Like with many thing, those laws were written assuming a minimum amount of public shame and decency which would force overtly corrupt and bad actors out.
As we see, if a person lacks any sense of shame then the social mechanisms envisioned to restrain such behavior no longer function.
Nixon would never resign today.
Some drive-by snark
Delicious.
quid pro . . .
Kagan Kibosh on Gefilta Grift
Supreme court is unanimous in not touching the Section 230 provision
Fucking pack the goddamn court already, Biden
This is some high-quality lede-burying:
The Sacketts are no strangers to the highest court in the land. In 2012, the supreme court agreed with the couple’s argument that they could challenge the tens of thousands of dollars in fines levied by the EPA. Three years later, in an unrelated case, Michael Sackett was sentenced to a year in prison following a sting operation in which he agreed to pay for sex with a 12-year-old girl.
I would argue that if he had paid money for those fines, perhaps he wouldn’t have had money to pay a 12-year-old for sex. So the case is semi-related.
Maybe this is getting into the realm of victim blaming, but WTF is with this dude still being married after being convicted of trying to screw a 12 year old child?
I mean, I feel like if there are legitimate grounds for divorce, that’s gotta be one of them.
It probably has something to do with the dark money legal group that has been carrying their case for 20 years. I’d guess there’s money in keeping up the appearance of a loving couple that just wants to build in their backyard.
The hypocrisy in service of Harlan Crow, et al, is stunning:
https://twitter.com/mjs_DC/status/1661736395407515650
With this decision, the Supreme Court has essentially rewritten the Clean Water Act to exclude wetlands that are “adjacent to” but not directly connected to larger bodies of water—as Kavanaugh points out, this directly contradicts the text of the statute
Damn it, don’t be making me agree with Kavanaugh!
Kavanaugh is a textualist kind of guy.
The weird part to me is so was Gorsuch, but he was like “nah the text doesn’t mean what it says.”
This is the guy who said someone could be fired for not dying because of textualist nonsense, but now he’s just changing words?
These guys are basically all outcomes driven. The constitution says and means the result I want. So, Kavanaugh apparently cares a bit about environmental protection but not so much about abortion rights, whereas Goresuch hates federal authority and most regulation but also hates women with sexual freedom. The actual text is irrelevant. It can always be cast to mean what they need it to mean.
In other words, polluters, go for it already, we got you!
When one includes possibly corrupt billionaires buying things for some corrupt Justices, it makes far more sense as to what the outcomes will be.
Here’s the top post on this decision from a r/news thread (Reuters source.)
The justices in a 9-0 decision overturned a lower court’s ruling against the couple, Chantell and Mike Sackett, that had upheld the EPA’s determination that their property near a lake contained wetlands protected by the Clean Water Act of 1972. Though the justices unanimously agreed to reverse the lower court’s decision, they differed in their reasoning for doing so.
Wow, it was a unanimous decision
And a Fox News headline
Schumer rips ‘MAGA’ Supreme Court after 9-0 vote on EPA waters rule
(In other words, we don’t need right wing propaganda to still arrive at bad conclusions.)
Kagan’s concurring opinion is quite a bit different than the majority opinion. It doesn’t redefine the meaning of the word ‘adjacent’ in the statute in the way that majority does. Even Kavanaugh’s concurrence disagrees with the majority opinion on that matter. They’re both basically dissents from the majority opinion, and come to their concurring conclusions for different reasons.
The majority decided that the Sackett land wasn’t covered by the statute and also redefined the meaning of the word ‘adjacent’, substituting the meaning of ‘adjoining’ instead. Kavanaugh agrees with the first part of that judgement but not with the second. And Kagan, Sotomayor and Jackson agree with Kavanaugh.
The difference is in the breadth and scope of the ruling. The justices in the majority wanted a very broad ruling that had the effect of gutting the law and dramatically reducing the regulatory reach of the EPA. The rest thought that was overreach.
