#USA Supreme Court

[ramen-flavored]

My Shaylaaaa!!!

[olowan-waphiya]

you cant make this shit up….

[chawsl]

[mysharona1987]

[ngdrb]

[onetwistedmiracle]

Clarence Thomas and the Billionaire

by Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott and Alex Mierjeski

April 6, 5 a.m. EDT

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power.

In late June 2019, right after the U.S. Supreme Court released its final opinion of the term, Justice Clarence Thomas boarded a large private jet headed to Indonesia. He and his wife were going on vacation: nine days of island-hopping in a volcanic archipelago on a superyacht staffed by a coterie of attendants and a private chef.

...

Read the entire article for free:

This motherfucker needs to get motherfucking fired.

[reasonsforhope]

THANK FUCKING GOD

"The Supreme Court on Thursday [June 13, 2024] unanimously preserved access to a medication that was used in nearly two-thirds of all abortions in the U.S. last year, in the court’s first abortion decision since conservative justices overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago.

The nine justices ruled that abortion opponents lacked the legal right to sue over the federal Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the medication, mifepristone, and the FDA’s subsequent actions to ease access to it. The case had threatened to restrict access to mifepristone across the country, including in states where abortion remains legal.

Abortion is banned at all stages of pregnancy in 14 states, and after about six weeks of pregnancy in three others, often before women realize they’re pregnant.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was part of the majority to overturn Roe, wrote for the court on Thursday that “federal courts are the wrong forum for addressing the plaintiffs’ concerns about FDA’s actions.”

The opinion underscored the stakes of the 2024 election and the possibility that an FDA commissioner appointed by Republican Donald Trump, if he wins the White House, could consider tightening access to mifepristone, including prohibiting sending it through the mail...

Kavanaugh’s opinion managed to unite a court deeply divided over abortion and many other divisive social issues by employing a minimalist approach that focused solely on the technical legal issue of standing and reached no judgment about the FDA’s actions...

While praising the decision, President Joe Biden signaled Democrats will continue to campaign heavily on abortion ahead of the November elections. “It does not change the fact that the right for a woman to get the treatment she needs is imperiled if not impossible in many states,” Biden said in a statement...

About two-thirds of U.S. adults oppose banning the use of mifepristone, or medication abortion, nationwide, according to a KFF poll conducted in February. About one-third would support a nationwide ban...

More than 6 million people [in the U.S.] have used mifepristone since 2000. Mifepristone blocks the hormone progesterone and primes the uterus to respond to the contraction-causing effect of a second drug, misoprostol. The two-drug regimen has been used to end a pregnancy through 10 weeks gestation...

Biden’s administration and drug manufacturers had warned that siding with abortion opponents in this case could [have] undermined the FDA’s drug approval process beyond the abortion context by inviting judges to second-guess the agency’s scientific judgments. The Democratic administration and New York-based Danco Laboratories, which makes mifepristone, argued that the drug is among the safest the FDA has ever approved."

-via AP, June 13, 2024

--

Note: A massive relief and a genuine victory - this will preserve access to the medication used in 2/3rds of abortions last year, for at least another 2 years. (Probably minimum time it will take Republicans to get their next attempt before the Supreme Court.)

Still, with this, a sword that has been hanging over our heads for the last two years is gone. There will be a new one soon, but we just bought ourselves probably at least 2 years. The fight isn't over, but this is absolutely worth celebrating.

[genderqueerpositivity]

With the landmark ruling — which falls in line with many of the SCOTUS justices' conservative stances — a precedent has now been set that in certain instances, U.S. businesses can legally deny their services to LGBTQ+ people under the First Amendment.

A final fuck you to the LGBTQ community at the end of Pride Month, courtesy of the Supreme Court.

[thebrilliot]

Please, if you are voting in the American presidential election, please please please vote strategically for Kamala Harris and every other Democrat on your ballot. This is not about parties. I just can't take anymore Trump-ist Republicans taking away women's rights and twisting words to do whatever they want. The right-wing Supreme Court is redistributing political power to the president and themselves. The president cannot be recused for official acts. Courts can overrule the professionals running federal agencies.

I am increasingly scared to live in this country. The Republican candidate for governor in my state shamelessly announces his wish for a USA where women cannot vote. He advocates for capital punishment without trial. I don't know who I can reach, but please vote for the candidates that have the best chance to win over the extreme right. Please vote if you don't vote. Please vote Democrat if you would usually vote libertarian or independent. Please vote with me, who would usually rather let politics be. Please use your vote.

[starsideblog]

Can someone PLEASE pull a "shoot the ceo" with Trump. This country is fucking doomed if he stays alive. It's only been 15 days, out of the four YEARS he's going to get, and this is awful. He's genuinely trying to become a dictator. So many things are being changed for the worse. And that's terrifying

Anyone who isn't Caucasian, queer people, disabled people, fucking hell even perisex cis women are in so much danger with him in power

We need him dead now or we're all 6 feet under

[castielsprostate]

us-ians try not to fuck up this election and vote blue challenge (impossible) (they don't care about anyone but themselves) (they're unable to see the devastating consequences if that orange buffoon is re-elected) (they don't understand how their own government works) (voting blue is literally the only option you have if you want to survive past 2030. like there is literally no other fucking option. if you do not vote blue this year, so much blood will be on your hands you can't even imagine it i don't think) (us-ians are too shortsighted to see what will happen to the rest of the fucking world if their little orange dictator gets reelected and they. don't. care.)

[thedialoguedilemma]

TikTok is now back on and available for some users in the United States. This comes after the TikTok CEO announces that Donald Trump is expected to sign a 90 day extension once he swears into office exploring the possibility of a 50% United States government control of the app.

The Biden administration has made it clear that it was not going to enforce the TikTok ban and TikTok actually did not need to go offline last night.

TikTok voluntary chose to go offline even a few hours before the ban was supposed to take effect and is oddly parading around saluting Donald Trump.

[macmanx]

[mysharona1987]

[indecisiveavocado]

a whole new level of awful: donald trump directly contradicts the constitution, potentially turning presidents into kings

Yesterday, Donald Trump directly contradicted the Constitution in an executive order.

Wait, what's an executive order?

An executive order is a direction by the President to agencies, often legally binding. They're often quite boring. The first executive order issued this year (2025) was establishing a chain of succession in some obscure office.

Executive orders are common, but not incredibly so. Since 1937, the most prolific president in absolute terms was FDR, with 2023, and the least prolific Biden, with 160. If you account for the varying numbers of years, the most prolific was still FDR, with around 252 per year, and the least prolific Obama, with around 35 per year. That's not a huge number.

The critical thing about executive orders is that there is no congressional process. None. They are made by the President's whims, and can be used to effectively pass laws that could not be passed otherwise. For instance, Executive Order 9066, by FDR, established the Japanese-American internment camps. Congress did not review this; the only way to challenge it was via the courts. Similarly for Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. Executive Order 12127, by Jimmy Carter, established FEMA. Other executive orders have prohibited discrimination in the federal and sometimes civilian workforce, established the Peace Corps, created the National Labor Relations Board, and, much more recently, banned travel from many Muslim-majority countries to the US as part of Trump's Muslim ban. Again, there is almost no oversight. The only way to fight this is via the courts.

What does this one say, and how does that contradict the Constitution?

This executive order states, effectively, that if someone is born in the US but has a parent who is undocumented, they are not a US citizen. This directly contradicts the Fourteenth Amendment, which states "All persons born...in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States".

What are the consequences of this if it's allowed to stand?

If it is allowed to stand, it will have two far-reaching consequences that will change American democracy and turn into, effectively, a kingdom.

The first change is based on the fact that executive orders would now be elevated above the Constitution, thus meaning any executive order Trump signs--and remember, there are no restrictions on these--would be law.

The second change would be that there would be no recourse. There would be no way to fight back against it save by appealing to the goodness of his heart (of which, of course, there is none), because, after all, what appeal can be made? If it's above the Constitution, it's also above any other law that might be invoked to show it's illegal. In other words, if upheld as legal, this executive order would elevate executive orders, and with them the President, to the unchallengeable supreme law of the land.

It would turn the president--right now that's Trump, God save us all--into a king.

Will it be allowed to stand?

I don't know. The Supreme Court has shown some slight backbone, but overall it has pretty much yielded to Trump. Unless two or more typically conservative justices--so two of Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, or Barrett--stray from Trump's party line, that order will probably be upheld. I don't think they'll do so; after all, doing so would basically remove their power. But I'm not as confident as I'd like to be.

Basically, our democracy's continuation is now in the hands of six awful people.

Is there anything I can do?

Not really. I mean, yes, lobby, call your congresspeople, mail them angry letters, support your local library, all that jazz. But honestly, there isn't so much you can do when it's at this scale. (Unless, of course, you're Trump or a Supreme Court justice. In which case, hi, please stop this!) Just knowing about it and sharing that knowledge will help.

[nando161mando]

The Supreme Court must love private prisons, making homelessness a crime will cost us more money than simply helping them. Senseless unnecessary and expensive cruelty