#gregory katsas

[tomorrowusa]

Meet the freaks Trump may tap for the Supreme Court

It’s tough to imagine a Supreme Court with justices worse than the current crop of conservatives, but the folks who are currently vying to r

There had been some recent reporting, accurate or not, about the retirement of Justice Samuel Alito from the US Supreme Court.

That has led to speculation about who Trump might appoint to replace him. The names that have popped up make Alito look like Earl Warren or Thurgood Marshall.

I added bold type to the names of potential Trump appointees to SCOTUS.

It’s tough to imagine a Supreme Court with justices worse than the current crop of conservatives, but the folks who are currently vying to replace whichever justice steps down first are definitively, openly, gleefully much more terrible.  [ ... ] Judge James Ho is arguably the worst judge on the worst federal appeals court, the Fifth Circuit. Ho has genuinely lost the plot, arguing that the Supreme Court is not there to “check the excesses of other branches.” Perhaps being a fancy federal appeals judge and a former clerk to Justice Thomas rots your brain and sense of civic duty, because being a check on the excesses of other branches is kind of the whole job description for the Supreme Court. [ ... ] Another Trump appointee to the Fifth Circuit, Andrew Oldham, is also busy treating his current position as a way to show Trump that he has no intention of ever ruling against him. According to Judge Oldham, a former Alito clerk, if Trump declares that there is a terrible invasion by Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, no court can ever review it, and Trump can therefore deport all Venezuelan citizens.  [ ... ] Judge Neomi Rao has made sure to let her colleagues know how incandescently angry she was when they didn’t treat a Supreme Court shadow docket ruling as a permission slip for Trump to fire whoever he wants.  There’s also Gregory Katsas, who believes that courts cannot impose any consequences on Trump or the executive branch. [ ... ] Over in the Second Circuit, Judge Steven Menashi is showing what a loyal justice he would be by haranguing his colleagues about Trump’s attempt to throw out the jury verdict finding him liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll. Katsas whined about how unfair the lower court was in not letting Trump provide evidence that he believed her lawsuit was “concocted by his political opposition” and therefore he could not have defamed her. [ ... ] Emil Bove, formerly one of many personal attorneys who represented Trump in criminal cases, was rewarded for his efforts with an appointment to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. You would think that normally, being the subject of multiple whistleblower complaints about refusing to follow court orders would be a bit of a hindrance to a lifetime seat, but for Trump, Bove’s actions were a feature, not a bug.  And then there’s U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon. Cannon’s efforts at protecting Trump from any criminal consequences are truly unparalleled. She didn’t just throw out the criminal case over Trump’s retention of top secret documents after he left office, documents which he stashed in a bathroom at Mar-a-Lago. She also came up with a very … unique theory that former Special Counsel Jack Smith could never release the report of his investigation and that even writing up the investigation was somehow illegal.

Those people shouldn't be on the federal bench in the first place. They probably shouldn't even have been accepted at law school.

They are federal judges because the Republican-controlled Senate in 2017-2021 and 2025-2026 confirmed these Trump lickspittles.

If for no other reason, we need to flip the Senate to prevent additional Trump SCOTUS pics from being confirmed.

THIS YEAR'S SENATE BATTLEGROUND STATES:

1] Seats currently held by Republicans...

Texas

Maine

Ohio

Alaska

Iowa

North Carolina

2] Seats currently held by Democrats which need to be shored up...

Michigan

New Hampshire

3] GOP seats which could be vulnerable in a wave election...

Florida

Nebraska

South Carolina

The obsequious Lindsey Graham is only 3 points ahead in a June poll in the South Carolina US Senate race. In a deep red state like SC, an incumbent GOP senator should be way ahead.

Every US Senate election should be regarded as a Supreme Court election. Don't wait until September to start work on flipping the Senate. If you live in one of the states listed above, contact your county or state Democratic Party to volunteer. You can also contact the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC).

[justinspoliticalcorner]

D.C. Circuit Trump appointees shield Trump admin from accountability over March 15 flights

The 2-1 vote would cut off the contempt proceedings that followed the admin's Alien Enemies Act flights to CECOT. Full review by all 11 D.C.

Chris Geidner at Law Dork:

On Friday, two Trump appointees on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit set aside Chief Judge James Boasberg’s district court order in his criminal contempt proceedings against the Trump administration — taking a stark action to shield the administration from accountability for its March 15 actions relating to President Donald Trump’s Alien Enemies Act proclamation. The pair of judges decided — on differing grounds — that Boasberg had overstepped when he ordered the Trump administration in April either to explain who in the administration decided to keep the planes headed to El Savador’s CECOT prison on March 15 after Boasberg’s temporary restraining order that the administration not do so or, alternatively, to provide the process required for those people.

There was a significant delay in getting to Friday’s order — coming nearly four months, more than 100 days, after the two Trump appointees on the three-judge panel issued an “administrative stay” blocking Boasberg’s order while the appeals court considered the Justice Department’s request. All three judges on the panel — Judges Cornelia Pillard, Gregory Katsas, and Neomi Rao — agreed that the appeals court had no jurisdiction to hear the Justice Department’s appeal of Boasberg’s order. Despite that, Katsas and Rao, the Trump appointees, each issued a concurring opinion to explain their justifications for the “extraordinary” action of granting a writ of mandamus against the district court — an order that the lower court take certain action, here, vacating the April order in the contempt proceedings. Pillard, an Obama appointee, issued a strong dissent, declaring that nothing less than “[t]he rule of law“ was at issue in the matter and asserting that neither the government nor the majority had shown that the Trump administration had a “clear and indisputable right” to mandamus.

Because the D.C. Circuit is made up of seven Democratic appointees and four Republican appointees — and given the stakes of the matter and the strength of Pillard’s dissent — it is likely that the full D.C. Circuit will consider hearing this matter en banc (by the full court).

On Friday, a 3-judge panel ruled in J.G.G. v. Trump 2-1 in favor of permitting Donald Trump’s lawlessness regarding the March 15th flights to El Salvador. This will likely be appealed to the full court.