Supreme Court

Richard P. Loving and his wife, Mildred, pose in this Jan. 26, 1965, file photograph. Residents of Caroline County, Virginia,, the couple was convicted under the state’s law that banned mixed marriages. (AP Photo)
Ahead of the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Loving v. Virginia – which struck down laws criminalizing intermarriage – new U.S. Census Bureau data shows 17 percent of newlyweds in the United States have a spouse of a different race or ethnicity.

Government pamphlets explaining the now struck-down voter ID law at a polling station in North Carolina earlier this year. (Photo: Chris Keane/Reuters)
North Carolina’s warring lawmakers failed Monday to have the U.S. Supreme Court take up a battle over a voter-identification law struck down as discriminatory.
One of the dozens of cases denied certiorari this morning by the high court, the dispute at issue stems from infighting within the state about the future of the law.

The Supreme Court will soon be ruling on the question of whether union contracts can legally include provisions where employees waive the right to join in class-action lawsuits.  While unions and the NLRB argue that this provision violates an employee’s inherent right to “collective action,” management argues that all disputes should be settled individually, by way of binding arbitration, a method that has proven quicker and less expensive.

Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.
— Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations

(COMMONDREAMS) The government of Arkansas executed two men Monday evening despite concerns from attorneys that the first state killing had been “torturous and inhumane.”

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor speaks during an appearance at the University of Delaware in Newark, Del., Thursday, Sept. 19, 2013. (AP/Patrick Semansky)
The Supreme Court’s decision Monday not to hear an excessive-force case drew a fiery dissent from two left-leaning justices, who say the lower courts should have let a jury decide instead of taking the word of a police officer over that of the man he shot.

(ANTIMEDIA) Caracas — Venezuela, a country with only $10 billion left in reserves to run on, is in trouble. The people are starving. The government has gone full-on authoritarian, and now desperate human beings are dying in the streets.

Not just a line from our founding document; a fact.by Gaius PubliusBottom line first — Having justices like Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court is part of the attempt by Trump, Bannon, the Koch Bros and all Ryanist Republicans to dismantle the regulatory state. Dismantle — not undercut or chip away at. Tear down, starting at its base. Imagine what that will do.

(ANTIMEDIA) Even though Democrats on Capitol Hill are fighting tooth-and-nail against Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation to the Supreme Court, it’s almost impossible to win the battle.

The largest political bloc in the United States, "radical independents" (discussion here; click to enlarge). by Gaius PubliusUpdate: Various news outlets are reporting that because Chris Coons now says he'll support the filibuster, the Democrats have 41 votes and can block the nomination, at least until filibuster rules are changed.