Comment Re:Fuck "Eat the Rich" (Score 1) 90
And here's why that study was meaningless - "We are not going to consider the impact of the principle being decided. Rather, we just want to know who got the money in the case in question." That is, they ignore the single most important factor and focus only on the least relevant - the private fiscal implications of the ruling.
There may be something of interest in the findings, but in regards to the nature of cases being heard, not the relative finances of the claimants.
If it's the principle that's driving the decisions, not the affluence of the beneficiaries, across a sufficiently-large set of cases we'd expect to find no correlation between the political leanings of the justices and their votes benefiting wealthy vs poor people. Which is what the article said happened for many decades.
Unless, of course, the principle being applied is "Who benefits?"
It's worth pointing out that although gtall framed it as the Republicans siding with the wealthy, it's equally true that the Democrats are siding with the poor. Both sides are inordinately focused on who benefits.