The Power of the SCOTUS Part VII - The Bedrock of the Republic!

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VII - The Bedrock of the Republic!

'Twas ever thus. I can't think of a period in American history when this was any worse or any better than today. Even the Founders did it, and we've never had a constellation of stars as intelligent, high-minded, or genuinely devoted to democratic values.

It is the nature of politics to goad your opponent into dropping his sword, only to pick it up and run him through with it. We aspire to more, but the number of politicians who have been honorable in that way is probably countable on one hand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzijOEHcFxk

I actually remember thinking, when I was in college, after a vote was brought up to immediately pull everyone out of Iraq and only four people voted aye: What if Democrats are secretly trying to stay in the war, wait until they get into power, get some measure of "success", and then claim the credit? And look what "happened" with Bin Laden.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VII - The Bedrock of the Republic!

Backing off the "clearly congress intended this" line...that's quite the 180 in less than a week.

Not at all. Congress clearly intended it one way (see Gruber, et al, there is plenty of evidence to demonstrate that they clearly intended the "by the state" clause to force states to adopt their own exchanges), and the Court interpreted it a different way. How is that so difficult to understand?

This is the same Court that, in NFIB v Sebelius, first said that the law was an unconstitutional expansion of the commerce clause and then re-wrote it retroactively to let it stand under an alternate theory of taxation instead.

I have no doubt that, had the challenge come before the first subsidy ever was granted, the Court may well have ruled differently, but now that people have already banked the subsidies for two years, they didn't want to take it away from them retroactively. That this Court would make a decision based on political considerations is not a surprise.

Have you never hoped for one thing while expecting the other?

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VII - The Bedrock of the Republic!

I know what you're saying but I'm really sick of both parties playing both sides. If its wrong for a democrat to do something, I can't be afraid to call out a conservative for doing the same things. How many sound bites are there of Obama the Senator saying something is wrong while Obama the President does the same exact thing when given the chance? Neither side should be forgiven for such things.

Agreed. But obviously there are enough people who don't agree that folks who do this can do so obviously and get reelected over and over. As the old saying goes, the end justifies the means.

 

[Shirtless Guy]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VII - The Bedrock of the Republic!

It reminds me a lot of a comment my wife told me about her company's plans for employee personal development.

CFO: If we pay for their continued education and they leave for another company what will we do?
CEO: If we don't pay and the only people who stay aren't continuing their education what kind of employees will we have left?


Same can be said here, you hear so often that for example, Obama flip flopped on this but he's still better than Romney...end of discussion.

Its' been said many times that if we throw out every politician who lies in this way there won't be any left.
I say if we continue to let them get away with this on both sides, we'll never get anywhere because they will continue to push the envelope of how much they can lie and flip flop and still keep their job.

 

[Rover]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VII - The Bedrock of the Republic!

Not at all. Congress clearly intended it one way (see Gruber, et al, there is plenty of evidence to demonstrate that they clearly intended the "by the state" clause to force states to adopt their own exchanges), and the Court interpreted it a different way. How is that so difficult to understand?

This is the same Court that, in NFIB v Sebelius, first said that the law was an unconstitutional expansion of the commerce clause and then re-wrote it retroactively to let it stand under an alternate theory of taxation instead.

I have no doubt that, had the challenge come before the first subsidy ever was granted, the Court may well have ruled differently, but now that people have already banked the subsidies for two years, they didn't want to take it away from them retroactively. That this Court would make a decision based on political considerations is not a surprise.

Have you never hoped for one thing while expecting the other?

Ahhh Fishbreath. Still think Roberts is your ally?

 

[dxmnkd316]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VII - The Bedrock of the Republic!

You should have been here. It was as close to an orgy as the Cafe gets.

Now there's an image... I'm glad I've never met most of you folks so I can continue to imagine what y'all look like.

Nah, I look more like Brad Pitt but have the charm of Heath Ledger.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VII - The Bedrock of the Republic!

Its' been said many times that if we throw out every politician who lies in this way there won't be any left.
I say if we continue to let them get away with this on both sides, we'll never get anywhere because they will continue to push the envelope of how much they can lie and flip flop and still keep their job.

If we eliminated pensions for legislators (they can have a 403b which is a 401k for government folks, that's fine), that would be a start.

If we eliminated flat salaries for legislators and instead paid them a pro-rata per diem based on what they had earned in the private sector before they were elected, that would be even better. We could get a higher-quality representative AND have legislatures spend far less time in session as well!

 

[dxmnkd316]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VII - The Bedrock of the Republic!

If we eliminated flat salaries for legislators and instead paid them a pro-rata per diem based on what they had earned in the private sector before they were elected, that would be even better. We could get a higher-quality representative AND have legislatures spend far less time in session as well!

Absolutely not.

 

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VII - The Bedrock of the Republic!

If we eliminated pensions for legislators (they can have a 403b which is a 401k for government folks, that's fine), that would be a start.

If we eliminated flat salaries for legislators and instead paid them a pro-rata per diem based on what they had earned in the private sector before they were elected, that would be even better. We could get a higher-quality representative AND have legislatures spend far less time in session as well!

Good luck; guess who has to legislate that.

You could go the style of the 21st amendment, but something tells me that repealing a few others might be on the table if that were to happen.

 

[St. Clown]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VII - The Bedrock of the Republic!

If we eliminated flat salaries for legislators and instead paid them a pro-rata per diem based on what they had earned in the private sector before they were elected, that would be even better. We could get a higher-quality representative AND have legislatures spend far less time in session as well!

Absolutely not.

I'm with dx on this one. So the future Steve Largents and Sonny Bonos of the US Congress would be paid millions for their time in service while a grass roots candidate might get $45K.

Look, there's a giant boon for a lot of legislators who now have the exposure to the DC world, but you're eliminating a whole socioeconomic class of people from ever having hope of holding office. It costs a lot of money maintaining a house in their home district and in DC. Some of these people are already sleeping in their offices and bunking with other Congressmen. D.C. is an expensive place to live.

 

[dxmnkd316]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VII - The Bedrock of the Republic!

All it does is mean that the government can not restrict two people, of consenting age, from getting married

Oh ****ing sweet. I can marry a corporation!



(apologies if someone made this joke already. I haven't read all of the posts yet.)

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VII - The Bedrock of the Republic!

Oh ****ing sweet. I can marry a corporation!

Comcast has been fvcking me for years, 'bout time it came through with the ring.

 

[dxmnkd316]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VII - The Bedrock of the Republic!

I'm with dx on this one. So the future Steve Largents and Sonny Bonos of the US Congress would be paid millions for their time in service while a grass roots candidate might get $45K.

Look, there's a giant boon for a lot of legislators who now have the exposure to the DC world, but you're eliminating a whole socioeconomic class of people from ever having hope of holding office. It costs a lot of money maintaining a house in their home district and in DC. Some of these people are already sleeping in their offices and bunking with other Congressmen. D.C. is an expensive place to live.

Couldn't have said it better myself. I'd like to see more (intelligent) Regular Joes in power rather than a lot of what we have now. More engineers, too.

(Kepler might actually scream in panic at this one. ; )

 

[dxmnkd316]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VII - The Bedrock of the Republic!

Comcast has been fvcking me for years, 'bout time it came through with the ring.

Oh man, I actually laughed out loud at my desk at this one.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VII - The Bedrock of the Republic!

Couldn't have said it better myself. I'd like to see more (intelligent) Regular Joes in power rather than a lot of what we have now. More engineers, too.

(Kepler might actually scream in panic at this one. ; )

Agreed. Efforts to pay less and less to people in legislative offices does little other than eliminate the possibility of most regular folks from holding such offices. The money is inconsequential in any budget, but the effects on who can consider seeking office is significant.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VII - The Bedrock of the Republic!

Look, there's a giant boon for a lot of legislators who now have the exposure to the DC world, but you're eliminating a whole socioeconomic class of people from ever having hope of holding office. It costs a lot of money maintaining a house in their home district and in DC. Some of these people are already sleeping in their offices and bunking with other Congressmen. D.C. is an expensive place to live.

So they wouldn't live in DC at all, their travel expenses would be covered by the government, they'd spend a lot less time in session so they wouldn't need to own a house in DC anyway. We do live in the internet age after all, why do all the congressmen physically have to gather together for so long and for so often anyway?


If you really want to reduce the influence of big corporations and power brokers, keep the representatives dispersed. Having them spend so much time together in DC makes it way easier for lobbyists to invite them all to big fancy parties and stroke their egos. One lobbyist can go from 9:30 - 4:30 and see 21 representatives for 20 minutes each in a day, cover the entire House in less than a month. A lobbying firm with five agents can see the entire House in a week, 20 minutes at a time. Close physical proximity is a big part of their influence.

 

[LynahFan]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VII - The Bedrock of the Republic!

FWIW, my primary interest here is academic since I really don't care how it turns out. I have a tough enough time keeping one wife happy and don't see a whole lot of reasons why anyone would take on additional ones. While I fully understand Bob's & Joe's position on the matter (religious based), what I'm having a tough time with is those who are for gay marriage rights don't seem to want to extend them to polygamists. Neither practice harms them, their marriages or society any more so than gay marriage will.

Sorry to backtrack - been a busy couple of days at work...

Just wanted to get back to this to state that my interest is ALSO primarily academic - exclusively so, really. Personally, I have no trouble with polygamy. I'm just trying to work through the legal arguments (as an academic exercise), and, to the best I can tell, the 14th amendment requires governments either to not recognize marriage at all (won't happen) or to recognize marriages between any two consenting adults. I *don't* think that the 14th similarly requires governments to extend marriage to any group of N consenting adults. If a state legislature wanted to do so, I would have absolutely no problem with it. The distinction I've been arguing has nothing whatsoever to do with my personal preference of whether marriage is extended to polygamists nor is it based on a belief that polygamy would somehow harm society - just going through the legal thought experiment of whether polygamy is required by the 14th since we already have man-woman marriage. I don't believe that it is.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VII - The Bedrock of the Republic!

What concerns me more than the King v Burwell ruling today is the one that allows disparate impact to stand.

Suppose I am a diamond merchant, or run a bank. I don't want to hire anyone with burglary robbery or embezzlement on their criminal record, since they've already demonstrated they cannot be trusted around anyone else's valuables.

Now I get sued under disparate impact because I'm not hiring enough people with criminal records? I'm discriminating against former felons?

 

[Shirtless Guy]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VII - The Bedrock of the Republic!

Sorry to backtrack - been a busy couple of days at work...

Just wanted to get back to this to state that my interest is ALSO primarily academic - exclusively so, really. Personally, I have no trouble with polygamy. I'm just trying to work through the legal arguments (as an academic exercise), and, to the best I can tell, the 14th amendment requires governments either to not recognize marriage at all (won't happen) or to recognize marriages between any two consenting adults. I *don't* think that the 14th similarly requires governments to extend marriage to any group of N consenting adults. If a state legislature wanted to do so, I would have absolutely no problem with it. The distinction I've been arguing has nothing whatsoever to do with my personal preference of whether marriage is extended to polygamists nor is it based on a belief that polygamy would somehow harm society - just going through the legal thought experiment of whether polygamy is required by the 14th since we already have man-woman marriage. I don't believe that it is.

Well the question is are 3 people truly entering into a group union or is Person A married to Person B but also trying to marry Person C and Person B doesn't object to Person A being married to 2 people...Person A and Person C are consenting adults correct?

 

[unofan]

What concerns me more than the King v Burwell ruling today is the one that allows disparate impact to stand.

Suppose I am a diamond merchant, or run a bank. I don't want to hire anyone with burglary robbery or embezzlement on their criminal record, since they've already demonstrated they cannot be trusted around anyone else's valuables.

Now I get sued under disparate impact because I'm not hiring enough people with criminal records? I'm discriminating against former felons?

Being a criminal is not a protected characteristic, so you're fine. Now if you're using this as code for racism (more felons are minority due to law enforcement practices), legitimate business reasons are a valid defense. If you limited this to specifically applicable felonies, you'd still be fine. But if you automatically eliminate all convictions for pot, for instance, then that might get you in trouble if you can't explain why that's necessary.

And this case wouldn't have shot down disparate impact cases in employment, anyway. That got upheld years ago. The only reason people thought it'd get shot down in housing is because the FHA doesn't have the magic words that Title VII has.