A court spokeswoman said the chief justice had fallen while walking for exercise and blamed dehydration.
WASHINGTON — Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. sustained a head injury last month that required a night at the hospital, a spokeswoman for the Supreme Court said on Tuesday.
“The chief justice was treated at a local hospital on June 21 for an injury to his forehead sustained in a fall while walking for exercise near his home,” the spokeswoman, Kathleen Arberg, said in a statement.
“The injury required sutures, and out of an abundance of caution, he stayed in the hospital overnight and was discharged the next morning,” Ms. Arberg said. “His doctors ruled out a seizure. They believe the fall was likely due to lightheadedness caused by dehydration.”
The incident was first reported by The Washington Post, which said it had made inquiries after receiving a tip that Chief Justice Roberts had been seen at a Maryland country club bleeding from his head.
Other members of the court, notably Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, have volunteered information about health setbacks requiring hospitalization. Chief Justice Roberts did not disclose his fall until The Post asked.
The chief justice has twice had seizures, in 1993 and 2007, but Ms. Arberg’s statement said his latest fall had not been caused by one.
The last seizure happened at the chief justice’s summer home in Maine. At the time, the court described the episode as a “benign idiopathic seizure,” one that could be a sign of epilepsy. The incident was similar to one he experienced 14 years before, the court’s news release at the time said. Idiopathic means that the cause of the seizure remained unknown.
Chief Justice Roberts is 65 and appeared to be in vigorous good health when the court last heard arguments in March.
The chief justice has been busy, as the court has been working to issue major decisions in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. He has emerged this term as the median justice, casting the decisive votes in all of the court’s closely divided decisions, including ones on L.G.B.T.Q. rights, young immigrants known as Dreamers and abortion.
The court is expected to issue its final five decisions of the term in the coming days. They include cases on whether President Trump can block the release of financial records sought by Congress and by New York prosecutors.
There has always been cyberchatter which questions Clarence Thomas' legal acumen, which is why I believe he is popping up to lead the charge of challenging the doctrine of Stare Decisis.
Perhaps, that is why he was never very vocal in oral arguments.
But, hey, what do I know?
I know there is a very long history on very questionable rulings when it comes to foreign influence in elections and trafficking tiny humans, like the doctrine of Partus Sequitur Ventrem.
I also know he is open to revisit stare decisiswhich is a good thing, considering lots of those precedent decisions were made during the "Pre-Emancipation Proclamation Era".
Notice how this video intentionally fails to address the Partus Doctrine.
Heck, there is court precedence going back to Three-Fifths Clause Days, right back to that Partus Doctrine that no one seems to want to talk about.
DeShaney v. Winnebagomade it perfectly clear that children have absolutely no civil rights, where this doctrine is even more solidified if that child hails from the population of "The Poors", the socioeconomic status of the mother.
Homer Plessey Partus Doctrine ruled he had
no right of association under the
First Amendment because of the
"One-drop rule".
Plessey v. Fergusonis not even recognized as a First Amendment argument of right of association, which means the entire Brown v. Board of Educationneeds to be revisited, in full, to correct the basis of the decision, because it never addresses the residuals of the peculiar institution of chattel law, like the Partus Doctine.
How can SCOTUS make rulings on race when it is using the "One Drop Rule" of the Partus Doctrine, which was made before CRISPR?
I am not alleging any of SCOTUS rulings were compromised for the simple fact that there is no grievance procedure, or rather due process of the petitioners, as that part of U.S. history was intentionally omitted when there exists no federal grievance procedure.
How can SCOTUS continue to promulgate the Stare Decisis Doctrine made under the Partus Doctrine?
Because the SCOTUS and federal justices can do what they want, when they want, including the perpetuating the residuals of the peculiar institution.
As you watch, or may not watch, this hearing, the discussions, using their hand picked American University groomed spokestokens, focus on how they are going to hole the Justices accountable.
I say have a public forum, like they used to do, where the public can put out their dirt.
Many of the witnesses were against the personal lives of the Justices made public and had no clue of how to told them accountable.
I say we just use that Justinian Code, the internet, and proceed with the reconstruction of justice in blockchain technologies, to preserve the annals of history, no matter what is uncloaked in the trafficking of tiny humans.
(Reuters) - Justice Clarence Thomas on Monday urged the U.S. Supreme Court to feel less bound to upholding precedent, advancing a view that if adopted by enough of his fellow justices could result in more past decisions being overruled, perhaps including the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide.
Writing in a gun possession case over whether the federal government and states can prosecute someone separately for the same crime, Thomas said the court should reconsider its standard for reviewing precedents.
Thomas said the nine justices should not uphold precedents that are “demonstrably erroneous,” regardless of whether other factors supported letting them stand.
“When faced with a demonstrably erroneous precedent, my rule is simple: We should not follow it,” wrote Thomas, who has long expressed a greater willingness than his colleagues to overrule precedents.
In a concurring opinion, which no other justice joined, Thomas referred to the court’s 1992 decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which reaffirmed Roe and said states cannot place an undue burden on the constitutional right to an abortion recognized in the Roe decision. Thomas, a member of the court at the time, dissented from the Casey ruling.
Thomas, 70, joined the court in 1991 as an appointee of Republican President George H.W. Bush. Thomas is its longest-serving current justice.
The court now has a 5-4 conservative majority, and Thomas is among its most conservative justices.
He demonstrated his willingness to abandon precedent in February when he wrote that the court should reconsider its landmark 1964 New York Times v. Sullivan ruling that made it harder for public officials to win libel lawsuits.
“Thomas says legal questions have objectively correct answers, and judges should find them regardless of whether their colleagues or predecessors found different answers,” said Jonathan Entin, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. “Everyone is concerned about this because they’re thinking about Roe v. Wade.”
COURT DIVISIONS
The Thomas opinion focused on “stare decisis,” a Latin term referring to the legal principle that U.S. courts should not overturn precedents without a special reason.
While stare decisis (pronounced STAR-ay deh-SY-sis) has no formal parameters, justices deciding whether to uphold precedents often look at such factors as whether they work, enhance stability in the law, are part of the national fabric or promote reliance interests, such as in contract cases.
In 2000, conservative then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist left intact the landmark 1966 Miranda v. Arizona ruling, which required police to advise people in custody of their rights, including the rights to remain silent and have a lawyer.
Writing for a 7-2 majority, Rehnquist wrote that regardless of concerns about Miranda’s reasoning, “the principles of stare decisis weigh heavily against overruling it now.” Thomas joined Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissent from that decision. But even Scalia, a conservative who died in 2016, had a different view of stare decisis.
In a widely quoted comment, Scalia once told a Thomas biographer, Ken Foskett, that Thomas “doesn’t believe in stare decisis, period,” and that “if a constitutional line of authority is wrong, he would say let’s get it right. I wouldn’t do that.”
Stare decisis has also split the current court, including last month when in a 5-4 decision written by Thomas the justices overruled a 1979 precedent that had allowed states to be sued by private parties in courts of other states.
Justice Stephen Breyer, a member of the court’s liberal wing, dissented, faulting the majority for overruling “a well-reasoned decision that has caused no serious practical problems.” Citing the 1992 Casey ruling, Breyer said the May decision “can only cause one to wonder which cases the Court will overrule next.”
Thomas said the court should “restore” its jurisprudence relating to precedents to ensure it exercises “mere judgment” and focuses on the “correct, original meaning” of laws it interprets.
“In our constitutional structure, our rule of upholding the law’s original meaning is reason enough to correct course,” Thomas wrote.
Thomas also said demonstrably erroneous decisions should not be “elevated” over federal statutes, as well as the Constitution, merely because they are precedents.
“That’s very different from what the Court does today,” said John McGinnis, a law professor at Northwestern University in Chicago.
McGinnis said the thrust of Thomas’s opinion “makes clear that in a narrow area he will give some weight to precedent. But at the same time, he thinks cases have one right answer, and might find more cases ‘demonstrably erroneous.’”
Well, it seems we may have ourselves an issue of an SCOTUS impeachment.
The article below is not about Obamacare, but the situation surrounding the adoption of John & Jane Roberts' two children and the fact that he worked on the Bush v. Gore Florida recount.
Now, whether there was blackmail involved or not, we are not yet there to even make that determination, but I can tell you this, when one is Blue Slipped, there is going to be a DOJ Office of Legal Policy background on the SCOTUS nominee.
OLP works with the Attorney General to advise the President on nominations for Article III and certain Article I judgeships. After the President has submitted a nomination to the Senate, OLP works with the White House and the Senate Judiciary Committee to secure the nominee’s confirmation.
So, if there is an established process to vet a nominee for the Supreme Court, how come no one in the FBI caught his adoption situation, because it seems to me we have ourselves an issue of trafficking tiny humans, far beyond the normal trafficking of tiny humans issues.
Looks like something 'slipped' through about 2 to 3 layers over there at DOJ.
Well, from what we know about the U.S. Constitution, you have to be a U.S. citizen in order to be nominated and sit on SCOTUS, so, it is pretty safe to ruleout that Roberts was a citizen of Ireland.
Then, there is the issue of him going to a "Latin" country to finalize the adoption of the Irish babies, which would mean the mothers were trafficked from Ireland while pregnant, which means there was no baby trafficking because the babies had yet to be born.
If this is the case, then what nationality would the children be, being born in a "Latin" country?
It does not matter why the mothers would give up their children for adoption because it is well documented that no one cares about them, let alone bring up the idea that there would be fathers involved.
Since I brought up the parents, I thought now would be a good time to ask if the parental rights were terminated, or were the kids purchased for those imported tax credits through, perhaps, Catholic Charities.
I wonder if he disclosed his adoption tax credits on his tax returns.
Boy, I would love to see the certified court judgment of termination of parental rights.
I do feel for the Roberts family because John was probably too stupid to realize that if he really wanted to adopt a kid, he could go through the U.S. Foster Care system, but, then again, those blonde haired, blue eyed tiny humans are always in such high demand, he went through private adoption.
There could be the possibility that he got married and adopted to make an instant family for his SCOTUS nomination as a cover for his persuasions for the manlier side of companionship, but hey, what do I know?
I know the FBI is more than likely involved in a special investigation about all this.
I originally wrote this article and presented the research on January 28, 2013, on a now defunct forum LibertyCaucus.com, posted under my nickname “Trip”. The story got serious traction across the blogosphere, and was picked up at such sites as “WhatReallyHappened” and “BeforeItsNews”(Archived).
According to some sources, Roberts wrote both the majority and a large portion of minority dissenting opinions. The liberal news outlet Salon.com has a story on July 3, 2012, “Roberts Wrote Both ObamaCare Opinions”, written by law professor Paul Campos, citing “a source within the court with direct knowledge of the drafting process.”
In this Salon article, Campos rejects the claim that the conservative minority wrote the dissenting opinion in response to Roberts’ majority opinion. Instead Campos’ source indicates that Roberts authored as much as the “first 46 pages” of the dissent, a full 70%, originally intended to be the majority opinion entirely rejecting ObamaCare. Only after Roberts switched his vote at the last minute did the remaining four Justices author the final 19 pages of that dissenting opinion. In support of this, Campos points out that it is extraordinary “in the court’s history that a dissent has gone on for 13,000 words before getting around to mentioning that it is, in fact, dissenting”, and yet there are repeated references to dissent from the majority opinion in those last 19 pages.
These facts may answer that question.
Roberts Adoptions:
In 2000 Justice Roberts and his wife Jane adopted two children. Initially it was apparent that the adoptions were “from a Latin American country”, but over time it has become apparent that the adopted children were not Latin American, but were Irish. Why this matters will become evident.
In 2005 the NY Times began investigating Roberts life as a matter of his nomination to the Supreme Court by George Bush. The Times was shortly accused of trying to unseal the adoption papers and intending to violate the anonymity of the adoption process… however there is more to the story.
The NEW YORK TIMES is looking into the adoption records of the children of Supreme Court Nominee John G. Roberts, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned. The TIMES has investigative reporter Glen Justice hot on the case to investigate the status of adoption records of Judge Roberts’ two young children, Josie age 5 and Jack age 4, a top source reveals. Judge Roberts and his wife Jane adopted the children when they each were infants. Both children were adopted from Latin America. A TIMES insider claims the look into the adoption papers are part of the paper’s “standard background check.” Bill Borders, NYT senior editor, explains: “Our reporters made initial inquiries about the adoptions, as they did about many other aspects of his background. They did so with great care, understanding the sensitivity of the issue.”
Were the Children Adopted from Ireland?
At the time, the adoption terms of the children was uncertain. The Associated Press reported that they were “adopted from Latin America.” This indication should have been noteworthy, particularly given the Time magazine report indicating that the children were born in Ireland. Also, their blond hair and fair skin do not seem conventionally Latin American. 1
TIME had a “web exclusive” on the Roberts’s (7/24/05) and therein quoted a family friend as stating the kids were “born in Ireland 4 1/2 months apart.”
How were the Children Adopted?
According to The New York Times, based on information from Mrs. Roberts’s sister, Mary Torre, the children were adopted through a private adoption.
As explained by Families for Private Adoption, “[p]rivate (or independent) adoption is a legal method of building a family through adoption without using an adoption agency for placement. In private adoption, the birth parents relinquish their parental rights directly to the adoptive parents, instead of to an agency.”2
But was Robert’s adoption utilizing “a legal method”?
Apparently the process of adopting Jack involved some stress for John Roberts. According to Dan Klaidman of Newsweek, during the contested 2000 election, Roberts “spent a few days in Florida advising lawyers [for George W. Bush] on their legal strategy,” but “he did not play a central role,” because ” at the time, Roberts was preoccupied with the adoption of his son.”
It is now quite evident that the two Children were from Ireland. Even wikipedia references these adoptions at the time of Roberts’ confirmation, and indicates that the children were of Irish birth.
However Irish law 1) prohibits the adoption of Children to non-residents, and 2) also does not permit private adoptions, but rather has all adoptions go through a public agency. This would explain the children’s origin from a “Latin American country”, so as to circumvent Irish law.
Evidently Roberts arranged for this adoption through some sort of trafficking agency, that contacted Irish women, arranged for them to be transported out of Ireland and into compliant Latin American countries, from which they were adopted, thereby circumventing Irish laws — entirely illegal, but perhaps quasi-legitimized by the birth mothers, two in this case, transporting the children out of Ireland.
Undoubtedly Roberts and his wife spent a great deal of money for this illegal process, circumventing Irish laws and arranging for the transit of two Irish children from separate birth-mothers to a foreign nation. As of 2012, those two children have been with the Roberts’ for roughly 10 years, since they were adopted as “infants”.
Some might feel an impulse dismiss this information, mistakenly believing Roberts and his wife were doing a good thing for a children needing a home. This would be a narrow perspective on what occurred. Such an inter-country adoption would only come about at great cost, and those who utilize this method are creating a for-profit black market in adoptive children, trafficking across international borders, and doing so from mothers who have not yet given up their children except for that profit. These actions are promoting a very unsavory profit-for-children human trafficking market that even necessitates immediate contact with new birth mothers in dire circumstances to offer financial gain. The entire arrangement is thoroughly predatory, turning children into aonly financial commodity, and even providing motivation for their birth mothers to give them up! That’s an important ethical recognition.
Roberts is not deserving of any sort of respect here, and is only the latest example of people in position believing themselves above the law, beyond scrutiny and exempt from repercussion.
It all now makes sense.
The circumstances of these two adoptions explain not only why this would be overlooked by an overall sympathetic media, but also why a sitting Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court would not want this information to become public fodder well into his tenure. Its release and public discussion would discredit Roberts as an impartial judge of the law, and undoubtedly lead to his impeachment.
This also explains why Roberts would have a means to be blackmailed, and why that leverage would still exist even after the institution of ObamaCare. …
And it has led to flipping the swing-vote on ObamaCare, which fundamentally changed the relationship between citizen and government, making us de facto property of the state, with our relative worth in care and maintenance able to be determined by the government. Essentially it was a coup without firing a shot, much less needing even an Amendment to the Constitution.
And it is consistent with Obama’s Chicago-style politics, that has previously involved opening other sealed <divorce> records in order to win election.
Irish Adoption Law
The weak point in this theory, beyond actual proof of blackmail, is the actual terms of Irish Adoption Law. However an overview of the widespread Irish Adoption laws do bear out the assertions. As a result of Irish adoption law being the accumulation of laws over the years, this following synopsis is an accurate representation of that law given no singular code can be directly referenced.
Reference: The below document makes the following statements:
“The responsibility for making adoption orders is vested in the Irish Adoption Board, An Bord Uchtala. Before a final adoption order is made, the child usually is placed with the future adopter(s) by one of Ireland’s Registered Adoption Societies.” [page 1]
Who may adopt?
… “While the Irish acts do not require the applicants have Irish nationality or an Irish domicile, the applicants must be ordinarily resident in Ireland or have resident there during the year ending on the date of the order.“[Page 4]
Adoption Authorities:
“The adoption process in Ireland is regulated by the Adoption Board — the An Bord Uchtala — which consists of a Chairman and eight members. THe Adoption Board is an independent, quasi-judicial statutory body appointed by the Irish Government. It has the sole right to grant or refuse to grant adoption orders. The Board is also responsible for granting the declarations of eligibility and suitability to prospective adopters in advance of their adopting abroad and for maintaining the Register of Foreign Adoptions in which the details of intercountry adoptions are entered.” [Page 4]
“Before an adoption agency can accept a child for adoption, the person proposing to give the child up must be furnished with a statement explaining the effect of adoption order upon his or her rights and the provisions of the adoption acts relating to consents. An agreement to place the child with prospective adopters must be signed prior to the signing of consent. The agreement to place must have been made freely, with full knowledge of the consequences, and under circumstances where neither the advice of persons engaged in the transaction nor the surrounding circumstances deprive the mother of the capacity to make a fully informed free decision. In particular an agreement to place is “not valid if motivated by fear, stress or anxiety or dictated by parents or deprivations.“[Page 7]
There are no private adoptions. There are no overseas adoptions.
All adoptions go through the government board, An Bord Uchtala.
John Roberts was not ordinarily resident in Ireland, and was not resident there for the year ending on the date of an order that never passed through the Uchtala Board!
Furthermore, it is doubtful that Robert’s adoption afforded the adopting mothers (two) an environment that fully informed each of them of their rights, and was free of stress, anxiety, coercion and “deprivations”. In fact it is virtually certain that the process involved removing two children and their respective mothers from Ireland, and any support structure they might have had there, not to mention removing them from the purview of Irish law!
This whole exercise was highly illegal and unethical. Even if John Roberts was not blackmailed, these conditions would undeniably provide leverage for extortion to use against a sitting Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
Statement by Attorney General Sessions on the Election Security Executive Order
Attorney General Sessions today issued the following statement on the Election Security Executive Order:
“The American people will not tolerate attempts to undermine the integrity of our electoral process—especially by foreign countries and other bad actors. President Trump is committed to taking definitive action to prevent anyone—foreign or domestic—from illegally interfering in our elections, and the Department of Justice is proud to support him in this mission.
“Pursuant to the President’s executive order, the Department will work with our partners at the State Department, Treasury Department, and Department of Homeland Security, in order to identify enemies of our country who put our electoral integrity at risk. Once we do, we will take action to bring them to justice.
“I applaud President Trump’s leadership on this issue, and I want to echo the clear message he has sent today: we will not accept attacks on our free elections and we will do whatever it takes to protect them. This is what the American people demand, and this is what they deserve.”
Secretary Nielsen Statement on President Trump’s Election Security Executive Order
Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen M. Nielsen released the following statement today on President Donald J. Trump’s Executive Order, Imposing Certain Sanctions in the Event of Foreign Interference in a United States Election:
“Today’s Executive Order demonstrates the Administration’s continued commitment to securing our nation’s election infrastructure. As I have said on numerous occasions, election security is national security and any attempt to interfere in our democratic institutions is unacceptable. By mandating the imposition of sanctions against any individual or entity that seeks to interfere in our elections, we are sending a clear signal that the U.S. government will not tolerate interference of any kind and will use every tool at our disposal to protect our democratic process.
“We do not need to wait for another interference attempt to know the threat is real and evolving. DHS is already working closely with state and local election officials to ensure all Americans have confidence in our elections. Election officials in all 50 states and over 1,000 local jurisdictions are now working with DHS in some capacity to secure their election systems. We’re focusing on providing actionable information and intelligence to election officials; providing technical assistance to secure systems; and supporting election-focused incident response planning, training, and exercises.
“Securing our elections requires support across the government and our communities, and DHS will continue to lead the federal effort to ensure every American’s vote is counted and counted correctly.”
President Donald J. Trump Is Working to Protect Our Nation’s Elections from Foreign Interference
PROTECTING OUR ELECTIONS: President Donald J. Trump is issuing an Executive Order that will work to respond to and deter foreign attempts to interfere in our elections.
President Trump’s Executive Order “Imposing Certain Sanctions in the Event of Foreign Interference in a United States Election” shows his commitment to protecting our elections.
President Trump is directing the Administration to develop a process, in coordination with State and local officials, for assessing and determining if interference in a United States election occurred.
The Executive Order authorizes action against those determined to have interfered in a United States election, including through:
Sanctions against those determined to have participated in foreign interference in our elections.
Additional measures that would have wide-ranging impact on foreign governments, entities, and individuals who interfere in our elections.
President Trump’s Executive Order mandates interagency reporting of potential foreign interference following each Federal election.
This Executive Order builds on the Administration’s robust efforts to expose, disrupt, and impose costs on those responsible for election interference.
WORKING ACROSS ALL LEVELS OF GOVERNMENT: The Trump Administration is working across all levels of government to help protect America’s elections from foreign interference.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is working with State and local election officials and the private sector to coordinate a response to attempts at election interference.
DHS and election officials across 50 States and 1,100 local jurisdictions formed the Election Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center to share security information.
The Office of Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) is providing DHS with actionable intelligence so State and local officials can strengthen election security.
These efforts build on the Administration’s support to States during past elections and the ongoing 2018 elections.
During 2017, the Administration provided on-site cybersecurity support to States.
A pilot program was launched to help officials at all levels of government share information and rapidly respond to security issues.
STRENGTHENING ELECTION SECURITY EFFORTS: The President and his Administration are working vigilantly to improve and strengthen the security of our elections.
President Trump recently held meetings with the National Security Council in May and July 2018 discussing the Administration’s whole-of-government approach to election security.
In August 2018, DHS hosted the first-ever National Election Cybersecurity Table Top Exercise, focused on improving information sharing and the integration of election security efforts.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are working to investigate and disrupt threats to our election systems and alert potential victims and targets.
DOJ and FBI will host a live Election Day Watch at the FBI’s Strategic Information and Operations Center to monitor and coordinate election-related activities.
You pick candidates to run for office who will do whatever you tell them to do, and fund their campaigns.
Then, you give them pretty shiny reports on what they should do, because you know they cannot understand anything beyond running for a second term.
Then, you compromise them, in the most productive fashion, whether through bribery or blackmail.
Then the people become poor so you can steal the kids.
Then you allow fake corporations to swoop in and steal the homes using fake mortgage fraud schemes, even international ones.
Then the homes go into foreclosure and more fake corporations swoop in and snatch the homes to sit and rot, for the purposes of qualifying for more money, Hardest Hit Funds and insurance jobs.
Then, you run fake tax foreclosure schemes to snatch more houses.
Then, because population has decreased, you get to redraw the Congressional Districts using databases and predictive modeling crap.
Then, you put in more of your lackey candidates who are really good at reading talking point memos to cover up your stealin'.
Then, you do vote packing by using absentee ballots to submit fake votes through the City Election Clerk's Office in the databases.
Then you get your flunky on the Board of Canvassers to approve anything you tell them to do.
Finally, you hand out properties as rewards to the elected officials and community leaders who went along with the scheme.
And that is why John Roberts is my new best friend.
As of this posting, the Michigan Board of Canvassers has yet to certify the 13th Congressional District and the entire Primary Election has yet to be recorded.
I will update.
Here is a bit of background on gerrymandering in Michigan.
A panel of three federal judges again declared North Carolina’s congressional district map to be unconstitutional, ruling on Monday that it was gerrymandered to unfairly favor Republican candidates.
The decision, which may have significant implications for control of Congress after the midterm elections, is likely to be appealed to the United States Supreme Court, which for the moment is evenly split on ideological lines without a ninth justice to tip the balance.
Though North Carolina’s voters tend to divide about evenly between the two parties, Republicans currently hold 10 of the state’s 13 House seats. A redrawn district map may put more of the seats within Democrats’ reach.
The three judges had ruled unanimously in January that the state’s House map violated the First and 14th Amendments by unfairly giving one group of voters — Republicans — a bigger voice than others in choosing representatives
But the Supreme Court declined in June to hear an appeal in the case, sending it back for reconsideration under guidelines it had set out in a different case about who had legal standing to challenge the map.
In a lengthy ruling on Monday, the panel reached largely the same conclusion that it had in January. And the judges agreed that the plaintiffs in the case — voting-rights advocacy groups and residents of each of North Carolina’s 13 districts — had standing to bring the suit.
The judges left open the possibility that they could order new maps to be drawn before the 2018 election, either by the North Carolina General Assembly or by a special master appointed by the court.
The ruling sets up a delicate tactical question for the Supreme Court, which has never ruled a partisan gerrymander to be unconstitutional, passing up three separate opportunities to do so in its last term. With the retirement of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy at the end of July, the court is now divided between four conservatives who have expressed skepticism about the court’s ability to tinker with political maps, and four more liberal justices who have argued that it has that ability.
A 4-to-4 vote would leave the lower court’s ruling intact.
The swing vote on the issue would probably be Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., whom many voting-rights advocates see as the only prospect on the court — and a slim one, at that — for a fifth vote to outlaw partisan gerrymanders.
Of the welter of cases on the issue that have moved through the federal courts in recent years, the North Carolina case is perhaps the starkest. The state’s Republican-dominated legislature redrew the House map in 2016 under orders from a different federal court, which had ruled that some districts drawn in 2011 were racially gerrymandered, a practice the Supreme Court has already ruled unconstitutional.
The 2011 map had turned a 7-to-6 Democratic edge in the state’s House delegation to a 9-to-4 Republican one. The redrawn map in 2016 — the one at issue now — produced a 10-to-3 ratio, but the legislature explicitly said that it had been drawn not to disadvantage minority groups, but to hurt Democrats.
“I propose that we draw the maps to give a partisan advantage to 10 Republicans and three Democrats, because I do not believe it’s possible to draw a map with 11 Republicans and two Democrats,” David R. Lewis, a North Carolina state representative who helped lead the remapping, said in 2016.
The three-judge panel ruled in January, though, that the change in motive did not make the map acceptable. It found that the legislature’s intent was “to ‘subordinate’ the interests of non-Republican voters and ‘entrench’ Republican domination of the state’s congressional delegation,” a view they reaffirmed on Monday.
The chief author of the panel’s latest opinion, Judge James J. Wynn of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, said the legislature’s “invidious partisanship runs contrary to the Constitution’s vesting of the power to elect representatives in ‘the people.’”
The three judges left open, for the moment, what would happen next. They gave the parties in the case until the end of this month to file briefs on whether the court should allow the existing map to be used one more time, in the midterm election, or should order that it be redrawn by mid-September.
With the election less than three months distant, Judge Wynn noted, a court normally would allow one more use of the old map, so as not to disrupt election preparations, especially since North Carolina has already held primaries for the races.
But the state’s election plans are already frozen by another bitter court battle, this one over Republican lawmakers’ efforts to place six state constitutional amendments on the November ballot. Among other things, those measures would strip the state’s Democratic governor of some powers to appoint judges and would allow the legislature to devise a new voter ID law to replace one struck down in the courts, which ruled it an effort to depress minority voting.
It was conceivable, Judge Wynn wrote, that the state could hold a fresh primary election for House seats in November using a new map, and then conduct a special election to choose the delegation before the next Congress convenes in January 2019. He also raised the possibility of forgoing primaries, as the state does with some other offices.
The ruling promised to further roil the political scene in a state with one of the deepest partisan divides in the nation, and where both liberals and conservatives receive support from well-financed national groups.
Redistricting has been contentious in North Carolina for decades. In the years before 2010 when Democrats controlled the General Assembly, the Democratic-drawn boundaries were regularly challenged by Republicans, by critics of gerrymandering and by the Justice Department, which deemed some of their plans to be in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act.
Since the Republicans took control in 2010, their legislative boundary maps have prompted numerous court challenges from Democrats and advocacy groups.
Registered Democrats actually outnumber Republicans in the state by a significant margin, though many of those Democrats are conservatives who have tended to vote Republican in recent years. President Trump carried the state by about 3.7 percentage points in 2016.
With this week’s ruling, North Carolina now faces the possibility that its House delegation will be more evenly split, but it also faces the possibility of electoral chaos, according to Gerry Cohen, who worked for more than three decades as the director of bill drafting for the General Assembly.
If changes are made this year, Mr. Cohen said, significant bureaucratic miracles will have to be performed to meet a deadline of Sept. 22 for mailing absentee ballots to voters in the military and overseas.
Imagine it, Mr. Cohen said: New districts will have to be drawn. The courts — and perhaps the Supreme Court — will need time to rule on them. A filing period for candidates will have to open and close. The state will have to update its rolls to assign millions of voters to their new districts. And ballots will have to be printed. All before Sept. 22.
“I’m very sympathetic to the plaintiffs here, but it would be insane,” Mr. Cohen said, to try to meet that timetable.
He said that while the ruling could eventually help Democrats, it also introduces new political questions. If the next delegation is chosen in a special election in early 2019, as the court suggested may be an option, Democrats may struggle to turn out voters, as they historically have in special elections. Alternatively, if the seats are filled in open races without a primary, numerous candidates could be on the ballot from the same party, splitting the vote.
Though the state’s existing map was drawn aggressively to protect Republican incumbents, rising liberal opposition to President Trump and the emergence of several strong Democratic candidates already have some House Republicans on the defensive.
Representatives Ted Budd and George Holding, for example, were facing closely contested races, and Democrats were even better positioned to capture a Charlotte-to-Fayetteville seat after the Republican incumbent, Robert Pittenger, lost his primary earlier this year to a lightly funded opponent.
Under a new, less Republican-friendly map, more seats could become competitive, especially in Charlotte and the Research Triangle, the state’s main population centers, where the current boundaries tend to minimize the voting impact of African-Americans and white liberals.
An earlier version of this article misstated the usual number of Supreme Court justices whose assent is required for the court to hear a case. It is four, not five.
Today, a #Superfan sent me an email from U.S. Senator Kirsten Elizabeth Gillibrand which contained a public vow to stop taking money from corporate Political Action Committees (PAC).
This is an issue dealing with "dark money" in political campaigns and non-taxable mega churches.
Considering the fact that about 80% of charitable contributions go towards administrative costs like payroll, there is a question to the legitimacy of the operations.
Then you have strawman charitable organizations, and I most definitely include those so-called "social welfare" organizations which secretly funnel money to political campaigns.
This includes the channeling of unreported foreign national funds into charities and political campaigns.
Do not let me even begin with the multi-million dollar mega churches which do not pay taxes.
Religious organizations seem to have a strong aversion when it comes to public scrutiny of its public contracts, like schools and any other child welfare program.
It is off to the races to see if the IRS is going to make it to the finish line with a new set of policies.
For this maiden race of accountability of privatization, I am going to put my money on the nonprofits because, as we all know, they are too big to fail.
More than two hundred nonprofit organizations have called on the Internal Revenue Service to withdraw a proposed regulation that would allow charitable nonprofits to collect and report donors' Social Security numbers to the agency.
The proposed rule change would permit, though not require, charities to file an additional return with the IRS that would include detailed information about donors who contribute $250 or more, including their Social Security numbers. In a joint set of comments filed in response to the proposal, Independent Sector, the National Council of Nonprofits, the Council on Foundations, and others argued that the regulation would "expose the public to increased risk from identity theft, impose significant costs and burdens on nonprofit organizations, and create public confusion and disincentives for donors to support the work of nonprofits."
"A charitable nonprofit should never be asking a donor for her or his Social Security number when soliciting donations," the joint letter states, and the proposed regulation "is certain to confuse the public and result in fraud." The letter goes on to say that the "collection, storage, and reporting of Social Security numbers to the IRS is a costly additional endeavor," in that nonprofits would have to divert resources to purchase data security systems, and notes that the Government Accountability Office, in reviewing a similar proposal in 2009, found that "[t]axpayers may reduce giving because they are reluctant to provide Social Security numbers to charities given concerns over identity theft."
"This proposed IRS regulation will do more harm than good," said Candy Hill, interim co-CEO and vice president of communications and marketing for Independent Sector. "The collection and reporting of Social Security numbers by nonprofit organizations poses significant increased risk to taxpayer privacy while creating new liabilities and administrative burdens for charitable organizations. Combined with the anticipated impact on charitable giving, this proposal will result in fewer resources available to support communities across the country."
Why would POTUS call for a cap on charitable deductions?
Simple.
You can not audit God.
When you have charity executives pulling down seven digit salaries, some things do not seem quite right.
When you have 'dark money' being funneled into political campaigns via 'charitable donations', you might want to question how that happens.
As SCOTUS has laid the groundwork for dark money via charitable donations to be secretly dumped into political campaign with the ruling in Citizens Unitedit becomes, only proper, for adjustments in the rules for a charitable deduction cap.
Nonprofit leaders are expressing disappointment that the Obama administration's budget for fiscal year 2016 once again calls for capping the charitable tax deduction at 28 percent.
The plan would "limit the value of most tax deductions and exclusions to 28 cents on the dollar, a limitation that would affect only couples with incomes over about $250,000 (singles with incomes over about $200,000)." The proposal also calls on Congress "to institute the Buffett Rule, requiring that wealthy millionaires pay no less than 30 percent of income — after charitable contributions — in taxes." Earners in the top tax bracket currently receive a deduction of 39.6 cents for every dollar they give to charity.
"This misguided proposal would cost our most vulnerable communities the most and see the loss of billions of dollars in charitable investment," Council on Foundations president and CEO Vicki Spruill said in a statement. "This approach directly impacts the ability of donors to support vital services and removes a crucial incentive to give. The charitable deduction is a powerful and proven way to strengthen communities, and the Council stands beside the entire nonprofit sector in opposition to any move to limit it. Capping it would have a cascading impact on nonprofits and philanthropic organizations across the country."
In a separate proposal announced in January, the administration called for an increase in the capital gains tax rate to 28 percent and for closing the so-called "trust-fund loophole," with an exemption for assets donated to charity. "As in previous years, the White House is sending mixed messages to the charitable community about the value of American generosity," Joanne Florino, senior vice president for public policy at the Philanthropy Roundtable, told the Chronicle of Philanthropy. "It leaves us wondering why the president would hold charitable donations harmless in some areas of the tax code but not in others."
The administration's budget is not expected to win support of the Republican-controlled Congress. House Republicans, in the meantime, are pushing for a vote to make permanent a set of temporary tax "extenders" for certain kinds of giving — gifts of land for conservation purposes, gifts of food to food banks and other charities, and gifts made by retirees from individual retirement accounts — and to simplify the foundation excise tax to a flat 1 percent; the administration's budget calls for a 1.35 percent excise tax.
"While we applaud the president for recommending a simplified private foundation excise tax, he has done so at a rate that will ultimately increase taxes on many grantmaking nonprofits," said Sandra Swirski, executive director of the Alliance for Charitable Reform, which was founded by the Philanthropy Roundtable. "We believe the tax needs to be streamlined at a flat 1 percent rate, such as the proposal that passed the House of Representatives last year."
