The Goat Pen

" look at Ginsburg making public comments about Trump running for president."

She ruled in favor of Trump on that immigration issue you mentioned the other day (the one that overturned the 9th Circuit ruling)...

Evidently a go fund me effort has raised $14 million (and counting) for George Floyd...

"you only see what you want to see in regards to this stuff"

Well that's true of most people regarding most issues, not just politics. Certainly just as true of you regarding "this stuff." I mean, the MIF was trying to tell me how to grill fish last night. I sometimes try to tell her how to wash dishes. It's just human nature...

"when it comes to immigration the 9th district was a reflection of Obama's politics, not interpretation of our existing laws."

Of the 49 judges on the 9th Circuit, Obama appointed 7. Bush appointed 7 and Trump has appointed 10. Hell, there are still a couple on there appointed by Nixon...

You do realize that the ruling by the 9th Circuit was not that we can't deport illegal immigrants, it was just that there should be judicial review in some cases. The Supreme Court evidently felt that it would be too much of a burden on the judicial system if this was allowed. So the 9th Circuit was not saying that people can't be deported, just that in some cases a judge should be able to look at the case and determine if immigration officials had acted properly in their decision to deport some people.

Evidently there is a law in place that says judges cannot look at these cases and the 9th Circuit ruled that that law was unconstitutional: "A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, ruled the law unconstitutional, saying that it violated the Constitution’s suspension clause. The clause says that “the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.”

I cite this last part b/c I feel reasonably sure you have no idea what the suspension clause is (neither do I) nor do you have much of an idea of the finer (or even broader) implications of the meaning of habeas corpus, so I just think it's kinda funny when you or anyone else who has nothing more than an emotional stake in some legal issue ("Fuck those people, deport them!", etc) to puff up and proclaim that the judges on a federal appeals court don't understand the law or the constitution and are just making shit up, when it's really you whose understanding of the law and the constitution amounts to about a molecule of what these judges know and understand about this stuff.

I include myself in this on some issues, but I will say that I have no feeling whatsoever about this ruling, it involves a lot of stuff that I don't have the time or inclination and probably not the capacity to really grasp, so I'm basically just shrugging and accepting that if that's the ruling of the Supreme Court, esp. by a 7-2 margin, then so be it. But I do think it's pretty stupid for most non-lawyers to be acting like they understand more about the law and the constitution than federal judges (but only, of course, when those judges make a ruling that for whatever reason the non-lawyer whiners don't like)...

I have been hearing about the 9th circuit since Trump got elected, not just on this ruling.

and in your previous post you're talking about the political side of appointing judges who don't seek justice and now you're talking about how they will follow a strict interpretation of the constitution, invalidating the opinion of a layman.

The entire issue is their interpretation of the constitution and how they justify their bias to influence their interpretation. The 9th Circuit has a reputation in regards to immigration of doing this on a regular basis.

and without getting into the details of the ruling, when you have a 7-2 ruling from SCOTUS overturning you, then it would seem to this layman, they missed the mark by quite bit in their interpretation.

"it would seem to this layman, they missed the mark by quite bit in their interpretation."

Yeah, well, according to the Supreme Court they did in this one case, but as I mentioned in another post, the Supreme Court is perfectly confident in over 99.9% of the rulings by the 9th Circuit, so I'd say that's pretty strong evidence that their judicial opinions concerning our laws and the constitution are sound and that they're not, as you seem to think, just making shit up due to political bias. Unless, of course, you care to offer some evidence that that's the case, some hard data that would counter the fact that the Supreme Court doesn't see any reason to review barely more than 1 out of 1000 cases by the 9th Circuit over a 20 year period and only overturned 60% of those (meaning that more than 999 out of 1000 cases that they ruled on stood). And by evidence I mean something more than that you just didn't like some ruling by them or that you think they're stupid...

will you feel the same way when RBG dies and is replaced by a conservative and then the 9th Circuit as it becomes more conservative and SCOTUS are in alignment with my interpretation of immigration as opposed to yours?

will you have faith they are unbiased in their interpretation of the constitution?

yesterday we are walking the dogs and head up to the local high school. We walk our normal loop around the ball fields and the parking lot was full of cars which is an unusual sight in the last few months. As we are walking we see these tent things set up they bring to ball games now and there are may 10-12 people milling around each tent - 3 of them, at the same time the coach of each team was surrounded by the team, 13-15 boys in a huddle

no one had a mask, they were all elbow to elbow.

Normally we'd loop around the parking lot and head back but we stopped well before, I wasn't going near that group.

As we were leaving a cop pulled into the lot and we heard him telling them something over his P.A. but we couldn't hear what we was saying.

I'd hope that he'd tell them to practice safe distancing but I doubt it.

With summer here, where I am now, at best, masks are worn by 50% of the people, and in my circle, tractor supply, kroger, meijer, the auto parts store, most of the time its me and the employees wearing the mask, maybe an elderly couple. People who have self identified as not being at risk have just stopped caring.

Even where my son works at the local hotel, they have removed the barriers that force distancing between him and the customers.

I expected everyone to be lax about this one summer hit, what I saw yesterday was zero regard though.

I hope that the country does not gradually ramp up to overwhelming the hospitals again. I read that Houston is at 100% but covid-19 represents 28% of the patients.

Houston is back at 100% of normal ICU capacity which Im guessing is basically back to a bit above normal, and is probably related to the hospitals beginning to handle backlogs from the period in the spring where elective stuff was banned. Its about half of what capacity is if they change over to surge capacity.

"will you feel the same way when RBG dies and is replaced by a conservative and then the 9th Circuit as it becomes more conservative and SCOTUS are in alignment with my interpretation of immigration as opposed to yours?"

I already told you I didn't have any problems with the Supreme Court's ruling on this. Hate to say it, but I really don't care much about immigration issues one way or the other. I'm sure it's something I should be concerned with or at least have some sort of opinion on, but I don't. I did admit that on some issues I have the same type of emotional response that you are displaying on this issue, but they are (and I don't think this is going to come as a shock to you) more along the lines of drugs laws than anything else. I view it as rank hypocrisy that somebody like Scalia, who pretended to be such a strict constitutionalist, would reject any and every marijuana suit for the absolutely stupid reason that he was just an old fart who didn't think drugs were good for people.

I've cited it before, but I actually admire Thomas b/c of his dissent in some marijuana case in which he said (I'm paraphrasing here, but not by much) it would be unthinkable that the Founders could even conceive that the use of marijuana could be made illegal. Call it an uninnumerated right or whatever, but based on that alone, I have thought that I can live with pretty much any decision Thomas makes b/c I trust that he's truly judging by the what he sees as the legal justifications of the case, even though on an emotional and ideological level I would guess that I disagree with him 90% of the time...

I will say that I thought it was unconscionable (but not surprising) that McConnell didn't allow a vote on Merrick Garland b/c Obama had "only" one year left in office, but you know damn well if Biden gets elected and RBG dies on Jan. 19th, he'll make sure Trump gets to appoint her replacement, and I suspect most Trump supporters would be just fine with that. Would you?

I thought it was a shit move about Merrick and I was surprised that McConnell had that level of power.

But yes, Trump should absolutely get to pick RBG's replacement. At this point I'm assuming she'll hang on to January out of spite anyways

I'd be lying if I said I was upset that Merrick didn't get appointed. I honestly feel the country would have been worse off, but I am a big believer in respecting the process.

aTm wrote: ↑Fri Jun 26, 2020 10:30 am Houston is back at 100% of normal ICU capacity which Im guessing is basically back to a bit above normal, and is probably related to the hospitals beginning to handle backlogs from the period in the spring where elective stuff was banned. Its about half of what capacity is if they change over to surge capacity.

I suspect backlog has something to do with it. At first Houston doctors sent out the alarms and then the backtracked admitting they were overreacting to the current state of the the hospitals. I would assume a hospital administrator pulled them aside and reminded them that 100% capacity is a profitable endeavor.

On Thursday, the Government Accountability Office said the Trump administration had delivered more than a million stimulus payments worth about $1.4 billion to dead people in a rush to pump money into the economy this year.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/25/worl ... k-7416c603

"But yes, Trump should absolutely get to pick RBG's replacement. At this point I'm assuming she'll hang on to January out of spite anyways"

What if Biden gets elected and RBG dies in December, do you think Trump should get to replace her, esp. in light of the Garland situation? How would McConnell be able to justify that? Just say "now that I think about it, I was wrong to do that to Garland, I feel bad, I'm sorry, but now I'm going to do the right thing"?

"I would assume a hospital administrator pulled them aside and reminded them that 100% capacity is a profitable endeavor."

Where's AA when we need him?

hedge wrote: ↑Fri Jun 26, 2020 12:34 pm On Thursday, the Government Accountability Office said the Trump administration had delivered more than a million stimulus payments worth about $1.4 billion to dead people in a rush to pump money into the economy this year.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/25/worl ... k-7416c603

Duh, this is just math that anybody could have done when it was announced. Its based on a prior year's tax return. About 3 million Americans die in a given year. 3 million times $1,200 would equal $3.5 billion. $1.4 billion is actually surprisingly low.

hedge wrote: ↑Fri Jun 26, 2020 12:52 pm "But yes, Trump should absolutely get to pick RBG's replacement. At this point I'm assuming she'll hang on to January out of spite anyways"

What if Biden gets elected and RBG dies in December, do you think Trump should get to replace her, esp. in light of the Garland situation? How would McConnell be able to justify that? Just say "now that I think about it, I was wrong to do that to Garland, I feel bad, I'm sorry, but now I'm going to do the right thing"?

I doubt McConnel will lose sleep over justification.

He has his own headwinds in the state. Matt Jones wrote a book called "Mitch , Please" that details all the ways Mitch has profited at Kentuckians expense. If his opponent was any stronger he would probably lose his seat.

one more thing about Merrick, you have to remember that McConnell was assuming he'd be working with Clinton as president, not Trump -and he probably had worked some backroom deal with Hillary to eliminate potential suitors while she paid off her many IOUs.


I doubt Hillary wanted Merrick any more than McConnell