I took off this week to come to Gaeltacht — one of the small areas on this wee island in which locals still use Irish on a daily basis — to try to learn more Gaeilge.

It’s a curious place to spend the Fourth of July.

When I decided to come here it meant little more to me than a place I could immerse myself, sort of, for a week. The blurbs said little more than that the school offered both language classes and cultural classes — things like harp playing and weaving and folklore. But being here, it has the feel of one of the Jesuit retreat centers at which my late mother guided retreats: in a stunningly beautiful remote location, where you can hear and often cannot escape from the wind and — on the occasional clear day — see the stars, and a whole rhythm to the day to facilitate a kind of contemplation.

It is a place people come to contemplate Irishness or perhaps to use Irishness as a means to contemplate.

A storyteller who performed the other day spoke about the rhythm of it all: the rhythm of the language, of the music, of the verse, of the dance, of the weaving.

It’s a place where people — Irish people, people who identify as Irish, and people who take meaning from Irishness — come to preserve and participate in those traditions that sustained Irishness during colonization. Both because of that “Saving Civilization” bit (one of Ireland’s founding saints lived here for a bit and, as is true of many places on the coast, there’s an island nearby with an old ruined monastery) and because of the recurring Irish effort to build a nation out of the oral tradition that refused to be stamped out by the British, Irishness serves as a celebrated from-ness, to people far and near, even if (and if we’re honest, partly because) Ireland went through a lot of death and misery to get there.

And so it is here in this beautiful place of from-ness that I look west and contemplate a celebration of the Colonies’ break from the same empire from which Ireland would, eventually, free itself too, free itself in significant part by building on that oral tradition. As cities cancel the celebration of defying Kings because a white man who wants to disappear all the diverse from-ness that Made America Great has started disappearing actual people, I am thinking about how this from-ness in which I’m immersed (sort of), is what my ancestors and those of millions others brought to America to make up an identity called Irish-American. That process of bringing a from-ness to (or, for Native Americans, sustaining it in) America has been replicated in thousands of ways. The part of America that is Great is the one that weaves all that diverse from-ness together into one tapestry.

As you wonder whether there is anything to celebrate, as you reflect on how Trump views the list of injuries and usurpations in the Declaration as an aspiration, not an admonition, consider the ways in which your own from-ness and those of everyone around you is both that thing that Stephen Miller is trying to kill, both figuratively and literally. But also something that can provide a rhythm to sustain you.

That’s what he wants to suffocate: The very tapestry that Makes America Great.

Is America a nation that weaves together or one that, like the British attempted but failed, stamps out?

This is a political battle. But even more it is a cultural one.

No Kings.

Note: I’m going to be really busy for the next two days so won’t be in comments. I’ll check in tomorrow night. 

Trump v. CASA Inc., decided June 27, continues the personal project of John Roberts to enhance the power of the executive at the expense of the other two branches of government. It continues the work of Trump v. United States,  where Roberts gave Trump almost unlimited power to ignore Congress as he sees fit. It follows his weakening of statutes he doesn’t like, his refusal to allow Biden to exercise the authority given him by Congress, as in the student loan case, Biden v. Nebraska, and many other cases.

This post will show how these cases weaken the legislature and the judiciary while strengthening the President. That is profoundly anti-democratic.

Trump v. United States

Here’s a reasonably fair summary of Trump v. United States, which I offer because I refuse to pretend to be neutral about it and don’t seem to be able to make myself read it again anyway.  Read the real thing if you can; it’s a breath-taking demonstration of judicial hubris, based on the ridiculous idea that these six rogues can create a rule for the ages, and the even dumber idea that what this nation really needs is a “vigorous” president, unafraid to push against the boundaries of the law as set by the legislature and judicial precedent.

Trump v. CASA Inc.

This case is a government request for relief from nationwide injunctions barring enforcement of the obviously unconstitutional Trump executive order denying birthright citizenship to a large number of babies born here, causing untold damage to them and their families and inflicting untold costs on the states.

The Dissent filed by Ketanji Brown Jackson gives a clear picture of the case.

It is important to recognize that the Executive’s bid to vanquish 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 saying is that the Executive wants to continue doing something that a court has determined violates the Constitution— please allow this.

Snip

To hear the majority tell it, this suit raises a mind-numbingly technical query: Are universal injunctions “sufficiently ‘analogous’ to the relief issued ‘by the High Court of Chancery in England at the time of the adoption of the Constitution and the enactment of the original Judiciary Act’” to fall within the equitable authority Congress granted federal courts in the Judiciary Act of 1789? Ante, at 6. But that legalese is a smokescreen. It obscures a far more basic question of enormous legal and practical significance: May a federal court in the United States of America order the Executive to follow the law?

Speaking for the anti-democratic majority, Amy Coney Barrett says no. The courts cannot order the Executive to follow the law unless that is necessary to provide complete relief to the parties to the litigation. Her “reasoning” is that the Judiciary Act doesn’t allow a court to give relief to a non-party. Why? Because such relief would not have been allowed under the English Common Law.

Art. III, §1 of the Constitution provides in part as follows:

The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.

Barrett says that the judicial power of the United States is limited to the powers of the English High Court of Chancery in 1789. That’s absurd. In Marbury v. Madison, the Supreme Court held that it had the final say on Constitutional questions. That is not true under English law, and certainly not for Courts of Chancery.

Barrett cites Marbury once;

See, e.g., Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137 (1803) (concluding that James Madison had violated the law but holding that the Court lacked jurisdiction to issue a writ of mandamus ordering him to follow it).

The Wikipedia entry explains that the Court in Marbury first held that the Judiciary Act gave the Supreme Court original jurisdiction in cases of mandamus. That was greater than the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court granted in Article III. Therefore that section of the Judiciary Act was unconstitutional, and was struck down. Marbury specifically holds that mandamus would be appropriate, but that it would have to proceed through a trial court. Does that sound like Barrett’s citation? No it does not.

Under Barrett’s holding, it is not clear exactly how the judicial branch is to act as a check on the executive branch. There is some discussion about class actions and other techniques. But there is no certainty. Perhaps the decisive factor is this:

Finally, the Government must show a likelihood that it will suffer irreparable harm absent a stay. When a federal court enters 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 nonparties. That is enough to justify interim relief. Cite omitted.

In other words, the only harm that matters on injunctive relief is the government’s. The damage to everyone else, to every person in the same position as the named parties, is irrelevant. The damage done to the rule of law by allowing a patently unconstitutional and immoral harm is irrelevant.

Comparing Trump v. CASA Inc. and Trump v. United States

1. In both cases, SCOTUS ignores the facts of the case. The indictment in Trump v. United States said that Trump conspired to overturn an election, and laid out substantial factual allegations to support the claim. Roberts natters on about core powers and such, ignoring the fact that there are no circumstances in which overturning an election is a core executive anything.

In CASA, Barrett ignores the damage Trump and his henchmen do by imposing a blatantly unconstitutional policy on non-parties.

2 In both cases SCOTUS imposes an outcome that favors one political party. In Trump v. United States the decision favors Trump. There is no reasonable observer who thinks this would have been the outcome if that indictment had been charged against a Democrat.

In CASA, Barrett says that Gorsuch, Alito, Thomas, and Kavanaugh had previously raised questions about nationwide injunctions, including those levied against the Biden administration. Either she or Roberts or both could have joined with those four to deal with the problem in any of the cases raised by Biden. But no. Then, suddenly, a few weeks after Trump’s second term begins, they both decide this is an important Constitutional issue that must be totally resolved in favor of Trump and the Republicans.

3. In both cases, the power of the coordinate branches of government is weakened. In Trump v. United States, Roberts strangled the power of Congress to control the actions of the President. The holding makes it clear that Trump is entitled to do whatever he wants with the powers given him by law, and can only be held accountable under highly limited circumstance, to be determined later by him and his crew.

The decision also weakened the power of the judiciary to check the executive branch. It gave no guidance to lower courts or prosecutors. It sets itself up as the arbiter, a role it can easily duck. It insures vast delays in any effort to enforce the law against a criminal president.

The opinion in In CASA weakens the power of the judiciary to check the actions of a lawless executive branch, this time directly. It also weakened the power of Congress. Existing laws can only be enforced piecemeal against a lawless president.

In both cases, the power of the President is exalted above all other considerations.

The attack on democracy

Both cases should be seen as part of a decades-long attack on democracy. The legislature is the most democratic branch. It is closest to the citizenry, even given the undemocratic makeup of the Senate. Reducing the power of Congress reduces the influence of voters. By weakening the judiciary, the anti-democratic forces insure that the actions of a lawless executive cannot be controlled.

These aren’t the only attacks by SCOTUS though. The Voting Rights Act was expressly intended to improve our democracy. Roberts struck it down, finding that there is an implicit statute of limitations in the Reconstruction Amendments.

The recent invention of the so-called major questions doctrine weakens the power of the legislature to deal with emergencies. The attacks by SCOTUS on the administrative state are designed to increase the power of the president despite the explicit intent of Congress. Does anyone think Congress would have empowered Trump to decide on the toxicity of lead or the value of specific vaccines? Does anyone think letting Trump direct prosecutions and criminal investigations is a reasonable thing to do?

It’s not just that Roberts and his gang refuse to protect our rights. They actively help Trump destroy our rights.

[NB: check the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]

“Dripping water hollows out stone, not through force but through persistence.”
― Ovid

“A river cuts through rock, not because of its power, but because of its persistence.”
― James N. Watkins

I said empty your mind, be formless, shapeless, like water.
Now you put water into a cup it becomes the cup.
You put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle.
You put it into a teapot it becomes the teapot.
Now water can flow, or it can crash.
Be water, my friend.
― Bruce Lee

After passing in the Senate yesterday, the POS big fugly bill is back in the House for reconciliation where the Senate version is struggling to pull together adequate support for passage across the GOP caucus.

The Freedom Caucus in particular is unhappy with the $3.3 trillion increase to the deficit over the next decade this POS legislation represents.

Trump and J.D. Vance have been calling all the intransigent GOP members trying to coerce their support for the bill, threatening them with primaries.

No word whether Elon Musk and/or his America PAC have been making similar calls offering campaign contributions in exchange for their NO votes.

The situation is fluid. It could change rapidly.

You, too, need to be fluid and make like water. Be persistent. Keep calling your representative and let them know you want them to vote NO on this wretched bill.

Remind them, too, they are part of a co-equal branch of government and should not cow to another branch ― especially a branch which is supposed to “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” not order other branches around.

Call the Congressional switchboard: (202) 224-3121 or use Resist.bot or 5Calls.org.

[NB: check the byline, thanks. Update at bottom of this post. /~Rayne]

You knew eventually there would be intraparty autophagy given the conflict that emerged between Trump and his DOGE leader.

The leopard that bought a social media platform to ensure Trump and his party were elected is ready to gnaw on their faces. They were uncritical of Musk’s use of his Nazi bar X to aid their party, wholly accepting the wretchedness published alongside right-wing propaganda bolstering their position.

Now they’re going to have to face the fact the richest man in the world — the one person who could buy the lot of them with the change he can earn in a single day — is utterly enraged with them all.

I can’t blame him for feeling this way, either. I can’t stand Musk but I can understand his point of view.

Imagine burning up hundreds of millions of dollars, perhaps even billions, of personal capital by personally taking on Trump’s Project 2025 government elimination measures as leader of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The Tesla Takedown movement was in no small part a response to Musk slashing away at government without restraint.

Then the party he supported with his $44 billion dollar acquisition of Twitter completely trashed that sacrifice by increasing the budget deficit while trying to hide the $3.3 trillion increase from the public, extending the debt ceiling to pay for their bullshit including the massive expansion of ICE.

Gnaw away, Musk. You bought it, you broke it, you own it. Bon appetit!

The last time Musk threatened to launch a new political party in opposition to the GOP, Trump got pissy and made a counterthreat.

This time I would watch for more than an exchange of words. Tells about Musk’s seriousness would include:

• Establishment of one or more national PACs to fund the new party;
• Establishment of one or more state and/or national PACs to run campaigns against incumbent GOP congress members;
• Co-option of existing libertarian/GOP/conservative PACs for the same (think Russia’s dark money co-option of the National Rifle Association from 2012-2016);
• Creation of an umbrella organization and subset entities across all 50 states and the territories launching the new party presence;
• Recruitment of candidates who are willing to run under the new party banner.

Meanwhile, Musk could continue to use the dead bird app to support his efforts, this time against the GOP. It worked to get them elected, it could work against them as well. Not a lot of additional investment required, especially since Trump’s big fugly bill is so damned unpopular making weaponization of the bill against the GOP a piece of cake.

Musk was worth $363 billion dollars today, even after losing $4.38 billion since Friday. That’s $100 billion more than the next richest man, Jeff Bezos. This is the kind of money which can buy small nations — it’s already bought an American general election. A single good day’s gain in the stock market could easily yield more cash for campaign contributions than the contributions made in 2024:

Between January 2023 and April 2024, US political campaigns collected around $8.6 billion for the 2024 House, Senate, and presidential elections. Over 65% of that money, about $5.6 billion, came from political action committees (PACs).

(source: USA Facts)

The danger to the left should Musk make good his threat: a new political party aiming at taking out the GOP in thrall to their mob boss Trump may peel away some part of the Democratic Party.

Could be centrists (including the not-well-closeted racists, misogynists, and bigots) who feel threatened by the inclusiveness of those left of them.

Could be the gerontocracy within the Democratic Party who feel their death grip on power and relevance weakening.

Could be the horseshoe left which shares fewer ideals with progressives and centrists than the far right.

Whatever the case, the Democratic Party needs to stay clear of the leopards as they claw at each other; they need to offer a strong, clear vision of the future while working on the vulnerable states and districts.

North Carolina, for example, is now in play given Sen. Thom Tillis’s principled stance on the big fugly bill, choosing not to run for re-election instead of kowtowing to the GOP’s mob boss.

Let the leopards gnaw on each other. Stay clear, get busy.

~ ~ ~

Action Items:

• Check out Indivisible’s Stop The Cuts page, especially the Take Action Now section near the bottom of the page.

• Weak on federal budget terminology? See the federal budget glossary at National Priorities Project.

• Or simply keep up the pressure and contact your senators to tell them to vote NO on H.R. 1 One Big Beautiful Bill Act, recruit others to do the same. Congressional switchboard: (202) 224-3121 or use Resist.bot or 5Calls.

~ ~ ~

UPDATE — 8:30 AM ET —

Far more predictable than the weather. Somebody’s Depends are twisted about Musk’s threat.

Trump threatens to re-examine government support for Elon Musk’s companies as mogul trashes megabill
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-threatens-re-examine-government-support-elon-musks-companies-tra-rcna216156

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump threatened to sic the Department of Government Efficiency on Elon Musk’s businesses, saying in a Truth Social post shortly after midnight that there was “big money to be saved.”

“Elon may get more subsidy than any human being in history, by far, and without subsidies, Elon would probably have to close up shop and head back home to South Africa,” Trump said in the post. “No more Rocket launches, Satellites, or Electric Car Production, and our Country would save a FORTUNE.”

“Perhaps we should have DOGE take a good, hard, look at this?” the president added.

A spokesperson for the Musk-backed America PAC did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In the hours after Trump’s post, Musk reposted several graphics on X depicting a climbing national debt, which currently sits at more than $36 trillion, according to government data.

Emphasis mine. I am thinking of the aphorism, “I never argue with a man who buys ink by the barrel,” antique in the digital age.

Musk can spill a lot more bits and pixels using X than Trump can with his personal social media platform.

Still amazing even after all of Trump’s previous tantrums that he believes it’s acceptable to weaponize government against an individual exercising their First Amendment rights, to benefit his personal and partisan agenda. Is this an official act? Debatable.

Whatever the case I’m buying popcorn futures this morning ahead of Round 3.

[NB: check the byline, thanks. Updates will be added at the bottom of this post. /~Rayne]

Trump’s big ugly bill will be up for a vote in the Senate this morning.

It takes money from hungry children and gives it to the already rich as Marcy has previously said, and the Center for Budget Policy and Priorities has quantified.

But this bill is a mortal menace to many Americans because of the bill’s cuts to Medicaid.

ER doctor McNadoMD spelled out the revolting death threats this bill poses:

EMTALA: Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act of 1986. They want to ditch 39-year-old legislation which assures Americans obtain

— a medical screening examination (MSE);
— are stabilized with an emergency medical condition;
— are transferred or accepted as a patient as appropriate and needed.

What are we left with if the GOP Senate knocks off EMTALA?

We already lost so many health care professionals because of COVID and have yet to replace them. COVID also cost this nation hospitals, thanks in no small part to right-wing refuseniks who rejected vaccines and masks. Rural hospitals were at risk of closure before COVID; 19 were closed in 2019. A net 50 rural hospitals were closed between 2017 and 2023.

We simply don’t have enough health care professionals or hospitals BEFORE the damage this bill’s cuts could wreak.

My 94-year-old father-in-law, a veteran, died last August. He ended up in the ER more than three times inside his last 18 months because his nursing home couldn’t handle his needs — basically a soft form of eviction until he was stabilized and returned to the home. This happened in a small town where the resources for his care were limited. If the local hospital closed, he’d have simply been evicted and died.

But I suspect the GOP doesn’t give a shit about lifelong GOP voters once they’re as elderly as my FIL was, without the kind of money to burn on political donations. They certainly don’t care about veterans. The GOP congressional caucus has become the death panels they warned us about.

And who pays for the unpaid ER visits — before the hospital goes bankrupt? We who have private insurance do, through increases to our premiums as hospitals increase overall charges to absorb the losses. This is an invisible tax on us, where Medicaid is fully visible.

In other words this is a definite death sentence for a group of Americans and legal residents who have kidney failure.

I don’t have words for this, but this is reality.

This is a real massacre being staged in the Senate, Kellyanne.

Across America especially in smaller cities and towns, Americans are going to face increasing poverty, illness, and death if this big fugly bill passes.

~ ~ ~

I need to get this post up so that you can see the problem and start working the phones and emails. I’ll continue to add to this post for a bit because you need to read what this ER doctor says about the bill’s likely impact if it passes.

Contact your senators and tell them this bill, H.R. 1 “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” is simply not acceptable. Contact your family and friends, explain quickly how bad this bill is and tell them to contact their senators, too.

Congressional switchboard: (202) 224-3121

or use Resist.bot or 5Calls.

Call even if your senator(s) are Democrats or Independents, because they need to know how you feel, they need to know backsliding isn’t acceptable. Don’t trust they will do the right thing without hearing from you (I’m looking at Pennsylvanians especially given Sen. Fetterman’s increasing unreliability).

~ ~ ~

UPDATE — 2:09 PM ET 01-JUL-2025 —

The POS BFB passed with JD Vance casting the tie breaking vote.

Via Associated Press:

Senate Republicans hauled President Donald Trump’s big tax breaks and spending cuts bill to passage Tuesday on the narrowest of votes, pushing past opposition from Democrats and their own GOP ranks after a turbulent overnight session.

Vice President JD Vance broke a 50-50 tie to push it over the top. The three Republicans opposing the bill were Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky.

The GOP owns this POS. It’s on them, they have committed to hurting this country.

Furthermore, they have completely abandoned any pretense of being the party of fiscal responsibility having voted to add $3.3 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years.

** Do not let this lead you to despair. Let it anger you, and let that righteous anger motivate you to action.**

Continue to call your members of Congress — excoriate them if they voted for this POS BFB, thank them for rejecting it if they didn’t.

Find out when your members of Congress will be home over this break and whether they are having in-district sessions. Be there in person to communicate with them.

Our next major concerns should be how to care for others who will be directly damaged by this GOP bullshit, and how to protect the elections ahead.

Take the holiday break to rest up and ready yourself for the next phase.

Note: I’m obviously failing my effort to get off this website for a week. I haven’t left yet!! But hopefully I can wean myself off this thing for a week starting … now.

Twice yesterday, Alina Habba made claims about prosecutorial priorities that mandate she charge her boss, Donald Trump.

First, she RTed the NJ USAO announcement of charges against someone who threatened several judges.

The charges seem real, involving phoned threats to cut off judges’ fingers or shoot them, though the accused perpetrator left the country (possibly to India) in 2018, and there’s no announcement of an extradition request. Plus, Ricky Patel — the same guy who ginned up the arrest of Ras Baraka after Baraka obeyed Patel’s request to leave a property onto which he had been invited — is involved, which makes it suspect.

In both the Tweet and the press release, Alina Habba, who represented Donald Trump when he routinely attacked judges in that case and others, presumably Tweeting some of those threats from his property in New Jersey, whose attacks led to phoned-in threats to Judge Juan Merchan and his staffers, talked about how heinous it is threaten judges.

“The conduct alleged in the Indictment is as heinous as it is troubling: threats to a federal judge, two state superior court judges, an elected official, and a private New Jersey resident. The conduct is not just reckless — it is a direct attack on our justice system. Targeting those who uphold the rule of law is an attack on every community they serve. This egregious behavior is unacceptable. And, as the charges make clear, no matter where you are, we will find you and hold you responsible.”

Excuse me? If you believe this, Alina, you charge Donald Trump for what you call heinous behavior.

Maybe even consider whether you need to turn yourself in for some of your attacks on the judge?

But Habba wasn’t done.

After that, Habba RTed Kash Patel’s announcement of charges for a man in Florida who allegedly — and I emphasize allegedly — threatened Habba.

Kash claimed this was an instance of a “copycat” threat using “86,” a clear reference to Jim Comey’s Tweeting something he saw on a beach.

A dangerous copycat, fueled by reckless rhetoric from former officials, threatened those protecting our country. Political violence has no place here. Proud of our @FBITampa and thankful to our Florida partners for acting fast to deliver justice.

The indictment in question charges a guy named Salvatore Russotto with two counts — threatening an official and assault (18 USC 111) — for four kinds of statements:

• Calling Alina Habba the C-word, repeatedly
• Hoping she dies a painful death (but not threatening to cause that himself)
• Saying “86” her
• Calling for “death penalty for all traitors”

Kash already charged someone else for using the 86-term, though in that case, the threats were much more graphic and personalized.

But this? Hoping someone dies? Calling someone the C-word?

The only real threat is calling for the death penalty for traitors. Remember Trump’s threats against Liz Cheney? Against Peter Strzok?

How about the time when current FBI Director and then private citizen Kash Patel told a lie about something in a John Durham filing, which led Trump to claim that Michael Sussmann should be put to death?

Trump calls his adversaries traitors all the time, and he has repeatedly called for them to be killed. Speaking of copycat, so did hundreds of the Jan6ers Trump pardoned after they stormed the halls of Congress calling to “Hang Mike Pence.” Those people weren’t charged with assault for that, but then I guess DOJ could now charge them?

And again, some of these threats Trump made undoubtedly were issued from New Jersey, and many of them were less than five years ago.

Of course, Kash’s decision to charge someone for the kind of threat he has facilitated is about Comey, not rule of law, perhaps an attempt to make nothing into something. Kash wants to claim that this is a copycat, but that Jack Posobiec’s even more viral use of the very same term against Joe Biden, also fewer than five years ago, was not.

If I were the lawyer of the guy in Florida, I would raise all this in a selective prosecution bid. As I also would if I represented the Alabama woman charged with bringing home classified documents (also a seemingly legitimate case) after a search the likes of which Kash called “unlawful” when such a search targeted Mar-a-Lago.

Note: As I mentioned at the end of this … I’m going to be out of pocket next week. My goal is to do something I have not done for a decade: to take a week off posting.

Listen on spotify (transcripts available)

Listen on Apple (transcripts available)

[NB: check the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]

We are finally at the end of this torturous SCOTUS term with six decisions expected today.

The most important in my opinion is Trump v. CASA, regarding the reach of a lower court order with regard to Trump’s ban on birthright citizenship.

Today’s decisions follow below and will be added to this post as released; any shadow docket decisions released today will follow in an update at the bottom of this post.

~ ~ ~

Trump v. CASA Inc. — Justice Barrett wrote the 6-3 decision, with the court breaking along ideological lines. Justice Sotomayor wrote a dissent for her, Kagan, and Jackson; Jackson also wrote a dissent.
See: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a884_8n59.pdf

This case centered on district court decisions in Maryland, Massachusetts, and Washington blocking enforcement of Trump’s executive order banning birthright citizenship to persons born in the US depending on the status of their parents’ citizenship. SCOTUS in essence said district courts can only write orders narrowed to the case though birthright citizenship has been recognized since the passage of the Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment in 1868.

Kennedy v. Braidwood Management — Justice Kavanaugh delivered this 6-3 decision; Thomas wrote the dissent which Alito and Gorsuch joined.
See: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24-316_869d.pdf

This case arose from right-wing Christianist attacks on preventative health care under ACA like PrEP intended to prevent HIV infection; they claimed it infringed on their religious rights “by making them complicit in facilitating homosexual behavior, drug use, and sexual activity outside of marriage between one man and one woman.” (Never mind any first responders who might be on PrEP to protect themselves from incidental exposure.) The attack focused on the Appointment Clause attempting to sever the relationship between subordinate officers empaneled by HHS and policy execution; the case has had enormous repercussions affecting other preventative care under ACA.

Federal Communications Commission v. Consumers’ Research — Justice Kagan has the 6-3 decision; Gorsuch filed the dissent which Thomas and Alito joined.
See: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24-354_0861.pdf

summary TK

Mahmoud v. Taylor— Justice Alito wrote the 6-3 decision; Thomas wrote a concurring opinion. Justice Sotomayor filed the dissent, joined by Kagan and Jackson.

See: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24-297_4f14.pdf

summary TK

Free Speech Coalition Inc. v. Paxton — Justice Thomas has the 6-3 decision; Justice Kagan filed a dissent joined by Sotomayor and Jackson.
See: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/23-1122_3e04.pdf

summary TK – though I must add RTFN:

Held: H. B. 1181 triggers, and survives, review under intermediate scrutiny because it only incidentally burdens the protected speech of
adults. Pp. 5–36.

Fuck any Free Speech rights minors may have, or the school district’s rights to determine PUBLIC SCHOOL curriculum because of right-wing Christianist freaks.

Louisiana v. Callais — This case was rescheduled for re-argument. Justice Thomas disagrees with this rescheduling and issued a dissent documenting his rationale.
See: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24-109_l53m.pdf

summary TK

Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic — This case appears to have been pushed out to next week.

summary TK

I assume we’ll get any shadow docket cases next week as well, but I could be wrong; the last decisions weren’t all released today after all and I thought incorrectly they would be.

Increasingly (possibly as an outgrowth of their willingness to serve as data mules for his Truth Social tweets), news outlets treat Donald Trump’s mere act of saying something as news.

There’s an interesting example in the NYT that shows how doing so wildly distorts the workings of what democracy America has left.

On the front page of the NYT digital page there’s a package of stories about the reconciliation bill, which Trump wants to push through by July 4, in part, to keep Stephen Miller’s dragnet running. The top “story” in that package bears the headline, “Trump rallies for signature policy bill as GOP rushes to save it; President Trump’s domestic policy bill faced another hurdle after the Senate parliamentarian said several of its major provisions could not be included.”

If you click on that story, it’s not a dedicated news story. Instead, it’s just the top newsletter page, with stubs for stories on the reconciliation bill, Iran strikes, and deportation. Nevertheless, that page itself also bears the headline, “Trump rallies for his policy bill as GOP works to save it.”

If you click though the reconciliation bill stub, it takes you to this story, in which the Parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough — not Trump — is the primary actor.

It’s not until the fifth paragraph of the story that we get the promised “news” about Trump rallying for the bill — and the only newsworthy part of that 73-word passage is that Trump either misstated or lied about what was in the bill.

President Trump worked to rally support for the legislation on Thursday at an event at the White House, praising the “hundreds of things here” to like about the bill.

“It’s so good,” he said, though one item he trumpeted, eliminating taxes on Social Security, was not actually in the bill.

When a reporter shouted out a question about whether Congress could pass the bill by July 4, Mr. Trump replied: “We hope so.”

You could make an entire news story about this: that Trump promised to eliminate taxes on Social Security, but it’s not in the Big Ugly he’s pushing through to codify the things that really matter to him. Instead, Trump will take food from children and medical care from working people so he can pay off the billionaires who got him reelected (something else that’s not in the story). Trump made a promise, and rather than keeping it, he is falsely claiming he’s keeping it.

NYT didn’t do that (though it did publish a story about Republicans who rely on the benefits right wingers are trying to kill), but they did cast him as the lead character in the one event in town where he’s a side player, what might be the only substantive legislation passed this year, if right wingers even can pass it, which is not yet clear (Jake Sherman says John Thune doesn’t have the votes to pass it, yet).

Incidentally, the only mention of a Democrat in the story comes from Bobby Kogan, who provided a price tag for the things right wingers had stuffed into a bill that broke the rules for reconciliation.

If Republicans are forced to remove all the provisions Ms. MacDonough has ruled against, it would eliminate more than $500 billion of the bill’s intended spending cuts, according to a rough analysis by Bobby Kogan, a former Democratic Senate Budget Committee staff member and White House budget official who is now the senior director of federal budget policy at the left-leaning Center for American Progress.

What doesn’t make any of these stories is that the Parliamentarian’s serial rejection of one after another policy in the Big Ugly came as a result of a lot of work from Democratic staffers who successfully argued that the provisions were extraneous to the bill (see the sections on the Byrd Rule in this post for an explanation of what that means).

Ron Wyden is one of the few people who made this point: he and his staff had to work to make this happen.

This is what Democrats in the Senate have been working on (even giving little-noticed press conferences) during a period when many wailed they were doing nothing: trying, at a minimum, to remove the gratuitously bad things right wingers are trying to jam through on this bill. Among the things Democrats did via Byrd Rule challenges are:

• Preserving CFPB and Public Company Oversight Board
• Kept some Food Stamp funding and benefits
• Limited a rule trying to prevent states from regulating AI
• Eliminated an attack on the judiciary’s ability to enforce contempt
• Prevented DOJ from punishing sanctuary cities
• Thwarted Mike Lee’s bid to sell off public lands
• Combatted several attacks on renewable energy and defeated an effort to exempt offshore oil drilling from the NEPA process
• Preserved civil service protections for Federal employees
• Defeated an effort to attack unions
• Killed a plan to get rid of USPS’ electric vehicles
• Protected some ObamaCare provisions
• Exempted existing student loan borrowers from an effort to restrict access
• Defeated a bunch of attacks on Medicaid
• Protected Medicaid funding for gender-affirming care
• Eliminated vouchers for religious schools
• Killed a tax exemption written just for Hillsdale College
• Defeated an effort to decriminalize gun silencers

It’s not yet clear what will happen with the Big Ugly. Some House members are calling on Thune to fire the Parliamentarian, or to ignore her. There is a workaround that would blow up the filibuster.

For now, at least, Thune keeps insisting he won’t ignore MacDonough’s rulings (though as Politico notes, that could change if Trump demands it).

At the very least, the success in getting things excluded under the Byrd Rule has made a shitty bill less shitty. It has also created a delay, and any delay creates the outside possibility that the press will start to cover this bill as it should be, an effort to steal from the poor to pay off Trump’s debt to Elon Musk, and with the coverage spook enough Republicans to kill the bill in current form. As Cogan notes, these eliminated cuts also create a bigger financial hole in the bill, one of a few issues that risks killing it altogether.

Yes, the press is covering the drama created because Republicans may not have the votes. Yes, it’s likely Republicans will cave, again, once Trump directly threatens them.

But until that happens, Trump is not the story here.

If you want to tell a story about Trump, make it about the lies he and other right wingers are telling to try to reverse the overwhelming opposition to this bill. Absent that, treat Article I as if they still exist.

Update: Both David Dayen and I were once too optimistic that the Big Ugly wouldn’t get done in the House. But he lays out here, with Whitney Curry Wimbish, why these Byrd Rule rulings could doom the bill.

REPUBLICANS HAVE A BUNCH OF OPTIONS for dealing with this, but all of them have either been ruled out, would make the bill seemingly unpassable, or would need more time than they want to take.

First, Republicans can “cure” the Byrd rule problems by coming up with other language and negotiating with the parliamentarian to insert them back into the bill. The Senate Banking Committee already did this with new language on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Previously the committee completely zeroed out funding for the CFPB by setting an existing “cap” on how much the Federal Reserve can transfer to the agency at 0 percent of total Fed funds. That was thrown out by the parliamentarian. Now, in the new text, the committee has changed that to 6.5 percent.

Senators are reportedly trying to go back with new provider tax language as well.

Republicans would also likely try to squeeze more blood from cuts that have already been allowed to stay, Sanders said. “The big thing hanging over them is specifically the instruction to cut Medicaid,” she said. “Exactly where this could come out of, I feel like they’d probably try to get deeper savings from existing Medicaid savings that are allowed to stay in, which might end up making them more harmful.”

The problem here is that all new text would have to go back to the parliamentarian for more haggling. The parliamentarian did approve a change that would add state cost-sharing (along a slower timeline) to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, but as a Hill source explained, the process for the full bill could take weeks, and with each passing day, the bill gets less popular. That is why the White House wants the bill done by July 4. That would be next to impossible under a constant rewrite scenario.

[snip]

The Senate appears eager to just stick a bill in the House’s lap and dare them to vote it down. But that assumes they can get a bill over to the House at all. The buildup of parliamentarian rulings really does threaten the outcome.

One huge problem for Republicans is the debt limit, where something needs to be done to raise the nation’s borrowing cap by as early as August. There is a $5 trillion debt limit increase in the Senate version of the bill. If the impasse on the bill continues, Congress may have to split that out and pass a standalone version, which would almost certainly need Democratic support, where Democrats could dictate terms.

Under the timeline needed to pass the megabill by July 4, votes would need to begin today. There’s almost no chance of that happening. A press officer for Thune did not respond to an email request for information to say whether the Senate is operating under a new timeline.

You don’t want to say that a bill cutting taxes and spending simply cannot pass a Republican Congress. It doesn’t make much sense to say that. But that threat has grown much more real by the day.

Our democracy is under attack, in a war planned and carried out by generations of filthy rich tight-wingers working primarily through the Republican Party. The war has come into the open under Trump, funded by the latest group of hideously rich dirtbags, the tech bros, and justified by a cadre of anti-intellectual grifters and yakkers like Curtis Yarvin.

We need to see the battlefield. Only then can we decide on how to act. As Marcy pointed out here, our role is explicitly political, as befits people who believe in democracy to our core.

The Battlefield

Introduction

The filthy rich have always held more power in this country than their numbers would support in a functioning democracy. Their control was somewhat restricted during the Progressive Era at the beginning of the 20th C., but SCOTUS did it’s best to beat back progressive laws. The political power of the filthy rich was sharply decreased during the Great Depression. Franklin Delano Roosevelt said this out loud in a 1936 speech in Madison Square Garden:

We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.

They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.

Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.

The filthy rich hated FDR, and have spent nearly 100 years trying to destroy his legacy and our way of life. Generations of oligarchs arise over time in different sectors of the economy, and the wealth they control has increased steadily since then. But regardless of background, a significant number have a attacked every institution we have relied on as part of our heritage.

At the same time they have ruthlessly pursued their own interests without regard to the national interest.We know some names, like H.L. Hunt and other Texas Oilmen, and the Koch Brothers, and groups like the John Birch Society. We generally know about other threats, like the Christian Dominionists and White Nationalists.

The Republicans took over congress in 1946. One of their first acts was to pass the Taft-Hartley Act which was intended to undercut the power of organized labor. They continued a long tradition of\ anti-communism and anti-socialism. The Democrats responded by kicking out the Communists, many of whom were active in unions, and with the Civil Rights movement. The Democratic Party tradition of punching left has deep roots.

Trump and his henchmen are the culmination of this campaign. They are openly engaged in a war on every institution that wields power in our society and in or through our government. The success of a decades-long assault reveals the effect of that long-term guerrilla war by the Republicans.

Congress

Republican congressionals are weaklings. This has been a fixture of that party since the mid-90s. Newt Gingrich preached lock-step Republican voting, and Denny Hastert created the Hastert Rule, under which no legislation gets to the floor unless it can pass with only Republican votes.

Mitch McConnell made it his job to make sure that Obama couldn’t pass any legislation. He whipped Republican Senators so viciously they did his bidding. In his first term Trump violently assaulted Republicans who defied his orders. The party internalized fear so completely that it attacked its own members who voted to impeach Trump.

Now Trump simply ignores laws he doesn’t like, including spending laws, and arrests Democratic lawmakers on groundless charges.

The Administrative State

Under FDR, Congress began to empower agencies to carry out specific tasks necessary for a modern government. This gave rise to the administrative state. Republicans hate it. Ever since its inception, they and corporate Democrats have worked to hamstring  agencies.

Conservative legal academics expanded the use of originalism, and created a bullshit  originalist rationale explaining why our 250 year old Constitution doesn’t allow any significant power to agencies. This resulted in SCOTUS decisions on purely partisan grounds over the last few decades that protect the filthy rich and harm normal people. The number of delay and choke points is so great that our nation is drenched in chemicals known to be toxic, and thousands of others whose toxicity, especially in combinations, is unknown.

Trump attacked the entire structure with his firings, closures, and illegal withholding of funds. District Courts tried to stop it, but the SCOTUS anti-democracy majority has dithered or rejected their decisions. Republicans refuse to push back, even to support cancer research, surely a non-partisan issue.

Trump put incompetent people in charge of all agencies and departments. They were confirmed by the Senate, often with (unnecessary) Democratic support. RFK, Jr? Whiskey Pete Hegseth? Linda McMahon? Republicans allowed Elon Musk and a small flock of ignorant coders to terminate critical programs. Without agencies, our ability to govern ourselves is wrecked.

The Judiciary

The attacks on the judiciary began after Brown v. Board. Impeach Earl Warren, screamed billboards all over the South. But it took off under Ronald Reagan, who appointed a host of ideologues to the bench, leading to his failed effort to put the loathsome Robert Bork on SCOTUS.

Republicans responded to the rejection of Bork by pushing even harder to put right-wing ideologues on the bench. George Bush the worst stopped listening to the centrist ABA on judicial nominations. Trump handed judicial nominations to the Federalist Society and to Leo Leonard. McConnell made sure Democrats couldn’t appoint people to SCOTUS. Then Trump appointed a crank, a frat boy, and an dithering academic, none of whom have evidenced any core principles other than obeisance to Trump’s dictates.

The Fifth Circuit is full of nutcases and fools, among whom I single out the odious Matthew Kacsmaryk. The Fifth Circuit refused to rid itself of single-judge districts, and ignores judge-shopping, making this lawless nutcase the most powerful judge in the country.

Then in Trump v. US . John Roberts  crowned Trump king of the nation, and implicitly approved everything Trump and his henchmen have done. See, for example, the ridiculous order allowing Stephen Miller to export human beings to terrorist nations, issued without explanation, and without a full hearing. Roberts can only be compared to Roger Taney.

States

The federal system gives states a central role in assuring the health, safety, and welfare of their citizens. Historically Republicans used what they called states rights to stop federal efforts to enforce the 14th Amendment. They were generally unwilling to attack state action in significant ways. Trump has started this assault on his own.

He hit states whose policies he doesn’t like by cancelling grants, by senseless litigation, and by sending in the National Guard, the Marines and ICE thugs. One of his earliest acts was to file a lawsuit against Illinois, Cook County, and Chicago, alleging that it’s unconstitutional for us to limit the cooperation of local law enforcement with ICE thugs. In other words, we have to use our own resources to fill Stephen Miller’s gulags.

Trump demanded the Republicans pass laws, including the Big Bill, that will harm Blue states. He helps Red States damaged by his tariffs. He attacks states who don’t force colleges and universities to follow his anti-DEI policies, meaning erasing not-White people from history and higher education.

Private Institutions

The Republican war on higher education began with Ronald Reagan’s attacks on California colleges and universities. The attack was two-pronged. He packed the boards of these institutions with Republican loyalists, a philistine group who demanded focus on job training at the expense of education. Public support was reduced dramatically, forcing the system to increase tuition. This led to a massive increase in student loans, and to debt servitude for millions of people.

This two-pronged attack was immediately followed by other states, partly out of spite (Republicans) and partly on financial grounds (centrist Democrats). Republicans, ever the victims, claimed that universities were liberal and quashed conservative viewpoints, whatever those might be. The screaming got louder, and Trump used it to attack higher education a bit in his first term. All this was fomented and paid for by filthy rich monsters and justified by liars.

In his second term Trump directly attacked Harvard and Columbia on utterly specious grounds. He has made life miserable for foreign students studying here on visas, a deranged policy with no benefits to our nation. He has cut off federal support for basic research, the foundation of US leadership in most sciences and most technologies.

The Republican attack on law firms was focused on trial lawyers, a group that fought to protect working people from the depredations of pig-rich corporations. For the rest, the damage was largely self-inflicted. Firms grew to gargantuan size, taking in tens of millions of dollars. To keep that flow of money they surrendered professionalism and became servants of the filthy rich. When I started practicing law, we were bound by the Model Code of Professional Responsibility. The current weakened version of that ethical code is called the Model Code of Professional Conduct. Lawyers relieved themselves of all responsibility to society and the rule of law.

When Trump attacked, many of these behemoths were unprepared to act responsibly, and cravenly kissed the ring.

The attacks on private enterprise are smaller in scope. Primarily Trump seeks to force corporations to dismantle DEI programs, terminate support for LGBT initiatives and outreach, and similar matters. The media have self-policed rather than confront the craziness, a task made easier by their financial weakness.

What is to be done

The battlefield is enormous. Sometimes it seems overwhelming. None of us can deal with all of it. But each of us can deal with some of it. There are a lot more of us than there are of them. When we mass up on any front, we will have an impact.

I go to #TeslaTakedown. Hurting Musk is an indirect attack on Trump, and serves as a warning to the other Tech Bros. We have to keep that going.

Many of us are alumni of colleges under attack. I don’t give money to Notre Dame, even though my education there was sterling. I should have written a letter explaining why I would never contribute again, and why I removed a bequest from my will.

We can’t avoid all collaborating corporations entirely, but my family stopped using Target and cancelled our New York Times subscription. We can all redirect our spending. And then we can write letters saying we did it because they hurt our fellow citizens. Or even something fiercer.

Given the economic chaos and uncertainty, cutting spending, and front-end loading our spending, seem like sensible plans. We can point this out to others in our families and among our friends. As an example, Trump plans to increase tariffs on computers, or does he? Buy now and prepare to live with it for a few years.

Harvard and other major research universities have enormous endowments. They could open branches in Berlin, Paris, Guangzhou, Mumbai, Accra and anywhere they can find brilliant grad students. They can send their own professors, their own lab teams, and their own know-how out of a nation suddenly devoted to stupidity.

Law firms can announce plans to provide pro bono representation to people kidnapped by ICE thugs. Corporations can browbeat the Republican pols they have put in place, demanding sane economic and immigration policies. We can demand that they do so.

Conclusion

Notes: I wrote this from memory with a minimum of fact-checking. Corrections and additions welcome.

Someone should write a book about this war. Is there one I don’t know about?

Finally: In War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy says that Napoleon was successful because he and his subordinates were able to concentrate their forces against the weakest segment of the enemy battle line. He tried to hold a large reserve to send against that weak point. That seems like a good strategy. Trump and the Republicans have spread themselves out over a gigantic battlefield. Let’s try Napoleon’s strategy.
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Featured image is a map of the Battle of Austerlitz won by Napoleon.