The Commentariat -- June 26, 2015
Internal links removed.
** Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "In a long-sought victory for the gay rights movement, the Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the Constitution guarantees a nationwide right to same-sex marriage. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote the majority opinion in the 5 to 4 decision. He was joined by the court's four more liberal justices.... Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., in a dissent joined by Justice Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, said the Constitution has nothing to say on the subject.... In a second dissent, Justice Scalia mocked Justice Kennedy's soaring language. 'The opinion is couched in a style that is as pretentious as its content is egotistic,' Justice Scalia wrote of his colleague's work. 'Of course the opinion's showy profundities are often profoundly incoherent.'" CW: Not sure where Alito is supposed to be here, but clearly he joined one dissent on the other. ...
... Okay, here's the answer from Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "All four of the court's most conservative members -- Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. -- dissented and each wrote a separate opinion, saying the court had usurped a power that belongs to the people." ...
... The opinion & dissents are here.
... Here is some of the more incendiary language from Scalia's dissent (I typed descent first -- seems appropriate).
... Nick Gass of Politico: "The Supreme Court on Friday ruled 5-4 that same-sex couples nationwide have the constitutional right to marry, splitting the 2016 candidates sharply along partisan lines. Democratic candidates hailed the decision as another marker for equality, while Republican candidates reacted with disappointment and, in some cases, white-hot anger. ...
... The Washington Post is liveblogging reactions to the Court's marriage ruling. Some of the corporate responses are pretty sweet. ...
... Michael Rosenwald of the Washington Post: "The craziest thing just happened to Jim Obergefell: He became a civil rights icon. The real estate broker from Cincinnati was the lead plaintiff in the historic gay marriage case.... Obergfell is unlike the other plaintiffs in the case: He doesn't get to go home and celebrate with his loved one. His husband, John, died from ALS. They were wed on the tarmac of Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, flying there because they couldn't get married in Ohio."
Doug Palmer of Politico: "The House voted 286-138 Thursday to renew a 50-year-old worker entitlement program with overwhelming support from Democrats, who reversed themselves on the legislation after losing a battle with the White House and Republicans over a bill to 'fast-track' approval of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement.... The vote sends the bill to President Barack Obama to sign into law." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Michael Shear of the New York Times: "... on Thursday, [President] Obama walked into the Rose Garden to accept vindication as the Supreme Court, for a second time, affirmed the legality of a part of the Affordable Care Act. Mr. Obama ... called for an end to the vitriolic politics that have threatened it. 'The point is, this is not an abstract thing anymore,' Mr. Obama told reporters, with Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. smiling broadly beside him. '... For all the misinformation campaigns, all the doomsday predictions, all the talk of death panels and job destruction, for all the repeal attempts -- this law is now helping tens of millions of Americans.'... [Meanwhile,] House Speaker John A. Boehner, Republican of Ohio, promised to 'do everything we can' to undermine the law. Jeb Bush, a Republican candidate for president, vowed 'to repeal and replace this flawed law' if he succeeds Mr. Obama in the Oval Office'":
... Paul Krugman: "... what you have is a portrait of policy triumph -- a law that, despite everything its opponents have done to undermine it, is achieving its goals, costing less than expected, and making the lives of millions of Americans better and more secure..... What conservatives have always feared about health reform is the possibility that it might succeed, and in so doing remind voters that sometimes government action can improve ordinary Americans' lives.... That's why the right went all out to destroy the Clinton health plan in 1993, and tried to do the same to the Affordable Care Act. But Obamacare has survived, it's here, and it's working. The great conservative nightmare has come true. And it's a beautiful thing." ...
... Linda Greenhouse: "The chief justice’s masterful opinion showed [Justice Scalia's] line of argument for the simplistic and agenda-driven construct that it was.... The chief justice cited two [pro-ACA] briefs in his opinion, one from the health insurance industry and the other, which he referred to several times, from the country's leading experts on the economics of health care. This whole exercise was unnecessary, the outcome too close for comfort. But there is cause for celebration in a disaster narrowly averted -- for the country and the court, which is to say, for us all." CW: Greenhouse also echoes what I wrote yesterday about the Supremes' decision to hear King v. Burwell & about Scalia's previous opinions asserting that context matters." ...
... Rick Hasen: The Court's "means of interpretation is important for a number of reasons. First, it means that a new administration with a new IRS Commissioner cannot reinterpret the law to take away subsidies. Second, it puts more power into the hands of Congress over administrative agencies (and therefore the executive), at least on issues at the core of congressional legislation. Third, and most important as a general principle, it rehabilitates a focus on the law's purpose as a touchstone to interpretation, over a rigid and formalistic textualism that ignores real-world consequences.... The Court said that in close cases, make the law work the way Congress obviously intended it. That's a very good thing."...
... Cass Susstein in Bloomberg: "Roberts's impressive opinion ... is a masterwork of indirection. It's already being seen as a final vindication of Obamacare. But it is also a strong assertion of the court's, and not the executive branch's, ultimate power to say what the law is." ...
Brian Beutler of the New Republic: "The ruling thus combines a standard textualist mode of interpretation -- a view to the statute's full context to determine the meaning of isolated provisions -- with a common sense analysis of the law's structure into a mode of interpretation you might call heurism.... The opinion the Court actually wrote turns out to be perfectly stitched. A victory for the government, and little succor for Obamacare foes, which is exactly as it should be." ...
... CW: Beutler misunderstands the meaning of textualism -- in legal theory, it means nearly the opposite of Beutler's definition; ergo, in King, the Court specifically rejected Scalia's narrow textual interpretation (a/k/a Moops theory). But Beutler is right about the far-reaching -- and remarkable -- heuristic approach the majority took to resolving the ambiguity of the text in question when it looked to the purpose of the law, as Hasen outlines." ...
... ** Roberts Burns Congressional Republicans. Ryan Cooper of the Week: "Roberts' clear account of ObamaCare's policy mechanism, and the damage that would be done should any of its main prongs be removed, deals a body blow to the conservative health care wonks who have been trying to cook up a replacement policy for the last five years -- in particular, a plan without the unpopular individual mandate. But as Roberts plainly shows, that leads straight to disaster." ...
... Steve M. has a couple of theories about why Roberts & Kennedy decided to uphold the ACA: First, they probably believed initially that "the Republican majorities in Congress would have a remedy ready to avert chaos." But when they realized Republicans were never going to do any such thing, they changed their minds. Also, too, "The preservation of Obamacare by the Roberts court does a couple of things for the GOP for 2016: It preserves Obamacare as a voter-motivating grievance for the party's base, and it makes it much more difficult for Hillary Clinton (or Bernie Sanders or whoever) to say that the Supreme Court is a force for wingnuttery that will only get worse if a Republican is elected president next year." ...
... CW: Following Cass Susstein's lead, I'd add that Roberts also used the opinion to enhance the power of the judiciary at the expense of the executive branch. That is, Roberts wrote that an executive agency -- at least in this case -- does not have the power to decide how to interpret ambiguous or contradictory legislative language unless Congress specifically gives them the authority to do so in a sort of "hey, whatever" provision.
..."Roberts Burns Scalia." Max Ehrenfreund of the Washington Post: "Roberts used the dissent's ;own words against Scalia.... Back in 2012, [Scalia] had written that without subsidies, 'the exchanges would not operate as Congress intended.'" Roberts cited Scalia's dissent in his majority opinion. "It's not the first time a dissent by Scalia has been used to support a view he opposes. His dissent against gay marriage has been widely cited by lower courts arguing that bans on same-sex unions are unconstitutional." ...
... CW: As Greenhouse & I noted, Roberts cited other Scalia opinions in his majority opinion in King. It appears Roberts is tiring of an obnoxious junior colleague who continually berates & belittles everyone who disagrees with him & whose own arguments are not just rude but inconsistent. Scalia makes both conservatism & the Court look stupid and/or batty, & that surely displeases the chief justice. ...
... Juliet Eilperin & Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "President Obama and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. got off to a rough start from the very beginning.... They occupy nearly opposite ends of the ideological spectrum.... But in Thursday’s Supreme Court decision upholding federal subsidies offered under the Affordable Care Act, Roberts again helped sustain the president's policy legacy in a way that few could have anticipated when Obama took office. In voting with the majority and writing the opinion, the chief justice has ensured that the legacies of both the Obama presidency and the Roberts court are forever intertwined." ...
... CW: They had better get along. Unless he doesn't want the job, I would be surprised if President Hillary didn't nominate President Obama to the Supreme Court. ...
... George Will: Chief Justice Roberts is overthrowing the Constitution! The separation of powers is defunct! No more due process! ...
... Josh Gerstein of Politico: [Chief Justice] "Roberts' decision to side with the Obama administration for a second time on the high-profile health care law threw a huge splash of fuel onto a long-simmering debate about whether Republicans misjudged the chief justice when he was nominated a decade ago or whether he has grown more moderate in his years on the court -- a phenomenon many conservatives complained about with earlier Republican appointees such as Justices David Souter, Sandra Day O'Connor and John Paul Stevens. ...
... Sahil Kapur & Dave Weigel of Bloomberg report more confederate invective hurled at Roberts. ...
... Noam Levey of the Los Angeles Times: "With no serious Republican alternatives and a historic expansion in medical coverage well underway, Obamacare is about as firmly ensconced as a new law can be in a politically divided country." ...
... Manu Raju & Burgess Everett of Politico: "As Republicans process Thursday's sharp rebuke at the hands of the Supreme Court, they're struggling with what to do next -- beset by internal divisions and procedural roadblocks that severely limit their options." ...
... Over there at the Blaze, Glenn Beck's Website, Wayne Root asks, "Has Supreme Court Justice John Roberts been blackmailed or intimidated? I would put nothing by the Obama administration that lives and rules by the Chicago thug playbook." CW: Yeah, that was my first thought, too, Wayne. After all, ...
... The Washington Post Editors label me -- & a lot of other people -- cynical conspiracy theorists.
In all the excitement over King, Charles Pierce wants us to remember that Roberts joined the crazies in the Texas housing anti-discrimination case also decided yesterday. Because Jewish & Muslim (Moops?) doctors in the 17th-century Ottoman palace.
Al Kamen of the Washington Post: "The National Park Service moved Wednesday to stop sales of the Confederate flag in federal parks...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Looks as if Republicans are in disarray about more than ObamaCare. Jake Sherman & Anna Palmer of Politico: Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) has reversed his "decision to strip North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows of his subcommittee gavel. Top Republicans had wanted to punish Meadows for voting against GOP leaders and not supporting the party's campaign arm.... The reversal infuriated loyalists to [Speaker John] Boehner.... 'Disgusting,' one Boehner ally remarked.... It is a stunning reversal for Chaffetz -- and, by extension, the GOP leadership -- and could embolden the several dozen conservative Republicans who defy Speaker John Boehner, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.)." Seems Chaffetz didn't know the House GOP rule that requires committee chairs to have the support of a majority of Republican committee members before they can remove a subcommittee chair.
Stephen Ohlemacher of the AP: "Investigators are blaming mistakes by IRS employees -- not a criminal conspiracy -- for the loss of thousands of emails related to the tax agency's tea party scandal. IRS workers erased 422 computer backup tapes that 'most likely' contained as many as 24,000 emails to and from former IRS official Lois Lerner, who has emerged as a central figure in congressional investigations, according to IRS's inspector general."
Felicity Barringer of the New York Times: "From the Arabian Peninsula to northern India to California's Central Valley, nearly a third of the world's 37 largest aquifers are being drained faster than they are being replenished, according to a recent study led by scientists at the University of California, Irvine. The aquifers are concentrated in food-producing regions that support up to two billion people."
Presidential Race
Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "Despite claims by Hillary Rodham Clinton that she gave the State Department all of her work-related emails from the personal account that she used exclusively when she was in office, the department said on Thursday that it had received several related to Libya that she had not handed over. The disclosure is the first significant evidence to raise questions about whether Mrs. Clinton deleted emails from the account that she should have given to the State Department because they were government records. The State Department said that in comparing emails from Sidney Blumenthal, a confidant of Mrs. Clinton's, to the ones she gave to the department, officials could not find nine and portions of six others."
John DiStaso of WMUR, Manchester, New Hampshire: "Clinton leads Sanders, 43 to 35 percent, in a new WMUR/CNN Granite State Poll, which was conducted ... from June 18 to 24. The poll included 360 likely 2016 Democratic primary voters and has a margin of error of 5.2 percent, meaning Sanders is close to being in a statistical dead heat with the frontrunner." ...
... Arit John of Bloomberg: "Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders on Thursday responded to criticism from his Senate colleague, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, that he is too liberal to credibly challenge Hillary Clinton. 'To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time that a colleague has attacked me,' said Sanders...." ...
Jonathan Topaz & Daniel Strauss of Politico: "All jokes aside, the Republican Party is officially afraid of Donald Trump. He has virtually zero chance of winning the presidential nomination. But insiders worry that the loud-mouthed mogul is more than just a minor comedic nuisance on cable news; they fret that he's a loose cannon whose rants about Mexicans and scorched-earth attacks on his rivals will damage the eventual nominee and hurt a party struggling to connect with women and minorities and desperate to win." ...
... Ja Ja Ja Ja Ja Ja Ja. Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "Univision[, the Spanish-language network] said that it was ending its relationship with the Trump Organization, that it will not air the Miss USA pageant on its network next month, and that it is severing ties with the Miss Universe Organization. [Donald] Trump is a part owner of the Miss Universe Organization, the umbrella group for both the United States and world beauty pageants. Univision said the decision was because of Mr. Trump's recent remarks about Mexican immigrants." (Emphasis added.) ...
... Mark Hensch of the Hill: "The Chilean actor scheduled to host this year's Miss USA pageant is quitting over GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump's remarks on Hispanic immigrants. Cristian de la Fuente, who performs on the television series 'Devious Maids,' said on Thursday he is abandoning his role in the annual beauty competition.... Trump countered on Thursday that Fuente was not the host of next month's Miss USA event."
Beyond the Beltway
Jennifer Medina of the New York Times: "Under a bill expected to be approved Thursday by state lawmakers, schoolchildren in California will be required to receive vaccinations unless there is a medical reason not to do so. The bill would end exemptions for personal or religious reasons, which parents who oppose vaccinations routinely request. The legislation would make California the largest state by far with such sweeping requirements for vaccinations, joining West Virginia and Mississippi, which have had similar laws for years." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Erik Eckholm of the New York Times: "A Kansas state judge on Thursday temporarily blocked a new law that would have banned the most common method of abortion in the second trimester. The law, adopted in April and the first of its kind in the nation, would have barred a method known as dilation and evacuation, which doctors say is usually the safest and most convenient abortion technique after about the 12th to 14th week of pregnancy.... The suit, brought on behalf of two Kansas obstetricians by the Center for Reproductive Rights, based in New York, argued that the law amounted to illegal interference with the right to abortion and could force some women to undergo an 'invasive unnecessary medical procedure even against the medical judgment of her physician.'"
Southern Poverty Law Center: "In a landmark victory, a state jury in New Jersey found today that a 'conversion therapy' program offering services it claimed could change clients from gay to straight was fraudulent and unconscionable. The jury ordered JONAH (Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing), the group's founder and a counselor to pay $72,400 to compensate five plaintiffs for fees they paid to the group and for mental health counseling one of the plaintiffs needed afterward." The SPLC filed the suit.
Sarah Kaplan of the Washington Post: "A fire that engulfed a small, predominantly black church in Charlotte[, North Carolina,] was set on purpose, local officials said Wednesday. Now they are trying to determine whether the act of arson was a hate crime." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
The Abstinence News. Dan Savage: "Single Christian lady Bristol ... Palin is pregnant again. This will be Bristol Palin's second child. This one is either by her second ex-fiance or some poor man to be named later.... If Bristol Palin's last name was 'Obama' the whole Hee Haw gang at Fox News would spend half of every day for the next nine months telling us that Bristol Obama has terrible parents.... Bonus thing: you have to watch Bristol Palin's abstinence ed PSA...."
News Ledes
New York Times: "Terrorists attacked sites in France, Tunisia and Kuwait on Friday, leaving a bloody toll on three continents and prompting new concerns about the spreading influence of jihadists. In France, attackers stormed an American-owned industrial chemical plant near Lyon, tried unsuccessfully to blow up the factory, and left behind a decapitated corpse. In Tunisia, at least one gunman disguised as a vacationer opened fire at a beach resort, killing at least 37 people before security forces shot him to death, officials said. And the Islamic State claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in one of the largest Shiite mosques in Kuwait City during Friday prayers."
New York Times: "The Vatican on Friday signed a treaty with the 'state of Palestine,' a development that the church hopes will lead to improved relations between Israel and the Palestinians."
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Bill Moyer's interviews a young man who's fed up with Bobby Jendal's intelligent design curriculum and what he has been doing about it.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/06/24/1396124/-Bobby-Jindal-is-being-exposed-by-his-old-friend-s-21-year-old-son-over-and-over-and-over-again?detail=email
Here is Bristol Palin describing her feelings about her current pregnancy, courtesy of the Dan Savage article linked above:
"I wanted you guys to be the first to know that I am pregnant. Honestly, I’ve been trying my hardest to keep my chin up on this one. At the end of the day there’s nothing I can’t do with God by my side, and I know I am fully capable of handling anything that is put in front of me with dignity and grace. Life moves on no matter what. So no matter how you feel, you get up, get dressed, show up, and never give up. When life gets tough, there is no other option but to get tougher."
It is clear this child is unplanned and unwanted.
I couldn't help but comparing this to the "evil" (according to the right) Planned Parenthood philosophy encapsulated in one of their mottos: "Every child a wanted child." So reasonable, so kind, so practical.
It's astonishing that conservatives believe they have the moral high ground here.
In is more exegesis of Roberts' ACA opinion really necessary department, more exegesis:
Have read every explanation from "model of judicial restraint" to "enhancing the power of the judiciary," to "liberal lean" to "plain common sense," but have to believe that some personality issues might intrude into these oh-so-objective legal wranglings from time to time.
I have the vague sense that SCOTUS decisions are derived, let us say, unscientifically. The justices start with the desired outcome, then backfill with research and argument to support the desired conclusion. In essence, they just make it up. If that were not true, we couldn't so easily identify the "leaning" of individual justices, and decisions wouldn't so often be split along predicable lines...and when prediction doesn't serve, we wouldn't so often be "surprised" when the decisions don't follow form.
One implication of this view is that those leanings are more a matter of personality than of legal reasoning, something as true for lawyers, even judges and justices, as it is for the rest of us.
We human beings are programmed to personalize everything. We have trouble thinking beyond family, neighbor, co-worker, certainly seldom beyond sect or tribe Our headlines make that clear. To read them, you'd think the recent ACA and TPP victories are all about "Obama's legacy." But what about their other, more far-reaching effects, like those on the country and the 300 plus million who live in it? What about the policies themselves? Are they good for the country or bad? Destructive or productive for the majority? How about thoughtful evaluation, not simply reporting controversy, as one scene of many in a personal contest conveyed in the standard false equivalence, he said, she said style?
The personalized style of reporting is prevalent because it's easy, but it also fits our very human predilection to personalize, to wrap complexity up in a name with a face that we can easily identify and talk about. So when we talk politics or policy, it easily becomes all about the same tiresome back and forth about the person, the party, or the tribe. What bothers us or makes us comfortable, what we like or don't like.
So what about the Court and the ACA decision? Maybe over the last six or seven years something I could easily understand has happened. Maybe Roberts has simply gotten tired of two or three, I'd guess three, of his asshole Court colleagues, and finds their angry, often cynical, sometimes snarky public personas a continuing embarrassment to his Court and--let's be consistent here--to his Court's legacy. Maybe he just doesn't like those jerks and it's beginning to show in his decisions.
Too naive maybe, but if this amateur explanation of the Court's deep deliberations contains any truth, I sure hope the spat I may be imagining goes on for a few more years.
Just out. Marriage equality makes it 5-4. Scalia's head explodes. Maybe there is a God after all.
"Alex, I'll take "Infamous Confederates" for $1000".
"Okay, then. Here's your clue: two words that best describe Bristol Palin.
"Hmmmm...."
"Time's almost up. We need your answer..."
"What are Dignity and Grace?"
Buzzzzzzzzzzzzz
"Oh, I'm sorry. That's incorrect. The answer is Moralizing and Hypocritical.
Victoria, Bristol is a true Palin, a cheap grifter, a mouth that spews curses like a trooper and seconds later is praising Jesus, an enormous sense of self-regard and superiority coupled with an inordinate ability to criticize others in the harshest terms for things she herself does.
Remember Bristol's reality show which was designed to show what a good (unmarried) mom she was? In fact, during most of her on-camera time, one had to wonder who was watching the kid? In one episode she shows up, Sarah-like, at some Help the Children volunteer gig to make sure she gets plenty of camera time being, you know, holier than thou, while someone else is home watching her own child.
So now there's another little Palin on the way. Maybe one of her mom's BFFs should tell Bristol about that trick of keeping an aspirin between her knees as a contraceptive strategy.
Wingers like the Palins would claim the moral high ground if they were buried in 50 feet of muck, which, I believe is where they reside most of the time. I'm wondering if someone at Fox had heard about Bristol's imminent second out-of-wedlock bundle of joy and if that happy news, along with numerous epic facepalms, contributed to their desire to rid themselves of her mother the termagant and sever their connection to the whole dyspeptic clan.
It's pretty bad when Fox--who routinely welcomes a screaming insane harpy like Ann Coulter--deems you too far around the bend. Kinda like Heinrich Himmler deciding to fire a staffer because his propaganda was too way out.
Dignity and grace. Yeah. First two words that pop into my head when I think of Bristol Palin.
Early morning (exegetical gene turned off) misreadings.
So this morning, I'm scanning down the RC ledes, eyes bleary, fingers reaching for the teacup, when I spy two headlines that had me scratching my head, momentarily:
"Roberts Burns Congressional Republicans", and "Roberts Burns Scalia", which I read as
"Robert Burns Congressional Republicans", which made me wonder what in the hell would make Confederates in congress at all like the Scots poet Robbie Burns. Was there some kind of secret club for wingers enamored of Robert Burns? Sense this makes no.
Even more weird was the synaptic traffic jam occurring when I read that there might also be a Robbie Burns-like Scalia. Och! What've ye be up to doon there in the District?
Were they all pining for the Auld Lang Syne, given the day's depressing turn of events? Were they wishing perhaps for a drop of the craythur?
Early morning misreadings. Thank god for a good cuppa tea.
Anyway...
As for Roberts burning Scalia, I think Ken might be on to something regarding a sense of frustration with those cranky Confederate curmudgeons on the court. And as much as Scalia thinks he's showing that young whippersnapper Roberts a thing or two about winger logic, I'm hoping that Little Johnny reminded the Dark Lord why he is the chief and maybe quoted a little Montaigne to demonstrate that the "words matter" complaint itself needs context:
"Let the master not only examine him [the student] about the grammatical construction of the bare words of his lesson, but about the sense.."
(from, appropriately, Montaigne's essay on The Education of Children)
I'm not the only one with bleary eyes, prone to misreading. At least mine wasn't willful.
Another grand day.
Wondering how Little Johnny would have voted today had he been unsure of Kennedy's vote? I'm guessing he felt he had to vote against marriage equality to keep the loons from completely turning on him.
Nonetheless, a week to celebrate the return of what Plato calls "The Form of the Good".
Ken Winkes, I pretty much agree with your take on how SC justices decide. It seems to me that by the time something gets to the SC, it is due to split decisions by lower courts, which means that written law and precedent do not automatically determine the "right" decision. If law and precedent were clear, without ambiguity or contradictions, the SC doesn't need to get involved.
So by definition, any decision can go any way. And that means that justices can choose to go either way as long as they do not totally ignore precedent and sense. If not so, how would you ever get a decision like "Plessy" ("separate but equal"), which ws clearly a reflection of social preference at the time, rather than constitutional law or logic.
The strange thing about "King" is that four justices granted certiori to hear it ... when to almost any objective lawyer it was clear that the "Moops theory" of textualism was 100% bullshit. So, clearly some justices think not only that they can decide either way, but that sometimes they can decide to review a case that does not really need review, just to make a point. I am thankful that this time the majority chose (what I believe to be) the right point.
Not that I can claim psychic ability but I had a good feeling about the Court's recent decisions after seeing footage of Kagan at an event earlier this week where she was joking around with the attendees. I took her lightheartedness as a good sign.
Thank God (if she's there) that Roberts apparently cares more about his Courts legacy than conservative opinions of him.
Listening to some of the arguments in this case (yay! gay marriage is not going to destroy the fabric of our society after all) and especially those of Alito, I get the distinct feeling that he needs to get out and about more. His quizzing the attorning representing gay couples was bizarre. He went all the way back to the Greeks and Plato's approach to homosexuality and then segued into riffs about polygamy, miscegenation, incest, child brides. It was actually very funny.
And this decision: One more step for mankind––one giant step, I'd say.
Alito reminds me so much of Bush, that they must be brothers from a different mother. I am anticipating Thomas' heart attack, all that anger clogs arteries. I wonder if Virginia has one of those Liberty foam hats in black? You have to wonder if there's a 5150 team on standby in the Court anteroom, with a special Scalia jacket.
It feels amazing to see decisions that are actually in support of "The People" rather than some twisted misunderstanding of the Constitution.
If you can find one...
The Dark Lord is rapidly becoming the Non Sequiturial Lord.
Yesterday we read about applesauce and jiggery-pokery. Today?
Who ever thought" that intimacy and spirituality were freedoms? And if intimacy is, one would think that Freedom of Intimacy is abridged rather than expanded by marriage. Ask the nearest hippie."
Excuse me?
So, from Scalia's dissent to today's ruling that allows everyone and anyone to get legally married, we are told that if you want to know how freedom of intimacy is curtailed by marriage, "ask the nearest hippie."
What does that even mean? I think the dude is losing it.
Does Scalia live next to a commune where you can hardly walk across the street without tripping over hippies? Maybe you can even find a jiggery-pokery hippie eating applesauce, signing up for healthcare and planning to marry another hippie of the same sex. Jackpot!
I'm thinking Scalia and David Brooks will be getting gay-married sometime soon. Better hurry up before Nino is completely barking mad.
I don't know about you guys, but my new favorite response to almost anything I'm asked, for the next week or so, will be "Ask the nearest hippie."
"Would you like some appetizers before dinner, sir?"
"Ask the nearest hippie"
"You crossed the yellow lines a while back, sir. Have you had anything to drink tonight?"
"Ask the nearest hippie"
Fun? Like you read about. Ask the nearest hippie!
Diane,
Agreed, about cases that, for once, are not decided in favor of religious lunatics or corporate oligarchies.
Also nice to feel like, as a nation among many others, we are not looked upon by our neighbors as those people who live in caves, breath through their mouths and eat by dropping their faces straight into a bowl full of food.
Civilization. It's nice.
Ask the nearest hippie.
AK: "synaptic traffic jam" you must eat Wheaties to think that stuff up in the morning. Love it.
I just got around to reading the review of, "The seven lives of John Maynard Keynes, by Duncan Kelly. "Keynes’s life and work hinted at a partial fix in a world of incessant capitalist instability, one where economic efficiency, social justice and individual liberty might be upheld for a generation or more and where intellectual clarity was a means for dissolving fear and ignorance."
I can't help but think with these two important SC rulings of the last couple days that the SC majority tried to dissolve some iota of fear and ignorance. I've long been struck by the multigenerational vigor with which authoritarian Republicans have attacked Keynes. The fomenters of fear and ignorance don't want you to read "Keynes's Way to Wealth" by John Wasik to learn how successfully a liberal like Keynes could engineer financial gains in a system designed to exploit investors. You don't hear how Milton Freeman's economic knowledge helped the University of Chicago endowment like you hear about Keynes helping the endowment at Cambridge because of his skills. The "conservative" disconnect with complete information in search of doctrinal orthodoxy leads them into one economic hiccup after another without any clear way forward. And authoritarian conservatives do the same disconnect all the time with their incomplete social policies and ideas. (see confederate flag, race relations, poverty solutions, etc, etc, etc.)
I gotta say that it should be required reading "The Economic Consequences of the Peace" for everyone, especially Keynes nay sayers. His prescience was amazing. His humanity lent depth to his works that right-wingers can't stand. His discernment of facts continues to make him a Goliath that wingers can only sputter about in rebuttal. (See The Life of John Maynard Keynes, by R.F. Harrod).
Re SCOTUS on marriage:
I have always been puzzled that a marriage ceremony concludes with: "By the authority vested in me by the state of... I pronounce this couple man and wife." Why should a member of the clergy require the authority of the state to perform a sacrament? Does a pastor say: "By the authority of the state I baptize this child"? or a priest: "Ego te absolvo in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti and the State of Texas"?
Marriage or any other ritual, in a church, is whatever the church says it is. Why should anyone outside of that church give a damn what the church says about anything?
Marriage at law is a different matter entirely, and I'm not sure I understand that either. In law, marriage is a contract subject to compulsory binding arbitration by the state. This arbitration may entail everything the parties own, everything they will ever earn or own, and the care of their children. Would any sane person enter into any other contract on those terms?
OK, I get that there are issues of taxes and insurance, joint property rights, etc... But why should there be? May anyone not enter into any contract, on any terms, they care to write for any lawful purpose?
At the risk of sounding like a libertarian, what's the government's interest in marriage?
Citizen,
Quite so. Which is why the Keynes haters have to resort to insults "Oooh....don't you know Keynes was GAY?!" As I've mentioned before, once you see them resorting to "I know you are, but what am I?" sorts of attacks, you know they got nothin'.
But it never fails to amaze me (by now it shouldn't) that Confederates can so easily dismiss hard evidence and irrefutable facts which undermine their most basic tenets. I guess I answer my own question when I say that this is illogical. Of course it is. That's the point. Logic never intrudes its inconvenient head. They really do believe in magical thinking and, as Patrick mentioned earlier, have no problem reverse engineering decisions and plans so that the preconceived, desired outcomes are supported by cherry picked data, specious evidence, highly questionable assumptions, and a frightful disdain for critical thought.
It's as if you were to say that tax breaks will bring in a lot more money.
Oh, wait. They do say that.
But even if you buy the original pile-O-shit argument that the rich, freed from the burden of paying their fair share, would ride to the rescue and become economic, job-creating powerhouses (winger style books still demand that indolent self promoters like Trump who has slogged through bankruptcy after bankruptcy be referred to as "Job Creators" as though they were a different species with supernatural powers), you'd then have to look at the record and see how that experiment worked. If it hasn't worked (and it's been a disaster), a person possessed of the ability to think critically would have to look elsewhere for the answer, not double down on the stupid.
And it's not like someone's been sneaking into the lab at night to breathe on their petri dishes. They've had thirty years of pretty much unchallenged dominance, decades of control of the White House and either both houses of congress, or a collection of Democratic jellyfishes to ensure that their supply side fantasy experiment was given every possible chance to succeed.
It hasn't.
But that hasn't stopped any of them from demanding that we keep at it. One a' these days it'll work, mark my words.
But in the meantime, they have to make sure that everyone is wearing cloves of garlic whenever someone mentions John Maynard Keynes whose ideas have been proven to work.
So they stink in more ways than one.
D.C.,
I would say that, off the top of my head, the legality of the contract is not so much in the state's interest (although I'm sure there are arguments for that on both sides) as in the interest of the marrying parties. Marriage as a legal construct requires some larger entity to ensure that the many and varied parts of the marriage contract have the binding force of law. This is partly why same sex couples sought legal marriage in the first place, for things like visitation rights, property rights, rights connected to the estate, such as it might be, and others I'm leaving out. The state, through the courts, is the only viable entity capable of guaranteeing these rights.
I'm sure an historian of the marriage contract would add background on why the state became involved at all, which likely had to do with legal considerations of heredity and standing within the community.
As I say, this is off the top of my head. Other RCers who've thought more about this could offer a better developed rationale.
But it's an interesting question, one that, when you start pulling on it, requires an answer to why a state at all? Or at least a state that operates as more than just a kind of "night watchman". But that's an argument for another day.
AK,
No question that enforcement of private contracts is a necessary and legitimate function of government. I do question why marriage involves such unlimited liabilities. If you and I make a contract to conduct some business, each of our liabilities is limited to the value of the contract. Neither of us will have a claim on the other's income for the rest of his life.
The historical roots of marriage laws go back to when women and children were chattel -- property of the husband and father with very limited or no individual rights.
Re Obama's eulogy for Rev. Pinckley (and his singing Amazing Grace):
I absolutely love our President! He is a class act all the way! His being a "lame duck" is the best thing that has ever happened to lame duckness!
Kate Madison's comment prompted me to find a video of Obama singing 'Amazing Grace'.
IT WAS ABSOLUTELY SPLENDID!
Thanks, Kate. I am so glad I did not miss that.
And then I found this pretty remarkable article from the normally repugnant John Dickerson....
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/06/obama_s_clementa_pinckney_eulogy_in_a_week_the_president_went_from_dejection.html
My favorite part of the eulogy for Reverend Pinckney: "The Lord works in mysterious ways!" Or as a TV character from my youth would say: "I pity the fool!"
AMAZING GRACE!
Just. Plain. Amazing.