THURSDAY 6/27/24
NOT TODAY: Trump v. United States – The US Supreme Court’s last ruling of the day Thursday was for Mike Moyle, Speaker of the Idaho House of Representatives v. United States according to SCOTUSblog. So no decision ahead of Thursday night’s presidential debate on former President Trump’s claim of post-presidential immunity in regard to special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment for his alleged 2020 election interference. Bets on whether there’s a decision Friday, so SCOTUS can go on vacation before the Independence Day holiday?
Moyle v. United States – This is the ruling SCOTUS’ official website briefly posted a day early then quickly removed, but not before Bloomberg News could write about it. A 6-3 ruling temporarily blocks an Idaho law from prohibiting abortions necessary to protect a woman’s health, including her fertility, while allowing abortions to prevent a woman’s death. Obviously, the law places the burden on doctors and hospitals to determine whether or not a pregnant woman faces death if there is no abortion. But the procedural ruling leaves key questions unanswered, so the issue is likely to come up before the court again soon.
Harrington v. Purdue Pharma L.P.— By 5-4 vote SCOTUS threw out a controversial opioid settlement with Purdue Pharma over a “mountain” of litigation against the maker of OxyContin, Bloomberg News reports. The majority opinion, written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, says the deal would have improperly shielded the Sackler family, which owns Purdue Pharma. Family members were to be made immune to lawsuits over OxyContin in exchange for at least $6 billion in payments to OxyContin families and their victims. But Gorsuch in his ruling notes Sackler family members themselves never filed for bankruptcy, according to NPR.
--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa
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...meanwhile... WEDNESDAY 6/26/24
This week?: The US Supreme Court may rule as early as this Friday, after the presidential debate, on Donald J. Trump's claim of ex-presidential immunity in his election interference case. Next year: SCOTUS has agreed to hear arguments regarding a Tennessee law banning transgender care for minors, which would test the constitutionality of similar restrictions already law in 23 other states.
Tuesday’s Primaries – Known best to non-New Yorkers as the second-term congressman who pulled a fire alarm while fellow lawmakers were on the House floor working on a spending bill, Rep. Jamaal Bowman lost the Democratic primary Tuesday to Westchester County Exec. George Latimer, The New York Times reports. The primary race for New York’s 16th District cost a record $25 million, more than $14 million of which the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, spent on Latimer.
Bowman had attached his star to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s The Squad and supports the pro-Palestinian side in the war on Gaza..
Meanwhile, Beetlejuice fan Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) is in for a likely third term after switching districts to Colorado’s 4th, where she beat four other Republican candidates. At her election night victory, according to the AP, Boebert wore gold lamé Donald J. Trump basketball shoes and a white, signed MAGA hat, and commented; “America will rise again, and I’m so excited that you all are here to be part of it with me.”
Boebert’s in the right place … Colorado’s 4th opened when Republican Rep. Ken Buck resigned early over what he called the GOP’s divisiveness and devotion to Trump.
State Rep. Gabe Evans (R), a former police officer, defeated former state Rep. Janak Joshi for the chance to take on Colorado 8thDistrict incumbent Yadira Caraveo (D) who won by fewer than 2,000 votes in 2022. The district extends north of Denver.
--TL
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TUESDAY 6/25/24
Pardon Assange? -- WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will seek a pardon from the US presidency after reaching a deal to accept a charge under the US Espionage Act, according to his wife, Stella. Assange, 52, was released yesterday from a prison in the UK where he had been held for five years and was en route Wednesday to US territory in Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands, per The Guardian, on the way back to his native Australia.
"The fact that there is a guilty plea, under the Espionage Act in relation to obtaining and disclosing national defense information is obviously a very serious concern for journalists and national security journalists in general," Stella Assange told Reuters.
This was not Daniel Ellsberg's Pentagon Papers: While WikiLeaks' document dump in the last decade revealed alleged war crimes on the part of the US government, Assange also has been condemned even in journalism circles for publishing them unredacted, making them open to Russia and potentially placing US agents in danger. The WikiLeaks dump resulted in history's largest release of classified US documents.
--TL
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MONDAY 6/24/24
SCOTUS to Review Transgender Law – The Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments next year a Tennessee law banning transgender care for minors under 18 years of age. The case will offer SCOTUS the opportunity to consider the constitutionality of similar restrictions already imposed by 23 states since 2021, according to The Washington Post.
Meanwhile… SCOTUS’ ruling on whether ex-President Trump has immunity as an ex-president in special council Jack Smith’s case charging him with attempts to overthrow the 2020 presidential election could be delayed to early July, The Hill reports, but possibly ahead of the Republican National Convention July 15-18 in Milwaukee, by time the nine justices should already be on vacation.
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After the Golden Escalator – Britain’s chief Brexiter and leader of the Reform UK party, Nigel Farage, told ITV that Donald J. Trump has “learned quite a lot from me” before running for president in 2016, per Politico.
--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa