I honestly would be surprised if the Supreme Court agrees to hear the case, there does not seem to be a huge amount of controversy here from a legal standpoint.
It sounds like the Appeals Court basically punted it to the SC (all emphases my own):
"Under intermediate scrutiny, the Act complies with the
First Amendment “if it advances important governmental inter-
ests unrelated to the suppression of free speech and does not
burden substantially more speech than necessary to further
those interests.” Turner Broad. Sys., Inc. v. FCC (Turner II),
520 U.S. 180, 189 (1997) (citing United States v. O’Brien, 391
U.S. 367, 377 (1968)). Under strict scrutiny, the Act violates
the First Amendment unless the Government can “prove that
the restriction furthers a compelling interest and is narrowly
tailored to achieve that interest.” Reed v. Town of Gilbert,
576 U.S. 155, 171 (2015)
"We think it clear that some level of heightened scrutiny is
required. The question whether intermediate or strict scrutiny
applies is difficult because the TikTok-specific provisions are
facially content neutral, yet the Government justifies the Act in
substantial part by reference to a foreign adversary’s ability to
manipulate content seen by Americans. No Supreme Court
case directly addresses whether such a justification renders a
law content based, thereby triggering strict scrutiny. There are
reasonable bases to conclude that intermediate scrutiny is
appropriate even under these circumstances. We need not,
however, definitively decide that question because we con-
clude the Act “passes muster even under the more demanding
standard.”"
I'm not sure how you read that from this. The last sentence suggests that the appeals court believes there's no need to decide if strict or intermediate scrutiny applies, because they believe the government's justification satisfies strict scrutiny.
They do believe that intermediate scrutiny could be appropriate. Sure TikTok can (and presumably will appeal), but to SCOTUS, they will only take up the case if they believe in the possibility that the appeals court erred on two things: that 1) strict scrutiny is required, and 2) the facts of the case don't pass muster when strict scrutiny is applied. That feels like a pretty high bar for a potential TikTok appeal to clear.
Honestly I think TikTok's best hope is Trump. Either he somehow convinces Congress to repeal the ban law, or he instructs his DoJ to not enforce it.
My reading (IANAL) is that if intermediate scrutiny were to apply, the bill holds. If strict scrutiny were to apply, the bill doesn't hold. There isn't enough SC precedent to decide which scrutiny should apply. (thus implying that the SC needs to make that determination).
Then they concluding by saying "anyway, it doesn't really matter" but that seems weak to me.
Does the Supreme Court still make decisions based on legal principles or is it just a thin veneer for their political opinions? Genuinely asking because I’m not so sure these days.
The selection, nomination, and confirmation processes have certainly become significantly more ideologically-driven over time, so I would expect that to have an impact on the composition of the court and the way they make decisions.
The latter, but it's always been the latter. But usually they've been better at using the former to hide the latter. Recently, there's been a much thinner veneer of "legal principles".
In general, I find the concept of originalism to meet this criteria. Especially as originalist justices are turning to tradition over originalism. The bend from "the words as originally written" to "our traditions" is a fundamentally conservative (lowercase c) one.
In cases like Vidal v. Elster, United States v. Rahimi, and Samia v. United States I think you'll see the justices straining to understand how how square originalism against the modern world, and having to turn to another justification, traditionalism, which feels more like a "I believe this to be true, due to my political lenses" than perhaps some originalist justices in the past.
That said, I personally find originalism to be pretty conservative already (lowercase c again), and kind of silly, but the recent justice appointments are dialling it up more and more.
Lol, that's what conservatives think about Sotomayor and Jackson, and looking at their comments during oral arguments as well as their opinions, I think they have a point. (Kagan is generally a more rigorous thinker.) Actually most cases argued before the Supreme Court still have a unanimous or almost unanimous outcome, or are denied cert (which would often indicate a unanimous opinion were it to be ruled upon). It's only in the more controversial cases where you're more likely to read the more blatantly political arguments.
Grant wrote his autobiography pretty much entirely out of desperation to provide for his family after his death. He had lost everything he had in a Ponzi scheme and was heavily in debt as he was dying from cancer, and the autobiography was his last chance to make money for his family.
That said, at the time of Grant's writing copyright in the US was 28 years (with an optional extension for another 14 if the author lived long enough), which means that OP's proposal of 25 years would likely have been sufficient to motivate Grant.
One of my professors has started doing that, and I would much rather write an essay. I hate interacting with the chatbot. It feels unnatural, and the chatbot tends to drag out the conversations far longer than they need to go. Ideally, they would have students have conversations with TAs instead, which is what several of my classes have done to great success.
It also assumes that the _US_ would allow a China-run port in Israel, which is so unlikely it might as well be impossible. Israel is a nuclear weapons state and such a close US ally that they basically have their own F-35 fighter jet variant.
"At least two-thirds of the world’s top 50 container ports are owned by the Chinese or supported by Chinese investments, up from roughly 20% a decade ago."[1]
I think energy created through a massive, man-made ecological disaster is not really "clean." Maybe low in carbon, but there's more to the environment than the atmosphere.
