All posts by Gary Nolan

Your humble contributor is an avid political enthusiast, science junkie, former small business owner, limited government, constitutionalist, and all around lover of liberty. I make every effort to use logic and reasoning, not hate, ad hominem attacks, nor logical fallacy arguments.
SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average JOE SCOTUS: United States v. Palomar-Santiago

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This is a pretty straight forward case about Mexican Refugio Palomar-Santiago, who legally came to the US and was granted permanent residence in 1990. A year later, he was apparently so excited to be an American, he got drunk as a skunk, and jumped behind the wheel of a car, drove like shit, and got popped for DUI.

In California at the time, a DUI was considered a violent crime, and as such, was a deportable offense. So the US told Refugio he could fuck right off back to Mexico.

Since then, three years later, the Ninth Circuit decided in a separate case, that calling a DUI a crime of violence is fucking stupid. So they quashed that law, and made it retroactive so that anyone prosecuted under that law, would no longer be deemed a violent criminal. In 2004, SCOTUS also came to the decision in Leocal v. Ashcroft, that this was bullshit.

Refugio was like, “Sweet” and made his drunk ass back to the US, but this time he came in illegally. He was eventually busted, so he was like, “Hey assholes, you decided the reason you kicked me out the first time was bullshit, so I have a right to be here. I should’ve never been kicked out the first fucking time. You’re just lucky I’m not asking you to cover my travel expenses.”

But the government was like, “Listen fuckhead. There are rules in coming back into the US. You don’t just get to violate them because the reason we kicked you out has been rendered invalid. You still gotta go through the proper channels, or you’re here illegally.”

Their opening argument points out that Refugio had options available to him for judicial review and shit, but he didn’t pass go, he just collected $200.

In a unanimous decision, SCOTUS sided with the US, and told Palomar-Santiago to haul his ass back to Mexico. Had he went through the proper channels to get his removal order invalidated, he’d be fine. But he broke the rules coming back, and that shit ain’t allowed.

Hear audio from the case, or read about it here.

https://www.oyez.org/cases/2020/20-437

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: HollyFrontier Cheyenne Refining LLC v. Renewable Fuels Association

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In it’s desire to combat climate change and shit, congress passed the Energy Policy Act in 2005, which added some new guidelines to the Clean Air Act. The idea was to incentivize companies to move from fossil fuels to renewables and shit.

One of the measures was to push oil and gas refineries to use blends, such as methanols at increasing levels, so it’s more plant based fuel, and less petroleum based fuel.

Within this legislation, they allowed for smaller refineries to have exemptions if complying with their rules, would cause serious problems for them, disproportionate to the impact it might have on larger companies, which can afford to make such changes easier.

So the question the court is being asked, does this law indicate that you have to have a continuous string of hardships, year after year, to keep qualifying for this extension? Or is it that once you jump that hurdle, and are deemed able to comply, are you barred from asking for an extension the following year.

As SCOTUS Blog points out, this hinges on the definition of the word extension. Because the petitioner is saying, they can apply for an extension at any time, but the respondent is saying, “Hey look, how can you extend something that isn’t currently happening?”

During oral arguments, Justice Kagan brought up a compelling argument for the petitioner:

Elena Kagan

Good morning, Mr. Keisler.

In thinking about the ordinary meaning of this word, “extension,” I guess I’m wondering if you would comment on this hypothetical. Suppose that I rented an apartment five years ago and I rented it for a year, and then I decided to give it up, and five years later I’m now really tired of where I’m living now and I want to move back, and I call the landlord and say: I’d like an extension of my lease.

What would the landlord say?

Peter D. Keisler

I think the landlord would scratch her head and think that’s a very strange context in which to be using the word “extension.” I agree with that. And that, I think, is like the government’s examples of the hotel guests or the people parking their cars.

I think those may have a different connotation in part because they involve rights, the physical occupation, and because you go away and you then come back, and we think of that as discontinuous. And that’s why we think the much more apt context here is how Congress has used the word in the context of government benefits and programs that existed, lapsed, and resumed.

In a 6:3 decision, and weirdly sexually divided, where Barrett, Sotomayor, and Kagan dissented, SCOTUS ruled in favor of HollyFrontier. That they can indeed file for extension, even if there was a time when they didn’t need said exception. Since the law didn’t include words like “successive” or “consecutive” it kinda leaves the door open that they don’t need to be year after year. A simple hardship can trigger an exception.

Hear oral arguments or read about the case here.

https://www.oyez.org/cases/2020/20-472

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: Guam v. United States

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As you may know, during the Spanish-American War, the United States busted Spain’s ass, and took Guam for their troubles. In 1950, they gave Guam power to rule themselves, while still remaining a territory of the United States.

In 1940, the US needed a place to dump military waste, like old ammo and even some hazardous chemical warfare shit like DDT and Agent Orange, using that dump through both the Korean and Vietnam wars.

It wasn’t a great dump, though, and it leaked that shit into the Pacific Ocean, prompting the EPA to declare it a serious priority to address in 1983 after passing the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA). CERCLA was designed to deal with hazardous wastes at dump sites.

Five years later, the government said the Navy was the major asshole causing all of this, but because Guam ruled itself, the EPA told Guam to come up with a solution.

But Guam was like, “You assholes admit the Navy caused this, and we don’t rule the fucking Navy, you do. So the Navy should figure this shit out and clean it up. Why the fuck would we be on the hook for this?”

in 2011 a district court appointed some fucktwit who closed Ordot, the dump in question, and estimated it’d be like $160M to clean that mess up.

At one point during questioning of Guam’s counsel Garre, Justice Sotomayor went into full disrespect mode, interrupting counsel before he could answer most of the questions posed to him, and even at the end when he was trying to answer, cutting him off with a rather terse “Counsel, please!” I believe she was out of time, but still, it was incredibly unbecoming.

However, she must’ve had a change of heart, because her along with the other eight justices sided with Guam. They can sue the federal government to clean that shit up. CERCLA clearly has language for liability, and the Navy is clearly liable. Enough said.

Hear oral arguments or read about the case here

https://www.oyez.org/cases/2020/20-382

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: FCC v. Prometheus Radio Project

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Pretty simple case, here. Because there are limited radio waves, the FCC tries to make rules to ensure competition in the marketplace, restricting how many people can own one market area. Basically, they don’t allow one media giant to own too many TV or radio stations in that area, so that people get news and information from varied sources.

In 2017, the FCC was like, “Fuck it, we don’t care anymore. Do whatever the fuck you want at this point. No one even gives a fuck about radio or newsprint anymore anyway.” They eased all their “cross-ownership” rules accordingly. These rules initially were making sure that people heard opposing view points, but what’s the point now, with all these news hacks all over the internet, digital radio, YouTube, or whatever.

They instead, created an “incubator” program to encourage women and minorities to start up such stations.

The 3rd circuit was like, “Hey, FCC! What the fuck do you think you’re doing? This incubator program is cute and all, but repealing your cross-ownership rules will make it nearly impossible for women and minorities to get in the game, you dumb fucks.” So they killed FCC’s new rules.

Prometheus Radio Group is one of those small ass stations, and they’re pretty sure the FCC’s rules will fuck them squarely in the asshole.

So now we’re at SCOTUS deciding if the FCC or the 3rd circuit got it right. And in a unanimous decision, SCOTUS agreed with the FCC. Basically saying, “you fuckheads were charged with policing the airwaves, and within that context, you can make whatever rules you think serve that interest as long as you explain it well enough, and it isn’t some unreasonable or unconstitutional nonsense. Go forth and multiply.”

Read about the case, and hear oral arguments at Oyez.com. You can also check out SCOTUS Blog’s analysis.

Libertarianism, SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average JOE SCOTUS: Americans for Prosperity v. Bonta

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We all know the People’s Republic of California love to rule with an iron fist, right? Well, federal regulations require charities to disclose a list of their major donors, to help protect those donor’s interests, in case those charities are doing some shady shit.

Well, California, believing themselves to be better than the federal government are requiring companies give them donor names and addresses as well. Here’s the rub.

California has had breeches of these lists, and leaked that info to the public. So for instance, if some dude has a hard on for Jesus, and donates to an anti-abortion group, Californians outs that motherfucker as an “anti women’s rights” person, when they had no desire to have their position publicly outed. While we here at Logical Libertarian are pro-choice, we consider a pro-life stance a fair belief to have, and that belief has nothing to do with women’s rights, it has everything to do with giving basic human rights to a human life that merely hasn’t exited the womb yet.

No one who’s pro choice is out there pushing to take away women’s rights in any other way. This is merely a misleading tactic to get people to join their side.

So charity Americans for Prosperity (AFP) and their peers are arguing this is a violation of their first amendment rights to freely associate, because it might deter them from otherwise donating to their cause.

They hear California’s argument that it’s to help prevent charities fraud, but they’re like, California never even uses that information to do that, all they do is fucking leak it when they don’t like people. Not to mention, the IRS already has that info.

In the words of the defense:

Because the attorney general has failed to take measures to adequately protect the Schedule B forms, some donors will consider the Attorney General’s scheme and reasonably conclude that the risks of disclosure are too great.

The group cited that California employees themselves, posted over 1800 of these forms on a public website, just to out donors they disliked.

California contends, this doesn’t directly prevent anyone from freely associating, so they’re calling bullshit. If people believe in a charity, they can donate to it all they want, we just want to know about it, and we may tell the world about it because we’re assholes.

So throughout the case, the terms strict scrutiny and exacting scrutiny have been bandied about. The petitioner’s want a strict scrutiny ruling. Which seems to mean that if the state wants this info, it has to go about getting it in the least intrusive way possible, and this isn’t it.

However, the state is arguing that an exacting scrutiny standard should be applied, and because this law doesn’t actually have a component to prevent free association, the petitioner’s argument is bullshit. They’re not associating because they’re afraid of being publicly outed, not because the state is preventing it. So it’s not EXACTLY preventing free association.

A handful of whiny twats in congress for the DNC asked Justice Barrett to recuse herself, since Americans for Prosperity donated heavily to help ensure she was confirmed to the supreme court. She was unimpressed with their argument, and did in fact participate. She’s nominated for life, after all, so there’s no power they hold over her, and she has no reason to side against what she thinks is right. This is likely an attempt at Democrats to both get more information for Commie Cali, and to attack Barrett for her Christianity again, as they did when she was confirmed.

We here at Logical Libertarian are also atheist, but we find these attacks on her religion equally disgusting as misrepresenting anti-abortion arguments.

Anyway, back to the case. California’s argument is that they need this info to investigate charities fraud. But the petitioner is like, “That’s some fucking bullshit. They never use this info for that. They never investigate charities fraud proactively, to where they’d need this info on hand. They only fucking investigate when there’s an actual accusation of fraud or some shit, in which case, they send an audit letter, or subpoena the info. So there’s no need to have this shit ahead of time.

Gorsuch, going after California, pushed on the right to privacy issue specifically, asking if the first amendment’s right to peaceably assemble also assumes some level of privacy, to which she responded it did. So then Gorsuch asked her to draw a distinction between California charities disclosed up front, and say some company being forced to send their company Christmas card list, to see if they’re friends with anyone government cares about, or who they’ve dated in the past so they try to compile data on who people end up marrying?

Counsel danced around this, in saying that if the people in question had a fear of reprisal, they could certainly argue that as a reason why not to disclose such info. But notice that this flips the script, and argues that government has a right to demand it, and it can only be thwarted if the people cite a reason why, as opposed to the people have a right not to disclose it, until government proves it has a compelling interest that supersedes their right to privacy. And this is why it’s Communist California, and not a state which gives a fuck about rights in any meaningful way.

Gorsuch however, interrupted her and said, “assume there’s no reprisal whatsoever.”

Here response:

Aimee A. Feinberg

I think that would be very difficult because, in that situation, there would be a significant burden on intimate association.

There would very likely be a significant burden resulting from public dissemination of that kind of information. And, as a result, the government would have to come forward with a commensurately strong justification, and it wouldn’t be clear to me in that context what that interest would be.

Call me crazy, but she ultimately just made the argument for the petitioner’s.

In a 6:3 partisan decision, liberty won out. The conservatives protected the 1st amendment rights of charitable donors against the commie assholes in California. The dissenters argued that this is a pretty creative interpretation of the first amendment, and opens the door to other shaky 1A arguments. But you know what, fuck those assholes. California was out of line, and I don’t mind saying it.

Hear oral arguments or read about the case, here.

https://www.oyez.org/cases/2020/19-251

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: Carr v. Saul

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In a case that promises to be some boring technicality bullshit, Willie Carr was trying to get some Social Security scratch for a disability he has. An Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) told Willie to eat a bag of dicks. So Carr told them to fuck off, and went to a federal district court to see if they’d help.

While waiting for the federal district court to hear his case, SCOTUS decided in Lucia v. SEC that ALJs must be appointed by the president, a court, or the head of their agency, which they weren’t.

So, the Social Security Admin was like, “Fuck, we gotta appoint some new ALJs.” So that they did.

After SSA appointed new ALJs, Carr was like, “Wait a minute. Those assholes that told me to eat a bag of dicks were not even supposed to be there. So their decision is bullshit, and I want to talk about my claim again.”

The district court agreed, and told the SSA to try again. However, the SSA was like, “Carr should have brought this shit up during his appellate process.”

But Carr was like, “Fuck you, Lucia hadn’t even been decided yet. How the fuck was I supposed to know to raise that objection then, when the precedent hadn’t even been set yet? Are you serious with this shit?”

But the SSA went to the US Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit, and got them to agree with him, that Carr should have raised that issue earlier. So now that two courts disagreed as usual, here we are at SCOTUS to sort this shit out.

In a unanimous decision, SCOTUS decided Carr had a pretty valid fucking point. A person can challenge the constitutionality of the ALJ during appeal, regardless of whether they brought it up during adjudication.

Basically, on appeal, normally you’re supposed to address shit that was part of the initial review, not bring up new shit, or at least that’s what Saul wanted.

But SCOTUS was basically saying, that the administrative hearings weren’t adversarial, they were inquisitive in nature, and as such, Carr wouldn’t have any reason to make it adversarial by bringing up whether or not he thinks these assholes are unconstitutional. At that point, they’re just talkin’, bro.

Anyway, winner winner chicken dinner for Saul. Good on ya, man.

Read about the case and hear oral arguments on Oyez.com

You can also read about the case at SCOTUS Blog and National Law Review if you’re really interested.

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: Ford Motor Company v. Montana Eighth Judicial District Court

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In 2015, one Markkaya Jean Gullett was involved in a fatal crash involving a Ford Explorer. One of her tires gave up the ghost, and caused her to lose control of the car. Gullett’s estate sued Ford Motor Company (FoMoCo) in Montana, blaming a design flaw, which seems ironic since the tire failed and not the part FoMoCo actually designed and manufactured. Like seriously, why not go after the tire company?

Ford requested dismissal for lack of jurisdiction. They were like, “We didn’t design shit in Montana, we didn’t do anything that killed this person in Montana, we’ve never even fucking been to Montana. So no way is this shit for them to decide. Besides, you’re not even a real fucking state. What is it, like….50 people live here or some shit?”

As noted by Oyez:

Ford Motor Co. has its headquarters in Michigan and is incorporated in Delaware. Ford assembled the vehicle in Kentucky and first sold it to a dealership in Washington State. The dealership then sold it to an Oregon resident, who later sold the vehicle to a purchaser who brought it to Montana.

But Montana was like, “You run your stupid fucking ads in Montana. And, you have licensed dealers in Montana. So fuck you, you’re doing business here. We can handle this shit, and we have every right to.” Basically they were being the little state that could.

So here we are at SCOTUS to determine if a state court can give itself such jurisdiction when the actions that are in question, in this case the design of the car, didn’t take place in that state.

In a unanimous decision, SCOTUS decided with Montana over Ford. Saying essentially, “You fucking sell cars in Montana through licensed dealers, so you do business in the fucking state. It’s not like she took it somewhere illegally it wasn’t supposed to go. So go fuck yourself. Montana can have at it.

Now that this is settled, Montana can tell her family to sue the tire company, and leave Ford out of it.

Read about the case, and hear oral arguments at Oyez, here.