Full Court Press

The well-worn adage that opinions are like a**holes has never been more accurate than following today’s blockbuster Supreme Court decisions. The birthright citizenship decision was less about birthright citizenship and more about limiting federal judges from issuing nationwide injunctions. This gives more power to the executive branch. And not just any executive branch. This executive branch. NYT (Gift Article): In Birthright Citizenship Case, Supreme Court Limits Power of Judges to Block Trump Policies. Justice Sotomayor for the minority: “No right is safe in the new legal regime the Court creates … With the stroke of a pen, the President has made a ‘solemn mockery’ of our Constitution. Rather than stand firm, the Court gives way. Because such complicity should know no place in our system of law, I dissent.” In another 6-3 decision, the Court ruled that “public schools in Maryland must allow parents with religious objections to withdraw their children from classes in which storybooks with L.G.B.T.Q. themes are discussed. Sotomayor: “The Court’s ruling, in effect, thus hands a subset of parents the right to veto curricular choices long left to locally elected school boards. Because I cannot countenance the Court’s contortion of our precedent and the untold harms that will follow, I dissent.” Meanwhile, the Court “upheld a Texas law requiring age verification to access adult websites, saying despite First Amendment claims, the law ‘only incidentally burdens the protected speech of adults.’ The ruling, in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, opens the door to age-gating in states nationwide.” (Gee, this oughta be popular…) Decisions like these that empower the executive and right-leaning religious enthusiasts are precisely what this SCOTUS majority was formed to render. To quote another more recent adage: “They are who we thought they were.”

+ From NYT (Gift Article): The Major Supreme Court Decisions in 2025. Read em and weep.