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#scotus

24 posts17 participants1 post today

#SCOTUS signaled Monday it is poised to side with Catholic Charities in a dispute over whether religiously affiliated groups are entitled to an exemption from certain state taxes, a decision that could expand the types of groups that would receive a break under the First Amendment”

cnn.com/2025/03/31/politics/su

CNN · Supreme Court likely to side with Catholic Charities seeking exemption from state taxesBy John Fritze
Replied in thread

@gleick Well, #scotus doesn't seem to have a problem with bribery as such, does it?

#citizenunited on one hand, and then there was in the past years I think at least some verdicts that narrowed the scope and made prosecution harder.

And yes, it seems roughly half of the voters don't care at all?

Replied in thread

@mark @talia_christine

As I've said elsewhere, this is the most judicially activist #SCOTUS in history. It has outright voided part of Art2§4 already, and neutered part of the 14th Amendment.

Everyone has this idea that they are textualists or originalists. But no originalist would have ignored #AlexanderHamilton's Federalist 69.

They're judicial activists, happy to be erroneously viewed by everyone as entirely the opposite.

Not good

The United States Court of Appeals for DC has cleared the way for #Trump to fire members of the National #Labor Relations Board #NLRB & the Merit Systems Protection Board #MSPB, essentially granting Trump authority over formerly "independent" parts of the executive branch.

Judge Millet dissented saying the decision overturned #SCOTUS precedent & disabled the boards from functioning while the case proceeds.

#law #watchdog #whistleblower #USpol
storage.courtlistener.com/reca

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So what's a fascist party to do when they've already said the courts don't have authority over them, they intend to ignore court rulings, and they want to impeach federal judges who won't play fascist Calvinball for them, but the injunctions and restraining orders keep coming anyway? Apparently, if you're noted Christian Nationalist, GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson, the answer is to threaten to dissolve the courts entirely.

truthout.org/articles/mike-joh

"Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson (Louisiana) suggested on Tuesday that Congress might move to dismantle certain federal courts following at least 15 nationwide injunctions imposed by judges against executive orders issued by President Donald Trump.

“We do have the authority over the federal courts, as you know. We can eliminate an entire district court,” Johnson told reporters. “We have power of funding over the courts and all these other things. But desperate times call for desperate measures, and Congress is going to act.”

Look, by no means am I saying that I'm *against* taking the fascist Trump regime to court, to try and block as much of their techbro monachist/fundie/nazi (depends on the moment with these guys) program. What I'm saying however is that waiting around to see if you'll still have human, civil, and political rights after a long protracted legal battle, while the regime continues to install a fascist dicatorship in the meantime, is an incredibly shortsighted plan of action; and yet it seems to be the one much of the liberal establishment is adopting at the moment. This is particularly true when in so much as the regime is willing to acknowledge the authority of courts at all, it's so they can issue an emergency appeal to a 6-3 fascist high Supreme Court that already gave us nonsensical fascist Calvinball rulings like Dobbs, Chevron, and Trump v. United States.

"The Trump administration has attempted to bypass, circumvent, and even dismantle the judiciary in various ways since taking over the White House.

For instance, in response to federal judges restraining or enjoining many of Trump’s executive orders, the administration has increasingly turned to the Supreme Court with emergency appeals to overturn unfavorable rulings. Emergency applications typically request swift judicial intervention, claiming urgency to prevent significant harm or injustice.

“The Trump administration has now filed six emergency applications at #SCOTUS challenging rulings by six different federal district judges spread across five different federal district courts,” Steve Vladeck, author of The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings to Amass Power and Undermine the Republic, said on Bluesky. “Maybe it’s not the judges who are ‘rogue’?”

Given all that, I think waiting on courts that literally cannot enforce their rulings without the backing of security forces wholly controlled by the Trump regime, and might get overruled anyway if guys like Sam Alito can find a amusing way to say Trump is God Emperor now, to start resisting fascism by any means necessary is a catastrophically bad plan; which stands to reason, because this is the same liberal establishment that by and large thought it would be a good idea to help Trump win the 2016 GOP primary contest because he'd be so "easy to beat."

We can have a debate till we're blue in the face about whether or not we're in a Constitutional Crisis yet; but nothing about that debate is going to change the fact that we're clearly in the middle of a fascist takeover by billionaire nazis, Christian Nationalists, and corrupt as fuck winger politicians, even SCOTUS judges, willing to pretend all of this is legal so long as the bribe monies are on time. The time to fight back, in government, in the media, and in the streets, is now. Waiting for the courts to solve the problem isn't a strategy, it's complicity.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson speaks during a news conference following a closed-door meeting with House Republicans, at the Republican National Committee office on Capitol Hill on March 25, 2025, in Washington, D.C.
Truthout · Mike Johnson Suggests Eliminating Federal Courts After Trump Rulings Blocked“We can eliminate an entire district court,” Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters.
#Fascism#Courts#GOP

Update

#SCOTUS has now scheduled Wed, April 2, as an opinion day [it had been an argument day].

That means we can expect one or more decisions in argued cases from this term next week.

Continued thread

The #DOJ in a filing asked #SCOTUS to lift DC-based US District Judge James #Boasberg's March 15 order calling for a temporary halt of the summary removals of the #Venezuelans while a legal challenge to #Trump’s invocation of the #AlienEnemiesAct to justify the #deportations plays out. The 18th century #law historically has been used only in wartime [& expressly states the #US must be at #war w/a foreign #nation for its use].

#immigration #DueProcess #CivilRights
documentcloud.org/documents/25

www.documentcloud.org24A931
Continued thread

#NY has a #ShieldLaw that is intended to protect #AbortionProviders who send medications to patients in other states.

New York is 1 of 8 states that have enacted “telemedicine abortion shield laws” after #SCOTUS overturned the national right to an #abortion in 2022. The laws prevent ofcls from extraditing abortion providers to other states or from responding to subpoenas & other #legal actions…

The action by the NY court is the first time that an abortion shield law has been used.

A #NY state court on Thurs blocked #Texas from filing a legal action against a NY #doctor for prescribing & sending #abortion pills to a TX woman.

The unprecedented move catapults the interstate abortion wars to a new level, setting the stage for a high-stakes legal battle between states that ban abortion & states that support #AbortionRights.

The dispute is widely expected to reach #SCOTUS, pitting TX, which has a near-total #AbortionBan, against NY.

#law
nytimes.com/2025/03/27/health/

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks to a crowd of anti-abortion supporters outside the U.S. Supreme Court.
The New York Times · New York Court Blocks Texas From Filing Summons Against Doctor Over Abortion PillsBy Pam Belluck
Replied in thread

@Frau_Sofa Grober Fehler in deinem Toot. #Trump ist gerade dabei die USA in einen Führer-Staat umzubauen. Was dann auch umgangssprachlich als Faschismus bezeichnet werden kann.

Nur weil ein Gericht temporär was dagegen sagt, ist nicht gesagt, dass
- die Administration #trump sich daran hält,
- hat ja #trump bereits den Chef vom #SCOTUS angewiesen(!!!) die Bundesrichter zurückzupfeifen.

Also mit der Rechtsstaatlichkeit in den USA ist das momentan so eine Sache.

#Trump is asking #SCOTUS to allow it to terminate about $600M in Dept of #Education grants.

The admin previously tried to terminate the grants, but a district judge blocked the move & ordered that the admin immediately reinstate the funds. Trump is now asking the #SupremeCourt to reverse the lower court's decision.

This is the admin’s 7th SCOTUS emergency application in 2 months.

🤦🏻‍♀️ "Trump’s administration asked #SCOTUS on Wednesday to allow it to freeze millions of dollars in grants to states for addressing teacher shortages over allegations that the money was being used on programs that take part in diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives." cnn.com/2025/03/26/politics/te

CNN · Trump administration asks Supreme Court to freeze dozens of teacher training grantsBy John Fritze