Politics

خلاصہ: ‘He got tired of me winning’: How Thomas Massie outmaneuvered Trump on EpsteinPresident Donald Trump's call for House Republicans to support releasing Jeffrey Epstein-related documents was a stunning capitulation after a months-long campaign to block the vote. It was also a specific defeat for Trump at the hands of a despised GOP opponent: Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky. “He got tired of me winning,” Massie said of Trump’s U-turn in an interview Monday morning. Insisting “I DON’T CARE!” in a late-night Truth Social post, Trump was bowing to the inevitable — a broad House Republican mutiny on a vote that was only scheduled because Massie forced it. It was the result of Massie and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) launching a discharge petition aimed at sidestepping senior GOP leaders who desperately wanted to avoid bringing the issue to the House floor. The campaign to avoid the vote got remarkably ugly in the days before Trump finally conceded, with the president personally attacking Massie for recently remarrying after the sudden death in June 2024 of his wife of more than 30 years. Just hours before Trump’s reversal, one of his top political advisers called him “garbage” in an X post. That adviser, Chris LaCivita, is carrying out a Trump-ordered effort to unseat Massie from the rural northern Kentucky seat he has held since 2012. Trump recently endorsed a challenger, former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein, in the GOP primary. Massie has not flinched from the threats. Politically, he has seen the best fundraising of his congressional career, entering October with more than $2 million in his campaign coffers. As for the personal attacks, Massie said Monday he and his wife were laughing them off. “She said, ‘I told you we should have invited him to the wedding!’” Massie said. Massie’s efforts around Epstein have been no laughing matter for the White House, with top aides and legislative affairs staff furiously scrambling late last week to head off the completion of the discharge petition. That included pulling Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) into the White House Situation Room in the final hours to try to persuade her to remove her name from the petition she had signed alongside GOP Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Nancy Mace of South Carolina, a survivor of sexual assault. All three have cast their support for the petition as an effort to protect women. Trump's pressure campaign failed. The three female House Republicans held firm, and the petition notched its final and 218th signature Wednesday moments after Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) was sworn in following her September special election win.Despite a final barrage of attacks from the president over the weekend — which included Trump calling his once-close ally Greene a “traitor” and threatening a GOP primary against her — backers of the Massie-Khanna discharge effort knew they had the president beat. There were emerging signs that it was Massie, not Trump, who had his fingers closer to the pulse of the MAGA base. Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas), a top Trump ally in the House, posted online he would be “voting NO on the Epstein Hoax” as he sought to rally Republicans to “stand by” the president’s side. Nehls received an immediate barrage of online pushback, suggesting a position against full transparency on Epstein would not be sustainable. Massie, in conjunction with the three GOP women who signed the discharge petition, have sought to put Epstein’s victims front and center amid the battle. They invited several to Capitol Hill in September to keep the fight in the public eye as members returned from the summer recess. They are tentatively scheduled to appear together again Tuesday ahead of the final House vote. “This shouldn’t have been a battle, and unfortunately, it has been one,” Greene said as she left a meeting with Epstein victims in September. Yet for months, senior White House officials labored to convince rank-and-file Republicans to keep their names off Massie’s discharge effort. That, according to five people granted anonymity to discuss private conversations, included warnings that any effort to support an Epstein vote would be viewed as a direct and personal move against the president. Trump has denied wrongdoing in relation to the Epstein allegations, and no evidence has suggested that Trump took part in Epstein’s trafficking operation. The president also has maintained that he and Epstein had a falling out years ago. “President Trump has been consistently calling for transparency related to the Epstein files,” said Abigail Jackson, a deputy White House press secretary, in a statement. “The Democrats knew about Epstein and his victims for years and did nothing to help them until they thought they could weaponize the files against the President.” In an effort to undercut Massie's effort, GOP leaders and the Justice Department worked to release 30,000 pages of DOJ documents in early September, right after Massie could begin gathering signatures on his petition. But lawmakers quickly realized most of the materials had been previously released. Around that time, the White House’s key legislative affairs liaison to the House, Jeff Freeland, was on the Hill, seeking to head off Massie right after lawmakers returned from recess. “Jeff introduced himself to me outside of the Capitol, and he said I was moving too fast for him,” Massie said in the interview. “I told him I made a mistake by getting 12 sponsors , because I had given him his whip list to block the most likely signers” of the discharge petition. Over the past week, it became clear to House GOP leaders that they would no longer be able to keep the Epstein measure off the House floor. Shortly after Grijalva signed, Speaker Mike Johnson announced he would expedite the vote, holding it this week rather than next month as required under the discharge petition. Still, with Trump opposing the effort, he maintained Massie’s legislation was reckless and “moot” now that the House Oversight Committee was heading up its own probe. Last week, Johnson tried calling one of the...

خلاصہ: Supreme Court sends dispute on HIV disability claim back to the lower court and rejects case on defining “reasonable doubt”The Supreme Court on Monday sent the case of a Louisiana man who was prevented from using a physical therapy clinic’s pool because he has HIV back to the state courts for them to take another look at the man’s claim that the clinic violated federal disability laws. The brief, unsigned opinion in Doe v. Dynamic Physical Therapy was part of a list of orders released from the justices’ private conference on Friday, Dec. 5. The justices did not add any new cases to their argument docket for the 2025-26 term. On Friday, they announced that they would weigh in on the constitutionality of President Donald Trump’s executive order banning birthright citizenship, as well as three other cases. In the case of John Doe, the Louisiana courts dismissed his federal disability claims under state law. Specifically, they relied on a Louisiana law that gives health-care providers immunity from lawsuits during public health emergencies, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. On Monday, the Supreme Court reversed that ruling. “Defining the scope of liability under state law is the State’s prerogative,” the two-paragraph opinion acknowledged. “But a State has no power to confer immunity from federal causes of action,” the court wrote. And even if Doe’s claims ultimately cannot go forward for other reasons, the court concluded, “that is for the Louisiana courts to decide in the first instance” based on federal law. Additionally, the justices denied review in the case of Antonio Nathaniel Davenport, who was convicted of (among other things) federal murder charges. At his trial, Davenport asked the judge to instruct the jury on the definition of “reasonable doubt,” but the judge declined to do so, citing federal rules that – according to the judge – barred him from “defining reasonable doubt over and above what’s included in the instructions already.” Justice Sonia Sotomayor agreed with the decision to turn down Davenport’s appeal. She noted that she had done so because Davenport had filed his petition for review too late and his lawyer “gave no explanation for delay,” but contended that the trial judge “was mistaken” in rejecting Davenport’s request for a jury instruction on reasonable doubt. According to Sotomayor, “ederal courts are not prohibited from defining reasonable doubt for the jury.” “In view of the central importance of the reasonable-doubt standard to criminal procedure,” she said, “balanced against the potential for confusion from a reasonable-doubt instruction, district courts should weigh the circumstances of each individual case to decide whether to provide a definition to the jury.” The Supreme Court also sought the Trump administration’s views on three petitions for review: Does 1-2 v. Hochul , the case of a group of New York health-care workers who were fired from their jobs after they refused to be vaccinated because of religious objections to the vaccines; Hoffmann v. WBI Energy Transmission , involving the determination of compensation in private condemnations under the Natural Gas Act; and Crowther v. Board of Regents of the University of Georgia , in which the court has been asked to decide whether Title IX, a federal civil rights law that bars sex discrimination in educational programs and activities that receive federal funding, gives employees of those institutions a right to sue for sex discrimination in employment. There is no deadline for the U.S. solicitor general to file his briefs in these cases. The court will meet for its final scheduled private conference of 2025 on Friday, Dec. 12. Orders from that conference could come as soon as Friday afternoon. The post Supreme Court sends dispute on HIV disability claim back to the lower court and rejects case on defining “reasonable doubt” appeared first on SCOTUSblog .Source InformationPublisher: ScotusBlogOriginal Source: Read more

خلاصہ: Trump Bails Out the Farmers He Kneecapped with Tariffs — AgainThe president would rather pay farmers off with taxpayer funds than let them compete in a global marketplace.Source InformationPublisher: National ReviewOriginal Source: Read more

خلاصہ: Brad Lander set to challenge Rep. Dan Goldman from the leftNEW YORK — Brooklyn progressive Brad Lander is planning to launch his bid for Congress as soon as Wednesday, challenging Rep. Dan Goldman from the political left in a district that went big for Zohran Mamdani, three people familiar with his preparations told POLITICO. The city comptroller is expected to open his campaign with a pivotal endorsement from Mamdani, the democratic socialist mayor-elect’s first formal nod since his November election win upended the Democratic landscape. Lander has also sought support from progressive Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren , according to two people close to Lander. Lander shot his campaign launch video, with some scenes from his Park Slope community, two people with knowledge of his operations said. And he is interviewing for the Working Families Party endorsement, four more people confirmed to POLITICO. The people looped into Lander’s plans were granted anonymity to protect a sensitive rollout process. Lander’s entry will mark New York progressives’ boldest salvo yet in primaries to unseat more mainstream party members on the heels of Mamdani’s ascension to the helm of the country’s largest city. The fiscal wonk and Israel critic is a favorite of left-leaning voters in the liberal congressional district, which encompasses lower Manhattan and northwest Brooklyn and overlaps Lander’s former City Council district. “These are urgent times when ICE agents are abducting our neighbors, Donald Trump is stealing money from New York City’s bank account. I think people are looking for leaders who will put their bodies on the line,” Lander told reporters Friday after pleading not guilty to trespassing and related charges tied to his September sit-in protesting the detention of migrants at 26 Federal Plaza. He said Friday he had not made a decision on running for Congress but was seriously considering it. Lander's team did not immediately comment on his plans Tuesday when contacted by POLITICO. Mamdani defeated Andrew Cuomo in Goldman’s 10th Congressional District by 23 points in the June mayoral primary. In that same contest, Lander placed third in the district, just a quarter of a percentage point behind Cuomo, the moderate former governor. Lander helped clear the democratic socialist’s path to the nomination with a cross-endorsement deal that many in the progressive movement lauded as a sacrifice for the cause. While Lander is a progressive and Working Families Party darling, he is not a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. Goldman — a Manhattan Democrat, second-term House member and former prosecutor — was lead counsel in President Donald Trump’s first impeachment process. While Goldman is a scion of the Levi Strauss empire and a staunch defender of Israel, he has championed progressive policies as co-sponsor of Medicare for All and Green New Deal legislation. The incumbent has advocated for taxing the ultra-wealthy — including himself — and criticized settler violence in the West Bank. Both Goldman and Lander are Jewish. Lander and Goldman are aligned in the resistance against Trump’s ramped-up deportation agenda and have even worked in tandem. Both Democrats are a frequent presence at 26 Federal Plaza, the lower Manhattan administrative building where migrants have been detained by masked federal agents as they attend immigration court hearings. “These are nonviolent, noncriminal people, often escaping terrible conditions in their country, seeking refuge here, and now, they are being yanked away from their families, detained and deported,” Goldman told reporters Monday as he and Reps. Adriano Espaillat and Nydia Velázquez unveiled legislation to protect migrants from arrest as they attend their court dates and follow pathways to legal status. At least two other progressive Democrats are considering a bid for Congress in the district. City Council Member Alexa Avilés, chair of the council’s Immigration Committee and a democratic socialist, and former Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou, who came in second place to Goldman in the 2022 primary for the district, also appealed to the Manhattan and Brooklyn chapters of the Working Families Party for their support. Goldman did as well.Source InformationPublisher: PoliticoOriginal Source: Read more

خلاصہ: Senate Democrats introduce bill to block Trump from putting face on dollar coinSens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) introduced legislation Tuesday to prevent President Trump or any sitting or living former president from being featured on U.S. currency, a bill that would thwart the U.S. Treasury’s plan to issue a commemorative $1 coin with Trump’s image on it. The bill, titled the Change Corruption...Source InformationPublisher: The HillOriginal Source: Read more

خلاصہ: Democrats on Trump-approved Nvidia chip exports to China: 'Colossal economic and national security failure'A group of Senate Democrats slammed President Trump’s decision Monday to allow sales of Nvidia’s H200 chips to China, calling it a “colossal economic and national security failure.” Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Andy Kim (D-N.J.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) warned the H200 chips are “vastly...Source InformationPublisher: The HillOriginal Source: Read more

خلاصہ: Allred says he dropped Senate bid after 'professional, friendly conversation' with CrockettFormer Texas Rep. Colin Allred (D) on Monday explained why he dropped his Senate bid after talking with Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas), who later joined the race. Allred told CNN’s Dana Bash that after a “professional, friendly conversation” with Crockett, he’d chosen to pursue another stint in the House instead of the Senate, avoiding a...Source InformationPublisher: The HillOriginal Source: Read more

خلاصہ: Inside the Secret Network Offering Sanctuary to Immigrants Amid Trump’s ICE OnslaughtThey call them the “forgotten migrants.” Of the approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States, over two thirds of them come from Mexico and South America, according to data compiled by the Pew Research Center last year. However, the population from other regions is growing sharply. Pew found that, as of 2022, there were 375,000 unauthorized immigrants from Africa living in the U.S., which was a striking 36% increase over three years. Estimates show New York is home to nearly 8% of the nation’s undocumented African immigrants. The community was the primary focus of ICE’s Canal Street raid in late October. As TPM spent nearly two months examining the fallout from that sweep and Trump’s deportation machine in the city, we found that African migrants have faced threats and unique challenges. They’re also receiving help from a growing network of activists and advocates. At a weekly “Welcome Center” located inside the sanctuary of one New York City church, the majority of visitors are African men who hold the low-paying and dangerous food delivery jobs that are one of the only options for people without work permits in New York. Outside, the only sign of the lifeline being offered at the church is a line of delivery bikes parked on the street. Inside, there is a vibrant, bustling scene. One corner of the room is lined with prayer mats for Muslim worship. Pews that line the side of the chapel have been turned into an impromptu barber shop where three men provide a steady stream of free shaves and fades. The center of the room is open and filled with tables offering food, assistance with court paperwork, job and house hunting, English lessons, and GED tutoring. On a second floor balcony, there is a supply of donated clothing. One of the two lead volunteers who run the center told TPM they are a parishioner at the church, and that providing services for migrants has become their “full-time second job.” They said the vast majority of people who visit the welcome center are West African men ranging from teenagers to those in their early forties. According to the volunteer, it can be difficult for these men “to navigate and just even find translations” since most services in New York are designed for migrant families and Spanish speakers. “The people from West Africa are sometimes referred to as the forgotten migrants or the hidden migrants,” the volunteer said. “They don’t speak Spanish. They come from countries where their primary language is either Wolof or Fulani. Most of them speak French. Some of them speak Arabic as well. And the city’s not set up for them.” The “Welcome Center” began in January 2023. In the previous months, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and other Republican state leaders began sending busloads of undocumented migrants to New York and other cities led by Democrats to protest President Joe Biden’s immigration policies. Protections from deportation, including avenues to asylum, that were offered by the Biden administration contributed to a spike in the undocumented population, which climbed to record levels in 2022 and 2023. After Abbott began busing migrants to the city, parishioners at the church noticed large gatherings of West African men in one of the neighborhood’s parks. The church decided to offer some services for these people who had “nowhere to go,” the volunteer said. “They had no footwear for the winter. They were in sandals. They didn’t have coats. They didn’t have a place to stay. They didn’t have anything,” the volunteer explained. On that first day, the volunteers distributed flyers in the park. They sat ready with food. Initially, no one showed up. However, within 15 minutes of another nearby facility closing up shop for the day, crowds began pouring through the door. “We looked up and there were about a hundred, 120 guys outside who were starting to come in,” the volunteer said. “We were just completely overwhelmed and blown away.” Working with some of the men who spoke English, the church began to assess their needs and expand the welcome center’s offerings to include educational programs, legal services, and haircuts. “We had no plan. We were really meeting the need. So we would figure out by being in community with these guys,” the volunteer said. “Being there on the margins with them is where we live.” Through their work with the migrants, the welcome center volunteers also learned about the “enormous hardship” that caused them to leave their homes and seek a new life in the U.S. “Nobody wants to leave their country,” the volunteer said. Much of the momentum behind African migration is driven by the political instability, crushing poverty, and large number of armed conflicts that are roiling the continent. The volunteer specifically cited the situation in Guinea where people have been living under a repressive military junta since a 2021 coup d’etat. “The young kids are fleeing terrible, terrible abuse in their home. And almost all of them have been abandoned in some way by their parents. Either through death … but more likely their parents just leave,” the volunteer said. “With the older guys, we see a lot of political persecution. The guys from Guinea, a lot of that is political as well. So, they got on the wrong side of the rebels. They got on the wrong side of the law. They were arrested. They’ve seen their friend shot.” Now that they have arrived in the United States, these migrants have new fears. The ICE raid on Canal Street largely targeted unlicensed African vendors who operate there. That week, attendance at the welcome center was down dramatically. Normally, about 100 people visit each week. Along with the “heartbreaking stories of abandonment and abuse” that brought them to America, the volunteer noted many visitors to the welcome center are part of the LGBTQ community, which is often subject to intense prejudice in...

خلاصہ: Life Inside the Undocumented UndergroundDuring President Donald Trump’s second term, dramatic raids staged by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency have become a part of life. We want to show you what that looks like up close and on the ground in one American city. It’s a story of fear, resilience, and resistance. TPM has spent the past two months reporting on the effect of Trump’s mass deportation agenda in New York, one of the cities facing the prospect of a large-scale ICE invasion. We went inside the courts where Trump’s deportation machine is firing judges and snatching migrants from the halls. We walked those same corridors with masked agents and a growing network of volunteers, activists, and advocates who are determined to fight this new system. We also spent time with the immigrants who described the dangers that led them to leave their homes, the new fears they face in this country, and their drive to keep going despite these long odds. The wave of ICE raids are part of the “bloody” vision for mass deportation that Trump promised as he campaigned to return to the White House. Since taking office, he has joined with the Republican-controlled Congress to build up a deportation and detention infrastructure through a $170 billion spending surge to the ICE budget. That cash is aimed at removing one million migrants from the country each year. While the actual annual number of deportations is well below that goal, it is higher than it has been in decades . The number of people in ICE detention has also increased dramatically, soaring to an unprecedented 65,000. While the Trump administration has maintained that its immigration efforts are focused on removing the “worst of the worst” from the country, the data shows that is simply not true. An analysis conducted by the Marshall Project that was based on documentation obtained from ICE through a Freedom of Information Act request showed that , in the first five months of this year, two thirds of the over 120,000 people deported from the U.S. had no criminal convictions at all. The Marshall Project further found that most of those deported with criminal records had committed minor offenses and only 12% of them “were convicted of a crime that was either violent or potentially violent.” A CBS investigation found that nearly half of the migrants in ICE detention as of Nov. 2025 lacked any criminal charges or convictions. In other words, rather than major criminals, the majority of people targeted by Trump’s deportation complex are simply members of the community. For much of the last year, Chicago and Los Angeles played host to some of the most prominent ICE raids and counterprotests. More recently, rumblings from Washington and the election of progressive mayor Zohran Mamdani have left many activists and immigrants in New York expecting they will be next and preparing for the worst. The first sign those predictions might be coming true came in late October when the city had its most high-profile immigration enforcement sweep so far as personnel from five different federal agencies descended on Canal Street in Manhattan’s Chinatown neighborhood to round up street vendors. Over the next day, during widespread protests, migrants and activists were detained . In the weeks since the Canal Street raid, TPM has surveyed the fallout. We found deep fear, but also something less expected. Across the city, there is something of a modern underground railroad with programs offering services to migrants including food, clothing, and free clinics that provide advice and assistance with legal proceedings. Volunteers are also accompanying migrants as they face the gauntlet of masked ICE agents waiting in the halls of the courts downtown. Due to the fear of raids and detentions, many of the programs offering services to migrants have stepped up their security measures. They guard their doors and do not advertise their locations. As we gained access to these spaces and spoke with the migrants and activists inside, we often agreed not to use peoples’ real names or to identify precise locations. In the coming days, we will share a series based on this reporting, which is based on conversations with dozens of sources. It’s a deep look at some of the extralegal excesses of the current administration and the lengths people are going to fight back.Source InformationPublisher: Talking Points MemoOriginal Source: Read more

خلاصہ: SHOWTIME: Boasberg Summons Key DOJ Witnesses in Contempt InquiryDOJ Whistleblower to Take Center Stage U.S. District Judge James Boasberg has ordered testimony next week from Justice Department whistleblower Erez Reuveni and deputy assistant attorney general Drew Ensign in the criminal contempt of court inquiry in the original Alien Enemies Act case. Not satisfied with what he called the “ cursory declarations ” from Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and top DOJ officials involved in the decision to continue with the AEA deportations in March despite his court order, Boasberg is taking his inquiry to the next level with the first live testimony. Testimony from Reuveni is likely to be especially probative as he as already gone public with his account of his efforts to urge DOJ and DHS to abide by Boasberg’s order to stop the AEA deportations of Venezuelan nationals and turn around the planes en route to El Salvador. Reuveni also produced extensive internal DOJ communications that buttressed his account of that fateful weekend in mid-March that quickly became a flashpoint between the executive and judicial branches. It was Reuveni who famously quoted then-DOJ official Emil Bove as telling attorneys under him that they might have to tell the courts “ fuck you ” if they tried to block the AEA deportations. Bove — now a judge on the Third Circuit Court of Appeal — unexpectedly filed his own declaration yesterday in the contempt of court inquiry. Like the others filed Friday, Bove’s declaration was cursory and raised the prospect of using attorney-client privilege as a shield to block further inquiry from Boasberg. For his part, Ensign has been a willing pawn in an ongoing DOJ effort to stonewall, obfuscate, and mislead judges in some of the key Trump II deportation cases. Ensign was the lead DOJ attorney in front of Boasberg as the AEA deportations unfolded and much of Boasberg’s initial ire was directed at him. The Trump DOJ may yet rush to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to try to avoid allowing Reuveni and Ensign to testify, citing various privileges, including attorney-client privilege, but the appeals court in a muddled opinion last month already seemed to clear the way for Boasberg to proceed with his inquiry, after it delayed him for seven months. Boasberg is zeroing in on whether Noem’s decision to continue with the AEA deportations despite his order was willful, a necessary element of a finding probable cause for criminal contempt. GOP Congress Has Had Its Fill of Hegseth In perhaps the most robust oversight this GOP-controlled Congress has yet conducted, the must-pass annual defense policy bill contains a new provision compelling the Pentagon to turn over (i) the specific orders for the U.S. military strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats; and (ii) unedited video of the attacks. The provision includes some teeth, too, the NYT reports : “It would withhold 25 percent of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s travel budget if he failed to give the congressional national security committees a copy of the execute orders behind the strikes, or to outline how he planned to facilitate future briefings about the operation with lawmakers in accordance with federal law.” SCOTUS Might Surprise on Birthright Citizenship Steve Vladeck , on the way in which the Roberts Court accepted the birthright citizenship case last week: “That particular tea leaf is significant because it reinforces something I’ve believed since the Court first ruled on the emergency applications relating to the birthright citizenship cases back in June—that a majority of the justices are likely to rule against the administration on the merits and invalidate Trump’s executive order.” No More Habba to Kick Around in New Jersey Alina Habba has dropped her claim to be the U.S. attorney for New Jersey after a federal appeals court upheld a lower court decision that she was invalidly appointed. Habba will move to a new position as an advisor to Attorney General Pam Bondi on U.S. attorneys. Bondi indicated that she would continue to appeal the case to the Supreme Court. An EDVA Clash Seems Inevitable With the Trump DOJ continuing to pretend that Lindsey Halligan is the interim U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia despite a court ruling that she was invalidly appointed, I don’t know how the district judges can continue not to appoint an interim U.S. attorney, especially with ongoing public attacks on them like this from Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche: A statement from @AGPamBondi and @DAGToddBlanche : Certain district court and magistrate judges in the Eastern District of Virginia are engaging in an unconscionable campaign of bias and hostility against U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan and her line AUSAs. Lindsey and our… — U.S. Department of Justice (@TheJusticeDept) December 8, 2025 Reax to SCOTUS The Roberts Court gleefully took a sledgehammer not just to independent agencies yesterday in oral arguments, but to the Supreme Court’s own jurisprudence. For help sorting through the implications of the historic case: Kate Shaw, William Baude and Stephen I. Vladeck chew over the oral arguments under the clever headline: “Looks Like the Supreme Court Will Continue to Overturn the 20th Century.” Public policy professor Don Moynihan looks at the bigger political picture: he risks of a partisan public personnel system is not just poor public services, but that it worsens our democracy. Many of the points of friction between Trump and federal employees are about democratic values: the rule of law, how Congressional statute is to be interpreted, avoiding abuses of the power, and transparency. Again and again, the logic for Trump’s personnel actions is the logic of a personalist regime: loyalty to the leader above all else, removing individuals or downgrading agencies that are disfavored. Sandwich Thrower Jurors Recount Deliberations While they expected it to be an open-and-shut case, three jurors in the case of the D.C. sandwich thrower Sean Dunn told CBS News that they had to overcome an initial 10-2 split that led to some seven hours of deliberations...

خلاصہ: When rules of statutory interpretation change midstreamClear Statements is a recurring series by Abbe R. Gluck on civil litigation and the modern regulatory and statutory state. Depending on who you ask, the real “bad old days” at the Supreme Court were the late 1970s. At least that’s the impression one comes away with after reading the briefs in FS Credit Opportunities Corp. v. Saba Capital Master Fund, Lt d ., to be argued tomorrow, Wednesday, Dec. 10. The question presented is whether the Investment Company Act of 1940 includes an implied right of action – specifically, an individual right to go to court to rescind a contract that one contends violates this investor-protection statute. But a deeper question implicated by the case is how the court handles statutory interpretation in an era of methodological change. We were once purposivists , we are now textualists. Yada yada yada. It’s widely accepted that the court has shifted over the past decades from a more eclectic approach to questions of statutory interpretation – which often took into account congressional intent, purpose, and history alongside text – to a modern approach that is increasingly separated from congressional evidence and tethered to text, linguistic rules, and associated presumptions. This shift is core to the current array of disputes about which federal statutes allow individuals to sue to enforce their guarantees. The question in FS Credit is similar to the question in Medina v. Planned Parenthood , decided at the end of last term. There, the question was whether Medicaid, enacted in 1965, creates a right for beneficiaries to sue to enforce Medicaid’s provision allowing them to select any qualified healthcare provider. The court held that it did not, because Medicaid does not contain what the court says it is now looking for: namely, “unmistakably” clear evidence in the text creating the individually enforceable rights. Along the way, the court criticized “a time in the mid-20th century when ‘the Court assumed it to be a proper judicial function to provide’ whatever ‘remedies it deemed necessary to make effective a statute’s purpose,’” and reflected on the past thusly: “Admittedly, this Court briefly experimented with a different approach, and that fact has given rise to some confusion in the lower courts. For a time … the Court sometimes took an expansive view of its power to imply private causes of action to enforce federal laws.” In other words, the court’s earlier test to find an implied private right of action did not require magic language. Instead the court would look to whether the statute was enacted for the benefit of individuals like the plaintiffs, seek evidence of legislative intent to create the private remedy, and confirm that doing so would be consistent with the statute’s purpose. Anyone following the court today, of course, knows that this court really does like magic words, across a wide array of contexts. Whether it’s looking for evidence that Congress meant to delegate a “ major question ” to an agency or in cases like FS Credit, the modern court tends to impose a clarity tax on Congress (one that, not incidentally, raises the cost and difficulty of legislating in the first place). But the “experiment” with that earlier approach to implied rights was by no means “brief,” as the court suggested in Medina . The court’s eclectic and purposive approach goes back to the tradition of Blackstone, appearing in famous chestnuts from Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States (decided in 1892 and relying on statutory purpose to interpret the scope of an immigration ban as it applied to a church pastor) to NLRB v. Hearst Publications (decided in 1944 and consisting of a purposive inquiry into the meaning of “employee” under the National Labor Relations Act) to United Steelworkers v. Weber (decided in 1979 and where both the majority and dissent relied on purpose and legislative history to determine application of the Civil Rights Act to affirmative action), and scores more. Those principles were at the core of Harvard’s renowned Legal Process school of interpretation in the 1950s and 1960s, which emphasized that courts should presume, while interpreting, that legislators were “reasonable persons pursuing reasonable purposes reasonably.” They guided much of the court’s work from the New Deal to the rise of Justice Antonin Scalia’s textualism in the 1990s. This is not to say those approaches were without their weaknesses. It is simply to say that purposivism was not a minor frolic and detour in the history of statutory interpretation. Nevertheless, as the respondents’ brief in FS Credit colorfully notes , “Petitioners (and the United States) spend much of their brief … railing against the bad old days when this Court routinely inferred private damages actions.” Methodological change can raise tricky questions. Scalia used to say that the most legitimate statutory interpretation rules either reflect how Congress drafts a statute or are background rules Congress knows and drafts against. Chief Justice John Roberts’ opinion in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo , the case that overruled the 40-year-old approach to administrative deference announced in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council , made a similar claim, namely that the only legitimate statutory interpretation rules are the ones that reflect the “reality” of Congress’ expectations when drafting laws. But what happens when Congress drafts statutes in the shadow of one statutory interpretation regime (such as one focused on purpose and congressional intent) but the statutes live into, and are litigated under, a different one down the line? It’s hard to argue that the Congress of 1965 that enacted Medicaid could have predicted today’s textualist revolution and so written in a private right of action when “unmistakably” clear language wasn’t previously required or was even a common phrase in the lawyer’s lexicon. Could Congress go through the entire U.S. Code and update every single potential provision where a private right of action could be warranted? Of course it could , in theory. But, in fact, that’s an impossibly tall order for political...

خلاصہ: Originalism’s campaign finance conundrumPlease note that SCOTUS Outside Opinions constitute the views of outside contributors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of SCOTUSblog or its staff. In a recent interview , Justice Amy Coney Barrett shared her view that “originalism became prominent as a theory” as a counterweight to the theory of “living constitutionalism” that “had become dominant” during the courts led by Chief Justices Earl Warren and Warren Burger. According to Barrett, whereas the living constitutionalism of the Warren-Burger eras put the court in the position of functionally amending the Constitution by updating its meaning, originalism instead aims to understand “how those who ratified the Constitution understood the words.” There is no doubt that decisions from the Warren and Burger courts are now open to question by a solid majority of originalist justices; the court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization , holding that there is no constitutional right to an abortion, is only the most noteworthy example of this . But many other precedents from that same era have not yet received comparable scrutiny, prominent among these being the court’s seminal campaign finance decision in the 1976 case of Buckley v. Valeo . When the Supreme Court hears oral argument in National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission this morning, Tuesday, Dec. 9, it will confront fundamental questions about the First Amendment and money in politics. But the case also presents an underappreciated puzzle: How should originalists think about Buckley , which created much of our constitutional framework around campaign finance? What Buckley did In the early 1970s, Congress crafted legislation aimed at addressing the soaring cost of political campaigns and reducing the perceived influence of wealthy interests. The Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 passed with bipartisan supermajorities in both chambers. President Richard Nixon signed it into law, noting that “the goal of controlling campaign expenditures was a highly laudable one.” When Congress amended FECA in 1974, which, among other things, further limited the amounts that could be contributed to federal candidates, President Gerald Ford proclaimed : “The unpleasant truth is that big money influence has come to play an unseem role in our electoral process. This bill will hep to right that wrong.” Nevertheless, in Buckley – which turns 50 next month – the Supreme Court struck down most of FECA’s core provisions. The court functionally equated spending money in politics with “the freedom of speech” itself, concluding that limits on campaign spending “necessarily reduces the quantity of expression by restricting the number of issues discussed, the depth of their exploration, and the size of the audience reached.” While the court upheld limits on direct contributions to federal candidates as a guard against quid pro quo corruption, it invalidated all limits on expenditures by campaigns or independent groups. Buckley runs to a remarkable 144 pages in the U.S. Reports — the longest majority opinion the court has ever produced. Yet nowhere in those 144 pages does the court engage in any sort of originalist analysis of the core questions in the case. There’s no sustained examination of what “the freedom of speech” originally entailed, no investigation of how the founding generation would have understood campaign finance regulation, and no inquiry into which institution they expected to resolve such questions. A methodological resemblance Indeed, Buckley emerged during a period when originalism was not the court’s dominant mode of constitutional interpretation, and the decision bears striking similarities to other cases that originalists have criticized for lacking grounding in the Constitution’s original meaning. Three examples are especially pertinent. First, in the 1965 case of Griswold v. Connecticut , Justice William O. Douglas famously identified a constitutional right to privacy prohibiting states from banning contraception for married couples. He derived this from “penumbras, formed by emanations” of various Bill of Rights provisions, a move which originalists have condemned for creating rights without any clear textual foundation. Buckley took similar leaps, deriving the concept of unlimited campaign spending from the First Amendment’s “freedom of speech” without any consideration of this amendment’s original meaning. Second is Miranda v. Arizona , decided in 1966, which prescribed specific warnings that police officers must give to individuals in custody. In that case, the court provided no textualist or originalist grounding in the Fifth Amendment’s self-incrimination clause. For that reason, originalists have long derided the decision as “inconsistent with the original understanding of the right against self-incrimination” and “a usurpation of legislative and administrative powers, thinly disguised as an exercise in constitutional exegesis” Buckley likewise creates detailed rules constraining democratic choices about campaign finance without any obvious textual commands. Last is 1973’s Roe v. Wade , which created an elaborate trimester framework that, according to originalists, resembled legislation far more than constitutional interpretation. Like Roe , Buckley constructed a detailed architecture — distinguishing contributions from expenditures, applying different levels of scrutiny to each, and creating categorical rules about corruption — that looks far more legislative than interpretive. None of this necessarily means that Buckley – or any of the cases cited above – reached the wrong result as a matter of policy. But it does raise questions about methodology. If these forms of reasoning were problematic to originalists in Griswold , Roe , and Miranda , what makes them acceptable in Buckley ? The “who decides” question Recent originalist scholarship reveals an even deeper problem with Buckley , however. Stanford law professor Jud Campbell’s path-breaking research on the founding era has shown that recovering original meaning requires an understanding of not just what rights the Founders recognized, but which institution they expected to resolve disputes about those rights. Based on this understanding, and as relevant to Buckley , a key question isn’t merely whether political speech was valued at the founding (it certainly was) – but whether courts were expected to micromanage legislative efforts to address corruption or preserve electoral integrity. And Campbell’s research demonstrates that there was no such view. Instead, the Founders believed that representative institutions could...

خلاصہ: SCOTUStoday for Tuesday, December 9Today marks 25 years since the Supreme Court halted the recount in Florida to hear arguments in the dispute between then-candidate George W. Bush and his opponent in the 2000 presidential election, then-Vice President Al Gore, over the process for the recount. The court heard arguments two days later and released its unsigned opinion in favor of Bush one day after that. SCOTUS Quick Hits On Monday, the court released an order list announcing several denied petitions, as well as a summary reversal in Doe v. Dynamic Physical Therapy, LLC , a case on whether a state procedural law immunizing health care providers from liability during a public health emergency overrides a federal cause of action. Also on Monday, the justices heard argument in Trump v. Slaughter , on the president’s authority to fire the heads of independent, multi-member federal agencies. For key takeaways, check out Amy Howe’s argument analysis , the SCOTUSblog live blog , and Advisory Opinions’ live broadcast . Today, the justices will hear argument in National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission , on whether to further cut back campaign finance limitations. Amy’s case preview is available here . Tomorrow, the justices will hear argument in Hamm v. Smith , on how and whether courts should consider the cumulative effect of multiple IQ scores when applying the court’s ban on executing people who are intellectually disabled, and FS Credit Opportunities Corp. v. Saba Capital Master Fund, Ltd. , on whether the federal courts should recognize a federal statute as implying a private right of action (that is, providing the ability for private parties to sue) when the words of the statute do not explicitly authorize it. The court could issue its decision in the interim docket case on President Donald Trump’s effort to deploy the National Guard to Illinois at any time. Morning Reads US Supreme Court turns away appeal of Texas library book ban (Jan Wolfe, Reuters) — Among the many petitions denied by the Supreme Court on Monday was “an appeal by a group of residents of a rural Texas county of a judicial decision allowing local officials to remove 17 books that these officials deemed objectionable from public libraries,” according to Reuters . “The justices let stand a lower court’s decision allowing the removal of books including ones dealing with themes of race and LGBT identity, from its public library system. The lower court rejected the argument made by the plaintiffs that removing the books was unlawful under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment protections against government abridgment of free speech.” Supreme Court rejects free speech case over controversial vanity plate (Maureen Groppe, USA Today) — Monday’s order list also revealed that the court won’t “get involved in states’ regulation of vanity license plates,” according to USA Today . The justices turned down “an appeal from a Tennessee woman challenging the rejection of her controversial ’69PWNDU’ personalized plate,” who had asked the court to take up her case and “find that she is expressing her own views through a vanity plate, not the government’s, a decision that would have limited states’ ability to control that message.” What a Supreme Court decision about a Texas map means for redistricting in Indiana (Marissa Meador, Indianapolis Star)(Paywall) — The Supreme Court’s Dec. 4 decision to allow Texas to use its new congressional map in the 2026 elections “could hamper a potential legal challenge to Indiana’s mid-decade redistricting efforts,” according to the Indianapolis Star . Like Texas’ map, Indiana’s proposed map has faced pushback for potentially diluting the voting power of nonwhite voters, but Indiana Republicans, like Texas Republicans before them, insist that it serves political, rather than racial, goals. “As the United States Supreme Court emphasized once again last night, redistricting for political reasons is constitutional,” Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita said in a press release on Dec. 5. After Deadlocked Supreme Court Case, More States Jump on Religious Charter School Bandwagon (Linda Jacobson, The 74) — The court soon may be asked to reconsider “whether charter schools can be religious,” as efforts are underway in Tennessee and Oklahoma to get such schools approved by education officials, according to The 74 . “In Tennessee, the nonprofit Wilberforce Academy is suing the Knox County Schools in federal court because the district refuses to allow a Christian charter school. … The legal challenge in Tennessee comes as a Florida-based charter school network prepares to submit an application to the Oklahoma Charter School Board for a Jewish virtual charter high school.” In May, the Supreme Court split 4-4 over a different religious charter school in Oklahoma, leaving a ruling by the Oklahoma Supreme Court rejecting the Catholic school in place. The deadlock was possible because Justice Amy Coney Barrett had recused herself. Must the Military Disobey Unlawful Orders? Pam Bondi Has Said Yes (Adam Liptak, The New York Times)(Paywall) — Before Pam Bondi was the U.S. attorney general, she was a lawyer for the America First Policy Institute. As part of her work for that conservative think tank, she filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the Supreme Court last year in the presidential immunity case and noted that such immunity is not as big of a problem as it may seem in the military context because members of the military must refuse unlawful orders, according to The New York Times . That brief became more significant recently when President Donald Trump criticized Democratic lawmakers who “issued a video … telling members of the military that they must refuse unlawful orders” and as his administration faces pushback over “strikes on boats said to be smuggling drugs.” A Closer Look: Coverage of the Slaughter Argument Yesterday’s argument in Trump v. Slaughter was covered by a great deal of outlets (including SCOTUSblog ), which were watching to see whether the court seemed likely to grant President Donald Trump more control over independent, multi-member federal agencies. Here’s a sampling of the headlines used for articles summarizing the discussion,...

خلاصہ: Supreme Court weighs major campaign finance challenge backed by VanceA major campaign finance battle will be heard by the Supreme Court on Tuesday, as the justices weigh whether to strike down federal restrictions on coordinated spending between political parties and their candidates. Vice President Vance was one of the challengers. When he was a senator, he filed suit alongside former Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio) and Republicans’ campaign committees in both chambers against the Federal Election Commission (FEC), which enforces the...Source InformationPublisher: The HillOriginal Source: Read more

خلاصہ: Capitol agenda: What Trump told POLITICO about health careTRUMP’S TAKE ON HEALTH TALKS — President Donald Trump in an exclusive interview with POLITICO's Dasha Burns was noncommittal on the fate of Obamacare subsidies set to lapse at the end of the month, the latest sign that Republicans will let them expire. Pressed on whether he would intervene and ask Congress to extend the tax credits, Trump said, “I don’t know. I’m going to have to see.” He instead touted his rough vision for a health care revamp. “I want to give the people better health insurance for less money,” he said. “The people will get the money and they’re going to buy the health insurance that they want.” Watch the interview and read a rundown of the newsiest bits on Latin America, the economy, the Supreme Court and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). “She was a loyal person until I wasn’t able to answer her phone calls,” he said. SENATE GOP SEARCHES FOR UNITY — With just two days until Democrats get a vote on their proposal to extend expiring Obamacare subsidies, Republican senators have yet to coalesce behind an alternative to put up alongside it. “What signal would that send if Republicans say, ‘Yeah, we’re going to say no to the Democrats’ plan, but we’re not going to offer anything?’” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said. “The message that will send is, good luck to the American people, and we don’t really care.” Senate Republicans are expected to discuss their options at a closed-door lunch Tuesday afternoon and make a decision about which direction to take. — The competing proposals: Factions of the conference are either ready to extend enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies or replace them with new frameworks. Senate Majority Leader John Thune on Monday praised a proposal by Sens. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) expanding the use of health savings accounts and directing funding toward them — without extending the tax credits. Thune took steps Monday night to make the bill available for a vote later this week, as Republicans try to keep options on the table. But he didn’t commit to putting it up for a vote Thursday. Sens. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) proposed a two-year subsidy extension with new income caps and other eligibility restrictions — a plan that won some Democratic interest from Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 party leader. — The path ahead: The Democratic proposal is likely to fail Thursday even though a handful of Republicans haven’t said yet how they will vote. Hawley, for instance, said Monday “everything is on the table.” But Thune is suggesting there will be further bipartisan negotiations afterwards. There’s hope on both sides of the aisle that failure could spark new momentum as some lawmakers start eyeing Jan. 30, the next government funding deadline, as the real cutoff to land a health care deal. What else we’re watching: — NDAA hits Rules: The House plans to vote on the National Defense Authorization Act Wednesday afternoon — assuming it gets through the Rules Committee Tuesday evening. House Democrats could support the defense policy bill after House Armed Services ranking member Adam Smith (D-Wash.) signaled he’s on board. That means the biggest issue for Republicans likely won’t be final passage, but instead the rule vote Wednesday if some in the GOP choose to tank the party-line vote. — Digital trade legislation: Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) is introducing a bipartisan bill Tuesday that would empower the president to negotiate and enforce digital trade agreements — but also give Congress the opportunity to review and block those agreements. The move signals potential renewed interest from Congress in addressing the taxation of digital goods. Jordain Carney, Mia McCarthy and Benjamin Guggenheim contributed to this report.Source InformationPublisher: PoliticoOriginal Source: Read more