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On 1 October, 2019, the Supreme Court held a conference. One of the items to be decided was whether the Court would hear the Second Amendment case of NY STATE RIFLE & PISTOL V. NEW YORK, NY. The Supreme Court had already granted Cert (agreed to hear the case). But the City of New York, fearing a poor outcome, had minimally changed the regulation, and lobbied the State of New York legislature to minimally change the law. Then the counsel for the City filed a petition with the Supreme Court, claiming the case was moot, there was no longer...

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a 2020 presidential contender, on Monday issued a judicial ethics plan that would close a loophole and allow misconduct investigations of federal judges to continue even if they are elevated to the Supreme Court or resign from the bench. “It’s time to ensure that judges do not hear cases where they have conflicts of interests, strengthen our nation’s ethics rules for judges, and ensure accountability for judges who violate these rules,” Warren wrote in the proposal. Closing the loophole would have ramifications for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who has faced sexual assault allegations, which he...

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was reportedly absent from the bench Monday as the court reconvened for its new term. Chief Justice John Roberts said in his opening remarks that Thomas was "indisposed" due to an illness but said the conservative judge would still be participating in deciding the three cases the court is hearing arguments about, according to Reuters. Details of Thomas's illness were not immediately disclosed. SNIP

The U.S. Supreme Court kicked off its new nine-month term with a flurry of activity on Monday, hearing arguments in three cases and rejecting numerous appeals that piled up over the summer. With conservative Justice Clarence Thomas absent due to an unspecified illness, the court began hearing its first argument in a case focusing on whether states can discard the so-called insanity defense in criminal prosecutions. The case involved a man sentenced to death in Kansas for fatally shooting four family members while suffering from severe depression. In remarks from the bench before the first argument, Chief Justice John Roberts...

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg offered her thoughts Thursday on how historians will view this period of American history. "An aberration," the 86-year-old justice said when the question was posed to her at an event hosted by Amherst College, the Boston Globe reported. The event's moderator, Amherst College President Carolyn Martin, asked several other political questions of Ginsburg, who sidestepped controversial topics like the impeachment inquiry into President Trump. Instead, she spoke about broader aspects of political life in America today. “The people in this room gives me hope," Ginsburg replied when Martin asked her what she thinks will...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With 86-year-old liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg enduring a series of health scares, the question of whether President Donald Trump will get to make yet another U.S. Supreme Court appointment before the 2020 election lingers as the nine justices prepare to begin their new term next week.

The biggest gun control case in over a decade might end up on the desks of America's highest court -- and for once, gun control advocates don't want it to. New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. City of New York Last January, the Supreme Court announced it would take a case in New York City, one of the largest Second Amendment cases in the past 10 years. This is also the first case that might be heard since Justice Anthony Kennedy retired and the Court's seating dramatically shifted to a more conservative, potentially "gun-friendly" status. The Court's current...

The Supreme Court will hear Stephens’ case Oct. 8 over whether federal civil rights law that bars job discrimination on the basis of sex protects transgender people. Other arguments that day deal with whether the same law covers sexual orientation. The cases are the first involving LGBT rights since the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy, the court’s gay-rights champion and decisive vote on those issues... On the other side of the case is the R.G. and G.R. Harris Funeral Homes, whose owner worries that a ruling for Stephens also would prohibit sex-specific sleeping facilities in shelters, as well as showers,...

I’m not a very demonstrative person. Still, I laughed right out loud when I read the excuse House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) had for not pursuing the impeachment against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. I scared my dog, Molly, even. “We have our hands full with impeaching the president right now and that’s going to take up our limited resources and time for a while,” Nadler told NBC News. We can’t tilt at that windmill, Nadler is telling his fellow Democrats, because we’re already tilting at this one over here. Republicans ought to welcome impeachment for Kavanaugh, scurrilous...

The latest smear on Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh is a disaster for Democrats, and everyone seems to know it except the party’s presidential candidates. No sooner had the New York Times published a new, unsubstantiated allegation of sexual misconduct by Kavanaugh, then most of the candidates demanded Kavanaugh’s impeachment. “These newest revelations are disturbing,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) wrote on Twitter, adding “Like the man who appointed him, Kavanaugh should be impeached.” Sen. Kamala Harris (D., Calif.) declared Kavanaugh’s “place on the Court is an insult to the pursuit of truth and justice. He must be impeached.” Sen....

Facebook on Tuesday released its plans for the new board previously likened to a “Supreme Court” that can overturn the company’s own content moderation decisions.The new “Oversight Board” will govern appeals from Facebook users and questions from the company itself. The board will eventually consist of 40 members with three-year terms drawn from a diverse array of backgrounds, according to Facebook. Panels of five members will deliberate on cases it chooses to take. A minimum of 11 members will be required for the board to function. Facebook said in a press release it plans to have the board in place...

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who oversaw Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court hearing, said on Monday that a former classmate accusing the justice of sexual misconduct didn't contact the Senate Judiciary Committee last year. "That person, Mr. Stier, didn't reach out or provide information to the committee majority. ...My office never received anything from Mr. Stier or his unnamed friends," Grassley said during a Senate floor speech. Grassley served as Judiciary Committee chairman during Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing before the panel last year. His staff also conducted its own investigations into allegations made against the then-Supreme Court nominee. Grassley argued on Monday that...

President Donald Trump leapt to the defense of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh Sunday after allegations of sexual misconduct that had once threatened to torpedo his nomination to the bench resurfaced. "He is an innocent man who has been treated HORRIBLY," Trump said on Twitter, referring to the accusations as "lies." The president also accused critics of attempting to influence Kavanaugh's opinions and suggested that Kavanaugh "start suing people for liable, or the Justice Department should come to his rescue." (Trump apparently meant "libel," and later re-issued the tweet with the correct spelling of the word.) Kavanaugh was nominated by...

SNIP "I think the whole thing was a sham and that those documents need to be turned over, as well as the documents that the White House hid from his time in the White House Counsel's Office," she told George Stephanopoulos. "All of that needs to come forward to even look at a proceeding like that." SNIP The New York Times reported Saturday that a male classmate of Kavanaugh's saw the justice put his genitals against a woman without consent. The newspaper found this allegation was not investigated by the FBI. Democratic presidential candidate Julian Castro has called for the...

Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was hit with another accusation of unwanted sexual contact by a male classmate who said he witnessed Kavanaugh expose himself and press his genitals against a woman without her consent. The New York Times reported Saturday that the latest allegation, which has until now not been public, was reported to the FBI during Kavanaugh's Supreme Court confirmation process last year but was not investigated by the FBI. In the Times report, two FBI officials told the newspaper that a Yale classmate of Kavanaugh's, D.C.-based nonprofit owner Max Stier, said that he had witnessed Kavanaugh expose...

Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh is facing a new sexual misconduct allegation that appears to echo a previous accusation lobbed against him.

Washington - The Supreme Court authorized the Trump administration for now to deny asylum to Central Americans who cross through other countries on their way to the U.S., a boost for White House efforts to tighten the southern border. The court, in a brief written order, stayed the effect of lower court rulings that barred the administration from enforcing the asylum restrictions. One of those injunctions was issued just this week by a federal judge in California. The policy, one of several measures the Trump administration has taken to deter immigration from Latin America, demands that refugees seek asylum in...

John Zmirak Christine Blasey Ford lied. She’d played a coy game behind the scenes, advised by Soros lawyer Debra Katz. They worked with Senator Feinstein hoping to force Brett Kavanaugh or President Trump to back down and withdraw Kavanaugh’s name in disgrace, his good name destroyed based on anonymous whispers of an unproven sex assault. When that failed, Ford sat down for days of rigorous coaching like a presidential contender before a debate. Or an actor before a Broadway debut. Then went before the U.S. Senate and the world and on cue lied under oath. She knew she would never...

Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch responded to critics who might think that it is the job of judges to fix politics in an interview with CNN released Tuesday. "Do you really want me to rule the country?" he asked. "It is a raucous republic and the battle of ideas is what our founders had in mind," he continued. What they didn't have in mind "was nine old people in Washington sitting in robes telling everybody else how to live." Gorsuch was appointed by President Trump in 2017 to fill the seat vacated by the late Justice Antonin Scalia. He told...

Former Vice President and 2020 Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden has made it clear that he plans to ride former President Barack Obama's back all the way to the White House. On Wednesday during an appearance on "The Late Show" with Stephen Colbert, Biden announced that he would appoint his former boss, Obama, to the Supreme Court. "Would you appoint him [Obama] to the Supreme Court?" Colbert questioned. "Hell yes!" Biden responded. He then added, "I don't think he'd do it but he's fully qualified." Biden understands that the only reason he has a chance at becoming president is because...