Tag: Conservative Supreme Court

Affirmative Action, Once More into the Breach

photog Current Events ,

The US Supreme Court is currently deliberating on two cases about affirmative action in higher education.  The Harvard University case is called “Students for Fair Admissions v. Presidents and Fellows of Harvard College.”  And the University of North Carolina case is called “Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina.”

The crux of the case is whether it’s constitutional to allow discrimination against someone based on race.  Most colleges boost the chances of black and Hispanic students to gain entry into a college by manipulating their profile in ways that do not reflect their academic achievement.  And by virtue of this boosting, they harm the chances of white and Asian candidates that are competing for these college admissions.

Now this has been looked at before.  Over the last fifty years various Supreme Court cases have admitted that affirmative action is unconstitutional.  But its practice has been justified as a temporary crutch to compensate for past injustices that discriminated against minorities.  However, fifty years is a pretty permanent “temporary.”  Could this be the Supreme Court that finally ends this unjust practice?  From what I’ve read a decision is expected in the next six weeks.  Some leftist think tanks believe that the court is poised to throw out affirmative action.  Well, I hope they’re right but I’m not all that confident.

Let’s review.  John Roberts is a hopeless liberal.  Gorsuch and Kavanaugh have proven unreliable on occasion so it’s a complete crapshoot.  What is certain is that the latest case will answer the question whether there’s any hope at all of this court providing justice on constitutional grounds for such things as freedom of speech, freedom of association and other constitutional rights that have been stolen from us by courts and the administrative state.

I’m pretty excited about this case regardless of its outcome.  Like so much of what has gone on over the last few years, this event will provide clarity about another facet of our world.  Like the fraudulent elections and the Justice Department lawfare against Donald Trump and the January 6th defendants, each of these examples strips away another part of the façade that hides the reality of the American system of government.  There’s a liberating feeling that comes from seeing things as they actually are.  Surprisingly, instead of making someone feel powerless, seeing through these ruses gives one a feeling of power.  You feel much more in control.  These facades are like buoys in the ocean.  You know that there are dangerous rocks below the surface but because there is a marker, you can choose to avoid them.  It’s the fakes that you don’t know about that can do the real harm.

Well, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Roberts; do your worst.  In six weeks, we’ll find out just how awful you really are.  Put in those terms, I’m expecting the worst, so if I’m surprised, I can only be pleasantly surprised.  What has been pleasant was reading about Clarence Thomas’s cross-examination on the benefits of affirmative action.  Being a recipient of affirmative action, he knows exactly what it does and doesn’t do.  And he wasn’t buying any of the “research” that its defenders presented.  I at least know how his vote will be cast, for honesty and justice.

Nothing Wins Like Winning

photog Current Events , , , ,

I was out of town yesterday at a family event.  I got to talk to some folks I haven’t spoken to in years.  And it was immediately clear that everyone was galvanized by the Roe v. Wade decision.  It was all they could talk about.  Even people who still didn’t know what is going on in the country, people submerged in the New York city progressive bubble were animated and excited and thinking about further changes that the Supreme Court could enact.

And this was in the belly of the beast.  There were progressives everywhere I looked.  But people were talking openly about which progressive law could be flipped next.  Gay marriage, affirmative action, freedom of association and religious freedom were all being excitedly discussed while radical progressives were in earshot.  There was an energy and an attitude.  It was as if the Supreme Court had given us permission to speak the unspeakable.  I’m guessing this is what it was like when the Soviet Union crumbled.  No one had to be careful what they said about the government.  They no longer had to pretend to love Big Brother.  You could finally state out loud that 2 + 2 = 4.

And so that is the revolution.  It turns out that we could have been winning all along.  All of these Republican judges and congressman and senators (and presidents!) were working against us all along.  All it required was for us to elect someone who was actually on our side.  All it required was for someone to actually want to win these things for us.  All it required was someone to finally do something.  And now even the sleepers are aware that something has been unleashed in the world that has been chained up for half a century.  The normal people have suddenly experienced what representative government is supposed to be like.

Probably you’ve often heard of the progressive program as a one-way ratchet.  The powers-that-be have used a slow but steady escalation of progressive changes that always moves in one direction.  Worse and worse and worse.  Like a band around our chests constricting our breathing.  But now it’s as if someone has released the pawl and the gear has spun loose.  All the tension is removed and we can breathe!  And once you can breathe you can also think clearly.  And you wonder how the hell did we end up this way?

If we’re not idiots we should be thinking about how to prevent this from happening again.  We should be looking at who stood by and watched all this going on and either was too stupid to fix it or was part of the plot to make it happen.  In either case these are the people we need to blame.  These are the people we must fire.  Now admittedly, some of these sleepers who are finally becoming aware truly are too stupid to help themselves.  I already was hearing them mention admiringly Nikki Haley and Kristi Noem as conservative women who could lead us to victory.  At that point I walked away and looked for someone with at least half a brain.  And that confirmed that indeed the “conservatives” are their own worst enemies because a very large contingent just don’t have a clue.  But that’s fine.  The 80/20 rule says that eighty percent of the work is done by twenty percent of the group so all we have to do is find the two out of ten people with the sense to come in out of the rain and let them run the show.

So yesterday was very encouraging.  A month or two ago I asked “Is Something Real Starting to Happen?”  I think yesterday I saw a very large affirmation that it is.  I’m reminded of what Churchill said.  This isn’t the end or even the beginning of the end.  But it feels like the end of the beginning.  Things are starting to roll.

Freedom of Religion, Second Amendment, Sanctity of Life

photog Uncategorized ,

This Supreme Court has now eclipsed anything else done by Republicans in the last fifty years of government.  The three rulings coming out in June have reversed longstanding unconstitutional precedents that have afflicted Americans for decades and in the case of the Second Amendment case for over a hundred years.

And these decisions seem to put the lie to all those dissidents who have confidently said that we can’t vote our way out of this mess.  After all, voting for Donald Trump got us the Supreme Court we currently have.  Now, granted Donald Trump is not an actual Republican but he was there for us to vote for.  The awfulness of our electoral choices inspired a man to jump into the Republican race and prove that there is a way to win against the Uniparty.  At least there is a chance of it.

I may be premature in one case.  Let’s see what New York State does to defy the clear requirement of this decision in relation to concealed carry of guns in their state.  The deer in the headlights Gov. Kathy Hochul said that the state is reviewing options “including calling a special session of the legislature.”  She called the ruling “outrageous” especially during a so-called “national reckoning on gun violence.”  Maybe they’ll just re-legislate the same statute with some trimming to pretend they’re following the ruling.

But the Roe v. Wade ruling is something different.  This will be a liberation.  The Red States are being freed from a destructive practice that was forced on them by a court that invented a constitutional right that the majority of Americans didn’t ask for.  The Blue States can legislate what they want and they will.  But this is the first in hopefully a string of rulings that will allow more conservative communities to pull back from the nihilistic “freedoms” that have been imposed on them.  Abortion and other abnormal manifestations of the progressive agenda can be rejected.  And in this way, a moral framework can be built up that reinforces the values and institutions that conservatives believe in.

Once the Red and Blue States have differentiated from each other in terms of their laws and lifestyles there will be a natural drift of people who adhere to one or the other of these belief systems to the locales that corresponds to their opinions.  And that will be all to the good.  The Blue States will act as a relief valve to siphon off the people who would be unhappy in a conservative community.  And anyone who feels trapped in places like California and New York will likewise find relief by migrating to places like Texas and Florida.

I’m hoping that next year the Supreme Court will tackle the unconstitutionality of affirmative action and the homosexual agenda.  Once those things are excluded from federal law the Red States will truly be free to return their citizens to normal life.  I’m perfectly happy to let the Blue States impose whatever madness they desire on their citizens.  The contrast between the two systems would provide a clear case study of what each ideology stands for and the results of following that mindset.  Based on where California currently stands it might only take another twenty years to reduce the Blue States to a stone age or at least feudal condition.  At that point we could probably buy the Blue States and evict the Leftists to some equally undesirable third world hellhole where they’d be more or less at home.

These are interesting times we live in.  We might be on the cusp of meaningful change for the better.  Let’s see how the two camps, blue and red, react to the SCOTUS rulings.  I think that will speak volumes about our future.

Abortion Redux

photog Current Events , , ,

All of my adult life traditional religious Americans have been waiting for the chance to overturn Roe v. Wade.  It has taken almost fifty years to assemble a conservative majority of Supreme Court justices who might overturn the 1973 abortion decision.  Today a lot of the pundits were saying that the statements coming out of the hearings by the justices indicated that they were preparing to uphold the new law in Mississippi.  This would limit abortions to pregnancies shorter than 16 weeks.

Now enormous pressure is being put on the justices to let Roe stand.  Idiots like Senators Blumenthal and Schumer have made very ominous statements about the consequences if Roe is overturned or even if some stringent restrictions are made on abortion such as the recent Texas law.  The more measured warnings include packing the court or restricting its jurisdiction.  But Schumer actually made his warning sound like a personal threat against the justices themselves.  Personally, I’m not surprised by these threats.  The Democrats are gangsters who frequently resort to threats and violence when all else fails.  One need look no further than the George Floyd riots to see violence and intimidation being wielded by the Left’s mob du jour.

The abortion decision will not occur until next June.  This will provide proximity to the mid-term elections which will make its consequences even more interesting.  If the Court strikes down Roe or even just confirms the more stringent Mississippi law will this galvanize democratic support next November?  Or would it have the effect of encouraging voters on the Right who have been waiting all their adult lives to see the Supreme Court admit that abortion is not a constitutional right?

Speculating about something that won’t be known for another seven months seems kind of premature.  But it is fascinating to think that such a momentous change might actually happen after all these years.  And it makes me wonder what other alleged constitutional rights might be struck down in the future.  My favorite would be affirmative action.  The last time the subject came before the Supreme Court it was admitted by the Justices that it was indeed unconstitutional but that social pressures required it to be used as a stopgap method.  That was decades ago.  I think the impact from striking down all the affirmative action laws would be an order of magnitude greater than any of the other fake unconstitutional laws like same sex marriage because removing the affirmative action mechanisms would allow freedom of association to exist again.  The government would stop telling us who we had to employ.  We could once again hire people according to whether they were the best qualified candidates and not have to adhere to some kind of social grievance heat map to pick them.

The one thing I think could put the brakes on any actual decision is the fact that John Roberts might decide to vote for the conservative opinion.  By virtue of being Chief Justice that would then allow him to write the decision and he could do anything he wanted including just sending this case back down to the Appeals Court to tweak their decision.  And I wouldn’t put it past him.  He’s a spineless weasel who never misses a chance to roll over for the Left.

But the political winds are shifting in this country.  People’s eyes have been opened to how the people in Washington govern without caring what their constituencies actually elected them to do.  If voting for change doesn’t work pretty soon, they’ll stop voting.  And then they’ll look for change by other means.

The ZMan Has a Post About the Upcoming SCOTUS Cases

photog Current Events , , , , , ,

ZMan reviews the two rather important upcoming Supreme Court cases on abortion restrictions and gun rights that are expected to be decided this Fall.  The Mississippi case is reviewing the constitutionality of a 15 week maximum on the age of the unborn child before abortion becomes illegal.  The gun case has to do with the New York law that makes it impossible for a gun owner to transport his legal gun out side of his home.

 

https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=23982

 

The ZMan is of the opinion that the Supreme Court will fold to left-wing pressure in both cases.  He thinks the threat of packing the court is sufficient to get the Roberts court to cringe in fear and do as they’re told by their masters.  He’s probably right.  Roberts is a coward and a fool.  He’s already proved that.

But the real question is the one that is implied by the assumed result of the decisions.  Will Mississippi or some other state that has put restrictions on abortion tell the federal government no?  It would be crossing the Rubicon.  Once a state tells the federal government, “No,” a lot of things could happen up to and including the feds arresting legislators and governors.

Will it happen?  Right now I’m not sure.  I don’t know enough about the men who run these states.  Are they ready for the eventuality?  Have they come up with another intermediate action that will provide a similar result?

Of course it’s easy for me to talk about important people throwing down against the most powerful human organization on the face of the earth as if it were just two men fighting over who gets a parking spot for his car.  Messing with Washington is very consequential.  The last time anyone tried was during the Civil Rights era and Washington came out on top.  Serious individuals would only cross the line if they had a very strong idea about how they could win that fight.

But we’ll all learn something important this Fall.  First off we’ll find out how cowardly and traitorous the Supreme Court really is when it crawls on its belly.  Next we’ll find out if any state has the strength to tell the feds to screw.  That’s something worth knowing.

Murkowski Jumps on the Trump Bandwagon

photog Current Events, Trump , ,

Other than Senator Collins in Maine who is in the fight of her political life for re-election I don’t think any other Republican will vote against Barrett.  Even that gutless weasel Romney can see which way the wind is blowing and will follow the Senate leader’s orders.  But seeing Murkowski cave tells me that she thinks Trump is going to win and she doesn’t want to be his biggest Republican target in two years when she come up for re-election.

 

Listening to these craven fools pretend that they are making decisions based on careful ethical considerations is nauseating.  These sham conservatives are the real problem in our government.  If we had actual conservatives in Washington we wouldn’t be in the end stages of governmental collapse.  Even if she votes for our side this time, I hope an actual conservative runs against her and gives the people a real choice.

RBG Outrage Proceeds at a Brisk Pace

photog Current Events, Trump , , , , ,

I was just enjoying a sampling of left-wing panic articles about the prospect of a pre-election selection of RBG’s replacement on the Supreme Court.  You know it seems like only yesterday that the press and the Democrats were employing libel and slander on an industrial scale against Brett Kavanaugh without any concern for how it poisoned any possibility of civility or bipartisanship in the Senate.  And now they are hurling around terms like hypocrisy and unconscionable when talking about the Republican senate voting on a replacement for RBG.  They’re saying it’s inappropriate and uncivil and cruel.  Well, isn’t that special.

You know above and beyond how good it would be to decrease the number of lefties on the Supreme Court I am just overjoyed to see the Left shrieking and howling about this situation.  These are horrible people and anything that makes them angry and/or afraid is a gift from heaven and “a consummation devoutly to be wish’d.”  It is wonderful to see a milquetoast fellow like Lindsey Graham feeling his oats and maybe even displaying a little schadenfreude toward the colleagues that put him and the rest of the senate Republicans through hell during the Kavanaugh hearings.  Seeing him get up on his hind legs and sound like a man just shows what the Democrats have stirred up with their scorched earth approach to hard ball politics.  They’ve made lots of enemies and when they need friends there aren’t any colleagues on the other side of the aisle willing to reach across to lend a hand.  And after having their hands bitten before who could blame them?

And it is said that McConnell has the votes.  Of course, that is horse trading and maybe they’ve paid off Romney to keep him from stabbing us in the back again or maybe that one extra vote from Pence is all that’s needed to put them over the top.  But just the fact that President Trump and Mitch McConnell are game enough to go forward speaks volumes about how this presidency differs from the lame Republican administrations of the past.  Bush I and Bush II would have acquiesced as soon as the first shriek from the harpies was reported in the press.  In fact, even after giving in to them the Democrats and the press would still have taken the opportunity to pillory Bush as a monster for even thinking of such a hate crime.

When President Trump heard that Pelosi was threatening to impeach him again. His answer was that he hoped she did.  Now that’s the right answer.  Never back down, never apologize for doing what makes sense and hit back at them any way you can.  And just as a point of information didn’t Dorothy dropped a house on her back in 1939?  Or was it a pail of water?

I expect a concerted effort after the announcement to vilify the candidate any way they can.  Of course, since it’s going to be a woman the rape angle is going to be a really hard sell.  Maybe they’ll try to find a girl from her high school or grammar school that claims the applicant was mean to her.  It’s a little weaker than the Kavanaugh treatment but they’ll have to go with what they can make up on the fly.  If necessary, they’ll have a séance and have the ghost of RBG denounce the nominee as not a real woman for lacking abortion enthusiasm.

Feeling this happy about the suffering of some of my fellow human beings might be taken to mean that I’m a terrible person but I believe that if Mother Theresa were alive today, she’d be on my side.  These are awful people and them getting their comeuppance is poetic justice.

Anyway, another good week for the President.  Onward and upward and make the Lefties squeal like stuck pigs.

What Are the Priorities for Us in the New America of Neil Gorsuch, BLM and Antifa?

photog Current Events, Trump , , , , , , ,

So here we are, the newly minted super-conservative Justice Gorsuch finds transgender rights in the Constitution of the United States.  And under the reliably spineless leadership of John Roberts every major case from illegal immigrants to Second Amendment rights were dynamited against us.  And there was absolutely no fig leaf for any of these decisions.  The Supreme Court is a disaster.  I no longer expect any relief from that Court.

Add onto this problem that Antifa and BLM are now the official enforcement wing of the Democrat party.  In any jurisdiction federal, state or local where they have cover from Democrat elected officials, they are shown to be ready, willing and able to wage literal war up to and including murder and arson against their enemies.  Living in a blue state or even a blue city is tantamount to living in Mao’s Cultural Revolution.  At any time, you can be sucked into a purge or pogrom that really has no limits on what can happen.  Your rights in these jurisdictions do not exist as such.  They can be overridden with no notice and are subject to amendment whenever circumstances make the ruling coalition think they would benefit from it.

Those are the conditions on the ground.  Where does that leave us?

From my point of view that precludes certain strategies.  With the clarification of the role of the Supreme Court I would say any idea that unconstitutional actions will be struck down nationally and thereby benefit people living in blue states is sheer fantasy.  Nothing will be done to restrain places like California, New England, or New York.  They will just make things continually worse until you knuckle under and learn to love Big Brother or leave.

I suppose there are strategies to hide in plain sight in places like these.  I know people who say they can avoid the consequences of living under these regimes and still enjoy life.  I confess I do not possess the coping skills that must be needed to hide your feelings when living in the belly of the beast.  My daily interactions here in New England with the true believers involve mind boggling levels of cognitive dissonance.  It takes every ounce of self-control not to laugh in their faces or explain why the things being claimed are patently absurd.

The alternative then is to revolt against these laws.  Ignoring them or avoiding them by stealth is becoming harder and harder in these places.  Ultimately control over all aspects of life is becoming more stringent everywhere but especially in these blue states.  To the extent that it can be done I suppose that will be the strategy for conservatives living in these areas.  You will have to go underground.  And this means as far as raising children you’ll have to figure out how to work around the indoctrination of the schools and other social settings that the Left has taken over.  This is the Benedict Option that Rod Dreher has talked about.  Ultimately, it’s a temporary measure because eventually they will eliminate freedom of religion entirely.

But from my point of view, the best idea is to live in a deep red state where the political leaders have the means to craft laws that protect their citizens from the unconstitutional consequences of the Supreme Court.  They can make a law upholding the freedom of religion in the Bill of Rights and when the Supreme Court strikes it down the Governor can defy the Supreme Court and say he will protect any of his citizens from federal prosecution.  I could see blanket pardons being handed out on a rolling basis and the bureaucrats in Washington spinning out of control as the President refuses to step in.

A number of states following a plan like this would eventually produce a situation on the ground where essentially you would have two legal entities hidden within one name.  This is sort of like the situation we currently have with marijuana use.  At the federal level and in half of the states it is illegal but in states like California and Colorado it is big business.  The same thing should be pushed as hard as possible for as many different parts of the law as possible.  Just as things like sanctuary cities and legalization of drugs have been dispiriting for our side, freedom of religion would be very dispiriting for them.  It would even have an impact on migration of leftists into red states.  If there weren’t the lifestyle protections available to them, they would be much less likely to inhabit these areas.

So essentially what I am saying is that the deep red states are the only remaining points of resistance to the encroachment of Leftist control.  Everything else has already been conquered.  They will need to be the catalyst for change and that can only happen in conjunction with the four-year protection provided by the beginning of a conservative President’s term.

Hopefully a revolt at the state level will begin and President Trump’s second term will provide that needed protection.

This Year’s Supreme Court Docket

photog Current Events , , ,

I went through the Supreme Court Docket and picked out the ones I thought could have a major impact on social, political and constitutional issues.  This will be a very important year for a whole host of issues that conservatives are very interested in.  We will find out if Roberts is an enemy.

The issues include:

  1. Trying to force employers to put up with transgender insanity.
  2. Trying to force employers to put up with homosexual insanity.
  3. Trying to stop the federal government from doing its job removing illegal aliens
  4. Trying to force the government to uphold the expired DACA program.
  5. Ruling on New York City’s unconstitutional gun laws.
  6. Ruling on attacks against the religious freedoms of groups and individuals

Below is the list of the relevant cases.

 

October Term 2019

October Sitting

R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, No. 18-107 [Arg: 10.8.2019 Trans./Aud.]

Issue(s): Whether Title VII prohibits discrimination against transgender people based on (1) their status as transgender or (2) sex stereotyping under Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins.

 

Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, No. 17-1618 [Arg: 10.8.2019 Trans./Aud.]

Issue(s): Whether discrimination against an employee because of sexual orientation constitutes prohibited employment discrimination “because of . . . sex” within the meaning of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2.

 

Altitude Express Inc. v. Zarda, No. 17-1623 [Arg: 10.8.2019 Trans./Aud.]

Issue(s): Whether the prohibition in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1), against employment discrimination “because of . . . sex” encompasses discrimination based on an individual’s sexual orientation.

 

Kansas v. Garcia, No. 17-834 [Arg: 10.16.2019 Trans./Aud.; Decided 3.3.2020]

Holding: The Kansas statutes under which respondents were convicted are not preempted expressly or by implication under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.

 

November Sitting

Barton v. Barr, No. 18-725 [Arg: 11.4.2019 Trans./Aud.]

Issue(s): Whether a lawfully admitted permanent resident who is not seeking admission to the United States can be “render[ed] … inadmissible” for the purposes of the stop-time rule, 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(d)(1).

 

County of Maui, Hawaii v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund, No. 18-260 [Arg: 11.6.2019 Trans./Aud.]

Issue(s): Whether the Clean Water Act requires a permit when pollutants originate from a point source but are conveyed to navigable waters by a nonpoint source, such as groundwater.

 

Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California, No. 18-587 [Arg: 11.12.2019 Trans./Aud.]

Issue(s): (1) Whether the Department of Homeland Security’s decision to wind down the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy is judicially reviewable; and (2) whether DHS’s decision to wind down the DACA policy is lawful.

 

Trump v. NAACP, No. 18-588 [Arg: 11.12.2019 Trans./Aud.]

Issue(s): (1) Whether the Department of Homeland Security’s decision to wind down the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy is judicially reviewable; and (2) whether DHS’s decision to wind down the DACA policy is lawful.

 

McAleenan v. Vidal, No. 18-589 [Arg: 11.12.2019 Trans./Aud.]

Issue(s): (1) Whether the Department of Homeland Security’s decision to wind down the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy is judicially reviewable; and (2) whether DHS’s decision to wind down the DACA policy is lawful.

 

Comcast Corp. v. National Association of African American-Owned Media, No. 18-1171 [Arg: 11.13.2019 Trans./Aud.]

Issue(s): Whether a claim of race discrimination under 42 U.S.C. § 1981 fails in the absence of but-for causation.

 

December Sitting

 

New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. City of New York, New York, No. 18-280 [Arg: 12.2.2019 Trans./Aud.]

Issue(s): Whether New York City’s ban on transporting a licensed, locked and unloaded handgun to a home or shooting range outside city limits is consistent with the Second Amendment, the commerce clause and the constitutional right to travel.

 

Atlantic Richfield Co. v. Christian, No. 17-1498 [Arg: 12.3.2019 Trans./Aud.]

Issue(s): (1) Whether a common-law claim for restoration seeking cleanup remedies that conflict with remedies the Environmental Protection Agency ordered is a jurisdictionally barred “challenge” to the EPA’s cleanup under 42 U.S.C. § 9613 of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act; (2) whether a landowner at a Superfund site is a “potentially responsible party” that must seek EPA approval under 42 U.S.C. § 9622(e)(6) of CERCLA before engaging in remedial action, even if the EPA has never ordered the landowner to pay for a cleanup; and (3) whether CERCLA pre-empts state common-law claims for restoration that seek cleanup remedies that conflict with EPA-ordered remedies.

 

Ovalles v. Barr, No. 18-1015 [Arg: 12.9.2019 Trans./Aud.]

Issue(s): Whether the criminal alien bar, 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(C), tempered by 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(D), prohibits a court from reviewing an agency decision finding that a movant lacked diligence for equitable tolling purposes, notwithstanding the lack of a factual dispute.

 

Guerrero-Lasprilla v. Barr, No. 18-776 [Arg: 12.9.2019 Trans./Aud.]

Issue(s): Whether a request for equitable tolling, as it applies to statutory motions to reopen, is judicially reviewable as a “question of law.”

 

January Sitting

 

Babb v. Wilkie, No. 18-882 [Arg: 1.15.2020 Trans./Aud.]

Issue(s): Whether the federal-sector provision of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, which provides that personnel actions affecting agency employees aged 40 years or older shall be made free from any “discrimination based on age,” 29 U.S.C. §633a(a), requires a plaintiff to prove that age was a but-for cause of the challenged personnel action.

 

Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, No. 18-1195 [Arg: 1.22.2020 Trans./Aud.]

Issue(s): Whether it violates the religion clauses or the equal protection clause of the United States Constitution to invalidate a generally available and religiously neutral student-aid program simply because the program affords students the choice of attending religious schools.

 

February Sitting

 

U.S. v. Sineneng-Smith, No. 19-67 [Arg: 2.25.2020 Trans./Aud.]

Issue(s): Whether the federal criminal prohibition against encouraging or inducing illegal immigration for commercial advantage or private financial gain, in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(1)(A)(iv) and (B)(i), is facially unconstitutional.

 

Nasrallah v. Barr, No. 18-1432 [Arg: 3.2.2020 Trans./Aud.]

Issue(s): Whether, notwithstanding 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(C), the courts of appeals possess jurisdiction to review factual findings underlying denials of withholding (and deferral) of removal relief.

 

Department of Homeland Security v. Thuraissigiam, No. 19-161 [Arg: 3.2.2020 Trans./Aud.]

Issue(s): Whether, as applied to the respondent, 8 U.S.C. § 1252(e)(2) is unconstitutional under the suspension clause.

 

June Medical Services LLC v. Russo, No. 18-1323 [Arg: 3.4.2020 Trans./Aud.]

Issue(s): Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit’s decision upholding Louisiana’s law requiring physicians who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a local hospital conflicts with the Supreme Court’s binding precedent in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt.

 

Russo v. June Medical Services LLC, No. 18-1460 [Arg: 3.4.2020 Trans./Aud.]

Issue(s): (1) Whether abortion providers can be presumed to have third-party standing to challenge health and safety regulations on behalf of their patients absent a “close” relationship with their patients and a “hindrance” to their patients’ ability to sue on their own behalf; and (2) whether objections to prudential standing are waivable – per the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 4th, 5th, 7th, 9th, 10th and Federal Circuits – or non-waivable per the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the D.C., 2nd, and 6th Circuits.

 

 

March Sitting

 

Google LLC v. Oracle America Inc., No. 18-956 [Arg: 3.24.2020]

Issue(s): (1) Whether copyright protection extends to a software interface; and (2) whether, as the jury found, the petitioner’s use of a software interface in the context of creating a new computer program constitutes fair use.

 

Tanzin v. Tanvir, No. 19-71 [Arg: 3.24.2020]

Issue(s): Whether the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb, permits suits seeking money damages against individual federal employees.

 

Carney v. Adams, No. 19-309 [Arg: 3.25.2020]

Issue(s): (1) Whether the First Amendment invalidates a longstanding state constitutional provision that limits judges affiliated with any one political party to no more than a “bare majority” on the state’s three highest courts, with the other seats reserved for judges affiliated with the “other major political party”; (2) whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit erred in holding that a provision of the Delaware Constitution requiring that no more than a “bare majority” of three of the state courts may be made up of judges affiliated with any one political party is not severable from a provision that judges who are not members of the majority party on those courts must be members of the other “major political party,” when the former requirement existed for more than 50 years without the latter, and the former requirement, without the latter, continues to govern appointments to two other courts; and (3) whether the respondent, James Adams, has demonstrated Article III standing.

 

U.S. Agency for Int’l Development v. Alliance for Open Society Int’l, No. 19-177 [Arg: 3.25.2020]

Issue(s): Whether – when in Agency for International Development v. Alliance for Open Society International Inc., the Supreme Court held that the First Amendment bars enforcement of Congress’ directive, which required respondents, United States-based organizations that receive federal funds to fight HIV/AIDS abroad, to “have a policy explicitly opposing prostitution and sex trafficking” as a condition of accepting those funds – the First Amendment further bars enforcement of that directive with respect to legally distinct foreign entities operating overseas that are affiliated with respondents.

 

Pereida v. Barr, No. 19-438 [Arg: 3.30.2020]

Issue(s): Whether a criminal conviction bars a noncitizen from applying for relief from removal when the record of conviction is merely ambiguous as to whether it corresponds to an offense listed in the Immigration and Nationality Act.

 

Trump v. Vance, No. 19-635 [Arg: 3.31.2020]

Issue(s): Whether a grand-jury subpoena served on a custodian of the president’s personal records, demanding production of nearly 10 years’ worth of the president’s financial papers and his tax returns, violates Article II and the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution.

 

Trump v. Mazars USA, LLP, No. 19-715 [Arg: 3.31.2020]

Issue(s): Whether the Committee on Oversight and Reform of the U.S. House of Representatives has the constitutional and statutory authority to issue a subpoena to the accountant for President Trump and several of his business entities demanding private financial records belonging to the president.

 

Trump v. Deutsche Bank AG, No. 19-760 [Arg: 3.31.2020]

Issue(s): Whether the Committee on Financial Services and the Intelligence Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives have the constitutional and statutory authority to issue a subpoena to creditors for President Donald Trump and several of his business entities demanding private financial records belonging to the president.

 

Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru, No. 19-267 [Arg: 4.1.2020]

Issue(s): Whether the First Amendment’s religion clauses prevent civil courts from adjudicating employment-discrimination claims brought by an employee against her religious employer, when the employee carried out important religious functions.

 

St. James School v. Biel, No. 19-348 [Arg: 4.1.2020]

Issue(s): Whether the First Amendment’s religion clauses prevent civil courts from adjudicating employment-discrimination claims brought by an employee against her religious employer, when the employee carried out important religious functions.

 

April Sitting

 

Chiafalo v. Washington, No. 19-465 [Arg: 4.28.2020]

Issue(s): Whether enforcement of a Washington state law that threatens a fine for presidential electors who vote contrary to how the law directs is unconstitutional because a state has no power to legally enforce how a presidential elector casts his or her ballot and a state penalizing an elector for exercising his or her constitutional discretion to vote violates the First Amendment.

 

Colorado Department of State v. Baca, No. 19-518 [Arg: 4.28.2020]

Issue(s): (1) Whether a presidential elector who is prevented by their appointing state from casting an electoral-college ballot that violates state law lacks standing to sue their appointing state because they hold no constitutionally protected right to exercise discretion; and (2) whether Article II or the 12th Amendment forbids a state from requiring its presidential electors to follow the state’s popular vote when casting their electoral-college ballots.

 

Trump v. Pennsylvania, No. 19-454 [Arg: 4.29.2020]

Issue(s): (1) Whether the Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor and the Treasury had statutory authority under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 to expand the conscience exemption to the contraceptive-coverage mandate; (2) whether the agencies’ decision to forgo notice and opportunity for public comment before issuing the interim final rules rendered the final rules – which were issued after notice and comment – invalid under the Administrative Procedure Act; and (3) whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit erred in affirming a nationwide preliminary injunction barring implementation of the final rules.

 

Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania, No. 19-431 [Arg: 4.29.2020]

Issue(s): (1) Whether a litigant who is directly protected by an administrative rule and has been allowed to intervene to defend it lacks standing to appeal a decision invalidating the rule if the litigant is also protected by an injunction from a different court; and (2) whether the federal government lawfully exempted religious objectors from the regulatory requirement to provide health plans that include contraceptive coverage.

Another Supreme Court Ruling Against Unlimited Immigration

photog Current Events , , ,

This ruling confirms that the United States can deport aliens who have ended up on the public dole.  https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/27/politics/supreme-court-immigration-public-charge/index.html .  This law has been in effect since 1882 and in my opinion makes perfect sense.  If someone can’t make a living in this country and instead wants to live on our dime isn’t it necessary to send him home?  In my mind it means we can sweep the welfare roles and not only find the legal aliens but look for anyone who is not a citizen, in other words, illegal aliens.  This was a 5-4 ruling so John Roberts is at least on our side on immigration.