Tag: Supreme Court

Commentary: The Difference Between Judge Jackson and Justice Thomas Is the Difference Between Nihilism and Natural Law

Minnesota Sun Staff

Observers of the Supreme Court should ask themselves what’s the more preposterous mainstream media mindmeld: whether Justice Clarence Thomas should recuse himself or resign over his wife’s political activism, or the legal brilliance of the Supreme Court Justice-to-be, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Truth be told, what we have here is the myrmidon media’s mockery of the most brilliant Supreme Court justice ever, one they have derisively dismissed as a lawn jockey of the Right, a lackey of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, someone who will be tutored on race by future Justice Jackson, and now a pawn or puppet of his wife. The actual contrast between the two judges could hardly be greater. Of course, neither justice should be held completely responsible for the allies he attracts.

Read More

Biden Vaccine Mandate for Government Workers Upheld in Court

Minnesota Sun Staff

On Thursday, a federal court upheld Joe Biden’s mandate that all federal government employees be forced to take a coronavirus vaccine.

The New York Post reports that the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, Louisiana issued a ruling that overturned a lower court’s decision to block the mandate, which was first issued in September of 2021. In January, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown had ruled the mandate unconstitutional, determining that the rule constituted an overstep in federal authority.

Read More

GOP Sen. Collins Says She’ll Vote to Confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court

Minnesota Sun Staff

Republican Sen. Susan Collins says she’ll will vote to confirm Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, guaranteeing President Biden’s judicial nominee at least a slim path toward confirmation.

Jackson will need 51 votes in final Senate vote – with the chamber evenly split among 50 Democrats and 50 Republican. With no GOP support, Vice President Kamala Harris would cast the decisive, tiebreaker vote.

Read More

Commentary: GOP Must Promise Inquisitions, Not Meaningless Task Forces

Minnesota Sun Staff
Ginni Thomas and Mark Meadows

Using the pretext of the so-called insurrection on January 6, 2021, the long knives are out for Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Post-election text exchanges between Mrs. Thomas and Mark Meadows, President Trump’s chief-of-staff, recently were leaked by the January 6 select committee to none other than the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward, who darkly described the communications as proof that “Ginni Thomas used her access to Trump’s inner circle to promote and seek to guide the president’s strategy to overturn the election result.”

The small cache of texts—29 total—shows Thomas expressing frustration at the election’s outcome. There is nothing sinister, and certainly nothing criminal, about the messages.

Read More

Feds’ Pressure on Tech Platforms to Censor COVID ‘Misinformation’ Is Unconstitutional, Suit Says

Minnesota Sun Staff

The government’s sustained pressure on social media platforms to censor and report purported COVID-19 misinformation amounts to “state action” that violates the First Amendment, according to a lawsuit filed Friday on behalf of three Twitter users.

The New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA), a frequent litigant against COVID-related administrative action, is representing theoretical cognitive scientist Mark Changizi, lawyer Michael Senger and stay-at-home father Daniel Kotzin.

Read More

Supreme Court Rules Against Navy SEALs, Allows DOD to Restrict Deployment Based on Vax Status

Admin

The Supreme Court on Friday blocked a lower court’s ruling that prevented the Navy from making deployment decisions for Navy SEALs based on their COVID-19 vaccination status.

The ruling clears the way for the Navy to keep SEALs from deployment if they aren’t vaccinated. The SEALs had sued challenging the Navy’s COVID-19 policies after being denied religious exemptions.

Read More

Trump Levels Blistering Attack on Democrats, and Biden’s Supreme Court Nominee

Minnesota Sun Staff
Donald Trump speaking

Sounding ever more a candidate seeking the White House again, former President Donald Trump on Saturday night attacked Democrats as a party of “socialists and communists” so extreme that they chose a Supreme Court nominee who “can’t even say what a woman is.”

“A party that’s unwilling to admit that men and women are biologically different in defiance of all scientific and human history is a party that should not be anywhere near the levers of power in the United States,” Trump told a raucous rally in rural Georgia.

In a 90-minute speech, Trump also rallied Republicans to get behind gubernatorial candidate David Perdue and football star-turned-Senate candidate Herschel Walker and to defeat incumbent GOP Gov. Brian Kemp.

Read More

Commentary: Ketanji Brown Jackson Is the Best Candidate for Democrats But the Worst for America

Minnesota Sun Staff

When Joe Biden announced his pick to replace Justice Stephen Breyer on the Supreme Court, he told us he’d found someone with “extraordinary character.” Biden said Ketanji Brown Jackson possessed “uncompromising integrity” and “a strong moral compass.”

Like every word that tumbles through Joe’s veneers, this, too, was a lie. Jackson has already proven that she is a woman of weak character, uncompromising dishonesty, and a broken moral compass.

Read More

A Study in Supreme Court Confirmation Contrasts: Ketanji Brown Jackson vs. Brett Kavanaugh

Minnesota Sun Staff

While conservatives noted the civility shown Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson during the Senate confirmation hearings as compared to those of Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, liberals complained that the Supreme Court nominee was asked difficult questions.

Jackson, President Joe Biden’s first nominee to the high court, has a history of progressive views and judicial philosophy, such as praising “the godfather of Critical Race Theory” and reducing prison time for a child pornography offender. In contrast, former President Donald Trump’s last two Supreme Court nominees, Kavanaugh and Barrett, are both conservative Catholics with pro-life views regarding abortion.

Read More

Arizona Legislature Passes 15-Week Abortion Ban

Minnesota Sun Staff

On Thursday, the Arizona State Legislature passed a bill that would ban all abortions after 15 weeks.

ABC News reports that the Arizona House of Representatives voted along party lines to approve the bill, which is similar to a law already passed in Mississippi that has sparked perhaps the most influential Supreme Court case on abortion since 1973’s Roe v. Wade. Having already passed the State Senate, the bill now goes to the desk of Governor Doug Ducey (R-Ariz.), who is expected to sign it.

Read More

Commentary: A Trump-Hating Backer of Biden’s Supreme Court Nominee Is Married to the Top January 6th Prosecutor

Admin
Fatima Goss Graves and Matthew Graves

Confirmation hearings for D.C. Circuit Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, Joe Biden’s first U.S. Supreme Court nominee, began Monday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. During an event in Washington, D.C. on Monday morning, activists gathered to rally on behalf of the nominee who could be the first black woman seated on the nation’s highest court.

“It’s also, for so many of us, a moment that is personal,” Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center, told the crowd. “It is personal if you have ever been the only person sitting in a room. It is personal if you have ever wondered, ‘Is that for me?’” Over the past several weeks, Graves, a graduate of Yale Law school, has given dozens of interviews in support of Jackson’s nomination.

In a January column for CNN, Graves denounced “the current homogeneity of the legal profession and judicial system” and claimed “the perspective of White men has been treated as the default” in court proceedings.

Read More

Justice Clarence Thomas Hospitalized with Flu-Like Symptoms, Supreme Court Says

Minnesota Sun Staff
Justice Clarence Thomas

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has been in a Washington, D.C., hospital since Friday with flu-like symptoms, according to an announcement from the court.

“He underwent tests, was diagnosed with an infection, and is being treated with intravenous antibiotics. His symptoms are abating, he is resting comfortably, and he expects to be released from the hospital in a day or two,” the press release stated.

“Justice Thomas will participate in the consideration and discussion of any cases for which he is not present on the basis of the briefs, transcripts, and audio of the oral arguments,” according to the court.

Read More

Corporations Go Out of Their Way to Help Employees Get Abortions

Minnesota Sun Staff

Corporations, including Citigroup, Apple and Match, are helping their employees undergo abortions in light of new, state-level restrictions.

Citigroup announced a policy of covering travel costs for U.S.-based employees seeking abortions “in response to changes in reproductive healthcare laws in certain states” in a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing. The policy will cover airfare and lodging, according to Bloomberg.

Read More

Commentary: Another Leftist Smear Attempt Falls Flat

Admin

No matter what political party you align with, we can all agree that 2022 is going to be a blockbuster term for the Supreme Court. Cases regarding abortion, gun control, and affirmative action are all poised to be decided this year. 

In the past the Left has used the Court to impose its radical ideology on American society because it couldn’t use the electoral process to do it. Now they fear the Court is no longer hospitable to these efforts.

Read More

Justice Reporter Who Called Constitution ‘Trash’ Heads Up Dark Money Group Spending Millions to Support Jackson SCOTUS Nomination

Admin

A pundit who called the Constitution garbage is a leader of a dark money group funding a million dollar campaign to confirm President Joe Biden’s nominee to the Supreme Court, according to tax documents provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation by Americans for Public Trust.

Demand Justice seeks to nominate left-wing judges to American courts. Most recently, the group is pushing for the confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.

Read More

Sen. Elizabeth Warren Fundraises on Expanding Supreme Court

Peter D'Abrosca

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) sent a Saturday fundraising touting the idea of expanding the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) while praising President Joe Biden’s recent SCOTUS nominee.

“Congress has expanded the Supreme Court seven times before,” the subject line of the email said. “It’s now time for the eighth.”

Read More

Commentary: Justices Must Stop the Legal System from Becoming a Quick-Return Investment Scheme for Trial Lawyers

Admin
United States Supreme Court building

In the interest of a return to normalcy, we take this short break from COVID and Ukraine coverage to bring to your attention an actual conservative policy matter. The pesky trial lawyers and their junk science “experts” are at it again, providing certain justices of the Supreme Court an opportunity to show us they can still do the right thing. 

I’m not pointing fingers at say, Justices John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh, but certain esteemed members of the court who had less than smooth sailing in their confirmation battles and for whom conservatives stormed the ramparts (figuratively speaking of course), have left us wondering if they were worth the battle scars. Here’s some low hanging fruit for them to pick off and make everyone breathe a little easier. All they have to do is vote to take a certain case.

The case involves a long-running dispute brought by the inventor of a special warming blanket called the Bair Hugger (now owned by 3M) which has proven to reduce post-operative infections and other complications and has been used in over 300 million surgeries worldwide to maintain patients’ body temperatures. The inventor, Dr. Scott Augustine made a fortune on this device but lost his rights to the product and its proceeds when he pled guilty to Medicare fraud in an unrelated matter. Dr. Augustine then invented a competing device and waged a campaign to discredit the Bair Hugger claiming that it caused infections. He then hired “experts” and funded studies to back up his claim. Except one of the actual authors of the studies called those studies “marketing rather than research.” As in not based on facts. The FDA admonished Dr. Augustine to stop the false campaign. And not a single physician who uses the Bair Hugger, or a single epidemiologist or any public health officials have supported Dr. Augustine’s contention. 

Read More

Supreme Court Hears Blockbuster Climate Case with Separation of Powers Implications

Admin

The Supreme Court heard arguments in West Virginia v. EPA on Monday, a blockbuster case that could have major ramifications in future separation of powers cases.

The case, which stems from an Obama administration climate rule, has wide-ranging implications for how the federal agencies may issue future regulations and rules, according to the parties that brought the case before the high court. States, environmental groups, large power utility companies, civil liberties organizations and pro-coal industry groups have inserted themselves in the case over the last several years, signaling the importance of the questions it has raised.

Read More

Abortion Pills Now More Common Than Surgical Abortions

Admin

Medication-induced abortions accounted for 54% of all abortions in the U.S. in 2020, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

Abortion pills have grown in popularity since they were first introduced in 2000, the Guttmacher Institute reported. And rules requiring women to receive their first two abortion pills at a clinic or doctor’s office were lifted during the pandemic, allowing women to speak with doctors via “telemedicine” and get the pills by mail, The New York Times reported.

Read More

Biden’s Supreme Court Nominee a Slam Dunk for Democrats

Minnesota Sun Staff
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson

President Biden announced Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as his nominee to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Jackson, who donated to and worked with former President Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, has a record of rulings that seemingly favor Democrats.

In a 2015 ruling, for example, she declined to force former Hillary Clinton aide Philipe Reines to explain why he used a private account for work-related emails, according to Politico.

Read More

Commentary: Biden Is Stalling His Pick for New Supreme Court Justice Due to Conservative Majority on Court for the Foreseeable Future

Minnesota Sun Staff

It doesn’t take a genius or even a veteran political watcher to conclude that Americans don’t have long attention spans.

Perhaps the lack of retention is due to the establishment news media’s fondness for sensationalizing every little tidbit of information whether the hysteria is warranted or not. How many times have we seen “Breaking News” flash across a screen to describe an occurrence that normally wouldn’t prompt much mention at all, such as a press secretary leaving vice president Kamala “no one gets out of my hemisphere happy” Harris or yet another House Democrat retiring rather than risking being humiliated and summarily booted out of office because of senile president Joe Biden’s abysmal job approval ratings or his or her district was reassembled in a manner that made a return trip to Washington too arduous.

Read More

Majority of Americans Oppose Choosing Supreme Court Justices by Race and Gender: Poll

The Center Square

President Joe Biden’s commitment to only nominate a a new Supreme Court justice who is a Black female does not have broad support, a newly released poll suggests.

The ABC/Ipsos poll found that 76% of surveyed Americans say Biden should consider “all possible nominees” to fill Breyer’s seat while 23% say Biden should “consider only nominees who are Black women, as he has pledged to do.”

Biden promised several times during the campaign to nominate a Black female justice, saying he is “looking forward to making sure there’s a Black woman on the Supreme Court.”

Read More

Minnesota Judge Who Went Easy on Violent Arsonist Is on Biden’s SCOTUS Shortlist

Minnesota Sun Staff
Judge Wilhelmina Wright

A U.S. district judge serving the District of Minnesota is said to be on President Joe Biden’s “shortlist” to replace the retiring Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.

But Minnesotans might remember her for her leniency in the sentencing of a violent arsonist.

Judge Wilhelmina Wright is one of several top candidates for the soon-to-be vacant Supreme Court seat, as outlets like The Hill and Forbes have reported.

Read More

Commentary: The Contentious Battle to Replace Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer

RealClearWire
Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer

Wednesday’s announcement by Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer that he would be retiring at the end of the court’s current session has raised the obvious question of how contentious the battle over his replacement will be.

One thing is almost certain to be true: No matter who is nominated by President Joe Biden, there will be no 87-9 favorable vote – the tally when Breyer was nominated by Bill Clinton in 1994. Though there were occasional exceptions in the decade prior to Breyer, his vote totals were not unusual in that era. Antonin Scalia was approved 98-0, Anthony Kennedy 97-0, and Ruther Bader Ginsburg 96-3. However, no Supreme Court nomination since Breyer’s has received fewer than 22 negative votes, the number against Chief Justice John Roberts in 2005.

That was the year Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer (now majority leader) urged that senators should vote explicitly on the basis of candidates’ ideology rather than simply their qualifications. In reality, ideology had been the primary driving factor behind the rejection of Robert Bork’s nomination in 1987 and the tough, though ultimately successful, fight over Clarence Thomas’ nomination in 1991, but most opposing senators had attempted to preserve the fiction that judicial temperament or scandals were behind their “no” votes. Schumer opened the door to unabashed ideological and partisan warfare, and subsequent votes on Supreme Court nominations have shown it.

Read More

Connecticut Republicans and Democrats Argue Congressional Map Case in Court

The Center Square
Connecticut Supreme Court Building

The state’s Supreme Court has until Feb. 15 to render a decision on how Connecticut’s congressional district maps will be drawn.

The court heard arguments Thursday from attorneys representing Republican and Democratic members of the Reapportionment Commission, who have been unable to reach agreement on how the state’s congressional districts will be drawn.

At the crux of the arguments are maps that are to be drawn with the least amount of change from current districts, with close approximations of the number of residents in each district, and how to address the “lobster claw,” a gerrymandered district that dates back to 2001.

Read More

Supreme Court to Hear Case of Washington High School Football Coach Fired for Praying

The Center Square

The U.S. Supreme Court has announced it will hear oral arguments later this year in the case of a high school football coach in Washington state who was fired for praying after games.

The case, Kennedy v. Bremerton School Board, involves Joe Kennedy who coached the football team at Bremerton High School from 2008 to 2015.

The issue began after Kennedy was hired when he would take a knee on the field after games to engage in personal prayer.

Read More

Supreme Court Will Consider Landmark Challenge to Harvard, University of North Carolina Affirmative Action Policies

Minnesota Sun Staff

The Supreme Court announced Monday it will reconsider race-based affirmative action in college admissions, a decision that could eliminate a practice that in recent years primarily benefitted black and Hispanic applicants.

The high court says it will hear challenges to policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina that use students’ race as one criteria to decide who should gain admission.

In the case against Harvard, challengers say the same practices that have for close to four decades helped black and Hispanic students — not necessarily applicants from disadvantaged backgrounds — gain admissions have hurt Asian-American applicants.

Read More

Exclusive: Archbishop Reacts to ‘Catholics for Choice’ Projecting Pro-Abortion Messages Upon National Shrine as He Celebrated Pro-Life Mass

Neil W. McCabe
Arcbishop

  Baltimore’s archbishop, who Thursday celebrated Annual Pro-life Vigil Mass at Washington’s National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, while Catholics for Choice projecting pro-abortion messages upon the church’s façade, gave his reaction to The Star News Network. “Well, the real action was what was going inside the basilica,” said Archbishop…

Read More

Tea Party Patriots and Job Creators Network Praise Supreme Court Ruling on Biden’s OSHA Vaccine Mandate

Cooper Moran

Tea Party Patriots Action (TPPA) and the Job Creators Network (JCN) praised the ruling handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court that prohibited President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate for private businesses.

The mandate, which would have been enacted by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, could have forced businesses with 100 or more employees to mandate the vaccine or weekly testing.

Read More

Supreme Court Blocks Biden’s Vaccine Mandate for U.S. Workers, Allows Mandate for Healthcare Workers

Minnesota Sun Staff
Supreme Court with a cherry blossom in the foreground

In a Thursday afternoon ruling, the Supreme Court blocked the Biden administration’s OSHA vaccine mandate that would apply to American workers.

The court allowed a separate policy, that requires vaccinations for most health-care workers at facilities that receive Medicaid and Medicare funding, to stand.

Read More

Awaiting Supreme Court Decision, Iowa OSHA Blocks Vaccine Mandate for Businesses

The Center Square
man in yellow hardhat and work jacket

Iowans are waiting for the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for businesses with at least 100 employees. In the meantime, they’re moving ahead with actions of their own.

Iowa Department of Education Communications Director Heather Doe told The Center Square in an emailed statement that since Iowa is a state-plan state, the Iowa Division of Labor typically enforces workplace safety in Iowa instead of the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The state is required to notify OSHA whether it will adopt a given Emergency Temporary Standard or provide notice it will not adopt it because its standards are as effective as the new federal standard. Iowa needed to respond to the standard by Jan. 7.

Iowa Labor Commissioner Rod Roberts did so, saying that the Hawkeye State will not adopt or enforce the mandate.

Read More

Liberal Supreme Court Justices Show Weak Grasp of Basic COVID-19 Facts

Minnesota Sun Staff

The liberal justices on the Supreme Court demonstrated a stunningly weak grasp of basic facts concerning the COVID-19 pandemic Friday, as they defended the Biden regime’s policies during oral arguments over vaccine mandates in the workplace.

The court heard separate oral arguments over federal vaccine mandates for employers with more than 100 employees, and for health care workers at facilities receiving Medicaid and Medicare funding.

Justice Stephen Breyer at one point seemed to suggest outrageously that the OSHA mandate would prevent 100 percent of daily US COVID cases. It is common knowledge now that the vaccinated people can still spread the disease.

Read More

Vaccine Mandate Critics Urge Highest Court to Defend Individual Freedom

The Center Square
Supreme Court reflecting on the pool at the National Mall

President Joe Biden’s series of controversial federal vaccine mandates faced their first day before the U.S. Supreme Court Friday, and critics are urging the justices to side with personal freedoms over what they call executive branch overreach.

National Federation of Independent Business v. Department of Labor, the first of two cases heard by the court Friday, considers a vaccine mandate on private employers with 100 or more employees. The second case, Biden v. Missouri, challenges Biden’s mandate on health care workers.

“Today was one of the most important moments in our nation’s history,” Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, which has joined the legal challenges to Biden’s mandate push, said. “The Biden administration, and many on the far left, believe that the federal government has the right and the authority to dictate personal and private medical decisions to the American people, and coerce their employers into collecting protected health care data on their employees. This overreach is a fundamental violation of the American spirit of freedom and personal responsibility and represents the left’s assault not just on common sense, but our constitutional rights.”

Read More

Supreme Court’s Conservative Justices Seem Skeptical of Biden Admin’s Workplace COVID Vaccine Rules

Minnesota Sun Staff

The Supreme Court on Friday hearing oral arguments on two major Biden administration efforts to increase the country’s vaccination rate against COVID-19 — starting with the mandate requiring large-scale employers to require workers to be vaccinated or tested.

In the first case, the National Federation of Independent Business, et al., Applicants v. Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, et al.

OSHA is more specifically requiring businesses with 100 or more workers either require them to be vaccinated or et tested weekly and wear masks while working, with exceptions for those who work outdoors.

Read More

Poll: Majority Supports Blocking Biden’s Private Sector Vaccine Mandate as U.S. Supreme Court Weighs Challenges

The Center Square

The majority of Americans support Congressional efforts to block President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandates for large businesses ahead of a U.S. Supreme Court hearing on that very issue, according to a new poll.

Convention of States Action, along with the Trafalgar Group, released the poll, which found that 51.1% of surveyed voters support a bill in Congress to stop Biden’s vaccine mandates for large businesses. The poll reports that 40.6% of voters do not support the bill while 8.3% of voters are unsure.

The U.S. Senate passed a bipartisan measure in December to block Biden’s mandate, which requires employers with at least 100 workers to ensure they are vaccinated or undergo weekly testing. Businesses that do not comply face hefty fines. The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) would enforce the mandate.

Read More

Supreme Court Set to Convene Special Session on Vaccine Mandates

Minnesota Sun Staff

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court announced that it will hold a special session in roughly two weeks to hear oral arguments regarding the Biden Administration’s ongoing efforts to force vaccinations on private employees, federal contractors, and healthcare workers, according to Politico.

The special session will begin on January 7th, 2022, just several days ahead of the regularly-scheduled session set to begin on January 10th.

Read More

Challenges to Biden’s COVID Vaccination Mandate Head to Supreme Court

The Center Square
President Joe Biden and Personal Aide Stephen Goepfert walk through the Colonnade, Friday, August 6, 2021, on the way to the Oval Office of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz)

President Joe Biden’s mandate that all businesses with 100 employees or more require employee COVID-19 vaccinations is now with the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Buckeye Institute, a Columbus, Ohio-based policy group, became the first to file a motion for an emergency stay with the court, less than an hour after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit granted the government’s request Friday to dissolve an existing administrative stay previously issued by the Fifth Circuit.

The Liberty Justice Center filed a similar motion Saturday with the high court on behalf of a Louisiana grocery store owner and six Texas employees of CaptiveAire Systems.

Read More

Commentary: Sotomayor Is the 21st Century Roger Taney

Minnesota Sun Staff
Justice Sonia Sotomayor

The U.S. Supreme Court on December 10 handed down its much-awaited opinion in Whole Women’s Health v. Jackson. I’ll bottom-line the result as simply as possible.

The court concluded that Texas abortion providers may maintain a pre-enforcement challenge to the law at issue, S.B. 8, but only as against state licensing board officials, not other state officials such as the attorney general, judges, or court clerks. The decision to allow suit against the licensing officials was 8-1 (Justice Clarence Thomas alone would have directed the district court to dismiss the suit as against all defendants). The decision to preclude suit against the attorney general and court clerks was 5-4 (Chief Justice John G. Roberts and the three Democratic appointees were in the minority and would have allowed pre-enforcement challenges to proceed against the attorney general and court clerks).

I say all that just for context; the technical dimension of the opinion has been picked over thoroughly by legal academics and commentators since it was released. On that front, I don’t have much, if anything, to add.

Read More

Pro-Life Leaders React to High Court’s Procedural Ruling on Texas’ Heartbeat Law

Admin

Pro-life leaders anxiously awaiting decisions in major abortion cases reacted Friday to news that the Supreme Court had dismissed one challenge to Texas’ ban on abortions after an unborn baby has a heartbeat. 

“Today, the Supreme Court refused to strike down the lifesaving and democratically popular Texas heartbeat law,” said Live Action founder and President Lila Rose. “While the court did give a road map for lower courts to put the law on hold, the opinion of the court was crystal clear that this case was not commenting on the constitutionality of the abortion restriction itself.”

Read More

Supreme Court Won’t Stop Texas Abortion Law from Being Enforced, Allows Clinics to Sue over Ban

Minnesota Sun Staff
United States Supreme Court building

The Supreme Court ruled Friday that abortion providers in Texas will continue to be allowed to challenge the state’s restrictive abortion law but decided to not stop the law from being enforced.

The opinion, authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch, emphasizes that the question of whether the Texas law is constitutional is not the one before the court. The ruling allows lawsuits by the clinics to go forward in lower courts, while leaving the law in place for now.

Eight of the nine justices said the abortion providers may continue bringing legal challenges, and Chief Justice John Roberts, writing on behalf of himself and the court’s three Democrat-appointed justices, encouraged the district judge should act quickly.

Read More

Washington Florist Who Declined to Arrange Flowers for Same-Sex Wedding Settles Lengthy Lawsuit

Admin
Barronelle Stutzman

A Christian florist in Washington settled a legal case Thursday centering around her refusal to provide custom floral arrangements for a same-sex wedding.

“I have put to rest the last legal considerations for a decision my husband, Darold, and I made nearly a decade ago,” Barronelle Stutzman said in a release from the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF).

The public-interest law firm that represented Stutzman stated that the legal battle that started in 2012 will end with a $5,000 payment to Robert Ingersoll, the customer she turned down.

Read More

Commentary: Chief Justice of the Court of Natural Law

Minnesota Sun Staff
Justice Clarence Thomas

Recently, the Heritage Foundation and the Scalia School of Law at George Mason University honored Justice Clarence Thomas on the 30th anniversary of his joining the Supreme Court. A day of panels featuring former Thomas clerks and prominent legal scholars commented on his legacy and future. The justice responded that evening. 

Yet even a full day of often enlightening panels and speeches, doubtless to be supplemented in the years to come by law review issues, articles, and books, misses the crucial fact about Thomas’ jurisprudence that has made him the indispensable justice: his overarching focus on natural law. 

In America natural law comes to sight in the principle of equality, which continues to confuse both conservatives and liberals. With the Democrats’ embrace of “equity,” they have cast aside equality as a principle. Conservatives have never been comfortable with equality to begin with, as Harry Jaffa consistently pointed out in his work. Equality does not mean socialism but rather government by consent, and all the institutions that follow from the preservation of this fundamental element of justice. The clearest expositor of this principle, as Thomas explains, has been Abraham Lincoln, when he attacked the evil of slavery. 

Read More

Supreme Court Declines to Hear Appeal of Ruling Forcing Hospitals to Perform Gender Transition Surgery

Minnesota Sun Staff
Woman performing surgery

The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to hear a case from a Catholic hospital challenging a ruling that forces it to sterilize patients through gender transition surgery.

Evan Minton, a patient seeking uterus removal surgery as part of the gender transition process, will be allowed to go forward with suing the Mercy San Juan Medical Center for canceling the surgery.

Minton seeks to compel the hospital to perform surgeries that directly contravene Catholic teachings, Dignity Health, which operates Mercy San Juan, told the court. The case “poses a profound threat to faith-based health care institutions’ ability to advance their healing ministries consistent with the teachings of their faith,” according to Dignity Health’s petition.

Read More

Supreme Court Hears Arguments on Texas Heartbeat Act

Minnesota Sun Staff
Pregnant woman holding ultrasound photo in front of stomach

The United States Supreme Court heard arguments Monday on the constitutionality of Texas’ Heartbeat Act.

The Texas law effectively bans most abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected, which typically occurs around 6 weeks after conception. The law is enforced through civil lawsuits against individuals who perform abortions illegally or who knowingly help women to get abortions after the baby has a heartbeat.

The private enforcement mechanism was a response to district attorneys stating their intent to not enforce any abortion bans, according to Republican Texas state Sen. Brian Hughes. While abortion bans are frequently blocked in court, Texas’ Heartbeat Act quickly resulted in a 50% decline in abortions performed in the state, according to The New York Times.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh questioned Texas about the prospect of other states creating laws with similar enforcement mechanisms to block constitutionally protected rights such as freedom of religion.

Read More

Supreme Court Rejects Appeal by Maine Healthcare Workers Challenging Vaccine Mandate

Minnesota Sun Staff
Healthcare workers

The Supreme Court on Friday rejected an emergency appeal from Maine healthcare workers attempting to block the state’s vaccine mandate.

The group of unvaccinated workers argued that the law violated their First Amendment rights because the law doesn’t have a religious exemption.

According to the Associated Press, Maine is one of three states including New York and Rhode Island that have vaccine mandates that lack religious exemptions for healthcare workers.

Read More

Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith Says Democrats Need to Pack the Supreme Court ‘to Protect Our Democracy’

Minnesota Sun Staff

Two congresswomen from Minnesota, Sen. Tina Smith and Rep. Ilhan Omar, participated in a hybrid rally to support an expansion of the Supreme Court this week.

The event, hosted by Take Back the Court Action Fund and People’s Parity Project, took place Tuesday afternoon and featured a variety of speakers, including Democratic lawmakers and leftist activists. The activists joined in via Zoom, while the lawmakers spoke outside the Supreme Court Building.

Read More

Commentary: Ground Zero of Woke

Minnesota Sun Staff

Many of our once revered and most hallowed institutions are failing us. To mention only the most significant ones: our top-ranking military echelon, the leadership of our federal investigatory and intelligence agencies, the government medical establishment—and of course the universities.

For too long American higher education’s reputation of global academic superiority has rested mostly on the sciences, mathematics, physics, technology, medicine, and engineering—in other words, not because of the humanities and social sciences, but despite them. The humanities have become too often anti-humanistic. And the social sciences are deductively anti-scientific. Both quasi-religious woke disciplines have eroded confidence in colleges and universities, infected even the STEM disciplines and professional schools, and torn apart the civic unity of the United States. Indeed, much of the current Jacobin revolution was birthed and fueled by American universities, despite their manifest hypocrisies and derelictions.

Read More

School District Racially Segregates Students, Threatens Them for ‘Biased’ Statements: Lawsuit

Admin

A Massachusetts school district is racially segregating students and threatening to punish them for subjectively “offensive” statements they make, violating their civil and constitutional rights at both the state and federal level, according to a new lawsuit seeking permanent injunctions.

Parents Defending Education is challenging the “affinity groups” and associated spaces created by Wellesley Public Schools’ diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) plan for 2020-2025.

Read More