Sotomayor made the vulnerable remarks at Harvard University's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, where she received a medal for being what the institute said is "a discerning jurist who never fails to recognize the human impact of legal decisions."

"There are days that I've come to my office after an announcement of a case and closed my door and cried," the liberal justice said. "There have been those days. And there are likely to be more."

"I live in frustration. And as you heard, every loss truly traumatizes me in my stomach and in my heart," Sotomayor said earlier this year at the University of California, Berkeley's law school. "But I have to get up the next morning and keep on fighting."

It's the SCOTUS who needs to fly its American flag upside down. And it needs to stay that way until the stench of this Roberts Court - and the open graft-taking of justices Alito and Thomas - are nothing but long ago memories of a bad dream.

1) is that income, and if so, do they declare on their income tax?

2) is that "stuff" given because those billionaires having pending cases before SCOTUS?

1) I'm not sure how the IRS views expensive trips given by friends as "gifts," but we know for certain both Alito and Thomas failed to report various trips as required by the rules for federal judges, and depending upon the situations such expensive trips can indeed be viewed as income requiring the proper filing with the IRS as well as whatever the judiciary requires.

2) This is where the gray area resides. Both Thomas and Alito have made no bones about their views on how laws should be constitutionally interpreted in their understanding - which runs averse to prior Court decisions and the vast majority of constitutional scholars and their interpretations. Those views are completely sympatico with the views of the oligarchs and scions of industry that they call their "friends," though in Thomas' case, he only befriended these people once he'd ascended to the SCOTUS itself. Most did not predate his appointment.

In this sense I can understand how both of the men view themselves as "impartial" when faced with court cases, but at this point - based on their own voting records and court opinions - I find it near impossible for any sober person to say that either isn't "biased" by the preformed beliefs. And they find themselves wholly unable to accept any legal merit or standing in rulings or arguments they have previously openly come out against. So it isn't that their benefactors are nakedly trying to purchase any particular rulings in their favor, they're only expressing both past and future thanks for rulings to come down the pike.

And Thomas has been particularly insidious in his later court opinions and statements, telling right wing attorneys and judges how to frame specific cases in the future which will allow him and other Federalist jurists to overturn precedence based on their already established and preformed belief in how the law should work towards their desired ends. So in both Thomas' and Alito's world views, they're quite vocal about having already reached their decisions and aren't in the least open minded on specific topics of law. They will never take other circumstances or individuals into consideration because their minds are closed to any conclusion that doesn't meet their predetermined outcome. And that is why they should have no place on the SCOTUS.

Alito's action has at least one of them calling for his impeachment

It has to be mentioned that the worst sins of Alito and Thomas may be their open scorn for Americans that don't ascribe to their beliefs of tacit "white male supremacy" stemming from an unnatural reliance on trying to decide cases in 2024 based on erroneous understandings of the Founders' original purposes back in the 18th Century. Their rulings further empower those already holding the majority of it while mockingly demeaning and discounting the lives and liberties of Americans falling outside the white Christian ethos of "us" versus "them," with "them" being everyone not ascribing to their particular worldview.

No judge should express open scorn towards entire groups of people whose cases will come before them. And no judge should be so openly and nakedly "zero sum," showing a complete inability of finding compromise both worthwhile or justified in many hot button cases.

But heretofore, the public appearance judges display were supposed to be completely non-biased and non-judgemental. That is simply not the case with Alito and Thomas. Both readily display their bias and lack of impartiality over and over again. And that is why it's easy to understand why fair people believe both should be removed from the Court.

money seems to try to affect those biases.

IMO money doesn't affect their biases. It coincides with the desires and ends of their benefactors and that's why it's offered. Money can't influence a person's decision when they've already established what those decisions are and will be once appropriate cases comes before them.

Every taxpayer has standing because that's where the "debt relief" is being transferred to.

And it gets worse, Thomas' concurrence is taking aim at POPULATION gerrymandering cases. If Thomas has his way states could put all of the blue voters in one district and the rest (no matter how few people) in red districts.

The fact remains that these antebellum conservative troglodyte judges continue to invent their ruling rationales out of the ether. Gerrymandering wasn't possible when the Founders wrote the Constitution because only white landowners had the right to vote anyway. But by everything we know of our Founders, they never intended for elections to be influenced by elected politicians picking their voters instead of voters choosing their elected representatives.

And to add insult to injury, Thomas believes that gerrymandering for political purposes is fully constitutional, and with this new ruling, all any legislature need do is say that the lines they draw are based on partisan reasons, not race - when every statistic know to man shows that Black Americans vote Democratic more than 80+ percent of the time! There is no difference between moving Black voters to diminish their power to elect someone of their choosing and moving Black voters to dilute Democratic representation within given districts. The two are one in the same and it's the height of intellectual dishonesty to dismiss this obvious fact as Alito does.

He has no legal basis for this decision but for his lifelong advocacy of the same that happens to disproportionately empower the partisan actors whom he wants empowered.

That you honestly believe POTUS has the power to wipe away 1.4 $Trillion with the stroke of a pen is amazing.

That you refuse to understand that only CONGRESS has the standing to question a statute it wrote that clearly gives the Sec ED the power to do what's enshrined in the law is only par for your pitiful course. No one ever empowered the SCOTUS to micromanage Congress. They are to call balls and strikes, not dictate who pitches and bats.

The second you show me limiting language in the law that clearly prohibits such an act is the only time I would agree with your laughable premise. There is no such language in the law, and no basis for the SCOTUS to take the case, much less dictate how the law can be used and applied. Congress did not sue over this. That alone speaks more loudly than anything you might say.

Gerrymandering has been around for a long time and was performed to the benefit of Dems goigng back decades.

That has ZERO to do with this discussion. You ask for examples and when given them immediately stoop to irrelevant bothsiderism.

I won't bother to answer you again because you don't want to discuss actual facts and law, you want to stick your tongue out and act like a baby. You deserve to be treated with scorn because you treat us with scorn by ignoring the very information provided because your ignorant ass asked for it!

See: McCain- Feingold

Another sterling example of judicial advocacy. Show me where in the history of the United States prior to the Citizens ruling where the spending of money for paid media was considered synonymous with free speech?

There is no history. The Roberts Court made it up out of thin air. No history, no precedence, just another results oriented decision empowering those with the most money to get what they want regardless of the harm it brings to the democratic process of elections.

And just to be clear, after loan forgiveness MHELA stood to make MORE MONEY when all factors were considered:

81 continued

And before someone asks the stupid question as to how MOHELA would make 88% more money if loans were cancelled, it's because they're paid MORE MONEY to service cancellations than they are for handling repayments.

The premise of harm was a LIE, full stop. The basis for standing did not exist. One cannot be harmed by an act that increases your revenues beyond that of the status quo. If the case had been properly adjudicated at the 8th Circuit, these facts would have been established, making it impossible to reach Roberts' opinion. They knew this, and this is exactly why they circumvented the normal process to achieve their desired result - especially in an election year.

But is seems to be unusual to see your current alias being so determined to show its ignorance here.

That's why I ask, why this thread, and why this evening?

Why any thread at any time?

Tangentially, I'm sick and tired of hearing about how the 9 SCOTUS judges all "get along". I'm seriously in doubt that I could happily mingle with coworkers who openly subvert the Constitution and the constitutional processes - including adherence to stare decisis and other long established precedences - especially those that granted equal rights and access to groups long denied such by once "legal" prejudices and majority practices abandoned because we've evolved into more enlightened and less judgmental beings.

I can't decide whether I'd prefer to see multiple resignations to force the issue into the front of the presidential race immediately with the justices going full-throated in public about the SCOTUS' dive into fascism and baseless protection of the most criminal man to ever attain the White House, or whether lamentations like Sotomayor's pick up traction and energize the non-Trump voters in understanding that the things they now take for granted may be gone like the wind should Trump emerge victorious in November.

Maybe having a couple open SCOTUS seats laying in the balance for this election might focus the public on the fact no one can afford another 4 years of Trump heading this government on his personal bloodquest for revenge.

This is an interesting thesis (from what I've read so far) as to why standing should be expanded.

Again, spending time on what YOU want instead of internalizing that which proves you a liar, hypocrite and fool all at once.

Bellringer, how do you feel about the fact that you swallowed the standing lie hook, line and sinker? Haven't you learned that conservatives twist anything and everything to fit whatever their ends are? That's the basis of my disgust with the Roberts Court. They say that they're making proper legal rulings based on the Constitution while in the same breath they cut corners, ignore facts and okey-doke specious standings where none exist.

The service contract that MOHELA agreed to with the federal government says this:

It is important to note that Federal Student Aid (FSA)'s 2021 servicing contract modifications for all servicers explicitly states that FSA can remove any number of contracts from servicers, at FSA's "sole discretion." As a contractor, MOHELA agreed not to "object to or protest FSA's allocation or reallocation of existing borrower loans, and further waives and releases all current or future claims against [FSA] . . . regarding its current allocation decisions and methodology for existing borrower loans" (FSA 2021).

If you disagree, please formulate an argument detailing why. Seems pretty cut and dried to me.

Is this really the best source you have to advance a legal/constitutional argument?

You are an ignorant ---- and you'll remain an ignorant ----. There really isn't a constitutional argument here about standing as much as its a misuse of data argument, which in and of itself removes all claims of standing based on settled law. The paper uses statistics and calculations to undermine the basis for standing: that MOHELA stood to be harmed should loan forgiveness be implemented as Biden wanted. That is simply not true, and the paper shows the calculations and numbers making the case that MOHELA stands to make more money had the plan been implemented due to the fee structures already in place. And please do not forget, MOHELA is only a processor, they are not the lender themselves and are owed no money but for the services they provide for FSA.

The paper also cites prevailing statutory restrictions upon the contract between MOHELA and FSA as I posted above. In no universe would MOHELA have standing for a lawsuit against FSA on this issue - which is likely why they weren't a named party to the lawsuit itself. They would have been in violation of their contract if they challenged any decisions around the loans MOHELA oversees.

The more I learn, the madder I get at Roberts for thinking we citizens are merely rubes as he runs roughshod over precedence and process in the name of furthering nakedly partisan outcomes from the bench.

I'm being redundant but I think this sums up the argument as to whether statutorily Biden has the right to forgive student loans. It seems pretty clear in the contract language of MOHELA that logically he does:

Federal Student Aid (FSA)'s 2021 servicing contract modifications for all servicers explicitly states that FSA can remove any number of contracts from servicers, at FSA's "sole discretion."

As a contractor, MOHELA agreed not to "object to or protest FSA's allocation or reallocation of existing borrower loans, and further waives and releases all current or future claims against [FSA] . . . regarding its current allocation decisions and methodology for existing borrower loans" (FSA 2021).

I'd like someone to produce any language limiting what the Sec ED can or cannot do with these loans. The aforementioned language seems crystal clear to me. The Fed can do anything it's not statutorily prohibited from doing as it regards these loans. Except the SCOTUS seems to ignore this language as easily as they ignored the 8th Circuit's role in establishing facts like these before the SCOTUS hears the case.

I've seen a future president could reimpose forgiven debt under the statutory authority being argued.

Wrong. Loans are legally binding contracts. Once legally forgiven by the lender, they cannot be unilaterally reinstituted later. A forgiven loan is dead. A President can no more reinstitute a forgiven loan as they can remove pardons and commutations given by past Presidents.

Where do you get these whack ideas from?

In most of these cases the government wasn't the lender.

Wrong again as usual.

#127

No they didn't and they wouldn't have lost a penny. Try reading the posts above. Missouri only serviced the loans the federal government allocated to them, and they would have made MORE money servicing the cancellations.

Try reading posts 81, 104, and 109. The state of Missouri never had standing. Only the state organization handling federal loans (MOHELA) would have, but the contract they sign with FSA tells them that they have no discretion over how loans are given or taken away for any reason whatsoever. The contract also states that MOHELA will not sue FSA for anything, and they signed it in order to participate in the federal servicing program.

Lastly, MOHELA was not a party to the lawsuit against Biden, and if the case had been heard in the 8th Circuit before the SCOTUS shadow docketed it away from the usual appeal process, the above facts would have destroyed all the plaintiff's claims for standing.

Educate yourself, that's what this thread is about.

The court also rightly ruled that the administration's ultra-broad interpretation of the HEROES Act ran afoul of Supreme Court precedent on the "major questions" doctrine.

You do realize that the Constitution did not give the SCOTUS the power to reinterpret written laws, only to adjudicate whether those laws pass constitutional muster. This is judicial activism at its finest - the SCOTUS telling Congress what its laws actually mean. It's lunacy and only used towards the ends and goals of conservatives, never for any progressive ends.

Let me drop this truth bomb on the thread removing any doubt that based on what the plaintiffs claimed as grounds for standing to sue was not only inaccurate, it was a bald-faced lie which would have come out in the appeals process if the Roberts Court hadn't hijacked this case onto their shadow docket.

More factual information regarding the Roberts Court's tacitly extralegal adjudication of this case: