A Shameless Stooge -- What Trump Looks For in a Judge

 

Remember when that old comedian Mitch McConnell voted against convicting Trump for his January 6 coup attempt and explained his vote as logical, because there was no need for Congress to act: "We have a criminal justice system in this country. We have civil litigation. And former presidents are not immune from being held accountable by either one." We didn't know that was a laugh-line. We know it now.

In July of 2024, Chief Justice John Roberts, in his notorious "presidential immunity" ruling, declared that a president, any president, enjoys “absolute” or “qualified” immunity from criminal prosecution for any action taken in his “official” capacity. An appellate judge who heard the immunity argument ahead of the Supreme Court summed up the Trump position with a hypothetical: Absolute immunity means that Trump could well avoid criminal consequences for using SEAL Team Six to murder opponents. 

The Roberts Court swallowed that hypothetical like a guppy.

Roberts and the other court conservatives guaranteed our current constitutional crisis: Trump won. He's indulging himself with power-grabs and entrepreneurial corruption, secure in the assurance that he will never face criminal accountability. (Goddamn! What a country to pull that off!) As Justice Sotomayor put it in her dissent, the Court made the president into a "king above the law.” 

So far the balance of judges who've ruled on Trump 2.0 have not been stooges. Quit the contrary. There are courageous men and women wearing the robes, and we have historically respected their independence (if cussing them sometimes/always anyway), and thanked Gawd that the judiciary was there to protect us from tyranny.

But of course the district court judges are only the bottom rung of the judicial ladder, and we know it always ends with Roberts and his conservatives. They've already proven themselves stooges. Will they stooge again?

To bluff and bluster and keep those and other judges in line, Trump has called for impeachment (with maybe hanging thrown in) of federal judges who rule against him. His mean girl spokesblond proclaims that judges are usurping the powers and prerogatives of the popularly elected president, essentially unleashing the dogs to harass, to stalk, to hunt. Trump dares to skirt. Is there any doubt that he's lied and defied the court in that abduction case of immigrants with tattoos? This is a constitutional crisis of the highest order. Will the system hold? Will the Roberts Court repent?

There's a General Election coming up. Time is actually short. Just eight months to find Democratic candidates at all levels. The filing period for '26 candidates in both parties is the first two weeks of December 2025.

A Federal Judge Skewers the Roberts Supreme Court

The Smiling F U

Milwaukee Federal District Court Judge Lynn S. Adelman has published what the WashPost calls a "blistering critique" of the Supreme Court’s record under Chief Justice John Roberts, focusing on a string of decisions that he argues have fostered “economic inequality,” “undermined democracy,” and “increased the political power of corporations and wealthy individuals” at the expense of ordinary Americans.

'Bout time.

Adelman referenced Roberts' 2005 confirmation hearing in which he promised to be a non-political "umpire," "calling balls and strikes." Adelman labels that promise a “masterpiece of disingenuousness.” Gee. What's a synonym for disingenuousness? Oh yes ... dishonesty.

Adelman cited a series of cases, most of them 5-4 decisions, which he says have consolidated the power of the rich, limited redress for the powerless, and weakened democracy. Among them were Shelby County v. Holder, a 2013 Roberts opinion that loosened Voting Rights Act safeguards for minorities, and the North Carolina voting rights case, Rucho v. Common Cause, in which the court, in a 2018 Roberts opinion, said partisan gerrymandering presents “political questions beyond the reach of the federal courts.”

He also cited Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission in 2010, which allowed unlimited corporate and union spending in federal elections, and the 2018 decision in Janus v. AFSCME Council 31, which held that it was unconstitutional to allow public employee unions to require collective-bargaining fees from workers who choose not to join the union.

Adelman also had words for Twitterman, who he wrote ran as a populist but failed to deliver “policies beneficial to the general public …. While Trump’s temperament is that of an autocrat,” Adelman wrote, “he is disinclined to buck the wealthy individuals and corporations who control his party.”

There's a lot of squawking on the right about "how dare this liberal judge express his opinion," when conservative judges do it all the time, do it with gusto, and get away with steering the Republic toward a full-on oligarchy. It's refreshing to have a federal judge call "bullshit!"

Did Chief Justice John Roberts Just Sass Our "Very Stable Genius"?

So you're telling me that because John Roberts said yesterday that an “independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for” and that the U.S. doesn’t have “Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges” -- you're telling me that John Roberts is our last best hope for saving the Republic?

That scares the living cornbread stuffing outta me.

Has John Roberts met Brett Kavanaugh yet, and is he saying that ole Brett is not a "Trump judge." Was he sober at the time?

Has John Roberts met any of the other Trump appointees that Mitch McConnell is trying to rush through to populate the judiciary, those solemn legal minds that Twitterman chose because he thinks they'll approve of whatever he gets it in his head to do?

John Roberts is our hedge against the vandals?

Maybe. But there's another Defense Against the Dark Arts ... the next election cycle, when we can complete what we have begun.

Sorry, Haters: Supremes Uphold ACA Subsidies

Voting 6-3, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a few minutes ago its positive decision on the Affordable Healthcare Act's tax subsidies which 8.7 million people currently receive to make insurance affordable.

Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy both sided with the liberal justices on the Court.

Up tomorrow (probably): the decision on same-sex marriage.

All Eyes on Chief Justice John Roberts

I saw a great deal of woo-hooing on Facebook on Friday after the Supreme Court granted hearings in two gay marriage cases. From what I’m reading, the elation is a little premature. The menu of options open to the justices, especially in the California Prop 8 case, range all over the map, from outlawing gay marriage restrictions everywhere (woot!) to finding absolutely no constitutional basis for gay rights (OMG!).

It may all come down to Chief Justice John Roberts and how he wants history to view him. It’s said that no Supreme Court ever likes to get too far out in front of the people. But it’s also a given that the truly great Justices have been well ahead of the people and have actually led them where many feared to tread. Chief Justice John Marshall established definitively the right of the courts to interpret the law. Chief Justice Earl Warren took society away from segregated schools and incidentally also led the Court in striking down state prohibitions against interracial marriage (in Loving v. Virginia, 1967), which is a pretty interesting precedent for the current docket.

Roberts has already freed himself from the airless, conservative box of Scalia/Thomas/Alito, in the recent ruling on Obamacare, and he may want to step out again on gay marriage. If he doesn’t want to lead boldly but nevertheless sees clearly where this society is headed eventually, then we would expect a ruling that is incrementally good for gay marriage but is something far more timid than we would like.

THE TWO CASES BEFORE THE COURT
1. United States v. Windsor is a challenge to the 1996 law of Congress, the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defined marriage for all federal purposes as a union of one man and one woman. Everyone I’m reading on SCOTUS blog seems sure that this court will strike down DOMA. But striking down the federal definition of marriage will not necessarily address the underlying Constitutional issue of whether there is a right to gay marriage.

2. Hollingsworth v. Perry is the California Prop 8 case and is generally considered the epicenter for all earthquakes that may come from the High Court's decision to open the gay marriage argument. In their order granting a hearing in this case, the Supremes requested the lawyers to brief them on the legal issues of standing, which is a warning that the Court might take the narrow view and follow the lead of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, find that those clamoring to take away the right of marriage from gay people have no legal standing to be suing in this case and thereby uphold the overturning of Prop 8. If this is the path the Court takes, then gay marriage could be ruled legal in California only (since the state had already approved gay marriage prior to Prop 8). Even more narrowly, the Court could rule that gay marriage is legal in just two counties of California, where county clerks had refused to issue marriage licenses after the passage of Prop 8 and were subsequently named in the complaint that has now landed at last on the docket of the Supreme Court.

Gay marriage had been legalized in California, against which Prop 8, a plebiscite, was mounted and passed, taking the right away. The Ninth Circuit held that under the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution, a state could not grant an entitlement and then take it away without a legitimate reason. In reaching that conclusion, the Ninth Circuit relied on another very interesting Supreme Court case, Romer v. Evans, which you should know about.  According to Kenji Yoshino, Professor of Constitutional Law at NYU:

Romer v. Evans ... invalidated a Colorado constitutional amendment enacted through a plebiscite that stated that there could be “no protected status” on the basis of gay, lesbian, or bisexual identity. The constitutional amendment in question (Amendment 2) superseded anti-discrimination laws protecting gays that had been passed by progressive cities in Colorado. Those cities were blue dots in a red state. Amendment 2 invalidated those municipal ordinances and, going forward, prohibited the state or any of its subdivisions from enacting a similar kind of anti-discrimination ordinance. 

The Supreme Court struck down the Colorado amendment under the Equal Protection Clause without specifying a level of scrutiny. It observed that Amendment 2 was “at once too narrow and too broad” — it singled out a group of people on the basis of a single trait and then denied them protections across the board. The sweeping nature of the disability on a small group of people effectively made gay individuals “strangers” to the law. The Court stated that the imposition of such harm could only be explained by animus. 

In the Perry case, the Ninth Circuit panel detected the same animus. One problem with the panel’s analysis was that Prop. 8 eliminated only one right — the right to marry. The panel acknowledged this distinction, saying that animus could be present even (or perhaps especially) when a state enacted legislation with “surgical precision.” Yet this interpretation extends Romer, which repeatedly emphasized the breadth of the harm imposed by Amendment 2 as part of what was constitutionally objectionable about it. 

This objection, however, simply  means that Romer, standing alone, may not dispose of Perry. Because they are both gay-rights cases involving ballot measures, the understandable tendency has been to link Perry with Romer. Yet Romer is but one member of a family of cases in which the Court has invalidated laws that lacked a rational basis. Many of these cases invalidated laws much narrower than Prop. 8. In City of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, the Court struck down a city zoning ordinance that discriminated against individuals with mental disabilities, applying equal protection rational basis review. Similarly, in United States Department of Agriculture v. Moreno, the Court struck down a portion of a federal food stamps program that discriminated against “hippies.” The best reading of these precedents is that the problem with legislation based solely on animus is the animus, not the breadth of the legislation. Such breadth is but one of the many possible indicia pointing to the existence of animus. 

If the Court adopted this substantive rule, the decision would only affect the capacity of same-sex couples to marry in California, at least for the time being. No other state has permitted same-sex couples to marry before taking away the right....

Reading legal analysis written by high-powered lawyers can seem a house of mirrors, but I find it pretty stimulating on this particular subject. If you want to read more, SCOTUS blog has been my indispensible source, particularly this and this and this and the above.

Buh-Bye

Hell, we figger running the City of the Big Shoulders is maybe better suited to his talents. Running the White House ... not so much.

The character Josh Lyman in "The West Wing" is said to be based on Rahm. We'd be so much better off right now if Rahm had based his style in the White House on Josh Lyman.

We blame him for the loss of the public option. Up until recently, we were blaming all the ineptitude of the Obama White House on him, but we're not so sure any more. From the appointment of all those Goldman Sachs budget boys/girls to the Tin Ears in the political operation, seems like the man at the top might bear the blame.

We're reading about Rahm's likely successor, Pete Rouse. A strike against him is that he was Tom Daschle's right hand when Daschle was Majority Leader. Daschle's style was a lot like Obama's, too conciliatory for his own good. In Rouse's favor is that he apparently knows the location of every buried body for the last four decades of Life&Death in Mugstomp-on-the-Potomac. That kind of knowledge can come in handy for a president about to make a move. Rouse became Obama's chief of staff when he was first elected to the Senate. It was apparently Rouse who turned Obama around on his vote on the confirmation of Chief Justice John Roberts. Obama was evidently planning to vote for the confirmation. Rouse warned him that a yes vote would come back to haunt him.

That was some good political advice right there.

Oh Shut Up

Democratic Senators are shocked -- shocked! -- that they were misled by Justices Roberts and Alito in their Supreme Court confirmation hearings.

Which tells you everything you need to know for understanding why the Democratic Senate is such a sump of ineptitude.