AJ is close to impeaching his cohosts, similar to how America is close to impeaching Donald J. Trump. We’re talking about impeachment today, and butchering it. Ruchit believes that Mike Pence is the Frank Underwood.

Mechanics of Impeachment

If Orin Hatch were to be impeached, how would it go?

• Article 2, Section 4: The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.
• Article 1, Section 2, Clause 5: House has the “sole” power of impeachment. Articles of Impeachment are adopted by a simple majority vote in the House
• Article 1, Section 3, Clause 6: the Senate tries any impeachment proceedings.

People have their own takes on impeachment:

• Akhil Reed Amar writes an article about recent impeachment.
• Compare to the Yahoo answers on Impeachment

The Clinton Impeachment

The court has said that impeachment is a political question in Nixon v. US.

• Bill Clinton put on witnesses at his trial in the Senate.
• The Senate votes on whether Clinton is guilty. Some of the people who voted guilt: Jeff Sessions and John McCain

Andrew Johnson’s Impeachment

Andrew Johnson was president and was impeached.

• To impeach him, the Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act
• The Act was later overturned in Myers v. US
• Johnson avoided impeachment by a single vote

Richard Nixon’s Impeachment

The Watergate hotel:

Ruchit really likes Richard Nixon. AJ doesn’t.

• AJ likes this book called Nixonland by Rick Perlstein
• Richard Nixon formed the Plumbers
• Ratf••king
• Y’all should watch Get Me Roger Stone
• Was Watergate a third-rate burglary?
• The Saturday Night Massacre & Robert Bork
• Nixon White House Taps
• The Nixon articles of impeachment

An Unassuming Member of Congress from the Midwest, like Gerald Ford:

• Paul Ryan?
• Carl Levin
• John Kasich? Chuck Grassley? Ron Johnson? John Thune?

Spiro Agnew plead guilty to not reporting the income from his bribes.

Trump Special Counsel

Rod Rosenstein appointed Robert Mueller as special counsel.

• The powers of the Special Counsel are found at 28 CFR § 600
• The letter appointing Mueller as special counsel
• The SCIF room

Sidebar

TJ: My Family’s Slave, by Alex Tizon, The Atlantic, published posthumously. Tizon won a Pulitzer in 1997 for investigative reporting. He died days before publishing the story.

• Some Filipino reactions to the reactions to the story: @iwriteasiwrite, @iwriteasiwrite, @gothtita
• Lola’s obituary, published in the Seattle Times, which has statements contradicting the Atlantic story. The Seattle Times later published a response to the Atlantic story.

Ruchit: What Trump should know about Comey & Mueller

• Paul Ryan hush money scandal

AJ: AV Club Yo La Tengo Sugarcube

• Mr. Show with Bob and David

After Show

The crazy case of Samuel B. Kent.

• His criminal defense attorney was Dick DeGuerin.
• Service of Summons from the Senate

The French President — do we know anything about him?

Follow-up

Thirty-five of thirty-seven economists said Trump was wrong. The other two misread the question.

• The survey asked and comments by the economists. E.g., Austin Goolsbee: “No, but it would put us in the running for a national Darwin award.”

Trump invented the phrase priming the pump. Merriam-Webster’s fact check’s President Trump. Google Ngram results show that the phrase “priming the pump” has been used as early as 1886:

France had an election

And they elected Emmanuel Macron. They elected him over Marine Le Pen.

• He has a lot of policies that he wants to implement, including reform the 35-hour work week.
• Was Emmanuel Macron a finance minister or economy minister?
• Macron’s political party, En Marche!
• The President of France
• Macron is a neo-liberal Blairite who will have a conservative legislature and ultimately lead to widespread dissatisfaction with progressive movements BUT he’s isn’t fascist.

What is the Macron law?

• Fulbright wrote up an article on the Macron law.
• Macron 2017 = Le Pen 2022
• Reforms on merger law

Good things Macron did:

• Macron did a good job re: Greece.
• Beat the Russian hackers by planting honeypot email accounts

Five Thirty Eight takeaways from the French election:

• Ring-wing movements don’t tend to overperform their polls.
• Conventional wisdom about shy Nazis is kind of bogus and might be ruining polls
• The French election was the biggest polling misses of the last 50 years

Donald Trump fires Jim Comey

Trump tells Lester Holt that he fired Jim Comey because of the Russia investigation:

DONALD TRUMP: He made—he made a recommendation, he’s highly respected, very good guy, very smart guy, uh the Democrats like him, the Republicans like him, uh he made a recommendation but regardless of recommendation I was going to fire Comey knowing, there was no good time to do it. And in fact when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story, it’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirms:

“We want this to come to its conclusion, we want it to come to its conclusion with integrity,” [Huckabee Sanders] said, referring to the FBI’s probe into Moscow’s interference in last year’s election. “And we think that we’ve actually, by removing Director Comey, taken steps to make that happen.”

Was Comey good? Was he bad? Or should we not talk about it at all?

• Slate Political Gabfest, The “Deface the Nation” Edition, Where they discuss Trump walking out on Dickerson’s interview.
• The ‘Merrick Garland for FBI’ scheme shows why liberals lose
• Trump threatens Comey with “tapes”
• Marc Fisher for The Washington Post about Trump’s history of taping conversations

Everything We Know about this Supreme Court

This week in our Supreme Court segment, we talk about Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court of California.

Sidebars

AJ: The Texas Freedom caucus Mother’s Day Massacre.

As the clock ticked — and Freedom Caucus members used tactic after tactic to stall — other lawmakers watched as the chances dimmed for their bills to pass. State Rep. Drew Springer, R-Muenster, delivered a tearful speech begging the chamber to hurry up so it could get to a bill on experimental stem cell treatment that could benefit his wife, who suffered a spinal cord injury.

• Memorial Day Massacre
• Chubbing

TJ: Apple, How to shoot on iPhone 7

Ruchit: The cheapness of Richard Burr, not to be confused with Aaron Burr.

• Gary Locke using a coupon
• Boston Globe, Michael Dukakis would very much like your turkey carcass

AJ is having trouble in life because life is nasty, brutish, and short and there’s no healthcare coverage.

Reconciliation and the AHCA

The ACA was passed by reconciliation. Will the AHCA be similarly passed?

• AHCA is so awful, the Senate won’t even be voting on it. “We are going to draft a Senate bill,” added Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. “That is what I’ve been told.”
• Vox summary of AHCA.
• Paul Waldman, Washington Post: The Republican health-care bill is an act of monstrous cruelty. It should stain those who supported it to the end of their days.
• Dynamic scoring
• Arthur Laffer
• Everything We Know about Louisiana Pre-K

Kaiser Family Foundation AHCA maps

KFF color-coded map of who benefits from the AHCA. If you’re a 40-year-old making $75,000/year, you save about $3000 under the AHCA:

But if you’re a 60 year old and make $20,000/year, your premiums will go up anywhere from $800 to $25,000:

More Healthcare

Rep. Joe Kennedy III:

Unbelievably, it’s an even starker blow to those suffering from mental illness than its predecessor. The latest version of Trumpcare doesn’t just threaten access to behavioral health coverage for those on Medicaid, it threatens access to behavioral health coverage for everyone. Under the guise of flexibility, this bill would allow states and insurance companies to opt out of covering mental health care — not to mention other designated essential health benefits like maternity and emergency care. Premiums and deductibles would soar as a result. Any semblance of mental health parity would be extinguished. And current protections for those with preexisting conditions — which is particularly important when it comes to mental illness — would cease to exist.

CBO score on original AHCA in March:

[The ACA] legislation would reduce federal deficits by $337 billion over the 2017-2026 period. That total consists of $323 billion in on-budget savings and $13 billion in off-budget savings.

• Tom Delay on healthcare: it’s a responsibility, not a right.
• The promises to cover preexisting coverage scrubbed from GOP websites.

Everything We Know about this Supreme Court

This week, we have have three cases in our Supreme Court segment.

• McWilliams v. Dunn
• Maslenjak v. United States
• BNSF Railway Co. v. Tyrrell

Sidebars

AJ: Delicate Steve

Ruchit: Six Maps that show America’s Infrastructure

TJ: When People Ate People, a Strange Disease Emerged

• In many villages, when a person died, they would be cooked and consumed. It was an act of love and grief. As one medical researcher described, “If the body was buried it was eaten by worms; if it was placed on a platform it was eaten by maggots; [they] believed it was much better that the body was eaten by people who loved the deceased than by worms and insects.”
• Laughing death

Aftershow

Ticket to Ride is a board games that Ruchit doesn’t remember playing. And AJ hates Catan.

This week, we tackle a pretty heavy subject: the death penalty.

History of the Death Penalty

Death penalty has always been in use but an abolition movement has been gaining steam.

• In 1972, the Supreme Court imposed a moratorium on the death penalty in Furman v. Georgia.
• In 1976, Stevens casts a vote to bring the death penalty back in Gregg v. Georgia. But Stevens has stated that he regrets that vote:

“I really think that the death penalty today is vastly different from the death penalty that we thought we were authorizing. And I think if the procedures had been followed that we expected to be in place, I think I probably would’ve still had the same views.“Instead, he views his vote to uphold capital punishment in 1976 as the one he regrets during his tenure. It is “the one vote I would change,” he says. Calling the decision “incorrect,” Stevens says the 1976 court “did not foresee how it would be interpreted.”

• Abolition movement has successfully resulted in repeal of DP in several states. Many states have officially repealed. In 2007, New Jersey became the first state to repeal the death penalty by legislative vote since Gregg v. Georgia, followed by New Mexico in 2009, Illinois in 2011, Connecticut in 2012, and Maryland in 2013. Others have a moratorium, where it is technically still provided by law but DP is not sentenced or carry out (e.g. California hasn’t carried out a DP since 2006). Wikipedia: List of states with execution hiatus
• In Glossip v. Gloss (2015) the Court held using midazolam do not constitute cruel and unusual punishment.
  • Breyer dissented saying he is skeptical that DP is constitutional, but the issue wasn’t a question presented in Glossip.
  • Scalia would say even floggings are constitutional.
• Most recently, Arkansas scheduled several executions in a short period of time to avoid the expiration of its death penalty drugs. The Supreme Court refused to hear the issue.

Why do we have the death penalty?

What are the rationales for the death penalty? Do they hold up under scrutiny?

• Justifications for punishment: Deterrence, Retribution, Rehabilitation, Incapacitation, and Education.
• Dukakis’ Death Penalty Response.
• Dylann Roof, White Supremacist and Mass Murderer.
• Criminal justice has a racial bias.
• Breyer’s Charlie Rose interview.
• Atkins v. Virginia, holding that execution of individuals with intellectual disabilities is not constitutional.
• Roper v. Simmons, holding that execution of minors is not constitutional.
• Texas Death Row Facts: average time to execution on death row is 10.87 years.
• Cameron Todd Willingham
• Cass Sunstein paper on the deterrent effect of the death penalty.
• Trolley Problems in ethics.

This week in the Supreme Court

In this segment, we discuss our Supreme Court predictions.

• We predict Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v Pauley.
• Two cases came down from the Supreme Court. We got partial credit.
  • Nelson v. Colorado
  • Goodyear v. Haegar

We also recently revamped our methodology for tracking predicting.

The gang interviews Simon Tam, a US Supreme Court litigant in Lee v. Tam. We covered his case in Everything We Know about Border Searches.

• Simon is not the lead singer of the Slants.
• NPR wrote a story about the Slants, Trading in Stereotypes
• Ron Coleman, the lawyer who took Simon’s case pro bono
  • Eugene Volokh writes about the Slants
  • UCLA Supreme Court Clinic
• Lee v. Tam Oral argument at the Supreme Court
• Simon website has posts about whether the Slants is a disparaging name and multiple posts about the Redskins
  • For background, the Washington Redskin’s trademark has been invalidated as disparaging to Native Americans
• Simon Tam, What Whiteness History Month is Already Teaching Us
• Most of those stopped and frisked are minorities. (Background on stop and frisk.)
• Urban Dictionary on slant.
• Simon’s Sidebar: Kendrick Lamar’s new album Damn and the Fresh Prince & DJ Jazzy Jeff’s He’s the DJ, I’m the Rapper

More information about Lee v. Tam can be found on ScotusBlog and Oyez.

Today, we discuss do an autopsy on Mitt Romney’s binders, and whether states are stepping on voting rights.

Mitt Romney’s binders unearthed.

Ruchit thinks Mitt Romney is good. AJ thinks that Mitt Romney is bad. And the archeologists found Romney’s binders full of women, from the Washington Post. The original question that was asked to both candidates:

QUESTION: In what new ways to you intend to rectify the inequalities in the workplace, specifically regarding females making only 72 percent of what their male counterparts earn?

• Transcript of the second presidential debate in 2012
• Video of the second debate.
• Mitt Romney’s positions on the issues
• Wikipedia article on Binders Full of Women

Voting Rights

The Texas Voter ID law makes news as a Court in Texas holds that the law was passed with a discriminatory purpose.

• Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion on the Texas Voter ID law
• The district court on remand from the Fifth Circuit, finding discriminatory intent
• The election code in Texas that describes what sort of ID you need. These forms of identification could be expired, but not more than 60 days:
  • driver’s license, election identification certificate, or personal identification card issued by DPS
  • US military ID with photograph
  • Citizenship certificate with photograph
  • US passport
  • a license to carry a handgun issued by DPS
• What is the American Legislative Exchange Council?
• The Voting Rights Act of 1965
  • The Shelby County case, in which the Supreme Court struck down a major provision of the Voting Rights Act
• North Carolina voting rights case, from the Chicago Tribute

“Is there any way to get a breakdown of the 2008 voter turnout, by race (white and black) and type of vote (early and Election Day)?” a staffer for the state’s Republican-controlled legislature asked in January 2012.

• Souls to Polls. See also NBC.

Partisen Gerrymandering

What is Gerrymandering? Who is Gerry?

• Wisconsin gerrymandering case, from Slate and the court’s opinion

Austin’s Gerrymander:

• Justin Trudeau promised to get rid of single member districts
• Duverger’s law holds that single-member districts tend to favor a two-party system and that proportional representation tends to favor multipartism.
• California’s Citizens Redistricting Commission

Everything We Know about this Supreme Court

Here we talk about Town of Chester v. Laroe Estates, Inc.

• What is legal standing?
• Rule 24 intervention as a matter of right
• Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife

Sidebars

Follow up from the previous episode’s Sidebar: An Oral History of Something Awful

• AJ: Ms Yeah on YouTube: making Chinese hamburger and making hot pot
  • Wikipedia article for Chinese hamburger
• Tom: Internet History Podcast, Episodes 137 & 138, The History of Google
• Ruchit: Ms Yeah on YouTube: making steam bun

Aftershow & Indian Weddings

What is Paan?

Ruchit cites Eminem for the proposition that the FCC doesn’t let him be, but refuses to acknowledge Will Smith’s contributions.

Steve Bannon and the Globalists

We talk about the best way to give cultural compliments.

• Steve Bannon calls Jared Kushner a globalist, and the gang pursues the band ideas.
  • Jewish Telegraphic Agency: Stephen Bannon reportedly called Jared Kushner a ‘globalist.’ Here’s why the term makes some Jews uneasy.
  • CNN: “Bannon’s faction has come to term Cohn as ‘Globalist Gary,’ an insult for those aligned with the Bannon’s populist views.”
• What is Chapati and papadum?
• What is Philo-semitism?
• Trump patronizing Jewish people:
  • The Week: At the Republican Jewish Coalition Presidential Forum in December, Trump drew criticism for promoting anti-Semitic stereotypes while speaking to an audience of Jewish activists, many of them wealthy donors to the party. He suggested that they might not support him because he wouldn’t take their campaign contributions. He called himself a “negotiator, like you.” He said they were, like him, great dealmakers.
  • Rolling Stone: In a 1991 book, one of Trump’s former colleagues recalled him saying, “Black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are little short guys that wear yarmulkes every day.” (Trump called the things written about him in the book “probably true.“)

Ruchit has decided that Donald J. Trump is good

But AJ believes that everyone who associates themselves with Trump debases themselves.

• Syrian air base is still in use according to Washington Post. But Trump responds:

 

• Is this topic is off brand for the podcast?

FCC

The FCC passes a rule that requires a lot of privacy protections for consumers of internet service providers. Congress disapproves of this rule. We get into the weeds on this and discus what’s going on here.

• FCC’s published justification for the privacy rules
• Huffington Post: Internet Access Is A Human Right, United Nations Report Declares
• Ars Technica: Ajit Pai says broadband market too competitive for strict privacy rules
• FCC: Internet Access Services: Status as of December 31, 2015, Figure 4: 96% of developed census blocks have two or fewer providers offering 25mbps boradservice

First, the FCC classified broadband internet services as a Telecommunication Service:

• Some things we classify as Telecommunication Services, like a public utility
• But other things are built upon Telecommunication Services called Information Services.

Congress comes back and rolls this rule back because it’s easier for Congress to do it. Here are some of the things that this rule did:

• Reporting requirements
• Notice requirements to customers when privacy policies are changed
• Consent requirements when ISPs sell customers information
• ISPs have to take reasonable measures to protect your private information
• ISPs have to notify you, the FCC, and law enforcement when they’ve been hacked.

What’s coming down the pipe? The FCC wants to replace net neutrality regulations with voluntary commitments

Everything We Know about this Supreme Court

• TC Heartland LLC v. Kraft Foods Group Brands LLC
  • 40% of patent lawsuits are brought in the Eastern District of Texas
  • The Rocket Docket
• Lee v. United States

Sidebar

Ruchit’s Sidebar is a restaurant in New York called By Chloe.

Tom’s Sidebar is Yale’s Climate Change Visualizations

AJ’s Sidebar is Twitter:

• Metroactive: The Normal Dudes Of ‘Weird Twitter’
• @pisspiggranddad
  • YPG
• Chapotraphouse interview
• NYMag profile and PissPigGranddad’s reply to Jonathan Chait
• Chris Hooks on Twitter

Ruchit thinks the Freedom Caucus is good.

Trump tweets at the Freedom Caucus and some members of respond:

Then, a Trump aide calls for Justin Amash’s defeat and maybe causes ethical problems.

AJ disagrees:

• David Frum on “Vichy Mentality.”
• Vichy France.

Then Ruchit brings up an Indian Epic

• The great Indian epic, Ramayana
• Thomas Massie gives an interview and says some things

Massie says:

I thought they were voting for libertarian Republicans. But after some soul searching I realized when they voted for Rand and Ron and me in these primaries, they weren’t voting for libertarian ideas—they were voting for the craziest son of a [b*tch] in the race. And Donald Trump won best in class, as we had up until he came along.

• FiveThirtyEight: Should the Freedom Caucus Be Afraid of Donald Trump?

Mike Flynn’s Immunity Request

At the request of friend of the show @TylerArroz, we discuss Mike Flynn’s immunity request:

• Mike Flynn’s attorney says Flynn has a story to tell, so give him immunity.
• Donald Trump thinks that Flynn should get immunity but perhaps doesn’t know that the President has power to give immunity in the form of a pardon.
• But why does he want immunity?
• Senate committee says no thanks.

Everything We Know about this Supreme Court

We make a prediction about the Supreme Court. This one comes back to our previous discussion about Textualism.

• Water Splash, Inc. v. Menon: Does the Hague Service Convention authorize service of process by mail? A question that leads Justice Kagan to ask some piercing questions.
  • In the episode, Tom says that the lower court was the Texas Supreme Court. But it was actually a little different. The last opinion was from an intermediate court of appeals in Texas. The case was appealed to the Texas Supreme Court but the Supreme Court denied hearing the appeal.

Then, we reflect on some of our previous predictions that we have gotten wrong. By “we,” we mean AJ:

• Expressions Hair Design v. Schneiderman
• Endrew F. v. Douglas Co. Sch. Dist.

Side Bar

Where we discuss unrelated topics:

• AJ: Jimmy Kimmel Live: Donald Trump Moves Stuff Around (video).
• TJ falls for an April Fool’s joke that George Takei is running for Congress. But it was a joke and Tom has egg on his face. In the process, we learn that George Takei was held in a Japanese internment camp.
• Ruchit talks Google Gnome.
• TJ talks about how libraries have a new life.

We harp on the fact that Judge Gorsuch didn’t make Law Review, again.

• Dahlia Lithwick at Slate
• Jamelle Bouie on lay judges
• Judicial Positivism
• Neil Gorsuch and the Frozen Trucker. Also, see Franken grills Gorsuch on trucking case(video).
• Scalia repudiated describing himself as a “fainthearted originalist” and thought flogging is constitutional.
  • Frank H. Easterbrook on Originalism
  • Judge Posner: The Incoherence of Antonin Scalia
  • Law & Economics
• Breyer and Souter

Healthcare

Ezra Klien on Politics in 2014:

The data also explains why Democratic and Republicans have so much trouble understanding each other. Democrats tend to project their preference for policymaking onto the Republican Party — and then respond with anger and confusion when Republicans don’t seem interested in making a deal. Republicans tend to assume the Democratic Party is more ideological than it is, and so see various policy initiatives as part of an ideological effort to remake America along more socialistic lines.

Harold Pollack in Politico:

They didn’t do any of this, perhaps because they believed they would never have to. Secure in the knowledge that they would face President Obama’s veto, Republicans rammed through a succession of extreme repeal-and-replace bills that resembled AHCA’s original draft. These bills excited the Republican base, but would have horrified most other Americans if they ever found sufficient reason to look. Then Congressional Republicans suffered what George W. Bush might call a “catastrophic success” with Donald Trump’s unexpected victory. They had nothing real to deliver.

And: 

• AHCA polling terribly.
• Budget Reconciliation and the Heritage article on it.
• Gene B. Sperling, The AHCA’s Tradeoff: Giving Up Vital Care to Get Tax Cuts for the Rich

AJ hates Paul Ryan

• LA Times: Paul Ryan loved Ayn Rand, before he said he didn’t
• Trump’s plan may be to let ideologically aligned figures blame Ryan but appear to stay above the fray. Trump Tweet Hyping “Judge Jeanine” Show Wasn’t Criticism of Paul Ryan, Aides Say
• New York Magazine: Why Steve Bannon Hates Paul Ryan

Everything We Know about the Supreme Court

• Impressions Products, Inc. v. Lexmark Int’l, Inc.
• County of Los Angeles v. Mendez
• Howell v. Howell

Sidebar

• AJ: Mark Fisher, “Capitalist Realism”
• TJ: Detecting Cancer Metastases on Gigapixel Pathology Images
• RKS: NYT, Canadians Adopted Refugee Families for a Year. Then Came ‘Month 13.’

Around the News

O’Connor v. Oakhurst Dairy: “For want of a comma, we have this case.” 

• Maine Drafting Manual.
• The Oxford comma as popularized by the Vampire Weekend song of the same name.
  • My parents, Kennedy and Hitler -- Are your parents Kennedy and Hitler?
  • The panda eats shoots and leaves. The panda eats, shoots, and leaves.
• Wikipedia on serial commas.
• Thanks to Twitter user @portisky.

Hawai’i Federal Judge halts second Muslim ban.

• Barack Obama was the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review.
  • Neil Gorsuch was not on the Harvard Law Review.
  • TROLP, the Texas Review of Law and Politics.
• In Nashville, Trump called the second EO a “watered down” version of the first 
• “Fundamentally,” Stephen Miller said, “you’re still going to have the same basic policy outcome for the country...”

Uber’s troubles, starting with the Google lawsuit and sexism at Uber.

Regulations that the Trump administration has revoked.

Since become president, Mr. Trump has changed or eliminated over 90 regulations. Trump order that for every regulation passed, two must be removed has been challenged in court.

• The Crime a Day twitter
  • It’s a crime to sell potato chips from dried potatoes without saying so on the label.
  • It’s a crime to import a giraffe without a permit.
  • It’s a crime to abandon a plant at the National Arboretum.
  • It’s a crime to defecate in the reading room of the Library of Congress.

Trump’s regulatory attack:

• FCC votes to negate broadband privacy rules.
• The stream protection rule.
• Federal Administrative Procedures Act.
• Congressional Review Act.
• Trump shelves rule requiring fiduciary requirements for investment advisors.
  • Robo-advisors such as Betterment.com or Wealthfront.com.
• The Presentment Clause.
  • INS v. Chadha says that a one-house legislative veto violated the constitutional separation of powers.

Everything We Know about this Supreme Court

Packing v. North Carolina. Packingham posts on Facebook:

“God is Good! How about I got so much favor they dismissed the ticket before court even started? No fine, no court costs, no nothing spent . . . Praise be to GOD, WOW! Thanks JESUS!”

• Justice Kagan asks whether Snapchat is constitutional?
• Survey on felons ability to vote.
• Felony Disenfranchisement: A Holdover from the Jim Crow Era
• the Overbreath doctrine and the vagueness doctrine, but the question presented is limited to the First Amendment.

Kindred Nursing Centers Ltd. v. Clark

• The Federal Arbitration Act.
• Federal preemption doctrine.

Hernandez v. Mesa. You can find the AP report on this story, including pictures of the culvert:

AP Photo

Side Bar

• AJ: Pete Souza’s best of Instagram.
  • Obama meets in the Situation Room
  • By request, Obama meets with Merkel
• Ruchit: Gravitational waves by Brian Greene.
• Tom: The CIA uses board games to train its officers