On an intellectual level, this should be an easy case for the justices. Undocumented immigrants and visa recipients are indisputably “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States. They can be taxed, arrested, fined, imprisoned, executed, and much more while on U.S. soil. There is also ample precedent supporting birthright citizenship, including Supreme Court rulings […]
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The Right-Wing Justices Know Their Favorite Legal Theory Is Bunk
Quite apart from such such agencies’ subservience to the current White House, screeds like Kavanaugh’s, against the “headless fourth branch” leave out the landmark accountability regime that the post-New Deal Congress enacted. This is the 1946 Administrative Procedure Act, or APA, which gives targets of agency actions statutory rights, enforceable in court—to receive notice, to […]
Read MoreHow the Supreme Court’s Judicial Sanewashing Wrecked the Legal System
According to the sanewashed facts in Shelby County, the VRA was no longer necessary because racially discriminatory voting practices were “rare” and the remaining sections of the statute would be sufficient to protect minority voting rights. In the decade since the Court offered those tepid reassurances, states formerly subject to the VRA’s preclearance requirements have […]
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The Trump Judge Who Tried to Rewrite the Bill of Rights
The editor of the Aurora, Wm. Duane, pretends that he is an American Citizen, saying that he was born in Vermont, but was when a child, taken back with them to Ireland, where he was educated. But I understand the facts to be, That he went from American prior to our revolution, remained in the British […]
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John Roberts and the Cynical Cult of Federalist No. 70
“‘Decision, activity, secrecy, and dispatch will generally characterize the proceedings of one man in a much more eminent degree than the proceedings of any greater number,’” he wrote, quoting from No. 70. “The centralization of authority in the president alone is particularly crucial in matters of national defense, war, and foreign policy choices, where a […]
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The Supreme Court Will Get Another Shot at Church-State Separation
At issue in Drummond were two significant constitutional questions. First: Are privately run charter schools state actors if they are publicly approved and funded? And second: If they are public, does the First Amendment’s free exercise clause prohibit a state from excluding religious schools from its charter school program—or does the establishment clause require it […]
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For Once, the Supreme Court May Not Give Republicans What They Want
A group of challengers, including the GOP’s Senate campaign-finance arm and Vice President J.D. Vance, argued that the ban violates their First Amendment rights to political speech through campaign spending. “The coordinated party spending limits are at war with this Court’s recent First Amendment cases,” Noel Francisco, who argued on behalf of the plaintiffs, told […]
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Sotomayor Rips Lawyer Who Claims Elon Musk’s DOGE Job Wasn’t Shady
Right-wingers have been doing the “Free Tina” thing for some time now. Peters is currently serving nine years in jail for granting unauthorized access to Colorado voting machines and being charged with three counts of attempting to influence a public servant, two counts of conspiracy to commit attempting to influence a public servant, first-degree official […]
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The Supreme Court Is Set to Pick Financial Predators Over the People
This does not appear to have deterred the justices. If anything, it may have encouraged them. Sauer expressed concern at one point about the “real-world consequences” of agencies “exercising enormous governmental authority with a great deal of control over individuals and small and large businesses and so forth” if they “ultimately do not answer to […]
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Supreme Court Sounds Ready to Let Trump Control All Federal Agencies
Last year, as a lawyer for the America First Policy Institute, a conservative think tank, Bondi filed a brief with the Supreme Court writing, “Military officers are required not to carry out unlawful orders.” “The military would not carry out a patently unlawful order from the president to kill nonmilitary targets. Indeed, service members are […]
Read MoreSupreme Court Sounds Ready to Give Trump a Terrifying New Power
It’s not looking so good for former Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter—or any Democratic appointees at federal agencies. While hearing arguments Monday in a case challenging Slaughter’s removal earlier this year, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority seemed primed to overturn Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, a 1935 case that established Congress can pass laws limiting […]
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Supreme Court Lets Trump Get Closer to Ending Birthright Citizenship
“I just think being off for 50 days, there was no continuity. Nobody was here. There was nobody like, ‘Hey, you’re doing great. Keep it up,’” the lawmaker continued. “Everyone being back in their district, there was a loneliness. A lot of members may have felt like we’re on our own.” Johnson shocked the halls […]
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Supreme Court’s Texas Map Ruling Could Be Good News for California
Providing full-time security detail for his girlfriend, and pulling a SWAT team away from their job is questionable use of government resources at best. To then demand that security detail escort his girlfriend’s friend goes even further. Former FBI agents and law enforcement officials told MS NOW that Patel’s alleged actions are completely off-base. “Not […]
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Supreme Court’s Texas Map Ruling Hints at Good News for California
Providing full-time security detail for his girlfriend, and pulling a SWAT team away from their job is questionable use of government resources at best. To then demand that security detail escort his girlfriend’s friend goes even further. Former FBI agents and law enforcement officials told MS NOW that Patel’s alleged actions are completely off-base. “Not […]
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The Blacklisted Pentagon Press Is Taking Pete Hegseth to Court
At the crux of the lawsuit is that the Pentagon is engaging in viewpoint discrimination, which is generally forbidden by the First Amendment. Defense Department officials are not required to give out any press credentials at all, nor must they grant access to the Pentagon building itself. The CIA, for obvious reasons, does not have […]
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Trump’s Federal Prosecutor Picks Keep Backfiring on Him
When Habba’s 120-day term expired in July, the district’s judges declined to extend her appointment and instead elected Desiree Leigh Grace, the district’s first assistant U.S. attorney, to serve in an interim role. That choice sparked a flurry of moves to re-install Habba as the interim U.S. attorney. Bondi fired Grace from her position as […]
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Trump Suffers Supreme Court Blow in Quest to Control Copyright Office
This time, though, Perlmutter’s position has the word “Congress” in it, and she argued in court that this meant she was part of the legislative branch of government and thus couldn’t be fired from the executive branch. Perlmutter’s lawsuit also noted that Trump disagreed with a report she authored, in which she said that tech […]
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The Lawyer Who Killed Roe Is About to Get a Promotion
In 303 Creative, Hawley argued that a web designer should be allowed to exclude LGBTQ+ customers despite a Colorado law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Despite the fact that the designer had not even started her wedding web design business and no LGBTQ+ client had actually approached her to design their website, […]
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A Federal Judge Melted Down in Texas’s Gerrymandering Wars
Perhaps the most striking moment comes five pages in, when Smith asked readers to forgive his haste and any flaws in his reasoning or demeanor that might come with it. “In the interest of time, this dissent is, admittedly, disjointed,” Smith wrote. “Usually, in dissenting from an opinion of this length, I would spend more […]
Read MoreNeil Gorsuch’s Lonely Quest to Fix Indian Law
When Crow Dog’s case reached the high court, the justices reaffirmed tribal sovereignty by concluding that federal courts did not have jurisdiction over a purely internal matter for the Lakota. (Crimes involving non-members on tribal land or occurring between tribal members on non-tribal land could and can still be prosecuted.) In response, Congress enacted the […]
Read MoreLeavitt Goes on Wild Rant When Asked About Trump Cutting Off SNAP
“There’s a total of about 23,000 documents.… We obviously released some today, we’ll be releasing additional documents likely later today,” Garcia said. “The important thing here is that we know, and we’ve been demanding that Donald Trump and the DOJ release the full Epstein files.” Garcia continued, “In what’s been released today—which obviously is quite […]
Read MoreThe Sports-Betting Crisis is the Supreme Court’s Fault
But gambling scandals by individual players and coaches all but disappeared after the enactment of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, or PASPA. Congress enacted the law in 1992 amid widespread concern over sports betting and its corrosive influence. Law enforcement, religious leaders, and other civic groups supported the bans. Gary Bettman, the current […]
Read MoreTrump Gives Away Game on Food Stamp Funding With Supreme Court Request
Those senators included Dick Durbin, Catherine Cortez Masto, Jacky Rosen, Maggie Hassan, Jeanne Shaheen, John Fetterman, and Tim Kaine, as well as independent Angus King. All eight lawmakers are either retiring or won’t face another election for several years, making the alleged behind-the-scenes rationale for the crumbling stalemate even more asinine. More than a dozen […]
Read MoreSupreme Court Takes Up Election Case That Could Haunt Dems in 2026
Those senators included Dick Durbin, Catherine Cortez Masto, Jacky Rosen, Maggie Hassan, Jeanne Shaheen, John Fetterman, and Tim Kaine, as well as independent Angus King. All eight lawmakers are either retiring or won’t face another election for several years, making the alleged behind-the-scenes rationale for the crumbling stalemate even more asinine. More than a dozen […]
Read MoreSupreme Court Shockingly Makes a Good Decision on Same-Sex Marriage
Aside from those millions of dollars it’s shelling out, Cornell has agreed to hold “annual surveys to evaluate the campus climate for Cornell students, including the climate for students with shared Jewish ancestry,” to seek out “experts on laws and regulations regarding sanctions enforcement, anti-money laundering, and prevention of terrorist financing,” and hand over “anonymized” […]
Read MoreSupreme Court Surprisingly Makes the Right Call on Same-Sex Marriage
Aside from those millions of dollars it’s shelling out, Cornell has agreed to hold “annual surveys to evaluate the campus climate for Cornell students, including the climate for students with shared Jewish ancestry,” to seek out “experts on laws and regulations regarding sanctions enforcement, anti-money laundering, and prevention of terrorist financing,” and hand over “anonymized” […]
Read MoreThe Disturbing Prison Abuse Case Coming Before the Supreme Court
A Fifth Circuit panel described what happened next. “Upon arrival, Landor was met by an intake guard,” Judge Edith Brown Clement wrote for the panel in Landor’s case in 2023. “Acting preemptively, Landor explained that he was a practicing Rastafarian and provided proof of past religious accommodations. And, amazingly, Landor also handed the guard a […]
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The Case That Could Rein in Private Prison Abuses—or Turn Them Loose
Geo’s opponents say that private companies don’t get the government’s immunity from being sued. Instead, they say that if contractors act legally and follow the government’s instructions properly, they can raise that as a defense. The difference between an immunity and a defense is key: An immunity would mean that contractors could avoid lawsuits entirely—if […]
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Trump Is About to Find Out What It’s Like to Be a Democrat
“Why do you think Presidents Clinton, Bush, [or] Obama have not used IEEPA to impose tariffs?” the justice asked Sauer at one point. “Because there have been trade disputes and, certainly, you know, President Bush, steel imports, and the like. Why do you think IEEPA has not been used?” Sauer replied that his team had […]
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The Best Way to Replace Trump’s Lost Tariff Revenue? Ask Joe Biden.
Raise corporate taxes. When Donald Trump was first elected president in 2016 the top corporate tax rate was 35 percent. Trump lowered that to 21 percent. Biden proposed raising it to 28 percent, still well below where it stood before Trump. Doing so, the Treasury Department estimated, would raise, on average, $135 billion per year. […]
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Trump’s Tariff Supreme Court Case Is Already Going Off the Rails
“We should start, tonight, with ‘the country’s open,’ congratulations, then we should pass voter ID, we should pass no mail-in voting, we should pass all of the things we want to pass to make our elections secure,” Trump continued, calling for an end to the government shutdown. “All we want is voter ID, you go […]
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