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.
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
conserveradically 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…
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.
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.
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:-(.
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?
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.
Your condescending tone makes this wall of text unbearable.
Agreed. Ifc if the guy is right if he’s condescending af. Didn’t even. Read that shit.
What are the odds that we roll “Snake Eyes” this many times in a row? The worst timeline.
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. :-(
The dice are weighted, I’m not sure why anyone is shocked.
Bc media sells better that way.
Over the bodies of children.
Wow, 1803 really making a comeback:
Really a bad choice to let the insects take over our judiciary.
Are you saying they’re all locusts?
Their effect on civil rights and justice in general is analogous to the effect of a colossal swarm of locusts on fields of crops, yes.
And here I thought they were lizards.
In both 1803 and 2024, one of the broods that emerged was Brood XIX, also known as “The Great Southern Brood.” Coincidence? 🤔
Electric Boogaloo
Does anyone know if the “liberal media” is going to stop using terms like “originalists” without laughing in the face of those that use such terms?
Well, at least when listening to NPR, they seem to always say that “originalism” is basically just an excuse.
Weekend edition this AM was literally saying that the conservatives were looking for a way to cripple the regulatory state and they’ve been trying to cherry pick cases and legal arguments to make that happen. The court isn’t trying to solve a fishing case, it picked a fishing case to achieve a political objective.
Well, good for them. Far too often I seem to hear the “liberal media” giving such a term serious consideration, when it should be openly mocked and ridiculed for the sham it is.
I really hate saying this, but it seems to be true: if it’s a choice between maximum economic growth and democracy, liberals will grudgingly goose-step along the path to higher GDP.
Conservatives aren’t any better, they’ll cheer fascism on.
Are any of the “liberal” media outlets actually arguing that this will be fantastic and great for economic growth?
CNN, NPR, BBC America, MSNBC are all talking about how this is a power grab for the courts and will be completely disruptive in terrible ways.
They kind of sleepwalked into it, especially CNN and the NYT. They’re still exceedingly unwilling to call out protofacism, still too eager to appear fair and balanced, and they’re still allowing the right wing to set the agenda.
It’ll be particularly tragic in a decade or so when the editors of the WaPo or NYT get defenestrated, and no amount of Hugh Hewitt fascist wster-carrying editorials will make the right wing respect them.
It’s particularly horrifying to see regulatory institutions becoming gun-shy about doing their jobs because they’re worried about a Republican AGs looking for precedent to further dismantle the regulatory state. The EPA is currently afraid to do its job, and the FCC, FDA and FTC are also being cautious. I can imagine the SEC and IRS are a little worried, too.
If you’re talking about the mainstream press, then there is no “liberal” media, only neoliberal, and they usually remain pretty quiet on the issue of SCOTUS expanding corporate power. Which has been pretty nonstop since the 1970s, and those cases are usually decided somewhere between 7-2 and 9-0.
Yes, hence the scare quotes. I have yet to see evidence of this “liberal media” I’ve been told so much about (by reactionary extremists).
Yes. They will start doing so when it is too late for that to help.
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Pack the court
National criminal cartel plans to make it easier to crime. More at 11.
And when shit finally hits the fan, they’ll be dealt with first. You guys really should watch this interesting documentary called “The Purge.” It shows how the law and society can easily be balanced out.
You don’t need to watch a fantasy film.
We know what happens when you can’t regulate already.
Chevron deference is not used by government agencies to add rules to close loopholes to keep corporations in line. It is a vulnerability of executive agencies for corporations to exploit. Yall ever hear of revolving door or regulatory capture? Chevron deference is only good for Chevron.
A sweeping congressional inquiry into the development and certification of Boeing’s troubled 737 Max airplane finds damning evidence of failures at both Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration that “played instrumental and causative roles” in two fatal crashes that killed a total of 346 people.
The House Transportation Committee released an investigative report produced by Democratic staff on Wednesday morning. It documents what it says is “a disturbing pattern of technical miscalculations and troubling management misjudgments” by Boeing, combined with “numerous oversight lapses and accountability gaps by the FAA.”
“The Max crashes were not the result of a singular failure, technical mistake, or mismanaged event,” the committee report says. Instead, “they were the horrific culmination of a series of faulty technical assumptions by Boeing’s engineers, a lack of transparency on the part of Boeing’s management, and grossly insufficient oversight by the FAA.”But their decision won’t fix that. It’ll just make it way worse.
What pre-Chevron rulings demonstrate a court that not deferring to an agency’s interpretation of the law is a problem?
“There’s no legislation to describe this exact situation. So no enforcement is possible until a judgement is made to decide what needs enforcement.” If there’s any give, the historically glacial judicial system must make a decision. Allowing companies to stomp all over everything, with little to no oversight. The only way to stop them is to sue and get a judge to decide. A process that traditionally favors the wealthy and well connected. And it allows for obvious transgressions to go until it rises to the ability to legislate against.
It’s a decision decided to rob the legislation of any leway to the executive. It’s blatant theft of the legislature’s ability to delegate. Things change quickly and those entrusted to actually do the work of enforcement do need give, but with proper oversight and transparency.
“There’s no legislation to describe this exact situation. So no enforcement is possible until a judgement is made to decide what needs enforcement.”
Yeah, law enforcement shouldn’t be able to throw people in jail (or perform other punitive actions) for things that are not prohibited by law. The law should be applied equally, with a minimum amount of discretion permitted. You only have to look at drug laws to see what happens when law enforcement has latitude and exercises discretion about the manner in which the law should be enforced.
If there’s any give, the historically glacial judicial system must make a decision. Allowing companies to stomp all over everything, with little to no oversight.
When executive agencies are permitted to decide how strictly a law or regulation must be enforced, they rarely choose to enforce it more strictly. Any time something bad happens, you can usually see that it was a direct result of loosening enforcement of some regulation. This shit happens over and over and over again.
Regulatory Failure 101: What the Collapse of Silicon Valley Bank Reveals
How FDA Failures Contributed to the Opioid Crisis
It’s a decision decided to rob the legislation of any leway to the executive.
The Chevron case was ruled on in 1984. Did the executive branch have zero leeway prior to 1984? No.
Okay. When you’re done talking past me in an attempt to make your point, I want you to think about the current SCOTUS, what their decisions might look like coming out of this, and that the executive branch isn’t “cops”.
They’re not going to fix the issues that Chevron introduced, they’re going to nuke the idea that something can be included in legislation if it isn’t explicitly stated. Meaning questions that the Legislation left open for the Executive to answer as it comes up, with Judicial oversight if the Executive exceeds its established authority, will be replaced with only the Judicial branch gets to interpret laws. At that point, any open ended questions left by Legislation can only be decided by the Judicial branch.
This kills the EPA, the FCC, literally any decision making body within the Executive and replaces it with the incredibly slow Judicial system that benefits the wealthy EVEN HARDER than Chevron.
No law that applies exactly to whatever you’re doing? There’s no law then and you can do whatever you want until someone has standing to sue you about it or a new law is passed. EPA wants to limit a new type of pollution? That wasn’t specifically called out as a pollutant in the NEPA, guess you can’t regulate it until the Legislature adds a clause to allow you to regulate that specific new pollutant. FCC wants to set rules for ISPs? Internet wasn’t a thing in 1934 when they established the FCC, guess you can’t regulate them. Or Broadcast TV.
Dude, this is going to be a nuke to America’s already hilariously bad guardrails.
I want you to think about the current SCOTUS, what their decisions might look like coming out of this, and that the executive branch isn’t “cops”.
The Department of Homeland Security, Federal Bureau of Investigation, United States Marshals Service, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosive, Drug Enforcement Administration, United States Customs and Border Protection, National Security Agency, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Department of Justice are cops. There is a Medicare Fraud Strike Force. They don’t walk a beat, but they are cops.
they’re going to nuke the idea that something can be included in legislation if it isn’t explicitly stated
They will not.
This kills the EPA, the FCC, literally any decision making body within the Executive and replaces it with the incredibly slow Judicial system that benefits the wealthy EVEN HARDER than Chevron.
Won’t happen.
That wasn’t specifically called out as a pollutant in the NEPA, guess you can’t regulate it until the Legislature adds a clause to allow you to regulate that specific new pollutant.
You think it’s going to be legal to kill Clarence Thomas because there is not a law that specifically prohibits killing Clarence Thomas? I doubt it.
I hope they get us free Tekron with all that Chevron deference.
Our president is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces. He will protect.
