After the recent leak of Samuel Alito’s draft decision, the Supreme Court Building was surrounded by security fencing to prevent the Justices from breaking out and inflicting further damage.
_________________________
Short link: https://wp.me/p6sb6-yZ3
Photo by Victoria Pickering via Flickr (CC 2.0 license).
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Roberts is shocked – shocked! — that a draft of the impending ruling on a Mississippi abortion case has been leaked to the press. Conservatives are calling the leak an act of treasonous insurrection, a subject they certainly know lots about.
Fact is, the leak is by no means unprecendented. Even the Roe decision, which this court seems bent on negating, was leaked. Warren Burger, then Chief Justice, demanded to know who had leaked the information and threatened to give all the Court’s clerks lie-detector tests:
“Clerks, justices, and other people with access to information have leaked about Bush v. Gore, the Affordable Healthcare Act, and—now—the overturning of Roe, just as in the 19th century, the court leaked information about its ruling in the Pennsylvania v. Wheeling and Belmont Bridge Company case. …. Despite all the Court’s august solemnity, full-time reporters covering it are able to break news about it and its inner workings—including, at times, in highly-detailed behind-the-scenes books—because people up to and including the justices leak.”
— “The Supreme Court Leaks All the Time,” Matthew Gault, Vice [links added]
Related:
“Newsmax Host Suggests Ketanji Brown Jackson, Who Isn’t On Supreme Court Yet, Leaked Draft,”
Elise Foley, HuffPost
_______________
Short link: https://wp.me/p6sb6-yYx
Top: Official US Supreme Court photo
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
The annual Right to Meddle in Women’s Lives demonstration was held in Washington DC last Friday, sponsored by the Zygote Liberation Front and the Committee to Restrict Women’s Health Care, or something like that. Theme of this year’s pep rally was “Equality Begins in the Womb,” a bid to promote fetal personhood and negate the human rights of the, um, womb-owners. This biology-denying sect is said to have infiltrated the federal judicial branch recently.
More:
“Anti-Abortion Marchers Gather With an Eye on the Supreme Court,” Kate Zernike and Madeleine Ngo, New York Times
“As March for Life returns to D.C., antiabortion activists wonder: Is this the last march under Roe?” Casey Parks, Washington Post
Related:
“Catholic pro-choice activists project messages onto DC basilica in protest,” by Jack Jenkins, RNS, via National Catholic Reporter
“White nationalists are flocking to the US anti-abortion movement,” Moira Donegan, The Guardian
“‘You never forget it’: These are the stories of life before Roe v. Wade transformed America,” Shefali Luthra, The 19th
___________________
Short Link: https://wp.me/p6sb6-yFg
Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
The Supreme Court will begin hearing cases again on October 4th, the first Monday in October, while 2021 NCAA fall sports seasons are well under way. A spring SCOTUS opinion by Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh suggests the court and the “amateur sports” monopoly may have a showdown before June.
“Nowhere else in America can businesses get away with agreeing not to pay their workers a fair market rate on the theory that their product is defined by not paying their workers a fair market rate,” Kavanaugh wrote. “And under ordinary principles of antitrust law, it is not evident why college sports should be any different. The NCAA is not above the law.”
More:
How US college sport became an $8bn inequity racket. And why it may fall,” Bryan Armen Graham, The Guardian
________________
Short link: https://wp.me/p6sb6-xpM
Top image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
How should we interpret the 2nd Amendment? If only Antonin Scalia had not been on his high school rifle team …. A Washington Post video by Daron Taylor and Joyce Koh.
_____________
Short link: https://wp.me/p6sb6-wnH
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, in the dark of night, the Supreme Court decided that during the Coronavirus pandemic, which has killed over 260,000 Americans, places of worship are free to pack the house in sabbath superspreading events. The deciding vote was by Trump appointee and cult member Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who must have a fondness for the traditional Requiem Mass. You may recall that the president’s Rose Garden “reveal party” for Mrs. Barrett’s SCOTUS nomination was itself a superspreading event.
More:
“Supreme Court’s conservatives reject COVID restrictions on New York houses of worship,” David G. Savage, Los Angeles Times
“Justices lift New York’s COVID-related attendance limits on worship services,” Amy Howe, SCOTUS Blog
“Supreme Court backs religious groups on New York coronavirus restrictions,” Rebecca Falconer, Axios
“Major shift at Supreme Court on Covid-19 orders,” Josh Gerstein, Politico
“In Covid-19 regulations case, Sotomayor dissent claps back at Supreme Court majority,” Raul A. Reyes, NBC News
Updates:
“Pastor of California Megachurch That Defied Lockdown Order Dies of COVID-19,” Rachel Olding, Daily Beast
“Supreme Court sides with California church protesting coronavirus restrictions,” Robert Barnes, Washington Post
“Brooklyn diocese cheers ruling barring Cuomo’s houses of worship limits,” Lia Eustachewich, New York Post
____________________________
Short link: https://wp.me/p6sb6-w8z
Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg rests at the Supreme Court Portico.
__________________
Short link: https://wp.me/p6sb6-vG1
Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
President Donald Trump, commited opportunist, has pledged to nominate a new Supreme Court Justice this week, six weeks before the presidential election. He expects the Republican toadies of the Senate to confirm his pick with all unseemly haste before November 3rd, Election Day.
Mr. Trump has vowed to nominate a woman to replace Justice Ginsburg, and the former reality TV host is drumming up the drama of his choice before Saturday’s big reveal. He likes surprise endings, so Judge Jeanine Pirro cannot be ruled out, but betting favors other candidates. Front runners include U.S. Appeals Court Judges Amy Coney Barrett, Joan Larsen, Britt Grant, Joan Larsen, Allison Eid, and Allison Jones Rushing and Florida Supreme Court Judge Barbara Lagoa. We certainly hope Mr. Trump has their husbands’ permission.
White House staff hope to restrain President Trump’s tendency to decide on woman candidates through swimsuit cometitions.
There are two real reasons why Mr. Trump is nominating a Supreme Court Justice mere weeks before an election, and neither is about conservative principles, since the man has no principles, conservative or otherwise:
1. He desperately needs to divert voters’ attention from the COVID-19 pandemic and his disasterous negligence that has killed 200,000 Americans; and
2. He is likely to be indicted for corrupt business practices, tax fraud, and corruption in office, and hopes to keep himself and his spawn out of prison by filling the high court with Trump-appointed judges.
__________________
Short link: https://wp.me/p6sb6-vFr
Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
On Thursday, in a literal 11th-hour brief, an hour before a midnight deadline, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to invalidate the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, and strip healthcare from 23 million Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thursday also marked the largest single-day increase in diagnosed Coronavirus cases in the U.S. to date, the day when the CDC admitted that coronavirus cases may be 10 times higher than reported.
More:
“Trump Administration Asks Supreme Court to Strike Down Affordable Care Act,” Sheryl Gay Stolberg, New York Times
“Trump administration asks Supreme Court to strike down Obamacare,” Meagan Flynn and Tim Elfrink, Washington Post
“Trump, Intent on Self-Destruction, Asks Supreme Court to Kill Obamacare,” Ed Kilgore, New York Magazine
Update:
“Obamacare Versus the G.O.P. Zombies,” Paul Krugman, New York Times
________________________
Short Link: https://wp.me/p6sb6-v3K
Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
Mark Judge and “Squi” didn’t show up, but Justice Brett Kavanaugh hung out at Georgetown Prep’s Reunion last weekend, attending Friday’s Stag Night and the Homecoming game on Saturday. There was plenty of beer, but not for the judge:
“At one point during the football game, Justice Kavanaugh prepared to pose for a picture with former classmates. First, though, he instructed everyone to put down their beers, according to a person who witnessed the exchange (Justice Kavanaugh didn’t appear to be drinking.). “
— “Back at Georgetown Prep, Kavanaugh Is Hailed as a Hero,” Kate Kelly, New York Times
More:
“Justice Brett Goes To High School Reunion, Class Praised For Its ‘Loyalty,’” Elie Mystal, Above the Law
_______________
Short link: https://wp.me/p6sb6-sqX
Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
Add to: Facebook | Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumbleupon | Reddit | Blinklist | Twitter | Technorati | Yahoo Buzz | Newsvine
NotionsCapital 