Invest your own money, let compound effect be your leverage, and avoid debt like the plague.
- Manlobbi
Halls of Shrewd'm / US Policy
No. of Recommendations: 6
WTF are they waiting for? Trump to crash the global economy beyond repair?
No. of Recommendations: 3
The Court has found one excuse, or another, to refuse to hear a challenge to the clearly unconstitutional "God" phrase in the pledge, for decades. So I don't hold out any hope for a reasonable decision on Presidential "unitary executive" power.
from the net sifter...I find the court's insistence that forcing people to utter a deity is "patriotic" amazing. They seem to be saying that, even though the Constitution prohibits establishment of religion, the US is a theocracy, so forced religious exercise is "patriotic".
Yes, the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance has been challenged numerous times in court on
Establishment Clause grounds (separation of church and state), most notably by atheist Michael Newdow, but the Supreme Court dismissed the main case on a technicality (standing), and lower courts have largely upheld the phrase as constitutional, viewing it as ceremonial patriotism rather than a religious endorsement.
Key Court Cases & Rulings:
Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow (2004): The Supreme Court dismissed the challenge by Michael Newdow, an atheist father, holding he lacked legal standing to sue on behalf of his daughter, thus avoiding a ruling on the phrase's constitutionality.
Newdow v. U.S. Congress (9th Circuit Appeals Court, 2002 & 2010): An initial ruling found the phrase unconstitutional, but the Supreme Court overturned it on standing; a later 9th Circuit decision upheld it, citing Congressional intent for patriotism.
American Humanist Association Challenges: The AHA also challenged the Pledge, but state courts (like Massachusetts' highest court in 2014) and federal courts rejected these efforts, affirming the Pledge's patriotic nature
Courts' Reasoning:
Lower courts have consistently found the phrase's purpose is to inspire patriotism, not endorse religion, aligning with the Supreme Court's distinction between ceremonial deism (acceptable) and governmental religious endorsement (unconstitutional).
The Supreme Court has essentially preserved the practice by dismissing cases on procedural grounds, leaving the phrase intact for over 20 years despite ongoing challenges
Steve
No. of Recommendations: 1
from the net sifter...I find the court's insistence that forcing people to utter a deity is "patriotic" amazing. They seem to be saying that, even though the Constitution prohibits establishment of religion, the US is a theocracy, so forced religious exercise is "patriotic".
I'd be ok with "under Law" or "under Democracy" or just leaving the phrase out entirely.
No. of Recommendations: 5
SCOTUS generally doesn't issue major rulings early in the year. Most of the bigger cases are usually released towards the end of the term in May or June.
No. of Recommendations: 1
Most of the bigger cases are usually released towards the end of the term in May or June.
I always wondered why they do that. Why not release their decisions fairly promptly after they are made and all of the opinions are written?
Are USSC Justices just a bunch of procrastinators? Not getting around to finishing up their opinions until the deadline is on them? Somehow I doubt that.
--Peter
No. of Recommendations: 2
Peter, in case you didn't know, being a Supreme Court justice is a fairly difficult job.
Making decisions and writing opinions requires a huge amount of effort from the justices and their law clerks.
Sometimes vote-switching happens depending upon how the opinions are written.
In other words, this is not like when you were at work, you had to decide between using ajax or comet to clean out the toilet bowls.
No. of Recommendations: 8
I always wondered why they do that. Why not release their decisions fairly promptly after they are made and all of the opinions are written?
The opinions are still being written all the way to the end of the term. It's not like they write them and let them just....age.
Usually the unanimous opinions and the "simple" opinions (opinions where there is disagreement among the justices on the outcome, but where the legal cases don't necessarily have a whole lot of moving parts) get decided quickly and written first. Those opinions are either short, or easily written by the law clerks without a whole lot of justice input. They also tend not to have too many Justices writing their own separate concurrences or dissents. They take less time, so they get done quickly.
The other ones - including most of the major cases - take a lot more time to write. They might involve more issues, and often more research. They might require the Justice writing the opinion to have to work pretty hard to get other Justices to sign off on all their reasoning - so those are the opinions that involve many multiple drafts being shuttled from Justice to Justice to work on language and argumentation. There's often a ton of internal negotiation over those really contested and important cases, as the assigned Justice tries to hold together their majority coalition and keep the other Justices from bailing on the majority opinion and writing a concurrence instead. It can take a long while to get the opinion finished because of it.
Plus, there's still the rest of the Court's business. They're still preparing for and hearing oral arguments on new cases (arguments continue through April), they have their usual emergency docket, and they're reviewing petitions for cert for next term throughout this term. They're not spending all their time writing opinions.
