Supreme Court Finally Does Something About Trump’s Deportations

The Supreme Court has once again ordered President Donald Trump to cool his jets on using the Alien Enemies Act to conduct deportations.

The high court ruled 7-2 Friday to temporarily block the Trump administration from deporting another set of detainees in northern Texas, Venezuelan immigrants accused of being gang members who feared they would be the next to be removed from the country under the wartime powers law.

The court sided with the detainees, ruling they should have been given more notice to contest their removal, and sent the case to a lower appeals court to decide whether Trump can legally deport the immigrants under the Alien Enemies Act and how much notice detained immigrants should receive before being deported.

“We decide today only that the detainees are entitled to more notice than was given on April 18, and we grant temporary injunctive relief to preserve our jurisdiction while the question of what notice is due is adjudicated,” the seven justices wrote in the majority opinion.

“Under these circumstances, notice roughly 24 hours before removal, devoid of information about how to exercise due process rights to contest that removal, surely does not pass muster.”

Naturally, conservative Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas couldn’t even agree on this meager ruling. Justice Kavanaugh concurred.

The court even went so far as to quote itself on the Fifth Amendment, a worthwhile action given Trump and Stephen Miller’s constant redefinition of the very straightforward policy.

“[T]he Fifth Amendment entitles aliens to due process of law in the context of removal proceedings.”

This story has been updated.

A MAGA judge in Texas has issued a sweeping ruling that destroys workplace discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people in the United States. 

Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who holds a reputation for being a far-right activist judge, declared that while Title VII of the Civil Rights Act does not protect LGBTQ people from workplace harassment based on their sexual or gender orientation. The case was brought forth by the Heritage Foundation, a far-right, culturally conservative organization that heavily influenced the writings and goals of Project 2025.  

Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee, specifically targeted transgender people in his ruling, stating that they had to simply deal with any kind of discriminatory treatment in their workplace. He deduced that “a male employee must use male facilities like other males,” an assertion that completely invalidates transgender identity in its entirety rather than actually acknowledging the issues they face at work. Kacsmaryk even went so far as to order federal employment policy to remove“all language defining ‘sex’ in Title VII to include ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity.”. 

This all directly contradicts the Supreme Court’s 2020 Bostock v. Clayton County ruling, which stated plainly that Title VII protects LGBTQ workers from identity-based firing and harassment. 

Kacsmaryk is not new to this. He has been referred to as the “go-to jurist” for right wingers looking for judicial validation for cruel, oppressive, and deeply culturally conservative policy. He attacked LGBTQ protections in the Affordable Care Act, suspended FDA approval of the live-saving abortion pill mifepristone, and tried (and failed) to make Planned Parenthood pay $2 billion to Texas and Louisiana on the grounds that they were “defrauding” Medicaid. This is yet another coordinated attack from the right intended to erode hard fought social justice victories.

Donald Trump’s former lawyer turned U.S. attorney for New Jersey Alina Habba is planning to file federal charges against a sitting congresswoman.

Democratic Representative LaMonica McIver could be charged as early as Friday, according to the New Jersey Globe, for events that transpired last week when McIver, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman, and Representative Rob Menendez paid a visit to Delaney Hall, which Immigration and Customs Enforcement has started using to house immigrant detainees.

After all four were admitted into the prison, the three members of Congress tried to include Baraka in conversations. The mayor had repeatedly sought in previous days to serve the owners of the facility, Geo Group, with summonses over code violations, including refusing to grant access to the facility and failing to have an evacuation plan in place. He had been denied entry during his previous attempts.

But a scuffle took place with ICE agents, protesters at the facility’s gate, and the four, with at least one member of Congress shoved. Baraka was subsequently arrested. McIver tried to physically protect Baraka, perhaps providing Habba with a flimsy justification to arrest her. The three representatives have faced spurious accusations from the right that they attacked or punched ICE officers, and received threats of reprisal from Republicans in Congress.

Last week, the members of Congress denied any wrongdoing.

“We’ve reviewed the body cam footage shared by DHS which confirms what we’ve said from the beginning: ICE agents put their hands on Members of Congress and arrested the Mayor of Newark on public property,” a Watson Coleman spokesperson said at the time. “Nobody was ‘body slammed,’ nobody ‘assaulted’ any agents, and this footage confirms that.”

The footage seems to back up Watson Coleman’s account, as does New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy.

“LaMonica, Bonnie Watson Coleman, and Rob Menendez have absolute rights to inspect those facilities,” Murphy said to the Globe Friday. “And if [a federal charge] goes ahead, I think it’s just as I said about Ras Baraka: outrageous.”

So long as the Constitution remains as written, conservatives will have to find a new presidential frontrunner to replace Donald Trump on the 2028 ballot. But options, so far, seem scant.

An obvious choice would be Vice President JD Vance, who has emerged as a “clear favorite” in the race, per The New York Post. Most vice presidents in recent decades have attempted a run for the presidency (19 out of 49 prior veeps have shot their shot), with a third of them actually making it to the White House. But Steve Bannon, one of the far-right’s most resilient political operatives, has another possibility in mind: ex-Florida Representative Matt Gaetz.

“I don’t say this lightly. I’m a pretty good judge of horseflesh in this area,” Bannon, a former Trump adviser, told Gaetz on his podcast War Room. “If you keep doing what you’re doing, if you have interest, you’re a future president of the United States.”

“Only if you’re a future chief of staff,” Gaetz replied to Bannon.

The remarkably unpopular Florida politico lost his House seat in an unlikely gamble after Trump nominated him to serve as attorney general in November. The conveniently timed appointment—and Gaetz’s subsequent resignation—had the added benefit of killing the House investigation into Gaetz’s alleged misconduct with women and minors that include accusations of sex trafficking. He has denied any wrongdoing.

Unfortunately for Gaetz, the unsuccessful bid for Trump’s Cabinet also left him without a job, as he was forced to drop his own nomination when it became clear that Republicans weren’t going to vote for him.

Gaetz reportedly pulled his nomination just minutes after CNN reached out to the ex-lawmaker for comment on a bombshell revelation that the Ethics Committee had been notified of a second sexual encounter between Gaetz and a 17-year-old he was accused of having sex with.

In a statement following Gaetz’s withdrawal, Trump said he had “much respect” for the Florida politician and predicted Gaetz would have a “wonderful future.”

Donald Trump has always boasted about hiring “the best people,” but his special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, was a real estate investor and lawyer before being chosen for the role, with no foreign policy experience. So, he opened up Netflix.

Witkoff told The Atlantic that he has been learning on the job thanks to Netflix documentaries like “Turning Point: The Vietnam War.” Witkoff has also reportedly read books to brush up on international affairs, although the article didn’t mention which ones.

Shortly after his inauguration, Trump tasked Witkoff with negotiating a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, and has since expanded his role to work on mediating between Ukraine and Russia. Witkoff has broken with past U.S. policy by directly reaching out to Hamas, and meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin by himself, relying only on Putin’s interpreters.

“I spent a lot of time with President Putin—talking, developing a friendship, a relationship with him—and that led to Marc getting on the plane,” Witkoff told Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, during an FII Institute forum in Miami in February, describing his success in getting American schoolteacher Marc Fogel released from Russian prison.

Witkoff has brushed off criticism about his lack of experience, relating foreign policy to his business background. He told The Atlantic that “[d]iplomacy is negotiation. I’ve been doing it my whole life.”

Trump chose Witkoff because they’re friends. The two have known each other since the 1980s, and Witkoff was golfing with Trump at Trump International Golf Club in Florida during an assassination attempt in September. But how does any of that demonstrate skill at resolving international conflicts and representing American interests?