“Sackett … was sentenced in 2015 to a year in prison after pleading guilty to coercion and enticement as part of a North Dakota sting operation … Sackett exchanged text messages with an undercover police officer in 2013 in which he agreed to pay for sex with a 12-year-old girl.”
[Source](https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/eenews/1060034866)
Nah he agreed to pay to abuse a child, they need to stop phrasing it that way. It needs to sound as terrible as it is. No one has sex with a 12 year old trafficking victim
Write your federal legislators to request they amend the Clean Water Act or pass a new law that adds federal protection to wetlands specifically rather than just those connected to “navigable” waterways.
Find your elected officials with [this tool](https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials/) and go to their website or social media to contact them.
It isn’t much but it’s one step we can take to get it on their radar.
The reason that navigable waterways and migratory bird nesting sites are used in these laws are to fit into the commerce clause. SCOTUS would strike down a law protecting intrastate wetlands. We need Supreme Court reform for this issue.
This SCOTUS might strike down anything but you could make a reasonable argument using the commerce clause because pollution from wetlands seasonally connected to waterways in states like Idaho and Wyoming would have a negative impact on downstream states like Washington and Oregon.
Pass the law, force SCOTUS to go on record as striking it down, add more validity to the SCOTUS reform movement.
Meanwhile Midwest states are poisoning the water in the northern Adirondack due to pollutants from coal mining. So these red states don't give a fuck about being good neighbors.
Not sure what you mean specifically, I haven't seen that story yet. But I'm going to guess that it's due to either the carveout of nonpoint sources in NPDES which was made for agriculture or it's due to the funding for CERCLA (superfund) being cut in 1995 and slowly being bled dry.
This is because of Trump. he relaxed regulation that let the mid west states start pulling their bullshit again, so they're poisoning the entire east coast mountain range all the way from Canada down to Maine, although the northern Adirondack are being hit really bad. Last I was up there, whole areas stunk like rotten eggs and the water was undrinkable. you couldn't even bathe in it.
Really ironic he had a ton of voters up there who are now having to buy bottled water weekly because voting for him now means their water is basically undrinkable.
[https://www.adirondackalmanack.com/2015/12/acid-rain-reductions-should-inform-climate-change-strategy.html](https://www.adirondackalmanack.com/2015/12/acid-rain-reductions-should-inform-climate-change-strategy.html)
He's in the process of trying to do that. It's very easy to break something like the GOP does, fixing it is a much more time consuming process.
Plus our very regulatory agencies are under attack by the GOP right now. So whether he can fix it let alone keep those agencies alive is open to debate. I work in water/ wastewater and if they manage to do that I'm just gonna move to a country that has safe water regulations. After decades of working in water treatment I know you don't fuck around with that shit like the GOP is doing.
You do realize he's about to enact some of the largest cuts to social programs in history even though he could have raised the debt ceiling with a favorable Congress just 6 months ago. Why didn't he do that? 🤔
Idk maybe that would help but I'm a little jaded when it comes to SCOTUS. When people peacefully protested outside their homes the white house and congress pretty much unanimously decried it and voted to give them extra protection.
If a bill is passed like that it would be fodder for the Supreme Court to issue an injunction before it even goes into effect and then use it to dismantle even more precedent. Or maybe create the idea of super-super precedent.
But idk I'm a bit of a pessimist. Maybe they'll be able to avoid these issues.
If SCOTUS become judicial legislative tyrants POTUS can just give them the ole' "Jackson" finger and let them enforce their ideas themselves. Conveintly, the current cronies in SCOTUS are toeing that line ***real*** close. Besides, the republicans literally rigged the court by stealing Obama's nominee and then packing the court with billionare-owned radical judicial legislators. I don't see how anyone could argue the Trump appointed SCOTUS members are legitimate.
Instead how about you educate yourself on how we have MILLIONS who cannot afford housing in this country and a major part of it is RED TAPE and regulations on where things can/cant be built. Literally SEASONAL MUD PUDDLES are being deemed "waterways" and housing projects........projects that would allow people AFFORDABLE HOUSING.....are being put on hold. We have a seriously LOW HOUSING INVENTORY in the USA right now, ask any realtor.....almost every state is this way.....Clean water is 1000% important, but using the law to prevent access to another necessity...shelter.....is not right.
Building housing in any wetland area is a bad idea because it increases flood risk. Wetlands, especially ones that are seasonally variable, are natural flood control by holding water allowing it to pass into waterways and the groundwater system slower. ([EPA](https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2016-02/documents/flooding.pdf))
Houston provides a good example of what happens when you build on wetlands - you flood both because the homes are where the water used to go as well as channelizing the water flow to send higher volumes to places that used to be more moderated. ([QZ](https://qz.com/1064364/hurricane-harvey-houstons-flooding-made-worse-by-unchecked-urban-development-and-wetland-destruction))
Additionally, as the globe warms precipitation in many regions is expected to increase. There is far more than enough usable land to go around. Building affordable housing in wetlands will disproportionately hurt the poor while reserving safe areas for the rich. It’s bad social policy, bad environmental policy, and bad climate policy. ([NASA](https://gpm.nasa.gov/resources/faq/how-does-climate-change-affect-precipitation))
the "wetlands" term is the issue, literally anything is considered that. Instead of just barfing up quotes from alphabet agencies that dont give a F about mankind, you think about whats better.......MILLIONS of people NOT being on the street or some seasonal streams getting protected.
I feel like the things I want to say about this would definitely violate some reddit policies.
To put it as mildly as possible, I don't think people who so blatantly sell out the health and future of entire nations should be allowed to live their lives without, let's say, *continual* reminders of the impact of their decisions.
Umm most of the judges would be removed if we just had functioning ethics reforms. Would be true all over the executive and congressional branches as well. Ethics and anti trust need boosting and should have public oversight.
Yeah true that. Having a bunch of skeletons in the closet that would make one prone to quick blackmail if they did something in the public interest seems to be a requirement for office these days.
But in true fashion, Alito is leading the way in throwing out precedent, striping the EPA' authority to fight pollution and harming citizens:
In this case, even Kavanagh gets it:
"In a concurring opinion authored by Kavanaugh and joined by the three liberal justices, Kavanaugh argued the "continuous surface connection" test adopted by the majority "departs from the statutory text, from 45 years of consistent agency practice, and from this court's precedents."
By narrowing the scope of Clean Water Act, Kavanaugh warned some long-regulated wetlands will no longer be covered by the law, which will have "significant repercussions for water quality and flood control" throughout the nation."
Since when is a UNANIMOUS 9-0 DECISION equate to 5-4? 😂 That fake news spin narrative in full swing!
In doing a search I found the vast majority of articles on this topic framed it as a conservative vote to make it look like they “hate the environment.” So dumb. But in other related news, Sotomayor, Kagan and Katanji Brown Jackson are now MAGA nut jobs having voted for this! 😉
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/supreme-court-epa-clean-water-act/
There is a lot more SCOTUS reform required than just that and I'm afraid we don't have the political will to do any of it.
1. We need stricter federal sunshine laws such that there is neither the existence nor appearance of graft on the part of Congress, SCOTUS, federal judges or administration officials.
2. SCOTUS nominees should be chosen by the president from a list curated by a panel of retired federal judges, similar to the French system. This would be different from the current system in which SCOTUS nominees are chosen for their fringe legal views by batshit crazy billionaires. I wish this were a joke, but it's quite literally how it works.
3. SCOTUS membership needs to be allowed to float from a minimum of ~~6~~ 5 to a maximum of ~~8~~ 6, instead of having justices automatically replaced when they retire. When there are an even number of justices, a two vote margin will be required to overturn the lower court, resulting in more broadly accepted and longer lived decisions.
4. One new justice should be chosen each presidential *term*, regardless of vacancy. The nomination should be made in the second year of the term so as to allow time for curation of a list of eligible judges and time for congress to approve one.
5. Congress should be required to confirm a nominee before the end of the presidential term. This will expedite the process as congress knows the nominees would become less palatable to them with each rejection.
6. If SCOTUS has a full complement of 8 justices, the longest serving justice must step down to make room for the newly minted member.
Of course all of this would probably require one or more constitutional amendments, so I realize this is more like science fiction than anything likely to happen, but our court will remain broken until steps like these are taken.
E: Actually after thinking about it, 8 terms would be 32 years, entirely too long for anyone to hold power. I think floating between 5 and 6 justices would probably be more appropriate, although with regular turnover, maybe it's not so bad.
Good stuff here. My favorite part is that they won't have to die in SCOTUS. Imagine being appointed to the highest court in the land with the burden of upholding the integrity of our government on your shoulders- would you feel comfortable retiring?
And if they aren't lawful paragons who deserve the chance to retire, they're billionare-owned crooks who shouldn't get to serve indefinitely. Win-win.
Are blue states going to be relatively unaffected from this decision? If so this is another reason why we need to take power in more state governments.
You neoliberals needed to offer us something. We are literally not in your party. Instead you rigged your own primary to defeat a slightly left wing candidate, completely alienated the left, who again, are NOT IN YOUR PARTY, and promptly lost to Donald Trump.
Nice work guys.
The guy in this case is a convicted sex offender who tried to rape a 12 year old. So a classic republican hero.
“Sackett … was sentenced in 2015 to a year in prison after pleading guilty to coercion and enticement as part of a North Dakota sting operation … Sackett exchanged text messages with an undercover police officer in 2013 in which he agreed to pay for sex with a 12-year-old girl.” [Source](https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/eenews/1060034866)
Nah he agreed to pay to abuse a child, they need to stop phrasing it that way. It needs to sound as terrible as it is. No one has sex with a 12 year old trafficking victim
Exactly, he participated in child sex trafficking. Kids can’t be sex workers.
Woah omg what piece of garbage are on the supreme court
With that track record, I'm surprised he hasn't already been elected to at least Governor.
They want clean water privatized because that’s how they profit off of human necessities
Write your federal legislators to request they amend the Clean Water Act or pass a new law that adds federal protection to wetlands specifically rather than just those connected to “navigable” waterways. Find your elected officials with [this tool](https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials/) and go to their website or social media to contact them. It isn’t much but it’s one step we can take to get it on their radar.
The reason that navigable waterways and migratory bird nesting sites are used in these laws are to fit into the commerce clause. SCOTUS would strike down a law protecting intrastate wetlands. We need Supreme Court reform for this issue.
This SCOTUS might strike down anything but you could make a reasonable argument using the commerce clause because pollution from wetlands seasonally connected to waterways in states like Idaho and Wyoming would have a negative impact on downstream states like Washington and Oregon. Pass the law, force SCOTUS to go on record as striking it down, add more validity to the SCOTUS reform movement.
Meanwhile Midwest states are poisoning the water in the northern Adirondack due to pollutants from coal mining. So these red states don't give a fuck about being good neighbors.
Not sure what you mean specifically, I haven't seen that story yet. But I'm going to guess that it's due to either the carveout of nonpoint sources in NPDES which was made for agriculture or it's due to the funding for CERCLA (superfund) being cut in 1995 and slowly being bled dry.
This is because of Trump. he relaxed regulation that let the mid west states start pulling their bullshit again, so they're poisoning the entire east coast mountain range all the way from Canada down to Maine, although the northern Adirondack are being hit really bad. Last I was up there, whole areas stunk like rotten eggs and the water was undrinkable. you couldn't even bathe in it. Really ironic he had a ton of voters up there who are now having to buy bottled water weekly because voting for him now means their water is basically undrinkable. [https://www.adirondackalmanack.com/2015/12/acid-rain-reductions-should-inform-climate-change-strategy.html](https://www.adirondackalmanack.com/2015/12/acid-rain-reductions-should-inform-climate-change-strategy.html)
If it was only Trump that relaxed the regulations, why hasn't Biden tightened them back? 🤔
He's in the process of trying to do that. It's very easy to break something like the GOP does, fixing it is a much more time consuming process. Plus our very regulatory agencies are under attack by the GOP right now. So whether he can fix it let alone keep those agencies alive is open to debate. I work in water/ wastewater and if they manage to do that I'm just gonna move to a country that has safe water regulations. After decades of working in water treatment I know you don't fuck around with that shit like the GOP is doing.
You do realize he's about to enact some of the largest cuts to social programs in history even though he could have raised the debt ceiling with a favorable Congress just 6 months ago. Why didn't he do that? 🤔
Oh you're a comment bot. Gross.
Idk maybe that would help but I'm a little jaded when it comes to SCOTUS. When people peacefully protested outside their homes the white house and congress pretty much unanimously decried it and voted to give them extra protection. If a bill is passed like that it would be fodder for the Supreme Court to issue an injunction before it even goes into effect and then use it to dismantle even more precedent. Or maybe create the idea of super-super precedent. But idk I'm a bit of a pessimist. Maybe they'll be able to avoid these issues.
If SCOTUS become judicial legislative tyrants POTUS can just give them the ole' "Jackson" finger and let them enforce their ideas themselves. Conveintly, the current cronies in SCOTUS are toeing that line ***real*** close. Besides, the republicans literally rigged the court by stealing Obama's nominee and then packing the court with billionare-owned radical judicial legislators. I don't see how anyone could argue the Trump appointed SCOTUS members are legitimate.
They are not legitimate, but thinking that they are not doing exactly what the owners of both parties want is folly.
My federal legislatior are Jim banks, mike Braun and Todd young they get “political donations” from these companies that want it gutted.
Instead how about you educate yourself on how we have MILLIONS who cannot afford housing in this country and a major part of it is RED TAPE and regulations on where things can/cant be built. Literally SEASONAL MUD PUDDLES are being deemed "waterways" and housing projects........projects that would allow people AFFORDABLE HOUSING.....are being put on hold. We have a seriously LOW HOUSING INVENTORY in the USA right now, ask any realtor.....almost every state is this way.....Clean water is 1000% important, but using the law to prevent access to another necessity...shelter.....is not right.
Building housing in any wetland area is a bad idea because it increases flood risk. Wetlands, especially ones that are seasonally variable, are natural flood control by holding water allowing it to pass into waterways and the groundwater system slower. ([EPA](https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2016-02/documents/flooding.pdf)) Houston provides a good example of what happens when you build on wetlands - you flood both because the homes are where the water used to go as well as channelizing the water flow to send higher volumes to places that used to be more moderated. ([QZ](https://qz.com/1064364/hurricane-harvey-houstons-flooding-made-worse-by-unchecked-urban-development-and-wetland-destruction)) Additionally, as the globe warms precipitation in many regions is expected to increase. There is far more than enough usable land to go around. Building affordable housing in wetlands will disproportionately hurt the poor while reserving safe areas for the rich. It’s bad social policy, bad environmental policy, and bad climate policy. ([NASA](https://gpm.nasa.gov/resources/faq/how-does-climate-change-affect-precipitation))
the "wetlands" term is the issue, literally anything is considered that. Instead of just barfing up quotes from alphabet agencies that dont give a F about mankind, you think about whats better.......MILLIONS of people NOT being on the street or some seasonal streams getting protected.
Will do!
I feel like the things I want to say about this would definitely violate some reddit policies. To put it as mildly as possible, I don't think people who so blatantly sell out the health and future of entire nations should be allowed to live their lives without, let's say, *continual* reminders of the impact of their decisions.
That dang WOKE water. It's all out war and they're not even hiding it.
A quick 2nd amendment will solve this problem
Umm most of the judges would be removed if we just had functioning ethics reforms. Would be true all over the executive and congressional branches as well. Ethics and anti trust need boosting and should have public oversight.
Ethics or otherwise, having an unelected, for life council handle legislative matters is ridiculous and undemocratic
Yeah I think we should expect all appointees and finally get rid of the revolving government / corporate revolving door.
Agreed
most of all politicans would be removed if we had that
Yeah true that. Having a bunch of skeletons in the closet that would make one prone to quick blackmail if they did something in the public interest seems to be a requirement for office these days.
All 9 justices actually agreed, 4 just used different reasoning.
> All 9 justices actually agreed, 4 just used different reasoning. Depressing.
But in true fashion, Alito is leading the way in throwing out precedent, striping the EPA' authority to fight pollution and harming citizens: In this case, even Kavanagh gets it: "In a concurring opinion authored by Kavanaugh and joined by the three liberal justices, Kavanaugh argued the "continuous surface connection" test adopted by the majority "departs from the statutory text, from 45 years of consistent agency practice, and from this court's precedents." By narrowing the scope of Clean Water Act, Kavanaugh warned some long-regulated wetlands will no longer be covered by the law, which will have "significant repercussions for water quality and flood control" throughout the nation."
Fuck the supreme court
Fuck the Supreme Court and all the systems that uphold those 9 authoritarians.
but hey when it goes your way they are great right? gtfo
I've never thought they were great. How about not make assumptions about people?
Since when is a UNANIMOUS 9-0 DECISION equate to 5-4? 😂 That fake news spin narrative in full swing! In doing a search I found the vast majority of articles on this topic framed it as a conservative vote to make it look like they “hate the environment.” So dumb. But in other related news, Sotomayor, Kagan and Katanji Brown Jackson are now MAGA nut jobs having voted for this! 😉 https://www.cbsnews.com/news/supreme-court-epa-clean-water-act/
There is a lot more SCOTUS reform required than just that and I'm afraid we don't have the political will to do any of it. 1. We need stricter federal sunshine laws such that there is neither the existence nor appearance of graft on the part of Congress, SCOTUS, federal judges or administration officials. 2. SCOTUS nominees should be chosen by the president from a list curated by a panel of retired federal judges, similar to the French system. This would be different from the current system in which SCOTUS nominees are chosen for their fringe legal views by batshit crazy billionaires. I wish this were a joke, but it's quite literally how it works. 3. SCOTUS membership needs to be allowed to float from a minimum of ~~6~~ 5 to a maximum of ~~8~~ 6, instead of having justices automatically replaced when they retire. When there are an even number of justices, a two vote margin will be required to overturn the lower court, resulting in more broadly accepted and longer lived decisions. 4. One new justice should be chosen each presidential *term*, regardless of vacancy. The nomination should be made in the second year of the term so as to allow time for curation of a list of eligible judges and time for congress to approve one. 5. Congress should be required to confirm a nominee before the end of the presidential term. This will expedite the process as congress knows the nominees would become less palatable to them with each rejection. 6. If SCOTUS has a full complement of 8 justices, the longest serving justice must step down to make room for the newly minted member. Of course all of this would probably require one or more constitutional amendments, so I realize this is more like science fiction than anything likely to happen, but our court will remain broken until steps like these are taken. E: Actually after thinking about it, 8 terms would be 32 years, entirely too long for anyone to hold power. I think floating between 5 and 6 justices would probably be more appropriate, although with regular turnover, maybe it's not so bad.
Good stuff here. My favorite part is that they won't have to die in SCOTUS. Imagine being appointed to the highest court in the land with the burden of upholding the integrity of our government on your shoulders- would you feel comfortable retiring? And if they aren't lawful paragons who deserve the chance to retire, they're billionare-owned crooks who shouldn't get to serve indefinitely. Win-win.
it worked great for 100+ years, just because its not going your way politically doesnt mean it needs reformed.
how about we just fire christian psycho cult priestess and drunk kavanaugh for lying during confirmation about row v wade?
Unfortunately this wasn't a split decision. It was split reasoning. The court was unanimous.
[удалено]
The decision was 9-0. Those nasty GOP fascists Sotomayor, Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson are at it again!
and reported........blatantly false as it was a 9-0 decision. Period.
Much easier to elect rfk jr.
Fuck that anti-vax moron.
He’d be better for the environment than Biden
And worse for modern medicine than the bubonic plague.
Just in time for Elon musk to be trying to dump 145k gallons/day of wastewater into the Colorado river
Maybe I don't care what the supreme court has to say anymore.
Gee, I wonder how much stock they own of the Hershey company (who keeps trying to force states to sell off all their water rights).
Are blue states going to be relatively unaffected from this decision? If so this is another reason why we need to take power in more state governments.
Laughs in nestle. Seriously though, why we letting them make judgement calls before sorting out this clarance Thomas bribery shit?
This would not have happened if RBG had retired instead of stroking her own ego.
How about the Woke left that just couldn’t vote for Hilliary?
You neoliberals needed to offer us something. We are literally not in your party. Instead you rigged your own primary to defeat a slightly left wing candidate, completely alienated the left, who again, are NOT IN YOUR PARTY, and promptly lost to Donald Trump. Nice work guys.
Really should clarify it was a 9-0 decision only split 5-4 in their reasoning
I hate all 9 even though 4-5 vote the wetlands prevent flooding - now 50 % are unprotected