Matt Cameron
@mattcameron
Fighting ICE since 2006, cohosting @openargs.bsky.social since 2024, playing your piano since 1987. Read my journal at
hey @cnn.com there has got to be a way to report these stories about Trump being mad about charging decisions of individual US attorneys without normalizing the idea that the president personally supervises charging decisions of individual US attorneys, I know we can do this
to emphasize the point above: the "settlement agreement" REQUIRES the government to set the fund up, so if the 11th reverses Judge Williams (unlikely but certainly possible) & reinstates Attorney General Todd Blanche will say that he has no choice but to set it up again
also just fyi one of Trump's arguments in that appeal (as argued Friday in this stay request) is that it is an unconstitutional restriction on his speech for a federal judge to say that the "settlement agreement" was illegal and prevent the parties from relying upon it
I knew that Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry was so good at rigging districts that he inspired a Boston newspaper's description of the "gerrymander"--but TIL that this man *signed the Declaration of Independence.* Choosing your own voters is a founding principle of the United States
You'll never believe this but these are not in fact the three components of an FTO designation
ICE shot Joan Sebastian Guerrero in the head in front of his 3-yr-old daughter in his car today and didn't even try to pretend that the agent was acting out of concern for his own safety the way they usually do. No, he did it "out of concern for *public* safety." This seems very bad.
Thanks to Dunks for reminding us that abolition is the moderate position
"Clowns have generally tried to avoid killing children. John Wayne Gacy has chosen a different path."
yeah that's just wrong. The votes for the outcome are all that actually matter, he's just saying that the EO was only a statutory violation rather than a Constitutional one
Kavanaugh is openly inviting Congress to end birthright citizenship--something which he has just said that he does not believe is a Constitutional right--by legislation, and making it clear that if he is still around he'll uphold it. If they do, I would expect him to be with a majority which does.
THIS IS IMPORTANT. N.B.: Kav is not splitting hairs or drawing some kind of academic distinction here. He is saying clearly that he sees no Constitutional right to BC, so in theory no problem with an EO overruling it. He just doesn't believe that Trump can overrule Congress's enabling statute.
Seeing some confusion on this point, so tbc: 1) birthright citizenship came down 6-3 2) Kavanaugh joined the outcome but dissented (not concurred) as to why 3) It is based in the only argument in this whole challenge which has ever concerned me
also why, just why. why are you making me read 194 pages about something that any third grader can immediately understand
SCOTUS deserves zero credit and no gold stars for declining to allow Trump to destroy one of our most clearly-stated Constitutional rights via executive order. But the fact that there were a total of 4 dissenting opinions (if only 3 votes) is deeply concerning. This issue will be back.
Kavanaugh is up next with NRSC v FEC, a major campaign finance decision which ends the restrictions on a political party's coordinated expenditures with candidates. He closes by noting that "the Court's decision today treats [all dark money] equally"
to her full credit, this case is the fourth time that Sotomayor has read her dissent from the bench. Per usual for her, it starts by telling the story of the person whose case is before them and what being able to participate in track and cross-country meant to them
as dismally expected, SCOTUS has signed off on discrimination against trans student athletes based on the court's own recent willful misinterpretation of "on the basis of sex" in Skrmetti--a case which fwiw I have to believe will go down as the Plessy v Ferguson of our times. Protect trans kids.
in just a few moments we will be receiving the definitive answer to the most complex legal question of our times: Does "all persons born or naturalized in the United States... are citizens of the United States" mean that all persons born in the United States are citizens of the United States?
after re-reading the Prairieland indictment I should probably disclose that I am a member of an "Antifa Cell" (Signal group chat w/disappearing messages) practicing "need-to-know" (not posting on petsitter dot com) "opsec" (coordinating with local catsitters before going out of town)
When I say that today's decision in Slaughter comes directly from Project 2025, I mean that P2025 literally demanded that the administration take the position that Humphrey's Executor was wrongly decided and should be revisited "sooner than later." static.heritage.org/project2025/...
They're not wrong that the Federal Reserve is a unique agency, but this logic should have held in Slaughter too. They just know without needing to be told that what's left of US credibility as a global economic power is cooked if we no longer have an independent apolitical central banking system
The companion case in Cook OTOH is about the President's same power to reserve one of the governors of the Federal Reserve. As predicted, SCOTUS is reticent to get involved--presumably per the well-known American legal precept that You Don't Fuck With the Money
Finally, the two related cases of Slaughter and Cook--probably the two most important and least understood decisions of the term, coming down exactly as expected. As specifically requested by Project 2025, "Humphrey's Executor" is out and independent executive agencies are a thing of the past
Alito when Jackson orders an extra large plate of grande nachos for the table
Chatrie v. US was the term's biggest 4th Amendment decision, re: "geofencing" warrants. Immediate relief to see it's a Kagan joint. There is a reasonable expectation of privacy in cell phone location info! (I mean, *I* already knew that personally but good stuff from the court here)
also some minor good news on the order list: court declines to take Alan Dershowitz's libel suit against Fox, but Thomas uses the chance to take the Trump position on the NYT v. Sullivan standard
last day of SCOTUS season starts off with a good one: 5-4 in Watson v RNC that federal law does not pre-empt how Mississippi counts mail-in ballot received after election day
I *do* actually believe that a credible story of Trump directing the coverup of a break-in carried out with the intent to plant surveillance bugs in the DNC ahead of his re-election would be in the news for awhile, but also do you even hear yourself anymore man www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...