Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

The lights are all blinking red.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

If America since Jan 2025 hasn’t broken your heart, you haven’t loved her enough.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

Radicalized white males who support Trump are pitching a tent in the abyss.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

When I was faster i was always behind.

Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

People are weird.

You are here: Home / Politics / Activist Judges! / Latest from the Leo Court (Open Thread)

Latest from the Leo Court (Open Thread)

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New SCOTUS ruling came down this morning:

CNN — The Supreme Court on Monday allowed Louisiana congressional map to be redrawn to add another majority-Black district.

The justices reversed plans to hear the case themselves and lifted a hold they placed on a lower court’s order for a reworked redistricting regime. There were no noted dissents…

“Today’s decision follows on the heels of the court’s 5-4 ruling earlier this month holding that Alabama also has to re-draw its congressional district maps to include a second majority-minority district,” said Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at the University of Texas School of Law.

“And like the Alabama ruling, it doesn’t explain why the court nevertheless had issued emergency relief to allow Louisiana to use its unlawful maps during the 2022 midterm cycle,” Vladeck added. “It puts the court’s interventions last year into ever-sharper perspective.”

This is good news for House Dems, who will likely pick up some seats with non-gerrymandered maps. But here’s a potential black cloud for that silver lining: the Moore vs. Harper decision is also expected this term, and the wingnut supermajority SCOTUS could use it to issue a ruling that endorses the radical Independent State Legislature Theory. WTF is that? Here’s a brief from the League of Women Voters:

North Carolina legislators appealed to the United States Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case. The legislators argued that the North Carolina Supreme Court’s decision to reject the legislature’s map overstepped its authority under the US Constitution’s Elections Clause. Via the fringe Independent State Legislature Theory (ISLT), they argued that the Elections Clause gives state legislatures exclusive authority to set rules for federal elections in their states without any limits from other branches of the state government, including state courts and governors. If the ISLT is adopted by the Supreme Court, state legislatures could gain near-absolute power to gerrymander Congressional districts along party lines, which could only be stopped by Congress, among other potential impacts.

I am not a lawyer, but it seems contradictory on its face to reject the gerrymandered maps produced by wingnut supermajority legislatures and then endorse the ISLT. That said, it’s possible Alito is ransacking the writings of 17th century witch-burners to discover arcane justifications for it right now.

With this court, who the fuck knows? Basically, the Roberts Leo Court functions as a somewhat PR-conscious Repub operation. If they were going to hammer U.S. democracy with an ISLT endorsement and sandbag the Biden admin by clawing back student debt relief, they would probably issue a couple of pro-democracy rulings as cover first.

There’s no point in borrowing trouble, but I won’t relax until all the rulings are out and the Corrupt Six have decamped for the summer.

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

89Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    Moore v. Harper should be dismissed as moot since the NC Supreme Court already did the nasty work for them. The fact that it hasn’t happened yet suggests that Alito or Thomas is writing a dissent from dismissal, probably to get ISLT out there for other GOP judges.

  2. 2.

    Scout211

    Also, this morning,

    WashingtonCNN — 
    The Supreme Court on Monday left in place a lower court opinion that invalidated a code of conduct at a North Carolina publicly funded charter school that required girls to wear skirts in order to “preserve chivalry” based on the belief that every girl is a “fragile vessel.”

    A federal appeals court had previously held that the school, Charter Day, violated the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause in enforcing the requirement and concluded that the school was a state actor with respect to its student code of conduct.

    “We observe that nothing in the Equal Protection Clause prevents public schools from teaching universal values of respect and kindness,” the United States Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit held.

    “But those values are never advanced by the discriminatory treatment of girls in a public school,” the majority wrote, adding that the “skirts requirement blatantly perpetuates harmful gender stereotypes as part of the public education provided to North Carolina’s young residents.”

    The lawsuit was originally brought by parents of three students who filed a federal lawsuit, arguing that the policy violated the Equal Protection Clause as well as Title IX, a federal law that prohibits discrimination based on sex in schools that receive federal funds.

    I would suggest that this will signal a crack down on how charter schools use public funds to push their religious and political agendas. But as BC points out, with the Leo Court, no one can predict.

    ETA: typos

  3. 3.

    Scout211

    @Scout211: Added
     

    News: The Supreme Court will *not* hear a case that hinges on whether charter schools are legally public or private. That means the court won't (yet) offer clarity whether the Constitution applies to charter schools or if religious charters may be viable. https://t.co/NI9I7c8dVt— Matt Barnum (@matt_barnum) June 26, 2023

  5. 5.

    Alison Rose

    @Scout211:

    required girls to wear skirts in order to “preserve chivalry” based on the belief that every girl is a “fragile vessel.”

    JFC. But also, like…if girls are so “fragile” wouldn’t it make more sense for them to wear pants, which cover more of your body and don’t allow gusts of wind into your crotch?

  6. 6.

    cmorenc

    …until the corrupt 6 decamp to a deluxe fishing cabin in Alaska aboard a private jet, courtesy of a billionaire benefactor.

  8. 8.

    Rusty

    Tomorrow is the only day on the SCOTUS calendar for opinions before the summer break, there are a lot of outstanding big decisions that looked to get dumped on the same day.  Student loans, affirmative action for college admissions, free speech rights for stalkers, and maybe even the independent state legislature case.  The one outstanding case that I think has been really misunderstood and poorly reported is 303 Creative v. Elenis.  This is the web designer that didn’t want to make a web page for a same sex couple.  This whole case was manufactured by a right wing group, done in a way that no LGBTQ+ groups would be at the table to argue.  What the media has really missed, is that the case was argued under 1st amendment free speech rights, not under anything relating to religion.  As Justice Jackson pointed out at oral argument, a successful decision for the web designer wouldn’t be limited to just objections based on religions grounds, but would also apply to racial and other biases.  The likely win will cut away the civil rights laws of 1965, allowing businesses to discriminate on religious, racial, political and any other grounds.  It will explicitly protect racists, homophobic, anti-Semitic and another discrimination by businesses.  This is the real sleeper case left on the docket.

  9. 9.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Scout211:

    The Supreme Court on Monday left in place a lower court opinion that invalidated a code of conduct at a North Carolina publicly funded charter school that required girls to wear skirts in order to “preserve chivalry” based on the belief that every girl is a “fragile vessel.”

    “Fragile vessel,” LOL. As my kid sister said sometime way back in the late 1970s, “women aren’t as ‘mere’ as they used to be.”

    And boy howdy, is that ever true now.  The theatre group that my son’s been part of for several years borrows a gym to put on their productions.  So before and after each run of one of our plays, we move all the backdrops, sound and light, etc. equipment from a storage shed to the gym and back.

    And I can tell you, the girls and women get right in there with the boys and men.  They can and do lift and carry and load and haul right along with us.  I’d love to invite the person who wrote that “fragile vessel” bullshit to come up and see one of our load-ins or load-outs so they could watch our ‘fragile vessels’ in action.

  11. 11.

    Scout211

    @Baud: I wonder if “fragile vessel” was too much for even these Republican justices to try to spin. Ah, well. We’ll never know.

    Everyone knows that only applies to pregnant people.

  12. 12.

    Baud

    @Rusty:

    Colorado really messed up the briefing in 303 Creative in the lower courts, and the 10th Circuit’s opinion isn’t great. I think Colorado righted the ship in the Supreme Court but who knows what the right wingers will want to do with it.

  13. 13.

    New Deal democrat

    Ok, to help clear up a little confusion: even if adopted the “independent state legislature” doctrine would only apply to *Presidential* elections, not Congressional or Senatorial elections. Gerrymandering, by its terms, only affects Congressional and state legislative elections.

    I am nevertheless *very* concerned with what this Court majority will do in the “independent state legislature” case, because (based on the “conservatives’” comments during oral argument), they might hold that any state Supreme Court decision that does not apply “textualism” and “originalism” in interpreting the state’s constitution is “legislating from the bench” and can be overturned by federal courts. Which means that decisions by state courts overturning gerrymandered maps on state constitutional grounds are invalid.

  15. 15.

    coin operated

    required girls to wear skirts in order to “preserve chivalry” based on the belief that every girl is a “fragile vessel.”

    Damn near every supervisor I had during my time in the Army were black female E7s.  They would quickly wipe the notion of ‘fragile vessel’ from your worldview.

  18. 18.

    Scout211

    @Betty Cracker:  Good explainer at the Brennan Center

    Brennan Center

    There are two relevant clauses. One is the Elections Clause, which reads, “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations.”

    The other is the Presidential Electors Clause, which reads, “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors.”

    The dispute hinges on how to understand the word “legislature.” The long-running understanding is that it refers to each state’s general lawmaking processes, including all the normal procedures and limitations. So if a state constitution subjects legislation to being blocked by a governor’s veto or citizen referendum, election laws can be blocked via the same means. And state courts must ensure that laws for federal elections, like all laws, comply with their state constitutions.

    Proponents of the independent state legislature theory reject this traditional reading, insisting that these clauses give state legislatures exclusive and near-absolute power to regulate federal elections. The result? When it comes to federal elections, legislators would be free to violate the state constitution and state courts couldn’t stop them.

  19. 19.

    schrodingers_cat

    Question for Juicer lawyers. If a non-profit in the US is raising funds to demolish churches in India can the IRS do something about it? Can they lose their tax exempt status? What needs to happen for an organization to lose their tax exempt status

    ETA: This org got COVID relief funds.

  23. 23.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Scout211:

    Brennan Center:

    Proponents of the independent state legislature theory reject this traditional reading, insisting that these clauses give state legislatures exclusive and near-absolute power to regulate federal elections.

    IIRC, the Florida legislature was seriously considering applying this theory back in 2000, and determining by legislative decision that Bush had won Florida’s electoral votes.  This was during those few weeks when the state’s electoral votes were up in the air, of course.

  24. 24.

    Baud

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Don’t know.  There’s a famous case that a segregated school doesn’t qualify as a charitable organization, but I don’t know how strictly the IRS polices the idea of “charity” in other contexts.

  25. 25.

    Redshift

    @Scout211: I am so sick of these conservative legal “doctrines” that amount to “if we can find anything written that supports what we want, we win, even if we’re ignoring everything else that was written, what was said by the people who wrote it, and how it’s been interpreted for decades or centuries, including when the people who wrote it were alive.”

  26. 26.

    New Deal democrat

    @Betty Cracker: The clause for federal elections in general only refers to “time, place, and manner” subject to the directives of Congress. There are no such limitations as to Presidential electors.

  28. 28.

    Gin & Tonic

    Open thread, so take a look at the video embedded in the tweet below and contrast the behavior and demeanor of the President of Ukraine with, oh, I dunno, maybe the President of russia?

    Zelensky makes a stop at an @okkoua gas station in eastern Donetsk region and poses for selfies with Ukrainian troops. (And hopefully picked up a coffee and OKKO dog 🌭) The Ukrainian president also visited troops near the frontline and handed out awards, his office says. pic.twitter.com/xxaV7unpQg— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) June 26, 2023

    ETA: OKKO in Ukraine is like a Sheets or Wawa or whatever your regional equivalent is in the US.

  30. 30.

    Geminid

    At the beginning of the Civil War, white Southerners liked to portray the conflict as “the Chivalry versus the Shovelry.”

    That characterization did not last long. They’d been reading too much Walter Scott, and not enough Clausewitz.

  32. 32.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    @Alison Rose: THIS. It has always puzzled me regarding Sports.  Women are not the ones with external genitalia that need a plastic protector.

  33. 33.

    Jeffro

    ❤️ “Leo court”

    Do we know if this latest ruling is “originalist” and does it answer “major questions”?  (Or both?)

  34. 34.

    Splitting Image

    @Alison Rose:

    JFC. But also, like…if girls are so “fragile” wouldn’t it make more sense for them to wear pants, which cover more of your body and don’t allow gusts of wind into your crotch?

    Not only that, but hardly any women wear skirts anymore. I see women wearing them for professional or religious reasons (or even comfort), but leggings have become almost ubiquitous.

    These assholes really give the game away when you give them the opportunity to design a school uniform. What they come up with will always look like the years 1962 to 2022 never happened. Shirts and ties for the boys; blouses and skirts for the girls. Gender conformity is the rule, and everything that kids these days actually wear goes on the forbidden list.

  35. 35.

    Jeffro

    @Baud: “DON’T GERRYMANDER OUR SENATE!!!1” bumper stickers now available for sale at your nearest ‘Trump 2024’ roadside flag stand.

  37. 37.

    Hob

    The “what if they’re just doing a reasonable thing FOR COVER” idea is brought up every single time something doesn’t go as badly as expected. I’m sure it’s true sometimes, but in this case… a ruling in favor of the independent state legislature theory would be a huge deal, and any outlet that didn’t report it as such would be one that wasn’t going to report it accurately anyway, due to either partisan reasons or stupidity. I don’t get how “cover” is supposed to work for something like that, or how looking at it that way gives us any benefit at all, other than the kind of meaningless satisfaction that we’ve avoided an imaginary temptation to be optimistic.

  38. 38.

    jonas

    @Scout211:code of conduct at a North Carolina publicly funded charter school that required girls to wear skirts in order to “preserve chivalry” based on the belief that every girl is a “fragile vessel.”

    What kind of parent sends their daughter to a school that thinks like this? Bunch of Duggar-types probably. Sheez.

  39. 39.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Alison Rose: I have always found it very strange that traditional rules for gendered clothing consider skirts more “modest” apparel for women than trousers. Maybe it made some sense in the times when skirts went all the way to the floor and were so wide that it was impossible to tell whether the wearer had legs.

  40. 40.

    Alison Rose

    @Gin & Tonic: He’s such a good man, and a great leader. You can really tell how much respect he has for them, and it seems like it’s definitely mutual. A man of the people, whereas the kremlin gremlin is a man of himself.

  41. 41.

    sdhays

    Why does the Supreme Court dump so many decisions at once? Why don’t they operate on a queue – case comes in, arguments made, deliberate (ask billionaire best friend/rando on the private plane), write opinions, release? Why is there so often this massive decision dump in early summer?

  44. 44.

    Jackie

    I hope Gym Jordan’s sphincter just tightened!

    “WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday left in place a decision that allows more than 230 men to sue Ohio State University over decades-old sexual abuse by a university doctor, the late Richard Strauss.”

    ”Two cases involving the abuse were on a list of many cases the court said it would not hear. And, as is typical, the court did not comment in saying it would not hear the cases.”

    “Ohio State University had urged the court to review a ruling by the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that revived lawsuits that had been dismissed. The men who sued are among hundreds of former student-athletes and other alumni who say they were abused by Strauss, who worked at the school from 1978 to 1998.”

    “They say university officials failed to stop him despite complaints raised as early as the late 1970s. Many of them allege Strauss abused them during required physicals and other medical exams at campus athletic facilities, a student health center, his home and an off-campus clinic.”

    https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-ohio-state-abuse-richard-strauss-57b547932ffeaa015c6f85a994276e32

  46. 46.

    trollhattan

    Waves to Florida.

    Florida might be known for its alligators and sharks, but this week, a slower, slimier creature is wreaking havoc on Sunshine State residents: a snail.

    On Tuesday, an area of Broward County, near Fort Lauderdale, enacted a quarantine after the invasive giant African land snail was detected there this month. Under the quarantine, which covers about 3.5 square miles, it is illegal to move the snail or any vegetation, soil, debris, compost or building materials, “within, through or out of” the area without a compliance agreement, a statement from the Florida Department of Agriculture says.

    Despite how it sounds, the quarantine does not prohibit people from leaving their homes – though the presence of a snail as big as a banana might do that on its own.

    The U.S. Agriculture Department calls the giant African land snail “one of the most damaging snails in the world” for a reason. It can carry dangerous specimens, including salmonella, bacteria and rat lungworm, which can cause meningitis. It can also cause structural damage to buildings by eating through stucco and plaster. And in Florida, where there is a large agriculture industry, the snail could even pose a threat to food security, the U.S. Geological Survey says.

    Robert Cowie, a research professor at the University of Hawaii who studies the biology of snails and the diseases they carry, says that whether giant African land snails can spread worms through mucus remains an open question, but you should refrain from touching them with your bare hands. You should also, of course, not eat them – or risk your dog or child doing so.

    “They’re potentially dangerous from the disease perspective,” said Cowie, who lives in Hawaii, where the snails are an established presence. They’re also “an enormous nuisance,” he said, “in terms of eating all your plants in your yard, climbing up the walls of your house, pooping everywhere. They just make a mess.”

    When the giant African land snail first appeared in southern Florida in the 1960s, it took 10 years and a million dollars to get rid of it, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department. In October 2021, after another intensive, decade-long effort that included snail billboards, snail-sniffing dogs and even a snail detection hotline, Broward and Miami-Dade counties celebrated removing 160,000 snails and finally eradicating the pest.

    Identifiable by its brownish, striped shell, the giant African land snail is not your typical garden snail. It is, well, giant – measuring up to eight inches. It can weigh up to 2.2 pounds, and it eats voraciously to support such a mass – able to feed on 500 kinds of plants, including peanuts, beans and melons. It reproduces rapidly – 1,200 eggs a year – and can live as long as a decade.

    Snails that weigh a kilogram? Uhhh, pass.

  47. 47.

    Mai Naem mobileI

    Roberts/Kavanaugh and Roberts got embarrassed into these last decisions. Even they can read public  opinion polls of the USSC. I wouldn’t be surprised if Alito and Thomas, especially Alito had dissents that got thrown in the trash can after last week’s ProPublica’s piece. ProPublica is being really smart about their reporting by doing the drip drip drip instead of a huge expose that gets forgotten after a couple of weeks.

  49. 49.

    Geminid

    @Jeffro: Over in the Shenandoah Valley, they still hold a ring jousting tournament every year at Natural Chimneys. It’s a relic from the 1850s.

    The park at Natural Chimneys is a pretty place, worth a visit when it’s not crowded.

  51. 51.

    Mai Naem mobileI

    @sdhays: maybe the justices working out their bribes with their vacation sponsors and all the haggling comes down to the wire leading to the decisions getting dumped all at once.

  52. 52.

    Mike in NC

    The ISLT business is pure bullshit, but one of the few ways Republicans have at their disposal to steal the 2024 election for Fat Bastard, which they fully intend to do.

  54. 54.

    scav

    Pre washing machines, remember the vast majority of those traditional fragile vessels were sloshing hauling and hanging all the sodden family wash every week or so.  Dragging wood about, hauling water for baths and cooking.  Mass “female” fragility was at best a teeny sliver of time, more honored in myth than observed on the ground.

  55. 55.

    Jeffro

    @Geminid: Natural Chimneys is actually on the Fro family’s summer to-visit list!  I think we’re going to make it a round trip with some other points of interest out in McDowell/Monterey area.

  57. 57.

    artem1s

    @Matt McIrvin: ​

    Criminalizing dress has a long history. In the US, wearing pants made it easier for women to work outside the home. Mandating skirts as proper attire means not being able to participate in activities that were reserved for men (sports for instance that women couldn’t participate in until Title IX).
    Mary Edwards Walker for instance insisted on practicing surgery in the field during the Civil War and wore trousers everywhere – she was considered shocking. Bloomers were invented so women could more easily ride bicycles.

  58. 58.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Cheryl from Maryland: In college, the toughest people I knew were the water polo players. Yes, much tougher than the football players. They basically beat the shit out of each other every game in ‘accidental’ ways.

    NONE of the men would every play with the women’s team more than once. Because the women’s team was just brutal and none of the dudes could deal with the level of punishment they had to take.

    It was pretty eye opening to me at the time.

  59. 59.

    Redshift

    @scav: It was never about the masses, only the class of people who mattered. Of course, most of the people who believe this patriarchal crap is “the way things always used to be” and want to impose it on everyone aren’t of that class, but that’s the conundrum of conservatism overall — “join us in putting the true ruling class back in charge and we promise you’ll be one of them wink wink.”

  60. 60.

    narya

    @scav: One of the most interesting books I read during my dissertation work was how the advent of housecleaning machinery (e.g. vacuum cleaners) meant that (a) things could be, and therefore were expected to be, cleaned more often, increasing the total workload, and (b) jobs that were infrequent AND a whole-family endeavor (e.g., taking rugs outdoors and beating them) became female-only. (The title of the book is “More Work for Mother,” by Ruth Schwartz Cowan, if anyone is interested.)

  62. 62.

    HumboldtBlue

    Fellow Californians:

    Over the past decade, California has repeatedly experienced the destructive impacts of climate change — “weather on steroids” — costing billions of dollars in damage and claiming dozens of lives.

    Now, in what may be the largest environmental measure ever placed on a state ballot in California, lawmakers in Sacramento are drafting a $15 billion “climate bond” for next year’s elections to test whether voters are willing to open their wallets to harden the state’s defenses.

    Two similar bills are moving forward in the Legislature, with broad support from the Democratic majority and Gov. Gavin Newsom.

    Both would provide significant new funding to thin forests, boost flood control projects, plant trees to cool cities, expand renewable energy, and take other steps to deal with a climate that scientists say will continue to warm for generations to come.

  63. 63.

    narya

    @MisterForkbeard: D’Arcy Carden (Janet on “The Good Place”) talked about women’s water polo players–that they routinely wore two swimsuits, because the suits would be yanked apart/off during play.

  64. 64.

    Geminid

    @Jeffro: I read about a large stand of old growth Hemlocks out there. I think it’s north of 250, near the Augusta/Highland County line.

    If it’s still there. Some aphids have been killing hemlocks around here. They’re called the “Wooly Adelgid,” because they produce small patches if white foam on the hemlock branches.

  66. 66.

    Roger Moore

    @Cheryl from Maryland:

    The whole thing about what clothes people are supposed to wear is 100% about enforcing gender roles and 0% about practicality.  Yes, different people need different cuts of clothes because their bodies are different shapes, but that makes more sense at the individual level than at the gender level.

  67. 67.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Hob: Sounds similar to the perennial objection that your pet issue is a manufactured “distraction” from my pet issue.

  68. 68.

    Betty Cracker

    @Hob: I’m not suggesting everyone would fall for the ruse, but undeniably this is a court that tries to mask its GOP activism and is wounded when someone (even their own SCOTUS colleagues) calls them on it.

  70. 70.

    scav

    @narya: I’ve read bits of similar works on domestic arrangements, different periods.  Certainly there was a lot more hiring out for help with the wash, but it still needed to be done, sometime with even more steps than we do now.  Not for the most washed undergarments, but they unsewed bits that needed different washing techniques.  Making the different soaps and additives, bluing, starches.  And while, yes, some things were more likely cleaned less often (rug beating) other things — mattresses and bed frames spring to mind — required more maintenance than we do now.   I suspect that the mechanization of household labour rearranged what mothers were expected to do, and certainly squeezed in more tasks in any time saving accomplished.  My point was more that household labor was really physically tasking shit.

    Thanks for the new title!

  71. 71.

    Old School

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Question for Juicer lawyers. If a non-profit in the US is raising funds to demolish churches in India can the IRS do something about it? Can they lose their tax exempt status? What needs to happen for an organization to lose their tax exempt status

    ETA: This org got COVID relief funds.

    Not a lawyer, but the receipt of COVID funds has nothing to do with tax-exempt status.

    A 501(c)(3) can lose their status for a few reasons:

    A 501(c)(3) organization can maintain its tax-exempt status if it follows the rules affecting these six areas: private benefit/inurement, lobbying, political campaign activity, unrelated business income (UBI), annual reporting obligation, and operation in accordance with stated exempt purpose(s).

    The most likely one to apply in this situation is operating for a different purpose than what they told the IRS they would be doing.

    So the next step would be to determine what their exempt purpose is.  (Should be listed on their Form 990.)

  72. 72.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Cameron:

    Preserve chivalry? The dudes all have to do Three Musketeers cosplay? 

    Gonna be difficult to sit at a desk with a giant foam chocolate bar costume on.

  73. 73.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    @sdhays:

    Like Tevya sings in “Fiddler on the Roof”:

    “TRADITIOOOOOOOOOOON!”

  76. 76.

    HumboldtBlue

    The restaurant chain Hamburger Mary’s, which features drag waitresses and family-friendly drag performances, has won a legal victory after convincing a federal judge to place a temporary injunction against Florida’s drag ban. The law will be blocked until a court case decides on the ban’s constitutionality.

    The ban, signed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on May 17, allows the state Department of Business and Professional Regulation to revoke the business licenses of any venues that allow minors to see drag performances, even if their parents consent, as well as issue $5,000 and $10,000 fines against the business. Anyone who violates the law can be charged with a criminal misdemeanor.

  81. 81.

    Betty Cracker

    @HumboldtBlue: Go Mary! DeSantis’s dirty little secret is that he knows his dumb culture war legislation won’t pass legal muster, but crowing about the laws benefits him politically, plus the inevitable lawsuits funnel FL taxpayer dollars to DeSantis cronies in the wingnut law firms that defend the indefensible. So, win-win for that piece of shit so far.

  84. 84.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Redshift: ​It was never about the masses, only the class of people who mattered.

    IOW, status. Why do you think the Southron yeomanry – the vast majority of which could not afford to own a slave – fought so hard and died so willingly in the War between the States so the plantation owners could hang onto theirs?

    ‘Lease you ain’t one o’ them, boah!

    Or as LBJ, no stranger to the situation, famously put it,

    If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.

  85. 85.

    WereBear

    Had a frazzled morning where a family emergency delayed me preparing a package and I don’t remember where I put the special color ink pen, and also forgot to order new toner. The folks at the local UPS store took care of it.

    Even when I had to come back because I remembered putting the requested personal message on my autographed book. But I forgot the signature.

    Which is where the value is for collectors🥸

    Fortunately it hadn’t gone out yet. And that didn’t change the weight.🤣

  87. 87.

    TriassicSands

    One of the results of all the turmoil about SCOTUS ethics is that now, when they come out with a seemingly reasonable decision, I have to wonder if this is just disingenuous cover to try to deflect all the controversy their corruption has created.

    “See, see, we’re not corrupt, we let Alabama African Americans have an extra seat in the redistricting plan. [Which they should have had all along, except the SCOTUS gave Repubicans permission to run amok.] And [assuming they do] we rejected the highly persuasive [that is,  utterly insane] independent legislature case.

  88. 88.

    Soprano2

    @Matt McIrvin: I think it’s because pants show the shape of a woman’s butt, because it’s correct that in most ways pants are more modest than skirts. Of course, skirts also inhibit physical activity, which may be the real reason wingers think they’re better for female people. When I was in grade school all the girls wore shorts under their dresses so it was easy to play on the playground.

  89. 89.

    Calouste

    @MisterForkbeard: Former water polo player here.

    1) It’s hard for the refs to see what’s happening under water, specially away from where the ball is. If necessary, rough up the water with you arm while you kick your opponent.

    2) Wearing protectors in speedos is not very common.

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