Tag: scotus

Supreme Court Issues Emergency Order Temporarily Blocking Full SNAP Payments

The Supreme Court has issued an emergency order blocking SNAP funding amid the ongoing Schumer Shutdown.

Here’s more from the Associated Press:

The Supreme Court on Friday granted the Trump administration’s emergency appeal to temporarily block a court order to fully fund SNAP food aid payments amid the government shutdown, even though residents in some states already have received the funds.

A judge had given the Republican administration until Friday to make the payments through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. But the administration asked an appeals court to suspend any court orders requiring it to spend more money than is available in a contingency fund, and instead allow it to continue with planned partial SNAP payments for the month.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson issued the ruling, putting a temporary stay on an earlier order issued by a Rhode Island judge that required the Trump administration to disburse the full SNAP payment amount in the month of November.

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Trump’s Tariff Power Grab

Today, the Supreme Court is hearing arguments in the landmark case of Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, which will determine whether President Trump can use an emergency declaration to unilaterally impose tariffs on foreign goods that Americans buy, as he did earlier this year.

Although the Constitution is pretty clear that only Congress has the power to tax, the Trump administration cited a 1977 law called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to justify the suite of tariffs it rolled out on April 2—what Trump called “Liberation Day.”

According to the president and his lawyers, the fact that the country has a trade deficit—that American consumers spend more on goods and services from foreign producers than American businesses make from sales to foreign consumers—is a national emergency.

Trump considered attending the hearing himself over the weekend. He eventually decided against it, but stressed to his followers on Truth Social that he views this case as “one of the most important in the history of the country.”

The president clearly wants his allies on the Supreme Court to understand that he would take a ruling against him very personally. And, based on their previous rulings, the Court’s Trump-friendly majority probably wants to again give a green light to Trump’s expansion of executive authority.

But that could prove difficult. To strike down several of Biden’s more blatant power grabs, this Court relied on the so-called “major questions doctrine,” which requires Congress to use plain and direct language to authorize sweeping economic actions by the executive branch. All that the 1977 law Trump is using to justify his tariffs authorizes him to impose are “regulations” on imports.

It would be transparently hypocritical for these justices to agree that “tariffs,” “taxes,” or “duties” can be implied by the word “regulations” when they just refused to grant that level of leniency to the previous administration.

Which isn’t to say it won’t happen. The idea that the Supreme Court, and the entire federal judiciary, are independent, non-political entities driven solely by a commitment to the letter of the law is, after all, a myth.

But it’s still a difficult position for Trump’s allies on the Court. And further, it’s more evidence that Trump has abandoned his promise to rein in the power of the federal bureaucracy.

As Ryan McMaken pointed out back in April, Trump claiming unilateral control over the power to levy taxes is not at all unprecedented. That’s the direction the federal government has been moving for well over a century, as more and more of Congress’s core powers get transferred to the White House and the executive agencies making up the administrative state.

Further, the executive branch using “emergencies” it declares to justify its own power grabs has been one of the primary ways the executive state has grown in general.

In recent years, crises like the 9/11 attacks, the collapse of the housing bubble, and the covid pandemic have been used to give the permanent federal bureaucracy significantly more control over our lives.

But there have been some bright spots on this front. One of them was the Supreme Court’s embrace of the major questions doctrine, which restricted the administrative state’s ability to interpret vague language in legislation in whichever way granted itself the most power. On top of that, last year, the Court overturned the so-called Chevron doctrine.

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MD School District That Lost Queer Sex Ed Case At SCOTUS Keeps Pushing Trans Ideology On Kids

The same Maryland school district the Supreme Court rebuked for exposing children to sexually explicit material is still forcing children as young as 12 to decipher numerous gender ideology terms in a vocabulary lesson, without parental knowledge, permission, or the ability to opt out.

Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) is a far-left school district on the periphery of Washington, D.C., perhaps most (in)famous for blocking parents from opting their children out of highly sexual material, including advocacy for homosexuality and transgenderism.

However, even after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling stating the district had to allow parents to opt their children out of the coursework, the county is still trying to force-feed young teenagers and preteens “transgender” propaganda, according to a document obtained by Defending Education from a parent.

“This vocabulary lesson requires that students buy into an ideology that many reject,” DE Senior Director of Communications Erika Sanzi told The Federalist. “Does MCPS require that students subscribe to gender ideology in order to fulfill the district’s family life requirements for middle schoolers? Because if so, that seems like viewpoint discrimination in a public school.”

The seventh grade vocabulary assignment, given the week of Oct. 13, 2025, was part of a “Family Life” (a.k.a. sexual education) lesson in which students were told to define “Sex Assigned at Birth,” “Gender Identity,” “Transgender,” “Gender Expression,” and “Cisgender.”

The worksheet appears to be a district-wide lesson, as a stamp at the bottom states “Middle School Health Education-MCPS 2023.”

It does not appear any opt out was available for this in-class assignment, ostensibly so that parents did not find out about the content.

“Gender identity,” according to the definitions provided, “refers to a person’s internal sense of being male, female, or transgender” and “How you feel. Girl, boy, both or neither.”

It also maintains that sex is “assigned at birth” instead of being immutable, and goes on to say that it can be changed because “transgender” is “when your gender identity (how you feel) is different than what doctors/midwives assigned to you when you were born (girl/boy or sex assigned at birth).”

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Student Challenging Ban on Males in Female Sports Cannot Withdraw Case: Supreme Court

The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 20 declined a male college student’s request to withdraw his challenge to Idaho’s ban on male athletes competing on school sports teams intended for females.

The court’s new ruling in Little v. Hecox came without comment in an unsigned order. No justices dissented. Previously, on July 3, the Supreme Court granted Idaho’s petition but has not yet scheduled an oral argument in the case.

Respondent Lindsay Hecox had sued Idaho, alleging that Idaho’s Fairness in Women’s Sports Act violates the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection clause and Title IX, a federal civil rights law that forbids sex-based discrimination at any school that receives federal funding.

Hecox, a biological male who identifies with a female identity, wanted to compete as part of the Boise State University women’s teams for track and cross-country.

A federal district court previously issued a preliminary injunction blocking the state law so Hecox could try out for the teams. The court ruled that the statute discriminates against transgender-identifying athletes.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the injunction, holding that laws making sex-based distinctions in schools serve as “proxy discrimination” against transgender-identifying athletes.

However, on Sept. 2, Hecox’s attorneys told the Supreme Court that he wished to abandon his appeal. The case had become too much of a distraction in his life and Hecox had asked the federal district court in which the original lawsuit was still pending to dismiss it.

“Ms. Hecox has also come under negative public scrutiny from certain quarters because of this litigation, and she believes that such continued—and likely intensified—attention in the coming school year will distract her from her schoolwork and prevent her from meeting her academic and personal goals.”

Even though playing women’s sports remains important to Hecox, “her top priority is graduating from college and living a healthy and safe life,” the filing said.

The document said that by filing a notice of voluntary dismissal at the district court level, Hecox terminated the case there, so there is no longer a live claim left to be decided by the courts. The Supreme Court should vacate the Ninth Circuit’s ruling and send the case back to that court with instructions to dismiss the appeal, the brief said.

However, on Oct. 14, U.S. District Judge David Nye of Idaho rejected the request to dismiss Hecox’s lawsuit.

Nye noted it was Hecox’s position that Idaho should be pleased he was attempting to dismiss the suit because doing so would allow the state law to remain in effect.

“But again, if Hecox dismisses this case and the Ninth Circuit’s decision is vacated, what is to prevent another individual from taking up Hecox’s mantel and bringing an identical suit. The parties (and the Court) would be back to square one.”

While it seems likely Hecox won’t “reengage in collegiate sports, she could still change her mind,” the judge said.

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Watch Margaret Hoover’s Justice Kennedy Interview To See Why Trust In Media Is At Record Lows

If anyone is wondering why Americans’ trust in corporate media to report the news fairly and accurately is at the lowest level in recorded history, then watch PBS Firing Line host Margaret Hoover’s interview with retired Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy.

Released last Friday, the roughly half-hour-long exchange was supposedly intended to focus on Kennedy’s recently released memoir about his life and time serving on the nation’s highest court. It’s very clear after watching the discussion, however, that Hoover had other plans in mind.

From beginning to end, it’s glaringly apparent that Hoover’s entire goal in speaking with Kennedy was to use the conversation as an opportunity to discredit the current Supreme Court and try and bait the retired justice into attacking Donald Trump, whose presidency she falsely portrayed as an authoritarian regime with no respect for the rule of law.

In her first query, Hoover asked Kennedy how he sees his “role” as a retired justice at a moment “when the rule of law is being tested and the courts are under attack.” The “question,” of course, isn’t really a question, but an accusation dressed up as a question.

Borrowing a trick used by fellow media hacks like CBS’s Norah O’Donnell, Hoover is dishonestly insinuating that it’s Trump who is “testing” the law like no president before him, and that his criticisms of lower courts for issuing overreaching edicts represent an unprecedented attack on the judiciary. It’s probably safe to assume that this insinuation doesn’t include Democrats like Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer actually threatening SCOTUS, left-wing anarchists picketing outside Republican-appointed justices’ homes, or a trans-identifying leftist attempting to assassinate Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

While this was only the first “question,” feigning ignorance about Democrats’ egregious conduct and actions would go on to become a prominent feature of Hoover’s style throughout the rest of the interview.

While quoting from Kennedy’s book about the need for all branches of government to exercise their powers in accordance with the Constitution, the CNN contributor said matter-of-factly to Kennedy, “In recent weeks, we have seen the Department of Justice indict two of the president’s political enemies after he publicly demanded it,” and “We’ve seen National Guard troops be sent to states over governors’ objections. The president has repeatedly pushed the limits of the law.”

“Is the executive branch exercising its powers to the extreme?” Hoover asked, while completely ignoring how Biden’s Justice Department attempted to imprison Trump before the 2024 election, sought (and acquired) jail time for former Trump officials, targeted and arrested Christians and pro-lifers, and much more.

The Firing Line host similarly lied by omission when she asked Kennedy about what would happen “if one of the branches — for example, the executive branch — doesn’t choose to follow the Supreme Court?”

“I don’t know that we’ve ever had this,” Hoover said, insinuating that Trump is going to “defy” SCOTUS if it rules on a case in a way he doesn’t like.

Well, as much as it would disappoint Margaret to learn, America actually has “had this” happen — under Biden. When the Supreme Court declared the Biden administration’s student loan bailout to be unconstitutional, the administration tried time and again to sidestep the ruling, disregarding the high court’s decision without a second thought.

Yet, for all her supposed newfound respect for the Supreme Court, Hoover tried her best to discredit it.

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SCOTUS Will Consider the Constitutionality of the Federal Ban on Gun Possession by Illegal Drug Users

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to consider the constitutionality of the federal ban on gun possession by illegal drug users. The Trump administration is urging the justices to overturn a ruling in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit deemed prosecutions under that law inconsistent with the Second Amendment unless there is evidence that the defendant handled firearms while intoxicated. Contrary to what the 5th Circuit held, the government’s petition argues that categorically disarming drug users is “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation”—the constitutional test established by the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.

The case, United States v. Hemani, involves a Texas man who was charged with violating 18 USC 922(g)(3), which makes it a felony for an “unlawful user” of “any controlled substance” to receive or possess a firearm. The defendant, Ali Hemani, was the subject of a terrorism investigation that included two searches of the Lewiston, Texas, home he shared with his parents. During the second search, in August 2022, FBI agents found a Glock 19 pistol that belonged to Hemani, along with less than a gram of cocaine and about two ounces of marijuana.

As Amel Ahmed explained in a Reason story about the case last year, the FBI was unable to substantiate its suspicion that Hemani, a native-born U.S. citizen whose parents are from Pakistan, was implicated in financial crimes involving Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The government’s petition nevertheless implies that Hemani is a dangerous character for reasons that extend beyond his recreational drug use. But that allegation is not relevant to the constitutional question raised by the Supreme Court case.

The law that Hemani was charged with violating applies to millions of Americans who pose no plausible threat to public safety, including cannabis consumers, even if they live in states that have legalized marijuana for medical or recreational use. The 5th Circuit first questioned the constitutionality of Section 922(g)(3) prosecutions in 2023, when it overturned the conviction of Patrick Darnell Daniels Jr., who was sentenced to nearly four years in federal prison after he was caught with two guns and the remains of a few joints during a routine traffic stop in Hancock County, Mississippi.

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After SCOTUS ignores ‘only two genders’ censorship, appeals court upholds ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ ban

Five months after Supreme Court justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas blasted their colleagues for refusing to review a ruling against a student punished for wearing an “Only Two Genders” shirt to school, a second federal appeals court has blessed another way for schools to clamp down on disfavored messages: the inference of vulgarity.

A divided 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel upheld a ban on “Let’s Go Brandon” sweatshirts by Michigan’s Tri County Area Schools, ruling Tuesday that school administrators’ perception that the expression is code for “F— Joe Biden” renders it profane and thus exempt from students’ First Amendment rights in schools.

President Trump-nominated Judge John Nalbandian, who appeared to be the swing vote in oral argument, joined with President Clinton-nominated Judge Karen Nelson Moore to apply the SCOTUS precedent Fraser, which upheld a student’s discipline based on a “school assembly speech that had a rather elaborate sexual metaphor.”

This is despite the duo’s admission that “Let’s Go Brandon” has “a wide range of meanings” going back to its creation, when NBC Sports reporter Kelli Stavast falsely claimed crude chants against President Biden at a NASCAR race were support for driver Brandon Brown.

“Some saw it as merely a euphemism for what the crowd really said,” the majority said. “Others used it as a shibboleth to express antipathy” toward Biden and his policies, and yet others “used it to question what they perceived as liberal bias in the media—based on the theory that NBC had been trying to hide the anti-Biden sentiment on display at Talladega.”

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which represents the anonymous students who wore the sweatshirts, told Just the News it plans to appeal but hasn’t decided yet whether to go straight to SCOTUS or seek a full-court 6th Circuit review.

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Here Are 6 Key Moments From SCOTUS Arguments In Landmark Race-Based Redistricting Case

UPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES — The U.S. Supreme Court held oral arguments in a pair of high stakes redistricting cases that could significantly reshape American electoral politics.

Known as Louisiana v. Callais and Robinson v. Callais, the matter focuses on a dispute over the use of race in Louisiana’s congressional map. While the state’s initial map included a single black-majority district, a lawsuit and subsequent legal battle led lawmakers to redraw the map to include a second black-majority district, producing another legal battle that centered on the state’s allegedly unlawful use of race when creating the new map.

During oral arguments, the justices probed parties on the facts of the respective cases and the longstanding judicial conflict over provisions of the Voting Rights Act (Section 2) and 14th Amendment (equal protection clause). Here are some of the biggest moments from the hearing.

Jackson Said What About the Disabled?

Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has never been one to shy away from making ill-advised statements, whether they be in interviews or opinions. So, it wasn’t surprising when the Biden appointee suggested race be considered by states in redistricting because black Americans are systemically “disabled” and don’t have legitimate access to the elections process.

“Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act against the backdrop of a world that was generally not accessible to people with disabilities, and so it was discriminatory in effect because these folks were not able to access these buildings,” Jackson said, effectively arguing that it doesn’t matter whether such discrimination is intentional or not.

“I guess I don’t understand why that’s not what’s happening here. … We are responding to current-day manifestations of past and present decisions that disadvantage minorities and make it so that they don’t have equal access to the voting system, right? They’re disabled … We say that’s a way in which you see that these processes are not equally open.”

Thomas Asks a Simple (Yet Meaningful) Question

As the longest serving member of the current court, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas has often served as a critical voice of reason in many matters that come before the highest bench in the land. One of the ways he does this is through simple, yet meaningful, questions to parties in oral arguments.

While questioning Louisiana Solicitor General Ben Aguiñaga, Thomas asked “what role” the federal district court’s block on the state’s initial map “play[ed] in development of” the new map that included a second black-majority district. The state solicitor general disclosed that the court’s order is the “only reason” Louisiana drew a new map.

“Justice Thomas, [that court decision] is the only reason [this new map] exists,” Aguiñaga said. “We fought tooth and nail in the Robinson litigation itself in telling the courts that we did not think the Constitution permitted us to draw a second majority-black district. As you know, under protest, we drew [the new map] because the threat was that the federal courts would do it if we didn’t.”

“We would never pass [the new map] in the first instance without Robinson, Justice Thomas,” he added.

[READ: In Race-Based Redistricting Battle, Louisiana Urges SCOTUS To Uphold America’s ‘Color Blind’ Constitution]

DOJ Official Silences Sotomayor

Arguing on the side of Louisiana, Principal Deputy Solicitor General Hashim Mooppan got into a testy exchange with Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor over the Pelican State’s creation of a second-black majority district.

In debating the racial and political motivations behind the creation of maps like Louisiana’s, Mooppan noted the racial double standard that exists where if the block of voters in question were white, there wouldn’t be a debate about whether there should be an additional district tailored to their community.

“If these were white Democrats, there’s no reason to think they would have a second district. None,” Mooppan said. “And so what is happening here is their argument is, because these Democrats happen to be black, they get a second district. If they were all white, we all agree they wouldn’t get a second district. That is literally the definition of race subordinating traditional principles.”

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Clarence Thomas Wrecks Another Race Argument at SCOTUS

Supreme Court Clarence Thomas isn’t buying arguments that the Voting Rights Act allows for congressional districts to be drawn along racial lines (more specifically to help Democrats retain power in Washington D.C.). 

During a back and fourth with Louisiana Solicitor General Benjamin Aguinaga Wednesday, who is opposed to race based lines, Thomas argued an all black district in the state wouldn’t exist without the state being forced to consider race in districting. 

“Would the maps that Louisiana have currently be used if they were not forced to consider race?” Thomas asked. 

“We drew it because the courts told us to!” Aguinaga explained. “They said a majority black district was required. And our legislature saw the marching order.”

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ACLU loses last-ditch effort to stop SCOTUS from evaluating state bans on males in girls’ sports

When the Supreme Court agreed to consider whether Idaho and West Virginia can ban males from girls’ sports, two weeks after upholding Tennessee’s ban on medicalized gender transitions for minors, the transgender track athlete who defeated Idaho at trial and appeals courts got cold feet and tried to stop SCOTUS from hearing Idaho’s part of the case.

Lindsay Hecox, who is male, decided to “cease playing women’s sports in any context covered by H.B. 500” and dismissed the suit with prejudice so it cannot be filed again, claiming that continuing the litigation through SCOTUS will threaten Hecox’s “mental health, my safety, and my ability to graduate as soon as possible.”

U.S. District Judge David Nye, whose injunction against Idaho’s law as applied to Hecox was upheld by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, doesn’t think the ACLU-represented athlete is playing it straight.

The President Trump nominee, who saved Hecox’s challenge three years ago when the 9th Circuit questioned whether the lapsed athlete would resume competing and thus maintain legal standing to sue Idaho, interpreted Hecox’s late-breaking about-face as “somewhat manipulative to avoid Supreme Court review” and ruled it “should not be endorsed.”

Nye granted Idaho’s motion to strike Hecox’s notice of voluntary dismissal, in the latest setback for the ACLU’s quest to preempt state laws that favor sex over gender identity, through federal regulation and the federal courts, while keeping SCOTUS from hearing close cases.

Federal courts including President Biden’s nominees blocked his administration’s Title IX regulation conflating sex and gender identity as his lone term closed, leaving the first Trump administration’s sex-based Title IX regulation in place. Second-term President Trump’s executive orders against gender ideology left SCOTUS the ACLU’s last hope.

That hope was dashed in June when a 6-3 court rejected the ACLU’s argument, on behalf of transgender children’s families, that gender identity is a protected trait like sex and race in the context of Tennessee’s ban on puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgery as treatment options for gender-confused youth.

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