Free Republic

You don't recall correctly. The number of Justices that comprise the Supreme Court is established not by the Constitution but by federal law, as enacted by Congress:

"The Supreme Court of the United States shall consist of a Chief Justice of the United States and eight associate justices, any six of whom shall constitute a quorum."

28 U.S.C. sec. 1

If this provision were to be changed by Congress to establish new seats on the Court, there is nothing that the current members of the Court could do to prevent any new, confirmed Justices from being seated.

Yes. The past 48 hours or so has perhaps been the low point for what still passes for "journalism" or "reporting" in this country. A steady stream of excremental hysterical nonsense and fantastical propaganda. Equal parts disgraceful and humorous.

Well, the problem to start with is that the Supreme Court took up the case, on the basis of an emergency application filed by the State of Idaho, at the beginning of the year, while granting a stay of the U.S. District Court's original injunction against enforcement of the Idaho law. While granting the petition for certiorari before judgment may have only taken four Justices, I'm thinking that issuing the stay would have at least required five (although I'm not positive about that aspect of the situation).

In any event, if those Justices hadn't wanted to engage the federal preemption issue until the Ninth Circuit had had a chance to rule on the matter, the Court could have simply denied the emergency application to start with. But they didn't, and so here we are.

Where I think things eventually landed is, there are now basically three tranches of Justices. Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch wanted to decide the case and were prepared to say that EMTLA didn't preempt the Idaho law. Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson were prepared to say that EMTLA did preempt the Idaho law, but they weren't positive they could get two more votes to achieve that result. So Kagan was happy to go along with DIGging the petition, while Jackson, while going along with that, wrote separately to say that, "hey, if it had been up to me, we'd have heard this case now, and I'd have found that EMTLA clearly preempts the Idaho law." She could afford to talk tough, because she knew that the Court was going to be punting the case.

As for Roberts, Kavanaugh, and Barrett, at least two of the three presumably had voted in favor of the stay (and in taking up the case) back at the beginning of the year. But now, none of them is too happy about having to pass judgment on the preemption issue. If I had to guess, both Barrett and Kavanaugh are inclined to say that EMTLA doesn't preempt, but they're probably not inclined to associate themselves with the Idaho statute, which they may feel goes just a bit too far in the "pro-life" direction.

And so, with there not being at least two more votes to join Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch, the Chief, Barrett, and Kavanaugh exercise the greater part of valor and punt the entire thing back to the Ninth Circuit to decide. And, again, Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson certainly won't throw in with Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch to go forward now, because they don't have five notes to find preemption under EMTLA and to strike down the Idaho law.

The Court's increasing use of its so-called "shadow docket" has begun to cause nothing but trouble for it. Or, at least, more trouble than the Court is beginning perhaps to think it is worth. As it is, the Moyle case ended up being a complete fiasco, a further indication perhaps that Roberts has lost control of the Court (and, perhaps, the respect of most of his colleague). This was very badly handled from the outset.

No, not at all. Fundamentally at issue in this case is whether the recently enacted Idaho Defense of Life Act is preempted by the 40-year-old federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act. The Supreme Court originally decided that it would take up this issue itself, rather than have the matter decided in the first instance by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Now, the Supreme Court has dismissed the case from its own docket, essentially saying that it should have never taken up the case, given its current procedural posture, in the first place. But this very much remains a federal matter, since, again, the issue of federal preemption is what is in view.

No, in this instance, the opposite is true. At issue in this case was Idaho's recently-enacted "Defense of Life Act," which effectively criminalized the act of performing an abortion except when, in the words of the Idaho law, "necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman."

A challenge was brought by the Biden administration in U.S. District Court in Idaho to this Idaho statute, contending that the state law was preempted by the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, which has been in existence for some 40 years. By the express terms of the EMTLA, it was argued, hospitals receiving Medicare funding were required to provide medical treatment -- including abortions -- in all those emergency situations where a pregnant woman faced serious injury (but something short of death) unless an abortion was performed.

The federal District Court in Idaho, concluding that the federal government was likely to prevail, entered an injunction pending a trial on the merits, thus enjoining the enforcement of the Idaho statute. On appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the District Court's entering of the injunction on enforcement was affirmed.

The State of Idaho then sought emergency relief in the U.S. Supreme Court's so-called "shadow docket," asking the Court to take up the case itself -- i.e., grant certiorari before judgment -- while also requesting that the Supreme Court enter a stay of District Court's injunction. The Supreme Court initially granted Idaho's requested relief, thus allowing for enforcement of the Idaho statute to go forward.

What the Supreme Court has now done is, in the parlance of the Court's practice, dismiss the petition for certiorari as having been "improvidently granted" in the first place. As a result of this, the Supreme Court's own stay is dissolved, the District Court's original injunction goes back into effect, and enforcement of the Idaho statute is now once again enjoined. Trial on the merits -- i.e., whether the federal statute, EMTLA, really does preempt (which is to say, render invalid) the Idaho statute -- will now proceed in the U.S. District Court in Idaho.

Well, good. Fortunately, the CIA seems to be going the way of the FBI. Mostly a crowd of generally incompetent clowns, capable nowadays of bullying American citizens, but that's about it. I suppose, long term, that's some sort of progress.

Unquestionably. Bolivia was also one of the very first states (at least, among South American nations) to break with Israel over the latter's actions in Gaza. Bolivia had also recently expressed interest in joining BRICS.

The GAE won't go quietly. So I suppose there's no choice but to hope for its destruction.

If people by now can't figure out what's wrong with this country, there's no hope for them.

You couldn't be more wrong. I suggest you read Alito's dissent. You fundamentally misunderstand what this case was about.

Anyone who has "hope" that the failure of our constitutional order can be fixed by the resort to that same failed order is, I'm sorry to say, something of a fool to start with.

We just need to "vote harder," I guess.

Oh, they can see it alright. It's just that, when all is said and done, they're not actually opposed to it.

People who seek refuge from governmental oppression from those who are themselves government workers -- which is all that, at the end of the day, Supreme Court Justices are -- set themselves up for this sort of disappointment.

From what I've been able to tell, I think Barrett is likely to be a real problem going forward, perhaps even worse than the weirdo egotist, Gorsuch. Not that Barrett is some sort of plant or something. Just that, from what I've seen of, and read by, her, she comes across as something of an estrogen-drenched ditz. Biden has already gotten more out of Jackson, who's got some real Leftist brass to her.

All three of Trump's appointments are shaping up to be real duds. Kavanaugh was a known commodity: a midwit hack. A reliable vote for the favored few. But, at the same time, those types always end up being "statists" in the end, when individual liberty is at stake. Always.

It's all very disappointing. Maybe there isn't any jurist out there who's worth a shi*t nowadays? But 0-3, if that's how it should turn out, suggests something more than "coincidence." "Enemy action" is more like it.

I don't know. But I know where they are going.

There is indeed. I have a copy of the petition and have read it. You?

My only point here is that those FReepers who crack open their "pocket copy" of the Constitution that they got at some GOP rally a few years back and think that their having eyeballed it a time or two gives them blessed insight into how the real world works are just blowing smoke out of their @ss.

That's really my only point here. I'm retired now, but I used to do this stuff for money. :-)

Well, we'll have to see. This is the sole "Question Presented" from the government's petition for certiorari which the Supreme Court granted this morning:

"Whether Tennessee Senate Bill 1 (SB1), which prohibits all medical treatments intended to allow 'a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor’s sex' or to treat 'purported discomfort or distress from a discordance between the minor’s sex and asserted identity,' Tenn. Code Ann. § 68-33-103(a)(1), violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment."

In other words, the federal government asserts that it already has the only "constitutional amendment" it needs in order to argue that the Tennessee statute violates the U.S. Constitution. See how that works? That's how we got same-sex marriage nationwide, following the Obergefell decision, even though the definition of "marriage," as a civil matter, had always been something left to the individual states to decide.

Following the Civil War, passage of the Fourteenth Amendment completely reworked the previous constitutional order in the United States. Those who don't understand that simple fact of history are NGMI.

We'll just have to wait and see if five or more Justices of the Supreme Court believe that the Fourteenth Amendment works the same sort of magic here as it worked in the Obergefell case. If I had to guess, Kagan, Sotomayor, Jackson, and the weirdo Gorsuch, he of the horrendous Bostock decision from 2020, are already on board.

Yes, Gorsuch is something of a weirdo who may end up proving to have been a poor choice. His opinion in the Bostock case was atrocious nonsense. And the government's just-granted petition for certiorari in the Skrmetti case cites Bostock four separate times.

Pretty much every headline today, from every online source, including alleged "news" sources, is some form of "click-bait." That just comes with the territory, where one person's "news" is another person's "propaganda," and getting eyeballs on the product is the way online proprietors make their money.

That said, if you read the article itself, the study did not find that 74% of deaths within the "general population" could be attributed to COVID vaccination. Rather, the study found that 74% of the deaths of the 326 autopsy cases that were studied could be attributed to vaccination. The average age of the deceased in this instance was about 70. The average time between vaccination and death was about 14 days.

Put simply, the "74%" figure referenced in this article had nothing to do with the "general population."

The real takeaway from the story is that the study was, purportedly, suppressed -- for allegedly dubious reasons -- and has now seen the light of day. What people want to make of the underlying results of the study is up to them.

No. The Supreme Court can take as long as they like to issue its decisions. While it is the case that, typically, the Court issues all of its extant decisions, by the end of June, there is no "rule" that requires it to do so. Indeed, as recently as 2020, I believe, it was, the Court issued its final decisions in July.

I suspect, though, that the Court will issue all of its remaining decisions by the end of the month and perhaps even by the end of this new week (i.e., Friday, the 29th). With there being essentially 12 cases still outstanding (of the 14 mentioned in this article, there are four -- that is, two sets of two -- that are likely to be consolidated and issued in one opinion), getting all of those out in the coming weeks doesn't seem too terribly daunting, based on past experience.

The Trump immunity case may be something of an outlier, however, in this regard.

Exactly right. Which goes a long way towards explaining why the efforts of those like, say, Rand Paul to isolate Fauci as the sole culprit responsible for the SARS-COV-2 pandemic and the follow-on government response thereto are, ultimately, worse than counterproductive.

Guys like Paul know what they're doing with this modified limited hangout. Coverup artists in action, when all is said and done.

Uh, you do realize that it's the start of winter south of the equator, don't you? So, if anything, the climate-mongers will use this bout of alleged "extreme weather" to further push their agenda.

Sheesh.

Yes, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today, drawing on the statutory definition of "air pollutant" as affirmed by the Supreme Court in its Massachusetts decision, we do indeed. I suppose all mammals do. Methane is also considered an "air pollutant" under the same rationale. Which is why cattle are currently in the crosshairs of those pushing the radical "climate agenda."

I suppose I should add that EPA also considers water vapor to be an "air pollutant" under the Clean Air Act, although it has yet to take action to regulate the emission of such as a so-called "greenhouse gas."

Anyway, below is how the Clean Air Act defines "air pollutant," as that term is used in the Act:

"The term 'air pollutant' means any air pollution agent or combination of such agents, including any physical, chemical, biological, radioactive (including source material, special nuclear material, and byproduct material) substance or matter which is emitted into or otherwise enters the ambient air. Such term includes any precursors to the formation of any air pollutant, to the extent the Administrator has identified such precursor or precursors for the particular purpose for which the term 'air pollutant' is used."

In Massachusetts, the Court opined: "The statutory text forecloses EPA's reading. The Clean Air Act's sweeping definition of 'air pollutant' includes 'any air pollution agent or combination of such agents, including any physical, chemical... substance or matter which is emitted into or otherwise enters the ambient air ....' § 7602(g) (emphasis added). On its face, the definition embraces all airborne compounds of whatever stripe, and underscores that intent through the repeated use of the word "any."[25] Carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and hydrofluorocarbons are without a doubt 'physical [and] chemical ... substance[s] which [are] emitted into ... the ambient air.' The statute is unambiguous."

You see, at issue in the Massachusetts was the decision by the EPA under the George W. Bush administration that it could not regulate the emissions of so-called "greenhouse gasses" because GHGs didn't constitute "air pollutants" under the Clean Air Act. But, as, um, explained here, the Court said that EPA was wrong. That is to say, back in the day, the Bush EPA tried to do the (obviously) correct thing, but the Court wouldn't have it.