The U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 on Tuesday to temporarily block the Texas law that prohibits social media companies from moderating content based on users’ views.
Read MoreSupreme Court Temporarily Blocks Texas Social Media Content Moderation Law
Tag: Supreme Court
‘If Abortion Isn’t Safe, You Aren’t Either’: Vandal Attacks Pregnancy Center
A suspect vandalized a Washington state crisis pregnancy center by breaking the building’s windows and spray-painting the property early Wednesday morning.
The suspect targeted the Next Step Pregnancy Center in Lynwood, Washington, Next Step Pregnancy Center Director Heather Vasquez told KTTH talk radio host Jason Rantz. The center stayed open despite the vandalism and police have opened an investigation into the matter.
Read MoreSupreme Court Hands Biden Admin Major Win for Climate Agenda
The Supreme Court denied a petition from 10 Republican-led states Thursday requesting it to block a key Biden administration climate policy.
The decision ensures that President Joe Biden’s so-called “social cost” of carbon policy — which assigns an estimated dollar value or cost to every ton of carbon emissions, according to the Government Accountability Office — can remain in place and be used for future federal permitting processes. The high court rejected states’ April 27 petition without giving a reason or listing which justices opposed it, according to a one-page filing published on the Supreme Court docket.
Read MoreJustice Thomas: ‘We Are in Danger of Destroying the Institutions Required for a Free Society’
It’s been two weeks and there’s still no word on who leaked the U.S. Supreme Court draft brief indicating that the court was set to overturn Roe V. Wade and returning the issue of abortion back to the states.
At a recent event in Dallas, Texas, hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, the Hoover Institution, and the Manhattan Institute, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas spoke about the leak and his concern for the rule of law and credibility of the court.
Read MoreCommentary: The Abortion Wars Are Just Getting Started
The Supreme Court’s apparent decision to send the abortion issue back to the states may be a triumph for federalism and the concept of the separation of powers, but it is also a recipe for unyielding division. Abortion politics will become even more of a litmus test for tens of millions of pro-choice and pro-life voters at the local, state, and federal levels because their legislators will have far more power to shape policy. This, in turn, will further polarize our politics and empower the extremes because many voters will likely back candidates no matter their position on schools, crime, housing, jobs and debt, so long as they are the right kind of “pro.”
Read MoreInflation Is a Great Reason to Get an Abortion, Democrat Lawmaker Says
Democratic California Rep. Katie Porter said inflation and rising prices reinforced the importance of abortion on MSNBC’s “The Last Word” Wednesday.
Porter said inflation and abortion were closely tied together and that, as grocery and gas prices rose, people would realize the importance of controlling their family size through abortion.
Read MorePsaki Tells Americans That If You Don’t Support Roe v. Wade, You’re ‘Ultra MAGA’
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said opposing the Supreme Court precedent set in Roe v. Wade was an example of an “ultra MAGA” position in a Tuesday press conference.
Psaki said President Joe Biden used the phrase “ultra MAGA” to refer to Republicans with extreme or unpopular positions who, in his view, played too large of a role in the GOP. She added that people who support Republican Florida Sen. Rick Scott’s plan to have all Americans pay income taxes and “sunset” Medicare and Social Security are also “ultra MAGA.”
Read MoreAP Urges Media to Hold Off on ‘Pregnant People’ in the Wake of Roe Leak
The Associated Press updated its style guide on pregnancy and abortion Wednesday to discourage journalists from using gender-neutral phrases when writing about abortion despite having previously encouraged the terms.
Corporate media outlets use phrases like “pregnant people” to replace “pregnant women” in order to be more inclusive of transgender people. As the abortion debate has heated up after a leaked draft opinion revealed the Supreme Court would likely overturn Roe v. Wade, the AP told journalists to only use these gender-neutral phrases when specifically discussing transgender and nonbinary individuals.
Read MorePost-Leak Poll: Enthusiastic Voters Support Overturning Roe by Huge Margin
Voters who support the overturning of Roe v. Wade are almost twice as likely to say they are extremely enthusiastic about voting in the fall than those who want it to stay, according to a CNN poll released Friday.
The poll, taken after the leak of a Supreme Court draft decision that indicates the court could overturn the case, showed that 38% of those “happy” Roe could be overturned are “extremely enthusiastic” about voting, while only 20% of those “angry” said they had the same level of enthusiasm, CNN reported.
Read MoreDemocrats Quietly Scrub Abortion Bill Language Saying Men Can Get Pregnant
The latest version of the Women’s Health Protection Act (WHPA), which would effectively make abortion a statutory right, scrubbed references to transgender and nonbinary people’s pregnancies as well as language related to “reproductive justice.”
Earlier versions of the bill used language tying race and transgenderism to the issue of abortion in its non-binding “Findings” section. Democratic Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, the bill’s sponsor, told Politico the language had been removed from the bill due to objections from some Democrats.
Read MoreProsecutors Could Pursue Charges Against the SCOTUS Leaker, According to Legal Expert
The government’s best shot at prosecuting the individual who leaked the Supreme Court’s draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization may involve having potential suspects testify to their innocence in signed statements, a legal expert told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Politico published a leaked draft opinion Monday revealing the Court would likely overturn Roe v. Wade, leading to speculation about whether the leaker’s actions were illegal. However, many of the potential charges that could be levied against the leaker aren’t a perfect fit for the unprecedented incident, Zack Smith, a legal fellow for the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, told the DCNF.
Read MoreFar-Left Group Doxxes Six Supreme Court Justices
A group of far-left extremists published a list of addresses that they claimed belong to the six conservative Supreme Court justices, declaring their plans to target the homes and terrorize the justices over their apparent decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
The Daily Caller reports that the group, “Ruth Sent Us,” published alleged home addresses for Chief Justice John Roberts, as well as Associate Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. The move came after the Monday leak of a draft opinion written by Alito that appears to completely overturn Roe, as well as the 1992 ruling in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which would eliminate the nationwide legalization of abortion and return the matter back to the individual states to decide.
Read MoreSupreme Court Rules Boston Violated First Amendment over Rejection of Christian Flag
On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the city of Boston was in violation of the First Amendment over its attempt to ban the Christian flag.
Axios reports that the opinion was written by outgoing Justice Stephen Breyer. In the opinion, Breyer states that the city government of Boston “violated the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment” by forbidding a Christian organization from flying the Christian flag in front of city hall, which Breyer said constituted discrimination “based on religious viewpoints.”
Read MoreCommentary: The Left Only Sees Success by Altering the Rules of Governance
Court packing—the attempt to enlarge the size of the Supreme Court for short-term political purposes—used to be a dirty word in the history of American jurisprudence.
The tradition of a nine-person Supreme Court is now 153 years old. The last attempt to expand it for political gain was President Franklin Roosevelt’s failed effort in 1937. FDR’s gambit was so blatantly political that even his overwhelming Democratic majority in Congress rebuffed him.
Read MoreSenate Democrats Tee Up Vote to Codify Abortion Law with Long-Shot Odds of Getting 60 Votes to Pass
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced a plan Thursday to force a vote on legislation that would codify Roe v. Wade – following the release earlier this week of a leaked Supreme Court draft opinion indicating justices may soon overturn the high-court’s decades-old abortion-related ruling.
Read MoreNewt Gingrich Commentary: Roe v. Wade Is Inevitably Going Away
The current uproar over the leaked draft from the U.S. Supreme Court deliberations over abortion – and the rage of the pro-abortion Left over the likelihood that the conservative justices (three of whom were nominated by President Donald Trump) will now repeal Roe v. Wade – is in some ways a lot of noise about the inevitable.
Roe v. Wade was a 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion across the whole country and made America one of the most extreme abortion systems in the entire world. Importantly, it was a court decision by appointed judges – not legislation made by elected legislators. It was inevitably going to be overturned sooner or later.
Read MoreGOP Senators Chastise Conservative Justices in the Wake of Leak
Two moderate Republican senators criticized the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in a leaked draft opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito on Tuesday.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said that if the draft opinion was accurate, “it rocks my confidence in the court right now,” Politico’s Burgess Everett reported. Chief Justice John Roberts confirmed the accuracy of the leak in a statement Tuesday.
Read MoreSCOTUS Authenticates Leaked Document, Orders Investigation
A message from the Public Information Office of the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) says a report in German-owned Politico containing a leaked draft of the Court’s opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade is authentic.
“Yesterday, a news organization published an opinion in a pending case,” said the statement from the Court. “Justices circulate draft opinions internally as a routine and essential part of the Court’s confidential deliberative work. Although the document described in yesterday’s reports is authentic, it does not represent a decision by the Court or the final position on the issues of the case.”
Read MoreGerman-Owned Politico Publishes Purported Leaked Draft Decision Suggesting Supreme Court Vote to Overturn Roe v. Wade
A draft of the majority opinion from Justice Samuel Alito leaked to Politico suggests the Supreme Court voted to strike down Roe v. Wade, the landmark abortion rights decision.
The reported 98-page opinion of at least five justices offers a sharp rebuke of Roe and Casey v. Planned Parenthood, both of which protected abortion rights.
Read MoreSupreme Court Rules Boston Violated Constitution by Not Allowing Christian Flag Outside City Hall
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that the city of Boston violated the U.S. Constitution when it refused to allow a local organization to fly a Christian flag in front of City Hall.
The nine justices said the city has established a public forum outside of City Hall, and invited all organizations to use the flagpole in front of the building to commemorate events. Not allowing the Christian flag to be flown denied the group the same rights as those afforded to all others and was a violation of free speech, said the court.
Read MoreU.S. Supreme Court Hears Arguments in ‘Remain in Mexico’ Lawsuit
The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday in a major immigration case, one of several key legal battles working their way through the federal judicial system as illegal immigration soars.
In Biden v. Texas, the attorneys general of Missouri and Texas sued after the Biden administration ended the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), also known as the “Remain in Mexico” policy.
Read More19 Attorneys General Urge Supreme Court to Uphold Ruling Ordering Full Reinstatement of ‘Remain in Mexico’ Policy
Nineteen attorneys general, led by Indiana, have filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in support of a lawsuit filed by Texas and Missouri against the Biden administration.
They’re asking the Supreme Court to uphold a lower court’s order instructing the Biden administration to follow the law to fully reinstate the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), otherwise known as the “Remain in Mexico” policy.
Read MoreCommentary: Make the Judiciary Great Again by Holding Senators Accountable
Following four days of hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee in late March, the full Senate voted 53-47 last week to confirm Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as an associate justice of the Supreme Court—fulfilling Joe Biden’s campaign pledge to name a black woman to the high court. Three Republican senators joined their Democratic colleagues in voting to confirm Jackson—Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, Maine’s Susan Collins, and Utah’s Mitt Romney.
Imagine a slightly different scenario: a Republican president nominates someone to serve on the Supreme Court and asks a 50-50 Senate to confirm that person. You can be absolutely sure that Democrats would force the vice president to break the tie to get that nominee on the bench. Remember when, in 2016, President Trump nominated Betsy Devos to be secretary of education and Vice President Mike Pence had to break a tie, even without an evenly split Senate?
Read MoreCommentary: The Difference Between Judge Jackson and Justice Thomas Is the Difference Between Nihilism and Natural Law
Observers of the Supreme Court should ask themselves what’s the more preposterous mainstream media mindmeld: whether Justice Clarence Thomas should recuse himself or resign over his wife’s political activism, or the legal brilliance of the Supreme Court Justice-to-be, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Truth be told, what we have here is the myrmidon media’s mockery of the most brilliant Supreme Court justice ever, one they have derisively dismissed as a lawn jockey of the Right, a lackey of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, someone who will be tutored on race by future Justice Jackson, and now a pawn or puppet of his wife. The actual contrast between the two judges could hardly be greater. Of course, neither justice should be held completely responsible for the allies he attracts.
Read MoreBiden Vaccine Mandate for Government Workers Upheld in Court
On Thursday, a federal court upheld Joe Biden’s mandate that all federal government employees be forced to take a coronavirus vaccine.
The New York Post reports that the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, Louisiana issued a ruling that overturned a lower court’s decision to block the mandate, which was first issued in September of 2021. In January, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown had ruled the mandate unconstitutional, determining that the rule constituted an overstep in federal authority.
Read MoreGOP Sen. Collins Says She’ll Vote to Confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court
Republican Sen. Susan Collins says she’ll will vote to confirm Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, guaranteeing President Biden’s judicial nominee at least a slim path toward confirmation.
Jackson will need 51 votes in final Senate vote – with the chamber evenly split among 50 Democrats and 50 Republican. With no GOP support, Vice President Kamala Harris would cast the decisive, tiebreaker vote.
Read MoreCommentary: GOP Must Promise Inquisitions, Not Meaningless Task Forces
Using the pretext of the so-called insurrection on January 6, 2021, the long knives are out for Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
Post-election text exchanges between Mrs. Thomas and Mark Meadows, President Trump’s chief-of-staff, recently were leaked by the January 6 select committee to none other than the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward, who darkly described the communications as proof that “Ginni Thomas used her access to Trump’s inner circle to promote and seek to guide the president’s strategy to overturn the election result.”
The small cache of texts—29 total—shows Thomas expressing frustration at the election’s outcome. There is nothing sinister, and certainly nothing criminal, about the messages.
Read MoreFeds’ Pressure on Tech Platforms to Censor COVID ‘Misinformation’ Is Unconstitutional, Suit Says
The government’s sustained pressure on social media platforms to censor and report purported COVID-19 misinformation amounts to “state action” that violates the First Amendment, according to a lawsuit filed Friday on behalf of three Twitter users.
The New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA), a frequent litigant against COVID-related administrative action, is representing theoretical cognitive scientist Mark Changizi, lawyer Michael Senger and stay-at-home father Daniel Kotzin.
Read MoreSupreme Court Rules Against Navy SEALs, Allows DOD to Restrict Deployment Based on Vax Status
The Supreme Court on Friday blocked a lower court’s ruling that prevented the Navy from making deployment decisions for Navy SEALs based on their COVID-19 vaccination status.
The ruling clears the way for the Navy to keep SEALs from deployment if they aren’t vaccinated. The SEALs had sued challenging the Navy’s COVID-19 policies after being denied religious exemptions.
Read MoreJustice Clarence Thomas Released from Hospital
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has been released from the hospital after suffering with an infection.
The Supreme Court announced Thomas’ hospitalization Sunday. So far, no other details of his condition are public.
Read MoreTrump Levels Blistering Attack on Democrats, and Biden’s Supreme Court Nominee
Sounding ever more a candidate seeking the White House again, former President Donald Trump on Saturday night attacked Democrats as a party of “socialists and communists” so extreme that they chose a Supreme Court nominee who “can’t even say what a woman is.”
“A party that’s unwilling to admit that men and women are biologically different in defiance of all scientific and human history is a party that should not be anywhere near the levers of power in the United States,” Trump told a raucous rally in rural Georgia.
In a 90-minute speech, Trump also rallied Republicans to get behind gubernatorial candidate David Perdue and football star-turned-Senate candidate Herschel Walker and to defeat incumbent GOP Gov. Brian Kemp.
Read MoreCommentary: Ketanji Brown Jackson Is the Best Candidate for Democrats But the Worst for America
When Joe Biden announced his pick to replace Justice Stephen Breyer on the Supreme Court, he told us he’d found someone with “extraordinary character.” Biden said Ketanji Brown Jackson possessed “uncompromising integrity” and “a strong moral compass.”
Like every word that tumbles through Joe’s veneers, this, too, was a lie. Jackson has already proven that she is a woman of weak character, uncompromising dishonesty, and a broken moral compass.
Read MoreA Study in Supreme Court Confirmation Contrasts: Ketanji Brown Jackson vs. Brett Kavanaugh
While conservatives noted the civility shown Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson during the Senate confirmation hearings as compared to those of Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, liberals complained that the Supreme Court nominee was asked difficult questions.
Jackson, President Joe Biden’s first nominee to the high court, has a history of progressive views and judicial philosophy, such as praising “the godfather of Critical Race Theory” and reducing prison time for a child pornography offender. In contrast, former President Donald Trump’s last two Supreme Court nominees, Kavanaugh and Barrett, are both conservative Catholics with pro-life views regarding abortion.
Read MoreArizona Legislature Passes 15-Week Abortion Ban
On Thursday, the Arizona State Legislature passed a bill that would ban all abortions after 15 weeks.
ABC News reports that the Arizona House of Representatives voted along party lines to approve the bill, which is similar to a law already passed in Mississippi that has sparked perhaps the most influential Supreme Court case on abortion since 1973’s Roe v. Wade. Having already passed the State Senate, the bill now goes to the desk of Governor Doug Ducey (R-Ariz.), who is expected to sign it.
Read MoreCommentary: A Trump-Hating Backer of Biden’s Supreme Court Nominee Is Married to the Top January 6th Prosecutor
Confirmation hearings for D.C. Circuit Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, Joe Biden’s first U.S. Supreme Court nominee, began Monday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. During an event in Washington, D.C. on Monday morning, activists gathered to rally on behalf of the nominee who could be the first black woman seated on the nation’s highest court.
“It’s also, for so many of us, a moment that is personal,” Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center, told the crowd. “It is personal if you have ever been the only person sitting in a room. It is personal if you have ever wondered, ‘Is that for me?’” Over the past several weeks, Graves, a graduate of Yale Law school, has given dozens of interviews in support of Jackson’s nomination.
In a January column for CNN, Graves denounced “the current homogeneity of the legal profession and judicial system” and claimed “the perspective of White men has been treated as the default” in court proceedings.
Read MoreJustice Clarence Thomas Hospitalized with Flu-Like Symptoms, Supreme Court Says
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has been in a Washington, D.C., hospital since Friday with flu-like symptoms, according to an announcement from the court.
“He underwent tests, was diagnosed with an infection, and is being treated with intravenous antibiotics. His symptoms are abating, he is resting comfortably, and he expects to be released from the hospital in a day or two,” the press release stated.
“Justice Thomas will participate in the consideration and discussion of any cases for which he is not present on the basis of the briefs, transcripts, and audio of the oral arguments,” according to the court.
Read MoreCorporations Go Out of Their Way to Help Employees Get Abortions
Corporations, including Citigroup, Apple and Match, are helping their employees undergo abortions in light of new, state-level restrictions.
Citigroup announced a policy of covering travel costs for U.S.-based employees seeking abortions “in response to changes in reproductive healthcare laws in certain states” in a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing. The policy will cover airfare and lodging, according to Bloomberg.
Read MoreCommentary: Another Leftist Smear Attempt Falls Flat
No matter what political party you align with, we can all agree that 2022 is going to be a blockbuster term for the Supreme Court. Cases regarding abortion, gun control, and affirmative action are all poised to be decided this year.
In the past the Left has used the Court to impose its radical ideology on American society because it couldn’t use the electoral process to do it. Now they fear the Court is no longer hospitable to these efforts.
Read MoreJustice Reporter Who Called Constitution ‘Trash’ Heads Up Dark Money Group Spending Millions to Support Jackson SCOTUS Nomination
A pundit who called the Constitution garbage is a leader of a dark money group funding a million dollar campaign to confirm President Joe Biden’s nominee to the Supreme Court, according to tax documents provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation by Americans for Public Trust.
Demand Justice seeks to nominate left-wing judges to American courts. Most recently, the group is pushing for the confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.
Read MoreSen. Elizabeth Warren Fundraises on Expanding Supreme Court
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) sent a Saturday fundraising touting the idea of expanding the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) while praising President Joe Biden’s recent SCOTUS nominee.
“Congress has expanded the Supreme Court seven times before,” the subject line of the email said. “It’s now time for the eighth.”
Read MoreSupreme Court Reimposes Death Sentence on Boston Marathon Bomber
The Supreme Court on Friday reimposed the death sentence for so-called Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, reversing a federal appeals court ruling voiding the sentence.
Read MoreCommentary: Justices Must Stop the Legal System from Becoming a Quick-Return Investment Scheme for Trial Lawyers
In the interest of a return to normalcy, we take this short break from COVID and Ukraine coverage to bring to your attention an actual conservative policy matter. The pesky trial lawyers and their junk science “experts” are at it again, providing certain justices of the Supreme Court an opportunity to show us they can still do the right thing.
I’m not pointing fingers at say, Justices John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh, but certain esteemed members of the court who had less than smooth sailing in their confirmation battles and for whom conservatives stormed the ramparts (figuratively speaking of course), have left us wondering if they were worth the battle scars. Here’s some low hanging fruit for them to pick off and make everyone breathe a little easier. All they have to do is vote to take a certain case.
The case involves a long-running dispute brought by the inventor of a special warming blanket called the Bair Hugger (now owned by 3M) which has proven to reduce post-operative infections and other complications and has been used in over 300 million surgeries worldwide to maintain patients’ body temperatures. The inventor, Dr. Scott Augustine made a fortune on this device but lost his rights to the product and its proceeds when he pled guilty to Medicare fraud in an unrelated matter. Dr. Augustine then invented a competing device and waged a campaign to discredit the Bair Hugger claiming that it caused infections. He then hired “experts” and funded studies to back up his claim. Except one of the actual authors of the studies called those studies “marketing rather than research.” As in not based on facts. The FDA admonished Dr. Augustine to stop the false campaign. And not a single physician who uses the Bair Hugger, or a single epidemiologist or any public health officials have supported Dr. Augustine’s contention.
Read MoreSupreme Court Hears Blockbuster Climate Case with Separation of Powers Implications
The Supreme Court heard arguments in West Virginia v. EPA on Monday, a blockbuster case that could have major ramifications in future separation of powers cases.
The case, which stems from an Obama administration climate rule, has wide-ranging implications for how the federal agencies may issue future regulations and rules, according to the parties that brought the case before the high court. States, environmental groups, large power utility companies, civil liberties organizations and pro-coal industry groups have inserted themselves in the case over the last several years, signaling the importance of the questions it has raised.
Read MoreAbortion Pills Now More Common Than Surgical Abortions
Medication-induced abortions accounted for 54% of all abortions in the U.S. in 2020, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
Abortion pills have grown in popularity since they were first introduced in 2000, the Guttmacher Institute reported. And rules requiring women to receive their first two abortion pills at a clinic or doctor’s office were lifted during the pandemic, allowing women to speak with doctors via “telemedicine” and get the pills by mail, The New York Times reported.
Read MoreBiden’s Supreme Court Nominee a Slam Dunk for Democrats
President Biden announced Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as his nominee to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Jackson, who donated to and worked with former President Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, has a record of rulings that seemingly favor Democrats.
In a 2015 ruling, for example, she declined to force former Hillary Clinton aide Philipe Reines to explain why he used a private account for work-related emails, according to Politico.
Read MoreCommentary: Biden Is Stalling His Pick for New Supreme Court Justice Due to Conservative Majority on Court for the Foreseeable Future
It doesn’t take a genius or even a veteran political watcher to conclude that Americans don’t have long attention spans.
Perhaps the lack of retention is due to the establishment news media’s fondness for sensationalizing every little tidbit of information whether the hysteria is warranted or not. How many times have we seen “Breaking News” flash across a screen to describe an occurrence that normally wouldn’t prompt much mention at all, such as a press secretary leaving vice president Kamala “no one gets out of my hemisphere happy” Harris or yet another House Democrat retiring rather than risking being humiliated and summarily booted out of office because of senile president Joe Biden’s abysmal job approval ratings or his or her district was reassembled in a manner that made a return trip to Washington too arduous.
Read MoreMajority of Americans Oppose Choosing Supreme Court Justices by Race and Gender: Poll
President Joe Biden’s commitment to only nominate a a new Supreme Court justice who is a Black female does not have broad support, a newly released poll suggests.
The ABC/Ipsos poll found that 76% of surveyed Americans say Biden should consider “all possible nominees” to fill Breyer’s seat while 23% say Biden should “consider only nominees who are Black women, as he has pledged to do.”
Biden promised several times during the campaign to nominate a Black female justice, saying he is “looking forward to making sure there’s a Black woman on the Supreme Court.”
Read MoreCommentary: The Contentious Battle to Replace Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer
Wednesday’s announcement by Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer that he would be retiring at the end of the court’s current session has raised the obvious question of how contentious the battle over his replacement will be.
One thing is almost certain to be true: No matter who is nominated by President Joe Biden, there will be no 87-9 favorable vote – the tally when Breyer was nominated by Bill Clinton in 1994. Though there were occasional exceptions in the decade prior to Breyer, his vote totals were not unusual in that era. Antonin Scalia was approved 98-0, Anthony Kennedy 97-0, and Ruther Bader Ginsburg 96-3. However, no Supreme Court nomination since Breyer’s has received fewer than 22 negative votes, the number against Chief Justice John Roberts in 2005.
That was the year Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer (now majority leader) urged that senators should vote explicitly on the basis of candidates’ ideology rather than simply their qualifications. In reality, ideology had been the primary driving factor behind the rejection of Robert Bork’s nomination in 1987 and the tough, though ultimately successful, fight over Clarence Thomas’ nomination in 1991, but most opposing senators had attempted to preserve the fiction that judicial temperament or scandals were behind their “no” votes. Schumer opened the door to unabashed ideological and partisan warfare, and subsequent votes on Supreme Court nominations have shown it.
Read MoreConnecticut Republicans and Democrats Argue Congressional Map Case in Court
The state’s Supreme Court has until Feb. 15 to render a decision on how Connecticut’s congressional district maps will be drawn.
The court heard arguments Thursday from attorneys representing Republican and Democratic members of the Reapportionment Commission, who have been unable to reach agreement on how the state’s congressional districts will be drawn.
At the crux of the arguments are maps that are to be drawn with the least amount of change from current districts, with close approximations of the number of residents in each district, and how to address the “lobster claw,” a gerrymandered district that dates back to 2001.
Read MoreSupreme Court to Hear Case of Washington High School Football Coach Fired for Praying
The U.S. Supreme Court has announced it will hear oral arguments later this year in the case of a high school football coach in Washington state who was fired for praying after games.
The case, Kennedy v. Bremerton School Board, involves Joe Kennedy who coached the football team at Bremerton High School from 2008 to 2015.
The issue began after Kennedy was hired when he would take a knee on the field after games to engage in personal prayer.
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