Scalia found dead?

It’s a “damning indictment” of the right-wing that they’re known to be more pro-business (or con-regulation, in this case) than the left-wing? That’s called a political difference.

Seriously, are you somehow shocked and surprised that losing one of the known conservative justices would affect the calculus going into a SCOTUS appeal? “Scalia revealed to be a conservative after death!” isn’t a very exciting headline.

I’m still not sure what your point is with respect to “damning indictment”.

I don’t want to answer for John, but IMO the problem here is the case wasn’t going to be decided on the merits, or the law, or precedent, it was already decided before it was even brought before the court because Dow knew the Court would find in favor of the corporation.

I don’t see how you assume that. Often, settlement is about the amount, not the binary concept of who’s wrong or right.

You face $100 in potential liability. You get a settlement offer of $50 dollars. You think your odds are 75% in your favor, so you don’t take the deal. Circumstances change so that your odds are now 45%. The offer becomes reasonable.

Settlement made in view of changing circumstances is not per se proof of much.

I don’t see any basis for your opinion on what the case was going to be decided on.

Regardless of what I think of Dow and the Court, I would consider a completely predictable Court to be preferable to an unpredictable one.

Yeah, it’s not necessarily the case wouldn’t be decided on its merits, but rather that the different justices have differing views of how the law is interpreted.

Even if Scalia might have interpreted the case in a particular way, that does not imply that he wouldn’t be doing so based on the merits of the case.

We’re talking about a court that would rule in favor of capital 85%+ of the time. I find it very hard to believe that many frivolous suits against corporations make it to the Supreme Court that the individual merits of each case just happen to work out to almost 9/10 the corp did no wrong, particularly in the American climate of corrupt/crony capitalism. A right-winger on the court dies, and it’s suddenly time to agree to pay up to the tune of over $800m. That’s pretty damn damning no matter how you slice it.

Yes, this is how i see it too.

People are just tired of accepting that almost all of our politicians are corrupt/bribed by big money so that they can do whatever they want. Now there is hope for change, even if i doubt anything will happen in the end.

To be clear though, you don’t believe that members of the Supreme Court are corrupt, or accepting bribes, right?

Again, your logic makes zero sense. The only conclusion that you can draw is that the composition of the court matters to the outcome. Is that shocking to you? That’s why people say, in the first place, that nominating justices is one of the most lasting things that a president can do.

As to the percentages, I’m frankly not exactly sure what your statistic means. If the case is between two corporations, does that count in your percentage? If a corporation isn’t involved in the case at all, how is that counted? For the most part, if a corporation is appellant (and the apellee isn’t) than it’s likely that the apellee is the federal government and they’re fighting about government regulation of some sort. The fact that a conservative justice tends to be anti-regulation shouldn’t shock you. Moreover, no one has tried to argue that the court, recently has skewed conservative. That’s clear from the background of the sitting justices. Also, is 50%/50% somehow your expectation of “fair”? If so, why? What exactly makes you think the outcome should be exactly 50%? There are so many factors that go into what appellants seek cert. on and when cert. is granted that you can’t sit there and throw out 85% as if it were, per se, a sign of corruption or some other wrong.

You seem to be angry that conservative justices are ruling conservatively. That’s the only reason I can come up with why you think that the death of one of the most conservative justices being viewed as lowering the likelihood of a conservative outcome is some sort of terrible thing. Why, again, is that shocking?

You still haven’t explained why the settlement is a “damning indictment”.

Even if they were, it’s just free speech anyway. /rimshot

No, i don’t, but i do believe that for better or worse, politicians pick/support judges that they believe will support what is important to them. So inherited corruption maybe?

Huh? How is that corruption versus politics/policy?

Because the brand of conservatism espoused by the modern GOP has built an entire rhetorical dogma that camouflages it’s #1 agenda: protecting the financial interests of the wealthy regardless of virtually all other considerations. I could write paragraphs of examples supporting this, but it’s crony capitalism that’s highly symbiotic for their power retention. Thus we see justices seated by Reagan and Bush writing horrendous opinions like CU and unable to rule against the interests of capital beyond a limited fashion. Dow settling exposes this very clearly IMO.

To answer Timex, it’s not direct corruption for the courts, barring any evidence to the contrary, but corruption by inherited ideology. The Republican party was not always this way, just Google party planks from decades ago. Look at the Eisenhower era pre-Golddwater: very supportive of actually expanding SS, voters rights, protecting workers, etc.

And this situation is damning because it reveals this in a rather stark, undeniable light. If you’re middle class, why would you vote Republican at this point, at least on an economic level, if you’re informed and aware of the ideological trickle down and its consequences for protecting your interests and the interests of your family? It’s a vicious circle of deregulation, blocking higher wages, blocking workers organizing, and then protecting corps from the legal consequences of their malfeasance. Right-wingers scream about socialism but the real socialism of America is how we allow the overwhelming majority of economic gains to go to an incredibly small % of the nation, privatizing those profits, while almost always publicly burdening the costs of the consequences of this era of excessive deregulation (a la bailing out Wall Street, cleaning up industrial spills, etc.).

Edit: we’re talking specifically this situation with Dow Chemicals and Scalia’s death changing the tenor of the court. I could and have written about how the Dems are not much better, have failed to protect or promote middle class interests, blah blah. But that’s not the subject here as to why I feel Dow settling was an indictment on today’s Right.

“Inherited ideology” maybe, but you have to admit the left side of the court suffers from this as well. Whatever you think about the rightness of abortion, seeing a privacy right in the constitution and then deciding it applies to a womb is its own twisted logic in service to an idea. What happens is that legal precedents supporting an ideology get built up over time–like the idea of political contributions as speech–and soon feel like just run of the mill concepts which justices either “see” in the statutes or not.

Uh. Maybe it’s my own political blinders, but if privacy rights don’t extend to our own bodies, where the fuck exactly do they extend to?

There are many exceptions to the privacy of your own body. Rights of an unborn child, lawful searches, acting in the best interest of a minor, just to name a few.

If only Roe v Wade had attempted to balance privacy rights against other interests of society, rather than rashly legalizing abortion under any circumstances…

Aaaanyway, not trying to open that can of worms. My only point was that there are ideological structures about the law and the constitution that aren’t immediately evident in the text that certain groups from certain legal traditions start to take for granted. It’s normal–it’s partly how precedent is supposed to work–but it also can distort more commonsensical outcomes. Honestly, I think Scalia was one of the better justices at thinking outside the standard assumptions, due to his originalist view (which is a legal tradition of its own, but at least forces a judge outside his own mindset).

Justice Thomas spoke today, ending his 10-year streak of silence!

Wow. Well, that’s certainly a moment in history. That article seems to imply that he’s almost taking up the lost voice of Scalia in that argument.