Showing posts with label Sonia Sotomayor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sonia Sotomayor. Show all posts

Friday, May 30, 2025

SCOTUS Gives Trump a 'W' on Scrapping Parole for 500K Migrants, Sotomayor and Jackson Aren’t Thrilled


The Supreme Court just tossed President Donald Trump a huge win in his border crackdown saga. On Friday, the justices put a hold on a lower court’s attempt to stop the President from deporting roughly 500,000 migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. This is a short-term victory for Trump as he doubles down on his immigration hardline in round two of his presidency.

The White House was ready to rumble. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt didn’t mince words on Tuesday, saying, “The White House will ‘fight this in a court of law’” after a judge tried to block Trump’s move to end a parole program for folks from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. 

What’s at stake here? Glad you asked.

The court’s order temporarily halts a ruling that stopped Trump from yanking Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for these migrants. TPS is like a legal shield that lets people live and work in the U.S. if their home countries are a hot mess, such as  disasters, wars, or other “extraordinary and temporary conditions.” 

Trump’s team wants to rip that shield away, and for now, the Supreme Court’s got their back.

The decision, like most of the court’s emergency orders, came without a signature or explanation. Classic Supreme Court move to simply drop the ruling and let everyone else figure out why.

But leftist Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson had plenty to say, and it wasn’t pretty. In a fiery dissent, they tore into the court’s call. Jackson, who doesn't know what a woman is, didn’t hold back, saying the court “plainly botched” its assessment and ignored the “devastating consequences of allowing the government to precipitously upend the lives and livelihoods of nearly half a million noncitizens [aka illegal aliens] while their legal claims are pending.” 

She went on: “While it is apparent that the government seeks a stay to enable it to inflict maximum pre-decision damage, court-ordered stays exist to minimize, not maximize, harm to litigating parties.” 

The TPS program’s been a lifeline for migrants, especially illegal ones. It is to be renewed every 18 months like clockwork, most recently under former alleged President Joe Biden, before he wandered out of office. 

Illegal migrant flipping off police

But Trump’s crew, led by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, came in hot this February, trying to pull the plug on protections for a chunk of Venezuelan nationals. Their reasoning? It’s not in the “national interest.” Noem’s been out here signing executive orders alongside Trump, who’s clearly not slowing down, and this scares the crap out of Democrats.

U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer wasn’t playing with his toes either. He told the justices earlier this month to let the administration do its thing, accusing U.S. District Judge Edward Chen of overstepping. “The district court’s reasoning is untenable,” Sauer argued, saying the TPS program involves “particularly discretionary, sensitive, and foreign-policy-laden judgments of the Executive Branch regarding immigration policy.” 

In other words, back off, judge—Trump’s got this.

This isn’t the first time the Supreme Court’s given Trump a green light lately. Earlier this month, they okayed his plan to revoke protected status for 350,000 Venezuelan illegal alien migrants, clearing the path for deportations. 

So, what’s next? The White House is gearing up for a legal brawl, and with Sotomayor and Brown-Jackson, throwing punches in dissent, this fight’s far from over. 

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Friday, May 23, 2025

SCOTUS backs Trump's removal of Biden's appointees from federal boards


The Supreme Court just handed President Trump a. big win, backing his move to remove two Democratic appointees, Gwynne Wilcox from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and Cathy Harris from the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), from their federal perches. 

This Thursday ruling is a big deal, settling a heated fight over how much power a president has to fire agency officials who don’t jive with his agenda.

The drama kicked off when Chief Justice John Roberts hit the pause button on reinstating Wilcox and Harris, both Biden picks who got the axe from Trump earlier this year. Both cried foul, calling their terminations “unlawful” in lawsuits filed in D.C. federal court, but the Supreme Court’s decision suggests Trump’s got the upper hand—for now.

That said, the court dropped a hint it might not be so quick to let Trump replace Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, who’s been in Trump’s crosshairs for not slashing interest rates fast enough. (Good luck firing a guy who controls the money printer, right?)

At the heart of this mess is a 90-year-old Supreme Court ruling called Humphrey’s Executor, which said presidents can’t just fire independent board members without a good reason. The question before the justices: Can Wilcox and Harris, both Biden appointees, keep their jobs while the courts wrestle with whether to chuck Humphrey’s into the legal dustbin?

The court’s three liberal justices—Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson—weren’t having it. Kagan came out swinging in her dissent: “Not since the 1950s (or even before) has a President, without a legitimate reason, tried to remove an officer from a classic independent agency.” She didn’t stop there, accusing her colleagues of itching to give Trump “the most unitary, meaning also the most subservient, administration since Herbert Hoover (and maybe ever).” 

That’s Kagan saying that the majority’s playing favorites, and it’s not subtle.

Trump’s legal team, meanwhile, was all about keeping Wilcox and Harris out of their jobs while the case grinds through the lower courts. They even pushed for the Supreme Court to skip the usual appeals process and fast-track the whole thing with a rare “certiorari before judgment” move, because letting Wilcox and Harris back in would, in their words, “entrust” the president’s powers “for the months or years that it could take the courts to resolve this litigation.” That, they argued, “would manifestly cause irreparable harm to the President and to the separation of powers.” 

In other words, if Trump can’t control his own executive branch, it’s chaos, and he’d have to spend months undoing whatever these two do in the meantime.

Rewind to earlier this month when the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 7–4 to put Wilcox and Harris back on their boards, leaning on Humphrey’s Executor and another oldie, Wiener v. United States. Those rulings say the president’s power to fire members of independent agencies like the NLRB and MSPB isn’t absolute. The D.C. Circuit wasn’t buying Trump’s argument for an administrative stay to keep the removals in place, pointing out that the Supreme Court has never overturned these precedents. “The Supreme Court has repeatedly told the courts of appeals to follow extant Supreme Court precedent unless and until that Court itself changes it or overturns it,” the judges wrote. 

Fair point, but it didn’t last long.

Trump’s team ran straight to the Supreme Court, which slapped an emergency stay on the reinstatement, keeping Wilcox and Harris sidelined. In their own filings, Wilcox and Harris’s lawyers begged the court to let them back in until the appeals process plays out. They warned against rushing things, with Harris’s team telling the justices, “Rushing such important matters risks making mistakes and destabilizing other areas of the law.” Wilcox’s camp doubled down, arguing that yanking her from the NLRB’s three-member panel could “bring an immediate and indefinite halt to the NLRB’s critical work of adjudicating labor-relations disputes.” 

Their point is that kicking her out doesn’t just tweak policy, it grinds the agency to a halt, which they say screws over Congress’s mandate.

This isn’t the only case poking at the president’s firing powers. Hampton Dellinger, a Biden appointee to the Office of Special Counsel, also sued after getting fired on Feb. 7. He argued he could only be fired for job performance issues, which Trump’s team didn’t bother citing in their dismissal email. Dellinger dropped his suit after the D.C. Circuit sided with Trump in an unsigned order, but the broader fight’s far from over.

And the Justice Department is not hiding its cards. Back in February, they told Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) they’re gunning to overturn Humphrey’s Executor altogether. If that happens, it’s a whole new ballgame for how much control a president has over the so-called “independent” agencies. 

Buckle up—this one’s got legs.

If you enjoy my blog, feel free to toss a virtual coffee my way on Buy Me a Coffee – it’s like a high-five with caffeine, and coffee keeps me focused. No pressure, it's your call.

Tuesday, July 9, 2024

Anti-Gun SCOTUS's bodyguards shoot would-be carjacker outside her home



 A pair of deputy US Marshals shot a wannabe carjacker who pulled a gun on them while they were guarding the home of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor in Washington, DC. She has no problem with her bodyguards being armed, but not so much for the little people like us.

Anyway, the marshals were parked outside Sotomayors home in northwest DC on July 5th when a nice young felon named Kentrell Flowers, 18, walked up to one of their cars around 1:15 a.m. The young man pointed a gun at one of the federal agents, the US Marshals Service reported.

Surprise! One of the agents drew his weapon and fired several rounds at young Flowers, while a second officer also began firing at the suspect.

Lucky for the young man, the US Marshals weren't the best shots on the block and Flowers was taken to a local hospital for non-life-threatening injuries.

Sotomayor was not at home when the incident occurred.

Metropolitan Police detectives are investigating the shooting, and recovered a semi-automatic handgun from the scene. The suspect's firearm was recovered at the scene.

“The Deputy US Marshals involved in the shooting incident were part of the unit protecting the residences of U.S. Supreme Court justices,” the US Marshals office said in a statement.

The young Flowers was charged with armed carjacking, carrying a pistol without a license, and possession of a large capacity magazine. So even if Sotomayor's call for crazy-strict gun laws, this would have done nothing to stop the crime.

Sotomayor's 'Hood'

The US Marshals office and Metropolitan Police Department declined to elaborate further on the case, which remains under investigation. Yet another in the latest series of high profile carjackings of federal agents and VIPs in Washington, DC. 

Last year, Secret Service agents assigned to President Biden’s granddaughter, Naomi, opened fire on a group of people attempting to break into an unmarked Secret Service car.

Officials said the agents found three people attempting to enter the parked car at Naomi’s Georgetown neighborhood just before midnight on Nov. 12.

In January, former Trump administration official Mike Gill was fatally wounded by a carjacker as he sat in his vehicle on K Street at about 5.

But have no fear. Hunter Biden promises to get to the bottom of this while he is in charge.

Saturday, January 8, 2022

Justice Sotomayor blasted for fake information over child Covid numbers

Loco or Liar?

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments for 3 hours and 40 minutes over a federal mandate that a cognitively impaired President wants to impose on private businesses with over 100 employees. Enforcement of the policies, which were announced in November, has been put on hold pending resolution in the high court.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor had things to say about the pandemic situation as well.

She falsely claimed that more than 100,000 children in the US are currently hospitalized from COVID-19, and many of them are on ventilators. It's unclear as to whether she is lying or uninformed, but her numbers are as actual as the Russian collusion hoax the Democrats and media had been telling the public when Trump was in office and has since been disproved.

Her statement came during the oral arguments regarding the Biden administration's mandate for employees of private businesses be either vaccinated or frequently tested. Sotomayor apparently just recited large numbers in her head because they had nothing to do with reality.

"We have hospitals that are almost at full capacity with people severely ill on ventilators. We have over 100,000 children, which we've never had before, in serious condition, many on ventilators," she falsely claimed.

Yes, there are more children hospitalized now than any point prior in this pandemic, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [which has become an oxymoron since they don't prevent nor control anything but our freedom]. The seven-day average of pediatric hospitalizations was around 3,700 last week, but as we know, younger people are at far less risk than older adults of severe outcomes from the coronavirus.

The Hudson Institute's Rebeccah Heinrichs wrote: "Inexcusable for a SCOTUS justice to peddle this fear mongering false info."

"It’s actually terrifying that a Supreme Court justice can be so misinformed. The emperor has no clothes," Ron DeSantis press secretary Christina Pushaw said.

"Fact-checkers. Hello?" Fox News contributor Joe Concha wrote in response to her made-up numbers.

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OutKick's Clay Travis tweeted:  "Justice Sotomayor’s comment on 100,000 children in serious condition with covid is such a flagrantly untrue statement she should have to correct it after the argument. It’s embarrassing for the Supreme Court to allow that factual inaccuracy to occur in an oral argument." 

Sotomayor was nominated by President Obama because she is a woman and a far-left Latina, and has been on the Supreme Court since 2009. 


Saturday, April 10, 2021

SCOTUS rules against Newsom's attack on religious observance during COVID


In a split decision Friday, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of banning restrictions on in-home religious gatherings. This overturns a lower court ruling that went along with Gov. Gavin Newsom's limiting of gatherings of religious observers from different homes.

So while the left continues to attempt destroying the Bill of Rights, SCOTUS upheld them . . . for now.

The unsigned ruling was 5 - 4 with Chief Justice RINO Justice John Roberts dissenting but did not sign the dissent statement because not only is he a horrible justice, he is also a coward.

Thus usual suspects going after the U.S. Constitution were Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Stephen Breyer.

The decision spelled out that religious gatherings cannot be limited unless the government can prove they pose a greater danger than secular activities such as shopping, movie attendance, a BLM riot, or lesbian dance theory classes that remain open.

"Otherwise, precautions that suffice for other activities suffice for religious exercise too," the majority opinion said, adding that California "treats some comparable secular activities more favorably than at-home religious exercise, permitting hair salons, retail stores, personal care services, movie theaters, private suites at sporting events and concerts and indoor dining at restaurants to bring together more than three households at a time."

It's really a no-brainer but the left is trying to end the practice of mainstream religion and replace it with far-left political thought.

The majority opinion added that the state can’t "assume the worst when people go to worship but assume the best when people go to work," in a quote from a previous ruling.

Justice Elena Kagan, the godless leftist who ruled against easing restrictions along with Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and the useless, cowardly John Roberts, wrote in a dissenting opinion that the state has complied with the First Amendment because it also restricts secular at-home gatherings to three households.

California "has adopted a blanket restriction on at-home gatherings of all kinds, religious and secular alike," she wrote in the dissent joined by leftists Sotomayor and Breyer, with total disregard of one's right to worship.

"The law does not require that the State equally treat apples and watermelons," Kagan wrote, trying to avoid the oranges cliche. She said that in-home gatherings shouldn’t be compared to businesses, thus making the claim that a church is merely a business and not a house of worship.

The lawsuit had been brought by residents in Santa Clara County who hold in-home religious meetings and claimed the restrictions infringed on their constitutional rights, according to the former newspaper The New York Times.

A federal judge ruled against the suit, which was upheld by the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco, before being overturned by the Supreme Court.


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Monday, June 4, 2018

BREAKING: SCOTUS rules in favor of Christian baker

The Supreme Court ruled Monday in favor of Jack Phillips, the Colorado baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple.

In a 7 - 2 decision, SCOTUS set aside a previous Colorado court ruling against the baker, but did not decide the broader issue as to whether a business can refuse to serve gays and lesbians. Nor does it deal with whether a transgender man who marries a transgender woman can be refused service.

The opinion was written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, often the swing vote in tight cases. [Kennedy tends to swing both ways judicially.]

The narrow ruling focused only on what the court described as anti-religious bias on the Colorado Civil Rights Commission when it ruled against the baker.

"The Commission's hostility was inconsistent with the First Amendment's guarantee that our laws be applied in a manner that is neutral toward religion," Kennedy wrote.

The two justices who dissented were Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Sonia Sotomayer, both who have souls as black as the nether regions of George Soros.

The court said the broader issue "must await further elaboration."

"The reason and motive for the baker's refusal were based on his sincere religious beliefs and convictions. The Court's precedents make clear that the baker, in his capacity as the owner of a business serving the public, might have his right to the free exercise of religion limited by generally applicable laws. Still, the delicate question of when the free exercise of his religion must yield to an otherwise valid exercise of state power needed to be determined in an adjudication in which religious hostility on the part of the State itself would not be a factor in the balance the State sought to reach," Kennedy wrote.

It all began in July 2012 when Charlie Craig and David Mullins of Denver visited Masterpiece Cakeshop to buy a custom-made wedding cake for their homosexual wedding. Phillips, a religious Christian, refused their service, not because they were gay, (he never refused to serve gays or lesbians in the past) but because his religion does not condone same-sex marriage.

The state civil rights commission sanctioned Phillips after the gay men, rather than going elsewhere for their cake, filed a formal complaint.

Mullins described their case as symbolizing "the rights of gay people to receive equal service in business . . . about basic access to public life."

The case also symbolized the 'rights of gay people override the rights of religious beliefs.' And that the LGBTQ community can force someone to provide a service that goes against their moral beliefs.

The Trump administration supported Phillips, who was represented in court by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian nonprofit organization. But Phillips lost all his legal appeals, bringing the case to the Supreme Court's decision Monday.

In all the time this has been going on, Phillips lost his business and had to let employees go.

Phillips was clear as to why he refused to bake the cake: "It's not about turning away these customers, it's about doing a cake for an event--a religious sacred event--that conflicts with my conscience," he said last year.

The court specifically examined whether applying Colorado's public accommodations law which compelled the baker to crate commercial "expression" violated his constitutionally protected Christian beliefs regarding marriage.

Upon hearing the arguments in December, Justice Kennedy was bothered by certain comments by a commission member. Kennedy said that the commissioner seemed "neither tolerant nor respectful of Mr. Phillips' religious beliefs."

Probably due to the fact that the court's decision today was so narrow, liberal justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan joined with the conservative justices while Sotomayor and Ginsberg refused.


Monday, December 4, 2017

SCOTUS Allows Travel Ban to Take Full, Immediate Effect

The U.S. Supreme Court has allowed the latest repeat of President Trump's travel ban to take full effect for now, as lower courts continue to try dealing with lawsuits opposing the ban by a vote of 7 to 2. 

This means that the administration can enforce its September proclamation, suspending entry of foreign nationals from seven terror-spawning countries: Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Venezuela and Yemen.

Leftist border-hating justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor noted their dissent from the Court's decision.

The DOJ asked the Court to lift lower court orders by leftist Obama appointee judges opposing everything Trump and barring enforcement of the proclamation while legal challenges are adjudicated by the courts. Challenges are currently pending before the 4th and 9th Circuit Courts of Appeal.

Although the Court agreed to lift those orders, they expressed no view on the merits of the case.

President Trump issued the proclamation late September when the second version of the travel ban expired after a 90-day enforcement period.

Federal courts in Hawaii and Maryland issued orders forbidding enforcement of key provisions of the proclamation. Those orders were partially upheld by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and concluded any person from six of the eight terror-spawning countries named in the order with a significant connection to the U.S., such as family, business or know someone who knows someone in a sleeper cell, may still enter the country.


Friday, January 15, 2016

Facts and thinning the GOP herd

It's beginning to look like there will be a thinning of the herd of GOP candidates now that the first January debate wrapped up yesterday. I believe this debate shines a light on what we can expect down the road and, if anything, it has changed the mind of many voters and solidified their judgment on others.

Jeb Bush came across as a bush-league debater. He may have been a good governor of Florida, but on the debate stage looks like a stoop-shouldered old man who would rather be playing a game of pinochle or checkers.

Dr. Ben Carson is like that rotisserie chicken that's been cooking in the restaurant window all day. He's done and he needs to acknowledge that to himself. He's a really decent guy but he's not cut out for the blood-letting that politics demands.

John Kasich, for some reason, annoys the hell out of me. He's probably a nice person but he talks too long, and he is never going to close the deal.

Marco Rubio is smooth--he did himself a lot of good last night, but he has an uphill road to climb if he wants to give Trump and Cruz a run for their money. In the kerfuffle he had with Governor Chris Christie, Rubio clearly came out on top. 

The facts don't lie: Christie supported Common Core and very strict gun control, and he supported the appointment of ultra liberal Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. 

But what I believe will sink his generous butt is the fact that he donated to Planned Parenthood. After the videos of how PP harvested baby body parts, conservatives, and a few liberals perhaps, went ballistic.

 Christie's tactic to the factual accusations was to simply deny all of them. "Let's get the facts straight. First of all, I didn't support Sonia Sotomayor."

But the facts are stubborn things, as Ronald Reagan said. According to PolitickerNJ, back in 2009 Christie issued a statement in support of Sotomayor, although prior to that he said that Sotomayor would not have been his choice. 


Christie was doing what people who cite the nice parts of the Koran do: he was using an earlier statement as if there were no later statement.

"After watching and listening to Judge Sotomayor's performance at the confirmation hearings this week, I am confident that she is qualified for the position of Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court." He also added: "Elections have consequences. One of those consequences are judicial appointments. While Judge Sotomayor would not have been my choice, President Obama has used his opportunity to fill a seat on the Supreme Court by choosing a nominee who has more than proven her capability, competence and ability. I support her appointment to the Supreme Court and urge the Senate to keep politics out of the process and confirm her nomination."

Keep politics out of the appointment to the Supreme Court?

For all of Christie's claims that he's a "straight talker," there is no doubt that he speaks with a forked tongue. 

The same is true about his denial of donating to Planned Parenthood. 

Christie is quoted in a 1994 Newark Star Ledger column that he supports PP. His campaign is now claiming that he never made the donation he bragged about. 

It has a funny odor to it.

But it seems like most campaigns do.

It's anybody's guess if this will adversely effect Christie's run, but it probably should. 

There's also that little fact of his relationship with radical Muslim imams. In an article back in 2012, the Clarion Project addresses Christie's relationship with Imam Mohammed Qatanani, who was labeled a radical imam by the Department of Homeland Security. In fact, they wanted to deport him. 

Of the imam, Christie said: "In all my interactions with the imam, he has attempted to be a force for good in his community, in our state with law enforcement, with those of us who have gotten to know him over the years."

Christie went on to explain how he judges people on what he sees in them. So what's the point of having the Department of Homeland Security if you don't care what they see?

So perhaps Christie along with Kasich, should call it a day, at the end of the day. They don't seem to have a chance of winning the nomination and clearing the field would make it easier for Americans to voice who they really want.


Fauci's top advisor indicted as 'co-conspiritor' in huge COVID cover-up

The United States Department of Justice dropped a bombshell on Tuesday, announcing that Dr. Richard Morens, one of Dr. Anthony Fauci's m...