One of the most brazenly made-up things from the Supreme Court

Lisa Needham of Daily Kos wrote about a troubling Supreme Court ruling. The nasty guy had fired Cathy Harris, the head of the Merit Systems Protection board, and Gwynne Wilcox, the chair of the National Labor Relations Board. The firings troubling because both are independent agencies, intended to be insulated from the whims and vendettas of the president. They are supposed to be removed only for cause. These removals are now in court. Last week the Court used the shadow docket to rule the firings could stay in effect while litigation continues through lower courts. In the process they overturned a 90 year precedent. The shadow docket allows them to avoid explaining themselves. Franklin Roosevelt tried to remove members of the Federal Trade Commission and was blocked by the Court because the FTC is independent and the Court understood why it needed to stay independent. Why not let the board members stay on the job while litigation continues? What the Court did was reward the nasty guy to fight every battle in court.

Harris and Wilcox had argued—correctly—that if they can be removed without cause, so can Jerome Powell, the head of the Federal Reserve, because that body is structured the exact same way as the NLRB and the MSPB. But the majority made an arbitrary carveout for the Fed, saying it is a “uniquely structured, quasi-private entity that follows in the distinct historical tradition of the First and Second Banks” and therefore isn’t the same. As Mark Joseph Stern said on Bluesky, “this bespoke exception for the Fed is one of the most brazenly made-up things I've ever seen the Supreme Court do.” Yep The sole reason to protect the Fed like this is because the Supreme Court is trying to prevent Trump from further crashing the economy by destabilizing the Fed through removing Powell. No law supports this. There’s no reasoning in the opinion. But it’s stark evidence that the only thing the conservative court majority does care about is the economy. Harris’ and Wilcox’s removals mean that federal employees have no way to contest their firings and unions cannot bring any labor actions—and this troubles the majority not at all.

Back on May 7 (three weeks ago) Needham did the nasty guy another favor. He can go ahead with his plan to ban transgender people from the military while the case goes through lower courts.

By now, it’s almost routine. The administration keeps losing at the lower courts, so they rush to the friendlier confines of the Supreme Court to try to eke out a temporary win, one where Trump gets his way while litigation continues. It’s not a strategy that pans out all the time, but when it does, it’s a treat for Trump and terrible for the rest of us. And that’s precisely what happened here.

This transgender band isn’t because they are trans, it’s because, as Needham wrote, “it’s just that trans people happen to be afflicted with radical gender ideology that harms troop readiness.” No explanation provided. The Court’s action is a preliminary injunction. There are standards and criteria for when they can be used. The public can’t tell if they were because the order is less than a page. So one could assume the Supremes did not follow these standards and criteria Kos community member bilboteach posted an article about what being a member of the House is like. They wrote the post because there are too many people who think being a House member is a cushy job. They work only Monday to Thursday and get weeks at a time away from Washington. So bilboteach discussed what a representative’s schedule in the House is like, frequently 9am to 9:30pm with a quick lunch. And when they go home to their districts, the schedule can be just as grueling. In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Lucy Ash of the BBC. I’ll summarize: Young (white) American men are converting to the Russian Orthodox church because it championing a form of virile, unapologetic masculinity. Down in the comments exlrrp shared a tweet from Alex C about the nasty guy.

Donald sad no one wanted to join the military under Biden while speaking to an entire graduating class aw West Point who joined under Biden.

Also shared by elxrrp is a meme about the nasty guy’s youngest son Barron, which may explain why the nasty guy is attacking Harvard so relentlessly:

Barron was rejected by Stanford, Harvard, and Columbia. These three are the most prominent universities in the country. Colleges Trump attacks are the ones that, with all of his money, said ‘no endowment will let Barron in.’

In a second roundup Greg Dworkin quoted Paul Waldman of The Cross Section who titled his piece, “Corruption Is Still Corruption Even If It Happens Right In the Open.”

At the heart of this failure is an expectation that no longer holds, that when a politician commits acts of corruption, they will seek to conceal their misdeeds. While it is entirely possible that Trump and his family of fraudsters have engaged in personal enrichment schemes that have been kept secret (in fact, I’d be surprised if they hadn’t), what he has done right out in public is more than enough to demand a change in how we talk about the corruption that defines this presidency. The fact that he is not hiding his corruption — indeed, he seems to revel in making it as public as possible — is still shocking to many in the news media. And they have yet to adapt.

Dworkin added:

Also assumes politicians feel shame. Trump is a broken individual who has none of that human trait.

I had lunch today with my friend and debate partner and his term for the bill with those Medicaid cuts is The Deficit Expansion Bill (sorry, friend, if my quote is not accurate, though it is close). I think my favorite name is still The Big Brutal Bill. Way down in the comments, below the cartoons commenter The Geogre discussed the likely cuts in Medicaid. He quoted Paige Skinner of Huffpost reporting Mike Johnson said they would not “cut Medicaid for the deserving people.” Geogre said “So nice of him to JUDGE THE VALUE OF AMERICAN LIVES.” I look at Johnson’s statement and wonder who got to define the word “deserving?” Looks like it came from Prophet Mike’s definition, taken directly from the Prosperity Gospel, or maybe it was Calvinism. The idea is that God rewards the good and punishes the evil and does it in this life. If one is poor it is because one is sinful (better check on the definition of that word too) and anyone helping the poor is acting against the Will of God. Wrote Geogre, “It’s a way of thinking that even the Puritans found pernicious.” Yeah, it’s a pretty slick way of a rich person justifying why the policies he’s shepherding through Congress are designed to boost the rich by taking money from the poor.