Today in Supreme Court History: July 26, 1892

7/26/1892: Justice George Shiras Jr. takes oath.

Justice George Shiras

Comments

[Dan Schiavetta]

DeBoer by Darrow v. DeBoer, 509 U.S. 1301 (decided July 26, 1993): Stevens denies (on grounds of lack of a federal issue) couple’s petition to stay Michigan Supreme Court’s order to hand over to biological parents the baby girl they had taken care of for two years; Michigan held that papers signed by biological mother giving child up for adoption were defective and did not have required 72-hour waiting period. (Years ago when I ran a crisis center I allowed it to serve as the site for handing over children in such situations, or for later visitations with a biological parent who had lost custody; there is no more heartbreaking scene.)

Trump v. Sierra Club, 140 S.Ct. 1 (decided July 26, 2019): staying the District Court’s injunction against building the border wall (on both environmental and humanitarian grounds) pending Ninth Circuit determination and then possible certiorari on the grounds that plaintiffs probably have no standing to bring suit in the first place; Ginsburg, Sotomayor and Kagan dissent; Breyer notes the harm if the wall is built (environmental damage) versus the Gov’t’s claim of harm if not built (construction contracts not finalized and loss of funds) and argues that a middle way would be to stay construction but let the contracts get finalized. (A year later the Court maintained the stay even though contracts had been finalized, so the wall got partly built, but when Biden came in he stopped the project and the parties agreed to discontinue.)

[Dan Schiavetta]

today’s movie review: The Harrad Experiment, 1974

I finally saw this movie some years later, on cable, and having read the 1966 book, I was disappointed.

One critic said it was it was unusual in that this is a movie that should have been longer. This reminds me of the joke about not only is the food bad, the portions are too small. James Whitmore is one of the college co-founders and Don Johnson (later a big TV star) is one of the students. Early on the Whitmore character embarrasses an insecure student (played by Bruno Kirby) in class in what we are supposed to believe is an acceptable therapeutic “trick”, but it turned me off to the rest of the movie. Despite the movie’s publicity, it pulls punches — no real nudity or sex. Typical Hollywood — cheapening something, then not delivering on the cheap thrills promised.

Because the book is quite serious minded. College freshmen are roomed male-female and must participate in phys ed nude. They receive courses in the history of sexual attitudes and sexual practices, for example delaying male orgasm so that the female can have a more fulfilling experience. They keep diaries. They write papers as to ways in which society’s attitudes can be improved (ironically, one student says that if his proposals are adopted, “pornography will soon be laughed out of the state”). One quickly sees the contrast when they go to parties at a nearby college and see how what (bad) sex occurs is achieved by alcohol, subterfuge, mind games. That was also my experience, in large part.

As Robert Rimmer, the author of the book, ends his prologue, “future generations might see this book as quaint but perhaps seminal”. Part of growing up about sex is getting past idiots who guffaw at double meanings in words like “Rimmer” and “seminal”. How we as a society handle sex is serious business, which if mishandled creates misery, violence, unhappy families, and dysfunction which passes on to later generations.

The 70s are often laughed at today, the things we did then. This is a media-created stereotype, and most of us eventually adopt the stereotype of an era, even if we lived through it, forgetting our first-person memories of how it actually went down. The truth is we don’t have that kind of courage any more. It was an era of experimentation and I think I (at least) was better for it. One must remember the restrictive society that was being replaced. One will occasionally fall of the bicycle once the training wheels are removed. There was a lot of bed-hopping, even by underachieving Romeos like me.

It’s better (given the choice) to have as much sex as you can, with as many people as you can, before you settle down for a lifelong commitment. Of course you have to prevent against pregnancy or disease, but that is easy to do if you do not approach sex out of ignorance or desperation. You can tell a lot about someone by going to bed with them. And learn something about yourself too. Perhaps I feel this way because I was raised conservative Catholic, where (comically and also tragically) sexual ethics are dictated by arrested-development celibate men. But this is something I still believe.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I didn't see that movie or read the book, but I read Gay Talese's *Thy Neighbor's Wife.* Stuff which even people in the 70s thought was out there, but was perhaps the logical culmination of the "philosophy" of the time. And it probably laid a foundation for a lot of the stuff we see today.

[Dan Schiavetta]

IIRC Talese's book was about "swinging" culture, which was 1000 miles away from the culture we young single folks were in. Also probably far distant from today's "open" relationships. Much has changed since then as to the roles of husband and wife, for one thing.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

As I suggested, open swinging was mocked and criticized at the time by most people, suggesting that the revolution had moved too far, too fast for the plebs to handle all the implications. At least at the time.

And there are new efforts today to make open "polyamory" respectable. Rather than a sequence of "exclusive" relationships, why not have them all at once?

Talese also had sections on porn, massages, and I think a few other points which were more “mainstream,” or even tame by today’s standards.

[Frank Drackman]

Saw for the first time in the late 70's when we got HBO, (and was disappointed) also had a hot (for a Teacher) Mrs. Harrad for Algebra in 11th grade who wondered what the guys were always laughing at (The jokes in your hand)
Frank

[Dilan Esper]

It’s better (given the choice) to have as much sex as you can, with as many people as you can, before you settle down for a lifelong commitment.

Yep. For one thing, sex is a learned skill. People who have had a lot of it with a lot of different partners are better at it.

[Frank Drackman]

So Wilt "The Stilt" Chamberlain was probably better at it than John Paul II, that's too easy, than Lindsay Buckingham-Nicks Graham.

[F.D. Wolf]

Justice George Shiras, Jr., would probably be consigned to obscurity in the annals if legal history if not for his (alleged) vote switch in Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co., 157 U.S. 429, on rehearing, 158 U.S. 601 (1895), which held the income tax was unconstitutional.

Upon initial hearing, the Court, in an opinion by Chief Justice Melville Fuller, struck down some portions of the Revenue Act of 1894, but stated that on broader questions of the overall validity of an income tax, that the Court was “equally divided” so that no opinion was expressed. The equal division was necessarily 4-4 as the gravely ill Justice Howell Edmunds Jackson did not participate. A rehearing was ordered. This time a 5-4 Court declared the income tax unconstitutional. Justice Jackson (who would be dead in four months) had essentially crawled out of his deathbed to vote to uphold the Act. So, simple mathematics suggests someone changed his vote. But who?

The media blamed Shiras. In the biography of Shiras begun by his son and completed by his nephew, the authors devoted several pages to the issue. that Shiras had not changed his vote. George Shiras III & Winfield Shiras, Justice George Shiras, Jr., of Pittsburgh (1953). They point to sources suggesting the real vote switcher was either Justice Horace Gray or David Brewer. Willard L. King, in his Melville Weston Fuller: Chief Justice of the United States, 1888-1910 (1930), suggests the possibility that, in fact, no justice switched his vote, and that the disagreement at the first hearing was not over whether the income tax was unconstitutional, but exactly why it was unconstitutional. Regardless, the ultimate truth of the matter will likely never be known.

The Pollock decision was highly unpopular, which made Shiras highly unpopular. The general population, knowing that Congress would only ever levy an income tax on the uber-wealthy and never dare to do so on middle- and lower-incomes, saw the decision as just another protection for the wealthy. The decision would, of course, be superseded by the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment in in 1913.

[Syd Henderson]

Really he's consigned to obscurity anyway, since the seventeenth amendment is over a century old.

[F.D. Wolf]

Pollock is still an important case, standing for the proposition that Congress’ tax powers are not unlimited, particularly when proposals for a “wealth tax” or "national sales tax" are becoming increasingly common from certain quarters on both the Left and the Right.

[Frank Drackman]

Marxist Stream Media in full meltdown as looks like the Hunter Biden Plea Deal is His-Straw

[Sarcastr0]

I found the initial exchange, upshot, and crawling back to the deal to be some interesting trial process drama, but it's done now.

Who in the media is really invested in Hunter Biden getting his plea deal?

Oh, it's Frank. Probably won't get a sincere response. I have him off mute because of Star Trek and have no regrets so far!

[Bob from Ohio]

"Who in the media is really invested in Hunter Biden getting his plea deal?"

CBS, NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, ABC, NPR, CNN, WaPo, NYT.

[Sarcastr0]

None of them seem to be in 'full meltdown' over this plea deal story.

[Mr. Bumble]

Need time to get their stories straight about rouge MAGA Trump appointed judge.

[Magister]

Is the rouge's color orange? Or red like the hats?

[Mr. Bumble]

Dyslexia sucks.

[Magister]

I expect there's no space between "full meltdown" and "covering it up" to the rightwingers. Unsurprising to everyone else, news sources report on things that bring in readers/listeners/viewers.

[Frank Drackman]

Hey Sarc, do you have a spare Mnemonic Memory Circuit I can borrow?? Not having any luck making one with stone knives and bear skins.

Frank

[Sarcastr0]

Hah - good luck on that endeavor!

[Brett Bellmore]

You're probably using a chert knife. Gotta use something like galena. Pretty much any subspecies of bear works, though.

[Brett Bellmore]

“I found the initial exchange, upshot, and crawling back to the deal to be some interesting trial process drama, but it’s done now.”

By “crawling back to the deal”, you mean “pleading not guilty because the judge rejected the plea agreement”? I’m not sure how that qualifies as “crawling back to the deal”.

It’s not entirely clear to me what’s “done now”, either, as Hunter is, legally anyway, still facing a lot of potential charges, even if as a practical matter the fix is in.

[Mr. Bumble]

Open thread ought to be fun.
Wonder how long before Hunter violate conditions of his release?
https://www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-26-at-5.39.04-PM.png

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Is the income tax unconstitutional? You bet, Shiras!

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Popular music was different, and better, in the ’60s and ’70s. In many ways, things are better today, but emphatically not in the context of music.