Tag: Supreme Court of the United States

Unwilling to leave political arguments for after Thanksgiving, Donald Trump returned to the offensive against judges and judgements he does not like, blaming both for “bedlam, chaos, injury and death”. “Whatever the scope of the president’s authority,” Jon Tigar wrote, “he may not rewrite the immigration laws to impose a condition that Congress has expressly forbidden.” Tigar, who was appointed by Barack Obama in 2012, is in fact a district judge based in San Francisco, under the jurisdiction of the ninth circuit but not a member of its appeals court. On Wednesday, in response to the president’s invective on the matter, Roberts issued a statement denying that judges’ opinions were shaped by the president who appointed them. “What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them. That independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.” Trump tweeted then: “Sorry Chief Justice John Roberts, but you do indeed have ‘Obama judges’, and they have a much different point of view than the people who are charged with the safety of our country. It would be great if the ninth circuit was indeed an ‘independent judiciary’, but if it is why are so many opposing view (on border and safety) cases filed there, and why are a vast number of those cases overturned. We need protection and security – these rulings are making our country unsafe! The Washington Post reported that though ninth circuit rulings are often overturned by the supreme court, “studies show that over the past five years, three other [circuit courts] have a higher percentage of decisions overturned”. After vaunting his record on border security, the president called the ninth circuit “a big thorn in our side” and “a disgrace”. In 2017, he attacked the legitimacy of a Washington-state judge who ruled against his first travel ban against people from certain Muslim-majority countries.

It is in this context that businesses, particularly manufacturers, have become skeptical of Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey’s legal action against ExxonMobil as a centerpiece of her efforts to combat global climate change. Along with her counterpart in New York, she is breaking new ground by using state police power against a business to achieve a public policy goal. The latest twist and turn in Healey’s inquiry is that the US Supreme Court has now asked Healey to explain why her investigation of ExxonMobil’s climate change activities is a legitimate use of her authority. This investigation is part of a multi-front effort to use courts and lawsuits to circumvent Congress and drive climate change policy. drive divestment from Exxon, [and] drive Exxon and climate change into the center for the 2016 election.” These same lawyers have also been behind lawsuits that towns and counties have been filing in the past couple of years to make ExxonMobil and other energy companies pay for sea walls and infrastructure projects to deal with impacts of climate change. Sending a civil investigative demand to a private business is a powerful law enforcement tool. Now, all eyes are on the Supreme Court. Justice Ruth Ginsburg, writing for the court, explained that suing energy producers over climate change is not the proper way to set American energy policy. The question for the court this time is whether Healey has the jurisdiction to conduct this investigation. If the court takes the case, it could help curb politically motivated litigation against the private sector.

The current occupant of the White House is fighting to retain control over Congress. Read more Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States, and Barack Obama, the 44th, both took to the stump on Sunday. “You put Stacey in there and you are going to get Georgia turn into Venezuela,” Trump said. When words stop meaning anything, when people can just lie with abandon, democracy can’t work Barack Obama Obama ridiculed Trump’s focus in the final days of the campaign on the caravan of Central American asylum seekers making their perilous way to the US border. When words stop meaning anything, when people can just lie with abandon, democracy can’t work. Nothing works… Society doesn’t work unless there are consequences.” Despite their conflicting approaches, Trump and Obama shared one message: that the normally lacklustre and low-turnout midterms could not be more significant this time. Is this the most racist US midterms campaign ever? “It’s a systemic failure.” When Tapper said that suggested both main parties were responsible, not just the Democrats, McDaniel replied: “Who’s the party saying, ‘Let’s fix it’? In addition, 36 state governors are up for re-election and the Democrats hope to win back hundreds of seats in state legislatures. And that is why this election is so cotton-pickin’ important to the state of Florida.

(CNN)Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger shared his frustrations about how "nothing is getting done" in American politics on CNN's "The Axe Files," airing Saturday at 7p.m. ET on CNN. "I'm very little interested in politics, because it sucks," he said when asked about President Trump's choice to focus his midterm platform on the economy, the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, and the northward march of migrants in Central America. Schwarzenegger said he found America's lack of immigration policy reform and crumbling infrastructure particularly embarrassing. "To me, it's more important to get the job done rather than ... worry about a caravan coming or not." Schwarzenegger recently campaigned for redistricting initiatives in Colorado and Michigan. "People wanted someone from the outside, people were sick and tired of what was going on in Washington," he said. "How long can you talk about building more infrastructure in America ... all those kind of things, and nothing is happening? While he compared the "outsider" dynamic of President Trump's campaign to that of his gubernatorial runs in 2003 and 2006, Schwarzenegger, who was born in Austria, cannot make a presidential bid.

President Donald Trump says he plans to end "birthright citizenship" in the US by executive order. In an interview with Axios President Trump claimed that he was working on an end to birthright citizenship, the 150-year-old principle that says anyone born on US soil is an American citizen. You don't," Mr Trump said. 1) What is 'birthright citizenship'? In 1898, the US Supreme Court affirmed that birthright citizenship applies to the children of immigrants in the case of Wong Kim Ark v United States. Wong successfully argued that because he was born in the US, his parent's immigration status did not impact the application of the Fourteenth Amendment. 3) Can Trump end birthright citizenship by executive order? "Wong's parents were authorised or we might say legal immigrants. 5) Do other countries have birthright citizenship? 6) Who uses birthright citizenship?

State-level political actors have amplified these politics through a variety of instruments including gubernatorial executive order, state legislation, and/or lawsuits by state attorneys general. Another tactic is abuse of the Congressional Review Act (CRA), an obscure, little-used statute that Congress can pass to reject regulations adopted by federal agencies. In addition, the explicit CRA statute applies only to agency rules, but the CRA attempts to restore an order. Rules and orders are not legally the same. Similarly, state-level internet regulation frustrates the current seamless digital market in which consumers can enjoy online content and services, regardless of which state it originates from. States will likely be too overwhelmed to defend their internet policies when they are fighting legal battles on dozens of other issues. Moreover, it may be technically impossible to enforce these rules. Thus, the state regulator would have to certify that the internet service is intrastate, originating and terminating within its state. In order to continue this growth and prosperity, Congress needs to enact bipartisan legislation. Check out Tech Policy and the MidTerm Elections to learn more about this issue.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation on the US Supreme Court is a major accomplishment. (Oct. 10) AP With nerves still raw from the wrenching confirmation process of now Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh, speculation whirls regarding what the political implications will be. What might these two black senators tell us about the direction of racial politics in the country? Both, in my view, point to a core redefining of the black presence in the Democratic Party. Whereas 41 percent of Americans describe themselves as "born again" or evangelical, 61 of blacks do. But the movement of Democrats farther left, highlighted by the divisiveness of the Kavanaugh hearings, could be a watershed in racial politics. Booker and Harris are rooted more in Democratic Party progressivism than the traditional concerns of black Democrats. It is this kind of perversion of justice, displacing facts with prejudice and claims, that has historically been used to persecute blacks — particularly sexual assault claims leveled against black men. Cory Booker and Kamala Harris, is exactly what they don't need. And more and more black Americans are beginning to understand this.

More Republicans and Democrats are placing politics at the center of their lives. ’ But nothing that happens in Washington is going to fix what’s wrong with America. Because we change jobs more often, we have fewer lasting work friendships. We move from place to place for relationships, economic opportunity and better weather—and we end up with economic opportunity and better weather. Sen. Sasse serving food at a picnic for a meat packing plant in Fremont, Neb., this summer. Americans have always had political disagreements with their neighbors, but in the past, political differences could disappear when Friday night ballgames rolled around and the whole town turned out wearing the same colors and cheering for the same team. Prof. Putnam defines the elite as people with at least one parent who graduated from college, which puts them in the top socioeconomic third of society. ’ In the U.S., the mobile and the stuck categories are growing, while the rooted are rapidly dwindling. Place is being undermined by the digital revolution, and all of us, wherever we fall along the social divide, are feeling the resultant hollow pain in our chests. Melissa and I have worked with our children to develop an imperfect, provisional strategy for engaging more meaningfully with our own community.

Good manners really do ‘cost nothing and buy everything’, even in today's increasingly polarised politics. Whatever your political affiliations, it would seem difficult to deny that politics has become less civil over the last decade. Do these kinds of personal insults hinder a politician’s standing in the public? Kavanaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court a little more than a week later. According to the Montagu Principle, rudeness should only harm a politician’s ratings. As an alternative, the researchers proposed the “red meat hypothesis”, in which they liken a personal insult to “throwing red meat to your supporters”. The researchers found that the nastier Trump’s language was, the lower the participants' approval of him. Crucially – and this is the really important point – the Montagu principle held even among Trump's own supporters, while there was no evidence for the red meat hypothesis. To make sure that this was a general effect and not simply shaped by their existing expectations, Frimer and Skitka broadened their analysis to examine participants’ reactions to statements of fictitious politicians from across the political divide. Frimer and Skitka also performed textual analyses to measure civility in the transcripts of congressional debates between 1990 and 2015, and examined public approval of Congress over the same period.

On today's show: Washington Post senior politics reporter Aaron Blake and Emily Bazelon, staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, co-host of Slate's "Political Gabfest" podcast and Yale Law School fellow, discuss the news from the weekend, including Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation. After Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation to the Supreme Court, parents reflect on the fear that their daughters won't be believed if they report a sexual assault, and/or that their sons will be falsely accused of sexual assault. Cynthia Garrett, attorney and co-president of Families advocating for Campus Equality, and Sage Carson, manager of Know Your IX, a survivor- and youth-led project of Advocates for Youth that aims to empower students to end sexual and dating violence in their schools, debate whether the changes Betsy Devos made to federal policies dealing with sexual misconduct in colleges are for better or worse. Ralph Nader, political activist and author of To the Ramparts: How Bush and Obama Paved the Way for the Trump Presidency, and Why It Isn't Too Late to Reverse Course (Seven Stories Press, 2018), argues the Trump presidency is part of a trend started under Bush and Obama to empower corporations at the expense of the working and middle classes.