Open Thread

What’s on your mind?

Comments

[Kazinski]

Wo

[Kazinski]

That's supposed to read Woke up this morning to see the tariff decision dropped with 3-3-3 plurality.

Roberts decision was meant to be the majority, but had to settle for a plurality on the result because he wouldn't compromise on the Major Questions Doctrine. There is no way the three liberals would sign on to this part, no matter whether it was a major defeat for Trump or not:
"We have long expressed “reluctan[ce] to read into ambiguous statutory text” extraordinary delegations of Congress’s powers. West Virginia v. EPA, 597 U. S. 697, 723 (2022) (quoting Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA, 573 U. S. 302, 324 (2014)). In Biden v. Nebraska, 600 U. S. 477 (2023), for example, we declined to read authorization to “waive or modify” statutory or regulatory provisions appli￾cable to financial assistance programs as a delegation of
power to cancel $430 billion in student loan debt. Id., at 494 (quoting 20 U. S. C. §1098bb(a)(1)). In West Virginia v.
EPA, we declined to read authorization to determine the
“best system of emission reduction” as a delegation of power
to force a nationwide transition away from the use of coal.
597 U. S., at 732 (quoting 42 U. S. C. §7411(a)(1)). And in
National Federation of Independent Business v. OSHA, 595
U. S. 109 (2022) (per curiam), we declined to read authorization to ensure “safe and healthful working conditions” as
a delegation of power to impose a vaccine mandate on 84
million Americans. "

Despite a lot of speculation about why the decision took so long, including claims that the conservative wing was stalling to protect Trump, this 3-3-3 result explains why.

[Commenter_XY]

How is the weather where you are? Some Conspirators expecting a major snowstorm 10"-18" tomorrow afternoon into Monday.

[Kazinski]

Lower 90's but the humidity wasn't too bad.

I spent the day going to temples.

[Sebastian Cremmington]

McGahn and Leo rolled Trump like a drunk tourist in Times Square at 3 am!! I remember in 2017/18 VC commenters wanted McGahn to fuck them and splooge in their face!! I love it!!!

[Frank Drackman]

I liked "Sam Bankman-Fried" better, once you get a good fake name, don't change it.

[not guilty]

Finley Peter Dunne's fictional bartender Martin J. Dooley famously observed in 1901, “No matter whether the Constitution follows the flag or not, th' Soopreme Court follows the illiction returns.”

I surmise that Chief Justice Whoreberts -- whose tenure as a public figure will likely survive that of Donald Trump by many years -- has realized at long last that Trump is no longer a reliable vehicle for keeping Republicans in power. He is accordingly less willing than before to serve as Trump's handmaid.

The principal opinion's discussion of the Major Questions Doctrine is not the opinion of the Court and accordingly should not be accorded precedential value. In Marks v. United States, 430 U.S. 188 (1977), SCOTUS held that:

When a fragmented Court decides a case and no single rationale explaining the result enjoys the assent of five Justices, "the holding of the Court may be viewed as that position taken by those Members who concurred in the judgments on the narrowest grounds."

Id., at 193, quoting Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 169 n.15 (1976) (opinion of STEWART, POWELL, and STEVENS, JJ.). Here Justice Kagan filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, in which Justices Sotomayor and Jackson joined. Justice Kagan opined:

The Court holds today that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) does not authorize the President to impose tariffs. I agree with that conclusion, as I do with the bulk of the principal opinion’s reasoning. But because I think the ordinary tools of statutory interpretation amply support today’s result, I do not join the part of that opinion invoking the so-called major-questions doctrine.

It would appear that the Kagan opinion is essential to the judgment and represents "concurre[nce] in the judgments on the narrowest grounds" withing the meaning of Marks, supra.

As a practical matter going forward, it may not matter. Chief Justice Whoreberts and Justices Toady, Alito, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh are committed in principle to the major questions doctrine, so that may carry the day in any particular case, depending on whether those five black robed wardheelers believe that application of the doctrine will benefit future Republican candidates for office or not.

[Sebastian Cremmington]

Late-stage democracy. We would have been better off with Chief Justice Lance Ito.

[Kazinski]

Nice Try NG, but the case that made the MQD binding precedent was WV v EPA, that was a 6 justice majority.

So whether or not the MQD was essential to reach the Majority result here doesn't much matter, perhaps Kagen is right, and they could do without it, it is still Constitutional doctrine and binding on lower courts.

[Commenter_XY]

Was Justice Gorsuch wrong in his opinion that it is 'No recipe for a Republic' (meaning, do not concentrate more power in the Executive branch at the expense of the Legislative branch)? His point makes a lot of sense to me. Do you object?

[Mr. Bumble]

Ambiguity, is there anything it can't do?

[Dr. Ed 2]

The scary thing about the 3-2-1-3 decision is that the majority of the majority decided it on a legal principle of “Orange Man Bad.”

What that means of future court could decide a future case or nothing more than the hatred of a future president. Franklin Roosevelt wasn’t dealing with this, that court opposed him on principles that had pre-dated him, that court had been holding up principles of economic substantive due process essentially since the slaughterhouse cases.

Keegan doesn’t believe in major questions, and the other two bimbos are without gravitas at all. So say hypothetically, it is President Butt Plug in 2029, the Catholic majority can decide decisions on the basis of Leviticus 18:22.

Why are none of those who defend the inherent majesty of SCOTUS condemning this decision on the basis? It isn’t like you honestly believe that Keegan honestly believes in major questions, do you?

And the thing I like to point out to people like Ilya is that woman’s one has crossed the Rubicon of making decisions based on nothing more, then personal animosity towards one of the parties involved, it becomes inexorably easier to do that sort of thing in the future.

BTW — Butt Plug is currently leading the polls in New Hampshire except there’s no way that black grandmothers are gonna vote for a gay man raising a child with his husband, and you can’t get the DNC nomination without the support of the black grandmothers. So I think that Brillcream will be the nominee — see where you go when you stop using people’s names?

[not guilty]

Dr. Ed 2, if hypotheically a state were to criminalize human consumption of winged insects, would SCOTUS be obliged to apply the dictates of Leviticus 11:20-24 (RSV):

20 "All winged insects that go upon all fours are an abomination to you.
21 Yet among the winged insects that go on all fours you may eat those which have legs above their feet, with which to leap on the earth.
22 Of them you may eat: the locust according to its kind, the bald locust according to its kind, the cricket according to its kind, and the grasshopper according to its kind.
23 But all other winged insects which have four feet are an abomination to you.
24 "And by these you shall become unclean; whoever touches their carcass shall be unclean until the evening,
25 and whoever carries any part of their carcass shall wash his clothes and be unclean until the evening.

[Dr. Ed 2]

As to the tariff refunds, why doesn’t something like the holder in two course rule apply?

Consider a refund to be a negative tariff.

If a tariff would do, it would be due from the goods themselves with a person currently possessing them, owing it, right? Well, if the tariff due is actually a refund, then it would be due to the person,currently possessing the goods, right?

Well wouldn’t Trump‘s proposed $2000 tariff rebate cover that?

[Dr. Ed 2]

One other thing, if Trump could ban importation of goods, would that also include the ability to attack them?

[Frank Drackman]

No Tariffs??? Time to stock up on Nigerian Slaves.

[Commenter_XY]

In other news...it is reported that POTUS Trump is on a 10-15 day countdown to a military confrontation with Iran (whose leadership routinely calls for death to America, and Iran has killed Americans by IEDs and terror proxies, and plotted to assassinate a POTUS). Ostensibly, this military confrontation is to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon capability (Iran can't have a nuke), and restrictions on ballistic missile capability (no missiles for mullahs).

Will there be a military confrontation in the next two weeks, or is this just a TACO?

[not guilty]

XY, I have asked you before, what facts support your prior assertion that Iran was recently shown to have involvement in an assassination attempt on POTUS Trump? You provided bupkis.

Do you now have any more recent information? If so, from what source(s)?

[Mr. Bumble]

"...plotted to assassinate a POTUS)"
"a POTUS"
I think that was GW.

[Estragon]

“Iran has been defeated and lies prostrate like a goat to slaughter before Israel”

-C_XY 6/17/25

“Iran is out of the enrichment business.”

- C_XY 6/25/25

[Mr. Bumble]

Two weeks until daylight savings time begins.