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Mark Joseph Stern@mjsdc.bsky.social |
11964 followers 208 following 333 posts
Senior writer at Slate covering courts and the law. There’s usually a parrot on my shoulder.
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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Nobody is prepared for this jolt to the legal system. The Supreme Court has shifted an unfathomable amount of power from Congress and the executive brach toward unelected, unaccountable federal judges. This will fundamentally alter how government works. slate.com/news-and-pol...
19 replies 163 reposts 366 likes
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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Thomas' dissent shamelessly misrepresents the historical record in service of plutocratic aims, whitewashing the original Constitution's accommodation of slavery while writing off the 16th Amendment as a mere "narrow" tweak. His narrative is just not true! slate.com/news-and-pol...
1 replies 6 reposts 34 likes
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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The 16th Amendment was a landmark victory of progressive reform. It affirmed Congress' sweeping authority to tax the wealthy as it saw fit.
Clarence Thomas wants to shrink it down to almost nothing—rewriting history to impose an oligarchical Constitution: slate.com/news-and-pol...
8 replies 34 reposts 92 likes
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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It’s too soon to say with certainty that the Supreme Court’s conservatives are laying the groundwork to overturn Obergefell and abolish constitutional protections for same-sex couples.
But IF that’s the plan, this is exactly what it would look like. slate.com/news-and-pol...
13 replies 127 reposts 269 likes
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Sean
@publichealth.bsky.social
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always read MJS. "By replacing Thomas’ hard-line views with a more malleable standard, SCOTUS has ended one battle over guns. But by remaining in this area, where it has no right to be in the first place, the court has invited a thousand more."
0 replies 9 reposts 29 likes
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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Rahimi stands as a repudiation of Clarence Thomas' chaotic and sloppy originalism—proof that the justice simply cannot be trusted to write an important majority opinion. His reign of chaos over the Second Amendment has come to an inglorious close. slate.com/news-and-pol...
12 replies 51 reposts 264 likes
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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Moore v. U.S. is a fake case built on shameless misrepresentations that was designed to preemptively kill a "wealth tax"—but would have also blown up much of the federal tax code. SCOTUS couldn't stomach the trillion-dollar consequences of its many lies. slate.com/news-and-pol...
1 replies 20 reposts 76 likes
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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To justify legalizing bump stocks, Clarence Thomas literally copied and pasted materials from an extremist pro-gun group whose violent rhetoric makes the NRA look moderate.
This is who has the Supreme Court's ear these days. slate.com/news-and-pol...
36 replies 481 reposts 1040 likes
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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Bump stocks increase an AR-15's rate of fire from 180 rounds per minute to 400-800 rounds per minute. They inflict mass carnage by allowing the gunman to shoot automatically, without pulling the trigger. Yet the Supreme Court declares that they do not create a "machinegun."
9 replies 48 reposts 116 likes
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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Today's Supreme Court decision means that bump stocks—which allow AR-15-style rifles to fire automatically, like a machine gun—are no longer prohibited under federal law. The Trump administration first imposed the ban after the Las Vegas massacre. www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23p...
5 replies 39 reposts 84 likes
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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NEW: The Supreme Court STRIKES DOWN the federal ban on bump stocks, holding that it is not authorized by existing statute. A 6–3 decision with all three liberals in dissent. www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23p...
9 replies 34 reposts 86 likes
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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The Supreme Court does not get a gold star for refusing to bless a ludicrous legal theory that anti-abortion judges shamelessly embraced as part of their lawless rampage against women's health care. With @dahlialithwick.bsky.social: slate.com/news-and-pol...
9 replies 141 reposts 510 likes
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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The Supreme Court unanimously THROWS OUT anti-abortion activists' lawsuit against mifepristone, the first drug in medication abortion, holding that the plaintiffs never had standing to bring this case in the first place. An embarrassment for the 5th Circuit. www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23p...
16 replies 70 reposts 250 likes
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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The Christianity-centered jurisprudence that Alito favors is increasingly dominant on the Trump-stacked lower courts, where far-right judges casually cite the Bible in opinions and infuse their rulings with theocratic conceptions of morality. slate.com/news-and-pol...
7 replies 52 reposts 122 likes
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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Happy Pride everybody!!!
0 replies 2 reposts 40 likes
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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Any Texas doctor who provides an emergency abortion subjects themselves to investigation and potential prosecution, which would force them to prove to a jury that they acted within the law's incredibly narrow exception. If they fail, they face a 99-year prison sentence.
1 replies 5 reposts 76 likes
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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This victim of Texas' abortion ban already had a nine-month-old baby. The state's draconian laws almost killed that child's mother. www.dallasnews.com/news/public-...
4 replies 56 reposts 218 likes
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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Texas' abortion ban prevented doctors from providing an abortion to a woman with a failing pregnancy—forcing her to instead pass the pregnancy on her own. She spent days in agony, vomiting and bleeding, until she passed out from blood loss and nearly died. www.dallasnews.com/news/public-...
34 replies 361 reposts 778 likes
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Quinta Jurecic
@qjurecic.bsky.social
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3-3-3 implies left/center/right, but it’s more like left-center/far right/even more far right
12 replies 54 reposts 303 likes
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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Do we have a live cam on Martha-Ann Alito's flagpole?
14 replies 108 reposts 606 likes
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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I deleted a post saying that Trump can no longer vote in Florida because of his felony conviction. He will likely (but not definitely) be able to cast a ballot in November. This explains it well. I regret the error! www.politifact.com/article/2024...
4 replies 44 reposts 125 likes
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Popehat
@kenwhite.bsky.social
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Anyway good luck to jurors, the judge, court staff, and prosecutors, and all their families, with not getting murdered, and thanks to FedSoc types for bringing us to the brink of fascism so you could weaken Chevron deference
30 replies 587 reposts 2664 likes
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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And here's the near-identical declaration from UT Austin's John Hatfield—who, like Bonevac, also demands the right to discriminate against "transvestites," and refuses to use "they" as a singular pronoun. s3.documentcloud.org/documents/24...
7 replies 1 reposts 38 likes
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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Here's the declaration from UT Austin's Daniel Bonevac demanding a right to penalize students who miss class for an abortion: s3.documentcloud.org/documents/24...
5 replies 1 reposts 28 likes
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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This case was filed with the federal court in Amarillo, Texas, where the plaintiffs have a 100% chance of drawing Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, the Trump appointee who attempted to ban mifepristone.
3 replies 7 reposts 47 likes
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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Hatfield and Bonevac say they "do not intend to accommodate student absences from class to obtain abortions—including illegal abortions and purely elective abortions that are not medically required." They want to penalize any student who misses class for this reason.
2 replies 2 reposts 47 likes
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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Two professors at UT Austin, John Hatfield and Daniel Bonevac, are suing for the right to penalize their students who miss class because they are obtaining an abortion out-of-state.
media.aflegal.org/wp-content/u...
20 replies 28 reposts 97 likes
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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NEW: Chief Justice John Roberts refuses to meet with Senate Democrats about Alito's ethics issues, citing "separation of powers concerns and the importance of preserving judicial independence." s3.documentcloud.org/documents/24...
22 replies 18 reposts 62 likes
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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Congratulations to Justice Samuel Alito on embracing the right to privacy for exactly one woman
slate.com/news-and-pol...
9 replies 184 reposts 705 likes
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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Alito complains about protests in front of his house, calling them "loud, obscene, and personally insulting." He asserts that they "now threaten to escalate" due to reporting about the flags. s3.documentcloud.org/documents/24...
6 replies 5 reposts 24 likes
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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Alito says that when he saw his wife flying the flag upside down, he asked her to take it down, but "for several days, she refused."
"My wife and I own our Virginia home jointly. She therefore has the legal right to use the property as she sees fit." s3.documentcloud.org/documents/24...
10 replies 3 reposts 32 likes
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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Alito tells Congress he will NOT recuse from the Trump immunity case. He defends his wife's use of the two controversial flags, saying they had no connection to "Stop the Steal" or any other partisan movement.
s3.documentcloud.org/documents/24...
11 replies 16 reposts 49 likes
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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Good description of his jurisprudence too
3 replies 0 reposts 98 likes
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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Martha-Ann Alito allegedly harassed her anti-Trump neighbors so aggressively—including spitting at their car—that they called the cops and begged for legal intervention. www.nytimes.com/2024/05/28/u...
30 replies 158 reposts 500 likes
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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Crisis pregnancy centers trick patients into thinking they'll receive real health care, then evangelize against abortion. The fake, negligent "services" they do provide can put patients in real danger.
Here's the saga of one woman who's fighting back. slate.com/news-and-pol...
1 replies 16 reposts 42 likes
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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Justice Sotomayor using her annual pre-June public talk to give a barely veiled warning that the Supreme Court is about to do some truly terrible things www.nytimes.com/2024/05/24/u...
38 replies 398 reposts 1057 likes
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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Clarence Thomas declares:
•The 14th and 15th Amendments impose NO limit on states' ability to draw openly racist electoral districts that disfavor Black Americans because of their skin color.
•Federal courts have no power to redraw such racist maps. slate.com/news-and-pol...
12 replies 37 reposts 92 likes
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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The next Supreme Court appointee will share a jurisprudence with one of these two people and the 2024 election is largely about which one it’ll be
12 replies 139 reposts 484 likes
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@SIfill
@sifill.bsky.social
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LISTEN: I loved participating in this live conversation with the brilliant slate writers @mjs_dc and (my idol) @dahl_lith for their superb amicus podcast on How Originalism Captured the Court at Sixth & I in Washington, D.C.
youtu.be/vmk2lj1UVY4?...
1 replies 14 reposts 51 likes
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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Judge Carlton Reeves' latest vivisection of "qualified immunity"—which lets violent and corrupt cops escape accountability—is nested in a broader critique of the Supreme Court's cynical and selective reliance on "democracy" to nullify our civil rights. slate.com/news-and-pol...
1 replies 145 reposts 373 likes
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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Reeves includes a long, rather scathing section criticizing Dobbs, too. He argues that qualified immunity stands on far weaker legal footing than Roe v. Wade, and opines that it would be odd for SCOTUS to stand by QI while jettisoning Roe so cavalierly. s3.documentcloud.org/documents/24...
2 replies 37 reposts 182 likes
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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In this case, Reeves denies qualified immunity to a detective who falsely accused Desmond Green of murder on the basis of an implausible tip and manipulated testimony, leading to Green's 22-month incarceration in a cell infested with rodents and snakes. s3.documentcloud.org/documents/24...
1 replies 16 reposts 129 likes
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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Judge Carlton Reeves has a new opinion out condemning qualified immunity as unlawful and egregiously unjust. He calls the doctrine a "perpetuation of racial inequality" and "an extra-constitutional affront to other cherished values of our democracy." s3.documentcloud.org/documents/24...
15 replies 227 reposts 725 likes
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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The smallest justice who ever lived slate.com/news-and-pol...
6 replies 20 reposts 112 likes
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Barred and Boujee aka Madiba Dennie
@audrelawdamercy.bsky.social
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Todd Eddins and I joined @slate.bsky.social's @dahlialithwick.bsky.social and @mjsdc.bsky.social to talk about how the Supreme Court wields originalism to reshape law for the worse, & what we can do about it
Check it out + get your copy of The Originalism Trap!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6scW...
1 replies 7 reposts 20 likes
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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The next Supreme Court appointee will share a jurisprudence with one of these two people and the 2024 election is largely about which one it’ll be
12 replies 139 reposts 484 likes
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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The Supreme Court's smackdown of the 5th Circuit today is satisfying and overdue.
It's also unlikely to rein in robed arsonists on the lower courts, who are auditioning for SCOTUS by nihilistically embracing shameless and dangerous partisan extremism. slate.com/news-and-pol...
0 replies 12 reposts 43 likes
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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That said, no one should interpret today's CFPB decision as proof that the Supreme Court is "moderating" or "compromising" or "shifting to the center." Not at all. The decision is evidence of how totally lawless the 5th Circuit has become—because this case shouldn't even exist!
5 replies 68 reposts 283 likes
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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Today's CFPB decision has a lot in common with the last Obamacare case: The 5th Circuit went so far off the tracks that it got a spanking in the form a vehement 7–2 reversal by SCOTUS, with even Justice Thomas concluding that the 5th Circuit's nihilistic arsonists lost the plot.
1 replies 17 reposts 116 likes
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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social
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In case Justice Thomas' smackdown for the 5th Circuit weren't enough, Justice Kagan wrote a concurrence—joined by Sotomayor, KAVANAUGH, and BARRETT—explaining why the 5th Circuit's analysis of constitutional history and tradition was completely wrong. www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23p...
2 replies 19 reposts 114 likes