Breaking: Supreme Court Won't Immediately Settle Trump Immunity Claim

Dec 22, 2023 | Special counsel Jack Smith's request to immediately settle former President Donald Trump's claim of immunity in his election interference probe has been denied by the Supreme Court.

New Reporting Details Justice Thomas’ Complaints over His Supreme Court Salary

Dec 18, 2023 | Jesse Eisinger, ProPublica Senior Editor and Report, Senior Writer for Slate, Mark Joseph Stern and Maya Wiley Former Assistant U.S. Attorney and President of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights join Ali Velshi in for Nicolle Wallace on Deadline White House to discuss the new reporting detailing Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas desire early in his career on the Supreme Court for wanting a higher salary and how that could have led to his career in public service which has now been defined by his acceptance of lavish gifts and relationships with wealthy donors.

Clarence Thomas Is Exactly Why the Supreme Court Needs Term Limits | #shorts

Steve Schmidt tells us why.

See GOP Confronted over 'Straights Only' Discrimination, after Scotus Echoes Parts of Jim Crow

Jul 13, 2023 | Over 400 anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced this year. It comes as the Supreme Court backtracks on decades of precedent in a new discrimination ruling. Chasten Buttigieg joins MSNBC Chief Legal Correspondent Ari Melber on “The Beat” to discuss protecting LGBTQ rights.

"Bad for Religion": Gay Baptist Minister with Interfaith Alliance on SCOTUS LGBTQ Rights Ruling

Jul 5, 2023 | The Supreme Court has ruled 6 to 3 along ideological lines in favor of a Christian Colorado web designer who refused to create websites for same-sex couples even though the state bans such discrimination. "We're entering into a terrible moment where a Pandora's box has been opened," says president and CEO of Interfaith Alliance Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, who warns "permission has been granted to use religion as a way to discriminate against your fellow people." Raushenbush discusses the use of Christianity to advance discrimination, the importance of the Respect for Marriage Act, and what this decision could mean for other groups. "It's just bad for religion, it's bad for freedom, and it's bad for America," he says.

Is Supreme Court's "Gay Wedding" Case Built on a Lie? Man at Center of Story Is Married to a Woman

Jun 30, 2023 | The Supreme Court has now ruled that Colorado's Anti-Discrimination Act would violate a Christian business owner's First Amendment rights by not allowing her to discriminate against same-sex couples and potentially compelling her to create websites "celebrating marriages she does not endorse." Lorie Smith of Colorado filed the lawsuit with help from the right-wing Alliance Defending Freedom as part of the group's ongoing attempt to roll back the rights of LGBTQ people. But as reporter Melissa Gira Grant discovered, part of the case may have been built on a lie. Smith has never actually built a wedding website; the lone request Smith claims to have received from a gay couple supposedly originated with a straight man in another state who told Grant he had never asked for a website and that he has been married to a woman for many years. "He had no idea that his information was in this case," says Grant, who wrote about the case for The New Republic.

Homophobic businesses in the US have a powerful ally: the US supreme court: The court is more interested in protecting the dignity of bigots than the dignity of gay couples denied services for who they are »

Supreme Court Backs Web Designer Opposed to Same-Sex Marriage

Gay Rights Ruling
THE NEW YORK TIMES: The decision appeared to suggest that the rights of L.G.B.T.Q. people, including to same-sex marriage, are on more vulnerable legal footing, particularly when they are at odds with claims of religious freedom.

The Supreme Court sided on Friday with a web designer in Colorado who said she had a First Amendment right to refuse to provide services for same-sex marriages despite a state law that forbids discrimination against gay people.

In a 6 to 3 vote, split along ideological lines, the court held that the First Amendment prohibits Colorado from forcing a website designer to create expressive designs speaking messages with which the designer disagrees. Justice Neil M. Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion.

The case, though framed as a clash between free speech and gay rights, was the latest in a series of decisions in favor of religious people and groups, notably conservative Christians.

The decision also appeared to suggest that the rights of L.G.B.T.Q. people, including to same-sex marriage, are on more vulnerable legal footing, particularly when they are at odds with claims of religious freedom. At the same time, the ruling limited the ability of the governments to enforce anti-discrimination laws. » | Adam Liptak and Abbie VanSickle | Friday, June 30, 2023

US Supreme Court Overturns Race-based College Admissions

Jun 29, 2023 | In the United States, the Supreme Court has ruled that universities can no longer consider a student's race when deciding to admit them.

Supreme Court Seems Ready to Back Web Designer Opposed to Same-Sex Marriage

THE NEW YORK TIMES: A web designer in Colorado wants to limit her wedding-related services to celebrations of heterosexual unions because of her religious beliefs, but a state law prohibits discrimination against gay people by businesses open to the public.

Andrew Harnik
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court’s conservative majority seemed prepared on Monday to rule that a graphic designer in Colorado has a First Amendment right to refuse to create websites celebrating same-sex weddings based on her Christian faith despite a state law that forbids discrimination based on sexual orientation.

But several justices leaning in that direction appeared to be searching for limiting principles so as not to upend all sorts of anti-discrimination laws.

They explored the difference between businesses engaged in expression and ones simply selling goods; the difference between a client’s message and that of the designer; the difference between discrimination against gay couples and compelling the creation of messages supporting same-sex marriage; and the difference between discrimination based on race and that based on sexual orientation.

The bottom line, though, seemed to be that the court would not require the designer to create customized websites celebrating same-sex marriage despite the state anti-discrimination law.

The court’s three liberal members expressed deep qualms about the damage a ruling in favor of the designer could do to efforts to combat discrimination. » | Adam Liptak | Monday, December 5, 2022

Darkness is rapidly befalling the Western world! Beware the bigots, the ignoramuses and the demons who pervade the West these days and the ether. They threaten to take us back to a 'New Dark Age' (of which I once wrote many years ago), back to a less enlightened age, to benighted times. – © Mark Alexander

The Long Path to Reclaim Abortion Rights

THE NEW YORK TIMES: The Supreme Court decision to reverse Roe, far from settling the matter, instead has launched court and political battles across the states likely to go on for years.

In the week since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, litigators for abortion rights groups have rolled out a wave of lawsuits in nearly a dozen states to hold off bans triggered by the decision. | Shuran Huang for The New York Times
Attempting to recover from their staggering loss in the Supreme Court, abortion rights groups have mounted a multilevel legal and political attack aimed at blocking and reversing abortion bans in courts and at ballot boxes across the country.

In the week since the court overturned Roe v. Wade, litigators for abortion rights groups have rolled out a wave of lawsuits in nearly a dozen states to hold off bans triggered by the court’s decision, with the promise of more suits to come. They are aiming to prove that provisions in state constitutions establish a right to abortion that the Supreme Court’s decision said did not exist in the U.S. Constitution.

Advocates of abortion rights are also working to defeat ballot initiatives that would strip away a constitutional right to abortion, and to pass those that would establish one, in states where abortion access is contingent on who controls the governor’s mansion or the state house.

And after years of complaints that Democrats neglected state and local elections, Democratic-aligned groups are campaigning to reverse slim Republican majorities in some state legislatures, and to elect abortion rights supporters to positions from county commissioner to state supreme court justices that can have influence over the enforcement of abortion restrictions. » | Kate Zernike | Saturday, July 2, 2022

Kamala Harris Calls Supreme Court Ruling on Abortion 'Outrageous'

Jul 3, 2022 Kamala Harris said the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe vs Wade was "outrageous".

The US Vice President made the comments during a conversation with actress Keke Palmer at the 28th Essence Festival of Culture in New Orleans.

"What essentially has happened is the statement has been made that the government has a right to come in your home and tell you as a woman... what you should do with your body," she said.

Britain's Own Anti-Abortion Conservatives

Warren on Ending of Roe: ‘Supreme Court Doesn’t Get the Last Word’—We Do

un 25, 2022 • Sen. Elizabeth Warren on the overturning of the constitutional right to an abortion: “Supreme Court doesn’t get the last word. In a democracy, we get the last word. It’s time to get in this fight and it’s time to make real change on behalf of everyone in this country.”

Sen. Klobuchar: If We Can Take Back 2 Senate Seats, We Can Codify Roe v. Wade into Law

Jun 25, 2022 • Protests continue on Friday after the extreme-right justices on the Supreme Court stripped away a half-century of abortion rights. Justice Clarence Thomas is also making it clear that he wants other rights to be revoked as well. Sen. Amy Klobuchar joins The ReidOut to discuss the push by Democrats to battle these developments.

Democrats Call for Action after Supreme Court's Abortion Ruling

Jun 26, 2022 • MSNBC's Jonathan Capehart speaks with Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney about how Democrats can mobilize voters to the polls in November after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. »

The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell Highlights | June 24, 2022

What the Abortion Ruling Means for the US Supreme Court's Legitimacy | DW News

Jun 25, 2022 • The Supreme Court has ended 50 years of federal abortion rights. In a 6-to-3 ruling, the court overturned the landmark 1973 Roe Versus Wade decision that enshrined a woman's right to an abortion. The ruling is being described as a 'constitutional earthquake.' US states now have the power to set their own abortion laws. Around half are expected restrict - or completely ban - access to abortions.

US Supreme Court Overturns Roe v. Wade in Blow to Abortion Rights | DW News

Jun 24, 2022 • In a highly-anticipated move, the US Supreme Court moved to overturn protections on abortion rights in the US.

The ruling comes after a draft opinion of the court was leaked to US media in early May. The report showed the US Supreme Court was ready to reverse Roe v. Wade, a landmark decision in 1973 that established a federal right to terminate a pregnancy.

Tens of millions of women across the US are expected to lose their right to abortion as mainly southern and midwestern states introduce bans.


Related here, here, here and here.

The Arguments about Abortion in the US Are about One Thing: Controlling Women

THE GUARDIAN: Anti-abortionists are intent on enhancing men’s privileges, while women cannot even have rights over their own bodies

Pro-choice protests outside the supreme court, Washington DC, 1 December 2021. Photograph: Allison Bailey/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock
Alot of people with a lot of power don’t see why women should have jurisdiction over their own bodies. That’s the anti-abortion argument in a nutshell, in that they claim a foetus, or even an embryo, or in some cases even a fertilised egg too small for the human eye to see, has rights that supersede those of the person inside whose body that egg, embryo or foetus might be.

What was clear from the rightwing pundits and conservative supreme court justices who have piped up over the last month as arguments were being heard in the most significant abortion rights case since Roe v Wade, is that in a country whose constitution is supposed to grant us all a lot of rights, they are happy to strip away a right so fundamental it’s unimaginable in other circumstances – or that it would be stripped from other people, namely men. In the case, Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the state of Mississippi is asking the court to rule on whether it can outlaw abortions after 15 weeks’ gestation. They are asking, in other words, for the right to punish women for being women.

The goal of the anti-abortionists seems to be to enhance men’s privileges by undermining women’s rights, by making us separate and unequal. (People who do not identify as female also get pregnant and bear children, but the animosity is directed at women and girls, so I’m going to talk about women and girls here.) Since acknowledging this would undermine the anti-abortion case, the emphasis is instead shifted to someone else whose rights are claimed to trump those of pregnant people, the unborn. The unborn are a convenient constituency to advocate for, since they have no voice or vote and anyone can claim to speak for them. » | Rebecca Solnit | Friday, December 10, 2021

Planned Parenthood CEO: If SCOTUS Restricts Abortion Access, Marginalized People Will Be Hurt Most