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Chief Justice John Roberts temporarily halted discovery Friday in a lawsuit seeking access to documents and information about the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) operations. In a brief order, Roberts granted the government’s request for an administrative stay, which temporarily lifts a judge’s order allowing limited discovery into whether DOGE is an “agency.” If it is found to be an agency, that would make DOGE subject to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. The request went to Roberts by default; he handles emergency appeals arising from the nation’s capital. The pause will last until the court decides whether to wipe...

The Supreme Court on Thursday strongly suggested that Federal Reserve board members would have special protection against being fired by a president in a ruling that, for now, allows President Donald Trump to fire two members of other federal agencies’ boards. The Supreme Court in its ruling said, “We disagree” with arguments by Gwynne Wilcox of the National Labor Relations Board and Cathy Harris from Merit Systems Protection Board that their challenges to their terminations “necessarily implicate the constitutionality of for-cause removal protections for members of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors or other members of the Federal Open Market...

The US Supreme Court on Thursday allowed President Trump to fire labor board members in a 6-3 decision. Citing Humphrey’s Executor, liberal Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson dissented. “Because the Constitution vests the executive power in the President, see Art. II, §1, cl. 1, he may remove without cause executive officers who exercise that power on his behalf, subject to narrow exceptions recognized by our precedents, see Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 591 U. S.197, 215−218 (2020),” the Supreme Court’s decision said. The high court said there would be more harm to President Trump in denying his...

The case Trump v. Wilcox concerns the legality of President Trump's attempt to remove Gwynne Wilcox from her position on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Case summary: Case Summary: This case challenges President Trump’s removal of Gwynne A. Wilcox from her position on the National Labor Relations Board. The suit alleges the removal is in violation of the National Labor Relations Act (29 U.S.C. § 151 et seq.), which allows the president to remove Board members only in cases of neglect of duty or malfeasance and only after notice and hearing. The Plaintiff is seeking relief under the Declaratory...

Attending oral argument last week in the case touching on birthright citizenship pending before the Supreme Court, I observed a combination of confusion, omissions, and outright lies from some of the justices. As the lawyer for one of the amici, I witnessed the Court address the propriety of the nationwide, universal injunctions that have been issued by several district court judges blocking the execution of President Trump’s day-one executive order on birthright citizenship. Let’s begin with the lies. Early in the argument, Justice Sotomayor unequivocally stated that the Court had held 127 years ago that anyone born on U.S. soil...

On the very day Donald Trump became president again, he signed an executive order prospectively eliminating birthright citizenship for children born to aliens unlawfully present in the United States. Immediately, lawsuits were filed in a half-dozen jurisdictions across the country challenging this order. The groups bringing these suits claim the order disrupts long-standing legal norms governing citizenship. Yet, in fact, Trump’s contention — that birthright citizenship is not possessed by children of illegal aliens under the “correct interpretation of the law” — is exactly right. Birthright citizenship is conventionally understood to apply to any child born in the United States,...

Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself from the case. The Supreme Court on Thursday voted 4-4 to block the creation of a taxpayer-funded charter school in Oklahoma. Catholic dioceses had sought to establish St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School as a school that would have been eligible for public funding. Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself from the case, according to Reuters. The state Supreme Court in 2023 ruled 6-2 against the school, after state AG Gentner Drummond sued to "prevent the type of state-funded religion that Oklahoma's constitutional framers and the founders of our country sought...

Chaos reigned at the Court—and a dose of judicial supremacy to boot.Attending oral argument last week in the case touching on birthright citizenship pending before the Supreme Court, I observed a combination of confusion, omissions, and outright lies from some of the justices. As the lawyer for one of the amici, I witnessed the Court address the propriety of the nationwide, universal injunctions that have been issued by several district court judges blocking the execution of President Trump’s day-one executive order on birthright citizenship. Let’s begin with the lies. Early in the argument, Justice Sotomayor unequivocally stated that the Court...

The Supreme Court will be releasing Opinions from the October 2024 term at 10:00 a.m. today.Scotusblog will be liveblogging the Opinion release and we will be following along and trying to make sense of the Court's opinions.Once released, the Court's Opinion can be read on the Supreme Court's website at SCOTUS Opinions.All cases from the Court's October and November sittings have been resolved. There are three cases remaining from the December sitting, one being Skrmetti which is the challenge to Tennessee Senate Bill 1, which prohibits all medical treatments intended to allow "a minor to identify with, or live as,...

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal brought by 11 Michigan lawmakers seeking to challenge controversial changes to state election law pushed through by progressive groups in 2018 and 2022. Left-wing groups took millions in ‘dark money’ to run statewide referendums to eliminate all voter integrity laws and make challenging elections extremely difficult. The funds could have come from anywhere, and well-known loopholes in campaign finance law allow ‘layering’ so that foreign governments and left-wing billionaires can donate funds to non-profits and then have those funds eventually transferred to 501(c)4 entities that can engage in ballot...

Image from southafricatoday  On June 7th, 2018, the Constitutional Court in South Africa, overruled a lower court's decision that parts of South Africa's gun laws were unconstitutional. The laws were absolute, and did not allow for appeal or legitimate reasons for delay, such as hospitalization or death. From citizen.co.za: Section 24 of the Act requires that any person who seeks to renew a licence must do so 90 days before its expiry date. Section 28 stipulates that if a firearm licence has been cancelled‚ the firearm must be disposed of or forfeited to the state. A 60-day timeframe was...

The decision revives a lawsuit against a Texas officer who shot a driver after endangering himself by jumping onto a moving car. ============================================================= During a routine traffic stop near Houston in 2016, a police officer killed Ashtian Barnes by blindly firing two shots into his car after jumping onto the doorsill as Barnes began to drive away. Last year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled that the shooting was justified by the threat that the officer, Harris County Constable Roberto Felix Jr., faced when he shot Barnes. Last Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rejected the...

On Friday afternoon, the Supreme Court remanded A.A.R.P. v. Trump to the Fifth Circuit with very precise instructions. [snip] Last Friday, the Supreme Court vacated the judgment of our court, which had dismissed this appeal for lack of jurisdiction. The Court remanded the case back to us for further proceedings, and directed us to proceed "expeditiously." A.A.R.P. v. Trump, 605 U.S. _, _ (2025). Accordingly, this matter is expedited to the next available randomly designated regular oral argument panel. Judge Ho wrote an seven-page concurrence. He defended his colleague, Judge Wes Hendrix, against an unfair attack from the Supreme Court:...

The Supreme Court allowed President Donald Trump to end the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) amnesty for more than 300,000 Venezuelan migrants. In an 8-1 ruling on Monday, the majority justices granted an emergency application filed by the Trump administration that requested the Court lift an order from California-based U.S. District Court Judge Edward Chen that prevented the administration from revoking TPS protections for thousands of Venezuelan migrants, NBC News reported. WATCH — ICE Agent: Biden Administration Immigration Policies Put the Public at Risk: “The application for stay presented to Justice Kagan and by her referred to the Court is granted,”...

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Thursday in three cases concerning challenges to President Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order. The question before the high court was not, however, the constitutionality of the EO, but rather whether the lower courts had authority to issue injunctions on a nationwide basis to bar implementation of an EO. You would be hard pressed to know that, though, from the justices’ questions—-the overwhelming number of which focused instead on how to stop Trump. “So, as far as I see it, this order violates four Supreme Court precedents,” Justice Sotomayor declared early in the argument,...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday gave the Trump administration the green light to revoke special legal protections for thousands of Venezuelan immigrants. The high court granted an emergency application filed by the administration, meaning officials can move forward with reversing a decision made at the tail end of the Biden administration to extend protections for more than 300,000 Venezuelans under the federal Temporary Protected Status program. The brief order noted that liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson would have denied the application. Litigation will now continue in lower courts. As a result of political instability in Venezuela, the Biden...

Merrick Garland was not selected to be Joe Biden’s Attorney General because the crew in control of the events wanted Merrick Garland as Attorney General. Garland was removed from his position as DC Circuit Court Justice in order to make room for Ketanji Brown-Jackson to take Garland’s place, get Senate confirmed and then await the resignation of Supreme Court Justice Stephen Bryer. As a standalone Supreme Court nominee, Judge Ketanji Brown-Jackson would have been a radical pick. Judge Brown-Jackson was a known activist in the DC District Court; however, by removing Garland as chief circuit justice and replacing him with...

President Trump has displayed growing frustration with the Supreme Court as justices have stymied his approach to carrying out his agenda, particularly on immigration, since his White House return in January. “THE SUPREME COURT WON’T ALLOW US TO GET CRIMINALS OUT OF OUR COUNTRY!” the president exclaimed Friday in one of multiple Truth Social posts penned after the court ruled 7-2 to temporarily block the administration’s efforts to deport migrants with alleged ties to Venezuelan gangs largely over a technical issue. “This is a bad and dangerous day for America!” he wrote in another post that also accused Supreme Court...

The justices did not address the broader question about whether Trump officials can legally invoke the Alien Enemies Act to target alleged gang members.A divided Supreme Court on Friday kept a block on the Trump administration’s use of a rarely invoked wartime power to deport migrants in Northern Texas and said administration officials had not given those targeted for removal last month sufficient time to challenge their deportations.The majority called the detainees’ interests “particularly weighty” because of the risk of removal to a notorious megaprison in El Salvador where the migrants could face indefinite detention.President Donald Trump’s use of the...

Breaking- The Supreme Court ruled against the Trump administration, blocking them from deporting a group of Venezuelan illegal alien gang members in Texas under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act