Moving Space Force HQ From Colorado To Alabama Is Stupid

Trump is about to renew his efforts to move the headquarters of the Space Force, a fifth military service that he created, from Colorado (where the headquarters of the part of the Air Force bureaucracy that was transferred to the separate Space Force service was located before he created the Space Force), to Alabama. He tried to do so during his first term, but the moved got bogged down in Department of Defense red tape, and the Department of Defense reversed that decision during the Biden Administration. 

UPDATE:

President Trump said one of the main considerations for moving Space Command out of Colorado Springs is because Colorado voters largely vote by mail. 

“I will say I want to thank Colorado,” Trump said. “The problem I have with Colorado… they do mail-in voting, they went to all mail-in voting, so they have automatically crooked elections." 

Trump has long criticized voting by mail, and has cited the practice as a major reason he lost the 2020 election to Biden though he has not provided evidence of fraud emanating from mail-in ballots." . . . 

The Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce estimates that Space Command supports nearly 1,400 jobs and has a $1 billion impact on the Colorado Springs economy. Colorado has a significant Space Force presence, hosting half the bases with its major operations, including Peterson as well as Schriever Space Force Base in the Colorado Springs area and Buckley Space Force Base in Aurora. Nationally, the branch has more than 14,000 military and civilian members, who are called Guardians. 

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser on Tuesday said his office was prepared to challenge in court Trump’s decision to move the command, though he did not elaborate the legal rationale for a lawsuit. . . . 

Huntsville, nicknamed Rocket City, has long been home to Redstone and NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. The Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command is also located in Huntsville, which drew its nickname because of its role in building the first rockets for the U.S. space program.

This is almost certainly not a legitimate reason for executive branch action under the Administrative Procedure Act. It is also an outrageously false claim.

Colorado Pols has more details.

END UPDATE

This is very on brand for Trump. He is making a call that places partisan politics above what is best for national security and wastes federal dollars.

Alabama is less attractive than Colorado to the civilian employees and contractors (who have a choice unlike active duty service members), so it won't attract the same quality work force. And, if one was going to move it away from Colorado one could have justified an HQ in Florida or Texas, which are also GOP strongholds, but like Colorado and Washington State, actually have a space industry (but see the material in the update above about Huntsville). Charitably, the best that can be said for it is that it provides economic development assistance to an underdeveloped part of the U.S.A. that supports him politically. Less charitably, it can be seen as a political payoff to Senator Tommy Tuberville who was getting in the way of Trump's Defense Department agenda. Less charitably still, it is a way for Trump to try to take action solely attributable to him that will become part of a military service's legacy once the bad decisions that went into that choice are long forgotten.

Tearing down old infrastructure to move it somewhere else is also just wasteful, while providing no benefits to national security. It is will probably require a billion or so dollars of unnecessary defense spending.

Of course, creating the "Space Force" was a bone headed idea in the first place. It undermines interservice cooperation, and honestly, it would have been better to be truly conservative and roll the Air Force back into the Army, rather than further dividing the Air Force. There might be a time when a Space Force makes sense, but that time is far in future.

Space Force's military role remains ill-defined and it remains a work in progress that is currently creating more confusion rather than a stronger U.S. military. Do we really need a new Space Force academy? Do we really need Space Force reserves? How is it doing anything that the Air Force did better? How many people are even in the Space Force? According to Google AI it apparently has 9,400 active duty "guardians" and about 4,600 civilians, making it far smaller than even the Coast Guard.

Trump's other wasteful symbolic military acts

Trump's other symbolic military initiatives are similarly dubious. His military birthday parade in the District of Columbia on June 14, that the Army aptly converted to a boring historical display from the third-world dictatorship show of force that he wanted in an act of malicious compliance, it was a wasteful and expensive flop.

The idea he has floated to change the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War (as it was called during and before World War II), were also wastes of money, but at least are basically harmless. Indeed, the calling it the Department of War is also more honest.

Trump's intent to reassign Confederate names to U.S. military bases is fundamentally endorsing treason and insurrection and is patently un-American.

Trump's inappropriate domestic uses of the military

Trump's deployment of military force, mostly but not entirely, national guard troops, on the other hand, in addition to being a waste of money, are grossly improper, manufactured crises that threaten democracy, undermine federalism, are inappropriate for immigration enforcement, and are illegal.

The Courts rejected his efforts to criminalize illegal immigration by calling a large swath of the border a military base, and have rejected his characterization of illegal immigration as an "invasion" of the United States for constitutional purposes. Courts have also held that deportation flights he had the military make in violation of court orders were illegal.

Courts have shut down his military deployments to Los Angeles. As the New York Times explains:

A federal judge in California said President Trump broke the law by deploying roughly 5,000 Marines and National Guard troops to Los Angeles in June in response to immigration protests. The judge said on Tuesday that Mr. Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the Defense Department had violated the Posse Comitatus Act, which generally prohibits using the military to enforce domestic law. The judge barred them from using the troops for any law-enforcement purpose, but put the order on hold for 10 days. The administration is expected to appeal. . . . 

The ruling was the latest in a series of judicial battles over claims of expansive unilateral powers by the administration. Mr. Trump and administration officials have deported people without due process, imposed widespread and unpopular tariffs and rolled back energy regulations, citing wartime and emergency powers that have been disputed in federal court. 

The president also declared crime in Washington, D.C., to be an emergency in order to send federal troops there in August, although crime rates in the nation’s capital have actually been falling and local officials said the deployment was not needed. Since then, Mr. Trump has publicly mused about sending the National Guard into other Democratic-led cities. Federal law gives the White House more latitude to conduct local law enforcement in the District of Columbia than in the states. . . .

The ruling places strict limits on the what the troops can do and applies only in California, although the judge noted that Mr. Trump and Mr. Hegseth “have stated their intention” to use Guard troops as a “national police force with the president as its chief.” Gov. Gavin Newsom of California praised the decision, saying Mr. Trump’s efforts were “illegal, authoritarian, and must be stopped in every courtroom across this country.”

Other bad defense department decisions.

These aren't the only bad defense department decisions he's made. He's banned books at the military academies (eventually rescinding all but a few of those bans). 

He wiped all mention of women and minorities who contributed to the U.S. military on government websites (another decision he has mostly backed down from in the face of court action and bad P.R.). 

He's systemically fired or removed from command women and minorities whom he has called "DEI hires" while putting in place less qualified individuals chosen for political loyalty. 

He's baselessly fired transgender troops contrary to their civil rights and denied them their legitimate benefits for being laid off and having served with distinction.

He's purged the ranks of generals and admirals and national intelligence officials to replace them with political loyalists. Trump's major appointments in the defense and national intelligence sectors have involved woefully unqualified people who have made major public blunders.

His openly revenge oriented revocations of security clearances and security details for various officials has been disgraceful.

The mixed bag of Trump's military deployments and threats abroad.

Trump's deployment of U.S. forces have been a mixed bag at best.

Trump wasn't wrong to continue Biden's policy of militarily engaging the Iranian backed Houthi rebels in Yemen who have been using advanced anti-ship missiles from Iran to interrupt maritime commerce in acts of piracy that they claim are in support of Gaza but really have nothing to do with it. But then, he just lost interest and ended U.S. involvement.

Trump wasn't wrong to provide some extra military support to Israel's raids on Iran to thwart its nuclear capabilities, although the B-2 bomber strikes he made were less effective than might have been hoped. And, of course, this is a problem of his own making created when he pulled the U.S. out of President Obama's deal with Iran to end its nuclear weapons program.

Trump, in his first term, set up Biden for failure, and the Afghan government installed by the U.S. and its allies for collapse, by negotiating with the Taliban for a U.S. withdrawal that left the Afghan government out of the loop and left Biden holding the bag when he took office, just a month or so before the scheduled pull out date. And, in his second term, Trump has broken faith with Afghan citizens who served U.S. forces in Afghanistan at great risk to their own lives by trying to revoke the immigration protections that the Biden Administration and his own administration in his first term provided to them.

Trump has been indecisive, has wrecked our alliances, has taken absurd and counterfactual positions, and has played into Russia's hand with respect to the Ukraine War, even though with immense bipartisan political pressure from Congress and from the Defense Department, he hasn't entirely abandoned it.

Trump's utter abandonment of Africa, ending U.S. Aid in a way that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and will kill millions, planning to close all U.S. embassies there, and imposing tariffs upon it, has basically ceded the entire continent to China.

Trump has been less firm than he might have been in the Philippines-China clashes in the South China Sea caused by Chinese Coast Guard harassment of Filipino military and civilian shipping in places that international law has declared to be international waters.

Trump's response to the situation in Israel with Gaza has ranged from rudderless to absurd with his call to vacate Gaza and turn it into a Trump owned beach resort. By floating the proposal without even consulting his advisors, he has undermined U.S. credibility on the issue.

Trump's deployment of naval forces towards Venezuela seems to be an attempt to manufacture a war. His early threats to invade Greenland and Panama and Mexico, contrary to the sovereignty of a NATO member, to treaty obligations, and to international law, and to annex Canada, have likewise been toddler level moves that have undermined U.S. credibility in foreign affairs and turned us into a global menace.

The mixed bag of Trump's procurement decisions

Trump's military procurement decisions have also been a mixed bag.

The cancelation of the M10 Booker light tank (that the Army refused to call a tank) was a good move. Cancelling the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle for the Army (one of the best procurement decisions that the Army and Marine Corps have made for ages), while keeping the Army's buy of the obviously bad Infantry Squad Vehicle that ignores all of the lessons the Army learned in Iraq and Afghanistan was a very bad move.

Cancelling the Army's successor to the M113 was mostly a good move, but leaves the Army without a next generation medical transport and field hospital vehicle, even though other parts of that buy were unwise. Progress on an Osprey-like tilt wing successor to the Blackhawk helicopter in the Army is positive. Upgrading Army small arms makes sense.

The decision to boost purchases of the B-21 Raider and the F-47 Air Force fighter (to replace the F-35A) aren't horrible decisions, nor is the decision to continue the Collaborative Combat Aircraft (a.k.a. Loyal Wingman drone) program. Looking at ways to use cargo aircraft as bombers or missile launching platforms also makes sense. This administration's continued failure to recognize the need to have a close air support aircraft (shared with past administrations), however, even if the A-10 is just too old, wasn't wise. Trump's absurd attempt to play aerospace engineer and claim that the F-47 really needs twin engines, however, is more toddler level governance.

A focus on improving U.S. air defenses in a program known as the Golden Dome (playing on Israel's Iron Dome), on ramping up U.S. drone production, and on rushing to get drone defense resources fielded aren't wrong. Developing hypersonic missiles also makes sense. 

Developing new anti-ship tactical nuclear missiles, however, is a bad call and doesn't meet a real military need since existing anti-ship missiles are more than adequate to sink any ship in existence.

The decision to fund development of Elon Musk's SpaceX Rocket Cargo program which is technologically challenging, doesn't have a proven track record of quality control, and doesn't meet an urgent need, is less wise. This contract is just political payback.

It is honestly still hard to tell, more than seven months into the administration, what it's naval policy is. The Navy is appropriately looking at a major increase in unmanned ships and submarines, and at containerized anti-ship missiles for ships that wouldn't ordinarily have any missiles. Is the successor to the F-35C on or off? Is the Constellation class frigate on or off? Where is the Littoral Combat Ship program? Do we really need more old model Arleigh Burke destroyers? Does spending big bucks on maintaining a large scale amphibious attack capability really make sense?

Trump has talked big about using the U.S. military against cartels in Latin America, but the Department of Defense has apparently done nothing to prepare for this historically law enforcement and Coast Guard mission.

A Couple of Solid Posts At Colorado Pols

Colorado Pols has a couple of solid posts up, both related to Colorado Springs.

One post examines the decisive win of a mayoral race by a non-Republican Nigerian immigrant in the conservative stronghold of Colorado Springs which is increasingly not decisively Republican. It also quotes GOP Attorney General candidate George Brauchler concluding that just possibly, lots of people in Colorado no longer agree with the Colorado Republican Party's agenda.

The other post examines President Biden's indication that the headquarters of the Space Force will not be moved from Colorado Springs to Huntsville, Alabama. There are multiple reasons for that. The decision to move it to Alabama was a spur of the moment nakedly political decision by Trump in the first place. Biden's administration denies it, but some commentators have pointed to Alabama's anti-abortion laws. And, then there's the junior U.S. Republican Senators from Alabama, Tommy Tuberville. "Tuberville has been blocking military promotions for months[.]"

Why?

Tuberville is facing backlash for remarks he made about white nationalists in the armed forces in an interview about his blocking of military nominees…

…The first-term senator from Alabama made his initial remarks in an interview last week with WBHM, an NPR affiliate. He suggested that the Biden administration’s efforts to expand diversity in the military were weakening the force and hampering recruitment, though the Army has said that the real problem is that many young people do not see enlistment as safe or a good career path.

“We are losing in the military so fast. Our readiness in terms of recruitment,” Tuberville said, according to the station’s transcript of the May 4 interview. “And why? I’ll tell you why. Because the Democrats are attacking our military, saying we need to get out the white extremists, the white nationalists, people that don’t believe in our agenda.”

When asked if he believed white nationalists should be allowed in the U.S. military, Tuberville responded, “Well, they call them that. I call them Americans.”

The Death Penalty Divide Continues

New Hampshire has overridden the veto of its Republican Governor to become the 21st U.S. state to repeal the death penalty.

Alabama has carried out another execution, a ritual described in great deal at the link. Four justices had voted to grant certiorari in the case, which was what is necessary to grant it. But, the other five refused to stay the execution, in a gross defiance of U.S. Supreme Court tradition. So, the man was executed and the case became moot.

An Alabama Christian Interviewed By The Washington Post

The Washington Post wrote an article recently about Southern Baptists (the largest Protestant denomination in the United States) in Alabama trying to reconcile their faith and their love of Trump. It included this interview:

And there was Sheila Butler, who sat on the sixth pew on the right side, who said “we’re moving toward the annihilation of Christians.” 

She was 67, a Sunday school teacher who said this was the only way to understand how Christians like her supported Trump. 

“Obama was acting at the behest of the Islamic nation,” she began one afternoon when she was getting her nails done with her friend Linda. She was referring to allegations that President Barack Obama is a Muslim, not a Christian — allegations that are false. “He carried a Koran and it was not for literary purposes. If you look at it, the number of Christians is decreasing, the number of Muslims has grown. We allowed them to come in.” 

“Obama woke a sleeping nation,” said Linda. 

“He woke a sleeping Christian nation,” Sheila corrected. 

Linda nodded. It wasn’t just Muslims that posed a threat, she said, but all kinds of immigrants coming into the country. 

“Unpapered people,” Sheila said, adding that she had seen them in the county emergency room and they got treated before her. “And then the Americans are not served.” 

Love thy neighbor, she said, meant “love thy American neighbor.” 

Welcome the stranger, she said, meant the “legal immigrant stranger.” 

“The Bible says, ‘If you do this to the least of these, you do it to me,’ ” Sheila said, quoting Jesus. “But the least of these are Americans, not the ones crossing the border.” 

To her, this was a moral threat far greater than any character flaw Trump might have, as was what she called “the racial divide,” which she believed was getting worse. The evidence was all the black people protesting about the police, and all the talk about the legacy of slavery, which Sheila never believed was as bad as people said it was. “Slaves were valued,” she said. “They got housing. They got fed. They got medical care.”

The rot remains in our nation and it runs very deep in many places.

Quick Hits On Economics, Marriage and Education

Economics

Retail and Tourism

* There are lots of businesses that are in trouble: Claire's cheap earring stores are bankrupt, JC Penney is still in trouble, Toy's R Us is shutting down, Barnes and Noble had a weak Christmas season, and in general there has been a retail bloodbath. America's malls are rotting away. Sears and Kmart continue their slow collapse. Sears hasn't recovered from being in deep trouble a year ago. Macy's and Nordstrom are suffering. Now, maybe the right way to think about it is that we previously over-invested in retail and consumerism that adds little value. But, losing tens of thousands of low wage jobs, maybe hundreds of thousands, and creating huge holes on commercial real estate and municipal budgets is no small thing.

* There are winners in the retail sector as well, of course: online merchants, hobby stores, shoe stores, grocery stores and home improvement stores are still growing.

* Trump has been horrible for the U.S. tourism industry, scaring away tourists with his racism.

* I love Spotify but it's losing money hand over fist and facing huge lawsuits over obsolete royalty obligation rules that reflect the world's broken copyright laws.

Housing

* Trying to make housing affordable through deed restrictions that impose price controls is an ill conceived way to achieve this end.

* Relaxing land use regulation near transit served areas is a much better solution. Building codes more friendly to tiny houses would also help. Seattle illustrates how zoning regulation also impacts educational opportunity. A critical look at the pros and cons of building more housing in San Francisco is worth a read. Lax land use regulations help control housing prices in Japan, but do does the fact that demand is pretty stable with lots of housing starts being scrapes to replace old homes with new ones.

* It is undeniable that Denver has some of the fastest surging apartment rents in the nations, however. This is because Denver's population is growing faster than it can build new housing (also here). The population growth, in turn, is a natural consequence of strong job creation in Denver.

* Condo construction is picking up in Denver, but this is largely a function of trends in rental rates and interest rates, rather than concerns about construction defect litigation. Rising interest rates, rising home prices, and student loan debt meanwhile have discouraged the latest generation from becoming first time homeowners.

* Alabama has the worst poverty of the developed world despite its low cost of living. Most Americans have regressed to Third World economic conditions.

Health Care and Reproductive Health

* The medical billing system in the United States is still corrupt, arbitrary and incredibly overpriced with no one controlling excess spending. Emergency rooms are serious offenders in these practices.

* "An increasingly common type of high-deductible insurance plan is touted for its money-saving potential, but a growing body of research indicates the plans don't motivate patients - or doctors - to curb spending on unnecessary medical services."

* But, using algorithms that aren't transparent to allocate health care and make other important decisions is also deeply problematic. Our system of public law to address this kind of problem in the public sector, and our parallel private law systems for addressing this kind of problem in the private sector, however, is not very good at the task of keeping these systems in check and working well.

* Better birth control access would reduce abortions by two-thirds and save $12 billion a year.

* In Japan, very few women use the pill, condoms are the main form of birth control, and abortions are quite common, guilty free and mostly done in the first trimester.

* What health conditions are affected by the business cycle? The 2008 recession increased obesity, diabetes and mental health conditions. It also dampened birth rates.

* Amish fertility rates closely track the rest of the country, despite the fact that the Amish don't use birth control and rarely obtain abortions. There is a parallel here to the decline in infectious disease rates before vaccines and antibiotics were in widespread use, once the germ theory of disease was widely known.

Marriage

* Young, single, childless women actually have higher earnings that comparable men. Getting married and having children is the key factor that results in gender gaps in income.

* Relative income of husbands and wives is a powerful predictor of divorce.

* Lots of Americans in their 20s are having kids before getting married:

[M]ost American women without college degrees have their first child in their 20s. These young women and their partners—who make up about two-thirds of twentysomething adults in the United States—are logging more time at the diaper aisle of the local supermarket than at the local bar.

This would not be such a big deal except for the fact that many of these twentysomethings are drifting into parenthood, becoming moms and dads with partners they don’t think are fit to marry or at least ready to marry. For instance, almost 1 in 2 babies—47 percent, to be precise—born to twentysomething women are now born to unmarried parents. In fact, twentysomething women now have the majority of children outside of marriage, which—given that 30 is the new 20—makes them the new teen moms.

The reality is that children born to unmarried twentysomething parents are three times more likely to grow up with a disorienting carousel of adults coming and going in the home, compared to children born to married parents. This kind of carousel, as sociologist Andrew Cherlin notes in his book The Marriage-Go-Round, is associated with higher rates of teen pregnancy, behavioral problems in school, and substance abuse. By contrast, "stable, low-conflict families with two biological or adoptive parents provide better environments for children, on average, than do other living arrangements."

In my view this is due to two factors: first, working class men have declining economic prospects and have not shared in economic growth since the 1970s (as documented by Piketty among others), while second, economic opportunities have surged for working class women since the 1970s and these women pay a relatively low price in their careers for time spent away from the work force compared to upper middle class women. Automation accounts for a lot of the working class economic slump. Drug tests (sometimes legitimately necessary for the job in question) are a major barrier to workplace re-entry for working class men. Wisconsin has seen the biggest middle class decline of any state. Black unemployment is at record lows but still much higher than unemployment rates for whites, as black poverty is also at record lows (its amazing what good eight years of an Obama economy did).

Whether it is in the African-American ghettos of Northern cities, or the social welfare paradise of Sweden, or in working class white America, women aren't economically dependent upon the fathers of their children and marriages become fragile.

Middle class marriages meanwhile have become more stable, but the rising ranks of single people are changing our society. Upper middle class men have participated in economic growth, making them good providers, and contrary to conventional wisdom rising income inequality is largely driven by increased earning for the working rich rather than rentiers.

* African-American boys are strongly downwardly mobile. Even if their families are in the top income quintile, they have no better prospects than working class boys on average. The story in the link attributes are significant part of this downward mobility to living in single family households. But, not all scholars agree that parental separation has a major impact on the economic prospects of children.

* Someone makes a case that easy divorce favors assortive marriage.

* Late marriage ages contributed to the success of England's industrial revolution.

* Otherwise modern, upper middle class young women in India, who are generally liberal, are still strongly prefer arranged marriages. Caste endogamy, religious endogamy, and a practice of not moving away from home until you are married, even when you are an adult, all play a part. This is a huge difference from U.S. values where one of our most sacred norms is respecting everyones right to love who they want to love, no matter what.

* Survey data says that caste status has a big impact on the lives of South Asian Americans in matters including religion and marriage.

* In Saudi Arabia, the Crown Prince has allowed women to drive and is giving them greatly custody rights in divorces. There is a strong correlation between affluence and security on one hand, and liberal-secular values on the other. Is affluence and security in Saudi Arabia changing that society's values from within?

Education

* We enjoy all time high African-American college graduation rates, although on a very gender imbalanced basis. The gender gap in college attendance in favor of women is present in all races to some extent, however.

* Discrimination against Asian-Americans in college admissions is as significant as discrimination against Jews in higher education used to be, because Asian-Americans outperform the applicant pool and colleges don't want that to translate into a larger share of Asian-Americans on campus apparently.

* Most students with student loans from for profit colleges default on their loans.

* High school behavior is a powerful predictor of adult success:  "Being a responsible student, maintaining an interest in school and having good reading and writing skills will not only help a teenager get good grades in high school but could also be predictors of educational and occupational success decades later, regardless of IQ, parental socioeconomic status or other personality factors, according to new research." Critics argue that this is "middle class behavior" not objectively better behavior.

* Study skills and aggression in school students are closely related, fairly stable, and powerful predictors of decisions to drop out of school.

* Closing bad schools is a more effective way to improve the quality of education than trying to improve existing schools. Strategies that improve educational quality are very hard to reproduce. Ending schools that are dragging down students is much easier, and we don't have to know why they are failing to shut them down. I'm well aware that this approach horrifies many of my political and personal peers, but it does work.

A Truly Frivolous Lawsuit

Alabama lawyer Austin Burdick's February 23, 2016 suit filed in a federal district court in Alabama, representing himself pro se, against the five U.S. Supreme Court justices who were in the majority of Obergefell v. Hodges ruling in June of 2015 (which held that same sex marriage bans are unconstitutional) is the epitome of a frivolous lawsuit.

The suit alleges that the justices violated the United States Constitution by incorrectly holding that same sex marriage bans are unconstitutional, and seeks damages in excess of $6 million and additional punitive damages for (1) violations of the 5th Amendment under Bivens, a legal theory that allows individuals to sue government employees who violate their civil rights personally for money damages in certain circumstances, (2) breach of contract or oath, (3) breach of fiduciary duty, and (4) declaratory relief.

What is wrong with it?

Let me list some of the more obvious problems.

1. Judges have absolute immunity from liability for their judicial decision-making.  This is an ancient doctrine, with very few exceptions, that squarely applies in these circumstances.

Ironically, this part of the Complaint is probably the only one that is not sanctionable for violating Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure related to frivolous lawsuits, because the Complaint acknowledges that absolute judicial immunity bars the suit and makes a (presumably) good faith argument for a change in the law (at paragraphs 27-32).

2. The interpretation of the United States Constitution articulated by a U.S. Supreme Court majority is, by definition, the correct interpretation of the U.S. Constitution that binds all federal district court judges.  So, his allegation that the U.S. Supreme Court majority's ruling violated the United States Constitution is wrong as a matter of law.

3. Put another way, the U.S. District Courts do not have subject matter jurisdiction to review decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court.

4. Austin Burdick has no standing to sue, which is a matter of subject matter jurisdiction, because he cannot show any tangible injury from the fact that same sex couples are allowed to marry.  Similarly, the oath made by the Justices was to the United States of America, not to him personally, as are any fiduciary duties that they owe.

5. Alabama does not have personal jurisdiction over any of the Justices all of whom work exclusively in the District of Columbia and live in its geographic vicinity and were not even ruling on a case involving Alabama parties when they made their Obergefell v. Hodges ruling. Therefore, this is the wrong place in which to sue these Justices on any question.

The lawsuit as a whole is frivolous, not just because he is wrong, but also because he does not address in his Complaint the other problems with his suit, which are obvious and do not have any remotely plausible legal basis, when he has not articulated any good faith basis for arguing that they should be changed.

So, he should really be sanctioned for violating Rule 11 as well as having his suit dismissed with prejudice, and realistically, because his actions are so fundamentally at odds with the conduct of any legitimate attorney, he should forfeit his membership in the federal court bar (if he has one) and perhaps be sanctioned by the state court bar reciprocally as well (something that may not happen in practice with Chief Justice Moore, who is guilty of similar sins, presiding over the Alabama Supreme Court).

The federal judge assigned to his case would be well within his rights to raise these issues sua sponte, without waiting for a lawyer on behalf of the U.S. Supreme Court Justices in question to make these arguments.

Note that the people are not entirely without a remedy when they disagree with a majority of the U.S. Supreme Court regarding an interpretation of the United States Constitution or some other law.

* The United States Constitution can be amended.

* Justices of the United States Supreme Court may be impeached in a proceeding initiated by a majority of the United States House of Representatives, and leading to a conviction by two-thirds of the United States Senate.

* New judges can be appointed by the President and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in the future, and the new panel of U.S. Supreme Court judges that results can overturn prior U.S. Supreme Court precedents.

But, none of the legitimate means by which concern can be raised about a U.S. Supreme Court Justice's decision making can be appropriately raised in a civil action for money damages brought against a U.S. Supreme Court Justice by a random attorney in a random state effected by a ruling which national precedential effect who has no personal interest in the controversy.

SCOTUS To Lower Courts: You Must Follow Our Orders

One of the perennial problems in writing legal briefs is finding case law to rule out legal positions that are so obviously wrong that nobody every bothers to appeal the issue and create a reported decision on the subject if the lose on that argument in the trial court.

Moreover, when you can find a case that states the obvious it is often old.  For example, just today I was forced to resort to a Colorado Supreme Court case from 1890 in support of a well established rule of black letter law that every law student learns, but is rarely litigated as a result.

But, every once and a while, such a case is decided providing a more recent precedent, so brief writers everywhere who need a case stating that lower courts are obligated to abide by U.S. Supreme Court rulings, rejoice!

James v. City of Boise, 15-493, challenged the Idaho Supreme Court’s, um, idiosyncratic view that when the Supreme Court construes federal law, it “does not have authority to limit the discretion of state courts where such limitation is not contained in the statute.” In just one-and-a-half pages (more than one-tenth of which consisted of a single quote from the Court’s 1816 decision in Martin v. Hunter’s Lessee) the Court clarified that “[t]he Idaho Supreme Court, like any other state or federal court, is bound by this Court’s interpretation of federal law.” Some have speculated that this case is a shot across the bow of the Alabama Supreme Court. The implications of James will become clearer in the future, once we know what has actually happened.

- John Elwood at SCOTUS Blog (some links in original omitted).

Looking For Hell On Earth? Try Alabama.

The New York Times today has this notable and lengthy article about the criminal justice reform challenges facing Alabama headlined "Troubles at Women’s Prison Test Alabama." Here are excerpts:

For a female inmate, there are few places worse than the Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women. Corrections officers have raped, beaten and harassed women inside the aging prison here for at least 18 years, according to an unfolding Justice Department investigation. More than a third of the employees have had sex with prisoners, which is sometimes the only currency for basics like toilet paper and tampons.

From here.

Jail As A Business In Alabama

The private enterprise model doesn't always work for traditional government services like jails.

In Alabama earlier this year, a federal judge ordered the Morgan County sheriff locked up in his own jail for contempt for failing to adequately feed his inmates. Alabama allows sheriffs to keep food money they do not spend, and the sheriff reportedly pocketed more than $200,000 over three years.

This exact scenario would never happen in Colorado, where sheriffs receive straight salary compensation. But, the incentives in the private prison context are less clear. Texas has similarly misplaced incentives in civil forfeiture cases (as do many other states). The U.S. Supreme Court held in another case that it is unconstitutioonal for judges to be paid on a proprietary basis such as a percentage of the fines awarded by the court.