Over the weekend, Trump's deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller repeatedly attacked judges, calling them part of an "organized terrorist attack" on the US government.... On Saturday, the home of a judge who ruled against Trump, went up in flames time.com/7323442/sout...

It's First Monday and we've got all kinds of ways to prepare for the new SCOTUS term at @economist.com A quick overview in Espresso, our daily app 1/4

While we were sleeping: A federal judge in Oregon has blocked the Trump administration from deploying any federalized National Guard—Texas, California, the state’s own—in Oregon. That’s big news. Even bigger: She’s decided to hold a trial on the merits. That is: She’s putting people under oath.

This morning, the Trump Administration’s Department of War gave me an ultimatum: call up your troops, or we will. It is absolutely outrageous and un-American to demand a Governor send military troops within our own borders and against our will.

Catch Jeffrey Rosen & me talking SCOTUS on this week’s episode of Checks and Balance @economist.com podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

BREAKING: the Supreme Court once again, on a 6-3 vote, lets the Trump administration revoke temporary protected status for 300k Venezuelans

Cautiously hopeful this is for real www.nytimes.com/live/2025/10...

Biggest new item on the SCOTUS docket: Wolford v. Lopez, a 2nd amendment case asking whether states can ban concealed-carry firearms on private property without permission of the property owner

NEW at SCOTUS: just five cert grants from the long conference

Will the Supreme Court keep blessing everything Donald Trump does? My @economist.com SCOTUS term preview w predictions from our SCOTUSbot & me economist.com/united-state...

UNITARY-ISH EXECUTIVE THEORY

Technically, this is still an emergency docket case. By contrast, SCOTUS *granted* Trump's stay request in the Lisa Slaughter/FTC case and moved it onto the merits docket. A sign, it seems, as to which way those two cases are going...

BREAKING: Supreme Court *defers* Trump's emergency appeal to fire Lisa Cook from the Fed, announces January 2026 oral argument to fully address the question. Which means Lisa Cook STAYS on the Fed for the time being.

It’s great to see the DOJ being so thoroughly deweaponized

Cute the majority says “hey this is just our first-blush view, we might see things differently later!”…when the $4bn evaporates and cannot be spent after Tuesday

I keep saying the Supreme Court majority is stealing judicial power from the lower federal courts. The second paragraph of Kagan's dissent today illustrates precisely what I mean.

BREAKING: Supreme Court grants Trump administration emergency request to withhold $4 billion in foreign aid that had been appropriated by Congress. The vote is 6-3

This is how he has always behaved on the bench. But I haven’t heard him express himself quite that crassly. www.law.com/nationallawj...

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YOLOing on the Shadow Docket

Removal protections are gone. Humphrey's Executor is overruled in all but name by the Shadow Docket. Rest in peace to the Presidency, and long live the Monarchy.

Justice Kagan: the supermajority is "raring to take action"

Shana tova to all who celebrate! 5786 has not been provisionally overruled on the shadow docket, at least not yet!

BIG at SCOTUS: Court grants Trump's request to immediately fire Rebecca Slaughter from the FTC **AND** announces it will consider overruling the 90-year precedent that (along with a statute) otherwise protect her from being sacked. Justice Kagan writes a dissent, joined by Sotomayor & Jackson.

Holy shit

IT’S A TREND: challengers to the Trump administration’s cancellation of temporary protected status for Venezuelans urge SCOTUS not to issue an administrative stay while it considers the government’s application

The complaint "stands unmistakably and inexcusably athwart the requirements of Rule 8"

NEW at SCOTUS: the latest in a steady stream of Trump emergency applications. This is a request to let the administration go ahead with its policy of requiring gender on passports to match the applicant's biological sex. (A lower court had blocked this as violating the Equal Protection Clause.)

Further update: SCOTUS has instructed Lisa Cook's lawyers to respond to Trump's application by Tuesday, September 25th at 4pm. Notably, no administrative stay in the meantime—effectively/implicitly granting Cook's request not to impose one.

UPDATE: Lisa Cook’s lawyers urge SCOTUS not to grant an administrative stay while it considers Trump’s request to let him fire Cook. First time I’ve seen such a request. Pairs very well with @stevevladeck.bsky.social’s Substack essay this morning.

BREAKING: Donald Trump‘s attempt to fire Lisa Cook from the Fed has reached the Supreme Court

""Hate speech does not exist legally in America. There's ugly speech. There's gross speech. There's evil speech. And ALL of it is protected by the First Amendment." -- Charlie Kirk, 2024

LATE NIGHT at SCOTUS: letter filed in a contest over which agency-head firing case will most pique the justices' interest to take up quickly & consider overruling Humphrey's Executor, the 1930 decision that protects these officials from presidential sacking.

Jill Lepore's new book argues that America's constitution has become unamendable—and warns that this inflexibility endangers the republic. My @economist.com review of "We the People" www.economist.com/culture/2025...

Yes - so many orders involving Trump EOs that include no clarification to the effect of...hey, this is just temporary, things could change.

BREAKING: Supreme Court *denies* an emergency request from South Carolina to let a public school bar a transgender boy from the boys' bathroom. Justices Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch dissent.

NEW: the Supreme Court agrees to hear Trump‘s appeal in the tariffs cases on a highly expedited basis. Oral argument will be during the first week of November.

Kudos in particular to the candles prep team

Reads like hyperbole but is not

The Kavanaugh concurrence is of a piece with many of his concurrences seeking to soften the blow of an authoritarian-adjacent ruling: I feel for the downtrodden (I really do!) even as I rubber-stamp the authorities' request to stomp on them (but please don't stomp too hard!).

Great minds, from @stevenmazie.bsky.social bsky.app/profile/stev...

The way to stop discrimination based on race is to stop discriminating based on race, amirite? From Justice Sotomayor's dissent:

SCOTUS: considering race as one factor in a college applicant's file is blatantly unconstitutional ALSO SCOTUS: considering race as one factor in targeting whom to detain and deport is cool cool cool

No big whoop, he said.

Notice what's missing here: the MAJORITY does NOT explain why it sided with the Trump administration. That's because this order did not contain ONE WORD of justification from the Court itself. Just one member of the majority (Kavanaugh) picked up a pen to try to explain his vote.

BREAKING: Supreme Court, in an apparent 6-3 vote, blesses, for now, the Trump administration's racial targeting of undocumented immigrants for detention and deportation

JUST IN: the chief justice issues an administrative stay in the case concerning the firing of Rebecca Slaughter as an FTC commissioner. So she remains fired for now and has until next Monday to submit her written reply to Trump‘s application