I wonder if the recent scrutiny of the tens of millions taken by these judges from plaintiffs and defendants in their own courts and the resulting outrage will make him consider this offer, knowing real ethics LAWS are coming as soon as Democrats retake the house and his fire-hose of unreported “gifts” is likely to dry up under new laws with teeth, this may be his only shot at continuing the lavish lifestyle he and the other “conservative” “justices” all enjoy thanks to their billionaire donors who buy decisions.

Note- there has yet to be a single credible accusation of taking “unreported gifts” (aka bribes) against any of the 3 “liberal” justices. No false equivalency to make here @bobknight33, none. The best the muck rakers can come up with is Geinsberg once accepted a trip she reported on her disclosures from someone who had PREVIOUSLY YEARS EARLIER had a case heard. I’m sure you will say that’s the exact same crime as taking millions from people with cases pending before your court and not reporting a dime of it or recusing yourself.

😂 You mean prosecute the human trafficking governors!? 😂

Biden disappointingly didn’t change Trump’s border/immigration plans except to deport more Haitians to Hati. If Trump and republicans had done their job securing borders when they had 100% control of the government instead of trying to build a useless monument to himself, this could be a non issue. Instead, illegal immigration ramped up under Trump thanks in part to the intentional slowdown and shrinking of the legal immigration process, shrinking of the border control agent pool, and misuse of border funding to build a useless fence that’s breached with ease daily.

Biden and Democrats tried to hire tons more border agents, MAGA/republicans blocked it. Republicans then continue to go on TV to say the borders are wide open, knowing those statements are shown in central/South America and convince immigrants it’s the time to come.

What has Texas or Florida done to stop immigrants? Nothing useful at all, just political stunts that, while costing $10 billion, caught zero immigrants or drugs, and economy destroying new laws. Buy OJ futures, Florida’s agriculture sector is crashing because they can’t get labor. Thousands of teaching positions are open thanks to their war on education/teachers. Tons of at home medical care jobs open there too. Too bad Americans won’t even apply.

Newsom should send a convoy of busses full of disfunctional homeless and dump them at the governor’s mansion in Texas and Florida. Tens of thousands of them. Florida needs the workers, call it a jobs program. Texas needs the “fuck you”, Florida needs the workers.

The leak itself is newsworthy, but not 10% as newsworthy as what they leaked, which is proof that every single Republican Supreme Court judge lied outright under oath in their confirmation hearings when they all said “roe v wade is settled law and established precedent and will not be overturned by me”. The first chance they got, they took off that paper thin mask and revealed their agenda to legislate from the bench based on personal opinion not science, fact, or established law. They should ALL be impeached tomorrow for perjury during their sworn hearings.

Time to add 5 more liberal judges to the bench by June 1 and rehear the cases. It’s legal, and the only way to negate the liars, rapists, and religious zealots that Trump improperly installed by stealing two seats with McConnells help and filling a third with a drunk rapist. Turnabout is fair play.

MAY!? This IS the decision, they may rewrite the explanation slightly, but without a few assassinations, “accidents”, or criminal charges, this is how the vote will be reported next month, they already voted in Feb as I understand it, it’s just not official until it’s published but rarely are votes changed, and soon abortion will likely be 100% illegal in any state led by Republicans. Anybody know Barrett’s address? What about Kevanaugh? They, and any state representative voting against personal autonomy, should be doxed at every abortion clinic entrance so the now choice less women, many rape or incest victims, can make themselves martyrs and not just suicide statistics. There will be no exceptions now that they can write the laws that way.

We know this is a real draft because they instantly started looking for the “leaker”. You can’t “leak” a fake decision.

I hope women will start a sex strike in every red state. No nookie until they can control their own womb and it’s contents. It’s the ONLY logical move unless they want to be incubators with no autonomy.

Pretty certain that, if you disagreed with their decision, “wait and see” would not only be a terrible idea to you, it would also be an insult to your intelligence.

I’m petitioning Newsom to boycott any state enacting new laws restricting abortion, “new” meaning in the last decade. California does a shitload of business, we shouldn’t be doing it with states that are removing rights from women.

I just can’t fathom, with overpopulation being the root of all major problems humanity and the planet face, why so many idiots still think they should “be fruitful and multiply”, and should force that on their neighbors too. It’s the height of stupidity, and their children will pay the price for the lack of thought their parents put into the decision. We need to abort 9/10 embryos (or get 10 times better at stopping fertilization in the first place), not increase birth rates by double.

(Before you try the “but it’s murder” nonsense, legally and scientifically those things inside wombs aren’t people, and even if they WERE, one person cannot enslave another even in life or death situations. If they could, we would force live organ donations, transfusions, etc with the donor having no right to refuse.)

I'm from Texas. I support Abortion. No contraceptive is 100% effective, not even if you combine them. If you don't understand that, study how percentages work.

Secondly, kids are hormonally driven creatures. They are literally under the influence of natural chemicals driving them to procreate.

Not every school or parent teaches them about contraceptives. In fact, you will find most 'Christians" only support abstinence. This is the equivalent of telling a chemically dependent addict to "Just Say No!" How well did that work in the drug war back in the day? (Hint: However, despite DARE's bold claims, research has shown that the program has failed spectacularly.)

Third, the people who are most affected by this new law are the people that can least afford the better contraceptives or having a child in a non-stable family environment. This won't bother a middle class or rich family at all, they can just send the kid off to an "aunt" in another state until the issue is resolved. Those kids from poor families will just be forced to have the kid and likely it will ruin their lives. This doesn't even take into account that the new law doesn't have ANY exceptions for rape or incest.

Fourth, the USA was founded on religious freedom. In other words, you get to believe what you want and others get to do the same. This means that if a religious person tells another person that something they are doing is forbidden due to morality contained in their religion, that other person can tell you to fuck right off. Church and State are supposed to be separate, but the Christian right think they should be able to legislate their religious ideas on others. Do you not see the hypocrisy here?

I'm nominally a conservative. Sadly that means that I get lumped in with you ultra far right wackos that want to turn the USA into a religious state like Iran or Afghanistan. I'm not leaving my home state because some religious nut jobs think it is OK to kill adults by lethal injection but that it is BAD to kill some cells that are multiplying.

Btw, the cardiac activity detected on ultrasound at six weeks is not a true heartbeat. It results from electrical activity, but the valves of the heart have not yet formed. And the sound does not indicate the pregnancy is viable. Women typically don't notice they are pregnant until they miss a period. So if they are unlucky, they may already be close to four weeks pregnant. That leaves them two weeks to confirm it with a doctor, since home tests are not 100%, get together money for the abortion, find a clinic, and schedule an appointment that falls within the remaining time period. Since this law will cause even more clinics to close in Texas, you can add travel and patient backlog to the time. A teen could do everything right and still miss out on the lottery for an appointment, dramatically changing their life for years.

But at least some smug religious person can sip their coffee and be proud they enforced their morality on some evil women that dared sleep around out of wedlock.

And the police departments fight tooth and nail against justice for whistleblowers or accountability for criminal cops. She got her pension back, but only after a 13 year extreme legal battle, crafting new laws herself and pushing them through, and special personal treatment from the courts and governor, and she didn't recover her career, nor the almost 15 years of struggling starting with extended forced unpaid leave followed by unemployment without her earned benefits and with a huge black mark on her record. If I recall, they tried to prosecute her for assault on a police officer for stopping a murder of a handcuffed citizen, and that goes on her employment record.

I mean what I said. Trump (and his subordinates at his direction) made up new regulations, New laws, New restrictions, New limits, new procedures, and new rules that combined made it not just harder but often impossible for people who, before Trump under any administration would have been quickly granted asylum in accordance with the law. He also slowed the process for legally applying, limited the number allowed to apply in a way never done before, and created new systems where instead of waiting in the country they had to wait in another country with no services in crime ridden refugee camps if they're lucky, sometimes sent south of Mexico, many instructed to go home and wait, homes they fled under direct and credible threats of death or worse....many after having their children taken.

Trump did not simply "enforce current laws". He changed them, misinterpreted them, ignored them repeatedly and flagrantly, then enforced those he liked. Consistently the intent was to minimize any immigration as much as possible from countries that aren't predominantly white. Not once was the intent to streamline the system so it would improve, every step was designed to slow the process and deny entry to as many people as possible, even those with legitimate life or death reasons for asylum. He even changed those rules to exclude narco terrorism death threats to be a reason for asylum, not because they aren't valid but because there are too many.

When you personally create the "law" you're enforcing by (often illegally) changing the rules and established interpretation of long standing law and policy to make following the law near impossible and often deadly, you don't get credit as if that's being a humanitarian just enforcing the law. Duh.

Edit: BTW Mr law and order, Trump never followed the law in his business dealings nor with his taxes or his loans (hyperexagerated his property values on loan documents, while minimizing their value on tax forms). His best excuse? His claim that he's not a real businessman and didn't even bother to read the loan and tax documents he swore were correct because he had no idea if they were.....His claim that everyone does that, everyone is a tax cheater and bank fraud perpetrator, is asinine.....but exposes him as the criminal fraud we all know he is, not a man who respects the law.

I think that's at the discretion of the judge, if you asked for 15%, likely you'll get your principal back, if you asked for 1500%, chances are you won't get a dime back as punishment, and may end up owing the borrower if you went overboard trying to collect.

I live in California, building codes change constantly. I agree, it is maddening and often backwards. He was specifically talking about codes for building stand alone solar, which are newer building codes. Even old building codes are often poorly thought out and contradictory. I'm not saying there isn't an abundance of red tape here, especially for building.
That said, his contractor should have been aware of all codes, submitted his plan, and would have approval or notes on what to change in weeks tops. There's something wrong when it takes over a year to get a shed built, some reason his plans weren't approved like they weren't to code.
Citation : personal experience - I installed solar in California, it took 3 days for my permit approval....and only that long because my contractor was being lazy.

That's the thing I disagree with, no new laws are needed at all, just a removal of exemptions/deregulations for businesses that pay large enough bribes (contributions) to elected officials. Even making all credit businesses operate on the same rules, allowing them 30% interest, seems ok, but that isn't reality today. It's unconscionable to allow 1600% interest on loans peddled to desperate people that don't actually qualify for a real, legitimate line of credit, many of whom don't understand it's what they're agreeing to, but the payday loan lobby is well funded and connected.
Citation:
Although U.S. states set their own maximum legal interest rates, a Supreme Court interpretation of the National Bank Act of 1864 preempted state usury laws and created a path toward a national consumer lending economy. The most important federal case in credit card interest rate deregulation was decided in 1978.

Her problems were multifold. The predatory loan took a fixable issue, her terrible customer service, and compounded it with insurmountable and ever expanding debt, which in turn undoubtedly hurt her customer service more, thus increasing her debt..... It sounds like she never should have purchased a service oriented business, and likely overextended herself from day one just to do it.

I'm unsure of your point in the last paragraph.

I think you mean they wouldn't have to pay you the interest. They would have to pay you back the principal. And that would be under specific cases and usually when no contract is involved, also all depends on where you live.

Also, I don't think either Bill's building codes are "new" vs. the usury laws being "existing". Please cite to support.

The irony is that additional laws to stop predatory lending are, in fact, what red tape is made of, by definition. So I found it amusing that he would look at her situation, say that Nancy and team were trying to solve it for her by passing new laws, then go on to complain about all the red tape surrounding this building. That red tape exists because someone else before him saw a problem or safety issue or concern, and put yet another policy or law in place to solve it. In reality, as your posts prove, her problem was not that a predatory lender got involved in her life, but that her business was in bad shape because she had gone off the deep end and was thus losing customers.

I could easily imagine a bit where he showed a stack of papers four inches thick that he had to sign to get a loan, and complain about the processing time, then showcase an SMS based loan that works in another country and funds in one day.

No? what? how the hell did u get that from this?

The president of the United States issued an order making it a crime to do this for the purpose of interfering in an election.


The Obama administration, along with a slew of our allies, wanted that prosecutor out because he was NOT prosecuting corruption. They wanted someone who would prosecute corruption more aggressively. I fail to see the problem.


Furthermore, Hunter Biden was not under investigation for corruption from the prosecutor who was let go. According to the company Burisma Holdings claimed at the time (and still say now) that they brought H Biden on to improve their company image and root out shady business practices. The name probably helped that, but it's apples and oranges.

If there were really something shady going on, why fire the person who is NOT investigating your son's company? Regardless, per the new law under the 45th, it's improper and illegal for someone campaigning to engage in this kind of conflict of interest. If he had a legitimate concern, he should have let an appropriate agency within the state department handle it.


BONUS apparently he's also done this multiple times with the likes of Australia and whatever else is behind the code worded files.


On another note, it's illogical and stupid that i have to keep reading about the credibility of the whistleblower. THE FUCKING WHISTLEBLOWER REPORT IS 100% CONFIRMED BY THE RELEASED TRANSCRIPT FROM THE WHITE HOUSE.

HE COULD BE THE MOST DISCREDITED PERSON IN THE WORLD BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN HE PROVIDED FALSE INFORMATION HERE.


https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ukraine-transcript-read-ukraine-president-phone-call-transcript-pdf-released-today-joe-biden-crowdstrike-2019-09-25/

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/09/26/whistleblower-complaint-against-trump-read-full-declassified-document/3773047002/

What's left to debate about this? the report filed matches the transcript put out BY THE WHITE HOUSE. It's beyond me why I even have to explain that.

There are a few problems with that, and they all end up at the same issue, lobbying.
Police unions are incredibly powerful lobbyists and do lobby against the public's interests, and they use the threat of striking, leaving the public with zero law enforcement, to squash any attempt to regulate them.....and when that fails, the sheriffs and chiefs often just ignore the new laws, like they did about making discipline records public in CA, they just said "nope" and refused to release them, many departments held bonfires where they burned these records to ensure they would never, under any circumstances, become public knowledge....still today, even long after the law went into effect Jan. 1st and has been upheld in courts, the A.G. just outright refused again to follow state law and release these public records. Pretty damn hard to establish an effective oversight body when police have the ability to erase all information they wish by any means with no repercussions.

Second, the prison guard union is the best funded, most powerful private/union lobbying group in America, and they do actually write laws for representatives to present. It's clearly in their best interest to force the desperate to be criminals, it's their bread and butter. They fight to expand minimum sentencing, incarcerate 14 year olds as adults for life, continue and expand the failed drug war, oppose any rescinding of criminal laws, have tried to reinstate debtor's prisons, criminalized multiple civil crimes, etc....incarceration is their business, and business is good.

So while I agree, there are numerous better systems that serve everyone much better with less money , less incarceration, and less recidivism, until we revamp our political system to make it illegal to bribe politicians (and make no mistake, it's perfectly legal to bribe them with campaign donations or promises of massive support), there is no way in hell it's going to improve and a near certainty it will continue to get worse because there's money to be made by locking people up.

As a percentage of income, businesses and the rich pay nothing compared to the poor, who can least afford it.

I'm all for simplification, no loopholes or special deductions, including religion (wow, would that fill some coffers!), I could even go for one tax rate on all income (edit: including inheritance), with a huge standard deduction. I absolutely agree what we have is a convoluted mess that benefits the rich and penalizes the poor and unconnected....particularly business taxes. I also think they should be simplified and standardized, with no more special tax handouts to any businesses added as new law, and any bailouts should be pure stock transactions nationalizing any businesses that need bailouts, paid at current market rates.
Unfortunately, as I mentioned, I think going to only national sales tax effects the poor in a way that's not equal or just, even if you include businesses, and puts excessive additional burden on those who already need help.

We have some laws to limit money in politics. Both parties violated those laws this election and have yet to face any consequences. New laws are worthless if we don't enforce them.

(I edited, and some stuff pertains to your reply)

Regarding well regulated, here's the sauce :
http://www.constitution.org/cons/wellregu.htm

Keep in mind that the 2nd amendment is 2 part.
1st the motivation for why the rule exists, 2nd the rule.

The rule exists, whether or not the motivation is provided (and it's nice of them to provide context - but not necessary).

Even if regulation was meant in the modern sense, it would not change the fact that the rule does not depend on the motivating factors.

But if you insist on motivational prerequisite, here's Hamilton regarding individual right to bear :

"The project of disciplining all the militia of the United States is as futile as it would be injurious, if it were capable of being carried into execution. A tolerable expertness in military movements is a business that requires time and practice. It is not a day, or even a week, that will suffice for the attainment of it. To oblige the great body of the yeomanry, and of the other classes of the citizens, to be under arms for the purpose of going through military exercises and evolutions, as often as might be necessary to acquire the degree of perfection which would entitle them to the character of a well-regulated militia, would be a real grievance to the people, and a serious public inconvenience and loss. It would form an annual deduction from the productive labor of the country, to an amount which, calculating upon the present numbers of the people, would not fall far short of the whole expense of the civil establishments of all the States. To attempt a thing which would abridge the mass of labor and industry to so considerable an extent, would be unwise: and the experiment, if made, could not succeed, because it would not long be endured. Little more can reasonably be aimed at, with respect to the people at large, than to have them properly armed and equipped; and in order to see that this be not neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in the course of a year. "
[etc]

(That last sentence - there's your training requirement, tee hee. Not only that, but that they should assemble people 1-2 times a year to make sure that everyone is armed and equipped. That's more than an individual right to bear, that's an individual requirement to bear. Let's just be happy with it being a right.)


Laws are supposed to be updated by new laws via representative legislators (who may need to be coerced via protest facilitated by freedom of assembly).
Or challenged by juries (i.e. citizens, i.e. members of the state) via jury nullification (i.e. direct state democracy). That's why there are juries. You need direct state involvement so that the legal system can not run amok independent of state sanction. It's not just for some group consensus.
The system was architected to give the state influence, so that government can't run off and act in an independent non-democratic manner.

-scheherazade

According to separation of powers... and the roles defined for each branch.

Parsing words is fine.
Persons vs people is moot. People = multiple persons. Unless your intent is to give a right to a single individual, you're always dealing with people.

The flip side is that if the 2nd amendment only protects militias and their armament, then it protects militias. So you are free to start a militia and get armed.
(Again, by 1791 parlance, well regulated meant well adjusted. There is no prerequisite for government regulation re the 1791 English it was written in.).


"well, they wrote X, but clearly the intent was to also cover Y and Z" doesn't work when :
- Y and Z did not even exist at the time of X.
- Y and Z did exist, and the writers chose not to include them.
In either case, you end up legislating from the bench.

It's a simple matter to make a new law covering Y and Z. There is no need for a court to jump the gun. Just find the case by the classic scope, and inform the legislature of the circumstances so they can take it into consideration. Heck, there is no guarantee that the legislature even wants the scope expanded. They could even want it contracted.
If it becomes a complicated matter with parties arguing - then it clearly needs debating and would have been inappropriate to decide elsewhere.

As a republic, the people are the state, and the state has all authority. The government exists strictly to record, execute, and enforce the state's will, by the state's authority (govt. has no authority inherent to itself).
The legislature is the channel that codifies the state's will. No other functional element serves that purpose. To codify something, it must go through the legislature. Else it does not carry state authority.

-scheherazade

According to whom?

They don't normally do that. They decide "well, they wrote X, but clearly the intent was to also cover Y and Z" is how they usually interpret laws. Creating entirely new law based on entirely new circumstances is NOT how they are supposed to work...but I do admit it has happened, just not often.

The Judicial exists for a reason. Interpreting and enforcing laws is what they are here for. Let them do their job and interpret laws so the legislature can (not) do theirs and write new laws to cover new circumstances or re-write old ones to actually SAY what's intended, and remove or redefine parts that have been interpreted in ways that were not intended or that had unexpected consequenses.

EDIT: I would point out that it's judicial interpretation that has given the right to own and bear arms to individual citizens rather than only well regulated militias, the amendment only specifically gives it to "people" not "persons"...which technically means only groups of people are allowed to own them. It was new, recent judicial interpretation based on a challenge to the DC gun ban that granted the right to individuals, no where in the amendment does it spell out that individuals may own and bear arms.