Clarence Thomas takes aim at a new target: Eliminating OSHA

Stopthatgirl7@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 759 points – Clarence Thomas takes aim at a new target: Eliminating OSHA
businessinsider.com

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has set his sights on eliminating the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday announced which cases it would consider next and which it wouldn't. Among those the court rejected was a case that challenged the authority of OSHA, which sets and enforces standards for health and safety in the workplace.

And Thomas, widely considered to be the most conservative justice on the already mostly conservative court, wasn't happy.

In a dissent, he explained why he believed the high court should've taken the case: OSHA's power, he argues, is unconstitutional.

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Is Clarence Thomas okay, like upstairs? Does he just go around pointing at random things and screaming "Unconstitutional!" ? Is "unconstitutional" in the room with us right now?

Artist's Rendition:

"The agency claims authority to regulate everything from a power lawnmower's design," he wrote, "to the level of 'contact between trainers and whales at SeaWorld.'"

I fail to see anything wrong with either thing like.. is he just mad it is not the people who sell lawn mowers should decide what's safe?? Please please please don't tell me Americans are going to dip to this new level of cognitive dissonance

Coming soon: the freedom to be maimed by corporations cutting corners on dangerous equipment design and safety equipment provision.

Lawn darts are back on the menu boys

I miss lawn darts, but the ban made sense. Holy hell, people were stupid with those things.

It's still illegal to resell them too. I see them pop up in reseller groups from time to time.

I wonder how much money his handlers paid for that position.

They got him cheap, the man is a bargain whore… actually, I take that back, I wouldn’t want to insult prostitutes.

Probably like 100k, which is pennies to them.

I hope he finds a missing guard rail and falls to his death.

I hope he gets on a private jet with 5 other justices and some of his billionaire buddies for a trip to some tropical resort only for the plane to get shot down through a president's official act suddenly go down, totally unexpectedly.

I hear the Titanic Wreck is a lovely place to visit this time of year.....

The program for rolling back hard fought union victories is going full steam ahead.

I suppose the American worker could wake up to the reality that the protection against utter abuse for no pay didn't just appear out of thin air and that only their fellow worker can be relied upon to stick for them.

That is the plan. Clarence Thomas is owned by billioners parasites that want a feudalism system in their corporations.

Ah, but the police force got much better and stronger since back in those days so good look going back to protesting to get those rights back,

Plus splitting people over insane conspiracies keeps them weak and easier to control so Americans are less likely to stick together and fight the real enemy: the billionaires.

They will lay off middle class American workers, then bring in H1B visa workers to replace them at half the cost, then blame immigrants for taking their jobs. Then blame border security and terrorism.

I suppose the American worker could wake up to the reality that the protection against utter abuse for no pay didn’t just appear out of thin air

Are you kidding? The Budweiser and Marlboro crowd will be told it is the fault of some brown people so they will double down on their hate and donations to elect a dictator who will "solve" their problems

I assume soon we will be getting rid of the weekend and the 40-hour work week.

We're already letting children work jobs that maim and kill them again.

Boy am I gonna miss being able to easily multiply by nine

That took me a second LOL Well done!

I don't get it. Can you explain please?

Of course Clarence, the most openly corrupt, would be the one to dissent against the OSHA case. Clarence can go fuck himself

Just remember guys, the supreme court isn't corrupted by billionaires they just happen to only want to do things that benefit the ultra wealthy. The gifts from mega rich people to Thomas mean nothing.

ItS jUsT a cOiNcIdEnCe...

Yes. But I am puzzled why the Ultras asked the supremes to end abortion. If I was an Ultra, I would have legalized public sex and drugs and tent cities. How does preventing abortion help the Ultras? Anyway, that's a piece of the puzzle that I can't understand well yet.

Eliminating the EPA, OSHA, animal protections, all these things fall under the Ultra "I'm loving it" package.

They eliminated abortion because the religious extremists wanted that.

The religious extremists are dumb as fuck as they learn and teach religion over science. That makes them useful gullible idiots that are easy to control. You want extremists behind you if you want to be a dictator as you can easily convince them with dumb obvious lies and they will be happy to have a scape goat group (it's the evildemocrats fault!! Or the progressives! Or the gays! Or the brown people! Or the )

Also, religious extremists are very useful when you want opponents murdered, they'll be happy to help in the name of

So yeah, they have been feeding and using religious extremists for their real cause: themselves, a few wealthy and rich assholes.

Sex and drugs are already very easy to get if you are rich.

Population growth on the other hand is an almost mandatory cornerstone of capitalism. And abortions too, will remain legal for the rich.

I think it's that more people that shouldn't have been born are born into positions that force them to accept absolutely horrible working conditions and depress wages by their accepting anything.

That an some of the ultra wealthy are extremely religious.

Well they have to believe they got their money for some reason and it's easier to think it was a sky daddy than their actual daddy for some reason.

Most likely argument for ending abortion is that it raises natality which means more workers/consumers. And I'm guessing tying it to religious beliefs reinforces the religion as well, which most agree that it's used to control the masses.

Just your daily reminder that literally no one but die hard catholics gave a single fuck about abortions until, what would today be called the right wing, made it an issue after losing the fight on desegregation and the civil rights act.

It was just the next evolution of the southern strategy. Inflaming hatred against "non-traditional" women instead of blacks (though trust me, there was still plenty of inflaming hatred against blacks, to this day), which extended into hatred against non-traditional things in general, Which was great cause it oh so conveniently covered pretty much everything liberal.

Oh, yeah, infighting is probably another good reason I had totally forgotten about. Give us something to fight over. You're right.

Ok! I smell the shit you're stepping on. ( I just coined this phrase!)

The Pope wanted it gone. This is the most Catholic Supreme Court in US history and they got rid of abortion. It really doesn't get any deeper than that.

Roberts in particular is really showing his age and is devout. It's highly likely they threatened to withhold communion from him just like they did with Biden unless he gave in. If you really thought hell was real and you could end up going there you would be willing to do anything to avoid that fate. Including murder.

Put yourself in his perspective for a moment. He kills say a million women because they are denied lifesaving treatments. Well all those women are probably going to go to heaven anyhow, and heaven is forever. If he saves those women from death he goes to hell, the women he saved still end up going where they are going but he personally gets a time period in hell that laughs at a billion eons.

Wouldn't you do the same? Would you really allow yourself to be tortured for fucking forever just to save people who are already saved? It makes no sense too. You might be the kinda person who would run into traffic to push a kid out of a way of a bus possibly killing yourself, but even if you were you wouldn't just run into random traffic.

The billionaire to "devout Christian" pipeline isn't really a secret.

Besides serving the ultra wealthy, the corrupt Supremes also have a Fundamentalist Christian agenda that arose from when the GOP reached out to the religious right for votes. Ending abortion is of no benefit to the ultra wealthy.

They wanted it banned. And they got it banned. They saw a chance to win, took it, and won. Simple as.

Just trying to bring it back to the good old days when children yearned for the mines, and men got blended up in industrial machinery.

Speaking of good old days, I think we should bring slavery back, but only for Clarence.

1/2 /j

I volunteer Thomas to run a lathe and see what happens when safety regulations aren't enforced.

A lathe would straighten him out, he wouldn't be caught dead near one.

But hopefully he'll be caught dead in one.

I don't agree with wishing death on anyone.

Years of horrible torture is a much worse experience for them.

Working in the chemical industry, this statement is horrifying.

Take a look for yourself:

https://m.youtube.com/user/USCSB

A fucking judge who sits on his ass all day, "interpreting" the constitution like he's some fucking oracle, wouldn't even begin to understand.

I did Asbestos removal for awhile years ago. I cannot imagine not having OSHA. The amount of crap companies get away with with OSHA around is already absurd.

I had no idea of this entity, but I work with enough similarly, highly nuanced public professionals that I recognize that the rapid and blind "immediately destroy all gubberment" approach will have widespread oh-holy-fuck consequenes if not just for the extensive brain vacuum potentially left in the wake of this type of growing mentality. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and perspective.

I mean, do we not remember when companies were literally locking employees into buildings as they come down in a raging inferno?

More than once?

If they believe congress shouldn't have the authority to delegate authority so broad then the way fix isn't to eliminate the delegation but to require that congress reviews the regulatory agencies to see if they're acting as according to their intent (yes there's risk of abuse for this too, like endless micromanaging, etc, this is just to defuse the constitutionality argument)

Just read a bunch of audit results and discuss relevant court cases involving the varies agencies in front of congress and let them rubberstamp it

I wanted to post this channel for a long list of reason, broken down in a forensic manner, as to why this is a bad idea, glad others were here, and thinking the same.

is unconstitutional

At this point I'm seeing a pattern. Any time someone good has to be removed so that pure evil shit can take it's place, the argument almost always includes at least "is unconstitutional"

Guys, GUYS! Your constitution.... Sucks. Same as your founding fathers. The US constitution is a document that was cool a few hundred years ago, but it is heavily outdated and at this point an actual new one really wouldn't be a bad idea. Yeah yeah, the original document doesn't suck, at least not in historic context, and definitely should be kept in a museum but stop effin quoting the damn thing as it it were Gods personao commandments. Get a new constitution for the 21st century.

Your founding fathers were okay, of course, but stop treating them as if they were infallible gods. They weren't. Im sure that for their time they were super smart and their ideas revolutionary, but that was centuries ago and a lot of their ideas no longer fly.

The right to bear arms (insert joke about bear arms) was written when an arm was a musket, that would take (a) minute(s) to load a single bullet that then could barely hit a target and had the penetration power of my penis. Now we have AR15's for children who can murder double digits other children through multiple walls within double digit seconds and basically half the country thinks this is perfectly fine and quotes that two hundred year old line as the infallible reason why.

It's okay. Your constitution WAS great hundreds of years ago and yeah, your founding fathers WERE awesome. They both live two hundred years away from the situation we face today. The world changed. The US changed. Science changed. Everything changed and got updated. Your constitution got a few updates but at this point could use a rewrite. You know, something healthy to start over fresh.

Rewriting the constitution is part of their plan but I very much doubt the changes they want to make are good for anyone but them.

For sure, you want a constitution that protects all, not a select few, you want a constitution that gives as much freedom as practically possible to all and not a select few, you want to be very clear that religion has not a goddamn thing to do with a country or again the select few will try to fuck over everyone else...

I mean, the big philosophical divide between liberal and conservative judges is usually whether or not the constitution is a "living" document. That is, whether it can be interpreted through a modern lens, or if laws must be strictly limited by what is exactly written in the document.

I would argue that it's easily the former, since, one, they explicitly allow amendments to the Constitution, and, two, there is a session of the Bill of Rights where they basically say, "we can't possibly list all the rights that people are entitled to. This list is by no means comprehensive, and just because something isn't in here, it doesn't mean we've left it out on purpose."

I agree that the constitution is very flawed, and that we would probably be better off without it, but one thing they were very clear on: no kings. The Trump immunity ruling was not only legal nonsense, it was clearly not an originalist interpretation (what the conservatives claim to be.)

When you take into account all of the rulings that this current court has made, it's quite clear that they just start with the conclusion that they want, and reason backwards to get the justification. Once you're at that point, I'm not sure that it really matters what your legal system is based on; they're just doing make-em-ups anyway.

Ok your rant over? Good. If it was rewritten today it would be civilization ending levels of disaster. And you know what? OSHA is constitutional.

it would be ... Disaster

Why? Are we no longer capable of being smart? Did the leaded gasoline do its job too good?

Your current constitution sucks as a legal document, it should be in a museum. It was written well over 200 years ago, and I'm site there are some good basic ideas in there but most of the time its abused to death to remove rights.

Make something new based off our current knowledge. Make it make sense.

Prohibit guns for most people as by now its goddamn clear that people can't be responsible enough to handle them freely

Everyone is the same, outlaw any and all discrimination on gender, skin color, culture, etc.

Make it very clear that religion and state are absolute separate and are not allowed to touch eachother. If it were up to me (and unfortunately it isn't), religion as a whole would be banned because this "i failed to understand santa Claus isn't real when I was 5 years old but my beliefs must be protected and my god wants to kill all the Jews" bullshit has given the world nothing but wars and hatred. Grow up.

Fine you convinced me. Call a state constitutional thing. Watch how fast the new document outlaws abortion, makes the US an officially Christian nation, and shores up the electoral system such that no Democrat could ever win.

What you aren't looking at is that we can amend the document right now. Look at the very last purposed changes. End of birth naturalization and ban on gay marriage. You want that?

Oh no, I agree with you on that, don't do it NOW. I'm not sure when, though, but it has to be rewritten from scratch to clearly defined I'll defined issues, to update with current technology, social standards, human rights, etc.

I know that a very select few people would hate that but IDGAF

Tons of the reasons given for why congress can do things don’t really make sense, like civil rights amendments were defended with the reasoning that congress can regulate interstate commerce, and segregation affects interstate commerce. IMO that doesn’t make sense, but everyone goes along with it because these regulations are obviously good. If we had a good constitution, we wouldn’t need to make these weird excuses to do things that are clearly necessary for the public wellbeing, but unfortunately we don’t, so we have to make do and have any decision we make be randomly struck down by the courts when they decide they don’t like it anymore.

Oh great. An old man who simply is getting rid of protections for average people because all he hears is how it hurts the profit margins of his good friends the uber wealthy.

We really are just heading to a split society of no class mobility and no real consideration of the poor from the rich.

And yet they wonder why the country is collapsing and people don't really want to have kids anymore.

It's a good thing NOBODY WHO WOULD POSSIBLY BENEFIT FROM THIS has given Thomas Gifts Bribes or ANYTHING to sway his Judgement!

Can we make people who vote for lack of safety regulations work affected jobs for about a year or so? How’d you think they’d vote then?

I used to argue that whoever was ultimately responsible for safety at a chemical plant should be required to have them and their family live close enough that if shot goes wrong, they'll definitely be among the worst effected.

But then I live within the greater Charleston, WV area, and there's a plant in a town called Institute here that makes and handles MIC, most notoriously known for being made less poisonous for use as pesticide and being the stuff that leaked and caused the Bhopal incident back when.

People should sue for damages if they have a case. Same for the Supreme Court ruling, I guess? It would make sense if someone sues the SC for something they suffer

They have immunity for the effect of their rulings (unless it's criminal corruption involved, but they get to decide for themselves that it's just "gratuities", unless congress impeach them)

No, they make the rules and would never agree to that, just like they always vote to give themselves raises and amazing healthcare while fighting to prevent the rest of us from getting adequate pay or healthcare.

Wow I love reading about these wacky sovcits. They always say the most silly things.

Wait, what? WHO said that? Justice of which court?

Every little while ( more frequently these days) i hear the voice of Anita Hill in my head.

This has always been a Republican dream. If people are not dying on the job are they really working hard enough?

Anyone notice that the prez can have this guy killed with no consequences?

If he loses the election and doesn't use this new power to kill trump and all his lackies then I guess his presidency wasn't for "the preservation of this democracy"

Thomas just wants everyone to be as miserable as him. Fuck the workers! Make them feel the pain! The rest of the conservative zombies aren't as addled as him though and realize they have to keep the facade of beneficial capitalism going until climate disasters kill us all. Then they'll cancel OSHA.

He's always been "that conservative" judge.

WTF does someone have on him that he has been so emboldened the last few years?

He was inspired by Trump's popularity showing that Americans are more easily manipulated than he ever dreamed.

TLDR: It may be unconstitutional in his opinion because of the Non Delegation Doctrine stemming from:

All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress...

Basically Congress can't just go and let the Executive branch do their job. The Executive can't make new laws only enforce the existing ones.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nondelegation_doctrine

This is my rub with Clarence in general. On paper I agree with a very hardline reading of the constitution cause what else is it there for. We're far too allergic to making constitutional amendments and laws and have built up a house of cards that gets toppled every time the administration changes.

However, practically speaking, there's too many actual lives depending on supreme court decisions and delegated regulations to wait for congress to do something about it (if they aren't stalled outright by lobbying and party opposition). If the overturning of such decisions is meant to light a fire under the ass of the legislative branch, it operates much too slowly to protect the vulnerable people who suffer in the interim. Delegation is the only reason we have a (relatively) safe and clean place to live.

There needs to be a statute of limitations on how long the Supreme Court can reverse things. They can’t change things 40 years after the fact when entire agencies have been built and society has restructured around the previous ruling.

The problem with that is Korematsu v. US was decided in 1944 and is technically still the law as no subsequent cases have come up to overturn it.

Like I said elsewhere, just make congress review use of delegated authority regularly and rubberstamp it if the agency is acting reasonably, otherwise they just give new directives wherever they deem fit.

They might even let agencies notify select members of congress when changing any notable rules so they can decide if they want to call a legislative session or just OK it.

That respects the division of powers in the constitution while still letting regulatory agencies do their jobs

https://slrpnk.net/comment/9618565

The problem is that congress doesn't do anything quickly (unless it's giving themselves a raise). That's the whole reason delegation was needed, because they're so slow to actually pass specific laws. Previously, the rule was that any ambiguity in the law could be interpreted as needed by the relevant agency. That way the law can be "companies need to ensure a certain level of safety for workers" and OSHA with their panel of experts can figure out the details of what precautions are needed where. Even if a rubber stamp is all that would be needed, they have a huge backlog of regulations to get through and a lot of companies that will fight tooth and nail to save a bit of money on safety equipment. If the SCOTUS takes such a case and rules against OSHA's authority, you best believe there will be blood on their hands.

That's why I said only notable changes should need preemptive review (if any), everything else that's standard procedure would just be documented and OK'd after

I agree it would have very bad consequences if the agency would get blocked entirely from acting

That's great for a future where we have all of this sorted out, but it doesn't help in the interim. It's not like corporations will sit patiently while congress gets this figured out, they're going to test the authority of OSHA and flood the courts with lawsuits to argue over every particular, doing more or less whatever they want in the meantime. Frankly I don't believe congress can rubber stamp anywhere quick enough to protect the policies we already have in place.

The two party system has resulted in grid lock on anything pf actual value like codifying in law the things the SCOTUS has been rolling back. We’ve rested on our laurels for it to all be undone.

We do have a problem with executive power creep so like there's a world where I'm on board for non-delegation but there just is a reality that some questions are too small, detailed, and nuanced to expect a new bill out of Congress each time.

So like setting new tariffs, should be a congressional action and it was improperly delegated. Determining whether a new ladder is safe for workers, can be delegated.

2 more...

Bezoz took him on holiday, probably

The solution to Amazon's recruitment problems: slavery. Just chain the suckers to the warehouse and you don't have to worry about them running away any more. And if one croaks from the heat, you won't even have to bother covering the body any more.

I hope Putin will be sent to Hauge(or die) BEFORE USA spontaniously combusts. Then Russia can do russian reversal on american brain drain.

Until then, consider EU.

Dang I can't wait for one of these bad actors to just expire. There are a whole bunch of them close to their finish line and can go any day. Why not today? Instead we get to see things erased by the billionaire class as they by-pass the democratic process. That is the real sadness here. They don't even care that we see what they are doing. They just do it. Fuck we are screwed. 3D basement printing might save America one day like it has other countries fighting for existence. Wow, what a time to be alive.

Take a look at any of the CSB's post-accident summary and recommendation videos and you'll see why OSHA is so important. These regulations are written in blood.

So, as a dumb question, what would it take for all rule-making bodies to be under the legislative branch instead of the executive branch? Do you devolve the responsibility to one house only? Do you require elected officials on these committees or can you devolve these tasks to a legislative controlled body?

Killing chevron was the biggest step already. Now corpos just have to chip away with lawsuits.

I understand that. I'm just wondering if you can push these rulemaking bodies to the legislative branch and what it would look like.

Oh the bodies themselves. Uhh, I think congress could hypothetically empower them because it's their laws being interpreted, but Republicans won't go for it.

This is how we'll get the next Bhopal or Hawks Nest Tunnel disaster

One would think that that an elderly judge would appreciate hand rail regulations.

OSHA just adds cost to any construction project that isn’t needed.

Hey, speaking as a construction worker, get fucked. OSHA keeps people like me alive. Just get fucked. I cannot express this passionately enough.

It’s just a bad troll account, but yeah fr

he frequently does this batshit insane stuff, and yet, for some reason, this fuckup has a fan following on Lemmy.

There is seriously a few accounts on here where they are just shit stains saying horrible shit and bullying people but they are on 24/7 and people just upvote because they look strong and sometimes say things that feel smart or empowering.

If you ever want to know how Trump got to power just look around.

There is no record of this comment 😉

So does a worksite death or injury.

Just not nearly as much, and most importantly they are held much less accountable for those things without OSHA or similar oversight.......

OSHA is better than dead workers littering the worksite.

You forgot this: /s.

At least I fuckin' hope so.

I hope so. I kinda like SatansMag...ugghh...i can't even say it.

Sometimes they can be funny, but also legit have the absolute worst takes

In case you're not just trying to harvest downvotes (hey, everyone needs a hobby); That's a stupid fucking take.

That is so completely insane. Do you know how many workplace injuries and deaths were eliminated because of things OSHA put in place?