Influenced by his experience in the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, Roberts has a significant blind spot regarding the dangerous impact of this ruling. His favoring of robust presidential authority, shaped by episodes like the Iran-contra affair and the Bush-era torture memos, leads him to worry about routine prosecutions of ex-presidents and what he terms "a cycle of factional strife." However, he was not able to see how this stance might be abused and how dangerous it is with a president of low moral character and ethics. The inside story of John Roberts and Trump’s immunity win at the Supreme Court | CNN Politics Sources familiar with the negotiations told CNN there was an immediate and clear 6-3 split, as the justices met in private in the oak-paneled conference room that adjoins the chief justice’s chambers. Roberts made no serious effort to entice the three liberal justices for even a modicum of the cross-ideological agreement that distinguished such presidential-powers cases in the past. He believed he could persuade people to look beyond Trump. In past decades, when the justices took up major tests of presidential power, they achieved unanimity. Certainly, today’s bench and all of Washington is far more polarized, but as recently as 2020, Roberts was able to broker compromises in two Trump document cases. It was understandable for outsiders, and even some justices inside, to believe that middle ground might be found on some issues in the immunity dispute and that Roberts would work against any resounding victory for Trump. The chief justice’s institutionalist tendency had been cemented over the past two decades. He often talked it up, famously admonishing Trump in 2018 that jurists shed their political affiliation once they take the robe, “We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges. What we have it an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them.” The chief justice, now 69 and about to begin his 20th term, appears to have abandoned his usual institutional concerns. He upended constitutional norms, enlarged the institution of the presidency and gave Trump a victory that bolstered his litigating position even beyond the case at hand, for example, in his attempt to reverse the conviction in his Manhattan “hush money” trial. A jury in May found Trump guilty of falsifying business records. .... Roberts, likely influenced by his experience in the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, has long favored robust presidential authority in the separation of powers. He, like Justice Brett Kavanaugh who served George W. Bush, perhaps considered the possible legal vulnerability from episodes such as the Iran-contra affair in the Reagan years or the Bush-era torture memos for interrogations after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks. Roberts made clear that he worried about routine prosecutions of ex-presidents and “a cycle of factional strife,” as he put it.
This is a great read. So much of Roberts ruling is extremely specific despite his claims that it is general for all Presidents. It's also seems very far removed from the stated originalist philosophy of several of the justices.
3/4 of the country want SCOTUS reform. There is a less than 1% chance of this happening in our lifetime. I previously stated that a D president could sic the DoJ on the misbehaving SCOTUS justices ... which might lead to a horse trade with the Rs to get some reform ... but not likely all that is needed.
Let's hope the President he WANTS in office will never see the Oval Office again and Harris can do something about this
"This exclusive series on the Supreme Court is based on CNN sources inside and outside the court with knowledge of the deliberations." How Samuel Alito got canceled from the Supreme Court social media majority | CNN Politics The hardline approach Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito takes usually gets him what he wants. This year it backfired. Behind the scenes, the conservative justice sought to put a thumb on the scale for states trying to restrict how social media companies filter content. His tactics could have led to a major change in how platforms operate. CNN has learned, however, that Alito went too far for two justices – Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson – who abandoned the precarious 5-4 majority and left Alito on the losing side. As a result, the final 6-3 ruling led by Justice Elena Kagan backed the First Amendment rights of social media companies It is rare that a justice tapped to write the majority opinion loses it in ensuing weeks, but sources tell CNN that it happened twice this year to Alito. He also lost the majority as he was writing the decision in the case of a Texas councilwoman who said she was arrested in retaliation for criticizing the city manager. ... Alito appeared weary of it all by that last day. At 74, he is the second oldest of the current nine, after 76-year-old Thomas. While Alito is still relatively young as far as justices go (most in recent years haven’t left the bench until their 80s), he has reflected in private about retirement.
I have zero doubt the leftist would be perfectly fine with status quo if their leftist judges had majority on the supreme court.
And? I want you to tell me what political ideological group in America you consider consistent and principled.
I know folks want to re-litigate the Trump immunity decision in the other thread, but thought I would put this here instead. Quite long but very good A Prudential Way Forward in Trump v. United States https://www.justsecurity.org/98205/prudential-trump-v-united-states/
not USSC but an interesting case Government Agencies Can’t Use Dumb Word Filters to Screen Social Media Comments–PETA v. Tabak https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archiv...screen-social-media-comments-peta-v-tabak.htm decision at: https://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/inter...18F85258B6A0051824A/$file/23-5110-2067316.pdf
If Trump gets to pick Sotyomayor's replacement with a GOP Senate ala RBG, all hell will break loose. She is 70 years old, and no telling when there will be a Dem POTUS and Senate again. She needs to resign now, and it might already be too late. https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook/2024/11/08/dems-agonize-over-sotomayor-00188412 BENCH PRESS — Two months from now, Republicans will be in control of the U.S. Senate. They’ll have at least 53 seats. And as soon as DONALD TRUMP is sworn in on Jan. 20, they’ll be revving up the old conveyor belt of conservative judicial nominees, tilting the courts further in their favor for decades. For Democrats, this is a hair-on-fire moment. And though the discourse in the media is presently dominated by recriminations about how this all happened, another arguably more urgent conversation is blowing up largely outside of public view: whether to push for 70-year-old Supreme Court Justice SONIA SOTOMAYOR to step down while Dems still have the power to approve her replacement. This isn’t simply some flight of fancy happening among progressive activists online. It’s a conversation members of the Senate are actively engaged in. One senator Playbook spoke with last night told us that the topic has come up repeatedly this week in talks with their colleagues. Inevitably, those conversations end up with a recognition of two realities: (1) It’d be a risky play with the party already trying to figure out how to handle a crowded lame-duck session, and (2) no senator seems to be offering to be the person to put his or her neck on their line publicly (or even privately) by pushing for Sotomayor to step aside. The conversations have gone far enough that a possible replacement has been bandied about: D.C. Circuit Judge J. MICHELLE CHILDS, who was on President JOE BIDEN’s SCOTUS short list. It’s obvious why: Childs has already been vetted, is seen as moderate and even received backing by conservative senators like LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-S.C.) last go round. (Though you can be damn sure that Republicans would do everything imaginable to stop a lame-duck confirmation.) But inevitably, this chatter runs into major logistical concerns. If Sotomayor were to resign, “she can sort of resign conditionally on someone being appointed to replace her,” the Democratic senator told Playbook. “But she can’t resign conditioned on a specific person. What happens if she resigns and the nominee to replace her isn’t confirmed and the next president fills the vacancy?” Then there’s the abbreviated timeline. Democrats would have to convince her to retire immediately, Biden would have to nominate a successor, they would have to figure out how to bring enough senators on board, dodge whatever obstructions Republicans throw in their way and get a whole floor vote before the new Congress is sworn in. There would be no room for error or delay. “We would have to have assurances from any shaky senator that they would back a nominee in the lame duck, because what do you do if she announces she’s going to step down and then [independent West Virginia Sen. JOE] MANCHIN doesn’t support her and then [Republican Sens.] SUSAN COLLINS and LISA MURKOWSKI back off and say they’re not going to support a new nominee?” one senior Democratic source told us. “Do you just rescind that letter?” The logistics, the senator suggested to us, may be insurmountable. (The phrase they used was “Beltway speculative conversation.”) Better, perhaps then, to focus on confirming lower-court judges, filling vacancies Trump can’t later fill himself. But this isn’t the first time the proposal has been floated. Last year, Democrats — bruised by Justice RUTH BADER GINSBURG’s refusal to retire and give then-President BARACK OBAMA a chance to nominate her successor — began a quiet campaign to nudge Sotomayor out. The reasoning? Her age (70) and health (she has diabetes). That round of the conversation was met with accusations of ableism and even racism: How dare they suggest pushing the first Latina justice — a solid progressive vote — off the bench? But this time, with the reality of an impending Trump presidency, those objections have fallen by the wayside. And some of those who called for Sotomayor to step down earlier feel the conversation has changed. “I wish it were different, but I think that Democrats need to do a better job of holding on to the fear that they now feel the next time they are in a position of power, because we can’t shut down those conversations,” MOLLY COLEMAN, the executive director of the People’s Parity Project, told us late last night. But barring a surprise announcement from Sotomayor, the best thing Democrats can do, she says, is to focus on those 30-odd district- and appeals-court judges still waiting to be confirmed and accept they may have missed their chance to do anything about the Supreme Court. “Democrats are not going to win elections forever,” Coleman says. “They’re not going to be able to nominate Supreme Court justices indefinitely. They need to act when they have power.”
https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/01/supreme-court-upholds-tiktok-ban/ OPINION ANALYSIS Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban By Amy Howe on Jan 17, 2025 at 11:09 am The Supreme Court on Wednesday unanimously upheld a federal law that will require TikTok to shut down in the United States unless its Chinese parent company can sell off the U.S. company by Jan. 19. In an unsigned opinion, the justices acknowledged that, “for more than 170 million Americans,” the social media giant “offers a distinct and expansive outlet for expression, means of engagement, and source of community.” But, the court concluded, “Congress has determined that divestiture is necessary to address its well-supported national security concerns regarding TikTok’s data collection practices and relationship with a foreign adversary.” At oral arguments on Jan. 10, TikTok’s lawyer, Noel Francisco, told the justices that TikTok would “go dark” in the United States if the company did not prevail in its challenge to the law. However, ABC News reported on Thursday that the Biden administration did not plan to enforce the law and would instead leave it for President-elect Donald Trump, who will take office on Jan. 20, to implement the ban. Under the law, ABC News explained, app stores and internet hosting services (rather than TikTok itself) would be exposed to liability if they continued to provide services to TikTok after Jan. 19. Trump, who supported a ban during his first term in office but now opposes shutting down TikTok, had urged the justices to delay the ban’s effective date to give his administration a change to “pursue a negotiated resolution” when it took office on Jan. 20. TikTok’s CEO Shou Chew plans to attend Trump’s inauguration on Monday and has been invited to sit in a section reserved for dignitaries and important guests. The law at the center of the case is the Protecting Americans from Foreign Controlled Applications. Passed in 2024 to address national security concerns, the law bars the use of apps controlled by “foreign adversaries” of the United States, including China. More specifically, the law defines apps controlled by foreign adversaries to include any app run by TikTok or ByteDance. TikTok, ByteDance, and a group of TikTok users went to federal court in Washington, D.C., where they argued that the law violates the First Amendment. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit disagreed. Senior Judge Douglas Ginsburg explained that the law was “carefully crafted to deal only with control by a foreign adversary” and “part of a broader effort to counter a well-substantiated national security threat posed by the People’s Republic of China.” Just over a month before the law was scheduled to go into effect, the Supreme Court agreed to take up the case and fast-track it, hearing oral arguments on Jan. 10. In a 19-page unsigned opinion, the court assumed for the sake of argument that the provisions of the law at issue implicate First Amendment interests. But even if that is true, the court reasoned, they are not subject to the most stringent test, known as strict scrutiny, to determine whether they are constitutional. Instead, the court explained, they are subject to a less rigorous test, known as intermediate scrutiny, which requires courts to look at whether the provisions of the law advance an important government interest that is not related to the suppression of free expression and do not restrict substantially more speech than is necessary to do so. The TikTok provisions satisfy that test, the court concluded. There is no dispute, the court wrote, that the government “has an important and well-grounded interest in preventing China from collecting the personal data of tens of millions of U.S. TikTok users.” Moreover, the court continued, the law is “sufficiently tailored to address the Government’s interest in preventing a foreign adversary from collecting vast swaths of sensitive data about the 170 million U.S. persons who use TikTok.” The ban on control by a foreign adversary, the court said, “account for the fact that,” unless TikTok is sold, “TikTok’s very operation in the United States implicates the Government’s data collection concerns, while the requirements that make a divestiture ‘qualified’ ensure that those concerns are addressed before TikTok resumes U.S. operations.” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a brief opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. She stressed that she saw “no reason to assume without deciding that the Act implicates the First Amendment because our precedent leaves no doubt that it does.” In a five-page opinion concurring only in the judgment, Justice Neil Gorsuch – perhaps the most skeptical of the law at oral argument last week – emphasized that the court was correct in not “endorsing the government’s asserted interest in preventing ‘the covert manipulation of content’” to justify the TikTok ban. Gorsuch also suggested that the law should have been subjected to strict scrutiny, rather than intermediate scrutiny, but he indicated that it may not have ultimately made a difference in the outcome. He deemed himself “persuaded that the law before us seeks to serve a compelling interest: preventing a foreign country, designated by Congress and the President as an adversary of our Nation, from harvesting vast troves of personal information about tens of millions of Americans.” And the law, he concluded, “also appears appropriately tailored to the problem it seeks to address.” This article was originally published at Howe on the Court.
The TikTok decision seems pretty clear-cut. I don't think 1A concerns are valid when the publisher is owned by a hostile power who uses its platform's algorithm to influence American opinion and collects sensitive browsing data on American users. It's like if Jefferson Davis owned a shell company that owned the largest northern newspaper in 1864. If that paper was telling Americans to burn down Union barracks I don't think that they could expect first amendment protections because of its ownership.
US Supreme Court is unabashedly liberal − in its writing style https://theconversation.com/us-supreme-court-is-unabashedly-liberal-in-its-writing-style-245503
