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axeil posted:If SCOTUS rules in favor of Hobby Lobby in the Hobby Lobby case, wouldn't that open up all kinds of problems with employers dictating what their employees can and cannot use their compensation for? I'd expect a very narrow ruling from them or telling Hobby Lobby to get hosed but this court has, with the exception of the ACA ruling, proved to not give a drat what the consequences of their major rulings are. Not if they tell everyone it doesn't set a precedent a la Bush v Gore. E: because seriously the precedent that would have been set by Bush, if I recall was that recounts violate equal protection or some poo poo, which is some major black is white scalia is reasonable cats and dogs living together horseshit when you consider the purpose of a recount is to precisely tally the vote and ensure all eligible ballots are counted. FAUXTON fucked around with this message at 17:29 on Dec 3, 2013 |
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Dec 3, 2013 17:24
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Florida Betty posted:I don't think the science is really against them. IUDs and emergency contraception pills can prevent implantation of a fertilized egg. If they believe that human life starts precisely at conception then they are being consistent in their beliefs. Not that I think they're right, but I don't see how you could use science to get around what is essentially a religious argument. A lot of things can prevent implantation of a fertilized egg. I think there's definitely a question of mechanism or intent at hand regarding the drugs/devices they are denying. Is it a microscopic chance kind of thing due to the mechanism of the drug/device? Or is it that the drug/device specifically was designed not to prevent conception but to prevent implantation? If the former I don't think they have much of a case, but the latter might float if they have the evidence to support it. It'd be a hard argument to say they can refuse coverage of drugs that (under exceedingly rare circumstances) allow fertilization but not implantation, but also allow coverage for procedures or drugs that have a similar (inadvertent and exceedingly rare but documented) effect. Might as well put a clause banning fertile women from driving while employed if that's the case, since you never know what an accident might do to a woman's uterus.
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Dec 3, 2013 19:10
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Emanuel Collective posted:Jeffrey Toobin's "The Nine" talks about it a little bit, but I'm not sure if any book goes in depth on it. Their religious objection doesn't hinge on the existence of God, it hinges on whether the birth control methods they are denying are significantly more adept at 'abortion' (in the sense that they prevent implantation but not fertilization) than car crashes or sports accidents, because if their standard is "the possibility of a fertile egg being prevented from implanting" then they may as well have the freedom to write their employment contracts in unspeakably arcane ways to restrict pregnant women to bed rest within the store so that the chance of their body spontaneously miscarrying as a result of their actions (be it taking a pill, having an IUD in there, tripping down stairs, or just plain being highly stressed) is minimized. Seeing as though their wages might enable a possibly abortion-causing activity under their definition of it and your dismissal of any burden of scientific basis for it, it would follow that being entitled to deny those birth control methods would also allow confining expectant employees to the store.
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Dec 3, 2013 21:21
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evilweasel posted:It's easy to draw a distinction between the two: the RFRA allows a substantial burden on religious exercise if it's a "compelling governmental interest" and the "least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest". It is very easy to write a decision on the basis that health care is a compelling governmental interest, but contraceptive care specifically is not if that's how you want to rule. Would the systemic costs (fiscal and social) of unplanned/unwanted pregnancies be sufficient? It sucks that the court can go "but just this one time" so that they can sleep easy knowing that allowing bosses to wield theocratic tyranny over their powerless employees is a one-off on paper as it becomes de facto precedent anyway.
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Dec 5, 2013 18:47
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I'm sort of hoping for a highly narrow ruling on CLS in absence of some middle road that calls bullshit on some of the more groan-inducing software/design patents. Software patents have a place, but the status quo is a drat plague on innovation lest someone independently design an intuitive UI element in an app and get atomized by the big fish because once you put an obvious and prior action on a touchscreen it loses all relevance and relation to physical mechanisms.
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Dec 6, 2013 20:24
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WhiskeyJuvenile posted:The Supreme Court punted in Bilski to begin with (it's a conclusion without any reasoning whatsoever), which didn't help matters much. Well, that's loving wonderful. There's probably going to be a future case to distinguish output from operation and design, but at least this case could clearly separate the software from the hardware as a distinct device/tool/'machine' as long as it was specific enough to require significant detail to be considered a tool by which the general purpose computer is made to operate and remain operating within the parameters of the software. That way the bullshit abstraction some software patents use to basically patent all ways to achieve a certain output (I.e. like patenting the chemical process by which iron and carbon become steel instead of, say, the Bessemer process) are possibly invalidated while specific aspects within software (such as an encryption process or a compression algorithm) remain intact and can define a patent.
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Dec 6, 2013 22:32
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Chokes McGee posted:I disagree that patents of any kind have any place. Ideally, patents wouldn't be needed. Now, this is "ideal" in the libertarian "ignores the entirety of human history and the sum knowledge of human behavioral sciences" sense. People would naturally follow designs faithfully and not skimp on materials, manufacturing, or completion. Differences between the inventor's version would be clearly advertised and the goal of lower cost at identical quality would result in great savings being passed to consumers. That is not the case now, it has never been the case, and it will not be the case at any point between now and the end of all things. Patents should strictly be meant for some semblance of design control. Assholes like Edison and Jobs would love the prospect of demolishing the patent system as it would allow them to appropriate and walmartize anything they can get their hands on for a quick buck. Thankfully, both of them are now suing garage businesses and pissing on FRAND principles in hell. The US Constitution explicitly states patents/IP rights are to be guaranteed to the inventor "for a limited time." Currently the only thing that would see patents as being limited in duration is a particularly autistic astrophysicist who thinks a billion-year calendar would be a cool gift. Granting patents for decades or marrying IP rights to an estate in order to secure hereditary wealth doesn't incentivize anything other than juvenile laziness. Combine that with the class system we have in the US and you've got a recipe for disaster since the children of successful inventors lock themselves into the elite class while coasting on dad's money.
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Dec 7, 2013 08:33
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Cocoa Ninja posted:I disagree that good design, once you reveal the underlying structure, is "obvious." I'd say that good design is often intuitive, but nothing about intuitive design is easier. It's actually quite difficult. Humanity hasn't been 'sliding to unlock' for centuries. Chain locks, car door locks, old door latches, etc. Now a lock screen? That's a novel function. It can display information, pictures, notifications, etc.
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Dec 8, 2013 19:08
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OneEightHundred posted:When did I even hint at something like this? You heard it here first, white males are the only people with IRAs and other holdings in mutual funds.
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Dec 9, 2013 06:14
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I wish the coastal population centers could be leveraged to expand liberal jurisprudence into the blood-red plains states. Make California the Western border of a circuit and have it be the mega-circuit that covers HI, CA, NV, CO, AZ, NM, TX, KS, and OK. Have OR and WA be the core of another that covers AK, WA, OR, WY, MT, ID, UT, ND, SD, and NE. Then have MN, WI, MI, IA, MO as one, IL, IN, KY, OH, as another, NH, VT, ME, PA as one, leverage NE and NJ into an anchor to rule Appalachia and the Chesapeake states, then block the Southeastern states into their own little judicial hellhole where they can circulate dick-measuring opinions on who hates minorities the most. E: this is a non-serious wish list that probably would ruin a lot of things that make circuit courts worthwhile. FAUXTON fucked around with this message at 19:56 on Dec 22, 2013 |
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Dec 22, 2013 19:50
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AshB posted:Awesome OP. I think Sotomayor's opinion in Missouri v. McNeely this year was a pretty noteworthy opinion for every criminal law office in the country. Holding: The fact that blood-alcohol levels dissipate after drinking ceases, is not a per se exigency under Schmerber justifying an officer to order a blood test without getting a warrant. I wonder if that'll just make warrants a dime a dozen now, like the 'smelled weed' probable cause for a car search.
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Dec 24, 2013 02:55
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The X-man cometh posted:That's three opposite of what happened - Sotomayor ruled that you need to go before a judge, nit use a fishy excuse. I was using it as a comparison - 'like' was part of the sentence. Now instead of just using a fishy excuse (like dissipation of BAC) to compel a blood test without a warrant, it'll just make warrants the new throwaway step - instead of being able to claim you smelled weed after the fact in court, you just need to call a judge beforehand and say you smelled weed. Don't try to sell me on the idea that low level judges and the cops don't collude worse than family members on ebay. Unless you're in MA/CO/WA in which case you can say you smelled burning plastic and cat piss or whatever meth is.
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Dec 24, 2013 07:13
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VitalSigns posted:I can't tell if you're arguing that searches are never justified ever, or if warrants are worthless so might as well just save cops the step of calling a judge and let them search whenever they want. I'm arguing that there ought to be a better structure around obtaining warrants so that when the cops and judges collude to gently caress with someone on a flimsy excuse it results in disbarment for the judge and a big ol' civil rights suit for the PD. Since the ability to just make poo poo up for a probable cause search has been complicated, the misbehavior moves up a step on the ladder, where cops are able to just call a friendly judge and tell them they smelled weed. How the hell you missed that is beyond me.
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Dec 29, 2013 16:06
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e: /\ Hobby Lobby objects to their insurance being required to cover FDA-approved contraceptives because there's a infinitesimal likelihood a couple contraceptives might prevent implantation of a fertilized egg. It's not that they object to the use of contraceptives, but that they object to the infinitesimal possibility of a fertilized egg being prevented from implanting during the course of normal usage as prescribed. It's hypocritical because they don't give two shits about a bunch of stuff that could prevent implantation or cause spontaneous abortion despite such effect not being the expected outcome of normal operation. Take driving, for example. A woman could have just conceived, but her uterus gets all hosed up in a car crash, aborting the fertilized egg. This is why Hobby Lobby does not allow their female employees to drive.VitalSigns posted:I don't disagree that warrants should have stricter oversight or that judges should be disbarred for colluding with cops to issue warrants-on-demand. I wasn't complaining about the ruling so much as mourning that it would just cheapen the seeking of a warrant absent stricter oversight of the local judiciary charged with deciding whether to grant them to the cops requesting them. I think it's a good ruling, I just think there should be checks to ensure it doesn't result in collusion and rubber-stamping on part of the local judge. Which was outside the scope of the ruling. FAUXTON fucked around with this message at 04:06 on Jan 1, 2014 |
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Jan 1, 2014 03:54
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Kalman posted:Yeah, this won't apply to Hobby Lobby - it's stayed for the groups that fall under the catholic exception in the PPACA rules. Does it broaden the definition of religious group/organization?
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Jan 1, 2014 09:21
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Kalman posted:More like "we presume laws were intended to be constitutional so we construe them so as to make them constitutional unless there's just no way." The SCOTUS equivalent of "Presumed Innocent." An example of this was Roberts' opinion on the Obamacare suit. Was that NFIB?
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Jan 2, 2014 12:53
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Thwomp posted:(with legitimate and illegitimate points). There once was a time when people rented bell-owned telephones and men were free...
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Jan 15, 2014 00:19
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Kalman posted:Ironically, the Bell monopoly was regulated under Title II/common carrier, since most of that was part of the 1934 Act, with some additions in the 1996 Act. Ironically, nobody claimed it was a panacaea, but the parts about universal service, interconnection, reasonable rates and fees, and addressing market entry barriers brought us the ability to use dial-up internet without being hosed around with too much by the phone company.
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Jan 15, 2014 03:58
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Kalman posted:You know that most of those were only added in 1996, right? I seem to recall using dial up internet just fine before then. I mean, your post makes it seem like you think those provisions existed beforehand. (Universal service was an add on, not part of the 1934 Act. Same with interconnect and entry barriers regulations. Reasonable rates and fees existed, though. Of course, I believe telephone line costs have gone down over time, not up, so it's unclear just how effective that provision was.) I remember using dial-up prior to 1996 as well, but it was a complete shitshow. What I was getting at was that poo poo like being able to hook whatever you wanted into the phone system was already a thing in the 70s, allowing for acoustic couplers to come along. This is generally considered to be under the purview of interconnection since you could own the modem and ATT couldn't prevent you from connecting it (as long as is didn't cause harm) to the jack. A lack of interconnection (and I'll grant you the 1934 act didn't cover this but it was a non-issue before 1996) was THE barrier to entry for competitors, not whether a CLEC was sufficiently burdened with networking costs. Universal service was outlined in the text of the 1934 act as passed and I'm sorry about not splitting hairs on "to make available, so far as possible, to all the people of the United States, a rapid, efficient, Nation-wide, and world-wide wire and radio communication service with adequate facilities at reasonable charges" not meaning what I said because it didn't say universal service verbatim.The fact that these terms weren't used verbatim in regulation prior to 1996 (which is barely the case if at all) doesn't change the fact that the consumer internet was possible because people were able to hook what they wanted into the wall, and ATT couldn't do poo poo about it as a common carrier. Placing ISPs (and mobile carriers) under title 2 isn't going to cause another drat bubble because most of the people who own the sector lived through that poo poo. We already have MVNOs, nobody's complaining about an MVNO bubble. We have hosting resellers, there's no hosting bubble. The post-'96 chaos isn't likely to recur since people know what the deal is. Primarily the need for title 2 is the classification of data service providers (wired and wireless) as common carriers so that they are required by regulation to keep their drat hands off legal information transfer. It's easier to do that by reclassification than new legislation, sorry. And pay-for-content is just a cheery way of creating more market barriers and encouraging consolidation. If Sony suddenly offered to pay your power bill if you used their poo poo, it'd decimate the home appliance market. How about Whirlpool or Maytag paying your water bill? Good luck finding a decent selection of washers and dryers. The prospect of Apple draining its cash reserves to suffocate content providers like Netflix or Google or Rdio or Spotify or Pandora out of the mobile market is a loving horrible thing and that alone is reason enough to vehemently object to the notion as well as balk at someone who thinks it's a good idea. Unless you want to start regulating what revenues can be used where. E: phone post, edited to seem less stream-of-consciousness and more rebuttal. FAUXTON fucked around with this message at 07:13 on Jan 15, 2014 |
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Jan 15, 2014 07:07
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I hope this stupid derail over how something can be given realistic credentials simply by force of faith can be stopped before someone gets too deep into their sincere belief that the world is better off without six million or so people of a specific ethnic group.
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Mar 27, 2014 05:35
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KernelSlanders posted:Is there some legal basis for this argument or is this simply your opinion of how the case should be decided in some hypothetical legal system other than the one currently in place in the U.S.? I think this statement is inapposite to the Hobby Lobby case, and in fact the Supreme Court has in the past precisely avoided this line of inquiry. Religious freedom is pretty meaningless if the government can determine which of your religious beliefs are correct. One could also argue that it is factually wrong to say one will go to Hell for working on Saturday (as in Sherbert) or that school will corrupt children with worldly influences (as in Yoder). Wasn't that Perry case opinion regarding gay rights and religious supersitions dictating harm for allowing gay people to marry something along these lines, like the religious ones not being able to prove scientific basis for their hoodoo?
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Mar 29, 2014 06:03
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twodot posted:At the district level, sort of. Judge Walker ruled the ban has no rational basis (or alternatively that religious belief doesn't provide a rational basis for legislation, which is well established). However, the requirement that legislation or state constitutions be rational (not based on religious reasoning), is distinct from deciding whether or not a particular religious belief is supported by evidence (edit: Nothing Walker said implies that religious beliefs like "Gay sex is a sin" are factually incorrect). After that, the courts were just saying that the plaintiffs didn't have standing to appeal the district court. So what you're saying is that despite the finding that religion is no rational basis for legislation, you're maintaining that it's OK to use religion as a basis to carve out exclusions in law for private companies because they really believe something strongly?
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Mar 29, 2014 06:24
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Green Crayons posted:Oral arguments for those cases were just last week. There's a 0% chance that an opinion -- which will undoubtedly be authored by Kennedy, though perhaps Roberts -- is coming down the pipeline as quickly as tomorrow. Not if it's a bet on the outcome and not the date 
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Apr 1, 2014 14:53
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It is pretty unfortunate because Obama could easily argue that the "Davy Crockett" nuclear option of blasting the filibuster on judicial nominees is in the interest of actually maintaining the court system while the "Tsar Bomba" nuclear option the GOP will pull is all about just putting their jackboots on the necks of the American People And Their Legislative Process. He could just two-fist veto stamps and essentially force the GOP to find 60 votes on everything. He could also just say he'd gotten used to the tradition of 60 ayes for everything and just wants to make sure that tradition is kept intact as the Senate changes hands. But that's pretty douchey comedy.
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Apr 3, 2014 18:46
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Ron Jeremy posted:Isn't the simplest solution for the cop in your example to take possession of the suspected weed and take it himself over to his car? With the fish too, it wasn't a ton of tuna, it was..70? 20" fish? Waterway patrol boats are minuscule and are basically 2-man deals, 3 with major snuggling going on. Seriously, you know those RHIB boats the military uses, where one guy drives, one has a gun, and like 4 guys are literally hanging off ropes on the side? That's about the size of the typical patrol boat, just add a sunshade and you're good. It wasn't like they rolled up in a cutter and decided it was too much effort to take the fish. They probably would have had a safety issue with a load like that since we're talking a couple hundred pounds of fish.
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May 1, 2014 06:45
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Kalman posted:Alito absolutely demeans those he disagrees with, though - maybe not in his opinions, but everywhere else. That's part of why he has the nickname "Scalito." He's as much a dick as Scalia is.
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Jun 9, 2014 14:54
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Femur posted:I think the general rule is don't engage crazy people because they will stab you. The rule ought to be don't threaten abortion clinics because they will shoot you. Its unfortunate that there's such overlap between the gunbunny crowd, the forced-birth crowd, and the "gently caress everyone else" crowd, because it'd be good to have a strong stock of armed citizens willing to create a few examples and put the fear into the rest of the herd. Some rear end in a top hat charging the entrance gets two in the chest and one between the eyes and these animals scatter. They ignore laws, morals, and civil discourse because they worship death, on a mechanical level. However, their mortal hearts and thoughts of family make actually dying an untenable prospect for them. I doubt martyrdom even holds an allure to them.
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Jun 30, 2014 06:59
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FlamingLiberal posted:The last time I checked my faucet the water was still working down here, so... The question of the day is whether you have to boil it. The tap water down there tastes like goddamn pool water. At least it does on the Gulf coast and in Orlando.
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Aug 9, 2014 08:51
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FlamingLiberal posted:I'm not sure where you were staying because I've never had that issue. We actually do have great water quality down here from what I've read (compared to the national quality). I grew up about 30 minutes outside Tampa and went to UCF before moving away a couple months before my 24th birthday. The tap water is more funky than hose water.
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Aug 12, 2014 05:02
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Alito, Scalia, and Roberts are the "plausible deniability" wing of the GOP - why risk electoral backlash by passing lovely laws when you can fund some puppet lawsuit's appeals, hand off to your homeboys in the robes there, and let the lifetime appointees do the dirty work. The SCOTUS is totes apolitical, how dare you insinuate those august justices are biased. All you have to do at that point is filibuster any work towards legislative remedy. Thomas and Kennedy might not always go along in every case, but you can't fundraise without a raw nerve every now and again.
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Oct 3, 2014 16:42
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The "Welfare gets a callout while God doesn't" really is the best thing to point out to the slobbering trash that bring up the concept of the US being founded as some shape of plebe-hating theocracy. I mean the government still hates it some plebs but the whole idea of the government trying to assert some form of religious agency was anathema to the framers. The "general welfare" bit is just a time-release burn for later.
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Oct 3, 2014 23:55
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eviltastic posted:
Yeah - I work with a guy who proposed to his now-fiancee (then boyfriend, obviously) a few months back and he's hoping Nebraska is going to be having its ban struck down soon. Looking forward to seeing that guy finally be able to marry, but it blows that it's going to be after places like Utah and Oklahoma.
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Oct 7, 2014 22:11
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I don't think there's a valid argument in claiming a road, rhetorically, is functionally improved by the laying of a double-row of jersey barriers across its width.
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Oct 16, 2014 12:31
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FlamingLiberal posted:SCOTUS is holding a hearing Friday to determine if they will hear the Obamacare subsidies case. They will act before the DC Circuit rehearing occurs. welp, bend over again poors, big daddy J-Rob gonna put you in your place. 
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Nov 4, 2014 00:53
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ErIog posted:I have no idea how much of a dishonest fundie Scalia is he's the kind of guy who will no-poo poo opine that the federal civil remedy portion of the VAWA has no constitutional basis and then 5 years later opine that growing medical marijuana prepped and consumed entirely within the home in which it was grown is in fact economic activity falling under the commerce clause authority of the government to raid it. (the only way to predict Scalia's vote is to ask "what is the 'biggest rear end in a top hat' opinion?")
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Nov 7, 2014 08:00
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The Warszawa posted:Maybe Thomas, but it's a long shot. There's a better shot of Roberts voting for gay marriage than Scalia. There's a better shot of Roberts actually being gay than Scalia voting for marriage.
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Nov 7, 2014 09:24
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GreyjoyBastard posted:No, he's too principled. I respect him for that. And Hitler's work ethic was second to none.
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Nov 8, 2014 03:35
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hobbesmaster posted:That was meth actually. Doesn't make it any less respectable than Thomas' highly consistent shitheelery.
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Nov 8, 2014 04:11
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Green Crayons posted:Not much. Don't want to be hospitalized with alcohol poisoning when the SCOTUS un-reforms healthcare.
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Nov 10, 2014 21:24
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The Warszawa posted:RBG, giving zero fucks and chastizing the votes to strike down affirmative action. When RBG drops her dicta motherfuckers scatter.
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Nov 18, 2014 08:35
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