Arbitration-only and class-action-blocking clauses both seem like prime candidates to be found unenforceable.
Is there any case law along those lines?
Yes, the U.S. Supreme Court has explicitly held that arbitration clauses in the main are enforceable (ironically enough, in a case against AT&T Mobility)
That said, there are specific provisions of arbitration clauses that can be held unconscionable and thus unenforceable (e.g., allocating costs in a way that will effectively prevent the little guy from seeking arbitration at all), along the same theories long used in general contract law as you mention.
How's that? Our licensing requirements are a joke. Not surprisingly, our highway fatality trends suck compared to other countries. What exactly have we been going for decades?
So, the UN is just going to say, "Ok, it's cool, not a prob if you want to leave"? Of course not. While what you're saying may be nice in theory . . . there are international consequences for revoking it.
So now you're moving the ball. I completely agree that other countries will be mad at us for not continuing to subsidize them in yet another manner (speaking of the UN). And that other countries may be short-sighted enough to take action to "retaliate" for their loss of free cookies.
But that has nothing to do with whether the U.S. would continue to be "bound" by a revoked executive agreement, which was your original proposition.
Why not actually read it for yourself? It's only a few pages of relevant text, minimal legalese, well within high-school capabilities.
Oh, so most of it is irrelevant? Which part(s), and why?
And "minimal legalese" is frankly exactly the problem for a document that imposes legal obligations. Here's just one example of many: "Each Party’s successive nationally determined contribution will represent a progression beyond the Party’s then current nationally determined contribution and reflect its highest possible ambition, reflecting its common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in the light of different national circumstances."
That mouthful of gobbledygook either means (1) absolutely nothing; or (2) anything the reader (e.g., lawyers of countries who feel like a given signatory isn't doing enough) wants it to mean at that particular juncture.
Then you'll see for yourself that there really are no specific commitments, and all actions are nationally determined and best-effort. Nothing is legally binding.
And yes, it's all largely symbolic . . . If Trump stays or withdraws, it changes no laws either way
Fantastic. In that case, as I said before, all the kerfuffle over this is completely pointless (or, as you put it, "largely symbolic").
but sends a clear signal to heavily-emitting industries that they either need to clean up their act, or that they're free to continue dumping their external waste costs on the public.
Poppycock. A worldwide agreement was not required to achieve the advances in both air and water quality the United States has achieved over the past century plus, and one is not required now.
And it's the last part of your statement that is nonsense (the part that I snipped being a nonsense reason for the nonsense proposition I didn't snip). The current President can't take actions that bind the hands of future Presidents; the current Congress can't take actions that bind the hands of future Congresses, etc., for very good and very obvious reasons. Read more carefully the actual legal paper I referenced.
It's amazing to me the number of people who think themselves clever enough to suddenly come up with a way to wire around checks and balances that have been in our system for hundreds of years.
Trump would still have the authority to revoke it, but his office would still be bound by it anyway
That's a mighty creative definition of the word "revoke" -- one that your Wikipedia article doesn't even espouse. Probably because it doesn't work that way.
The Paris agreement commits each nation "to put forward their best efforts." That's it.
Funny thing -- I went and pulled up the text of the Paris Agreement and couldn't find the words "put forward their best efforts" anywhere.
What I found were words like "bound," "obligation," and 117 instances of the word "shall" sprinkled like croutons in the 7300+ word salad.
But hey, let's say all that really does just compress down to "put forward their best efforts." If that's really true, "withdrawing" from such an amorphous "commitment" may not change anything at all in the real world and thus all this hyperventilating is premature at best.
This ruling does not mean all recourse is gone. From the opinion:
The single-use/no-resale restrictions in Lexmark’s contracts with customers may have been clear and enforceable under contract law, but they do not entitle Lexmark to retain patent rights in an item that it has elected to sell.
So this just means the Monsantos of the world would have to sue the farmers under some other theory like breach of contract instead of patent infringement.
We run these patchworks of programmes to try to approximate the effects of universal basic income.
As many have said repeatedly in these discussions, the numbers spent on those programs just don't approach what you would need to implement a UBI that people would consider adequate to live on.
Medicare. Too poor for health insurance in the US? Medicaid
And this has an even more fundamental problem. Is your proposal to have people pay for healthcare out of their UBI? If not, you can't look at Medicare/Medicaid spending as an available bucket of money to reallocate for UBI.
Beyond all that, many of the current spending programs grant money in reasonably restricted categories. Section 8 dollars have to be spent on housing. Food assistance dollars have to be spent (mainlhttps://news.slashdot.org/story/17/05/26/0848216/mark-zuckerberg-calls-for-universal-basic-income-in-his-harvard-commencement-speech#y) on food. The UBI proposals I've heard have none of these restrictions, so someone can burn through their UBI and end up on the sidewalk panhandling. It's just not credible to say that the same group of people that have driven the bleeding edge of social policy for the past several decades would suddenly find it within themselves to turn a blind eye to people who are "in need" because couldn't manage their UBI money. That takes even more dollars that don't exist.
Wow. Just wow. You realize your current frothing has absolutely nothing to do with your original comment, right? Trump Derangement Syndrome will be an official diagnosis soon.
Go take a walk. Read a book -- preferably not one about politics. Hug your children. It'll be ok, really. There's going to be a bit more karma to burn off for the past 8 years of smugness, I'm afraid, but you'll get there.
Was Hillary president when her brother was selling visas? Was Bill?
Ah, so apparently you really meant "first sitting president" -- whatever difference that really makes to the issue at hand (see point 3 below). (I take it you're not far enough gone that you're trying to suggest that the Clintons had no meaningful political influence after Bill left office.)
So returning to your original outrageously disingenuous proposition that all of a sudden America is for sale:
(1) The EB-5 program has been around in its current form since 1990, so it has precisely nothing to do with Trump per se. You don't deny that. (2) The Kushners are playing under the same rules as everyone. You don't deny that. (3) The only influence Trump could possibly have on this already-existing program would be to shut it down or otherwise impair it, which would negatively impact all EB-5 businesses, including the Kushners'. You don't deny that. (4) The observation by an EB-5 business that Trump might change the law and so best to buy now is (a) one that any EB-5 business could make, and (b) to the extent it infers anything about influence over Trump, it says the business has no such influence -- the exact opposite of what you're claiming.
I know you don't like Trump, but you're just trying too hard on this one.
And this is the first time a president's family sought to profit directly from that program
I'll give you better credit for reading comprehension than you may deserve, and conclude you're just flat ignoring what I pointed out about Anthony Rodham because it's just too inconvenient to your meme. Party on.
Do you really believe half the spew you post here?
Your article is about the EB-5 visa program, which has been around since 1990. It has nothing to do with Trump or his family. And if a family member operating a business under the program is a Bad Thing, then certainly even more so is a family member operating a business that recently got terminated from the program for abuse, as was the one operated by Hillary's brother.
And the very article you posted explicitly alludes to the fact that Trump may not let it go on:
Since Donald Trump became president, rumors have circulated among the wealthy of the world about the future of the EB-5 program, given Trump’s repeated vows to crack down on immigration and the increased congressional scrutiny of EB-5s.
Are they going to actually hand down a ruling that overturns prior decisions of the lower court?
I believe the answer is yes.
Yes, with respect to the Federal Circuit's VE Holdings decision that allowed venue in other districts.
Yes, with respect to the district court's decision in the still-pending TC Heartland case that venue was proper outside the state where TC Heartland was incorporated.
No, with respect to any other case decided under the Federal Circuit's old precedent and not still pending.
The future of cases currently pending in now-inappropriate districts such as the Eastern District of Texas is a bit murky and will be interesting to watch play out.
They're going to have to get some bench strength and fast -- they only had three judges to start with, and then Judge Robinson took senior status this spring. That seat (and any others) may be a bit harder to fill now that the candidates have a sense of what they're signing up for.
Delaware is already a sizeable patent district -- e.g., most pharmaceutical patent cases are filed there, and they had ~10% of all cases filed last year.
Problem is they're not staffed for this kind of additional volume -- they only had three judges to start with, and then Judge Robinson took senior status this spring. With this sort of flood now looming, it's not clear who's going to want to sign up to replace her.
Slashdot Mirror
"Scientists project climate change could increase coffee production in Ethiopia fourfold."
But that probably wouldn't get as many clicks.
This happens to be about the FCC, but really has nothing to do with the FCC per se.
This is about whether a federal agency can regulate purely intrastate activity. The FCC's rules capping costs for state-to-state calls stand.
See, this is the trouble with the Right. Zero ability to adapt to change. . . . Oh, and no shades of grey.
Oh, the irony.
Theresa May wanted to have "back doors" in encryption schemes to allow government access and everyone with a clue laughed at her
she stood by the claims and this is what happens....
I betcha she regularly drank water, too.
Arbitration-only and class-action-blocking clauses both seem like prime candidates to be found unenforceable.
Is there any case law along those lines?
Yes, the U.S. Supreme Court has explicitly held that arbitration clauses in the main are enforceable (ironically enough, in a case against AT&T Mobility)
That said, there are specific provisions of arbitration clauses that can be held unconscionable and thus unenforceable (e.g., allocating costs in a way that will effectively prevent the little guy from seeking arbitration at all), along the same theories long used in general contract law as you mention.
We've been doing that for decades.
How's that? Our licensing requirements are a joke. Not surprisingly, our highway fatality trends suck compared to other countries. What exactly have we been going for decades?
585,000 lives saved between 2035 and 2045 = 58.8k lives saved per year.
Current worldwide traffic fatalities are about 1.25 million per year.
That's a 5% reduction. For an outlay that starts at $800 billion a year and scales to $7 trillion.
How about spending a fraction of that money on real driver education, training, and enforcement?
Oh, I forgot -- robots are cool. Nevermind.
I know that if I donated my blood thinking it was going to save a life, and it was instead sold for profit, I'd be a little disturbed.
Do you honestly think blood isn't already sold for profit to hospitals?
Yes, it's called federalism. A concept that liberals have been trying to muscle out of existence for a long time now. This is hilarious.
So, the UN is just going to say, "Ok, it's cool, not a prob if you want to leave"? Of course not. While what you're saying may be nice in theory . . . there are international consequences for revoking it.
So now you're moving the ball. I completely agree that other countries will be mad at us for not continuing to subsidize them in yet another manner (speaking of the UN). And that other countries may be short-sighted enough to take action to "retaliate" for their loss of free cookies.
But that has nothing to do with whether the U.S. would continue to be "bound" by a revoked executive agreement, which was your original proposition.
Why not actually read it for yourself? It's only a few pages of relevant text, minimal legalese, well within high-school capabilities.
Oh, so most of it is irrelevant? Which part(s), and why?
And "minimal legalese" is frankly exactly the problem for a document that imposes legal obligations. Here's just one example of many: "Each Party’s successive nationally determined contribution will represent a progression beyond the Party’s then current nationally determined contribution and reflect its highest possible ambition, reflecting its common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in the light of different national circumstances."
That mouthful of gobbledygook either means (1) absolutely nothing; or (2) anything the reader (e.g., lawyers of countries who feel like a given signatory isn't doing enough) wants it to mean at that particular juncture.
Then you'll see for yourself that there really are no specific commitments, and all actions are nationally determined and best-effort. Nothing is legally binding.
And yes, it's all largely symbolic . . . If Trump stays or withdraws, it changes no laws either way
Fantastic. In that case, as I said before, all the kerfuffle over this is completely pointless (or, as you put it, "largely symbolic").
but sends a clear signal to heavily-emitting industries that they either need to clean up their act, or that they're free to continue dumping their external waste costs on the public.
Poppycock. A worldwide agreement was not required to achieve the advances in both air and water quality the United States has achieved over the past century plus, and one is not required now.
And it's the last part of your statement that is nonsense (the part that I snipped being a nonsense reason for the nonsense proposition I didn't snip). The current President can't take actions that bind the hands of future Presidents; the current Congress can't take actions that bind the hands of future Congresses, etc., for very good and very obvious reasons. Read more carefully the actual legal paper I referenced.
It's amazing to me the number of people who think themselves clever enough to suddenly come up with a way to wire around checks and balances that have been in our system for hundreds of years.
Trump would still have the authority to revoke it, but his office would still be bound by it anyway
That's a mighty creative definition of the word "revoke" -- one that your Wikipedia article doesn't even espouse. Probably because it doesn't work that way.
The Paris agreement commits each nation "to put forward their best efforts."
That's it.
Funny thing -- I went and pulled up the text of the Paris Agreement and couldn't find the words "put forward their best efforts" anywhere.
What I found were words like "bound," "obligation," and 117 instances of the word "shall" sprinkled like croutons in the 7300+ word salad.
But hey, let's say all that really does just compress down to "put forward their best efforts." If that's really true, "withdrawing" from such an amorphous "commitment" may not change anything at all in the real world and thus all this hyperventilating is premature at best.
This ruling does not mean all recourse is gone. From the opinion:
The single-use/no-resale restrictions in Lexmark’s contracts with customers may have been clear and enforceable under contract law , but they do not entitle Lexmark to retain patent rights in an item that it has elected to sell.
So this just means the Monsantos of the world would have to sue the farmers under some other theory like breach of contract instead of patent infringement.
We run these patchworks of programmes to try to approximate the effects of universal basic income.
As many have said repeatedly in these discussions, the numbers spent on those programs just don't approach what you would need to implement a UBI that people would consider adequate to live on.
Medicare. Too poor for health insurance in the US? Medicaid
And this has an even more fundamental problem. Is your proposal to have people pay for healthcare out of their UBI? If not, you can't look at Medicare/Medicaid spending as an available bucket of money to reallocate for UBI.
Beyond all that, many of the current spending programs grant money in reasonably restricted categories. Section 8 dollars have to be spent on housing. Food assistance dollars have to be spent (mainlhttps://news.slashdot.org/story/17/05/26/0848216/mark-zuckerberg-calls-for-universal-basic-income-in-his-harvard-commencement-speech#y) on food. The UBI proposals I've heard have none of these restrictions, so someone can burn through their UBI and end up on the sidewalk panhandling. It's just not credible to say that the same group of people that have driven the bleeding edge of social policy for the past several decades would suddenly find it within themselves to turn a blind eye to people who are "in need" because couldn't manage their UBI money. That takes even more dollars that don't exist.
Wow. Just wow. You realize your current frothing has absolutely nothing to do with your original comment, right? Trump Derangement Syndrome will be an official diagnosis soon.
Go take a walk. Read a book -- preferably not one about politics. Hug your children. It'll be ok, really. There's going to be a bit more karma to burn off for the past 8 years of smugness, I'm afraid, but you'll get there.
Was Hillary president when her brother was selling visas? Was Bill?
Ah, so apparently you really meant "first sitting president" -- whatever difference that really makes to the issue at hand (see point 3 below). (I take it you're not far enough gone that you're trying to suggest that the Clintons had no meaningful political influence after Bill left office.)
So returning to your original outrageously disingenuous proposition that all of a sudden America is for sale:
(1) The EB-5 program has been around in its current form since 1990, so it has precisely nothing to do with Trump per se. You don't deny that.
(2) The Kushners are playing under the same rules as everyone. You don't deny that.
(3) The only influence Trump could possibly have on this already-existing program would be to shut it down or otherwise impair it, which would negatively impact all EB-5 businesses, including the Kushners'. You don't deny that.
(4) The observation by an EB-5 business that Trump might change the law and so best to buy now is (a) one that any EB-5 business could make, and (b) to the extent it infers anything about influence over Trump, it says the business has no such influence -- the exact opposite of what you're claiming.
I know you don't like Trump, but you're just trying too hard on this one.
And this is the first time a president's family sought to profit directly from that program
I'll give you better credit for reading comprehension than you may deserve, and conclude you're just flat ignoring what I pointed out about Anthony Rodham because it's just too inconvenient to your meme. Party on.
Do you really believe half the spew you post here?
Your article is about the EB-5 visa program, which has been around since 1990. It has nothing to do with Trump or his family. And if a family member operating a business under the program is a Bad Thing, then certainly even more so is a family member operating a business that recently got terminated from the program for abuse, as was the one operated by Hillary's brother.
And the very article you posted explicitly alludes to the fact that Trump may not let it go on:
Since Donald Trump became president, rumors have circulated among the wealthy of the world about the future of the EB-5 program, given Trump’s repeated vows to crack down on immigration and the increased congressional scrutiny of EB-5s.
Apart from all that, awesome post.
If ISPs A, B, or C collude then it all becomes moot without regulations.
Antitrust law already precludes this sort of collusive behavior in any market. We don't need a special set of regulations for this particular one.
It's time we cut off the trucking company fat cats and charged them to use the interstate roads.
I can't believe I'm reading this on Slashdot. Only ignoramuses and greedy capitalist pigs are opposed to road neutrality....
Are they going to actually hand down a ruling that overturns prior decisions of the lower court?
I believe the answer is yes.
Yes, with respect to the Federal Circuit's VE Holdings decision that allowed venue in other districts.
Yes, with respect to the district court's decision in the still-pending TC Heartland case that venue was proper outside the state where TC Heartland was incorporated.
No, with respect to any other case decided under the Federal Circuit's old precedent and not still pending.
The future of cases currently pending in now-inappropriate districts such as the Eastern District of Texas is a bit murky and will be interesting to watch play out.
They're going to have to get some bench strength and fast -- they only had three judges to start with, and then Judge Robinson took senior status this spring. That seat (and any others) may be a bit harder to fill now that the candidates have a sense of what they're signing up for.
Delaware is already a sizeable patent district -- e.g., most pharmaceutical patent cases are filed there, and they had ~10% of all cases filed last year.
Problem is they're not staffed for this kind of additional volume -- they only had three judges to start with, and then Judge Robinson took senior status this spring. With this sort of flood now looming, it's not clear who's going to want to sign up to replace her.