Embedded Files
Next Meeting: 11/10/25, 7 PM, Ozark-Dale Library
Focus On The Supreme Court, The Pursuit of Equality and A Fair Justice System (Post 2024 Election Articles):
Supreme Court's conservative majority targets Voting Rights Act: What comes next
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5572047-louisiana-map-supreme-court/
This one photo shows how far the GOP has regressed on voting rights
Comment: (Video) Video is included. Watch the video. That's the best presentation. (Video)
Joint prison committee meets for first time since ‘The Alabama Solution’ documentary
Comment: "A new HBO documentary is bringing national attention to the problems behind Alabama’s prison walls, and it was topic of discussion in the state legislature’s joint prison committee."
"The Wednesday morning meeting was the first time the committee has held a public meeting since the documentary’s release."
Comment: "Rep. Chris England (D) talked about the documentary directly, referring to a portion that alleges that an Alabama officer beat an inmate to death and is still working for the ADOC."
" 'You would get the impression from watching the film and also looking at your own evidence that the system not only encourages it, but it also enables it,' said Rep. England. 'So in order to root that sort of thing out and make the public know we are aware of those things, folks like that can’t work for us.' ”
"Rep. Matt Simpson (R) did not talk about the documentary by name but did praise the arrests of more than 100 ADOC staff members under Commissioner John Hamm’s tenure."
“ 'Yes, it may look like a black eye in the newspaper, but at the end of the day, that is exactly the accountability to help change the culture,' he said."
"The next meeting for the joint prison committee is scheduled for January."
Comment: Other than the mention of the arrests of 100 ADOC staff members, the article didn't mention any ADOC institutional changes or funding changes to address the abuses illustrated in the documentary. Were those not discussed in the joint prison committee? Are they occurring, or not?
Trump's rhetoric on tariffs ramps up pressure on Supreme Court
Comment: "The president has frequently spoken about the potentially drastic consequences if the Supreme Court strikes down his sweeping tariffs, a view contested by his opponents."
Comment: "To some opponents of his tariffs, Trump's frequent use of apocalyptic rhetoric about his signature policy ahead of the Nov. 5 oral argument is an obvious attempt to influence the court by focusing on the potential consequences of a ruling against him."
" 'I will tell you that’s one of the most important cases in the history of our country because if we don’t win that case, we will be a weakened, troubled, financial mess for many, many years to come,' Trump said at the White House on Oct. 15, in just one example of his repeated comments on the subject."
"Trump, who has a long history of harshly criticizing judges who rule against him, has even suggested he might attend the Supreme Court in person for the oral argument Nov. 5. There is no official record of any sitting president ever attending a Supreme Court argument, according to the court and the nonprofit Supreme Court Historical Society."
Comment: "This time around, the court, with a 6-3 conservative majority including three justices Trump appointed, will be considering whether Trump had the power to unilaterally impose the tariffs under a law reserved for use in times of emergency called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act."
"Although the court has ruled in Trump’s favor on numerous occasions in the first few months of his term, experts believe the tariffs case is a closer call."
Comment: "To some lawyers who oppose the tariffs, Trump's remarks are easy to label."
" 'It's partial intimidation, it's mostly trying to scare them in terms of consequences,' said Thomas Berry, a lawyer at the libertarian Cato Institute."
" 'Presumably he hopes these statements will influence the Supreme Court,' said Elizabeth Goitein, a lawyer at the left-leaning Brennan Center for Justice."
SCOTUS set to rule on National Guard deployment in Chicago with nationwide implications
Comment: "The Supreme Court can decide any moment now whether to approve the Trump administration’s deployment of the National Guard in Chicago. The impending decision carries implications for deployments nationwide — as litigation unfolds in California and Oregon — posing one of the most consequential tests for the justices in President Donald Trump’s second term, one in which the Republican-appointed majority has broadly empowered the president."
"Seeking to lift a federal judge’s order that temporarily blocked deployment, U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer told the high court that lower court intervention 'countermands the exercise of the President’s Commander-in-Chief authority and projects its own authority into the military chain of command.' The administration contends that the president has unreviewable discretion."
"Opposing high court intervention, lawyers for Illinois and the city of Chicago told the justices that 'state and local law enforcement officers have handled isolated protest activities in Illinois, and there is no credible evidence to the contrary.' They said the state 'seeks to protect its sovereignty, retain control over local policing, and protect the basic structure of American federalism from unprecedented intrusion.' "
‘Rogue president’: growing number of US judges push back against Trump
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/21/judges-rebuking-trump
Comment: "US district and appeals courts are increasingly rebuking Donald Trump’s radical moves on tackling crime, illegal immigration and other actions where administration lawyers or Trump have made sweeping claims of emergencies that judges have bluntly rejected as erroneous and undermining the rule of law in America."
"Legal scholars and ex-judges note that strong court pushback has come from judges appointed by Republicans, including Trump himself, and Democrats, and signifies that the administration’s factual claims and expanding executive powers face stiff challenges that have slowed some extreme policies. "
Comment: The extreme policies are slowed, until the Supreme Court offers Trump temporary relief pending a final judicial decision by the Supreme Court. In the meantime, most of the extreme policies are reinstated. The Supreme Court is the problem.
MSNBC News: These DOJ attorneys charging Donald Trump's critics with crimes have this is common
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/trump-doj-james-comey-baraka-mciver-rcna238085
Comment: "Since Watergate, Americans have expected presidents to steer clear of criminal prosecutions. But under Donald Trump, presidential interference is happening in broad daylight — enabled by his replacement of seasoned, Senate-confirmed prosecutors with political loyalists devoted to him, not the law."
"Trump has only 18 of 93 Senate-confirmed U.S. attorneys in place. (He had 46 confirmed during the first year of his first term). But a lack of Senate-confirmed prosecutors hasn’t stopped Trump. To the contrary, he has a network of acting prosecutors who do what Trump wants — particularly prosecuting his critics — as quickly as he wants them, whether or not the law supports it."
Comment: "None of this is normal. The Senate is supposed to confirm U.S. attorneys — the nation’s top federal prosecutors — to help ensure independence and accountability. While presidents can make short-term appointments, those typically expire after 120 days. At that point, federal judges may appoint temporary replacements. Trump has upended that system, using extraordinary and untested legal maneuvers, such as naming Sarcone 'special attorney to the attorney general,' to bypass Senate confirmation and keep loyalists in place."
"Trump’s second term has laid bare his determination to replace independent thinkers and prosecutors with political enforcers. The Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section — once the moral center on matters of corruption — has been hollowed out. Most of its veteran lawyers have been fired or reassigned, and The Washington Post reported in May that Bondi was reportedly weighing a plan that would allow federal prosecutors to seek indictments of members of Congress without the customary review of the career prosecutors who remain in the section."
Comment: "This is not merely a bureaucratic reshuffle. It is a fundamental assault on the post-Watergate norms that have defined the Justice Department for half a century. And Trump’s sidestepping of the Senate and putting in power people whose chief qualifications appear to be a willingness to do what he says threatens not only defendants but public faith in the impartial administration of justice."
"There are two kinds of federal prosecutors: those who follow the facts and the law and those who bend to political pressure. It’s clear which kind Trump prefers."
Comment: The linked article gives specific examples illustrating the validity of the comments above.
CNN: Brett Kavanaugh holds the future of the Voting Rights Act in his hands
https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/16/politics/brett-kavanaugh-future-of-voting-rights-act-analysis
The Perils of the Supreme Court Forgetting the Past
https://time.com/7325167/supreme-court-voting-rights-act-louisiana-callais/
Comment: "On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear new arguments in Louisiana v. Callais, which holds significant implications for the future of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). The justices will decide whether Louisiana’s inclusion of another majority-Black congressional district 'violates the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments to the US Constitution'."
Comment: "The state alleges that enforcement of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which offered Black Americans voting access and protections in 1965, actually constitutes 'government-mandated racial discrimination'."
Comment: "The question before the Supreme Court is both legal and historical. In effect, Louisiana is asking the justices to forget the long, contested struggle of Black Americans for the franchise and to construct a national memory in which Black Americans seeking representation becomes a form of reverse discrimination. Louisiana v. Callais will not simply be a judgment on the VRA, the 'crown jewel' of civil rights legislation, but part of an ongoing effort to reimagine American history to fit a current political agenda. The very history of the VRA, however, demonstrates that such a rewriting of the past could have a catastrophic impact that weakens American democracy."
Comment: "When Black Alabamians marched across the Edmund Pettus bridge in 1965, they were not asking for the right to vote. They had received it 95 years earlier. Instead, they were asking for an end to discriminatory state practices and for federal protection from the violence that had kept them from accessing this bedrock right."
"For the Supreme Court to now conclude that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is actually racially discriminatory would require a wholesale forgetting of the history between 1876 and 1965 that necessitated the seminal law. That historical revisionism has already begun, driven both by the Court’s own decisions and the actions of the Trump Administration."
CNN: Takeaways from the Supreme Court arguments on the Voting Rights Act and race-based redistricting
https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/15/politics/voting-rights-act-supreme-court-takeaways
Supreme Court seems poised to further undercut the Voting Rights Act
https://www.npr.org/2025/10/15/nx-s1-5575101/scotus-voting-rights-arguments
CNN: Oct. 14, 2025 - Supreme Court arguments on the future of the Voting Rights Act
https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/supreme-court-voting-rights-act-redistricting-10-15-25
The Daily Beast: Clarence Thomas Clerk Issues Dire Warning About Supreme Court’s Agenda
https://www.thedailybeast.com/clarence-thomas-clerk-issues-dire-warning-about-supreme-courts-agenda/
Comment: "A former law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas has warned that the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Constitution 'appears to be moving toward a sweepingly pro-president position'."
"In an essay for the NYU Law Democracy Project, originalist legal scholar and University of Virginia School of Law professor Caleb Nelson argued that the Constitution’s text and historical context give Congress wide latitude to organize the executive branch and to impose limits on the president’s power to remove officials."
"It’s an issue that is already front and center on the court’s docket, and one that Nelson warns 'can do lasting damage to our norms and institutions' in the case of 'a President bent on vengeful, destructive and lawless behavior.' "
CBS News: Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court today: "A little bit too personal and confrontational"
SCOTUSblog: Supreme Court to hear arguments in pivotal case on the Voting Rights Act
CNN: Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the opinion legalizing same-sex marriage. Here’s why he says it won’t be overturned
The Guardian: ‘The stakes are quite large’: US supreme court case could gut Voting Rights Act
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/09/supreme-court-voting-rights-act
Republicans could draw 19 more House seats after an upcoming Supreme Court ruling
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/08/republicans-scotus-vra-00597212
Comment: "Democratic voting rights groups are preparing for a nightmare scenario if the Supreme Court guts a key part of the landmark civil rights-era legislation, the Voting Rights Act — a very real possibility this term."
"Ahead of the court’s Oct. 15 rehearing of Louisiana v. Callais — a case that has major implications for the VRA — two voting rights groups are sounding the alarm, warning that eliminating Section 2, a provision that prohibits racial gerrymandering when it dilutes minority voting power, would let Republicans redraw up to 19 House seats to favor the party and crush minority representation in Congress."
"That calculation, made in a new report from Fair Fight Action and Black Voters Matter Fund shared exclusively with POLITICO, would all but guarantee Republican control of Congress."
"While a ruling in time for next year’s midterms is unlikely, the organizations behind the report said that it’s not out of the question. Taken together, the groups identified 27 total seats that Republicans could redistrict in their favor ahead of the midterms — 19 of which stem from Section 2 being overturned."
"Doing so would 'clear the path for a one-party system where power serves the powerful and silences the people,' Black Voters Matter Fund co-founder LaTosha Brown said in a statement."
"Without Section 2, up to 30 percent of the Congressional Black Caucus and 11 percent of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus could be drawn out of their seats, according to the report."
"Republicans have long sought to dismantle this portion of the VRA, which generally prohibits race-based discrimination in voting laws and practices, arguing that it gives Democrats a partisan advantage. The Supreme Court has previously rebuffed these arguments, but voting rights advocates are worried the Louisiana case will change that."
Newsweek: Chief Justice Roberts Warns of ‘Potential Disaster’ in Supreme Court Case
NBC News: Supreme Court rejects Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell’s appeal of her criminal conviction
Comment: "The Supreme Court on Monday rejected Ghislaine Maxwell’s challenge to her criminal conviction for recruiting and grooming teenage girls for sexual abuse by Jeffrey Epstein."
"The decision means that Maxwell’s conviction on three counts and her 20-year criminal sentence remain in place. The case was one in a list of dozens of appeals that piled up in recent months that the justices rejected as they started a new nine-month court term."
Comment: Given some recent Supreme Court rulings, it's encouraging that there is at least some sense of justice left.
As Supreme Court returns, major tests ahead for Trump's presidential power
Comment: "The nine justices return to the bench Monday for a new term that features marquee disputes over the scope of presidential power with major implications for Trump, the global economy, American foreign policy, and the midterm elections."
" 'This term will tell us whether or not there are limits to the court’s broad view of the unitary executive power,' said Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center."
" 'If the court does prevent President Trump from using executive orders to end birthright citizenship or to impose tariffs, then it won’t look like it’s in his pocket anymore," Rosen said."
"In what could be the term’s biggest blockbuster, the court will decide whether Trump’s sweeping global reciprocal tariffs are an illegal use of emergency authority granted by Congress – and whether tens of billions of dollars collected so far must be refunded."
" 'It is a staggeringly important case from an economic perspective and from a separation of powers perspective,' said Hofstra Law professor and ABC News legal contributor James Sample. 'If you think of a tariff as a tax, this is one of the biggest tax hikes in American history, and it didn’t go through Congress at all.' "
"The court will also review Trump’s firings of Democratic members of independent federal agencies without cause, despite 90 years of legal precedent forbidding such terminations, and his unprecedented attempts to remove a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, Lisa Cook, over unproven allegations of mortgage fraud."
" 'Does the president, and future presidents, have the power to essentially shape the Federal Reserve at his or her whim? That’s a monumental question,' Sample said."
"The justices are also poised to take up the constitutionality of Trump’s Day 1 move to end birthright citizenship by executive order, challenging more than a century of legal precedant governing who is American at birth under the 14th Amendment."
Comment: " 'So much of what people have been calling 'wins' for Donald Trump have actually been these very temporary decisions to allow a policy to move forward while the case proceeds in the lower courts," said SCOTUSblog editor and ABC News legal contributor Sarah Isgur."
Comment: Please read the entire linked article. There are a number of additional important issues where the Supreme Court will weigh in.
NBC News: Samuel Alito says he isn't calling for overturning same-sex marriage ruling
Comment: "Conservative Justice Samuel Alito on Friday said he is not seeking to overturn the Supreme Court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage even as a case is pending asking the justices to do just that."
"Alito made his remarks on the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges ruling, in which he dissented, as an aside in a speech at an academic conference in Washington in which he outlined his judicial philosophy."
" 'In commenting on Obergefell, I am not suggesting that the decision in that case should be overruled,' he said before repeating his criticisms of the decision."
"In the decade since Obergefell was decided, Alito has continued to air his views of the majority’s reasoning that the Constitution’s 14th Amendment prohibits state bans on same-sex marriage."
"During that period, the Supreme Court has shifted further to the right following the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy, who authored the ruling."
Comment: Despite his recent statement, until Alito rules, can one really trust him to protect gay marriage?
USA Today: President Trump's winning streak at the Supreme Court is about to get tested
Comment: "Until now, the court has weighed in primarily on whether Trump’s controversial policies can move forward while they’re being litigated. "
"Now that some of the challenges have gone through the lower courts, the justices will start deciding the ultimate fate of Trump’s policies in the new term that begins Oct. 6."
"Slightly more than half the country thinks the Supreme Court is going out of its way to avoid making a ruling against Trump that he might refuse to obey, according to a Marquette Law School Poll released Oct. 2."
Comment: "But the main focus will be on Trump's continued testing of the limits on his authority, starting with a signature initiative – the sweeping tariffs that are the centerpiece of Trump’s economic policy and a major foreign policy cudgel. That case will be heard by the court in early November."
The Nation: Clarence Thomas Admits That He’s Coming for Our Rights
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/clarence-thomas-speech-precedent/
Comment: "In a little-covered speech, the Supreme Court justice explained how he thinks the court should reverse rulings conservatives don’t like.
Supreme Court says Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook can stay — for now
https://www.npr.org/2025/10/01/nx-s1-5556920/trump-fed-governor-fire-lisa-cook
Comment: "The Supreme Court has temporarily blocked President Trump's attempt to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, maintaining a critical firewall for now around the central bank's ability to make decisions without political interference from the White House."
"That means Cook can stay in her job at least until the high court hears oral arguments in the case in January.:
"The decision shows that the conservative court is willing to at least consider some limits on the president's power, even as it has allowed Trump to exercise considerable authority over other nominally independent government agencies."
"Critics had warned that allowing Trump to fire Cook would have trampled on decades of research showing central banks function best when they're allowed to operate without meddling from politicians."
Fight Over Hidden Report on Trump Documents Case Goes to Appeals Court
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/30/us/politics/trump-documents-case-report.html
Comment: "A Trump-appointed federal judge’s lingering inaction over a special counsel’s report about President Trump’s retention of classified documents has ensured that it remains hidden, prompting a free-speech group to urge an appeals court to intervene."
"Separately on Monday, a judge made public more than 200 pages of files concerning closed-door fights in court over attorney-client privilege during the investigations into the documents case and into Mr. Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election."
"Together, the developments showed how details of the two investigations that led to indictments of Mr. Trump while he was out of office have remained hidden from public view."
Comment: "But the request spotlights how the Trump-appointed judge who oversaw that case, Aileen M. Cannon of the Federal District Court for the Southern District of Florida, has sat on a request aimed at trying to make public a report by the special counsel, Jack Smith, on the investigation."
"Mr. Smith dropped the investigations into Mr. Trump after the 2024 election because the Justice Department considers sitting presidents temporarily immune from prosecution."
"Mr. Smith ultimately produced a two-volume report about his work. The first volume, regarding the election case, became public in January. But the documents volume remains hidden because Judge Cannon imposed an injunction blocking the Justice Department from providing a copy to anyone outside the department."
"Judge Cannon, who earlier threw out the case because she ruled the special counsel's appointment invalid,, has left the injunction in place even though its stated rationale no longer exists. She had asserted that the report’s disclosure could undermine the fair-trial rights of two former co-defendants to Mr. Trump if an appeals court overturned her dismissal, but the Trump administration has since dropped the case entirely."
"Before issuing the injunction, Judge Cannon had ordered the Justice Department to show the report to her. In February, the Knight First Amendment Institute asked her both to lift the injunction and to post the report on the case docket, citing the public’s constitutional right to see judicial records."
"But Judge Cannon has yet to act on that request. Calling that delay 'manifestly unreasonable,' the institute asked the appeals court to order her to act."
Comment: Do you think that Aileen Cannon doesn't want the public to see the evidence that Jack Smith collected about Trump's stashing of highly classified national security documents at Mar-a-Lago and Trump's attempts to hide them from the National Archives and the FBI?
James Comey case jeopardizes Americans' free speech rights, retired judges warn
Comment: "The Trump administration's case against former FBI Director James Comey should be a warning sign to Americans, 42 retired judges wrote in an open letter first obtained by NBC News."
"In their letter, the former federal and state judges warned that the 'rights and liberties of every American are in grave danger today, as President Donald Trump continues to corruptly abuse the power of his office by directing the United States Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to target his critics and his perceived political enemies for investigation and criminal prosecution.' "
Civil rights agency drops a key tool used to investigate workplace discrimination
Comment: The U.S. civil rights agency responsible for enforcing worker rights will stop investigating complaints about company policies that don’t explicitly discriminate but may disproportionately harm certain groups, according to an internal memo obtained by The Associated Press."
"The memo, emailed to all area, local and district office directors of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on Sept. 15, says that the agency will discharge by Tuesday any complaints based on 'disparate impact liability,' a legal concept that argues that even if a policy looks fair on the surface, it can still be discriminatory if it creates unnecessary barriers that make it harder for certain groups of people to succeed."
"The EEOC’s decision to drop such cases aligns with President Donald Trump’s April executive order directing federal agencies to deprioritize the use of disparate impact in civil rights enforcement because it encourages the assumption that any racial imbalance in the workforce is a result of discrimination, which creates undue burden on businesses."
"The move marks a significant shift in EEOC enforcement, and critics say it weakens an effective legal tool used to root out workplace discrimination. That’s especially true when it comes to addressing algorithmic bias as more employers rely on AI in the hiring process."
Comment: In hiring, do you believe that employers who want to discriminate will simply use available personal data (for example residence location, first name, college/high school, etc.) to let a computer program assume a job candidate's race and then let the computer program automatically eliminate a qualified candidate based on that race assumption?
Video: Trump asks Supreme Court to uphold restrictions he wants on birthright citizenship - September 27, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qy3LbXmrODY
Trump asks Supreme Court to let him end birthright citizenship - POLITICO
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/26/supreme-court-birthright-citizenship-trump-admin-00583378
Comment: "The president’s Day 1 executive order purporting to end birthright citizenship has not taken effect because four federal judges ruled it violates the 14th Amendment."
Comment: "President Donald Trump is asking the Supreme Court to revive his controversial policy to deny birthright citizenship to children born in the U.S. to undocumented immigrants and to visitors on short-term visas."
"In petitions submitted to the high court on Friday, Solicitor General D. John Sauer asked the justices to hear arguments on the issue early next year, which would likely lead to a ruling by June."
"If the high court acquiesces in that schedule, it would effectively highlight Trump’s anti-birthright citizenship drive months before the Congressional midterm elections that will be pivotal for Trump to keep carrying out his agenda."
"A ruling in the president’s favor would be a major victory for his immigration agenda, while a defeat would allow him to blame the justices for blocking one of his key priorities."
Comment: Trump doesn't care about the Constitution. He only wants a political issue that he can try to exploit just before the 2026 midterms.
Donald Trump’s US attorneys, unvetted by the Senate, move full steam ahead
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/26/donald-trump-us-attorneys-senate-confirmation-00583005
Comment: "President Donald Trump has just two Senate-confirmed U.S. attorneys in place. That hasn’t stopped him from leaning on unvetted and newly minted prosecutors to harness the power of the Justice Department against his political enemies."
"In the Eastern District of Virginia, Lindsey Halligan, a former Trump personal attorney who has never prosecuted a case, on Thursday secured the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey three days after Trump ousted an experienced prosecutor to install Halligan on a temporary basis."
Comment: "Around the country, nearly all of Trump’s U.S. attorney nominees have been unable to receive confirmation by the Senate. Some of his nominees are so inexperienced or have a history of so much politicized conduct that they cannot win confirmation even in a Republican-controlled Senate. Other nominees might have enough votes to be confirmed, but Democrats have successfully blocked them."
"Without Senate-vetted appointees, most of the country’s 93 U.S. attorney offices are being led by interim leaders — and some of them have displayed far more obedience to Trump, and his desire for retribution, than full-time U.S. attorneys have ever shown to presidents they served under. Historically, U.S. attorneys have tended to guard their offices’ authority to work relatively independently even from Justice Department headquarters and certainly from the White House."
Comment: The remainder of the linked article describes the danger inherent to justice in the existing situation.
Justice Clarence Thomas says legal precedents are not 'the gospel'
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/justice-clarence-thomas-legal-precedents-gospel/story?id=125967044
Comment: "Justice Clarence Thomas said the Supreme Court should take a more critical approach to settled precedent, saying decided cases are not 'the gospel' and suggesting some may have been based on 'something somebody dreamt up and others went along with'."
"Thomas made the comments during a rare public appearance Thursday evening at Catholic University's Columbus School of Law in Washington, D.C., just over a week before the high court starts a new term that includes challenges to several major, longstanding decisions."
"The Court is poised to revisit Humphrey's Executor v U.S. — a 90-year precedent that limits a president's ability to remove members of some independent federal agencies without cause. The justices will also consider whether to overturn Thornburg v Gingles, a landmark 1986 decision governing the use of race in redistricting under the Voting Rights Act."
"For the first time, the Court is also considering a petition for writ of certiorari asking them to explicitly revisit and overturn the 2015 decision in Obergefell v Hodges, which extended marriage rights to same-sex couples."
" 'At some point we need to think about what we're doing with stare decisis,' Thomas said Thursday, referring to the legal principle of abiding by previous decisions. 'And it's not some sort of talismanic deal where you can just say 'stare decisis' and not think, turn off the brain, right?' "
Comment: Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Supreme Court allows Trump to withhold $4 billion in foreign aid funding
Comment: "The Supreme Court on Friday handed another win to the Trump administration by allowing it to withhold $4 billion in spending on foreign aid that was appropriated by Congress."
"A federal judge had ruled that the administration would have to spend the funds by the end of the month, but the Supreme Court's decision puts that on hold."
" 'This result further erodes separation of powers principles that are fundamental to our constitutional order. It will also have a grave humanitarian impact,' said Nicolas Sansome, a lawyer with Public Citizen Litigation Group, which represents nonprofit groups that sued."
"The brief order noted that the government has made a 'sufficient showing' that the groups that sued were barred from bringing the lawsuit in question under a law called the Impoundment Control Act."
"The court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, also noted that 'the asserted harms to the Executive’s conduct of foreign affairs appear to outweigh the potential harm' to the plaintiffs, which are various groups that receive foreign aid funds."
"The court has now granted 20 emergency applications filed by the administration since President Donald Trump’s second term began in January. The volume of emergency filings and the rate at which the court has ruled in the administration's favor are both unprecedented. The latter has sparked criticism from within the legal community, including lower court judges."
Comment: What about 'the potential harm' to 'separation of powers principles' of the United States Constitution?
Video: BREAKING: BOMBSHELL update at US Supreme Court - September 25, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW0A-xKsPnU
Comment: "Justice Department dives into Voting Rights Act case at Supreme Court"
Young Black lawyers mobilize to defend democracy
https://www.axios.com/2025/09/25/young-black-lawyers-mobilize-to-defend-democracy
Comment: "A new generation of Black attorneys is mobilizing — not just to defend democracy, but to build the legal infrastructure needed to protect it for the long haul."
Comment: "On Thursday, in Washington, D.C., as leaders gather for the Congressional Black Caucus Annual Legislative Conference, more than 50 early career Black lawyers are convening for their own summit: the Black Legal Brain Trust, hosted by the Young Black Lawyers Organizing Coalition (YBLOC)."
Comment: "Founded in 2020, YBLOC has already reached 700,000 voters and recently launched Redistricting While Black with the Center for Social Justice in North Carolina. The group has run focus groups and organizing campaigns in Texas, Georgia, Michigan, and North Carolina — all key battlegrounds ahead of 2024."
Comment: " 'This is not our elders' movement or strategy. It has to be different,' Dosunmu told Axios."
" 'When Thurgood was fighting in the '50s and '60s, he had a target on his back,' Dosunmu said. 'We do too — but the threats are different, and our strategy has to be too. We can't just react. We have to organize for the long term.' "
Alan Greenspan and every other living former Fed chair tell Supreme Court that Lisa Cook should keep her job | CNN Business
https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/25/economy/fed-chairs-treasury-secretaries-lisa-cook
The Trump administration is pushing courts to make more ‘new law’
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/24/donald-trump-presidential-powers-cases-00579192
Comment: "Judges at every level are painfully aware that their decisions in cases of 'first impression' risk unintended consequences that could destabilize the nation’s balance of power. So when those questions present themselves, they often find ways to resolve the cases without issuing far-reaching rulings, or making 'new law'.”
"Then came Donald Trump."
"Since January, Trump’s effort to concentrate unrivaled power in the executive branch has forced courts to wrestle — often on emergency timelines — with issues no court has ever addressed. But even that novel dynamic has been supercharged in recent days. In just the past month:"
Comment: The linked article goes on to briefly describe 6 important cases.
Comment: "In each case, judges are being forced to confront unprecedented claims of presidential power in ways they’ve never had to consider."
"The results of these cases could empower Trump to assert his will more aggressively than any president in history, but just as significantly, they are guaranteed to leave a legal legacy that will shape the way future presidents can wield the power of their office. And Trump still has three years to poke, prod and stress test the system of government in ways that have thrilled his supporters and stoked existential dread about the unraveling of the republic from his critics."
Judge finds Trump violated law in firing inspectors general, but allows dismissal to stand
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5520345-trump-firing-inspectors-general/
Comment: "A federal judge found that President Trump broke the law in firing a number of inspectors general early in his term, but the judge found she did not have the power to reinstate them to their jobs."
"U.S. District Court Judge Ana Reyes struck a sympathetic tone in the case, which was brought on behalf of eight of the nearly 20 inspectors general Trump has fired."
" 'President Trump violated the IGA. That much is obvious. And Plaintiffs raise compelling arguments that the violation must be remedied through reinstatement to their positions,' Reyes wrote, referencing the Inspectors General Act."
"However, she said, Trump could simply fire them again by providing the required notice to Congress."
Comment: What happened to legal accountability? What happened to deterrence for committing an illegal act? Is it any wonder that the Trump administration continues to commit illegal acts? One can only hope that the judge's ruling helps support any subsequent civil action taken by the IGs.
How the Roberts Court became the Trump Court | CNN Politics
https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/24/politics/john-roberts-20-years-legacy-trump
White House bullish after a long string of Supreme Court victories
Comment: "While President Donald Trump’s aggressive use of executive power has resulted in a flurry of lawsuits, administration officials have won a series of high-profile victories at the Supreme Court in part due to careful case selection aimed at securing the backing of the conservative majority."
"The White House has won 19 times at the Supreme Court since Trump took office and is on a 16-case winning run. The last loss was in May."
" 'They’re ecstatic,' a person close to the White House said of the series of recent legal wins, adding that officials do not want to overplay their hand at the court."
"But only a small number of the more than 300 active lawsuits filed against the Trump administration have made it to the Supreme Court."
"So far, the Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to weigh in on an emergency basis 28 times, according to an NBC News tally. It has lost only two. Four cases are pending, although the court issued temporary wins to the government in one of them while it decides what next steps to take. Three others resulted in no decision."
"The limited number of emergency requests compared with the total number of cases indicates the administration has been wary of rushing to the justices on issues where even a conservative majority receptive to some of its aggressive assertions of executive power may push back."
Supreme Court agrees to reconsider precedent that limits who Trump can fire | CNN Politics
https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/22/politics/supreme-court-precedent-trump-fire
Supreme Court allows Trump firing of FTC commissioner, accepts case for December argument - ABC News
Comment: "The Supreme Court on Monday in a 6-3 decision upheld President Donald Trump's termination of Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter, at least on an interim basis, as the justices said they would expedite a review of the high-stakes dispute over the scope of executive power."
"The Supreme Court did not explain its decision, but the move was in line with other recent orders by the conservative majority giving broad deference to the president over staffing of independent agencies that exercise significant executive authority."
"Trump removed Slaughter -- who was appointed by former President Joe Biden -- without cause, citing purely policy differences."
"Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from the decision citing the text of federal law, which only allows the removal of FTC commissioners for cause and a longstanding high court precedent -- Humphrey's Executor v US -- which upheld those terms."
Politico: Opinion | 5 Reasons the Supreme Court Might Change Its Mind on Same-Sex Marriage
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/09/22/same-sex-marriage-might-be-unsafe-00568474
Comment: "Conventional wisdom holds that the Supreme Court will decline the looming opportunity to disturb Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 landmark ruling recognizing a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. Polling shows that a substantial majority of Americans endorse legal recognition of gay marriage, so this court, the assumption seems to be, will leave well enough alone."
"But there are a few signals that suggest otherwise — that the court could be preparing to both take up the case and reverse the decision, sending the question of legal access to gay marriage back to state legislatures. That would effectively do to Obergefell and gay marriage what the court did a few years ago to Roe v. Wade and abortion — reverse a prior decision and allow a patchwork of state laws to take its place."
The Hill: The costs of Trump defying the Supreme Court
https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/5513010-supreme-court-trump-ruling/
Comment: "The odds are, in the coming months, the Supreme Court will issue a ruling that limits Donald Trump's unilateral assertions of power. Perhaps the court will strike down the president’s radical and unprecedented imposition of tariffs without congressional involvement or his denial of birthright citizenship to individuals born in the U.S."
"Although it is impossible to know how such a situation will play out, a certain fatalism is now germinating. Political observers and even unnamed administration officials wonder in private what will happen if Trump simply defies the court, asserting his executive power and thumbing his nose at the rule of law and the constitutional system."
"I believe that such a decision to ignore the Supreme Court would be more difficult and costly to Trump than many assume."
Comment: "Trump’s decision to defy the Supreme Court is hardly a foregone conclusion, even for him. The reality is that the stakes for Trump — and the country — of flouting the rule of law are enormous and may bring about the president’s political downfall."
Comment: The linked article gives examples of the possible ramifications to Trump and America if he chooses to defy the Supreme Court.
Video: Supreme Court gives Lisa Cook one week to respond to Trump's bid to fire her - September 19, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eC_tz010nCg
US supreme court sets date to hear arguments on Trump’s tariffs | Trump tariffs | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/18/supreme-court-trump-tariffs
Comment: "Hearing on 5 November sets up major test of the president’s use of executive power to drive his economic agenda"
SCOTUSblog: Group of Louisiana voters urges Supreme Court to strike down major provision of the Voting Rights Act
Justice Sotomayor concerned Americans cannot distinguish between presidents and kings | CNN Politics
https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/16/politics/sonia-sotomayor-presidents-kings
SCOTUSblog: Is the emergency docket really for emergencies?
https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/09/is-the-emergency-docket-really-for-emergencies/
Comment: "If you’re requesting emergency relief from the Supreme Court, how long should you expect to wait for a decision? In other words, does the court really treat emergency applications as emergencies? The answer, it turns out, depends on what kind of emergency you have. Decision times for the court’s emergency, or interim relief, docket have evolved dramatically over the past decade, but not uniformly. Some applications move through in days, while others take months."
"Perhaps most striking is that speed correlates with the political direction of cases. In 2024, cases with conservative outcomes averaged 23 days to decide, while cases with liberal outcomes took 41 days – a 76% difference that reveals how the court’s approach to emergency relief is often influenced by a case’s ideological outcome."
A Florida Home Insurer Was Allowed to Bypass the Courts During Claim Disputes. It Won More Than 90% of the Time.
https://www.propublica.org/article/citizens-property-insurance-florida-arbitration-cases
Comment: "A Special Deal: In a moment of peril, Florida lawmakers allowed its insurer of last resort to take disputes before judges whose salaries it funds."
"Winning Record: Citizens has taken more than 1,500 insurance disputes to mandatory arbitration, where it wins more than 90% of final hearings. In court it wins just over half the time."
"Systemic Issues: Citizens says the process is fast, cheap and fair. Homeowners say the forum violates their rights."
The Supreme Court, tariffs, and judicial consistency
https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/09/the-supreme-court-tariffs-and-judicial-consistency/
Kavanaugh says no one has too much power in US system. Critics see Supreme Court bowing to Trump
https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-kavanaugh-starr-trump-dba3cb2ba1350f8ba52c8cb04c2000f1
Comment: "Justice Brett Kavanaugh says the genius of the American system of government is that no one should have too much power, even as he and other conservatives on the Supreme Court are facing criticism for deferring repeatedly to President Donald Trump."
"Invoking the list of grievances against King George III that the nation’s founders included in the Declaration of Independence, Kavanaugh said Thursday the framers of the Constitution were set on avoiding the concentration of power."
" 'And the framers recognized in a way that I think is brilliant, that preserving liberty requires separating the power. No one person or group of people should have too much power in our system,' Kavanaugh said at an event honoring his onetime boss, Kenneth Starr, a former federal judge and solicitor general celebrated by conservatives who died in 2022."
Comment: "Across the street from the event, though, several dozen protesters offered a different view of Kavanaugh and Trump."
" 'Basically, the Supreme Court has handed the country to Trump,' said J.W. LaStrape, the head of the Baylor University Democrats who was among the protesters."
“ 'BK- Trump Flunky,' one banner said. 'Shame on You. No One is Above the Law,' a placard read in a reference to the court’s 2024 decision, which Kavanaugh joined, that helped Trump avoid prosecution for his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss."
"The court’s liberal justices also have objected to the conservatives’ repeated votes in favor of Trump's emergency appeals to the Supreme Court, including the most decision this week to allow the resumption of sweeping immigration operations in Southern California."
SCOTUSblog: What currently remains on the emergency docket
https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/09/what-currently-remains-on-the-emergency-docket/
Comment: "The Supreme Court has been on summer recess for more than two months, but you wouldn’t know it if you’ve been following the emergency docket. Since late June, the justices have issued dozens of orders and opinions in response to emergency applications, many of which came from the Trump administration. Just this week, for example, the justices announced their decisions in three emergency docket cases, including a major dispute over immigration stops in Los Angeles and surrounding counties."
"Monday’s decision on immigration stops extended the Trump administration’s remarkable win streak in front of the Supreme Court. It was the 18th time in a row that the justices have granted an emergency request from the administration, according to Steve Vladeck."
"And we may soon see if that streak extends to 20. As of Thursday, there were two requests from the Trump administration for the court to intervene. Here’s a closer look at these two cases."
Comment: "In Trump v, Slaughter, the Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to temporarily pause a ruling that requires the reinstatement of Rebecca Slaughter, a commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission whom Trump fired in March."
Comment: "In Department of State v. AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, the Trump administration – for the third time since February – has asked the Supreme Court to clear the way for it to freeze billions of dollars of foreign-aid funds. The key question in the case is whether the president has the authority to refuse to spend money that previously was set aside by Congress to support foreign-aid programs."
Comment: "In the near future, the Trump administration may bring several more cases to the emergency docket, including a dispute over Trump’s firing of Federal Reserve Gov. Lisa Cook."
Politico: Appeals court judges publicly admonish Supreme Court justices: ‘We’re out here flailing’
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/11/supreme-court-emergency-rulings-judges-00558058
Comment: "Frustrated federal appeals court judges publicly wrestled Thursday with how to follow vague 'signals' from the Supreme Court contained in tersely worded — and often unexplained — orders handed down on the justices’ emergency docket."
"Some judges on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals even questioned whether they still had a role to play or were expected, at least in some cases, to simply reiterate the high court’s orders and leave it at that."
" 'They’re leaving the circuit courts, the district courts out in limbo,' said Judge James Wynn, an Obama appointee, during oral arguments in a case about the Department of Government Efficiency employees’ access to Social Security data. 'We’re out here flailing. … I’m not criticizing the justices. They’re using a vehicle that’s there, but they are telling us nothing. They could easily just give us direction and we would follow it.' ”
" 'They cannot get amnesia in the future because they didn’t write an opinion on it. Write an opinion,' Wynn said. 'We need to understand why you did it. We judges would just love to hear your reasoning as to why you rule that way. It makes our job easier. We will follow the law. We will follow the Supreme Court, but we’d like to know what it is we are following.' ”
Comment: Could it be that the Supreme Court is reluctant to write an opinion because many of their recent decisions are based on political considerations rather than legal or constitutional grounds? This is especially true for those cases on the "rocket docket" or emergency docket used by Trump to get his questionable executive orders validated.
Black student dragged from his car and beaten by Florida officers files federal lawsuit | CNN
https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/10/us/william-mcneil-jacksonville-florida-police-lawsuit
The Supreme Court’s FTC ruling is a death sentence for independent agencies
Comment: "On Monday, the Supreme Court turned a blind eye to President Donald Trump's unlawful termination of a Democratic member of the Federal Trade Commission. In doing so, the court further strengthened the hand of an administration intent on tightening its grip on every aspect of the federal government. Once again, the nation's highest court used its shadow docket to overturn two lower court rulings with minimal explanation — or, in this case, with no explanation at all. Once again, Trump asked a highly partisan Supreme Court to rubber-stamp a blatantly political action, one that clearly violates the spirit and letter of the law — and the court obliged."
"This ruling, however, is bad not only for Trump’s critics but also for the viability of independent agencies. By rewriting the rules for Trump, the court has opened the door for future presidents of both parties to exploit its precedent. This decision signals the beginning of the end of these agencies that were created to protect the interests of the American people, not serve the political whims of whoever occupies the Oval Office."
Video: Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel is hosting a meeting to discuss the dismissal of the charges against the alleged false electors. - September 9, 2025
https://www.wilx.com/video/2025/09/09/ag-nessel-discusses-dismissal-false-electors-case/
Comment: Michigan AG Nessel responds to dismissal in lengthy but informative video.
Michigan judge dismisses charges against 'fake' 2020 electors - BBC News
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd725wd1023o
Michigan judge tosses case against 15 accused fake electors for President Trump in 2020
https://www.cbsnews.com/detroit/news/michigan-judge-tosses-case-accused-fake-electors-trump-2020/
Comment: A Michigan judge dismissed criminal charges Tuesday against a group of people who were accused of attempting to falsely certify President Donald Trump as the winner of the 2020 election in the battleground state, a major blow to prosecutors as similar cases in four other states have been muddied with setbacks."
"District Court Judge Kristen D. Simmons said in a court hearing that the 15 Republicans accused will not face trial. The case has dragged through the courts since Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, announced the charges over two years ago."
"Each member of the group, which included a few high-profile members of the Republican Party in Michigan, faced eight charges of forgery and conspiracy to commit election forgery. The top felony charges carried a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison."
"Investigators said the group met at the Michigan GOP headquarters in December of 2020 and signed a document falsely stating they were the state's 'duly elected and qualified electors.' President Joe Biden won Michigan by nearly 155,000 votes, a result confirmed by a GOP-led state Senate investigation in 2021."
Comment: "Judge Simmons took nearly a year to say whether there was sufficient evidence to bring the cases to trial following a series of lengthy preliminary hearings."
Comment: Why not let a jury decide whether or not there was sufficient evidence? That's a jury's job, not for a judge to unilaterally drop the charges based on what appears to be a highly prejudicial evaluation of the available evidence. If the lack of evidence was so obvious, why did it take the judge a year to make her decision.
Video: SCOTUS agrees to consider Trump tariffs appeal on expedited basis - September 9, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHMLhu6wcA8
Trump tariff case gets fast tracked by Supreme Court
https://www.axios.com/2025/09/09/trump-tariffs-supreme-court-appeal
Comment: "The blockbuster case will determine the future of Trump's efforts to reshape the global trade system, and potentially impact hundreds of billions of dollars in government revenue."
Comment: "The high court granted the Trump administration's request to both take the appeal and consider it on an accelerated schedule."
"The court's order gave both sides until Sept. 19 to file their initial briefs, with oral arguments set for the first week of the November session."
Video: Early rulings on FTC firing, L.A. ICE stops - September 8, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrqUOvflJgM
The Daily Beast: SCOTUS Justice Shreds Colleagues in Blistering Dissent
Comment: "Justice Sonia Sotomayor is blasting her conservative colleagues on the Supreme Court, accusing them of dangerously stripping away Americans’ constitutional freedoms by green-lighting racial-profiling raids."
" 'That decision is yet another grave misuse of our emergency docket,' Sotomayor, an Obama appointee, wrote in a scathing, 20-page dissent issued Monday. 'We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low wage job.' ”
"In a 6–3 decision, the court blocked a July order from a Biden-appointed federal judge in Los Angeles that had restricted immigration agents from conducting stops without 'reasonable suspicion.' That ruling followed widespread allegations that officers were rounding up seemingly random Hispanic individuals in sweeping raids."
Video: Inside federal judges' frustration with SCOTUS in Trump cases - September 7, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bu98r5wWOpg
Trump Is Trying to Blackmail the Supreme Court - POLITICO
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/09/04/trump-tariffs-supreme-court-appeal-column-00543196
Comment: "Donald Trump is making a last-ditch effort to salvage his beloved, beleaguered tariff policy, heading to the Supreme Court in hopes that the Republican appointees will come to his rescue. The desperation is both palpable and warranted given the conspicuous weakness of the administration’s legal arguments, as underscored by a series of lower court rulings against him. That has in turn led the president and his aides to make increasingly histrionic public claims about what will happen if the Supreme Court does not cave and side with Trump."
"Call it The Chicken Little Defense: If the courts do not sign off on the administration’s tariffs, it 'would be a total disaster for the Country' and 'would literally destroy the United States of America,' Trump said on Friday after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that the bulk of the president's tariffs are illegal. He doubled down on those claims on Tuesday while tacking on the transparently ridiculous assertion that the U.S. is 'taking in $17 trillion ... because of tariffs'."
Comment: "This should all be seen for what it is — a tacit admission that the administration is on very weak footing as a legal matter. The most charitable interpretation of the effort is that the administration is lobbying the Supreme Court to engage in the sort of outcome-driven judicial activism that conservatives have long claimed to hate. A less generous read of the situation is that this is an effort to politically blackmail the court into giving Trump what he wants even if it is clearly unlawful or unconstitutional."
Video: Trump asks Supreme Court to save his emergency tariffs - September 4, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVlaZFT9XPc
Politico: Brett Kavanaugh on why Supreme Court rulings can be so cryptic
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/04/brett-kavanaugh-supreme-court-rulings-cryptic-00545357
Comment: "Justice Brett Kavanaugh acknowledged Thursday that while the Supreme Court’s decisions are supposed to be the last word, that word isn’t always so clear."
"Kavanaugh’s remarks to a judicial conference here came as the high court faces mounting criticism from legal scholars and even some lower-court judges for issuing vague edicts, with little or no explanation, on the court’s emergency docket — particularly in cases that challenge Trump administration policies."
"Kavanaugh said the Delphic nature of some of the court’s decisions is often the product of differing views among the nine justices."
" 'It’s possible we screwed up, very possible, we’re human. But it’s also possible, and oftentimes is the case, that it’s the product of nine of us, or at least five of us, trying to reach a consensus or a compromise on a particular issue that might be difficult,' Kavanaugh told judges and lawyers attending the 6th Circuit Judicial Conference. 'I’m fully aware that can lead to a lack of clarity in the law and can lead to some confusion, at times.' ”
Comment: Do you think another reason is that it is often difficult to explain the unexplainable or defend the indefensible?
10 federal judges criticize Supreme Court's handling of Trump cases in rare interviews
Comment: "Federal judges are frustrated with the Supreme Court for increasingly overturning lower court rulings involving the Trump administration with little or no explanation, with some worried the practice is undermining the judiciary at a sensitive time."
"Some judges believe the Supreme Court, and in particular Chief Justice John Roberts, could be doing more to defend the integrity of their work as President Donald Trump and his allies harshly criticize those who rule against him and as violent threats against judges are on the rise."
"In rare interviews with NBC News, a dozen federal judges — appointed by Democratic and Republican presidents, including Trump, and serving around the country — pointed to a pattern they say has recently emerged:"
"Lower court judges are handed contentious cases involving the Trump administration. They painstakingly research the law to reach their rulings. When they go against Trump, administration officials and allies criticize the judges in harsh terms. The government appeals to the Supreme Court, with its 6-3 conservative majority."
"And then the Supreme Court, in emergency rulings, swiftly rejects the judges’ decisions with little to no explanation."
"Emergency rulings used to be rare. But their number has dramatically increased in recent years."
Comment: Do you think that the lack of decision explanations are due to the fact that there may be little or no legal justification for some of the Supreme Court decisions?
Chief Justice John Roberts is wary of entering political fray, his top adviser says - POLITICO
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/03/chief-justice-roberts-aide-dow-00542931
AP News: The 150-year-old law that governs military’s role in local law enforcement
Comment: "The Posse Comitatus Act is a nearly 150-year-old federal law that limits the U.S. military’s role in enforcing domestic laws. At its core, experts say the law reflects America’s long-standing belief that law enforcement should remain in civilian hands, separate from military power."
"President Donald Trump has tested the law’s limits in the first few months of his second term, as he expands the footprint of the U.S. military on domestic soil."
"Here’s what to know about the law."
Comment: "The criminal statute prohibits military enforcement of domestic law. It also prevents the military from investigating local crimes, overriding local law enforcement or compelling certain behavior."
"There are key exceptions. Congress can vote to suspend the act, or the president can order it suspended in defense of the Constitution. The Insurrection Act of 1807 allows the president to deploy troops during invasions, rebellions or when local authorities can’t maintain order."
"National Guard members are under state authority and commanded by governors, so they’re generally exempt. However, the Posse Comitatus Act applies to National Guard forces when they’re 'federalized,' meaning the president puts them under his control. That’s what Trump did in California over the governor’s objections."
The Guardian: Alarm after FBI arrests US army veteran for ‘conspiracy’ over protest against Ice
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/02/fbi-arrest-us-army-veteran-ice-protest
Comment: "The conspiracy count carries a maximum penalty of six years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release. He was released on his own recognizance while awaiting trial, with a judge even giving him permission to travel to Disneyland for a previously planned family vacation."
Comment: "The US attorney’s office in Spokane, which brought the charges, declined to comment, citing an ongoing investigation."
"The indictment was handed down two days after career prosecutor Richard Barker, the acting US attorney for eastern Washington state, resigned. In a social post, Barker called his exit 'a very difficult decision'.
" 'I am grateful that I never had to sign an indictment or file a brief that I didn’t believe in,' he wrote."
"The current acting US attorney, nominated for the permanent post by Donald Trump, is Pete Serrano, a former litigator for the Silent Majority Foundation, a conservative advocacy group. In February, Serrano filed an amicus brief in support of Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship, a position at odds with the 14th amendment. He has no prosecutorial experience and has described the January 6 US Capitol rioters as 'political prisoners'."
Comment: "Legal experts say the conspiracy charges against Mavalwalla underscore the lengths the Trump administration will go to quash protests against Ice, giving the immigration agency a free hand as it steps up raids, adds agents and seeks to achieve the president’s goal of 3,000 deportations per day."
Comment: This is what happens when Trump appoints US attorneys who are unqualified, inexperienced and have a political agenda at odds with the Constitution of the United States.
The Guardian: Alarm in Texas as activist faces hate-crimes trial over anti-Israel graffiti
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/01/texas-activist-prosecuted-hate-crimes
Comment: "In early September, a jury trial will begin in North Texas for a 32-year-old activist named Raunaq Alam. He is accused of spray-painting 'Fuck Israel' on the wall of a non-denominational church in Euless, a small city roughly 20 minutes from Fort Worth."
"But it’s not the graffiti accusation that’s most troubling for Alam and his attorney."
"Using a hate-crimes statute, Tarrant county has enhanced its criminal mischief charges against Alam so he now faces between two and 10 years in prison. The county’s argument – and the charges – are the same for two other activists, who will face trial separately at later dates."
"For Alam, the official indictment argues the activist has 'bias or prejudice against a group identified by national origin and/or ancestry and/or religion, namely, the state of Israel or Jewish faith'."
"Attorneys and experts interviewed by the Guardian say this is a legally questionable move that conflates the state of Israel with Judaism and infringes on the right to free speech. After all, the alleged graffiti specifically named 'Israel', not Israelis, and Israel is not a person, nor one of the protected classes that hate-crime laws ostensibly exist to protect. What’s more, the church wall that was allegedly defaced does not belong to a synagogue."
Comment: Speaking out against the state of Israel is not necessarily anti-sematic and should be protected by free speech. Convict the man of vandalism and/or profanity, but not a hate crime. Criticism of Israel, by itself, is not a crime.
The Hill: Is Trump engaging in political prosecution — and can he get away with it?
https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/5475089-justice-department-selective-prosecution/
Comment: "Increasingly, persons accused of or investigated for crimes are claiming that prosecutors are motivated by politics or vengeance. Despite these sometimes facially meritorious claims, they very rarely succeed."
"That’s because prosecutors enjoy tremendous discretion in choosing which individuals to charge with crimes, and which individuals will receive leniency for cooperation. Individuals suspected of participating in the same offense are thus very likely to receive disparate treatment."
"A prosecutor’s discretion, however, is not unlimited. Arbitrary selection of defendants may violate constitutional principles of equal protection. But cases actually finding discriminatory enforcement are rare."
"The issue of selective prosecution has been raised by some critics who have accused the Justice Department of showing favoritism to friends or associates of President Trump and investigating Trump’s enemies. For example, the department dropped charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams — as many suspected, in exchange for his cooperation in immigration enforcement. Justice also discontinued an investigation against Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.), who introduced a bill that would clear the way for Trump to serve a third term in office."
"In contrast, the Justice Department has assigned a 'strike force' to investigate charges that former President Barack Obama conspired with former FBI Director James Comey, former CIA Director John Brennan and others to falsely show Russian influence, with the goal of harming Trump in the 2016 presidential election. Very recently, the Justice Department opened a civil rights investigation into New York Attorney General Letitia James (D), a longtime Trump nemesis who brought a major civil case against him that has now failed in significant part. And just a few days ago, the FBI searched the home and office of John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser, whom Trump has called a 'lowlife.' ”
ABC News: DOJ drops charges against another client of AG Pam Bondi's brother Brad
https://abcnews.go.com/US/doj-drops-charges-client-ag-pam-bondis-brother/story?id=125073335
Comment: "For the second time in less than a month, the Justice Department on Wednesday abruptly dropped charges against a client represented by Brad Bondi, the brother of U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi."
"Federal prosecutors in Missouri this week agreed to voluntarily dismiss an indictment against Sid Chakraverty, a property developer who faced felony wire fraud charges."
Comment: "As recently as three weeks ago, career prosecutors held that Chakraverty should face criminal penalties for his alleged scheme."
Comment: Coincidence or a pattern of undue influence and conflict of interest?
Louisiana asks Supreme Court to gut Voting Rights Act and ban use of race in redistricting - POLITICO
Comment: "Louisiana is asking the Supreme Court to gut the central provision of the Voting Rights Act and ban any use of race in redistricting."
"In a legal brief filled Wednesday, the state urged the court to overturn a landmark 1986 ruling that established a legal test for when a voting map illegally dilutes minorities’ voter power. That ruling, Thornbury v. Gingles, has been understood for decades to require that states with significant communities of minority voters draw districts that fairly reflect their voting power."
“ 'Race-based redistricting is fundamentally contrary to our Constitution,' Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, a Republican, and other state attorneys wrote.'
Comment: "Louisiana also told the Supreme Court it has made the unusual decision not to defend the state's current congressional map. That map contains two majority-Black districts among the state’s six House seats. The state said it had adopted that map only after being 'coerced' by federal courts supervising the state’s compliance with the Voting Rights Act."
"The key provision of the act, Section 2, broadly prohibits discriminatory election practices based on race, color, or language minority status. In redistricting, Section 2 has resulted in the drawing of 'majority-minority districts,' which are meant to give Black, Latino or Asian voters a meaningful ability to elect candidates of their choosing."
"That practice is intended as a corrective for racial gerrymandering, in which state governments intentionally drew political districts to disenfranchise voters from racial and ethnic minorities, especially Black voters in the South."
"Louisiana argues that such 'race-based redistricting' is unconstitutional because it 'violates fundamental equal protection principles.' "
"The Louisiana case will be argued at the Supreme Court on Oct. 15, with a decision likely to come by June 2026."
Politico: ‘Judicial hesitancy’: Why Trump is betting the courts will green-light his ouster of Lisa Cook
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/26/trump-firing-lisa-cook-courts-00527724
Comment: "President Donald Trump’s quest to expand his power has moved to the marble corridors of the Federal Reserve, an institution once considered politically and legally off-limits."
"It will almost inevitably land at another marbled institution: the Supreme Court."
"The conservative justices who hold a majority on the court have provided only a few Delphic signals about how they view the president’s authority to fire board members of the Fed. Just three months ago, the justices obliquely suggested that the Fed — unlike other executive branch agencies — should retain some degree of independence from the president."
"But Trump is betting the court won’t second-guess his decision on Monday to fire board member Lisa Cook 'for cause.' That might be a good bet, legal experts said Tuesday. Judges — including Supreme Court justices — may be reluctant to overturn a president’s subjective conclusion about what counts as an acceptable 'cause,' or legal basis, for a firing."
"In this case, the purported basis is an unproven allegation that Cook lied on a mortgage application — even though Trump’s true motive likely is his frustration that the Fed has not lowered interest rates."
Comment: "And if the courts take a hands-off approach, any pushback will have to come through other channels, namely political pressure from Congress or feedback from the financial markets."
Yahoo Finance: Commentary: The courts may soon kill most of Trump’s tariffs
Comment: "Businesses and consumers are starting to adapt to the tariffs President Trump has imposed on imported goods from virtually everywhere in the world, raising costs throughout the economy. But a new disruption is looming that could end most of those tariffs and send Trump back to the drawing board."
"A federal appeals court is set to rule any day on whether the legal basis Trump has used to justify the majority of his new tariffs is legally valid."
"On May 28, a lower court ruled that Trump does not have the authority to impose import taxes by declaring a national emergency, as he has done in numerous cases. A federal appeals court suspended that decision, allowing the tariffs to remain in place, while it heard the Trump administration's appeal."
"That court's ruling is likely by the end of August, and many analysts think Trump will lose."
Comment: "If the appeals court does invalidate those tariffs, Trump will almost certainly appeal to the Supreme Court. But a loss at the appeals court could still force Trump to overhaul his entire trade war."
SCOTUSblog: The Supreme Court and Trump’s tariffs: an explainer
https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/08/the-supreme-court-and-trumps-tariffs-an-explainer/
Comment: "When the justices meet for their 'long conference' on Sept. 29, one of the cases that they will consider is a challenge to the tariffs that President Donald Trump has imposed in a series of executive orders since his inauguration."
Comment: "Even if the justices don’t take up the tariff question at that conference, they are likely to do so soon."
Comment: "Article 1 of the Constitution gives Congress the power to 'lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises,' and it requires that 'Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives.' ”
"In issuing the executive orders that imposed the tariffs, Trump relied primarily on a 1977 law, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Section 1701 of IEEPA provides that the president can use the law 'to deal with any unusual and extraordinary threat, which has its source in whole or substantial part outside the United States, to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States,' if he declares a national emergency 'with respect to such threat.' Section 1702 of the act provides that, when there is a national emergency, the president may 'regulate … importation or exportation' of 'property in which any foreign country or a national thereof has any interest.' ”
Comment: "The challengers in both cases contend that IEEPA doesn’t mention tariffs, and that no president before Trump has ever relied on IEEPA to impose tariffs. Even if IEEPA did allow the president to impose tariffs in some circumstances, they add, doing so requires a 'national emergency,' and the tariffs must address an 'unusual and extraordinary threat' to the 'national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States.' But trade deficits have existed for decades and are hardly an emergency, the challengers emphasize."
"Interpreting IEEPA to give the president the power to impose unilateral worldwide tariffs would create a variety of constitutional problems, the challengers before the Federal Circuit argue. For example, if the power to 'regulate' allowed the president to impose taxes, it would give the president 'vast taxing powers that no President in U.S. history has ever been understood to have.' But such a delegation would run afoul of a doctrine known as the major questions doctrine, they say, which requires Congress to be explicit when it wants to give the president this kind of power."
"The Trump administration counters that the tariffs fall squarely within the text of IEEPA. 'The plain meaning of ‘regulate’ includes the imposition of tariffs as a way to adjust or control imports,' it writes. And the 'trafficking' tariffs 'deal with' the threat because, by putting pressure on other countries to address the fentanyl crisis, they are 'reasonably related' to the change in behavior that the executive orders seek to bring about."
"The government also points to the role that the tariffs have played in providing an incentive for other countries to come to the bargaining table with the United States. If the tariffs are lifted, the government says, it would 'disrupt the Executive Branch’s ongoing, sensitive diplomatic negotiations with virtually every major trading partner.' ”
The Guardian: The umpire who picked a side: John Roberts and the death of rule of law in America
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/aug/21/justice-john-roberts-supreme-court
Comment: "The chief justice of the US has painted himself as a modern institutionalist over the past 20 years. Experts say he’s emboldening Trump’s drive toward authoritarianism"
Comment: "In the past 10 weeks America has witnessed an extraordinary outpouring of decisions from its highest court that should make Trump very happy indeed. The six rightwing justices who control the court – three of them given their lifetime seats by Trump himself – have effectively greenlighted the president’s explosive and law-busting agenda."
"The supermajority has granted Trump 18 straight victories in the administration’s requests for emergency relief. Steve Vladeck, a leading supreme court scholar at Georgetown University Law Center, has tracked the decisions in his Substack, One First, noting that the rulings have been handed down largely in the legal darkness."
"They have been piped through the court’s so-called 'shadow docket', where important affairs of state are decided at speed and with little or no debate or deliberation. By Vladeck’s count, seven of the orders have been issued without any explanation, leaving the American people clueless as to the justices’ thinking."
Comment: "Prominent jurists have held Roberts responsible for emboldening Trump’s drive towards an authoritarian presidency. J Michael Luttig, who served on a federal appeals court for 15 years, put the criticism starkly."
" 'The chief justice is presiding over the end of the rule of law in America,' Luttig told the Guardian."
"In Luttig’s view, the court under Roberts is 'acquiescing in and accommodating the president’s lawlessness. And it is doing so without briefing, without argument, without deliberation – and without even a single word of explanation of its decisions.' ”
"For Luttig, this is more than just the 6-3 supermajority of the court expressing its conservatism. This is a fundamental distortion of the American legal system."
" 'The supreme court was never intended to function like this. Never before has it entertained such challenges from the president, and never before has it decided them so flippantly.' ”
"When it comes to assessing the chief justice’s record, Luttig has special standing. He was himself a one-time contender for a supreme court seat, and has known Roberts as a friend since they worked together in their 20s in the Reagan administration. Roberts asked Luttig to be a groomsman at his wedding in 1996."
ABC News: Mississippi Supreme Court map violates Voting Rights Act, judge rules
Comment: "A federal judge has ordered Mississippi to redraw its Supreme Court electoral map, after finding the map dilutes the power of Black voters."
"U.S. District Judge Sharion Aycock ruled the map, which was enacted in 1987, violates the Voting Rights Act and cannot be used in future elections."
"The Mississippi branch of the American Civil Liberties Union helped litigate the lawsuit, arguing the map cut Mississippi's Delta region — a historically Black area — in half."
" '“This win corrects a historic injustice," said Ari Savitzky, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU Voting Rights Project. 'All Mississippians will benefit from fair district lines that give Black voters an equal voice — and new generations of Black leaders an equal chance to help shape the state’s future by serving on the state’s highest court.' ”
Democratic-aligned nonprofit, civil rights groups ready to sue over Texas congressional map
Comment: " 'Despite bipartisan opposition among Texans, the Texas Legislature is pushing forward a congressional map that includes even fewer minority opportunity districts than the current discriminatory map, which is already being challenged in court for violating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act,' Marina Jenkins, executive director of the National Redistricting Foundation, said in a statement."
AL.com: Alabama Supreme Court urged to maintain law that protected pastor arrested while watering flowers
Comment: "Jennings, 56, was arrested after a white neighbor called 911 and said a 'younger Black male' and gold SUV were at a house while the owners — who are friends of Jennings and had asked him to watch their home — were away."
"Jennings identified himself as 'Pastor Jennings' but refused to provide identification to the officers."
"Police arrested him on a charge of obstructing government operations after a 20-minute confrontation that included raised voices on both sides, AL.com reported previously."
Comment: " 'The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has previously held that Alabama’s stop-and-question law does not authorize demands for documents, and this case is an important opportunity for the Alabama Supreme Court to confirm that the Eleventh Circuit got it right.' ”
"Jennings’ charges of obstructing governmental operations were later dismissed, and Jennings sued the arresting officers and the city of Childersburg in federal district court."
"Chief U.S. District Court Judge R. David Proctor dismissed the lawsuit in Dec. 2023, ruling that the officers and the city had qualified immunity that protected them from legal liability."
"But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled in Oct. 2024 that the police did not have probable cause to arrest Jennings under Alabama Code section 15-5-30, a law entitled 'Authority of Peace Officer to Stop and Question,' according to court records."
"The federal district court later certified a question to the Alabama Supreme Court asking whether, under section 15-5-30, a law enforcement officer may require physical identification when the person 'gives an incomplete or unsatisfactory oral response.' ”
"In June, the Alabama Supreme Court agreed to hear the case."
Video: Court of Appeals rules that the Louisiana legislative maps violate the Voting Rights Act - August 14, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yoqc0Yt6YIk
Democracy Docket: Federal Court Delivers Major Win for Black Voters in Louisiana State Redistricting Battle
Comment: "The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling Thursday, striking down Louisiana’s state legislative maps for violating the Voting Rights Act."
"The court agreed that the maps 'packed' and 'cracked' Black communities — concentrating some Black voters into a small number of districts and splitting others across multiple districts — in ways that unlawfully diluted their power to elect their preferred candidates under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act."
Comment: "Louisiana had argued that conditions in the state changed enough to make race-conscious remedies unnecessary."
"The court flatly rejected that claim."
Comment: "With the Fifth Circuit’s ruling, Louisiana must now draw maps that better represent its Black population — about one-third of the state — and provide Black voters an equal opportunity to elect candidates of their choice."
"The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear a separate case challenging Louisiana’s congressional map for allegedly violating the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments."
ABC News: Supreme Court formally asked to overturn landmark same-sex marriage ruling
Comment: "Ten years after the Supreme Court extended marriage rights to same-sex couples nationwide, the justices this fall will consider for the first time whether to take up a case that explicitly asks them to overturn that decision."
Voting Rights Act of 1965 faces new threats to survival : NPR
https://www.npr.org/2025/08/06/nx-s1-5482864/scotus-voting-rights-act-8th-circuit-vra
Comment: Article describes the history and origin of the Voting Rights Act, along with the threats to its continued application.
Mother Jones: The Supreme Court Prepares to End Voting Rights As We Know It
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/08/voting-rights-act-supreme-court-2/
Trump contorting justice department into his ‘personal weapon’, experts warn | Trump administration | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/04/trump-justice-department
Comment: "Critics say DoJ has been ‘politicized like never before’ and the main job requirement is now ‘loyalty to Donald Trump’ "
Comment: "As Donald Trump's Department of Justice expands investigations of his foes and ousts dozens of lawyers and staff who worked on cases targeting himself and his allies, scholars and ex-prosecutors say the rule of law is under siege in the US as the department morphs into Trump’s 'personal weapon'."
"The justice department’s politicization to please Trump was underscored by an announcement on 23 July of a new 'strike force' to investigate unsubstantiated charges that ex-president Barack Obama and top officials conspired to hurt Trump’s 2016 campaign and his presidency with inquiries into Russian influence operations to help Trump win, say critics."
"The announcement came the day after Trump dodged queries from reporters about the justice department’s failure to produce long-promised files about the notorious sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, and pivoted to blast Obama without evidence for 'treason'. Trump’s conspiratorial charge echoed dubious claims by his national intelligence director, Tulsi Gabbard, who days before called for a justice department inquiry into a purported 'treasonous conspiracy'."
WVTM: 'We would like the unedited video': Supporters push for bodycam footage release in Jabari Peoples' case
https://www.wvtm13.com/article/alabama-birmingham-jabari-peoples-black-lives-matter/65596062
Comment: "A group of people gathered at the courthouse steps in Birmingham to support Jabari Peoples' family in their efforts to obtain bodycam footage from the night Peoples was shot and killed by a Homewood police officer."
Chief Justice John Roberts enabled Texas’ gambit to gerrymander the state for the GOP | CNN Politics
https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/04/politics/gerrymandering-supreme-court-texas
NBC News: Supreme Court raises the stakes in a Louisiana redistricting case
Politico: The Supreme Court just dropped a hint about its next big Voting Rights Act case
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/01/supreme-court-louisiana-redistricting-order-00490390
Comment: "The Supreme Court said Friday that it will weigh the constitutionality of a common form of redistricting used to protect the voting power of Black and Hispanic voters: the drawing of congressional districts where racial minorities make up at least half the population."
"Experts in election law said the move signals that the court may be poised to further narrow the Voting Rights Act."
"In a terse order issued Friday evening, the justices called for briefing on whether the 'intentional creation of a second majority-minority congressional district violates the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.' ”
‘Some of the worst of the worst’: Defense team speaks on new lawsuits targeting Henry Co. youth facility
https://share.newsbreak.com/ecoomgqr
Comment: "Earlier this week, Birmingham attorneys Tommy James and Jeremy Knowles, along with Pensacola attorney Caleb Cunningham, filed two lawsuits against Camp SAYLA."
"A state-funded youth facility that was used to house non-violent at-risk teens."
"Each lawsuit targets former Camp SAYLA staff member Kenyatta Danzey, accusing him of abusing the children by hitting them with broomsticks, throwing them in trash cans, and much more."
"The camp was described as a 'house of horrors' environment."
Comment: "Camp SAYLA is known as the Southeast Alabama Youth Leadership Academy and was contracted with the Alabama Department of Youth Services."
"But this is not the first time the facility or Danzey has been in the spotlight.:
"Danzey was arrested in January 2024 and charged with 17 counts of child abuse, ultimately leading to Camp SAYLA’s license being suspended."
"As of now, the license has been reinstated, but the facility remains closed due to a failed inspection."
GOP bullish on dismantling Voting Rights Act
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5428699-supreme-court-voting-rights/
Comment: "Republicans are increasingly bullish they can whittle away at the Voting Rights Act (VRA) as Democrats renew a long-shot effort to broaden the landmark law that turns 60 next week."
"The Supreme Court could become the arbiter of Republicans’ efforts, with a major Louisiana redistricting battle set for rehearing next term and other battles bubbling up in the lower courts."
"The conservative-majority high court has already eviscerated significant parts of the VRA, but the new legal fronts could reshape decades-long precedent of legal battles over political power."
Justice Kavanaugh defends Supreme Court’s terse emergency docket orders
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/justice-kavanaugh-defends-supreme-court-182108486.html
Comment: "Justice Brett Kavanaugh on Thursday defended the way the Supreme Court is handling the flood of emergency cases that has reached its docket during President Donald Trump’s administration, pushing back on mounting criticism that the court is often resolving those disputes with little to no explanation."
Comment: "Most of the court’s emergency cases have involved policies pursued by Trump, including on immigration and the firing of leaders at independent federal agencies."
Comment: "Those emergency cases are not final decisions on the legal questions raised in the cases. Writing too much, Kavanaugh suggested, can prematurely give away how a majority of justices are thinking about those issues before the case is resolved."
Comment: "Kavanaugh’s comments came just days after Justice Elena Kagan – a member of the court’s liberal wing – appeared to embrace a conflicting view. She suggested that the high court could do more to 'explain things better' so that lower court judges and the public understand clearly what the Supreme Court is deciding."
Comment: "The court’s emergency docket, which some have described as its 'shadow docket,' is separate from its merits docket, in which the justices hear oral arguments and have the benefit of several rounds of written briefing. Emergency docket cases often involve one round of briefing, no oral argument and rarely result in full opinions."
Time Magazine: Exclusive: Top Trump Allies Preparing For Supreme Court Vacancy
https://time.com/7305987/donald-trump-supreme-court-justices/
Comment: "The discussions are in early stages and focus on finding a nominee in the mold of Samuel Alito, 75, and Clarence Thomas, 77, the two oldest justices, both of whom are considered stalwart conservative jurists who have taken narrow interpretations of the Constitutional text while backing an expansive view of Presidential power. Shortlists of judges are circulating among Trump allies as they debate who can be best trusted to stick with the Court's conservative wing during an appointment that could last decades."
" 'We are looking for people in the mold of Alito, Clarence Thomas and the late Scalia,' said a White House official familiar with the process, referring to Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016. The official said it was 'premature' to say the White House was getting ready for a vacancy."
"Republicans currently control the Senate, which must confirm any nominee to the court. The party also controlled the Senate throughout Trump’s first term, allowing Trump to appoint three Justices—Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett— who were all well-regarded in conservative legal circles."
Axios: Prison debt is crushing Black women, advocates say
https://www.axios.com/2025/07/26/states-inmates-pay-incarceration-black-women
Comment: "Nearly all states allowing jails and prisons to charge incarcerated people for room and board or medical care highlights a deeper problem: their families, especially Black women, are forced to cover the costs, according to a new report."
Comment: "Fees are automatically pulled from prison accounts or wages. But most incarcerated people earn less than $1/day, according to data from the Prison Policy Initiative, so balances grow — and carry into life after release."
"Because many incarcerated people can't fully pay fees while in prison, the costs often pile up as debt they're still expected to repay after their release, Campaign Zero executive director DeRay Mckesson told Axios."
NPR: Supreme Court blocks rule that blocks Voting Rights Act for now
Comment: "The Supreme Court on Thursday preserved the status quo in most of the country, guaranteeing voters, at least for now, the ability to sue to enforce rights guaranteed under the 1965 Voting Rights Act."
Comment: "The Supreme Court, without specifying its reason, did intervene on Thursday, upholding, at least temporarily the rights of individual voters to bring vote dilution and other enforcement challenges. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch said they would have denied the request.
Comment: "Justice Thomas has long argued that the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional, and Justices Alito, Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett have all, at one time or another, pressed for a race neutral approach to redistricting. If the court were to conclude in the Louisiana case that section 2 of the Voting Rights act does not permit individuals or groups to bring enforcement challenges, that would at the same time moot the North Dakota case, meaning that nobody could win such a suit."
"With only rare exceptions, the Supreme Court's conservative majority has continued in recent years to limit the enforcement teeth of the Voting Rights Act."
Judges’ orders ‘need to be respected,’ Elena Kagan says amid Trump’s escalating conflict with the courts - POLITICO
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/24/elena-kagan-judicial-independence-00475926
Comment: "As the Trump administration’s clash with the judiciary intensifies, Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan issued a message on Thursday: Stop threatening judges, and always obey court orders."
"But Kagan spoke in vague terms and did not say who her warning was aimed at. She did not directly mention President Donald Trump, even as some lower-court judges have already found that the administration has defied their commands."
ABC News: 'I was really just scared': Man punched in viral Jacksonville traffic stop speaks publicly for 1st time
ABC News: What we know about the violent Jacksonville traffic stop that went viral - Includes Video
https://abcnews.go.com/US/violent-jacksonville-traffic-stop-viral/story?id=123968359
Comment: "In the video, sheriff's deputies are seen beating and punching McNeil during the traffic stop after he repeatedly questioned why he was being pulled over and refused to exit his vehicle."
Comment: "McNeil was pulled over by a sheriff's deputy at 4:15 p.m. local time for allegedly not having his headlights on due to 'inclement weather' and not wearing a seat belt, according to a police report obtained by ABC News."
A growing number of Americans believe Supreme Court is motivated by politics, not law
Comment: "Citing research from Georgetown Law professor Stephen Vladeck, an expert on the high court’s 'shadow docket,' the Times’ report noted that in the past 10 weeks alone, the Supreme Court has 'granted emergency relief to the Trump administration without explanation seven times.' "
"The order on the gutting of the Education Department, the analysis added, 'was an exercise of power, not reason.' "
"It was against this backdrop that the latest national poll from Quinnipiac University included an important question: 'In general, do you think that the Supreme Court is mainly motivated by politics or mainly motivated by the law?' "
"The results were not close: 63% said the high court is principally focused on politics, while 30% said the justices prioritize the law."
"This follows a series of related national surveys showing public trust in the Supreme Court as an institution reaching record lows."
AP News: Ex-Philadelphia officer sentenced and immediately paroled after conviction in traffic stop shooting
https://apnews.com/article/fatal-police-shooting-trial-philadelphia-1fc2c4f58aa1fc036683c0f5fc59898d
Comment: "A former Philadelphia police officer who shot and killed a motorist during a traffic stop was sentenced and granted parole Thursday by a judge, eliciting condemnations from the city’s district attorney and the victim’s family."
Comment: "They say Dial thought Irizarry had a gun when he approached Irizarry’s car after officers spotted the car being driven erratically and followed it for several blocks before it turned the wrong way down a one-way street and stopped."
"Police body camera video of the shooting shows Dial getting out of a police SUV, striding over to Irizarry’s car and firing his weapon six times at close range through the rolled-up driver’s side window."
"The video shows Irizarry holding a seven-inch knife before he was shot."
NBC News: Alabama governor backs withholding video of officer fatally shooting Black student
Comment: "Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey is supporting a state agency’s refusal to release body camera footage in the fatal police shooting of an 18-year-old Black college freshman, saying the case must first be thoroughly investigated."
Comment: Do you think this refusal undermines the credibility of law enforcement, the justice system, and state government in general?
AL.com: Alabama police know they don’t have to show bodycam videos to families: ‘Why hide it?’
Comment: "Across the state — in Decatur, Bay Minette, Huntsville, Madison, and Montgomery — the pattern repeats: Someone dies in police custody, grieving families ask for body camera footage, and authorities often say no with the same refrain: 'Due to an ongoing investigation.' "
Comment: "While there’s no law or court ruling that says they can’t show the footage, in Alabama, that only tends to happen when the videos are convenient for police, or if a judge orders it released years after the fact."
ABC News - Breaking News, Latest News and Videos: Supreme Court allows Trump to continue effort to gut Education Department
Comment: " 'The Department is responsible for providing critical funding and services to millions of students and scores of schools across the country. Lifting the District Court's injunction will unleash untold harm, delaying or denying educational opportunities and leaving students to suffer from discrimination, sexual assault, and other civil rights violations without the federal resources Congress intended,' Sotomayor wrote."
" 'The majority is either willfully blind to the implications of its ruling or naive, but either way the threat to our Constitution's separation of powers is grave,' Sotomayor added."
Comment: Includes important Video.that explains the significance of ruling.
NBC News: Supreme Court allows Trump to implement Education Department layoffs
Comment: "The Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Trump administration to move ahead with plans to carry out mass layoffs at the Department of Education that were blocked by a federal judge."
Comment: "A federal judge had ruled that the Trump administration is seeking to 'effectively dismantle' the department without necessary approval from Congress."
Comment: "The conservative-majority court, without any explanation, granted an emergency application from the administration that blocks the federal judge's ruling."
Comment: "The court's three liberal members objected, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor writing a blistering dissenting opinion."
" 'When the Executive publicly announces its intent to break the law, and then executes on that promise, it is the Judiciary’s duty to check that lawlessness, not expedite it,' she wrote."
Axios: Why Trump can't revoke native-born U.S. citizenship
https://www.axios.com/2025/07/13/trump-rosie-odonnell-us-citizenship-removed
AL.com: Judges to decide if Alabama’s congressional maps need preclearance after state diluted Black voting power
Comment: "Federal judges will weigh a request to bring Alabama back under the preclearance requirement of the Voting Rights Act after ruling the state intentionally diluted the voting strength of Black residents when drawing congressional lines."
"Black voters and civil rights organizations, who successfully challenged Alabama’s congressional map, are asking a three-judge panel to require any new congressional maps drawn by state lawmakers to go through federal review before being implemented. The Alabama attorney general and the U.S. Department of Justice oppose the request."
Internal DOJ messages bolster claim that Trump judicial nominee spoke of defying court orders - POLITICO
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/10/emil-bove-whistleblower-documents-00446225
Comment: "A fired Justice Department attorney has provided Congress with a trove of emails and text messages to corroborate his claims that a controversial Trump judicial nominee — top DOJ official Emil Bove — crudely discussed defying court orders."
Prosecutors Torch Trump’s ‘Worst Conceivable’ Court Nominee
https://www.yahoo.com/news/prosecutors-torch-trump-worst-conceivable-173751974.html
Comment: "A group of former federal prosecutors have declared President Donald Trump’s one-time criminal defense attorney the 'worst conceivable nominee' for a lifetime federal judgeship."
"The attack on Trump’s nomination of Emil Bove, currently a top Justice Department official installed by the president, came in a letter the prosecutors sent to the Senate Monday, according to The Washington Post."
Trump to begin enforcing birthright citizenship order as early as this month, DOJ says
Comment: This executive order from Trump is clearly unconstitutional but the Supreme Court chose not to rule on the merits of the birthright citizenship issue at this time, instead focusing on the issue of nationwide injunctions. Is there no recourse or accountability for those knowingly violating the U.S. Constitution for the period until the Supreme Court takes up the birthright citizenship directly?
Judges are finding workarounds to Trump’s big Supreme Court win - POLITICO '
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/03/supreme-court-nationwide-injunctions-rulings-00439335
Comment: "If the Supreme Court’s near-ban on nationwide injunctions was the earth-shattering victory President Donald Trump claimed, no one seems to have told his courtroom opponents."
"While the absence of that tool is clearly a sea change for the judiciary, early results indicate that judges see other paths to impose sweeping restrictions on government actions they deem unlawful. And those options remain viable in many major pending lawsuits against the administration."
Politico: The Supreme Court decision that unshackled Trump
Comment: "One year ago today, the Supreme Court gave Donald Trump the legal victory of a lifetime."
"In a 6-3 decision whose consequences continue to reverberate today, the six Republican appointees on the court ruled that Trump was entitled to criminal immunity in connection with the Justice Department’s prosecution of the then-former president over his effort to overturn the 2020 election. The decision dealt a practical death blow to the Justice Department’s hopes of putting Trump on trial before the 2024 election."
"That is all decidedly in the past now, but the decision continues to reverberate."
Video: Supreme Court takes up major new challenge to campaign finance restrictions - June 30, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nI94sxAcO_M
Politico: Justices’ nerves fray in Supreme Court’s final stretch
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/27/supreme-court-acrimony-00430590
Comment: "On the whole, they paint a picture of nine people who are deeply divided over the law and the role of the courts — and who also may just not like each other very much."
Mother Jones: “Disaster Looms”: Justice Jackson’s Warning for the Country
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/06/injunctions-supreme-court-ketanji-brown-jackson/
Comment: " 'No right is safe in the new legal regime the Court creates,' Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissent, which was joined by her fellow Democratic appointees, Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. 'Today, the threat is to birthright citizenship. Tomorrow, a different administration may try to seize firearms from law abiding citizens or prevent people of certain faiths from gathering to worship… That holding renders constitutional guarantees meaningful in name only for any individuals who are not parties to a lawsuit.' When the Constitution and the president face off, the Constitution falls."
" 'The Court’s decision is nothing less than an open invitation for the Government to bypass the Constitution,' Sotomayor warned. 'The Executive Branch can now enforce policies that flout settled law and violate countless individuals’ constitutional rights, and the federal courts will be hamstrung to stop its actions fully.' This is the new America."
Comment: "Justice Jackson, in her own dissent, digs into the profound threat this decision poses to the rule of law by, in effect, exempting the president from following it. Whether or not this decision has the practical effect of denying birthright citizenship to children born on US soil, Jackson warns, this decision has altered our system of government and, sooner or later, may destroy it. 'Disaster looms,' she warns. If a court cannot command the executive to follow the law, then there exists 'a zone of lawlessness within which the Executive has the prerogative to take or leave the law as it wishes, and where individuals who would otherwise be entitled to the law’s protection become subject to the Executive’s whims instead.' This is, of course, not how democracy works. But it is, now, the law of the land in the United States."
The Bulwark: Ignoring Substance, SCOTUS Permits Lawlessness
Video: 'A huge decision': Supreme Court limits ability of judges to stop Trump
https://youtu.be/QzZL7BCUnmw?feature=shared
NPR: Supreme Court limits nationwide injunctions in birthright citizenship order
https://www.npr.org/2025/06/27/nx-s1-5435786/scotus-birthright-citizenship-universal-injunctions
Comment: "The majority opinion, written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, didn't rule on whether Trump's executive order violates the 14th Amendment or the Nationality Act. Instead, it focused on whether federal courts have the power to issue nationwide blocks."
NPR: Supreme Court upholds South Carolina’s ban on Medicaid funds for Planned Parenthood
https://www.npr.org/2025/06/26/nx-s1-5435021/scotus-planned-parenthood
AL.com: Confronted with DNA, Alabama offers theory that ‘defies logic’ to keep man on death row
Comment: "The state of Alabama has a complicated relationship with science, and its criminal courts are no exception. Often, state prosecutors defend debunked junk science, like bite marks, to keep people in prison. Other times, they ignore updated scientific findings, such as recent DNA tests, to defend old theories that led to a conviction. In this series, AL.com will highlight several cases where science is at odds with the sentence."
Louisiana's Ten Commandments law in public schools blocked by federal appeals court
Comment: "The appellate court's decision upholds a lower court's ruling in November declaring Louisiana's law 'facially unconstitutional.' "
Comment: "Now, the case moves closer to potentially going before the U.S. Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority."
Trump’s lawyers anxiously await Supreme Court decision on judicial power | CNN Politics
https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/16/politics/trump-judicial-power-supreme-court
Comment: "Trump has issued more than 200 executive actions since returning to the White House — more than any other president — but judges have blocked dozens of them, including his policies on mass layoffs, deportations and funding priorities."
Comment: "While recent presidents of both parties have dealt with nationwide injunctions, Trump is facing a record number, which is why this issue has become a priority for him and his Republican allies in Congress."
Comment: "But supporters of the injunctions say preventing judges from blocking policies while litigation plays out means that actions of questionable legality or constitutionality could be in effect for years before the Supreme Court ever considers them."
Americans don’t see US supreme court as politically neutral, poll finds | US supreme court | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/16/supreme-court-politically-neutral-poll
Comment: "Just 20% of respondents to the poll agreed that the supreme court is politically neutral while 58% disagreed – and the rest either said they did not know or did not respond. Among people who described themselves as Democrats, only 10% agreed it was politically neutral and 74% disagreed, while among Republicans 29% agreed and 54% disagreed."
AP News: Justice Department's early moves on voting and elections signal a shift from its traditional role
Comment: "They represent a shift away from the division’s traditional role of protecting access to the ballot box. Instead, the actions address concerns that have been raised by a host of conservative activists following years of false claims surrounding elections in the U.S. Some voting rights and election experts also note that by targeting certain states — presidential battlegrounds or those controlled by Democrats — the moves could be foreshadowing an expanded role for the department in future elections."
CNN: Supreme Court justices get snippy as key decisions loom
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/06/13/politics/supreme-court-justices-snippy-analysis
NPR: Supreme Court says family can sue over wrong-house raid
https://www.npr.org/2025/06/12/nx-s1-5430354/supreme-court-sue-wrong-house-raid
Trump's team reportedly pushes Texas Republicans to rig voting maps ahead of 2026 election
https://www.msnbc.com/top-stories/latest/trump-texas-maps-redistricting-election-rcna212386
vox.com: Trump asks the Supreme Court to neutralize the Convention Against Torture, in DHS v. D.V.D.
https://www.vox.com/scotus/416163/trump-supreme-court-deport-immigration-convention-torture
Comment: "Trump’s lawyers claim they’ve found a loophole that will allow Trump to ship immigrants overseas to be tortured."
The Supreme Court will issue a flurry of decisions in the coming weeks. Here's what to expect. - CBS News
Supreme Court grants Trump’s urgent bid for DOGE to have access to Social Security data
Comment: "The federal government had asked the justices to halt a judge’s order blocking DOGE from sensitive Social Security information."
Trump asks Supreme Court to let him gut Education Department
CNN: Trump returns to Supreme Court with emergency appeal over mass firings
NBC News: Trump overshadows Supreme Court as ruling season begins
Comment: "President Donald Trump’s second term has disrupted the court calendar, with the nine justices now spending as much time, if not more, juggling consequential emergency cases that need to be handled quickly as they do on the regular docket of cases that have gotten months of attention and deliberation."
NPR: Supreme Court limits environmental reviews of infrastructure projects
https://www.npr.org/2025/05/29/nx-s1-5415742/supreme-court-nepa
US federal judges consider creating own armed security force as threats mount
https://share.newsbreak.com/d9uz2k27
Chicago Tribune: Editorial: Why Chief Justice Roberts is right and Vice President Vance is wrong
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/05/25/editorial-john-roberts-jd-vance-judicial-independence/
The Hill: Five years after George Floyd’s murder, our racial reckoning is not over yet
https://thehill.com/opinion/civil-rights/5316355-2george-floyd-murder-five-years/
Five years after George Floyd's murder, racial justice push continues | Reuters
NBC News: Some fear excessive use of force will rise as the DOJ drops oversight of police departments
Trump administration dismisses police investigations in several cities : NPR
Judge finds police acted reasonably in shooting New Mexico while man at wrong address
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna208157
70% of the DOJ's Civil Rights Division lawyers are leaving because of Trump's reshaping : NPR
https://www.npr.org/2025/05/19/g-s1-66906/trump-civil-rights-justice-exodus
NBC News: Supreme Court allows Trump to revoke protected status for thousands of Venezuelans
Trump's tussles with the courts could lead the nation into uncharted waters | AP News
Comment: "Tucked deep in the thousand-plus pages of the multitrillion-dollar budget bill making its way through the Republican-controlled U.S. House is a paragraph curtailing a court’s greatest tool for forcing the government to obey its rulings: the power to enforce contempt findings."
Comment: "But the fact that GOP lawmakers are including it shows how much those in power in the nation’s capital are thinking about the consequences of defying judges as the battle between the Trump administration and the courts escalates."
Conservative justices object to how lower courts are blocking Trump, but birthright citizenship case presents deeper issues | CNN Politics
CNN: Supreme Court blocks Trump from restarting Alien Enemies Act deportations
https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/16/politics/supreme-court-alien-enemies-act
Supreme Court extends block on Trump’s deportation bid under Alien Enemies Act - POLITICO
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/16/supreme-court-extends-block-trump-deportations-00355210
PBS: WATCH: Kagan says 'there’s no way' she’d bring birthright citizenship case to Supreme Court
NPR: Supreme Court justices appear divided in birthright citizenship arguments
https://www.npr.org/2025/05/15/nx-s1-5398025/supreme-court-birthright-citizenship
The Guardian: Stephen Miller is wrong: the president can’t just suspend habeas corpus | Austin Sarat
Supreme Court sides with family of man killed by police after he was pulled over for toll violations
https://www.yahoo.com/news/supreme-court-sides-family-man-215041821.html
Comment: Although this case was not from Alabama, you may want to consider it in light of Alabama's recent passage of its 'back the blue' police legislation which grants additional immunity to Alabama police officers.
AL.com: Alabama’s ‘back the blue’ police bill passes in final hour of legislative session
Comment: "A bill to expand Alabama law on legal immunity for police officers passed in the final half-hour of the annual legislative session on Wednesday night."
Comment: "Democrats have opposed the bill saying it will make it harder to hold police accountable."
Federal appeals court deals major blow to Voting Rights Act | CNN Politics
https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/14/politics/voting-rights-act-gets-major-blow-from-appeals-court
NPR: A federal appeals panel has made enforcing the Voting Rights Act harder in 7 states
The Guardian: US justice department asks civil rights division attorneys to stay after mass exits
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/14/justice-department-civil-rights-attorneys-trump
CNN: Divided Supreme Court on full display heading into birthright citizenship hearing
https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/12/politics/supreme-court-divisions-birthright-citizenship-hearing
Politico: Rule of law is ‘endangered,’ chief justice says
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/12/chief-justice-roberts-speech-georgetown-00343406
What is habeas corpus, the legal procedure Trump is considering suspending? | CNN Politics
https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/10/politics/habeas-corpus-explained
CNN: Alabama ‘purposely’ diluted Black votes with congressional plan, court finds
https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/08/politics/alabama-congressional-plan-court-ruling
Comment: "With the finding, the court said it would consider whether to put Alabama under a Voting Rights Act provision that would require it to get federal approval of its congressional plans going forward."
Federal court criticizes Alabama for pushing a discriminatory U.S. House voter map | Alabama Public Radio
Comment: "The judges also said it would consider a request from the plaintiffs to place Alabama back into preclearance for future congressional redistricting efforts. That means the state would have to seek the court’s permission to make future changes to its voting maps. Alabama has reportedly not been under that kind of restraint since the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Shelby County v. Holder."
CBS News: U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi is pressed to spare civil rights-era "peacemakers" program from closure
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/community-relations-service-pam-bondi-house-democrats/
The Hill: C-SPAN asks Roberts to allow televised birthright citizenship arguments
https://thehill.com/homenews/media/5287851-c-span-requests-cameras-supreme-court/
CNN: Chief Justice John Roberts stresses judicial independence amid tensions with Trump
https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/07/politics/john-roberts-event-judicial-independence
Politico: A Clue From the Supreme Court on How It Will Handle Trump
Federal judge says results of North Carolina court race with Democrat ahead must be certified
Slate: The Real Lesson of a Republican Judge’s Just-Failed Attempt to Steal an Election
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/05/north-carolina-republican-judge-election-theft.html
ProPublica: The DEA Once Touted Body Cameras for Their “Enhanced Transparency.” Now the Agency Is Abandoning Them.
https://www.propublica.org/article/drug-enforcement-administration-ends-body-camera-program-trump
Trump brings DOGE fight over access to Social Security data to Supreme Court
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-brings-doge-fight-over-203942253.html
Trump turns civil rights upside down in ‘biggest rollback’ since Reconstruction | CNN Politics
https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/02/politics/trump-civil-rights-rollback-what-matters
The Guardian: Justice department civil rights division loses 70% of lawyers under Trump
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/01/civil-rights-division-doj-trump
For News Articles links from before May 1st, 2025, please go to:
https://sites.google.com/view/dem2oldnews/home/old2-supreme-court-equality-fair-justice
There you will find a continuation of the news links & comments from the period prior to May 1, 2025 (Including article links prior to the November 2024 election, found by clicking a second google sites website link at the end of the site referenced immediately above). The article history can be viewed as follows:
www.dalecodemocrats.com (latest)
sites.google.com/view/dem2oldnews/home/ (Nov 2024 election - April 30, 2025)
sites.google.com/view/demoldnews/home/ (Prior to 2024 election)
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