right to tax. Additionally, they did grant the power to partially block imports. Nothing says you have to enact “no imports from Japan” vs. “no imports of networking equipment from Lichtenstein.”
>The law was written specifically to allow blocking imports from a country.
The precise wording is regulate. The idea that "regulate" means you can turn it on or off with no in-between is beyond parody. Absurd. Hilarious. Farcical.
That said the headline is misleading and should be renamed, nothing is changing from this ruling.
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> As usual, interesting discussion about the nuances of this ruling are happening on X.
@grok is this true
If you listen to the oral arguments, this issue was discussed at length.
There are two reasons for this distinction:
1. That's what congress decided. They get to determine tariffs, not the president. If the president doesn't like the law congress passed, he doesn't get to just ignore it.
2. Congress is very jealous of the right to tax and spend. They do not want to hand over this power to the president. Tariffs are taxes. If the president can just impose whatever tariffs he wants, he can raise revenue without asking congress for permission. That would grant the president enormous power to go around congress. Banning imports from a country does not bring in revenue for the president, so it doesn't pose the same risk to congress' power.
Trump has been trying to create a situation in which he can both raise revenue (through tariffs) and spend it however he wants (e.g., through DOGE's arbitrary changes to government spending) without ever asking congress. If he succeeds, the balance of power will be completely destroyed. The president will rule alone.
> discussion about the nuances of this ruling are happening on X
I'm sure they are lol.