US Politics: 133 Days to Nov. 3, But Who's Counting?

[DMC]

12 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Good job Supreme Court. 

Aye.  I'm not surprised Roberts sided with the majority.  A bit surprised Gorsuch did though.

[Morpheus]

5 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

I saw that Perlman had taken Gaetz to the woodshed, but didn't know Cruz had jumped in to defend Gaetz's honor.

You come at Teddy’s boys you best be prepared to fight an entirely different man.

You come at his dad or his wife, he’ll lick your boots forever.

[DMC]

So I just saw this.  Thought the following was worth sharing:

Quote

“The more bad things happen in the country, it just solidifies support for Trump,” said Phillip Stephens, GOP chairman in Robeson County, N.C., one of several rural counties in that swing state that shifted from supporting Barack Obama in 2012 to Trump in 2016. “We’re calling him ‘Teflon Trump.’ Nothing’s going to stick, because if anything, it’s getting more exciting than it was in 2016.”

"Reelect Trump 2020:  More bad things will happen in this country."  I think I'm ready to volunteer.

[Alarich II]

2 hours ago, DanteGabriel said:

Maybe he struggled with the slope because he wears lifts.

I'm pretty sure he struggled because he's going down a slippery slope.

[IheartIheartTesla]

Amusingly, there is a poll out of AK that is Trump +2 (also one with MO that is Trump +8, slightly less amusing)

[Maithanet]

19 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

Amusingly, there is a poll out of AK that is Trump +2 (also one with MO that is Trump +8, slightly less amusing)

Trump +8 in MO is still really bad for him.  He won it in 2016 by 18, and the state has been getting steadily redder for the past 20 years.  But within MOE in AK is pretty great.   

[IheartIheartTesla]

Sorry, got AK and AR messed up - the poll was out of Arkansas, not Alaska.

[Fez]

1 hour ago, DMC said:

Aye.  I'm not surprised Roberts sided with the majority.  A bit surprised Gorsuch did though.

I've seen a theory that Gorsuch is the one who was always with the majority; apparently Roberts was quite hostile at oral arguments. But the most senior justice in the majority gets to assign who writes the opinion. So by joining, Roberts got to assign the case to Gorsuch; whereas if he hadn't, Ginsburg would be most senior and probably assign the case to herself. She wouldn't be able to do whatever she wanted, since Gorsuch could always leave the majority if he didn't agree with the opinion; but she could've probably added a bit more liberal-leaning legal theory in a few places. No hard evidence either way though.

The other surprising thing from today is that the court declined to take up any of the 10 second amendment cases that were before them; any of which could've been used to expand gun rights in various ways. It only takes 4 votes to hear a case, and Gorsuch, Alito, Thomas, and Kavanaugh have all expressed interest in doing so. But the fact that they didn't makes it pretty clear that they don't know if they can count on Roberts to vote with them on second amendment issues.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, DMC said:

Aye.  I'm not surprised Roberts sided with the majority.  A bit surprised Gorsuch did though.

It was just talking out of my ass, but I said a month or two ago I wouldn't be shocked if Gorsuch takes some surprising votes. Kavanaugh is a hack, and many posters here are more qualified than him to be a justice for life, even if they've never read a single law book. Gorsuch, OTOH, does give off the body language that he's deeply uncomfortable with what's going on and how Trump expects his judges to act. He's still super conservative and will disappoint liberals a lot, but I don't think he's actually a terrible person, though he could be more empathetic. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Another interesting development, the SC is not going to take up a case to overturn a lower court's ruling allowing CA's sanctuary city laws to stay in place, and only two of the five conservative justices even wanted to do so. 

[DireWolfSpirit]

14 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

He's still super conservative and will disappoint liberals a lot, but I don't think he's actually a terrible person, though he could be more empathetic. 

Oxymoron much?

[sologdin]

Good job Supreme Court. 

it is quite a win for sense and decency: 

Quote

An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids.

slip op. at 2.  plenty of gems along the way:

Quote

An employer violates Title VII when it intentionally fires an individual employee based in part on sex. It doesn’t matter if other factors besides the plaintiff ’s sex contributed to the decision. And it doesn’t matter if the employer treated women as a group the same when compared to men as a group. If the employer intentionally relies in part on an individual employee’s sex when deciding to discharge the employee—put differently, if changing the employee’s sex would have yielded a different choice by the employer—a statutory violation has occurred.

slip op. at 9.  or:

Quote

 

In the end, the employers are left to retreat beyond the statute’s text, where they fault us for ignoring the legislature’s purposes in enacting Title VII or certain expectations about its operation. They warn, too, about consequences that might follow a ruling for the employees. But none of these contentions about what the employers think the law was meant to do, or should do, allow us to ignore the law as it is.

 

slip op. at 15-16. nice:

Quote

We agree that homosexuality and transgender status are distinct concepts from sex. But, as we’ve seen, discrimination based on homosexuality or transgender status necessarily entails discrimination based on sex; the first cannot happen without the second. Nor is there any such thing as a “canon of donut holes,” in which Congress’s failure to speak directly to a specific case that falls within a more general statutory rule creates a tacit exception.

slip op. at 19. or:

Quote

The weighty implications of the employers’ argument from expectations also reveal why they cannot hide behind the no-elephants-in-mouseholes canon. That canon recognizes that Congress “does not alter the fundamental details of a regulatory scheme in vague terms or ancillary provisions.” Whitman v. American Trucking Assns., Inc., 531 U. S. 457, 468 (2001). But it has no relevance here. We can’t deny that today’s holding—that employers are prohibited from firing employees on the basis of homosexuality or transgender status—is an elephant. But where’s the mousehole? Title VII’s prohibition of sex discrimination in employment is a major piece of federal civil rights legislation. It is written in starkly broad terms. It has repeatedly produced unexpected applications, at least in the view of those on the receiving end of them. Congress’s key drafting choices—to focus on discrimination against individuals and not merely between groups and to hold employers liable whenever sex is a but-for cause of the plaintiff ’s injuries— virtually guaranteed that unexpected applications would emerge over time. This elephant has never hidden in a mousehole; it has been standing before us all along.

slip op. at 30.  maybe gorsuch is not so crazy after all. the opinion is alert and thoughtful, and the result is of course correct.

[Fez]

1 hour ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Oxymoron much?

Depends on what he's super conservative about. Being all-in on textualism instead of all-in on discrimination seems like the sign of someone being principled.

[sologdin]

 being principled

yes, very much about hermeneutic principles.  he has the normal rightwing concerns at the end of the opinion about how locker rooms will shake out (slip op. at 31) and whether the RFRA will provide an exception in appropriate cases (32)--but they are not issues joined in this case, so he shrugs them off, as is proper.

[Fragile Bird]

"This elephant has never hidden in a mousehole; it has been standing before us all along."

Who knew I'd ever like a Gorsuch quote this much?

[BigFatCoward]

I know it's not technically allowed, but how would an interested foreigner make a contribution to the Biden campaign, if he was so inclined? 

[sologdin]

kavanaugh's dissent is not totally thuggish:

Quote

Notwithstanding my concern about the Court’s transgression of the Constitution’s separation of powers, it is appropriate to acknowledge the important victory achieved today by gay and lesbian Americans. Millions of gay and lesbian Americans have worked hard for many decades to achieve equal treatment in fact and in law. They have exhibited extraordinary vision, tenacity, and grit—battling often steep odds in the legislative and judicial arenas, not to mention in their daily lives. They have advanced powerful policy arguments and can take pride in today’s result. Under the Constitution’s separation of powers, however, I believe that it was Congress’s role, not this Court’s, to amend Title VII. I therefore must respectfully dissent from the Court's judgment.

 

[Guest]

Trump campaign claiming that 800,000 tickets have been claimed for the Tulsa rally. That seems...dubious, at best.

[Jace, Extat]

Just now, The Great Unwashed said:

Trump campaign claiming that 800,000 people signed up for tickets. That seems...dubious, at best.

Are there 800,000 people in Oklahoma?

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

Are there 800,000 people in Oklahoma?

About 4 million actually, but I edited my original post. Meant to say 800,000 seats "claimed".