U.S. Supreme Court: Post-Ginsburg Edition

Have at it.

I nominate AOC

i nominate tom cotton, a good guy with a gun

get in here, goons

Can Trump nominate himself?

and continuing the SCOTUS term limit discussion, reposting the explainer
https://fixthecourt.com/2019/11/myth-facts-scotus-term-limits/

https://www.texastribune.org/2020/09/09/ted-cruz-supreme-court-donald-trump/

No idea if these proposed changes are ideal or if they could ever plausibly come to pass, but I like that they are being put out there. It's a good step to start getting people used to the idea of major changes to the court.

Bryant Johnson, Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s personal trainer, does push-ups as Justice Ginsburg lies in state in the U.S. Capitol.

Full video: https://t.co/vri1sJcUV6 pic.twitter.com/C11uVFeQlQ

— CSPAN (@cspan) September 25, 2020

He isn’t stupid so wtf is he thinking https://t.co/uyEcGDZRIy

— Doug Henwood (@DougHenwood) September 25, 2020

I'm very sorry but if the pushup video is real it's extremely funny

CNN reporting that it's Barrett:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/25/politics/donald-trump-amy-coney-barrett-supreme-court/index.html

South Bend is really knocking it out of the park this year.

Whoever Trump was going to pick was going to be a horror story, so I expect soon to be reading about the many horrors of Ms. Barrett, which no doubt will be many and hair-raising. Lindsey Graham will love her.

democrats will have grave concerns and strongly worded appeals to decency

democratic fundraising will go through the roof, blood will boil, the election will be won (eventually) by democrats. and at the end, it'll be a 6-3 conservative court for the forseeable future, and possible a 5-4 majority for another 20-30 years, unless the golden boy or gorsuch unexpectedly croak, which would be a tragedy

those are impressive lifespans you're projecting for thomas and alito imo

They get magic life drugs injected in their butts

haha, well it also builds in known unknowns, like republicans preserving a seat in a future GOP presidency. let's role play it

2020 (the present. you are in hell)
barrett is confirmed before election. fuck you liberals
6-3 conservative majority

roberts is 65
thomas is 72
alito is 70
gorsuch is 53
the golden boy is 55
barrett is 48

breyer is 82
sotomayor is 66
kagan is 60

2021 (biden is elected. you are in tartarus)
biden wins. breyer tags out for a younger replacement. i will create SC justice names using this thread Fighting Baseball for Super Famicom: A League of Fake Americans POLL
6-3 conservative majority

roberts is 66
thomas is 73
alito is 71
gorsuch is 54
the golden boy is 56
barrett is 49

sotomayor is 67
kagan is 61
willie dustice is 50

EVENT
2024 election. The democrat has a 70% chance of victory (same as clinton v trump), due to me running this simulation. RNG: no joke, i rolled a random number from 1 to 10, with 1-7 being democratic victory and 8-10 being republican, and i rolled an 8. REPUBLICANS WIN

2025 (tom cotton is the president of the united states. you have killed 2 people now and haven't talked in weeks.)
tom cotton casts Executive Righteousness on thomas, 77 years old, who is replaced by Sleve McDichael
6-3 conservative majority

roberts is 70
alito is 75
the golden boy is 60
barrett is 53
sleve mcdichael is 50

sotomayor is 71
kagan is 65
gorsuch is 58
willie dustice is 54

EVENT
World War III, totally started by tom cotton. 2028 election. The democrat has a 80% chance of victory, due to me running this simulation. RNG: 3, democratic victory

2029 (first influencers on mars)
AOC is the president of the united states of america, fuck yeah. sotomayor, the second oldest justice at 75, taps out. bobsun dugnutt is the new junior united states supreme court justice.
6-3 conservative majority

roberts is 74
alito is 79
gorsuch is 62
the golden boy is 64
barrett is 57
sleve mcdichael is 54

kagan is 69
willie dustice is 58
bobsun dognutt is 50

EVENT
in 2031, the golden boy brett kavanaugh, just 66 years old, FUCKING DIES OUT OF NOWHERE and it's REALLY EMBARRASSING FOR HIM

2031 (VR sex surpasses videogames in revenue generation)
brett kavanaugh fucking dies out of nowhere, best thing that's happened in a generation. president AOC appoints a justice so left-leaning that she's impeached by sergeant ivanka trump, leader of the paramilitary republican subcommittee known as Gold Team. Onson Sweemey, the first justice with a normal name in 11 years, takes the golden boy's spot and shifts the balance toward a near-balance.

5-4 conservative majority

roberts is 76
alito is 81
gorsuch is 64
barrett is 59
sleve mcdichael is 56

kagan is 71
willie dustice is 60
bobsun dognutt is 52
onson sweemey is 50

EVENT
2032 Election. there's no more random numbers, it's just me making it up. the democrats win again. AOC is on the wheaties box.

then, near the end of her second term, the unspeakable happens. Samuel Alito, at the age of 85, just fucking dies out of nowhere.
2035
some observers expect the krang-like brain of mitch mcconnell to somehow delay a democratic confirmation in his spot, but AOC casts total victory and again appoints an extremely-left greatest of time justice named Todd Bonzalez.
5-4 liberal majority

roberts is 80
gorsuch is 68
barrett is 63
sleve mcdichael is 60

kagan is 75
willie dustice is 64
bobsun dognutt is 56
onson sweemey is 54
todd bonzalez is 50

EVENT
2036 Election. it's been 8 years of supreme relaxation and greatness. even gum is genuinely _better_. everything's great. something has to change, so somehow it's time for PRESIDENT CHARLIE KIRK

2037
under PRESIDENT CHARLIE KIRK, roberts immediately resigns. the new chief justice of the united states is SCOTT DOURQUE, 50 years old, catholic conservative
5-4 liberal majority

chief justice scott dourque, 50
gorsuch is 70
barrett is 65
sleve mcdichael is 62

kagan is 77
willie dustice is 66
bobsun dognutt is 58
onson sweemey is 56
todd bonzalez is 52

I actually think that’s not a terrible way of gaming things out. The arc of the moral universe is long. We fight the fights that we have today, and we train our young folks. Good post KM.

DOGNUTT

https://res.cloudinary.com/teepublic/image/private/s--QTcxwhPT--/t_Preview/b_rgb:ffffff,c_limit,f_jpg,h_630,q_90,w_630/v1495739359/production/designs/1624926_1.jpg

in 2031, the golden boy brett kavanaugh, just 66 years old, FUCKING DIES OUT OF NOWHERE and it's REALLY EMBARRASSING FOR HIM

whoa how did he die?!

Shot by one of Dick Cheney's grandkids

Karl, that was perfect (ly horrifying).

Shot by one of Dick Cheney's grandkids

― LaRusso Auto (Neanderthal), Friday, September 25, 2020 6:49 PM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

At a UB40 reunion concert

in 2031, the golden boy brett kavanaugh, just 66 years old, FUCKING DIES OUT OF NOWHERE and it's REALLY EMBARRASSING FOR HIM

whoa how did he die?!

he dies of doing a kegstand in the kitchen of amy klobuchar's wake

karl this is some excellent scenario running and first rate use of the Fighting Baseball thread and i applaud it

i have a rejoinder percolating but it may take a while to get around to crunching the hard numbers so i just wanted to say that for now

_in 2031, the golden boy brett kavanaugh, just 66 years old, FUCKING DIES OUT OF NOWHERE and it's REALLY EMBARRASSING FOR HIM_

whoa how did he die?!

xp thanks doctor c! your questioning of that was really valid, and i don't think my answer is any sort of proof of anything. i got lazy and didn't project it out to 2045 (my original goal), but even though i ended with a slim 5-4 liberal majority by 2037, i don't think it takes much to keep it at a 5-4 conservative majority either. then again, maybe the republicans will truly never win again (lol) and it will be 6-3 liberal by 2040, who knows

So we get 40 some years of this...from an article Barrett co-wrote as quoted by SCOTUS blog

The article also noted that, when the late Justice William Brennan was asked about potential conflict between his Catholic faith and his duties as a justice, he responded that he would be governed by “the oath I took to support the Constitution and laws of the United States”; Barrett and Garvey observed that they did not “defend this position as the proper response for a Catholic judge to take with respect to abortion or the death penalty.”

https://www.scotusblog.com/2018/07/potential-nominee-profile-amy-coney-barrett/

Can't wait for her book, "Jesus is the Speaker of MY House"

@ Karl - okay! you've already gotten there, but yeah basically my rejoinder would be that you didn't actually end up showing "a 6-3 conservative court for the forseeable future, and possible a 5-4 majority for another 20-30 years." but the scenario was worth it anyway. a quibble: you don't game out the Senate, which i respect because that would be even more absurd fanfic work, but it's worth allowing at least dice-roll possibilities that the Dems control the Senate during your Republican admins, AND that they stand firm against prematurely ghoulish ideologues like Sleve McDichael, whose pasty-faced appearance and hot-mic comments during the nominations process turn the public against him. i would not put money on that chance myself, but it's at least possible.

also though, a fair bit hinges on that first d10 roll and some choices about the EVENTS - suppose Biden rolls a 6 in 2024, and is re-elected to a foggy but popular second term, his "Reagan in the late 80s" zone, AND ALSO that during that term, Thomas has a health scare and decides to retire. i don't know that the odds are so heavily stacked against something like that.

obviously in that event, Biden's replacement pick would be the mushy, not-all-that liberal Rey McSriff (48), a former bank-industry lobbyist, seen as a move back in the direction of racial and gender diversity on the court who will at least be a reliable liberal vote in civil-rights and abortion cases.

so in january 2029, we've got:

roberts is 74
alito is 79
gorsuch is 62
the golden boy is 64
barrett is 57

kagan is 69
willie dustice is 58
bobsun dognutt is 50
rey mcsriff is 50

eight years of the biden administration have left many festering wounds unaddressed, but thankfully the republican "gold team" have been mostly braying in the margins without control of either congress or the executive to formally empower them. on the other hand, in the absence of the Cotton presidency, World War III has not happened, but let's say AOC wins in 2028 anyway. why not?!

thus, following B.K.'s horrible death in 2031, AOC's super left-wing appointee is able to remain in office. you didn't name them but it's pretty obvious you had Shown Furcotte in mind. maybe kagan is worried enough about the next election, and spooked by what is by then a Sunday-morning-show conventional wisdom about "the Tragedy of Ginsburg," that she retires too. by this point AOC is not fucking around at all and appoints millennial twitter SJW Raul Chamgerlain, 44. if AOC goes on to win a second term and also grabs the Alito seat, then in 2035 we have:

roberts is 80
gorsuch is 68
barrett is 63

raul chamgerlain is 49
willie dustice is 64
bobsun dognutt is 56
rey mcscriff is 56
shown furcotte is 53
todd bonzalez is 50

... and our biggest problem is that sometimes McSriff aligns with the conservatives to dissent in 5-4 corporate-law decisions, and we see a lot of online left grousing about how Biden wasted a pick on her.

now yes, i admit........... this depends on the democrats winning four straight national elections. IMPOSSIBLE you say? or merely... improbable???! depends how much faith you put in changing demographics etc. but if none of the Dem-appointed justices die in office, they can also afford to lose one of those elections! because it might be that the Republicans can only replace Thomas or Alito with McDichael or Dorque, giving them an edge in age but not a leg up in the balance of the court.

todd bonzalez makes history as the first male latino justice

is there a relevant quote linking Barrett's sect to The Handmaid's Tale?

there must be. ominous lord, truth is stranger than fiction

xp

doc casino, first of all, obviously i had Shown Furcotte in mind. but secondly, the rest of your scenario seems plausible!

obviously gaming it out like that is a goof, but i did actually learn a few things. or maybe not. i feel like just laying out their ages, combined with the fact that they have lifetime appointments, explains 99% of the game:

christmas near-future:

roberts is 65
thomas is 72
alito is 70
gorsuch is 53
the golden boy is 55
barrett is 48

breyer is 82
sotomayor is 66
kagan is 60

that there is a stacked deck, combined with republican weakness (in terms of what we might expect, possibly overoptimistically, from their presidential chances for the next few decades after elevating a white supremacist fascist to the presidency and then ripping the country to shreds in an attempt to keep him there). even with a couple 2-term democratic administrations in a row, through 2036, there is still a decent chance that at least 5 or even all 6 of the conservative majority stays right where they are, their ass-molds worn deep

in unrelated news, just before i fell asleep face down on the couch last night, i ran across a disturbing headline about increasing the maximum human lifespans beyond its current soft limit of 125. apparently the consensus is that it will soon (10 years?) be possible to extend human lifespans using genetic modifiers, physical devices, and secret codes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_extension jfc

agreed, it's a useful exercise to grasp exactly how much the age advantage of the GWB and DJT appointees presses on into the future. but also, focusing too much on that just takes us into a zone of gloom, so unless it's directly useful for motivating present-day action and the long-term fight, i think it's also useful to bear in mind all the ways that the scenario could suddenly break down. nobody saw Scalia's death coming, for example, even though he was 79. that ended up working out horribly for the cause of justice and freedom, but it could have gone differently. so long as our rights are subject to these bizarre matters of fate and circumstance, we may as well remind ourselves that there are ways the probabilistic parts could break our way.

and the stacked deck there does look better the moment Biden can replace Breyer, which i think we all do need to be praying for (or whatever equivalent practice).

and... all these scenarios also presume a successful barrett confirmation. tbh, i'm pretty doom-and-gloom about that, seems like there's no reason to think it won't happen. but it's still probably not good for my head to already accept her as a solid number until 2049 or w/e. like if i'm driving myself crazy with all the bad things that have already happened, and the ones that could probably happen, and the ones that are near-certainties, that's a lot to do to my head, if i'm not also considering the good equivalents of all of those things.

there's also some non-zero chance that, in the event that a Democrat wins the presidential race four times in a row and this permanent 5-4 Court keeps shutting down every exciting thing the people are turning out to vote for, then a mandate for court-packing develops much much more quickly than we might expect right now.

so long as our rights are subject to these bizarre matters of fate and circumstance, we may as well remind ourselves that there are ways the probabilistic parts could break our way.

otm

i know that's not a convincing or comforting thought for everyone, but to me that really is what gives me hope

NEW: Senate Democrats say they will press President Trump’s SCOTUS nominee to commit to recuse herself if the justices hear a case that could impact the outcome of the fall elections, @mkraju reports.

— Ana Cabrera (@AnaCabrera) September 25, 2020

That seems a little dumb

I mean it makes sense but they'd still have a 5-3 advantage anyway

"Will you commit to not doing the exact thing you were hired for" is a dumb question

and... all these scenarios also presume a successful barrett confirmation. tbh, i'm pretty doom-and-gloom about that, seems like there's no reason to think it won't happen

i will continue to return to my dumb "we simulate the future and then experience it in real time, somehow diminished, as something that was already familiar" theory, until someone or something convinces me that it's not accurate. in that line of thinking, you can already see the barrett confirmation and how it happens. i already saw a headline, last night, talking about how barrett was confirmed in October. i looked at the calendar and it was september 25th, then re-read the headline and it still said that she was confirmed in October, past tense. i can't remember where i saw it, and i had a socially distanced hangout with a friend last night and got way too drunk. but still, it was there all the same.

that was just a drunken horror, but i woke up today and it's still there. the republicans have the votes. 2 have been allowed to deviate (murkowski and collins), which just so happens to allow exactly enough remaining republicans to unilaterally install barrett. what a coincidence. this outcome has already been focus-grouped on a national scale - it turns out that most republicans think it's a great idea, most democrats think it's a bad idea, and the majority of "independents" think it's a bad idea. it sounds like most ideas these days. so they'll do it, because they can.

we're currently simulating the outraged response, right now. at least, i am. and then, when it happens, it won't be the first time.

---

^i think all of that is a very bad way to go about thinking about life, believe it or not. but that's what i see happening over and over, lately.

xpost they're not asking her to not be a justice, they're saying 'Hey, you were literally just nominated by one of the President candidates in this election 5 minutes before the election, maybe it's a conflict of interest for you ruling on a case challenging his results".

But this is the primary reason they are in such a rush. If she can't guarantee to hand over the election, it's pointless for Trump. Surely he already told her she needs to deliver that vote, or there would be a different pick.

lol of course it's not going to actually happen but would you rather the Democrats not try it first so that they can frame it as "Justice Coney Barrett refused to recuse, she and Trump win, while Americans lose!"

I mean, compared to other things they should be trying, this is VERY low on my list of importance and I wouldn't want it to take the place of promising to pack the fuck out of courts, but we're kinda fucked unless someone has a McCain surprise during the vote.

And Biden hasn't nominated enough folks, and accounted for time vetting, voting and debating . Durbin moving slow too, plus I think the blue check rule still in place for District court slots (Senators get a sign off -- good luck getting that from Republican ones )

Vacancies in the Federal Judiciary

118th Congress

Last updated on11/09/2024

Total Vacancies:47

Total Nominees Pending:17

https://www.uscourts.gov/judges-judgeships/judicial-vacancies/current-judicial-vacancies

chevron strike-down silver lining - harder for RFK jr to make the fda do what he wants?

i seriously doubt RFK will be running the FDA or if he is, it won't be for long

I really, really hope clearer heads prevail re: RFK Jr., but Trump did say he would let him "run wild"

don't look forward to the underground drug networks that will have to be created if he does just so people can get vaccinated

Trump is urging Republicans to somehow block any more judges from being appointed by Biden and confirmed by the Senate to the 47 vacancies.

Eileen Cannon was confirmed by a lameduck Republican McConnell Senate in November 2020—by a bipartisan vote of 56-21, with the support of 10 Democrats (23 senators were absent or otherwise didn’t vote in that post-election, lame-duck session)—Cannon began her judicial service that month. She was only 39 years old.

Then once Trump gets in for his 2nd time --

waiting in the wings are dozens of Republican-nominated judges who in January would be eligible to retire on full pay but were most likely delaying doing so until there was a Republican president who could appoint their successors.

There are 83 such judges, according to Russell Wheeler, a scholar at the nonpartisan Brookings Institution who tracks judicial nominations.

Once Trump takes office, he will probably be able to fill most of those slots.

GOP won't pursue Supreme Court ethics rules

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-will-name-conservative-judges-may-even-pick-majority-supreme-cou-rcna179130

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/4992094-gorsuch-invokes-pnut-the-squirrel-in-federalist-society-dinner-keynote/

It’s bad enough that Gorsuch did multiple Fox News interviews for his book and is referencing Fox News stories at his Federalist Society keynote address, but did retired justice Breyer have to go to the Federalist Society Event and talk and normalize those folks . I recall Breyer had a dumb op-ed awhile back though offering this same mush so I guess I should not be surprised

https://ballsandstrikes.org/legal-culture/tom-goldstein-trump-prosecutions-supreme-court/

A response to the SCOTUS blog lawyer head who just wrote a NY Times opinion piece saying that all the cases against Trump whether in state court or federal court, should be dropped because Trump got elected again

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/03/us/supreme-court-ethics-rules.html

Interesting insider information article that confirms how most of us likely felt each justice would view things.

James Burnham, a former clerk to Justice Gorsuch, published an essay with warnings similar to the ones that his former boss had made in private. Ethics enforcement could “destabilize a legal system that has long protected us all,” he added in an interview.

Guy doesn't realize how his privileged Republican take can be read.

"us"

wish his sinus node would be destabilized

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/12/04/supreme-court-transgender-rights-case/#link-3KEP264JE5AGVE76V53CA7PSLM

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. used the phrase “a girl who wants to live like a boy” at one point

Alito also used to be alive

The wisdom of spectators:

“I care about gender-nonconforming kids just like me,” Turner said. “I’m a gay man, and I was a very feminine boy. When I was in second grade, I cried about wishing I was a girl because I wanted to have a purse. And thank goodness I wasn’t told that I was in the wrong body. I was told that you can have a purse — boys can be feminine, girls can be masculine, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

“I relate to the kids that are experiencing gender dysphoria, and I think that they’re frequently gay or lesbian, or they will grow up to be, and they’d be better off without medicalizing,” he said.

Are people really told by professionals that they’re in the wrong body? Because I’m inclined to believe that opinion is put forward by the patient experiencing gender dysphoria.

This is almost certainly going to be upheld. I think it's time to reconsider the "gender-affirming care is primarily a medical issue" approach (as opposed to a minority rights /sex-based discrimination issue) as, from what I'm reading, that's the logic the conservatives are using to uphold the TN law

I really think the Conservative mind sees everything as a money-making scam, because projection, as well as their inability to think outside of a moneymaking framework. So therefore doctors who specialize in gender-affirming care are pushing kids into it for $$$

but the law explicitly allows puberty blockers, hormone treatments, and cosmetic surgeries for minors so long as they aren't used for gender affirmation

The Tennessee law is fine with boys getting puberty blockers if will help them affirm their manhood, but not with girls getting them for psychological and mental health reasons.

Justice Jackson apparently did make the minority rights and equal rights argument

The conservative majority don’t want to consider trans people a minority deserving of protection against discrimination

Macho boys are a minority deserving protection.

Exactly . The Supreme Court majority knows better than a bunch of lib doctors who deserves protection

Waiting for Red States to pass the "Laughing at Dead CEOs" act next

https://i.imgur.com/Fn4jhba.gif

Alito/Thomas/Kavanaugh all dying in same car accident, Biden squeezes all three replacements through before January. Manifesting it

Interesting dream. Alas , Manchin & Sinema would have to sign off. I see that Schumer made a deal a little while ago with Republicans to let 4 court of appeals slots to sit empty until Trump comes in in exchange for Republicans not blocking some lower level District Court judge slots. Apparently Schumer didn’t think he had the votes to get Dem selected judges in those higher slots

Dems bringing a knife wet noodle to a gun fight as usual.

Dems Supreme Court judicial ethics report issued

Justice Clarence Thomas failed to disclose two additional trips from a billionaire patron that had not previously come to light, Senate Democrats revealed on Saturday after conducting a 20-month investigation into ethics practices at the Supreme Court.

The findings were part of a 93-page report released by Democratic staff members of the Judiciary Committee along with about 800 pages of documents. It said the two trips, both of which had been previously unknown to the public, took place in 2021 and were provided by Harlan Crow, a real estate magnate in Texas and a frequent patron of Justice Thomas’s.

One trip took place that July by private jet from Nebraska to Saranac, N.Y., where Justice Thomas stayed at Mr. Crow’s upstate retreat for five days. The other came in October, when Mr. Crow hosted Justice Thomas overnight in New York on his yacht after flying him from the District of Columbia to New Jersey for the dedication of a statue.

From The NY Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/21/us/politics/clarence-thomas-trips-disclosure-investigation.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

So I am watching the Kennedy Center Honors now on network tv and after showing honoree Bonny Raitt I think, they cut away to the crowd and I see Justice Roberts; and then after Dave Chappelle does a routine in tribute to the Apollo Theatre , then suddenly show f'in Brett Kavanaugh there . Ugh

They probably get free tickets, too.

luv 2 be friends w supreme court justices and fly them on my planes

https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/biden-made-the-judiciary-more-diversebut-not-more-liberal-d3cf7679

Paywalled article I haven’t been able to read . Sub heading saying Biden appointments largely took the place of other like minded appointees, seems to suggest that article is saying Biden appointments replaced retiring Dem judges

That's fine. Better this outcome than Trump filling them.

Paywalled article I haven’t been able to read

you probably already know, but you can just copy paste that link into https://archive.ph, and then it gives you a link like this which you (and others)) can read: https://archive.ph/hqLwI

potentially ethically not cool for all the people/journalists/bloggers who don't have any money and are trying to paywall to support their business, but in the case of the wall street journal, imo, fuck them

https://wapo.st/4fUKkYO

Durbin still to be top ranked Dem in Republican led Judiciary committee. This opinion piece argues that Durbin wasn’t aggressive enough while Dems had power and didn’t communicate to the public well enough, so that his Dem Rhode Island colleague Sheldon Whitehouse should have been chosen instead. But alas Schumer cares more about seniority norms than about sending strong messages to the public

The strong message of Sheldon Whitehouse

The strong message of Whitehouse

https://a.co/d/etpvo8t

Justice Alito confirmed President-elect Trump called him, telling ABC News, “one of my former law clerks asked me to take a call from President-elect Trump regarding his qualifications to serve in a government position.  I agreed to discuss this matter with President-elect Trump,… https://t.co/xZzDyYItz5

— Jonathan Karl (@jonkarl) January 8, 2025

Alito and Trump just happened to talk about a former clerk getting a job in Trump administration around the same time Trump was filing a motion to block his NY sentencing hearing, and filing in the 11th Circuit to block release of classified docs report

I often call Alito about helping with traffic tickets, he's a real resource for the American people

Wow, Barrett and Roberts sided with the 3 libs to deny Trump’s request to postpone his NY sentencing hearing scheduled for tomorrow. While NY judge has already stated Trump won’t get jail time, Trump will have to appear virtually or in person tomorrow to hear the NY judge announce the sentencing determination.

5-4 decision

He wanted the NY decision dismissed as well and it didn’t happen. I guess Trump will be hate tweeting Barrett and Roberts even though he won’t be facing anything real tomorrow

Case coming to Supreme Court after dumb 5th Circuit ruling that certain healthcare mandates under Affordable Care Act violate the Constitution because the federal officials who put them in place were not allegedly appointed correctly.

The challengers also urged the Supreme Court to take up the case, even as they argued that the 5th Circuit’s ruling was “well-reasoned and correct.” They pointed to the Supreme Court’s typical practice of granting cases where an act of Congress was deemed unconstitutional by a lower court.

The Texas business, Braidwood, sued over the mandates because the company had moral objections to covering the HIV prevention medications – known as PrEP. The company also objected to paying for insurance that covered screenings for sexually transmitted diseases and other treatments related to conduct the employer morally opposed.

The lawsuit was first filed in 2020, and at the time, the Trump administration defended the Affordable Care Act’s requirements.

Representing the company is Gene Hamilton, an alum of the first Trump administration Justice Department, who now, alongside Trump adviser Stephen Miller, leads the legal advocacy organization America First Legal. Also representing the challengers is Jonathan Mitchell, who argued on Trump’s behalf in the Colorado ballot access case before the Supreme Court last term.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/10/politics/obamacare-supreme-court-hiv-prep-cancer-screening-heart-statin/index.html

The 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the mandates in question, based on the recommendations of the US Preventive Services Task Force, violated the Appointments Clause of the Constitution because its members are not appointed by the president with Senate confirmation. The 5th Circuit’s ruling was directed at no-cost coverage requirements implemented after Obamacare’s enactment in March 2010.

The head of Braidwood is a real piece of work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Hotze

Wow. A nut like this gets to ask the Supreme Court to amend Obamacare to meet his concerns. Oy veh. America.

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2025/01/16/supreme-court-lawyer-tax-evasion-poker-.html

lol