Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
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User ID: 863
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
22hr ago
And it's just a punt onto the merits: I fully expect the 5th to go "okay, it's a reasonable search", maybe even snark about how technically precedent doesn't require warranted searches to be reasonable, and then SCOTUS to deny cert on the eventual appeal.
Technically the District Court found that the warrant was invalid under the fourth amendment but ruled the evidence was admissable anyway due to the good faith exception. I have not read the Fourth Circuit opinion but it's possible they just affirm the District Court's holding. So, the cops get away with it this time but maybe not in the future.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
1d ago
Supreme Court roundup thread? They dropped four opinions today that have some pretty wide ranging implications. Some more than others.
In Chatrie v. United States a 5-4 court (with Roberts and Barrett joining Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson) holds that geofence warrants constitute a "search" under the 4th amendment. This does not necessarily resolve the case in favor of Chatrie, though. The government did have a warrant in this case, although it's not clear whether the warrant was "reasonable." SCOTUS here is mostly pushing back on the holding by the Fourth Circuit panel that a search had not even occurred under the fourth amendment, due to the third party doctrine.
In Watson v. Republican National Committee a 5-4 court (with Roberts and Barrett joining Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson) the court holds that federal laws specifying an election day do not pre-empt state laws that permit counting ballots received after that day, so long as the ballots are sent by that day.
In Trump v. Slaughter a 6-3 court holds that the "for-cause" removal provision for FTC commissioners is unconstitutional, overruling Humphrey's Executor. This was pretty widely anticipated, since the Supreme Court has gradually been expanding the President's power to remove officials since Trump's re-election.
In Trump v. Cook a 5-4 court (Roberts and Kavanaugh joining Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson) holds that the President may not fire members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governor's at-will. The for-cause provision regarding firing members of the Feds BoG is constitutional and sets a "substantial threshold" for what constitutes cause.
Most online discussion I've seen has been focused on the latter two decisions and their apparent inconsistency. Apparently, Congress can only insulate executive branch employees from Presidential termination some of the time and those circumstances do not depend on the wording of the statute or anything else Congress has any control over. Roberts is the author of both opinions and he tries to square the circle by arguing that the United States has a long history of independent central banking but I don't think he's very convincing. The Federal Reserve itself is a mere 1 year older than the FTC (founded in 1913 vs 1914) so Roberts tries to reach back to the First and Second Bank of the United States and nevermind the fact there was an 80 year period where the United States had no central bank between the Second Bank of the United States and the Federal Reserve. Some of the syllabus even, in my view, departs from anything that could be called a legal argument to argue that this is good policy:
Although this extraordinary case arises on the Court’s interim docket, the Court has had the benefit of not only amici and oral argument but months of internal consultation and deliberation. The Court declines to sow doubt as to the status of one of the Nation’s (and the world’s) most important financial institutions, and would not so quickly unsettle this “special arrangement sanctioned by history.”
The court has also said tomorrow will be the last opinion day, in which we will presumably get the four remaining opinions (including birthright citizenship) so maybe I'll have to do another one tomorrow.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
5d ago
There is a whole sub-genre of this stuff of the form "character who is clearly meant to be a child but with large breasts."
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
6d ago
Because characters in fiction aren't real? The thing that is bad about CSAM is the part where a person was abused to make it. There's no equivalent in fiction.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
6d ago
This is in reference to the production of fiction.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
6d ago
Perhaps some useful additional context: ShiftUp are also the developers of the gacha game Goddess of Victory: Nikke and that game has characters that I think could be argued are both children and sexualized. For example Alice or Liter.
On the main topic: I don't think it matters at all whether Evie looks particularly childlike or is particularly sexualized. She's not a real person and so her depiction and sexualization fail to have any of the features that make it bad when it's done to a real person. For any kind of depiction or action beyond a sexualized one I think most people understand this latter fact intuitively.
If you, as an individual, are aroused by a sexualized depiction of a minor then you may want to seek help from an appropriate therapist. But declaring, preemptively, that it is immoral to create fictionalized depictions because they might arouse pedophiles is insane.
A Tumblr post, amusingly, gets this right:
"I don't want to read this" is totally valid.
"This is disgusting to me" is totally valid.
"I don't want to read this because it is disgusting to me" is totally valid.
"I don't think anyone should be allowed to read or write this because it is disgusting to me" is authoritarian.
I've only quoted the top post for brevity but the whole thread I've linked is good, IMO.
And we're back, with the final Supreme Court decisions in merits cases for this term.
First up is West Virginia v. B. P. J. in which a 6-3 court holds that state segregation of sports by biological gender violates neither Title IX nor the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment. Technically it's 9-0 on the Title IX question but 6-3 on the equal protection angle. This opinion also covers Little v. Hecox which was a case on the same question out of Idaho.
Next, we have National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission in which a 6-3 court rules that limits on campaign coordination with political parties is a violation of the first amendment. The FEC has other rules, the court rules, that prevent the appearance of corruption and these rules do not serve that purpose.
Finally, we have Trump v. Barbara in which a 6-3 Court (with Kavanaugh, Roberts, and Barrett joining Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson) find that the citizenship clause of the 14th amendment applies to children born to parents here unlawfully or temporarily. Technically Kavanaugh concurs with the ruling because he believes Congress' codification effects this rule, rather than the 14th amendment requiring it. This is much closer than I was expecting it to be after the oral argument.
Outcome-wise I don't think any of these were too surprising. Gorsuch has a concurrence in B. P. J. where he talks about how this opinion is consistent with Bostock (where he was the author). The Barbara concurrences and dissents and opinion run to 194 pages which gives some sense for why it may have taken so long. I obviously have not read them all in full yet but I imagine they're going to be full of different takes on the same historical sources.
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