Finally Friday Reads: Watch as SCOTUS pulls another Decision out of the Billionaire Hat!

“Oops. Hunter Biden guilty.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

It’s getting pretty obvious that Stare Decisis is dead. The usual suspects in the Supreme Court went out of their way to ignore evidence that bump stocks turn guns into machine guns and lots of decisions and laws in place to keep machine guns out of the hands of criminals. The most interesting thing about this decision is it overturned a Trump-era ban that even the NRA supported at the time.

Between this decision and the gutting of Roe v, I can only determine that these guys don’t care about how many living, breathing innocents die as long as they perpetuate the dominion of their overlords. This also comes after the Democratic leadership of the Senate’s Judiciary Committee found receipts of more private airplane jaunts around the globe by Thomas bought and paid for by religious extremist Harlan Crow.

Did you know that a flock of crows is called a murder? I think that the angry black-robed guys are just trying to taunt us now about how miserable they can make our lives without being held to account.

I don’t think you need to be a Constitutional lawyer to figure out how thinly reasoned the Garland v. Cargill case was decided. This is from NBC, as reported by Lawrence Hurley. “Supreme Court rules gun ‘bump stocks’ ban is unlawful. The ban was imposed by the Trump administration after the accessory was used during the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas.” I assume Justice Sotomayer is crying for humanity in her office today.

In a loss for the Biden administration, the Supreme Court ruled Friday that a federal ban on “bump stocks,” gun accessories that allow semiautomatic rifles to fire more quickly, is unlawful.

In a 6-3 ruling on ideological lines, with the court’s conservatives in the majority, the court held that an almost 100-year-old law aimed at banning machine guns cannot legitimately be interpreted to include bump stocks.

Writing for the majority, Justice Clarence Thomas said that a firearm equipped with the accessory does not meet the definition of “machinegun” under federal law.

Like Uncle Thomas knows about the mechanics of anything except hearing his master’s voice.

The ruling prompted a vigorous dissent from liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

“When I see a bird that walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck,” she wrote in reference to bump stocks enabling semiautomatic rifles to operate like machine guns. Sotomayor also took the rare step of reading a summary of her dissent in court.

Even with the federal ban out of the picture, bump stocks will still not be readily available nationwide. Eighteen states have already banned them, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit gun-control group. Congress could also act.

Nevertheless, gun control advocates decried the ruling.

“We’ve seen bump stocks cause immense destruction and violence,” said Esther Sanchez-Gomez, litigation director at Giffords Law Center. “The majority of justices today sided with the gun lobby instead of the safety of the American people. This is a shameful decision.”

The Trump administration imposed the prohibition after the Las Vegas mass shooting in 2017, in which Stephen Paddock used bump stock-equipped firearms to open fire on a country music festival, initially killing 58 people. Then-President Donald Trump personally called for the accessory to be banned.

“All he had to do was pull the trigger and press the gun forward. The bump stock did the rest,” she wrote.

The ruling, she added, “hamstrings the government’s efforts to keep machineguns from gunmen like the Las Vegas shooter.”

In a concurring opinion, conservative Justice Samuel Alito, conceded that in practical terms, a weapon equipped with a bump stock is very similar to a machine gun and said Congress could act to ban the accessory.

The “horrible shooting spree” in Las Vegas showed how “a semiautomatic rifle equipped with a bump stock can have the same lethal effect as a machinegun,” strengthening the case for legislative action, he added.

The Supreme Court in 2019 declined to block the regulation. The already conservative court has tilted further to the right since then, with conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump appointee, replacing liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died in 2020.

Conservatives now have a 6-3 majority that has backed gun rights in previous cases.

The National Firearms Act was enacted in 1934 to regulate machine guns in response to Prohibition-era gangster violence.

The lawsuit was brought by Texas-based gun owner Michael Cargill, a licensed dealer who owned two bump stocks before the ban went into effect and later surrendered them to the government.

Hard to imagine a person who’s less suited to interpret the rules of law than Thomas OfHarlan. He can’t even follow the straightforward instructions. This is from the Washington Post. “New documents show unreported trips by Justice Clarence Thomas. According to documents released by the Senate Judiciary Committee, ” Justice Clarence Thomas took three previously unreported trips paid for by conservative Texas billionaire Harlan Crow.”

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas took three previously unreported trips paid for by conservative Texas billionaire Harlan Crow, according to new documents released Thursday by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Details of the private jet flights between 2017 and 2021 were obtained as part of an investigation the committee has been conducting into reports of lavish undisclosed travel and perks provided to justices by Crow and other wealthy benefactors that have sparked calls for reform.

“Crow released the information after the committee issued subpoenas in November for him and conservative activist Leonard Leo to provide information to the body. The subpoenas have never been enforced.

Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said the documents provided necessary transparency and the trips should have been reported on financial disclosures.

Thomas suggested that meals and accommodations don’t have to be reported as the law exempts “personal hospitality.” I’m not sure that this level of personal hospitality is what that law actually had in mind. It’s like he’s constantly off living the lives of the rich and famous while simultaneously ensuring his master’s voice sneaks into every decision, impacting the grizzled old real estate developer’s interests. Newsweek has a straightforward list of the Crow Grift, although ProPublica has uncovered most of it. Just Ice Alito was recently recorded railing against ProPublica for uncovering his grift. This is the lede in the Newsweek report. “Clarence Thomas: Full List of Free Luxury Trips Revealed.” The story is reported by Darragh Roche.

U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas took three trips that he did not include in financial disclosure forms, the Senate Judiciary Committee said on Thursday.

Thomas, a conservative and the longest-serving member of the present Court, has faced significant criticism over accepting luxury trips from billionaire Republican Party donor Harlan Crow.

The three trips cited by the Senate Judiciary Committee include a private jet flight from Missouri to Montana in May 2017; a second private jet flight from Washington, D.C., to Georgia and back in March 2019; and a further flight from D.C. to California in June 2021.

Senator Dick Durbin, chair of the Judiciary Committee, said the trips in question were listed in information provided to the committee by Crow. The new information has led to criticism from Democrats and renewed calls for Thomas to resign.

The weasel words from these two are just unbounded. What makes it worse is that they use weasel words when writing their damned decisions. I bet they think we don’t even notice it. I love this analysis by Ali Velshi of MSNBC. “‘He’s lost the thread’: Chief Justice Roberts’ out in the wind’ amid conservative supermajority.”

If the Supreme Court is a “messy reality show,” you have to wonder what to call the House of Representatives, which took their felon to work yesterday. Senate Republicans bent the knee like the thralls they’ve become. Yesterday’s news was full of examples of Republicans in Congress that once showed spine when it came to Trump but now seem uniformly to be Trump’s bitches. House Republicans made an absolute mess of a defense bill that now contains every icky culture war item you’ve seen in your nightmares. I hope moderates are paying attention because we’re about to lose all kinds of personal rights. This is reported by Politico. I never thought living in this country would be quite so depressing. “House Republicans narrowly pass defense bill loaded with culture war issues. The tactic represented a gamble for Speaker Mike Johnson, who could have pushed to pass a more bipartisan version with the help of Democrats.”

The House narrowly cleared defense policy legislation on Friday after Republicans tacked on divisive provisions restricting abortion access, medical treatment for transgender troops and efforts to combat climate change.

Speaker Mike Johnson’s move to permit culture war amendments to the annual National Defense Authorization Act turned a widely bipartisan bill into a measure supported almost entirely by Republicans. The tactic represented a gamble for Johnson, who could have pushed to pass a more bipartisan version with the help of Democrats, but instead catered to a sliver of his right flank.

That gamble ultimately paid off for Johnson as enough Republicans united to win the final vote. But the most conservative parts of the House defense bill stand no chance in the Senate, and the dispute likely won’t be sorted out until after the November elections.

The 217-199 vote saw all but six Democrats oppose the $895 billion bill. Only three Republicans broke ranks to oppose it. The outcome was far from certain, though, as lawmakers and aides speculated the vote would come down to attendance at the Friday session.

It’s the second year in a row House Republicans have elected to pass a hard-right Pentagon bill.

Johnson — who survived an attempt to oust him in May in part over his reliance on Democrats to pass a $95 billion foreign aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan — avoided stoking more GOP infighting as Republicans look to keep their slim House majority and help reelect Donald Trump in November. Facing the possibility that just a few hardliners in his narrow majority could block the bill, Johnson opted to grant votes on a variety of socially conservative amendments to unite Republicans.

Blogging is really getting difficult in this environment. I used to decorate every post with beautiful artwork. Now, the only way I can offset these topics is to show appreciation to all the political cartoonists who put this into perspective for us. I think I should just write about all the good economic news on Monday because there is so much and little conversation about it. Meanwhile, we head into another weekend. The Gulf Hurricane Season is kicking off earlier and more pronounced than usual. We just got the news in Louisiana about chemicals being used in Cancer Alley that are worse than previously thought. This is actually published by the Insurance Journal. All these negative spillovers from operating nuisance businesses will soon make the entire state uninsurable. It’s awful now. Two years ago, I had to triple the deductible for my homeowner’s policy to stop my home payment from doubling. One item like that can make you feel like you’re being swallowed up by inflation even though inflation is declining.

I hope y’all are doing well and can find moments of peace and contentment! Oh, it’s Flag Day. Don’t be a Martha-Ann! Here’s some editorial cartooning I got from JJ this morning. It’s from the Daily Cartoonist. “CSotD: Whose flag is it, anyway?”

Clay Bennett (CTFP) marks Flag Day with a display of US flags flown respectfully over the years, contrasted with the improper display of the flag currently practiced by the New Confederacy.

Respect for the flag is a tradition, not a law, but if you read the current United States Flag Code, you’ll find all sorts of ways people violate it.