UCLA faculty gets big win in suit against Trump’s university attacks
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I'm sure the Supreme Court (if it gets to them) will gleefully find a way (based on some obscure ruling from the Assyrian Empire or something) that allows the government to do whatever Trump wants them to.
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I'm a (formerly) practicing Jew, mostly due to all the weaponization of false "antisemitism". This absolutely is the boy who cried wolf, and it will hurt Israel and all jews in the long run.
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this has always been Trump's legal strategy, even before he was elected. it's the “What are you gonna do about it?” approach.
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Man, Steven Miller is literally copying Goebbels' homework, isn't he. "Accuse the enemy of that which you are guilty."
I hope the US survives long enough to punish these fuckers as severely as possible.
I hope the US survives long enough to punish these fuckers as severely as possible.
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Wish there was a way to have Rita Lin immediately replace Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, or Barrett as one of the members of SCOTUS.
One can dream...
One can dream...
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Our legal system is going to need a new term or set of terms to describe bad-faith legal violence.
"Arbitrary & Capricious" doesn't fully capture the unrelenting pattern of malice, and we really need some legal poetry that does.
"Arbitrary & Capricious" doesn't fully capture the unrelenting pattern of malice, and we really need some legal poetry that does.
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As long as the Supremes are appointed by the executive branch and can only be impeached by the legislative branch, the judicial branch won't be an independent power in the US. Also, appointment for life has much more cons than pros.
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"it becomes hard to tell where the government offered any defense of its options at all"
John, did you mean actions?
John, did you mean actions?
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Sadly, the next step will probably be an "emergency" appeal by the corrupt administration to the equally corrupt SCOTUS, who will declare that Trump must be able to practice as much extortion as he desires because reasons.
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The University of California, along with a few other research institutes (Stanford, Cal Tech, USC) is a primary driver of the economy of California. The list of companies that sprouted from research started at these universities is staggering. Genentech, Google, Sun, Oracle, Salesforce, Salesforce, Intel, and a thousand you've never heard of. Someone here used the phrase "eating our seed corn". Cutting funding here is exactly that.
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Sigh, I read the opening sentence and saw that it was a District Court, and immediately skipped the rest of the article. Unfortunately, right now District Court rulings against Trump don’t mean anything until they’re upheld by the Supreme Court.
Realistically, the current system has worked well at reopening the ebbs and flows of the other branches. It would’ve worked this time if the republicans hadn’t been able to cheat and let Trump get an extra appointee. They held Scalia’s position open for almost a year so that Trump would get to appoint the replacement because it was “too close to the next election”, and then rammed RBG’s replacement through at the end of Trump’s term so that Biden wouldn’t get to pick. If those two deaths hadn’t lined up like that, orif the Republicans hadn’t had control both times, we wouldn’t be in this position.
Edit: Republicans didn’t have control the first time, see the comment below for a more accurate description of what happened.
Yeah, we would all love for judges to be picked by some magical enlightened force. But short of that, what’s your solution? Don’t say “voters”, because that’s what got us the legislators and executives that are failing us.
Realistically, the current system has worked well at reopening the ebbs and flows of the other branches. It would’ve worked this time if the republicans hadn’t been able to cheat and let Trump get an extra appointee. They held Scalia’s position open for almost a year so that Trump would get to appoint the replacement because it was “too close to the next election”, and then rammed RBG’s replacement through at the end of Trump’s term so that Biden wouldn’t get to pick. If those two deaths hadn’t lined up like that, or
Edit: Republicans didn’t have control the first time, see the comment below for a more accurate description of what happened.
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A Supreme Court justice has to be approved by the Senate before they can start their term; it's not like they start automatically when the President chooses them and can only be removed by the Senate.
The real problem is twofold. First, the Republicans took advantage of the cloture rule to block Obama from being able to pick a Supreme Court justice even though the Democrats had the majority in the Senate, and then got rid of the cloture rule as soon as it would have blocked them and crammed through as many justices as they possible could.
Second, even though Republicans violated custom and acted hypocritically to perform a naked power grab, the Democrats were too cowardly to counter by breaking customs themselves and increasing the number of Supreme Court justices above nine in order to compensate.
So, in the end you are essentially right that the mechanism for choosing Supreme Court justices is broken, but it had been working reasonably well until one party starting breaking the customs that had been keeping it balanced and the other did not. This is kind of a theme with the problem of government today: too much turned out to rely on customs, and not enough on rules. (I mean, you could argue that a rule is just words on paper, but at least there is theoretical legal force behind them rather than none, and that is often enough to make a difference.)
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In a country with a functional, independent judiciciary that's easy - Supreme Court justices would be chosen by an independent panel of judges.
And if they committed egregious malpractice, they would be removed by an independent panel of judges.
(See: France for an example)
Unfortunateky, the US decided that popularity was the key requirement for judges, rather than competence, so there is no obvious route towards said independent, self-perperuating judiciary.
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I'm going to hard disagree with this, and I don't usually do that.
Reasoning: the Supreme Court doesn't want to be made irrelevant. Ruling the government can/should be able to use funding and/or other means to coerce anyone means that the same methods can be used against them.
Also, pissing off the largest economic powerhouse in the U.S. just isn't a smart move, period. Especially when the current governor has a very real possibility of winning in 2028, (and if enough voters turn out in 2026, the entirety of MAGA, including Trump/Vance, could be ousted, however that is a bit of a stretch...since team blue is lazy and stuff) regardless of fearmongering and such. "Don't shit where you eat."
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I still find it funny that the Republicans fight against antisemitism despite the GOP being a haven for antisemitic white nationalists.
Well, not funny, more like depressingly sad to see fascists take a moral stance simply to claim to be on the moral side as cover in order to justify/hide doing immoral things. And the press doesn't call them on it.
Well, not funny, more like depressingly sad to see fascists take a moral stance simply to claim to be on the moral side as cover in order to justify/hide doing immoral things. And the press doesn't call them on it.
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That would apply to Roberts who is motivated by leaving behind a legacy. However, a justice like Thomas is probably just in it for the money and to "own the libs" at this point.
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So where do those judges come from? They can't spring up out of the ground ex nihilo; they have to come from somewhere.
It's also important to note the difference between civil law and common law here. I'm far from an expert, but my understanding is that, under civil law, judicial rulings don't have the kind of precedent that they do under common law. In common law areas, laws are general frameworks where the details get ironed out through judicial rulings. As such, judicial precedent has the same force as actual laws. Under civil law, laws are extremely detailed, and judicial rulings don't try to interpret the law as anything but literal.
Basically, under common law, there's an argument to be made that judicial rulings function as a de-facto part of government, and thus need some degree of control by the people.
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It's also antisemitic itself in a sense. How is screaming at Jews who don't want any part of this and have no attachment to and are not represented by Israel that they're not real Jews, self-hating Jews, race traitors and all the rest of that garbage not by definition antisemtic?
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I'm confident of little politically but that there will never be anything more than token justice - if that - is one thing I'd bet money on.
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I have evolved a bit in what opinion I express outwardly of those institutions that made deals with The Don. Everyone always understood how utterly bs all of this was/is in complete totality, openly, transparently. Those schools that sold out betrayed their students and scholars and their mission and their responsibility to all of us. I don't see how there is going to be meaningful consequence for that or how anything will change to make sure it doesn't continue to happen, and that's what really gets me. We've not had it this bad before, but we have been here before, and it apparently meant nothing at all.
And it isn't just schools of course. Law firms, media and tech corporations that instantly and even preemptively became complicit with gusto and eyes full of hope not for society but for money. The US has a lot of brave people in it but by and large it is the land of the cowards.
And it isn't just schools of course. Law firms, media and tech corporations that instantly and even preemptively became complicit with gusto and eyes full of hope not for society but for money. The US has a lot of brave people in it but by and large it is the land of the cowards.
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Yeah. The rules in place actually work OK as long as all parties either act in good faith, or at least want to look as though they're acting in good faith.
The GOP has thrown that out the window, though. And (most of) the Dems have spent far too long clutching their pearls and saying "well THAT'S not how it should be done!" instead of actually fighting back.
It feels like the GOP pulled a knife at a boxing match. But they pulled that knife 5 minutes ago, and (again, most of) the Dems would rather keep shouting "but that's against the rules!" instead of just kicking them in the knees, then stomping on their wrist as soon as they fall over.
(To be clear, this is all figurative kicking or stomping. But I swear, my go-to similes hardly ever involved kicking anyone until this year....)
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I think it's important to highlight how much of the current disaster we're in because so many people just rolled over.
The administration is not, in fact, all powerful. Yes, they have ignored the law and consequences, but really only in minor ways in the big picture. The truth is they mostly keep getting away with it because people let them.
All those law firms who decided to cave like cowards instead of fight were a real canary in a coal mine.
The administration is not, in fact, all powerful. Yes, they have ignored the law and consequences, but really only in minor ways in the big picture. The truth is they mostly keep getting away with it because people let them.
All those law firms who decided to cave like cowards instead of fight were a real canary in a coal mine.
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In fairness, France got to directly benefit from our mistakes when designing their own republic (for the fifth time). There really wasn't much practical experience for designing a constitutional republic at the time that we did it, so it is not surprising that a lot of choices were made that turned out to be ones. (In fact, the Founding Fathers believed that it would be healthy for each generation to revisit it and make major changes to keep it up to date; if we raised them from the dead and proudly showed off how little had changed since then, then they would probably be shocked rather than pleased.)
Also, in theory the Senate was supposed to be the competent body! That's why the House of Representatives has nothing to do with the process. One of the major changes that led to the current situation was an amendment (can't remember the number and don't feel like looking it up) early last century that made Senators be directly elected by the citizens of their state, rather than chosen by the state legislatures. Some people, in fact, blame a lot of the problems in the legislative branch on this fact and wish we could go back. Although I am not one of them, since I see no evidence that state legislatures are wiser than the citizens in their states, especially given the heavy amount of gerrymandering; for evidence of this of the fallibility of state governments, I cite the example of Paxton.
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That's not true. Garland was nominated for Supreme Court in 2016, The Republicans had the Majority in the Senate in 2016.
From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merrick_Garland_Supreme_Court_nomination
So @WonderingMonk's was correct before the edit.
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Ok. Who appoints those independent judges to be on the panel to start with?
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Oops, I stand corrected!
I had intended to check this claim before making it, but when I went to 2014 United States Senate elections I... totally read off the "seats before" numbers instead of the "seats after" numbers.
Thank you for pointing out my error!
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The problem is the lack of consequences for the people relentlessly attacking using the power and money of the government (same ones would claim chasing waste, of course).
Private entities using their limited funds and time to fight keep caving to avoid ruin. You win one at great cost, you instantly have to fight a new one, because the attacker has not reason to stop or get tired.
Egregiously illegal behavior should get you ejected out of office immediately. As long as that behavior is encouraged and rewarded, there is little the victims can do.
We need the various chambers of power to quickly impeach the people abusing their power, be them Texas AG or the whole Trump admin. We also need a unicorn, FTL travel, and Mr Fusion.
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If their is antisemitism at any college public or private, then the administration staff should be taking care of the issue. not the federal governemnt If states have criminal laws against antisemitism then those would apply in these situations.
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It's also why John Oliver's approach is the right one: four key words they don't tend to teach in business school.
No self-censorship, no pre-compliance. If they want to take us down the road to fascism, they should have to fight every step of the way.
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Except this shit is more like setting fire to your seed corn (and doing so during the peak of summer).
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