it is, among other things, incredibly striking to see that roberts was so solicitous of the burden the clean power plan might put on fossil fuel executives, when, a decade later, he is indifferent to the way trump’s moves have thrown hundreds of thousands of lives into turmoil.
About that Clarence Thomas speech...
Here's what the justice was really saying. And a guess at why he sounded mad.
Spoiler: He might not be getting his way in the Slaughter case.
www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
About that Clarence Thomas speech...
Here's what the justice was really saying. And a guess at why he sounded mad.
Spoiler: He might not be getting his way in the Slaughter case.
www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
Imagine meeting someone at a dinner party and being like, "hi, what do you do?" and they're like, "I manufacture litigation to stop black people from going to college."
The way Ed Blum is going after scholarships for people of color right after going after affirmative action
Like just in case Black kids still get admitted to college, he wants to make sure they can’t afford to go
ballsandstrikes.org/law-politics...
Don't forget John Eastman. He certainly is prominent.
ICYMI a SCOOP from @carolleonnig.bsky.social + me for @ms.now: The DOJ plans to release a report seeing to justify Trump’s pardons of 2 dozen anti-abortion protesters convicted of blockading abortion clinics & threatening patients/staff
We reviewed it exclusively — & found several oversights⤵️
This is the sort of clip you see in the opening minutes of a deeply dystopian film
Unlike in his first term, Trump has surrounded himself by people who enable his worst instincts and refuse to say no. Not just Bondi, but notably Hegseth too.
It makes days like today very different than last time around.
Pam Bondi was the first attorney general to operate unencumbered by any loyalty to the rule of law or any pretense of independence, writes @pemalevy.bsky.social. Instead, she was liberated to act, unabashedly, as an appendage of the president.
Bondi's disastrous tenure at DOJ shows that the unitary executive leads to incompetence, corruption, and failure.
A Justice Department carrying out the president’s personal revenge plots is ultimately an untrustworthy institution.
www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
DUAL NATIONALITY AND ELECTION RICHARD W. FLOURNOY, JR. (1921)
Just so everyone knows, the Solicitor General straight up lied about the 1921 law review article he kept talking about. quick thread:
ACLU’s Cecillia Wang didn’t respond. She just let Alito’s words hang there in the air, doing her work for her.
I think the most clarifying moment in birthright citizenship arguments was when Alito (accidentally?) acknowledged that under his/Trump's definition of the 14th Amendment, almost all children of non-citizens would not have birthright citizenship.
His rule would negate the entire project.
Among the legal minds who submitted friend of the court briefs supporting Trump’s executive order are Wurman, an ambitious young Trumpian law professor; Richard Epstein, a prolific libertarian torts expert who distinguished himself with woefully inaccurate predictions about Covid-19; and John Eastman, who has long argued for restricting birthright citizenship but earned national notoriety as the legal architect of Trump’s failed 2020 insurrection. Together, they have put forward both novel and recycled already-rejected arguments that are not only morally reprehensible but historically implausible.
Good, efficient summary by @pemalevy.bsky.social @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social: "the legal minds who submitted friend of the court briefs supporting Trump’s EO ... put forward both novel and recycled already-rejected arguments that are not only morally reprehensible but historically implausible."
Alito said maybe WKA tried to separate domiciled and assimilating Chinese immigrants from the railroad worker charicature.
Jackson says, yes, maybe the court wanted the public to accept the opinion by softening the blow at a time of anti-Chinese fervor. It could have been a PR move, not a legal one
Incredible moment here in which Alito puts forward a reason to believe Wong Kim Ark mentions domicile so much, seemingly trying to help Trump admin, and Justice Jackson seizes on it as a great reason that this does not undermine birthright citizenship.
Sotomayor brings up the obvious - and terrifying - truth that if Trump wins, he, or another president, or Congress, could go around stripping citizenship from untold numbers of people based on the immigration status of their ancestors.
Sauer said that even enslaved people trafficked to the US illegally where then expected to stay. I'm pretty sure I read in the amicus briefs that many were actually deported, and that Congress even set aside funds for these deportations.
Anyone remember which brief that was?
Alito looks like the first justice to show sympathy with Trump admin's attempt to restrict birthright citizenship. And he does it by buying this very silly argument.
The Supreme Court will hear arguments over Trump's attempt to restrict birthright citizenship tomorrow.
Why the government's case is based on a house of cards, with
@isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social
www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
The birthright citizenship case isn't just an academic exercise.
It's about what kind of a country we live in, and the consequences will be felt by everyone. It will make us a sicker, poorer, fundamentally unequal society. Here's just a few of the ways:
www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
Trump's birthright citizenship order seeks to literally end the American dream. Will people be able to work hard and make a life for themselves, judged by their own abilities?
Or will they inherit a permanent second-class status from their parents?
www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
The birthright citizenship case isn't just an academic exercise.
It's about what kind of a country we live in, and the consequences will be felt by everyone. It will make us a sicker, poorer, fundamentally unequal society. Here's just a few of the ways:
www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
Finally finished reading Chiles v. Salazar.
I'm struck by how the majority refers to the conversion therapy here as “voluntary counseling conversations” with "consenting clients."
This was a case about minors. Are kids really always voluntary and consenting clients? Seems like obviously not.
Perhaps the best refutation of Wurman's position is the ultimate timidity of his own amicus brief before the Supreme Court. In public and on social media, Wurman is uncompromising in his views. But in the final analysis, synthesizing his best arguments for the nine justices, Wurman's brief oozes with self-doubt. His conclusions are tempered by words like "likely," and questions on which he is strident in public are described as "difficult." His key claim that undocumented parents are not subject to the United States' complete jurisdiction is reduced to a suggestion: "Whether unlawfully present aliens are subject to the complete jurisdiction of the United States is less clear, but three reasons suggest they are not." His contention that temporary visitors were excluded from birthright citizenship becomes "at best unsettled." "The Wurman brief," as one amicus brief against the government noted, "deserves plaudits for the candid way that it highlights the weaknesses of its own argument."
damn @pemalevy.bsky.social
brilliant by @pemalevy.bsky.social @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social
The Wurman amicus “oozes with self-doubt”
Wurman public statements wildly overstate research
NYTimes called out for indulging hackery for clicks
Intellectual fraud on a mass scale
www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
