In one of the most consequential antitrust rulings in a half-century, Apple v. Pepper, SCOTUS on Monday allowed iPhone app purchasers to sue Apple for overcharges on apps designed and priced by developers (not Apple) but sold on the App Store.  The decision was 5 to 4, with Justice Kavanaugh not merely siding with the liberal quartet of Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan, but writing a highly pro-consumer majority opinion that the right-wing dissenting foursome (who thought they had a quintet) bitterly complained was hopelessly and irrationally liberal. […]

Hail to the Chief.  Not the pretender at 1600 Pennsylvania, but the real one who presides over SCOTUS at 1 First Street NE.  When an honest and comprehensive history of the nasty and brutish Trump administration is chronicled, years from now, Wednesday November 21, 2018 will be marked as the turning point, after which Trump’s fall proceeded steadily and the ultimate crash became certain. […]

H.L. does not post about things where we don’t possess real knowledge, experience or unique perspective.  For example, nothing about the long-term prospects of the latest royal marriage.  And despite having been around the SCOTUS pool a few times – via oral argument, testimony at confirmation hearings and many briefs and cert. denials, some causing despair and others corks to pop – H.L. determined to be really unique and not comment on The Kavanaugh.  But the second and public swearing in was a spectacle up with which we will not put (Sir Winston). […]

As H.L. Post 55 made clear, this hopeless liberal bids good riddance to Justice Anthony Kennedy.  Among liberals that point of view is not widely shared and the laments keep coming, stoked by press on the left.  Among the foremost and most knowledgeable in that camp is NPR’s Nina Totenberg, who upon Kennedy’s announcement commented “it’s the end of the world as we know it.”  Immediately and repeatedly followed by her false history of the context of Kennedy’s nomination, the falsity of which is known better by Totenberg than anyone.  She recites that in 1987 Kennedy was nominated by President Reagan, in the wake of the Senate’s rejection of Reagan’s nomination of Judge Robert Bork.  Half true enough.  Reagan in fact nominated Kennedy in the wake of another intervening nomination, of D.C. Circuit Judge Douglas Ginsburg.  A nomination that Totenberg single handedly torpedoed. […]

In the two weeks before Justice Anthony Kennedy announced that he would retire, the high court issued five very bad decisions that will grievously harm many Americans and America for decades, at the very least.  They are, one, National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra, Attorney General of California involving “pro-life” unlicensed crisis pregnancy centers; two, Janus v. American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, involving agency fees paid by non-union members to unions for negotiating better compensation and benefits for them; three, Ohio v. American Express, involving an antitrust challenge to a credit card practice that raises merchant and consumer prices by $ billions annually; four, Trump v. Hawaii, involving our openly bigoted President’s third attempt to ban most Muslim aliens from entering the United States; and five, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, involving a bakers refusal, on religious grounds, to bake a wedding cake for a same sex couple. […]

For a time, top of mind and above the fold was news of Trump’s travel bans, classic and redux and their serial invalidation by federal district courts around the country.  But recently the Fourth Circuit, comprised of Maryland, the Virginias and the Carolinas, became the first appellate court to rule against the ban.  The news was drowned out by “the Russia thing” then Trump’s renunciation of the Paris Climate Accord and finally the Tower Bridge/Borough Market atrocities.  Time to pause and give the Fourth Circuit its due and consider what that court was really rejecting – de facto establishment of state religion as much or more than institutionalized Islamophobia. Chief Judge Roger Gregory, Fourth Circuit Remember the big word “antidisestablishmentarianism?”  For people of [...]

Freud supposedly said “Madame sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”  But it was no mere stogie on Monday when Chief Justice John Roberts disingenuously recited the caveat that it meant nothing for SCOTUS to decline review of the Fourth Circuit’s decision invalidating five provisions of a 2013 North-Carolina voting law that “target[ed] African-Americans with almost surgical precision.”  That law rejected the forms of photo-ID favored by black voters, reduced early voting, eliminated same-day registration and pre-registration of teenagers, banned the tabulation of votes cast in the wrong precinct and retained forms of ID favored by whites.  In 2013 North Carolina not 1983 South Africa. […]

Hopelessly Liberal’s readers are waterlogged after a deluge of hundred day assessments.  As promised, here is ours, but mercifully eschewing, with one exception, a listing and critique of major achievements and failures.  Instead, for one day H.L. becomes a distillery, delivering the essence of Trump as POTUS, 100 proof and aged for one hundred and three days. […]

We keep hearing and reading how polished, nimble and skillful Judge Gorsuch was in his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week.  One NPR reporter even likened him to God – at least with respect to voice – that SHE either must have heard or assumes to be male.  This despite the Judge’s annoyed response to a Senator Franken question, with “I’m not God.” […]

The moment has come for Chuck Schumer and the Senate Democrats to be or not.  They and we have experienced the result of their reasonableness.  We live with the result of their appeal to the electorate on that basis.  They pointed to the unconstitutional intransigence of the Republicans in their refusal to vet and vote on Judge Merrick Garland, President Obama’s March 2016 nominee for the SCOTUS bench.  Not only did the voters say “so what” but implicitly rewarded Mitch McConnell and his caucus for abusing the power they possessed to deprive Obama and progressive America of a pivotal seat on the high court – one the constitution and 227 years of precedent strongly argue was their right. Time after time the Democrats have been [...]