Supreme Court - Its Analog Ways

Isn't often I can say something good of any government branch dept, agency, etc.

Been disappointed many times, but it seems the United States Supreme Court can do at least on thing right, and that is maintaining a decorum and keep a secret.

While many are focus on a Historic Week Opens as High Court Saves Biggest Cases for Last  this week, I found this aspect process interesting.

As Social Media Swirls Around It, Supreme Court Sticks to Its Analog Ways

WASHINGTON — Chad Griffin, a gay rights advocate, has arrived twice this month at the Supreme Court with his bags packed, ready to fly off to a rally if the court rules on same-sex marriage. Ted Olson, a veteran lawyer who argued the case, will be sitting in court on Monday, just in case. And Lisa Blatt, a Supreme Court litigator, is one of many Washington court watchers who will be eagerly refreshing her Web browser.

They will be joined, if Twitter is any guide, by thousands of anxious, curious people across the country eagerly waiting for the court to rule on a remarkable number of major cases with huge implications. With just days remaining in its 2013 schedule, the court has left dangling its considered opinions on same-sex marriage, affirmative action and the nation’s voting rights laws.

“We all crave information instantaneously,” said Ms. Blatt, a lawyer at Arnold & Porter who has argued 33 cases before the court, including one that is still pending this year. Last Monday, and again last Thursday, she found herself scouring legal blogs, looking for whatever clues might exist.

“I always thought those people were strange, and there I was, doing it,” she said. “People are dying to know something that they can’t.”

FULL STORY - NEW YORK TIMES

Texas College Race Quotas, Supreme Court

When are government sanctioned racial preferences going to end?

The whole concept of affirmative action was an afterbirth of the struggle for equal rights, mainly by black folk in Southern States.

OK fine, we been doing that experiment, affirmative action for what, 50 years?

To me,  two full generations are enough to continue screwing young folk for injustices committed well before their birth.

Supreme Court skeptical of University of Texas affirmative action


Conservative justices hint they will throw out the school's admissions policy, but it's unclear whether they will reverse the court's 2003 ruling on the issue.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court's conservative justices signaled Wednesday they were likely to strike down a University of Texas affirmative action policy, but did not make clear how far they might go in outlawing the use of race in admissions at colleges and universities.


From his opening question, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said he was troubled by having students "check a box" to designate race or ethnicity and by allowing officials to decide who is admitted based on this factor.

"Should someone who is one-quarter Hispanic check the Hispanic box?" he asked. When the lawyer for the university said it was up to the student to decide, Roberts tried again: "What about one-eighth?"


The case, brought by a white student who was rejected, could lead to a ruling requiring top colleges and universities to use "race neutral" policies to achieve campus diversity. Texas, for example, has required its universities, including the Austin campus where the case originated, to admit students who graduate at the top of their high school class, without regard to race or ethnicity.

Los Angeles Times

Supreme Court to Rule on Homosexual Marriage

Growing up, I didn't really believe in stories of homosexuals. It was a foreign concept. Then what does one think happens, but a best friend of mine turns out to be homosexual.

That was like 40 years ago.

I don't care to share the story of our friendship, except to say it was never open and especially since he died of AIDS, is a big regret.

I consider myself a conservative, and all to often follow the party line, but here I must wander astray.

I maintain recognizing Gays/Lesbians equal rights to marriage is a Conservative/Libertarian principle which we, Conservatives should endorse.

California Gay-Marriage Case on Path to Supreme Court

SAN FRANCISCO—The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Tuesday declined to rehear arguments over California's ban on gay marriage, which the court invalidated in February, sending the case on a trajectory to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The decision came after proponents of Proposition 8—the 2008 California voter initiative banning gay marriage—asked that the February decision by a three-judge panel be reviewed by a larger panel of 11 judges.

To be heard by the larger panel, a majority of the court's 25 active judges would have to vote to rehear the case. The motion failed to get a majority, the decision said.
Andy Pugno, a lawyer for the group supporting Prop 8, said the ruling "essentially clears the way to where we ultimately knew this was going, which is the U.S. Supreme Court."


FULL STORY, WALL STREET JOURNAL

BUYING A GUN IN WASHINGTON D.C.

2008, in District of Columbia v. Heller, the  Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
ruled it is just what it says. A Right of the People.
Seems crazy that it took so long to clear that up. Still, it was very niggardly in just how far those rights extend and allowed for repressive laws to frustrate citizens from exercising our rights.

In a series of articles by Emily Miller of the Washington Times, we follow her as she navigates the bizarre trail to legally own a gun in one of the most crime ridden cities in America, Washington D.C.

MILLER: Emily gets her gun
I want a gun. I don't feel safe living in Washington, D.C. and want to protect myself. I'm starting today by going down to City Hall to find the gun permit office to tell them, "I want a gun." This series will follow me as I navigate the city bureaucracy and outdated rules in order to legally buy a firearm.

That is how it began. I was mostly intrigued in her latest writing.
 Steps to gun ownership in D.C.

My quest to get a legal handgun in Washington, D.C. feels daunting.

I went to the D.C. Firearms Registration office two weeks ago to start the process of getting a legal gun by picking up a 22-page packet of forms and instructions.

Since then, I've been overwhelmed by all that is required before I can take legal possession of a purchased gun.


I needed to get organized, so I made a checklist of the required steps, bringing order to the complicated mess of instructions given by the city.
I’m going to work my way down this LIST


I didn't copy all 17 steps here, you can find them here: LIST.

This part of her quest is just creepy.
D.C.’s only gun source

Room 1140 on the DMV hallway is marked with a small sign “CS Exchange” and a taped-up paper that warns away anyone who might be looking to fight parking ticket. Behind the nondescript brown door is the private office of Washington D.C.’s only legal gun broker: Charles Sykes.

You can’t just go out and legally buy a gun in the nation’s capital. If you purchase a pistol from another state, whether in person or over the Internet, you can’t ship it to your residence in the District, nor can you drive it back over the Potomac river.

In the 21-page packet of papers given to potential gun owners from the Firearm Registration Section, there is not a single word to explain how one would go about bringing a purchased gun into the city after registering it.

You can find all about her quest here:  GUNS

U.S. Supreme Court to hear Climate Worriers Power Grab

Climate change Chicken Littles can't seem to push their agenda before the legislatures where laws are suppose to be made. Nonetheless, they are not deterred. Hope springs eternal in the Courts.

Federal Judges are not elected and immune to citizen review. Hopefully the United States Supreme Court will put a stop to this runaround the proper channels.

Supreme Court takes global warming case that targets power companies

A global warming lawsuit aiming to force power companies to curtail carbon emissions will come before the Supreme Court next year. The suit asks for a judicial order to that effect, but would such a move usurp role of other government branches?

Looks like it to me.

The US Supreme Court on Monday agreed to examine a major environmental lawsuit that seeks to force six electric power companies to cap and reduce their carbon-dioxide emissions to fight global warming.

It seeks a judicial order declaring that the fossil-fueled power plants are a “public nuisance.” It also seeks a judicial order capping the plants’ greenhouse gas emissions and requiring the plants to adopt a schedule of reduced emissions in future years.

What makes the lawsuit unusual is that it is an attempt to fill a vacuum in US environmental policy on how best to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight global warming. The issue is a source of substantial controversy and a political hot potato, particularly at a time of high unemployment and a sluggish economy.

I love that one line editorial claiming a vacuum in US environmental policy.

A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit on grounds that it raised sensitive policy questions best left to the political branches. But a federal appeals court in New York reversed that decision, allowing the lawsuit to move forward.

The power companies are now asking the US Supreme Court to reverse the appeals court and dismiss the lawsuit.

The Tennessee Valley Authority's Cumberland Fossil Plant near Clarksville, Tenn., is shown in this 2002 file photo.

Ron Schmitt/AP Photo/TVA

Fossil Plant? How about calling it what it is, a coal fire plant?

“The ramifications of this [appeals court] holding, if it is allowed to stand, are staggering,” wrote Peter Keisler in a brief on behalf of the six power companies. “This litigation seeks to transfer to the judiciary standardless authority for some of the most important and sensitive economic, energy, and social policy issues presently before the country.”

The highlighted above would reflect my view.

FULL TEXT