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.

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BREAKING: Justice Breyer retiring from SCOTUS

After 27 years on the Supreme Court, Justice Stephen Breyer is retiring, NBC News reported. “Justice Stephen Breyer will step down from the Supreme Court at the end of the current term, according to people familiar with his thinking.”

Justice Breyer is one of three liberal justices and shares that leftist ideology with Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Now alleged President Joe Biden will have the chance to appoint a successor and the split between conservative and feelings-based will remain 6-3 respectively.

The Left has been calling for Breyer to retire by progressive activist Marxists and Democrats in Congress so that Biden can pick a replacement while he's still claiming to be lucid.

“Progressive group Demand Justice launched a new ‘Breyer Retire’ campaign Friday urging U.S. Supreme Court Stephen Breyer to ‘retire now’ from the high court, putting more pressure on the liberal-leaning justice to step down while Democrats narrowly have Senate control after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death resulted in President Donald Trump choosing her successor,” Forbes reported in April, 2021.

Demand Justice Executive Director Brian Fallon said that Breyer's retirement is "the only responsible choice," and evidently Breyer now agrees. 

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“We are now firmly in the window when past justices have announced their retirement, so it’s officially worrisome that Justice Breyer has not yet said that he will step down,” Fallon had said in the past.

Justice Breyer, now 83, is a San Francisco-born liberal who has been reluctant to ride off into the sunset but has finally decided that it's time to go.

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Non aborted Kagan says killing pre-born babies "part of the fabric of women's existence in this country"

“I've noticed that everyone who is for abortion has already been born.”  Ronald Reagan

Supreme Court Justice and far-Left viable Elena Kagan said on Wednesday that abortion is  “part of the fabric of women’s existence in this country.” She was not referring to the existence of women who, as pre-born babies, are killed every year, but to women like herself who have already been born. 

Kagan was attempting to defend the 1973 Roe v. Wade precedent in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization case.

She butted heads with Mississippi Solicitor General Scott G. Steward during oral arguments at SCOTUS who was attempting to defend Mississippi's 2018 law banning abortion, including in cases of rape and incest, before 15 weeks of pregnancy. 

After all, it isn't the fault of the fetus that his or her mother was raped, and should not have to be killed on that basis.

Kagan said that the Court must avoid the perception that it was merely a political body--in spite of the fact that Roe itself had created that notion and she failed to acknowledge that--and she argued that nothing much had changed since Roe and Planned Parenthood of Southeaster Pennsylvania v. Case (1992) to change the principles at stake.

Which is precisely the point, Stewart argued, because they "have no basis in the Constitution."

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The rights in question, he said, belonged not only to women but also to unborn children, and that the people, not judges, should decide the balance.

The battle continues between those who would kill unwanted babies against those who deem life precious. The Court's decision may be reached Friday, but Monday may be more likely. Whatever decision is reached, there will be fury and the gnashing of teeth.

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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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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.


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