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Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 5h

Could the Supreme Court still apply different rules to a Democratic president? Of course. You don't need to remind me of that. But a lightning-fast blitz that repurposes Trump's new powers for good stands the best chance of standing up in court. Democrats need to start thinking about this right now.

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Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 5h

This is why I think the next Democratic president needs to use the EXACT tools that SCOTUS has handed Trump. Don't leave room for any distinctions.

Impound funds for deportation. Give ICE the USAID treatment. Refuse to collect government-backed debt. Purge MAGA loyalists from the executive branch.

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Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 5h

The best "defense" of SCOTUS' hypocrisy is that there's an asymmetry between how Democrats and Republicans wield executive power. Broadly—Dems want to give things (health care, asylum, foreign aid, loan relief, civil rights) while Republicans want to take things away. SCOTUS makes the latter easier.

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Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 5h

I think the Supreme Court and its defenders try to deny this blatant bias toward Trump by highlighting distinctions between cases—oh, you don't understand, student loan forgiveness was illegal while impoundment is permissible because [reasons]. But the big picture tells an undeniably damning story.

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Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 5h

When the Supreme Court struck down Biden's policies, it was tempting to think: "At least these limits on executive authority will bind Trump if he comes back into office." But no—the court's skepticism of executive power vanished on Jan. 20, 2025. This dynamic is obvious to anyone paying attention!

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Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 5h

It is pretty galling that the Supreme Court spent four years telling Biden "you can't do that without Congress" then allowed Trump to seize a once-unthinkable amount of power from Congress within nine months and concentrate law-making authority almost entirely in the executive branch.

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 1d

i desperately want everyone involved in the destruction of USAID to have to, st the very least, answer to the american people for the suffering and misery they have caused apnews.com/article/myan...

Starving children screaming for food as US aid cuts unleash devastation and death across Myanmar

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has repeatedly said “no one has died" because of his government’s decision to gut its foreign aid program.

apnews.com

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Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 1d

KBJ’s blunt question today about the Supreme Court’s culture war hypocrisy kind of floored me, because it’s the kind of meta-criticism that we aren’t used to hearing from the justices.

It’s the second day of the term, and things are that dire already. slate.com/news-and-pol...

With One Damning Question, Ketanji Brown Jackson Defined the Supreme Court’s New Term

The justice stripped the veneer of constitutional principle from the court’s latest blatant culture war.

slate.com

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Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 2d

Going on MSNBC shortly to talk about the wretched oral arguments in today's conversion therapy case at the Supreme Court.

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 3d

Back in the land of reality, here's what one of the Black people whose home was smashed into during the apartment raid last week said about his Venezuelan neighbors: "They were cool people."

Mr. Jones, a U.S. citizen, was dragged out in handcuffs and held outside for hours.

Jones, who lives on the fourth floor, said most of his neighbors were Venezuelan and often took turns cleaning the hallway because the property owners did little to maintain it.

“They were cool people,” Jones said as he looked into his next door neighbor’s unit. “They didn’t speak a lick of English, but we used translator apps to talk to each other.”

Jones wondered what would happen to his neighbor’s young children.

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Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 3d

Will be discussing the fresh hell of a new Supreme Court term on MSNBC shortly.

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Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 3d

I'm sorry but how does this person have standing to challenge Colorado's ban on LGBTQ conversion therapy when she has explicitly disclaimed any desire to change a patient's sexual orientation or gender identity? How is this a real case? slate.com/news-and-pol...

The Supreme Court’s First Blockbuster Case This Term Looks Pretty Fake

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in Chiles v. Salazar, a case that seeks to undo a major triumph of the LGBTQ+ movement.

slate.com

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Lawrence Hurley @lawrencehurley.bsky.social · 3d

The new Supreme Court term starts today, meaning that -- in a novel twist -- the justices will hear oral arguments in some cases before they issue rulings that actually explain what they are doing.

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 3d

perhaps the biggest story TFPever ran was a catastrophically shoddy argument that George Floyd ackshully died of an overdose. When confronted with irrefutable evidence that the piece was simply wrong, Weiss didn’t take it down, she asked her critic, @radleybalko.bsky.social, to come on a podcast.

max tani @maxtani.bsky.social · 3d

David Ellison’s note to staff on Paramount’s acquisition of the Free Press

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Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 3d

The Supreme Court also rejected another effort to block a copper mine on an Apache sacred site. Once again, Justice Gorsuch dissented. www.supremecourt.gov/orders/court...

APACHE STRONGHOLD V. UNITED STATES, ET AL.
The petition for rehearing is denied. Justice Gorsuch would
grant the petition for rehearing. Justice Alito took no part in
the consideration or decision of this petition.

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Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 3d

The Supreme Court just denied Ghislaine Maxwell's appeal with no noted dissents: www.supremecourt.gov/orders/court...

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Steve Vladeck @stevevladeck.bsky.social · 4d

The very first statute authorizing domestic use of the military during domestic emergencies, enacted in 1792 by a Congress full of the same folks who wrote and ratified the Constitution, expressly provided for judicial review in certain circumstances *before* the President could even send troops.

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Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 4d

When President AOC federalizes the National Guard in 2029 to protect abortion clinics, Ilan is going to magically discover an English treatise written in 1610 that proves Matthew Kacsmaryk can issue a nationwide injunction against her.

Pat Sobkowski @patsobkowski.com · 4d

We don’t have to carry water for dictators. Just my thought.

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Jay Willis @jaywillis.net · 4d

Last week, I wrote about the impact of the Alliance Defending Freedom's aggressive PR campaigns humanizing its anti-LGBTQ clients, so I appreciate the New York Times illustrating my point by immediately running a credulous, soft-focus profile of an anti-LGBTQ Alliance Defending Freedom client

The Story of This Supreme Court Term Is Already On YouTube

How conservative activists are building a shared cultural understanding about who deserves the law’s protections, and who does not.

ballsandstrikes.org

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Matthew Stiegler @matthewstiegler.bsky.social · 5d

I think KBJ still isn’t getting the full credit she deserves for spotlighting the Supreme Court majority’s abuses. At a time when so many elected officials are failing so disastrously to meet the moment, she’s doing it.

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Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 5d

I really appreciate Justice Jackson contrasting the lower courts' meticulous and responsible approach to judging—extensive deliberations, written opinions—with the Supreme Court's slapdash, unreasoned work over the shadow docket. www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...

They have done so in reasoned and thoughtful written opinions—opinions that, in the nor- ‘mal course, we would get to parse, assess, and embrace or reject, while fully explaining our reasoning.

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Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 5d

Sotomayor and Kagan also dissented, though they did not join KBJ's opinion. We can safely assume this was 6–3.

The majority did not explain its reasoning, but suggested that the government faces a "harm" by maintaining TPS—one greater than the harm to 300,000 Venezuelans who may soon be expelled.

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Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 6d

Justice Jackson's sharp dissent accuses her Republican-appointed colleagues of abusing the court's shadow docket "to allow this Administration to disrupt as many lives as possible, as quickly as possible." She also takes a dig at their refusal to write opinions explaining their actions.

exigency or any other pru dent threshold limitation on the exercise of our discretion— and wordlessly override the considered judgments of our colleagues. We once again use our equitable power (but not our opinion-writing capacity) to allow this Administration to disrupt as many lives as possible, as quickly as possible.

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Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 6d

NEW: By a 6–3 vote, the Supreme Court allows the Trump administration to cancel Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelan migrants.

KBJ, dissenting, says she "cannot abide our repeated, gratuitous, and harmful interference" while "lives hang in the balance."
www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...

I view today's decision as yet another grave misuse of our emergency docket. This Court should have stayed its hand. Having opted instead to join the fray, the Court plainly mis- judges the irreparable harm and balance-of-the-equities factors by privileging the bald assertion of unconstrained executive power over countless families’ pleas for the sta- bility our Government has promised them. Because, re- spectfully, I cannot abide our repeated, gratuitous, and harmful interference with cases pending in the lower courts while lives hang in the balance, I dissent.

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Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 6d

One of these, Wolford v. Lopez, is a BIG Second Amendment case that asks whether states may presumptively ban concealed carry on private property unless/until the property owner gives express permission. www.scotusblog.com/cases/case-f...

(1) Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit erred in holding that Hawaii may presumptively prohibit the carry of handguns by licensed concealed carry permit holders on private property open to the public unless the property owner affirmatively gives express permission to the handgun carrier;

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