Are some of the Corrupted Six growing a spine?

[Scooter]

Supreme Court Upholds Block to Trump’s Chicago Military Takeover

President Donald Trump’s military takeover of Chicago will not go forward after the Supreme Court Tuesday upheld a lower court ruling halting his attempt to send hundreds of National Guard troops to the city.

The court’s long-awaited 6-3 decision deals a significant blow to Trump’s authoritarian goal of exerting military control over cities and integrating soldiers into routine policing. The ruling will likely also undermine his military intervention in Los Angeles and his attempted deployment in Portland, Oregon.

In maintaining the lower court’s decision, the Supreme Court said Trump unlawfully used an archaic statute to federalize hundreds of Illinois Guard troops, who are normally under Gov. JB Pritzker’s (D) control.

After threatening to send troops into Chicago for months, Trump in early October federalized Illinois and Texas Guard troops and deployed them into the city over the repeated objections of Pritzker and other local and state officials. California Guard troops federalized for his earlier intervention in Los Angeles were also sent to Chicago.

Trump claimed soldiers were needed to protect federal agents conducting aggressive immigration enforcement operations in the city. However, he also regularly associated sending troops with curbing crime in the city, even though federal law generally bars the use of federal military personnel to enforce domestic laws.

Trump federalized the troops under 10 U.S.C. 12406 (Title 10), an archaic and rarely used statute that allows the president to take control of state Guard troops when the country faces foreign invasion, when the U.S. government faces rebellion or when the president is unable to execute laws with “regular forces.”

The Supreme Court Tuesday determined that because the term “regular forces” in Title 10 likely refers to the traditional forces of the U.S. military — such as the Army, Navy and Air Force — Trump did not have authority to federalize Illinois Guard members.

“This interpretation means that to call the Guard into active federal service under §12406(3), the President must be ‘unable’ with the regular military ‘to execute the laws of the United States,’” the unsigned majority opinion reads.

The majority further stated that because the Posse Comitatus Act generally prohibits using the military in civilian law enforcement purposes under normal circumstances, Trump likely would be unable to use the traditional military in Chicago.

The majority further stated that because the Posse Comitatus Act generally prohibits using the military in civilian law enforcement purposes under normal circumstances, Trump likely would be unable to use the traditional military in Chicago.

“At this preliminary stage, the Government has failed to identify a source of authority that would allow the military to execute the laws in Illinois,” the majority said. “The President has not invoked a statute that provides an exception to the Posse Comitatus Act.”

Conservative Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Niel [sic] Gorsuch dissented. (of course they did)

Pritzker on social media hailed the court’s ruling as a “big win for Illinois and American democracy.”

“This is an important step in curbing the Trump Administration’s consistent abuse of power and slowing Trump’s march toward authoritarianism,” Pritzker said. “While we welcome this ruling, we also are clear-eyed that the Trump Administration’s pursuit for unchecked power is continuing across the country.”

Almost immediately after Trump announced the Chicago deployment, Illinois sued, alleging the deployment infringed on its right to self-governance. The lawsuit reached the Supreme Court after Trump filed an emergency appeal of the district court’s decision to block the deployment.

Instead of immediately granting or denying Trump’s stay request, the Supreme Court, in an unexpected move, asked Illinois and the Department of Justice (DOJ) to file briefs on the definition of “regular forces.”

In its brief, the DOJ struggled to directly answer the Supreme Court’s question and instead asserted that Trump had broad powers to federalize state Guard troops and courts have no authority to question the president’s ability to deploy them domestically.

The Supreme Court did not address the DOJ’s arguments on courts’ inability to review deployments, perhaps allowing its ruling to speak for itself.

The court’s decision will likely upset several of Trump’s domestic military deployments so far because, with the exception of Los Angeles, Trump hadn’t sent regular military forces to any city in which he’s attempted to deploy National Guard troops. When he deployed thousands of federalized California Guard troops to Los Angeles over the summer, he simultaneously sent hundreds of Marines.

However, the ruling likely will not affect his military interventions in Washington, D.C., and Memphis, Tennessee, which were carried out under different laws.

[Burning Petard]

I added this here because it was the most recent post mentioning Clarence Thhmas.. My poorly curated news service via Yahoo sent me a headline about justice Thomas from AP News. It said Justice Thomas said in a speech covered by C-Span, that Progressives form an existential threat to the survival of America as a functioning democracy. In particular Progressives are cynically undermining the moral and philosophical foundations of true American values as laid out in the Declaration of Independence. I could find nothing about it in WaPo for today. But my search skills are not all that great. Justice Thomas is approaching a record for total time on that judicial bench.

Can anybody give me a link to that speech, Yesterday on C-Span? Thanks.

Snailgate.

[MajGenl.Meade]

https://abcnews.com/Politics/supreme-co ... =132084353

There you go, snail
From ABC news above

A spirit of “cynicism, rejection, hostility and animus” toward America -- by Americans -- has taken hold, Thomas said in remarks carried live on CSPAN.

[MajGenl.Meade]

The majority further stated that because the Posse Comitatus Act generally prohibits using the military in civilian law enforcement purposes under normal circumstances, Trump likely would be unable to use the traditional military in Chicago.

I thought that part of the Supremes contra-chant to be a bit loosey goosey. "generally" "under normal circumstances" "might"?

[ex-khobar Andy]

I wish RBG had gone earlier so that Obama rather than Trump would have nominated her replacement at SCOTUS. I think she did not - and none of us can know her mind, so this is my surmise - because resigning at a politically opportune time would be a political act which she wanted no part of. Now of course this seems naive rather than moral. I have no doubt that Thomas and Alito will resign in the next two years so that Trump has a clear shot to nominate young rightists (Aileen Cannon is only 45) and preserve the current makeup of the court for decades.

[Sue U]

I wish RBG had gone earlier so that Obama rather than Trump would have nominated her replacement at SCOTUS. I think she did not - and none of us can know her mind, so this is my surmise - because resigning at a politically opportune time would be a political act which she wanted no part of. Now of course this seems naive rather than moral. I have no doubt that Thomas and Alito will resign in the next two years so that Trump has a clear shot to nominate young rightists (Aileen Cannon is only 45) and preserve the current makeup of the court for decades.

RBG died in September 2020. When would you have had her resign? In 2016? She still had productive years to contribute and Mitch McConnell would have stalled any Senate confirmation of a replacement until after the election. Was she supposed to know earlier than that how long she had left? She had beaten pancreatic cancer, FFS. She might have lived forever -- or at least to 2021. It cannot be said that she was naive or disdained politics; she was a trailblazer for women's rights and gender equality, both personally and professionally, and worked in the litigation trenches as a volunteer attorney for the ACLU. She was a genuine scholar of the intersection of law and politics.

The solution to the obvious partisan politicization and frank corruption of the Court is a Congressional overhaul of its procedures, imposition of a code of conduct, and an expansion of its membership. But what should have been the Judiciary Reform Act of 2021 will now have to wait until 2029, for which I blame Joe Biden.

ETA:

Also, did you see the NYT story about the origins of the Court's "shadow docket"? It was early in 2016 that John Roberts embarked on his project to turn "emergency applications" into a political weapon specifically to thwart Democrats' policy initiatives.

[Bicycle Bill]

The solution to the obvious partisan politicization and frank corruption of the Court is a Congressional overhaul of its procedures, imposition of a code of conduct, and an expansion of its membership.

When you talk of overhauling the Supreme Court to avoid partisan politicization and corruption, I'm with you all the way.   And the problem doesn't just lie within the Supreme Court.   It is my contention that the policy whereby any judge on any bench (Federal District Courts, Courts of Appeals, etc.) is appointed by a seated president to what becomes, in effect, a lifetime sinecure rather than be elected by the will of the people for a specified term needs to be revamped completely.

But turning the matter over to Congress, which has become the poster child for partisan politics, shady dealings, and — yes — downright corruption, to correct the deficiencies of the SC?    That's like putting a full-blown, active alcoholic in charge of a liquor store.   Congress, if they had collectively grown a pair, could have cut Trump and his policies off at the knees at any time.   But for whatever reason (and I have my opinions as to just what some of those reasons are) Congress didn't, so we find ourselves where we are now — and I don't see things changing any time soon.

-"BB"-

[Burning Petard]

Not sure how much of a sinecure it is to be a federal judge. It is not that rare for such a judge to be impeached. It is rare for it to get MUCH publicity. Now the GOP senate will probably not approve an impeachment for any one for any thing. Like many processes in this Trump era, the GOP senate seems to prefer to do nothing. This is the current development of a long tradition ofGOP blaming everything on a past Dem President, be it Biden, or Clinton or even FDR. (my memory only goes back that far. I am sure the student can find earlier example)

States have developed other answers to this problem. There is something that is sometimes called the Missouri system (which has been much modified in that state over time) There some govermental authority names judges to the bench. But after serving for a specified period they must stand for a popular election which can keep them on the bench or remove them, but popular vote cannot put an individual on the bench. It is easy to call attention to systematic failures; a damn site harder to create a better system and get it installed.

I am amused that there is loud support for the 'original intent' of our founding fathers. I have yet to hear any support for returning to the original selection process for US Senators. They were NOT elected. and the original intent of our semi-devinely guided founding fathers was that popular elections were be conducted in public (no secret ballots) and the voters be property-owning males

Nostalgia is a wonderful thing.

Snailgate.

[Big RR]

the original selection process for US Senators. They were NOT elected.original intent of our semi-devinely guided founding fathers was that popular elections were be conducted in public (no secret ballots) and the voters be property-owning males

Perhaps, but the 15th amendment provided for election of senators, and the 17th and 19th amendments removed the male and property owning restrictions. That is how the Constitution was intended to work. As for not having a secret ballot, I think it was more of a standard custom than any wish or intent of the founded (divinely inspired or otherwise), which became a secret ballot to reduce corruption, so no amendments were required.