If only Biden wouldn't have talked, it would have been perfect.

Think this will go to the Supreme Court?

That's fair, I guess, I'm not really sure where or when the checks and balances of union power is brushed to the side to the point where Detroit happens. I'm sure there is plenty of blame to go around though.

There's probably lots of pork for everyone in it, while the taxpayers get screwed again.

Heh, $2.4 billion to explain to employers that training their employees is good.

Blaming employees for a company paying them too much.

Corporate welfare is one thing both parties can agree on.

On the basis that this thread is often a general political catch-all ...

Former Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr has been soundly trounced by a (I guess) tea party backed former state rep in his bid to return to Congress. Barry Loudermilk will replace Phil Gingery (who resigned for a failed bid for the Senate nomination).

edit to add: There is no (D) candidate for the office so the winner of tonight's runoff knows they advance in November.

It's too early to call the other two House runoffs in Georgia but the more tea party supported candidate currently leads in both.

Senate race (which could turn out to be an actual race in November) too close to call with only about 1,000 votes between them in the first 300,000 ballots cast

Okay, AP has now called all three GOP House primary runoffs ... tea party backed candidates take two out of three (including my district), losing in Jack Kingston's old seat* in/around Savannah to a 20+ year state legislator.

*Kingston resigned in order to get in an absolute dogfight for the U.S. Senate vacancy ... that's going to go all night looks like, challenger leads by about 2,000 votes out of over 400,000

And the full panel of judges (7 D and 4 R) will likely reverse that decision

These are government employees...not private corporation employees...but yeah, this is straight up welfare as far as I can tell. Anyway, good thing they are finally modernizing their training programs (At a cost of $2.4 billion dollars!) because these dudes (and gals) are makin' bank!

... according to wiki at least.

The intent of the ACA was completely clear, both in the rest of the law and in the statements made during construction. The subsidies may still get overturned, but anyone that votes that way sure as hell shouldn't claim they are originalists.

Former CEO David Perdue beats veteran GOP Rep Jack Kingston.

Pollsters missed this one pretty much across the board What to Watch For in Georgia’s Republican Senate Runoff | FiveThirtyEight

Seems like turnout miscalculation was a big part of the difference

Interesting trivial (or is it?) note from the upcoming November Senate race in Georgia: Both candidates roots are in Warner Robins/Houston County. Both have been gone from the state for long stretches, just kind of unusual to see two statewide candidates here be from the same county (next door to Macon, home of Robins AFB) and so far from metro Atlanta.

Originalism is about constitutional interpretation, not statutory interpretation.

"Conservatives," in the judicial sense, tend to show more judicial restraint and interpret statutes as written.

Um... most originalists don't believe in legislative intent (to add to what molson said). Originalism in this day and age (and what Justice Scalia's judicial philosophy is) is a form of textualism that looks to the original meaning of the words at the time they were written.

More and more, I think people who slam originalism (I'm not an originalist, mind) have no clue what it means.

I don't think it's that simple. Edwin Meese, way back in the eighties said:

Here's Heritage's list of traits of an originalist:


I think the "meaning in context" is what's relevant to this discussion.

Here's Scalia arguing for finding the intent based on hisorical research:


Now at the end of the day I think a lot of originalism is just a broad term for doing whatever I want, but I do think it's more than a strict look at the definitions of terms. The intentions of the Founding Fathers certainly play a part in the Constitutional analysis.

And yet that society ended up deciding it was willing to give up that right.

This is the problem I have with Scalia / "originalists". Knowing the intent of the framers is good, and important, but must be balanced with the march of history.

Will we still have supreme court judges basing their opinions significantly on the framers' intent* in 2500? I hope not.


*By "framers' intent", I mean one of two things. To me, we should distinguish between what they said regarding how the government should operate including how decisions should be approached, and specifics regarding actual laws and rights. The framers' views on the former are, IMO, always going to be relevant and this and the quality of the U.S. Constitution are why I'd always resist attempting to completely remake it. But the framers' views on the latter are bound in time, and increasingly irrelevant with each passing year.

Again, they're talking about constitutional interpretation, not statutory interpretation.

It really doesn't matter though, if's a good outcome for liberals, you'll think it's the right legal decision, if it's a good outcome for conservatives, you'll think they were biased.

Or if you're instead now claiming that real judicial conservatism is actually about focusing on intent of legislature and not the words of the statute, will you criticize the Democrat-appointed judges (and the dissent in this case) if they take that "conservative" approach and focus on the intent of legislature and not the words of ACA? Somehow I'm going to guess not.

Edit: It's usually a slam-dunk argument in a court with more conservative judges to argue, "if legislature meant X, they should have just said X". That really speaks to conservatives, the idea of judicial restraint, separation of powers, not "legislating from the bench". A liberal judge is more likely to consider the spirit of the law, more willing to infer intent from circumstances, just like they're more open to the idea of an evolving constitution. The precedent describes the applicable standards in such a way that neither stance is really wrong. (And having read the opinion now, in the federal courts, unlike in my state, the law is that a court will not interpret a statute in such a way that leads to an absurd result, regardless of the language used by the legislature. So the majority did that analysis and concluded the result here wasn't "absurd" - they majority also cited a bunch of federal cases that warned against using that "absurd" standard too broadly, because it risks undermining the legislature when the court is making the determination as to whether a law is good policy or not. In my state, which is very conservative, judicially and otherwise, that's not even a thing anymore. The law means what the law says, unless the words are truly ambiguous, in which case, the courts can use tools of statutory interpretation, like looking at the legislative history, the circumstances surrounding the enactment of the legislation, and other similar legislation, etc. Liberal judges are much more willing to use those tools more quickly in interpreting statutes.

This attitude is just as bad as a blind partisan one.

What a silly notion. You're trying to manufacture an outrage here where none exists.

And let's get back (everyone groans) to asking what is a conservative judge. An originalist? A supporter of the current Republican party? Someone who is just resistant to change and tries to conserve the status quo?

What's your definition here?

When it comes to statutory interpretation, I really can't explain it any more than I did in my last post. (But maybe you posted before I made my edit).

But if I'm wrong, and you guys are right, and "originalism" really means focusing on the intent of the legislature when interpreting a statute, and that's a conservative thing, then why shouldn't you criticize liberal judges, like the dissent in this case, who take that very approach in interpreting a statute? How is that a silly notion?

It's not an attitude it's an observation. An observation about an attitude expressed here. Unless you rule in such a way that leads to a most liberal-friendly outcome, you're biased and disingenuous (or worse). It's not just disagreeing with a legal opinion. Plenty of brilliant people disagree on how to apply these standards. I just don't like the arrogance of this attitude that if it doesn't have my desired policy outcome, they just didn't do it right and are lying about their reasons.

That's not how I read his post. He said that if someone comes to this decision, they are not an originalist. This post does not attack people who arrive at that same decision (counter to what he wants) and has not claimed to be an originalist.

I posted before your edit.


I'm not sure I'm claiming those things at all. To be honest, I'm finding you hard to understand.

That's how you choose to perceive yourself. But your original statement tars both sides with the same brush of being non-constructive to the general debate. Which is an attitude perhaps, yes, borne out of observation, but an attitude nonetheless. And I would caution you in using it, especially as you have been accused, with grounds, several times in the past for using false equivalence to advance your points.

He said "anyone that votes that way sure as hell shouldn't claim they are originalists." and then "I think a lot of originalism is just a broad term for doing whatever I want." I could be wrong, but I took that to mean that he thought the majority in the D.C. Circuit case was being disingenuous. Because if they were truly "orginalists", as many conservatives are, they they would have looked at the "original" intent of the legislature. That's just objectively wrong. That's not what that term means in any way. It is conservatives who are more likely to interpret a statute by its words alone, and it's conservatives are much less likely to use tools of statutory interpretation to determine the "real" legislative intent.

I guess someone could be an "orginalist" in terms of statutory interpretation, but that person would be more liberal. And it'd just be a confusing term to use because it means something completely different than how that term is normally used.

Edit: This is one of those cases where liberal policy actually matches up with liberal judicial philosophy. In that a liberal judicial philosophy (relying heavily on statutory interpretation tools) would tend to lead to a liberal-friendly outcome. A conservative judicial philosophy (relying more on the words of the statute) would tend to lead to a conservative-friendly outcome. It's when those things don't match up like that that you can really see who's being disingenuous, and who is being persuaded by policy outcome.

Politics really does cause gridlock. Last night I got stuck in the Obama motorcade and this morning my wife is delayed because of a Hilary Clinton event.

So this is what happens when I take my daughter to Chinese camp!

I'll address a few points, but I'm going to skip the whole liberals are poopieheads bit.

First, my understanding of originalism is that the original intent of the statute and the authors/supporters is part of the equation when there is disputed interpretation. It isn't simply a slavish adherence to language. I believe I saw an article a while back where Scalia said he wasn't a constructionist, but was instead an originalist because he wasn't simply looking at the disputed words.

In this case I think any originalist would be able to look at the rest of the law and the statements of those that wrote/supported the law and see that the intention was clear. You can also through in the precedent of letting executive agencies set the rules if you'd like. To slavishly look at this piece of text, but ignore everything else is certainly not looking at the original intent.

Secondly, in the posts above there has been a lot of conflation between intent and interpret. I'm not arguing that interpretation varies through time and place, but that original intent does matter for originalists.

Thirdly, I believe almost every Supreme court justice is or has been a political actor working in the political arena. Very few have consistently risen above their own political desires over the course of their term. I certainly believe this is true about the court over the past three or four decades. I thought that was the same opinion expressed by molson at various points. I'm not sure why it sets him off now.

Lastly, I may very well be wrong on my understanding of originalism, but there is no dis-ingenuousness about my argument. That's the one thing that drives me crazy at FOFC. We can disagree or be incorrect without being disingenuous.

I don't think you were being disingenuous at all. I perceived that you and some other posters have been too quick to label the majority opinions and legal analysis that led to those opinions as being disingenuous.

There have been a bunch of appellate opinions we've discussed here recently. It seems as though every time there's one with an outcome that's not liberal-friendly there's just this initial rush of resentment about how awful the decision is, about how the majority are just biased old men who are result-oriented, how they're hypocrites who went against their previous claimed values, etc. Even when the decision was unanimous or close to it. And even when the evidence of hypocrisy is some previous case that dealt with an entirely different standard or issue. It seems people can only go one way on these opinions, or else they're biased and hypocritical and disingenuous.

I'm not sure exactly why it frustrates me some - I know that I'm pretty conservative when it comes to the role of the judiciary and separation of powers, and I feel like you're saying that someone leaning that way is just automatically biased and inherently incorrect. And if a case has an outcome that isn't liberal-friendly, then it's also probably just based on dishonest legal analysis. To me, it's just silly for people on one political side to constantly attack the other side as being biased and result-oriented. It's not an exclusively conservative trait.

And originalism has absolutely nothing to do with statutory interpretation. There's nothing inconsistent about being originalist and being reluctant to go beyond the plain language of a statute.

In fact, a court cannot lawfully look beyond the words of a statute unless those words are ambiguous, or unless the result would be absurd if the law was interpreted as written. Every judge cites that standard in every opinion that analyzes a statute. It's a completely different standard than you would use to interpret the constitution.

There's just a lot of grey area surrounding when exactly a statute is "ambiguous", and when exactly a result would be "absurd". Conservatives will tend to find that fewer statutes are ambiguous, and will rely on the words of a statute more often, and liberals are more willing to find ambiguities and absurdities, and thus will more often look outside the statute for evidence of legislative intent. Both approaches are valid and consistent with precedent and the applicable standards. Just because someone doesn't like an outcome, it doesn't mean the the approach to get there was somehow not on the level. In this case, especially, relying on the words of a statute and being more reluctant to go beyond them is absolutely a conservative trait. So it's frustrating to read someone trying to frame THAT approach as being somehow dishonest or hypocritical or whatever. You just can't win. Unless the decision is liberal-friendly, the legal analysis must be wrong somehow.

I really think when a case gets to the Supreme Court or a federal appellate court, reasonable minds could disagree on most cases. I don't look at the constitution or statutes the same way as Elena Kagan, but she is way smarter than I am, is a much better writer than I am, and her philosophies on this stuff are as valid as anybody's. I feel like some people on that side of things here don't have the same respect for different philosophies. I think there's dozens of examples of that in the last few months here with the recent appellate opinions. Including the D.C. Circuit one, and accusing the majority of acting inconsistently with originalism. And the abortion buffer zone case, where part of the attack was that the majority was disingenuous and hypocritical because it ruled the other way in Moss v. Wood, which was a completely different case about qualified immunity, with a completely different standard applied.

Originalism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Read the entire thing as its is about the progression of the term and why tarring, say, Justice Scalia with the Original Intent part makes no sense whatsoever (esp considering his quote in the Original Meaning part).

I kinda agree that Obama has been absent. He wants comprehensive immigration reform and I'm good with that but the problem is immediate, not 6-12 months in the future.

Having National Guard intercept before they come into the US and tweaking the law to expedite seems like a no brainer to me. For the ones already in, send them back and help their government setup temporary shelters, orphanages ... whatever. Essentially give them some money.


Obama weighs sending National Guard to border - CNN.com

This didn't seem right to me.

Answering a call: Americans in Israel's military - CNN.com

But found

1,000 Americans Are Serving in the Israeli Army and They Aren’t Alone - The Daily Beast

I don't like to idea of dual citizenship. Seems to be a conflict of interest and loyalty. Pick one.

I've seen a lot of talk about a "crisis" here. Are there actual facts about this crisis, or just more hot air from the GOP?

If its not a crisis, I can easily see it become one. If parents are willing to send kids to US by themselves, and the kids are not returned quickly (or if there is doubt they will be returned), it will encourage more of the same.

So ABC, CNN, etc & et all are now just providing talking points from the GOP?

There doesn't seem to be much disagreement that it's a crisis condition (note: our threshold for a "crisis" may be lower than it used to be) ... the difference in opinion seems to be more about what the crisis actually is.

This is a recording...the left-wing activist you have dialed is not in service....this is a recording...the left-wing activist you have dialed is not in service....this is a recording...

:)

Border crossings are up 500% and many of them are children on their own. The border states don't have the resources to deal with it and many of the children are being detained in poor conditions. The feds have asked some northeast states to house some of them but have been turned down by those governors.

The child migrant crisis is not just a border issue: Blue states need to step up.

(Take a screenshot :))

I fully agree with Jon.

Well, it was meant to be a serious question as I haven't been following the news. I was wondering what, specifically, had happened, or increased to make it a crisis. Like this:


Thank you molson.

Fair enough, that whooshed right past me tho.

Sad but I think fair description ... but does not give Obama credit for the recovering economy in the second term and effectively guaranteeing Obamacare by not losing.

Can Obama rescue his sputtering second term? | MSNBC

Another view on the Immigration Crisis, by a judge living in El Paso:

Log In - The New York Times

Mass. Gov. Patrick signed a new abortion buffer zone bill today, that, on first glance, appears to address the concerns of the Supreme Court and fits within the parameters that pesky First Amendment. Under this one, it's not a crime just to stand on a public sidewalk near an abortion clinic, or to just talk to people there. (I think they could have gone further and proscribed "harassment" instead of just "intimidation" and "interference" but they played it safe).

The statute also cleverly allows officers to enforce a real buffer zone if there is actually a need at a given time, if peoples' access is actually being impeded. Which is much more narrowly tailored. Courts are generally much more tolerant of statutes when the government and police do things for specific reasons that can be articulated and reviewed. AND the statute creates civil actions, as well as criminal penalties, for violations.

https://malegislature.gov/Bills/188/Senate/S2281

(b) A law enforcement official may order the immediate dispersal of a gathering that substantially impedes access to or departure from an entrance or a driveway to a reproductive health care facility. A dispersal order issued pursuant to this section shall include the following statements: (i) the gathering has substantially impeded access to or departure from the reproductive health care facility; (ii) each member of the gathering shall, under the penalty of arrest and prosecution, immediately disperse and cease to stand or be located within at least 25 feet of an entrance or a driveway to the reproductive health care facility; and (iii) the order shall remain in place for 8 hours or until the close of business of the reproductive health facility, whichever is earlier. This subsection shall apply during the business hours of a reproductive health care facility. This subsection shall also apply only if the 25-foot boundary is clearly marked and subsections (a) through (c), inclusive, of this section are posted outside of the reproductive health care facility.

...

(d) A person who, by force, physical act or threat of force, intentionally injures or intimidates or attempts to injure or intimidate a person who attempts to access or depart from a reproductive health care facility shall be punished, for the first offense, by a fine of not more than $2,000 or not more than 1 year in a jail or house of correction or by both such fine and imprisonment and, for each subsequent offense, by a fine of not less than $10,000 nor more than $50,000 or not more than 2½ years in a jail or house of correction or not more than 5 years in a state prison or by both such fine and imprisonment. For the purpose of this subsection, “intimidate” shall mean to place a person in reasonable apprehension of bodily harm to that person or another.

..

(g) A person who recklessly interferes with the operation of a vehicle that attempts to enter, exit or park at a reproductive health care facility shall be punished, for the first offense, by a fine of not more than $500 or not more than 3 months in a jail or house of correction or by both such fine and imprisonment and, for each subsequent offense, by a fine of not less than $1,000 nor more than $5,000 or not more than 2½ years in a jail or house of correction or by both such fine and imprisonment.

But gays, immigrants, abortion, and Obamacare!!!!!

So Republican obstructionism has been a good thing...

3 of 4 of which I rate higher in importance than anything mentioned above.

Those are nice, but money isn't the end all & be all of the universe.

Yet the median income has dropped...

More additional context, good and bad.

Obama’s Numbers, October Update