"No one deserves to be on Medicaid!”Roger Marshall: "When they talk about people not being on Medicaid anymore, half of those people are on it because of fraud or some type of abuse of the system, the other half is because they're unwilling to work 20 hours a week." pic.twitter.com/pPaG4d4NNI
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 30, 2025
"I would like to say 'This book is written to the glory of God', but nowadays this would be the trick of a cheat, i.e., it would not be correctly understood."--Ludwig Wittgenstein
"Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards."--Soren Kierkegaard
Monday, June 30, 2025
“We Can’t Be Hurting Anyone!”
I’m An Old Man
…and I learned about this on the internet.
Raw Story, to be exact (quelle surprise, eh?). CNN is on cable, which I’m pretty sure only old people and old politicians watch anymore. I’m old, but I cut the cord a decade ago. I only watch CNN via Rupar and Acyn. I am not, on the other hand, a denizen of the intertoobs. I heard about this by reading an article on Raw Story about the CNN report. By modern standards, I am hopelessly out of touch.🚨Is CNN pushing an app that helps DOXX ICE agents in real time?!
— Wesley Hunt (@WesleyHuntTX) June 30, 2025
The app “ICEBLOCK” tracks the movements of federal agents and has the potential to put their lives at risk, and CNN is running a “story,” on it.
Will Apple and Google keep this in their app stores?
Will… pic.twitter.com/U340Q8RXz7
That response is especially delicious, because it’s ridiculously over the top, and there’s fuck-all he can do about it. And because he thinks CNN matters.CNN is openly helping invaders and insurrectionists sabotage ICE. https://t.co/F2S4qgl65y
— Stephen Miller (@StephenM) June 30, 2025
You can just go to your local Home Depot and hang out in the parking lot. Or would that be doxxing?Elite commandos hitting the streets. https://t.co/Thoe8caA07
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) June 30, 2025
🤡 To The Left Of Me, 🃏 To The Right
We're not cutting Medicaid for those that Medicaid was designed for," Mullin insisted. "There's 35 million people that live below the poverty line inside the United States. There's over 70 million people signed up for Medicaid."When I was still practicing at law, I had a friend who needed to get on Medicaid. Unlike Medicare, the states partner with the federal government in the program; so some states are more generous than others. Texas is as stingy as possible; I imagine Oklahoma is the same. My friend had to divorce her husband of long standing, and, if I recall, sell her house, to qualify for Medicaid. To be, in point of fact, poor enough.
That, he suggested, means half of those signed up are not eligible.
"Now, you're going to tell me there's not room to make cuts to actually have it in place, Medicaid in place for those that it was actually designed for," he added. "There's plenty of room there."
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that nationally, the Senate version of Trump's agenda bill would leave 11.8 million more people without health insurance by the year 2034," Brown began, then asked, "How do Republicans explain this to their constituents?"Although Pam Bondi is my new favorite person in the Administration, because she is so stupid. She prates about suing everyone in the country, and might do some real damage prosecuting people who can’t afford to defend themselves and have baseless cases finally dismissed. Instead, she takes on L.A.:
Zinke answered, "Well, living paycheck to paycheck is on the premise that you're working. But look, if you're an able-bodied male and you choose to sit on the couch, not work, and you're getting Medicaid, that's taking benefits from someone else who needs it...I would say, look, get a job."
Brown clarified that the Senate version of the bill would limit federal funding, raising concerns that "people are going to lose out on Medicaid coverage as a result."
Zinke said he agreed that states needed to pick up more of the burden, before reverting back to his argument about jobs.
"Remember we had Obamacare that was supposed to be the end-all for insurance. That didn't work. And so a lot of people choose not to work, and they're still getting Medicaid...and look, when the federal government is picking up the tab at little from the states, what's going to happen is you're going to expand, expand, expand. That's why we have the budget."
Bondi Brown pushed back, saying, "A small percentage of those receiving Medicaid don't work. And so, you know, a majority work at least part-time when it comes to Medicaid. So, can you say for certain that no one who is eligible for Medicaid who works or works part-time will not be impacted by this? Are you comfortable with that?"
Zinke conceded that if someone is only working "five hours a month, yeah, you're not going to be able to have access to Medicaid."
"But there's reasons, because people are caregivers and that kind of thing," Brown interjected
"The House version, which I understand is going to be pretty close to what the Senate is, that the standard is 80 hours. But look, you could work at a food pantry and get 80 hours," Zinke maintained.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that she is suing the city of Los Angeles, claiming that it's discriminating against ICE agents.There’s a legal term for Bondi’s statement: irrelevant bullshit, which might well taint the jury. It’s no sounder than the legal argument. The state of California and the city of Los Angeles cannot discriminate against ICE agents. They cannot positively interfere (that would be obstruction), but they have no affirmative duty to aid the federal government in enforcing federal law. The states are separate sovereigns. The Supremacy Clause does not make them subjects of the federal government or the POTUS.
Fox News is reporting that President Donald Trump's Department of Justice has found a way to go after L.A.'s sanctuary city policy by alleging that it treats federal immigration officers differently from other law enforcement, reported national correspondent Bill Melugin.
"Sanctuary policies were the driving cause of the violence, chaos, and attacks on law enforcement that Americans recently witnessed in Los Angeles. Jurisdictions like Los Angeles that flout federal law by prioritizing illegal aliens over American citizens are undermining law enforcement at every level – it ends under President Trump," Fox cited Bondi as saying in a statement.
The lawsuit alleges that the "sanctuary city laws and policies are designed to deliberately impede federal immigration officers’ ability to carry out their responsibilities in those jurisdictions. The Los Angeles Ordinance and other policies intentionally discriminate against the Federal Government by treating federal immigration authorities differently than other law enforcement agents through access restrictions both to property and to individual detainees, by prohibiting contractors and sub-contractors from providing information, and by disfavoring federal criminal laws that the City of Los Angeles has decided not to comply with.
"The Supremacy Clause prohibits the City of Los Angeles and its officials from singling out the Federal Government for adverse treatment—as the challenged law and policies do—thereby discriminating against the Federal Government. Accordingly, the law and policies challenged here are invalid and should be enjoined."
🙀
Being forced to come to work and do your job? In the summer?https://t.co/ulVvqcoVhx https://t.co/YmHvPyfEZv
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) June 30, 2025
In Which I Make A Funny
Or...What a phony. The bill explodes the deficit, which was why he went through his usual performative exercise of complaining about debt, but now he says he’s had conversations with with Trump & they are “committed” to a “process” to someday achieve cuts.pic.twitter.com/Aev6XQeKhh
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) June 30, 2025
The Surprise Inside
Republican Senator Thom Tillis: What do I tell 663,000 people and two years or three years when President Trump breaks his promise by pushing them off of Medicaid. Trump's advisers in the White House are not telling him that the effect of this bill is to break a promise.Popehat replies:
Tell them they got what they voted for.So who voted for this?
A Washington Post review found that in at least seven major departments or agencies, DOGE secured the power to view records that experts say could benefit Elon Musk’s businesses for years.
Who The GOP Represents, II
Every Senate Republican knows this is true.
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) June 30, 2025
But they are bending the knee to Donald Trump, so his billionaire donors can get another tax break while millions of Americans lose their health care. https://t.co/ZoClOOmdLz
Warnock: A budget is not just a fiscal document. A budget is a moral document. Show me your budget and I'll show you who you think matters and who doesn't. And if this awful budget were an EKG, it would suggest that our nation has a heart problem and is in need of moral surgery pic.twitter.com/P4LYPYMr0E
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 30, 2025
Warnock: I come from a tradition where you don't just pray with your lips. You pray with your legs. You put your body in the struggle for other struggling bodies. pic.twitter.com/XoDiD4C4Q7
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 30, 2025
Warnock: Your health care is about to go up. Your hospital might close. Because they're cutting these clean energy bill tax cuts, your utility bills are about to go up. And so I have a question tonight. Who voted for that?
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 30, 2025
The folks back in Georgia didn't vote for that. They… pic.twitter.com/jgeTFbb73a
The folks back in Georgia didn't vote for that. They voted for me and they voted for Donald Trump, but they didn't vote for that.
Ordinary folks don't want this. These ordinary everyday people who don't pay attention to politics, they don't want this.
Even a Fox News poll, and you won't often hear me say that, but even a Fox News poll from this month found that Americans don't support this big ugly bill.
Warnock: We're taking away health care from kids and then burdening them with the debt. We are engaged in robinhood in reverse, this body of stealing from the poor in order to give to the rich. This massive transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top. This is socialism for the… pic.twitter.com/yS9VPq7d3d
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 30, 2025
This is socialism for the rich.
And when the people hear about it, guess what, they don't like it.
That's why they're trying to pass it and they haven't even finished writing it.
And so if the people do not want this bill, but they are trying to pass it, here's the question you've got to ask yourselves at home. You have to ask yourselves, well, who are they working for? Who are they fighting for?
Who do they think matters? Do you think they are working for you?
He’s not wrong; but there are also lessons there about seed sown on rocky ground, and pearls fed to swine, too.Warnock: If I'm honest, there are days when I have to ask people of my faith tradition as a Christian, are we reading the same book?
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 30, 2025
The book I know says I was hungry and you fed me. I was sick, I was in prison and you visited me, I was a stranger and you welcomed me…. pic.twitter.com/xqbRnR3WlD
Sunday, June 29, 2025
Energy Crisis
Wyden: Even the heads of companies involved in fossil fuels are saying: we need solar quickly to get more electrons to the grid.
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 29, 2025
This plan risks plunging us into an energy crisis.
It would be a disaster and a total surrender to China on clean energy manufacturing.
It's… pic.twitter.com/QITlf5XdTC
It's clear as a sunny day that all the talk from Trump and Republicans about American energy dominance was just a fraud. Nothing but a hollow campaign slogan
Schatz: This bill will kill 300,000 jobs in wind and solar per year. We're going to lose out on $450 billion in capital as thousands of projects go under. And because of that, we're going to generate about 500 gigawatts less energy in the next decade.
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 30, 2025
The 500 gigawatts less… pic.twitter.com/pG1n2kBNw4
The 500 gigawatts less energy in the next decade is pretty much exactly the amount of energy that we're going to need to meet rising demand. We are going to have energy shortages as a result of this legislation.
Energy demand is soaring for the first time in decades, largely, not exclusively but largely because of A.I. data centers. And our best chance of meeting it in the next few years is with wind and solar, not oil and gas, even nuclear and geothermal are going to take awhile.
Senator Schatz warns: The A.I. Industry may move abroad immediately upon enactment pic.twitter.com/7w9nyCWeHq
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 30, 2025
Trump’s exact quote to Fox today on this: “We’re doing coal. I don’t want windmills destroying our place. I don’t want these solar things where they go for miles and they cover up half a mountain and are ugly as hell.” https://t.co/Au82v5D81J
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) June 30, 2025
Addressed to: “Mr. Japan, General Delivery, Japan
Signed: Mr. Art of the Deal, A Very Stable GeniusDear Mr. Japan https://t.co/c3oAtkQMkf
— Ben Meiselas 🎤 (@meiselasb) June 30, 2025
💸
Murray: If you think you can look the American people in the face and tell them we have to bring down the debt after passing what might be the most expensive bill in history, if you think you can do that and then be taken seriously, you know what, if you believe that, maybe you… pic.twitter.com/P5TnKmEUjF
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 29, 2025
Murray: If you think you can look the American people in the face and tell them we have to bring down the debt after passing what might be the most expensive bill in history, if you think you can do that and then be taken seriously, you know what, if you believe that, maybe you are foolish enough to think that zero and a trillion are the same.
I can tell you right now, if this happens we will all laugh you out of the room because we have never seen anything like this, not in my time here in the senate, not in my time on this planet. We are not going to let anyone forget that you're track the rules in order to pass this egregious bill.
Van Hollen: The blue is what Republicans claim their bill will add to the deficit. The red is how much more it will actually add to the deficit.
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 29, 2025
These are the additional deficits from tax cuts, starting here in year 2029, 2030, you'll see that they actually do start going down.… pic.twitter.com/44HlIWozKA
These are the additional deficits from tax cuts, starting here in year 2029, 2030, you'll see that they actually do start going down. Why is that? It's because the tax cut that President Trump promised for no tax on tips -- they phase those out.
Rand Paul: In deciding whether to vote for the big, not so beautiful bill, I've asked a very specific question. Will the deficit be more or less next year? The answer, without question is this bill will grow the deficit. pic.twitter.com/cVttoKQmOc
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 29, 2025
Rand Paul: In addition, the bill increases the debt ceiling by $5 trillion. What does that mean? That is an admission that they know they aren't controlling the deficit. They know that the ensuing years will add trillions more.
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 29, 2025
So we're adding $2 trillion this year, but they're… pic.twitter.com/RoJHppGIcD
So we're adding $2 trillion this year, but they're anticipating, the authors of the bill are anticipating adding more than $2 trillion next year. That doesn't sound at all conservative to me and that's why I'm a no.I still expect the OBBBA to pass, in one form or another. But the GOP will be cannon fodder in the midterms. So there’s always that.
As My Late Father, The CPA, Put It
"A bookkeeper says "1+1=2."Thune is raising a budget point of order that would allow the use of current policy in reconciliation
— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) June 29, 2025
Adopting a current policy baseline in reconciliation would be a dangerous and reckless move, especially given our near-record debt, exploding interest costs, and out-of-control borrowing trajectory. Our deficit is projected to total almost $2 trillion this year, and we’re on course to borrow $22 trillion over the decade before any tax extensions. Any new legislation enacted by Congress should improve that trajectory, not make it worse.An accountant asks: “What do you want it to be?”
While employing a current policy baseline may be tempting to justify the current tax extensions, it would set a dangerous precedent for future actions. For example, if the temporary measures of the American Rescue Plan had been characterized as current policy, lawmakers could have extended them and added trillions of dollars to the debt with a $0 score.
Adopting a current policy baseline for TCJA extension would allow lawmakers to borrow $4 trillion or more without ever recognizing the impact, and using it in reconciliation would be a clear accounting gimmick to end-run the choices required in budgeting. Remember, the original 2017 tax bill was made to be temporary to keep its reported deficit impact down. Since the impact of extension wasn’t accounted for back in 2017, it needs to be accounted for now.
Pretending the TCJA is permanent now wouldn’t reduce its price tag; it would just hide it. The money still has to be borrowed.
Showing a $0 impact on paper by changing the rules doesn’t actually prevent the $4 to $5 trillion of additional borrowing from taking place. And it doesn’t stop that borrowing from pushing up interest rates, slowing economic growth, and putting our debt sustainability at risk.
Question: 🙋♂️
Lisa Murkowski and John Thune deserve this. Trying to exempt Alaska from odious parts of this bill to buy her vote is overruled by parliamentarian. https://t.co/RlXfWgbOMc
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) June 29, 2025
Two provisions added to the bill just days ago — and tailored specifically to boost Medicaid payments to Alaska and Hawaii — have been ruled to violate the Senate’s Byrd rule. That limits what can pass through the reconciliation process with a simple majority.You know: “fraud, waste, and abuse” committed by “able bodied persons.” 🙄 And one more thing:
GOP leaders had hoped the Medicaid provisions focused on non-contiguous states, along with other Alaska-friendly changes, would be enough to win the vote of Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). She had voiced concerns over deep cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
Murkowski voted to move forward with the bill Saturday night after making committee chairs and leadership sweat.
Elsewhere, Senate Republicans attempted to expand a Medicare drug-price negotiation exemption for “orphan” drugs to include medicines that treat multiple rare diseases. But the parliamentarian ruled it is not in compliance with rules and could threaten the ability to pass the megabill with a simple majority. The orphan drug provision was in the House-passed bill, but was not included in the first Senate Finance Committee’s proposal earlier this month.
The parliamentarian also ruled against provisions that sought to block implementation of two Biden-era regulations that seek to make it easier for older adults and individuals with disabilities to enroll in Medicaid and maintain coverage.
Also flagged by the parliamentarian was a provision that would prohibit implementation of a Biden Administration rule on nursing facility staffing, which was estimated to reduce federal Medicaid spending by $23 billion over 10 years.
The Senate Republican proposal to delay planned cuts to provider taxes that fund state obligations to Medicaid survived the so-called “Byrd bath” and will not be subject to a supermajority vote. The changes would still incrementally lower the allowable provider tax in Medicaid expansion states from 6 percent down to 3.5 percent. But the drawdown would begin in 2028, one year later than planned.Or why a lot of this (it’s more likely to pass, in one form or another, than not), is time settings like that. This BBB sets the GOP up for failure in the midterms, and the long run. At least if we can get veto proof majorities.
Is this the “art” of the deal? Is this making friends and influencing people and cutting deals left and right? Is this how Trump guarantees his majority in 2027?After Trump trashed him last night. Wow. pic.twitter.com/dn4POK5nEx
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) June 29, 2025
Art of the deal? Shit, I’ve negotiated better than that.Trump: "We'll send a letter and we'll say 'we would consider it a great honor, and this is what you'll have to shop in -- we're like a department store -- to shop in the United States, and you'll pay a 25% tariff or we'll wish you a lot of luck.' And that's the end of the trade… pic.twitter.com/bYnGhbAtz6
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 29, 2025
George Clooney sanctioned, ‘s all I’m sayin’.How was Joe Biden forced out of a presidential race for a disastrous debate and for looking frail and for confusing names, but this man, one of the most ignorant men to ever be elected to any office, allowed to continue on as president and treated as a normal, serious leader?? https://t.co/ahrYaufINj
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) June 29, 2025
But Does He Want Black Lung Destroying Miners?
A) He’s never seen coal mining in practice.Trump: "We're doing coal. I don't want windmills destroying our place. I don't want these solar things where they go for miles and they cover up half a mountain and they're ugly as hell." pic.twitter.com/tw720XzIIE
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 29, 2025
Do These People Listen To Themselves?
"It's shameful that The Washington Post is helping people commit felonies by publishing out-of-context leaks," she told the paper. "The notion that unnamed Iranian officials know what happened under hundreds of feet of rubble is nonsense.Their nuclear weapons program is over."No one in America knows that yet.
A senior U.S. intelligence official also told the Post that "one slice of signals intelligence on its own does not reflect the full intelligence picture."Which is exactly right. What intelligence (no double entendre intended) does Trump have?
"A single phone call between unnamed Iranians is not the same as an intelligence assessment, which takes into account a body of evidence, with multiple sources and methods," the person insisted.
BARTIROMO: Do you think the Iranian regime hid some of the enriched uranium before the strikes?
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 29, 2025
TRUMP: No pic.twitter.com/mHFwUTPqDG
Not the information that Sen. Graham has, it seems.KARL: What about the Iranian uranium?
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 29, 2025
LINDSEY GRAHAM: The 900 pounds? It's still out there pic.twitter.com/tmjwrWSde5
“Blow You, Jack! I Got Mine!”
In the old days we’d call this the pork barrel. Murkowski protects Alaska in exchange for Trump leaving her alone.Lisa Murkowski cuts a last minute deal solely to benefit Alaska, exempting it from some of the more odious parts of the bill to secure her vote and sell out the rest of the US. Yeah this stuff sucks and hurts a lot of people, but I got Alaskans exempted so the hell with you. pic.twitter.com/fCiPM66ln2
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) June 29, 2025
Saturday, June 28, 2025
“Or Consider It The Other Way”
I've finally read Justice Jackson's dissent in Trump v CASA, and I understand why her critics are not referencing the opinion itself, but engaging in ad hominem ("DEI HIRE!") or straw man (the majority dismissal out of hand) arguments, instead. When you've got nothing, resort to logical fallacies. Or just run in circles, scream and shout.
The opinion is well reasoned, but I hardly want to quote it all here. Instead, starting with the opening (I find that a very good place to start when seeking to summarize a long argument), I'll annotate the material quoted with my comments and include what I think is the summary of the heart of her argument.
I agree with every word of JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR’s dissent. I write separately to emphasize a key conceptual point: The Court’s decision to permit the Executive to violate the Constitution with respect to anyone who has not yet sued is an existential threat to the rule of law.
It is important to recognize that the Executive’s bid tovanquish so-called “universal injunctions” is, at bottom, a request for this Court’s permission to engage in unlawful behavior. When the Government says “do not allow the lower courts to enjoin executive action universally as a remedy for unconstitutional conduct,” what it is actually sayingis that the Executive wants to continue doing something that a court has determined violates the Constitution—please allow this. That is some solicitation. With its ruling today, the majority largely grants the Government’s wish. But, in my view, if this country is going to persist as a Nation of laws and not men, the Judiciary has no choice but to deny it.
Stated simply, what it means to have a system of government that is bounded by law is that everyone is constrained by the law, no exceptions. And for that to actually happen, courts must have the power to order everyone (including the Executive) to follow the law—full stop. To conclude otherwise is to endorse the creation of a zone of lawlessness within which the Executive has the prerogative to take or leave the law as it wishes, and where individuals who would otherwise be entitled to the law’s protection become subject to the Executive’s whims instead.
The majority cannot deny that our Constitution was designed to split the powers of a monarch between the governing branches to protect the People. Nor is it debatable that the role of the Judiciary in our constitutional scheme is to ensure fidelity to law. But these core values are strangelyabsent from today’s decision. Focusing on inapt comparisons to impotent English tribunals, the majority ignores the Judiciary’s foundational duty to uphold the Constitution and laws of the United States. The majority’s ruling thus not only diverges from first principles, it is also profoundly dangerous, since it gives the Executive the go-ahead to sometimes wield the kind of unchecked, arbitrary power the Founders crafted our Constitution to eradicate. The very institution our founding charter charges with the duty to ensure universal adherence to the law now requires judges to shrug and turn their backs to intermittent lawlessness.
Yes, I think that is a reference to "No Kings." But it's in keeping with the argument that the Executive is not above the law, and certainly not above the Constitution; and the futher argument the majority decision stands in opposition to both of those fundamental principles of the American system of laws and government. And if "Focusing on inapt comparisons to impotent English tribunals" seems to echo Alito's opinion in the Dobbs decision, one can only say Barrett started it, and the echoes are not a dog whistle. They also aren't the marks of sound legal reasoning, and that's what Justice Jackson is critiquing. Especially when "comparisons to impotent English tribunals" are used to "[undermine] the Constitution and laws of the United States." Justice Jackson states quite clearly that the majority gives Trump the power of a monarch with this decision. The irony, as we will see below, is that Barrett's rejoinder to this criticism is a sotto voce "I know you are, but what am I?"
The majority misstates Justice Jackson's argument (the straw man) the better to dismiss it:with a reductio ad absurdum (and a straw man; nice work, if you can get it):
The principal dissent focuses on conventional legal terrain, like the Judiciary Act of 1789 and our cases on equity. JUSTICE JACKSON, however, chooses a startling line of attack that is tethered neither to these sources nor, frankly, to any doctrine whatsoever.
My first response is: "Justice is neither a doctrine nor a line of cases; but it is the guiding principle of jurisprudence and of the legal system itself. It seems the Court would discard even that for the expediency of serving Dear Leader Trump." Because that is the real "doctrine" behind Justice Jackson's critique. The Court is either stung by that; or oblivious to it. Same difference, really.
Justice Jackson doesn't focus on the critique already established by Justice Sotomayor, where the issues of equity are plainly addressed, so this critique by the majority is a red herring at best. What she does focus on is the affect of this ruling, the injustice of it; but the majority is having none of it:
We will not dwell on JUSTICE JACKSON’s argument, which is at odds with more than two centuries’ worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself. We observe only this: JUSTICE JACKSON decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary.
The precedent Justice Jackson cites is at odds with the caricature of a legal argument made by the majority. Again, echoes of Dobbs. Here is an example of Justice Jackson following no known doctrine, and making an argument contrary to "more than two centuries' worth of precedent:
The power to compel the Executive to follow the law is particularly vital where the relevant law is the Constitution. When the Executive transgresses an Act of Congress, there are mechanisms through which Congress can assert its check against the Executive unilaterally—such as, for example, asserting the power of the purse. See K. Stith, Congress’ Power of the Purse, 97 Yale L. J. 1343, 1360 (1988) (describing Congress’s ability to “regulat[e] executive branch activities by limitations on appropriations”). But when the Executive violates the Constitution, the only recourse is the courts. Eliminate that check, and our government ceases to be one of “limited powers.” Gregory v. Ashcroft, 501 U. S. 452, 457 (1991). After all, a limit that “do[es] not confine the perso[n] on whom [it is] imposed” is no limit at all. Marbury, 1 Cranch, at 176.1
The reference to Marbury is an especially nice touch.
Jackson's conclusion states plainly what the argument lays out in detail (with sources, despite the majority's petty dismissal) in between the opening, and the conclusion:
Or consider it the other way: When a court is prevented from enjoining the Executive universally after the Executive establishes a universal practice of stripping people’s constitutional rights, anyone who is entitled to the Constitution’s protection but will instead be subjected to the Executive’s whims is improperly divested of their inheritance. The Constitution is flipped on its head, for its promises are essentially nullified. So, rather than having a governing system characterized by protected rights, the default becomes an Executive that can do whatever it wants to whomever it wants, unless and until each affected individual affirmatively invokes the law’s protection.
Which is precisely where the Court has left us.
A concrete example helps to illustrate why this turnabout undermines the rule of law. Imagine an Executive who issues a blanket order that is blatantly unconstitutional—demanding, say, that any and all of its political foes be summarily and indefinitely incarcerated in a prison outside the jurisdiction of the United States, without any hearing or chance to be heard in court. Shortly after learning of this edict, one such political rival rushes into court with his lawyer, claims the Executive’s order violates the Constitution, and secures an injunction that prohibits the Executive from enforcing that unconstitutional mandate. The upshot of today’s decision is that, despite that rival’s success in persuading a judge of the unconstitutional nature of the Executive’s proclamation, the court’s ruling and injunction canonly require the Executive to shelve any no-process incar-ceration plan that targets that particular individual (thenamed plaintiff ); the Executive can keep right on rounding up its other foes, despite the court’s clear and unequivocal pronouncement that the executive order is unlawful.
If that "concrete example" sounds familiar, or vaguely like reality in America today, I'm sure that's not an accident. No wonder the majority didn't want to deal with it.s
The majority today says that, unless and until the other political rivals seek and secure their own personal injunctions, the Executive can carry on acting unconstitutionally with respect to each of them, as if the Constitution’s due process requirement does not exist. For those who get to court in time, their right not to be indefinitely imprisoned without due process will be protected. But if they are unable to sue or get to the courthouse too late, the majority says, oh well, there is nothing to be done, despite the fact that their detention without due process is plainly prohibited by law.
But what is law, if the courts are not allowed to enforce it?
A Martian arriving here from another planet would see these circumstances and surely wonder: “what good is the Constitution, then?” What, really, is this system for protecting people’s rights if it amounts to this—placing the onus on the victims to invoke the law’s protection, and rendering the very institution that has the singular function of ensuring compliance with the Constitution powerless to preventthe Government from violating it? “Those things Americans call constitutional rights seem hardly worth the paper they are written on!”
Irony of ironies: they are only what the Court, in the final analysis, says they are. Is anyone now surprised by Justice Barrett didn't want to address this in the majority opinion?
These observations are indictments, especially for a Nation that prides itself on being fair and free. But, after today, that is where we are. What the majority has done is allow the Executive to nullify the statutory and constitutional rights of the uncounseled, the underresourced, and the unwary, by prohibiting the lower courts from ordering the Executive to follow the law across the board. Moreover, officers who have sworn an oath to uphold the law are now required to allow the Executive to blatantly violate it. Federal judges pledge to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic. 5 U. S. C. §3331. They do not agree to permit unconstitutional behavior by the Executive (or anyone else). But the majority forgets (or ignores) this duty, eagerly imposing a limit on the power of courts that, in essence, prevents judges from doing what their oaths require.
...
Today’s ruling thus surreptitiously stymies the Judiciary’s core duty to protect and defend constitutional rights. It does this indirectly, by preventing lower courts from telling the Executive that it has to stop engaging in conduct that violates the Constitution. Instead, now, a court’s power to prevent constitutional violations comes with an asterisk—a court can make the Executive cease its unconstitutional conduct *but only with respect to the particular plaintiffs named in the lawsuit before them, leaving the Executive free to violate the constitutional rights of anyone and everyone else.
Make no mistake: Today’s ruling allows the Executive to deny people rights that the Founders plainly wrote into our Constitution, so long as those individuals have not found a lawyer or asked a court in a particular manner to have their rights protected. This perverse burden shifting cannot co-exist with the rule of law. In essence, the Court has now shoved lower court judges out of the way in cases where executive action is challenged, and has gifted the Executive with the prerogative of sometimes disregarding the law. As a result, the Judiciary—the one institution that is solely responsible for ensuring our Republic endures as a Nation of laws—has put both our legal system, and our system of government, in grave jeopardy.
...
At the very least, I lament that the majority is so caught up in minutiae of the Government’s self-serving, finger-pointing arguments that it misses the plot. The majority forgets (or ignores) that “[w]ith all its defects, delays and inconveniences, men have discovered no technique for long preserving free government except that the Executive be under the law, and that the law be made by parliamentary deliberations.” Id., at 655 (opinion of R. Jackson, J.). Tragically, the majority also shuns this prescient warning: Even if “[s]uch institutions may be destined to pass away,” “it is the duty of the Court to be last, not first, to give them up.
Further, certainly better, I can say nought.
“They’ll Get Over It”—Retiring Sen. McConnell
The latest Senate draft bill will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 28, 2025
Utterly insane and destructive. It gives handouts to industries of the past while severely damaging industries of the future. https://t.co/TZ9w1g7zHF
— chyea ok (@chyeaok) June 28, 2025
FOX: The polls show this thing is not popular…
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 28, 2025
The Fox News poll shows it is under 40% approval.
When you look at the Quinnipiac poll, the Pew Research Poll—these are all showing few people favor this thing.
38% favor on the Fox poll. When it comes to the other ones, the… pic.twitter.com/1IyFAQOdrt
38% favor on the Fox poll. When it comes to the other ones, the Quinnipiac poll, that one has 53% opposing it. 27% support it.
A lot of Americans don’t like this—even some people who voted for President Trump
— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) June 28, 2025
LOOK! 👀 OVER THERE!! BOMBS!!!💣Building Trades Opposed. Solar industry opposed. Musk Opposed. Nursing homes opposed. Hospitals opposed. This thing is a rotting fish.
— Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) June 28, 2025
He gave Iran 2 weeks notice, and they took him seriously. The IAEA also reported there was no increase in radiation levels from the bombed sites.“Very heavy” 😆
— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) June 28, 2025
He literally said “they knew we were coming” like 3 days ago https://t.co/3f7gheCT4e
I Guess The Modern Version Is “Clarence Thomas”
Just remembering the days of “Uncle Tom” and “Oreos.” Really gettin’ that vibe off a Black former FoxNews contributor who earned a Trump DOJ nomination, complaining about a Black woman on the Supreme Court, because he doesn’t like her legal arguments.Happily you'll be able to watch her rulings while you're in prison, Mr DEI
— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) June 28, 2025
Every Picture Tells A Story
Did you know that Trump knows more about every subject on earth than anyone else? He says he does. pic.twitter.com/lyahj2vn42
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) April 3, 2024
"MAGA allows for no breathing room after a tragedy, no space for unity. Instead, they immediately use the corpses to score political points without regard for facts. Trump is a small, petty man & as a result, the GOP becomes smaller & pettier every day." https://t.co/KFHERy5tK1
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 28, 2025
SNAFU
Professor Vladeck breaks it down for you:
The majority never actually explains why CASA (the lead private plaintiff in the Maryland challenge to the birthright citizenship executive order) can receive complete relief with an injunction that applies only to it and its members. Although the lower courts hadn’t spent much time on this issue (yet another issue with the Court deciding this question through emergency applications), CASA had specifically argued in the Supreme Court that it couldn’t get complete relief without a universal remedy. That said, given that the majority unambiguously voted to stay the injunction in the CASA case, it seems to have at least implicitly concluded that a CASA-specific injunction is sufficient.The Court ruled that only where “complete relief” can be provided by a universal injunction, can such an injunction be valid. And what is “complete relief”? The Court declined to say (following in the tradition of Trump v US). But I’m interested in the parenthetical. The Court took this on emergency appeal, before the case had finished in the trial court, gone through appeals (which could include remands, new trials, new appeals. The ordinary course of business, IOW, before the Court decided its primary purpose is to protect Trump at all costs. After this opinion, that mask is definitely off.), and so before the parties had briefed ALL the issues raised by this case. None of that would have stopped the Court from ruling on the substantive legal question; but they planted their “Trump Uber Alles” flag when they took the emergency appeal; which was no emergency at all.
But the other two cases before the Supreme Court have states as plaintiffs. And although the Trump administration had asked the justices to knock the states out, the Court (implicitly) declined in today’s ruling. So those cases go forward with state plaintiffs, for which the complete relief question is much harder.As I’ve said, the Court is more interested in questions of procedure and equity than in the issues procedure and equity are meant to ensure, which is justice. They take up Trump’s emergency appeals, and then use the “emergency” to limit their rulings to one issue, declining to address the consequences of their decisions until further proceedings can occur. In the case of Trump v U.S. that is practically an impossibility. How many criminal cases will come through the courts regarding the parameters of “official Presidential duties”? Since there has been only one criminal prosecution regarding a former president in American history. And I guess now the question of birthright citizenship has to “percolate” through the courts. And what about Professor Vladeck’s hypothetical?
Imagine, for instance, if the executive order goes into effect in, say, Texas (which is not one of the plaintiffs), but not in New Jersey (which is). New Jersey has pretty good arguments that the injunction has to cover babies born in Texas, or else it will be harmed both with respect to having to have different rules depending upon where babies are born and a concern that babies born in New Jersey will lose benefits (and maybe even face deportation) if they ever enter Texas. If a district court buys those arguments, then we could quickly see another universal injunction blocking the executive order—now with the analysis that the Supreme Court has held is necessary.
Escape From New York
I’ve seen that movie.Trump on El Salvador: "They've built a massive prison system. It's a hell of a system. We bring people there, and when they go there, they don't get out ... it's a brilliant system." pic.twitter.com/QSxVA2n0Ol
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 27, 2025
Friday, June 27, 2025
“I Know You Are, But What Am I?”
“You were not only near the president daily, but you were ‘alongside the ranks of the president’s top confidantes,’” Comer wrote to Jean Pierre. The Kentucky Republican also slammed the ex-White House press secretary's public denials of Biden’s health rumors as “cheap fakes” and “misinformation” that he warned, “cannot go without investigation.”Replace “Biden” with “Trump” in every statement by Comer, and see if it changes anything about the allegations.
“Comer set interview dates in late August and early September and gave the four senior officials until July 4 to confirm they would comply with the demands voluntarily or if they will "require a subpoena to compel your attendance for a deposition,’” according to Fox News Digital. He previously subpoenaed Biden’s physician and another aide after they refused to testify, the outlet noted.
“As part of our aggressive investigation into the cover-up of his cognitive decline and potentially unauthorized executive actions, we must hear from those who aided and abetted this farce,” Comer said in a statement. "President Biden’s inner circle repeatedly told the American people that he was ‘sharp as ever,’ dismissing any commentary about his obvious mental decline as ‘gratuitous,’" he said. "They fed these false talking points to progressive allies and the media, who helped perpetuate that President Biden was fit to serve."
The Race To Meaninglessness
George Conway has thoughts, and a gift link to the article, here:
Gift link to a chilling report from Haaretz that everyone should read. Even if only a fraction of this (and some of the paper’s previous detailed reporting on possible war crimes) is true, we should all be deeply saddened and sickened, as I am right now."I, too, have sailed the world,/beheld its wonders/For the cruelty of man/is as wondrous as Tibet.”
Dumb As A Box Of Rocks 🪨
Who’s gonna tell Trump that if he does business in any state in the union, he can be subject to the laws of that state? And it’s no different doing business in other countries.Trump on EU: They are very nasty… We have the cards far more than they do.
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 27, 2025
They’re constantly suing Apple and Google and all of these companies. And getting in front of judges that essentially almost work for them. I guess they do work for them. The European union judges pic.twitter.com/FzCFAttDRT
Apple and Google are two prime examples of multinational companies. Someone please inform (at least try!) the Idiot in Chief.Trump on the EU: I don’t want them affecting US companies. If anybody is going to affect a US company, I want it to be us. pic.twitter.com/w4O0S3jqW2
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 27, 2025
He will never understand how the Federal Reserve is organized, will he?Trump on a question on Fed Chair Powell: He’s a stupid person— stubborn mule…I've instructed my people not to do any debt beyond nine months or so. Get this guy out.. if I think somebody's going to keep the rates where they are, or whatever, I'm not going to put them in. I'm… pic.twitter.com/8yokvITRZN
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 27, 2025
The man’s never been near a gas pump in his life. Certainly not since the 1980’s, where his brain seems to be stuck.Trump: Gasoline now is down to close to $2 in a lot of places. A couple of places… it's like $1.98 a gallon. pic.twitter.com/5hCOSC0btr
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 27, 2025
The first time he said this, it was to Zelensky. A few weeks later Ukraine unleashed a crippling drone attack on Russia. So, what is the EU going to do to us?Trump on the European Union: "They're nasty. They're very nasty ... we have the cards far more than they do." pic.twitter.com/V8Ev6YdvDK
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 27, 2025
😈asked a detailed question about the DR Congo-Rwanda deal he's touting, Trump immediately punts it to someone else pic.twitter.com/Iu7vQIwCq6
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 27, 2025
Elie Honig Shows His Hand
Honig told a CNN panel that he doesn't think that this is a Democrat vs. Republican issue. President Joe Biden's administration made the same argument in the court that the Trump administration did, he noted.One cannot help but note this opinion was not handed down under Biden, by a Court that has never been shy about ruling on the issue neither party had briefed. And yet, when it comes to Trump and his arguments for a more unitary executive….
"What this is, though, is a seismic shift in power as between the presidency and the courts. It means that district courts — that's our federal trial-level courts — there's 600 or so district court judges around the country, can no longer, generally speaking, ban some sort of presidential action, block a presidential action for the whole country. However, the notion that this is the end ... I'm looking at Justice Jackson here in her dissent. 'This is our collective demise. The constitutional republic will be no more.' That's overstated."Even when that Presidential action involves a groundless constitutional interpretation that affects every person in the United States? But now affects only those persons not under the jurisdiction of the trial courts where the Presidential action was challenged? And again involves the Court buying, wholesale, the arguments of Trump for the power of the President?
The nation has survived more than 200 years without nationwide injunctions, he noted. They only began happening in the 2000s with George W. Bush's administration.Or about the time Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld were implementing the most expansive reach of Presidential power in American history? And even then, Bush got an AUMF from Congress before he attacked Afghanistan or Iraq.
Jessica: To the idea that it is Democrats who only use this, it’s blatantly false. The reason we don’t have student debt forgiveness from President Biden is that Republicans got a nationwide injunction. People like AG Ken Paxton, there’s a judge in Texas he likes a lot that’s… pic.twitter.com/2XrJV1PtWC
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 27, 2025
there’s a judge in Texas he likes a lot that’s puts out injunctions for the entire nation so let’s not make this about partisan politics.That’s for the Roberts Court to do.
Clouds And Silver Linings
That was quick (and smart):
Wow was that fast--an immigrant advocate group already filed an amended complaint seeking class action relief in its birthright citizenship case in federal court in MarylandFiled in the case the Supremes just ruled on.
Trump: "Thanks to this decision, we can now promptly file to proceed with numerous policies that have been wrongly enjoined on a nationwide basis, and some of the cases we're talking about would be ending birthright citizenship, which now comes to the fore. That was meant for the… pic.twitter.com/RCmj72GV8Q
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 27, 2025
Trump: "Thanks to this decision, we can now promptly file to proceed with numerous policies that have been wrongly enjoined on a nationwide basis, and some of the cases we're talking about would be ending birthright citizenship, which now comes to the fore. That was meant for the babies of slaves."Nope.
This is a lie (as usual). While I disagree with the decision, IT LEAVES THE INJUNCTIONS OF THE BIRTHRIGHT EO IN PLACE, just narrows them to the plaintiffs. And it does not limit nationwide class actions, which will be filed to achieve the identical outcomes. The EO remains unconstitutional.(Well, remains presumptively unconstitutional; for now.) And if their substantive argument is what Trump is advancing, I don’t think even Thomas and Alito would go for it.
The Way We Live Today
Well, we won’t know anytime soon:asked what he wants to see from Iran to prove they've given up their nuclear ambitions, Trump goes on a long rant about how the media disrespected the troops and says, "I don't believe that their going to go back into nuclear anytime soon." pic.twitter.com/EBM8GyUvhh
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 27, 2025
All of this is an inevitable consequence of Trump tearing up the JCPOA in his first term. There is no other reason why we are where we are with Iran today.This was an inevitable collateral consequence of the bombings and will likely remain the case for quite some time. pic.twitter.com/qjAMSGGZNQ
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) June 27, 2025
A Thought Experiment…
Sotomayor makes a compelling point that it should factor in," he told the host. "This is a great example of something that the government is so likely to lose on. And one of the other things I thought she raised that I thought was important was think about this going the other way?"Every silver lining has a cloud. 🌧️
"What if the next president, a Democrat president, for example, says, 'I hereby issue an executive order: we're collecting all the guns. We're collecting them all tomorrow, we're going house to house, and we interpret the Constitution. The Second Amendment is saying, well, we're only talking about militia. And that's, oh, I don't know, the National Guard. Therefore, your AR-15 is now going to be collected by our authorities.'"
"Imagine the same thing," he suggested. "Someone would immediately go to a district court to challenge that as unconstitutional and so now what does this mean that we now need to wait for as the attorney general or Solicitor General John Sauer said, for these cases to percolate up through the system?"
I Try To Save My Outrage For The Truly Heinous
First #SCOTUS ruling today is birthright citizenship.So, for the time being, the 14th amendment to the constitution only applies to persons covered by the immediate jurisdiction of the courts in which relief was sought.
Justice Barrett, for a 6-3 majority (with the three Dem. appointees dissenting) holds that universal injunctions are only appropriate when necessary to provide "complete" relief to parties, and stays these injunctions insofar as they go further:
When a federal court issues a universal injunction against the government, it “improper[ly] intru[des]” on “a coordinate branch of the Government” and prevents the Government from enforcing its policies against non parties.
This explained without irony in a section that claims Justice Jackson’s dissent is incoherent.
The conclusion seems to be that the Executive can interpret constitutional provisions and call it “policy” and rewrite the Constitution as it applies to people who aren’t under the jurisdiction of whichever court is chosen to challenge such an interpretation. Which means the “policy” applies to the rest of us. Because, you know, equitable jurisdiction, and all that. No, really:
The individual and associational respondents are therefore wrong to characterize the universal injunction as simply an application of the complete-relief principle. Under this principle, the question is not whether an injunction offers complete relief to everyone potentially affected by an allegedly unlawful act; it is whether an injunction will offer complete relief to the plaintiffs before the court. See Califano v. Yamasaki, 442 U. S. 682, 702 (1979) (“[I]njunctive relief should be no more burdensome to the defendant than necessary to provide complete relief to the plaintiffs” (emphasis added)). Here, prohibiting enforcement of the Executive Order against the child of an individual pregnant plaintiff will give that plaintiff complete relief: Her child will not be denied citizenship. Extending the injunction tocover all other similarly situated individuals would not render her relief any more complete.
How the government is burdened by not being able to declare anyone it chooses a non-citizen despite the 14th Amendment is not explained. How that policy burdens the entire nation, is not addressed. This Justice Barrett and the majority consider “coherent” reasoning. The mind boggles.
And what happens if the government loses in that district, but decides to go full speed ahead in the rest of the country, never taking the case to the Supremes, who now alone have national jurisdiction over constitutional interpretation questions? Rest assured, O best beloved; the Court has been told by the Solicitor General that will never happen:
The dissent worries that the Citizenship Clause challenge will neverreach this Court, because if the plaintiffs continue to prevail, they will have no reason to petition for certiorari. And if the Government keeps losing, it will “ha[ve] no incentive to file a petition here . . . because the outcome of such an appeal would be preordained.” Post, at 42 (opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J.). But at oral argument, the Solicitor General acknowledged that challenges to the Executive Order are pending in multiple circuits, Tr. of Oral Arg. 50, and when asked directly “When you lose one of those, do you intend to seek cert?”, the Solicitor General responded, “yes, absolutely.” Ibid. And while the dissent speculates that the Government would disregard an unfavorable opinion from this Court, the Solicitor General represented that the Government will respect both the judgments and the opinions of this Court. See id., at 62–63.
Justice Sotomayor's dissent is worth quoting in whole, but I'll only do it in part. The best place to start is where she does:
Children born in the United States and subject to its laws are United States citizens. That has been the legal rule since the founding, and it was the English rule well before then. This Court once attempted to repudiate it, holding in Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 393 (1857), that the children of enslaved black Americans were not citizens. To remedy that grievous error, the States passed in 1866 and Congress ratified in 1868 the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause, which enshrined birthright citizenship in the Constitution. There it has remained, accepted and respected by Congress, by the Executive, and by this Court. Until today.
It is now the President who attempts, in an Executive Order (Order or Citizenship Order), to repudiate birthright citizenship. Every court to evaluate the Order has deemed it patently unconstitutional and, for that reason, has enjoined the Federal Government from enforcing it. Undeterred, the Government now asks this Court to grant emergency relief, insisting it will suffer irreparable harm unless it can deprive at least some children born in the United States of citizenship. See Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship, Exec. Order No. 14160, 90 Fed. Reg. 8849 (2025).
The Government does not ask for complete stays of the injunctions, as it ordinarily does before this Court. Why? The answer is obvious: To get such relief, the Government would have to show that the Order is likely constitutional, an impossible task in light of the Constitution’s text, history, this Court’s precedents, federal law, and Executive Branch practice. So the Government instead tries its hand at a different game. It asks this Court to hold that, no matter how illegal a law or policy, courts can never simply tell the Executive to stop enforcing it against anyone. Instead, the Government says, it should be able to apply the Citizenship Order (whose legality it does not defend) to everyone except the plaintiffs who filed this lawsuit.
The gamesmanship in this request is apparent and the Government makes no attempt to hide it. Yet, shamefully, this Court plays along. A majority of this Court decides that these applications, of all cases, provide the appropriate occasion to resolve the question of universal injunctions and end the centuries-old practice once and for all. In its rush to do so the Court disregards basic principles of equity as well as the long history of injunctive relief granted to nonparties.
The majority, as Justice Sotomayor says, is happy to let the government play games. And equally happy to ignore the consequences of those games. That issue, after all, is not "before the court."
The equities and public interest weigh decisively against the Government. For all of the reasons discussed, the Citizenship Order is patently unconstitutional. To allow the Government to enforce it against even one newborn child is an assault on our constitutional order and antithetical to equity and public interest. Cf. Salazar v. Buono, 559 U. S.700, 714–715 (2010) (plurality opinion) (“‘[A] court must never ignore . . . circumstances underlying [equitable relief] lest the decree be turned into an “instrument of wrong”’”).
Meanwhile, newborns subject to the Citizenship Order will face the gravest harms imaginable. If the Order does in fact go into effect without further intervention by the District Courts, children will lose, at least for the time being, “a most precious right,” Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez, 372 U. S. 144, 159 (1963), and “cherished status” that “carries with it the privilege of full participation in the affairs of our society,” Knauer v. United States, 328 U. S. 654, 658 (1946). Affected children also risk losing the chance to participate in American society altogether, unless their parents have sufficient resources to file individual suits or successfully challenge the Citizenship Order in removal proceedings. Indeed, the Order risks the “creation of a substantial ‘shadow population’” for covered children born in the United States who remain here. Plyler, 457 U. S., at 218. Without Social Security numbers and other documentation, these children will be denied critical public services, like SNAP and Medicaid, and lose the ability to engage fully in civic life by being born in States that have not filed a lawsuit. Worse yet, the Order threatens to render American-born children stateless, a status “deplored in the international community” for causing “the total destruction of the individual’s status in organized society.” Trop v. Dulles, 356 U. S. 86, 101–102 (1958) (plurality opinion). That threat hangs like a guillotine over this litigation.
The Order will cause chaos for the families of all affected children too, as expecting parents scramble to understand whether the Order will apply to them and what ramifications it will have. If allowed to take effect, the Order may even wrench newborns from the arms of parents lawfully in the United States, for it purports to strip citizenship from the children of parents legally present on a temporary basis. See 90 Fed. Reg. 8449. Those newborns could face deportation, even as their parents remain lawfully in the country. In light of all these consequences, there can be no serious question over where the equities lie in these cases.
It is worth adding that Justice Sotomayor takes no prisoners (and read her dissent from the bench):
The Court’s decision is nothing less than an open invitation for the Government to bypass the Constitution. The Executive Branch can now enforce policies that flout settled law and violate countless individuals’ constitutional rights, and the federal courts will be hamstrung to stop its actions fully. Until the day that every affected person manages to become party to a lawsuit and secures for himself injunctive relief, the Government may act lawlessly indefinitely.
Not even a decision from this Court would necessarily bind the Government to stop, completely and permanently, its commission of unquestionably unconstitutional conduct. The majority interprets the Judiciary Act, which defines the equity jurisdiction for all federal courts, this Court included, as prohibiting the issuance of universal injunctions (unless necessary for complete relief ). What, besides equity, enables this Court to order the Government to cease completely the enforcement of illegal policies? The majority does not say. So even if this Court later rules that the Citizenship Order is unlawful, we may nevertheless lack the power to enjoin enforcement as to anyone not formally a party before the Court. In a case where the Government is acting in open defiance of the Constitution, federal law, and this Court’s holdings, it is naive to believe the Government will treat this Court’s opinions on those policies as “de facto” universal injunctions absent an express order directing total nonenforcement. Ante, at 6 (opinion of KAVANAUGH, J.).
Indeed, at oral argument, the Government refused to commit to obeying any court order issued by a Federal Court of Appeals holding the Citizenship Order unlawful (except with respect to the plaintiffs in the suit), even within the relevant Circuit. Tr. of Oral Arg. 61–63. To the extent the Government cannot commit to compliance with Court of Appeals decisions in those Circuits, it offers no principled reason why it would treat the opinions of this Court any differently nationwide. Thus, by stripping even itself of the ability to issue universal injunctions, the Court diminishes its role as “the ultimate decider of the interim [and permanent] legal status of major new federal statutes and executive actions.” Ante, at 3 (opinion of KAVANAUGH, J.).
There is a serious question, moreover, whether this Court will ever get the chance to rule on the constitutionality of a policy like the Citizenship Order. Contra, ante, at 6 (opinion of KAVANAUGH, J.) (“[T]he losing parties in the courts of appeals will regularly come to this Court in matters involving major new federal statutes and executive actions”). In the ordinary course, parties who prevail in the lower courts generally cannot seek review from this Court, likely leaving it up to the Government’s discretion whether a petition willbe filed here.10 These cases prove the point: Every court to consider the Citizenship Order’s merits has found that it is unconstitutional in preliminary rulings. Because respond- ents prevailed on the merits and received universal injunctions, they have no reason to file an appeal. The Government has no incentive to file a petition here either, because the outcome of such an appeal would be preordained. The Government recognizes as much, which is why its emergency applications challenged only the scope of the preliminary injunctions.
This started out as my reaction to a very poorly reasoned argument that withdraws entirely (and weakly, IMHLO) into arcane discussions of law while ignoring the impact on literally everyone except the Executive. Sound jurisprudence (by which I mean the philosophy of law guiding the argument) always considers the effect of law on persons; it is never about the rule of law for the rule of law’s sake. There is always an awareness of the need to balance conflicting interests. Except for the swipes at Justice Jackson, who clearly got under Barrett’s skin, this opinion could have been written by a robot programmed to cite the law and ignore the human consequences. That said, I defer to the expertise of Professor Vladeck as to what the future brings:
Super-quick take while reading the ruling:I defer because Professor Vladeck understands the law better than I, and because Justice Sotomayor notes that class action injunctions are still available under Rule 23(b)(2) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, despite the ruling today. This may be what Professor Vladeck is referring to. I look forward to further explication of his reassurances. But the majority opinion here is not reassuring at all. This is a law for law's sake ruling, and damn the consequences! And that is not sound judicial practice at all.
This is going to be a much bigger deal for challenges to *other* Trump policies than to birthright citizenship (where it's likely that lower courts will still be able to block the policy on a nationwide basis even after this ruling).
*That's* the import.
“Sentence first, verdict afterwards”
Well, not according to tge Deputy White House Press Secretary:And yes, AP is literally reporting on what DOJ said to the judge in open court:DHS official Tricia McLaughlin on Kilmar Abrego Garcia: "Ultimately, his last place will be off of US soil in El Salvador, where he belongs." pic.twitter.com/xcec3dJQ8F
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 27, 2025
XINIS: Wanted to get you on line bc I have preliminary questions and want to set schedule. It's an unusual order.They still don’t realize they ARE the government, do they?
First question is for DOJ: What's plan after release order issues for Abrego?
DOJ: Immigration proceedings and my understanding is removal to 3rd country (not El Salvador)
In law, “person” means people pre-approved by the GOP. In talking points.Leavitt without a trace of irony: "When you have a totalitarian regime, you have to save face. I think any common sense, open-minded person knows the truth about the precision strikes on Saturday night. They were wildly successful." pic.twitter.com/JfeywPggBH
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 26, 2025
Remember hearing about the Japanese internment camps? Yeah; we’re nostalgic for those, it seems.Ron DeSantis, showing off his detention camp:
— Richard Hall (@_RichardHall) June 27, 2025
"There'll be an ability for them to consult legal rights, if they have that." https://t.co/THlY3G97KT
One only attacks one’s enemies, n’est-ce pas?Rieckhoff: That’s America’s Secretary of Defense. I wish he attacked Vladimir Putin as aggressively as he attacks CNN and others pic.twitter.com/QvBE8pWwpB
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 27, 2025
Thursday, June 26, 2025
Every Accusation…
During the campaign one candidate talked extensively as if a fictional character was real and based his concept of immigration on "insane asylums."
— Panican Skywalker (@ThomasJCarcetti) June 26, 2025
The media collectively decided that the other candidate was mentally incompetent. https://t.co/zEu47P6Nad
Trump: "How could you allow people to come in where you can look at them and say, 'Big trouble.' Why would you do it? A lot of people say voting, but we've gotta strengthen up our elections because the voting is crooked as hell. We gotta strengthen it up." pic.twitter.com/A3zitVEfiz
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 26, 2025
...is a confession.Trump turns reality upside down: "We're gonna make it better than ever before, and that's despite the bad hand we were dealt six months ago. We were dealt a really bad hand. A sick hand ... how could you allowed this to happen to your country?" pic.twitter.com/qbvlnneNZC
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 26, 2025
Trump: "Somebody came up with the idea of a paperclip. Many years ago. 1817. And he became a very rich person." pic.twitter.com/ZzEVFz6oZP
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 26, 2025
Or it’s just a brain fart.💨Trump on Jerome Powell: "Biden extended him. That wasn't good." (Trump appointed him.) pic.twitter.com/v2PRV3p8sC
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 26, 2025