Fogbow

Erin Hawley, an attorney for the Alliance Defending Freedom, the conservative Christian legal group representing Smith, agreed with other legal experts that the court’s ruling would protect businesses only in cases where “speech is being created.”

“If you’re talking about goods that are so-called off-the shelf, if you had a premade T-shirt, then nondiscrimination laws apply as they usually do, and a shop owner has to sell that T-shirt to anyone,” Hawley said. “On the other hand, if a T-shirt owner, or shop owner, is creating a message, then that’s where the First Amendment applies and says that the government cannot force someone to say a speech-specific message that they disagree with.”

Kriselda Gray wrote: ↑Sun Jul 02, 2023 5:34 am

Suranis wrote: ↑Sun Jul 02, 2023 1:00 am

bill_g wrote: ↑Sat Jul 01, 2023 9:31 pm Rut-roh! 303creative is 408. My oh my. Why, it's like it was never there. Poof.

It works for me. Sorry, the conspiracy that the company does not really exist seems to be a false conspiracy. Maybe they were being DDOSed in revenge by de gud giys.

https://303creative.com/

Personally, I don't see why affirming a basic freedom to chose what work you are willing to take on is so horrifying. It's not like finding a web design service is a massive hardship, and people got married without websites for at least a few months in history.

The biggest problem with the case is that 1) At the time the suit was filed, she wasn't actually soliciting customers for WEDDING websites. She said she was thinking about it. EVEN if she had been soliciting customers for WEDDING websites, 2) NO GAY COUPLE ever asked her to make one. She was concerned that a gay couple *might* ask her to make one. 3) The supposed E-mail from "Stewart" about making a site for his and "Mike's" wedding was fake. SHE MADE IT UP. One of the reputable magazines (I forget which one at the moment) contacted "Stewart" who said that yes, the name used in the email is his name and yes it listed his real email account, BUT HE NEVER SENT HER any email, HE DIDN'T NEED a wedding website as he's been married TO A WOMAN for 15 years - and he's able to make websites himself, so he wouldn't need to hire a designer. So the alleged email supposedly asking her to make a type of site she wasn't actually in the business of making WAS A LIE.

If that's not troublesome enough, only cases that cover an ACTUAL case or controversy, where someone has ACTUALLY been harmed are supposed to be able to go through the courts. Lorrie Smith was NEVER INJURED IN ANY WAY by Colorado's law. There was no ACTUAL case or controversy here, just a hypothetical one, and HYPOTHETICAL CASES aren't allowed in the courts.

So, a woman who wasn't in the business of making wedding websites, but was worried if she wanted to do so she might have to make one for a gay couple decided to invent a nonexistent gay couple that she lied about wanting her to do work and her not wanting to do it JUST so she could file this suit and get the rights of gays to be treated like all other cutomers taken away.

I know you don't care about gays losing their rights, but you should keep in mind that once we start saying that certain groups don't deserve to have their rights protected, it's not that hard to keep expanding who's rights can be taking away. Right now, the Civil Rights Act allows the government to force people to provide business services to all races, religions, national origins, creeds and so on, but the way this court goes, it won't surprise me at all if they gut that law, too, and then people can sue to start chipping away at the rights of any group they don't like. I know Evangelical Christians, who are the most likely bunch to file these kinds of suits, don't like Catholics very much, and I can easily see some website designer saying they don't want to have to make websites for Catholic couples and being able to get the courts to agree.

The problem is, it's not just WEBSITES that this affects. Lorrie Smith basically claimed it would be forcing her to do artistic work, which is a form of speech, to make this non-existent couple a website. Now ANYONE who can find a way to portray their work as being "artistic expression" can turn away gays. Or, if my example above came to pass, anyone who could convince someone their were an "artist" could deny service to Catholics. And the way this court is going, it won't surprise me in the least to see if happen

sad-cafe wrote: ↑Sun Jul 02, 2023 8:05 pm We are not in the habbit of talking down to others here on the Fogbow

Off Topic

But since one insists on interpreting my words as attacking poor marginalised people, here goes on me showing a little bit on how you using that term for internet points is WRONG, becasue they are not freaking Marginalized.

Spoilered becasue who gives a shit

► Show Spoiler

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/marginalize

marginalized; marginalizing

transitive verb
: to relegate (see relegate sense 2) to an unimportant or powerless position within a society or group

Marginalized Writing vs. Marginalized People

Marginalize provides a striking case of how thoroughly the figurative use of a word can take over the literal one. The original (and now obsolete) meaning of this word, “to write notes in the margin of,” is analogous to the still-familiar noun marginalia “marginal notes or embellishments." A margin is, of course, the blank space surrounding the text in a book. Just prior to 1970, marginalize took on the sense that is most commonly encountered today, “to relegate to an unimportant or powerless position” (that is, to the metaphorical margins of society). This use of the word can be found as far back as 1968; an article in The Los Angeles Times from June 20th of that year reports, “[T]he Negro was kept aside, marginalized, thus composing in its large majority the chronically poor.” In its newer sense, marginalize has assumed a much more prominent place in the vocabulary than it once had.

Homosexuals might be still discriminated against, but if one is telling oneself that they are in an unimportant and powerless position in today's society, and using that idea to justify other shit, then one is out of ones goddam mind.

And as for the being attacked thing, consider this - if all sides are feeling that they are under attack, then maybe everyone is right.

https://www.genderhq.org/trans-activism ... censorship

14) Problems with a politicized climate of harassment & censorship

An academic colleague warned: “don’t analyze transgenderism – you will be sucked into a vortex from which you’ll never escape.” –sociologist Heather Brunskell-Evans

This article is about gender and the law. When I asked several friends, politicians and journalists, about writing it, they all said the same: don’t. It will go badly for you. I know MPs, in more than one party, who privately say they will not talk about this issue in public for fear of the responses that are likely to receive. The debate is currently conducted in terms that are not conducive to – and sometimes actively hostile to – free expression. As a result, it is very unlikely to result in good and socially sustainable policy.–writer James Kirkup

We are being ordered to endorse a practice reminiscent of Chinese foot-binding or the Victorian tight-lacing craze where girls fainted to achieve the tiniest waist. In my research I heard from teachers, doctors, parents and trans-folk aghast at children being pushed towards drastic treatment before they can possibly understand how it will affect their future relationships and lives. None would speak out publicly: like Topshop, they feared being labelled transphobic. -journalist. -Janice Turner

Caroline, who asked for me to use a pseudonym, is a Child Protection Officer with over 20 years’ experience. She told me: “There is no way that professionals can possibly pass on concerns [about children who identify as transgender] without being considered transphobic or bigoted. Many of us share the same concerns [about children being pushed into medical solutions] including friends of mine who are GPs, educational psychiatrists, social workers: all great people who work tirelessly for the good of young people. I see children changing their name, turning against their family, rewriting their past.” -The Independent

What is unique about the approach we’ve seen in the trans movement is that it doesn’t attempt to disguise the incitements to violence against women with rhetoric around “consent” and “empowerment.” The claim is not that this is not “literal” violence, because women like it, or because they consented to it, or because it’s “just fantasy.” Rather the violence advocated for by trans activists is said to be justified on account of opinions, associations, language, or the sharing of articles or links determined to be “wrong” — all of which is dishonestly framed as “violence” (ironic considering where the literal threats and violence are evidenced to be coming from).-feminist and writer Megan Murphy

Many individuals in activist movements can become extreme and cult-like. Trans activism has had its share of this behavior. This is not to say this hasn’t happened in other movements such as AIDS activism, lesbian feminism, the black power movement, and other far-left political movements in the 1970’s or Antifa now.

But there are some specific issues that make trans activist extremism unique. It is the first civil rights issue to come of age in the rise of social media, magnifying its power to attack others and foment the well-known problem of internet hyperbole and noxious communication. Unlike like the women’s rights, homosexual rights, and black civil rights movements, the trans movement seeks to redefine the meaning of biology and words like “female” and “homosexual” other groups use to describe themselves. It displaces girls and women from positions they otherwise would have held (i.e. women are losing to trans women in sports for example.)

This movement involves children, teenagers and young adults making decisions to sterilize themselves and permanently alter their bodies. The risks of the later require proper cultural and scientific deliberation and discourse as potential for harm is extremely serious. This is now extremely difficult in the current trans activist climate, unanalyzed and even enabled by liberals and liberal media.

Below are some examples of what has happened to people who say things contrary to trans activism agendas and postmodern influenced gender ideology. It is important to examine this because this climate is stifling necessary debate on the safety of medical treatments on minors. It is also stifling discourse as part of a tactic of a wider social movement that seeks to redefine male and female and promote a “boy brain”/ “girl brain” view of transgenderism.

If its extremely difficult to even discuss these things because these people will attack you and make your life extremely difficult, how are these people powerless and unimportant?

And if they are attacking people, then other people will feel they are being attacked. Q.E.D.

Again I have been sucked away from the point that the "slippery slope" argument used was flaws by people insisting that I was attacking marginalized people. I really need to figure out the psychological flaw that allows people to manipulate me into giving solid information when people put words in my mouth. Because what I REALLY said was not what I actually said.

Key Democrat attacks US supreme court chief justice over ethics scandal
Dick Durbin, chair of Senate judiciary committee, condemns John Roberts for failure to reform court as donor controversy swirls

Martin Pengelly in Washington
Fri 7 Jul 2023 07.00 BST

The chair of the Senate judiciary committee has launched a new attack on the chief justice of the US supreme court, promising a vote on ethics reform legislation after a term beset by scandal over relationships between rightwing justices and wealthy donors and featuring a string of controversial rulings.

“The highest court in the land should not have the lowest ethical standards,” Democrat Dick Durbin said.

In a Thursday statement, Durbin added: “‘God save the United States and this honourable court!’ These are the words spoken by the marshal when she gavels the supreme court into session. But many questions remain at the end of the court’s latest term regarding its reputation, credibility, and ‘honourable’ status.”

“I’m sorry to see Chief Justice [John] Roberts end the term without taking action on the ethical issues plaguing the court – all while the court handed down decisions that dismantled longstanding precedents and the progress our country has made over generations.”

Roberts has refused to testify in Congress regarding reports of alleged ethics breaches concerning justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch.



https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... ick-durbin

Giving makebelieve the force of law is what SCOTUS does best
John Stoehr - July 10, 2023

In a case decided late last month, the rightwing supermajority of the United States Supreme Court sided with a Christian web designer who said that her right to free speech permitted her to deny services to same-sex couples. Turns out it was another case in history of cases in which the court gave the force of law to makebelieve. And when I say “makebelieve,” I mean literally made up.

The New Republic broke the news. The magazine found that the person who had allegedly requested services from the Christian web designer had never made any such request. He didn’t need her services either. He’s a web designer himself. He’s also not gay. He’s been married to the same woman for 15 years.

The Christian web developer, Lorie Smith, wanted to put a notice on her company’s website, saying that it would not create wedding websites for same-sex couples. She argued that Colorado’s anti-discrimination law would have infringed on her free speech rights. The Supreme Court didn’t require her to have received “a real request,” according to Post reporter Robert Barnes.

Citing “Stewart,” who did not want his full name used for fear of harassment, Barnes wrote that “the court filing in Stewart’s name has left many baffled, including Stewart himself, who said he was concerned that the case had proceeded without anyone verifying if the request was authentic.”

We should all be concerned, but let’s be honest. This is what the court’s conservatives have been doing. In this recent case, it found yet another way of turning makebelieve into law, thus turning fiction into a legal reality that we all must live with. This is not an exception to the rule, however. It is the rule.

To be sure, as Harry Litman said, this is a “bonafide scandal.”

“On the legal level,” wrote the legal affairs columnist for the Los Angeles Times, “it means the court decided a case that wasn't a real case or controversy. … On the political level, it means that conservative forces in the country have effected a huge change in the law, and inroad on long-established anti-discrimination principles, based on a contrived story that exploited the judicial system and simply did an end-around the requirement of actual facts.”

Senate Democrats announce vote to advance Supreme Court ethics bill
A key Senate committee will vote on the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act later this month. “Since the Court won’t act, Congress will," Democratic sponsors said.

Top Senate Democrats announced Monday that a key committee will vote on legislation to set up a code of conduct for the Supreme Court, tighten financial disclosure rules and beef up recusal requirements for justices.

The Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency (SCERT) Act, led by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., and Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., will get a vote in the committee on Thursday, July 20, they announced in a joint statement.

“Whether you agree or disagree with the most recent historic decisions by the Supreme Court, we hope we can all agree on one thing — these nine justices have extraordinary powers under our Constitution,” Whitehouse and Durbin said. “The belief that they should not be held accountable or even disclose lavish gifts from wealthy benefactors is an affront to the nation they were chosen to serve. To hold these nine Justices to the same standard as every other federal judge is not a radical or partisan notion.”

"Since the Court won’t act, Congress will," they said.

Lawyers with supreme court business paid Clarence Thomas aide via Venmo
Payments to Rajan Vasisht, an aide from 2019-21, underscore ties between the justice and lawyers who argue cases in front of him

Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington
Wed 12 Jul 2023 11.00 BST

Several lawyers who have had business before the supreme court, including one who successfully argued to end race-conscious admissions at universities, paid money to a top aide to Justice Clarence Thomas, according to the aide’s Venmo transactions. The payments appear to have been made in connection to Thomas’s 2019 Christmas party.

The payments to Rajan Vasisht, who served as Thomas’s aide from July 2019 to July 2021, seem to underscore the close ties between Thomas, who is embroiled in ethics scandals following a series of revelations about his relationship with a wealthy billionaire donor, and certain senior Washington lawyers who argue cases and have other business in front of the justice.

Vasisht’s Venmo account – which was public prior to requesting comment for this article and is no longer – show that he received seven payments in November and December 2019 from lawyers who previously served as Thomas legal clerks. The amount of the payments is not disclosed, but the purpose of each payment is listed as either “Christmas party”, “Thomas Christmas Party”, “CT Christmas Party” or “CT Xmas party”, in an apparent reference to the justice’s initials.

However, it remains unclear what the funds were for.

The lawyers who made the Venmo transactions were: Patrick Strawbridge, a partner at Consovoy McCarthy who recently successfully argued that affirmative action violated the US constitution; Kate Todd, who served as White House deputy counsel under Donald Trump at the time of the payment and is now a managing party of Ellis George Cipollone’s law office; Elbert Lin, the former solicitor general of West Virginia who played a key role in a supreme court case that limited the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions; and Brian Schmalzbach, a partner at McGuire Woods who has argued multiple cases before the supreme court.

Other lawyers who made payments include Manuel Valle, a graduate of Hillsdale College and the University of Chicago Law School who clerked for Thomas last year and is currently working as a managing associate at Sidley, and Liam Hardy, who was working at the Department of Justice’s office of legal counsel at the time the payment was made and now serves as a appeals court judge for the armed forces.

Will Consovoy, who died earlier this year, also made a payment. Consovoy clerked for Thomas during the 2008-09 term and was considered a rising star in conservative legal circles. After his death, the New York Times reported that Consovoy had come away from his time working for Thomas “with the conviction that the court was poised to tilt further to the right – and that constitutional rulings that had once been considered out of reach by conservatives, on issues like voting rights, abortion and affirmative action, would suddenly be within grasp”.

None of the lawyers who made payments responded to emailed questions from the Guardian.

According to his résumé, Vasisht’s duties included assisting the justice with the administrative functioning of his chambers, including personal correspondence and his personal and office schedule.

Vasisht did not respond to an emailed list of questions from the Guardian, including questions about who solicited the payments, how much individuals paid, and what the purpose of the payments were. The Guardian also asked questions about the nature of Thomas’s Christmas party, how many guests were invited, and where the event took place.

Reached via WhatsApp and asked if he would make a statement, Vasisht replied: “No thank you, I do not want to be contacted.”

Legal experts said the payments to Vasisht raised red flags.

Richard Painter, who served as the chief White House ethics lawyer in the George W Bush administration and has been a vocal critic of the role of dark money in politics, said is was “not appropriate” for former Thomas law clerks who were established in private practice to – in effect – send money to the supreme court via Venmo.

“There is no excuse for it. Thomas could invite them to his Christmas party and he could attend Christmas parties, as long as they are not discussing any cases. His Christmas party should not be paid for by lawyers,” Painter said. “A federal government employee collecting money from lawyers for any reason … I don’t see how that works.”

Could not connect to the reCAPTCHA service. Please check your internet connection and reload to get a reCAPTCHA challenge.
Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
after newsletter promotion
Painter said he would possibly make an exception if recent law clerks were paying their own way for a party. But almost all of the lawyers who made the payments are senior litigators at big law firms.




continues at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... reme-court

A Federal Judge Asks: Does the Supreme Court Realize How Bad It Smells?

By Michael Ponsor
Judge Ponsor is a senior judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

What has gone wrong with the Supreme Court’s sense of smell?

Harlan Crow's jaunts on his yacht with Justice Clarence Thomas were a 'textbook billionaire tax scam,' Sen. Ron Wyden tells ProPublica
Why Clarence Thomas' lavish vacations with a GOP donor are in the spotlightScroll back up to restore default view.
Azmi Haroun
Tue, July 18, 2023 at 3:49 AM GMT+2

• Justice Clarence Thomas and GOP megadonor Harlan Crow's yacht trips have come under scrutiny again.
  Per ProPublica, Crow registered his yacht as a charter vessel but only took close friends on trips.
  As a result, he could pay his own company, report losses, and save on his tax bill, per ProPublica.

Billionaire GOP donor Harlan Crow's lavish yacht trips with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas may have been facilitated by questionable tax practices, according to a new report.

Crow's relationship with Thomas has been scrutinized since ProPublica reported that Crow funded years of vacations for Thomas, who failed to disclose the outings. Some of those were trips aboard Crow's yacht, the Michaela Rose, and were organized through Rochelle Charter, a company registered to charter the yacht.

But the trips on the yacht — registered as a charter vessel — were actually limited to Crow's inner circle, according to ProPublica. Crow paid his own company for private trips on the yacht and was able to secure tax breaks and lower his tax bill, according to tax data from 2003 through 2015 reviewed by ProPublica.

Tax experts and politicians who spoke to the outlet said that such a practice could amount to gaming the system and should be audited.

"Based on what information is available, this has the look of a textbook billionaire tax scam," Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden told ProPublica.




https://www.yahoo.com/news/harlan-crows ... 49878.html
(original: INSIDER)

Robert J. DeNault @robertjdenault wrote: If Congress has no constitutional authority to regulate the SCOTUS, what are the other branches’ checks against the judiciary then? Stripping SCOTUS of its jurisdiction to hear a variety of claims? SCOTUS conservatives are playing hardball here, but may not like how that ends.

Nate Raymond @nateraymond wrote:Justice Alito tells the @WSJ that Congress has no business policing SCOTUS. "I know this is a controversial view, but I'm willing to say it... No provision in the Constitution gives them authority to regulate the SupremeCourt - period.

Ted Lieu @tedlieu wrote: Dear Justice Alito: You’re on the Supreme Court in part because Congress expanded the Court to 9 Justices. Congress can impeach Justices and can in many cases strip the Court of jurisdiction. Congress has always regulated you and will continue to do so. You are not above the law.

Nate Raymond @nateraymond wrote: Justice Alito tells the @WSJ that Congress has no business policing SCOTUS. "I know this is a con­tro­ver­sial view, but I’m will­ing to say it... No pro­vi­sion in the Con­sti­tu­tion gives them the au­thor­ity to reg­u­late the Supreme Court—pe­riod." https://wsj.com/articles/samuel-alito-t ... sm-5e3e9a7

Justice Clarence Thomas met the recreational vehicle of his dreams in Phoenix, on a November Friday in 1999.

With some time to kill before an event that night, he headed to a dealership just west of the airport. There sat a used Prevost Le Mirage XL Marathon, eight years old and 40 feet long, with orange flames licking down the sides. In the words of one of his biographers, “he kicked the tires and climbed aboard,” then quickly negotiated a handshake deal. A few weeks later, Justice Thomas drove his new motor coach off the lot and into his everyman, up-by-the-bootstraps self-mythology.



His Prevost Marathon cost $267,230, according to title history records obtained by The New York Times. And Justice Thomas, who in the ensuing years would tell friends how he had scrimped and saved to afford the motor coach, did not buy it on his own. In fact, the purchase was underwritten, at least in part, by Anthony Welters, a close friend who made his fortune in the health care industry.

He provided Justice Thomas with financing that experts said a bank would have been unlikely to extend — not only because Justice Thomas was already carrying a lot of debt, but because the Marathon brand’s high level of customization makes its used motor coaches difficult to value.

In an email to The Times, Mr. Welters wrote: “Here is what I can share. Twenty-five years ago, I loaned a friend money, as I have other friends and family. We’ve all been on one side or the other of that equation. He used it to buy a recreational vehicle, which is a passion of his.” Roughly nine years later, “the loan was satisfied,” Mr. Welters added. He subsequently sent The Times a photograph of the original title bearing his signature and a handwritten “lien release” date of Nov. 22, 2008.

But despite repeated requests over nearly two weeks, Mr. Welters did not answer further questions essential to understanding his arrangement with Justice Thomas.

He would not say how much he had lent Justice Thomas, how much the justice had repaid and whether any of the debt had been forgiven or otherwise discharged. He declined to provide The Times with a copy of a loan agreement — or even say if one existed. Nor would he share the basic terms of the loan, such as what, if any, interest rate had been charged or whether Justice Thomas had adhered to an agreed-upon repayment schedule. And when asked to elaborate on what he had meant when he said the loan had been “satisfied,” he did not respond.

“‘Satisfied’ doesn’t necessarily mean someone paid the loan back,” said Michael Hamersley, a tax lawyer and expert who has testified before Congress. “‘Satisfied’ could also mean the lender formally forgave the debt, or otherwise just stopped pursuing repayment.”

Justice Thomas, for his part, did not respond to detailed questions about the loan, sent to him through the Supreme Court’s spokeswoman.

The two men’s silence serves to obscure whether Justice Thomas had an obligation to report the arrangement under a federal ethics law that requires justices to disclose certain gifts, liabilities and other financial dealings that could pose conflicts of interest.

Kagan enters fray over Congress’ power to police Supreme Court
The liberal justice offers a counterpoint to Justice Samuel Alito in the debate over ethics reforms.

Justice Elena Kagan on Thursday jumped into the heated debate over ethics at the Supreme Court, arguing that Congress has broad powers to regulate the nation’s highest tribunal despite the recent claim from one of her conservative colleagues that such a step would violate the Constitution’s separation of powers.

Kagan’s comments, at a judicial conference in Portland, came just days after the Senate Judiciary Committee responded to recent ethics controversies around justices’ luxury travel by advancing a bill requiring the court to establish an ethics code and setting up a mechanism that would enforce it.

“It just can’t be that the court is the only institution that somehow is not subject to checks and balances from anybody else. We’re not imperial,” Kagan told the audience of judges and lawyers attending the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference. “Can Congress do various things to regulate the Supreme Court? I think the answer is: yes.”

Kagan insisted she was not responding directly to Justice Samuel Alito’s blunt statements in an interview last month that Congress would be violating the Constitution’s separation of powers if lawmakers sought to impose ethics and recusal policies on the high court.

“Congress did not create the Supreme Court,” Alito told The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page. “No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court — period.”

While Alito’s statement sounded unqualified, Kagan said she was unsure precisely what question he was asked. She also suggested his remark could not have been as broad as it seemed because the Constitution specifically provides for Congress to dictate the sorts of cases the Supreme Court can and cannot hear.