During a major hearing this week, the conservative justices made clear they’re about to gut the federal government’s power to regulate—and take that power for themselves.

During a major hearing this week, the conservative justices made clear they’re about to gut the federal government’s power to regulate—and take that power for themselves.

The Supreme Court heard two consolidated cases yesterday that could reshape the legal landscape and, with them, the country. The cases take on Chevron deference—the idea that courts should defer to executive agencies when applying regulations passed by Congress. They’re the most important cases about democracy on the court’s docket this year, and I say that knowing full well that the court is also set to decide whether a raving, orange criminal can run again for president, and whether former presidents are immune from prosecution for their crimes in the first place.

That’s because what conservatives on the court are quietly trying to do is pull off the biggest judicial power grab since 1803, when it elevated itself to be the final arbiter of the Constitution in Marbury v. Madison. They’re trying to place their unelected, unaccountable policy preferences ahead of the laws made by the elected members of Congress or rules instituted by the president. If conservatives get their way, elections won’t really matter, because courts will be able to limit the scope of congressional regulation and the ability of presidents to enforce those regulations effectively. And the dumbest justice of all, alleged attempted rapist Brett Kavanaugh, basically said so during oral arguments.

I’m contractually obligated to tell you that the cases were technically about fees that fisheries are required to pay to federal observers. But all the justices talked about was Chevron deference. Only Justice Sonia Sotomayor even bothered to mention the fish, three hours and 20 minutes into a three-and-a-half-hour hearing.

  • @OpenStarsEnglish
    85•5 months ago

    duh

    It is what they said they would do, now they are doing it, later they will brag about having done it, rinse & repeat with the next item on their agenda.

    Liberals gonna liberate, while conservatives gonna conserve radically overthrow everything that has come before. It is no accident, it was the point all along.

    Maybe RBG could have helped by stepping down, at her advanced age, rather than rolled the dice. Now surely Biden, in his own advanced age, will learn from that? Or, you know, we can roll the dice again I guess…

    • deweydecibelEnglish
      28•5 months ago

      How does Biden’s age enter into this at all? That’s what the vice president is for. It doesn’t in any way equate to what happened with RGB.

      Moreover, this is specifically about conservative justices, put in place through stolen judicial nominations, fucking the court system up.

      And you decided to take that chance to whine about liberals?

      • @OpenStarsEnglish
        -29•5 months ago

        Since I get the smallest sense that you might be not be purely sea-lioning / trolling, okay then:

        Your lack of insight into these issues does not translate into your opinion of them being the sole reality that is ever even remotely possible. Isn’t it at least possible that there there is the tiniest, smallest sliver of connection between those events? Pretend that you were giving me the benefit of the doubt: what could I have meant there?

        Also, por que no los dos? But I’m sure that everything will be fine, somehow… with no effort required on behalf of anyone at all… (/s to be clear)

        In actual fact though, RGB did have some power, as too did Hillary Clinton when she ran against Trump, causing more people to vote against her than for him and thus handing the entire Presidency for a full term to a man who literally only wanted to run as a publicity stunt for his latest new TV series… Hey, remember when he almost caused a coup thus ending democracy? Hey, remember when he literally assassinated a general of a foreign government? Hey, remember when he almost started WWIII? Which time you ask, well in that particular instance I meant with China, but good on you to realize that there were multiple such events!:-D

        And now, b/c Kamala Harris has been hidden from public eyes (with good reason actually, on multiple aspects - one being her dedication to solve congressional gridlock caused by Republicans, the other, reportedly, being her absolute ineptness in solving any problem handed to her, instead preferring to cry “unfair” that the task was given to her at all - even though she literally ran for the job of the actual, full-time job of the President of the entire United States of America), libs are asked to vote for Biden - the same as happened with Hillary (hey, funny story: remember when THAT happened? but Donald Trump managed to win instead?! yeah… good times, good times… except, you know, not that:-P), with the major secondary thought that Harris will need to step in, as you mentioned. i.e., a vote for him = some proportion at least of a vote for her. But what is she all about? How can she handle pressure from… say… Putin?

        Probably you are saying that if you compare her to Trump then there is no comparison. I am with you there actually. But you aren’t exactly communicating your side very well, leaving me to have to guess here what you might have meant! :-D You are angry - good! It’s a very fucked up situation!:-( Now figure out the right way to move forward, before you take even a single step, b/c otherwise it might be in the wrong direction. That’s what I meant. No, I do not know what that should be, hence why I reported only the parts that I see so far.:-| Truth is more complicated than fiction, very often.

        • Goku
          19•5 months ago

          Your condescending tone makes this wall of text unbearable.

      • @OpenStarsEnglish
        4•5 months ago

        I promise you: we will be absolutely shocked every. single. time. Shocked, shocked I say - SHOCKED!

        Just like with school shootings - who knew that entirely ignoring the issue wouldn’t completely solve it, or like do anything at all except allow it to fester? Shocked. I. Say. :-(

    • Bipta
      -2•5 months ago

      Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, RBG - the three horsemen of the apocalypse.

      Each one playing a crucial role in destroying our democracy because they selfishly thought they were the chosen ones.

      • @SolarMech@slrpnk.net
        15•5 months ago

        You’d think the republicans, their voters, their donors, and the whole media apparatus behind it, would get some of the blame too. I know, they’ll see it as glory rather than blame. The dems didn’t do it, they were just lame.

      • @OpenStarsEnglish
        -4•5 months ago

        Obvious “but not equally” comments aside, there does seem to be a lot of that going on lately. I can only hope that they each thought that they were doing the best that they could at the time… except that thought is somehow the most terrifying of all!? :-(

        I wish I could rather live in a la-la land of make-believe conspiracy theories, like maybe there really is nobody in the entire USA who could possibly hold a candle to how smart, handsome, and all-around awesome Joe Biden is (…in his own mind?); or it would be a relief actually to hear that his illuminati overloads commanded that he tank the election so as to allow a Republican to win (you know, rather than it being an oopsie that will bring all of America crumbling down along with it); or maybe aliens are actually real and it’s so important for like uh… the planetary war that’s currently going on that he alone be President, no other Democrats can possibly work for ah… “reasons”.

        But most likely he’s just old, thinks he really is the bee’s knees or cat’s pajamas or whatever old-timey phrases they used back in his day, and he’ll go right on thinking that… until he dies of a stroke or whatever. I am even willing to concede that the likelihood of that might be low - science is freaking awesome, and medical advancements are astonishingly ah… advanced these days - but what I want to know is, why are we willing to gamble on that? And I mean, SO HARD that we aren’t even willing to hold primaries, in order to at least see what the other options might have been? Especially, as you pointed out, after we have tried that TWICE BEFORE in recent history and lost so hard that a 5 decade old foundational underpinning of human rights was lost in the process? Are we now trying to do double-or-nothing? (except if so, what could we possibly gain from that?)

        Also, even if we take it as a given that he wins - which is at least somewhat likely b/c DT is even older so if Biden loses, it probably won’t be his age that was the swing factor - what about after that, like why aren’t we raising up a new generation of Democratic hopefuls for the future, i.e. by letting them run in campaigns now? Then again, the last time we tried that things did not work out so well - the choices were the death of democracy, vs. a whole slew of jokers that had no chance even against that somehow? :-( IS BERNIE SANDERS THAT SCARY TO THEM!?!?! Oh wait, I think I answered my own question there, nvm:-(.

        Second only to conservatives, the worst aspect of politics is liberals. :-| Our “ruling class” is so disconnected from reality at this point:-(.