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 Agency for International Development v. Alliance for Open Society International Inc.

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Respondents (the people being sued) The Alliance for Open Society International receive federal taxpayer money to help fight HIV/AIDS outside the United States. Worthy goal, but I already take issue with the idea that the U.S. taxpayer is on the hook for this. But enough of my libertarian concerns for now.

Such funds provided by government come with a rule that any agency doing such work, to oppose prostitution and sex trafficking. Again, my libertarianism says I’m down with forbidding sex trafficking, but there’s nothing wrong with voluntary prostitution. But let’s move on.

Back in 2013, SCOTUS ruled on U.S. Agency for International Development v. Alliance for Open Society International Inc., that such rules violate the first amendment’s right to free speech. But despite this ruling/precedent, the government continues to apply this rule to foreign affiliates of Alliance.

So now SCOTUS is being asked if the ruling applies to people not directly involved in the case, such as affiliates of Alliance.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) argues that such protection from the precedent only applies to people within the US, because only they get 1st amendment protections. Since this is assistance that is outside the US, it shouldn’t apply.

In a 5:3 decision (Kagan abstained), SCOTUS sided with USAID. That the policy opposing prostitution is not unconstitutional, and can be applied to them.

Hear oral arguments or read about the case here.

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico v. Aurelius Investment, LLC

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ARTICLE 2: Section 2 U.S. Constitution

He (The president) shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law: but the Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments.

So Puerto Rico…when it comes to balancing their budget, there’s no easy way to put it—they suck. Between pensions for government workers, hurricanes galore, and the migration of people from Puerto Rico to the mainland USA, they’re basically fucked.

Anyway, because of their financial issues, they owe a shit ton of money to creditors, with what appears to be no way to actually pay it. As a result, back in 2015, president Obama appointed a panel to oversee Puerto Rico’s spending and budget, because you know, Obama knows how to fix everything.

Both some of Puerto Rico’s creditors, and politicians think Obama’s appointees suck even worse, and they’re less than pleased. So they’ve decided to try to nullify these assholes by saying that they fall under the appointments clause, and thus should have been approved by the senate, just as the senate does with other presidential appointees, but these asshole weren’t. Obama just shoved them down Puerto Rico’s throat and wished them good luck.

So here were are at SCOTUS, asking them to determine if these assholes Obama sent down should have been run by congress first. And if not, does Puerto Rico have to comply with these mother fuckers if they weren’t properly appointed and/or can they seek relief from decisions these assholes already enforced? This is the de facto officer doctrine at work, which basically says, if someone was appointed wrongly, and that’s determined down the road, their orders were still valid at the time they were in office, and there was no reason to believe their nomination to the post wasn’t legit.

In a unanimous decision, SCOTUS decided for Financial Oversight. That the appointments clause does govern the appointment of officers of the United States, this oversight panel are not officers withing the meaning of that clause.

Basically they were saying that the appointments clause applies to people who govern over Puerto Rico for the United States. But that these assholes were just local authorities. Puerto Rico law is what allowed these assholes to come down and oversee their spending, not federal law. Obama just sent down some people he thought would be good at it.

Since federal law isn’t what’s behind these twits, they didn’t need to go through the appointments process.

Good luck Puerto Rico.

Libertarianism

Average Joe SCOTUS: Bostock v. Clayton County

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In our previous episode of Average Joe SCOTUS,  we talked about R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes v. Equal Employment Opportunities Commission, a case where a transgender male -> female person was fired because of their desire to transition, and whether Title VII of the Civil Rights act, which protects people in the work place from being discriminated against for their sexual identity.

In this case, a very similar issue is at play. So apparently SCOTUS is looking to deal with sexual identity/orientation issues in one session, and establish precedent. But whereas the previous case was about someone transitioning from man to woman, this is about sexual preference.

Gerald Bostock is a gay man who worked for Clayton County as a child services coordinator starting in 2003. By all accounts, was a damn good employee, and did his job like a boss.

Eventually, in 2013, Bostock decided to join an all-gay softball league. The backass motherfuckers he worked for, decided to criticize him over his participation in this league. Presumably making up some bullshit argument to link gay men to abusing young boys or some shit. I have no fucking idea how they thought being gay would hinder his ability to do his job.

In meetings, one person in the room was even noted as making disparaging remarks about being gay against Bostock. Shortly after, they announced they were auditing him and his work, and he was terminated shortly after.

Bostock, assuming he was fired for his open gayness, and not because of his job performance sued. So here we are at SCOTUS trying to determine if the Civil Rights Act covers sexual orientation.

The crux of Bostock’s counsel’s argument was as follows:

John G. Roberts, Jr.

Do you agree or disagree with Judge Posner’s statement that the statute should be read to encompass sexual orientation discrimination to “avoid placing the entire burden of updating old statutes on the legislative branch”?

Pamela S. Karlan

I disagree with Judge Posner.

I don’t think you need to do any updating here.

I think you should read the words as they were understood then, which is men and women.

Title VII was intended to make sure that men were not disadvantaged relative to women and women were not disadvantaged relative to men. And when you tell two employees who come in, both of whom tell you they married their partner Bill last weekend, when you fire the male employee who married Bill and you give the female employee who married Bill a couple of days off so she can celebrate the joyous event, that’s discrimination because of sex. Well, if no one has any further questions, I’ll reserve the remainder of my time for rebuttal. (Laughter ensued because this was her first argument, which was then met with silence as if none of the justices had a question.)

In a pretty big landmark decision, spanning multiple cases, SCOTUS rules 6:3 that the Civil Rights Act (CRA) of 1964 does cover gay and transgender people. The CRA is meant to protect people who are born a certain way, and then employers discriminating against them for being that way. Their decision accepts the idea that being gay or transgender isn’t a choice, but a condition of who you are as a person.

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: Liu v. Securities Exchange Commission

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All around douchebag, Charles Liu, was an investment manager who helped people from other countries invest in their money in United States interests, because such investments could help them to emigrate to the United States.

Liu was a shady motherfucker though, and didn’t use these investors’ money as he said he would.

So the SEC went after Liu to pay them (the courts are using the term “disgorge”) his ill-gotten gains.

I assume you already see a problem here. I didn’t say pay back the investors. I said pay the SEC. So the SEC thinks because Liu stole from these people, the SEC gets to steal it from Liu, and the investors who were harmed, have no relief.

Liu is challenging this on those grounds, saying the SEC doesn’t have a right to penalize him this way. Back in 2017, in a different case, Kokesh v. SEC, SCOTUS ruled such disgorgements were penalties, and not “equitable relief” which the Securities Act of 1933 allows for, and is at the heart of this case. So now SCOTUS must decide if disgorgement are allowed as “equitable relief” in the Securities Act.

While it might seem nice that Liu is saying that the SEC doesn’t have the right to steal the investor’s money, Liu isn’t proposing returning their money either. Somehow, the victim in this case isn’t even part of this suit, and apparently won’t be made whole in any way.

In an 8:1 decision, SCOTUS sided with Liu. That an SEC enforcement action is available as a remedy to the victims, not the SEC, up to the amount the perpetrator profited.

Hear oral arguments, and read about the case here.

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: Banister v. Davis

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All around scumbag Gregory Dean Banister committed an act of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and got his dumb ass sent up the river for 30 years as a result. He struck and killed a bicyclist with his car.

He didn’t consent to a blood draw, but they did one anyway, and found cocaine in his system. So he’s arguing his rights were denied. But he also thought his attorney fucking sucked, because he failed to file a motion for this, as well as failed to investigate the weather at the time, presumably because he’s arguing the weather was shit, and that’s how he hit the guy.

He filed a habeas petition, which basically means, he feels he’s being unlawfully detained by the prison system.

So anyway, he was denied on the merits, which basically means they felt his argument was fucking garbage. This occurred on May 15, 2017. On June 12, 2017, Banister tried again, because according to Federal Rule 59(e) you have to file within 28 days of your judgement, and so he did. But here’s the rub. He filed an amendment to his first appeal, not a new one.

So he filed again on July 20, 2017. Eventually, they decided that he had passed the 28 day limit to file, because he filed an amended claim as opposed to a new one, which seems kinda shady if you ask me. Basically, they’re saying that the claims are more than 28 days apart, whereas Banister is like, “Fuck you, my amendment is effectively an appeal. I can’t file a new appeal until you asshole decided on my amended one.

I mean, fuck Banister, that piece of shit. But still, he kinda has a point.

Anyway, now SCOTUS has to decide if an amended habeas petiton counts as a successive habeaus petition.

Despite Banister being a total piece of shit, SCOTUS decided 7:2 in his favor. That a rule 59(e) motion is not a successive habeas petititon, and thus Banister’s appeal was within the time he’s given to do so.

Read about the case below for a more detailed analysis.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/habeas_corpus

Argument preview: Justices to consider when a Rule 59 motion is actually a second-or-successive habeas petition

 

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: Lomax v. Ortiz-Marquez

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The Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) is designed to prevent prisoners from tying up the courts with a million appeals and shit to try to get out of prison. These fuckheads have nothing else to do, but think about how to get out, so they’ll drop appeals on the courts like birds poop on a car under a tree.

Lomax, one of the fuckheads in question, filed an appeal forma pauperis (a term that means “without paying the usual court fees”) that while in prison many of his constitutional rights were violated.

Three of his claims were dismissed without prejudice for failure to state a claim.

Without prejudice just means that the courts allow the person submitting the claim, to amend and resubmit, whereas “with prejudice” would mean that the courts are politely telling them to go fuck themselves and not come back with this bullshit again.

The Failure to state a Claim aspect, basically means they submitted some bullshit that wasn’t even a crime, violation, or anything the courts feel they could act upon. Like, if I sue you for driving your car on the street, well I’m allowed to do that. So you have no fucking claim. Get it?

Anyway, the PLRA says when you lose an appeal, that’s a strike against you, and after three strikes, you can no longer file a forma pauperis request. Again, you’re cluttering up the courts. So fuck you, you’re going to pay for that shit.

So Lomax was like, “How the fuck you gonna call those claims strikes, when you dismissed without prejudice? You told me I could think about this shit some more, then come on back with a better argument, so here I fucking am, assholes.”

Lower courts told Lomax to take his shitty argument and go fuck himself. So here we are at SCOTUS trying to sort this out.

In a unanimous decision, SCOTUS sided with Ortiz-Marquez. That Dismissal without prejudice still counts as a fucking strike. Lomax was a colossal waste of time to the courts, and he should kindly go fuck himself.

Hear oral arguments or read about the case here.

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: Department of Homeland Security v. Thuraissigiam

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Native of Sri Lanka, Vijayakumar Thuraissigiam tried to sneak his ass into this country through the Mexican border. However, his stealth skills were less than spectacular, and he got caught. He’s a part of a minority group in Sri Lanka known as a Tamil. It’s not a religious sect, it is just about where they’re originally from, similar to native Americans here.

He asked not to be sent back, because he argued he’d be tortured and such, if he did go back, due to his being a Tamil. But an asylum officer felt like he was full of shit, and just using that as an excuse, which is obviously quite common.

There’s an expedited removal process, passed in 1996, which basically says if your dumb ass gets caught near the border coming here illegally, officers can just send you back, without having to send you through some bureaucracy system, costing taxpayers a shitload of money.

But in Vijay’s case, since he claimed fear of persecution, that complicates things a bit, and he at least gets an opportunity to be heard on that issue, called a credible-fear interview.

While Vijay claimed he’d been attacked and severely beaten, and the officer felt that story was likely true (maybe there were scars to substantiate?), he didn’t really show how this was because he was Tamil, and that it wasn’t just some random act of violence.

Vijay filed a habeus motion (a fancy way of exercising their constitutional right to challenge the government’s right to hold them in prison) to stay his removal, because he argued the interpreter was shit, and that the officer reviewing his case, didn’t hear or understand all the facts, and therefore his credible-fear interview wasn’t worth a damn.

But, in the law surrounding the expedited removal process, Congress ordered that judges may only consider three subjects:

  • Was Vijay not an American resident
  • Had the officer issued a valid removal order
  • Had Vijay been given asylum or allowed permanent residence before

Since Vijay’s argument was basically over a language barrier, the courts told him to fuck off.

So now SCOTUS has to decide if the courts can in fact consider Vijay’s argument under the Constitutional habeus rule, and give judicial review to his claim. Or if the expedited-deportation law usurps that.

The government argues, habeus right do not apply to everyone in the world, but only to Americans, which Vijay is not.

In a 7:2 decision, SCOTUS told Vijay to go suck a bag of dicks. That basically, a non-citizen who is here illegally only has certain rights specifically afforded to non-citizens. Due process, being one of those.

So back to Sri Lanka Vijay goes.