Hey, friends. This hellsite has become too toxic for me.
I will still occasionally tweet links to my work here, but I don't anticipate having much to say on Elon's Twitter until the banks foreclose on it and install new management.
Please come find me on Zuck's Twitter.
One takeaway from today's debacle of a Supreme Court argument is Democrats need to start seriously considering packing the Supreme Court.
A Court that would allow Donald Trump to get away with trying to steal a presidential election cannot be trusted.
On Monday, the Supreme Court effectively eliminated the right to hold a Black Lives Matter protest in three US states.
On Tuesday, the same justices were very, very afraid that January 6 insurrectionists are being treated unfairly.
I'm not saying that the GOP-controlled Supreme Court is laying the groundwork for an authoritarian takeover of the United States.
But if they are, this is what it looks like.
Thanks to a decision by the Supreme Court today, it is no longer safe to organize a political protest in the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, or Texas.
"There’s been a long-running debate ... as to whether Trump can reasonably be described as a fascist. Between his increasingly fascist rhetoric and increasingly fascist second-term policy proposals, the debate should now be considered settled."
I'm not saying that the Supreme Court dropped this nightmarish, horribly cruel abortion order at the same time that they dropped the Trump order so no one would notice. But SCOTUS also dropped a nightmarish, horribly cruel abortion order tonight.
My friends, the Judge Fairy is not going to wave its magic wand and save us from Donald Trump.
Fascism in the United States will be defeated, if it is defeated at all, at the ballot box.
I am begging my fellow journalists to please follow ethical guidelines regarding suicide, and please do not cover a certain recent event in a way that is likely to lead to suicide contagion.
Today is a good day to remind folks that the judiciary has historically been the most reactionary institution in US government. And the Supreme Court routinely sides with authoritarian movements even when the Constitution's text explicitly says otherwise.
Inside me there are two wolves, a lawyer who reads the Constitution and finds that it bans Trump from office, and a jaded political analyst who knows there's no fucking chance SCOTUS will save us from Trump and we should all stop living in fantasy land.
I wrote about "Chevron deference," and why you should care that the Republican Supreme Court is poised to make a massive power grab that will make the entire government shittier.
Two takeaways from today's SCOTUS argument on whether Trump can run for president:
1) Trump's lawyer was AWFUL. One of the worst performances I've ever seen in a case this important.
2) It won't matter, and Trump will win anyway.
By a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court just ruled that federal law still applies in Texas. The Supreme Court says no, Texas can’t use razor wire to restrain federal agents
My biggest fear in Trump's criminal trial is the Rodney King effect. Finding a panel of jurors who don't already think Trump is guilty likely means finding a panel of unusually pro-Trump jurors.
The Supreme Court spent this morning debating whether they should put themselves in charge of everything.
It went slightly less badly than I thought it would.
There are now quite a few signs that the judiciary's center-right (by which I mean, non-MAGA, Mitch McConnell-like Republicans) is fed up with the judiciary's far right.
“When powerful political movements conflict, the [Supreme] Court honors the law maybe some of the time. And it is just as likely to align itself with an authoritarian faction as it is to choose the rule of law.”
I wrote about the core dilemma facing the justices in the Trump ballot disqualification case.
It’s nearly impossible to imagine this Republican Supreme Court ruling against Trump. But his brief is awful and gives the GOP justices little to work with.
@joshtpm
FWIW, I don’t think “Cannon is a MAGA hack” and “Cannon is too inexperienced” are mutually exclusive explanations for her behavior. Plenty of hack judges out there, but the experienced ones normally do a better job of picking their spots.
So, if you are looking for happy news, the Supreme Court case asking if wife-beaters have a Second Amendment right to own a gun went about as well as it could have for the battered women that the Fifth Circuit's decision would have killed.
FWIW, I think the Colorado Supreme Court decision kicking Trump off the ballot is wrongly decided.
He should be kicked off if he is convicted of trying to steal the 2020 election. But Colorado's process was inadequate.
Earlier today I published a piece that was very critical of Barrett's border opinion.
A few hours later, the Fifth Circuit issued an order which suggests that her opinion will have more mixed results than I initially thought. So I've updated my piece.
SCOTUS has sat on a huge abortion case for a month now.
Federal law requires most hospitals to perform abortions if necessary to protect the patient's health. Idaho wants SCOTUS to neutralize that law, at least with respect to abortions.
“A written Constitution and the courts that are supposed to enforce it are weak guarantors of a liberal democratic society.”
I have some thoughts on the Supreme Court order sabotaging Trump’s election theft trial.
A year-and-a-half after Dobbs, the Supreme Court is finally taking up the question of whether there is a right to have an abortion when a patient needs one to prevent catastrophic health consequences.
@transscribe
O'Connor? Tipton? Pitman? Hendrix?
The short answer is there are still a lot of terrible judges, and Republicans still have a fairly high likelihood of drawing one if they sue in a Texas federal court. But they can no longer choose the specific judge who will hear their case.
This is my explainer on the Supreme Court's abortion pills case.
There are many explainers on the Supreme Court's abortion pills case, but this one is mine.
I wrote about the big looming question now that the DC Circuit has ruled that Trump is not immune from prosecution...
Will the Supreme Court sabotage Jack Smith's prosecution even more by agreeing to hear this case?
I hated everything about the Supreme Court's arguments today in two massive cases about free speech online, and so should everyone else unless they are lawyers for the plaintiffs in this case.
Like, seriously, if I’d put this argument in a brief and signed my name to it, I would expect my law license to be so embarrassed that it would quietly ghost me and I’d never see it again.
Today, Trump's lawyers will ask the Supreme Court to delay his election theft trial indefinitely.
They will frame this case as a constitutional case about presidential immunity. Ignore that noise. The only real issue is whether SCOTUS delays his trial.
@aseitzwald
My serious answer to this question is that America’s two party system poorly serves big cities where the GOP is anathema. There is a real desire for a more-conservative-than-the-Democrat option in many cities. But there’s no institution to screen and provide such candidates.
@steve_vladeck
Ah, I see that Texas attacked a piece of permanent legislation attached to the bill.
Sucks for SCOTUS that they're going to have to waste time reversing this decision after the Fifth Circuit affirms. I hope that, at some point, Brett and Amy get sick of dealing with cranks.
@joshtpm
Agreed. I think law professors often have a particular blind spot. Over 99% of legal questions aren’t really politically contested, and most lawyers will never touch the really partisan cases. So every prof’s job is to teach their students to argue like politics doesn’t exist.
I wrote about Greg Abbott's attempt to use a temporary surge in migrants entering the United States to convince his fellow Republicans on the Supreme Court to rewrite the Constitution.
Highlight of today's oral argument in the wealth tax case was Brett (somewhat diplomaticaly) telling Sammy to STFU.
Another highlight was Amy telling Neil to STFU.