Category Archives: US Supreme Court

Rights group calls for Samuel Alito to be investigated after claims of leaked 2014 ruling

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Anti-abortion activist said supreme court justice revealed the landmark ruling on contraception and religious rights weeks earlier

A civil rights group issued a call Saturday for US supreme court justice Samuel Alito to be investigated over allegations that the judge leaked a 2014 landmark ruling involving contraception and religious rights at a private dinner with wealthy political donors.

The claim was contained in a New York Times article in which minister Rob Schenck, an anti-abortion activist, said he was told of the decision weeks before it was announced and had used the information to prepare a public relations push.

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Trump allies saw Clarence Thomas as key to efforts to challenge 2020 election

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Emails show ex-president’s attorney saying justice was ‘our only chance to get a favorable judicial opinion’ by 6 January

In a last desperate attempt to delay or disrupt the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential race, allies of Donald Trump sought to appeal to conservative supreme court Justice Clarence Thomas, new emails show.

The emails, recently obtained by the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection, show that members of Trump’s legal team considered Thomas to be “key” to their efforts to overturn Georgia’s election results.

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Affirmative action appears in jeopardy after US supreme court hearing

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Race-conscious admission programs, twice upheld by highest court, now under scrutiny by skeptical conservative supermajority

The survival of affirmative action in higher education appeared to be in serious trouble on Monday at a conservative-dominated US supreme court after hours of debate over difficult questions of race.

The court is weighing challenges to admissions programs at the University of North Carolina and Harvard University that use race among many factors in seeking a diverse student body.

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Alito says leak of draft abortion ruling put justices at risk of assassination

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‘Grave betrayal of trust’ made conservative supreme court justices targets, author of opinion reversing Roe v Wade claims

The leak of the draft supreme court opinion abolishing the right to abortion put members of the conservative majority at risk of assassination, Samuel Alito, the author of the draft, has said.

Speaking in Washington at a rightwing thinktank, the Heritage Foundation, Alito called the leak a month before the final ruling was released “a grave betrayal of trust by somebody” that put several justices in danger.

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US justice department urges supreme court to reject Trump appeal on Mar-a-Lago documents

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Court filing addresses ex-president’s bid to return 103 documents with classification markings to special master for review

The US justice department has asked the US supreme court to reject Donald Trump’s attempt to re-include 103 documents with classification markings in the special master review that is examining whether materials the FBI seized from his Mar-a-Lago resort are protected by privilege.

The justice department argued in a 34-page brief that the supreme court should reject the former president’s motion and keep the 103 documents out of the special master’s purview since Trump did not show he was being irreparably harmed and that his arguments about jurisdiction lacked merit.

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Trump asks supreme court to intervene in Mar-a-Lago special master dispute

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Appellate court ruling prevented special master from examining 100 files seized from Mar-a-Lago with classification markings

Donald Trump on Tuesday asked the US supreme court to partially reverse an appellate court decision that prevented the special master, reviewing for privilege protections materials seized by the FBI from his Mar-a-Lago resort in August, from examining 100 documents with classification markings.

The motion to vacate the ruling by the US appeals court for the 11th circuit represents the former president’s final chance to reinsert the 100 documents into the special master review – and potentially exclude some from the investigation into whether he illegally retained national defense information

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The Onion defends right to parody in very real supreme court brief supporting local satirist

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Long-running satirical publication files legal document relating to case of man who was arrested for making fun of police

The clarion call of justice is sounding across America once again, thanks to the tireless efforts of its finest purveyor of made-up news.

The Onion, the long-running satirical publication, has filed a very real legal document with the US supreme court, urging it to take on a case centered on the right to parody. And in order to make a serious legal point, the filing does what the Onion does best, offering a big helping of total nonsense.

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Phoenix clinic devises workaround for abortion care after Arizona enforces ban

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The solution by Camelback Family Planning ensures patients can access pills and treatment without breaking the law

A Phoenix abortion clinic has come up with a way for patients who can end their pregnancy using a pill to get the medication quickly without running afoul of a resurrected Arizona law that bans most abortions.

Under the arrangement that began on Monday, patients will have an ultrasound in Arizona, get a prescription through a tele-health appointment with a California doctor and then have it mailed to a post office in a California border town for pickup, all for free.

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US supreme court to hear case on California’s ban on extreme confinement crates

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A ruling against the state’s Prop 12 animal welfare law could affect a range of regulations across the country

Next week, the US supreme court will hear oral arguments in a case that could put climate, public health and animal welfare regulations across the country on the chopping block – from California’s ban on gas-powered cars by 2035 to state bans on food packaging that contains BPA or lead.

The case will consider the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 12, a law that bans the sale of meat and eggs from animals raised using certain kinds of extreme confinement. The pork industry has been fighting Prop 12 since it passed by ballot measure in 2018 – with more than 62% of the vote and the backing of animal advocacy groups like the Humane Society of the United States – because it bans gestation crates: metal enclosures where pregnant pigs are kept for most of their lives that are so small that they can’t turn around or stretch their limbs.

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Senate passes short-term deal to avoid government shutdown – as it happened

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Top Democrat says he hopes to finalize deal to fund government until mid-December by the end of today

With a speech on the Capitol steps, top House Republican Kevin McCarthy was stumping again today for his party’s Commitment to America platform and plans for “firing Nancy Pelosi”.

McCarthy last week debuted the plan, which offered a broad if vague outline of what the party would do should they take Congress’s lower chamber in the 8 November midterms:

Kevin McCarthy’s pitiful display this morning is only further proof that the MAGA cult in his conference has him in a chokehold. House Republican Leaders spent their morning detached from reality: bragging about their dangerous, extreme, unpopular agenda to ban abortion in all fifty states, send prescription drug costs soaring and steal your right to choose your leaders. Truthfully, a desperate press conference is about par for the course for an uninspiring and incoherent politician like the Minority Leader, whose only real accomplishment to date is typing up a radical right-wing wish list that sends a clear message to the American people that House Republicans have gone off the deep end.

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John Roberts defends supreme court as Kamala Harris lashes out at Roe ruling

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Chief justice warns against linking contentious decisions with court legitimacy as vice-president attacks ‘activist court’

US supreme court chief justice John Roberts has defended his conservative-leaning bench from attacks over its decision in June to overturn federal abortion rights, as US vice-president Kamala Harris launched a fierce attack on what she called today’s “activist court”.

Roberts, in his first public appearance since the bombshell ruling to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v Wade decision, warned against linking contentious decisions with court legitimacy, saying at an event on Friday night: “The court has always decided controversial cases and decisions have always been subject to intense criticism, and that is entirely appropriate.”

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Revealed: Ginni Thomas’s links to anti-abortion groups who lobbied to overturn Roe

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Analysis of ‘amicus briefs’ shows how closely Clarence Thomas’s wife was entwined with rightwing effort to reverse 1973 ruling

Ginni Thomas, the self-styled “culture warrior” and extreme rightwing activist, has links to more than half of the anti-abortion groups and individuals who lobbied her husband Clarence Thomas and his fellow US supreme court justices ahead of their historic decision to eradicate a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy.

A new analysis of the written legal arguments, or “amicus briefs”, used to lobby the justices as they deliberated over abortion underlines the extent to which Clarence Thomas’s wife was intertwined with this vast pressure campaign.

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New York enacts new gun restrictions in response to supreme court decision

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After court overturned 1911 New York law, state lawmakers produced act to create ‘gun-free zones’ and strengthen gun control measures

After a federal judge said New York could implement new gun restrictions passed after the US supreme court struck down a century-old law, the state attorney general saluted “a victory in our efforts to protect New Yorkers”.

“Responsible gun control measures save lives and any attempts by the gun lobby to tear down New York’s sensible gun control laws will be met with fierce defense of the law,” Letitia James said on Wednesday night.

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US supreme court backs Black voters challenging Georgia election rules

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Ruling comes as plaintiffs say current Georgia public service commission election system discriminates against Black voters

Black voters challenging Georgia’s method of electing members to the state’s public service commission scored a preliminary US supreme court order in their favor late Friday.

The decision came after conflicting rulings from lower courts earlier this month, offering up a rare example of the supreme court’s 6-3 conservative majority’s siding with voters over state officials.

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Republican went to son’s same-sex wedding days after voting against equal marriage rights

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Glenn Thompson voted against Respect for Marriage Act, which would codify the right to have a same-sex marriage into federal law

Representative Glenn Thompson, a Pennsylvania Republican, attended his son’s same-sex wedding days after the lawmaker voted against a bill that would codify the right to have a same-sex marriage into federal law.

Thompson was one of 157 Republicans who voted against the Respect for Marriage Act, which passed the US House last week. On Friday, he attended his son’s wedding.

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Cheney and Kinzinger tee up possible January 6 subpoena for Ginni Thomas

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Republicans on House committee suggest wife of supreme court justice Clarence Thomas could be compelled to testify

The House January 6 committee could subpoena Ginni Thomas, the wife of the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, if she will not testify voluntarily about her involvement in Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election.

The news, from panel member Liz Cheney, came two days after Trump’s former strategist, Steve Bannon, was convicted of criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate with the committee. He faces time in jail.

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US supreme court rules against Biden in key immigration case

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Justices decline to freeze lower court order that blocked officials from changing deportation guidance from Trump era

The supreme court will not allow the Biden administration to implement an immigration policy that prioritizes deportation of people arriving in the US illegally who pose the greatest public safety risk.

The court’s order late on Thursday leaves the policy frozen nationwide for now. The vote was 5-4, with conservative Amy Coney Barrett joining liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and newcomer to the bench Ketanji Brown Jackson in saying they would have allowed the Biden administration to put in place the guidance.

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What the liberal justices’ scorching dissent reveals about the US supreme court

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Opinions from Breyer, Kagan and Sotomayor send stark warning about increasingly radical court abandoning long-held principles

The US supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade, ending nearly 50 years of federal protections for abortion access, was “catastrophic”. The ruling amounted to a “curtailment of women’s rights, and of their status as free and equal citizens”. The drastic decision “undermines the court’s legitimacy”, and the consequences of it will set off an “upheaval in … society”.

Those are voices from the supreme court itself: the words of its three liberal justices – Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor – in their scorching and thorough joint dissenting opinion on a decision by their body which has fundamentally altered the lives of millions of Americans.

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Biden signs executive order to protect US abortion access and urges Americans to ‘vote, vote, vote’ – as it happened

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It’s official; Biden has formally signed an executive order protecting access to abortion and other reproductive healthcare services.

Here is a previous post detailing what is in the executive order.

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Global dismay as supreme court ruling leaves Biden’s climate policy in tatters

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Biden’s election was billed as heralding a ‘climate presidency’ but congressional and judicial roadblocks mean he has little to show

Joe Biden’s election triggered a global surge in optimism that the climate crisis would, finally, be decisively confronted. But the US supreme court’s decision last week to curtail America’s ability to cut planet-heating emissions has proved the latest blow to a faltering effort by Biden on climate that is now in danger of becoming largely moribund.

The supreme court’s ruling that the US government could not use its existing powers to phase out coal-fired power generation without “clear congressional authorization” quickly ricocheted around the world among those now accustomed to looking on in dismay at America’s seemingly endless stumbles in addressing global heating.

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