Hobby Lobby demonstrates that RFRA violates the establishment clause

Hobby Lobby demonstrates that RFRA violates the establishment clause

by Armando

Daily Kos

Jul 06, 2014

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof [. . .] (First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.)

In Employment Division v. Smith, Justice Scalia wrote for the U.S. Supreme Court that:

We have never held that an individual's religious beliefs excuse him from compliance with an otherwise valid law prohibiting conduct that the State is free to regulate. On the contrary, the record of more than a century of our free exercise jurisprudence contradicts that proposition. the right of free exercise does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a valid and neutral law of general applicability on the ground that the law proscribes (or prescribes) conduct that his religion prescribes (or proscribes). [Emphasis supplied.]

Congress did not like this interpretation of the free exercise clause, and passed the Religious Freedom and Restoration Act by large majorities and President Clinton signed the law. What did RFRA do?  Expressly RFRA was intended to:

The purposes of this chapter are— (1) to restore the compelling interest test as set forth in Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398 (1963) and Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972).

Justice Scalia could have retorted that he followed Sherbert and Yoder in Smith. So, no "restoration" was required. Justice Alito, writing in Hobby Lobby v. Burford, is dishonest (I use this word purposefully) in his opinion when he writes, as you can see below the flip:

Nothing in the text of RFRA as originally enacted suggested that the statutory phrase “exercise of religion under the First Amendment” was meant to be tied to this Court’s pre-Smith interpretation of that Amendment.

Other than the express language I quoted above from RFRA, of course. And, of course, there are Justice Alito's own words in the same opinion:

Congress, in enacting RFRA, took the position that “the compelling interest test as set forth in prior Federal court rulings is a workable test forstriking sensible balances between religious liberty and competing prior governmental interests.” [Emphasis supplied.]

But leave the dishonesty aside, what of this interpretation of RFRA? IF in fact RFRA means what the Hobby Lobby court says it means, what of the First Amendment's prohibition that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." Isn't RFRA a law intended to favor religious exercise over non-religious exercise? As interpreted by the Hobby Lobby court, it is, and thus is unconstitutional. I explored this issue in this post. I quoted Justice Stevens concurrence in the case of Boerne v. Flores:

In my opinion, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA) is a "law respecting an establishment of religion" that violates the First Amendment to the Constitution. If the historic landmark on the hill in Boerne happened to be a museum or an art gallery owned by an atheist, it would not be eligible for an exemption from the city ordinances that forbid an enlargement of the structure. Because the landmark is owned by the Catholic Church, it is claimed that RFRA gives its owner a federal statutory entitlement to an exemption from a generally applicable, neutral civil law. Whether the Church would actually prevail under the statute or not, the statute has provided the Church with a legal weapon that no atheist or agnostic can obtain. This governmental preference for religion, as opposed to irreligion, is forbidden by the First Amendment. Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38, 52—55 (1985). [Emphasis added]

Justice Stevens' analysis is based solely on the text of RFRA. But the Hobby Lobby decision makes clear that the court's interpretation of RFRA not only will favor "religion, as opposed to irreligion," but certain religious beliefs over others. In Hobby Lobby, Justice Alito insists the decision is narrow, that this does not mean that religious beliefs that are "burdened" because the insurance coverage mandated by the Affordable Care Act, which includes immunizations or blood transfusions, will be relieved of this obligation under RFRA. Alito does not explain why this is so. What is different about the religious belief against immunizations and blood transfusions versus Hobby Lobby's objection to birth control? Or, racial, gender or sexual orientation discrimination or that matter? Here is Alito's hand-waving:

Our decision should not be understood to hold that an insurance-coverage mandate must necessarily fall if it conflicts with an employer’s religious beliefs. Other coverage requirements, such as immunizations, may be supported by different interests (for example, the need to combat the spread of infectious diseases) and may involve different arguments about the least restrictive means of providing them. The principal dissent raises the possibility that discrimination in hiring, for example on the basis of race, might be cloaked as religious practice to escape legal sanction. See post, at 32–33. Our decision today provides no such shield. The Government has a compelling interest in providing an equal opportunity to participate in the workforce without regard to race, and prohibitions on racial discrimination are precisely tailored to achieve that critical goal.

What is Alito saying here? Simply this: Some religious beliefs are more equal than others. Immunization? That's different. Your religious objections on that will hold no water in the court.  You object to interracial relationships? (See Bob Jones University v. United States.) Sorry, that religious belief is not respectable, so no "religious liberty" for you. So you want men and women to be segregated on a public transit bus for religious purposes? Sorry,  that religious objection gets no respect here. Whether this impulse of the court to favor certain religious objections over others is driven by political calculation or just the belief that some religious beliefs are better than others, it runs afoul of the establishment clause...

George Takei's blistering response to HobbyLobby: Could a Muslim Corporation impose Sharia Law?

George Takei's blistering response to #HobbyLobby: Could a Muslim Corp impose Sharia Law?

by Vyan

Daily Kos

 Jul 03, 2014

Some people just know how to say it, so I'm gonna shut up and let the former Mr. Sulu do so.
http://www.rawstory.com/...

"The ruling elevates the rights of a FOR-PROFIT CORPORATION over those of its women employees and opens the door to all manner of claims that a company can refuse services based on its owner’s religion,” Takei wrote. (O)ne wonders,” he said, “whether the case would have come out differently if a Muslim-run chain business attempted to impose Sharia law on its employees.”
“Hobby Lobby is not a church. It’s a business — and a big one at that,” he continued. “Businesses must and should be required to comply with neutrally crafted laws of general applicability. Your boss should not have a say over your healthcare. Once the law starts permitting exceptions based on ‘sincerely held religious beliefs’ there’s no end to the mischief and discrimination that will ensue.Indeed, this is the same logic that certain restaurants and hotels have been trying to deploy to allow proprietors to refuse service to gay couples.”

Chillingly he's not even a slightly wrong on that last point, the religious push-back against granting LGBT rights by corporations has already begun... you'll find the details just beyond the Orange Squiggle of Mordor below.

Religious Organizations and companies are in fact already attempting to push back on President Obama's brand new rules requiring LGBT equality for Federal Contractors in the immediate aftermath of Hobby Lobby. 'Cuz clearly, They. Gots. Religion.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/...

The day after the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby ruling, a group of religious leaders sent a letter to President Barack Obama asking that he exempt them from a forthcoming executive order that would prohibit federal contractors from discriminating against LGBT people. "Without a robust religious exemption," they wrote, "this expansion of hiring rights will come at an unreasonable cost to the common good, national unity and religious freedom."
The letter didn't mention the Hobby Lobby decision directly. But one of the signees, Michael Wear, the Obama 2012 veteran, told The Atlantic that the court decision meant the administration would need to address such concerns.
"The administration does have a decision to make whether they want to recalibrate their approach to some of these issues," he said.

So just as Justice Ginsberg and Mr Takei have suggested, the Hyper-Religious are already attempting to capitalize on the SCOTUS new granting of the rights of an human individual to a corporate entity for the specific purpose of denying the rights of a human individual. One does wonder just how loudly they would squeal if a non-christian, or a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Ba'hai, a Sikh, a Jewish, a Wiccan, an Amish, an Athiest or a Satanic "closely-held" corporation were to proclaim they no longer had to abide by, respect, hire or provide services for -- Pro-Life Christians?
"Oh, no you don't - No 'Religious Freedom' for You!  Or you, or You!"
I understand that in this decision the SCOTUS Majority opinion claimed that they were not granting the equal legitimacy of such follow on requests, but they've sent up the flare signal, they've kicked open the door, and soon now the potential avalanche may follow.  I'm not really sure they can stop all that snow from crashing down with just one teeny, tiny little rhetorical umbrella of "Because, uh, no".
And why exactly would others - particularly on the hard right - not pile on?  It's not like we've seen anything resembling restraint, or tact, or reason coming from the them in the Hobby Lobby wake.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/...
Not From Erick Erickson.
Not from Rush Limbaugh.

"Pregnancy is something that you have to do to cause. ... Yet we treat it as a great imposition that women need to be protected from. It's a sickness, it's a disease, it's whatever, and there's gotta be a pill for it," he said on his show. "Yet they wouldn't have the problem if they didn't do a certain thing. It's that simple."

Yes, that's right women who suffer from polycystic ovarian syndrome, are at a risk of ovarian cancer, Endomitriosis and heavy menstral bleeding don't need a pill, or a shot, or a patch or an IUD to help with that.  Or so the Wingnuts continue to believe.  [It does always amaze me that so many of these "Right-to-Lifers" repeatedly fail to recognize that without access to effective healthcare - regardless of cost - some of us post-embryonic-Americans Will. Not. Live.] And they also don't believe that both men an women have a civil right to enjoy sex with the (adult & consenting) person of their choosing either.
Not according to Rep Mike Lee who was asked....

"whether or not a person who runs a business should be forced to provide something that is largely for recreational behavior, if it goes against their religious beliefs." "Yea, that’s right, that’s right," Lee responded.

No, no - that's kinda wrong - because what you smell right there isn't "Recreation" - it's the very heart and soul of "Freedom, Baby, yeah!". But not Freedom for All because now we're not just having sex between Adam and Eve, or Adam and Steve, we're all having sex with Adam, Eve, Steve and Hobby Lobby.  Gee, is the Bath House is getting kinda crowded in here?  And who keeps putting all these cheesy paper-mache' flowers everywhere? Did we order these?
Takei - bless his soul - also pointed out the basic hypocrisy of Hobby Lobby's business practices in regards to religion.  Noting that...

...Hobby Lobby has invested in multiple companies that manufacture abortion drugs and birth control. The company receives most of its merchandise from China, a country where overpopulation has led to mandatory abortions and sterilizations for women who try to have more than one child.

You would think that in all the time since Hobby Lobby filed this suit in 2010 they might have considered divesting in the manufacture of the same types of drugs they now say are "intolerable" to their religious views, or that they might possibly consider cultivating a supply line that doesn't subsidize forced abortions and sterilization since one would think that might "shock the conscience" of those with such deeply "sincerely held" beliefs. Or apparently not.
The hypocrisy of this is so glaring, that even CNN took a few moments to drop their Malasyan Flight Search Goggles and take notice....
http://www.rawstory.com/...

CNN host Ashleigh Banfield on Wednesday highlighted the “hypocrisy” of Hobby Lobby for investing in companies that made the same birth control products that it refused to provide to female employees.
“The critics are calling Hobby Lobby’s 401(k) investments hypocrisy at its finest,” Banfield emphasized on Wednesday, adding that CNN had not gotten an explanation from the company after giving it “plenty of time” to respond.
“I don’t even know where to begin on this one,” the CNN host remarked. “I kept thinking to myself, this had to be an accident. But then I thought, it’s no accident when you are in the middle of the biggest political storm — all the way to the Supreme Court — and, yet, your guys aren’t aware of what your investments are in your very, very large 401(k)?”

Nope, no way, this was no boating accident, Ultimately Takei called for a Boycott of Hobby Lobby and another other company that attempts to impose it's religion on it's employee or anyone else.

“While we work to overturn this decision by legislation, people of good conscience should BOYCOTT any for-profit business, including Hobby Lobby, which chooses to impose its religious beliefs on its employees,” said Takei. “The only way such companies ever learn to treat people with decency and tolerance is to hit them where it counts — in their pocketbooks.”

One wonders - yet again- that if not only boycotters but picketers began to show up at Hobby lobby stores with meme signs that said "Corporation = Person, Blystocyst = Person, Woman = Meh!", or perhaps some giant xerox copies of their 401(k) earnings statements, or pictures of factories in china with women packed into dorms surrounded by suicide nets or maybe just a simple single bloody hanger... That Hobby Lobby would ask the Supreme Court to grant them a 35 Foot Buffer Zone? 

The Supreme Court’s baffling tech illiteracy is becoming a big problem

The Supreme Court’s baffling tech illiteracy is becoming a big problem

If one thing was clear from decisions handed down this week, it's that SCOTUS is clueless on technology Selina MacLaren
Salon.com

 Jun 28, 2014 

 

...The problem isn’t that the justices are old fogeys. The problem is that the justices were groomed in a field that emphasizes reasoning by analogy. And analogies were critical in these cases: The Aereo decision, for example, hinged on whether the company was more like an equipment provider or a cable company; the Riley and Wurie decisions addressed whether cell phones are sufficiently analogous to wallets. But emerging technology is, by definition, about breaking away from history. Perhaps reason by analogy hamstrings innovation, or perhaps it promotes impartial decision-making. In any event, it helps explain why the justices sometimes say such silly things.

Years of tortured analogies at oral arguments culminated most recently with this week’s cases, but a look back at decisions from years past reveals an abaundance of strained analogizing. In past arguments, computers were analogized to typewriters, phone books and calculators. Video games were compared to films, comic books and Grimm’s fairy tales. Text messages were analogized to letters to the editor. A risk-hedging method was compared to horse-training and the alphabet. EBay was likened to a Ferris wheel, and also to the process of introducing a baker to a grocer. The list goes on.

---

---

“I think there are very, very few things that you cannot find an analogue to in pre-digital age searches,” Justice Breyer said during the Riley oral argument. “And the problem in almost all instances is quantity and how far afield you’re likely to be going.” For the high court, a prior century or two apparently isn’t too far afield.

The justices are tickled by these analogies. Justice Kennedy, for example, appears blissfully unaware of the new definition of “troll,” and covered for his ignorance with a joke during oral argument for eBay v. MercExchange: “Is the troll the scary thing under the bridge, or is it a fishing technique?” This raised eyebrows in the patent industry, where “patent troll” is a stock phrase. Justice Bryer, during the the Riley oral argument, interrupted a discussion about the GPS capabilities of smartphones with another analogy joke: “I don’t want to admit it, but my wife might put a little note [with directions] in my pocket.” (Is the smartphone supposed to be like his wife? Unclear.)

Justice Alito, arguably the most analogy-obsessed of the bunch, best summed up the Court’s historical handicap when he teased Scalia in 2011, saying: “I think what Justice Scalia wants to know is what James Madison thought about video games. Did he enjoy them?”

But this fixation on technological analogies is more than just an idle curiosity. It has real-world implications that are not to be underestimated. Recent years have borne out that if a technology under scrutiny cannot be analogized to a historically protected invention, it may be doomed. In 2006, for example, Chief Justice Roberts doubted that eBay was an actual invention. He asked the lawyer, Seth Waxman, what the invention of eBay was, and when Waxman explained it as an electronic market, Chief Justice Roberts responded flippantly, saying, “I mean, it’s not like he invented the internal combustion engine or anything. It’s very vague.”...

 

Uh-Oh, Scalia Screws Up Royally. Time To Retire.

Uh-Oh, Scalia Screws Up Royally. Time To Retire.
by pollwatcher
Daily Kos
Apr 30, 2014

The Obama administration won a rare Supreme Court victory regarding the rights of the EPA to regulate pollution from coal plants. Instead of the usual 5-4 decision against anything the Obama Administration wants, this decision was a 6-2 decision. And you get 1 guess as to who the 2 opposed were. Yep, Scalia and Thomas.

Well, the minority dissent opinion was written by Scalia, and according to this report from TPM Scalia really screwed up the opinion.

"This is not the first time EPA has sought to convert the Clean Air Act into a mandate for cost-effective regulation. Whitman v. American Trucking Assns., Inc., 531 U. S. 457 (2001), confronted EPA's contention that it could consider costs in setting [National Ambient Air Quality Standards]," Scalia wrote in his dissent, which was joined by Justice Clarence Thomas.

The problem: the EPA's position in the 2001 case was exactly the opposite. The agency was defending its refusal to consider cost as a counter-weight to health benefits when setting certain air quality standards. It was the trucking industry that wanted the EPA to factor in cost. The 9-0 ruling sided with the EPA. The author of the ruling that Scalia mischaracterized? Scalia himself.

The conservative justice's error was noted by University of California-Berkeley law professor Dan Farber, who called it "embarrassing" and a "cringeworthy blunder."

But wait, it gets better.

"This gaffe is doubly embarrassing because Scalia wrote the opinion in the case, so he should surely remember which side won!

... "It is a mind-blowing misstatement of a basic fact of the American Trucking Association ruling which Justice Scalia himself wrote. And it's not just a stray passage -- it's the basis for an entire section of the dissent,"

Looks like someone isn't taking their job very seriously, or maybe it's time to "spend more time with the family". Of course, does anyone really believe Scalia isn't the most political of the Justices?

The Roberts Court is taking from ordinary Americans rights they have enjoyed for a very long time

"[T]he Roberts Court is unusually willing to take from ordinary Americans rights they have enjoyed for a very long time. The Supreme Court has a long history of standing athwart history yelling stop. This Supreme Court, however, wants to shift history into reverse."

Justice Ginsburg’s Terrifying Assessment Of Her Own Court
By Ian Millhiser
Thinkprogress.org
August 26, 2013

In an interview with the New York Times’ Adam Liptak, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg offered a grim assessment of the Court where she so often finds herself leading a four justice dissent — the Roberts Court is “one of the most activist courts in history.”

As an historic matter, this is a pretty staggering claim. The Supreme Court in 1905 handed down a decision called Lochner v. New York that is now widely taught in American law schools as an example of how judges should never, ever behave. Lochner treated any law improving workplace conditions or helping workers to obtain an adequate wage as constitutionally suspect. And Lochner was hardly an anomalous moment in the Court’s history.

Thirteen years after Lochner the Supreme Court struck down federal child labor laws in a decision that is also widely taught as an example of inexcusable judicial activism. In 1895, the Supreme Court rendered the country virtually powerless against monopolies and other powerful combinations of corporate power, and then it held an income tax on the wealthiest Americans unconstitutional just a few months later. The Supreme Court has, with rare exception, been a largely malign force in American history.

There is, however, one important way in which the Roberts Court is distinguishable from the Courts that decided cases such as Lochner. Laws such as the Sherman Antitrust Act and the first federal ban on child labor arose as lawmakers with struggling with many of the negative side effects of the Industrial Revolution. The birth of the railroad and the dawn of mass production massively improved the American standard of living, but they also enabled monopolists to thrive and they resulted in mass exploitation of the working class. The Supreme Court in this era did not so much tear down established rights as it stood for a status quo that favored capital over labor and the rich over the rest of the nation.

The Roberts Court, by contrast, has actively rolled back existing laws protecting workers, women and people of color. The Nineteenth Century Supreme Court blocked America’s first meaningful efforts at racial equality, but the Roberts Court stole from minority voters rights that they had enjoyed for decades. The Lochner Court strangled basic protections for workers in their crib, but the Roberts Court takes fully matured protections for workers and carves them up a piece at a time. And, while Lochner Era courts acted out in the open, undermining human rights in published opinions. the Roberts Court pushes an alternative, corporate-run arbitration system that operates largely in secret.

None of this is to say that the world we live in now is worse than the world our great-grandparents lived in under the Lochner Court — if the Roberts Court’s goal is to bring us back to this era, they are currently shy at least one vote. Nevertheless, the Roberts Court is unusually willing to take from ordinary Americans rights they have enjoyed for a very long time. The Supreme Court has a long history of standing athwart history yelling stop. This Supreme Court, however, wants to shift history into reverse.

Justice Alito's Inexcusable Rudeness

Justice Alito's Inexcusable Rudeness
A justice of the Supreme Court should not act like a high schooler on the bench; when the target is a fellow justice, the offense is even greater.
Garrett Epps
The Atlantic
Jun 24 2013

I suspect that the cause of cameras in the Supreme Court suffered a blow on Monday. I am glad the nation did not see first-hand Justice Samuel Alito's display of rudeness to his senior colleague, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Because Alito's mini-tantrum was silent, it will not be recorded in transcript or audio; but it was clear to all with eyes, and brought gasps from more than one person in the audience.

The episode occurred when Ginsburg read from the bench her dissent in two employment discrimination cases decided Monday, Vance v. Ball State University and University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center v. Nassar. In both cases, the Court majority made it harder for plaintiffs to prevail on claims of racial and sexual discrimination. The Nassar opinion raises the level of proof required to establish that employers have "retaliated" against employees by firing or demoting them after they complain about discrimination; Vance limits the definition of "supervisor" on the job, making it harder for employers harassed by those with limited but real authority over them to sue the employers.

The Vance opinion is by Alito, and as he summarized the opinion from the bench he seemed to be at great pains to show that the dissent (which of course no one in the courtroom had yet seen) was wrong in its critique. That's not unusual in a written opinion; more commonly, however, bench summaries simply lay out the majority's rationale and mention only that there was a dissent. (Kennedy's Nassar summary followed the latter model.)

After both opinions had been read, Ginsburg read aloud a summary of her joint dissent in the two cases. She critiqued the Vance opinion by laying out a "hypothetical" (clearly drawn from a real case) in which a female worker on a road crew is subjected to humiliations by the "lead worker," who directs the crew's daily operation but cannot fire or demote those working with him. The Vance opinion, she suggested, would leave the female worker without a remedy.

At this point, Alito pursed his lips, rolled his eyes to the ceiling, and shook his head "no." He looked for all the world like Sean Penn as Jeff Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, signaling to the homies his contempt for Ray Walston as the bothersome history teacher, Mr. Hand.

The offense against decorum is greater when the object of scorn is a woman 17 years his senior, one who is acknowledged even by most of her critics to have spent a distinguished career selflessly pursuing justice in the precise area of her dissent--gender equality in society in general and the workplace in particular. Her words are as worthy of respectful attention as were his.

I found it as jarring as seeing a Justice blow bubblegum during oral argument.

A Justice of the Court lives his life in a swaddle of deference most of us cannot imagine. It is not too much to ask that, in return for this power and privilege, he or she should act like an adult.

Supreme Court says double jeopardy does not protect against murder retrial

Supreme Court says double jeopardy does not protect against murder retrial
By Robert Barnes
May 24, 2012
Washington Post

Arkansas may retry a man for murder even though jurors in his first trial were unanimous that he was not guilty, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

Alex Blueford, who is accused of killing his girlfriend’s 1-year-old son, is not protected by the Constitution’s Double Jeopardy Clause, the court ruled in a 6 to 3 decision.

Because the judge dismissed the jury when it was unable to reach agreement on lesser charges, Blueford was not officially cleared of any of the charges, the majority said, and thus may be retried.

“The jury in this case did not convict Blueford of any offense, but it did not acquit him of any either,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote.

The decision brought a sharp dissent from Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan.

“Blueford’s jury had the option to convict him of capital and first-degree murder, but expressly declined to do so,” Sotomayor wrote. “That ought to be the end of the matter.”

The Double Jeopardy Clause is found in the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment, and commands that no person shall be “twice put in jeopardy of life or limb” for the same offense.

Blueford was tried for the death of Matthew McFadden Jr., who died in 2007 from head injuries. Arkansas prosecutors said Blueford intentionally caused the boy’s death, while Blueford maintained that he had accidentally knocked the child to the ground.

Blueford was charged with capital murder, although the state waived the death penalty. At trial, the judge instructed jurors that if they had reasonable doubt about whether he was guilty of capital murder, they should next consider the charge of first-degree murder. If they found reasonable doubt about that, they should then consider manslaughter, they were told, and after that, negligent homicide.

The jurors’ final option was to acquit Blueford of all charges.

After a few hours of deliberations, the jury reported that it might not be able to reach a decision. The forewoman told the judge that the jurors were unanimous against capital and first-degree murder, had split 9 to 3 against manslaughter and did not vote on negligent homicide.

The judge sent the jurors back for more deliberations, but half an hour later the forewoman reported no verdict. The court declared a mistrial.

All agree that Blueford can be retried on charges of manslaughter and negligent homicide, but Blueford claimed the murder charges were off the table because a jury had rejected them.

The Supreme Court majority disagreed...

Clarence Thomas Didn't Report $700K Paid to His Wife: House Dems

Clarence Thomas Didn't Report $700K Paid to His Wife: House Dems
By Cynthia Hsu
Findlaw.comk
October 3, 2011

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas failed to disclose that his wife received paychecks from conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation.

And the sum is no small chunk of change. House Democrats say that Virginia Thomas received $700,000 between 2003 and 2007.

They are now requesting an ethics investigation into the matter.

So did Thomas deliberately exclude the payout? Or was this simply an accident?

One thing is for sure: this isn't the first time the justice has omitted some information.

In January, Thomas corrected about 20 years worth of documents after a watchdog group noticed that he never disclosed where his wife worked.

Thomas said that this was a simple accident due to a "misunderstanding of the filing instructions."

But strangely enough, the amended reports indicate that his wife worked at the Heritage Foundation from 1998 to 2003.

Okay, so he knew that he had to disclose where his wife worked during those years.

But then why not go back and fill in all the gaps? Why only bubble in that his wife worked at the think tank between the years of 1998 and 2003 when he knew that she worked there from 2003 to 2007 as well?

The Supreme Court goofs; it need to fix its error

I've long wondered why prosecutors and judges are so reluctant to admit they make mistakes. If it's because they think they'll lose credibility, they should think again. Someone who admits it when they make a mistake has more credibility than someone who doesn't.

Washington Post editorial
July 5, 2008

WHEN A NEWSPAPER gets its facts wrong, it's supposed to publish a correction, and, if someone's reputation has been harmed, a retraction and apology. It can be embarrassing, but the occasional taste of crow probably does more good than harm to the media's credibility.

But what if the Supreme Court not only blows a key fact but also bases its ruling, in part, on that error? There was quite a goof in the court's 5 to 4 decision on June 25 banning the death penalty for those who rape children. The majority determined that capital punishment for child rape was unconstitutional, in part because a national consensus had formed against it... Actually, only two years ago, Congress enacted a death penalty for soldiers who commit child rape, as part of an update to the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).

Irony of ironies: The court has cast doubt on the constitutionality of an act of Congress based on the erroneous claim that the statute did not exist.

...only after a legal blogger, Col. Dwight H. Sullivan, had pointed out the mistake did a newspaper, the New York Times, take note...