What Heinous F*ckery Did The Supreme Court Dump On Us THIS Time?

Some bad climate change fuckery, some fuckery against disabled folks, and some shadow docket fuckery allowing Trump tariffs to stand.

Photo by Ian Hutchinson on Unsplash

After Wednesday’s horrible decision allowing states to ban gender-affirming care for minors, the US Supreme Court apparently decided to take a little break from issuing fuckheaded decisions that will further erode Americans’ confidence in the judicial branch, at least until next week. On Friday, the Court issued several shitty decisions and one good one, but none of them appear to have done as much violence to the rule of law or democracy as other terrible decisions in recent years. (And of course on Thursday the Court was off work for Juneteenth, and not even Clarence Thomas or Sam Alito felt compelled to show up in support of Donald Trump’s social media post saying America has too many holidays.)

In fact, the Supreme Court decision that may have the most immediate political effect didn’t even get the full-dress argument-in-spring, opinion-in-June treatment at all. That was a one-sentence “shadow docket” decision — unsigned, with no vote count — turning down a request by two toy companies for an emergency hearing on Trump’s goddamned tariffs, which argued that the case needed to be heard right away to save Christmas, or at least businesses’ hopes of knowing what the hell they’ll be able to sell for the 2025 holiday season. The companies had argued that Trump lacked constitutional authority to impose tariffs and fuck up the entire supply chain just by writing the word EMERGENCY on a piece of paper. The US Court of International Trade said last month that Congress has to approve all tariffs, but that decision was subsequently put on hold on appeal. The Supremes’ decision leaves the question of whether anyone can buy any dolls up to Trump’s whims until this and other cases make their way through the judicial digestive system and the matter is burped up again to the high court. This alimentary model and its execrable end products are no doubt why Charles Dickens said “The Law is an ass.” Or maybe he just knew there would one day be a Samuel Alito.

The Court’s actual opinions Friday were plenty crappy enough, even if they won’t get a lot of attention in the year-end review articles. I should add that I am not a lawyer, so maybe there’s some really pernicious legal poison in one of these opinions that’ll turn out to, I dunno, outlaw people with hazel eyes in 10 years, which is what makes the Roberts Court so entertaining and terrifying.

OK, Fine, You Can Sue The PLO, Go For It

In one case that has been dragging along forever, the Court upheld a 2019 law allowing American victims of terrorism in Israel to sue the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization, rejecting the PA and the PLO’s arguments that such lawsuits violate their due process rights. The decision was pretty technical and narrow, on whether the defendants had “consented” to US courts’ jurisdiction, which, because this is all about international cases in US courts, is not a simple matter of whether the PA and PLO say “yes we consent,” because why would they?

Disabled And Retired? Tough Shit If Your Benefits Are Cut!

In another confusing decision, the Court, in a dogpile of opinions and partial dissents and concurrences, held that if you’re retired and on disability, you can’t sue under the Americans with Disabilities Act if a cut to your benefits discriminates against you on the basis of disability. Here’s the skinny:

Karen Stanley’s nearly two-decade firefighting career was cut short by Parkinson’s disease. When Stanley joined the fire department in the Florida city of Sanford back in 1999, her employment package included a $1,000 monthly health insurance subsidy. The benefit was available to current employees and qualifying retirees until they reached the age of 65.

Upon retirement in 2018, however, she discovered that her health benefits ended 16 years earlier than expected.

That’s because in 2003, a new city policy meant that disabled retirees would only get the subsidy until they started getting Medicare, while all other retirees got it — and better insurance bennies — until the age of 65.

Maybe all you really need to know about the decision is that it was written by Neil “Let the Trucker Freeze In His Truck” Gorsuch.

Basically, this is one of those weirdass cases that turns on fucking verb tense: Since the ADA uses present tense verbs in reference to “employees,” you can only sue for discrimination if you’re discriminated against on the job or while seeking employment. If said fuckery discriminates against you in retirement, well, you aren’t an employee anymore, so you’re screwed.

Courthouse News notes that during oral arguments in January, “the justices worried about opening the floodgates to stale discrimination claims.” Golly, what happened to only calling balls and strikes?

More Pro-Corporate Fuckery. Friday Was Corporate Fuckery Day, Really.

In another dumb bad decision, the Court took another swing at federal agencies’ ability to regulate anything, completely making up an excuse to let courts ignore plain statutory language in interpreting federal rules. In this case, it involved junk faxes, so that was at least an excuse for people to marvel that faxes are still used anywhere at all. At least Elena Kagan, joined by Sonya Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, got in a “holy shit, you guys are just making shit up now!” dissent. The details are just depressing anyway.

STILL MORE Pro-Corporate Knob-Slobbering, Big Tobacco Edition

The Court gave tobacco companies a nice tongue bath, ruling that retailers can bring lawsuits challenging the FDA’s decision to refuse permission for a new e-cigarette product, overturning a previous lower court decision saying only the affected tobacco company could sue. The decision means that companies that might make a lot of money selling new kinds of deathsticks can challenge the FDA decision too, improving the chances that somebody somewhere will be able to find a pro-deathstick court.

At Least This One Didn’t Suck

In Esteras v. US, a very complicated case about what courts can and can’t do when a convicted felon violates the terms of their post-prison supervised release, the Supremes decided it’s not fair for an appellate court to impose a way harsher sentence after such a violation just because it thinks the original sentence didn’t exact enough “retribution” for the crime.

Sure, Big Oil Can Sue Over California’s Clean Air Standards, Why Not?

In a final steaming load of pro-corporate fuckery, the Court decided oil companies, joined by 17 Republican-led states, can sue in hopes of eliminating California’s ability to set its own air pollution standards under the Clean Air Act. Since 1967 — three years before the CAA passed, even — Congress has recognized California’s ability to impose tougher air pollution standards than the rest of the country. Big Oil and Republicans have never liked it, and in recent years the money and power have shifted enough to bring the waiver’s elimination closer.

The waiver also gives other states the option to adopt California’s higher standards, which is what another 16 states have done. Because it’s easier to build cars that meet a single standard, California’s emissions rules have long set the de facto national bar for automakers, too. Killing the waiver means dirtier vehicles can sell everywhere, burning more gasoline and diesel. Lotta money in that!

But the biggest reason Big Oil and its GOP friends are gunning for the California waiver now is that it’s the basis for California’s 2022 plan to phase out sales of new fossil-fueled vehicles by 2035.

The Court’s decision may end up being moot, since the GOP-controlled Congress earlier this year voted to murder the waiver using the Congressional Review Act, ignoring the Senate Parliamentarian’s finding that the waiver isn’t subject to the CRA. Donald Trump signed that bill last week and California Gov. Gavin Newsom is already planning to sue to overturn the law, arguing it’s illegal as fuck, which it is. So in a sense, yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling gives Big Oil one more legal whack at weakening the Clean Air Act.

All those big issues aside, the ruling itself actually addresses a far narrower issue, not simply finding that oil companies have standing to sue against the waiver. The 7-2 decision overturned a ruling by the DC Court of Appeals last year throwing the case out because California’s waiver only directly affects automakers, not fuel-producing companies.

Brett Kavanaugh, writing for the majority, noted that California specified that fossil fuel emissions must be reduced to slow climate change, so darn right fuel producers’ bottom line would be harmed, the poor megabillion dears. If it means oil companies make less money, you can’t go keeping the planet habitable for large mammals like elephants, polar bears, and Clarence Thomas’s sugar daddy Harlan Crow.

The decision may in the long term be considered notable thanks to a fiery dissent by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. (Sonia Sotomayor wrote her own, separate dissent, and what was Elena Kagan doing joining the majority?) Jackson argued that, in allowing deep-pocketed parties that aren’t directly impacted by a regulation to sue against it, the Court was basically adopting a

theory of standing that the Court has refused to apply in cases brought by less powerful plaintiffs. This case gives fodder to the unfortunate perception that moneyed interests enjoy an easier road to relief in this Court than ordinary citizens.

Jackson said that she feared that the “fuel industry's gain comes at a reputational cost for this court, which is already viewed by many as being overly sympathetic to corporate interests,” which is a truly shocking thing to say in a nation where corporations are not only people, my friend, but the most beloved of all people, how dare you!

Jackson closed her dissent by contrasting that new favorability toward the rich and powerful with the Court’s

simultaneous aversion to hearing cases involving the potential vindication of less powerful litigants — workers, criminal defendants, and the condemned, among others.

Kavanaugh directly attacked Jackson’s dissent in his opinion, noting that now and then You Libs still get lucky, as in last year’s ruling that tossed out those fucking anti-abortion quack doctors’ standing in the case that challenged the FDA’s approval of mifepristone.

He also shed great big tears for Big Oil, pouting that the government can’t get away with reducing planet-killing greenhouse gas emissions by claiming that the producers of the fuels killing the planet don’t have a chance to say “but our whole business model depends on planet-killing! We’re victims here!” (This is not a verbatim quote, just a 100 percent accurate paraphrase.)

So OK, maybe yesterday’s decisions made some news.

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[CNBC / NBC News / Scotusblog / Opinion in Stanley v. Sanford / Courthouse News Service / Scotusblog / Opinion in FDA v. RJ Reynolds Vapor / Opinion in Esteras v. US / Guardian / Opinion in Diamond Alternative Energy v. EPA / NBC News]

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