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Media Bias? Loser Frog Species Gets Full Victim Status
From the headlines would think that the Supremes are meanies who want little frogs to die:
The fact is, the decision was 8-0 because the feds were totally out of line. A 1,500-acre tract where the dusky frog does not currently live and has never lived was set aside because it looks like the kind of place the frogs might like to live if somebody dropped a bunch of them there. In the logic of the Fish and Wildlife Service, if your backyard looks like the kind of place where any endangered species might feel comfy should the feds drop some there, the feds can order you to stop mowing the lawn and forget about a deck or swing set.
The case was an outrageous abuse of power and our idiotic MSM thinks it’s all about victimizing a loser species that can’t even hop a few yards away to make babies right where they are now.
Not even Justice Ginsberg went there.
Published in General
OldB,
We have a candidate for the worst case ever brought before the Supreme Court. Even Justice Ginsburg kicked one those little green squatters in their frog behind. “Get out of my yard”, she shrieked! Sort of brings a tear to your eye, doesn’t it?
I’ve got hope again.
Regards,
Jim
The fact that this case made it all the way to the Supreme Court is a problem.
Blondie,
Had to go and spoil it for me didn’t ya.
Regards,
Jim
Sorry. (Slinks off)
Blondie,
No need to slink (is that actually a verb?). You are right and Ginsburg will probably make up for it tomorrow with a truly hopeless decision. I got carried away.
Regards,
Jim
No one likes the French.
Awww poor little thing, friendless in DC… maybe it can get a dog.
The case is a good example of textual reading of a statute which clearly limits designated of an endanger habitat to habitats that are actually habitats of the species in question. In this case the Fish & Wildlife Service designated as a habitat an area it considered suitable for protecting the species but which was not a habitat for the species. It is shameful this reached the Supremes who had to reverse an incorrect appellate court proceeding.
The liberal justices have often joined the conservatives in recent years in decisions overriding bureaucrats where the issues do not involve core matters of progressive gospel. In fact, the Obama administration lost a record number of 8-0 and 9-0 rulings because of its overreach.
However, the next generation of progressive judges are much worse than those currently on the Supremes, and are completely outcome driven.
We need to reverse this with a Supremer Court as quickly as possible.
Do it for the Tadpoles™.
Gumby,
You are a prophet of the future spin from the left, which is getting worse, not better. Those that are comfortable with sharing power in DC with Nancy and the flying monkeys had better remember the Kavanaugh hearing. That is just a taste of what these lunatics are capable of.
Regards,
Jim
Clear, clearly you people have it in for poor, sweet little frogies. So terribly, terribly mean. And with Adopt a Frog day right around the corner. You should all be ashamed! Mark Zuckerberg will hear about this! Mean, mean, meanies!
Except Claire, but she lives there so it’s probably Stockholm syndrome.
She’s gonna need some A-Team type help one of these days, and Mr. T ain’t getting any younger.
Just a shot in the dark, but did this go through the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. There’s a distinct odor around that court.
It was the 5th Circuit.
Oh no! It’s spreading!
Based on the case summary, which was all I read, the facts are even more egregious than that. OldB.
The frogs may have lived there decades ago, though how would we know? They absolutely have not lived there in the last several decades and because the land is now timber plantation and a closed canopy forest, rather than the open canopy forest that the frogs require – the frogs CAN’T live there now. They literally designated land that is not habitat as critical habitat in the apparent hope that some day, maybe, the land would revert to open canopy forest and become habitable, maybe. As others have noted, it was an egregious abuse of power. And the fact that it got to the Supreme Court is sad. The best thing we may get out of this Supreme Court is an overturning of Chevron (undue deference to agency action) rather than an overturning of Roe (which would be better for the country, but is less likely politically). Maybe if Ginsberg passes in the next two years Roe would be on the table.
I haven’t looked at the rest of the calendar for this year, but it would be interesting to see if there is a pattern of administrative overreach among the cases, which would suggest a program to lead to the overturn of Chevron.
I suspect that the ESA litigation attacks on federal land management in California (The “K rat” comes to mind) were responsible for much of the scope and size of the California wildfires. A lot of the blame should be directed at Congress for not reining in the discretion the FWS claims it has.
@john seymour is right: the frog hasn’t lived there for a long time, doesn’t live there now, and can’t live there unless the property is radically changed.
The Fifth Circuit split en banc (all together), and the Supreme Court decision vindicates stalwarts Judge Edith Jones and Judge Jennifer Elrod.
Maybe we should set aside all of North America in case Tyrannosaurus rex wants to make a comeback . . .
Could be a winner in some courts–T.Rex is really, really, really endangered and unlike the dusky frog, he has actually lived in the area to be set aside.
And he’s awesome.
If Neil Gorsuch were chowing down on a plate of Frog Legs during oral arguments, they might have a point.
In danger of becoming extant?
And photogenic. Just look at all the Jurassic Park movies . . .
Stad,
Listen, guys, the last lawyer who had T-Rex for a client didn’t even get a retainer. I mean T-Rex was really a beast of a client.
Hey, maybe Avenatti would take T-Rex as a client. The two beasts would deserve each other.
Regards,
Jim
Pepe hardest hit.
This type of terrible reporting on court cases (reporting solely on which party “wins” and which party “loses,” not on what the actual decision is) has also infected publications intended for a lawyer audience. I stopped reading several legal newsletters I had been getting as a lawyer because they reported only the parties and not the legal issues.
We saw the same bad reporting in the case invalidating the federal law on female genital mutilation.
This type of bad reporting further corrodes how the public sees the role of the judiciary, which comes out in treating judicial nominees as politicians who decide who wins and who loses, rather than as judges who apply the law, and therefore should be judged on the methodology they use to apply the law.
And it doesn’t help when people here on Ricochet take the bait and comment in terms of froggy outcomes rather than property rights and rule of law.
(I’m pro-frog myself. Took part in frog-counting surveys years ago. My father made fun of it until I took him along and taught him how to recognize the handful of frog calls heard around here; then he turned around and became pro-frog, too. But that’s not the issue in this case.)
I remember reading in a humanities textbook intro something to the effect of ‘It’s not that we know what we like, it’s that we like what we know.’
Illuminating.