Trump trademark case highlights the muddle the Supreme Court made of gun laws
Jordan Rubin – June 13, 2024
Among the three opinions issued Thursday by the Supreme Court was one that shut down an attempt to trademark the double entendre “Trump too small.” The high court was unanimous on the bottom line that the rejection didn’t violate the First Amendment.
But the justices fractured on the reasoning in a way that calls into question how the Republican-led court goes about deciding cases generally — including gun cases.
To get a sense of the underlying split in the trademark case, Vidal v. Elster, look at the breakdown here, which may help to explain why it took this long to decide the appeal argued back in November:
“On the bottom line, there is no dispute,” wrote Justice Clarence Thomas, who authored the opinion joined at various points by different justices, as shown above.
But beyond the bottom line, the justices were more divided.
In her concurrence, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that “perhaps the biggest surprise (and disappointment) of today’s five-Justice majority opinion is its reliance on history and tradition as a dispositive test to resolve this case.” Joined by fellow Democratic appointees Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, she called out Thomas’ citation of the 2022 ruling in Bruen (also authored by Thomas) that further expanded gun rights under a supposedly historical approach.
“The majority attempts to reassure litigants and the lower courts that a ‘history-focused approac[h]’ here is sensible and workable” by citing Bruen, Sotomayor wrote. “To say that such reassurance is not comforting would be an understatement,” she went on, lamenting that “one need only read a handful of lower court decisions applying Bruen to appreciate the confusion this Court has caused.”
She cited an amicus brief that makes that point in the pending gun case of United States v. Rahimi, on the constitutionality of a law that bars gun possession for people subject to domestic violence restraining orders. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the law under Bruen, prompting the government to appeal to the justices.
We could learn as soon as Friday morning how the court attempts to settle that Second Amendment confusion in Rahimi, which forces the majority to confront the mess that it made in Bruen.
Trump’s F-Bomb Rant to Mike Johnson Sparks Desperate GOP Moves
Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling – June 13, 2024
After a jury found him guilty on 34 felony counts, Donald Trump knew exactly who to call for a solution: House Speaker Mike Johnson.
In a conversation reportedly laced with F-bombs, Trump urged the Louisiana Republican to find a political solution for his legal comeuppance, Politico reported Thursday.
“We have to overturn this,” Trump told a sympathetic Johnson, according to Politico.
Johnson already believed that the House had a role to play in overturning Trump’s conviction, but since that call, he’s practically done backflips to make it happen. During an interview on Fox and Friends last month, Johnson urged the Supreme Court to “step in” and overturn the jury’s verdict.
“I think that the justices on the court—I know many of them personally—I think they are deeply concerned about that, as we are. So I think they’ll set this straight,” Johnson said, before effectively promising to viewers that the nation’s highest court would step in to make the ruling go away. “This will be overturned, guys, there’s no question about it; it’s just going to take some time to do it.”
The House Speaker is looking to unravel Trump’s other criminal charges, as well. Johnson is reportedly examining using the appropriations process to target special counsel Jack Smith’s probe, and is already in talks with Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan to do so. It’s a near reversal of a position he took early last month, when Johnson told Politico that a similar idea proposed by Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene would be “unworkable.”
“That country certainly sees what’s going on, and they don’t want Fani Willis and Alvin Bragg and these kinds of folks to be able to continue to use grant dollars for targeting people in a political lawfare type of way,” Jordan told the publication.
But other Republicans aren’t exactly on board with the idea of defunding the special counsel—even if they disagree with the case against Trump.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea unless you can show that [the prosecutors] acted in bad faith or fraud or something like that,” Idaho Representative Mike Simpson told Politico. “They’re just doing their job—even though I disagree with what they did.”
Another, unnamed Republican went even further in torching the effort, claiming that attacking Smith’s case would completely undermine their calls against Democrats for “weaponizing” the justice system to their political benefit.
Clarence Thomas took additional undisclosed trips paid for by GOP megadonor, Senate committee says
Zoë Richards and Lawrence Hurley – June 13, 2024
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was given additional undisclosed trips by a GOP megadonor that were not included in his financial disclosure forms, according to documents the Senate Judiciary Committee released Thursday.
Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who chairs the Judiciary Committee, released records about gifts of private jet travel provided by Thomas’ billionaire friend, Harlan Crow, that included plane trips in 2017, 2019 and 2021.
“As a result of our investigation and subpoena authorization, we are providing the American public greater clarity on the extent of ethical lapses by Supreme Court justices and the need for ethics reform,” Durbin said in a statement.
The documents were released a day after Republicans blocked Democrats’ attempt to pass Supreme Court ethics legislation that the committee advanced nearly a year ago.
In a statement Thursday, Crow’s office said he had reached an agreement with the Judiciary Committee to provide information dating back seven years.
“Despite his serious and continued concerns about the legality and necessity of the inquiry, Mr. Crow engaged in good faith with the Committee,” his office said. “As a condition of this agreement, the Committee agreed to end its probe with respect to Mr. Crow.”
A spokesperson for Durbin told NBC News in a statement that the committee “reached an agreement with Mr. Crow for information and materials that was sufficient for compliance with the Committee’s request and subpoena authorization.”
An attorney for Thomas defended his disclosure practices.
“The information that Harlan Crow provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee fell under the ‘personal hospitality exemption’ and was not required to be disclosed by Justice Thomas,” attorney Elliot S. Berke said in a statement Thursday, adding that the Judicial Conference — the administrative office of the U.S. courts — “changed this provision last year, and Justice Thomas has fully complied with the new disclosure requirement.”
The response from Berke echoed Thomas’ statement last year that referred to the undisclosed travel as “personal hospitality from close personal friends,” not business.
Democrats on the Judiciary Committee cited a statute Thursday detailing financial disclosure requirements for federal personnel, which says that “food, lodging, or entertainment received as personal hospitality of an individual need not be reported,” while contending that the law requires disclosing travel given as gifts. They said they planned to release a report on their investigation of Supreme Court ethics this summer.
A Supreme Court spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday about the travel records the committee released.
The US House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress.
The Republican-controlled chamber passed its resolution by a 216-207 vote, with only one Republican siding with the united Democratic opposition.
Mr Garland refused to turn over interview tapes from a justice department probe of President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents.
Reacting to the contempt vote, he said House Republicans had “turned a serious congressional authority into a partisan weapon”.
“Today’s vote disregards the constitutional separation of powers, the Justice Department’s need to protect its investigations, and the substantial amount of information we have provided to the Committees,” he wrote in a statement.
America’s top law enforcement officer now becomes only the third attorney general in US history, and fourth sitting cabinet member overall, to be held in contempt of Congress.
The contempt resolution recommends that the justice department make a decision on whether or not to criminally prosecute Mr Garland.
Under federal law, contempt is a misdemeanour charge punishable by up to one year in jail and a $100,000 (£78,000) fine. Steve Bannon, an ally of former President Donald Trump, faces four months behind bars over a contempt citation, while former Trump aide Peter Navarro is already serving time on his own charge.
But Wednesday’s vote functions as a partisan exercise given that a justice department prosecutor would almost certainly not pursue criminal charges against the head of their own agency.
Attorneys General William Barr and Eric Holder, who respectively served the preceding Republican and Democratic administrations, also were held in contempt of Congress along partisan lines. Neither faced criminal charges.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, however, described the vote as “a significant step in maintaining the integrity of our oversight processes and responsibilities”.
Moderate Ohio lawmaker David Joyce was the lone Republican to oppose the resolution, as did all 206 Democrats present for the vote.
“As a former prosecutor, I cannot in good conscience support a resolution that would further politicize our judicial system to score political points,” he said in a statement.
The push to hold Mr Garland in contempt follows a year-long inquiry by Special Counsel Robert Hur into Mr Biden’s retention of classified documents after he served as vice-president.
Mr Biden was vice-president from 2009-17 in Barack Obama’s administration.
In a lengthy report released in February, Mr Hur concluded that no criminal charges were warranted, though Mr Biden appeared to have “willfully” retained classified materials as a private citizen.
The Garland-appointed prosecutor noted he believed prosecutors would struggle to secure a conviction against Mr Biden, as jurors likely would view him as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”.
That characterisation came after the president sat for five hours of interviews, spanning two days last October, with Mr Hur’s team.
He said that Mr Biden was unable to recall certain details relevant to the investigation, as well as milestones in his own life such as the years of his vice-presidency and when his oldest son, Beau, died from cancer.
The report’s release sparked a political firestorm, highlighting for critics one of the president’s biggest weaknesses – voter concerns about his age and lucidity – in the midst of his bid for re-election.
Lawyers for Mr Biden disputed descriptions of the interview, accusing Mr Hur of using “highly prejudicial language to describe a commonplace occurrence among witnesses: a lack of recall of years-old events”.
In March, Mr Garland provided congressional Republicans with a full transcript of the interview – but he has resisted their subpoenas demanding audio recordings of the conversation.
On his advice, the president last month invoked “executive privilege” to block congressional Republicans from accessing tapes of the interview. The legal doctrine grants presidents the right to withhold executive branch information from the other two branches of government.
Mr Garland argued that turning them over could “chill cooperation with the department in future investigations”.
In testimony before Congress last week, he slammed Republicans’ contempt measure as “only the most recent in a long line of attacks” on his agency’s work.
Republicans claim the Biden administration has “weaponised” the justice department against its political opponents – largely a reference to the criminal prosecutions of former President Donald Trump.
This is despite the fact Mr Garland’s justice department has also prosecuted Mr Biden’s son, Hunter, and two sitting Democratic members of Congress.
In a Washington Post opinion piece on Tuesday, the attorney general wrote that “the Justice Department is under attack like never before”.
He cited a rise in “conspiracy theories, falsehoods, violence and threats of violence” towards department officials by Republican critics”.
“The short-term political benefits of those tactics will never make up for the long-term cost to our country,” he said.
Lone Republican to oppose Garland contempt: ‘Enough is enough’
Rebecca Beitsch – June 12, 2024
Lone Republican to oppose Garland contempt: ‘Enough is enough’
Rep. Dave Joyce (R-Ohio), the lone Republican to vote against a resolution to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress, says his colleagues’ move only serves to “further politicize our judicial system.”
“As a former prosecutor, I cannot in good conscience support a resolution that would further politicize our judicial system to score political points. The American people expect Congress to work for them, solve policy problems, and prioritize good governance,” Joyce said in a statement after the vote.
House Republicans filed a contempt resolution after Garland refused to turn over audio of President Biden’s conversation with special counsel Robert Hur.
Although House impeachment investigators claimed it could prove useful for their impeachment investigation, they already have the transcript of the conversation, which shows their lines of inquiry were not discussed.
Biden also claimed executive privilege over the tapes, a move that limits prosecution of those who fail to provide information sought by subpoena.
Garland resisted turning over the tapes, arguing it could harm the Justice Department’s ability to score cooperation from witnesses who may not want their conversations shared with Congress.
CNN anchor Boris Sanchez came prepared Wednesday during an interview with Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-WI), fact-checking several false claims relating to the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden and at one point holding up a blown-up copy of a check that the congressman was referencing to try to make his case.
On CNN News Central, Tiffany called for Biden to be held “accountable,” even as House Republicans have struggled to name any specific illicit actions worthy of impeaching the Democratic president.
When Sanchez asked what specific charges he would like to see brought, Tiffany referenced Hunter Biden’s overseas business dealings, but declined to mention that the time period he cited came after the elder Biden was vice president—and when he did not hold government office at all.
Tiffany insisted that Biden “has a check in the amount of $40,000 that has his name on it.”
“You’ve got another $200,000 check that came from Jim and Sarah Biden to him,” he said, as Sanchez held up a copy of that very check from 2018.
“Sir, I have that check right here,” Sanchez said, noting the year. “And it actually says that this was a reimbursement. This was a loan repayment from his brother.”
Tiffany then shifted gears.
“So, you can make the case that the Bidens did not do this while Joe Biden was vice president, but I think it’s contrary to record,” he asserted, despite having just been shown the date on the check.
Tiffany then claimed incorrectly that when Biden was vice president, he “called off the prosecutor in Ukraine in regards to the Burisma investigation”—a reference to the Ukrainian energy company that his son Hunter was once a board member on.
“Oh, sir, that has been debunked,” he said. “That prosecutor was unanimously disliked by both Republicans and Democrats. And even EU officials said that he was corrupt and they wanted him out.”
“So rude of you”: Republican snaps after Democratic lawmaker reminds him that a jury convicted Trump
Marin Scotten – June 12, 2024
Ralph Norman Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., snapped at a Democratic colleague Tuesday after being interrupted during a meeting of the the House Rules Committee.
“Listening to these smokescreens that my friends on the other side of the aisle are saying, they bring up the trial of Donald Trump, convicted felon. Really? By a judge that is a known anti-Trumper?” Norman said before Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., interrupted him.
“A jury, a jury, not by a judge,” Nadler corrected.
“Mr. Nadler, I’ve got the floor!” Norman shouted. “If you gonna interrupt — Mr. Chairman, calm him down when he interrupts. It’s my time and I’ll let you respond, but I’m tired of this. You talk over everybody. It’s so rude of you!”
After Trump was found guilty on 34 counts of falsying of business records last month, Democrats have been quick to remind everyone that Trump is, in their words, a “convicted felon.”
Republicans, however, have criticized the judge who oversaw Trump’s trial for donating a total of $35 to the Democratic Party in 2020, including $15 to the Biden-Harris campaign.
In the meeting, Norman brought up Hunter Biden, who was found guilty of three felony counts on Tuesday and faces up to 25 years in prison for lying about his drug addiction when he purchased a firearm. Norman said it was “strange” Biden was prosecuted for those charges but not some of Biden’s business dealings; despite months of investigations, Republicans have failed to uncover any evidence of criminality.
“I’m tired of these smokescreens, you’re talking about miscarriage of justice, it really is,” Norman said.
In the same meeting, Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., slammed Republicans for similar accusations, namely that Democrats have “weaponized” the justice system after Trump’s felony convictions. Some Republicans have gone so far as to claim Biden orchestrated his son’s guilty verdict to create an “equal illusion of justice,” MSNBC reported.
“That is how you think when you’re in a cult,” McGovern said of the GOP conspiracy theories. He also contrasted Republican leaders’ reaction to Trump’s conviction with Biden’s reaction to his son’s conviction; the president has said he accepts the outcome of his son’s trial and “will continue to respect the judicial process.”
“It’s a great reminder that one political party remains committed to the rule of law and the other doesn’t,” McGovern said.
Rachel Maddow Shows Donald Trump’s Shift From ‘Incoherent’ To ‘Pornographically Violent’
Lee Moran – June 12, 2024
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Tuesday slammed Donald Trump, saying the former president is now “really, really, frequently incoherent.”
“And when he’s not incoherent, he’s speaking in terms that are pornographically violent when he is trying to rile up his audience,” Maddow told network colleague Nicolle Wallace on the latter’s “Deadline: White House” show.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Vbf7oH3of5M%3Frel%3D0
The presumptive GOP presidential nominee “speaks in ways that I think would be shocking to a lot of the public if people could stand to listen to him for longer than they do and if news organizations could responsibly broadcast him more than we do, but we responsibly often can’t because of the lies and threats that he’s floating,” Maddow noted.
Talking about Trump’s ramblings on sharks and electrocution during a campaign rally in Las Vegas last weekend, Maddow said he’ll now double down on them and Republicans will fall in line.
Alito’s Wife Caught on Tape Spewing Venom at Everyone
Edith Olmsted – June 11, 2024
A secret tape has exposed what Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s wife, Martha-Ann, really thinks behind closed doors—and the truth isn’t pretty. In the span of just a few minutes, Alito promised revenge on the media, flung around terms like “femnazis,” lauded her German heritage, and went off about Pride flags. It was a mess.
Alito has been in and out of the news in the last month, after her high-ranking husband blamed her for hanging an upside-down American flag outside of their home, a symbol favored by the “Stop the Steal” movement following the 2020 presidential election. She supposedly hung the flag in response to a neighbor’s “F— Trump” sign, which sparked the rather unneighborly spat. Alito also engaged in some light menacing as part of the feud, prompting the neighbor to call the cops on the Alitos. Still, Justice Alito has refused calls to recuse himself from cases relating to the January 6 insurrection.
Journalist Laura Windsor recorded Martha-Ann’s and her husband’s comments during the Supreme Court Historical Society’s annual dinner earlier this month. A copy of the tape was published on Monday by Rolling Stone.
Windsor first approached Martha-Ann, posing as a Christian conservative, to express her sympathy over “everything that you’re going through,” referring to the highly publicized flag hanging.
“It’s OK because if they come back to me, I’ll get them,” Alito said cheerfully. “I’m gonna be liberated and I’m gonna get them.”
“What do you mean by ‘they?’” Windsor asked.
“There is a five-year defamation statute of limitations,” Alito said, letting out a laugh.
“I don’t know what you mean by ‘they’, like by ‘get them’?” Windsor pressed.
“The media!” Alito said, going on to complain about her coverage in The Washington Post style section from nearly two decades ago.
It appears Alito doesn’t forget about the journalists who’ve gotten on her bad side. In 2016, Alito was reportedly enthusiastic about Trump’s promise to expand U.S. libel laws to make it significantly easier to sue news outlets for their coverage, one GOP operative told Rolling Stone.
While maintaining her cheerful tone, Alito also took aim at any woman who suggested her husband should’ve prevented her from hanging an “Appeal to Heaven” flag, a symbol revived by a Christian nationalist sect and favored by January 6 insurrectionists, at their vacation home.
“The other thing the femnazis believe, that he should control me,” Alito said about her husband. “So, they’ll go to hell. He never controls me.”
When Windsor asked what someone who has the same flag should do, Alito responded simply, “Don’t get angry, get even.”
There was one group that Alito seemed to admire, and it’s not exactly one that people are often openly praising. “Look at me, look at me. I’m German, from Germany. My heritage is German. You come after me. I’m gonna give it back to you. And there will be a way, it doesn’t have to be now, but there will be a way they will know. Don’t worry about it,” she said.
When Windsor tried to ask Alito about the political divide in the United States and her thoughts on the “radical Left,” about which her supposedly nonpolitical husband had plenty to say, Alito cut her off to complain about Pride flags.
“You know what I want? I want a Sacred Heart of Jesus flag because I have to look across the lagoon at the Pride flag for the next month,” she said.
“And he’s like, ‘Oh please, don’t put up a flag.’ I said, ‘I won’t do it because I’m deferring to you. But when you are free of this nonsense I’m putting it up, and I’m gonna send them a message every day. Maybe every week I’ll be changing the flags. They’ll be all kinds,’” she said, fantasizing about the day when she could finally antagonize her neighbors who support the LGBTQ+ community.
Alito even explained she had invented a flag that says, “Vergogna,” which means “shame” in Italian. “Shame, shame, shame on you,” Alito added darkly.
One can scarcely believe that her husband ruled in favor of allowing businesses to discriminate against people who identify as LGBTQ+.
A local councilwoman was gunned down Friday as she was leaving her home in the southern state of Guerrero, authorities and local media said, marking the second female politician to be killed in Mexico after Claudia Sheinbaum became the first woman to win the country’s presidency last week.
Esmeralda Garzon, a councilwoman in the municipality of Tixtla, was shot dead as she was leaving her house, local media reported. The Guerrero state attorney general’s office said in a statement that police were sent to the scene to gather evidence and find those responsible for the shooting.
Garzon, who led the equity and gender commission in Tixtla, had been elected under the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the Reuters news agency reported. However, she eventually backed Sheinbaum’s Morena party in the June 2 elections, according to posts on social media. Garzon herself was not running in the elections.
Her murder comes a few days after the mayor of a town in western Mexico and her bodyguard were killed outside of a gym. Yolanda Sanchez Figueroa was killed just hours after Sheinbaum won the presidency.
Most violent elections in modern Mexican history
At least 23 political candidates were killed while campaigning before the elections, according to official statistics, marking the most violent elections in modern Mexican history, according to Reuters.
But some non-governmental organizations have reported an even higher toll, including Data Civica, which counted at least 30 killings of candidates. The toll increases to more than 50 people if relatives and other victims of those attacks are counted, according to Data Civica.
A few days before the elections, one mayoral hopeful’s murder was captured on camera — an assassination that came just one day after another mayoral candidate in the central Mexican state of Morelos was murdered.
The week before that, nine people were killed in two attacks against mayoral candidates in the southern state of Chiapas. The two candidates survived.
Last month, six people, including a minor and mayoral candidate Lucero Lopez, were killed in an ambush after a campaign rally in the municipality of La Concordia, neighboring Villa Corzo.
In April, one mayoral hopeful was shot dead just hours after she began campaigning.
