Went to the Great American State Fair out of morbid curiosity. It’s not a total disaster, just ramshackle and kind of boring. The Temu arch is an embarrassment, as are all the weird MAGA cult displays (including a mock-up Trump passport). People working the event were nice and I felt bad for them.

At least we know that the 5th Circuit and Supreme Court will impartially and evenhandedly apply Mahmoud to protect religious rights of ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ba ha ha ha ha sorry it will just say people who object are anti-Christian bigots.

I try not to respond to these X dead-enders because they're losers who seemingly crave my attention. But I do want to be clear here: My criticism of Wolford is that the majority purports to be using history as an objective guide—a claim that Obergefell, and many other liberal decisions, do NOT make!

Today's Second Amendment decision has little to do with law and less to do with history (which Alito ignores or denies as needed to reach his conclusion). It's all about power—the supermajority shoving its preferred gun policy down our throats with brute force. Odious. slate.com/news-and-pol...

John Roberts will want you to forget everything that happened this week at SCOTUS after he confirms that the first sentence of the 14th Amendment means what it says, please do not fall for it

Compare Alito's description of Trump's racist statements (on the left) to Justice Kagan's anthology of Trump's racist statements (on the right). These are passages from this morning's opinions in Mullin v. Doe.

The Supreme Court's fourth and final decision is Mullin v. Doe. By a 6–3 vote, the conservatives hold that federal law prohibits judicial review of non-constitutional objections to TPS terminations, and the constitutional claims here fail. The liberals dissent. www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...

The Supreme Court's third decision is Mullin v. Otro Lado. Another 6–3 decision, this time allowing the government to "meter" asylum-seekers by forcing them to remain on the Mexican side of the border. All three liberals dissent. www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...

The Supreme Court's second opinion is Wolford v. Lopez. By a 6–3 vote, the court STRIKES DOWN Hawaii's law that bars the carrying of guns on private property unless the property owner affirmatively consents. All three liberals dissent. www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...

The Supreme Court's first opinion is Monsanto v. Durnell, a 7–2 victory for Monsanto holding that federal law preempts state law claims against the company for allegedly misleading labels. Jackson and Gorsuch dissent. www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...

The conservative supermajority went as far as it possibly could in several 6-3 decisions this week. “Again and again, it reached out for expansive holdings that did maximum damage to precedent, congressional authority, and civil liberties.”

What happens when no member of the Supreme Court’s dominant Republican bloc feels any need to moderate its most aggressive impulses? We saw it yesterday: Even smaller case turn into maximalist rulings that blow up precedent and gut civil rights. slate.com/news-and-pol...

Dude’s wife is the federal judge who struck down the COVID-era masks-on-planes mandate because it ”exceeds the CDC's statutory authority and violates the procedures required for agency rulemaking under the APA.“ reason.com/wp-content/u...

KBJ wrote that “the court has now handed the government a massive blank check” to hollow out “the benefits and security that come with having a green card.” That melds perfectly with the Trump administration's assault on lawful permanent residents. It may be the point. slate.com/news-and-pol...

NEW: This is what a 6-3 Supreme Court looks like. On a rainy Tuesday in Washington, D.C., the reality of today's high court was abundantly clear as the court handed down four 6-3 decisions moving the law to the right. Today, at Law Dork:

Don't be fooled by the fact that none of today's 5 #SCOTUS rulings were "big" ones. Four of them split the Court along its usual 6-3 ideological lines—one of which guts accountability for human rights abuses; one that makes it harder to enforce Spending Clause statutes; and one that's bad for LPRs.

When SCOTUS sides w/ birthright, *please* refrain from "each side gets a little" takes. SCOTUS is wiping away *major* features of the post-Warren-Court legal order, in contravention of pretty clear precedent. Rejecting *the most insane* position the T admin takes does not wash that way.

Today was an absolute blood bath at SCOTUS for the less powerful to enforce civil rights in the federal courts. TL;dr - SCOTUS rules 6-3 that only corporations have rights that are enforceable in federal court??

The Supreme Court's fifth and final decision is Blanche v. Lau, another 6–3 split. Per Thomas, the government does NOT require clear and convincing evidence that a green card holder committed a crime before divesting them of their lawful status at the border. www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...

The Supreme Court's fourth opinion is Pung v. Isabella County. Per Alito, the court holds that when the state forecloses upon a house due to outstanding property taxes, it owes the former owner only "the price obtained in a tax sale" under the takings clause. www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...

The Supreme Court's third opinion is Landor. The supermajority deals a 6–3 blow to religious liberty and congressional power, holding that spending clause legislation cannot create a damages remedy against officials who violate a federal directive. Huge decision. www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...

Opinion release days are a big part of the Court's antiperformance-as-performance schtick. They are invested in performing nonchalance about the public's attitude toward them, but in order to do so, they of course need an audience. The secrecy about what exactly is coming guarantees they get one.

The Supreme Court's second opinion is Exxon v. CIMEX. By a 6–3 vote along partisan lines, the court holds that "Cuban agencies and instrumentalities" are NOT immune from suit in U.S. court. www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...

The Supreme Court's first opinion is a 6–3 ruling in Cisco v. Doe. Per Barrett, courts may NOT create new causes of action for violations of international norms under the Alien Tort Statute. All three liberals dissent. More opinions to come. www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...

This has always been a dumb argument and will always be a dumb argument. It’s a branch of government. Its public proceedings should be viewable to the whole public, not just a tiny fraction willing to travel and stand in line for hours.

The Supreme Court's Republican-appointed justices quietly enshrined one of Clarence Thomas's most deeply held, ahistorical beliefs about equal protection into law: the myth of the color-blind Constitution. It's already helping to entrench white supremacy across the board. slate.com/news-and-pol...

I'd like to shout out prison litigators, who perform the vital yet thankless task of protecting constitutional rights behind bars. They are in the trenches fighting to secure basic decency and safety for a deeply vulnerable population whom most would rather ignore. It's courageous and heroic work.

Medical care for incarcerated people is protected under Estelle in 1976, which ruled withholding care is unconstitutional under the 8th amendment. 50 years later, and no facility, least of all Trump’s BOP, follows this. Care is regularly denied and this is one of the only recourses prisoners have.

Alito, joined by Thomas, is mad that the D.C. Court of Appeals sometimes considers a defendant's race when deciding whether they were detained (or "seized") under the 4th Amendment given Black citizens' heightened vulnerability to abusive law enforcement. www.supremecourt.gov/orders/court...

Texas agrees this defendant👇may be intellectually disabled and ineligible for the death penalty. It asked SCOTUS to (a) vacate a lower court decision that refused to consider this possibility and (b) instruct it to evaluate the evidence. Today SCOTUS refused 6–3. www.supremecourt.gov/orders/court...

By a 6–3 vote, the Supreme Court reverses a decision in favor of Pedro Hernandez, a mentally impaired man who was pressured into an allegedly false confession of murder through these👇unconstitutional tactics. The supermajority says he did not face a deprivation of "clearly established" rights.

Really bad grant in the Supreme Court's orders list—the justices will consider whether this individual👇had a right to sue federal officials who denied him proper medical care in prison. Preparing to take another (possibly lethal?) bite out of Bivens. www.supremecourt.gov/orders/court...

Small victories: This insane anti-weed group filed an amicus brief arguing that legal marijuana causes mass shootings and the Supreme Court completely ignored it www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/24...

Gorsuch really going to bat for responsible marijuana users—makes sense as he lived in Colorado when it first legalized recreational weed (and now lives in Maryland, I believe, where it has been legal for a while). www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...

So SCOTUS has already scheduled opinions for June 23 and 25. I expect they'll soon add June 26 and 29 as additional opinion days. MAYBE June 30, but I bet they want June 29 to be the last day.

SCOTUS announces an additional opinion day on Tuesday. I expect 4-5 opinions then.

The Supreme Court's third and FINAL opinion of the day is in the Rooker–Feldman case. (Yes, that takes an en dash.) So no huge ones today. I suspect the court will add at least one opinion day next week. A real logjam behind the scenes, it seems. www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...

The Supreme Court's second opinion is Hunter v. U.S., explaining that a defendant's promise not to appeal his conviction (or sentence) is unenforceable when it results in a miscarriage of justice. This smacks down the 5th Circuit yet again. Only Thomas dissents. www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...

First opinion is U.S. v. Hemani. The Supreme Court UNANIMOUSLY holds that a man who uses marijuana several times a week has a Second Amendment right to own a firearm, blocking his federal prosecution. Gorsuch writes for the majority. www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...

Good piece about real problems that stem from Bonds' negligence. (Glad she's retiring.) But as it notes, DC sent every registered voter a ballot in mid-May that they could return by mail or drop box. Plus, residents could register then vote at myriad early voting centers a week before Election Day!

Kenyan McDuffie has conceded to Janeese Lewis George in the D.C. Democratic mayoral primary

I don’t know if SCOTUS will release Trump v. Slaughter today, but if it does and Roberts writes, prepare for the most selective, bad-faith, outcome-driven “history” to appear in a Supreme Court opinion since Heller. Actual legal historians are going to lose their minds.

DC resident, can confirm: for people pushing that narrative this map is more or less the funniest conceivable result

There were some ugly claims on X that Janeese was the candidate of white “transplants” while McDuffie was the choice of longtime Black residents. But it looks like McDuffie will only win ward 3 (wealthy, white) while Janeese will carry every other ward (including majority-Black wards 7 and 8).

The obsession with getting instantaneous election results is weird and unhealthy, serves no real purpose, and feeds conspiratorial nonsense. Increasingly thinking we might be better off just embargoing all results for like a week.

It’s almost like this is stated in the DCBOE page

This is because the DC Board of Elections is waiting to release results until everyone has voted, and there were lines of late-arriving voters at some election sites when polls closed. Josh could have easily learned about this (entirely reasonable) policy because the board publicly announced it.

Will be doing a SCOTUS AMA with my esteemed colleague Susan Matthews at 4 pm! Join us: www.reddit.com/r/law/commen...

My husband got World Cup–themed potato chips at Costco and I am sad to report that these have an absolutely insane, nuclear level of garlic flavor. The strength of 1000 garlic cloves permeates each chip.