The Supremes 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🚀🚢

Monday, Monday:  It was a mixed week of decisions for Trump and the rest of us.  On Monday, the Supreme Court declined to hear Trump’s appeal of the first EJ Caroll case.  As a result, the verdict finding him liable for sexually abusing and defaming her stands and she gets the $5 million she was awarded.  Trump who still claims he didn’t know “that woman” uttered something about appealing but this isn’t a Hebrew National commercial so there’s no one left to appeal to. Since the $5 million award was previously deposited into an account held by a District court, E Jean will receive it as soon as SCOTUS’s clerk’s office files the paperwork. Trump is still appealing the second separate $83.3 million defamation verdict.  By a vote of 5 to 4 with Justices Roberts and Coney Barrett joining liberal justices Sotomayor, Jackson, and Kagan, the Court handed Trump and the Republican Party a loss in their efforts to curtail mail-in voting by ruling that election officials in Mississippi and by extension in the eighteen other states and territories with similar election laws can count mail-in ballots that are postmarked by election day but not received by a specified grace period; in the case of Mississippi that grace period is five days. That doesn’t mean that Trump won’t try to find other ways to attack mail-in voting, he’s already ordered the Postmaster General to not deliver mail ballots in states that refuse to provide sensitive voter data to the federal government, and if all else fails he’s got that ICE militia at his beck and call.  A federal judge has blocked the order to the Postmaster from moving forward and judges in eleven states have ruled that the DOJ can’t force states to turn over their voter lists but Trump who has given up on winning elections with popular policies remains all-in on limiting access to those voters unlikely to vote for him and his party.  On the who can or cannot be fired by Trump edict front, the Court split the baby.  By a vote of 5 to 4, this time with Justices Roberts and Kavanaugh joining the three liberal judges, the Court held that Federal Reserve Governors can only be fired for cause.  The case in question involves Lisa Cook, one of the Black women that Trump’s Housing official/interim DNI Bill Pulte has accused of mortgage fraud. The Court’s decision means that Cook can’t be fired while she’s challenging the trumped-up case against and can’t be fired at all if the case is resolved in her favor.  Unfortunately, that limitation on Trump’s firing power only pertains to the Federal Reserve.  In another case involving Federal Trade Commission member Rebecca Slaughter, by a vote of 6 to 3 with all six Conservative Justices lining up against the three liberals, the Court ruled that Trump can fire her and anyone else he wants, no cause needed.  That decision overturns the 91-year precedent established in the Humphrey’s Executor v the US case, giving Trump and presumably any presidents that follow, regardless of their party, “sweeping new authority over two dozen multi-member agencies that Congress intended to be independent.”  While it’s good for the financial markets and the economy that Trump can’t fire Federal Reserve Governors willy nilly, there’s little logic behind the different rulings.  Then again, this SCOTUS isn’t much for logic and precedent but is mostly all in on letting Trump do whatever he wants except when it hurts their personal portfolios.        

Ruby Tuesday:  Yesterday, on the last day of this term, SCOTUS finally released the much-awaited birthright citizen ruling.  By a vote that was kind of 6 to 3 but also kind of 5 to 4, the Justices struck down Trump’s day one executive order ending birthright citizenship. Five Justices, including Roberts, Barrett and the three liberals, ruled that Trump’s executive order violated the 14^th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause.  The sixth Justice, Brett Kavanaugh, said that the executive order didn’t violate the Constitution but did violate Federal law.  Few expected that the decision would be so close and no one expected Kavanaugh to base his decision on Federal law rather than the Constitution. Naturally, the nativist crowd dissed “traitors Roberts and Barrett, instead hanging their future hopes on Kavanaugh’s twisted easter egg.  They’re now calling for Congress to pass some birthright citizen curbing legislation. The Federalist digital company co-founder Sean Davis, a prominent Trump supporter, actually proposed yesterday that the US "require sterilization of all foreign visitors prior to entry." Presumably, he doesn’t mean any of those White South Africans that Trump has enthusiastically invited into the country.  While Trump lost on birthright citizenship, he did notch a victory on the campaign finance front.  By a vote of 6 to 3 with all the Conservatives hanging together, SCOTUS struck down long term federal limits on how much money political party committees can spend in direct coordination with candidates.  The decision means that parties won’t have to rely on all those mysterious PACS since they can now pay for campaign advertising, consulting, and travel for their nominees. The effect will be immediately felt for the midterms and since the RNC has boatloads of money on hand, far more than the DNC which actually is running a deficit as Democratic donors tend to contribute directly to their preferred candidate, the expectation is that the decision will benefit Republicans. Regardless of who gets the upper hand it’s also likely that there will be more corruption and expectations of quid pro quos as well as far more of those really annoying political ads.  In the last high-profile decision, by the usual partisan split of 6 to 3, the Court upheld Mississippi and Idaho laws barring the participation of transgender female athletes on girls’ and women’s sports teams. Twenty-five other states have similar restrictions on their books.  The decisions that essentially say that only “biological girls” should be allowed on girls’ teams were expected.  It’s fair to assume that no one in the majority has read Jeffrey Eugenides Middlesex (great book) and/or gets that biology isn’t always straight forward.  It’s hard not to believe that some soccer moms (and dads) won’t insist that some of their daughter’s opponents be tested for being better athletes or for just being less feminine looking.

More 💩:  NJ Republican Congressman Tom Kean Jr returned to Congress after being mysteriously MIA for four months. He disclosed that he was hospitalized for severe depression, something that he didn’t want to share until now. While it’s sad that he was in so much emotional pain, it’s also sad that he was too embarrassed to share his diagnosis with his constituents who he rarely met with even before his hospitalization. Kean is facing reelection in a very competitive district.  Curiously, while severely depressed and hospitalized he managed to execute portfolio trades during his hospitalization (stock therapy?).  Trump who shares an affinity for stock trading and who measures happiness in dollars may not be well, but he doesn’t appear to be depressed perhaps because he is a whole lot richer.  His net worth has grown from approximately $2.3 billion to more than $6.5 billion since the beginning of his current term.  That may or may not include the going rate for pardons, estimated at $1.5 million a pop. Trump is expected to hand out 250 million more of them on July 4.  On the primary front, Melat Kiros another young anti-Israel and also likely more than a bit anti-Semitic Democratic Socialist, the latter indicated by her failure to condemn a fatal bombing of a group marching in support of Israeli hostages, won a primary over long-term 68- ear-old Democratic Representative Diana DeGette in Colorado yesterday. Also, Senator Michael Bennet who had until recently been seen as the front runner lost his bid for the Democratic Governor nomination to Colorado Attorney General Paul Weiser.  Bennett will remain in the Senate, alongside Colorado’s John Hickenlooper who easily won his primary for reelection and is expected to win the general election.