US Supreme Court Discussions

[N.E. Brigand]

Justice Clarence Thomas, of all people, wrote today's 7-2 decision upholding the constitutionality of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the agency devised by Elizabeth Warren and created by Obama administrations that helps people avoid scams. Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch dissented.

This particular case concerned the ability of the CFPB to prevent payday lenders from cheating people. An appeals court had said the CFPB's very existence violated the Constitution, because of its unusual funding structure, but today Thomas wrote that the nation's founders would have had no problem with that. Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, who joined the majority, also wrote separate decisions saying that Thomas didn't need to look that far back.

[N.E. Brigand]

Speaking of Justice Thomas, he still won't say whether or not he paid back the principal of the $267,000 loan he received in 1999 to purchase his RV, i.e., whether the loan was really a gift and thus subject to income taxes that he should have paid.

[N.E. Brigand]

Should the Senate Judiciary Commitee subpoena Martha-Ann Alito?

"Another Provocative Flag was Flown at Another Alito Home" (New York Times).

[N.E. Brigand]

The flag in question does have a long and often respectable history, but as shown in this picture (h/t Allison Gill), it has become associated with the insurrectionists:



It's the white flag with the tree on it.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

As others have noted, the most problematic part of the new flag news is that it raises more questions about the "neighbor" excuse that Alito gave for the other flag. Clearly, the Alitos like to fly "meaningful" flags.

[N.E. Brigand]

Also most people have no idea what this flag means. In other words, Alito is apparently pretty deep into insurrectionist waters.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

That depends on when he first started flying that flag, since it's history greatly pre-dates the insurrection.

[N.E. Brigand]

Indeed, that the flag has a "long and often respectable history" (as I wrote above) is probably the defense that Alito will make, but this is a guy who in one day sold thousands of dollars of Anheuser Busch stock and then bought Molson Coors stock -- just as conservatives were decrying Anheuser Busch because a trans performer was a spokesperson for Bud Light. (As a result, Alito lost money: Coors hasn't done as well as Busch since then.) He's deeply in his bubble.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Apparently Leonard Leo's friends have taken to referring to the current SCOTUS as the "Leo Court."

(I should really comment on today's opinions, but really, why bother?)

[N.E. Brigand]

The South Carolina decision looks pretty bad (that's a link to a quick recap by Mark Joseph Stern). Although apparently not bad enough for Justice Thomas, who would take away courts' ability to block gerrymandering and maybe would overturn Brown v. Board of Education?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Probably the most newsworthy aspect of today's widely expected decision by the court to reverse the lower court ruling that South Carolina engaged in racial gerrymandering (you can't always tell what the court will do from oral arguments, but in this case if was 100% clear), is that Justice Thomas took the opportunity to criticize one of the most widely praised decisions in the history of the Court, Brown v. Board of Education.



x-posted with N.E.B.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I'm not sure who this person is, but I really like their description of Justice Kagan's dissent.

[Frelga]

Does dissent make any difference?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

They can, sometimes. They obviously don't have the force of majority opinions, but they can be cited. And sometimes, the basis for a dissent can become the basis for the majority in a future case. That was situation in this very case.

[Frelga]

Thanks, V!

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Prophetic words from one Frank Vincent Zappa

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I very much doubt that, as some people are saying, this statement in Kagan's dissent, was meant to be reference to Alito's Stop the Steal flag.

"But as with its upside-down application of clear-error review, the majority is intent on changing the usual rules when it comes to addressing racial-gerrymandering claims,"

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Here's a different kind of Supreme Court story.

Justice Sotomayor describes crying after some Supreme Court decisions

[N.E. Brigand]

Here's a different kind of Supreme Court story.

Justice Sotomayor describes crying after some Supreme Court decisions

"'There are days that I've come to my office after an announcement of a case and closed my door and cried,' Sotomayor told the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, where she received an award Friday. 'There have been those days. And there are likely to be more.'"

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Meanwhile it turns out the Washington Post knew about Justice Alito's upsidedown flag three years ago but didn't report on it.

On Jan. 20, 2021 — the day of Biden’s inauguration, which the Alitos did not attend — [Washington Post reporter and Federalist Society member Robert] Barnes went to their home to follow up on the tip about the flag. He encountered the couple coming out of the house. Martha-Ann Alito was visibly upset by his presence, demanding that he “get off my property.”

As he described the information he was seeking, she yelled, “It’s an international signal of distress!”

Alito intervened and directed his wife into a car parked in their driveway, where they had been headed on their way out of the neighborhood.

Edited to add: Wow, she was really freaked out by Barnes's questions.

[N.E. Brigand]

It turns out the Washington Post knew about Justice Alito's upsidedown flag three years ago but didn't report on it. . . . Martha-Ann Alito was really freaked out by reporter Robert Barnes's questions.

Justice Alito told Fox News that his wife raised the upside-down American flag in January 2021 "in response to [a neighbor's] vulgar insult," but the New York Times has learned that "the name-calling took place on Feb. 15, weeks after the inverted flag was taken down."