Category: Supreme Court
Can presidents fire all federal bureaucrats at will? Supreme Court to hear case with major implications
President Donald Trump’s work to dismantle the administrative state has reached a tipping point that could have major implications for the future. The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments that will determine President Trump’s firing power at federal agencies, specifically at the Federal Trade Commission.
On Monday, the court will hear arguments that will challenge a 90-year-old precedent from Humphrey’s Executor v. United States.
A Supreme Court decision in President Trump’s favor could rewrite the bounds of presidential power over the administrative state.
The case before the court came after President Trump fired Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter over email in March. Trump did not cite any legal reasoning for Slaughter’s firing, even though Humphrey’s Executor states that an FTC commissioner may be fired only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”
Photo by Aaron Schwartz/Getty Images
Trump has also fired employees at the National Labor Relations Board, the Merit Systems Protection Board, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Trump has been challenged on other high-profile firings in recent months, including those of Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook and a copyright official at the Library of Congress, Shira Perlmutter. They have both successfully avoided losing their positions thus far.
Though the FTC is likely to be treated differently because of the precedent, a Supreme Court decision in President Trump’s favor could rewrite the bounds of presidential power over the administrative state.
The court currently has a 6-3 conservative majority. Three of the justices were appointed during Trump’s first term.
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The Supreme Court takes up New Jersey’s baseless assault on pro-life support for moms
New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin’s office was recently forced to make a stunning admission before the U.S. Supreme Court. During oral arguments, Platkin’s team conceded that although the state issued a sweeping subpoena against a pregnancy center — First Choice Women’s Resource Centers — the office had no complaints against the organization.
That admission stripped away any pretense that the attorney general was protecting consumers. It revealed the real motive: a fishing expedition into constitutionally protected internal records and private donor information for no reason other than First Choice’s commitment to life-affirming support for women. Now the court must decide whether New Jersey’s top law enforcement officer can bully pro-life charities out of helping women and families.
When First Choice made its case before the Supreme Court, it stood up for every American who believes mothers deserve compassion without harassment from the state.
What’s at stake is the work of pregnancy centers and charities nationwide that help women sustain their decision for life. These organizations provide the material and emotional resources mothers need to meet their own needs and the needs of their children.
Choosing life for an unborn child is never a one-time decision. It’s a daily commitment made amid financial, professional, emotional, or health-related pressures — and often in the face of serious challenges in securing food, clothing, housing, and other essentials. Women deserve support in every one of those areas so they can pursue their ambitions with their children. Pro-life Americans stand ready to offer that support. Platkin prefers abortion over help for moms.
Research shows that 60% of women who have had abortions would have preferred to choose life if they had more financial security or emotional support. Pregnancy centers and life-affirming organizations across the country confront this reality every day. Last year alone, they provided $452 million in support services, medical care, and material goods — all free of charge.
And the need keeps growing. Over the past two years, pregnancy centers increased their material assistance by 48% to ensure that women have what they need to thrive in pregnancy and early parenting. In 2024 alone, they served 1 million new clients.
When families face challenges beyond diapers and baby supplies, pregnancy centers rise to meet them. At Real Options Pregnancy Center in Texas, staff provided full Thanksgiving meals to local families. In Chicago, a center hosts an annual Christmas celebration so moms can put gifts under the tree. Across the country, community partners working with Her PLAN offer free car maintenance and help women escape trafficking and addiction, secure housing, and receive job training.
Every woman’s story is unique. Pregnancy centers recognize that dignity, which is why they collaborate with trusted community resources to provide comprehensive support tailored to each individual who walks through their doors.
This community network forms the pro-life safety net that Her PLAN strengthens through grassroots engagement and an online directory of vetted service providers across seven categories of care. For women with nowhere else to turn, this wraparound support provides stability, hope, and practical help.
RELATED: Leftist war on pro-life pregnancy centers faces Supreme Court reckoning
Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images
Women who receive services from pregnancy centers report a 98% satisfaction rate. The real measure of success, however, is the women who later return to help others.
Courtney, once overwhelmed by two unexpected pregnancies, now works at the very center that supported her.
Jean Marie, who escaped human trafficking with the help of a New Hampshire pregnancy center, now runs a center in Vermont, using her experience to counsel vulnerable women.
In Northern Virginia, a maternity home helped Shawnte when she lost her job and housing. Today she works as a peer-recovery coach and credits the maternity home with giving her the strength not to abort “a child I knew I wanted, just because things got hard.”
These women — and countless others — were empowered by the pro-life safety net and now devote themselves to strengthening it for the next mother in crisis.
This is work that protects lives, stabilizes families, and strengthens communities. It deserves support, not intimidation from pro-abortion politicians. When First Choice made its case before the Supreme Court, it stood up for every American who believes mothers deserve compassion without harassment from the state.
Helping women is not controversial. It is love in action.
Supreme Court will hear arguments for ending birthright citizenship
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Friday to hear arguments for and against President Donald Trump’s order to end birthright citizenship.
The Trump administration appealed a lower court order that struck down the restrictions in July over a class-action lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of children affected by the policy.
‘We look forward to putting this issue to rest once and for all in the Supreme Court this term.’
Trump issued the Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship executive order on his first day in office of his second term. The order prohibits granting citizenship to persons born in the country to mothers illegally or temporarily in the U.S. and whose father is not a U.S. citizen or a lawful permanent resident.
Opponents of birthright citizenship say it stems from a false reading of the 14th Amendment, which was intended to apply only to former slaves when it was ratified in 1868 after the Civil War.
“Congress has never passed a federal statute that confers birthright citizenship. So it’s not in the Constitution, it’s not in federal law, it’s not in the legislative history, and yet it is being used,” argued BlazeTV host Mark Levin.
“Birthright citizenship is the argument, is the position, is the policy the Democrat Party holds on to because they want monopoly power for all time,” he added, “and they don’t care if it’s foreigners or not.”
Supporters of the policy point to the longstanding precedent of automatically granting citizenship to babies born in America.
“No president can change the 14th Amendment’s fundamental promise of citizenship,” said ACLU legal director Cecillia Wang. “We look forward to putting this issue to rest once and for all in the Supreme Court this term.”
The case will be heard in the spring, and a decision is expected by early summer.
RELATED: DHS slams Newsom over illegal alien accused in death of 11-year-old boy on Thanksgiving
Others point to the troublesome practice of “citizenship tourism” as justification for the order.
“There is a tourism industry surrounding this whole birthright citizenship. Women come here before they give birth so that they can just give birth here, and then their babies become United States citizens. That’s nuts, and to [Trump’s] point, nobody else does this,” said Sara Gonzales of “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered” on BlazeTV.
The birthright order would not take away citizenship from those who already obtained it before the order went into effect.
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Supreme Court allows Texas redistricting map for midterm elections; liberals dissent
The U.S. Supreme Court temporarily approved the redistricting map in Texas for the midterm election over the dissent of the liberal justices.
The 5-3 partisan vote means Republicans will likely gain several seats from Texas. The decision blocks a lower court injunction just as politicians begin to qualify for elections in the state.
‘Congratulations to Texas for advancing the rule of law.’
The court has not yet issued a permanent decision on the lawsuit, claiming that the redistricting effort pushed by Republicans is discriminatory and unlawful.
Republicans hope the redrawn map will lead to five additional seats in the U.S. House, but Democrats have countered with their own redistricting effort, including one in California.
The Trump administration is suing against the new district map in California.
“To be sure, politics played a role in drawing the 2025 Map,” U.S. District Judge Jeffrey V. Brown previously wrote in the Texas case. “But it was much more than just politics. Substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 Map.”
U.S. Attorney Pam Bondi praised the decision on social media.
“Federal courts have no right to interfere with a State’s decision to redraw legislative maps for partisan reasons,” she asserted.
“A federal district court ignored that principle two weeks ago, and the Supreme Court correctly stayed that overreaching decision tonight,” she added. “Congratulations to Texas for advancing the rule of law, my Solicitor General John Sauer, and our team of lawyers for their excellent brief supporting Texas in this important case.”
RELATED: Gov. Hochul says New York is jumping into redistricting feud between California and Texas
The redistricting effort in California was championed by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who campaigned to push the proposition by characterizing it as a chance for Californians to push back against President Donald Trump.
The president accused them of rigging the election for the redistricting proposition, which passed easily.
“The Unconstitutional Redistricting Vote in California is a GIANT SCAM in that the entire process, in particular the Voting itself, is RIGGED,” Trump said at the time. “All ‘Mail-In’ Ballots, where the Republicans in that State are ‘Shut Out,’ is under very serious legal and criminal review.”
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The imperial judiciary strikes back
So far, more than 100 federal court judges have ruled against the Trump administration in hundreds of lawsuits filed by states, unions, nonprofit organizations, and individuals.
While some of these rulings are fairly grounded in the Constitution, federal law, and precedent, many are expressions of primal rage from judges offended by the administration and moving at breakneck speed to stop it.
Trump sometimes exceeds his authority. Activist judges substitute ‘frequently’ for ‘sometimes.’ The Constitution and the Supreme Court disagree.
According to a Politico analysis, 87 of 114 federal judges who ruled against the administration were appointed by Democratic presidents, and 27 by Republicans. Most of the lawsuits were filed in just a few districts, with repeat activist judges leading the opposition.
Lawsuits against the administration may be filed in the District of Columbia and, often, also in other districts. Initially cases are randomly assigned. Plaintiffs focus on districts with predominantly activist, progressive judges. Because related cases are usually assigned to the same judge, later plaintiffs file in districts in which related cases were assigned to friendly activists.
Conservative judges generally believe they should interpret the law and avoid ruling on political questions, while liberals tend to see themselves as protectors of their values. After 60 years of domination by activist liberals, the Supreme Court and conservative appeals court judges are finally demanding that district court judges respect the Constitution. The Supreme Court is also re-evaluating precedents established by far-left justices who substituted their values for the words and intentions embodied in the Constitution.
To date, the Supreme Court has reversed or stayed about 30 lower court injunctions blocking the administration, and appeals courts have reversed or stayed another dozen. Even Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson imposed an administrative stay on a district court decision requiring the immediate resumption of SNAP payments.
Federal judges who oppose Trump’s agenda are openly opposing the Supreme Court. In April, D.C. Chief Federal Judge James Boasberg sought to hold administration officials in criminal contempt for violating an order the court had vacated. In May, Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge James Ho criticized the court’s demand that district courts act promptly on administration requests. In a September ruling, Boston Federal Judge Allison Burroughs challenged the court for expecting lower courts to treat its emergency orders as binding legal precedent.
Ten of 12 federal judges interviewed by NBC News in September, and 47 of 65 federal judges responding to a New York Times survey in October, thought the court was mishandling its emergency docket. They described orders as “incredibly demoralizing and troubling” and “a slap in the face to the district courts.”
Deservedly so. Though the Supreme Court and appeals courts judges have rebuked district court judges for ignoring higher courts and abusing their authority, they continue to do so with rulings focused on identity politics and a progressive lens on the woes of immigrants, minorities, women, and workers. They likely expect to be reversed on appeal, but they secure wins by causing delay and creating fodder for progressive activists to rally their supporters.
There is little that can be done about these judges. Removal requires a majority vote in the House and a two-thirds vote in the Senate. With Democrats supporting these judges, those votes are unrealistic.
RELATED: Who checks the judges? No one — and that’s the problem.
Photo by Kevin Carter/Getty Images
Just a few of the dozens of examples of politicized judicial decisions:
In May, Myong Joun, a Biden appointee in Boston, enjoined layoffs at the Department of Education in a decision featuring an encomium to its anti-discrimination mission. The Supreme Court stayed his injunction.
Despite this precedent, Susan Illston, a Clinton appointee in San Francisco, issued a nationwide injunction barring the administration from firing union employees during or because of the government shutdown. Ignoring settled law, she bemoaned the “trauma” of workers who had been under “stress” ever since Trump’s election. Illston gambled correctly that the shutdown would end before her order could be reversed.
Indira Talwani, a federal district court judge in Boston, went further. Declaiming her fear that defunding Planned Parenthood would deprive women of access to abortions, she elided Article I of the Constitution, which requires all federal spending to be approved by Congress, nullifying a duly enacted statute that suspended funding of large abortion providers for a year. By the time she is reversed, the suspension will have expired.
In June, after San Francisco Federal Judge Charles Breyer enjoined Trump from federalizing the California National Guard, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit unanimously stayed his order, explaining that on military matters, the president’s judgment stands unless it is dishonest. Nonetheless, Oregon Federal Judge Karin Immergut subsequently blocked deployments in Portland, substituting her assessment of the situation for the president’s.
An Obama-appointed judge recently interviewed by NBC explained, “Trump derangement syndrome is a real issue. As a result, judges are mad at what Trump is doing or the manner he is going about things; they are sometimes forgetting to stay in their lane.”
Trump sometimes exceeds his authority. Activist judges, who self-reverentially believe progressive technocrats and judges are democracy’s guardians, substitute “frequently” for “sometimes.” The Constitution and the Supreme Court disagree.
Graham Platner Calls To Stack the Supreme Court and Impeach ‘At Least Two’ Sitting Justices
SKOWHEGAN, Maine—Senate candidate Graham Platner called to stack the Supreme Court and impeach “at least two” of its sitting justices, moves he said should be top priorities for Democrats should they retake the upper chamber next year.
The post Graham Platner Calls To Stack the Supreme Court and Impeach ‘At Least Two’ Sitting Justices appeared first on .
The Next Social Epidemic Is Already Here: Legalized Sports Gambling
In 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association. A fractured court, led by a conservative…
