Tag: scotus

Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor Dismisses Demands to Step Down and Allow Democrats to Fill Her SCOTUS Seat

Justice Sonia Sotomayor has rejected demands to step down and allow Democrats to try and appoint a replacement before Trump takes office in January.

According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, Sotomayor “has no plans to retire from the Supreme Court,” effectively ending plans to replace her.

“This is no time to lose her important voice on the court,” a person close to Sotomayor was quoted as saying. “She just turned 70 and takes better care of herself than anyone I know.”

Earlier this week, Politico reported that Democratic leaders were “agonizing” over whether to try and force Sotomayor out of the door before Trump takes back the White House.

The 70-year-old justice is known to suffer from diabetes and other health issues, creating the possibility that her seat may become open during his presidency.

The report explains:

For Democrats, this is a hair-on-fire moment. And though the discourse in the media is presently dominated by recriminations about how this all happened, another arguably more urgent conversation is blowing up largely outside of public view: whether to push for 70-year-old Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to step down while Dems still have the power to approve her replacement.

This isn’t simply some flight of fancy happening among progressive activists online. It’s a conversation members of the Senate are actively engaged in.

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Dems Float Plan To Push Ailing Justice Sotomayor Off Supreme Court So Biden Can Replace Her Before Trump Is Sworn In

Democrats are reportedly having serious discussions about mounting a pressure campaign to force ailing Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to resign so Joe Biden can nominate a replacement before President-Elect Donald Trump is sworn in.

After losing their Senate majority to the GOP, Democrats are concerned that Republicans will be “revving up the old conveyor belt of conservative judicial nominees” as soon President-Elect Trump takes office, Politico reported.

For Democrats, this is a hair-on-fire moment. And though the discourse in the media is presently dominated by recriminations about how this all happened, another arguably more urgent conversation is blowing up largely outside of public view: whether to push for 70-year-old Supreme Court Justice SONIA SOTOMAYOR to step down while Dems still have the power to approve her replacement.

This isn’t simply some flight of fancy happening among progressive activists online. It’s a conversation members of the Senate are actively engaged in.

A Democrat senator told Politico that the topic of pushing Sotomayor off the Supreme Court “has come up repeatedly this week in talks with their colleagues.”

These “Beltway speculative conversations,” according to Politico, have inevitably hit roadblocks for two reasons:

(1) It’d be a risky play with the party already trying to figure out how to handle a crowded lame-duck session

(2) no senator seems to be offering to be the person to put his or her neck on their line publicly (or even privately) by pushing for Sotomayor to step aside.

When Democrats first floated the idea of jettisoning Sotomayor last year, they were accused of ableism and racism.

The names of possible replacements have been discussed, including the allegedly “moderate” D.C. Circuit Judge J. Michelle Childs, who was reportedly on Joe Biden’s SCOTUS short list, and has already been vetted.

Another name floated on Friday was none other than Kamala Harris.

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Desperate Dem’s Latest Far-Fetched Fantasy: Supreme Court Justice Kamala Harris – YES, REALLY!

Vice President Kamala Harris can now ride out her last months in office after being obliterated by President-Elect Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election. That’s not sitting well with some Democrats – they want her sitting on the United States Supreme Court. Yes, it’s stupid. Yes, it’s far-fetched. Yes, it’s a desperate attempt to breath relevance into an irrelevant politician. But, we’re talking about Democrats here.

They are not giving up.  

This would be courting disaster.

Kamala Harris was a terrible presidential candidate. She would also be a bad choice to sit on the highest court in the land. On the campaign trail, she showed us she is unable to answer simple questions or formulate an idea without lapsing into never ending word salads.

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In Huge Blow to GOP, Supreme Court Refuses to Block Counting of Provisional Ballots Incorrectly Filled Out in Pennsylvania

In a huge blow to the GOP, the US Supreme Court on Friday rejected an emergency application seeking to pause Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court ruling on provisional ballots.

The Republican National Committee (RNC) and Pennsylvanian GOP sough relief from the high court after state supreme court ruled 4-3 that provisional ballots that were incorrectly filled out or missing the ‘secrecy’ envelope.

Lawyers for the GOP argued that there is no identifying information on the provisional ballots once they are separated from the envelopes.

The Commonwealth’s state supreme court ruled that “provisional votes can be counted only after a person’s eligibility to vote and the rejection of their mail-in ballot are confirmed.” – Fox News reported.

“Counting Electors’ provisional ballots, when their mail ballots are void for failing to use a Secrecy Envelope, is a statutory right,” state Supreme Court Justice Christine Donohue wrote in the majority opinion, adding that the rule in question is “intended to alleviate potential disenfranchisement for eligible voters.” – Fox News reported.

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King Biden & Queen Harris Overrule Supreme Court On Student Debt Forgiveness

Biden repeatedly acts like he is above the law. So who’s the threat to Democracy?

The Wall Street Journal reports Biden Snubs the Courts Again on Student Loan Forgiveness

‘That didn’t stop me,” President Biden declared after the Supreme Court blocked his $430 billion student loan write-off in 2023. It sure didn’t. After striking out in court with three debt forgiveness schemes, the Administration on Friday unveiled another. Take that, judges.

The Education Department says its proposed rule would authorize forgiveness for some eight million borrowers experiencing “hardship.” Under the rule, the department can discharge debt if it calculates a borrower has an 80% likelihood of defaulting on payments within the subsequent two years based on 17 factors such as income, debt balances and assets.

The rule would effectively let the department forgive debt of any borrower any time it wants. The administration says high child-care costs could qualify as a hardship. How about high auto loan or credit-card payments? Did someone say moral hazard?

In April the department released a plan that cancels accrued interest for 25 million borrowers and forgives debt of those who entered repayment over 20 years ago or who “enrolled in low-financial-value programs”—meaning, forprofit colleges. The plan also promised to waive debt for borrowers with a “hardship.”

A federal court last month blocked that plan, but the department says its new rule “would operate separately and distinctly.” Courts are playing whack-a-mole with the Administration’s debt write-offs that end-run Congress, which never authorized such broad-based debt forgiveness.

Such lawlessness is one reason so many Americans discount the left’s assertions that Donald Trump endangers democracy. Mr. Biden acts like he’s king, and Democrats and media voices cheering him on have no standing to object if Mr. Trump follows the Biden precedent.

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SCOTUS Case Involving Cannabis Fraud Highlights the Illogic of Federal Drug Testing Mandates

The U.S. Supreme Court last week considered a case involving a trucker, Douglas Horn, who lost his job because he tested positive for THC after consuming a CBD tincture that was advertised as completely free of that psychoactive compound. Horn sued the companies that made and marketed the tincture under the Racketeer Influenced and Corruption Organizations (RICO) Act, arguing that he was “injured in his business or property by reason of” the defendants’ mail and wire fraud.

The issue in Medical Marijuana Inc. v. Horn is whether the economic losses that Horn suffered fit that statutory language, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit held last year. But the case also highlights the weak scientific basis for the federally mandated drug test that Horn failed, which reflects the ongoing conflict between state and federal marijuana laws.

In 2012, Horn bought Dixie X CBD Dew Drops 500 mg Tincture to treat the pain and inflammation caused by hip and shoulder injuries he had suffered in a truck accident. Since he was well aware that testing positive for marijuana would endanger his job, he investigated the product to make sure it did not contain any federally illegal substances. He says he was reassured by Dixie’s claim that its CBD extract was made from hemp containing less than 0.3 percent THC (the federal limit) and that, after processing, it contained “0.00 THC.”

According to a High Times article that Horn cited in his 2015 RICO lawsuit, the tincture was produced via “a proprietary extraction process” from “a strain of high-CBD hemp grown in a secret, foreign location.” The article said the resulting tincture “contains 0% THC and up to 500 mg of CBD.” Tripp Keber, Dixie’s managing director, averred that “we are importing industrial hemp” that is “below federal guidelines for THC, which is 0.3%,” and “extracting the CBD.” Keber said Dixie had “meticulously reviewed state and federal statutes,” and “we do not believe we are operating in conflict with any federal law as it’s related to the Dixie X (hemp-derived) products.”

Keber offered similar assurances in several YouTube videos, saying those products were “THC free” and contained “no THC.” Just to make sure, Horn says in a Supreme Court  brief, he contacted a customer service representative, who “confirmed that Dixie X contained ‘zero percent THC.'”

Based on those assurances, Horn’s brief says, he “purchased and consumed Dixie X in
September 2012.” A few weeks later, he was dismayed to learn that he had tested positive for marijuana in “a routine random drug screening.” As a result, “his employer immediately fired him.” He “lost his career and income,” which meant “financial ruin” for his family.

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SCOTUS Revives Lawsuit Against Missouri Cop Who Jailed a Man ‘for Being an Asshole’

On a Saturday night in May 2021, Mason Murphy was walking on the shoulder of a rural road in Sunrise Beach, a small Missouri town, when he was accosted by a local police officer, Michael Schmitt, who asked him to identify himself. Since Murphy was minding his own business and was not, as far as he knew, doing anything illegal, he did not think he should have to comply with that request. Murphy’s objection resulted in a nine-minute argument with Schmitt, who ultimately handcuffed Murphy and took him to jail, where he was detained for two hours.

Why? Schmitt had trouble answering that question. “I didn’t want him walking down my highway,” he told another officer at the jail. Schmitt also suggested that Murphy was being held “for being an asshole” and that he would stay in jail “until he decides to play nice.” Even after consulting with a senior officer and a local prosecutor, Schmitt could not come up with a valid reason to arrest Murphy, who was released without being charged.

Five months later, Murphy sued Schmitt for violating his First Amendment rights by arresting him in retaliation for constitutionally protected speech. A federal judge dismissed Murphy’s claim, and last year the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit upheld that decision. But this week the U.S. Supreme Court revived Murphy’s lawsuit, remanding the case for further consideration in light of Gonzalez v. Trevino, a June 2024 decision that made it easier for victims of retaliatory arrests to make a case for compensation.

“This decision is a huge step forward, not just for Mason Murphy, but for all Americans who have been retaliated against by government officials for their speech,” said Marie Miller, an attorney at the Institute for Justice, which filed Murphy’s Supreme Court petition. “Our work is building lasting precedent, making it easier for people to hold officials accountable when their rights are violated. We will continue fighting until all Americans are protected against government retaliation.”

Although Schmitt evidently did not realize it at the time, Murphy had broken the law: He had violated Section 300.405.2 of Missouri’s statutes, which says: “Where sidewalks are not provided any pedestrian walking along and upon a highway shall when practicable walk only on the left side of the roadway or its shoulder facing traffic which may approach from the opposite direction.” Murphy was walking on the right side of the road when Schmitt approached him—a fact to which the officer alluded during the initial encounter, most of which was recorded by Schmitt’s body camera.

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Dems Introduce Bill To Pack the Supreme Court

A new bill introduced by Democrat Senator Ron Wyden would add six more justices to the Supreme Court and introduce a raft of measures designed to make the Court work in the Democrats’ favour.

As well as increasing the Supreme Court’s size, the bill would make it harder for justices to overturn laws, require them to undergo audits and remove roadblocks to nominations.

The size of the court would be increased from nine to 15 over a period of 12 years.

The bill would also require a two-thirds ruling by the Supreme Court and the circuit court of appeals in order to overturn a law, and make it impossible for Senators to delay votes on new appointments. Mitch McConnell was able to delay Barack Obama’s appointment of Merrick Garland in 2016, allowing Trump to replace him with Neil Gorsuch.

As The Washington Post reports, the bill would introduce stringent auditing measures for justices:

“Supreme Court justices must report income, dividends, property sales and gifts, among other things, but the bill would bolster financial checks, disclosures and other transparency measures. It would require the IRS to initiate an audit of the justices’ tax returns each year, release the results and make the tax filings public. Nominees to the court would have to disclose three years of tax returns.”

Justices would be able to force other justices to recuse themselves from cases, with a two-thirds majority.

The bill’s author, Senator Ron Wyden, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, said he doesn’t believe the bill will pass in full, but he hopes to get parts of the bill into law.

Reaction to news of the bill was fierce on the right.

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Alaska man arrested for threatening to torture and assassinate six Supreme Court justices

An Alaska man was arrested for threatening to torture and assassinate six Supreme Court justices and their family members. 

The Justice Department announced Thursday that the man, identified as 76-year-old Panos Anastasiou, sent over 464 messages through the court’s public website. 

The messages from between March and July 2023 contained ‘violent, racist, and homophobic rhetoric,’ according to the complaint. He also allegedly threatened to kill the justices through ‘torture, hanging and firearms.’

The man was arrested and charged with a total of 22 counts of making threats against a federal judge and through interstate commerce. He faces over 100 years in prison if convicted on all counts.

It is unclear whether the justices targeted are the six conservative justices, whose opinions Anastasiou ‘disagreed’ with. According to FEC records, he donated to ActBlue, a Democratic platform, as recently as July.

‘We allege that the defendant made repeated, heinous threats to murder and torture Supreme Court Justices and their families to retaliate against them for decisions he disagreed with,’ said Attorney General Merrick Garland. 

According to his Facebook page, he has no friends and hasn’t posted in years. 

His account simply contains a profile photo and a 2014 posting calling Supreme Court justices ‘jack booted thugs.’

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WSJ Calls for Keeping Judiciary in Shadows

A New York Times investigation (9/15/24) has given us great insight into Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who—unlike the president and the speaker of the House—enjoys a great deal of shielding from press scrutiny. The paper reported that when a flurry of cases about the January 6 attempted insurrection at the Capitol reached the court, the “chief justice responded by deploying his authority to steer rulings that benefited [former President Donald] Trump.”

The paper’s investigation drew “on details from the justices’ private memos, documentation of the proceedings and interviews with court insiders” from all partisan stripes. They spoke, reporters Jodi Kantor and Adam Liptak said, “on the condition of anonymity because deliberations are supposed to be kept secret.”

It was splashed on the cover of the Sunday print edition for good reason: The Supreme Court is a mysterious institution, and Roberts has long been thought of as a more temperate and prudent judicial conservative, a breed apart from the partisan hacks appointed by Trump. The investigation gives us some illustration of what happens behind closed doors, and drives home the point that Trump has benefited legally from the normal channels of American power, not just the followers of his MAGA cult.

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