SCOTUS

[RVInit]

Just want to say I hate these freaking people. Not all of them, just six of them. Those six absolutely disgust me.

If Biden wins election he should throw all caution to the wind and add a shit ton of people to the freaking court. Fuck them. Democrats no longer need to take it up the rear end.

Sorry, I'm in a mood and may end up sorry I said that. I'm so damn mad I could spit on my own floor. And I've never spit on my own floor. I've just had it. I won't post any more today. I'm too pissed off.

[p0rtia]

[p0rtia]

https://www.supremecourt.gov/contact/contactus.aspx

[raison de arizona]

@RepRaskin: "When conservative Republicans want some fast action, as in Bush vs. Gore or the challenge to the student loan debt forgiveness policies of the Biden administration, the conservative Supreme Court justices move with Josh Hawley-type speed to make it happen."

[raison de arizona]

Yes, that is super f#$ked up.

So the wife of a Supreme Court justice texted this after the election, urging an overthrow of our election….and her husband gets to decide on the Trump immunity case?

Is that not super fckd up?!

[sad-cafe]

Just want to say I hate these freaking people. Not all of them, just six of them. Those six absolutely disgust me.

If Biden wins election he should throw all caution to the wind and add a shit ton of people to the freaking court. Fuck them. Democrats no longer need to take it up the rear end.

Sorry, I'm in a mood and may end up sorry I said that. I'm so damn mad I could spit on my own floor. And I've never spit on my own floor. I've just had it. I won't post any more today. I'm too pissed off.

1000000000000%

Right there with you!

[raison de arizona]

They also had a chance to uphold the finding that Trump was an oath-breaking insurrectionist disqualified from holding office again but ducked that constitutionally mandated conclusion as well. So they spoke where silence was required & were silent when duty called for courage.

I had predicted that requiring congressional enforcement was the likely off-ramp & SCOTUS took it

But don’t overlook the other major headline: they had the chance to repudiate the finding that Trump was an insurrectionist

They didn’t! I explain @cnni @BeckyCNN

[RTH10260]

Supreme Court rejects Colorado ruling, keeps Trump on ballot nationwide
While the decision was unanimous, the liberal justices wrote a sharp concurrence that accused the conservative majority of going further than needed

By Ann E. Marimow
Updated March 4, 2024 at 5:49 p.m. EST|Published March 4, 2024 at 10:01 a.m. EST

The Supreme Court on Monday unanimously sided with former president Donald Trump, allowing the 2024 Republican presidential front-runner to remain on the election ballot and reversing a Colorado ruling that disqualified him from returning to office because of his conduct around the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The justices said the Constitution does not permit a single state to disqualify a presidential candidate from national office. The court warned of disruption and a chaotic state-by-state patchwork if a candidate for nationwide office could be declared ineligible in some states, but not others, based on the same conduct.

“Nothing in the Constitution requires that we endure such chaos — arriving at any time or different times, up to and perhaps beyond the inauguration,” the court said in an unsigned, 13-page opinion.

The court’s decision to keep Trump on the ballot applies to other states with similar challenges to his candidacy and, for now, removes the Supreme Court from directly determining the path of the 2024 presidential election.

While the decision was unanimous, the court’s three liberal justices also wrote separately, saying the conservative majority went too far and decided an issue that was not before the court in an attempt to “insulate all alleged insurrectionists from future challenges to their holding office.”


https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... -decision/
share link https://wapo.st/49WwC55

[RTH10260]

Brett Kavanaugh knows truth of alleged sexual assault, Christine Blasey Ford says in book
In memoir, professor whose accusation rocked 2018 supreme court hearings says rightwing justice not ‘consummately honest person’

Martin Pengelly in Washington
Wed 13 Mar 2024 08.00 CET

The US supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh is not a “consummately honest person” and “must know” what really happened on the night more than 40 years ago when he allegedly sexually assaulted Christine Blasey Ford, his accuser writes in an eagerly awaited memoir.

A research psychologist from northern California, Ford was thrust into the spotlight in September 2018 as Kavanaugh, a Bush aide turned federal judge, became Donald Trump’s second conservative court nominee. Her allegations almost derailed Kavanaugh’s appointment and created headlines around the world.

Ford’s memoir, One Way Back, will be published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.

“The fact is, he was there in the room with me that night in 1982,” Ford writes. “And I believe he knows what happened. Even if it’s hazy from the alcohol, I believe he must know.

“Once he categorically denied my allegations as well as any bad behavior from his past during a Fox News interview, I felt more certainty than ever that after my experience with him, he had not gone on to become the consummately honest person befitting a supreme court justice.”



https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... al-assault

[Volkonski]

In shadow of Trump tweets, Supreme Court outlines when officials can be sued for social media use
Former President Donald Trump’s frequent use of Twitter lurked in the background as the justices weighed whether an official’s online activities can constitute government action.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/suprem ... rcna135128

The Supreme Court ruled Friday that members of the public in some circumstances can sue public officials for blocking them on social media platforms, deciding a pair of cases against the backdrop of former President Donald Trump’s contentious and colorful use of Twitter.

The court ruled unanimously that officials can be deemed "state actors" when making use of social media and can therefore face litigation if they block or mute a member of the public.

In the two cases before the justices, they ruled that disputes involving a school board member in Southern California and a city manager in Michigan should be sent back to lower courts for the new legal test to be applied.

In a ruling written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the court acknowledged that it "can be difficult to tell whether the speech is official or private" because of how social media accounts are used.

The court held that conduct on social media can be viewed as a state action when the official in question "possessed actual authority to speak on the state's behalf" and "purported to exercise that authority."

While the officials in both cases have low profiles, the ruling will apply to all public officials who use social media to engage with the public.

[Rolodex]

Oh boy time to start archiving all the stupid things our AL pols post.

It comes too late, but our former Sec of State blocked a friend on twitter. He's out of office (an affair took him down and he didn't like being tweeted at about it) and friend has since died but she would all over this.

[Volkonski]

Brett Kavanaugh rides to the Biden administration’s defense in a big First Amendment case
The Supreme Court’s center right appears increasingly frustrated with the judiciary’s far right.

https://www.vox.com/scotus/2024/3/18/24 ... -jawboning

On Monday, the Supreme Court held oral arguments in one of these Fifth Circuit cases, known as Murthy v. Missouri, where the lower court handed down a sweeping injunction forbidding much of the federal government from having any communications at all with social media companies. A majority of the justices appeared very unlikely to sustain that injunction on Monday, with Justice Brett Kavanaugh repeatedly noting that the Fifth Circuit’s approach would prevent the most routine interactions between government officials and the media.



Justices Elena Kagan and Kavanaugh seemed especially frustrated with the Fifth Circuit’s attempt to shut down communication between the government and the platforms, and for the same reason. Both Kagan and Kavanaugh worked in high-level White House jobs — Kagan as deputy domestic policy adviser to President Bill Clinton, and Kavanaugh as staff secretary to President George W. Bush — and both recoiled at the suggestion that the White House can’t try to persuade the media to change what it publishes.

Indeed, Kavanaugh, a Republican appointed by Donald Trump, even rose to the government’s defense after Justice Samuel Alito attacked Biden administration officials who, Alito claimed, were too demanding toward the platforms.

After Alito ranted about what he called “constant pestering” by White House officials who would sometimes “curse” at corporate officials or treat them like “subordinates,” Kavanaugh said that, in his experience, White House press aides often call up members of the media and “berate” them if they don’t like the press’s coverage.

Similarly, Kagan admitted that “like Justice Kavanaugh, I’ve had experience encouraging people to suppress their own speech” after a journalist published a bad editorial or a piece with a factual error. But this sort of routine back-and-forth between White House officials and reporters is not a First Amendment violation unless there is some kind of threat or coercion. Why should the rule be any different for social media companies?

[northland10]

I always take possible positions discerned from SCOTUS oral arguments with a grain of salt. Their questions do not always point to their actual opinions during the hearing. They will sometimes ask questions to get the parties to flesh out their arguments better, regardless of whether the justice actually agrees with the possible opinion that bases their question.

Playing devil's advocate can be helpful in establishing a well-supported opinion.

Disclaimer, IANAL.

[raison de arizona]

Retired Justice Stephen Breyer Has a Stark Warning for Today’s Supreme Court
In a new book and interview, he says conservative justices’ approach can’t serve the country and is doomed to fail.

https://apple.news/AYXOuWmCMSE-Y_UmHicFs9g
Original Politico

[AndyinPA]

Good interview. Thanks.

[RTH10260]

Opinion piece

For the sake of all of us, Sonia Sotomayor needs to retire from the US supreme court
She’s been described as the ‘conscience of the supreme court’. That’s why it pains me to write this

Mehdi Hasan
Mon 1 Apr 2024 12.13 CEST

Forget Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It is Sonia Sotomayor who is the greatest liberal to sit on the supreme court in my adult lifetime. The first Latina to hold the position of justice, she has blazed a relentlessly progressive trail on the highest bench in the land.

Whether it was her lone dissent in a North Carolina voting rights case in 2016 (“the court’s conclusion … is a fiction”); her ingenious referencing of Ta-Nehisi Coates, James Baldwin and WEB DuBois in another 2016 dissent over unreasonable searches and seizures; or her withering observation at the Dobbs oral argument in 2021 (“Will this institution survive the stench that this creates in the public perception that the constitution and its reading are just political acts?”), Sotomayor has stood head and shoulders above both her liberal and conservative colleagues on the bench for the past 15 years.

And so it is with good reason that she has been called the “conscience of the supreme court” (The Nation), “the truth teller of the supreme court” (New York Times) and “the real liberal queen of the court” (Above the Law).

I happen to agree 100% with all of those descriptions. But – and it pains me to write these words – I also believe it is time for Justice Sotomayor to retire.

Why?

Okay, now it is time to remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg. To recall how RBG, who had survived two bouts of cancer, refused to quit the court despite calls to do so from leading liberals during Barack Obama’s second term office. To hark back to her insistence, in multiple interviews, that it was “misguided” to insist she retire and that she would only stand down “when it’s time”. To recollect how, on her deathbed in 2020, she told her granddaughter that her “most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed” – and how it made no difference whatsoever! Donald Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett as RBG’s replacement just eight days after her death, and Senate Republicans confirmed Barrett to RBG’s vacant seat just eight days before election day.

With Joe Biden trailing Trump in several swing states and Democrats also in danger of losing their razor-thin majority in the Senate, are we really prepared for history to repeat itself? Sotomayor will turn 70 in June. Of course, only Sotomayor knows the full status of her health, still it is public knowledge that she has had type 1 diabetes since she was seven; had paramedics called to her home; and is the only sitting justice to have, reportedly, traveled with a medic. To be clear: she could easily – and God willing – survive a potential Trump second term and still be dishing out dissents from the bench come 2029.



https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... reme-court

[raison de arizona]

Hopefully voters will remember who saddled us with these douche canoes, and what is likely to happen if more vacancies appear.
https://x.com/joncoopertweets/status/17 ... 4681440726

Lying liars who lied.

#RoevemberIsComing

[AndyinPA]

https://apnews.com/article/supreme-cour ... c7dd3398e6

WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was absent from the court Monday with no explanation.

Thomas, 75, also was not participating remotely in arguments, as justices sometimes do when they are ill or otherwise can’t be there in person.

Chief Justice John Roberts announced Thomas’ absence, saying that his colleague would still participate in the day’s cases, based on the briefs and transcripts of the arguments. The court sometimes, but not always, says when a justice is out sick.

Thomas was hospitalized two years ago with an infection, causing him to miss several court sessions. He took part in the cases then, too.

[Slim Cognito]

Don't tease me.

[Ben-Prime]

It would be the height of poetic justice if for some reason or another (i.e., NADT), President Biden got to fill that seat this year.

[RTH10260]

BUT... But... but.... that's treason, it cannot be allowed in an election year

[Ben-Prime]

BUT... But... but.... that's treason, it cannot be allowed in an election year

I believe in the case of McConnell v Common Decency, it was firmly established that if the same party holds both the White House and the Senate during an a election year, that's a loophole in the unwritten laws on Treason.

[AndyinPA]

Sorry.

https://apnews.com/article/supreme-cour ... 34f7a6f5eb

WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is back on the bench after an unexplained one-day absence.

Thomas, 75, was in his usual seat, to the right of Chief Justice John Roberts as the court met to hear arguments in a case about the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

Thomas has ignored calls from some progressive groups to step aside from cases involving Jan. 6 because his wife, Ginni, attended then-President Donald Trump’s rally near the White House before protesters descended on the Capitol. Ginni Thomas, a conservative activist, also texted senior Trump administration officials in the weeks after the election offering support and reiterating her belief that there was widespread fraud in the election.

On Monday, Roberts announced Thomas’ absence, without providing an explanation. Justices sometimes miss court, but participate remotely. Thomas did not take part in Monday’s arguments.

[sugar magnolia]

This whole conflict of interest thing just pisses me off. It seems like that would be a no-brainer for him to recuse, but he's above all that I guess.

I'm on a grant panel for a State arts organization and we had to fill out conflict of interest forms this morning. I'm definitely conflicted out of one grant because I'm on the Board of the organization that applied for it, but I'm waiting to hear about the second one. My only interaction with them has been as a paid judge/teacher at their annual quilt show. If the grant board says I'm conflicted, I just mosey on to the other 19 grants and not act like an asshole and ignore or argue with them. That's how normal people conduct their business.

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

Thomas has to deliver for his customers.