scotUS3 bak

estb 1 25 bad code url?

scotus4capt

txt 1 25

this is main 12 23

no merri

see fail 14th a sect III, fail ethics reform....

{6 22 premature this is 2 bak}:

see 3 horsemen

see amicus

see leo

see iwf

see dereg 4

see clarence horatio alger

see alito

cult corrupt

CA regs target

see trump immunity clarence --> cannon ~ jack smith

see CU case see campaign finance disclose

SEE CHEVRON DOCTRINE DEREG

see voter purge suppression

html "amicus flotilla."

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The Supreme Court this morning denied oil majors’ petition to review a Hawai`i Supreme Court decision rejecting the companies’ efforts to stop a climate lawsuit filed against them by the City and County of Honolulu, putting the case back on track to become the first of its kind to reach a jury trial.

The one-line order denying the petition is a major blow to fossil fuel defendants battling cases brought by state and local governments across the country. The lawsuits argue ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP, and other oil and gas companies spent decades deceiving the public about the dangers their products would cause in order to stall action to address the climate crisis. Many of those cases, like Honolulu’s, are seeking to recover some of the skyrocketing costs of adapting to and rebuilding after worsening climate disasters, including wildfires, heat waves, hurricanes, and floods.

If the Supreme Court had agreed to hear Big Oil’s argument, it likely would have created major hurdles and delays for communities fighting to go to trial. “That sound you hear is a huge exhale from the plaintiffs’ side of these cases,” said Pat Parenteau, an environmental law professor and senior fellow at Vermont Law School. “A grant of review would have frozen the cases for a year or more and could have resulted in a death blow ruling. Now they can move more quickly to trial.”

The Hawai`i Supreme Court had thrown out oil companies’ motions to dismiss Honolulu’s case, positioning it to be one of the first climate deception lawsuits to reach trial and, as a case that could help determine who pays for the costs of climate disasters wrecking havoc on communities, “the most important climate case in the United States,” according to former Hawai‘i Supreme Court Justice Michael Wilson. The defendants, including Exxon, Shell, Sunoco, and others, had asked the Supreme Court to consider its arguments to dismiss the case, primarily arguing that it was preempted by the federal Clean Air Act.

In a December brief encouraging the justices to toss Big Oil’s petition, the Department of Justice sided with the Hawai`i Supreme Court on the grounds that “the Clean Air Act does not categorically preempt [Honolulu’s] claims,” which “target only the [fossil fuel] products’ deceptive marketing.” In other words, the lawsuit isn’t trying to set limits on Big Oil’s emissions — it’s seeking to make them help pay for climate damages Honolulu says these companies knowingly caused and lied about.

The Supreme Court’s order today “should not be surprising given the Court’s long-standing respect for federalism,” said Robert Percival, a law professor and director of the University of Maryland’s environmental law program. “These are state tort cases that the Supreme Court has no business getting involved in despite the oil companies’ desperate attempts to get the Court to quash all climate litigation.”

The companies’ petition was bolstered by an “unprecedented” pressure campaign, run by initiatives of far-right billionaire Leonard Leo that are possibly tied to defendant Chevron (according to reporting by the Guardian), urging the justices to take up the industry’s request. Another petition to the Supreme Court by Republican state attorneys general, which asks the justices to intervene in states’ climate deception cases against Big Oil under different grounds, is still pending.

The denial is the fourth time since 2023 that the justices have rejected an appeal from Big Oil in similar cases, though it is the first time on the question of whether federal law preempts the state law under which the climate deception lawsuits are brought. Fossil fuel defendants spent years trying to move cases like Honolulu’s, which were filed in state court under state law, to federal court – and despite being repeatedly denied, the companies continued to seek review from the Supreme Court. Parenteau cautioned that “this is not the last word from the Supreme Court on the preemption issue that is at the heart of the oil companies’ argument.”

The Supreme Court’s order is likely to have implications for climate deception lawsuits across the country. The same preemption issue Big Oil raised in Honolulu will be the subject of arguments heard by the Colorado Supreme Court next month in oil companies’ appeal of a lawsuit brought by the City and County of Boulder. Fossil fuel defendants’ motions to dismiss another lawsuit brought by Maui County, where more than 100 people were killed in the devastating 2023 wildfires on Lahaina, have been on hold pending the decision in Honolulu.

In light of the Supreme Court’s order, Honolulu’s case can now move into full discovery, a pre-trial stage where both parties can seek additional evidence that would be relevant to the case. A consumer protection lawsuit that Massachusetts brought against Exxon is currently in discovery.

“This is a significant day for the people of Honolulu and the rule of law,” Ben Sullivan, executive director and chief resilience officer at the City and County of Honolulu's Office of Climate Change, Sustainability, and Resiliency, said in a statement. “This landmark decision upholds our right to enforce Hawaii laws in Hawaii courts, ensuring the protection of Hawai`i taxpayers and communities from the immense costs and consequences of the climate crisis caused by the defendants’ misconduct.”

The order comes as communities across Los Angeles County still face raging wildfires that have taken more than 20 lives, destroyed countless homes and entire neighborhoods, and are estimated to become one of the costliest climate disasters in U.S. history. The state of California has its own climate deception lawsuit against Big Oil seeking to recover climate costs.

The Supreme Court’s order “will allow the cases to build a powerful record of evidence on the damages caused by [oil companies’] deception,” said Parenteau. “Imagine how a jury in Los Angeles might view that evidence today.”

ExxonKnews!

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The U.S. Supreme Court swiftly responded to President-elect Donald Trump’s formal request early Wednesday morning to delay sentencing in his 34-count felony conviction for business fraud in New York, widely known as the “hush money” case.

Trump is scheduled to be sentenced in New York Supreme Court on Friday, for what District Attorney Alvin Bragg described as “falsifying New York business records in order to conceal his illegal scheme to corrupt the 2016 election.” Trump originally was slated to be sentenced on July 11, but he twice succeeded in having those dates postponed. His attorneys in recent days filed unsuccessful motions in two New York courts to have the sentencing delayed again, before submitting their case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Describing his latest attempt as “a highly unusual request that relies in part on the court’s decision last year to grant him broad immunity from criminal prosecution,” CNN reports Trump’s attorneys told the nation’s highest court the delay, or pause, is necessary “to prevent grave injustice and harm to the institution of the presidency and the operations of the federal government.”

Trump’s argument, in part, is based on the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling granting him and all subsequent presidents vast immunity from prosecution for what it deemed are “official acts” of the presidency. Many legal experts doubt Trump’s conviction on falsifying business records when paying “hush money” to an adult film star is an official act of the presidency.

The Supreme Court Wednesday morning responded to Trump’s request by directing New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg to reply to Trump’s motion by 10 AM ET Thursday, Lawfare senior editor Roger Parloff reported. Law360’s Katie Buehler also reported SCOTUS’s response.

“If Trump’s lawyers are successful in halting the proceedings before he is sworn-in in fewer than two weeks, the hush money case could linger for months while his attorneys pursue an appeal to toss out the conviction,” CNN adds.

ABC News’ Peter Charalambous notes, “Trump’s lawyers have asked the country’s highest court for an unprecedented intervention in the ongoing criminal case of a former president — whose appointment of three justices cemented the court’s conservative majority – that would effectively toss his criminal conviction less than two weeks ahead of his inauguration.

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On the last day of 2024, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts issued his "2024 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary."

This was the 20th annual year-end report that Roberts has issued since being appointed chief justice by then-President George W. Bush in 2005. The High Court has changed a lot since that appointment 20 years ago, when it leaned conservative but didn't have the 6-3 GOP supermajority that it has now. And Roberts, in his report for 2024, was highly critical of "public officials" who have accused judges of showing a "political bias."

"Public officials certainly have a right to criticize the work of the judiciary," Roberts wrote, "but they should be mindful that intemperance in their statements when it comes to judges may prompt dangerous reactions by others."

In a biting article published on New Year's Day 2025, Rolling Stone's Andrew Perez argues that Roberts' comments sounded a lot like President-elect Donald Trump's rhetoric.

" Trump is so proud of the conservatives on the Court that he frequently praised the justices, individually by name, at 2024 campaign events — thanking them for their 'courage' in deciding to overturn Roe v. Wade, so states could ban abortion," Perez writes. "At a September rally, Trump called the conservative justices 'very brave' and argued that 'people should be put in jail' for criticizing them. The Supreme Court's chief justice, John Roberts, is now echoing Trump's demand that people stop criticizing him, his colleagues, and other federal jurists — while continuing to pretend that judges are not political."

Perez continues, "In his annual end-of-year report, issued on Tuesday, Roberts wrote that public officials (read: Democrats) 'regrettably have engaged in recent attempts to intimidate judges — for example, suggesting political bias in the judge's adverse rulings without a credible basis for such allegations.'"

The Rolling Stone journalist argues that it's "ridiculous" to deny that Supreme Court justices are "political appointees."

"In his first term as president," Perez observes, "Donald Trump built a conservative 6-3 supermajority on the Supreme Court. Ever since, the nation's highest court has repeatedly issued increasingly extreme, far-right decisions on topics of abortion, race, the environment, corruption, and much more."

Perez continues, "The Supreme Court has eliminated federal protections for abortion rights; limited the federal government's ability to regulate carbon emissions, protect Americans' drinking water, and limit ozone pollution; gutted federal agencies' ability to implement regulations generally; opened up long-standing regulations to new challenges; made it easier for states to enact racial gerrymanders; eliminated college affirmative action policies; found businesses can discriminate against LGBTQ+ customers; permitted public school employees to lead students in prayer; decided that companies can pay public officials gratuities, or thank-you payments, for corrupt contracting decisions; and broadly shielded Trump from criminal prosecution for any so-called official acts he committed as president…. Roberts and his colleagues were appointed to the Supreme Court to carry out a conservative political agenda — and that's exactly what they have done. No one should pretend otherwise."

READ MORE:[Supreme Court signals it will uphold 'state-sanctioned discrimination' in new case

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badash

In 2005, President George W. Bush’s nominee, John Roberts, became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Five years later, just over one quarter of the country (27%) disapproved of him. By last year, that disapproval number had risen to nearly half the nation: 46%.

Since 2021, Gallup reports, the Supreme Court’s disapproval rating has consistently remained in the mid to upper 50s—a roughly ten-point increase compared to the previous decade. The majority of Americans have an apparent growing dissatisfaction with a court that wields ultimate authority while becoming increasingly secretive and activist on some of the nation’s most consequential issues.

While the Supreme Court’s job is not to make decisions based on popularity contests, it relies on the other two branches of the federal government to enforce its rulings. And when the Supreme Court’s credibility falls into question, some warn, our institutions may be at risk.

In October, Bloomberg Opinion’s Noah Feldman warned the Supreme Court’s “legitimacy crisis is getting worse.”

“Democrats’ faith in the court began to fail after the 2000 Bush v. Gore decision, then went into freefall over the last couple of years,” Feldman wrote. “They worry the justices aren’t sufficiently ethical. They deplore the eagerness of the court’s conservative majority to overturn 50 years of precedent on issues like abortion and affirmative action. They are appalled at the court’s defiance of originalism — the idea that Constitutional law should rest on the document’s original meaning — to grant criminal immunity to former President Donald Trump for official acts while president.”

Nearly two years ago the Alliance for Justice (AFJ), a progressive coalition of nearly 140 organizations “advocating for a fair and independent justice system,” published a piece warning that the Supreme Court was “destroying its own legitimacy.”

“The Court’s wounds are entirely self-inflicted,” William W. Taylor, III, wrote at the AFJ. “It has a far-right agenda and the scholarship informing its decisions is often questionable. Worse, new details have come to light of relationships some justices have had with wealthy ideological soulmates, including those with interest in cases before the Court. The Court’s credibility and the public’s acceptance of its decisions depends upon trust that it is not subject to outside influence. While lobbying may be common and acceptable in the legislative and executive branches, it is not — nor ought not to be — conceivable in our courts.”

The New York Times on Tuesday took a deep dive into the behind-the-scenes conversations at the end of the summer of 2023 among the Supreme Court justices as they weighed whether or not to establish a code of ethics, amid a nation angered by numerous reports of what many see as blatant corruption.

“Last year, pressure on the court and the chief justice intensified. Journalists revealed that Justice Thomas had accepted far more largess from Harlan Crow, a conservative donor, than he had disclosed, including decades of travel on private jets and a superyacht, and boarding school tuition for his grandnephew. The public uproar also reflected another concern: Virginia Thomas, his wife, had been involved in Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election,” The Times reports.

“Faced with ethics controversies and a plunge in public trust, they were debating rules for their own conduct, according to people familiar with the process,” The Times adds, revealing that “behind the scenes, the court had divided over whether the justices’ new rules could — or should — ever be enforced.”

In the end, the justices all signed onto a new code of ethics for the nation’s highest court, but one that “had no means of enforcement.”

It was quickly criticized.

Liberals on the court have since gone public with their apparent frustration that although there is finally a code of ethics, there is no way to enforce it.

“All three liberals — Justices Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson — supported enforcement, The Times reports.

“Rules usually have enforcement mechanisms attached to them, and this one — this set of rules — does not,” Justice Elena Kagan said in July.

“I haven’t seen a good reason why the ethics code that the Supreme Court adopted shouldn’t be enforceable,” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said. “Other justices have posited certain ways in which it could be made enforceable but we have not yet determined or decided to do that.”

By contrast, at least some of the majority right-wing justices appear opposed to any code, certainly one that would have methods of enforcement.

“In the private exchanges, Justice Clarence Thomas, whose decision not to disclose decades of gifts and luxury vacations from wealthy benefactors had sparked the ethics controversy, and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote off the court’s critics as politically motivated and unappeasable,” The Times revealed. “Justice Gorsuch was especially vocal in opposing any enforcement mechanism beyond voluntary compliance, arguing that additional measures could undermine the court. The justices’ strength was their independence, he said, and he vowed to have no part in diminishing it.”

The Times also reveals that the justices “seemed to codify their own preferences” when they drafted, or signed off on the code of ethics.

Those preferences appear largely financial.

The justices “gave themselves no firm restrictions on gifts, travel or real estate deals. Nothing in the new rules appears aimed directly at the trips and gifts Justice Thomas accepted. The code says only that justices should uphold the dignity of the office and comply with existing gift guidelines, in separate federal rules, which make allowances for ‘personal hospitality.’ Justice Thomas has maintained that his nondisclosure of gifts and free travel did not violate those rules,” according to The Times. Other legal experts disagree, with some saying he broke the law.

Since signing the new code of ethics, “questions about the justices’ behavior have continued. The Times revealed that two provocative flags associated with the Jan. 6 riot had flown at the homes of Justice Alito and his wife. The second was displayed at his New Jersey beach house just as the justices were considering the new ethics rules. That summer, he also accepted concert tickets from a far-right German princess. He later disclosed those, but in keeping with the new rules, said nothing about his free stay at her 500-room Bavarian palace.”

Last month, U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), among the Senate’s top proponents of Supreme Court reform, wrote: “As long as the Court maintains a secretive billionaire gifts program for justices and unique immunity from ethics scrutiny for itself, and as long as its decisions predictably align with those billionaire interests, its reputation will continue to crash.”

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Supreme Court delivers massive blow to Mark Meadows

Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows' mugshot (Photo: Fulton County Sheriff's Office)

Carl GibsonNovember 12, 2024

Despite the Supreme Court's 6-3 conservative majority, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows isn't catching a break from Republican-appointed justices in his own criminal case.

CNN reported Tuesday that Meadows' request to have his Fulton County, Georgia election interference case moved to federal court in Washington, D.C. has been officially denied, meaning the door has closed on his last-ditch effort to move his case out of the Peach State. Meadows had hoped to have his state-level case moved to the federal court, with his attorneys arguing that Meadows' acting on orders from then-President Donald Trump's were part of his official duties as chief of staff.

“This court reiterated that the threat posed by prosecutions against federal officers for actions relating to their federal functions does not evaporate once they leave federal office,” Meadows’ legal team stated in a filing to the Supreme Court this summer. “A White House Chief of Staff facing criminal charges based on actions relating to his work for the president of the United States should not be a close call.”

READ MORE: US appeals court shuts down Mark Meadows' attempt to move GA election interference case

Meadows' argument already fell flat in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, however, with a three-judge panel denying his petition for an en banc hearing by the full circuit earlier this year. Chief Judge William Pryor previously ruled that Meadows' case should remain in the Georgia state court system, saying "the events giving rise to this criminal action were not related Meadows’ official duties."

Now, Meadows' fate will depend on an Atlanta jury after the Georgia Court of Appeals rules on whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis can continue prosecuting the case. Willis — who won her own reelection last week — has previously survived Trump's attempt to have her removed from the case, as his lawyers argued that her romantic relationship with then-special prosecutor Nathan Wade constituted a conflict of interest.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee previously ruled that either Wade or Willis had to step down from their role this summer, prompting Wade to submit his resignation almost immediately following McAfee's decision. But Trump's lawyers successfully appealed that decision to the Georgia Court of Appeals, which is expected to issue its own ruling on whether Willis can remain on the case next spring.

With Trump preparing to enter the White House again in January, Meadows was likely angling for a presidential pardon if his case was moved from state to federal court. But because Trump cannot end state-level investigations with a pardon, both the president-elect and his former chief of staff still have to contend with the Fulton County case regardless of whether Willis remains on the case or a new prosecutor is assigned.

READ MORE: 'No trial until 2025': Political scientist hedges bet on 'untested constitutional theory' in GA case

Trump's attorneys in Georgia had previously argued that his criminal trial should be put on hold until January of 2029 if he were to win the election, saying that the duties of the presidency take precedent over an individual state's prosecution. Judge McAfee has yet to officially reschedule the trial, though it's expected his lawyers will be successful in preventing the case from moving forward until Trump leaves office.

CNN reported that Meadows has already struck out in his attempts to move his Arizona criminal case to federal court, with a judge ruling against him in September. Meadows is facing multiple felony charges in the Grand Canyon State for his alleged attempts to interfere with the 2020 election in the state President Joe Biden narrowly won four years ago.

Click here to read CNN's report in full.

READ MORE: GA reporter: Here's what happens with Trump's Fulton County trial after Fani Willis decision

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10 24 master class scotus? AFP lawsuit camp finance disclose

overturn 9th?

10 24 master class scotus? CU did not get --> AFP lawsuit camp finance disclosure?

Americans for Prosperity v. Bonta - Ballotpedia

Americans for Prosperity v. Bonta is a case that was argued before the Supreme Court of the United States on April 26, 2021, during the court's October 2020-2021 term. It was consolidated with Thomas More Law Center v. Bonta (formerly Thomas More Law Center v. Becerra).

:{In a 6-3 opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit's ruling and remanded the case for further proceedings, holding that the district court was correct in entering judgment in favor of the petitioners and :{permanently enjoining the California Attorney General from collecting their Schedule B forms}:, and that the Ninth Circuit erred when it vacated those injunctions and directed the entry of judgment for the attorney general.

Chief Justice John Roberts delivered the majority opinion of the court. Justice Clarence Thomas filed a concurring opinion. Justice Samuel Alito filed a concurring opinion, joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch. Justice Sonia Sotomayor filed a dissenting opinion, joined by Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan.^[1] Click here for more information about the ruling.}:

HIGHLIGHTS

The case: Two conservative advocacy groups, the Thomas More Law Center and Americans for Prosperity, challenged a California policy requirement that tax-exempt §501(c)(3) charitable organizations must disclose the names and addresses of major donors. The groups argued that the policy violated the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. On appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled in favor of the state. Click here to learn more about the cases' background.

The issues: The cases concerned governmental disclosure requirements for charitable organizations' donor lists and the Supreme Court's decision in NAACP v. Alabama.

The questions presented: "Whether the exacting scrutiny this Court has long required of laws that abridge the freedoms of speech and association outside the election context—as called for by NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U.S. 449 (1958), and its progeny—can be satisfied absent any showing that a blanket governmental demand for the individual identities and addresses of major donors to private nonprofit organizations is narrowly tailored to an asserted law-enforcement interest."^[2]

The outcome: The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit's ruling and remanded the case for further proceedings.

The case came on a writ of certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. To review the lower court's opinion in the consolidated cases, click here.^[3]

Timeline...

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Fox News repeatedly misled viewers about Virginia’s last-minute voter purge

Fox figures are falsely claiming the Biden administration is “pushing for noncitizens to vote in the 2024 election”

Written by Casey Wexler

Published 10/31/24 2:56 PM EDT

In separate segments, Fox News legal editor Kerri Kupec Urbahn and network contributor Jonathan Turley both falsely suggested that the Biden administration is fighting against Virginia’s purge of 1,600 voters to push for noncitizens to vote. In reality the administration and civil rights groups sued to protect Virginia citizens who are legally allowed to vote — not to allow noncitizens to cast ballots — and objected to the state’s move to purge voter rolls less than 90 days before an election, which violates federal law.

Since August 7, state officials have removed 1,600 Virginia voters who were supposedly suspected to be noncitizens from the voter rolls. However, subsequent reporting found “the program has also erroneously ensnared U.S. citizens who are eligible to vote.” From NPR:

Civil rights groups and the U.S. Department of Justice had sued Virginia over the program earlier this month. U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles ruled Friday the state program violated federal law by systematically removing voters too close to a federal election.

Under the National Voter Registration Act, during the 90 days before an election, states must pause certain kinds of voter list maintenance programs that systematically remove voters to ensure mistakes aren't made too close to the election.

On October 30, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority ruled that Virginia did not have to restore those 1,600 people to the voter rolls before Election Day.

Discussing the previous lower-court decision on October 29, Urbahn did not acknowledge the missed 90-day time frame or the citizens removed from the rolls. Instead, Urbahn suggested “the Biden administration [is] pushing for noncitizens to vote in the 2024 election” and called the lawsuit to prevent citizens from being purged “bizarre” and “a bad look for DOJ,” adding that “it could have been to send a message.”

Video

CitationFrom the October, 29, 2024, edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom

On The Story with Martha MacCallum, Turley claimed that the Biden administration was actively suing specifically to allow noncitizens to vote: “You have people saying I'm not a citizen and I want to vote and we're saying we can't do that, and now the Biden-Harris administration is saying you will do that with the help of these federal courts.”

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The U.S. Supreme Court's immunity ruling in Trump v. the United States in early July has inspired so much debate and discussion that it has overshadowed another controversial Trump-related ruling handed down by the justices five months earlier: Trump v. Anderson.

In Anderson, the High Court struck down a Colorado Supreme Court ruling that excluded Trump from the state's ballot based on Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment. Under Section 3, one who has engaged in "insurrection" is ineligible to run for office — and the Colorado justices believed that the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol Building disqualified Trump.

But the Roberts Court disagreed, ruling that Trump couldn't be excluded from the Colorado ballot or any others. And two weeks before the 2024 election, Trump has a good chance of being elected president a second time. Polls are showing a very close, nail-biting race between Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.

In a biting article published by MSNBC on October 22, legal journalist Jordan Rubin argues that the High Court failed the U.S. miserably in Anderson — and that Trump shouldn't even be on the ballot.

"With former President Donald Trump on the precipice of possibly becoming president again," Rubin laments, "let's recall that he’s on the 2024 ballot thanks partly to the Supreme Court. I'm not talking about the ruling granting him broad criminal immunity, though the Roberts Court's handling of that appeal helped Trump push off a trial in the federal election interference case — possibly forever, if he wins the election and deploys his reacquired presidential power to crush it."

Rubin continues, "I'm talking about another Jan. 6-related appeal from the last Supreme Court term, one that more directly positioned the Republican to take office again: Trump v. Anderson. It was there that the justices reversed the Colorado Supreme Court's decision to keep the former president from the ballot."

Rubin argues that the Roberts Court did the U.S. a huge disservice in Anderson, allowed Trump to stay on the Colorado ballot despite having "engaged in" insurrection on January 6, 2021.

"Look no further than the Trump-backed violence of Jan. 6," Rubin writes. "So, what about the 'plain consequences,' to use the chief justice's concerned phrase, of an oath-breaking insurrectionist potentially running the country again, this time knowing he'd have broad criminal immunity heading into a second term? That consequence apparently was not 'daunting' enough to move this court."

READ MORE:['I'm out of here': Michael Cohen plans to avoid MAGA reprisal by going abroad if Trump wins

*Jordan Rubin's full MSNBC column is available at this link.

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last year, when Donald Trump’s attorneys declared he had “total immunity” from prosecution, many in the legal community scoffed. No president in all of American history had ever proclaimed they could not be convicted for serious violations of law—most infamously, President Richard Nixon had to have been keenly aware he might be criminally prosecuted.

Just eleven days after Nixon resigned the presidency in 1974, TIME reported, “Nixon’s new status as a private citizen puts him in grave peril.”

In fact, TIME continued, “the Watergate grand jury had vigorously wanted to indict Nixon while he was President.”

The American public is aware presidents can be prosecuted for certain crimes, and there is a foundational expectation of that possibility. In February of 2021, after the Democratic House impeached Donald Trump, Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell declared the ex-president should face criminal prosecution rather than impeachment.

“Donald Trump’s legal troubles are far from over, despite his acquittal in the U.S. Senate impeachment trial that ended on Saturday,” Reuters reported on February 16, 2021. “Minority Leader Mitch McConnell noted this just moments after voting to acquit Trump, saying the courts are the proper forum for holding the former president accountable for his role in the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters.”

We now know that after Special Counsel Jack Smith asked the U.S. Supreme Court to settle the claim of “presidential immunity” by Trump’s attorneys, it refused, waiting for a lower court to weigh in. Chief Justice John Roberts sent a “scathing critique of [that] lower-court decision and a startling preview of how the high court would later rule,” The New York Times reported last month.

“Behind the scenes, the chief justice molded three momentous Jan. 6 and election cases that helped determine the former president’s fate,” according to The Times’ reporting.

“’I think it likely that we will view the separation of powers analysis differently’ from the appeals court, he wrote,” The Times reported, offering this interpretation for the Chief Justice’s message: “In other words: grant Mr. Trump greater protection from prosecution.”

During oral arguments at the Supreme Court, Trump’s attorney, John Sauer, had literally argued a president could order a coup and be protected by immunity because it was an “official act” of the presidency.

IFrame Content

Sauer also argued a president could order the assassination of a political rival and still have immunity from prosecution.

- YouTub

vid]

Chief Justice Roberts responded to the “momentous trio of Jan. 6-related cases…by deploying his authority to steer rulings that benefited Mr. Trump, according to a New York Times examination that uncovered extensive new information about the court’s decision making.”

In short, the Chief Justice used his powers to intervene and craft an opinion that some experts have said creates new law—certainly nothing that is found in the U.S. Constitution.

“There’s no legal authority for it,” remarked CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen back in December.

IFrame Content

Nor, as the “originalist” far-right justices on the bench have adopted, does Chief Justice Roberts’ ruling lie in the “history and tradition” of the United States.

And yet, despite decades of history starting with Richard Nixon, and despite the scathing dissenting opinion from Justice Sonia Sotomayor, CNN reports on Tuesday, Chief Justice Roberts “was shaken by the adverse public reaction to his decision affording Trump substantial immunity from criminal prosecution. His protestations that the case concerned the presidency, not Trump, held little currency.”

“The Roberts Court has been in sync with the GOP political agenda largely because of decisions the chief justice has authored: For Trump and other Republicans. Against voting rights and racial affirmative action. Against federal regulations over environmental, public health and consumer affairs,” CNN’s Chief Supreme Court Analyst Joan Biskupic reported. “Roberts, joined by his five fellow conservatives, found that the former president was entitled to presumptive, if not absolute, immunity for actions related to his official acts. Roberts’ view of official acts, as opposed to private ones, was vast.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissenting opinion on Trump’s immunity blasted Roberts and the far-right justices, famously declaring:

“Today’s decision to grant former Presidents criminal immunity reshapes the institution of the Presidency. It makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of Government, that no man is above the law. Relying on little more than its own misguided wisdom about the need for ‘bold and unhesitating action’ by the President, the Court gives former President Trump all the immunity he asked for and more.”

She also wrote:

“The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military dissenting coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune. Let the President violate the law, let him exploit the trappings of his office for personal gain, let him use his official power for evil ends. Because if he knew that he may one day face liability for breaking the law, he might not be as bold and fearless as we would like him to be. That is the majority’s message today.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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NEW TERM

an 10 24

On the first day of its new term, the U.S. Supreme Court in an unsigned opinion upheld a lower court ruling that enforces Texas’ ban on certain emergency abortions. The Biden administration had sought to overturn the ban and enforce its policy requiring hospitals to perform the emergency, potentially life-saving procedures. The Court declined, allowing the Texas law, one of the strictest in the nation, to remain in effect.

The Biden administration had argued “that hospitals have to perform abortions in emergency situations under federal law. The administration pointed to the Supreme Court’s action in a similar case from Idaho earlier this year in which the justices narrowly allowed emergency abortions to resume while a lawsuit continues,” the Associated Press reports. “Doctors have said the [Texas] law remains dangerously vague after a medical board refused to specify exactly which conditions qualify for the exception.”

“Pregnancy terminations have long been part of medical treatment for patients with serious complications, as [a] way to to [sic] prevent sepsis, organ failure and other major problems,” the AP added. “But in Texas and other states with strict abortion bans, doctors and hospitals have said it is not clear whether those terminations could run afoul of abortion bans that carry the possibility of prison time.”

Critics are blasting Donald Trump, who has repeatedly bragged he killed Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that found a constitutional right to abortion. That ruling was overturned in 2022 by the Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision. Trump put on the Court three conservative justices after vowing to pick justices who would end Roe.

“Trump did this. These are his hand-picked justices,” charged former Fox News and CNBC contributor Julie Roginsky Monday morning after the Court’s ruling in the Texas case.

“Thanks to Trump overturning Roe, the Supreme Court just issued a ruling that woman bleeding out from a miscarriage or stroking out from pre-eclampsia can die on the ER table in Texas,” noted Democratic communications strategist Laura Chapin, adding: “Trump’s Republican Party wants women to die.”

“Trump’s Supreme Court just signed a death warrant for more Texas women,” warned Dem Socratic strategistAdam Parkhomenko.

Leigh McGowan, who runs the popular PoliticsGirl podcast, wrote: “SCOTUS confirms it’s the state’s right to let women die.

Neera Tanden, Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council responded to the AP report: “Let’s be clear that this means women’s lives take a back seat in Texas.”

===

yikes

an 8 24

Elections lawyer and Democracy Docker publisher Marc Elias has been warning that if Donald Trump loses the 2024 presidential election, his MAGA allies in key swing states have a plan to fight the election results — including some MAGA Republicans who now sit on the Georgia Board of Elections. Caputo, however, isn't the only legal expert who is sounding the alarm.

In an article published by The Atlantic on August 21, New York University law professor Bob Bauer — who served as White House counsel to former President Barack Obama — warns that Trump's allies are hoping to use the U.S. Supreme Court in their efforts to subvert traditional election rules.

"Only months before November’s elections, the Republican National Committee has launched a new legal attack on the rules that govern federal elections," Bauer explains. "Supported by 24 states, the RNC is seeking, on an emergency basis, a Supreme Court ruling that the United States Congress lacks the constitutional authority to regulate presidential elections — congressional elections, yes, but not elections held to select presidents. The petitioners' immediate goal is to allow the state of Arizona to impose a 'proof of citizenship' requirement as a condition of a person’s right to vote for president."

Bauer notes that he has been advising Democratic organizers on this lawsuit and letting them know what is at stake...

"If (Republicans) are to succeed, the Court will have to suddenly, with mere weeks left before people start voting, abandon or explain away a decision it rendered in 2013 — that Congress has the power to establish rules for voter registration in presidential elections," according to Bauer. "But even if the suit fails, it risks achieving some success in sowing doubt about the integrity of elections, highlighting claims of illegal voting by immigrants, and laying a foundation for post-election allegations of fraud and related legal challenges."

Bauer points out that the lawsuit challenges the National Voter Registration Act of 1993.

"The 'voting wars,' as the legal scholar Richard L. Hasen has termed the legal battles over elections, appear certain to rage on," Bauer writes. "They have intensified under the pressures of election denialism and the grievances of a former president over an election he will not concede he lost. Now, the Supreme Court will have to decide, whatever course this conflict takes in the years ahead, whether it will entertain novel and potentially destabilizing legal claims as election administrators complete their preparations for the fall, and the voting begins."

READ MORE:['Now is the time to resign': Lawyer sends warning to GOP election officials with plans to refuse results

*Bob Bauer's full article for The Atlantic is available at this link (subscription required).

===

2x?

scotus coup

SCOTUS 'staged a coup' and will resemble Russian courts if Trump wins: conservative expert - Alternet.org

carl gibson jun 2024

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has grown far too powerful, and could permanently alter the government established by the framers if current trends continue, according to a conservative legal expert.

On Saturday, Norman Ornstein — who is an emeritus scholar at the Koch-funded American Enterprise Institute — offered a frank and stunning condemnation of SCOTUS in a post to X (formerly Twitter). After a wave of controversial rulings in the final week of its 2023-2024 term, Ornstein opined that the Supreme Court is rapidly transforming into courts seen in authoritarian governments seen in other parts of the world.

"I wonder how long it will take before Americans wake up to the brutal reality that the US Supreme Court has staged a coup, brazenly seizing power from the other two branches in a way that is utterly contrary to the framers vision of the role of a court and a judiciary," he tweeted. "And it is crystal clear that if [former President] Donald Trump wins, the Supreme Court will be much closer to the Russian or Hungarian courts than the one in our constitution."

Ornstein's tweet comes on the heels of a busy week for SCOTUS, with justices siding with a January 6 insurrectionist in his challenge of a criminal charge against him — potentially impacting charges filed against hundreds of other participants in the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol. The Court also notably overturned 40 years of precedent after officially disposing of a long-respected legal process known as the Chevron Doctrine.

Under that doctrine — which was first established in the 1984 Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council case — courts deferred to experts within federal agencies to interpret how federal laws impact the industries those agencies are tasked with regulating. In summing up January’s oral arguments, SCOTUSBlog noted that Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson pointed out that if the Court overturned the Chevron Doctrine, it would mean policy decisions wouldn’t rest with experts working for federal agencies, but with the Court itself. After Friday's ruling overturning that precedent, the federal judiciary now has additional powers to set policy within all federal agencies.

Judges taking the place of experts in deciding how to interpret regulations could prove problematic, as Trump-appointed Justice Neil Gorsuch recently demonstrated in his opinion in a separate decision. Forbes reported that in the *Ohio v. Environmental Protection Agency* case, Gorsuch mistakenly referred to the pollutant nitrogen oxide as "nitrous oxide," which is the laughing gas used by oral hygienists.

Perhaps the most highly anticipated decision of this term is *Trump v. United States*, in which the former president is arguing that he has absolute broad criminal immunity for all official acts carried out as president. His D.C. election interference trial has been on hold while SCOTUS considered his argument, which was already rejected by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and by a D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals panel. Despite flags seen flying outside two of conservative Justice Samuel Alito's homes that were carried by insurrectionists, the justice refused calls to recuse, and Chief Justice John Roberts declined to meet with two members of the Senate Judiciary Committee to discuss the incidents.

Ornstein isn't alone in his view of the Roberts Court becoming an increasingly partisan institution. Earlier this week, Newsweek reported that multiple federal judges appointed by both Democratic and Republican presidents are casting doubt on the Court's ability to rule on cases in an objective manner.

David S. Tatel, who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton to the D.C. Circuit, wrote in his memoir that his "low regard" for SCOTUS prompted him to retire from the bench.

"My views, I think, are widely shared throughout the judicial system," Tatel said. "Obviously, there are people who don't agree with them, but there are, I can assure you, a large number of judges who will not find anything I've said in this book surprising."

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AN 9 24

alternet NO LNX

From moderate to manipulator: Behind the unmasking of John Roberts

WASHINGTON — John Roberts may have a robe. Still, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court has no clothes, according to Democrats who are outraged to bewildered by new reporting that paints the nation’s most potent jurist as a masterful MAGA manipulator.

Congressional Democrats are accusing Roberts of bending, twisting and contorting the Supreme Court — along with the Constitution he swore an oath to — to fit former President Donald Trump and the allegedly illegal actions he took that have kept him tied up in state and federal courts alike since he left the White House four years ago.

New illustrious, behind-the-scenes reporting from the New York Times reveals Roberts personally directed the court’s three historic Jan. 6, 2021 rulings, including the one granting presidents sweeping immunity from criminal prosecution for their “official acts.”

Democrats are now redoubling their efforts to make the high court a centerpiece of this year’s elections as they continue their uphill battle to pass meaningful ethics reforms to try and rein the high court in.

“Chief Justice Roberts exudes much more of an establishment aura about him, but he really has been a crucial force behind the degradation of constitutional jurisprudence on the Supreme Court,” Rep, Jamie Raskin (D-MD) — a Constitutional lawyer and law professor by trade — told Raw Story after digesting the illuminating new reporting.

According to the scoop-strewn NYT piece by Jodi Kantor and Adam Liptak, Roberts authored a Feb. 22 memo to his eight colleagues “that radiated frustration and certainty” regarding the monumental cases winding through lower courts centered on efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

While revelatory, sadly, the new reporting on the Roberts Court isn’t surprising to Raskin.

ALSO READ: The simple yet powerful way Tim Walz just exposed Donald Trump

“It's what anybody can see in reading their decisions. We know what's going on there. They're not textualists — they completely ignored the text of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment,” Raskin said. “They're not originalists — nobody even made an originalist argument about why the president of the United States should be immune from criminal prosecution for felonies he commits under the cloak of office. And, you know, they have really drifted a long way from any recognizable constitutional jurisprudence of interpretation.”

The carefully manicured image of Roberts as a moderate is now melting away. It’s left Democrats on Capitol Hill debating how to restore public confidence in a Supreme Court many in the party and the public have lost faith in.

“Very short-term thinking”

It’s more than just Chief Justice Roberts moving in the shadows to orchestrate this year’s three seemingly pro-Trump Jan. 6 rulings. Accusations of corruption are also in the air.

Coupled with the estimated $4.2 million in gifts Justice Clarence Thomas reportedly openly accepted from Republican megadonors over the years, as first reported by ProPublica, many Democrats now fear this Supreme Court has been weaponized by the far-right.

“His court's going to go down as the most corrupt in history and, honestly, the most political in history, too,” Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) — a former U.S. ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein — told Raw Story on the Capitol steps this week.

Then there’s the luxurious all-expense paid fishing trip Justice Samuel Alito accepted from billionaire Paul Singer, which he publicly defended in the op-ed pages of The Wall Street Journal.

Not to mention the politicking. There’s the upside-down American flag that proudly flew outside the Alito’s Northern Virginia home in the wake of the 2021 attack on the Capitol and the “Appeal to Heaven” flag flapping in the ocean breeze outside the Alito’s New Jersey beach house, both of which the justice blames on his wife, Martha-Ann.

As for Thomas, he refused to recuse himself from the monumental J6 cases even after his wife Ginni — and the string of conspiratorial text messages she sent to then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows — was found to be central to Trump’s efforts to overturn the last presidential election.

“It might not be illegal, but it certainly should scare the hell out of every American that somebody with that kind of access and power and proximity to a Supreme Court justice can be pushing that type of nonsense," former Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-VA) — who served as a technical advisor to the select Jan. 6 committee — told Raw Story back in 2022. “The text messages validate that many elected officials believed it.”

Critics are left questioning where the high court ends and the RNC begins.

“I'm naive. I was raised to think that the justices were there to look at the Constitution and the law and work together to find the best decision for the American people. Now they're a function of the Republican Party, which the court never was before,” Don Beyer said. “Very short-term thinking. If we look at our 40-some-odd presidents, only one would it apply to.”

The five-term congressman says Supreme Court justices — especially the chief justice — need to open their eyes because, to him and an expanding chorus of critics, there’s nothing partisan about Democrat’s fears.

“There's no other Republican president I would have worried about,” Beyer said. “Not George Herbert Walker Bush or Ronald Reagan or Gerald Ford — certainly none of our Democratic presidents — but this one. It isn't like he's conferring an advantage on the next Democratic president who will do whatever he wants — no.”

The nakedly political and grossly unethical turn of the Roberts Court weighs on the 74-year-old.

“Incredibly discouraging. I've been discouraged by Justice Roberts for a long time,” Beyer said. “I know the judiciary’s independent — I don't ever want to interfere — but the fact that he could let the ethical abuses go on and on, no treatment whatsoever, which is, I mean, the greatest discouragement.”

Last year, after months of punishing press coverage, Roberts reversed himself and signed off on a new, if unenforced, Supreme Court Code of Conduct. It was unanimous.

These days, the signatures of all nine Supreme Court justices also make the document almost worthless, at least to many lawmakers across the street at the Capitol.

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission

Throughout this session of Congress, Democrats on the Judiciary Committee in the Senate have relentlessly tried to impose mandatory and enforceable ethics rules on Supreme Court justices—basically, the same ones that apply to every other federal judge in the nation. Republicans have been united in blocking every such effort.

Senate Republicans have the back of the conservative majority on the Roberts Court, much like Roberts has advanced the agenda of congressional Republicans.

“If you go back and look at the most anti-democratic decisions of the Supreme Court — the immunity decision being one, but the little array of insurrection decisions, of which it was a part of in the threesome that's in this article — you see a lot of backstage maneuvering by the chief justice,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) told Raw Story as he walked through the basement of the Capitol. “It reminds me of the backstage maneuvering by the chief justice that brought us Citizens United.”

The former Rhode Island attorney general and U.S. attorney is the second highest ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee where he’s been pushing the SCERT — or Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal and Transparency — Act, which would place a binding code of conduct and mandatory disclosure requirements on the justices.

Ethics reform is one thing. Unlimited corporate funding is another corrosive element of contemporary American politics altogether.

Democrats are still smarting from Citizens United and the floodgates of political spending it unleashed. The chief justice also deftly moved behind the scenes to manipulate that 2010 ruling, Whitehouse readily recalls.

“Remember, [Roberts] had to restructure the case. He changed the question presented. He set up the case so that there would be no record — actual record,” Whitehouse recalled. “He changed the standard.”

That was a bipartisan complaint in that Senate of a bygone, if recent, era. The ruling led then-Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) — who co-authored the McCain-Feingold law that Citizens United decimated — to publicly and personally call out Chief Justice Roberts.

"I am more disappointed in him than any of the other four that voted to overturn McCain-Feingold," McCain said back in 2012.

Republicans beg to differ

Roberts indeed has allies. Lots of them. Powerful ones. And they’re laughing in Democrat’s faces.

Republican Party leaders, like former Senate Whip John Cornyn (R-TX) — who’s running to replace Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell — basically just avoid critics and critical reporting, like the New York Times just dropped, these days.

“I think I saw the headline — that's about all,” Cornyn told Raw Story while hopping a tram under the Capitol.

Before arriving in Washington in 2002, Cornyn served on the Texas Supreme Court. He says Roberts shouldn’t even entertain what his senatorial critics have to say.

“He's got lifetime tenure,” Cornyn said through a laugh. “I wouldn't be taking advice from members of Congress on how to do my job if I was him, either.”

Just as they have with Justices Thomas and Alito — no matter the latest eye-popping revelation — today’s Republicans have united around the Chief Justice, as if they are one.

“Even without having read it, I think extremely highly of him and believe him to be a person with the utmost integrity and dedicated to the independence of the courts,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) told Raw Story as she walked through the Capitol Wednesday.

Collins must not have gotten the memo from her Democratic colleagues.

The ‘court packing’ myth

Many pundits hailed Roberts for opposing the overturning of Roe v. Wade, but in the Dobbs decision, he lost out to the five Republican appointees on ‘his’ court who are seemingly even further right than he is.

Many progressives weren’t buying the righteous, caring and politically aloof version of himself Roberts portrayed back then, and they say this latest reporting shows they were right.

“That's interesting how there's sort of this story out there that Roberts was like a moderate and mediator. And the [NYT] story would suggest that’s not really necessarily the case,” Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) told Raw Story after voting on the Senate floor this week.

While Republican rhetoric paints all elected Democrats — from the top of the party’s presidential ticket on down — as wanting to expand, or ‘pack,’ the court, only three Senate Democrats have formally endorsed a progressive measure to expand the size of the court, as Raw Story reported last month.

Smith and Massachusetts Democratic Sens. Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren are the three who’ve publicly endorsed Markey’s measure to expand the size of the Supreme Court. That’s it.

Even with all the negative press, Smith says other Senate Democrats haven’t approached them about their measure to expand the size of the court.

“I haven't heard any,” Smith said.

That doesn’t mean her colleagues aren’t discussing the Roberts Court.

“There's a lot of conversation about the court and challenges to the court,” Smith said. “Once we get through this election and we have a better understanding of what the landscape is, we'll talk more about it.”

Or maybe they won’t.

“We're not going to get expansion”

Some Democrats have already basically, shut the door on the conversation of expanding the court. Many just don’t see it as a practical solution.

“We're not going to get expansion,” Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) told Raw Story on his way to a vote in the Capitol Wednesday. “There's a lot of downside to expansion — we expand, they expand — and it politicizes it.”

As President Joe Biden proposed back in July, Welch and most congressional Democrats now support instituting an 18-year term limit for the nation’s justices.

“First of all, that's a very substantial term, and they're inside, so they have the benefit of protections,” Welch argued. “And then number two, every president is going to have an opportunity to appoint two members, so that means the American people get to weigh in indirectly by choosing the president. I think it would really take the extreme politics out of the court.”

As for Roberts, Welch is no fan of the jurist he’s predicting historians will frown upon.

“He’s very skillful and, unfortunately, a driving force, I think, in the radical redirection of the court,” Welch bemoaned to Raw Story. “The court has got an extreme radical majority. It's lost public respect.”

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an 9 24

Progressive legal expert Elie Mystal, in his blistering condemnation of the U.S. Supreme Court's controversial 6-3 immunity ruling in Trump v. the United States, has made a major distinction between "qualified immunity" and "absolute immunity."

The High Court's decision, Mystal has argued, is dangerous to the rule of law in the U.S. because it grants Trump and future presidents "absolutely immunity" — not merely "qualified immunity" — from criminal prosecution for "official" acts committed as part of their "core" duties.

Even some frequent critics of the Roberts Court were shocked by how far the six GOP-appointed justices went in that ruling. But a memo leaked to the New York Times shows that Chief Justice John Roberts encouraged this outcome.

Salon's Nicholas Liu explains, "John Roberts, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, on February 22, issued a memo to his colleagues urging them not only to take up an appeal from former President Donald Trump over his immunity claim, but also, to rule in favor of granting him that immunity…. The document, along with other justices' memos, accounts of the proceedings and testimony from sources the Times interviewed, offers a window into Roberts' high level of involvement in several cases that benefited Trump and ultimately helped him climb out of a mire of legal troubles that threatened to upend his 2024 presidential campaign."

According to Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Adam Liptak, the February 22 memo that Roberts sent to the eight other justices "radiated frustration and certainty."

Liu notes that the memo is relevant not only to Trump v. the United States, but also, to the High Court's 14th Amendment-related case decision involving the former president.

"Roberts exerted his influence in March this year, when he persuaded the other judges to rule that states could not unilaterally kick federal candidates from a ballot," Liu observes. "While the judges agreed unanimously on the matter, the Court's liberals dissented to an additional proposition that anyone seeking to enforce the Constitution's 14th Amendment against insurrectionist candidates running for office would need to first obtain congressional approval."

READ MORE:[Pro-Trump natural gas CEO warns ex-president’s 'drill, baby, drill' slogan is 'not the answer'

Roberts' memo, according to Kantor and Liptak, vehemently disagreed with a lower federal court ruling that tore apart Trump's presidential immunity claims.

The Times journalists report, "The chief justice’s February 22 memo, jump-starting the justices’ formal discussion on whether to hear the case, offered a scathing critique of a lower-court decision and a startling preview of how the high court would later rule, according to several people from the court who saw the document. The chief justice tore into the appellate court opinion greenlighting Mr. Trump’s trial, calling it inadequate and poorly reasoned."

READ MORE:['He was ill-prepared': Karl Rove rips debate prep team after Harris successfully 'baits' Trump

*Read the New York Times' full report at this link (subscription required) and Salon's analysis here.

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an 9 24

Whether former President Donald Trump is ever truly held accountable for his crimes depends entirely upon the outcome of the November election. And as The Atlantic's Quinta Jurecic writes, he largely has the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) to thank for that.

In her Wednesday essay, Jurecic — a senior editor at Lawfare — laid out how SCOTUS' 6-3 conservative supermajority has consistently been the former president's strongest ally in his efforts to stay out of prison. She posited that Trump may already be behind bars after being found guilty of 34 felonies in New York earlier this year were it not for SCOTUS' assistance in his stalling tactics.

According to Jurecic, the Court signaled that it would be playing a significant role in the former president's efforts to delay criminal accountability when it granted a*writ of certiorari* to hear Trump's argument for absolute broad criminal immunity. The Court's decision to hear the case despite both U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan and the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals agreeing that the president was not above the law meant that the final decision in Trump v. United States wouldn't be announced until just a few months before the election.

After the 6-3 decision was handed down in July, Trump was then able to leverage that in two or his four criminal cases in New York and Washington, D.C. Jurecic explained that thanks to the decision's vague wording — in which presidents are granted immunity for "official acts" but lower courts have to decide what constitutes an "official act" — Trump's delay campaign is aided by legal murkiness.

Judge Chutkan noted in a recent hearing that her decisions could still be subject to reversal by SCOTUS "no matter what I do." This means that despite given latitude by SCOTUS to decide how the immunity ruling is to be applied in her courtroom, conservatives on the SCOTUS bench could still end up throwing out her decisions if they don't approve of them.

"[H]ow is she to identify the fuzzy line between unofficial and official conduct? The Supreme Court has provided precisely no guidance. According to a scheduling order that Chutkan released following last week’s hearing, the briefing alone on the immunity question will take until October 29, six days before the election," Jurecic wrote. "And, importantly, because the Court also indicates that Trump can immediately appeal any decision from lower courts on these questions—what’s known as an 'interlocutory appeal'—whatever Chutkan does could well be subject to months and months of additional litigation."

Jurecic noted that the original July sentencing date for Trump's felony convictions that was pushed back to September was once again delayed until late November — weeks after the presidential election. She argued this abundance of caution from Judge Juan Merchan is not his own doing, but rather the situation he was forced into thanks to the massive legal grey area created by the Trump v. United States decision.

"For those who hoped that Trump might finally face criminal accountability before the election, this is a frustrating dodge—another example of the legal system’s apparent inability to hold Trump responsible for his actions," she wrote. "But the real villain here isn’t Bragg or Merchan, who are doing their best to carry out justice under difficult circumstances. It’s the Supreme Court, which created an unmanageable situation that played directly into Trump’s goal of delaying a legal reckoning."

"None of this was preordained. The Supreme Court didn’t need to take up the immunity case to begin with. Once it did, the overwhelming majority of experts and commentators—myself included—expected that, at most, the Court would fashion a rule carving out some limited category of immunized conduct, perhaps creating difficulties in the January 6 case but certainly not creating problems in New York," she continued. "Instead, the conservative justices issued a ruling that not only established a sweeping and poorly defined immunity but also created so many avenues for challenge and confusion that the Court functionally collaborated in Trump’s strategy of delay."

Click here to read Jurecic's full essay in the Atlantic.

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an 8 24

Since becoming the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris has faced pressure to unveil a comprehensive policy agenda. But one recent Supreme Court (SCOTUS) decision could complicate her efforts to implement any robust policies even if she becomes the 47th president of the United States.

According to the New Republic's Jason Linkins, there's "a dark shadow that hangs over everything" as Harris rolls out her policy proposals: The 2024 *Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo* decision. In the landmark decision announced in late June toward the very end of SCOTUS' most recent term, the Court's six conservatives notably threw out 40 years of precedent known as the "Chevron deference."

Linkins argued that decision "puts the future of any policy that Harris favors in grave doubt," adding that Loper Bright gives "six unelected right-wing politicians who all enjoy a lifetime appointment a line-item veto over anything a Democratic Congress — and by extension Harris — wants to do, unless they can muster the votes to confront each problem they want to solve with an inhuman amount of hyper-specificity."

"If you want the Harris campaign to get more detailed on policy, I’m sorry to say that any conversation starts and ends with how they plan to confront a Supreme Court that has torched the separation of powers in themad game of Calvinball they kicked off during the Trump era," Linkins wrote.

Prior to Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, the matter of how to interpret the application of federal regulations was at the discretion of the various government agencies tasked with regulating certain industries. This was made official by the 1984 *Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council* case, which was a 6-3 decision ruling that the judiciary "must give effect to the unambiguously expressed intent of Congress" in matters concerning the practical application of federal statutes.

But after this term, the power previously vested in federal agencies to interpret statutes regarding the regulation of the private sector now lies with the courts themselves. Justice Neil Gorsuch (appointed by former President Donald Trump) illustrated judges' lack of practical knowledge in his concurring opinion in the *Ohio v. Environmental Protection Agency* ruling issued just a day prior to Loper Bright. Gorsuch erroneously referred to the pollutant nitrogen oxide as "nitrous oxide," which is the laughing gas used by dentists.

In his article, Linkins made the case that SCOTUS "really is the most critical policy issue in this election." He cited the Supreme Court's July *Trump v. United States* case — in which the Court's conservatives agreed that presidents should have absolute broad immunity from criminal prosecution for anything deemed an "official act" — as an example of the nation's highest court now essentially acting as a "super-legislature in black robes."

"[E]ven if they blow the GOP out of the water electorally, the end of Chevron deference is a fail-safe against Democratic policy, constantly running in the background as long as five of the six conservatives on the Roberts court agree. In this way, Harris and her fellow Democrats are locked out of liberal governance," he wrote. "Since liberal governance will form the cornerstone of anything Harris and Democrats want to do during her time in office, a confrontation with a Supreme Court that’s holding the policymaking apparatus hostage is not a fight they can duck."

Linkins contended that Democrats need to make the case to voters that "the Roberts court is the primary antagonist to making things better, easier, safer, and fairer for ordinary Americans," calling SCOTUS conservatives "despoilers of the land and pilferers of our wealth." And he noted that it may be "time to revisit court-packing."

"Anything you might want an ascendant Democratic administration to do faces the judicial veto of right-wingers who can’t be voted out of office," he wrote. "[W]hether you’re a progressive fan of Medicare for All, or a centrist dedicated to means-tested, watered-down bulls—, you’re all in the same boat, so grab an oar."

Click here to read Linkins' full article in the New Republic.

READ MORE:['Loss of trust': Growing chorus of federal judges speak out against 'out of step' SCOTUS

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an 8 24

alternet-NO LNX

A mysterious group of Republicans is secretly rewriting the Constitution

building during day

Thom Hartmann August 30, 2024

Republicans have pulled off a coup against an entire branch of government, and nobody seems to have noticed. But if you pay attention, it’s shocking.

Sometimes you can learn as much from attending to what Republicans suddenly stop saying as from what they are talking about. In this case, it’s their half-century-long obsession with convening a constitutional convention to rewrite the US Constitution. Under Article V of our Constitution, when two-thirds of the states formally call for a “con-con” to rewrite our nation’s founding document, it officially comes into being.

They can then make small changes like enshrining the right of billionaires and corporations to bribe judges and politicians, or insert the doctrine of corporate personhood into the document, or simply throw the whole thing out and start over. Many on the right are hoping to insert a national ban on abortion into a new constitution; others want to end the right of women to vote, do away with all antidiscrimination laws, outlaw labor unions, or return the selection of senators to the states.

So far, 19 Republican-controlled states have signed on to a call for for a convention under Article V. The project, heavily funded by rightwing billionaires, even has its own website: conventionofstates.com. Consider just a sampling of recent GOP supporters of the project:

— Senator Marco Rubio: “One of the things I’m going to do on my first day in office is I will put the prestige and power of the presidency behind a constitutional convention of the states.”

— Governor Greg Abbott: “We need a Convention of States to restore the rule of law in America.”

— Governor Ron DeSantis: “An Article V Convention of States is the best way to bring power back to the states and the people.”

— Congressman Jodey Arrington: “We need to go back to our founding document, back to our Constitution, and put the restraints on Congress that our founders intended.”

— Senator Ted Cruz: “An Article V Convention of States is a powerful tool given to us by the Founders to rein in the federal government.”

— Senator Rand Paul: “I’m a big fan of the Convention of States project. I think it’s the solution to Washington’s overreach.”

But over the past year, Republicans have suddenly fallen silent on the issue. Project 2025, for example, the all-encompassing wish-list for the GOP and its billionaire owners, lacks even one single mention of a constitutional convention.

Why would this be?

The simple and obvious answer is that Republicans are rewriting the Constitution right now, this year and last, through their proxies among the six corrupt Republicans on the US Supreme Court.

Having succeeded in seizing the Court, the GOP has been able to relax about their plan to call a convention. So far, just in the past two years, Republicans on the Court have taken an ax to the Constitution. They have:

— Turned presidents who are inclined to break the law into kings or monarchs who are no longer accountable to police, courts, or juries, essentially rewriting Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution.

— Ended the constitutional rights of women to their own bodies, ignoring or rewriting the 1st, 4th, 9th, and 14th Amendments to the Constitution.

— Gutted the power of federal agencies to protect consumers and our environment, essentially rewriting Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution.

— Fully legalized the bribery of politicians so long as the bribes are paid after the deed is done (making it a “tip”) rather than before (which the Court said would still be a bribe) overriding multiple constitutional prohibitions on bribery.

— Overturned parts of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act to legalize racially discriminatory gerrymandering where it benefits Republicans.

— Rewritten the Second Amendment and legalized bump stocks to put functionally fully-automatic weapons of war on our streets.

And, it appears, they’re just getting warmed up. Next year could see an end to gay marriage, contraception for single people, the abortion pill, the right to possess pornography (which they get to define) or read “banned” books, any meaningful regulation of billionaire-owned social media, further gutting of union rights, and the insertion of religion into schools nationwide…among other things.

Given how radical and willing they are to overturn established law, constitutional doctrine, and to create new law or constitutional doctrine out of thin air, it’s easy to see why Republicans would shift their efforts away from trying to rewrite the Constitution and toward supporting their shills on the Court.

This has not gone unnoticed by President Biden and his Democratic colleagues. Last month, when the six corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court ruled that presidents can commit crimes without consequences if they call them “official acts,” President Biden spoke out with an uncharacteristic ferocity:

“This decision today has continued the Court’s attack in recent years on a wide range of long-established legal principles in our nation, from gutting voting rights and civil rights to taking away a woman’s right to choose to today’s decision that undermines the rule of law of this nation.”

Two weeks later, The Washington Post reported:

“President Biden is finalizing plans to endorse major changes to the Supreme Court in the coming weeks, including proposals for legislation to establish term limits for the justices and an enforceable ethics code, according to two people briefed on the plans.”

With Vice President Harris having replaced President Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket, and the House still under the control of extremist Republicans under Mike Johnson, it appears that President Biden’s Supreme Court agenda has receded into the background.

But Vice President Harris and Governor Walz should be (and almost certainly are) putting considerable attention and work into how to restrain the Supreme Court from doing further violence to our constitutional system of government once they’re in office.

It must be, in fact, their first order of business, for two major reasons.

The first is that several of the rulings by Republicans on the Court have had the effect of amplifying and solidifying Republican control over the nation. By single-handedly overturning the voting rights act and legalizing bribery by billionaires, they’ve created a political imbalance that fails to represent the people of our country and instead just does what their favorite billionaires and giant corporations want.

As Michael Moore reports, multiple polls have found in recent years:

— 90% of Americans want stronger gun control laws

— 89% want an end to partisan and racial gerrymandering

— 84% want free pre-kindergarten

— 79% want the morbidly rich and corporations to pay their damn taxes

— 76% want a higher minimum wage

— 73% want an end to student debt and free college

— 72% want action on the climate crisis and money out of politics

— 71% want an end to union-busting

— 70% want marijuana legalized nationwide

— 69% want to maintain gay marriage and abortion rights

— 65% want to end the electoral college and put term limits on SCOTUS justices

None of these things are happening because of the Republican lock on the Supreme Court, the third and unelected branch of government which is today only beholden to whichever billionaire offers individual members the best gifts, goodies, and expensive vacations.

Had the actual winners of the national vote become president in 2000 and 2016, the only Republican on the Court today would be Clarence Thomas, and America would be a very different nation.

Instead, we’ve had two illegitimate Republican presidents who essentially packed the Court. Sandra Day O’Connor was clear about why she cast the tie-breaking vote to hand the presidency to Bush in 2000: she told friends she didn’t want her replacement to be chosen by Al Gore. And, of course, Trump would never have become president without help from Vladimir Putin.

These Republicans on the Supreme Court, five of the six appointed by presidents who lost the national vote, are the main reason why Americans can’t have nice things — from a national healthcare system to free college to a functioning democracy that does what the majority of its citizens want — like every other democracy in the world.

The second reason Harris and Walz should be preparing to act immediately after they’re sworn into office on January 20th of next year (G-d willing!) is that a president’s power is at its peak the moment she takes office. After that, it’s largely downhill, as opposition politicians and the press pile on and even members of their own party begin to highlight cracks in the new administration’s policy chops.

This is why FDR, LBJ, Reagan, Obama, and Bidenall got so much done in their first 100 days. If they hadn’t started out with their top and most controversial priorities, they never would have been able to get to them.

And, because the cancer at the heart of our democracy is currently centered in the Supreme Court, it’s why President Harris and Governor Walt must focus their energy and political capital on taking on this out-of-control Supreme Court’s power as soon as they take office.

===

an ah 8 24

With its 6-3 GOP supermajority, the U.S. Supreme Court is now, critics say, dominated by hard-right ideologues. But in an article published on August 12, Vox's Ian Millhiser warns that the High Court could move even further to the right if former President Donald Trump defeats Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. And if that happens, Millhiser argues, there is a good chance that the First Amendment will suffer.

"The good news for proponents of free speech is that, based on the Court's most recent First Amendment decisions, it does appear to have a 6-3 majority in favor of preserving the post-1960s understanding of that amendment," Millhiser writes. "The bad news is that there are three justices willing to drastically shrink the protections offered by that amendment. And those three could easily swell to five if former President Donald Trump gets to appoint more justices to the Court."

Millhiser adds, "Justice Sonia Sotomayor, one member of the Court's pro-free speech majority, is now 70. Chief Justice John Roberts, another member of that majority, will turn 70 shortly after the next president is inaugurated."

The Vox journalist notes that Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch "have openly called for New York Times v. Sullivan (1964), the fount of press freedom in the United States, to be overruled" — and Trump agrees with them.

"More broadly, Sullivan stands for the proposition that state governments cannot use defamation law to maliciously target the press," Millhiser explains. "If a reporter makes a serious error, that reporter may still be liable for defamation. But governments that want to shut down a newspaper cannot simply wait until a reporter misremembers which song was sung at a rally, and then pounce with a multi-million-dollar lawsuit."

Millhiser points out that many times in U.S. history, the First Amendment has come under attack — from the Comstock Act to Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wisconsin) "ramping up his witch hunts against suspected communists."

"In the American system, where justices serve until they retire or die, no one can be sure how much power each president will have to reshape the Constitution," the Vox journalist observes. "A vote for Trump is a vote to roll the dice on a drastically different vision of free speech in the United States — one that bears far more resemblance to the not-so-distant past than it does to anything most modern-day Americans have experienced."

READ MORE:[Inside the GOP plot to silence Texas voters

*Read the full Vox article at this link.

===

“Disdains democracy': Chief justice’s role in Trump immunity sparks outrage from legal experts](https://www.alternet.org/scotus-trump/) an 7 24

===

an 7 24 no add seats, term limit, apt every 2 yrs?

Biden lays out '3 bold reforms' for confronting Supreme Court 'crisis of ethics' - Alternet.org

'BFD': Biden plan to reform 'rogue' Supreme Court hailed by experts as 'remarkable'

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an 7 24

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon in a 93-page opinion has dismissed the Espionage Act/classified documents case against ex-president Donald Trump, claiming Special Counsel Jack Smith’s appointment by Attorney General Merrick Garland “violates the Appointments Clause of the United States Constitution.” Legal experts, calling her ruling “wrong,” say U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is to blame.

Donald Trump was indicted by a grand jury on 37 felony charges, 31 of them under the Espionage Act, in the case related to his alleged unlawful removal, retention, and refusal to return hundreds of documents, many classified, some top secret, and some so secret they include the nation’s nuclear secrets.

“There’s no case any more, it’s been dismissed,” observed former U.S. Attorney Chuck Rosenberg, a former Counselor to the U.S. Attorney General, on MSNBC. He said he is “confident” Judge Cannon’s ruling would be appealed.

Politico’s Kyle Cheney reported the bombshell news:

IFrame Content

Other legal experts agree.

“This ruling (which is wrong six ways from Sunday) can (and will) be immediately appealed to the Eleventh Circuit,” wrote professor of law Steve Vladeck. “To me, the only question is whether the Special Counsel also asks for the case to be reassigned on remand…”

Former federal civil rights prosecutor Dr. Kristy Parker, Counsel at Protect Democracy, said: “Hard to characterize how wrong this is — at least in a world where law matters. We may not be in that world any longer.”

Last month in oral arguments the argument Smith’s appointment was unlawful was made to Cannon, MSNBC’s Lisa Rubin noted Monday morning, saying that the judge appeared at the time to dismiss that claim.

“People tried this against Special Counsel Robert Muller,” MSNBC’s Ken Dilanian stressed, “and were unsuccessful and it’s really important to point out and so viewers understand there’s nothing in this opinion that speaks to the merits of this case, to the classified documents to the allegations of obstruction of justice. This is an entirely procedural issue. It’s a constitutional question. It’s whether whether the law establishing the Special Counsel violates the appointments clause, and she also actually made a ruling on a separate argument about the appropriations clause. And and she, and she’s decided that the way Congress is funding the way the Special Counsel is funded, is not appropriate either.”

Constitutional law professor and political scientist Anthony Michael Kreis described the dismissal as “Insanity.”

Noting today is also the start of the 2024 Republican National Convention, founder and Executive Director of Protect Democracy, Ian Bassin, a former Associate White House Counsel, blasted the Trump-appointed judge:

“Cannon likely thought releasing her latest gift to Trump at the opening of the RNC would help him, but changing today’s headlines to a pic reminding that Trump stole our nation’s most sensitive nat’l security docs and hid them in his bathroom may not be the gift she thinks it is.”

Cannon likely thought releasing her latest gift to Trump at the opening of the RNC would help him, but changing today’s headlines to a pic reminding that Trump stole our nation’s most sensitive nat’l security docs and hid them in his bathroom may not be the gift she thinks it is. pic.twitter.com/9aUEg3yGLh

— Ian Bassin 🇺🇸 (@ianbassin) July 15, 2024

MSNBC legal analyst Joyce Vance, a former U.S. Attorney called Cannon’s decision, “Absolutely incredible,” while concurring the ruling will be appealed.

“That’s it,” she added. “Unless the 11th Circuit & ultimately SCOTUS disagree, Trump goes free for walking out of the White House with top secret documents. At best, this is seriously delayed. Disgusted.”

Some legal experts, including Vance, point to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ separate concurrence in the Trump immunity case as giving Judge Cannon the roadmap to come to this decision.

“This was the argument advanced by Justice Thomas in his concurrence in Trump v. US, which no other Justice signed into at the time,” Vance noted.

Professor of law Leah Litman observed, “Justice Thomas’s ‘Cannon-currence’ worked.”

Parenthetically, she explained, “In the Trump immunity case, Justice Thomas wrote separately to suggest the special counsel was unlawfully appointed; the reasoning laid out the roadmap for this (wrong) result/decision.”

“Justice Thomas strikes again,” wrote professor of law Melisa Murray. “Not only did a majority of the Court give presidents almost unfettered license in the immunity case, Justice Thomas concurred separately to question the constitutionality of the special counsel. He laid the table and Judge Cannon took a seat.”

“Surprising absolutely no one,” observed legal journalist Cristian Farias. “This is a Federalist Society pipe dream, one they could never achieve during the Mueller years. And precisely what Clarence Thomas, all alone, suggested should happen in the Trump immunity case.”

But, he added, “This is not the end.”

Read the social media posts above or at this link.

---

https://hartmannreport.com/p/demolishing-chevron-deference-republicans-9b4

n 1904, O. Henry coined the phrase “banana republic” to describe a country where the government supports big business for the exclusive benefit of the morbidly rich. A government of, by, and for what that generation called the “fatcats” or the “robber barons.”

The banana republic-ication of America just kicked into high gear, and, curiously, there’s been a virtual mainstream media blackout about it.

Here’s how it’s happening.

When Steve Bannon was in the Trump White House, he declared one of their goals was to “deconstruct the administrative state.” That same type of language also appears in Project 2025.

Now, fewer than two weeks ago, the six Republicans on the Supreme Court began that process by kneecapping the ability of regulatory agencies to protect the American people from out-of-control polluters, rip-off banks and insurance companies, Big Pharma, and hundreds of other industries and massive corporations that put profits above humans.

They did it by blowing up the Chevron Deference. It’s part of their long-term commitment to turning America into a billionaire- and corporate-run banana republic with an autocrat as president.

The case ofLoper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondoends the power of most regulatory agencies that are so hated by America’s most exploitative industries and the rightwing billionaires they’ve made.

As Senators Whitehouse, Hirono, Feinstein, and Warren noted:

“This case is the product of a decades-long effort by pro-corporate interests to eviscerate the federal government's regulatory apparatus, to the detriment of the American people.”

So, how did the Supreme Court put the EPA and other regulatory agencies functionally out of business?

It has to do with something called the Chevron deference, a policy established by the Court decades ago to protect just such agencies.

Here’s how regulatory law — using the example of the EPA — issupposedto work (in super-simplified form):

1. Congress passes a law that says, for example, that the Environmental Protection Agency should limit the damage that pollutants in the environment cause to the planet. Congress (the Constitution’s Article I branch of government) defines the broad goal of the legislation, but the Executive Branch (Article II, which encompasses the EPA and other regulatory agencies) has the responsibility to carry it out.

2. The EPA, part of that Executive Branch and answering both to the law and the President, then convenes panels of experts. They spend a year or more doing an exhaustive, deep dive into the science, coming up with dozens or even hundreds of suggestions to limit airborne pollutants, ranging from rules on how much emission cars can expel to drilling and refining processes that may leak or pour poisons into our atmosphere, waters, etc.

3. The experts’ suggestions are then run past a panel of rule-making bureaucrats and hired-gun rule-making experts for the EPA to decide what the standards should be. They take into consideration the current abilities of industry and the costs versus the benefits of various rules, among other things.

After they’ve come up with those tentative regulations, they submit them for public review and hearings. When that process is done and a consensus is achieved, they make them into official EPA rules, publish them, enforce them, and the deadly emissions begin to drop.

This is how it worked, for example, with regard to CO2 until June of last year, a process that simply comports with common sense, as the Supreme Court ruled in 1984 when they established theChevron deferenceto legitimize and defend our regulatory agencies.

Functionally, this process dates back to 1887, when Congress established America’s first regulatory agency — the Interstate Commerce Commission — to prevent railroads from ripping off shippers and passengers.

It was nailed into law and doctrine with the Chevron deference, articulated by the Supreme Court in 1984, reflecting a century-and-a-half of the will of Congress and presidents of both parties who signed regulatory agencies into existence. It says that once a regulatory agency does its due diligence and determines reasonable rules for a substance or behavior, they then have the legal authority to regulate and the courts should “defer” to the agency (thus the “deference” in the doctrine that emerged from the ruling when Chevron tried to negate an EPA ruling in 1984).

Congress passes laws that empower regulatory agencies to solve problems, the agencies figure out how to do that and put the rules into place, and the solutions get enforced by the agencies. And when somebody sues to overturn the rules, if the courts determine they were arrived at through a reasonable process without corruption, those rules stand.

Then came a group of rightwing Supreme Court justices — including Neil Gorsuch (the son of Reagan’s EPA Administrator, Anne Gorsuch, who resigned in disgrace after trying to destroy the agency — who overturned rules made by the EPA about CO2 emissions from power plants in their June, 2022 West Virginia v EPA decision, taking the first big bite out of the Chevron deference.

Their rationale was that because the legislation that created the EPA doesn’t specifically mention “regulating CO2” but instead let the EPA itself determine what pollutants are dangerous to America and the planet, the agency lacks that power to regulate CO2. And now it has lost that power, the result of thatWest Virginia v EPAdecision two years ago.

The coal, oil, and natural gas industries have been popping champagne corks for two years now, as CO2 levels continue to increase along with the temperature of our planet and the violence of our weather.

In addition to Gorsuch, the Court’s decision-makers inWest Virginia v EPAincluded Amy Coney Barrett whose father was a lawyer for Shell Oil for decades, and John Roberts, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh who are all on the Court in part because of support from a network funded by fossil fuel billionaires and their industry (among others) that brought that case and then brought this year’sLoper v Raimondo.

And, of course, there’s Clarence “on the take” Thomas, who supported the Chevron deference 15 years ago but, since being wined and dined by rightwing billionaires, in 2020 wrote:

“Chevron compels judges to abdicate the judicial power without constitutional sanction. … Chevron also gives federal agencies unconstitutional power.”

Giving us a clue to how this went down, all six Republicans on the Court voted to gut the EPA’s ability to regulate CO2 inWest Virginia; all 3 Democratic appointees opposed the decision.

Justice Elena Kagan wrote that the Court:

“[D]oes not have a clue about how to address climate change...yet it appoints itself, instead of congress or the expert agency...the decision-maker on climate policy. I cannot think of many things more frightening.”

Their ruling was, essentially, that all of that research into the specifics of anticipated regulations — all those hundreds of scientists, millions of public comments, and hundreds of thousands of science-hours invested in understanding problems and coming up with workable solutions — must now be done by Congress and the courts rather than administrative regulatory agencies.

As if Congress and the courts had the time and staff.

As if they was stocked with scientific experts, a much larger budget, and had millions of hours a year for hearings.

As if Republicans in the pockets of fossil fuel billionaires wouldn’t block any congressional action — or those billionaires wouldn’t lavish more gifts on Thomas, Roberts, Alito, Gorsuch, Barrett, and Kavanaugh even if it did.

Republicans on the Supreme Court succeeded in dancing to the tune of the billionaire’s fossil fuel network in the West Virginia v EPAcase, but it was narrowly focused on CO2.

In theLoper v Raimondocase, however, the Court explicitly expanded that victory by blowing the entireChevron deferenceout of the water, thus ending or severely limiting most protective government regulations in America and opening the door to court challenges to every decision by every regulatory agency established since the last decades of the 19th century.

They’re saying, essentially, that the EPA (and any other regulatory agency) can’t do all the steps listed above: instead, that detailed and time-consuming analysis of a problem, developing specific solutions, and writing specific rules has to be done, they say, by Congress or the courts themselves.

A Congress where arcane rules and gerrymandering have given Republicans the ability to block pretty much any legislation their billionaire patrons pay them to block. And courts filled with lawyers who never set foot in a science classroom.

So now, starting just hours after theLoper Brightruling, those industries and companies that have chafed under rules and regulations protecting us are on the march. They hope to rule the new banana republic the GOP envisions for us.

So far in the past two weeks, federal courts have stripped over 4 million Texas workers (and soon to be all Americans) of Department of Labor rules requiring overtime payments. It happened hours after the SCOTUS ruling, specifically referencing that ruling.

In Kansas on July 2nd, a federal judge ruled that Title IX “gender identity” non-discrimination protections promulgated by the Department of Education no longer apply to queer students, with the judge specifically citing and quoting Loper Bright:

“The Supreme Court recently held that [this] court ‘need not and under the APA may not defer to an agency interpretation of the law simply because a statute is ambiguous.’ Loper Bright Enter. v. Raimondo. [This] court must exercise its ‘independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority, as the APA requires.’”

It’s been fewer than two weeks since the Court accomplished what Trump andProject 2025publicly aspired to, but the floodgates have opened.

Dozens of other challenges to protective regulations are already in the works, including, but not limited to:

“[R]egulation by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), healthcare and product reimbursement, white collar enforcement and investigations, intellectual property, Federal Trade Commission and antitrust enforcement, international trade and national security regulation, public company disclosures, environmental regulation, government contracting, business transactions, and litigation….”

Thousands more will soon clog the federal courts (including the legal status of mifepristone and birth control). The six Republicans on the Supreme Court have unleashed a legal tsunami that, if not reversed by Congress or through expanding the Court, threatens to take Americans back to 1876, when morbidly rich robber barons, landlords, and employers could rip off and poison Americans with impunity.

It’s past time to stand up and speak out, and Dick Durbin’s Senate Judiciary Committee is the logical place to start with subpoeas to bare this Court’s naked corruption. If you agree, you can find Durbin’s phone numbers and addresses here and a list of the Committee’s members here.

And, of course, we must vote a straight Democratic ticket this November.

Every day that goes by without these corrupt judges being held to account by the Senate is another day closer to the end of the functional “government of the people, by the people, [and] for the people,” and our final transition into a genuine, and perhaps irreversible, banana republic.

---

Alito’s 'infuriating' claims prove he 'doesn’t have a clue about what we do': emergency medicine doc

idaho woman ER airlifted to utah?

Law professors rip Alito for demanding 'safe space' from critics: 'Can’t bear others exercising free speech'

Alito is drawing inspiration from a Medieval religious zealot who viewed women as ‘inferior’: journalist

OSHA clarence

Inside Clarence Thomas’ new legal target: 'It’s unconstitutional' - Alternet.org

===

an 7 24

chief Justice John Roberts and his right-wing colleagues on the Supreme Court are projecting their own insecurities and "hurt feelings" onto women who are calling out their flawed and dangerous rulings, wrote Dahlia Lithwick in a scorching analysis for Slate.

This comes after Roberts concluded the court's term with a ruling that gives former President Donald Trump a presumption of absolute immunity for "official acts," without clearly defining what those acts are.

And, in his majority opinion, he put down Justice Sonia Sotomayor's furious dissent as sounding "a tone of chilling doom" — a dismissal many described as condescending.

That was reinforced when former Trump White House attorney Ty Cobb dismissed the dissent on CNN as “a little hysterical, and it really offered no analysis. A lot of screaming, no analysis.”

"Screaming. Insubstantial. Hysterical," wrote Lithwick. "What men call banshees, women call prophecy. And of course if there are any sitting justices on the Roberts court whose entire jurisprudence can be reduced to a soggy skein of hurt feelings and self-pity, they are not females."

On the contrary, she wrote, Sotomayor's dissent, "Added interpolations that were not in her printed text and all but castigated her conservative colleagues. This is what frustration embodied looks like. And the failure to take that respectfully or even seriously? That is a play as old as the hills."

It's hard to swallow this criticism, wrote Lithwick, given that warnings that Roe v. Wade would be overturned were similarly dismissed as “hysterical” including by senators who voted to confirm Trump's Supreme Court Justices, like Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE).

Furthermore, the warnings that Trump will be emboldened by this ruling to defy the law and extrajudicially target opponents with the expectation he'll be immune from prosecution for it is completely founded, she noted — as Trump is already posting about the idea of a "televised military tribunal" for former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), who voted to impeach him and investigated him over January 6.

"This isn’t hypothetical. This isn’t fearmongering. This is how Trump lives and will continue to live. It is how he governs and how he will continue to govern," Lithwick concluded — and people in power should stop laughing off women whenever they voice real fears about their rights and prospects.

"It’s almost as if the conservative justices’ commitment to originalism requires them to believe that women who raise any objection to their tidy paradigms should be viewed as either empty vessels or scheming witches. It’s almost as if they wish to lay down the tracks for just such a project. It’s almost as if in granting Donald Trump immunity, they may have found their path there."

===

mma Right-wing media spotlight and defend doctor indicted for allegedly illegally accessing trans patients' records

07/02/24 9:53 AM EDT

### Candace Owens: “I'm not a flat earther. I'm not a round earther. Actually, what I am is I am somebody who has left the cult of science.”

07/02/24 9:19 AM EDT

### Newsmax host calls warning of presidential overreach “another anti-Supreme Court hoax”

07/01/24 11:02 PM EDT

### On MSNBC, former federal judge Michael Luttig calls SCOTUS immunity ruling the “unsouling of America”

07/01/24 9:56 PM EDT

### Fox News legal analyst Jonathan Turley says Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity is “the middle path”

07/01/24 9:44 PM EDT

### Right-wing media cheer SCOTUS immunity ruling as a victory for Trump and attack the dissenting opinion

07/01/24 5:42 PM EDT

### On CNN, former Nixon White House counsel John Dean calls Supreme Court's decision on immunity a “radical ruling”

07/01/24 5:06 PM EDT

### MSNBC guest on Supreme Court presidential immunity ruling: “There's a long tradition on the American right of interest and curiosity about a more authoritarian form of rule”

07/01/24 4:35 PM EDT

### Laurence Tribe on Trump immunity ruling: “The court was really flying the flag of the Constitution upside down”

07/01/24 2:21 PM EDT

### Fox's Mark Levin praises “brilliant” Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity

07/01/24 1:11 PM EDT

### Where Steve Bannon leaves us

07/01/24

===

7 24

the Supreme Court justices who dissented to Monday's ruling on former President Donald Trump's presidential immunity claim called it a mockery of the Constitution that reshapes the institution of the presidency.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented to Chief Justice John Roberts ruling that Trump was entitled to absolute immunity for actions carried out in his official capacity as president — but not all presidential actions were official.

"Today’s decision to grant former Presidents criminal immunity reshapes the institution of the Presidency," Sotomayor wrote.

"Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune."

The justices condemn their six colleagues — whose argument was penned by Chief Justice John Roberts — for a decision they say condones treason.

"The indictment paints a stark portrait of a President desperate to stay in power," wrote Sotomayor. "Because our Constitution does not shield a former President from answering for criminal and treasonous acts, I dissent."

This dark tone was met with a glib response from Roberts in his ruling.

"As for the dissents, they strike a tone of chilling doom that is wholly disproportionate to what the Court actually does today," writes Roberts. "[We] conclude that immunity extends to official discussions between the President and his Attorney General, and then remand to the lower courts to determine 'in the first instance' whether and to what extent Trump’s remaining alleged conduct is entitled to immunity."

While the question of immunity still remains unclear, legal experts say its increasingly unlikely Americans won't see their presumptive Republican nominee stand trial on election interference charges before election day in November.

The Supreme Court spent two months deliberating the presumptive Republican nominee's argument against the federal election interference case — raising concerns of deliberate delay as Trump could kill the case if he reclaims the White House.

While Trump argued he cannot be prosecuted for any official acts as a standing U.S. president, special counsel Jack Smith countered the former president acted as a private citizen pursuing his own personal gain.

The argument stalled the Washington D.C. case for months as the argument worked its way through the appeals court system.

Three of the nine judges were appointed by Trump — Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch.

Justice Clarence Thomas faced direct calls for recusal over the conflict of interest presented by his wife Ginny's participation in Trump's efforts to challenge the 2020 election.

On Monday, Sotomayor argued the majority's decision "completely insulate Presidents from criminal liability."

"Argument by argument, the majority invents immunity through brute force," she concludes. "Under scrutiny, its arguments crumble."

---

an 7 24

// dissent

On Monday morning, July 1, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its anxiously awaited decision on former President Donald Trump's claim that he enjoys absolute immunity from prosecution in special counsel Jack Smith's federal election interference case.

The 6-3 decision came down along party lines, with the dissent from Democrat-appointed justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Sotomayor was especially scathing in her dissent, arguing that the ruling gives presidents way too much authority.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett was part of the GOP majority in the ruling. But journalist Jonathan Allen noted that there is some nuance in her reasoning.

On X, formerly Twitter, Allen posted, "This SCOTUS opinion is near-total victory for Trump legally and a total win in terms of delaying/possibly vitiating prosecution. A president enjoys *presumptive immunity* for any acts inside and extending to the outer perimeter of his official duties Also big win for prez power."

But in a separate tweet, Allen also pointed out that "Barrett's partial concurrence is worth reading."

Allen noted, "She takes issue specifically with the idea that protected conduct can't be introduced as evidence at trial of a president. Also says it is hard to see pressuring state legislators - namely AZ House speaker — as an official act."

In an article published by Newsweek on July 1, reporter Katherine Fung said of Barrett, "While she agreed with the Court's opinion at large, she disagreed with one part of the ruling that held the Constitution prevents protected conduct from being introduced as evidence in a criminal prosecution against a former president, siding with the bench's three liberals instead."

Barrett wrote, "The Constitution does not require blinding juries to the circumstances surrounding conduct for which Presidents can be held liable. To make sense of charges alleging a quid pro quo, the jury must be allowed to hear about both the quid and the quo, even if the quo, standing alone, could not be a basis for the President's criminal liability."

Some MAGA Republicans are highly critical of Barrett's concurrence.

Trump supporter Sharon Cooper tweeted, " What is going on with Amy Coney Barrett? Who is she? She is a Supreme Court Justice, with a misguided view of our justice system."

Hans Mahncke posted, "Of course, Amy Coney Barrett had to disagree with something (she thinks that it should be allowable for a jury to be presented with official presidential acts as evidence of crimes having been committed)."

@GingerAmero wrote, "ACB is horrible and whoever recommended her should never be taken seriously ever, again." And @HoneywellNTodd attacked Barrett as "Justice Karen."

Meanwhile, legal expert Steve Vladeck

said of Barrett, " There's an important sub-part of the Trump immunity ruling in which #SCOTUS holds that "protected conduct" (that can't be prosecuted) also can't be used as *evidence* to establish other charges.

---

did not destroy docs thus no obstruction?

Barrett accuses SCOTUS of 'textual backflips' in obstruction case: 'Win for Jan. 6 defendants'

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an 6 24 note just on standing, tho that means no perceptible harm

In a majority decision, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett slapped down the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in a decision Wednesday.

Red states and conservatives sued President Joe Biden's administration for coordinating with social media companies to help tamp down misinformation about the pandemic in 2021.

According to the Supreme Court majority in the *Murthy v. Missouri* case, the parties didn't have standing to sue.

It reverses the conservative Fifth Circuit, which said communications between governmental officials and social media platforms meant that the government officials were regulating content-moderation decisions for the platform.

"The Fifth Circuit was wrong to do so," wrote Barrett.

According to SCOTUS Blog reporter Amy Howe, "The challengers contend that the restrictions that they experienced in the past on social media platforms could be attributed to the defendants and that the platforms will continue to censor their speech."

The Supreme Court rejected the idea, writing that the "platforms had independent incentives to moderate content and often exercised their own judgment. To be sure, the record reflects that the Government defendants played a role in at least some of the platforms' moderation choices. But the Fifth Circuit, by attributing every platform decision at least in part to the defendants, glossed over complexities in the evidence."

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One of the most consequential Supreme Court decisions expected this term was momentarily posted to the Court's website before it was promptly taken down.

Bloomberg first reported that the decision in a major abortion-related case briefly appeared on SCOTUS' website, in which it appeared as if the Court would allow for emergency abortions to be performed in Idaho despite the Gem State's ban on abortions. The author of the opinion and a breakdown of how individual justices voted on the decision remains unknown.

In the cases, Moyle v. United States and State of Idaho v. United States, justices are expected to dismiss the case brought by the plaintiff as "improvidently granted." This means that Idaho's challenging the application of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) against its own abortion ban would mean that the existing federal law supersedes state law.

Idaho was one of the first states to officially ban all abortions after SCOTUS overturned the Roe v. Wade decision in June of 2022. That summer, Idaho's GOP-controlled legislature passed the Defense of Life Act, which makes it a felony crime punishable by two to five years in prison for anyone who performs an abortion within the state. Additionally, any abortion provider who performs the procedure would have their license suspended for six months pending review, and their license would be permanently revoked on the second offense.

While the law provides exceptions for cases in which the life of the mother would be at risk, many emergency rooms in Republican-controlled states frequently turned away pregnant patients due to not wanting to run afoul of the law. This is a violation of EMTALA, which states that any hospital that receives federal funding from Medicaid and Medicare has to provide emergency treatment to any emergency room patient.

"They are so scared of a pregnant patient, that the emergency medicine staff won’t even look," George Washington University professor Sara Rosenbaum told the Associated Press in April. "They just want these people gone."

While the brief posting of the Idaho abortion decision may not have been the final opinion, justices may have sided with the U.S. government based on the Supremacy Clause. Article VI, paragraph 2 of the Constitution explicitly instructs states that their laws may not interfere with federal law, and that when the two clash, federal law will be prioritized.

Since Idaho passed its abortion ban, the state has seen an exodus of obstetricians and gynecologists. Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) reported that the Gem State has lost roughly one in five OB-GYN professionals since its abortion ban became law.

“What we’re seeing in this report and with this exodus of providers is that now Idaho is a state that criminalizes physicians, and the chilling effect is real," Valley County Family care obstetrician and Coalition board president Caitlin Gustafson told OPB in February.

Click here to read Bloomberg's report (subscription required).

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Supreme Court on Friday ruled in an 8-1 vote that the government had the right to restrict access to firearms for alleged domestic abusers.

However, there was one notable dissent in the ruling: Justice Clarence Thomas.

As flagged by Slate's Mark Joseph Stern, Thomas argued that all regulations of firearms should be deemed in violation of the Second Amendment "unless it is consistent with the Nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation."

Thomas then claimed that there is "not a single historical regulation" that "justifes the statute at issue."

Commenting on this, Stern said that Thomas seemed to be arguing that restricting abusers' access to firearms was off-limits because "wife-beating was not generally a crime" at the time of the country's founding in the 18th Century.

Stern was not the only observer to express shock at the logic behind Thomas' ruling.

"And Thomas’s dissent is utterly ridiculous and disingenuous," argued former tennis starMartina Navratilova. He is a disgrace to our highest court. Anita Hill should have been believed!!!"

"Clarence Thomas is the only Supreme Court justice who wants to arm domestic abusers," wrote former Chicago Sun-Times editor Mark Jacob. "He’s a pox on our society."

Matt Fuller, the cofounder of the centrist think tank Third Way, also had a horrified reaction to the Thomas dissent.

"Three reactions: 1) I can't believe this was even a question 2) Thank God 3) Clarence Thomas is a corrupt lunatic," he wrote.

Fred Guttenberg, a gun safety advocate whose daughter was murdered in the Parkland school shooting, said that Thomas' dissent "is only further proof that he is simply a threat to America."

NOTUS Reports' Matt Fuller, meanwhile, simply posted a description of the brutal assault that respondent Zackey Rahimi allegedly gave to his girlfriend and commented, "Clarence Thomas thinks this person should be allowed to have a gun."

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A former U.S. Supreme Court clerk cast suspicion on the lengthy delay by justices in rendering a decision in Donald Trump's immunity case.

The justices agreed Feb. 28 to hear his appeal and scheduled oral arguments for late April, which is a fairly short interval for most cases but considerably longer than it took for the court to hear and then decide his challenge of a Colorado ruling removing him from the presidential primary ballot, which took less than a month, noted law professor Leah Litman in a column for the *New York Times*.

"For those looking for the hidden hand of politics in what the Supreme Court does, there’s plenty of reason for suspicion on Donald Trump’s as-yet-decided immunity case given its urgency," wrote Litman, who teaches at the University of Michigan Law School and was a clerk for former Justice Anthony Kennedy.

"There are, of course, explanations that have nothing to do with politics for why a ruling still hasn’t been issued. But the reasons to think something is rotten at the court are impossible to ignore."

Nearly two months have passed since oral arguments in that case, which means there's virtually no chance Trump will stand trial before November's election in the Jan. 6 case, even if the court rejects his immunity claims, which Litman believes should be the correct decision.

"This court has lost the benefit of the doubt for myriad reasons, including its willingness to act quickly in cases that benefit Republican interests," Litman wrote. "In addition to the disqualification case, two and a half years ago, the court scheduled a challenge to the Biden administration’s test-or-vaccinate policy two weeks after the justices decided to hear it, and then issued a decision invalidating the policy less than one week later."

By the same token, the court's conservative majority moves slowly when that suits their partisan preferences, Litman argued, and she said the delay in Trump's immunity ruling was troubling.

ALSO READ:‘They could have killed me’: Spycraft, ballots and a Trumped-up plot gone haywire

"The court could follow a path well charted in other cases and rule narrowly," she wrote. "The justices need not resolve anything and everything related to presidential immunity. It would be enough to conclude that whatever the precise bounds of presidential immunity, it doesn’t extend to orchestrating a monthslong effort to overturn the valid results of a presidential election."

"Even if presidents enjoy some immunity for official acts," Litman added, "plotting to remain in office while continuing to question the results of an election they clearly lost isn’t one of them.”

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6 24 14 major caSES, 3x normal? abortion pill on standing technicality (clarence told how to come back?]

sitting on trump immunity to stall cts

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soto dissent said simple, quack duck vs clarence nerdy trivia

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after a gunman killed 58 people in Las Vegas and hurt hundreds more using a bump stock to automate his rifle fire into the crowd, then-president Donald Trump banned the devices. The U.S. Supreme Court today lifted that ban, with Justice Clarence Thomas (R—Harlan Crow) saying that firearms with bump stocks do not meet the Federal definition of a machine gun irrespective of their rate of fire.

The 6-3 vote fell on ideological lines, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor voicing her dissent: "When I see a bird that walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck." In his concurrence with the majority, Justice Samuel Alito conceded that in "practical terms" a weapon equipped with a bump stock is a machine gun but that it was down to Congress to ban them.

The ruling does not lift state bans on bump stocks; eighteen states have done so. The NRA briefly supported the federal ban, sensing public fury at the massacre, but returned to opposing it when no serious political support for gun reform emerged.

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Home | America's new Tokyo Rose

Thom HartmannMay 25, 2024

An international fascist movement — led by Russia, Hungary, and China — is on the march worldwide, and America is in its crosshairs.

Case in point: Ohio Republican Senator and maximally rich dude J.D. Vance, who dresses up his Trump/Putin toadyism in more elegant and acceptable garb than “bleach blonde bad-built butch body™” Marjorie Taylor Greene is capable of.

In an article for the elite Financial Times, Vance recently wrote:

“We owe it to our European partners to be honest: Americans want allies in Europe, not client states, and our generosity in Ukraine is coming to an end. Europeans should regard the conclusion of the war there as an imperative. ... And Europe should consider how exactly it is going to live with Russia when the war in Ukraine is over.”

Instead of expressing shock at such a treason-weasel statement, the wise elders at Politico ran an article quoting him that was headlined: “J.D. Vance Has a Point.”

Just a week earlier, Vance had tried to convince skeptical European officials at the Munich Security Conference that America, the largest and most powerful military force in the world, in combination with all of the European Union and NATO nations, doesn’t have the ability to produce enough weapons to help Ukraine hold off Putin’s Russia, which has an economy the size of Italy’s and is currently begging for discount missiles and drones from Iran and North Korea.

When Vance said, “The West doesn’t make enough munitions to support an indefinite war,” it’s a safe bet they were popping champagne in the Kremlin, just like they did that night in 2016 when Trump was declared president after a multi-million-dollar Russian investment in social media on his behalf. At least now Vance will definitely be able to count on continuing support from Russian and Chinese social media trolls.

His next stop was Face The Nation where, last week, he engaged in this made-for-Russian-television exchange with CBS’s Margaret Brennan (the actual dialogue is more lengthy; I’ve quoted its summary here from the Biden campaign):

Brennan: “Viktor Orbán seized control of universities and put them in foundations that were run by his allies. He rewrote the Constitution, he neutered the courts, and he has tried to control the media. Is that what you're advocating for in the US?

Vance: “I think he’s made smart decisions that we could learn from in the United States.”

The watershed moment in American history that led to this was when five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United (and three other decisions) that bribing US politicians is no longer bribery or political corruption but, instead, is merely “First Amendment-protected free speech.”

The cash that rightwing billionaires, foreign governments, and corporations are stuffing into corrupt politicians’ pockets isn’t “money,” the rightwing majority on the Court ruled: it’s First Amendment protected “free speech.” Those corporations aren’t (to paraphrase John Marshall) lifeless, soulless creations of the law: they are, Republicans on the Court said, “persons” with a constitutional right to free speech.

All this made us ripe for the picking by foreign governments that see the very ongoing existence of American democracy as a threat to the legitimacy of their own oligarchies.

To the point of Vance and Greene, Justice John Paul Stevens, in his Citizens United dissent, warned us that his five conservative colleagues on the Supreme Court had not only thrown the door open to American billionaires and corporations corrupting our politicians and political process: they also, he wrote, rolled out the welcome mat to foreign governments.

“If taken seriously, our colleagues’ assumption that the identity of a speaker has no relevance to the Government’s ability to regulate political speech would lead to some remarkable conclusions.

“Such an assumption would have accorded the propaganda broadcasts to our troops by ‘Tokyo Rose’ during World War II the same protection as speech by Allied commanders.”

“Tokyo Rose,” of course, was the infamous Japanese intelligence officer who was constantly on the radio listened to by US solders in the Pacific theater during WWII, telling our people in uniform that the war was lost, Japan would win, and they should just go home. Her broadcasts — much like Trump’s and Vance’s modern day proclamations — were designed to destroy our sense of national resolve and solidarity.

“More pertinently,” Stevens added in the next sentence of his dissent, “it would appear to afford the same protection to multinational corporations controlled by foreigners as to individual Americans…”

All foreign governments or corporations have to do is set up a subsidy corporation in the United States to pour money into our political process. Opensecrets.org documents how millions in foreign money is now sloshing around in the coffers of American politicians.

Thus, today, one part of that work of ending American democracy is being done in the US by Orbán’s Hungarian oligarchs and his government, shoveling money into US lobbying and influence operations in ways legalized by Clarence Thomas’ tie-breaking Citizens United vote. Along with dozens of other governments.

Documents obtained by the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) found that Orbán hired a lobbying firm and a PR company, both started by former Florida Republican Congressman Connie Mack IV, to promote his image to reporters and politicians in the US. He also, GPAHE noted, hired another GOP-aligned lobbying firm to hook up Tucker Carlson with Orbán and Hungary.

To date, Orbán has spent millions in America purchasing good will with US politicians and media figures, as revealed by The New York Times in an article titled “Hungary’s Leader Fights Criticism in U.S. via Vast Influence Campaign.”

And, of course, it’s not just Orbán who’s flooding the US with money and influence campaigns to discredit democracy and promote authoritarianism. The US example of democracy is a major threat to every iron-fisted regime in the world, and increasingly they’re finding common cause to tear us down and remove that hazard.

From the French Revolution in 1789 to the people’s uprising in Beijing in 1989, people around the world have used language and icons from the pens of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson and their peers.

On May 29th, 1989, over twenty thousand people gathered around a 37-foot-tall papier-mâché statue in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. They placed their lives in danger, but that statue was such a powerful archetypal representation that many were willing to die for it…and some did. They called their statue the “Goddess of Democracy”: it was a scale replica of the Statue of Liberty that stands in New York harbor on Liberty Island.

China will never again tolerate such an eruption of democracy on their soil and, having recently taken down democracy in Hong Kong, appear to be planning to extinguish the troublesome democratic example of nearby (and ethnically Chinese) Taiwan.

The tip of their spear in the US is TikTok, where pro-Trump posts, perhaps boosted by their algorithm the way some believe they are on X and Facebook, outnumber pro-Biden posts by two-to-one.

Since January 2023 on TikTok, hashtag #Trump2024 has received 427.8 million likes compared with 50.9 million likes for #Biden2024. They’re currently running a massive TV campaign promoting the site without disclosing its connection to the Chinese Communist Party.

These authoritarian regimes are definitely coming after democracies: from their point of view, this is war.

Right now a major corruption scandal is sweeping Europe, as politicians and media figures from more than a half-dozen countries have been busted for taking money from Russia in exchange for parroting Putin’s lines about Ukraine, publishing articles written by Russian intelligence operatives over their own bylines, and even introducing anti-Ukraine legislation written by Russian agents.

As Alex Finley wrote a month ago for The New Republic:

“It is naïve to think the same pattern does not exist in the United States, given the ample evidence of coordinated pro-Russian talking points from several Republican politicians. Just this week, Marjorie Taylor Greene spoke to Steve Bannon about Ukraine’s persecution of Christians, which is a Kremlin talking point aimed at boosting the pro-Moscow wing of Ukraine’s Orthodox Church.

“The U.S. should be spending money on the border with Mexico, not on Ukraine aid? That’s a Kremlin talking point. Russia invaded Ukraine to defend itself against an expanding NATO? That’s a Kremlin talking point. Call for a cease-fire, and give Russia Crimea and eastern Ukraine? That’s a Kremlin talking point.”

How much money or back-channel support are Greene, Trump, and Vance (among about 150 other Republicans) getting from Putin, Orbán or Xi? Nobody knows.

The problem, of course, is that Citizens United allows Russian, Chinese, Hungarian, and other foreign influence campaigns targeting US democracy to remain impossible to track down amidst the ocean of dark money flooding the US political system, legalized by Citizens United. Tokyo Rose, it turns out, was a piker.

When Thomas and Alito voted for Citizens United, they may have thought Stevens’ concerns were overblown; they just didn’t want the billionaire gravy train they were fully legalizing for themselves and Republican politicians nationwide to stop.

But now their twin doctrines of corporate personhood and money-as-speech have metastasized so extensively they threaten to kill their host, ending democracy here and turning America into another Putin- or Orbán-style autocracy run by Hitler-wannabee Donald Trump.

After Trump took millions from foreign governments while in the White House, Democrats this week introduced legislation to go around the Supreme Court and specifically outlaw presidents from taking such foreign bribes. Citizens United is why Trump felt comfortable asking fossil fuel executives representing several foreign based corporations for a $1 billion bribe.

Citizens United is no longer just a matter of political corruption; it’s a national security issue as well.

Which is why Congress must, as soon as Democrats regain control of that body, reverse it and allow the reinstatement of the hundreds of federal and state good-government laws which that decision overturned.

Pass it on.

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created in 1934 during the Great Depression, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was among the many achievements of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal. The SEC has been a prime target of the right-wing legal movement, and the SEC's regulatory powers are being challenged in the U.S. Supreme Court case SEC v. Jarkesy.

But Politico reporters Declan Harty, Josh Sisco and Josh Gerstein, in an article published on May 22, stress that the case has implications that go way beyond the SEC and could, depending on what the High Court ultimately rules, affect other federal regulatory agencies as well.

"A decade-long conservative crusade against financial regulators will come to a head soon with a crucial Supreme Court ruling, part of a legal strategy that has spread across multiple Washington agencies into a broad attack on a core power of the federal government," the journalists explain. "The Court's ruling on Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy, a case challenging the power of in-house federal judges, could hobble a whole range of agencies in unpredictable ways, cutting the powers of antitrust enforcers, labor regulators and consumer finance watchdogs."

The "legal campaign" surrounding SEC v. Jarkesy, according to Harty, Sisco and Gerstein, is being "driven by an alliance of tech billionaires, conservative legal activists and the business lobby."

"Jarkesy itself is a challenge to the legal legitimacy of the SEC's internal system of judges and courts, which hear cases and impose fines," the reporters note. "Such internal courts are key to enforcement at many federal agencies."

Todd Phillips of the liberal Roosevelt Institute told Politico that the SEC's critics in Jarkesy are "really just trying to get the Supreme Court to tear down the regulatory system that's been in place since before the New Deal."

Harty, Sisco and Gerstein note, "The Jarkesy case itself revolves around a hedge-fund manager, George Jarkesy, also a conservative TV and radio commentator, who was fined for defrauding investors and then sued over the validity of the tribunal that did it. Supporters of the process say there's a good reason to empower such internal courts, especially in complex issues like securities fraud and labor relations."

*Read Politico's full report at this link.

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on Thursday, we got confirmation that our Supreme Court is completely in the tank for Donald Trump and his repellent Republicans, and our country very well might not survive it.

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By having the audacity to even schedule oral arguments to consider whether one man in America can be granted immunity, and is above the laws that guide the rest of us, this rogue, corrupt court is incinerating one of the most basic tenets of our Democracy right in front of our eyes.

This 6-3 Conservative Court is also making it plain to us in no uncertain terms that they believe themselves to be above the laws that the rest of us must follow. They are flaunting the fact that they are completely untouchable and unimpeachable, and can just do whatever the hell it is they want.

The morally busted majority on this court is now using its unbridled power with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer as it swings hard to nail the door shut on 248 years of an evolving Democracy, while pushing us back to a hopeless time when crooked kings ruled with impunity and were above it all.

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So brazen and corrupt is this reprehensible Gang of Sicks, it is even going so far as to protect its own membership from criminality in the Attack on America.

We KNOW that Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife, Ginny, was hip-deep in Trump’s violent insurrection on January 6. And still, he shamelessly did not recuse himself from this session. In fact, there has been no indication that he even gave this a whiff of consideration.

This is patently absurd. There is no way in the world this ghastly man can be an impartial juror in a decision to consider whether Trump is immune from prosecution in his attack. His wife was in on the crime, for God’s sake. She was messaging with the White House DURING the attack.

Everybody knows this.

Instead, by all indications, Thomas put his fat thumb on the scale for his wife’s friend, Trump. The very Trump who was responsible for placing three other Radical Right justices besides the heinous Thomas onto this revolting court of no-good liars.

During this tenuous time in our history, it is fair to surmise that there will never be any trial ever for the most grievous attack on our Capitol since the Civil War, because the most powerful judicial body in the world has debts to pay to the anti-American dark powers which helped fuel the attempted coup, and placed them on the court.

Our 6-3 Supreme Court is telling us wide out in the open they intend to act on behalf of the most dangerous man on Earth and his army of authoritarian lowlifes.

If they will back the play of an evil man like this, what else are they capable of?

We are seeing now the elimination of Roe was nothing but a warmup act for the Gang of Sicks. They have already stepped on and snuffed out laws protecting our vote and our environment. They have ruled that corporations are people, and that guns have more rights than our children, who are being slaughtered by the hundreds in our schools.

Everybody who truly loves this country and what she stands for should be absolutely terrified, because we simply cannot continue to sustain this punishing attack and expect to survive.

The end is near, good people, unless we rise up and say enough, and frankly it’s very hard to see that happening.

I sit here and type all these true and terrible things with the fear that most people in this country are not aware of this peril. I’ll wager 75 percent of Americans have absolutely no idea how dangerous this court is, and what their one-after-another evil rulings portend.

Do they even know that things are only going to get worse for decades to come thanks to the insane lifetime appointments of these evil-doers?

If they don’t know this, WHY don’t they know it? Willing ignorance is a large part sure, but I am also looking at you, Corporate Media.

With our Democracy under assault while the laws that should be protecting us are beaten and bruised, how come you are not sounding the alarms to inform everybody of this danger?

Why, given everything I just reported here, was this headline not leading every national newspaper and TV chyron in America on Friday:

*END OF DEMOCRACY AT HAND AS SUPREME COURT CONSIDERS IF CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT IS ABOVE THE LAW

No less is on the line right now. So what in the hell is going on here????

Either our national press is proving yet again they are not up to covering and reporting on the most ominous, terrifying moment in our nation’s long history, or … they are in on it.

Honestly, after decades in the business, I never EVER thought I’d allege either of these two things — especially the second — but how else to explain it?

Instead of being on wartime footing and treating these multi-pronged attacks on America with the urgency and gusto they deserve, our major media enterprises are comporting themselves like a bunch of complete amateurs who either can’t identify and/or are failing to report on the biggest story in the world accurately.

How in the hell are they missing this? Why are they missing this?

Is it because they really are this atrocious at their jobs, or is it because they somehow see it to be in their best interests to keep things close, and to make sure we hear from both sides in this vicious one-sided attack on America.

The job of the working press is to understand the news they are covering, distill it, and give it the heft it deserves. If this legitimate threat to our Democracy can barely get a rise out of them, we are not going to make it.

And either are they.

Every American should be on high alert right now, and demanding that the people with the power and resources sound the alarms and start acting with the urgency these perilous times demand.

I am telling you this as a person who used to run a newsroom, served his country, and can smell the smoke and see the flames that will most certainly incinerate us if we don’t take to the high ground, and do whatever we can to spread this horrifying warning far and wide.

People need to know our Supreme Court has it in for us, even if our pathetic national press is loathe to report it this way.

We are but six months from the most consequential election in American history, and there is no time to waste.

We must do everything we can to save ourselves.

READ:How Fox News is lying about Trump’s trial

*D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. Follow @EarlofEnough and [on his website.]

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Legal experts shocked by Supreme Court’s 'inconceivable' arguments in Trump immunity case - Alternet.org

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10 fascinating SCOTUS facts to tide us over until it wrecks the country in June

Eric Segall April 23, 2024

Editor's note: The following first appeared in Dorf on Law.

Between now and the end of the term, the Supreme Court will issue decisions concerning abortion, guns, administrative law and Trump, Trump, and more Trump. (In addition to the high-profile cases, for example, today the court hears oral argument in a case that tests whether the statute used to try January 6 defendants applies to their conduct.) My guess is that a lot of pain is coming our way as we head towards that great artificial deadline the justices created for themselves known as "June."

As we are in a bit of a holding pattern with tornado-type turbulence surrounding us, I thought I'd provide a bit of, well, let's call it legal levity, as we wait for the court to inflict pain on our people and our country.

Here are 10 fascinating facts about SCOTUS you might not know.

MARBURY V. MADISON: THE POLITICAL TURNS PERSONAL AND THE PERSONAL TURNS POLITICAL

Most academics view much of Marbury v. Madisonskeptically for many reasons, including that Chief Justice John Marshall likely should have recused himself from the case and because he made up a pretend statute to strike down so nobody would question judicial review.

But what's really interesting is that President Thomas Jefferson (who had denied Marbury his commission to be a judge) and Marshall, both from Virginia and distant cousins, hated each other with a passion. They disagreed politically (Marshall a Federalist and Jefferson an Anti-Federalist) but their animosity was also personal. Jefferson publicly called Marshall a hypocrite while Marshall publicly labeled Jefferson a dishonorable "great lama." Additionally, Marshall married into a wealthy family who had rejected Jefferson (Marshall's wife's mother had declined a marriage proposal from Jefferson).

The foundational case of American constitutional law was as much a personal dispute as a political one. Constitutional law was not off to a great start.

THE GREAT LEAK

Most of us lived through the mysterious leaking of the Dobbs decision, but this was not the first leak of a landmark and controversial court decision. As Professor Mark Graber recounts here, President Buchanan was tipped off by Justice Catron about the infamous Dred Scott opinion a few weeks before its scheduled release, and then the president pressured a northern justice to join the opinion along with the southerners on the court. Buchanan and Chief Justice Taney thought the decision might go a long way to settling the slavery issue so they orchestrated the decision for maximum consensus.

Three years later, the Civil War began.

DESEGREGATION IS ANOTHER FORM OF SLAVERY?

Most people know that in The Civil Rights Cases of 1883, the most ironically titled decision in Supreme Court history, the justices held that Congress could not end segregation in hotels, restaurants and theaters because Section 5 of the 14th Amendment only allowed Congress to regulate state action and the commerce clause was barely a twinkle in the court’s eye. In other words, the court ended Congress's efforts to stop Jim Crow before they began.

The author of that opinion, Justice Joseph Bradley, wrote this in his personal diary after the case: "depriving white people of the right of choosing their own company would be to introduce another kind of slavery."

Say what now? Think his personal attitude and values affected his decision?

SCOTUS AS A NUMBERS GAME

There has been a lot of discussion from the left about adding three or four seats to the court to make it more liberal and to undo the harm caused by Mitch McConnell's norm-breaking manipulation of the court's vacancies. The number has been nine since 1869, but before that the number of justices had been manipulated by Congress and the president over and over for political reasons. For example, the original number was six, but in 1801 President Adams and the Federalist Congress reduced the number to 5 after Jefferson won the 1800 election. The number shifted to six to 10 to seven, finally settling on nine in 1869 where it has been ever since.

But make no mistake, you originalists out there. The tradition of changing the number of justices for political reasons goes back to the very beginning of our history.

I vote we add three libs as soon as possible to get us back to an even number, just like at the beginning.

This idea is not a joke.

TORCHING THE COURT

If you think you are angry about the court reversing major decisions on abortion, affirmative action and many other important issues, I can assure you that President Franklin D. Roosevelt was likely even angrier back in 1937. After the justices struck down several major New Deal programs, he said the following on the largest and most important media of the day:

It is perfectly clear, that as Chief Justice Hughes has said: "We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is."

The court in addition to the proper use of its judicial functions has improperly set itself up as a third House of the Congress — a super-legislature, as one of the justices has called it -- reading into the Constitution words and implications which are not there, and which were never intended to be there.

We have, therefore, reached the point as a nation where we must take action to save the Constitution from the court and the court from itself. We must find a way to take an appeal from the Supreme Court to the Constitution itself. We want a Supreme Court which will do justice under the Constitution — not over it. In our courts, we want a government of laws and not of men.

If only President Biden ... well, you know.

WAS JUSTICE HUGO BLACK UNCONSTITUTIONAL?

Professor Will Baude, who among other things coined the phrase "the shadow docket," wrote a short and persuasive little ditty that Justice Black's appointment to the court was likely unconstitutional. Here is the story.

Article I, Section 6 of the Constitution says: “No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States . . . the Emoluments whereof shall have been encreased during such time." The Senate, while Black was a member, voted to increase the pensions for Supreme Court justices, thus increasing the "emoluments" of that office and thereby rendering Justice Black's appointment a violation of the United States Constitution. Eventually someone sued, challenging the appointment and the court did what it often does when the law unequivocally points in a direction the justices simply do not want to go.

The case was dismissed for lack of standing.

CITIZENS UNITED, ELENA KAGAN AND THE QUESTION THAT HAD NO PLAUSIBLE ANSWER

Most liberals and progressives view Citizens United v. FEC as a four-letter word. When it comes to the overbroad rationale of the case, fair enough, but when it comes to the specific result, those critics have it all wrong.

The case involved a prior restraint on political speech. A public-interest, nonprofit corporation was prohibited from distributing a movie about Hillary Clinton a set number of days before the presidential primaries (unless it funded the movie out of segregated funds). This problem was exactly why the First Amendment was adopted in the first place. If you don't believe me, here is the liberal Brennan Center's description of the case: "A conservative nonprofit group called Citizens United challenged campaign finance rules after the FEC stopped it from promoting and airing a film criticizing presidential candidate Hillary Clinton too close to the presidential primaries." What? Exactly.

Justice Kagan argued the case when she was the United States Solicitor General and after the court held it over for re-argument (so that the conservatives could effectively rewrite the questions presented). In the first argument, there was quite a discussion about whether the law that barred the movie too close to an election could also bar political books during the same time period.

The government fumbled this question at the first argument, but Kagan said that the government had changed its position and now: “We went back, we considered the matter carefully, and the government's view is that although [the statute] does cover full-length books, that there would be a quite good as-applied challenge to any attempt to apply [the law] in that context. And I should say that the FEC has never applied [the law] in that context. So for 60 years a book has never been at issue."

Listen folks, if the law couldn't be applied to books, then it can't be applied to movies, and the government had to lose. Full stop.

ALITO’S AWFULNESS

From 2006-2019, the court had five conservative justices and four liberal ones (with the exception of most of 2016 after Justice Scalia passed away and the aforementioned McConnell acted badly). During that time, Alito the Awful was the only conservative who never sided with the libs in a 5-4 case. Ever.

Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Thomas, not exactly left-leaning fellows, both sided with the libs in important 5-4 cases, such as when Roberts saved the Affordable Care Act and Thomas joined the libs upholding Texas’s decision to ban Confederate flags on license plates. In that case, by the way, Alito compared the Confederate flag to football slogans.

Alito the awful is always awful.

"GET OVER IT”

Justice Scalia used to hammer audiences with this command when asked about Bush v. Gore. But maybe just maybe he also used it during his very first oral argument as a justice when, during the middle of it, Justice Powell, a soft-spoken southern gentleman, leaned over to a colleague and whispered, "do you think he knows that the rest of us are here?''

Scalia likely did not care.

THE THOMASES

“Do not concede. It takes time for the army who is gathering for his back.”

Ginny Thomas's advice to Trump’s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in a text message urging him not to accept the 2020 election. She also wrote him the following:

This is a fight of good versus evil. Evil always looks like the victor until the King of Kings triumphs. Do not grow weary in well doing. The fight continues. I have staked my career on it.

Ginny Thomas was in the crowd listening to Trump on January 6, but she did not go to the Capitol.

In related news, Trump’s role in the January 6 attack on the Capitol and election interference is before the court later this month.

In more related news, the Supreme Court has no enforceable ethics or recusal code and there is no indication Thomas will recuse.

And, in related, adjacent news, the Thomases together and individually are a serious threat to the rule of law, the civil rights of many groups and American democracy.

Now we wait until June.

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Judge's ruling on gun serial numbers highlights 'deadly' impact of right-wing Supreme Court

Julia Conley

and

Common Dreams

October 15, 2022

Legal experts said Friday that a federal judge's ruling in West Virginia illustrates the danger posed by the U.S. Supreme Court's right wing majority, which ruled this year in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen that restrictions on firearms must fall within the so-called "historical tradition" of gun laws.

U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin, who was appointed to the Southern District of West Virginia by former Democratic President Bill Clinton, ruledagainst a federal law prohibiting people from possessing firearms with serial numbers that have been "altered, obliterated, or removed."

"Serial numbers were largely unknown to the Framers, Goodwin wrote. And so the Second Amendment confers a right to remove them from modern weapons."

Serial numbers have been required for guns since the passage of the Gun Control Act of 1968 and are intended to prevent the illegal sale of guns and to allowing law enforcement to trace firearms.

But basing his ruling on the majority Supreme Court opinionwritten by Justice Clarence Thomas in June, Goodwin said Wednesday that requiring serial numbers is not part of the "historical tradition of firearm regulation" and therefore runs afoul of the Second Amendment.

In his majority opinion in Bruen, which overturned New York's state law restricting the concealed carry of firearms in public, Thomas wrote that for a gun control law to stand, the federal, state, or local government "must affirmatively prove that its firearm regulation is part of the historical tradition that delimits the outer bounds of the right to keep and bear arms."

Goodwin's opinion, said Demand Justice, which advocates for Supreme Court reform, demonstrates the far-reaching impact the Bruen ruling could have on gun laws across the country.

"That radical ruling is impacting measures as basic as a requirement that guns have serial numbers," said the group.

The case heard by Goodwin originated with a traffic stop in Charleston, West Virginia during which police found a gun with the serial number removed. The driver, Randy Price, had also been convicted of a felony.

Price argued in court that he had a constitutional right to have the firearm, while lawyers for the federal government said the law regarding serial numbers was a "commercial regulation" that did not violate the Second Amendment.

On Thursday, Slate journalist Mark Joseph Stern wrote that while Goodwin's ruling "might sound bizarre... his analysis closely follows Thomas' test" that requires the government to prove a gun regulation had a historical "analogue" in 1791, when the Second Amendment was ratified, or 1868, when it was imposed throughout the U.S.:

The only remaining question is whether the government could find an analogous regulation from 1791 or 1868 that restricted the possession of guns with an altered serial number. It could not, for a fairly obvious reason: Serial numbers only became common following the mass production of firearms, which took off in the decades after the Civil War.

Serial numbers were largely unknown to the Framers, Goodwin wrote. And so the Second Amendment confers a right to remove them from modern weapons.

When Bruen was handed down in June, Stern called the ruling "a revolution in Second Amendment law" which would ultimately go "so, so far beyond concealed carry."

Goodwin noted in his opinion on Wednesday that firearms that can't be traced using a serial number "are likely to be used in violent crime and therefore a prohibition on their possession is desirable," but said that argument "is the exact type of means-end reasoning the Supreme Court has forbidden me from considering."

Stern suggested that parts of Goodwin's opinion read "as if the judge is desperate to show readers just how dangerous and radical [the Bruen] ruling is."

According to the Supreme Court, Stern wrote, "all that counts is that serial number laws arose over the last century, so they are too modern to comport with the Second Amendment. Goodwin made this point over and over again; it almost sounded like he was quietly protesting the extreme and dangerous results demanded by the Bruen test."

"His decision thus doubled as a warning," he added. "The Supreme Court's Second Amendment jurisprudence has grown so radical that it now shields criminals trying to conceal their involvement in a violent crime."

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Supreme Court faces a 'desperate race against time' to avoid a 'Constitutional crisis' - Alternet.org

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John Roberts’ conservative SCOTUS majority 'rigging the docket' against voting rights: analysis

Chief Justice John Roberts / US Supreme Court

Carl Gibson

November 10, 2023

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts is selectively accepting cases to the Court's docket in a long-term project to weaken democracy, according to a recent analysis.

In an essay published recently by Slate, legal activist Sarah Lipton-Lubet argued that the Roberts Court is marching down a path that leads to the overall erosion of voting rights in selecting the cases it chooses to hear in a given term. Lipton-Lubet tracked the number of cases the Court has heard concerning "core democracy issues" like gerrymandering, redistricting, voting rights enforcement, and campaign finance since the Roberts Court's 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision that gutted portions of the Voting Rights Act pertaining to racial discrimination.

She found that out of 32 such cases, the Roberts Court agreed to hear 26 in which it had an opportunity to overturn a lower court ruling in favor of democracy, and only six in which it could potentially overturn an anti-democracy ruling (the Supreme Court can decide to hear a case if four of nine justices agree to issue a *writ of certiorari*).

"It’s not quite 'Heads I win, tails democracy loses,' but it’s pretty damn close," Lipton-Lubet wrote.

One of those six anti-democracy rulings was Allen v. Milligan, in which the Court ultimately ruled that Congressional redistricting maps that disenfranchised Black voters in Alabama were unconstitutional. Both Roberts and Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh agreed with the Court's three liberal justices that Alabama's legislature needed to redraw at least two of its seven Congressional districts to allow greater representation by Black voters, who make up 26% of the state's voting population.

However, Lipton-Lubet argued this decision was an anomaly amid the Roberts Court's larger pattern of weakening democracy over time. She pointed to both the Court's decision to stay the lower court ruling in Allen while it heard the case, allowing the illegal maps to remain in place for the 2022 midterms, which may have been the deciding factor that helped Republicans retake the House of Representatives with a razor-thin majority last year. She also pointed to the Court's 5-4 ruling in the Rucho v. Common Cause case in 2019, in which the conservative majority agreed that matters of partisan gerrymandering were not in the jurisdiction of federal courts. This paved the way for Republican-controlled legislatures like North Carolina's to aggressively gerrymander maps that would virtually guarantee impenetrable Republican majorities for the foreseeable future.

"Roberts and Kavanaugh are shrewd political operatives who have dedicated decades of their personal and professional lives to electing Republicans," Lipton-Lubet wrote. "They are not afraid to play the long game. Unlike some of their less patient colleagues, they recognize the power of cloaking their anti-democratic project in a veneer of moderation."

"By rigging the docket, Roberts and Kavanaugh can have their cake and eat it too," she added.

Read Lipton-Lubet's full essay by clicking here.

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as the the United States Supreme Court faces an "ethical crisis" following ProPublica's report earlier this year exposing Justice Clarence Thomas' history of receiving lavish gifts from billionaires, Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats, according to a CNN report, announced Monday they will soon vote to authorize subpoenas in their ongoing probe of the court.

Per CNN, this comes as "four justices – Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett" over the last few months "have expressed various forms of support for some kind of ethics reform at the high court, although no announcement has been made."

Chair Dick Durbin (D-IL) said, "The Supreme Court is in an ethical crisis of its own making," CNN notes, adding that the "subpoenas would target Harlan Crow, Leonard Leo and Robin Arkley II, who have all been linked to Thomas and others in recent news stories."

The news outlet reports the Democratic senator added "that the three had declined to fully engage with the committee on a voluntary basis during its inquiry," saying "Due to Crow, Leo and Arkley's intransigence, the Committee is now forced to seek compulsory process to obtain the information they hold."

CNN notes:

*The latest allegation against Thomas occurred last week after The New York Times reported that he failed to repay a 'significant' portion of a $267,230 loan from a friend that allowed him to by a luxury motorcoach in 1999, according to a memo issued by Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee. Hours after the report appeared, a lawyer for Thomas disputed the findings arguing that the loan had never been forgiven. 'The Thomases made all payments,' the lawyer, Elliot S. Berke, said in a statement to CNN.

A Democratic aide told the news outlet the committee "is likely to vote on the subpoenas on November 9."

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‘Get the Right Cases to the Supreme Court’: Inside Charles Koch’s Network

Billionaire’s web of rightwing groups works to bring cases to court that could undermine core functionings of the US government

ED PILKINGTON AND NICK SURGEY

OCT 26

This article was produced in partnership with The Guardian

The Koch network, a web of rightwing groups cultivated by billionaire businessman Charles Koch and his late brother David Koch, is spearheading the attack on federal agencies and government regulations that dominates the US supreme court agenda this term.

The network has been working behind the scenes to bring cases before the court that, if successful, could undermine many of the core functionings of the US government. At least two of the biggest cases to be considered by the justices this term have been spurred by groups bankrolled and coordinated within the Koch universe.

Footage of an internal panel discussion between senior operatives from Koch entities held in the summer of 2022 reveals that the network has been quietly planning the current assault on the “administrative state”. The groups are seeking to exploit the supreme court’s new six-to-three rightwing majority secured by Donald Trump to dismantle vital executive powers.

Regulatory controls in their sights include environmental standards to combat pollution and the climate crisis, consumer protections against predatory lenders, and safeguards for workers’ rights. At stake is what the Strict Scrutiny podcast has called “the future of government as we know it”.

The footage, which is made public here for the first time, was obtained by the investigative watchdog Documented and shared with the Guardian. During the 37-minute panel discussion, legal strategists with several Koch-related groups expressed excitement that the new hard-right supreme court supermajority has created the potential for a concerted attack on the functions of federal agencies.

Jorge Lima, an economic policy strategist at the Koch network’s central coordinating group, Stand Together, said that the new composition of the court amounted to a huge “landscape opportunity, particularly on the administrative state. We’re doubling down on this strategy.”

Lima added: “Every dog has its day, and it’s a big day for the administrative state.”

Casey Mattox, a legal strategist at the main Koch advocacy group, Americans for Prosperity, argued that the supreme court was now “primed for a real change in the law” on federal regulations which he said amounted to a “paradigm shift”. Mattox said: “That’s why we are partnering with organizations that can get the right cases to the supreme court.”

The effort appears to have born fruit. Two of the most significant cases before the court in the 2023-24 term, brought with the backing of Koch-linked organizations, attempt to rein back the government’s power to impose regulations on corporations.

The prominence of the cases underlines how the libertarian empire created by the Kochs is still a force to be reckoned with within US politics. Since David Koch’s death in 2019, and the Koch network’s decision to come out in opposition to Trump ahead of next year’s presidential election, the network has receded from public attention.

But the scope of Charles Koch’s reach remains formidable, as was demonstrated earlier this month when the 87-year-old told Forbes that he had given $4.3bn of his Koch Industries stock to Believe in People, a newly-created group named after his book of the same title. He has transferred a further $975m to another new entity, CCKc4, which carries the initials of his son Chase Koch.

The massive combined $5.3bn in donations, one of the largest acts of giving to non-profits in US history, will ensure that the Koch influence will continue to push the US to the right for years to come. Undermining government regulations is central to those ambitions.

Lisa Graves, the executive director of the progressive watchdog True North Research who is a long-time Koch watcher, said that Charles Koch has shown a “fundamental hostility to government regulation” since his early political writings in the 1960s. “This is the through-line of his career. His business operations have a substantial self-interest in assailing regulations that impede his profits.”

Koch Industries is a conglomerate of energy and chemicals companies that stand to benefit if controls on pollution, workers’ rights and other aspects of public governance are rolled back. The firm is the second largest privately-owned company in the US.

Among the big administrative state cases that the justices will be considering this term is Loper Bright Enterprises v Raimondo, which seeks to overturn a 40-year precedent set by the supreme court itself. Known as Chevron, the ruling allows federal agencies the flexibility to reasonably interpret laws without interference from the courts as they regulate critical parts of public life, such as the environment and public safety.

Experts have warned that if Chevron is struck down, it could be a recipe for legal and administrative chaos. “We are talking about rules that protect us in so many ways – truckers who are too tired to drive on the highway, unsafe workplaces, and pollution of our water and the air we breathe,” Graves said.

The case was nominally brought by a New Jersey herring fishing company that objected to being charged by a federal agency that monitors its catch to prevent over-fishing. Behind the challenge is a conservative group called Cause of Action, which is intricately tied to the Koch network.

The chair of Cause of Action’s board, Brian Menckes, is general counsel of the Charles Koch Foundation. Cause of Action’s executive director, James Valvo, who is acting as one of the fishing company’s lawyers in the case, is the former head of policy of Americans for Prosperity.

A second lawyer representing the company, Eric Bolinder, holds dual roles as a counsel for Cause of Action and Americans for Prosperity.

In 2021 Cause of Action’s entire income of $375,000 came from Stand Together, the Koch network’s coordinating group, Bloomberg reported. The groups are also physically close: Cause of Action and Americans for Prosperity not only share the same address in Arlington, Virginia, they occupy the same office – suite 700.

Bolinder was one of the panel speakers at the 2022 Koch discussion on the administrative state. He framed the plan to use the supreme court to launch a legal attack on regulatory government as a states’ rights issue.

“As the federal government grabs more and more power, particularly to the regulatory state, the states become less and less important,” he said.

The Guardian contacted Stand Together and Cause of Action for comment. Cause of Action did not immediately reply.

Gretchen Reiter, Stand Together spokesman, said that the Loper Bright case was seeking “to restore one of the core tenets of our democracy: that Congress, not the administrative agency, makes the laws. Cause of Action Institute – which filed the lawsuit in 2020 – is representing family-run fishing companies that the federal government is forcing to pay a tax that Congress never authorized, and that violates our constitution’s separation of powers.”

Last week, the supreme court accepted a second case also challenging the Chevron precedent, which has now been consolidated with the fishermen’s petition. Relentless v Department of Commerce was also filed by a group with intimate connections to the Koch network, the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA).

The organization, which claims to “protect constitutional freedoms from violations by the administrative state”, was founded in 2017 with seed money from the Charles Koch Foundation. Over five years, it has received more than $5m from the Koch network.

NCLA’s president, Mark Chenoweth, previously served as in-house counsel for Koch Industries.

NCLA submitted an amicus brief last week supporting another major challenge to regulatory agencies that will be heard by the supreme court this term. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) v Jarkesy threatens to gut the enforcement power of the SEC by curtailing its ability to fast-track cases of securities fraud through its own in-house administrative law judges.

A ruling against the SEC could drastically reduce the ability of numerous government agencies to enforce environmental and other standards.

The footage of the Koch panel discussion obtained by Documented reveals that the NCLA has been secretly lobbying for the Jarkesy case to reach the supreme court. Mattox said that “NCLA brought a lot of value to that case”.

He went on: “You won’t see them actually directly litigating on that case, but they’ve done a lot of work behind the scenes, and that speaks to the way that our community adds value here, because when we partner with people we look for results, not necessarily for headlines and attention-grabbing.”

There is a further twist to the issue of Koch influence on the supreme court’s docket this term. Last month, ProPublica revealed as part of its expose of ethical breaches by some justices, that the right-leaning Clarence Thomas had attended at least two Koch donor events where funds were raised to forward the Koch network’s mission – which includes bringing cases before the court.

The attack on the administrative state is central to the work of Americans for Prosperity, which boasts of its years-long campaign to challenge what it calls the “out-of-control regulatory environment imposed by Washington”. It organizes bus tours around the country, directly relating “red tape” on energy infrastructure projects to the high cost of fuel at the pump.

This has taken place while oil and gas giants such as Exxon, BP and Shell have posted record profits, and the world has increasingly felt the impact of climate change. Americans for Prosperity calls itself “the nation’s premier grassroots organization”, but according to an independent audit report from 2021, 94% of the $112m in cash it received that year came from just two donors.

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This hotly debated Supreme Court case could be Democrats' key to flipping the House in 2024 - Alternet.org

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Federal judge joins bipartisan group of legal scholars to end Supreme Court 'arms race' with term limits - Alternet.org

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Ethics complaint accuses Justice Alito of scheme to thwart congress

Jake Johnson

September 05, 2023

Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse filed an ethics complaint against Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on Tuesday, accusing the right-wing judge of improperly interfering with congressional efforts to reform the scandal-plagued high court.

The complaint points to Alito's comments in a recent Wall Street Journal interview conducted in part by David Rivkin, an attorney for notorious Federalist Society co-chair Leonard Leo. Rivkin is also representing the plaintiffs in a case that could preemptively ban lawmakers from enacting a wealth tax.

In their write-up of the Alito interview, Rivkin and Journal editor James Taranto specifically mention Whitehouse's Supreme Court ethics legislation, which passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee in a party-line vote in July. The bill, which has not yet received a vote in the full Senate, would require the Supreme Court to adopt a binding code of ethics—something every other federal court in the U.S. has done.

Rivkin and Taranto follow their brief summary of the legislation with a quote from Alito, who said, "No provision in the Constitution gives [Congress] the authority to regulate the Supreme Court—period."

Whitehouse argued in his new ethics complaint that Alito's "decision to opine publicly on the constitutionality of that bill may well embolden legal challenges to the bill should it become law."

The complaint, which was sent to Chief Justice John Roberts, continues:

Justice Alito's opining will also fuel obstruction of our Senate investigations into these matters. To inform its work on my bill and other judicial ethics legislation, and oversee the performance of the statutory Judicial Conference in this arena, the Senate Judiciary Committee is investigating multiple reports that Supreme Court justices have accepted and failed to disclose lavish gifts from billionaire benefactors. Separately, the Senate Finance Committee is investigating the federal tax considerations surrounding the billionaires' undisclosed gifts to Supreme Court justices. Both committees' inquiries have been stymied by individuals asserting that Congress has no constitutional authority to legislate in this area, hence no authority to investigate. Justice Alito's public comments prop up these theories.

Alito's comment about Congress' supposed powerlessness to regulate the high court prompted outrage and rebuttals at the time, with New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie calling it "a categorical statement of judicial supremacy that also stands as a glimpse into the arrogance of one justice on a court that falsely sees itself as the only and final authority on what the Constitution means."

Whitehouse's complaint emphasizes that Alito's comment was made to an individual who is representing Leo—a key architect of the right-wing takeover of the Supreme Court—as the Senate investigates him over "actions to facilitate gifts of free transportation and lodging that Justice Alito accepted from Paul Singer and Robin Arkley II in 2008."

As ProPublica reported in June, Leo "helped organize" the undisclosed luxury fishing vacation that Alito took with Singer, a billionaire hedge fund tycoon who later had business before the Supreme Court. Singer also had financial ties to supporters of legal challenges filed against President Joe Biden's initial student debt cancellation plan, which Alito and the rest of the high court's conservative supermajority struck down in June.

"The timing of Justice Alito’s opining suggests that he intervened to give his friend and political ally [Leo] support in his effort to block congressional inquiries," Whitehouse's complaint states.

The complaint also points to the "unpleasant fact" that "Alito's opining apparently at the behest of his friend and ally's lawyer, props up an argument being used to block inquiry into undisclosed gifts and travel received by Justice Alito."

"In the worst case facts may reveal, Justice Alito was involved in an organized campaign to block congressional action with regard to a matter in which he has a personal stake," the complaint reads. "Whether Justice Alito was unwittingly used to provide fodder for such interference, or intentionally participated, is a question whose answer requires additional facts. The heart of any due process is a fair determination of the facts. Uniquely in the whole of government, the Supreme Court has insulated its justices from any semblance of fair fact-finding."

"The obstructive campaign run by Mr. Rivkin and Mr. Leo, fueled by Justice Alito's opining, appears intended to prevent Congress from gathering precisely those facts," the complaint adds. "The Supreme Court should not be helpless when it comes to policing its own members' ethical obligations. But it is necessarily helpless if there is no process of fair fact-finding, nor independent decisionmaking. I request that you as chief justice, or through the Judicial Conference, take whatever steps are necessary to investigate this affair and provide the public with prompt and trustworthy answers."

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An entire branch of government is sinking into an irredeemable Trump-fueled muck of corruption

Thom Hartmann August 20, 2023

So now, as expected after decades of taking big bucks for her right-wing work on behalf of America's oligarchs, we learn that the wife of Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Ginny Thomas, was in Trump's January 6th "rally" up to her eyeballs.

Let's just say it right out loud: the US Supreme Court is corrupt. And Americans know it.

No other federal court in the nation would allow a defendant in a case before them to fly a judge on a private Gulfstream luxury jet to a luxury hunting retreat in Louisiana and then, a week later, watch as that judge rules in that defendant's favor.

But Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia did exactly that when Dick Cheney was sued for allegedly lying about his secret "energy group" that was planning the seizure and sale of Iraq's oil fields as he and Bush lied us into the war that opened those oil fields up to exploitation.

No other federal court would allow a judge to give a speech before a group that was funding a case before them and then rule in favor of that group's openly stated goal, but that's exactly what Neal Gorsuch did when he addressed the Fund for American Studies, itself funded by the Bradley Foundation that was helping fund the Janus v AFSCME case that gutted union protections for government workers.

No other federal court would allow a judge to swear revenge against a particular nonprofit corporation (in this case the Democratic Party), saying in his confirmation hearings that, "What goes around comes around," and then rule in cases directly affecting that organization (like voting rights) butBrett "Beerbong" Kavanaughdid just that.

No other federal court would allow a judge to rule on a case where he owned a half-million dollars worth of stock in the company presenting amicus arguments before the court—it's illegal in many states—but John Roberts did just that in the ABC v Aereo case. As did Roberts, Bryer and Alito in 25 of 37 other cases where they owned stock, according to the good-government group Fix The Court.

No other federal court would allow a judge's wife to openly interact with and advocate for the interests of dozens of litigants before the court over decades, and take nearly a million dollars from a group regularly helping bring cases before his court but Clarence Thomas and his wife have done both, as recently revealed in a shocking New York Times profile.

And now the Court is gutting the EPA—the agency Justice Gorsuch's mother infamously ran into the ground before resigning in disgrace during the Reagan administration—using Gorsuch's own BS "textualist" rationale to go after the agency today.

In addition, these Republican appointees are openly shooting down Democratic efforts to fight gerrymanderedmaps while supporting GOP efforts to impose them on states.

Is there no way, to paraphrase Shakespeare, to rid ourselves of this Court's corrupt behavior? Turns out, Congress has that power—although they haven't used it since Ulysses Grant was president and reorganized the Court.

Article III of the Constitution establishes the federal court system, and gives to Congress itself the power to create the lower federal courts. It also says that Supreme Court judges may only serve on the court if they behave themselves:

The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour….

It also requires Congress to regulate the Supreme Court. Article III, Section 2 says:

[T]he Supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.

The issue of the Supreme Court needing regulation from the "first among equals" legislative branch (Congress), as specified by the Founders and Framers of the Constitution, has been with us for 101 years.

Most people remember William Howard Taft as the one-term progressive Republican president who followed Teddy Roosevelt into the White House in 1909 and was beaten for re-election by Woodrow Wilson in 1912.

But after his retirement from the presidency, Taft became the first former president to serve as Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court in 1921. He was our 27th president and 10th Chief Justice.

In 1921, it came to the attention of the nation and to Chief Justice Taft that US District Judge Kenesaw Landis was taking five times his annual salary as a judge from what was then called "Organized Baseball"—five years after ruling in their favor.

The scandal provoked Congress to pass, in 1922, a law creating a body that would provide advice and oversight to the federal judiciary. It came to be known as the Judicial Conference of the United States.

The scandal also prompted Chief Justice Taft to accept the unpaid chairmanship of The American Bar Association's (ABA) newly formed commission to write ethics rules for federal judges.

Taft's commission wrote, in 1923, the first Canons of Judicial Ethics, which included 34 categories of judicial conflicts and misbehavior that would either disqualify a judge or require their recusal from cases before them. They included conflicts of interest, personal financial investments, and even behavior in the courtroom itself.

Taft, in delivering the Canons, made it clear they should apply to all federal courts, including his own Supreme Court. Within a decade, every state in the union had adopted the Canons for their own courts.

The Canons, however, had no enforcement mechanism,particularly when it came to the Supreme Court. After all, who would judge the highest court in the land? That opened the door for literally a century of the Supreme Court ignoring Taft's work.

The issue came to the fore again in 1969 when Republicans went nuts when it was revealed that Justice Abe Fortas—a very liberal (Republicans called him a communist) LBJ appointee—had taken $15,000 for a summer teaching post, was receiving time-delayed payments from a law former client, and, worse of all, was secretly advising President Johnson.

Under massive incoming fire from Republicans and their friendly media, Fortas resigned from the Supreme Court on May 14, 1969. Over the next three years, the ABA put together a new commission to update Taft's original Canon on judicial ethics.

That commission released their new Code of Judicial Conduct in 1972, and it was adopted by the Judicial Conference of the United States, in 1973. The Supreme Court, however, chose to ignore it, arguing that they were above such considerations.

By that time the Supreme Court had made itself, as I lay out in detail in The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America, the most powerful of the three branches of government, asserting the power to second-guess both Congress and the President.

Ironically, in his 2011 annual report about the state of the judiciary, Chief Justice John Roberts made lengthy and effusive reference to former Chief Justice Taft and his work with the ABA's commission on judicial ethics. His report, however, conveniently omitted the fact that Taft had loudly and publicly asserted it should apply to the Supreme Court.

Instead, Roberts noted rhetorically, "Some observers have recently questioned whether the Judicial Conference's Code of Conduct for United States Judges should apply to the Supreme Court."

I'll spare you extended quotes from Roberts' report, which you can read here, but the bottom line is that in his opinion the Court can tell the 1923 ethics recommendations, and the subsequent ones from 1973, to go screw themselves. The Supreme Court, in his mind, is answerable to nobody but itself.

As Sam Alito said, "I'm not aware of problems on the Supreme Court itself…we would not sit back. We would take action that's appropriate."

Back when Roberts was a young lawyer working for Reagan and trying to come up with a way to overturn Brown v Board and Roe v Wade, he was fond of quoting Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution.

This gave Congress the power, Roberts wrote, to simply overturn both Brown and Roe by passing a law creating an "exception" that the Supreme Court couldn't rule on issues of race or abortion (his lengthy writings for Reagan are in my book on the Court).

But now that he, himself, is in charge of the Court there's nary a peep from Roberts—in his 2011 Report or anywhere else—about Congress' power to regulate the Court.

In recent years multiple laws have been proposed to pick up the slack Roberts left to his fellow justices. Louise Slaughter proposed legislation in the house in 2015 that would require the Court itself to come up with its own code of ethics.

It went nowhere, and, besides, it would violate the basic premise of law dating back to Publius Syrus in 50 BC, cited by John Locke in the 17th century, and finally quoted by Madison in Federalist 10 that "no man shall be the judge in his own case."

President Biden's commission on the Courts recently recommended that the Supreme Court adopt an "advisory" code of behavior, but Roberts didn't even bother to comment.

Most recently, Senator Chris Murphy introduced the Supreme Court Ethics Act that would seek to regulate the Court's out-of-control politicking and conflicts of interest. Predictably, it was blocked by Republicans in the Senate.

Public outrage is building: the Court's approval rating is now around 40 percent, a historic low. Congress needs to act, requiring them to adopt and conform to the federal code of judicial ethics at the very least, and expand the Court at best, before an entire branch of government sinks into an irredeemable partisan muck of corruption.

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https://www.alternet.org/alito-2663217962/

alito inc tax recuse?

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THE WEEKEND INTERVIEW

Samuel Alito, the Supreme Court’s Plain-Spoken Defender

He has emerged as an important justice with a distinctive interpretive method that is pragmatic yet rooted in originalism and textualism.

By David B. Rivkin Jr. and

James Taranto

July 28, 2023

via realclear

the Supreme Court usually makes news by making decisions, and it’s done plenty of that lately. In its first two terms with a 6-3 conservative majority,the justices have revisited old precedents and established new ones [THAT IS IGNORED STARE DECISIS] on abortion, gun rights, racial discrimination, freedom of speech and religion, the power of unelected federal regulators and more.

By comparison with the previous eight decades or so, the court has frequently declined to defer toelite political opinion, and as a result it has made news in other ways. A draft abortion opinion was leaked to the press. An armed man was arrested outside the home of Justice Brett Kavanaugh and charged with attempted assassination. The justices have come under attack from President Biden (“this is not a normal court”) and Democratic lawmakers. Partisan journalists have tried to gin up “ethics” scandals and incite animus against disfavored justices.

“I marvel at all the nonsense that has been written about me in the last year,” Justice Samuel Alitosays during an early July interview at the Journal’s New York offices. In the face of a political onslaught, he observes, “the traditional idea about how judges and justices should behave is they should be mute” and leave it to others, especially “the organized bar,” to defend them. “But that’s just not happening. And so at a certain point I’ve said to myself, nobody else is going to do this, so I have to defend myself.”

He does so with a candor that is refreshing and can be startling. He spoke with us on the record for four hours in two wide-ranging sessions, the first in April in his chambers at the court. In the interim, he wrote an op-ed for these pages responding in detail to a hit piece from ProPublica,a self-styled “independent, nonprofit newsroomthat produces investigative journalism with moral force.” Many of the court’s critics claim to want more “transparency.” Their hostile reactions to our April interview and his June op-ed suggest—no surprise—that they’re really after ideologically congenial rulings, not to mention conformist press coverage.

Justice Alito, 73, was appointed in early 2006 and is now the second most senior associate justice. He has emerged as an important voice on the court with a distinctive interpretive method that is rooted in originalism and textualism—adherence to the text, respectively, of the Constitution and statutes—but in some ways more pragmatic than that of Justice Clarence Thomas or Neil Gorsuch.

“There are very serious differences” in how the six conservative justices approach cases, Justice Alito says. The simplest difference involves respect for precedent: Justice Thomas “gives less weight to stare decisis than a lot of other justices.” It is, “in its way, a virtue of his jurisprudence,” Justice Alito says. “He sticks to his guns.”

That’s why Justice Thomas writes many lone concurrences. In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022), he argued that “in future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents,” including those involving same-sex marriage, contraception and consensual sodomy. Justice Alito’s majority opinion carefully distinguished those issues from abortion. Justice Thomas often disregards precedents with which he disagrees and follows his own route to the majority’s destination—to cite a recurring example, by relying on the 14th Amendment’s Privileges or Immunities Clause rather than the Due Process Clause. The disadvantage of this approach, Justice Alito says, “is that you drop out of the conversation, and . . . lose your ability to help to shape what comes next in the application of that rule.”

Justice Gorsuch has an ornery streak that has shown itself in cases involving Indian law, crime and discrimination. “He’s definitely not a consequentialist,” Justice Alito says of his colleague—meaning he is less concerned with the real-world effects of following his principles.

An example is Ramos v. Louisiana (2020), which overturned a pair of 1972 precedents and held that the Sixth Amendment’s right to a jury trial requires unanimity for a finding of guilt in state court. Every state but Louisiana and Oregon already required unanimous verdicts, but “Ramospotentially affected many, many criminal convictions that had been obtained . . . using nonunanimous jury verdicts, which had been specifically approved by the Supreme Court,” Justice Alito says. “Overruling those decisions had potentially vast consequences. . . . That was not a big factor in his analysis.”

As for Chief Justice John Roberts, “he puts a high premium on consensus. He rarely dissents.” He filed no outright dissenting opinions in the 2022-23 term and only one in 2021-22. He also “has expressed a very strong tendency to protect the prerogatives of the judiciary,” as in Bank Markazi v. Peterson(2016). The court upheld a law directing that Iranian assets targeted by successful plaintiffs in a specific terrorism case be seized to pay the judgment. The chief justice dissented against what he called an unacceptable intrusion on judicial power: “Hereafter, with this Court’s seal of approval, Congress can unabashedly pick the winners and losers in particular pending cases.”

On the liberal side of the court, by contrast, “I don’t see that there’s a difference in interpretive method,” Justice Alito says. Yet he emphasizes that “we don’t always line up 6-3, 5-4, the way some people tend to think. If you look at all the cases, there are cases where the lineup is unusual.” Chief Justice Roberts wrote two election-law decisions this term, Allen v. Milliganand Moore v. Harper, in which he was joined by the three liberals and Justice Kavanaugh, along with Justice Amy Coney Barrett in the latter case.

Another prime example is National Pork Producers Council v. Ross, which upheld a California law banning the sale of meat from pigs that are “confined in a cruel manner”—almost all of which is produced in other states. The council argued that the law violated the Dormant Commerce Clause, a doctrine that limits states’ authority to enact policies that burden interstate commerce.

Justice Alito, who agreed with that view, says “it’s no secret that Justice Thomas and Justice Gorsuch don’t think that there is such a thing as the Dormant Commerce Clause.” Justices Barrett, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan signed on to parts of Justice Gorsuch’s opinion, providing a majority that let the law stand.

“I have not joined Justice Thomas, Justice [Antonin] Scalia, Justice Gorsuch in saying we should get rid of the Dormant Commerce Clause,” Justice Alito says. “I’ve written this in the Tennessee wine case—that the Constitution surely was meant to contain some principle that prevents the balkanization of the economy. That was one of the main reasons for calling the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.”

He refers to his 7-2 ruling in Tennessee Wine and Spirits Retailers Assn. v. Thomas (2019). In dissent, Justices Gorsuch and Thomas cited the 21st Amendment, which repealed Prohibition and gave states broad authority to regulate alcohol. Justice Alito’s majority opinion treated that provision “as one part of a unified constitutional scheme,” within which the lawmakers who ratified the 21st Amendment understood that “the Commerce Clause did not permit the States to impose protectionist measures clothed as police-power regulations.”

That demonstrates a central feature of Justice Alito’s jurisprudence: its emphasis on historical context. “I think history often tells us what the Constitution means,” he says, “or at least it can tell us what the Constitution doesn’t mean.” His dissent in Obergefell v. Hodges(2015) is a case in point. “It’s perfectly clear that nobody in 1868 thought that the 14th Amendment was going to protect the right to same-sex marriage,” he says. Before this century, “no society—even those that did not have a moral objection to same-sex conduct, like ancient Greece—had recognized same-sex marriage.” The first country to legalize it was the Netherlands, effective in 2001.

The same attention to history informs Justice Alito’s textualism. “I reject the idea that a statute should be interpreted simply by looking up the words in the dictionary and applying that mechanically,” he says. Justice Gorsuch did something like that in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), in which the court held that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits employment discrimination “because of . . . sex,” covers “sexual orientation and gender identity.”

Justice Gorsuch reasoned that because sex is essential to the definition of both categories, such discrimination is “because of” sex. But in 1964 homosexuality was subject to widespread disapprobation, and gender identity “hardly existed as a concept, even among professionals in the field,” as Justice Alito says. “When it’s very clear that the author of the text . . . cannot have meant something, then I don’t think we should adopt that interpretation, even if a purely semantic interpretation of the statute would lead you to a different result.”

Justice Alito’s respect for precedent has limits: “Some decisions—and I think that Roeand Caseyfell in this category—are so egregiously wrong, so clearly wrong, that’s a very strong factor in support of overruling.” Those are the 1973 and 1992 abortion cases that Dobbs overturned, with Justice Alito writing for a majority of five. Chief Justice Roberts provided a sixth vote to uphold Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban but urged “a more measured course” that would narrow the precedents while deferring the question of whether to overturn them altogether.

Justice Alito has been known to take a similarly incremental approach. His opinion for the court in Janus v. Afscme (2018) held that compelling public employees to pay union dues violated the First Amendment, and it overturned a 1977 precedent, Abood v. Detroit Board of Education. A foretaste came in Harris v. Quinn(2014), also written by Justice Alito, which subjected Abood to a withering critique but left it standing.

“The question how broad a decision should be—should we overrule a prior precedent when we really don’t have to in order to decide this case?—it’s a judgment call,” he says. “There can be reasons for deciding the case more narrowly. Maybe we’re not sure whether it should be overruled. Maybe we think it would be better if the issue were highlighted for others to address first—scholars, lower-court decisions. Maybe it’s a question of what a majority of the court is willing to go along with.”

That last contingency sometimes depends on events more than philosophy. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in September 2020, and President Trump appointed Justice Barrett to succeed her. Had Ginsburg lived a few months longer, the chief justice’s tentative approach might have prevailed in Dobbs. Or perhaps the justices wouldn’t have taken the case.

In the 2023-24 term, the court will consider whether to overturnChevron v. NRDC (1984), an increasingly disputed precedent that requires courts to defer to administrative agencies’ interpretations of ambiguous statutes. Justice Alito is careful not to state a position on Chevron,but he does make a pertinent broader point about precedent: “I’m not in favor of overruling important decisions just by pretending they don’t exist but refusing to say anything about them.”

He says that’s what his colleagues did last month in U.S. v. Texas, the term’s only case that had him alone in dissent. The court threw out Texas’ challenge to lax Biden administration immigration guidelines on the ground that the state lacked standing to challenge them in court. But Justice Alito says Texas’ claim of injury “was the same as—in fact, stronger than—that of Massachusetts in Massachusetts v. EPA,” a 2007 case that opened the door to federal regulation of greenhouse gases. “The court just hardly said a word about Massachusetts v. EPA.”

The Biden policies suspended all enforcement measures for certain categories of illegal aliens, despite statutory language to the contrary—a clear violation, in Justice Alito’s view, of the president’s express constitutional duty to ensure that the law be faithfully executed. How did all eight of his colleagues end up on the other side? “I have no idea,” he says. “I honestly don’t. Why did it turn out that way? Because it involves immigration? Because it’s vaguely connected to Trump? I don’t know. I don’t know what the explanation is.”

After the justices reconvene on the first Monday in October, they will continue making news in the usual way. Among the issues on the fall docket, along with the reconsideration of Chevron: whether South Carolina impermissibly gerrymandered its congressional districts by race, whether the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s funding scheme is unconstitutional,whether Congress can tax unrealized investment income, and whether someone subject to a domestic-violence restraining order can be deprived of his right to possess firearms. (Mr. Rivkin and a law partner, Andrew Grossman, represent the appellants in Moore v. U.S.,the tax case.)

The attacks on the court are sure to keep coming as well. Last week the Senate Judiciary Committee voted along party lines to advance Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse’s Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal and Transparency Act, which purports to impose on the justices and their clerks regulations “at least as rigorous as the House and Senate disclosure rules.”

Justice Alito says he voluntarily follows disclosure statutes that apply to lower-court judges and executive-branch officials; so do the other justices.But he notes that “Congress did not create the Supreme Court”—the Constitution did. “I know this is a controversial view, but I’m willing to say it,” he says. “No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court—period.”

Do the other justices agree? “I don’t know that any of my colleagues have spoken about it publicly, so I don’t think I should say. But I think it is something we have all thought about.”

The political branches have other weapons they could deploy against the court. The Constitution doesn’t specify the number of justices, so Congress could pack the court by enacting legislation to expand its size. Last week a pair of leftist law professors issued an “open letter” urging President Biden to “restrain MAGA justices” by applying their rulings as narrowly as possible. The day the court decided Biden v. Nebraska, striking down Mr. Biden’s student-loan forgiveness plan, the president announced that he was undertaking legally questionable alternatives.

Justice Alito wonders if outright defiance may be in the offing for the first time since the aftermath of Brown v. Board of Education(1954): “If we’re viewed as illegitimate, then disregard of our decisions becomes more acceptable and more popular. So you can have a revival of the massive resistance that occurred in the South after Brown.”

Will the justices’ recent rulings endure? The court shows little sign of yielding to external pressure, but its three liberal members stand ready to overturn many recent precedents from which they dissented. Whether they’ll have the opportunity likely depends on who holds the White House and the Senate when future high-court vacancies arise. About that prospect, Justice Alito demurs: “We are very bad political pundits.”

Mr. Rivkin practices appellate and constitutional law in Washington. He served at the Justice Department and the White House Counsel’s Office in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations. Mr. Taranto is the Journal’s editorial features editor.

===

context,

https://www.democracynow.org/2023/7/28/global_heat_climate_crisis_july_2023

new climate data show July is on track to become the hottest month in human history, with global temperatures rising to about 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, above pre-industrial levels. On Thursday, the head of the World Meteorological Organization said, “Climate action is not a luxury but a must,” while U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres scolded world leaders over inaction on the climate.

Secretary-General António Guterres: “Climate change is here, it is terrifying, and it is just the beginning. The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived. The air is unbreathable, the heat is unbearable, and the level of fossil fuel profits and climate inaction is unacceptable.”

The U.N.’s warning came as hundreds of wildfires fueled by record heat continued to burn out of control around the Mediterranean — in Algeria, Croatia, France, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Tunisia and Turkey.

In China, Typhoon Doksuri made landfall today in the southeastern Fujian province, sparking fires, downing power lines and shuttering schools and businesses. On Thursday, the storm lashed southern Taiwan after battering the northern Philippines, where it killed at least 39 people.

---

https://www.democracynow.org/2023/7/28/headlines/supreme_court_will_allow_construction_of_mountain_valley_pipeline_to_resume

In more climate news, the Supreme Court has cleared the way for construction of the contested Mountain Valley Pipeline to resume. The court on Thursday lifted a halt on a section of the project that had been issued by a lower court earlier this month after a challenge by environmental groups.

===

https://www.alternet.org/another-important-fact-a-lie/

no lnx

'This was a lie': Another fact in the anti-LGBTQ Supreme Court wedding website case was false

David BadashandThe New Civil Rights Movement July 25, 2023

Exactly one day before U.S. Supreme Court handed down its 6-3 decision in what has been called an “entirely hypothetical make-believe” case pitting conservative Christian beliefs masked as First Amendment speech against the rights of LGBTQ people to exist equally in the marketplaces of both commerce and ideas, a bombshell report revealed one critical fact in the case turned out to be false.

Apparently, so is a second one.

That first false “fact” – a claim in court documents that a San Francisco man, a graphic designer, years ago had reached out to the plaintiff, a Colorado Christian woman, to ask her to design among other items a wedding website for him and his soon-to-be husband, was almost certainly a lie. The man was and is married, to a woman, when the alleged inquiry came in, and had never even heard of the Christian designer, much less crossed state lines and his own Rolodex and personal skill set to ask her to create a wedding website she allegedly had never before even advertised, much less constructed.

The bombshell news on June 29 came via a report by Melissa Gira Grant at The New Republic.

And now, Melissa Gira Grant has more news – more proof of a possible fraudulent claim before the U.S. Supreme Court, not to mention all the lower courts that sided with the State of Colorado, and not the Christian designer, Lorie Smith (photo), who allegedly had one request for a same-sex wedding website while allegedly having never created any wedding website at all.

“So,” Grant said on social media Tuesday afternoon, “the Colorado website designer in the fake same-sex wedding website case, 303 Creative, it turns out, had made a wedding website, before filing her legal challenge.”

READ MORE: GOP Congressman Admits ‘Most of What We Do Is Bad’ as McCarthy’s Republicans Push for Federal Government Shutdown

Over at The New Republic, the subhead reads: “An archive shows that the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case did once design a wedding website, contrary to what her lawyers presented during her legal challenge.”

Boom.

“The destination wedding website looks uncontroversial enough. The thumbnail preview of the site shows the happy couple’s names in teal and purple type, a mostly out-of-focus photo of a wedding dress trailing on a sandy beach and a couple’s bare feet, and a date and a location in Mexico,” Grant writes.

“In 2015, a web designer named Lorie Smith featured the wedding website in her portfolio of recent work—you can still access an archived copy of Smith’s site on the Wayback Machine. But you won’t find the wedding website in Smith’s live online portfolio anymore. The page detailing her role in the wedding website’s creation was removed some time before she filed a legal challenge—one that claimed she was unable to enter the wedding website business because Colorado’s anti-discrimination law would compel her to create same-sex wedding websites. The wedding website Smith made before she filed her case—and highlighted in a portfolio on her own site—is being reported for the first time in The New Republic.”

Smith’s legal team, the right-wing Christian nationalist Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which appears on the Southern Poverty Law Center‘s list of anti-LGBTQ hate groups, insists The New Republic’s reporting is simply a “media smear.”

READ MORE: ‘Ghouls’: Fox News Blasted for Declaring Jews ‘Survived’ the Holocaust by Being ‘Useful’

But facts are facts.

The U.S. Supreme Court took a case with what are now two “incorrect” pieces of information, and made a decision that, as the ADF suggests on its website, affects every person in the United States. Not only did the Supreme Court make a landmark decision on, at best, a faulty case, one that some legal experts have made clear it should never have even agreed to review, so did every lower court that ruled against Smith.

Responding to The New Republic’s latest bombshell report, Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern writes, “Lorie Smith and her lawyers at Alliance Defending Freedom repeatedly told the Supreme Court that she had never, ever made a wedding website, because she was afraid a same-sex couple might then request her services. That was a lie.”

“The wedding website that Lorie Smith DID make was scrubbed from the internet, though some of it can still be seen via the Wayback Machine,” he adds, pointing to TNR’s reporting.

Alex Aronson former Chief Counsel, U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Senate Judiciary Committee, writes: “Evidence continues to mount that the anti-LGBTQ extremist group Alliance Defending Freedom committed a fraud on the Supreme Court in its cooked-up 303 Creative case.”

Drexel University Professor of Law David S. Cohen states simply, “Apparently nothing about this case was true.”

NBC News senior reporter Ben Collins sums it all up: “This case continues to absolutely reek and nothing is being done about it.”

McCarthy invites lawmakers to screen movie with 'anti-Jewish canards' to boost workplace morale

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no lnx

'Dead as fried chicken': Senate Republicans lash out after Supreme Court ethics bill clears committee

https://www.alternet.org/as-fried-chicken-senate/

Brandon GageJuly 20, 2023

The United States Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday in an 11-10 vote along party lines advanced The Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act for a floor debate in the upper congressional chamber. According to its sponsor, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island), the bill "would require Supreme Court justices to adopt a code of conduct, create a mechanism to investigate alleged violations of the code of conduct and other laws, improve disclosure and transparency when a justice has a connection to a party or amicus before the Court, and require justices to explain their recusal decisions to the public."

But as Politico reports, the measure faces almost certain defeat in the House of Representatives, which just like in the Senate, Republicans view "as an erosion of separation of powers and an attack on the conservative court."

Thursday's hearing lasted more than three hours, Politico notes, wherein lawmakers "struck down more than a half dozen Republican amendments, on topics such as the size of the court, punishing leakers and further regulating stock trades by lawmakers. But GOP committee members never called up the vast majority of the more than 60 amendments they said they planned to offer."

READ MORE: Democrats 'don’t like democracy' claims Ted Cruz, who voted against certifying the 2020 election

According to Politico, "The Whitehouse proposal would give the court 180 days to adopt and publish a code of conduct and allow the public to submit ethics complaints that would be reviewed by a randomly selected panel of lower court judges. It also would establish more stringent rules for disclosure of gifts and travel. Justices would also be subject to clearer rules on recusing themselves from cases where they may have a conflict of interest, or an appearance of one."

Multiple jurists on the High Court — most notably Associate Justice Clarence Thomas — are under intense scrutiny for receiving gifts and having personal financial relationships with individuals who had stakes in the outcomes of cases that came before the Court. Nonetheless, Republicans were less than cordial about the legislation.

"You're going to fail miserably. This bill is going nowhere," said Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), while Senator John Kennedy (R-Louisiana) voiced similar, albeit more colorful criticism.

"You don't have to be Oliver Wendell Scalia to figure out that this legislation is meant to be a court-killing machine," Kennedy quipped. "This thing's dead as fried chicken on the Senate floor and it's dead as fried chicken in the House."

READ MORE: Expand the Supreme Court? Activists livid Senate Democrats are holding out

Meanwhile, Whitehouse pushed back against the GOP's claims that Democrats are attempting to "pack" the Court:

I would like to make a few points as we wrap this up. The first is I would react to the comments that some of my colleagues said Democrats wanna pack the court. My sense is the court has already been packed. It has been packed as the result of a very long and expensive effort run by a handful of secretive right-wing billionaires through a bunch of front groups.

The tally of the cost of the operation has risen from the original $250 million estimate of The Washington Post to now $580 million spent on trying to make sure that those billionaires succeeded in what has been characterized in this room as the long effort to make this a conservative court.

Watch Whitehouse's statement below via The Recount or at this link.

READ MORE: How the Supreme Court pulled a right-wing doctrine 'out of thin air' to 'invalidate' Biden’s policies

Politico's analysis continues here.

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[[ ===

GOP evang grifter BS boosts unwanted pregnancy, then they outlaw abortion, then go for birth control?!

extort trump GOTV --> scotus supermajority LEO

no lnx many

Trump’s Pro-Abstinence HHS Appointee Fits an Unnerving ‘Pattern’

Jennifer Gerson Uffalussy·Contributing Writer

June 7, 2017

On Tuesday, the Trump administration quietly appointed Valerie J. Huber as chief of staff for the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Health within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Huber most recently served as president and CEO of Ascend, an organization focused on promoting abstinence-only education in schools. She was previously the abstinence-education coordinator for the state of Ohio, where she oversaw abstinence programs for more than 100,000 students per year.

Valerie J. Huber

In a memo to HHS staffers by Acting Health Secretary Doug Wright, he called Ascend “a Washington DC-based professional association that champions youth to make healthy life and relationship decisions.”

But abstinence-only education — or what many on the far right call “sexual risk avoidance” — is seen by many health advocates as ineffective, and frequently leave out certain demographics of young people that are especially vulnerable, including LGBTQ teens and pregnant and parenting teens.

Why Experts Are Concerned

Diana Thu-Thao Rhodes, the director of public policy for Advocates for Youth, says there is a pattern not only of Trump appointees being named to offices whose very mission they seem to oppose, but also one emerging among HHS appointees specifically who are united in their opposition to contraception.

“There is definitely in HHS and the Trump administration a focus on rolling back birth control coverage and access to contraception in general,” Thu-Thao Rhodes says. “And yet another pattern of this administration is that they don’t see contraception as a preventative service and integral to women’s health. There’s a pattern here of people being appointed to key positions by the administration who think this way.”

Echoes Leslie Kantor, PhD, MPH, and the Vice President of Education at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, “At Planned Parenthood, we are very concerned about an increasing number of anti-women’s health, anti-sex education, anti-science appointments in the Trump administration.”

Last month, Teresa Manning was tapped as deputy assistant secretary for population affairs at HHS, the role that oversees the administration of Title X, the national family planning program. In a 2003 interview, Manning stated on the record that she believes that contraception doesn’t work. Manning has also criticized the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists for recommending that prescribers offer advance prescriptions of the morning-after pill and has called emergency contraception “medically irresponsible” and “anti-family.”

Charmaine Yoest, Trump’s appointee to serve as assistant secretary of public affairs for HHS, is opposed to intrauterine devices (IUDs) as a form of birth control and has falsely said that they have “life-ending properties.” As noted in a memo circulated to Senate Democrats from the staff of the minority members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee earlier this week, “IUDs do not work after implantation and therefore cannot end pregnancies. Additionally, recent data from the Guttmacher Institute found that unplanned pregnancies are at a 30-year low, largely a result of an increase in the use of long-acting reversible contraceptives like IUDs. The [Affordable Care Act] has been critical in increasing access to IUDs by removing cost barriers for women seeking contraceptive services.”

HHS Secretary Tom Pricehas also spoken on the record about his opposition to the contraception mandate of the ACA, telling a reporter in 2012 that “there’s not one woman” who does not have access to birth control — and thus does not need it guaranteed as part of her insurance coverage at no cost. Price is also vehemently outspoken on his opposition to federal funding for Planned Parenthood and his support of seeing the organization dropped as not just a Medicaid provider, but also a Title X provider. Planned Parenthood serves more than 40 percent of Title X patients, including teens, despite making up just 13 percent of all Title X health centers.

And Dr. Scott Gottlieb, Trump’s appointee to head the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), has repeatedly insisted in his own words that the contraception mandate of the ACA harms women’s health.

“These appointments have an enormous impact on the lives and future success of young people in our nation,” Ginny Ehrlich, CEO of The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, tells Yahoo Beauty in a statement. “We hope these officials will exercise their responsibilities in a way that builds on past successes in reducing teen and unplanned pregnancy, rather than going backwards.”

Bipartisan Support for Comprehensive Sex Ed

According to the Guttmacher Institute, research “suggests that strategies that promote abstinence-only outside of marriage while withholding information about contraceptives do not stop or even delay sex. Moreover, abstinence-only programs can actually place young people at increased risk of pregnancy and STIs.”

“The point of sex education is that you want to get to young people before they become sexually active. You don’t want them to get critical information after the fact,” Kantor says. “Good sex ed lays the groundwork throughout childhood and the teen years so that when you’re in the situation when you’re in a relationship and navigating and negotiating having sex for the first time, you are well prepared and have all the information you need to protect yourself.”

Adds Kantor, “There was a very, very important change in the country in2010 when for the first time, rather than pouring money into abstinence-only-until-marriage programs, money started to be appropriated for evidence-based approaches — approaches found to help young people change their behavior either by delaying sex or by using condoms and contraception when having sex. We don’t want to see things roll backwards to the bad old days of abstinence-only-until-marriage education.”

January 2017 polling by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy found that 85 percent of American adults — including 89 percent of Democrats and 75 percent of Republicans — favor maintaining federal funding for the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program and the Personal Responsibility Education Program, both of which utilize evidence-based, comprehensive sex education curricula.

Furthermore, the National Campaign’s polling found that 79 percent of Americans — including 81 percent of Democrats and 73 percent of Republicans — believe that teens should receive more information about abstinence and birth control and sexually transmitted infection protection.

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cLARENCE THOMAS’ CONNECTIONS to wealth and expensive vacations run deeper than billionaire businessmanand Nazi-enthusiast Harlan Crow.The New York Timesreports that Thomas has milked relationships with the rich he made through theHoratio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, a scholarship association, to benefit himself and his wife.

Because of their Horatio Alger connections, Thomas and his spouse, Virginia,have been invited to join luxurious vacations and parties in addition being granted V.I.P. access to sports events. Thanks to the association, Thomas also rubbed elbows with the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Ed McMahon during a lavish three-day Montana birthday party for billionaire industrialist Dennis Washington.

But the connections Thomas made through Horatio Alger have benefitted him beyond lavish trips. Thomas’ Horatio Alger contacts — including Washington as well as investor David Sokol, formerly of Berkshire Hathaway — helped fund a documentary that painted him in a heroic light after the premiere of an HBO movie that depicted Anita swHill during his confirmation hearings making sexual harassment allegations against Thomas. The Sokol family also hosted Thomas and his wife at their Montana ranch and their waterfront Florida estate. According to the Times, Thomas has not reported many of the benefits and gifts he has received from his rich and well-connected allies. The justice also declined to answer questions from the paper about the matter.

Early in his SCOTUS tenure, Thomas did report a number of personal gifts he received, including flights on private planes, cigars, and clothing. But after 2004, when The Los Angeles Times reported on his disclosures, Thomas ceased reporting to the court certain gifts and benefits he received. A ProPublica investigation in 2023 uncovered the justice’s close relationship with Crow, a GOP megadonor with a large collection of Nazi memorabilia and Hitler paintings, including trips on Crow’s private jet and yacht totaling tens of thousands and Crow’s purchase of the house where Thomas’ mother lived. Crow even paid tuition for Thomas’ nephew, who the Thomases were raising. After his relationship with Crow came to light, Thomas justified his lack of disclosures, claiming that “colleagues and others in the judiciary” advised him he did not need to report trips of “personal hospitality” from friends.

thomas has not only accepted benefits that granted him access to places he otherwise may not have gone, he also hosts the Horatio Alger Association’s induction ceremony for new members in the Supreme Court’s courtroom, which the Times notes is “unusual access” for an outside group. The association has parlayed the access Thomas gives them to fundraise for scholarships and events, per fundraising records reviewed by the Times.

The court this year updated its disclosure rules to mandate justices report private jet travel and comped stays at hotels and resorts, but there is an exception for “personal hospitality,” meaning food, accommodations, or entertainment that is not related to business.

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7 23 an $ edit bd no lnx

giving makebelieve the force of law is what SCOTUS does best

This is what corruption looks like.

In a case decided late last month, the rightwing supermajority of the United States Supreme Court sided with a Christian web designer, who said that her right to free speech permitted her to deny services to same-sex couples. Turns out it was another case in history of cases in which the court gave the force of law to makebelieve. And when I say “makebelieve,” I mean literally made up.

The New Republic broke the news.

The magazine found that the person who had allegedly requested services from the Christian web designer had never made such request. He didn’t need her services either. He’s a web designer himself. He’s also not gay. He’s been married to the same woman for 15 years.

The Christian web developer, Lorie Smith, wanted to put a notice on her company’s website, saying that it would not create wedding websites for same-sex couples. In a "pre-enforcement challenge," she argued that Colorado’s anti-discrimination law would have infringed on her free speech rights. The Supreme Court didn’t require her to have received “a real request,” according to Post reporter Robert Barnes.

In the case of the Christian web designer, the court’s corruption is more visible than at any time in my lifetime. The man whom Lorie Smith cited in her case didn’t know he was involved, didn’t request her services, didn’t need her services, isn’t gay — but so what?

Citing “Stewart,” who did not want his full name used, Barnes wrote that “the court filing in Stewart’s name has left many baffled, including Stewart himself, who said he was concerned that the case had proceeded without anyone verifying if the request was authentic.”

We should all be concerned, but let’s be honest with ourselves. This is what the court’s majority has been doing for years. This case was only the most recent case of turning makebelieve into law -- of turning rightwing fantasies into hard legal realities that we all must live with.

To be sure, as Harry Litman said, this is a “bonafide scandal.”

“On the legal level,” wrote the Los Angeles Times columnist, “it means the court decided a case that wasn't a real case … On the political level, it means that conservative forces in the country have effected a huge change in the law, an inroad on long-established anti-discrimination principles, based on a contrived story that exploited the judicial system and simply did an end-around the requirement of actual facts.”

Yayup. That’s what the court's majority does. “Conservative forces” in these United States are always, to some degree, working toward undoing major liberal advancements, and whenever they succeed, it’s often due to a “contrived story that exploited the judicial system and simply did an end-around the requirement of actual facts.”

There are, of course, differences between this case and past cases. They are a matter of degree, though, not kind. The court regularly makes law out of thin air. Usually, though, it isn’t obvious about it.

for instance, the court decided recently to overrule the president’s program for student debt-relief. It ruled based in part on something called the “major questions” doctrine.You can read more about it here, but trust me, the “doctrine” is makebelieve. (It’s a condition simply made up by the court over time.) It’s so swaddled in the verbiage of lawyers and courts, however, that it doesn’t look that way.

The court’s supermajority also recently undid affirmative action,ruling that the consideration of race in college admissions is discriminatory. It ruled based in part on the doctrine of colorblindness. It’s a madeup doctrine. Americans have never been colorblind. But Americans want to believe in it so much that the court’s makebelieve doesn’t look madeup.

However, in the case of the Christian web designer, the court’s corruption is more visible than at any time in my lifetime. The man whom Lorie Smith cited in her case didn’t know he was involved, didn’t request her services, didn’t need her services, isn’t gay -- but so what? She wasn't required to have received “a real request" from a gay couple. She apparently made the whole thing up, and the court said that's fine.

You don’t need to be a columnist for the LA Times to see the truth of it – that giving makebelieve the force of law is what this court does best. Any normal person can see that this is what corruption looks like.

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vulnerability trump judge venue shopping landry doughty kasc

circuit Assignments

It is ordered that the following allotment be made of The Chief Justice and the Associate Justices of this Court among the circuits, pursuant to Title 28, United States Code, Section 42 and that such allotment be entered of record, effective September 28, 2022.

For the District of Columbia Circuit - John G. Roberts, Jr., Chief Justice
For the First Circuit - Ketanji Brown Jackson, Associate Justice

> (Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island)

For the Second Circuit - Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice> (Connecticut, New York, Vermont)
For the Third Circuit - Samuel A. Alito, Jr., Associate Justice> (Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virgin Islands)
For the Fourth Circuit - John G. Roberts, Jr., Chief Justice> (Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia, Virginia)
For the Fifth Circuit - Samuel A. Alito, Jr., Associate Justice> (Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas)
For the Sixth Circuit - Brett M. Kavanaugh, Associate Justice> (Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Tennessee)
For the Seventh Circuit - Amy Coney Barrett, Associate Justice> (Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin)
For the Eighth Circuit - Brett M. Kavanaugh, Associate Justice> (Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota)
For the Ninth Circuit - Elena Kagan, Associate Justice> (Alaska, Arizona, California, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Oregon, Montana, Nevada, Northern Mariana Islands, Washington)
For the Tenth Circuit - Neil M. Gorsuch, Associate Justice> (Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah, Wyoming)
For the Eleventh Circuit - Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice> (Alabama,Florida, Georgia)
For the Federal Circuit - John G. Roberts, Jr., Chief Justice.

---

===

no lnx twt badash an 7 23

well-known political expert, author, journalist, and CEO David Rothkopf is blasting conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court after their disastrous rulings last week, warning the Court is now a “threat to democracy” and suggestingsome justices should be “considered” for impeachment.

Rothkopf, also a national security and foreign policy commentator, is a columnist for The Daily Beast and the author at least seven books, including American Resistance.

“Watching debates about Supreme Court here and elsewhere is the latest study in GOP efforts to normalize the unconscionable, the corrupt, and the contra-constitutional. This is a court in which a majority of those on the right took their seats under questionable circumstances,” Rothkopf said at the start of a lengthy thread on Twitter.

“Of them, a cloud of corruption hangs over Thomas & Alito. Kavanaugh took [his] seat despite allegations against him that were not properly investigated. Questions surround his payoff of personal debts. Gorsuch’s ascension is also clouded by questions surrounding Kennedy’s departure,” he says.

READ MORE: ‘Treacherous March of Normalization’: ABC News Slammed for ‘Puff Piece’ Profile on Moms for Liberty

Justice Clarence Thomas has been under fire for months over his relationship with billionaire GOP donor and businessman Harlan Crow, who reportedly has had business before the high court. The far-right wing justice and his wife, Ginni Thomas, (who has been accused of working to undermine the 2020 presidential election results,) may have received gifts totaling over $1 million in luxury vacations, travel, food, lodging, and clothing. Experts say Thomas was required to disclose portions of those gifts and that he did not.

Justice Samuel Alito is also the beneficiary of luxury travel, including a fishing trip to Alaska courtesy of another billionaire, and a trip to Rome during which he delivered a highly-criticized speech just days after delivering his opinion striking down Roe v. Wade. That trip was reportedly paid for by a religious liberty organization whose leader reportedly bought Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s Indiana home.

Indeed, Rothkopf also skewers Justice Barrett, or at least her confirmation.

“Barrett received her seat in a rush to judgment that was unlike any we have ever seen and completely contrary to the way the GOP Senate treated prior Dem nominees (Garland). In the time since the majority took over, they have cast aside one core principle after another,” he observes.

READ MORE: ‘Tyranny’: Legal Expert Says Ruling in Favor of Anti-LGBTQ Discrimination Makes It ‘Impossible’ to Respect Supreme Court

“Stare decisis went out the window.(Precedents were ignored without any sound justification.) Promises to honor past decisions as established law (like Roe) proved worthless. Past claims that the right valued originalism and condemned judicial activism were wholly ignored,” Rothkopf charges.

“When precedent went against them, absurd arguments drawing on ancient and irrelevant legal decisions were used to supersede the clear intent of the framers and decades, sometimes centuries of legal precedent.”

Last week, he says, we saw “a decision on affirmative action that ignored precedent, reality, and justice and contained, in its carve-out for military academies, a sub-decision that refuted the logic of the main opinion. In the case of reversing the Biden student loan decision,” Rothkopf writes, “a brand new doctrine was presented out of whole cloth. The decision regarding the ‘right’ of a website designer to refuse to do work for a ‘gay’ couple was based on both a lie and a hypothetical, should never have been taken on as a case and was grossly wrong on the law,” he adds.

Rothkopf appears to believe the conservative justices will not stop.

“These judges are acting with impunity because they believe a GOP controlled Senate will never challenge them and that a fundamental flaw in the way the Constitution grants power to underpopulated states assures that the document that was created to evolve never will,” he writes.

And he suggests some of the Supreme Court’s justices might need to be impeached.

“They also know that Senate rules essentially mean they can act with impunity despite their wholesale corruption and the fact that several of them should, in all likelihood, be seriously considered for impeachment.”

READ MORE: Sotomayor Slams ‘Embarrassing’ SCOTUS Anti-LGBTQ Decision That Marks ‘Gays and Lesbians for Second-Class Status’

Pointing to Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin, he adds: “This is, as [she] has said a constitutional crisis. This is an illegitimate, rogue institution that is seeking to reverse decades of progress and impose the will of a white, wealthy, Christian, male, straight minority on the majority of Americans.”

“This is a moment that calls for action on the part of Democrats in power to use their ability to call Senate hearings and to challenge this extremist cluster of judicial terrorists wherever possible. But more than that, it demands absolutely clarity from the voting public,” he says.

Rothkopf warns conservatives in the Court are poised to do even more damage to democracy and the American people.

“Unless Democrats win the presidency, hold and increase their majority in the Senate and retake the House, this tiny band of malevolent and dangerous actors will gut many of the most important provisions of the past century and a half of American law.”

“They will destroy lives and put millions of others at risk. Next year’s election must be in part, about this threat to democracy even as it is also about the threat posed by GOP presidential candidates. Stop. Consider the consequences.”

He warns minority Americans will continue to see their civil rights “stripped” away.

“Consider the basic rights that will be stripped away from women, people of color, our LGBTQ brothers and sisters, voters, and all who believe in the ideals that have guided American leaders as we have struggled to perfect our nation,” he says. “The only people who can save us are you and your fellow voters. The only way to do so is to mobilize, be active, donate to candidates and remain committed to defending our country against the threat posed by the MAGA GOP in our legislature and our judiciary. Starting right now.”

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DN 6 30 sackett v epa alito wife property lease; singer HEAD of manhat amicus; website gay marriage fake doc adf; missouri loan no $ 15 yrs, no intention, no knowledge used by AG for standing; KBJ scathing dissent let them eat cake oblivousness; change law no change life

https://www.alternet.org/otomayor-military-academies-arbitrariness-ruling/

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6 23 6-3 ding dong tho just keep status quo wacko idea, tho roberts repair rep?

https://www.mediamatters.org/laura-ingraham/laura-ingraham-attacks-supreme-court-independent-state-legislature-ruling

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rww 6 23

Earlier this month, Right Wing Watch reported that religious-right activists are seeking to take advantage of the far-right majority’s control of the Supreme Court to start enacting Christian nationalist policies all across the nation.

Emboldened by recent Supreme Court decisions upholding prayer in schools, crosses erected on public lands, and flying Christian flags on public buildings, right-wing activists intend to “go on offense” by pushing Christian nationalist policies at all levels of government and society.

Among those leading the charge is Kelly Shackelford, president ofFirst Liberty, which was integral to laying the groundwork for the right’s spate of Supreme Court victories. During a recent appearance on an Intercessors For America broadcast, Shackelford announced that his organization has launched a Restoring Faith In America campaign to mobilize far-right Christians to rush into the spaces opened by these court rulings and “occupy it”...

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an 6 23 no lnx

'Invidious scheme': Supreme Court refuses to hear case challenging Mississippi 'Jim Crow' law

Maya Boddie June 30, 2023

The United States Supreme Court, on Friday, decided not to hear a case against a longtime Mississippi rule denying the right to vote to persons "convicted of certain felonies," CNN reports.

Per the report, and according to critics, the state rule disproportionately impact Black voters.

According to NBC, "The court's decision not to hear the case prompted a sharp dissenting opinion from liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined by fellow liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor," who "contrasted the decision on Friday with the court's ruling a day earlier that" ended affirmative action.

READ MORE: Unequal Justice: The Supreme Court’s voting rights ruling is not as good as it seems

Furthermore, CNN notesboth justices "argued that the court had made 'clear and momentous errors.'"

Jackson wrote, "If the court viewed affirmative action as race discrimination, then the Mississippi measure must be seen similarly," adding, "So at the same time that the court undertakes to slay other giants, Mississippians can only hope they will not have to wait another century for another judicial knight-errant. Constitutional wrongs do not right themselves."

CNN reports:

The challengers in the case, Roy Harness and Kamal Karriem, are Black men in the state who have been convicted of forgery and embezzlement, respectively, and have served their time. They are currently barred from voting under state law – Section 241– because of their convictions. They argued that the law is tainted with racial animus.

NBC notes, "In asking the Supreme Court to weigh in, Harness and Kariem's lawyers point to the fact that the court in 1985 struck down a similar measure that was enacted in Alabama in 1901."

READ MORE: 10 years after Supreme Court gutted voting rights, advocates urge Congress to reverse damage

Backing the plaintiffs, the Legal Defense Fundfiled a brief that referred to the rule as a "Jim Crow law," according to CNN, that was put in place as a "deliberate and invidious scheme to disenfranchise Black People."

LDF's assistant counsel Patricia Okonta told the news outlet, "While the state is home to the highest percentage of Black Americans of any state in the country, it has not elected a Black person to statewide office since 1890."

The Guardian reports:

Sixteen per cent of the Black voting age population remains blocked from casting a ballot, as well as 10% of the overall voting age population, according to an estimate by The Sentencing Project, a criminal justice non-profit.The state is about 38% Black, but Black people make up more than half of Mississippi’s disenfranchised population.

Harness and Karriem's attorney, former United States Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr., wrote, "Today, in 2022, many thousands of Mississippi's African American citizens are disfranchised by a provision that was enacted in 1890 to ensure 'a home government under the control of the white people of the State.'"

READ MORE: 'Jim Crow': Symone Sanders accuses Republicans of waging 'an all-out assault' on Black people

CNN's full report is available at this link. NBC's report is here. The Guardian's report is here.

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an badash 6 23 no lnx

another U.S. Supreme Court scandal is brewing in the wake of alleged corruption involving nearly every conservative member of the current Roberts Court, or their spouse.

The wife of Justice Samuel Alito leased a 160-acre Oklahoma property to an oil and gas firm while her husband wrote the recent majority opinion greatly restricting the work the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is allowed to do. Should that land produce oil and gas, Martha Ann Bomgardner Alito would earn just under a quarter of all revenue from that property, The Intercept reports.

“Last year, before the lease was activated, a line in Alito’s financial disclosures labeled ‘mineral interests’ was valued between $100,001 and $250,000. If extraction on the plot proves fruitful, the lease dictates that Citizen Energy will pay Alito’s wife 3/16ths of all the money it makes from oil and gas sales,” according to The Intercept. “Because Citizen Energy III isn’t implicated in any cases before the Supreme Court, Alito’s holding in Oklahoma doesn’t appear to pose any direct conflicts of interest. But it does add context to a political outlook that has alarmed environmentalists since Alito’s confirmation hearing in 2006 — and cast recent decisions that embolden the oil and gas industry in a damning light.”

It also poses ethics concerns.

READ MORE: Liberty University VP Cites Hitler and Stalin in Plea for Conservatives to ‘Control Education’

“’There need not be a specific case involving the drilling rights associated with a specific plot of land for Alito to understand what outcomes in environmental cases would buttress his family’s net wealth,’ Jeff Hauser, founder and director of the Revolving Door Project, told The Intercept,” the news outlet’s Daniel Boguslaw reports. The Revolving Door Project says it “scrutinizes executive branch appointees to ensure they use their office to serve the broad public interest, rather than to entrench corporate power or seek personal advancement.”

Hauser added, “Alito does not have to come across like a drunken Paul Thomas Anderson character gleefully confessing to drinking our collective milkshakes in order to be a real life, run-of-the-mill political villain.”

His remarks did not end there.

READ MORE: Justice Alito’s Secret Speech ‘Spiking the Ball’ on Revoking Abortion Seen as Worsening Court’s ‘Credibility Crisis’

On Twitter, Hauser wrote: “Sam Alito could choose to be invested solely in vanilla Vanguard or Fidelity investment funds. Instead, he and his wife cultivate conflicts of interest because he believes that he and his pals ARE the law. The latest? The Alitos are into natural gas production.”

This latest look at the financial dealings of the conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court follows numerous reports, including decades of undisclosed luxury vacations gifted to Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife Ginni Thomas by a conservative billionaire megadonor, along with a generous real estate transaction for his mother’s home and an education for the couple’s grandnephew. Then there was Justice Samuel Alito taking an undisclosed Alaska vacation with a conservative billionaire who repeatedly had business before the court, and a free trip to Rome where he delivered a secret speech days after writing the majority opinion overturning Roe v. Wade. Justice Amy Coney Barrett having ties to the leader of the group that funded Alito’s Rome trip, including selling her personal home to “a recently hired Notre Dame professor who was assuming a leadership role” at that organization. Justice Neil Gorsuch selling land to the head of a law firm with cases before the Court, while not disclosing his name. And Chief Justice John Roberts’ wife making millions by placing attorneys into high-powered law firms that routinely have business before the Supreme Court.

Political and legislative strategist Murshed Zaheed, a senior advisor to Take Back The Court, responded to The Intercept’s report via Twitter, saying: “There appears to be no limit to the culture of corruption from the extreme right wing judges on the #SCOTUS. This is not sustainable if we want to have a functioning democracy. #expandSCOTUS.”

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pro pub series an 6 23

Examining the News

Around midday on Friday, June 16, ProPublica reporters Justin Elliott and Josh Kaplan sent an email to Patricia McCabe, the Supreme Court’s spokesperson, with questions for Justice Samuel Alito about a forthcoming story on his fishing trip to Alaska with a hedge fund billionaire.

We set a deadline of the following Tuesday at noon for a response.

Fifteen minutes later, McCabe called the reporters. It was an unusual moment in our dealings with the high court’s press office, the first time any of its public information officers had spoken directly with the ProPublica journalists in the many months we have spent looking into the justices’ ethics and conduct. When we sent detailed questions to the court for our stories on Justice Clarence Thomas, McCabe responded with an email that said they had been passed on to the justice. There was no further word from her before those stories appeared, not even a statement that Thomas would have no comment.

The conversation about Alito was brisk and professional. McCabe said she had noticed a formatting issue with an email, and the reporters agreed to resend the 18 questions in a Word document. Kaplan and Elliott told McCabe they understood that this was a busy time at the court and that they were willing to extend the deadline if Alito needed more time.

Monday was a federal holiday, Juneteenth. On Tuesday, McCabe called the reporters to tell them Alito would not respond to our requests for comment but said we should not write that he declined to comment. (In the story, we wrote that she told us he “would not be commenting.”)

She asked when the story was likely to be published. Certainly not today, the reporters replied. Perhaps as soon as Wednesday.

Six hours later, The Wall Street Journal editorial page posted an essay by Alito in which he used our questions to guess at the points in our unpublished story and rebut them in advance. His piece, headlined “Justice Samuel Alito: ProPublica Misleads Readers,” was hard to follow for anyone outside ProPublica since it shot down allegations (notably the purported consumption of expensive wine) that had not yet been made.

In the hours after Alito’s response appeared, editors and reporters worked quickly to complete work on our investigative story. We did additional reporting to put Alito’s claims in context. The justice wrote in the Journal, “My recollection is that I have spoken to Mr. Singer on no more than a handful of occasions,” and that none of those conversations involved “any case or issue before the Court.” He said he did not know of Singer’s involvement in a case about a long-standing dispute involving Argentina because the fund that was a party to the suit was called NML Capital and the billionaire’s name did not appear in Supreme Court briefs.

Alex Mierjeski, another reporter on the team, quickly pulled together a long list of prominent stories from the Journal, The New York Times and The Financial Times that identified Singer as the head of the hedge fund seeking to earn handsome profits by suing Argentina in U.S. courts. (The Supreme Court, with Alito joining the 7-1 majority, backed Singer’s arguments on a key legal issue, and Argentina ultimately paid the hedge fund $2.4 billion to settle the dispute.)

It does not appear that the editors at the Journal made much of an effort to fact-check Alito’s assertions.

If Alito had sent his response to us, we’d have asked some more questions.For example, Alito wrote that Supreme Court justices “commonly interpreted” the requirement to disclose gifts as not applying to “accommodations and transportation for social events.” We would have asked whether he meant to say it was common practice for justices to accept free vacations and private jet flights without disclosing them.

We also would have asked Alito more about his interpretation of the Watergate-era disclosure law that requires justices and many other federal officials to publicly report most gifts. The statute has a narrow “personal hospitality” exemption that allows federal officials to avoid disclosing “food, lodging, or entertainment” provided by a host on his own property. Seven ethics law experts, including former government ethics lawyers from both Republican and Democratic administrations, have told ProPublica that the exemption does not apply to private jet flights — and never has. Such flights, they said, are clearly not forms of food, lodging or entertainment. We had already combed through judicial disclosures, so we knew that several federal judges have disclosed gifts of private jet flights.

We might also have sent Alito some of the contemporaneous stories about Singer’s dispute with Argentina that were readily available online.Given Alito’s previous ties to the Journal’s editorial page — he granted it an exclusive interview this year complaining about negative coverage of the court — it’s probable that the stories we sent him would have included the page’s 2013 piece titled “Deadbeats Down South” that approvingly noted that “a subsidiary of Paul Singer’s Elliott Management” was holding out for a better deal from Argentina. We would have asked how his office checks for conflicts and whether he is concerned it didn’t catch Singer’s widely publicized connection to the case.

The Journal’s editorial page is entirely separate from its newsroom. Journalists were nonetheless sharply critical of the decision to help the subject of another news organization’s investigation “pre-but” the findings.

“This is a terrible look for ⁦@WSJ,” tweeted John Carreyrou, a former investigative reporter at the Journal whose award-winning articles on Theranos lead to the indictment and criminal conviction of its founder, Elizabeth Holmes. “Let’s see how it feels when another news organization front runs a sensitive story it’s working on with a preemptive comment from the story subject.”

Bill Grueskin, a former senior editor at the Journal and a professor of journalism at Columbia, told the Times that “Justice Alito could have issued this as a statement on the SCOTUS website. But the fact that he chose The Journal — and that the editorial page was willing to serve as his loyal factotum — says a great deal about the relationship between the two parties.”

Even Fox News got in the game.“Alito must be congratulating himself on his preemptive strike, but given that the nonprofit news agency sent him questions last week, was that really fair? And should the Journal, which has criticized ProPublica as a left-wing outfit, have played along with this? The paper included an editor’s note that ProPublica had sent the justice the questions, but did not mention that its story had not yet run,” the cable news outfit’s media watcher**Howard Kurtz**wrote.

There are lessons for ProPublica in this experience. Our reporters are likely to be a bit more skeptical when a spokesperson asks about the timing of a story’s publication.

But one thing is not changing. Regardless of the consequences, we will continue to give everyone mentioned in our stories a chance to respond before publication to what we’re planning to say about them.

Our practice, known internally as “no surprises,” is a matter of both accuracy and fairness. As editors, we have seen numerous instances over the years in which responses to our detailed questions have changed stories. Some have been substantially rewritten and rethought in light of the new information provided by subjects of stories. On rare occasions, we’ve killed stories after learning new facts.

We leave it to the PR professionals to assess whether pre-buttals are an effective strategy. Alito’s assertion that the private flight to Alaska was of no value because the seat was empty anyway became the subject of considerable online amusement.

And the readership of our story has been robust: 2 million page views and counting. It’s possible that Alito has won the argument with the audience he cares the most about. But it seems equally plausible that he drew even more attention to the very story he was trying to knock down.

Alito’s behavior underscores that the “no surprises” approach involves taking a risk, allowing subjects to “spit in our soup,” as Paul Steiger, the former Journal editor who founded ProPublica, liked to say.

Nevertheless, following our practice, we asked the Journal editorial page, Alito and McCabe for comment before this column appeared. We did not immediately hear back from them.

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distrust among Supreme Court justices has not faded since the leak of the controversial Dobbs ruling a year ago that opened the door to banning abortion, as ethical scandals have further created new tensions reports Politico.

According to Politico's Josh Gerstein, the leak of the draft majority ruling written by Justice Sam Alito created a firestorm within the confines of the court and even Chief Justice John Roberts admitted that a great deal of comity was lost in the aftermath.

As Gerstein wrote, "Over the past 13 months, the court has been hit by a series of challenges, both internal and external, that have rocked the institution itself, undermined relationships on the bench and fundamentally altered the way it is viewed by the public and treated by the media."

As part of the fall-out, fractures have appeared among the court's six conservatives who have taken to sniping at each other in their writings.

"Even the six conservative justices have suffered turmoil in the post-Dobbs world. They have found it difficult to reach agreement both on legal rulings and on the ethics scandals that have emerged mostly from their own ranks. They have even squabbled over how to apply the ascendant interpretive method that seemed to unite them last June: originalism," Gerstien is reporting before adding, "Some of the longtime observers, looking back on a term that was nearing its end, could only wonder: Can a fractured court put the pieces back together again?"

According to Jamie Gorelick, a former deputy attorney general under President Bill Clinton, "You’re in this room with the same eight other people pretty much forever. They do need to get back to a point where they can trust each other.”

Justice Clarence Thomas admitted the distrust is pervasive in a speech after the Dobbs leak, telling the audience, "Now, that trust … is gone forever. When you lose that trust, especially in the institution that I’m in, it changes the institution fundamentally. You begin to look over your shoulder. … It’s like, kind of, an infidelity, that you can explain it, but you can’t undo it.”

As for ethical problems dogging the court, the report states, "The justices themselves, meanwhile, seemed unable to agree on just how far they should go to assuage the public by disclosing more information about gifts, family income and conflicts of interest."

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in an extraordinary move, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito last week made an effort to preempt a then-forthcoming ProPublica investigation that shed light on a trip the conservative judge took with a Republican donor who later had cases before the court.

For University of Michigan Law School professor Leah Litman and New York University School of Law professor Melissa Murray,Alito’s op-ed, which appeared in the “ideologically friendly” Wall Street Journal,was “just the latest example of Alito’s insistence on enjoying the country’s respect even when he fails to act respectably.”

The pair shared their opinion on Alito’s prebuttal in an article published Sunday by the Los Angeles Times.

Alito’s Wall Street Journal op-ed, described by Litman and Murray as “indignant” and “bizarre,” included a reference to “two charges” levied against the justice, as well as a blanket declaration that “neither charge is valid” — though, as Litman and Murray write, Alito himself “does not dispute that he flew on a private jet and enjoyed a luxury fishing vacation in Alaska free of charge.”

Instead of replying to a list of questions ProPublica journalists sent to Supreme Court spokesperson Patricia McCabe, Alito “opted to bitterly and preemptively complain about the story in an ideologically friendly outlet,” Litman and Murray write.

“Alito appears aggrieved that the public has the audacity to criticize him,” the pair noted, adding that the justice’s “reaction is entirely consistent with the worldview he has revealed within and beyond his jurisprudence time and time again.”

“Because even though Samuel Alito is a Supreme Court justice with lifetime tenure and all the power that position entails, he still wants more,” Litman and Murray wrote.

Arguing that Alito seems “to believe that he and the court are so thoroughly supreme that they must be free of even a whiff of public criticism,” the law professors slammed him for “[demanding] perpetual public and professional affirmation — a safe space, if you will, where he is protected from micro-aggressions, bathed in praise and consistently depicted as reasonable and judicious regardless of whether he actually is.”

"And when his reception falls short of that, he lashes out at his critics no matter who they are,” the law professors added.

“The man who represents an institution charged with interpreting the 1st Amendment can’t bear others exercising their free speech rights to criticize him,” Litman and Murray declared. “Instead, he uses his stature and appearances to take potshots at those bold enough to question an institution that, as we keep learning, is loath to observe rules or restrictions”

Turning their attention to the “conservative legal movement” as a whole, Litman and Murray bemoaned Alito as “a prominent face of that project, who insists on the prerogatives of an emperor-king, among them unstinting general adulation and complete insulation from critique.”

“It’s no wonder the court’s public standing is in trouble,” the law professors added. “Some of the justices seem to be letting the term ‘supreme’ go to their heads.”

Read the full op-ed at the Los Angeles Times.

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senate Judicial Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) has been forcefully calling for the U.S. Supreme Court to adopt a code of ethics. According to Durbin, reports from ProPublica on Justice Clarence Thomas' close relationship with billionaire GOP donor Harlan Crow and Justice Samuel Alito's alliance with Paul Singer — another billionaire Republican — make a compelling argument for the Court to adopt an ethics code in order to save its "reputation."

In an article published by the Guardian on June 23, reporter Stephanie Kirchgaessner emphasizes that the Thomas/Crow controversy is fueling tensions between Crow and Democrats in the U.S. Senate.

"A lawyer for Crow admitted, in a recent letter to Sen. Ron Wyden, the Democratic chairman of the (Senate) Finance Committee, that it was his understanding that expenses associated with luxury flights and yacht trips for Thomas were paid back to Crow's 'family entities' at rates 'prescribed by law,'" Kirchgaessner explains. "But the lawyer — Michael Bopp, a partner at Gibson Dunn who specializes in representing clients in congressional and government investigations — did not provide any information about who made the payments, and when."

READ MORE: Conflicts of interest': Senate Judiciary chair urges John Roberts to adopt Supreme Court ethics code

Wyden, Kirchgaessner notes, is accusing Crow of "stonewalling" questions from the Senate about gifts he made to Thomas and members of his family. ProPublica has reported that Crow not only treated Thomas to luxury vacations, but also, paid the private school tuition for one of Thomas' relatives.

Steve Rosenthal of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center told The Guardian, "The key question, at least so far, is: Should Clarence Thomas have reported the luxury items he is being given by a billionaire?…. You might want to know, how much did Harlan Crow value these plane rides, yacht trips, tuition payments? We don't know a lot of information."

READ MORE: Durbin and legal experts rip Crow lawyer’s claim that Senate lacks authority to probe Thomas gifts

Read The Guardian's full report at this link.

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https://www.alternet.org/barrett-real-estate-deal-ethics/

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https://www.alternet.org/scotus-2661580228/

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'Bombshell' Internal docs highlight flaws in case now before Supreme Court

Brett Wilkinsand Common Dreams June 20, 2023

As the U.S. Supreme Court nears a decision on President Joe Biden's student debt relief proposal, an advocacy group on Friday published internal records revealing the "anxiety and confusion" of staffers at a loan company critics say is being spuriously used by Republican attorneys general in their attack on the president's plan.

Internal documents from the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority (MOHELA)—a private state-chartered lender—obtained by the Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) under Missouri's Sunshine Law show that agency employees were confused by then-state Attorney General Eric Schmitt's lawsuit and argument that Biden's relief plan could harm the company.

"MOHELA's own staff agree—the case currently before the Supreme Court that is holding up debt relief for tens of millions of borrowers lacks standing, and it should be tossed aside."

That dubious claim—an independent report showed that not only would MOHELA not be harmed by Biden's proposal, it would make more money—forms the purported basis for MOHELA's standing in the suit, Biden v. Nebraska. Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and South Carolina are suing the administration, alleging that its debt forgiveness plan violates the U.S. Constitution's separation of powers and Administrative Procedure Act.

MOHELA is not even a plaintiff in the case, a fact that critics including progressive U.S. Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) have cited in calling for the dismissal of the suit—one of two student debt relief cases the high court is expected to rule on sometime this month.

"These emails confirm what every honest observer has long understood: Missouri's lawsuit is just a partisan hack job aimed at getting the right-wing attorney general's name in the paper," Ella Azoulay, SBPC's research and policy analyst, said in a statement.

"MOHELA's own staff agree—the case currently before the Supreme Court that is holding up debt relief for tens of millions of borrowers lacks standing, and it should be tossed aside," Azoulay added.

"Just out of curiosity, is MOHELA apart [sic] of the lawsuit going on to prevent the loan forgiveness?" wrote one employee in an email. "Are we the bad guys?”

Another staffer wrote that Schmitt's lawsuit "has nothing to do with us, except that they're using the [Missouri] consumers harm as standing."

Indeed, in an October 2022 letter to Bush—who had inquired about the lender's relationship with the attorney general's office—MOHELA said its "executives were not involved in the decision" by Schmitt to sue the Biden administration.

"I think MOHELA was opposed to this move, but couldn't do anything about it," wrote yet another staffer. "The Mo. state AG needed to claim that our borrowers were harmed for standing, so they're making us look bad by filing this not only with Mo. on it, but especially bad because they filed it in Mo."

During oral arguments in February, the Supreme Court's right-wing supermajority signaled it is poised to side with Republicans challenging the debt cancellation program and strike it down.

Last week, a trio of progressive U.S. lawmakers—Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.)—implored the Biden administration to have a backup plan to aid student borrowers if the Supreme Court kills its debt cancellation proposal.

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chief Justice John Roberts reportedly surprised everyone and went against his own personal mission when he authored a ruling finding that Alabama likely violated the Voting Rights Act's prohibition on racial gerrymandering by packing most of the state's Black voters into a single congressional district.

The ruling, which was joined by all three liberal members of the court along with a partial agreement from the conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh, was a surprise to legal observers, who had expected the country's top court to weaken the Voting Rights Act protections and find Alabama's map satisfactory.

That was the expectation in part because of Roberts' "40-year battle to whittle down racial equality protections enshrined in the crowning glory of the civil rights movement," according to a report from The Guardian's Ed Pilkington on Saturday.

"The chief justice’s decision to cling closely to precedent and avoid a sweeping reframing of voting rights law took supreme court observers by surprise," Pilkington wrote. “'Speechless!' was how Robyn Sanders, an elections lawyer with the Brennan Center for Justice, described her reaction. 'An amazing victory for voting rights, Black voters, and the Voting Rights Act.'"

The report continues:

"The chief justice has demonstrated a consistent desire to dilute or destroy elements of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, and in so doing has opened the floodgates to a torrent of voter suppression measures from Republican states that continues today. This time, though, Roberts reined himself in."

Roberts was able to do so by focusing on the Court's precedent, as opposed to trying to rewrite the law, Pilkington added. And his intentions are reportedly more about the long game.

"A key to understanding Roberts’s intentions is that he plays the long game," the article states. "He likes to present himself as a bridge-builder who represents the moderate center of American jurisprudence. He is also highly sensitive to the slump in public trust in the supreme court that has followed embarrassing revelations about Clarence Thomas’s luxury holidays paid for by a Texan billionaire."

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it’s being called a “surprise decision,” a “landmark win,” and a “a major victory for the Voting Rights Act (VRA),” but some legal experts are warning that heralding the U.S. Supreme Court’s Thursday decision as anything except upholding the status quo is a mistake, and other experts suggest it means the Court’s earlier rulings wrongly threw control of the House of Representatives to Republicans. Some experts say a Democratic-majority House in 2024 is now more likely.

In short, in its 5-4 decision in Allen v. Milligan, the Supreme Court ruled that the state of Alabama discriminated against Black voters, which make up a quarter of its population, by drawing congressional maps to exclude them.

Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern, who writes about law and the courts, exclaimed, “WHOA!” as he explained: “The Supreme Court’s final decision of the day is a 5–4 ruling that AFFIRMS the Voting Rights Act’s protection against racial vote dilution! Roberts and Kavanaugh join the liberals. This is a HUGE surprise and a major voting rights victory.”

Democracy Docket, the website founded by Marc Elias, the voting rights attorney who won 63 of the 64 court cases Donald Trump and his allies filed to contest the 2020 presidential election, also served up a similar response on social media, calling it “a massive victory for voting rights.”

On its website, Democracy Docket calls it “an overwhelming win for Alabamians, specifically Black voters, whose voting power was found to be diluted under the current congressional map. Importantly, the conservative Supreme Court did not make the drastic decision to strike down Section 2 of the VRA, leaving an important tool in voting rights litigation in place.”

It adds the Supreme Court’s decision in Allen v. Milligan “leaves Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) intact and, in a landmark win for voters, struck down the state’s congressional map. The majority opinion, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, is joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson and joined in part by Justice Brett Kavanaugh.”

Democracy Docket also notes the decision “will have major positive implications for outstanding redistricting lawsuits.”

Stern agrees, writing: “It’s a boon to Democrats’ chances of retaking the House in 2024. The Supreme Court had blocked multiple lower court rulings striking down congressional maps that diluted Black voting power. At least some of those rulings should now be implemented.”

Democracy Docket adds: “The Court’s decision in Allen likely means that litigation challenging Louisiana’s congressional map can move forward and paves the way for a favorable outcome for Louisiana voters. Louisiana’s situation directly mirrors Alabama’s. In both states, voting rights advocates argued that a second majority-Black congressional district is needed to ensure compliance with the VRA. The Supreme Court paused Louisiana’s litigation pending a decision in Allen.”

Dave Wasserman, U.S. House editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report calls the decision “a major surprise,” and says: “This could reverberate to LA, SC and/or GA, forcing creation of 2-4 new Black majority districts and netting Dems 2-4 seats” in the House.

Wasserman, known for his keen knowledge of congressional districts and iconic “I’ve seen enough” early and accurate predictions of House election races, offered this view of how the Court’s decision could impact current districts:

“The Alabama Republicans in most jeopardy owing to the SCOTUS ruling: Reps. Jerry Carl (R) #AL01, Barry Moore (R) #AL02 and Mike Rogers (R) #AL03. Moore could be squeezed the most in any map reconfigured to feature a second Black majority seat.”

University of Texas law professor Steve Vladeck, author of a book on the Supreme Court, “The Shadow Docket,” offers up a stinging reminder of how the Court has damaged voting rights and helped Republicans in the process:

“If you assume that additional majority-minority districts in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, & 1–2 other states would’ve been safe Democratic seats, then today’s #SCOTUS ruling strongly suggests that the Court’s 2022 shadow docket stays [decisions/rulings] wrongly gave Republicans control of the House.”

Professor of law Anthony Michael Kreis, pointing to Vladeck’s remarks, adds: “there’s a House majority built on discriminatory lawlessness.”

Also taking note of Thursday’s SCOTUS ruling: House Democrats. Axios’ Andrew Solender reports House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ office is “inviting Dem[ocratic] congressional staff to a Friday briefing on recent Supreme Court cases, including the Alabama congressional map case.”

Meanwhile, the well-known NYU professor of law, Melissa Murray, is stepping in to properly frame reactions to what she sees as the Court’s “weak sauce” decision on the Voting Rights Act.

“Some initial thoughts on Allen v. Milligan,” she writes on Twitter. “Media is trumpeting this as a ‘victory’ for the Voting Rights Act. And it is. And I don’t want to be a turd in the punchbowl… but this is pretty weak sauce from this Court.”

Professor Murray says, “this doesn’t ‘strengthen’ the VRA. It preserves the status quo. And the status quo is that this Court has done an A+ job of hobbling the VRA over the last 10 years.”

Murray offers up some quick historical background.

“In 2013’s Shelby County v. Holder, it eviscerated the preclearance formula. The preclearance regime required states with a history of voting discrimination to first ‘preclear’ any changes to their voting rules and regs with the DOJ or a three-judge federal court panel.”

“The Court invalidated the preclearance formula on the ground that progress had been made and minorities were voting and blah blah blah,” she notes. “This progress narrative prompted RBG [the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg] to note in dissent that throwing out the preclearance formula was like throwing out your umbrella in a rainstorm because you weren’t getting wet. She was right.”

Murray also refers to a number of other cases along the way that weakened voting rights.

“So, yes,” she concludes, “today’s decision is a victory that maintains the status quo for Section 2 of the VRA. But it is cold comfort when one considers the way this Court through its decisions has actively distorted the electoral landscape and made true representative government more elusive.”

The Economist’s Supreme Court reporter Steven Mazie, calls Prof. Murray’s remarks, “Crucial zoomed-out context for today’s Voting Rights Act ruling. The 5-4 is a surprise, and it’s a victory—but after a long string of losses, today’s win amounts to…not losing YET MORE voting protections for people of color.”

The Nation’s justice correspondent, Elie Mystal, offers a bit of a more compact and down-to-earth response: “A way to understand what just happened with Roberts and Kav[anaugh] in the Voting Rights Case is that it’s not going to change much in terms of Alabama’s racist maps. This cost them little,” he says. “The *victory* is that these fools could have straight killed Section 2 of the VRA, but didn’t.”

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https://yyy.theguardian.com/law/2023/jun/08/supreme-court-voting-rights-decision-allen-milligan

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Right-wing media are attempting to discredit mainstream coverage and reactions around the Supreme Court’s recent decision to limit bodies of water protected under the Clean Water Act.

On May 25, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of wealthy Idaho couple Michael and Chantell Sackett in Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency, after a 14-year legal battle in which they fought to do construction near protected wetlands without a permit. All nine justices ultimately agreed they could do so, however, their reasoning differed and concurring opinion on the scope of the case was split 5-4.

Five conservative justices ruling for the majority decided that definitions previously laid out in the 51-year-old Clean Water Act were the problem, considerably narrowing the scope of which bodies of water must be protected. According to the environmental law nonprofit EarthJustice, which filed anamicus brief in the case, the new decision means that “as many as half of the 118 million acres of wetlands in the U.S. are no longer protected by the Clean Water Act, embracing the decades-long demands of mining companies, the fossil fuel industry, reckless developers, and other big polluters.”

Mainstream media coverage of the ruling rightfully highlighted this serious outcome. Democratic lawmakers including Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) called out the decision’s radical implications and suggested it was driven by a partisan conservative agenda. Other experts pointed out that the majority decision ignores the best available science on how pollutants move through ecosystems.

In response, right-wing media celebrated the decision and slammed its critics, claiming that the unanimous ruling was intentionally being ignored to mislead the public and fit the narrative that conservative, Trump-appointed justices were making controversial decisions. In reality, the outcome of Sackett v. EPA was nothing if not controversial. Even Trump-appointed Justice Brett Kavanaugh opted to side with the court’s three liberal justices, saying the majority’s decision to redefine what is protected under the Clean Water Act went against scientific evidence.

Right-wing media attacks focus on the majority’s decision to gut the Clean Water Act

Right-wing media attempted to expose those who called out the very real impacts of gutting the Clean Water Act and implied that the only decision that mattered — and the only one that should be publicized — was the unanimous ruling in favor of the Sacketts. Suggesting otherwise, according to them, was a gross misrepresentation of the ruling.

These allegations started on May 25 in response to Schumer’s tweet attacking the “MAGA Supreme Court” for the decision to “erode our country’s environmental laws,” adding that “this ruling will mean more polluted water, and more destruction of wetlands.” Twitter users accused Schumer of lying by highlighting the unanimous ruling in favor of the Sacketts, and even added a community note clarifying the decision. Echoing the online backlash, right-wing media including Fox News and Newsmax piled on Schumer as well.

Trending Politics owner Collin Rugg: “I was today years old when I found out Ketanji Brown Jackson was a MAGA Republican.”Twitter, [5/29/23]
Conservative precious metals investment influencer account Wall Street Silver pushed back on Schumer’s tweet: “It was a 9-0 unanimous opinion.”Twitter, [5/27/23]
A Daily Wire op-ed claimed that Schumer labeling the decision as “MAGA” was a “smear” against the Supreme Court:“Democrats attempt to smear anybody who goes against their agenda as a ‘MAGA’ extremist — even if those individuals are liberal members of the United States Supreme Court.” Daily Wire, [5/27/23]
Right-wing comedian Tom Shillue, filling in for Fox’s Greg Gutfeld, said the decision was “about as MAGA as a tofu hotdog with a Bud Light."“Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer took time out from never having a real job and slammed yesterday's Supreme Court ruling,” Shillue said. “Shockingly, Schumer described the decision as the work of a MAGA court. This despite the fact the decision was 9-0. Yeah, that’s MAGA — that’s about as MAGA as a tofu hotdog with a Bud Light.” Fox News, *Gutfeld!*, [5/26/23]
Shillue later added that “there are plenty of liberals still on the court,” while Fox News contributor Kat Timpf asked if Schumer even bothered to look at the ruling.“It's just ‘MAGA’ and it doesn’t even make any sense,” Timpf said. “I mean, you know that. Did he not even bother to look at the 9-0?" Fox News, *Gutfeld!*, [5/26/23]
Newsmax co-host Bianca de la Garza dismissed Schumer’s comment and the 5-4 split.“To be very clear, all nine judges unanimously agreed that the EPA overstepped its authorities,” she said. “I guess any reason to throw in MAGA, he’ll take.” Newsmax, *John Bachman Now*, [5/26/23]
Fox News host Sean Hannity: “*IT WAS UNANIMOUS, CHUCK!* ‘All 9 judges agreed that the EPA overstepped its authority and that the plaintiffs’ property should not be subject to EPA regulation.’”Twitter, [5/26/23]
Fox Business host Liz MacDonald accused Schumer of politicizing the ruling: “This was a unanimous ruling, so that means Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan, Sonya Sotomayor joined in this unanimous ruling. So are they MAGA too? Why is this politicizing everything?” Fox Business, *The Evening Edit*,[5/26/23]
Townhall accused Democrats of having “grossly misled on the outcome of the case.” “Democrats are not taking the news well, to the point that they've grossly misled on the outcome of the case,” Townhall wrote. “In a tweet from his official account, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) lamented about how the ‘MAGA Supreme Court is continuing to erode our country's environmental laws,’ despite how, again, it was unanimous.” Townhall, [5/25/23]
National Review senior writer Dan McLaughlin mocked Schumer over the 9-0 decision: “Unanimous SCOTUS decision written by George W. Bush appointee. Outcome joined by GHW Bush appointee, 2d GW Bush appointee, 2 Obama appointees, & a Biden appointee. The 3 Dems joined a concurring opinion written by a Trump appointee. Chuck Schumer: That's so MAGA!” Twitter, [5/25/23]

Right-wing media also attacked The Washington Postand Bloomberg for not highlighting the unanimous decision more prominently, or even falsely stated that this was not even mentioned.

Radio host Erick Erickson: “You’d never know from Bloomberg that the decision was unanimous.”Twitter, [5/25/23]
Red State blogger known as Bonchie: “This is the first seven paragraphs of the Post's write-up. Can you tell it was actually a 9-0 unanimous decision?” Twitter, [5/25/23]
Former New York Post columnist and Daily Wire content creator Frank Fleming: “What the hell is wrong with the Washington Post misleading people like that?” “I have to defend Schumer a bit here,” Fleming wrote. “Everyone is dunking on him for this being a unanimous decision, but the Washington Post article he links doesn't mention that and calls it a 5-4 decision (when actually, it's separate concurring opinions). What the hell is wrong with the Washington Post misleading people like that?” Twitter [5/25/23]

Why the 5-4 split between the concurring justices matters

It’s true that all nine justices ruled in favor of the Sacketts. Specifically, they found that the Army Corps of Engineers and the EPA did not have jurisdiction over this particular property. But despite what right-wing media say, the differences in their reasoning are important.

Initially, the Sacketts filed a lawsuit against the EPA because the agency ordered them to remove sand and gravel fill from the lot where they wanted to build a house, arguing that it was on protected wetlands and they would need to return the area to its natural state. The couple brought the case to the Supreme Court for the first time in2012 after lower courts sided with the EPA, maintaining that the property was subject to the Clean Water Act and the Sacketts did indeed need permits to continue construction. The Supreme Court at the time ruled in favor of the Sacketts’ right to challenge the EPA’s order.

Aided by the Cato Institute and Americans for Prosperity, both of which were founded by the fossil fuel billionaire Koch brothers, as well as other industry groups, the Sacketts managed to get their case in front of the Supreme Court for a second time. They were represented by thePacific Legal Foundation,which has received funding from the fossil fuel industry and its allies and also fought to weaken the Clean Water Act back in 2006.

This time, five far-right justices didn’t just rule in favor of the Sacketts — they went so far as to adopt the narrowest possible definition of which waters are protected by the Clean Water Act, completely changing how the law has functioned for the past 51 years. Kavanaugh, along with three liberal justices, argued that this decision went too far. Though they wrote a concurring opinion, he and three other justices fundamentally disagreed with Justice Samuel Alito’s reading of the law, which would not protect wetlands unless they have a “continuous surface connection” to bodies of water. Kavanaugh explained why that doesn’t make sense in his concurring opinion (citations omitted):

“Because of the movement of water between adjacent wetlands and other waters, pollutants in wetlands often end up in adjacent rivers, lakes, and other waters. Natural barriers such as berms and dunes do not block all water flow and are in fact evidence of a regular connection between a water and a wetland. … The scientific evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that wetlands separated from covered waters by those kinds of berms or barriers, for example, still play an important role in protecting neighboring and downstream waters, including by filtering pollutants, storing water, and providing flood control. In short, those adjacent wetlands may affect downstream water quality and flood control in many of the same ways that adjoining wetlands can."

Right-wing media’s gripes ignoring the concurring opinion and framing the Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling as key to the case are completely bad-faith attempts to gaslight the public into thinking that the decision was less controversial than it actually was. This narrative directly benefits the industries that were so keen to help gut a bedrock environmental law while refusing to accept clear scientific evidence that is inconvenient to their bottom line. As Earthjustice puts it, the effort was part of “a coordinated push by industry polluters that want to blow a hole in the Clean Water Act, bulldoze cherished wetlands, and contaminate the country’s streams with waste from mining, oil and gas, and agro-industrial operations as they see fit, just to maximize their profits.”

This isn’t the first time this court has delivered a victory to polluters. In June 2022, the court’s conservative majority issued a devastating ruling in West Virginia v. EPA that severely limited the EPA’s power to make power plants cut the toxic pollution that is driving the climate crisis.

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reacting to a blunt-talking concurring opinion submitted by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh taking on the ruling authored by colleague Sam Alito, Loyola Law School Professor Jessica Levinson suggested in a new column for MSNBC there is the makingsof a schism developing within the conservative majority court.

At issue was the court severely limiting the ability of the government to enforce the Clean Water Act, with Kavanaugh agreeing with the ultimate decision, but siding with the liberal wing in pointing out that the court is making law instead of interpreting it.

According to Levinson, the court's ruling was an egregious assertion of the court's authority and "the court’s ruling isn’t merely practically pernicious for those who care about the environment; it is legally wrong."

As she notes, the conservative wing of the court continually emphasizes that they are jurists and not elected lawmakers and, surprisingly, Kavanaugh reminded Alito of that in the text of his concurrence.

"It is unusual for Kavanaugh to break with his conservative colleagues, and the fact that he did so here shows us how truly baseless the court’s reasoning is," she suggested before explaining, "Kavanaugh’s concurring opinion explains why the court’s interpretation of the text of the Clean Water Act is fundamentally unmoored from the text itself. To use his words, 'the Court is imposing a restriction nowhere to be found in the text.'"

"The question before the court in this case was which wetlands are considered to be 'adjacent' to a body of water covered by the act, and therefore itself protected by the act," she wrote. "While the court’s ultimate decision was unanimous, its reasoning was splintered. A thin five-member majority of the court, defying basic rules of legal interpretation, concluded that 'adjacent' means 'adjoining.'"

As she notes Kavanaugh pointed out that the court went out of its way to ignore the obvious meanings of the words involved.

"Kavanaugh tells us exactly why Justice Alito got it wrong, as well: his interpretation goes against the 'ordinary meaning' of the word 'adjacent' and the 'longstanding agency practice' of the Army Corps.Referring to dictionaries for the plain and ordinary meaning of the word adjacent, Kavanaugh notes, 'the definitions of "adjacent" are notably explicit that two things need not touch each other in order to be adjacent,'" she elaborated.

According to Levinson, Kavanaugh was being brutally blunt with Alito and his other conservative colleagues when he wrote, "I would stick to the text.”

"These six words are nothing less than the judicial version of a grenade," the law professor wrote before adding, "Kavanaugh is essentially reminding the majority that they had one job, and one job alone, when interpreting a federal law: to follow the text. They failed to do so. We will live with the practical and legal consequences of that failure for years to come."

You can read her whole column here

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an raw 5 23 thom h

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you’ve probably never heard of Anthony Comstock, a Civil War Union soldier and New York Postmaster, who died in 1915. You need to learn about him and his legacy, however, as his long fingers are about to reach up out of the grave and wrap themselves around the necks of every American woman of childbearing years.

Anthony Comstock was a mama’s boy who hated sex. His mother died when he was 10 years old and the shock apparently never left him; women who didn’t live up to her ideal were his open and declared enemies, as were pornography, masturbation, and abortion. He was so ignorant of sex and reproduction that he believed a visible human-like fetus developed “within seconds” of sexual intercourse.

Comstock spent decades scouring the country collecting pornography, which he enthusiastically shared with men in Congress, and harassing “loose women.” For example, when he visited a belly-dancing show (then a new craze) in Chicago at the Cairo Theatre during the World’s Fair of 1893, he demanded the show be shut down.

As Amy Sohn, who wrote a brilliant Comstock biography titled The Man Who Hated Women, noted:

“Despite national controversy and Comstock’s intervention, ultimately the only alteration made to the fair’s belly dancing was costuming: the dancers swapped their gauze blouses for thin woolen undershirts. The vice hunter had lost in Chicago. But he would not forget the dancers, and would have four of them arrested and fined when they came to New York that winter. New York, after all, was Comstockland.”

Comstock lobbied for and shepherded through Congress a law passed on March 3, 1873 titled “An Act for the Suppression of Trade in, and Circulation of, obscene Literature and Articles of immoral Use.” Today we refer to it as the Comstock Act.

Its language with regard to abortion is not at all ambiguous:

“Every obscene, lewd, lascivious, indecent, filthy or vile article, matter, thing, device, or substance … designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion, or for any indecent or immoral use; and

“Every article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing which is advertised or described in a manner calculated to lead another to use or apply it for producing abortion, or for any indecent or immoral purpose; and

“Every written or printed card, letter, circular, book, pamphlet, advertisement, or notice of any kind giving information, directly or indirectly, where, or how, or from whom, or by what means any of such mentioned matters, articles, or things may be obtained or made, or where or by whom any act or operation of any kind for the procuring or producing of abortion will be done or performed, or how or by what means abortion may be produced, whether sealed or unsealed; and

“Every paper, writing, advertisement, or representation that any article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing may, or can, be used or applied for producing abortion, or for any indecent or immoral purpose; and

“Every description calculated to induce or incite a person to so use or apply any such article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing—

“Is declared to be nonmailable matter and shall not be conveyed in the mails or delivered from any post office or by any letter carrier.” (emphasis mine)

The penalty is also not ambiguous. Persons mailing information about abortion, or drugs or devices to produce an abortion:

“[S]hall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both, for the first such offense, and shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both, for each such offense thereafter.”

The Biden administration argues that the Comstock Act of 1873 was set aside almost a century ago.

And, indeed, in 1930, the Appeals Court for the Second Circuit ruled in Youngs Rubber Corp. v. C.I. Lee & Co that the law couldn’t apply to things sent through the mail that are legal, even if they were illegal at the time of the passage of the Comstock Act. (The case involved condoms manufactured by Youngs Rubber.)

“Such a construction,” the court wrote, “would prevent mailing to or by a physician of any drug or mechanical device ‘adapted’ for contraceptive or abortifacient uses, although the physician desired to use or to prescribe it for proper medical purposes.”

The law has been amended by Congress four times (in 1955, 1958, 1971, and 1994), but the language above was never struck because legislators figured the appeals court’s ruling rendered it nugatory.

But don’t tell that to Trump’s appointee Texas District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of Amarillo, who ruled last month that Mifepristone was to be banned nationwide: he based a large part of his decision on the plain language of the Comstock Act.

And don’t tell it to the three rightwing judges hearing an appeal this week of Kacsmaryk’s decision before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

When the Biden administration’s attorney argued that Kacsmaryk’s decision was “unprecedented,”Circuit Judge James Ho — also a Trump appointee, who personally swore his good friend Kacsmaryk into his office — interrupted her with a curt snap, saying:

“I guess I’m just wondering why not just focus on the facts of this case rather than have this sort of ‘FDA can do no wrong’ theme.”

The appeals court, made up of a George W. Bush appointee and two Trump appointees, earlier had ruled in their preliminary finding to hear the case that they disagreed with the Biden administration’s assertion that, to quote the three judges, “the [Comstock] law does not mean what it says it means.”

When the Biden interpretation of the Comstock Act was brought up in oral arguments, the Bush appointee, Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod, said there is “some disagreement” about whether previous court rulings actually invalidated the law.

Republican members of Congress agree, and want the Comstock Act enforced nationwide.

In a letter sent to CVS (among other pharmacy chains), Mississippi Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith and eight other Republican senators (Lankford, Daines, Braun, Rubio, Marshall, Risch, Crapo and Blackburn) wrote that the Biden interpretation (and that of Congress in 1955, 1958, 1971, and 1994) is wrong.

“We write to express our support and agreement with 21 State Attorneys General,” they wrote “who have reminded you that Federal law in 18 U.S.C. 1461-1462 [the Comstock Act] criminalizes nationwide using the mail, or interstate shipment by any express company or common carrier, to send or receive any drug that is ‘designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion.’”

The 1930 court ruling that lawmakers and judges had, for over 90 years, believed only applied the Comstock Act to items that were illegal (like child porn), she wrote:

“[D]oes not protect CVS or any other individual or entity from being prosecuted within the five-year statute of limitations for the illegal mailing or interstate shipment of abortion drugs … even for conduct that occurs today.”

The lawyer for Republicans defending Kacsmaryk’s ruling before the Fifth Circuit, Erin Hawley (the wife of Missouri Republican Senator Josh Hawley), went so far as to assert before the court that even physicians and pharmacies shouldn’t be able to receive Mifipristone or other drugs that could produce an abortion via the mail, FedEx, or UPS:

“What the Comstock law says is that it is improper to mail things that induce or cause abortions, which is precisely the action the FDA took in 2021 when it permitted the mailing of abortion drugs.”

If Hawley’s interpretation is ultimately adopted by the Supreme Court, all abortions in the United States would be ended when drugs and suction and surgical devices designed specifically for the procedure can no longer be shipped to hospitals, clinics, or physicians’ offices.

And this is no idle threat.

Given how all three judges on the Fifth Circuit reacted to this week’s arguments, most court observers believe they’ll vote to sustain Judge Kacsmaryk’s ruling and ban Mifipristone nationwide, perhaps even outlawing its legal shipment to pharmacies for other uses like helping with incomplete miscarriages.

Other drugs and surgical devices used for abortions are almost certainly next.

As Washington Post reporter Dan Diamond wrote for his Substack newsletter, anti-abortion activist Mark Lee Dickson, who’s helped several cities around the country put into law local versions of the Comstock Act, told him:

“If a future president were to enforce these federal statutes, then they could shut down every abortion facility in America.”

Such a ruling by the Fifth Circuit will kick the whole mess up to the Supreme Court, where six hardcore rightwing Catholics (Gorsuch attends his wife’s church but was raised Catholic) are gleefully rubbing their hands in anticipation.

This battle promises to be long and hard-fought, and if the Supreme Court rules in favor of the Fifth Circuit’s anticipated decision the only solution will be for Congress to overturn the Comstock Act itself.

And that’s unlikely to happen unless or until Democrats can take back the House, hold the White House, and gain a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate in the 2024 election. The stakes couldn’t be higher.

Several states are now stockpiling Mifipristone in anticipation of just such a dystopian outcome. Families with women and girls of childbearing age may want to do the same.

Forewarned is forearmed.

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https://www.alternet.org/unequal-justice-tough-john-roberts/

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in a 9-0 vote, U.S. Supreme Court justices let Joseph Percoco, a former Andrew Cuomo aide convicted of accepting bribes, off the hook, at least for one of his crimes. The ruling "further limits the ability of federal prosecutors to pursue corruption cases," writes Reuters.

Percoco was convicted in 2018 and sentenced to six years in prison for seeking $315,000 in bribes in exchange for helping two corporate clients of Albany lobbyist Todd Howe seeking state benefits and business. … Percoco was convicted alongside an executive at a real estate developer, Steven Aiello, who prosecutors said orchestrated bribes to Percoco. Howe pleaded guilty and cooperated with investigators. Prosecutors said Percoco referred to the payments as "ziti," a type of pasta that became a term for money by characters in "The Sopranos" mobster TV series.

Thursday's ruling represented the latest in recent years in which the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has limited prosecutors in political corruption cases. In 2020, it overturned the convictions of two aides to Republican former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie in the "Bridgegate" political scandal. In 2016, it threw out Republican former Virginia Governor Robert McDonnell's bribery conviction.

As far as well-timed fights go, the Supreme Court sure picked this one! Percoco was inside the revolving door, on leave from a government job he expected to return to so he could help run Cuomo's re-election campaign. The "ziti" was therefore a gift to a private individual, not corruption of a government official. You can be as disgusted as you like, and then you can go fuck yourself.

COMMENTS

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https://www.alternet.org/supreme-court-2659941059/

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according to a leading expert on federal law, the current conservative-majority Supreme Court has gone to extraordinary lengths to issue emergency orders at a historically high rate on hot-button issues, and that is raising concerns about their so-called "shadow docket."

In an interview with the Atlantic's Adam Serwer, University of Texas School of Law professor Steve Vladek expressed dismay at how the court has been handling its workload and said the uptick in emergency orders -- many unsigned and lacking legal reasoning -- is creating chaos for the lower courts because they are devoid of guidance for future cases.

As Vladek notes, emergency orders used to be much rarer and mainly deployed in death penalty cases prior to imminent executions.

Under the current court, they have been used to interfere with Covid-19 mandates and a host of other hot-button issues including abortion rights.

As he explained to Serwer, the highest court is leaving the lower courts wondering how to administer justice and on what basis.

"I think the lower courts are in a bit of a sticky wicket, because in some of these cases, especially in the COVID religious-liberty cases, the Supreme Court has been instructing lower courts that its unsigned, unexplained orders are precedential—and that lower courts are erring, as the Court says in one case of the Ninth Circuit, by not following rulings where there was no majority rationale," he explained.

He added, "I think we’re seeing a bit of a smorgasbord where some lower courts are just following what the Supreme Court has said, and some are just throwing up their hands and saying, Without more guidance from the Supreme Court, I’m just sort of stuck here," before offering, "That’s perhaps the biggest point on which there ought to be consensus: Leaving aside who wins and who loses, the less the Supreme Court explains itself in this context, the harder it is for the relevant actors, for the lower courts, for the relevant government officials, to understand what their responsibilities are."

"I think it’s really hard to look at the overall data set and compare, for example, the October 2020 term to the last two terms and not see pretty significant shifts in at least how some of the justices are behaving," he concluded.

You can read more here.

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https://www.alternet.org/chevron-doctrine/

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'Judicial power grabs': US Supreme Court puts Chevron doctrine 'squarely in the crosshairs'

Brett Wilkins and Common DreamsMay 01, 2023

The U.S. Supreme Court said Monday it will hear a challenge to a nearly 40-year administrative law precedent under which judges defer to federal agencies' interpretation of ambiguous statutes—a case that legal experts warn could result in judicial power grabs and the gutting of environmental and other regulations.

The Supreme Court said it will take up Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo—a case in which fishing companies are seeking to strike down the Chevron doctrine, named after the landmark 1984 Chevron USA v. Natural Resources Defense Council ruling that conservatives have long sought to overturn. The case is one of the most cited precedents in administrative law.

The Chevron doctrine involves a two-step process in which a court first determines whether Congress expressed its intent in legislation, and if so, whether or not that intent is ambiguous.

James Goodwin, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Progressive Reform, toldPolitico that Loper v. Raimondo has "the potential of being one of the most destabilizing decisions that this court has issued."

President Joe Biden's "environmental and energy agencies were already facing a heavily tilted playing field in the federal judiciary," Goodwin added. "I think eliminating Chevron... would make the prospects of surviving judicial review all the more daunting."

At issue in Loper v. Raimondo is whether the federal government can force herring fishers to fund a National Marine Fisheries Service program used to monitor their work. Two fishing companies argue that while the Magnuson-Stevens Act requires owners of fishing vessels to accommodate federal monitors onboard, the proprietors are not required "to pay the salaries of government-mandated monitors who take up valuable space on their vessels and oversee their operations."

The Biden administration's argument in favor of the Chevron doctrine leans heavily upon precedent.

"Federal courts have invoked Chevron in thousands of reported decisions, and Congress has repeatedly legislated against its backdrop," a brief filed by U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar and other officials in support of the doctrine notes. The brief adds that the Chevron doctrine "promotes political accountability, national uniformity, and predictability, and it respects the expertise agencies can bring to bear in administering complex statutory schemes."

In 2020, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in Howard v. United States that "Chevron is in serious tension with the Constitution," while Justice Neil Gorsuch opined last year in Buffington v. McDonough that the doctrine "deserves a tombstone no one can miss."

"Overruling the Chevron doctrine, and undermining agencies and regulatory authority more broadly, has long been a hobbyhorse of Neil Gorsuch and other conservatives," legal journalist Christian Farias tweeted. "In a sense, the outcome of this case is foreordained. It's part of a continuing agenda."

Liberal Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson has recused herselffrom Loper v. Raimondo, explaining that she sat on the circuit court that initially heard the case.

"I still want to know how Ketanji Brown Jackson feels about all of this," Farias wrote. "Her insights are valuable: She was the vice chair of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, an agency that is given Chevron-like deference in some contexts. Making her sit this one out won't help."

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

Judicial deference and the future of regulation ›

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Kavanaugh And The “Chevron Doctrine” - Legal Aggregate ... ›

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on Monday this week the Supreme Court finally weighed in on whether it would take up the jurisdictional argument that oil companies are making in multiple climate liability suits. The companies have been arguing for the past five years that these cases, brought on behalf of municipalities and states, are asking state courts for judgements that would impact federal policy and thus belong in state court. Attorneys representing state and local arguments have argued that their cases—which claim that oil companies' delay tactics on climate increased the cost of adaptation and thus the companies are liable for a portion of those costs—were appropriately filed in state court. Every circuit court has agreed, as has the Department of Justice, and now the Supreme Court as well.

"The companies' history of climate, deception, and misinformation, coupled with their unchecked fossil fuel production promotion, and so on, it makes them liable for at least some of the costs that these communities face, so that these costs don't fall entirely on the taxpayers." — Marco Simons, EarthRights International, attorney representing Boulder and other Colorado municipalities against oil companies.

[audio]

Suncor, a Canadian company whose U.S. subsidiary is headquartered in Colorado, is a defendant in the Boulder climate case.

It's big news, but what will it mean for these cases? Some of them, including Boulder, which was the case invoked in the initial petition to the Supreme Court, will go back to arguing against other motion-to-dismiss arguments in state court. But others, starting with Hawaii, will move towards trial and that's a really big deal because it means some of these cases will get into the phase of litigation oil companies have been trying their hardest to avoid: discovery. In civil cases, the discovery phase is when companies will be asked to hand over documents and make their executives available for depositions. The evidence gathered during discovery in these cases could spell trouble for the oil company defendants in multiple other cases, including ongoing fraud suits in Massachusetts and Minnesota, a RICO, or racketeering, case filed on behalf of Puerto Rican municipalities, and even international cases given that the majority of these companies operate globally.

"At this point, we're optimistic about moving forward and securing justice for our clients, who have been facing significant harms and costs due to the climate crisis while the oil companies, of course, continue to profit from their deception and misinformation." —Marco Simons, EarthRights International

[audio]

But of course, oil majors have not put all their eggs in the jurisdictional basket. As I've been writing about for years now, one of the key arguments they're making in these cases is a First Amendment argument. In broad strokes, the argument goes like this: anything they've ever said about climate was in the interest of shaping policy, which makes it political speech (or "petitioning speech" in legalese), and therefore protected. It was clear this was going to be the driving force of these cases when the oil company defendants appointed Chevron's attorney, Ted Boutrous with Gibson Dunn, as their spokesperson across the board. Boutrous is a renowned First Amendment attorney, and Gibson Dunn is the firm that brought and won the most famous corporate free speech in the country's history: Citizens United. And now, even as the broader jurisdictional argument seems to be dead in the water, oil companies have formulated another one: the First Amendment question in these cases is foundational, and is not something that state courts should be weighing in on.

That argument has already been briefed in multiple cases, and it's only a matter of time before it makes its way to the most pro-corporate Supreme Court this country has had in decades...maybe ever. In the meantime, cases will move forward, and it's possible that so many cases moving into discovery will prompt discussion of a tobacco-style settlement. But I wouldn't go counting those chickens just yet.

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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/22042023/wynn-bruce-earth-day/?ref=drilledpodcast.com

ICN

Last Earth Day, Wynn Bruce Set Himself on Fire Outside the Supreme Court. I Tried to Understand Why

Some saw my former student’s actions as a climate protest. As I examined the years leading up to his death, I found his grief for our planet was undeniable.

By Michael Kodas

April 22, 2023

Most journalism teachers would be thrilled to see their student’s name in the New York Times, but I shouted a curse and pushed my laptop away. The sobs didn’t come until later, and they returned often over the past year.

Three days earlier, on April 22, 2022—Earth Day—a Buddhist environmental activist sat down on the steps leading to the U.S. Supreme Court,stretched his legs out in front of him, folded his hands at his chest and, without saying a word, lit himself on fire. He was a photojournalist from Boulder, Colorado, the Times reported, and had died the following day. His father and friends believed he was protesting the U.S. government’s failure to confront climate change. His name was Wynn Bruce....

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https://www.alternet.org/john-roberts-2659928200/

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supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts’ wife earned $10.3 million in commissions for her work for elite law firms, one of which argued a case before her husband, Business Insider reports.

Jane Sullivan Roberts stepped away from her career as a prominent lawyer two years after her husband’s confirmation to the Supreme Court to become a legal recruiter, matching job-seeking lawyers with employers in what turned out to be a lucrative career change.

She made $10.3 million in commissions from 2007 to 2014, according to a whistleblowercomplaint, which cites internal records that were obtained from her employer by a disgruntled former colleague of Jane Roberts.

Kendal B. Price, the whistleblower who worked with Roberts at the firm Major, Lindsey & Africa, said as the chief justice’s wife, income Jane Roberts earns from law firms who try cases before the court should be subject to scrutiny.

IN OTHER NEWS: Trump put the GOP's 'worst nightmare' on display during latest campaign visit: NY Times reporter

"When I found out that the spouse of the chief justice was soliciting business from law firms, I knew immediately that it was wrong,” Price told Business Insider.

"During the time I was there, I was discouraged from ever raising the issue. And I realized that even the law firms who were Jane's clients had nowhere to go. They were being asked by the spouse of the chief justice for business worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and there was no one to complain to. Most of these firms were likely appearing or seeking to appear before the Supreme Court. It's natural that they'd do anything they felt was necessary to be competitive."

Price in an affidavit that accompanied the complaint alleged that Jane Roberts benefited from her proximity to the chief justice.

"She restructured her career to benefit from his [John Roberts'] position," Price wrote.

"I believe that at least some of her remarkable success as a recruiter has come because of her spouse's position."

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https://www.alternet.org/2659906142/

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Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has drawn considerable scrutiny over what his critics consider conflicts of interest, from his relationship with billionaire GOP megadonor Harlan Crow to his wife Ginni Thomas' efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. Now, according to Politico reporter Heidi Przybyla, another relationship involving a High Court justice could merit close scrutiny — and this time, the justice is Donald Trump nominee Neil Gorsuch.

Przybyla, in an article published by Politico on April 25, reports, "For nearly two years beginning in 2015, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch sought a buyer for a 40-acre tract of property he co-owned in rural Granby, Colorado. Nine days after he was confirmed by the Senate for a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court, the then-circuit court judge got one: The chief executive of Greenberg Traurig, one of the nation’s biggest law firms with a robust practice before the High Court. Gorsuch owned the property with two other individuals."

Trump nominated Gorsuch for the High Court in 2017. And on April 16, 2017, according to Przybyla, Brian Duffy of Greenberg Traurig "put under contract the 3000-square-foot log home on the Colorado River and nestled in the mountains northwest of Denver, according to real estate records."

READ MORE:John Roberts sidesteps Senate request to discuss Clarence Thomas scandals

Przybyla adds, "Since then, Greenberg Traurig has been involved in at least 22 cases before or presented to the Court, according to a Politico review of the Court's docket. They include cases in which Greenberg either filed amicus briefs or represented parties. In the 12 cases where Gorsuch's opinion is recorded, he sided with Greenberg Traurig clients eight times and against them four times."

READ MORE:Clarence Thomas defends luxury vacations paid for by billionaire Republican donor

Read Politico's full report at this link.

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"He and his wife closed on the house a month later, paying $1.825 million, according to a deed in the county’s record system," Przybyla reports. "Gorsuch, who held a 20 percent stake, reported making between $250,001 and $500,000 from the sale on his federal disclosure forms. Gorsuch did not disclose the identity of the purchaser. That box was left blank."

Przybyla adds, "Since then, Greenberg Traurig has been involved in at least 22 cases before or presented to the Court, according to a Politico review of the Court's docket. They include cases in which Greenberg either filed amicus briefs or represented parties. In the 12 cases where Gorsuch's opinion is recorded, he sided with Greenberg Traurig clients eight times and against them four times."

Read Politico's full report at this link

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https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/25/neil-gorsuch-colorado-property-sale-00093579

politico bad code box size]

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Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has [lnx] to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. Now, according to Politico reporter Heidi Przybyla, another relationship involving a High Court justice could merit close scrutiny — and this time, the justice is Donald Trump nominee Neil Gorsuch.

Przybyla, in an on April 25, reports, "For nearly two years beginning in 2015, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch sought a buyer for a 40-acre tract of property he co-owned in rural Granby, Colorado. Nine days after he was confirmed by the Senate for a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court, the then-circuit court judge got one: The chief executive of Greenberg Traurig, one of the nation’s biggest law firms with a robust practice before the High Court. Gorsuch owned the property with two other individuals."< according to Przybyla, Brian Duffy of Greenberg Traurig "put under contract the 3000-square-foot log home on the Colorado River and nestled in the mountains northwest of Denver, according to real estate records. >READ MORE:

"He and his wife closed on the house a month later, paying $1.825 million, according to a deed in the county’s record system," Przybyla reports. "Gorsuch, who held a 20 percent stake, reported making between $250,001 and $500,000 from the sale on his federal disclosure forms. Gorsuch did not disclose the identity of the purchaser. That box was left blank. Przybyla adds, "Since then, Greenberg Traurig has been involved in at least 22 cases before or presented to the Court, according to a Politico review of the Court's docket. They include cases in which Greenberg either filed amicus briefs or represented parties.

In the 12 cases where Gorsuch's opinion is recorded, he sided with Greenberg Traurig clients eight times and against them four times." zxz for nearly two years beginning in 2015, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch sought a buyer for a 40-acre tract of property he co-owned in rural Granby, Colo. Nine days after he was confirmed by the Senate for a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court, the then-circuit court judge got one: The chief executive of Greenberg Traurig, one of the nation’s biggest law firms with a robust practice before the high court. Gorsuch owned the property with two other individuals.>

On April 16 of 2017, Greenberg’s Brian Duffy put under contract the 3,000-square foot log home on the Colorado River and nestled in the mountains northwest of Denver, according to real estate records....federal disclosure forms.<...Since then, Greenberg Traurig has been involved in at least 22 cases before or presented to the court, according to a POLITICO review of the court’s docket....one of the more highly publicized rulings in recent years, a multistate suit which reversed former President Barack Obama’s plan to fight climate change through the Clean Air Act.

Gorsuch joined the court’s other five conservative judges in agreeing with the plaintiffs — including Greenberg’s client — that the Environmental Protection Agency had overstepped its authority by regulating carbon emissions from power plants in the decision that makes it more difficult for the executive branch to regulate emissions without express authorization from Congress.

Duffy, who in addition to serving as CEO is chief of Greenberg’s entire 600-lawyer litigation department, said he has never personally argued cases before Gorsuch or met the justice socially.

“I’ve never spoken to him,” Duffy said. “I’ve never met him.”

Once he learned Gorsuch was among the owners, Duffy said, he cleared the sale with his firm’s ethics department.

Gorsuch did not respond to inquiries about the sale, his disclosures or whether he should have reported Duffy’s identity as the purchaser.

Supreme Court rules do not prevent justices from engaging in financial transactions with people with interest in court decisions, but Gorsuch’s dealings with Duffy expose the weakness of the court’s disclosure procedures. For instance, in reporting his Colorado income, Gorsuch listed as his source only the name that he and his two co-owners gave themselves, Walden Group, LLC. The report didn’t indicate that there had been a real estate sale or a purchaser.

Such a sale would raise ethical problems for officials serving in many other branches of government, but the Supreme Court sets its own rules. It has largely left justices to make their own decisions about when and how to report outside gifts and income.

Justice Clarence Thomas is currently under scrutiny for accepting lavish trips from GOP billionaire donor Harlan Crow, who also purchased three Georgia properties from the justice. Thomas did not report the property sales. Of the vacations, Thomas said he had been advised that “personal hospitality from close friends” need not be disclosed.

Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), a frequent critic of Supreme Court ethics rules, sent a statement responding to POLITICO’s inquiry about Gorsuch’s sale of the Colorado property.

“We have seen a steady stream of revelations regarding Supreme Court Justices falling short of the ethical standards expected of other federal judges and of public servants,” said Durbin. “The need for Supreme Court ethics reform is clear, and if the Court does not take adequate action, Congress must. The Senate Judiciary Committee will be closely examining these matters in the coming weeks,” said Durbin, who has asked Chief Justice John Roberts to testify next month on the court’s ethics rules.

Kedric Payne, director of ethics at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, said he believes “investments in LLCs require more details than the justice includes in his financial disclosures.“

“This transaction appears to also require naming the buyer. The public has a right to know that justices will fully comply with disclosure rules instead of providing only a tiny peek into their financial disclosures,” he said, noting more facts are needed to distinguish whether it’s a disclosure omission or violation. The center was founded by a Republican former chair of the Federal Election Commission.

Unlike Crow, who bought properties from Thomas, Duffy says he is neither a friend nor a confidant of Gorsuch. But he is one of the nation’s most powerful attorneys.

His Greenberg bio describes him as “A true ‘working CEO,’” and says he “focuses his practice on trial and appellate work in the class action, employment, energy, commercial contract, and product liability areas, serving as counsel in high-profile cases throughout the United States.”

At the time of the sale, Duffy had headed Greenberg Traurig for about a year. A search of his contributions to political candidates revealed that they went primarily to Democrats, including Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, (D-N.Y.). He contributed the maximum amount allowable for individual donors to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, though he also made contributions in the past to Republicans such as former Sen. John McCain of Arizona and a GOP New York City mayoral candidate, Joe Lhota.

The Duffy family has long resided in Colorado. Duffy attended the University of Colorado Law School and, in 2019, he was the recipient of the “most admired CEO” award by the Denver Business Journal.

Duffy, who described himself as an avid fly fisher, said he’d been looking for the right property for his family for many years. Duffy said he did not know Gorsuch was one of the owners when he made his first offer.

“The fact that he was going to be a Supreme Court justice was absolutely irrelevant to the purchase of that property. It’s a wonderful piece of property and we’re so glad we bought it,” said Duffy.

Gorsuch and his associates purchased the property in 2005 through their LLC, the Walden Group, which was dissolved after the 2017 sale. The home was originally listed, in July of 2015, for $2.495 million. The fact that the property had sat on the market for so long and that its price had been lowered a couple times suggests the partners were having trouble finding a buyer.

The real estate transaction is another example of how the lack of a firm code of ethics for the court stands in contrast to most other branches of the U.S. government, including the White House and Congress as well as lower court judges.

The code of conduct for lower court U.S. judges says judges should “avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all activities,” and “discourages frequent transactions or continuing business relationships with lawyers or other persons likely to come before the court” on which the judge serves. Unlike many of the country’s state and federal courts, the Supreme Court lacks a code of conduct.

“This is exactly the type of situation that an ethics code that included vetting of transactions and full disclosure would clear up,” said Kyle Herrig, president of Accountable.US, a progressive research organization. “Without decisive action, the conservatives on the Supreme Court will forever tarnish its reputation in our public life,” he said.

At the time of Gorsuch’s appointment, his ownership of the Colorado property drew attention only for the fact that his co-owners were major figures in the oil and gas industry. Gorsuch’s ties to the oil and gas industry run deep.

As a lawyer at a Washington law firm nearly 20 years ago, Gorsuch represented oil and gas billionaire Philip Anschutz on a variety of matters as outside counsel, and it was through this connection that Gorsuch befriended his future real estate partners.

Anschutz helped Gorsuch win an appointment to an open seat on a federal appeals court in Denver, including directly lobbying the George W. Bush White House....Gorsuch’s connections to Anschutz extend to .

The Walden Group included Kevin Conwick, who had advised Anschutz in deals to buy sports teams and other projects like the Staples Center in Los Angeles, and Cannon Harvey, who oversaw Anschutz’s venture capital investment division...

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an 4 23

no lnx twt

Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) is calling on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to resign over allegations of corruption spanning more than two decades. He is the first sitting U.S. Senator to do so.

“I will say what needs to be said: Clarence Thomas should resign from the Supreme Court of the United States. His reputation is unsalvageable,” Sen. Markey, flanked by U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA).

“It is evident that he cannot judge right from wrong, so why should he be judging the country’s most important cases on its highest court?” Sen. Markey asked.

The three Massachusetts Democrats spoke as they kicked off a 20-city bus tour Monday from Boston, focusing on strengthening ethics in the nation’s highest court, as the Boston Globe reports.

“The court must take action in order to rebuild its legitimacy by enforcing its own recusal rules, adopting a binding code of conduct, strengthening restrictions on gifts of privately funded travel, and increasing the transparency of justices’ financial dealings and interests,” Markey also said.

READ MORE: Gorsuch Sold Land to Law Firm Head With Cases Before SCOTUS 9 Days After Being Confirmed – He Didn’t Disclose Buyer’s Name

Senators Markey and Warren also called for expanding the Supreme Court by four seats, to 13, which would more accurately represent the nation and its current judicial system.

”I don’t want to mess with the Supreme Court,” Senator Warren told reporters. “But the Supreme Court is messing with our democracy. Make no mistake, the Supreme Court faces a crisis of legitimacy. The Constitution gives Congress the ability to check the Supreme Court’s power, including by changing its size, no constitutional amendment.”

Rep. Pressely added, ”I’m here with my partners in government and community to organize and mobilize to enact common sense reforms to our highest judicial court.”

“We deserve and demand a Supreme Court representative of the people and capable of upholding the law.”

READ MORE: Top Senate Democrat Goes After Clarence Thomas’ Billionaire Benefactor

The tour is being organized by a coalition of more than 30 progressive groups called the Just Majority campaign, The New York Times reported, as more see the increasingly urgent need for judicial reform in the wake of the Roberts Court’s rulings on abortion and its now-infamous shadow docket.

“This is new to us,” Mini Timmaraju, the president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, told The Times.

Timmaraju “said her organization’s decision to join the campaign was driven in part by recent court decisions on abortion rights, gun control and other issues that run counter to well-documented public opinion.”

“We feel a special obligation to jump in now,” she also said. “It feels the time is right to start having this conversation about expansion. Everything has to be on the table.”

Watch a clip of Senator Markey’s remarks, and the full event video below or at this link.

Sens. Markey and Warren and Rep. Pressley Kick Off 'Just Majority' Campaign

www.youtube.com

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{{ ===

AOC big ginni clarence crits

https://www.alternet.org/rank-corruption-aoc-calls-for-clarence-thomas-impeachment-following-bombshell-report-on-megadonor-gifts/

===

https://www.alternet.org/clarence-thomas-2659749180/

an 4 23

no lnx in orig?

'A flagrant violation': More legal, ethics experts slam Clarence Thomas over bombshell corruption allegations

David Badash andThe New Civil Rights Movement April 06, 2023

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is under fire after a bombshell ProPublica report detailed the expensive vacations he’s been given, gifts of a Republican megadonor, for more than two decades, without disclosing certain portions of them – which legal experts say he is required by federal law to do.

At issue are important questions of ethics and law.

The vacations, revealed in ProPublica’s extensive and detailed report Thursday, from a legal standpoint appear to be worth hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars in total. From an ethical standpoint, some say, they have cost the institution of the Supreme Court further repetitional damage.

Justice Thomas at times was accompanied on these lavish trips by his wife Ginni Thomas, the far-right activist and lobbyist who worked behind the scenes to try to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Together or apart, one person who joined them on these all-expenses-paid trips to private resorts via private jets and private yachts was the gift-giver: billionaire Dallas real estate magnate and GOP mega donor Harlan Crow.

READ MORE: For Decades Clarence Thomas Has Accepted Luxury Vacations from a GOP Megadonor Without Disclosing Them

ProPublicarevealed the details of one of Thomas’ almost yearly trips.

“In late June 2019, right after the U.S. Supreme Court released its final opinion of the term, Justice Clarence Thomas boarded a large private jet headed to Indonesia. He and his wife were going on vacation: nine days of island-hopping in a volcanic archipelago on a superyacht staffed by a coterie of attendants and a private chef,” ProPublica reports.

“If Thomas had chartered the plane and the 162-foot yacht himself, the total cost of the trip could have exceeded $500,000. Fortunately for him, that wasn’t necessary: He was on vacation with real estate magnate and Republican megadonor Harlan Crow, who owned the jet — and the yacht, too.”

Justice Thomas “has gone with Crow to the Bohemian Grove, the exclusive California all-male retreat, and to Crow’s sprawling ranch in East Texas. And Thomas typically spends about a week every summer at Crow’s private resort in the Adirondacks.”

Crow, who financially supports right wing causes, in 2011, according to Politico, contributed $500,000 to help Ginni Thomas start her consulting group, “Liberty Consulting, which boasts on its website using her ‘experience and connections’ to help clients with ‘governmental affairs efforts’ and political donation strategies.”

The ProPublica report includes an image of a painting that hangs at Crow’s private lakeside resort, Camp Topridge, in the Adirondacks that features shows Crow and Justice Thomas “smoking cigars at the resort. They are joined by lawyers Peter Rutledge, Leonard Leo and Mark Paoletta.”

READ MORE: Students Across the Country Walk Out of School to Protest Gun Violence After Nashville as TN House GOP Moves to Expel Dems

Leonard Leo is a vice president of The Federalist Society and sits on its board. The Federalist Society was the right-wing clearing house for most of Donald Trump’s federal court appointees, including his three Supreme Court nominees, and Leo is seen as the man behind those picks.

Meanwhile, legal experts are responding to the bombshell report, confirming ProPublica’s assertion that Thomas’ “failure to report the flights appears to violate a law passed after Watergate that requires justices, judges, members of Congress and federal officials to disclose most gifts, two ethics law experts said. He also should have disclosed his trips on the yacht, these experts said.”

Slate senior writer Mark Joseph Stern, an attorney who writes about the courts and the law and wrote a book on the Roberts Supreme Court, calls Justice Thomas’ actions “corruption.”

Stern observes that “federal law DOES require justices to disclose most gifts of value.”

“It’s clear that Thomas brazenly violated this law many times. We should call this what it is: corruption,” he says.

“Just to be clear here,” Stern adds, “it was a flagrant violation of federal law for Thomas to accept this wildly expensive luxury vacation without reporting it as a gift—his conduct isn’t just unseemly, it’s illegal.”

READ MORE: ‘They Had an Insider on SCOTUS’: Legal Experts Stunned by Bombshell Clarence Thomas Was Seen as ‘Key’ by Trump Lawyers

The award-winning investigative reporter for The New Yorker, Jane Mayer, pointing to ProPublica’s report, says: “This is why public trust in the Supreme Court is cratering.”

Leah Litman, Assistant Professor of Law and The University of Michigan School of Law, says, “no one is doing a better job at making the case that the Supreme Court is broken than … the Court and its Justices.”

Top national security attorney Brad Moss offers this exercise: “Change the name of the Justice to Kagan or Sotomayor, and the name of the donor to Soros. Then think about how Fox would react.”

Imani Gandy, Editor-at-Large covering courts and the law for Rewire News Group, does not mince words.

“Clarence Thomas should be impeached,” she says. “He broke the law.”

Attorney and former Biden deputy cabinet secretary, Cristóbal Alex asks, “How do you impeach a Supreme Court Justice?

“Besides being married to someone who conspired to overthrow our government, Justice Thomas has accepted what appears to be millions of dollars in undisclosed gifts,” Alex notes.

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

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===

https://www.alternet.org/clarence-thomas-2659747910/

an 4 23

no lnx

in the wake of the latest bombshell report revealing incriminating details about U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' luxurious lifestyle, legal experts are weighing in with critical remarks and concerns as calls for accountability increase.

According to the new report:

"For more than two decades, Thomas has accepted luxury trips virtually every year from the Dallas businessman without disclosing them, documents and interviews show. A public servant who has asalary of $285,000, he has vacationed on [Harlan] Crow’s superyacht around the globe. He flies on Crow’s Bombardier Global 5000 jet. He has gone with Crow to the Bohemian Grove, the exclusive California all-male retreat, and to Crow’s sprawling ranch in East Texas. And Thomas typically spends about a week every summer at Crow’s private resort in the Adirondacks."

READ MORE: Clarence Thomas opposes a 'landmark precedent' guaranteeing defendants the right to counsel: legal columnist

The report also emphasized: “The extent and frequency of Crow’s apparent gifts to Thomas have no known precedent in the modern history of the U.S. Supreme Court.”

Now, legal experts have taken to Twitter with ethical concerns as they've pointed out the many issues with Thomas' conflicts of interest.

"There’s been a lot of talk by MAGA Republicans this week about the judge in NYC," former Trump administration official Olivia Troye tweeted. "If you want to talk about a judge & their family let’s talk about Justice Clarence Thomas & his wife Ginni…"

"Our country is poisoned from within," tweeted former Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-Va.). "Ethics be damned. And with his wife, Ginni, being a major GOP influencer with multiple organizations that funnel and accept money in GOP circles—and certified Q quack—Clarence Thomas should not be allowed anywhere near a judicial decision.…"

READ MORE: How Clarence Thomas went from a 'fringe figure with extremist views' to the Court’s 'center of gravity': report

Calls have also increased for Thomas to be impeached from the Supreme Court or held accountable amid reports on the latest findings.

"Google 'Clarence Thomas RV' and you'll find endless puff pieces about him and Ginni being ascetics who spend their free time with the common folk," Max Kennerly tweeted. "Turns out their vacations were really on private planes and superyachts — trips they concealed in violation of federal law."

"What is the penalty for violating the disclosure law? Would the DOJ need to first file a criminal complaint?" Chief financial correspondent Felix Salmon also asked.

According to a new report from The Washington Post, Supreme Court disclosures will likely hold justices accountable going forward.

"Supreme Court justices and all federal judges must provide a fuller public accounting of free trips, meals and other gifts they accept from corporations or other organizations, according to revised regulations quietly adopted this month," the report notes.

The latest controversy followsThomas' own remarks insisting that the Supreme Court was being "bullied" following the overturn of Roe v. Wade. At the time, Thomas also raised concerns about Americans disrespecting the government, a remark Truthout's Sharon Zhang described as a form of "glaring hypocrisy" given the Supreme Court justice's reputation.

The judicial system “can’t be an institution that can be bullied into giving you just the outcomes you want,” Thomas said, implying that the opposing views toward institutions “bode ill for a free society.” Per the report, Thomas also said, "Young people are especially guilty of disrespecting government institutions like courts."

Pushing back against the remarks, Zhang wrote:

Thomas’s comments sparked ire among abortion rights supporters, who pointed out the glaring hypocrisy of telling people to simply live with decisions made by 9 unelected judges with lifetime appointments who are not subject to any oversight. As political commentators pointed out, Republican attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election are a prime example of people not being able to live with an outcome they don’t like — but Thomas has yet to condemn the anti-democratic campaign and coup attempt, perhaps because of his wife Ginni Thomas’s involvement in those events.

READ MORE: Here Are 5 of Clarence Thomas’ Worst Decisions - And Proof Judge Brett Kavanaugh Is Cut from the Same Cloth

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---

ref badash 11/22

https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2022/11/they-had-an-insider-on-scotus-legal-experts-stunned-by-bombshell-clarence-thomas-was-seen-as-key-by-trump-lawyers/

Washington Post bombshell revealing Trump attorneys saw **Justice Clarence Thomas** as the key to getting the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the 2020 election is leaving several legal experts stunned.

The Post reports eight emails “ordered released by U.S. District Judge David O. Carter of California, include correspondence between Trump lawyers Kenneth Chesebro, John Eastman and others discussing various legal strategies to convince Republican members of Congress to object to the official certification of electoral votes in a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021.”

In one email “from Chesebro to Eastman and several others sent on Dec. 31, 2020, Chesebro argued that [U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence] Thomas would ‘end up being key’ to asking the high court to overturn then-President-elect Joe Biden’s win in contested states.”

The Post states the email also says, “they should ‘frame things so that Thomas could be the one to issue some sort of stay or other circuit justice opinion saying Georgia is in legitimate doubt.'”

Politico’s Kyle Cheney sums up the scheme.

“Chesebro made the plan explicit: Get any remotely favorable ruling from a federal judge — not to win outright but to embolden GOP state legislatures, Congress or Pence to reverse the results.”

Politico‘s reporting includes copies of the redacted emails, and adds: “Chesebro contended that Thomas would be ‘our only chance to get a favorable judicial opinion by Jan. 6, which might hold up the Georgia count in Congress.'”

“I think I agree with this,” Eastman replied.

“Eastman,” Politico notes, “an architect of Trump’s last-ditch bid to subvert the 2020 election, once clerked for Thomas and had corresponded with his wife, Virginia, in the weeks before Jan. 6.”

“[I]f we can just get this case pending before the Supreme Court by Jan. 5,” Chesebro wrote in one email, “ideally with something positive written by a judge or justice, hopefully Thomas, I think it’s our best shot at holding up the count of a state in Congress.”

Richard Signorelli, a former Asst. U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) blasted both the Supreme Court Justice and his far right wing activist wife, **Ginni Thomas**.

“They had a damn insider on SCOTUS who they thought would help them overthrow our democracy,” Signorelli tweeted. “He’s married to a deranged MAGA cult member. He won’t even recuse himself.”

Former Harvard Constitutional Law professor Laurence Tribe blasted Chesebro.

“We now learn that Ken Chesebro saw Justice Thomas as Trump’s ‘only chance’ to stop the 2020 election from being duly certified. Such abhorrent abuse of an attorney’s license to practice law should be strictly disciplined and perhaps criminally prosecuted,” he tweeted.

Attorney and writer Rachel Solar, pointing to the Politico article asks: “When is it enough???? His wife is an insurrectionist He refuses to recuse He’s the Trump election-denial go-to? Come on.”

Journalist Helen Kennedy goes one step further.

“Hey look! It wasn’t just critics of the Supreme Court who thought Clarence Thomas was corrupted – Trump’s lawyers said so too in secret emails just revealed.”

===}}

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PAOLETTA TEST ~ SCOTUS RULES?!

Courts Subcommittee: Building Confidence In The Supreme Court Through Ethics And Recusal Reforms

WASHINGTON, D.C. – On Wednesday, April 27, Congressman Hank Johnson (GA-04) will be chairing the Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet hearing titled: "Building Confidence in the Supreme Court Through Ethics and Recusal Reforms."

This hearing will allow members to consider the impact of the Supreme Court's lack of a clearly applicable code of ethics and examine other reforms that could promote transparency and accountability for the highest court.

WHO:

• Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Hank Johnson (GA-04) and other subcommittee members

WITNESSES:

• Gabe Roth is the Executive Director of Fix the Court and has extensive experience investigating and publicizing judicial conflicts of interest and the need for judges to recuse themselves.

• Donald Sherman is the Chief Counsel at CREW and has significant ethics and oversight experience across the executive and legislative branches.

• Steve Gillers is among the most prominent scholars on legal and judicial ethics in the country, and he has been closely following recent developments at the high court.

NYU LEGIT

NPR's "Morning Edition"

"Law professor looks at whether Supreme Court's Thomas may have violated ethics rules"

Law & Crime

"Justice Thomas accused of breaking the law by going on secret ‘superyacht’ trips, and his billionaire pal had a telling response"

NBC News

"Supreme Court justices, including Clarence Thomas, are their own ethics police"

• Mark Paoletta, partner Schaerr Jaffe.

WHEN: Wednesday, April 27 at 2 PM.

https://news.yahoo.com/house-hearing-airs-ethics-allegations-205020273.html

12 22 yahoo

House Democrats blasted the Supreme Court over alleged ethical lapses on Thursday, mounting a hearing that showcased a religious-right lobbying campaign aimed at the justices and claims of an alleged leak from the court of a key decision in 2014.

At a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee, a former evangelical minister who organized the lobbying effort, the Rev. Robert Schenck, detailed his efforts to deploy wealthy social conservatives as “stealth missionaries” to befriend conservative justices.

“The operation’s overall goals were to gain insights into the conservative justices’ thinking and to shore up their resolve to render solid, unapologetic opinions, particularly against abortion,” Schenck testified. “I called this our ministry of emboldenment.”

House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) said disclosures in news outlets, including POLITICO, about a lobbying drive targeting the justices have cast doubt on how the Supreme Court arrived at its earthshaking decision in June that overturned the federal constitutional right to abortion.

“We are now left wondering how much of this decision ending decades of established precedent was influenced by the organized wealthy donors and lobbying to move conservative justices to the right,” Nadler said.

Nadler and other Democratic members said Schenck’s account underscored the need to pass legislation imposing a binding ethics code on the Supreme Court.

“Supreme Court justices cannot self-police their own ethics, and we shouldn’t expect them to,” Nadler said.

Schenck said that the efforts he undertook to try to build ties with the conservative justices through meals and hosting them at private homes took advantage of lax ethics rules at the high court.

“There were clear rules in place limiting the way one could interact with the representative branches … none of that applied at the Supreme Court,” Schenck said “We knew that there was a great deal of liberty and latitude there and made our operation at the judicial branch, at that level, much easier.”

However, a lawyer and former Supreme Court clerk called as a GOP witness, Mark Paoletta, blasted Schenck as a “con man” and argued he should not be trusted because of his public admissions that he lied at times during his lobbying drive.

“Schenck’s entire project was a grift and had zero impact on any justice,” Paoletta declared.

Paoletta, who worked on the Senate confirmation of Justice Clarence Thomas and has represented his wife, Virginia Thomas, in connection with the House Jan. 6 Committee probe, said it was absurd to think that justices like Thomas or Samuel Alito would be susceptible to pressure to be more conservative on issues like abortion rights.

“You are smearing the court and encouraging the public to question the court and its rulings,” Paoletta added. “This political assault on the court is a dangerous game.”

No one from the Supreme Court testified at Thursday’s hearing, but the court has issued statements disputing many of Schenck’s allegations. The court did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the hearing and about an assertion that it had been asked “again and again” to send a witness but failed to do so.

Schenck has also claimed that in 2014 he learned of the outcome of a widely watched Supreme Court case about the rights of businesses with religious owners to avoid providing contraception coverage under Obamacare, Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores. Schenck says that about three weeks before the decision was released, he learned that Alito was writing the opinion and that the religious business owners had prevailed.

Schenck said the typically confidential information came from Gayle Wright, following a dinner she and her husband had at Alito’s home in Alexandria, Va. Wright has denied Schenck’s account. Alito issued a statement last month saying neither he nor his wife disclosed the outcome or authorship of the Hobby Lobby decision prior to its release.

Republican lawmakers sought to undercut Schenck, accusing him of dishonesty and citing his admission that he propagated “consequential lies” before making a break with the religious right several years ago.

“I look back and realize that many of the things I promulgated were not true,” he conceded Thursday. “I did not know at the time.”

Republican House members faulted their Democratic colleagues for drawing attention to the alleged 2014 leak, while not calling any hearing to explore how POLITICO obtained a draft opinion in the major abortion case the high court issued in June. Alito also authored that decision, seen as a landmark victory for conservatives.

“You held zero hearings on it,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) complained.

“Not one hearing about the real leak, but here we are having a hearing on the fake leak,” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said.

Jordan also noted that POLITICO reported recently, that after months of investigation, that it “was unable to locate anyone who heard about the Hobby Lobbydecision directly from either Alito or his wife before its release at the end of June 2014.”

Jordan read that part of the article aloud twice for emphasis, although he omitted the word “directly” in both instances. Biggs later read the passage in its entirety.

Despite heated exchanges between Democratic and GOP lawmakers, members of both parties said they favored requiring some ethics code for the Supreme Court.

“If you can buy off the Supreme Court … the left will be way better at it than we are,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) said.

Paoletta accused Democrats of “gaslighting” because they didn’t show much interest in ethics practices when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s husband continued to practice law after she was sworn in to the court.

However, Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.) said that was no reason to fail to move forward with legislation to impose an ethics code on the high court.

“We’re talking about it now. Sometimes we’re late,” she said.

CORRECTION: This story has been updated to reflect Mark Paoletta's previous work on the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

===

https://www.alternet.org/rbg-s-set-off-a-pattern-of-distrust-and-discord-that-still-plagues-the-supreme-court-today-book/

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an 3 23

no lnx

Why the GOP-dominated North Carolina Supreme Court is likely to uphold partisan gerrymandering: attorney

Alex Henderson

March 21, 2023

:{In February 2022, the North Carolina Supreme Court struck down a gerrymandered congressional map drawn by Republicans as a violation of the state's constitution. That case is Harper v. Hall, not to be confused with Moore v. Harper — a separate but related case that has gone all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Since February 2022, there has been a sea change on the North Carolina Supreme Court — which is now dominated by Republicans and has decided to revisit Harper v. Hall. Attorney Shan Wu, a former federal prosecutor, fears that the justices are almost certain to restore the gerrymandered congressional map that was struck down 13 months ago.}:

In an op-ed published by the Daily Beast on March 21, Wu explains, "It’s still the North Carolina Supreme Court, but last year's state elections changed the Court's political majority from Democrat to Republican. Despite the fact that the political affiliation of judges is not a legal basis for overturning cases, that seems to be the only reason the case is being reheard. Sound familiar?"

READ MORE:The independent state legislature Supreme Court case could upend centuries of progress

:{Wu continues, "Recall the dissenting opinion by Supreme Court Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan in Dobbs v. Jackson, where the majority struck down the precedent of Roe v. Wade that had stood for a half-century…. The new Republican majority of the North Carolina Supreme Court is following SCOTUS' lead by doing the same thing…. Only twice in the past 30 years has the (North Carolina) High Court granted requests for rehearings."

In law, the Latin term stare decisis means respect for precedent. It means "let the decision rest." When Sen. Susan Collins voted to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018, she insisted that he considered Roe v. Wade "settled law." But Collins was wrong. In 2022, Kavanaugh was among the justices who voted to overturn Roe in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization; clearly, "stare decisis" was not a priority for Kavanaugh in that case.}:

On both the North Carolina Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court, Wu argues, respect for precedent is falling by the wayside.

"The underlying rationales between the state and SCOTUS matters are the same: Republican majorities want the power to do what they please with election laws," the former federal prosecutor points out.

READ MORE:Robert Reich: Electoral College reform is 'urgent' as the Supreme Court considers 'bonkers' election theory

In Moore v. Harper, North Carolina Republicans are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to consider the "independent state legislature theory" — a far-right fringe legal concept claiming that only state legislatures should be allowed to make decisions on elections. According to the most severe form of ISL, a state's judicial and executive branches should be excluded from election-related decisions — only state legislators are allowed.

"The position taken in the North Carolina rehearing — as well as the ILST argument before SCOTUS —would eliminate the state courts and the governors, leaving only state legislatures to make these decisions," Wu observes. "Recognizing the impact of the North Carolina Supreme Court rehearings, SCOTUS has asked for additional briefing from both the Justice Department and the parties petitioning the nation's highest court for additional briefings on how the decision to rehear the cases may affect the decision in SCOTUS."

READ MORE: How John Roberts may slow-walk American democracy right off the cliff

Read Shan Wu’s full op-ed for the Daily Beast at this link.

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Dinner at the Alitos

Kavanaugh's extracurricular activities come at a time of increasing concern about the relationship between Supreme Court Justices and right-wing activists seeking to influence the court.

In the 2014 case of Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, the craft store argued that it had the right to exclude birth control from its healthcare plan under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Reverend Robert Schenck, a former anti-abortion activist who headed the group Faith and Action until 2018, told the New York Times last month that he learned the result of Hobby Lobby weeks in advance of its public release by the court.

In a letter from Schenck to Chief Justice John Roberts, Schenck claims that, in June 2014, he was "informed by a donor to the Capitol Hill-based non-profit organization I led that she and her husband would be dining at the home of Justice and Mrs. Alito." The donor, Gayle Wright, suggested "that in their table conversation, she might be able to learn the status of the [Hobby Lobby] case." After the dinner, the donor called him and shared that the majority opinion in the case would be favorable to Hobby Lobby and written by Alito.

Schenck says he ultimately shared this intelligence, which proved correct, with the president of Hobby Lobby, Steve Green. Schenck said he was interested in information about the case because he thought it could help him recruit Green as a donor.

The New York Times "found a trail of contemporaneous emails and conversations that strongly suggested [Schenck] knew the outcome and the author of the Hobby Lobby decision before it was made public." Wright and her husband watched the oral arguments in the Hobby Lobby case from "seats in the courtroom reserved for guests of Justices Scalia and Alito." In an email to Schenck, Wright referred to Scalia and Alito as "Nino and Sam."

Alito confirmed he had dinner with the Wrights, but denies he shared information about the Hobby Lobby case.

The Wrights became friends with Alito and other Justices at Schenck's urging. Schenck said he encouraged wealthy donors like Wright "to invite some of the justices to meals, to their vacation homes or to private clubs." He also "advised allies to contribute money to the Supreme Court Historical Society and then mingle with justices at its functions." The Wrights made large donations and became trustees. This influence campaign was known as "Operation Higher Court."

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Congressman Hank Johnson (D-GA) have introduced legislation that would require the Supreme Court "to adopt a binding code of conduct, and mandate the Supreme Court adopt more robust rules governing disclosure of gifts and travel paid for by outside parties." The legislation would "also require disclosure of the identity of funders of amicus briefs, and block amicus filers from making gifts or providing travel to court of appeals judges or Supreme Court justices."

===

an 12 22

The Rev. Rob Schenck was once deeply involved in the Christian right movement and white evangelical efforts to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. But the evangelical Protestant minister has grown increasingly critical of the Christian right and the anti-abortion movement that he was once a part of.

Moreover, he is speaking out against the Christian right’s campaign to lobby Supreme Court justices in the 2014 case Burwell v. Hobby Lobby.

Schenck alleges that evangelical Christian fundamentalists knew what the High Court’s decision in Hobby Lobby would be before that decision was publicly announced, and that the leak came from either Justice Samuel Alito or his wife — an allegation that Justice Alito has vehemently denied. And Schenck discussed that allegation when he testified before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday, December 8.

The Independent’s Alex Woodward, reporting on Schenck’s testimony, explains, “An evangelical minister and former longtime anti-abortion activist told members of Congress that he helped recruit wealthy conservative donors to serve as ‘stealth missionaries’ at the U.S. Supreme Court, where they developed friendships with conservative justices that aligned with the group’s ‘social and religious’ views. The ‘overarching’ goal of Robert Schenck’s ‘Operation Higher Court’ sought to ‘gain insight into the conservative justices’ thinking and to shore up their resolve to render solid, unapologetic opinions,’ he told the House Judiciary Committee in sworn testimony on 8 December.”

Operation Higher Court was the lobbying campaign of Faith and Action, the Christian right group that Schenck was a part of for many years.

Woodward notes that Schenck “testified to the Committee that his group suggested tactics like meeting with justices for meals at their homes and at private clubs to build relationships and advance their perceived common objectives.”

Schenck told House Judiciary Committee members, “I believe we pushed the boundaries of Christian ethics and compromised the High Court’s promise to administer equal justice. I humbly apologize to all I failed in this regard. Most of all, I beg the pardon of the folks I enlisted to do work that was not always transparently honest.… I’m here today in the interest of truth telling.”

The December 8 hearing wasn’t strictly about Burwell v. Hobby Lobby or Operation Higher Court’s campaign to influence Supreme Court justices. It was about Supreme Court ethics in general, and Schenck now believes that it was unethical for Supreme Court justices to be interacting with Christian right lobbyists.

Watch the video of Schenck’s December 8 testimony below or atthis link.

hypothetical website? not based on her xian? whataboutism? KKK not = white ppl?

hayes commenter mystal? said in past scotus except alito wd try to hide ideology

https://www.alternet.org/Frontpage-videos/good-grief-samuel-alito-kkk/

but now

https://www.alternet.org/gorsuch-2658835299/

atty refused to use term educ camp

===

11 22 an

The recent story about leaked Supreme Court drafts isn’t about SCOTUS opinions getting leaked. It’s not even that the court is political. The story should be that the court’s right-wing is blatantly corrupt and basically exists outside of oversight or accountability.

When the draft of Dobbs, the case overturning Roe, was leaked, way too many people were more focused on the erosion of norms than the horrific content of the draft. Did leaking the draft serve the right-wing agenda of the right wing of the Supreme Court? Probably.

Why else leak it?

But the focus on the leak was what served their agenda, as it offered a distraction from the fact that the court was overturning important precedent by waving around some nonsense ahistorical argument that abortion wasn’t deeply embedded in the nation’s history.

There was concern that the leaked draft would dampen outrage on the left but, as recent midterm results show, that hasn’t happened. If anything, someDemocrat politicians used the leaked draft as an opportunity to protect abortion rights before the ruling’s release.

A report by the *Times* suggests that Dobbs wasn’t the first opinion to leak. Anti-abortion activist Rob Schenck said he received information about the Hobby Lobby case, in which the Supreme Court ruled that private companies didn’t have to provide insurance coverage for contraception. Schenck he heard from conservative donors to his group Faith and Action after they’d dinner with Justice Samuel Alito.

This is a much more troubling leak, as it was done privately and in a clearly corrupt way. Schenck has previously asserted that his nonprofit engaged in overt attempts to influence conservative justices through dinners and vacations with wealthy donors to his nonprofit. The strategy was to use casual social occasions to influence rulings and gain access to information on pending cases.

While a sitting Supreme Court justice shouldn’t leak information about cases to donors or participate in obviously political events, they technically don’t break any rules when they do so. Supreme Court justices have no ethical code of conduct they must adhere to and pretty much entirely self-police themselves. There is a Code of Conduct for federal judges published by the Judicial Conference of the United States, which is presided over by Chief Justice Roberts, but it’s not binding for Supreme Court justices. It’s worth noting that the last time a liberal justice got in trouble for political action, conservatives were mad that Ruth Bader Ginsburg publicly expressed dislike of Trump – not really as bad as political dinners with donors.

Supreme Court justices need to exhibit “good behavior” and technically can be impeached for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” The only justice to be impeached was Samuel Chase in 1805 for clearly political motives as Chase was a staunch Federalist who was pissing off Thomas Jefferson.

The House voted to impeach, but Chase was acquitted by the Senate, therefore not removed from the bench. Oddly enough, the majority of impeachment trials have been for federal judges and all eight people convictedof impeachment and removed were federal judges.

A bill has been proposed to require justices to write and adopt a formal code of ethics. The Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act outlines requirements for recusal and disqualification. It does not offer specifics for what would be in a code of conduct. It only requires that one be adopted through the Judicial Conference. The bill already passed the Senate, so we can hope for a lame-duck adoption by the House.

We absolutely need more oversight for sitting justices but the obstacles to impeaching them show why we need to take confirmation hearings more seriously.

Brett Kavanaugh likely lied under oath during his confirmation hearing but people treated moderate questioning of a serious accusation like a witch hunt. Clarence Thomas called a similarly respectful hearing about his history of sexual harassment a lynching. These are serious job interviews, our last chance to vet nominees.

While we might not have recourse once they’re on the bench, senators need to take their roles in confirming these justices more seriously than a rubber stamp for the president’s political nominee.

While the Congress has little oversight outside impeachment, it can hold hearings and call justices to testify. Though unlikely to remove a justice, it would show that Congress is taking the corruption seriously and force the justices to speak publicly about their actions.

While Justice Alito has likely leaked information about at least two Supreme Court cases, Justices Thomas and Kavanaugh have probably committed impeachable offenses.

Clarence Thomas’ wife, Ginni Thomas, has been called in front of the January 6 committee for her possible (likely) involvement in the attempted coup. We know she sent text messages to Mark Meadows urging Trump not to concede and that she attended the “Stop the Steal” rally on January 6. She claims her husband knew nothing of these political activities but that strains credulity. Thomas also hasn’t recused himself from any of the cases concerning January 6.

As for Kavanaugh, his theoretically possible impeachable offenses occurred before he took the bench but lying before the Congress – committing perjury – is an impeachable offense. Sexual assault should be one too, but we all know how seriously that’s taken.

We need court reform.

We should expand the court to 13 to match the number of federal courts and more realistically pass a bill requiring a code of conduct.

While it's only been done once, there’s no reason we can’t impeach one or more of the current justices for their blatant corruption.

And as many of my articles are going to end – all this will be easier if we manage to elect Reverend Warnock in the runoff in Georgia.

===

11 22 comm dr an

Advocates for court reform on Saturday called for Congress to investigate allegations that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito leaked a 2014 ruling to a right-wing donor, after The New York Times reportedon the claim by a former leader of the pro-forced pregnancy movement.

Rev. Ron Schenck led an evangelical Christian nonprofit organization in 2014 when the court ruled on Hobby Lobby v. Burwell, which allowed religious organizations to deny employees healthcare coverage for contraception.

The Times spent months investigating Schenck's claim—which he also detailed in a letter to Chief Justice John Roberts in June—that Alito leaked the court's decision in the case to one of his top donors, three weeks before the ruling was publicly announced.

Schenck used his knowledge of the ruling to "prepare a public relations push," the Times reported, as well as telling the president of Hobby Lobby about it.

During his time as a crusader against abortion rights—an issue on which he's since changed his viewpoint—Schenck "recruited wealthy donors... encouraging them to invite some of the justices to meals, to their vacation homes, or to private clubs. He advised allies to contribute money to the Supreme Court Historical Society and then mingle with justices at its functions," reported the Times. "He ingratiated himself with court officials who could help give him access, records show."

Schenck sent a letter to Roberts in June—a month after the leak of a draft decision showing the court had voted to overturn Roe v. Wade—saying the information he gained about the Hobby Lobby ruling could be relevant to the court's inquiry into the recent leak. He told the Times he did not receive a response.

The story "strongly suggests Justice Alito leaked the 2014 opinion in Hobby Lobby, and describes a conspiracy by the far-right donor class to influence the Supreme Court Justices," said Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.), calling for an investigation by the U.S. House. [twt]

brian Fallon, executive director of Demand Justice, which advocates for the expansion of the court and has called foran ethics probe into right-wing Justice Clarence Thomas's alleged conflicts of interest, said the Senate Judiciary Committee "should immediately move to investigate the apparent leak by Justice Alito."

"The whistleblower in this report, Rev. Rob Schenck, should be called to testify about both the leak and the yearslong lobbying effort he once led to cultivate Alito and other Republican justices," he added.

"This bombshell report is the latest proof that the Republican justices on the court are little more than politicians in robes," said Fallon. "It's no wonder trust in the Court has hit a record low. Structural reform of the court, including strict new ethics rules, is needed now more than ever."

===

https://www.alternet.org/2022/11/how-supreme-court-controlled-midterms/

Midterms are (almost) over and we (almost) have the results. While we don’t know which party will win the House yet, Democrats have retained 50-50 control and have a chance to make it to 51 seats.

While there is still a lot up in the air, two things are clear. One, the Democrats outperformed expectations around the country against enormous odds. The other thing that’s clear is that elections are being determined by Supreme Court decisions.

Abortion was the second most important issue for people in midterms according to exit polls, only a few points behind inflation. It was also the most important issue in Pennsylvania and Michigan where Democrats made great strides. Maggie Hassan, an incumbent Democratic senator from New Hampshire, managed to hold on to her seat by highlighting abortion in her reelection campaign.

Abortion should have been the most important issue in 2016, 2018 and 2020 to prevent Roe from being overturned but unfortunately many politicians ignored it and most voters didn’t prioritize it.

Hillary Clinton centered abortion rights in 2016. Kirsten Gillibrand and Kamala Harris focused in 2020 on reproductive justice issues. But the larger party and Democratic voters failed to see the import of following their lead. Unfortunately, it took the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson to force people to pay attention.

And pay attention they did! Even before midterms, it was clear many votes were mobilized to protect abortion. In August, Kansas voters rejected an anti-abortion ballot measure by an 18-point margin.

There is also significant evidence that the Dobbs decision drove voter registration in the months preceding the midterm election with higher numbers among young voters and women.

In every state where abortion was on a ballot measure, abortion rights won. A California amendment passed stating that the state Constitution cannot interfere with someone’s reproductive freedom.

Like Kansas’ earlier abortion vote, Kentucky voters rejected a ballot measure to declare there is no right to abortion in the state constitution. Michigan voters passed a ballot measure to ensure their constitution protects a right to reproductive freedom. Montana voters rejected an attempt to criminalize healthcare providers. Vermont voters passed an initiative to amend the state constitution to ensure a right to “personal reproductive autonomy.”

Another Supreme Court decision, *New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen*, got less attention but should probably have been highlighted by the Democrats in the way abortion was.

Gun regulation was in the top five issues most important to voters this election, but few politicians focused on it. Last year, the Supreme Court overturned a New York gun regulation that allowed more discretion for issuing gun permits with a “may issue” law rather than a “shall issue” law. The court ruled that carrying a gun, not just owning one, was a constitutional right. I’m not aware of any politicians who tried to use the case to rally voters.

The case was decided a month after the Uvalde massacre. School shootings have become common and Uvalde did little to move public opinion, though it did start an important conversation about a police officer’s “duty to act.” Many of the parents of the Uvalde victims rallied behind Beto O’Rourke, trying to unseat Greg Abbott as governor of Texas. O’Rourke was one of the few politicians to prioritize gun reform and the Uvalde shooting as part of his campaign. Unfortunately, Democrats couldn’t overcome the voter suppression and gerrymandering enabled by the Supreme Court.

In one of the most devastating decisions for fighting partisan gerrymandering, the court ruled in *Rucho v. Common Cause* that partisan gerrymandering issues are not the purview of the federal court system, so a major avenue of redress was removed.

While we’re awaiting a ruling on *Merrill v. Milligan*, and *Ardoin v. Robinson* after oral arguments this term, last term the court allowed the racist gerrymandered map in Alabama to go in effect.

The court is likely to sustain the racist map, and the Louisiana map in Ardoin v. Robinson, which they also temporarily sustained, will severely weaken section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and allow Black voter dilution. Gerrymandering is only going to get worse.

The decision to allow the Alabama map to go into effect in February likely influenced gerrymandered maps all over the country for the midterms. A judge declined to block a racially gerrymandered map in Georgia. A Texas court dismissed multiple claims against their gerrymandered map that targeted Latino representation.

In Florida, Ron DeSantis demanded a more extreme gerrymander than what Republicans initially proposed in the state, which the Florida Supreme Court reinstated after a lower court struck it down.

Even a New York court rejected the initial congressional map and forced a map less favorable to Democrats (no surprise Democrats lost 4 congressional seats in New York). Ohio’s map also showed extreme Republican bias going into election day.

And no conversation about elections and the Supreme Court can ignore the effect of Shelby v. Holder. It struck down a key element of the Voting Rights Act. The effect of Shelby was that states with histories of voting discrimination would no longer need federal preclearance to pass new voting laws. It’s likely that the increase in voter suppression laws after 2013 influenced the passage of more voter suppression in states without historical discrimination.Twenty states faced new voter restrictions since the 2020 election.

The 2022 midterms saw a rash of new voter suppression laws in response to the myths about fraudulent elections perpetrated by Donald Trump after losing in 2020. Over two years, there has been a significant increase in laws that criminalize election behavior and ultimately amount to voter intimidation through the involvement of law enforcement in the name of election security. Since 2020, 132 bills have been introduced across 42 states to increase police involvement in elections. Twenty-eight passed in 20 states.

The Supreme Court is controlling our elections.

It is driving the political issues we have to focus on.

It is dictating our access to the ballot box.

There’s not much we can do about the Supreme Court (that is, until Samuel Alito or Clarence Thomas need to be replaced) without reform, like expanding the court to 13, but federal judges across the country are working to fight back against the court’s fascism.

Our best hope is to nominate more federal judges, which means we must ensure that Senator Raphael Warnock wins his runoff.

===

also alito

https://www.alternet.org/2022/11/clarence-thomas/

an comm dr 11 22

no lnx twt

A long-standing call for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to face impeachment proceedings was renewed Monday after the right-wing judge indicated in an unsigned dissent that he would have blocked enforcement of the House January 6 panel's subpoena for the communications records of Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward.

The House committee investigating the deadly January 6 insurrection "is seeking Ward's records related to her role in former President Donald Trump's effort to steal the 2020 election as a fake elector casting ballots in the Electoral College for Trump," HuffPost reported.

In a 7-2 vote, the Supreme Court on Monday paved the way for the panel to obtain Ward's phone records, rejecting the Arizona GOP chair's appeal. Right-wing Justice Samuel Alito joined Thomas in dissenting.

This marked the second time Thomas has tried to hinder the committee's probe of the Trump-led effort to remain in office despite his 2020 election loss—a plot in which Thomas' wife, right-wing activist Ginni Thomas, played a major role.

Thomas in January was the only justice to vote against the release of White House records to the panel.Two months later, text messages between former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Ginni Thomas showed that she had been in communication with Trump's team about efforts to overturn President Joe Biden's electoral victory.

Weeks later, it was revealed that Ginni Thomas had lobbied Republican lawmakers in Arizona and other states to reject Biden's electors and appoint fake ones who would support Trump. Since late March, congressional Democrats have called on Clarence Thomas to recuse himself, resign, or be impeached for apparently trying to shield his wife's anti-democratic political activities from scrutiny.

"His wife, Ginni Thomas, pressured Arizona officials to illegally overturn Trump's loss," Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a D.C.-based watchdog, noted Monday. "It's absurd that Thomas did not recuse."

"Justice Thomas must face an impeachment inquiry," the pro-democracy advocacy group Free Speech for People tweeted.

A petition calling for the impeachment of Clarence Thomas has garnered more than 1.2 million signatures since details about Ginni Thomas' direct participation in Trump's failed coup were first made publi

===

same case as cruz?

an 11 22

...Justice Amy Coney Barrett again decided, late Friday afternoon, to not weigh in on the Biden plan. Barrett "denied an emergency application brought by the Pacific Legal Foundation to block federal student loan forgiveness," CNBC reports.

Unfortunately for those 16 million Americans, a GOP lawsuit, at least temporarily, is causing the forgiveness to be put on hold.

Insider on Thursday reported, "the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily paused the relief, in response to a lawsuit filed by six Republican-led states who argued the policy would hurt their states' tax revenues, along with those of loan company MOHELA."...

===

https://www.alternet.org/2022/10/conservative-justices/

tom b raw an 10 22

In a blunt-talking editorial from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the editors took two of the most conservative members of the Supreme Court to task for doing little to halt the slide in the court's credibility that has been in freefall after it became a 6-3 conservative majority.

Specifically, they cited Associate Justices Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito over a Thomas ruling last week, and a report on Alito dating back to his confirmation in 2005.

In the case of Thomas, last week he interceded on behalf of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who is balking at having to testify in an election corruption case in Georgia related to Trump's phone call to Georgia's secretary of state.

Regarding his ruling temporarily granting Graham relief, the editors wrote, "... as with anything regarding that election, having Thomas involved in any way automatically looks suspect because of his wife, right-wing activist Ginni Thomas. In the weeks leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection, Ginni Thomas flooded Trump’s inner circle with unhinged texts calling Joe Biden’s election a 'coup,' suggesting the Biden 'crime family' should face 'military tribunals for sedition,' and generally encouraging resistance to accepting the election outcome."

The editors added, "In what universe is it OK for Justice Thomas not to recuse himself from anything Jan. 6-related when this is the kind of pillow talk he goes home to at night?"

As for Alito, he was scorched for lying his way onto the court that led to his Dobbs's majority decision that gutted Roe v. Wade 17 years later.

With the New York Times reporting that Alito had assured Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) that he had no intention of overturning Roe, saying, "I am a believer in precedents. People would find I adhere to that,” the Post-Dispatch editors slammed him for his "mendacity."

"That mendacity is hardly a surprise, nor is Alito alone in it," they wrote. "All five conservative justices who voted in June to overturn Roe (Roberts concurred, but stopped short of endorsing full reversal) have at various times waxed on about the sanctity of precedent generally — and have, to varying degrees, offered assurance they weren’t going to go out of their way to flip Roe as soon as they had the votes to do it. Which, of course, is exactly what they did."

The editors also took a shot at Chief Justice John Roberts for acting like he doesn't understand why the court he heads has lost the confidence of the public.

With Roberts complaining, "I don't understand the connection between (Supreme Court) opinions that people disagree with and the legitimacy of the Court," the editors explained, "As we noted then, his frustration is misplaced. These latest developments further illustrate why."

You can read the whole piece here.

===

an 10 22

judge's ruling on gun serial numbers highlights 'deadly' impact of right-wing Supreme Court

Judge Michael Luttig — the famous and credible conservative judge, the Edmund Burke of this era — has joined the team fighting the potential outcome of this decision.

Luttig suggests this theory, if adopted by the Court, could very well signal the end of Democratic presidents so long as more than 25 of our 50 states have Republican-controlled legislatures (and their governors can’t even veto their legislatures, according to this theory). Today 30 states’ legislatures are fully under GOP control, up from 14 in 2009.

Luttig, the elders among us may remember, personally ran Clarence Thomas’ Supreme Court hearing and worked for years side-by-side with John Roberts in the Reagan Justice Department. He’s friends with both men and is considered one of the top conservative judges in contemporary America.

The “Independent State Legislature theory” at the core of Moore v Harper is, according to Luttig:

[A]ntithetical to the Framers’ intent, the text, and the Constitution’s fundamental design and architecture.

But that’s just the beginning of the out-of-control and dangerous behavior of the far-right radicals on today’s court. Since there’s been a conservative majority on the Court it has, among other things:

*Handed the 2000 election to George W. Bush

*Radically cut back the rights of unions to organize and represent workers

*Declared that billionaires buying politicians is merely “free speech”

*Gutted the power of the EPA to regulate planet-destroying carbon pollution

*And ripped the heart out of both the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.

In just the past year this Court, now stacked with 3 new and deeply unqualified (but young!) hard-right Trump-humping activists, has already ruled to:

*End the 6th Amendment right of prisoners to challenge convictions when their lawyers were demonstrably corrupt or incompetent (Shinn v Ramirez. In her dissent, Justice Sotomayor wrote, “The Court’s decision will leave many people who were convicted in violation of the Sixth Amendment to face incarceration or even execution without any meaningful chance to vindicate their right to counsel.”

*Further gut Americans’ right to vote. In 3 separate cases, Merrill v Milligan, Wisconsin Legislature v. Wisconsin Elections Commission, and Ardoin v. Robinson the six rightwing justices endorsed three separate Republican gerrymanders and voting maps in Wisconsin, Louisiana, and Alabama that were each unabashedly based on efforts to enhance the electoral power of white voters.

*Remove from US citizens who move to (or live in) Puerto Rico the right to receive certain Social Security benefits in their US v Vaello-Madero case. Whacking the rights of over 300,000 Americans living in PR, the six crazies on the Court ruled that only Congress could fix the damage they themselves were doing. The problem with that, as Justice Sonia Sotomayor pointed out in her dissent, is that because PR isn’t yet a state and has no member of Congress to fight on their behalf the Court was simply “punishing disparities suffered by citizen residents of Puerto Rico under Congress’ unequal treatment.”

*Take away your Miranda rights to remain silent, avoid self-incrimination, and know you have access to a lawyer. Americans cannot, the 6 “conservatives” on the Court ruled in Vega v. Tekoh, sue police officers who fail to tell them their Miranda rights.

*Eliminate many non-citizens’ rights under the Constitution when abused by the federal government. While the Constitution refers to “persons” rather than “citizens” in most critical places (like the 14th Amendment guaranteeing equal protection under the law), the Court decided in two cases, Garland v. Gonzalez and in Johnson v. Arteaga-Martinez, that noncitizens often are not entitled to bond hearings or class-wide injunctive relief when screwed by the feds.

*Rip away 4th Amendment privacy rights against unreasonable search and seizure for all persons living within 100 miles of an ocean or our borders with Mexico or Canada (that’s two out of three American citizens – even here in Portland, I’m within 100 miles of the Pacific Ocean). In Egbert v Boule, the six rightwingers on the Court ruled that border patrol and other federal officers can search you, your home, or your vehicle for any old reason they want because you live in the vicinity of a border or ocean and they consider you suspicious. No warrant necessary anymore.

*Give police officers who use excessive force immunity from accountability. In Rivas-Villegas v. Cortesluna and City of Tahlequah, OK v. Bond the Court upheld its own invention, the doctrine of “qualified immunity,” that makes it almost impossible to sue cops when they wail on you or even kill you (in the Tahlequah case they killed a man in his own garage) for little or no reason.

*Kill the power of the EPA under the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon pollution or protect communities from having their water supplies poisoned by industry seeking profits. West Virginia v EPA ended that agency’s power to regulate carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, and Louisiana v American Rivers handed polluters, overturning 50 years of precedent, the power to overrule states’ and tribes’ rules against pollution of their waterways.

That was last year, and apparently it was just a warm-up:

*Now the Court, in addition to taking on Moore v Harper that could guarantee no Democrat in our lifetimes will ever again become president, is planning to take a second large bite out of the Voting Rights Act in Merrill v Mulligan.

*In Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and Students for Fair Admission v. University of North Carolina the 6-judge majority will probably end affirmative action.

*In Kennedy v. Bremerton School District the Court allowed a coach to impose prayer on public school students because “religious liberty.”

*Even as guns have become the leading cause of death among American children and gun-related crime is washing over our country like a poisonous bloody tide, the Court is preparing to unleash even more weapons on our nation by gutting gun owner licensure laws in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.

Virtually every one of these decisions are or will be based on the power the Court gave itself to overturn laws passed by Congress and signed by the President in its 1803 Marbury v Madison case.

That case caused such a backlash that the next time the Court ruled on a major constitutional issue was in 1856 with Dred Scott v Sanford, which arguably kicked off the Civil War and President Lincoln refused to recognize.

From the founding of our republic until the post-Reconstruction era, the Court rarely ruled to strike down or modified laws based on their reading of Constitution. Mostly it just did its job as the final court of appeals; after all, the buck has to stop somewhere.

:{That’s how it’s designed in the Constitution: when different judges disagree or cases go back-and-forth on appeal, the Supreme Court makes the final decision about who wins and who loses.:(

Back in the early days of the republic the Court was sometimes referred to as the “chickens and dogs court” because so many cases had to do with disputes between farmers (most of America was agricultural at the time).

The idea of deciding cases on the basis of the Constitution was considered exotic or bizarre, and the idea of striking down laws made by Congress and signed by the president was so unthinkable it was only done twice in major cases during the first century of this nation’s history.

When the Court voted in 1803 to give itself the power to claim the Constitution as its excuse to overturn Congress’ laws, then-President Jefferson reflected the outrage of the nation.

There is literally nothing in the Constitution that gives the Supreme Court the exclusive right to decide what the Constitution says or means and impose it on the other two branches of government, or on the rest of America. That is a power the Supreme Court took onto itself in that 1803 decision of its own, Marbury v Madison.

It was such a radical step that it drove then-President Jefferson to declare:

[O]ur Constitution…has given — according to this opinion — to one of [the three branches of government] alone the right to prescribe rules for the government of the others; and to that one, too, which is unelected by and independent of the nation…

The Constitution, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the Judiciary which they may twist and shape into any form they please.

The popular outrage was so intense that, after that 1803 Marbury decision, the Supreme Court only ruled twice between the founding of our nation and the 1860s on a constitutional issue, and in each case both Congress and the president at the time ignored the ruling.

The first was President Andrew Jackson when the Court ruled the Second National Bank was constitutional and Jackson shut it down anyway, claiming it wasn’t. He said:

The Congress, the Executive, and the Court must each for itself be guided by its own opinion of the Constitution. Each public officer who takes an oath to support the Constitution swears that he will support it as he understands it, and not as it is understood by others… The opinion of the judges has no more authority over Congress than the opinion of Congress has over the judges, and on that point the President is independent of both.

A generation later, President Abraham Lincoln chose to explicitly ignore the Supreme Court’s expansion of chattel slavery in its 1856 Dred Scott v Sanford decision, as did Congress, and even went on to free enslaved Americans before the Court could weigh in again.

Instead of putting the Supreme Court in charge of American laws, the Framers of the Constitution did the opposite: they put Congress in charge of the Supreme Court.

As they wrote in Article 3, Section 2 of the Constitution:

[T]he Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.

Republicans know this well. When John Roberts worked as an attorney for Ronald Reagan, he suggested that both Brown v Board and Roe v Wade could be overturned by Congress by simply stripping from the Court the power to decide on issues of race or abortion (as I detail in The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America).

Most recently, in the wake of the Obergefell gay marriage decision, Republicans in Congress offered a law stripping from the Court its power to rule that gay people could get married. The Marriage Protection Act, which passed the House of Representatives on July 22, 2004 but failed in the Senate, explicitly says:

No court created by Act of Congress shall have any jurisdiction, and the Supreme Court shall have no appellate jurisdiction, to hear or decide any question pertaining to the interpretation of, or the validity under the Constitution of, section 1738C or this section.

While this sort of court-stripping is likely to meet resistance both from Congress and from the Supreme Court, a much easier step is to simply reduce the power of the Court to go off on these wild excursions based on their mind-reading of the Founders.

That could be accomplished by Congress creating an “regulation” for the Court that says all decisions involving Constitutional matters must be decided by consensus (the most strict) or with no fewer than 7 out of 9 notes.

Other options include expanding the size of the Court, term-limiting the Court, or — what FDR had proposed — moving all over-70 justices (Alito, Thomas, and Roberts in 3 years) to “emeritus” status so they can continue to participate in deliberations but lose their vote (or all the emeritus members’ votes are consolidated into one when there’s consensus).

Republicans are already talking out loud about state legislatures legally handing the 2024 election to Trump or DeSantis regardless of who wins, no insurrection necessary this time, because they’re assuming the Court will rule their way.

So, with Moore v Harper and even more toxic and democracy-hobbling or even democracy-destroying decisions coming before the Court, what can we do?

At the very least, Congress should mandate that the Court abide by the same ethics rules that every other federal court and judge must follow, and that all arguments and decisions be televised. This would increase the power of dissenters on the Court and raise the integrity-focusing power of the spotlight of public opinion.

All of these options are within the power of Congress, should it choose to end the filibuster and exercise that power.

Whatever strategy Democratic leadership and the Biden administration choose, America is today in the midst of a severe constitutional crisis and action is needed right now or, at the very least, in the weeks immediately after this November’s election.

If we fail, 2024 may be this nation’s last election for president.

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https://theintercept.com/2022/10/10/supreme-court-pork-california-rights/

FOR DECADES, Supreme Court justices on the right have framed themselves as committed to “states’ rights.” True, they might appear to be, and even act like, extremist activists, driven to serve the Republican Party and forge a Christo-nationalist state. They are, however, in fact simply federalists to the bone — which we know for sure because of their insistence on it.

As such, in a significant case on this term’s docket, I’m sure we can expect these right-wing justices to duly rule in favor of the state of California and its right to pass animal welfare laws, allowing the state to regulate the pork sold within its sovereign state borders.

Well, maybe we can’t really expect the ruling for “states’ rights.” We must remember, after all, that this is a case about a progressive law, passed in a blue state, that challenges the unbridled power and private interests of a major industry.

Ruling in favor of industry would set yet another grim precedent, potentially curtailing the ability of states to enforce progressive industry regulations.

On Tuesday, oral arguments will begin in National Pork Producers Council v. Ross, a case in which the pork industry is challenging the constitutionality of a California law regulating the worst cruelties of mass meat and egg production. The pork producers are arguing that California’s law ends up forcing them to change their procedures outside California’s borders at significant cost.

If the justices rule on the side of the pork producers, it will be only the latest case to expose the illusion of so-called states’ rights that conservative legal forces have spent 200 years pushing on the public.

There would also be widespread implications: Ruling in favor of industry would set yet another grim precedent, potentially curtailing the ability of states to enforce progressive industry regulations and protections. Everything from state laws on workers’ rights to environmental standards to further animal welfare issues could be challenged.

Activists Acquitted in Trial for Taking Piglets From Smithfield Foods

Meanwhile, there could be another layer of irony: With the court’s proven selective federalism, we can be sure that any such precedent would be no barrier to conservative states enacting laws with economic consequences far beyond their state lines in future.

THE LAW IN question at the Supreme Court this week is California’s Prop 12, passed through a resounding 2018 ballot victory. The law bans the sale in California of meat and eggs from animals raised in extreme and brutal confinement, including in gestation crates where pregnant pigs are held, barely able to move, for most of their lives.

Such confinement has been condemned by all major animal welfare and veterinary organizations, and has been deemed a “profound danger to food and public health,” given the rife spread of disease, according to a brief written by the American Public Health Association and the Infectious Diseases Society of America, among others, for the case.

the pork producers contend that the law creates unconstitutional constraint on their business, as farmers in other states must change their practices to abide by Prop 12’s standards if they hope to sell pork in the nation’s most populous state.

The plaintiffs argue that the law violates the “dormant commerce clause” in the Constitution, which bars states from placing an “undue burden” on interstate commerce. They are arguing that, though the federal government has not actively weighed in on these regulations, the rules remain an issue of interstate commerce, for which federal oversight is constitutionally enshrined

Since most of the pork consumed in California is indeed produced out of state, and that the state is a market too big for major producers to forego, there’s little doubt that the Californian regulations would indeed affect interstate practices. The industry plaintiffs are suggesting that it would be an “undue burden” to move away from torturing animals in factory farms.

THE PORK PRODUCERS in the case say that upholding Prop 12 would mean that California voters are able to assert their policy choices onto the entire country’s economic practices — which the commerce clause is intended to prevent.

Given the nature of contemporary U.S. supply chains, however, most every in-state regulation of an industry will affect interstate commerce. The burden on commerce must be shown to be “excessive” for the law to be considered unconstitutional.

According to the plaintiffs, abiding by Prop 12 will increase farmers’ production costs by over $13 per pig, a 9.2 percent cost increase, raising the price of pork products considerably. At present, the prices of meat and animal products are kept low only by virtue of mass, high-speed production that keeps animals in abhorrent conditions, while workers in dangerous slaughterhouse jobs are horrifically underpaid. This is not an industry whose status quo should be defended.

Many of the industry giants are not aggressively siding with the National Pork Producers Council.

And many of the industry giants are not aggressively siding with the National Pork Producers Council, an association of pork interests. Other major pork producers have stated that the material costs of abiding by Prop 12 would be nowhere near so high. In a statement, Hormel Foods wrote that it “faces no risk of material losses from compliance with Proposition 12,” beyond adding manageable “complexity” to their supply chain. Other industry giants like Tyson Foods, Smithfield Foods, Seaboard, and Clemens Food Group have said they are able to comply with the law.

It’s not a foregone conclusion that a majority of justices will side with the National Pork Producers Council. Both conservative justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito have, from an originalist stance, previously criticized the dormant commerce clause. And, of course, all six of the court’s right-wing justices have ruled in favor of state laws that have significant economic effects on the lives of those outside those states — such is the nature of living in an entangled national body politic. Just ask the abortion clinics now overwhelmed by out-of-state travel. Yet we should never underestimate the conservative majority’s pro-business bent, and its unabashed desire to quash any and all liberation struggles — be they for human or nonhuman lives.

If the pork producers succeed in overthrowing Prop 12, many millions of animals will continue to live and die in the most appalling suffering. The message will be sent too that when big business wants to challenge democratically passed state laws, they have several right-wing Supreme Court justices — those storied defenders of states’ rights — on their side.

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an the conv 10 22

no lnx vid?

Supreme Court to hear arguments challenging a California law requiring humane animal treatment

David Favre and The Conversation October 04, 2022

Should Californians be able to require higher welfare standards for farm animals that are raised in other states if products from those animals are to be sold in California? The U.S. Supreme Court will confront that question when it hears oral argument in National Pork Producers Council v. Ross on Oct. 11, 2022.

Pork producers are challenging a law that California voters adopted in 2018 via ballot initiative with over 63% approval. It set new conditions for raising hogs, veal calves and egg-laying chickens, whose meat or eggs are sold in California. The state represents about 15% of the U.S. pork market.

At most commercial hog farms, pregnant sows are kept in “gestation crates” that measure 2 feet by 7 feet – enough room for the animals to sit, stand and lie down, but not enough to turn around. California’s law requires that each sow must have at least 24 square feet of floor space – nearly double the amount that most now get. It does not require farmers to raise free-range pigs, just to provide more square feet when they keep hogs in buildings.

Pork farmers say gestation crates keep pregnant sows from fighting, but animal welfare advocates call the devices inhumane.

The National Pork Producers Council argues that this requirement imposes heavy compliance costs on farmers across the U.S., since large hog farms may house thousands of sows and that it restricts interstate commerce. The Constitution’s commerce clause delegates authority to regulate interstate commerce to the federal government. In a series of cases over the past 50 years, the Supreme Court has made clear that it will strike down any state law that seeks to control commerce in another state or give preference to in-state commerce.

Farmers and animal welfare advocates understand that if California wins, states with the most progressive animal welfare policies – primarily West Coast and Northeast states – will be able to effectively set national standards for the well-being of many agricultural animals, including chickens, dairy and cattle. Conceivably, California might also be able to require basic conditions for human labor, such as minimum wage standards, associated with products sold in California.

Nine other states have already adopted laws requiring pork producers to phase out gestation crates. Massachusetts’s law would also apply to retail sales of pork raised elsewhere, like California’s, but its enforcement is on hold pending the Supreme Court’s ruling in the California case.

States control farm animal welfare

The main federal law that regulates living conditions for animals is the Animal Welfare Act, which was signed into law in 1966. Among other things, it requires the Department of Agriculture to adopt humane regulations for the keeping of animals that are exhibited in zoos and circuses or sold as pets. However, farm animals are explicitly exempted from the definition of “animal.”

While the federal government is mute on farm animal welfare, each state clearly has the power to regulate this issue within its borders. For example, in recent years, nine states have outlawed housing egg-laying chickens in “battery cages” that have been the industry standard for decades. These wire enclosures are so small that the birds cannot spread their wings.

Since many states still permit battery cages, egg-laying chickens’ quality of life depends on the state in which they reside.

Shelves lined with small wire cages, each holding multiple chickens.

Chickens in battery cages on an Iowa poultry farm.

It is also clear that the state of California has no power to adopt laws that are binding on the farmers of other states. This case falls between those two points – here’s how:

California’s market power

The California law says that if producers want to sell pork in California, they must raise pigs under conditions that comply with the state’s regulations. Farmers do not have to meet these standards unless they want to sell in California. The same requirement is applied to producers located in California and those based elsewhere, so the law does not directly discriminate between states in a way that would constitute a clear commerce clause violation.

Producers of eggs and veal who sell in California are on track to implement new space requirements for their animals under the law. In my view, however, much of the pork industry appears to be in denial. Instead of working out how to comply, the National Pork Producers Council wants the courts to set the California law aside.

Even as this case moves forward, however, major producers including Hormel and Tyson have said they will be able to comply with the California standard. Niman Ranch, a network of family farmers and ranchers who raise livestock humanely and sustainably, has filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court supporting California.

Admittedly, pork farmers have invested millions of dollars in their existing facilities, and the system efficiently produces huge quantities of cheap pork. But Californians have taken the position that this output comes at an ethically unacceptable cost to animals in the system.

Weighing ethics against compliance costs

In considering this case, the Supreme Court will confront two questions. First, does California’s requirement constitute a burden on interstate commerce? A U.S. District Court in California held that the answer was no, and the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed this ruling.

There is no magical formula for what constitutes a burden on interstate commerce, so it is impossible to know in advance what the Supreme Court will say about this point of the case. The present court has not addressed this issue.

If the court should decide that the California law does restrict interstate commerce, it then must consider whether the measure meets the “Pike test,” which was set forth in the 1970 ruling Pike v. Bruce Church, Inc.. In this case, the court held that a state law that “regulates even-handedly” must be upheld unless the burden that the law imposes on interstate commerce “is clearly excessive in relation to the putative local benefits.” Put another way, is Californians’ social interest in better welfare for pigs substantially outweighed by the economic cost to producers?

In another 2010 ruling, United States v. Stevens, the court acknowledged that “the prohibition of animal cruelty itself has a long history in American law, starting with the early settlement of the Colonies.” However, the court concluded that depictions of animal cruelty – the plaintiff had been convicted for producing and distributing dogfighting videos – qualified as protected speech under the First Amendment and that this protection outweighed society’s interest in promoting animal welfare.

This video from the Rodale Institute, a nonprofit that conducts research, training and consumer education on organic agriculture, compares raising pigs on pasture to the large-scale confined model that dominates the pork industry.

Is a national standard in the cards?

Many animal welfare questions involve striking this kind of balance between ethical positions and economic consequences in a political context. It is like mixing oil and water, which makes predictions difficult.

The biggest unknown is what views the newest Supreme Court justices will bring to this case. Only four current justices – John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Sonia Sotomayor – were members of the court when it ruled on the Stevens case in 2010. Will today’s court support California’s right to regulate products sold within its borders, or meat corporations’ economic arguments? How many justices will see farm animal welfare as an important public concern?

I expect that the court will uphold the California law – and that if this happens, within five years livestock producers will be proposing national legislation setting uniform welfare standards for farm animals. It is impossible to predict now whether a national law would improve animal welfare or adopt existing poor welfare practices.The Conversation

David Favre, Professor of Law at Michigan State University College of Law, Michigan State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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new term gerry and wotus

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/3669504-supreme-court-to-hear-case-that-could-have-massive-impact-on-us-water-quality/

no lnx

Supreme Court on Monday will hear arguments of a case between Idaho landowners and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a dispute that could redefine the scope of the country’s clean water regulations.

The first case of the justices’ new term, landing just ahead of the Clean Water Act’s 50th anniversary, will feature arguments about wetlands and when they can or cannot be regulated by the federal government.

Although technical in nature, the legal dispute could have broad implications for the country’s water quality if the 6-3 conservative majority court uses the case to narrow the EPA’s regulatory reach.

“If that’s what the Supreme Court should decide, we’re basically rolling back the clock 50 years,” said Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), who chairs a House panel on water resources and the environment. “That would remove 50 percent of our critical wetlands, and 70 percent of our rivers and streams from federal protection.”

The case began in 2007 when Michael and Chantell Sackett were told they needed a federal permit to build a home on land they owned because it contained wetlands, prompting the Sacketts to sue.

A federal court, siding with the U.S. government, ruled that the wetlands on the Sacketts’ property contained a “significant nexus” with other regulated waters, meaning the couple would need authorization to build there.

The Sacketts are now urging the Supreme Court to discard the “significant nexus” threshold. Instead, their petition favors a separate test from former Justice Antonin Scalia that called for the waters to have a “continuous surface water connection” — a higher threshold that would apply to fewer wetlands.

The stakes of this case, however, go far beyond one property dispute. It attracted briefs from environmental groups, which argue that it would hamper the government’s ability to keep people safe from pollution, as well as industries like farming, mining, construction and oil and gas, which support the deregulatory effort.

“This is a very, very, big deal for the Clean Water Act. It will determine, likely, whether the Clean Water Act can protect half of the water bodies in the country, and if it can’t, meeting the water quality goals of the law that we all count on will be virtually impossible,” said Jon Devine, who leads the Natural Resources Defense Council’s federal water policy team.

The case appears to mirror regulatory differences between the Trump administration’s efforts to limit regulations to just wetlands with continuous surface water connections to other regulated waters, and the Obama administration’s regulations, which applied the significant nexus test.

A total of 51 percent of the country’s wetlands would not be protected under the Trump-era rule, according to a slideshow obtained by E&E News.

The Biden administration has proposed to regulate some wetlands that meet the significant nexus standard.

And while the Sacketts’ petition to the court appears to be in support of the continuous surface water test, in their opening court brief, they propose a separate test.

They say that a wetland should be “inseparably bound up” with another regulated water and also subject to Congress’s authority over interstate waters.

Damien Schiff, a lawyer representing the Sacketts said that abiding by the Clean Water Act can be significantly burdensome, both in the application process itself and in the requirements to mitigate environmental damage.

“Whenever the Clean Water Act applies, it does add a significant financial burden, not just because there is a lot of costs involved in the application process … but also just simply the cost of compensatory mitigation,” said Schiff, a senior attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation.

He said that the Army Corps of Engineers “might very well issue a permit, but typically not only is the permit issued for a much smaller project than was originally requested but it’s always accompanied by a pretty significant compensatory mitigation obligation and that can run into the hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars.”

A looser test would be expected to apply to fewer wetlands, allowing individuals and corporations to act there without EPA oversight.

Under the current system, many polluters are also not necessarily blocked from carrying out activities in regulated waters.

Instead, they may need to either apply for a permit that contains stipulations that they follow environmental safeguards, or follow existing stipulations in a “general permit” that gives a blanket waiver to certain activities.

But environmentalists say that while pollution still occurs when permits are in place, the stipulations they offer are important for averting the worst damages.

“This case is not about prohibiting construction or development, it’s about what safeguards are in place when someone does so,” Devine said.

Environmentalists say that this pollution may end up in America’s drinking water and also harm fish that people catch for consumption. And while many public water systems are treated to prevent pollution, some people get their water from private wells, which may not get the same level of treatment.

“Drinking water does have standards, but that doesn’t mean that all those standards are perfect and the pollution that comes in through those sources means more cost of treatment. It means that people who live on wells or in areas where the water treatment systems aren’t as big or fancy or as expensive are going to suffer,” said Sam Sankar, senior vice president of programs at Earthjustice.

Sankar said his organization has 18 tribes as clients, and many of them will face “direct impacts.”

The court began its work Monday after an epochal term in which the six Republican-appointed justices advanced an aggressive conservative legal agenda.

The case will be the first that is heard by Ketanji Brown Jackson in her tenure as a Supreme Court justice.

[Supreme Court to hear challenge to Big Tech’s Section 230 liability protections

Although overshadowed by the court’s overruling of Roe v. Wade, last term saw the court vote 6-3 to pare back federal agency power in West Virginia v. EPA, a case that reined in the government’s authority to regulate carbon emissions from power plants.

Court watchers believe the conservative majority court will continue its rightward trajectory this term.

“There’s no reason to think this coming term, or any term in the foreseeable future, will be any different,” Irv Gornstein, executive director of Georgetown Law’s Supreme Court Institute said recently. “On things that matter most, get ready for a lot of 6-3s.”

TAGS CLEAN WATER ACT CONSERVATIVE MAJORITY EPA KETANJI BROWN JACKSON ORAL ARGUMENTS PETER DEFAZIO SUPREME COURT US WATER QUALITY US WATERWAYS WETLANDS

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an ah 10 22

For generations, the U.S. Supreme Court expanded or upheld civil liberties, from freedom of the press in New York Times v. Sullivan (1964) to access to contraception in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) and Eisenstadt v. Baird (1972) to gay rights in Lawrence v. Texas (2003) and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) to interracial marriage in Loving v. Virginia (1967). But when the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling was handed down on June 24 and Roe v. Wade was overturned after 49 years, the High Court’s radical-right majority demonstrated that it had no problem rejecting precedent and rolling back civil liberties.

Moreover, Justice Clarence Thomas, in Dobbs, recommended that the High Court also “reconsider” Griswold, Lawrence and Obergefell. Civil libertarians fear that with socially conservative justices having attacked abortion rights, everything from gay rights to contraception is also in danger.

Over the years, there has been much discussion in law schools of the role the Court has played in expanding rights, but now that the Court is rolling rights back, how are law schools responding? Journalist Mark Joseph Stern tackles that subject in an article published by Slate on October 2.

“The problem, it’s worth emphasizing, is not that the Supreme Court is issuing decisions with which left-leaning professors disagree,” Stern explains. “It’s that the Court seems to be reaching many of these conclusions in defiance of centuries of standards, rejecting precedent and moderation in favor of aggressive, partisan-tinged motivated reasoning. Plenty of progressive professors have long viewed the Court with skepticism, and many professors, right- and left-leaning, have criticized the reasoning behind certain opinions for decades. But it’s only in recent years — with the manipulation of the justice selection process combined with clear, results-oriented cynicism in decisions — that the problem has seemed so acute that they feel it affects their ability to teach constitutional law.”

According to Tiffany Jeffers, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C., becoming distrustful of the Supreme Court is a new experience for many law professors — who, she says, have gone through their “own personal grieving period” in 2022.

Jeffers told Slate, “It’s hard to think about your own profession — the things you were taught, the things you believed in — abruptly coming to an end in rapid succession. It’s hard to ask a law professor to dismantle all the training they had. It’s a difficult, emotional, psychological transformation process. It’s not easy to upend your life’s work and not trust the Supreme Court.”

Stern notes that Jolynn Childers Dellinger, who teaches at Duke Law School in Durham, North Carolina, “intends to overhaul her classes to accommodate the new decisions” coming from the High Court.

Dellinger told Slate, “I have always perceived of the law as a tool for justice, and my faith that the law is being used toward that end has definitely been shaken by this Supreme Court. It is honestly hard to know what to say to students entering this profession at this time as we witness the Supreme Court upending constitutional principles…. (and) stripping an entire class of people of fundamental rights without so much as a minimal effort to acknowledge the consequent harms.”

Stern cites “legal realists” as a type of law professor who believes that the Supreme Court has been overly politicized and expect the justices to act accordingly. Steve Sanders, who teaches at Maurer School of Law, considers them overly cynical — although Sanders is vehemently critical of the Dobbs decision, which he criticizes as “screamingly, unapologetically activist.”

Sanders told Slate, “I have generally, up until now, resisted the cynicism of the ‘new legal realists’ that the Supreme Court isn’t a court, it’s just a policy council. I want my students to believe that legal argumentation, precedent, facts, and doctrine matter…. (But) it’s becoming increasingly difficult to deny that major constitutional decisions are almost purely about politics.”

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an 9 22

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York City has been sounding the alarm about potential conflicts of interest involving U.S. Supreme Court justices and their spouses — specifically, the right-wing activism of Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife Ginni Thomas, who was heavily involved in efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. AOC has even called for Justice Thomas to either resign or be impeached, although he isn’t the only High Court justice she is worried about. The Bronx/Queens congressman is worried about conflicts of interest in general when it comes to justices and their spouses.

Such conflicts of interest are the focus of a Politico article written by Hailey Fuchs, Josh Gerstein and Peter S. Canellos and published on September 30. The journalists focus heavily on three spouses of Supreme Court justices: Ginni Thomas, Jesse M. Barrett (Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s husband) and Jane Roberts (who is marred to Chief Justice John Roberts).

Fuchs, Gerstein and Canellos point out that if voters want to know whether or not Justice Barrett will be deciding any cases involving her husband’s clients through the company SouthBank Legal, they are “out of luck.”

“A year after Amy Coney Barrett joined the Supreme Court, the boutique Indiana firm SouthBank Legal opened its first-ever Washington office in Penn Quarter, a move the firm hailed in a 2021 press release as an ‘important milestone,’” the reporters explain. “The head of the office, Jesse M. Barrett, is the justice’s husband, whose work is described by the firm as ‘white-collar criminal defense, internal investigations, and complex commercial litigation’…. But if anyone wants to find out whether Jesse Barrett’s clients have a direct interest in cases being decided by his wife, they’re out of luck. In the Supreme Court’s notoriously porous ethical disclosure system, Barrett not only withholds her husband’s clients, but redacted the name of SouthBank Legal itself in her most recent disclosure.”

Ginni Thomas’ right-wing activism has received a great deal of scrutiny in recent months, but Fuchs, Gerstein and Canellos note that “potential conflicts involving justices’ spouses extend beyond the Thomases.”

“Chief Justice John Roberts’ wife, Jane Roberts, has gotten far less attention,” they report. “But she is a legal headhunter at the firm Macrae, which represents high-powered attorneys in their efforts to secure positions in wealthy firms, typically for a percentage of the first-year salary she secures for her clients. A single placement of a superstar lawyer can yield $500,000 or more for the firm. Mark Jungers, a former managing partner at Major, Lindsey & Africa, the firm that employed Jane Roberts as a legal recruiter before she moved to Macrae, told Politico the firm hired her hoping it would benefit from her being the chief justice’s wife, in part, because ‘her network is his network and vice versa.’”

Politico probed the activities of other spouses of High Court justices, but their findings were unspectacular.

“The Politico investigation found that some spouses of other Supreme Court justices have also had careers of their own, but none currently appear to have the potential to intersect as closely with the Court’s work as Barrett, Thomas and Roberts,” Fuchs, Gerstein and Canellos report. “Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch reported no non-investment income from their spouses in 2021. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan are not married. Brett Kavanaugh’s wife Ashley Estes Kavanaugh — a former George W. Bush White House aide — reported a salary from her position as town manager of Chevy Chase Village Section 5.”

The reporters continue, “This week, the Court is formally welcoming a new justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson. Her husband, Patrick Graves Jackson, currently serves as chief of the general surgery division at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital. But Jackson noted, in a disclosure form filed earlier this year, while serving as a lower-court judge, that she had previously left out ‘self-employed consulting income that my spouse periodically receives from consulting on medical malpractice cases.’”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2022/01/24/affirmative-action-could-soon-be-overturned-as-supreme-court-takes-up-harvard-and-unc-cases

no lnx

Affirmative Action Could Soon Be Overturned As Supreme Court Takes Up Harvard And UNC Cases

Alison Durkee Forbes Staff

Updated Jan 25, 2022,

TOPLINE The U.S. Supreme Court will hear cases challenging Harvard University and the University of North Carolina (UNC)’s affirmative action policies that take race into account for admissions, the court announced Monday, which could potentially overturn the decades-old practice of affirmative action and threaten gains in diversity at colleges and universities nationwide.

KEY FACTS

The court announced it would take up the cases without comment, and it’s not clear yet whether the cases will be heard this term or after the Supreme Court’s next term begins in October.

The group Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) sued Harvard University for allegedly discriminating against Asian-American applicants in its admissions process and unfairly favoring other applicants of color, accusing it of using a “racial hierarchy” in its admissions process.

The same group also sued UNC in order to cover both public and private universities—noting UNC is the oldest public college in the U.S.—and alleged the university’s policy violates the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause by not guaranteeing racial neutrality.

Harvard and UNC have denied the accusations their affirmative action policies are discriminatory and argue they’re in line with previous court rulings upholding the practice, and UNC said it “considers race flexibly as merely one factor among numerous factors” in its admissions process.

Harvard said getting rid of race considerations in its admissions would result in “steep declines in diversity,” noting taking race out of the equation entirely would reduce enrollment of Black students at the school from 14% to 6% of its student body, and Hispanic enrollment from 14% to 9%.

Both the district and appeals court ruled in Harvard’s favor and upheld their admissions policy, and a district court ruled in UNC’s favor, but SFFA appealed the case to the Supreme Court before an appeals court could rule so that it could be heard with the Harvard case.

WHAT TO WATCH FOR

The Supreme Court has repeatedly held up affirmative action in the past, but there are fears it will now be overturned given the court’s 6-3 conservative majority. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito have already ruled against affirmative action in the past, as has Chief Justice John Roberts, who once wrote, “It is a sordid business, this divvying us up by race.”

CRUCIAL QUOTE

“Harvard’s mistreatment of Asian-American applicants is appalling,” SFFA alleged in its Supreme Court complaint, calling the case “the kind of important individual rights dispute that this Court has not hesitated to hear.” “Review thus would be warranted if the defendant were any university subject to Title VI. But it isn’t just any university. It’s Harvard.”

CHIEF CRITIC

The Supreme Court’s past rulings on affirmative action “sent a powerful signal that diversity is vital to preparing individuals to work and participate as citizens in our pluralistic democracy,” Harvard wrote in its opposition to SFFA’s complaint. “Americans have come to view diversity as integral to learning and to trust that the path to leadership is open to all. Overruling those cases at this time would undermine the public’s faith in those foundational principles.”

KEY BACKGROUND

The concept of “affirmative action” to ensure racial diversity dates back to a 1965 executive order that told employers to “take affirmative action to ensure that equal opportunity is provided in all aspects of their employment.” The Supreme Court then officially sanctioned affirmative action in college admissions in a 1978 ruling that found universities could constitutionally consider race as part of its admissions process, though it struck down schools using quota systems dedicating a certain number of enrollment places to students of a particular race. Since then, the Supreme Court has repeatedly held up affirmative action policies in 2003 and 2016, though it struck down a “point system” at the University of Michigan that automatically gave applications from underrepresented racial minorities enough points to virtually guarantee admission. While critics of affirmative action policies contend they discriminate against white and Asian American students, proponents say the practice is necessary for ensuring diversity both at universities and the workforce at large. Harvard also alleged that not considering race in admissions would have “adverse effects on Harvard’s ability to create an environment that promotes cross-racial interactions and that lessens feelings of alienation and isolation.”

TANGENT

The Trump Administration had strongly backed the case against Harvard, filing a brief in support of SFFA in 2018 when the case was at a lower court and filing separate affirmative action complaints against Yale University that the Biden Administration later dropped.William Cosovoy, the lead attorney for SFFA, has represented former President Donald Trump in private lawsuits concerning the release of his tax returns.The Biden administration, however, told the Supreme Court in December it should not take up the Harvard case, arguing the lower court rulings that upheld the school’s policy were decided correctly and the case is an “unsuitable vehicle” for the court to overturn its previous affirmative action rulings....

===

an 9 22

Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Justice Elena Kagan, two of the three Democrat-appointed justices on the U.S. Supreme Court, have been warning that public opinion continues to go from bad to worse where the High Court is concerned. According to polls, the Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization — which overturned Roe v. Wade after 49 years — is wildly unpopular.

Journalist Matt Ford, in an article published by The New Republic on September 26, stresses that the public’s view of the High Court continues to deteriorate. Post-Dobbs polls, according to Ford, show “a clear and unambiguous shift in how the American people perceive the Court since it overturned Roe v. Wade this summer — and a growing willingness to rein in the justices’ ideological shift.”

“On June 23,” Ford explains, “Gallup found that only 25 percent of Americans said that they had either a great deal of confidence or quite a lot of confidence in the High Court. That represented a 5 percent drop from the previous low in 2014, as well as a 10 percent decline from the 2021 survey. The Gallup poll technically preceded the release of the Court’s decision in Dobbs on June 24. But it came more than a month after Politico published a draft copy of Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion in the case, which all but proved that the Court would overturn Roe later that month.”

Ford continues, “Next came a survey by the Pew Research Center on September 1. It incorporated the entire period after Dobbs’ release and found an even deeper shift in public opinion about the Supreme Court in three significant ways. First, it found that the Court’s overall favorability ratings were underwater for the first time since it began asking Americans in 1987, with 49 percent of Americans viewing the Court unfavorably and 48 percent favorably. That was a sharp reversal from two years ago when 70 percent of Americans said they viewed the Court favorably and 28 percent said they didn’t. In essence, nearly a third of Americans have changed their mind about the Supreme Court over the past two years.”

Ford notes that Pew has found “a major partisan divide in how people view the Court.”

“While 67 percent of Democrats described themselves as favorable in 2020,” Ford observes, “only 28 percent said the same thing in 2022. Republican support, by comparison, clocked in at 73 percent…. The third notable finding from Pew was a growing sense that the Supreme Court as an institution had grown too strong. Only 25 percent of Americans said, in 2020, that the justices had too much power. That number jumped to 45 percent after Dobbs….The terminology that we use to describe this situation — a crisis of legitimacy, a loss of prestige and authority, a decline in popularity, or something else — matters less than its practical implications.”

Ford continues, “The Supreme Court has shown little to no interest in not taking up cases that resolve major political issues in the conservative legal movement’s favor, even if it is out of step with public opinion. A strong plurality, and perhaps even a narrow majority, of the American people is not only unsatisfied with this trend, but is also increasingly supportive of proposals that would prevent or reverse it. Eventually, one of these sides will have to win or give way.”

===

an 9 22

The case Health and Hospital Corp. of Marion County, Indiana v. Talevski isn’t nearly as well known as Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which found the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade after 49 years. But journalist Kate Riga, in an article published by Talking Points Memo on September 2, lays out some reasons why — if the High Court’s right-wing supermajority uses the type of reasoning it used in Dobbs — its Health and Hospital Corp. ruling could “do enormous damage to people who are already often the most vulnerable in our society.”

Riga reports, “There’s a sleeper case on the Supreme Court’s docket that could blow a gaping hole in the social safety net and give states leeway to neglect or end care for tens of millions of the most vulnerable Americans.… And it’s not just Medicaid, though the program enrolling nearly 90 million Americans is the biggest one at risk. This case could leave all of those who depend on federally funded, state-administered programs — think SNAP, formerly known as food stamps, or WIC, which helps low-income pregnant women and mothers with young children buy food — without any recourse, should states stop providing the benefits they’re required to give. The echoes of Dobbs are eerie.”

According to Riga, the Health and Hospital Corp. case “comes from a nursing home run by a municipal corporation owned by Marion County, Indiana.”

“That’s key: while many nursing homes are privately owned, this one is state-run,” Riga explains. “The family of a patient who was suffering from dementia alleges that he was given a slew of unnecessary medications and improperly transferred to different facilities hours away. So, they sued, arguing that his treatment violated the Federal Nursing Home Reform Act, which establishes the rights of residents of nursing homes that receive Medicaid and Medicare funding. But the case, Health and Hospital Corp. of Marion County, Indiana v. Talevski, quickly became much bigger than the allegedly poor treatment of the late Gorgi Talevski.”

Riga continues, “The State of Indiana, sensing an opportunity, tacked on a bigger ask than the initial dispute over nursing home protections. It asked the Supreme Court to reexamine and nix altogether the pathway that people participating in these federal spending programs can use to sue when their rights are violated. If the Supreme Court’s conservative majority bites, experts warn, it could have implications far beyond nursing homes. If a state decided to, say, keep pocketing Medicaid funding but to abruptly stop providing coverage without any due process, those neglected beneficiaries would have recourse. They could sue in federal court under Section 1983.”

The protections of Section 1983, Riga notes, go back to 1871, although they have been “applied to” Medicaid in recent decades. Medicaid and Medicare were established during the 1960s as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society, which was an expansion of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal of the 1930s. The New Deal gave the United States everything from Social Security to a federal minimum age; the Great Society’s achievements ranged from Medicare and Medicaid to food stamps.

Nicole Huberfeld, a professor at Boston University’s School of Public Health, discussed the Health and Hospital Corp. case with Talking Points Memo (TPM) and explained why the protections of Section 1983 are important from a safety net standpoint.

Huberfeld told TPM, “The way the state is arguing Talevski is that 1983 rights of action should not be available in any spending program.… Well, that’s our social safety net!”

TPM also interviewed Tim Jost, who teaches at Washington and Lee University School of Law in Lexington, Virginia.

Jost told TPM, “For 50 years now, the Supreme Court has recognized that people can sue under 1983 if their rights are violated under federal law, including spending clause statutes like Medicaid or food stamps. This goes back even beyond Roe…. There’d be very little anyone could do if a red state decided to just stop following the Medicaid statute, and certainly nothing that beneficiaries could do…. This is right up there with Dobbs and the EPA case and the gun case, where the Supreme Court is threatening to take a 180-degree turn and deny people rights that they’ve had for generations.”

According to Sara Rosenbaum of George Washington University’s school of public health, “This case is to Medicaid what Dobbs was to abortion…. This case will essentially determine whether Medicaid continues to exist as an enforceable legal entitlement.”

----

2018 9th circuit

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/01/supreme-court-california-disclosure-law-donors-497554

no lnx

Supreme Court nixes California disclosure law in blow to dark-money opponents

The high court ruled a state law requiring not-for-profit organizations that raise money in California to disclose their donors violated the donors' First Amendment rights.

The Supreme Court has ordered California to stop collecting the names and addresses of top donors to charities, siding with a nonprofit group with links to billionaire Charles Koch.

The Americans for Prosperity Foundation, backed by political megadonors Charles Koch and the late David Koch, brought one of the suits. | David Zalubowski, File/AP Photo

By JOSH GERSTEIN and ZACH MONTELLARO

07/01/2021

The Supreme Court dealt a blow Thursday to efforts to rein in so-called dark money political groups, issuing a ruling striking down California’s policy of demanding donor lists from nonprofit organizations.

The high court split 6-3 along ideological lines in its decision on a pair of cases challenging that California requirement, which forced non-profits raising money in California to give the state copies of federal tax forms containing donor information.

Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the majority opinion for the court, ruled that California’s “blanket demand” for that information “is facially unconstitutional.”

“When it comes to the freedom of association, the protections of the First Amendment are triggered not only by actual restrictions on an individual’s ability to join with others to further shared goals. The risk of a chilling effect on association is enough,” Roberts wrote for the court.

The ruling could have a political impact, complicating donor-disclosure requirements for groups that often pour large sums into elections but stop just short of the “express advocacy” for or against candidates that triggers stricter rules on revealing the sources of donations.

The court ruled that the California mandate for groups to turn over donor information to the state, even if kept confidential, was overly broad.

“The point is that a reasonable assessment of the burdens imposed by disclosure should begin with an understanding of the extent to which the burdens are unnecessary, and that requires narrow tailoring,” Roberts wrote.

Roberts’ ruling did not address the federal government’s authority to require the filing of donor information with the Internal Revenue Service. Most charities are still required to file lists of donors giving over $5,000 in a given year, but in 2018 the IRS dropped the requirement for some politically-oriented groups.

The justices’ ruling Thursday addressed lawsuits filed by two politically active, conservative nonprofit organizations in 2015. The Americans for Prosperity Foundation, backed by political megadonors Charles Koch and the late David Koch, brought one of the suits. The other was filed by the Thomas More Law Center, a Michigan-based legal organization active on behalf of Catholic causes that was bankrolled by Tom Monaghan, founder of Domino’s Pizza.

Both organizations argued that California rules requiring filing of donor lists with state officials violate the First Amendment by discouraging individuals from giving and by exposing them to threats and harassment.

In 2016, AFP persuaded a federal judge in Los Angeles to issue a permanent injunction against the requirement. The judge said the state rarely used the information, but often disclosed it accidentally with charities’ public tax filings.

However, two years later, a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals panel unanimously reversed that ruling, holding that the state had a legitimate need for the data and that the Koch-founded group had not shown a significant burden on donors.

It’s unclear how the Supreme Court’s conclusions will impact similar donor-disclosure requirements at the federal level. The Internal Revenue Service has generally done a better job of keeping filings it receives confidential.

Part of Roberts’ opinion does, however, open the door to challenges to other disclosure requirements: “While exacting scrutiny does not require that disclosure regimes be the least restrictive means of achieving their ends, it does require that they be narrowly tailored to the government’s asserted interest,” he wrote.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing in dissent and joined by the two other liberal-leaning justices, did however predict that the decision would open the floodgates to weakening disclosure requirements.

“Today’s analysis marks reporting and disclosure requirements with a bull’s-eye,” she wrote. “Regulated entities who wish to avoid their obligations can do so by vaguely waving toward First Amendment ‘privacy concerns.’”

The high court rulings could have a broader impact on efforts by Democrats to broaden and increase disclosure requirements, particularly for groups that run ads that mention federal candidates while stopping short of explicitly endorsing or opposing them.

The For the People Act, congressional Democrats’ massive campaign and ethics reform legislation that is stalled in the Senate amid Democratic infighting and a successful Republican filibuster last week, also contains provisions that would remake campaign finance disclosure law if enacted.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer stands with Sens. Raphael Warnock and Amy Klobuchar while speaking with reporters before a vote on the For the People Act.

CONGRESS

[Senate Republicans block Dems’ sweeping elections reform bill

BY MARIANNE LEVINE AND ZACH MONTELLARO]

Amid the hundreds of pages of the bill is a long-fought-over proposal that would dramatically expand which organizations are required to disclose donors and expenditures if they spend a nominal amount on communications that broadly mention federal candidates.

Republicans are now broadly opposed to such measures, a turnabout from two decades ago when prominent GOP leaders backed robust disclosure rules as an alternative to attempts to restrict donations to campaigns and outside groups.

“Republicans are in favor of disclosure,” Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said in a 2000 interview. “Why would a little disclosure be better than a lot of disclosure?”

McConnell has said that soon after those comments — and the passage of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act despite his opposition in 2002 — he concluded that such rules for groups that don’t engage in express advocacy violate the First Amendment. In the AFP case decided Thursday, he filed an amicus brief saying donor-disclosure requirements should face the “strictest scrutiny” when reviewed in court.

While AFP and the Thomas More Law Center unsurprisingly garnered support for their legal challenges from other conservative organizations, several liberal groups and First Amendment advocates also urged the Supreme Court to rule in favor of donor privacy in the cases.

The NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, the American Civil Liberties Union, the LGBTQ rights advocacy group Human Rights Campaign and others argued that the justices should hold that California’s failure to keep the donor information confidential violated the conservative groups’ rights.

However, the liberal organizations’ brief — which drew significant interest from conservative justices at oral arguments — pushed the court toward a narrow decision that would not upset disclosure requirements for political campaigns or address the rights of regulators with a better track record for confidentiality to gather donor information.

FILED UNDER: CAMPAIGN FINANCE, CALIFORNIA, U.S. SUPREME COURT,}}

===

this means filibuster became a bigger problem?!

https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/supreme-court-2657745095/

Environmentalists and climate change activists were dealt a severe blow on June 30, when the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its 6-3 decision in West Virginia v. EPA and greatly limited the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate power plan emissions. The decision came during a summer in which extreme weather events, which environmentalists are attributing to climate change, have been especially plentiful — from heatwaves, droughts and wildfires in both the United States and Europe to record flooding in Sydney, Australia (although June-August is winter in Australia because it’s in the world’s southern hemisphere).

London had a record high of 104F/40.3C, and St. Louis, on July 25-26, suffered more than 9 inches of rain — events that, according to climate change activists, serve as painful reminders of how bad a decision the High Court made in West Virginia v. EPA.

But according to Georgetown University law professor Lisa Heinzerling, handcuffing the EPA is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the damage the Court’s West Virginia v. EPA damage will cause. Heinzerling, in an article published by The Atlantic on July 26, warns that the Court’s GOP-appointed supermajority has made regulation in general "much harder" for government agencies.

“Like many governmental agencies, the Environmental Protection Agency has an elaborate process for developing important rules,” Heinzerling explains. “As I saw during the Obama Administration, when I headed the EPA office that oversees this process, getting a major rule over the finish line can take years. Almost every step of the way offers obstacles to addressing any serious environmental problem. This work just got much harder, if not altogether impossible.” [OIRA/OMB? DQA, SECRET SCI BS]

The Georgetown law professor continues, “In West Virginia v. EPA, the Supreme Court held that Congress may not authorize an administrative agency like the EPA to address an issue of great economic and political significance — in the Court’s parlance, a ‘major question’ — unless Congress speaks extremely precisely in doing so. Broad statutory language, written with the aim of empowering an agency to take on new problems in new ways, will no longer suffice.”

Heinzerling emphasizes that although the Court’s West Virginia v. EPA decision “has the immediate effect of limiting the EPA’s power and flexibility in regulating fossil-fuel-fired power plants under the Clean Air Act,” it “extends beyond that.”

“Any agency that asserts authority over an issue of great economic and political significance could meet a hostile reception in the courts precisely because it has tried to do something big,” Heinzerling warns. “Many agencies will just avoid taking such actions in the first place, knowing the risk. The obvious result could be a federal government with little ability to tackle many of the biggest issues society faces…. The Court’s major-questions doctrine will make effective governance of this country even harder than it has long been.”

Heinzerling adds, “Somewhat ironically, the first victim is Congress itself. Congress has long addressed important problems by empowering agencies to regulate based on newly developed scientific and technical information. That is what Congress did in the Clean Air Act and in the public-health and workplace-safety statutes the Court narrowed in the COVID cases. All laws with a similar structure, passed in at least implicit reliance on a different interpretive framework from the one the Court has embraced, are now vulnerable to severe judicial cropping.So, while the Court is purporting to hand Congress the baton, in reality, it’s creating a major hurdle that will stand in the way of Congress’ work.”

===

===

https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/supreme-court/

*Some will rob you with a six-gun

And some with a fountain pen

— Woody Guthrie, "Ballad of Pretty Boy Floyd"*

As Woody Guthrie indicated in his 1939 song quoted above, crimes need not be carried out through violence. That applies even to the grandest larceny: stealing the most precious possession of a people, self-government.

In February 1964, John Frankenheimer's "Seven Days in May" premiered. The film depicts a conspiracy headed by a right-wing extremist general to stage a coup d'état aimed at ousting the president and installing a military junta to rule the nation.

As we learn ever more details of Donald Trump's attempted coup to overthrow the American Republic — what might be titled "Six Days in January" — we realize just how close it came to succeeding. The evidence indicates that the then-president's approach to staying in the presidency was similar to the "bold, persistent experimentation" to deal with the Great Depression that Franklin D. Roosevelt advocated when running for the office in 1932: "Take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something." Apart, of course, from the "admit it frankly" part, that appears to be exactly how the Trump plan to steal the election worked. If one method failed, the conspirators would move on to the next, with a violent insurrection being the final option if all else failed.

It is now clear that there was another alternative, in the event that the attempt to end democracy through a violent attack on the Capitol failed: In Guthrie's terminology, to rob Americans of democracy with a fountain pen instead of a six-gun.

Two days after Cassidy Hutchinson provided a riveting account of how the then-president was determined to overthrow the government by force, the three people he appointed to the Supreme Court showed how to overthrow the government by decree.

The period from June 24 through June 30 constituted the results of a coup much longer in the planning than that of the former president and his accomplices. As Jane Mayer, Nancy MacLean and Kurt Andersen have detailed in their respective books, "Dark Money" (2016), "Democracy in Chains" (2017) and "Evil Geniuses" (2020), a stealth plan, overseen by radical right-wing billionaires determined to "liberate" themselves from all effective government limitations on their actions and accumulation of wealth, has been ongoing for nearly seven decades and in earnest for more than four decades.

Like the enslavers of old and their chief theoretician, John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, they believe that property rights are superior to people's rights and that the sort of policies they favor can most readily be obtained and preserved by concentrating power at the state level.

Achieving their objectives, which are in the interests of only a tiny minority of the population, would be a challenge in a democracy, as was evident in 1964 when the radical right gained the Republican presidential nomination for Barry Goldwater but saw him crushed by Lyndon Johnson, the architect of the sort of for-the-people government that was anathema to them.

The actual agenda of the radical rich had to be kept under wraps as they attracted needed allies by stoking racism, fear, hate and division. Though it is unlikely that many of them gave a hoot about abortion and most of the other "social issues" that animated the base of the movement the billionaires would steer toward their interests, they could use them to gain support for their hidden program.

Full democracy — which was first achieved in the United States in 1964-65 — is incompatible with promoting the interests of a small minority over those of a vast majority. The objectives of the greedy few might stand a better chance in the least democratic branch of the American Republic. In 1982, the Federalist Society was created to develop an alternative legal outlook to the then-dominant social and economic views in the profession. This long game has worked magnificently. All six of the Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade and to severely limit regulation of business in West Virginia v. EPA came out of the Federalist Society.

Those two bookends on the court's final week nicely show that a price the forces of greed were willing to pay to assure America would have a new Gilded Age was to give us a Gilead Age.

The Supreme Court of the United States now in effect holds that corporations and zygotes are persons, but women are not.

But the court's counterrevolution during June's last week didn't end with the EPA decision that could, in the words of historian Heather Cox Richardson, "signal the end of the federal government as we know it." For bad measure, the court announced that it is taking up the case of Moore v. Harper, which is based on afringe legal theory called the "independent state legislatures doctrine." It will give the right-wing majority of the court the opportunity in its 2022-23 session to empower state legislatures to do legally exactly what Trump was trying to coerce them to do illegally: replace electors for the candidate who won the state with others who will vote for the loser. Such a ruling would write "The End" to the story of American democracy.

The "pens" of the right-wing extremists — please stop calling them "conservatives" — on the Supreme Court have nearly accomplished what the "swords" of the Jan. 6 insurrectionists failed to do.

The subtitle of Kurt Andersen's book, "The Unmaking of America," decades in the planning, was largely accomplished in a week.Call it "Seven Days in June."

===

YIKES SEE AMICUS

attempt to use NAACP v Ala/14th to make corp dark $ CONST PROTECTED?!

*...

The negative effects that these new amicus campaigns have on our democ-

racy are twofold. The wealthy few fund the campaigns, excluding the majority

of Americans from the process and exacerbating preexisting countermajoritarian

and inequality concerns. And without a mechanism for disclosure, the general

public currently does not, and cannot, know how judicial reasoning is influenced

by masked private actors.

...

Donors have reaped enormous returns on their investments. As I have doc-

umented, the Roberts Court has handed down over eighty partisan Republican

5-4 decisions87 that benefit an easily identifiable Republican Party-donor inter-

est.88

These include decisions that remove constraints on anonymous giving

(e.g., Citizens United v. FEC,89 Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta90), as

well as decisions that weaken the power of countervailing institutions like labor

unions (e.g., Janus v. American Federation of State, City & Municipal Employees,

158

Council 3191), regulatory agencies (e.g., Seila Law v. Consumer Financial Protection

Bureau92), and the civil jury (e.g., Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis93).

The effects of this litigation strategy on our democracy are frightening: the

courts are becoming an arena for enacting policies by judicial decree that are too

unpopular to pass through democratically elected legislatures. These coordi-

nated efforts warp the judiciary toward anonymous, ultrawealthy donor inter-

ests, all without the public ever learning about the role of dark-money interests

in shaping the law. The Supreme Court was already, by its nature, an avenue for

countermajoritarian ideas and policies to prosper.

But as Barry Friedman ex-

plains, especially when the Court is acting during a period of judicial suprem-

acy—as it arguably is now—the countermajoritarian aspect of the institution will

flourish.94 Alongside those concerns, the emergence of the dark-money amicus

machine increases the probability that the Court’s rulings will run counter to the

will of the American people (i.e., counter to democracy), and instead for the

benefit of the hidden interests that had a secret hand in putting Justices on the

Court and then filed masked amicus briefs...*

*151

:{:{Sure enough, Chief Justice Roberts’s ruling in favor of the Koch network—a}::{6-3 decision with all Republican-appointed Justices in the majority—cast doubt}:

on the constitutionality of disclosure requirements of any kind, turbocharging

the kind of secretive influence through which the Koch operation and its allies

already dominate the public sphere.}:56*

*:{

}:*

:{:{Significantly, many of the donors behind these amici lobbied for the confir-}:

mation of the Justices hearing the case. For instance, Americans for Prosperity,

the 501(c)(4) group directly affiliated with the plaintiff Foundation, spent “mil-

lions” of dollars on a “Full Scale Campaign” to confirm Justice Barrett to the

bench while AFPF’s cert petition was pending before the Court.}:57

Yet, in spite of all this lobbying on her behalf by an affiliate of one of the parties, Justice Barrett

rebuffed calls for her recusal in this matter by me and others—a recusal seem-

ingly required under the Court’s own due-process precedent58—and heard the

case anyway.59

D. Amicus Briefs and Dark-Money Influence on the Courts

Amicus briefs play an important role in the appellate process. Indeed, I have

filed many myself.60 Interested parties should be able to use amicus briefs to ad-

vance their view of the law or their conception of the public interest or to educate

...

https://www.yalelawjournal.org/pdf/F7.WhitehouseFinalDraftWeb_v4zwakx5.pdf

https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/supreme-court-illegitimacy-is-accelerating/

edit bd

===

an ah 7 22

The warning that “elections have consequences” proved to be painfully accurate when the U.S. Supreme Court’s theocratic majority overturned Roe v. Wade with its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. And yet another threat to privacy protections looms after Justice Clarence Thomas recommended that the High Court “reconsider” key rulings that offer national protection for gay rights and contraception.

Democrats have won the popular vote in seven of the United States’ last eight presidential elections, yet Republican-appointed justices now have a 6-3 Supreme Court majority. That majority is often described as “conservative” in media reports, but journalist Richard Wolffe, in a scathing op-ed published by TheGuardian* on July 7, argues that the High Court of 2022 is not dominated by “conservatives,” but by “radical ideologues” of the far right.*

“Peering through the mists of time, the current right-wingnut majority of the U.S. Supreme Court believe they can divine the original ideas of some very dead White men,” Wolffe writes. “On that flimsy basis, they rule by fiat. They order states to remove sensible gun safety measures. Then, they deny women reproductive rights by pretending that states can do whatever they want. They say that presidents cannot limit carbon emissions to tackle the climate crisis. And now, they are ready to change the way we elect presidents.”

Wolffe continues, “Whatever you call the current crusade of this Supreme Court, their approach is not conservative. There is nothing stable or traditional about throwing out a half-century of civil rights and quite possibly a century of democratic practice. This is a radical bunch of ideologues who have spent years projecting themselves onto their critics.”

When Wolffe mentions threats to “the way we elect presidents” and a “century of democratic practice,” he is referring to the case *Moore v. Harper— which deals with a crackpot legal theory known as the independent state legislature doctrine. According to that theory, state legislatures should have sole authority over how elections are governed in a state — not a state’s supreme court, not judges, not the governor. Removing a state’s executive and judicial branches from that equation could give seriously gerrymandered, GOP-controlled state legislatures unprecedented power when it comes to how elections are managed.*

The U.S. Supreme Court, over the years, has repeatedly rejected the independent state legislature doctrine. But in Moore v. Harper, the Court’s 2022 edition has agreed to consider what Wolffe describes as “the fringe notion that state legislatures can set their own rules for federal elections.”

“That includes picking whoever they want for president,” Wolffe warns. “This just happens to have been the big wet dream of one Donald Trump in the weeks after he definitively lost the presidential election of 2020…. Who needs messy democracy when you can just have Republican rule? Since most of the state legislatures have been gerrymandered into huge Republican majorities — and the Electoral College skews power towards smaller states — this wonderfully undemocratic and un-American idea is now perfectly in line with the original intent of the Founders and ratifiers.”

Wolffe adds, “The Constitution may say that states can pick their own presidential electors however they want. But the Electoral College has been decided by the popular vote since the 19th Century, when the states realized early in the nation’s life that all the other methods of picking electors led to widespread corruption. So, to return to the original intent of the Founders just ignores more than a century of democracy — and the very idea that the United States somehow leads the Free World. To be frank, the threat to democracy posed by this Supreme Court is clear and present.”

===

6 22 kpfa upheld (ca?) on roundup?!

===

https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/supreme-court-king-george-iii/

juan cole

===

west va v epa

7 22 intercept

...Today’s Supreme Court decision marks perhaps the biggest payoff yet for Koch’s decades of plotting against environmental regulations — and the most devastating loss for everyone else. Three of the extremist judges who joined the decision — Gorsuch, Barrett, and Kavanaugh — wound up on the Supreme Court in large part because of Koch’s activism and contributions.

Americans for Prosperity, an astroturf political group founded by Charles Koch and his brother David, conducted extraordinary campaigns to put all three judges on the highest bench. To support Kavanaugh’s nomination, the group reached out to more than 1.2 million Americans through mail, phone calls, and knocking on doors, according to a flyer released by the organization. The group also pushed hard for Barrett, whose father worked for Shell and the American Petroleum Institute, a powerful trade group for the oil and gas industry. And it campaigned for Gorsuch, whose mother presided — disastrously — over the EPA under President Ronald Reagan. Charles Koch is also closely connected to Leonard Leo, co-chair of the Federalist Society, a conservative organization Koch has supported directly and through his family foundation.

The case itself can also be tied directly to Koch. The challengers are27 Republican attorneys general, who were supported by the Koch-funded Republican Attorneys General Association. At least four Koch-funded entities have filed amicus briefs in the case: the Cato Institute, which was co-founded by Charles Koch; the Competitive Enterprise Institute; the New Civil Liberties Alliance; and Americans for Prosperity. Another foundation that filed an amicus brief, the Landmark Legal Foundation, denied receiving Koch funding, though Jane Mayer reports in her book “Dark Money” that Koch helped subsidize it....

an 7 22

wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's flurry of controversial rulings, a new analysis is highlighting some of the deeply flawed aspects of the U.S. Constitution. The piece, published by The Root, also raises the question of why a document co-written by oppressors is still considered a framework for a country deemed to be the "land of the free."

In her op-ed, The Root's Candace McDuffie began with a brief overview of the Supreme Court justices' erosion of multiple legal landmarks over the last several days.

"Last week, the Supreme Court eviscerated a woman’s right to abortion, undermined Miranda rights, expanded gun rights and allowed border patrol agents to operate with even further impunity," McDuffie wrote. "Today, it ruled that a former Washington state high school football coach can pray on the field immediately after games—regardless of the religious backgrounds of the students."

Offering historical highlights about the U.S. Constitution, McDuffie noted that the 235-year-old document was also co-authored by two oppressors who owned slaves as she emphasized that the document was not written for the purpose of inclusion for all people. "The primary authors consisted of: John Adams, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. The last two men on that list owned slaves," she wrote. How can this set of laws still guide a nation when it was concocted by white men who looked at Black people as property and not as human?"

McDuffie also pointed out a number of flaws and contradictions in the Constitution as it relates to modern-day issues currently plaguing American citizens. "The Fifteenth Amendment gave Black people the right to vote," she noted. "However, last year nineteen states passed laws that restricted access to voting. The Thirteenth Amendment outlawed slavery and involuntary servitude, but America’s mass incarceration problem proves this as untrue."

She also noted the basis of the Constitution and the irony in Justice Clarence Thomas' stance as he has been a vocal advocate of the latest, controversial rulings.

"The fact that a Black man—Justice Clarence Thomas—is working to erode the rights of millions of people is more than ironic: it’s downright pathetic. In a concurring opinion Thomas wrote Friday, he claimed that the Supreme Court’s controversial June decisions aimed to weaken substantive due process which protects certain rights even if they’re not listed in the Constitution."

“As I have previously explained, ‘substantive due process’ is an oxymoron that ‘lack[s] any basis in the Constitution,’” Thomas wrote in his concurring opinion on Roe v. Wade.

According to McDuffie, Thomas also claimed that it’s “'legal fiction' that is 'particularly dangerous.' Even more ironically, how is it up to the states to decide a woman’s right to abortion yet not interfere with a person’s right to carry a concealed firearm?"

The writer also noted the deeply flawed issue with the justices' appointments. The majority of them on the bench was actually nominated by Republican presidents who only won elections by way of the Electoral College. In short, the majority of American voters did not vote for them so the Supreme Court's rulings are based predominantly on the beliefs of a smaller minority as opposed to being a reflection of the country, collectively.

She went on to raise a question that many have posed: whether or not the basis of the Electoral College needs to be revisited.

"Seven of the nine Supreme Court justices were put there by presidents from a party who haven’t won a popular vote more than once in three decades," she wrote. "Shouldn’t the Twelfth Amendment, which established the electoral college, be revisited?"

She concluded, "It’s clear that the right will continue to twist and contort anything they can to carry out their agenda—an agenda that has and will always harm this country’s most marginalized and vulnerable populations. And honestly, the Constitution will always be a hell of an excuse to oppress Black folks on behalf of white supremacy."

===

https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/supreme-court-states-establishment-clause/

no lnx many twt

A far-right legal group believes states are exempt from the Establishment Clause. Some Supreme Court justices agree

Alex Henderson June 29, 2022

During the 1990s, Justice Clarence Thomas and the late Justice Antonin Scalia were viewed as the lunatic fringe of the U.S. Supreme Court. But their theocratic views and far-right social conservatism were balanced out by other justices, from liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to moderate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor to Justice Anthony Kennedy — a Ronald Reagan appointee and right-wing libertarian who, although fiscally conservative, was quite protective of abortion rights and gay rights.

Those days are long gone. Theocrats, thanks largely to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and former President Donald Trump, now dominate the High Court — a fact that was painfully evident when the Court announced, on Friday, June 24, that it had voted to overturn Roe v. Wade and Thomas argued in favor of reconsidering protections for contraception and gay rights as well.

Freedom of religion is guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution — specifically, the 1st Amendment’s Establishment Clause, which states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The Establishment Clause makes it abundantly clear that while people of all faiths can freely practice and promote them, the government cannot establish an official religion. This means that while Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and Bahais are more than welcome to gather on New York City’s 5th Avenue and promote their faiths, the government itself has a strict separation of church and state.

[Read more: Columnist likens U.S. Supreme Court’s right-wing supermajority to a ‘junta in long black robes’

But in Christian Right legal circles, some theocrats, including the far-right group America First Legal, are arguing that individual states are exempt from the Establishment Clause — and Reuters reporter Lawrence Hurley notes that the group believes that states have a right to decide “whether and to what extent they will establish religion within their borders.”

Moreover, America First Legal is hoping that the U.S. Supreme Court will officially take that position in a future ruling.

According to Religion News Service (RNS) reporter Jack Jenkins, Thomas and Justice Neal Gorsuch share America First Legal’s view of the Establishment Clause — and Justice Amy Coney Barrett has “expressed interest in the idea.”

Thomas, Gorsuch and Barrett are among the justices who voted to strike down Roe v. Wade in the case Dobbs v. Women’s Health Organization.

---

ref

https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/united-states-supreme-court-junta/

june 28

much of the criticism of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization has been coming from liberals and progressives along with centrist Democrats. But on the right, a combination of Never Trump conservatives and libertarians have also been slamming the Dobbs ruling, which overturned Roe v. Wade after 49 years — allowing a long list of red states to pass draconian statewide abortion bans if they choose.

The naked authoritarianism of the U.S. Supreme Court’s socially conservative majority threatens a lot more than abortion rights. Justice Clarence Thomas has called for the U.S. to “reconsider” High Court rulings that have been protecting access to abortion and gay rights. Thomas specifically mentioned 1965’s Griswold v. Connecticut, 2003’s Lawrence v. Texas and 2015’s Obergefell v. Hodges.

This authoritarianism is the focus of two Washington Post opinion columnists: liberal Eugene Robinson in a June 27 column, Never Trump conservative Max Boot in a June 25 column. Robinson and Boot have their political differences, but one thing they obviously agree on is that the Trumpified U.S. Supreme Court has taken a tyrannical turn.

Robinson likens the U.S. Supreme Court’s socially conservative majority to a “secretive and unaccountable junta in long black robes.” Junta is a strong word, but considering that one-third of the justices were appointed by former President Donald Trump — the most authoritarian and dangerously corrupt president in U.S. history — it doesn’t seem like an exaggeration.

“I describe them with a term more commonly used for Latin American military regimes because, well, that’s what it feels like,” argues Robinson, who once worked as a foreign correspondent in Buenos Aires, Argentina. “They want a country where women, once again, are at best second-class citizens. Their decision Friday to strike down the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling that protected the constitutional right to abortion means that women, unlike men, no longer have dominion over their own bodies.”

Robinson adds, “They want a country where every pregnancy, wanted or unwanted, is carried to full term. They want women who seek terminations, and the doctors or nurses or friends or Uber drivers who help them in any way, to potentially be subject to criminal charges or civil lawsuits.”< this “junta,” Robinson warns, “does not believe the nation’s Founders were serious about the separation of church and state” and sees the U.S. as a “Christian nation, not a secular one.”

“A ruling Monday found that it was fine for a football coach at a public high school to lead his team in prayer at midfield after games,” Robinson observes. “A decision last week decreed that if states give grants of public money for students to attend private schools, religious schools must also be eligible for those funds…. Previous Supreme Court majorities have expanded the rights and opportunities of the marginalized — women, of course, but also, racial and ethnic minorities, LGBTQ citizens, the disabled. The junta clearly sees these rights as suspect.”

Robinson continues, “Our black-robed rulers will, in the future, be asked to vote up or down on affirmative action, same-sex marriage and other questions that involve the concept of equity. I shudder to imagine what they will do.”

Boot, in his column, notes that the United States’ Founding Fathers built “many checks and balances into the Constitution” because they feared “the tyranny of the majority.” But the conservative columnist emphasizes that the Founders, including Alexander Hamilton, also feared “the tyranny of the minority,” which, Boot argues, is the problem the U.S. is facing in 2022.

“Hamilton’s nightmare has become the reality of 21st-Century America,” Boot laments. “We are living under minoritarian tyranny, with smaller states imposing their views on the larger through their disproportionate sway in the Senate and the Electoral College — and therefore, on the Supreme Court. To take but one example: 21 states with fewer total people than California have 42 Senate seats. This undemocratic, unjust system has produced the new Supreme Court rulings on gun control and abortion.”

Boot points out that the High Court “has no obligation to follow the popular will,” but he has a problem with the Court being openly contemptuous of the majority — a majority that, he notes, wanted to keep Roe v. Wade, according to polls.

“It is hard for any disinterested observer to have any faith in what the right-wing justices are doing,” Boot argues. “They are not acting very conservatively in overturning an abortion ruling, Roe v. Wade, that is 49 years old and a New York state gun-control statute that is 109 years old. In both cases, the justices rely on dubious readings of legal history that have been challenged by many scholars to overturn what had been settled law. boot argues that the United States’ “perverse political system” has “allowed a militant, right-wing minority to hijack the law.”

“In all likelihood, *Roe would not have been overturned if then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) had not broken with precedent by refusing to grant President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, a vote in 2016,” Boot explains. “McConnell brazenly held the seat open for President Donald Trump to fill. Now, Trump’s appointee, Neil M. Gorsuch, is part of the five-justice majority that has overturned Roe. Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. joined with the other five justices to uphold the Mississippi abortion law but not to overrule Roe.”*

Boot wraps up his column by lamenting that “public faith in the Supreme Court” continues “eroding.”

“We are experiencing what the Founders feared: a crisis of governmental legitimacy brought about by minoritarian tyranny,” Boot warns. “And it could soon get a whole lot worse. In his concurring opinion in the abortion case, Justice Clarence Thomas called on the Court to overturn popular precedents upholding a right to contraception, same-sex relationships and marriage equality. So much for Hamilton’s hope that ‘the sense of the majority should prevail.’” ...

===

yikes 2024

[[https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/05/ginni-and-clarence-thomas-steal-2024-election-coup.html

dahlia &

no lnx many

Clarence and Ginni Thomas Are Telling Us Exactly How the 2024 Coup Will Go Down

BY DAHLIA LITHWICK AND MARK JOSEPH STERN

MAY 23, 2022

Justice Clarence Thomas sits side-by-side with his wife and conservative activist Virginia Thomas.

On Friday, the Washington Post broke the news that Ginni Thomas sent emails to Arizona elections officials asking them to set aside the will of the voters and submit a slate of fake electors who would support Donald Trump, even after he demonstrably lost the 2020 presidential election. The news barely caused a ripple because there is seemingly nothing to be done about Justice Clarence Thomas’ refusal to recuse in cases that materially affect his spouse, even as he has already decided several matters surrounding the 2020 election … and also because that same spouse had written far more inflammatory, QAnon-style texts to Trump’s chief of staff urging him to set aside the 2020 contest, and nothing was done about that either.

In reality, of course, there is plenty to be done about Supreme Court justices who decline to be bound by federal recusal statutes and judicial ethics canons. But unless and until there is a ravenous public appetite for reforms to the court, we will continue to watch this play out in mute horror, as though it’s a Netflix special about the Tudors, and the only recourse we have is to return to our mutton farming. Reforms aside, there is another more crucial lesson from the Thomases’ tag-team efforts to seat a president who lost an election: What’s past is prologue, and what was done sloppily in 2020 is being mapped out by experts for 2024.

It’s easy to dismiss the demented texts and emails from a sitting justice’s spouse to public officials who have long-standing professional connections to that justice as zany conspiracy theorizing. Ginni Thomas can be lumped into the QAnon weirdos bucket with Cleta Mitchell, Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani, and Mike Lindell—hapless insurrection enthusiasts who were unable to marshal a single winning argument in an actual court of law after the 2020 election. But the other way to look at the texts and emails that were pinging around the highest echelons of power and influence in the weeks after November 2020 is as a warning and road map for what is already being put into place for the next presidential contest.But next time, the lawyers won’t be sweating brown makeup or referencing crackpot theories of Italian election meddling.

What Thomas was emailing was a prefabbed piece of legal advocacy that urged Arizona state officials to “Please stand strong in the face of political and media pressure. Please reflect on the awesome authority granted to you by our constitution. And then please take action to ensure that aclean slateof electors is chosen for our state.” That isn’t just words. It’s actually a theory underlying the subversion of an entire presidential election. It’s also a theory her husband has endorsed as a matter of constitutional law. It didn’t work in 2020 because the legal and political structures to support it weren’t in place at the time. Those pieces are being put into place as we type this.

Recall, for instance, that back in November of 2020, it wasn’t clear there were five votes at the Supreme Court to support the proposition that state legislatures could simply set aside election results they deemed tainted by impropriety. Recall that when lawyer/insurrectionists John Eastman (a Thomas clerk) and Jeffrey Bossert Clark floated that notion at the White House and elsewhere, serious DOJ attorneys told them in no uncertain terms to go away. Recall finally that one of the lawmakers in Arizona, Shawnna Bolick, is married to a state Supreme Court justice and is parent to Clarence Thomas’ godchild. Bolick, as Jane Mayer of the New Yorker reported in 2021,later introduced legislation that “would enable a majority of the legislature to override the popular vote … and dictate the state’s electoral college votes itself.” In other words, what Bolick couldn’t lawfully do in 2020 is a thing she hopes to do under color of law in future. Oh, and Bolick is now running for secretary of state, the office that oversees state elections.

The New York Times reported this weekend on the proliferation of Bolick’s fellow travelers: election-deniers seeking or holding office in states that will decide the winner of the 2024 presidential race. According to their tally, at least 357 sitting Republican legislators in swing states “have used the power of their office to discredit or try to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.”That number amounts to “44 percent of the Republican legislators in the nine states where the presidential race was most narrowly decided.” Moreover, election deniers around the country are running for secretary of state and attorney general—vying to be swing states’ top election officer and top cop, respectively. If successful, they can use this power to aggressively investigate bogus claims of voter fraud, attempt to nullify Democratic ballots, refuse to certify the true results, and even try to approve an “alternative” slate of electors for the loser. This is what Ginni Thomas was pushing two years ago, and what her husband has already deemed constitutionally permissible.

Will any of this work? The Thomases clearly think it will. At the same time Ginni was lobbying state legislators to overturn the results, Clarence was developing and promoting a constitutional theory that would lend legitimacy to just such a brazen coup. The justice has become an avid fan of the “independent state legislature doctrine,” a verifiably false, pseudo-originalist theorythat allows state legislatures to ignore the real results and rig elections for Republicans. Thomas repeatedly deployed this theory during the 2020 race in an effort to void mail ballots in battleground states(which disproportionately favored Democrats). He later peddled a somewhat sanitized version of the Big Lie, falsely asserting that mail ballots—specifically, those used to elect Joe Biden in 2020—are highly susceptible to voter fraud.Ever since, he has continued to champion the theory whenever lower courts’ election law rulings happen to help Democrats. As our colleague Richard Hasen has pointed out, it looks increasingly likely that the Supreme Court will decide this issue by 2024.

The symmetry between Ginni and Clarence Thomas’ work has never been more obvious. While Clarence fought to give state legislatures the constitutional authority to reject election results, Ginni lobbied state legislators to do exactly that. A casual observer might assume they were working in tandem, with Clarence handling the law and Ginni working on the political side. They aren’t particularly subtle about it. You need only read Ginni’s emails and Clarence’s opinions to see exactly how the 2024 coup attempt will go down because it’s identical to the 2020 coup attempt: If a Democrat prevails, red state officials will question the legitimacy of the results, giving state legislatures an opportunity to throw them out and declare the Republican to be the real winner. This has nothing to do with liberals squelching Ginni Thomas’ feminist drive to have a separate and distinct political life apart from that of her spouse. More power to her. This has everything to do with two public actors working together to ensure that red state legislatures decide future elections in lieu of the voters.

The question remaining isn’t whether it’ll happen; the question is whether it’ll succeed. The Thomases tried this approach in 2020, but like Trump’s other allies, they developed their strategy a bit too late and didn’t buff out the crackpot edges until recently. But this time they’re putting in the work with plenty of time to spare. If Republicans succeed in pulling off a much more respectable coup in 2024, Americans will have every right to be furious and appalled. But no one will have any excuse to be surprised, because Clarence, Ginni, Eastman, Clark, and their many powerful friends are currently laying out the game plan right before our eyes.

For more on Ginni Thomas’ role in efforts to overturn the 2020 election, listen to this episode of What Next.

----

lnx

...recall, for instance, that back in November of 2020, itwasn’t clear there were five votes at the Supreme Court to support the proposition that state legislatures could simply set aside election results they deemed tainted by impropriety. Recall that when lawyer/insurrectionists John Eastman (a Thomas clerk) andJeffrey Bossert Clark floated that notion at the White House and elsewhere,serious DOJ attorneys told them in no uncertain terms to go away. Recall finally that one of the lawmakers in Arizona, Shawnna Bolick, is married to a state Supreme Court justice and is parent to Clarence Thomas’ godchild. Bolick, as Jane Mayer of the New Yorker reported in 2021, later introduced legislation that “would enable a majority of the legislature to override the popular vote … and dictate the state’s electoral college votes itself.” In other words, what Bolick couldn’t lawfully do in 2020 is a thing she hopes to do under color of law in future. Oh, and Bolick is now running for secretary of state, the office that oversees state elections.

the New York Times reported this weekend on the proliferation of Bolick’s fellow travelers: election-deniers seeking or holding office in states that will decide the winner of the 2024 presidential race. According to their tally, at least 357 sitting Republican legislators in swing states “have used the power of their office to discredit or try to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.” That number amounts to “44 percent of the Republican legislators in the nine states where the presidential race was most narrowly decided.” Moreover, election deniers around the country arerunning for secretary of state andattorney general—vying to be swing states’ top election officer and top cop, respectively. If successful, they can use this power to aggressively investigate bogus claims of voter fraud, attempt to nullify Democratic ballots, refuse to certify the true results, and even try to approve an “alternative” slate of electors for the loser. This is what Ginni Thomas was pushing two years ago, and what her husband has already deemed constitutionally permissible.

Will any of this work? The Thomases clearly think it will. At the same time Ginni was lobbying state legislators to overturn the results, Clarence was developing and promoting a constitutional theory that would lend legitimacy to just such a brazen coup. The justice has become an avid fan of the “independent state legislature doctrine,” averifiably false, pseudo-originalist theory that allows state legislatures to ignore the real results and rig elections for Republicans. Thomasrepeatedly deployed this theory during the 2020 race in an effort to void mail ballots in battleground states (which disproportionately favored Democrats). He later peddled a somewhat sanitized version of the Big Lie, falsely asserting that mail ballots—specifically, those used to elect Joe Biden in 2020—are highly susceptible to voter fraud. Ever since, he hascontinued to champion the theory whenever lower courts’ election law rulings happen to help Democrats. As our colleague Richard Hasenhas pointed out, it looks increasingly likely that the Supreme Court will decide this issue by 2024...

===

ref

no lnx

stern

the Supreme Court will not overturn a century of pro-democracy precedent and two centuries of historical practice to give state legislatures unlimited power over elections—yet.

That’s the upshot of the court’s orders on Monday in two huge redistricting cases out of Pennsylvania and North Carolina. The court refused to block new congressional maps drawn by the high court of each state, declining—for now—to embrace a radical theory rejecting state courts’ authority over election law. In the process, however, four justices did endorse this theory, and three attempted to blow up North Carolina’s upcoming election in a dissent with terrifying implications for democracy. The court stepped back from the abyss, but the ensuing reprieve may not last for long.

Both of Monday’s orders involve this year’s redrawing of congressional maps. In Pennsylvania, the Republican-controlled legislature drew a GOP gerrymander, which the Democratic governor vetoed. Because of this impasse, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court stepped in to draw new, fairer districts. In North Carolina, the Republican-controlled legislature drew a GOP gerrymander, which the Democratic governor could not veto under state law. Voters challenged the map under the state constitution, and in February, the state Supreme Court struck it down. The legislature drew a new map, which a trial court rejected and replaced with its own, fairer version.

Republicans appealed both court-drawn maps to SCOTUS. They claimed that these plans violated the U.S. Constitution’s elections clause, which says that the “manner” of federal elections “shall be prescribed” by the “legislature.” For at least a century, SCOTUS has read this language to give other organs of state government a say in election law. But conservative scholars have devised a theory known as the “independent state legislature doctrine” that would give legislatures complete control over elections, including voting rules and redistricting. Under this theory, state constitutional provisions governing elections would be null and void, and state courts would have no power to intervene in election disputes. The legislature alone would set the rules—and, in extreme versions of the theory, even dictate the outcome of an election.

The Supreme Court has never endorsed this doctrine, and has explicitly rejected it as recently as 2015. There is a good reason why: It contradicts the original meaning of the elections clause as well as historical practice reaching back to the early days of the republic. A mountain of evidence proves that Framers never intended to give states lone authority over federal elections, and instead expected state constitutions to impose substantive limits on election law.Exhaustive research demonstrates that—aside from a few opportunistic arguments raised by congressional partisans in the 19th century—state legislatures, state courts, federal courts, and Congress have all rejected the doctrine for more than two centuries.

And yet, for nearly two decades, the conservative legal movement, working alongside Republican politicians, has pushed relentlessly to enshrine this theory into law. It nearly succeeded during the 2020 election, when Justices Clarence Thomas, Sam Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh deployed the theory in an effort to void thousands of disproportionately Democratic ballots. They failed, but their stance encouraged Republicans to try again this year—hence Monday’s cases.

Perhaps the most galling aspect of Alito’s dissent is its hypocrisy.

The Pennsylvania challenge was always a tougher sell: The plaintiffs demanded at-large congressional districts for the first time since the 18th century because there was no backup map in place and no time for the legislature to draw one. Moreover, the case invoked the most extreme possible version of the independent state legislature doctrine, which excludes even the governor from redistricting. It was no surprise, then, that the court disposed of that challenge with no noted dissent.

By contrast, the North Carolina case teed up the elections clause issue perfectly, and thus divided the court. Because it’s a shadow docket order, we don’t know exactly how each justice voted, but it appears that Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the liberals in turning away the challenge without comment. Kavanaugh wrote that Republicans had “advanced serious arguments on the merits” but concluded that it was too late for the federal judiciary to intervene, citing the Purcell principle. Alito, joined by Thomas and Gorsuch, dissented, declaring that the North Carolina Supreme Court had likely violated the elections clause by striking down the legislature’s congressional map.

Alito’s dissent, which wholeheartedly adopted the independent state legislature doctrine, is a master class in disingenuousness. He omitted more than a century of SCOTUS precedent rejecting the doctrine. He ignored the Purcell principle, which he has consistently used to halt lower court orders protecting voting rights. He disregarded the North Carolina legislature’s express approval of judicial supervision over redistricting. And he dismissed the North Carolina Supreme Court’s decision as mere “legislation”—even though the majority engaged in an exhaustive overview of the state constitution’s guarantee that “all elections shall be free.”

“This guarantee of ‘free elections’ dates all the way back to the North Carolina Constitution of 1776,” Alito wrote, “but for 246 years that language was not found to prohibit partisan gerrymandering.” Implying that the court’s Democratic majority was motivated by politics rather than law, he fumed: “Only this year did the State Supreme Court change course and discern in the State Constitution a judicially enforceable prohibition of partisan gerrymandering.” (The long dormancy of a constitutional provision did not stop him from adopting a novel reading of the Second Amendment in 2008.)

Alito also complained that the North Carolina Supreme Court cited state constitutional guarantees of free speech, assembly, and association, which “make no reference to elections.” Unmentioned is the glaring fact that the First Amendment does not mention elections either, yet Alito has repeatedly used it to strike down election regulations. (It seems supporting Republican candidates counts as free speech, while supporting Democratic candidates does not.)

Perhaps the most galling aspect of Alito’s dissent, though, is its hypocrisy. When the court prohibited federal courts from evaluating partisan redistricting in 2019, it assured the nation that state supreme courts could still strike down such gerrymanders. “Our conclusion [does not] condemn complaints about districting to echo into a void,” the court insisted. Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch joined this opinion. Now they’ve revealed it was a bait-and-switch.

It is mildly encouraging that Kavanaugh did not join this flamethrowing dissent and applied his own rule against intervening on the eve of an election. But he also made it clear that he will vote to take up the North Carolina case next term. That makes four votes to consider the independent state legislature doctrine—all that’s required to put the case on the calendar. It now appears inevitable that, in 2023, the Supreme Court will decide whether state legislatures have unrestricted power to rig federal races for Congress and the presidency. Roberts has already disclaimed the theory, meaning the fate of democracy really is in Barrett’s hands. Her vote on Monday suggests she is hesitant to go along with this scheme. But then again, she might just be picking her battles, since her vote would not have changed the outcome.If Barrett ultimately sides with the four far-right conservatives, the 2024 elections may be decided before they begin.]]

===

montana case laid groundwork ? (bowers)

https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/the-supreme-courts-right-wing-supermajority-has-assaulted-americas-separation-of-church-and-state-legal-expert/

https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/supreme-court-separation-church-state/

===

https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/restless-newly-constituted-court-dissent/

United States Associate Supreme Court Justices Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor issued a searing triple dissent on Wednesday in which they decry the Court's rightward trajectory after its majority ostensibly granted federal Border Patrol agents immunity for violating the constitutional rights of American citizens.

The case, Egbert versus Boule, "guts a seminal Supreme Court precedent, Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents (1971), which established that federal law enforcement officers who violate the Constitution may be individually sued — and potentially be required to compensate their victims for their illegal actions," Voxexplained in an analysis. But in yesterday's 6-3 decision, the Court "eliminates the public’s ability to sue Border Patrol officers — and possibly all federal officers — who commit similar violations."

Breyer, Kagan, and Sotomayor – all of whom were chosen by Democratic presidents – argued that the Court's assaults on precedent have been supercharged by former President Donald Trump's appointment of three extremely conservative jurists: Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh.

"A restless and newly constituted Court sees fit to refashion the standard anew to foreclose remedies in yet more cases. The measures the Court takes to ensure Boule’s claim is dismissed areinconsistent with governing precedent,"* they wrote.*

"The Court’s application of its new standard to Boule’s Fourth Amendment claim underscores just how novel that standard is. Even assuming the claim presents a new context, the Court’s insistence that national-security concerns bar the claim directly contravenes Ziglar. Moreover," they continued, "the Court’s holding that a nonbinding administrative investigation process, internal to the agency and offering no meaningful protection of the constitutional interests at stake, constitutes an alternative remedy that forecloses Bivens relief blinks reality."

Breyer, Kagan, and Sotomayor also outlined the likely fallout from Boule.

"Remarkably, the Court goes beyond invoking its national security talisman in this case alone. In keeping with the unprecedented level of generality the Court imports into the special-factors analysis, the Court holds that courts are not 'competent to authorize a damages action . . . against Border Patrol agents generally' (Ante, at 11). This extraordinary and gratuitous conclusion contradicts decades of precedent requiring a context-specific determination of whether a particular claim presents special factors counseling hesitation (See supra, at 6–8.4)," the trio opined.

"The consequences of the Court’s drive-by, categorical assertion will be severe," the Justices added. "Absent intervention by Congress, CBP agents are now absolutely immunized from liability in any Bivens action for damages, no matter how egregious the misconduct or resultant injury. That will preclude redress under Bivens for injuries resulting from constitutional violations by CBP’s nearly 20,000 Border Patrol agents, including those engaged in ordinary law enforcement activities, like traffic stops, far removed from the border."

In other words, Border Patrol agents are now free to do whatever they want without having to worry about oversight, and individuals whom they harm have little to no recourse.

Read the full dissent here.

===

an 6 22

in a decision Monday that liberal Justice Elena Kagan warned will further corrupt the nation's money-dominated political system, the U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing majority struck down a campaign finance regulation limiting federal candidates' ability to use campaign funds to repay personal loans.

Established by the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, the rule barred candidates from using more than $250,000 in campaign funds collected after an election to recoup their loans to their own campaign.

The legal challenge to the cap was brought by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who intentionally violated the $250,000 cap during his 2018 reelection bid in order to pursue a repeal of the limit, which *he characterized as a violation of free speech.*

As CNN explained:

A day before he was reelected in 2018, Cruz loaned his campaign committee $260,000, $10,000 over the limit—laying the foundation for his legal challenge to the cap... [H]e could have been repaid in full by campaign funds if the repayment occurred 20 days after the election. But Cruz let the 20-day deadline lapse so that he could establish grounds to bring the legal challenge.

The high court's 6-3 decision strikes another blow to the nation's campaign finance restrictions, which were already weak and rife with loopholes that big donors readily and frequently exploit.

"While the direct effects of this decision are limited to the narrow federal provision at issue in the case, it reveals a Supreme Court increasingly out of step with the American people—who overwhelmingly recognize that unchecked campaign giving poses profound risks to the integrity of our democracy," said Trevor Potter, the president of Campaign Legal Center. "More immediately, the ruling could imperil an array of similar restrictions on post-election loan repayments adopted at the state and local level out of legitimate concerns over corruption."

Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) added on Twitter that "the right-wing Supreme Court has issued yet another preposterous decision effectively legalizing government corruption at the request of Republicans."

In her dissent, Kagan argued that the court's ruling will make even more common the kinds of "crooked exchanges" that have long sullied the U.S. political system, which is awash in money from corporations and ultra-wealthy individuals.

"Political contributions that will line a candidate's own pockets, given after his election to office, pose a special danger of corruption," Kagan argued, pointing to the issue of recouping personal loans. "The candidate has a more-than-usual interest in obtaining the money (to replenish his personal finances), and is now in a position to give something in return. The donors well understand his situation, and are eager to take advantage of it. In short, everyone's incentives are stacked to enhance the risk of dirty dealing."

Kagan went on to contend that quid pro quos—political favors carried out in exchange for money, in this case post-election donations—could become more rampant thanks to the Supreme Court's new ruling, which was authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, who helped orchestrate the high court's infamous Citizens United ruling and other attacks on campaign finance law.

"Post-election donors can be confident their money will enrich a candidate personally," Kagan wrote. "And those donors have of course learned which candidate won. When they give money to repay the victor's loan, they know—not merely hope—he will be in a position to perform official favors. The recipe for quid pro quo corruption is thus in place: a donation to enhance the candidate's own wealth (the quid), made when he has become able to use the power of public office to the donor's advantage (the quo)."

"The politician is happy; the donors are happy. The only loser is the public. It inevitably suffers from government corruption," she continued. "In allowing those payments to go forward unrestrained, today's decision can only bring this country's political system into further disrepute."

In a statement, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) voiced agreement with Kagan's dissent, calling the high court's ruling "another victory for right-wing donors in their assault on our campaign finance system, and another step toward unlimited special-interest spending in our elections."

"Big Republican donor interests built their supermajority to deliver wins like this one," Whitehouse added, "wins that help special interests skirt our democratic process to achieve what they want."

===

622 an

no lnx twt

For decades, Sen. Susan Collins’ admirers in New England praised her as a shining example of a moderate GOP conservative who was staunchly pro-choice. Collins insisted that opposition to Roe v. Wade was a deal breaker for her, but in 2018, the Maine Republican helped pave the way for Roe’s demise when she voted to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Kavanaugh, Collins assured abortion rights supporters in 2018, considered Roe “settled law” and embraced the doctrine of stare decisis — a legal concept that means respect for precedent. But according to a leaked 5-4 majority draft opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito, Kavanaugh is among the justices who favors overturning Roe. Collins was deceived by Kavanaugh — deception that, journalists Asawin Suebsaeng and Adam Rawnsley report in an article published by Rolling Stone on June 2, was encouraged by members of the Trump Administration.

“Turns out, Collins wasn’t just wrong about Kavanaugh,”* Suebsaeng and Rawnsley explain. “She was deliberately manipulated by Trump Administration officials — and a future Supreme Court justice — who viewed her as an easy mark. Two former senior Trump White House officials tell Rolling Stone that the pro-choice Collins wasn’t even considered a serious threat to the devoutly conservative Kavanaugh.”*

Suebsaeng and Rawnsley continue, “Instead, the team predicted she’d need only a vague assurance that the nominee would uphold the half-century-old ruling defending abortion rights. And they were right.”

The High Court justices who have reportedly decided to overturn Roe range from Kavanaugh and Alito to Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas. The four dissenters are Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Chief Justice John Roberts and Stephen Breyer (who is retiring and will be replaced by President Joe Biden’s nominee, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, later this year).

Collins voted to confirm Gorsuch in 2017, and she voted to confirm Alito in 2006. The Maine senator also voted to confirm Barack Obama nominees Sotomayor and Kagan.

After meeting with Alito in 2005, Collins told reporters, “He assured me that he has tremendous respect for precedent and that his approach is to not overturn cases due to a disagreement with how they were originally decided.”

A former Trump Administration official, interviewed on condition of anonymity, told Rolling Stone, “The thinking from Trump.… and everybody else who worked to make this happen was that, as long as his nominees didn’t say anything stupid (on abortion) and let the Susan Collins-es of the world think what they needed to think and hear what they needed to hear, then it would get done.”

According to Suebsaeng and Rawnsley, some Trump Administration officials who “worked on the Kavanaugh confirmation privately mocked Collins and her public posturing over Roe,” using “crass language” that included describing the Maine senator as a “cheap date.”

“Back in 2018,” Suebsaeng and Rawnsley report, “ the Trump team and Senate GOP offices would regularly send guidance to outside organizations and top activists who were fervently supporting Kavanaugh…. When it came to Collins, the guidance from Team Trump was, consistently, that she not be approached, according to two sources who were close to the White House. One of the reasons, a former top Trump aide says, is because the White House and Kavanaugh allies believed that a pressure campaign from the right would backfire, and that Collins would get to a ‘yes’ on her own — assuming she got just the right verbal responses she wanted.”

Suebsaeng and Rawnsley add, “The Trump team’s apparent manipulation of Collins was part of a broader effort to smuggle, in broad daylight, anti-Roe justices onto the Supreme Court — an effort that was only somewhat complicated by Trump’s past statements on ending Roe and his nominees’ long anti-abortion records.”

In 2018, according to Rolling Stones’ sources, “Trump aides and Kavanaugh allies” held mock Senate confirmation hearings — and Kavanaugh practiced giving evasive answers to questions about Roe.

“Whenever the topic of abortion came up in his prep sessions,” Suebsaeng and Rawnsley report, “Kavanaugh knew what do say: effectively, nothing. Typically, he would give lengthy, detailed monologues on dissents, opinions, and precedents, and then, as was his standard, refuse to divulge how he thought he’d rule if the opportunity to overturn Roe ever came up.”

An anonymous source told Rolling Stone, “That’s how (Kavanaugh) operated. It was his way of telling you, ‘I know a lot about this — but I’m not going to tell you how I’d rule’.… His idea was that saying it was long-standing precedent didn’t mean it couldn’t get overturned at some point.… (Kavanaugh) gets the need to demonstrate knowledge about the law, but not to tip your hand about your opinions about a specific case or issue.”

===

6 22

odd split?

the United States Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that Texas violated the Constitution with a bill banning social media companies from the regulation of hate speech on their platforms.

"Supreme Court halts Texas social media law that critics say would require Facebook and Twitter to require hate speech, extremism," Bloomberg News court reporter Greg Stohr reported.

The majority decision was supported by Chief Justice John Roberts along with Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett.

Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Jr., Elana Kagan, and Neil Gorsuch dissented.

"To be clear, the headline here is *not* the dissent; it’s that Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Kavanaugh, and Justice Barrett *all* voted to block HB20," wrote University of Texas Law Prof. Steve Vladeck.

"That’s a pretty powerful sign of where #SCOTUS is heading on this case—and issue—even if the dissent’s analysis is … alarming," he explained.

===

an 5 22

A ruling handed down by the right-wing United States Supreme Court on Monday that strips convicted felons of the opportunity to present evidence in federal court that they had ineffective counsel is facing ferocious condemnation by legal experts.

The 6-3 majority decision in Shinn versus Ramirez and Jones, authored by Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, denied the petitions of two death row inmates in Arizona – David Martinez Ramirez and Barry Lee Jones – to submit proof that their attorneys had failed them at trial. Martinez and Jones argued that as a result, their Sixth Amendment rights to due process and habeas corpus were violated.

Because their appeals were denied at the state level, Thomas declared that Ramirez and Jones had no legal standing to sue federally.

“[O]nly rarely may a federal habeas court hear a claim or consider evidence that a prisoner did not previously present to the state courts in compliance with state procedural rules,” Thomas wrote.

"Such intervention is also an affront to the State and its citizens who returned a verdict of guilt after considering the evidence before them," he said. "Federal courts, years later, lack the competence and authority to relitigate a State’s criminal case."

The Court's three liberal jurists dissented.

"This decision is perverse," Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor opined on behalf of the minority. "It is illogical: It makes no sense to excuse a habeas petitioner’s counsel’s failure to raise a claim altogether because of ineffective assistance in postconviction proceedings ... but to fault the same petitioner for that postconviction counsel’s failure to develop evidence in support of the trial-ineffectiveness claim."

She said that "the Court’s decision will leave many people who were convicted in violation of the Sixth Amendment to face incarceration or even execution without any meaningful chance to vindicate their right to counsel.”

Numerous legal experts concurred with Sotomayor, stressing that Monday's precedent-reversing ruling guts the 6th Amendment.

"You can't meaningfully enforce the Sixth Amendment in a state post-conviction proceeding unless you have an ounce of seriousness about the lawyer they are getting in that forum," University of Texas Law Professor Lee Kovarsky tweeted. "And since representation in state post-conviction proceedings is a national embarrassment, it means that it's not a really useful site of Sixth Amendment enforcement."

Kovarsky expanded upon what that means for defendants.

"You can have your claim decided on the merits in federal court, but you cannot INTRODUCE EVIDENCE to prove that claim," he said. "There's a million ways to pick this opinion apart, but here's a simple one. If you get to federal court with incontrovertible evidence of innocence, you can disable procedural bars but that evidence can't be considered on the merits. Your modern Supreme Court, people."

Read his thread below [twt]

university of Texas Law Professor and CNN contributor Steve Vladeck noted that "Thomas holds that habeas courts can't expand the record to take new evidence showing ineffective assistance of state postconviction counsel."

Leah Litman, an associate professor of law at the University of Michigan, agreed.

"It's bad," she Tweeted. "If the state appoints you a lawyer who is constitutionally ineffective at your trial; and then appoints you ANOTHER lawyer who is constitutionally ineffective to argue your trial lawyer was ineffective ... you're screwed. This is just a horrific decision that will close the Martinez exception that allowed litigants to enforce the 6th amendment right to counsel."

Others were far less cordial in her critique.

"HOLY. SHIT," New York City Public Defender Eliza Orleans said. "This decision effectively ensures that innocent people will remain imprisoned. This is radical. This is horrifying. This is extremely scary."

Commercial litigator Akiva Cohen pointed out the obscure insidiousness embedded within Thomas' annotations.

"I don't think I've ever been angrier about a footnote. Context: this is in a SCOTUS decision holding that a state prisoner on death row can be executed because of his appellate counsel's negligence, because district courts CANNOT 'forgive' the forfeiture due to that negligence," he said. "I mean holy fuck. 'Oops, sorry your lawyers suck, but it would cost too much to make sure you're actually guilty before we electrocute you'??"

Slate correspondent Mark Joseph Stern was equally as outraged.

"The Supreme Court's second and final opinion of the day is an absolutely atrocious 6–3 ruling in Shinn v. Martinez Ramirez, a habeas case. I will say more but this decision effectively ensures that innocent people will remain imprisoned," he tweeted. "The Supreme Court has previously said that habeas petitioners can bring ineffective assistance of counsel claims for the first time in federal court. But today, it says they *can't develop evidence to support these claims.* In doing so, it turns that 'right' into an illusion."

Stern added that "everything about Thomas' opinion is repulsive."

===

https://www.alternet.org/2022/05/ted-cruz-2657329267/***

no lnx doc twt

Supreme Court hands Ted Cruz lucrative $555,000 win by declaring campaign finance rule violates free speech

David Badash and The New Civil Rights Movement May 16, 2022

In a 6-3 decision Monday the U.S. Supreme Court handed Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz a lucrative win, declaring a federal rule limiting the amount a candidate who loans money to their own campaign can be repaid violates the free speech clause of the First Amendment.

“With the latest SCOTUS decision to further deregulate campaign finance, the Texas senator will be able pay himself back with fresh donor money,” HuffPost reports, adding that Cruz can now “hit up donors to help pay himself back for the $555,000 he loaned to his campaigns in 2012 and 2018.”

Possibly the most consequential result of the ruling is it “could also enable politicians to personally make money on their campaigns by charging interest on loans later repaid by donors.”

Chief Justice John Roberts authored the majority opinion, which was joined by all conservatives on the bench. Justice Elena Kagan authored the minority opinion, which was joined by the liberals.

“And as they paid him, so he will pay them,” Justice Kagan, warning of corruption, wrote in her dissent. “In the coming months and years, they receive government benefits ― maybe favorable legislation, maybe prized appointments, maybe lucrative contracts. The politician is happy; the donors are happy. The only loser is the public. It inevitably suffers fromgovernment corruption.”

“Cruz,” HuffPost notes, “will be able to raise $555,000 and put it in his own pocket immediately. For that, he can thank the six conservative justices ― three of whom he voted to confirm.”

===

https://www.alternet.org/2022/05/samuel-alito-just-laid-out-an-argument-for-rolling-back-a-variety-of-20th-century-progress-journalist/

----

https://www.alternet.org/2022/05/ben-shapiro-unwind-gay-marriage/

https://www.alternet.org/2022/05/safety-regulations/

Remember when lots of romaine lettuce was recalled because it was causing E.coli outbreaks? That was the Food and Drug Administration protecting us from getting sick.

Working in a warehouse? The Occupational Safety and Health Administration sets standards to ensure you don’t breathe in dangerous chemicals like asbestos.

Enjoying the fresh air on a clear, sunny day? Thank the Environmental Protection Agency for limiting the amount of pollution that can go into our air.

These agencies save lives. Since OSHA was established a half-century ago, its workplace safety regulations have saved more than 618,000 workers’ lives.

Republicans have been trying to gut these agencies for decades. Now, with the Supreme Court’s right-wing majority solidly in place, they have their best chance yet.

In January 2022, the Supreme Court blocked OSHA’s vaccine-or-testing mandate from going into effect, which was estimated to prevent a quarter-million hospitalizations.

The Court claimed that Covid isn’t an “occupational hazard” because people can become infected outside of work, and that allowing OSHA to regulate in this manner “would significantly expand” its authority without clear Congressional authorization.

This is absurd on its face. Section 2 of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 clearly spells out OSHA’s authority to enact and enforce regulations that protect workers from illness, injury, and death in the workplace. Congress doesn’t need to list every specific workplace hazard before OSHA can protect workers.

What this ruling tells us is that the Republican appointees on the Supreme Court are intent on gutting the power of agencies to issue regulations.

This term, the Court will also hear a case regarding the EPA’s authority to enforce the Clean Water Act. If the Court undermines the EPA’s authority, it will put our environment – and our health – at risk. Remember when the Cuyahoga River caught on fire because it was brimming with oil, acid, and factory chemicals? That’s what we may be returning to.

And what’s next? Will they gut the Federal Trade Commission and put us all at risk of being defrauded? Target the Securities and Exchange Commission and deregulate the financial sector, sparking another financial crisis?

*Beware. If Republican appointees on the Supreme Court succeed in gutting regulatory agencies, we all lose. This agenda is anti-worker, anti-consumer, and anti-environment. The only thing it’s good for is corporate profits.[rr vid] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRJmq9yCh-w&t=5s***

planes and train optimal spreaders?!

aha more regs tossed out for exceeding authority = ~ gubmint? corp laissez-faire pollute? kill workers?

rooted in fed overreach?

jones day, trump fav, clerked for clarence

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's mask mandate for domestic travelers was struck down on Monday by a federal jurist who was appointed by former President Donald Trump. The decision is the latest in a string of blows to President Joe Biden's efforts to curb transmission of the coronavirus.

The CDC last week extended the rule until May 3rd.

Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida wrote in a 59-page ruling that the CDC exceeded its authority in requiring passengers on airlines and any other "conveyance" of public transportation to wear masks to help slow the spread of COVID-19.

Mizelle – whom the American Bar Associated dinged as "not qualified" after she was installed by Trump at the age of 33 – said that passengers who refused to comply and were "forcibly removed from their airplane seats, denied board at the bus steps, and turned away at the train station doors" had their rights against "detention and quarantine" violated.

"The Mask Mandate is best understood not as sanitation, but as an exercise of the CDC's power to conditionally release [from what?] individuals to travel despite concerns that they may spread a communicable disease (and to detain or partially quarantine those who refuse). But the power to conditionally release and detain is ordinarily limited to individuals entering the United States from a foreign country," she proclaimed.

“Wearing a mask cleans nothing,” Mizelle opined, even as cases are once again rising in pockets throughout the country, such as in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which has re-instituted a mask mandate. The virus has also been spreading in the nation's capital, infecting White House officials and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California).

Steve Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas, blasted Mizelle's order in a Monday afternoon tweet.

"This is both a big deal and a truly preposterous (nationwide) injunction. The CDC’s statutory authority is specifically directed at preventing the spread of communicable diseases across state lines," he wrote. "Where else is such spread more likely to occur than transport hubs like airports?"

===

Former United States Secretary of Labor Robert Reich blasted right-wing efforts to gut federal regulations in a new video posted to YouTube on Tuesday.

In the roughly four-minute-long spot, Reich warned Americans that Republicans are working tirelessly to make life "more dangerous" in the name of boosting corporate profits.

"Your life could get a lot more dangerous. Republican appointees on the Supreme Court seem poised to strip away basic safety standards for our workplaces, our food, our air and water," Reich began.

He explained that regulatory organizations exist to protect the public from predatory practices.

"Remember when lots of romaine lettuce was recalled because it was causing E.coli outbreaks? That was the Food and Drug Administration protecting us from getting sick. Working in a warehouse? The Occupational Safety and Health Administration sets standards to ensure you don’t breathe in dangerous chemicals like asbestos. Enjoying the fresh air on a clear, sunny day? Thank the Environmental Protection Agency for limiting the amount of pollution that can go into our air," said Reich. "These agencies save lives. Since OSHA was established a half-century ago, its workplace safety regulations have saved more than 618,000 workers’ lives."

In this case, Reich takes aim at HFIB versus OSHA, in which the Court sided with the plaintiffs who sued to have COVID-19 workplace vaccine-or-testing mandates lifted.

"What this ruling tells us is that the Republican appointees on the Supreme Court are intent on gutting the power of agencies to issue regulations," he said. "This term, the Court will also hear a case regarding the EPA’s authority to enforce the Clean Water Act. If the Court undermines the EPA’s authority, it will put our environment – and our health – at risk. Remember when the Cuyahoga River caught on fire because it was brimming with oil, acid, and factory chemicals? That’s what we may be returning to."

Reich then reminded viewers that the GOP's assault on regulations is far from over.

"And what’s next? Will they gut the Federal Trade Commission and put us all at risk of being defrauded? Target the Securities and Exchange Commission and deregulate the financial sector, sparking another financial crisis?" he asked.

"Beware. If Republican appointees on the Supreme Court succeed in gutting regulatory agencies, we all lose. This agenda is anti-worker, anti-consumer, and anti-environment," Reich added. "The only thing it’s good for is corporate profits."

===

more discussion of packing and ethics; we used to rely on norms pre-trump, as in so many other gov't functions? a question of checks and balances among branches?

https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/clarence-thomas-2657046647/

tom b raw story

In an interview with Rolling Stone's Andrew Cohen, historian Jeff Shesol said he has no doubt that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife Ginni Thomas are in "lockstep" when it comes to believing Donald Trump should still be in the White House and claimed they see what they are doing as a "holy war."

With Cohen writing, "You don’t need to be a legal expert to know that one spouse shouldn’t sit in judgment in a case in which the other spouse is a witness — or a suspect. That’s as classic a conflict of interest as one can imagine and by refusing to acknowledge it Justice Thomas has brought great discredit on himself and his colleagues on the Court," he asked the author of “Supreme Power: Franklin Roosevelt vs The Supreme Court,” what he thinks is going on after revelations about Ginni Thomas' texts urging overturning the 2020 presidential election results.

According to Shesol, the biggest immediate problem is the fact that there is no mechanism in place to force Supreme Court justices to recuse themselves in cases where they have a personal stake as well as their freedom to take public political stances without consequences.

"I wrote for the NYT back in 2011 on the 'extrajudicial' activities of Thomas, [Samuel] Alito, and others," he explained. "They’re even more brazen today, if only because they have never faced any consequences (other than the opprobrium of the left and the mainstream media, opprobrium they welcome) for making political statements to politically minded crowds. You and I can write as many mean articles about them as we’d like, but short of impeachment, they’re untouchable and they revel in it."

According to the historian, he can't be sure Ginni Thomas was talking about her husband when she referenced support for election interference from her "best friend" -- but he has his suspicions.

After stating, "In a very real sense, Clarence and Ginni Thomas are answerable only to Clarence and Ginni Thomas. The Trump Administration gave us all a hard lesson in how few actual rules bind the behavior of our national leaders, and how much depends on their good judgment and self-restraint," he added. "Even if she’s not referring to Justice Thomas, the recent New Yorker story, among others, underscores the absurdity of the notion that (as they’ve claimed) Ginni does her thing and Clarence does his, and that they don’t discuss their work. This is a holy war, and, again, they are waging it in lockstep."

According to Shesol, Ginni Thomas is up to her neck in involvement t in the Jan 6th insurrection and there is little reason to believe that her husband didn't know it.

Explaining, "Ginni played an active role (which seems, with every passing revelation, to have been a greater role than previously disclosed or imagined) in trying to subvert the Constitution by overthrowing the results of a presidential election," he maintained that her husband's decision to side with Donald Trump on hiding White House documents, and his current silence, makes him suspect.

"Her husband’s role, apart from his dissent from that unsigned order, is less clear—though it is clear enough that he acted (or would have acted, if the other conservatives had joined him) in shielding his wife’s role in the plot from scrutiny," he stated. "Though his dissent is silent to his true motivations he has thus involved and implicated himself in the insurrection."

*Youcan read more here:{

===

john s edit bd 3 22

It’s not clear to me yet why Virginia “Ginni” Thomas admitted to being at the gathering that came before the J6 insurrection. But I’m sure the spouse of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has her reasons.

Ginni Thomas told the Washington Free BeaconMonday that she attended the rally organized by the former president to “stop the steal.” She said she left before Donald Trump ordered a throng of insurgents, some armed, to sack and loot the seat of government.

“There are important and legitimate substantive questions about achieving goals like electoral integrity, racial equality and political accountability that a democratic system like ours needs to be able to discuss and debate rationally in the political square. I fear we are losing that ability,” she told the Free Beacon, a rightwing paper.

Thing is, those “important and legitimate substantive questions” had been addressed and settled by one federal judge after another. They had been answered by Republican secretaries of state in states won by the current president. You’d think the wife of a Supreme Court justice would respect court rulings. I suppose that might be too much to ask.

Like I said, it’s not clear to me why she outed herself. It could be she’s aware of a forthcoming story about to come to light, and turned to a sympathetic news outlet to “get ahead of the story,” as elites say. That way she can minimize damage to her and her husband’s public image.

If I were to guess, I’d say Ginni Thomas was aware of Donald Trump’s effort to pressure the former vice president, Mike Pence, into sending certified electoral votes back to states, which would reelect Trump, or otherwise sabotage the situation so the Supreme Court had to decide.

That would be bad. It would mean some people are above the law. Unfortunately, we don’t need a treasonous conspiracy to know that.

Ginni Thomas is untouchable.

She’s a leading figure in right-wing politics. Her activism frequently involves cases Justice Thomas will hear. She is a middleman, as it were, between the GOP’s very obscenely rich donor class and the court’s GOP supermajority, which is eager to give what’s asked of them.

There’s nothing you can do about it.

When the people are powerless, democracy isn’t all that.

Even if Congress were to pass laws regulating the behavior of Supreme Court justices, who would enforce those laws. The US Department of Justice? The FBI? Which among all the federal law enforcement agencies would investigate a justice’s spouse? The Congress? Hardly. It couldn’t remove a president for extortion.

I talk about this and other depressing things with Gabe Roth. He’s the executive director of Fix the Court, a nonprofit dedicated to reforming the federal judiciary, especially the highest court. When no one is above a justice, Gabe said, “you're free to do whatever you want.”

“I think that bulletproof-ness rubbed off on Ginni Thomas.”

With normal people in mind, can you explain whether it’s wrong for the spouse of a Supreme Court justice to be politically active?

It's not wrong for a justice's spouse to be politically active. Justices' spouses can and should have their own lives and their own jobs.

But Ginni Thomas is different from any other Supreme Court spouse in the history of Supreme Court spouses in terms of her brand of activism and how so much of it intersects with the court’s work.

She's been the for the last three decades. WhenBush v. Gore[which decided the 2000 election] was at the court, she was vetting resumes for a potential Bush administration.

As Obamacare reached the court, she was lobbying against the law.

When a case on whether Congress could subpoena certain J6-related records was at the court, she was signing a letter saying Congress was harassing “private citizens who have done nothing wrong."

Supreme Court justices are supposed to recuse themselves from cases in which their "impartiality might reasonably be questioned."

Justice Thomas has often said he and Ginni are one – fused together in the fire of his confirmation. He’s said there’s no daylight between them.

These comments make me — and I think I'm pretty reasonable about this — question his impartiality on several issues before the court.

Has Thomas ever ruled against his wife's interests?

It's hard to quantify since the court has issued more than 2,000 rulings since Thomas joined it in 1991. But in general, the answer is no.

On major cases, the Republican justices rule the way average Republicans would want them to rule. Similarly, the Democratic justices rule the way average Democrats would want them to rule.

The Republican exceptions — Roberts on Obamacare, Kennedy on gay marriage, Gorsuch on tribal sovereignty — don't include Thomas.

How would you characterize Ginni Thomas's brand of politics?

Mean-spirited and misinformed. How can you be a functioning adult and think it's OK to share memes on Facebook related to the Holocaust, saying gun control is the reason 6 million Jews died?

Hoo-boy.

She gives out awards every year to some of the most brazen, shameless and horrible people you can imagine. Covid deniers, election-fraud maker-uppers, anti-Muslim bigots, the works.

With respect to gun control causing 6 million Jews to die, I wonder if perhaps she does know it's not OK, but she’s saying it anyway. From that perspective, we can see the role of bad faith. Someone like that could violate conflicts of interest norms knowing they were.

The truth is there really are no set conflict-of-interest rules if you're a Supreme Court justice. Rules only work if there are consequences. If there's no one above you, if you're never going to be impeached and removed since it's too hard, you're free to do whatever you want.

I think that bulletproof-ness rubbed off on Ginni Thomas.

With that in mind, there's no way of holding a justice’s spouse accountable for her role, however, minimal in J6. Am I correct?

Correct.

I would bet the J6 Committee would be squeamish about subpoenaing Ginni Thomas, though they did subpoena Donald Trump’s former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, with whom Ginni is close.

They don't want to be seen as "political," and I could imagine some of them think that going after a justice's spouse would be seen that way.

So it's possible for the spouse at the Supreme Court justice to be engaged in sedition, a crime that could rise up to the Supreme Court, and the justice in question could rule in favor of his spouse?

Yes.

That’s fucked up.

Ginni Thomas would say she left before the crime happened.

She already said she left in remarks made to the Washington Free Beacon. If she's bulletproof, why bother going to a sympathetic newspaper to explain why she's not guilty of anything?

My guess is enough people saw her at the Ellipse that the story of her being there was going to get out. She wanted to get ahead of it.

So what if the story got out, though?

My guess is that more is coming out – that she was in touch with Meadows or someone on J6 who’s been subpoenaed. She wanted to quash the rumor she paid for buses to get people to DC that day.

So what’s the solution to a laughably corrupt system, as it appears to be? Can Congress put teeth in conflict-of-interest norms?

First, they can require justices to write and adopt a code of conduct that sets expectations for conduct inside and outside the court.

Second, they can require justices to explain when they recuse themselves and make it easier for litigants to ask why they don't recuse in cases in which there's a perceived conflict of interest.

Third, they can amend the federal recusal statute to say that if you as a justice received a benefit from an individual or group — whether a gift, a free trip or personal hospitality — you have to sit out SCOTUS cases brought by that individual or group for a certain number of years

Fourth, they can hold more oversight hearings so judicial ethics issues are in the open, not merely discussed whenever a justice messes up.

I could keep going.

Yes, please.

Fifth, they could require that judges and justices put annual financial disclosure reports online (currently they're placed on thumb drives and the disclosures office always has a multi-year backlog).

Congress could require that every time a judge or justice buys or sells a stock, or other financial instruments, they have to file a contemporaneous transaction report, as members of Congress must.

Sixth, Congress could write a law that would require justices to take senior status after 18 years, so they'd keep life tenure, but after 18 years, they'd have to move to a lower court – or they could fill back in at the Supreme Court in case of an unexpected vacancy.

Seventh, they could require judges and justices to fill out contemporaneous travel reports, as members of Congress must. These show in real-time who's paying who for what (flights, hotels, etc).

These sound good, but rules and laws don't mean much unless they're enforced. Assuming Merrick Garland would never touch a case involving a Supreme Court justice’s spouse, who would enforce these laws and rules even if they were enacted?

That'd be my assumption, yes.

The DOJ wouldn’t bring charges against a Supreme Court spouse.

It'd have to be a bribe to get to that point.

A bribe would be blessedly simple, but what about a spouse of a Supreme Court justice who’s cheerleading sedition?

I don't see how that's enforced, correct.

This is very depressing isn't it?

I guess. I'm used to it.

American Indian Quarterly

Vol. 39, No. 3 (Summer 2015), pp. 243-270 (28 pages)

Published By: University of Nebraska Press

https://doi.org/10.5250/amerindiquar.39.3.0243

===

Julia Conley Common Dreams

October 15, 2022

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[https://www.alternet.org/2022/10/scotus-republicans-end-democratic-presidencies/](https://webbrain.com/brainpage/brain/

https://www.alternet.org/2022/10/scotus-republicans-end-democratic-presidencies/The%20Supreme%20Court%20may%20be%20within%20a%20few%20months%20of%20ending%20democracy%20in%20the%20United%20States%20and%20turning%20the%20White%20House%20over%20to%20a%20group%20of%20billionaires%20who%E2%80%99ve%20already%20funded%20the%20GOP%20takeover%20of%20multiple%20state%20legislatures.But%20don%E2%80%99t%20just%20take%20my%20word%20for%20it.%20Consider%20these%20sources:Law%20&%20Crime:%20Election%20Law%20Experts%20Sound%20the%20Alarm%20About%20%E2%80%98Extremely%20Dangerous%E2%80%99%20Voting%20Rights%20Case%20the%20Supreme%20Court%20Just%20Agreed%20to%20HearDemand%20Justice:%20Republican%20Supreme%20Court%20to%20Decide%20If%20Democrats%20Are%20Allowed%20to%20Win%20Elections%20AnymoreThe%20Atlantic:%20Is%20Democracy%20Constitutional?MSNBC:%20Moore%20v.%20Harper%20Could%20Upend%20Elections%20as%20We%20Know%20ThemAnd%20Moore%20v%20Harper%20is%20just%20the%20latest%20in%20a%20long%20string%20of%20naked%20assaults%20on%20American%20democracy%20and%20the%20rights%20of%20average%20American%20citizens,%20particularly%20when%20they%20conflict%20with%20the%20rights%20of%20billionaires%20and%20giant%20corporations.So,%20how%20the%20hell%20did%20we%20end%20up%20here?Of%20the%20six-vote%20hard-right%20majority%20on%20the%20Supreme%20Court,%20only%20one%20of%20them%20was%20appointed%20by%20a%20president%20who%20actually%20won%20his%20election%20%28Thomas:%20Bush%20Sr.%29.%20The%20other%20five%20were%20appointed%20by%20George%20W.%20Bush%20%28lost%20in%202000%20by%20about%20a%20half-million%20votes%29%20and%20Trump%20%28lost%20in%202016%20by%20over%203%20million%20votes%29.The%20urgency%20and%20ferocity%20with%20which%20they%E2%80%99re%20ripping%20our%20Constitution%20to%20shreds%20seems%20driven%20by%20their%20knowledge%20of%20their%20own%20illegitimacy.Republican%20appointees%20across%20our%20federal%20court%20system%20are%20trying%20to%20%E2%80%9Cdeconstruct%20the%20administrative%20state%E2%80%9D%20of%20America,%20to%20quote%20Steve%20Bannon.%20Most%20recently,%20the%20majority-Trump-appointed%205th%20Circuit%20Court%20of%20Appeals%20ruled%20this%20week%20that%20the%20Consumer%20Financial%20Protection%20Bureau%E2%80%99s%20funding%20mechanism%20is%20unconstitutional.%20That%20case%20will%20appear%20at%20the%20Supreme%20Court%20soon,%20in%20all%20probability.The%20most%20concerning%20case%20right%20now,%20however,%20is%20Moore%20v%20Harper%20which%20considers%20the%20bizarre%20theory%20Trump%20was%20pushing%20Pence%20to%20accept,%20that%20voters%20don%E2%80%99t%20determine%20who%20becomes%20president%20via%20the%20Electoral%20College%20but%20that%20individual%20state%20legislatures%20can%20simply%20award%20their%20Electoral%20votes%20to%20whichever%20candidate%20strikes%20their%20fancy.It%E2%80%99s%20loosely%20based%20on%20language%20in%20the%20Constitution,%20but%20defies%20two%20centuries%20of%20precedent%20and%20turns%20pretty%20much%20every%20part%20of%20elections%20over%20to%20state%20legislatures%20with%20no%20oversight%20whatsoever%20by%20either%20governors%20or%20the%20people,%20and%20can%E2%80%99t%20be%20appealed%20to%20any%20court,%20including%20the%20Supreme%20Court.Judge%20Michael%20Luttig%20%E2%80%94%20the%20famous%20and%20credible%20conservative%20judge,%20the%20Edmund%20Burke%20of%20this%20era%20%E2%80%94%20has%20joined%20the%20team%20fighting%20the%20potential%20outcome%20of%20this%20decision.Luttig%20suggests%20this%20theory,%20if%20adopted%20by%20the%20Court,%20could%20very%20well%20signal%20the%20end%20of%20Democratic%20presidents%20so%20long%20as%20more%20than%2025%20of%20our%2050%20states%20have%20Republican-controlled%20legislatures%20%28and%20their%20governors%20can%E2%80%99t%20even%20veto%20their%20legislatures,%20according%20to%20this%20theory%29.%20Today%2030%20states%E2%80%99%20legislatures%20are%20fully%20under%20GOP%20control,%20up%20from%2014%20in%202009.Luttig,%20the%20elders%20among%20us%20may%20remember,%20personally%20ran%20Clarence%20Thomas%E2%80%99%20Supreme%20Court%20hearing%20and%20worked%20for%20years%20side-by-side%20with%20John%20Roberts%20in%20the%20Reagan%20Justice%20Department.%20He%E2%80%99s%20friends%20with%20both%20men%20and%20is%20considered%20one%20of%20the%20top%20conservative%20judges%20in%20contemporary%20America.The%20%E2%80%9CIndependent%20State%20Legislature%20theory%E2%80%9D%20at%20the%20core%20of%20Moore%20v%20Harper%20is,%20according%20to%20Luttig:[A]ntithetical%20to%20the%20Framers%E2%80%99%20intent,%20the%20text,%20and%20the%20Constitution%E2%80%99s%20fundamental%20design%20and%20architecture.But%20that%E2%80%99s%20just%20the%20beginning%20of%20the%20out-of-control%20and%20dangerous%20behavior%20of%20the%20far-right%20radicals%20on%20today%E2%80%99s%20court.%20Since%20there%E2%80%99s%20been%20a%20conservative%20majority%20on%20the%20Court%20it%20has,%20among%20other%20things:Handed%20the%202000%20election%20to%20George%20W.%20BushRadically%20cut%20back%20the%20rights%20of%20unions%20to%20organize%20and%20represent%20workersDeclared%20that%20billionaires%20buying%20politicians%20is%20merely%20%E2%80%9Cfree%20speech%E2%80%9DGutted%20the%20power%20of%20the%20EPA%20to%20regulate%20planet-destroying%20carbon%20pollutionAnd%20ripped%20the%20heart%20out%20of%20both%20the%20Civil%20Rights%20Act%20and%20the%20Voting%20Rights%20Act.In%20just%20the%20past%20year%20this%20Court,%20now%20stacked%20with%203%20new%20and%20deeply%20unqualified%20%28but%20young!%29%20hard-right%20Trump-humping%20activists,%20has%20already%20ruled%20to:End%20the%206th%20Amendment%20right%20of%20prisoners%20to%20challenge%20convictions%20when%20their%20lawyers%20were%20demonstrably%20corrupt%20or%20incompetent%20%28Shinn%20v%20Ramirez.%20In%20her%20dissent,%20Justice%20Sotomayor%20wrote,%20%E2%80%9CThe%20Court%E2%80%99s%20decision%20will%20leave%20many%20people%20who%20were%20convicted%20in%20violation%20of%20the%20Sixth%20Amendment%20to%20face%20incarceration%20or%20even%20execution%20without%20any%20meaningful%20chance%20to%20vindicate%20their%20right%20to%20counsel.%E2%80%9DFurther%20gut%20Americans%E2%80%99%20right%20to%20vote.%20In%203%20separate%20cases,%20Merrill%20v%20Milligan,%20Wisconsin%20Legislature%20v.%20Wisconsin%20Elections%20Commission,%20and%20Ardoin%20v.%20Robinson%20the%20six%20rightwing%20justices%20endorsed%20three%20separate%20Republican%20gerrymanders%20and%20voting%20maps%20in%20Wisconsin,%20Louisiana,%20and%20Alabama%20that%20were%20each%20unabashedly%20based%20on%20efforts%20to%20enhance%20the%20electoral%20power%20of%20white%20voters.Remove%20from%20US%20citizens%20who%20move%20to%20%28or%20live%20in%29%20Puerto%20Rico%20the%20right%20to%20receive%20certain%20Social%20Security%20benefits%20in%20their%20US%20v%20Vaello-Madero%20case.%20Whacking%20the%20rights%20of%20over%20300,000%20Americans%20living%20in%20PR,%20the%20six%20crazies%20on%20the%20Court%20ruled%20that%20only%20Congress%20could%20fix%20the%20damage%20they%20themselves%20were%20doing.%20The%20problem%20with%20that,%20as%20Justice%20Sonia%20Sotomayor%20pointed%20out%20in%20her%20dissent,%20is%20that%20because%20PR%20isn%E2%80%99t%20yet%20a%20state%20and%20has%20no%20member%20of%20Congress%20to%20fight%20on%20their%20behalf%20the%20Court%20was%20simply%20%E2%80%9Cpunishing%20disparities%20suffered%20by%20citizen%20residents%20of%20Puerto%20Rico%20under%20Congress%E2%80%99%20unequal%20treatment.%E2%80%9DTake%20away%20your%20Miranda%20rights%20to%20remain%20silent,%20avoid%20self-incrimination,%20and%20know%20you%20have%20access%20to%20a%20lawyer.%20Americans%20cannot,%20the%206%20%E2%80%9Cconservatives%E2%80%9D%20on%20the%20Court%20ruled%20in%20Vega%20v.%20Tekoh,%20sue%20police%20officers%20who%20fail%20to%20tell%20them%20their%20Miranda%20rights.Eliminate%20many%20non-citizens%E2%80%99%20rights%20under%20the%20Constitution%20when%20abused%20by%20the%20federal%20government.%20While%20the%20Constitution%20refers%20to%20%E2%80%9Cpersons%E2%80%9D%20rather%20than%20%E2%80%9Ccitizens%E2%80%9D%20in%20most%20critical%20places%20%28like%20the%2014th%20Amendment%20guaranteeing%20equal%20protection%20under%20the%20law%29,%20the%20Court%20decided%20in%20two%20cases,%20Garland%20v.%20Gonzalez%20and%20in%20Johnson%20v.%20Arteaga-Martinez,%20that%20noncitizens%20often%20are%20not%20entitled%20to%20bond%20hearings%20or%20class-wide%20injunctive%20relief%20when%20screwed%20by%20the%20feds.Rip%20away%204th%20Amendment%20privacy%20rights%20against%20unreasonable%20search%20and%20seizure%20for%20all%20persons%20living%20within%20100%20miles%20of%20an%20ocean%20or%20our%20borders%20with%20Mexico%20or%20Canada%20%28that%E2%80%99s%20two%20out%20of%20three%20American%20citizens%20%E2%80%93%20even%20here%20in%20Portland,%20I%E2%80%99m%20within%20100%20miles%20of%20the%20Pacific%20Ocean%29.%20In%20Egbert%20v%20Boule,%20the%20six%20rightwingers%20on%20the%20Court%20ruled%20that%20border%20patrol%20and%20other%20federal%20officers%20can%20search%20you,%20your%20home,%20or%20your%20vehicle%20for%20any%20old%20reason%20they%20want%20because%20you%20live%20in%20the%20vicinity%20of%20a%20border%20or%20ocean%20and%20they%20consider%20you%20suspicious.%20No%20warrant%20necessary%20anymore.Give%20police%20officers%20who%20use%20excessive%20force%20immunity%20from%20accountability.%20In%20Rivas-Villegas%20v.%20Cortesluna%20and%20City%20of%20Tahlequah,%20OK%20v.%20Bond%20the%20Court%20upheld%20its%20own%20invention,%20the%20doctrine%20of%20%E2%80%9Cqualified%20immunity,%E2%80%9D%20that%20makes%20it%20almost%20impossible%20to%20sue%20cops%20when%20they%20wail%20on%20you%20or%20even%20kill%20you%20%28in%20the%20Tahlequah%20case%20they%20killed%20a%20man%20in%20his%20own%20garage%29%20for%20little%20or%20no%20reason.Kill%20the%20power%20of%20the%20EPA%20under%20the%20Clean%20Air%20Act%20to%20regulate%20carbon%20pollution%20or%20protect%20communities%20from%20having%20their%20water%20supplies%20poisoned%20by%20industry%20seeking%20profits.%20West%20Virginia%20v%20EPA%20ended%20that%20agency%E2%80%99s%20power%20to%20regulate%20carbon%20dioxide%20in%20our%20atmosphere,%20and%20Louisiana%20v%20American%20Rivers%20handed%20polluters,%20overturning%2050%20years%20of%20precedent,%20the%20power%20to%20overrule%20states%E2%80%99%20and%20tribes%E2%80%99%20rules%20against%20pollution%20of%20their%20waterways.That%20was%20last%20year,%20and%20apparently%20it%20was%20just%20a%20warm-up:Now%20the%20Court,%20in%20addition%20to%20taking%20on%20Moore%20v%20Harper%20that%20could%20guarantee%20no%20Democrat%20in%20our%20lifetimes%20will%20ever%20again%20become%20president,%20is%20planning%20to%20take%20a%20second%20large%20bite%20out%20of%20the%20Voting%20Rights%20Act%20in%20Merrill%20v%20Mulligan.In%20Students%20for%20Fair%20Admissions%20v.%20Harvard%20and%20Students%20for%20Fair%20Admission%20v.%20University%20of%20North%20Carolina%20the%206-judge%20majority%20will%20probably%20end%20affirmative%20action.In%20Kennedy%20v.%20Bremerton%20School%20District%20the%20Court%20allowed%20a%20coach%20to%20impose%20prayer%20on%20public%20school%20students%20because%20%E2%80%9Creligious%20liberty.%E2%80%9D*Even%20as%20guns%20have%20become%20the%20leading%20cause%20of%20death%20among%20American%20children%20and%20gun-related%20crime%20is%20washing%20over%20our%20country%20like%20a%20poisonous%20bloody%20tide,%20the%20Court%20is%20preparing%20to%20unleash%20even%20more%20weapons%20on%20our%20nation%20by%20gutting%20gun%20owner%20licensure%20laws%20in%20New%20York%20State%20Rifle%20&%20Pistol%20Association%20v.%20Bruen.Virtually%20every%20one%20of%20these%20decisions%20are%20or%20will%20be%20based%20on%20the%20power%20the%20Court%20gave%20itself%20to%20overturn%20laws%20passed%20by%20Congress%20and%20signed%20by%20the%20President%20in%20its%201803%20Marbury%20v%20Madison%20case.That%20case%20caused%20such%20a%20backlash%20that%20the%20next%20time%20the%20Court%20ruled%20on%20a%20major%20constitutional%20issue%20was%20in%201856%20with%20Dred%20Scott%20v%20Sanford,%20which%20arguably%20kicked%20off%20the%20Civil%20War%20and%20President%20Lincoln%20refused%20to%20recognize.From%20the%20founding%20of%20our%20republic%20until%20the%20post-Reconstruction%20era,%20the%20Court%20rarely%20ruled%20to%20strike%20down%20or%20modified%20laws%20based%20on%20their%20reading%20of%20Constitution.%20Mostly%20it%20just%20did%20its%20job%20as%20the%20final%20court%20of%20appeals;%20after%20all,%20the%20buck%20has%20to%20stop%20somewhere.That%E2%80%99s%20how%20it%E2%80%99s%20designed%20in%20the%20Constitution:%20when%20different%20judges%20disagree%20or%20cases%20go%20back-and-forth%20on%20appeal,%20the%20Supreme%20Court%20makes%20the%20final%20decision%20about%20who%20wins%20and%20who%20loses.Back%20in%20the%20early%20days%20of%20the%20republic%20the%20Court%20was%20sometimes%20referred%20to%20as%20the%20%E2%80%9Cchickens%20and%20dogs%20court%E2%80%9D%20because%20so%20many%20cases%20had%20to%20do%20with%20disputes%20between%20farmers%20%28most%20of%20America%20was%20agricultural%20at%20the%20time%29.The%20idea%20of%20deciding%20cases%20on%20the%20basis%20of%20the%20Constitution%20was%20considered%20exotic%20or%20bizarre,%20and%20the%20idea%20of%20striking%20down%20laws%20made%20by%20Congress%20and%20signed%20by%20the%20president%20was%20so%20unthinkable%20it%20was%20only%20done%20twice%20in%20major%20cases%20during%20the%20first%20century%20of%20this%20nation%E2%80%99s%20history.When%20the%20Court%20voted%20in%201803%20to%20give%20itself%20the%20power%20to%20claim%20the%20Constitution%20as%20its%20excuse%20to%20overturn%20Congress%E2%80%99%20laws,%20then-President%20Jefferson%20reflected%20the%20outrage%20of%20the%20nation.There%20is%20literally%20nothing%20in%20the%20Constitution%20that%20gives%20the%20Supreme%20Court%20the%20exclusive%20right%20to%20decide%20what%20the%20Constitution%20says%20or%20means%20and%20impose%20it%20on%20the%20other%20two%20branches%20of%20government,%20or%20on%20the%20rest%20of%20America.%20That%20is%20a%20power%20the%20Supreme%20Court%20took%20onto%20itself%20in%20that%201803%20decision%20of%20its%20own,%20Marbury%20v%20Madison.It%20was%20such%20a%20radical%20step%20that%20it%20drove%20then-President%20Jefferson%20to%20declare:[O]ur%20Constitution%E2%80%A6has%20given%20%E2%80%94%20according%20to%20this%20opinion%20%E2%80%94%20to%20one%20of%20[the%20three%20branches%20of%20government]%20alone%20the%20right%20to%20prescribe%20rules%20for%20the%20government%20of%20the%20others;%20and%20to%20that%20one,%20too,%20which%20is%20unelected%20by%20and%20independent%20of%20the%20nation%E2%80%A6The%20Constitution,%20on%20this%20hypothesis,%20is%20a%20mere%20thing%20of%20wax%20in%20the%20hands%20of%20the%20Judiciary%20which%20they%20may%20twist%20and%20shape%20into%20any%20form%20they%20please.The%20popular%20outrage%20was%20so%20intense%20that,%20after%20that%201803%20Marbury%20decision,%20the%20Supreme%20Court%20only%20ruled%20twice%20between%20the%20founding%20of%20our%20nation%20and%20the%201860s%20on%20a%20constitutional%20issue,%20and%20in%20each%20case%20both%20Congress%20and%20the%20president%20at%20the%20time%20ignored%20the%20ruling.The%20first%20was%20President%20Andrew%20Jackson%20when%20the%20Court%20ruled%20the%20Second%20National%20Bank%20was%20constitutional%20and%20Jackson%20shut%20it%20down%20anyway,%20claiming%20it%20wasn%E2%80%99t.%20He%20said:The%20Congress,%20the%20Executive,%20and%20the%20Court%20must%20each%20for%20itself%20be%20guided%20by%20its%20own%20opinion%20of%20the%20Constitution.%20Each%20public%20officer%20who%20takes%20an%20oath%20to%20support%20the%20Constitution%20swears%20that%20he%20will%20support%20it%20as%20he%20understands%20it,%20and%20not%20as%20it%20is%20understood%20by%20others%E2%80%A6%20The%20opinion%20of%20the%20judges%20has%20no%20more%20authority%20over%20Congress%20than%20the%20opinion%20of%20Congress%20has%20over%20the%20judges,%20and%20on%20that%20point%20the%20President%20is%20independent%20of%20both.A%20generation%20later,%20President%20Abraham%20Lincoln%20chose%20to%20explicitly%20ignore%20the%20Supreme%20Court%E2%80%99s%20expansion%20of%20chattel%20slavery%20in%20its%201856%20Dred%20Scott%20v%20Sanford%20decision,%20as%20did%20Congress,%20and%20even%20went%20on%20to%20free%20enslaved%20Americans%20before%20the%20Court%20could%20weigh%20in%20again.Instead%20of%20putting%20the%20Supreme%20Court%20in%20charge%20of%20American%20laws,%20the%20Framers%20of%20the%20Constitution%20did%20the%20opposite:%20they%20put%20Congress%20in%20charge%20of%20the%20Supreme%20Court.As%20they%20wrote%20in%20Article%203,%20Section%202%20of%20the%20Constitution:[T]he%20Supreme%20Court%20shall%20have%20appellate%20jurisdiction,%20both%20as%20to%20law%20and%20fact,%20with%20such%20Exceptions,%20and%20under%20such%20Regulations%20as%20the%20Congress%20shall%20make.Republicans%20know%20this%20well.%20When%20John%20Roberts%20worked%20as%20an%20attorney%20for%20Ronald%20Reagan,%20he%20suggested%20that%20both%20Brown%20v%20Board%20and%20Roe%20v%20Wade%20could%20be%20overturned%20by%20Congress%20by%20simply%20stripping%20from%20the%20Court%20the%20power%20to%20decide%20on%20issues%20of%20race%20or%20abortion%20%28as%20I%20detail%20in%20The%20Hidden%20History%20of%20the%20Supreme%20Court%20and%20the%20Betrayal%20of%20America%29.Most%20recently,%20in%20the%20wake%20of%20the%20Obergefell%20gay%20marriage%20decision,%20Republicans%20in%20Congress%20offered%20a%20law%20stripping%20from%20the%20Court%20its%20power%20to%20rule%20that%20gay%20people%20could%20get%20married.%20The%20Marriage%20Protection%20Act,%20which%20passed%20the%20House%20of%20Representatives%20on%20July%2022,%202004%20but%20failed%20in%20the%20Senate,%20explicitly%20says:No%20court%20created%20by%20Act%20of%20Congress%20shall%20have%20any%20jurisdiction,%20and%20the%20Supreme%20Court%20shall%20have%20no%20appellate%20jurisdiction,%20to%20hear%20or%20decide%20any%20question%20pertaining%20to%20the%20interpretation%20of,%20or%20the%20validity%20under%20the%20Constitution%20of,%20section%201738C%20or%20this%20section.While%20this%20sort%20of%20court-stripping%20is%20likely%20to%20meet%20resistance%20both%20from%20Congress%20and%20from%20the%20Supreme%20Court,%20a%20much%20easier%20step%20is%20to%20simply%20reduce%20the%20power%20of%20the%20Court%20to%20go%20off%20on%20these%20wild%20excursions%20based%20on%20their%20mind-reading%20of%20the%20Founders.That%20could%20be%20accomplished%20by%20Congress%20creating%20an%20%E2%80%9Cregulation%E2%80%9D%20for%20the%20Court%20that%20says%20all%20decisions%20involving%20Constitutional%20matters%20must%20be%20decided%20by%20consensus%20%28the%20most%20strict%29%20or%20with%20no%20fewer%20than%207%20out%20of%209%20notes.Other%20options%20include%20expanding%20the%20size%20of%20the%20Court,%20term-limiting%20the%20Court,%20or%20%E2%80%94%20what%20FDR%20had%20proposed%20%E2%80%94%20moving%20all%20over-70%20justices%20%28Alito,%20Thomas,%20and%20Roberts%20in%203%20years%29%20to%20%E2%80%9Cemeritus%E2%80%9D%20status%20so%20they%20can%20continue%20to%20participate%20in%20deliberations%20but%20lose%20their%20vote%20%28or%20all%20the%20emeritus%20members%E2%80%99%20votes%20are%20consolidated%20into%20one%20when%20there%E2%80%99s%20consensus%29.Republicans%20are%20already%20talking%20out%20loud%20about%20state%20legislatures%20legally%20handing%20the%202024%20election%20to%20Trump%20or%20DeSantis%20regardless%20of%20who%20wins,%20no%20insurrection%20necessary%20this%20time,%20because%20they%E2%80%99re%20assuming%20the%20Court%20will%20rule%20their%20way.So,%20with%20Moore%20v%20Harper%20and%20even%20more%20toxic%20and%20democracy-hobbling%20or%20even%20democracy-destroying%20decisions%20coming%20before%20the%20Court,%20what%20can%20we%20do?At%20the%20very%20least,%20Congress%20should%20mandate%20that%20the%20Court%20abide%20by%20the%20same%20ethics%20rules%20that%20every%20other%20federal%20court%20and%20judge%20must%20follow,%20and%20that%20all%20arguments%20and%20decisions%20be%20televised.%20This%20would%20increase%20the%20power%20of%20dissenters%20on%20the%20Court%20and%20raise%20the%20integrity-focusing%20power%20of%20the%20spotlight%20of%20public%20opinion.All%20of%20these%20options%20are%20within%20the%20power%20of%20Congress,%20should%20it%20choose%20to%20end%20the%20filibuster%20and%20exercise%20that%20power.Whatever%20strategy%20Democratic%20leadership%20and%20the%20Biden%20administration%20choose,%20America%20is%20today%20in%20the%20midst%20of%20a%20severe%20constitutional%20crisis%20and%20action%20is%20needed%20right%20now%20or,%20at%20the%20very%20least,%20in%20the%20weeks%20immediately%20after%20this%20November%E2%80%99s%20election.If%20we%20fail,%202024%20may%20be%20this%20nation%E2%80%99s%20last%20election%20for%20president.

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The Supreme Court may be within a few months of ending democracy in the United States and turning the White House over to a group of billionaires who’ve already funded the GOP takeover of multiple state legislatures

But don’t just take my word for it. Consider these sources:

Law & Crime: Election Law Experts Sound the Alarm About ‘Extremely Dangerous’ Voting Rights Case the Supreme Court Just Agreed to Hear

Demand Justice: Republican Supreme Court to Decide If Democrats Are Allowed to Win Elections Anymore

The Atlantic: Is Democracy Constitutional?

MSNBC: Moore v. Harper Could Upend Elections as We Know Them

And Moore v Harper is just the latest in a long string of naked assaults on American democracy and the rights of average American citizens, particularly when they conflict with the rights of billionaires and giant corporations.

So, how the hell did we end up here?

Of the six-vote hard-right majority on the Supreme Court, only one of them was appointed by a president who actually won his election (Thomas: Bush Sr.). The other five were appointed by George W. Bush (lost in 2000 by about a half-million votes) and Trump (lost in 2016 by over 3 million votes).

The urgency and ferocity with which they’re ripping our Constitution to shreds seems driven by their knowledge of their own illegitimacy.

Republican appointees across our federal court system are trying to “deconstruct the administrative state” of America, to quote Steve Bannon. Most recently, the majority-Trump-appointed 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this week that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s funding mechanism is unconstitutional. That case will appear at the Supreme Court soon, in all probability.

The most concerning case right now, however, isMoore v Harper which considers the bizarre theory Trump was pushing Pence to accept, that voters don’t determine who becomes president via the Electoral College but that individual state legislatures can simply award their Electoral votes to whichever candidate strikes their fancy.

It’s loosely based on language in the Constitution, but defies two centuries of precedent and turns pretty much every part of elections over to state legislatures with no oversight whatsoever by either governors or the people, and can’t be appealed to any court, including the Supreme Court.

scotUS3 bak

Timeline...

Judge's ruling on gun serial numbers highlights 'deadly' impact of right-wing Supreme Court

John Roberts’ conservative SCOTUS majority 'rigging the docket' against voting rights: analysis

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Right-wing media attacks focus on the majority’s decision to gut the Clean Water Act

Why the 5-4 split between the concurring justices matters

Dinner at the Alitos

judge's ruling on gun serial numbers highlights 'deadly' impact of right-wing Supreme Court

Related

Activists Acquitted in Trial for Taking Piglets From Smithfield Foods

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