{"id":144582,"date":"2026-02-20T16:38:05","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T00:38:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/02\/20\/breaking-supreme-court-justices-hate-each-other-like-poison\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T16:38:05","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T00:38:05","slug":"breaking-supreme-court-justices-hate-each-other-like-poison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/02\/20\/breaking-supreme-court-justices-hate-each-other-like-poison\/","title":{"rendered":"BREAKING: Supreme Court Justices Hate Each Other Like Poison"},"content":{"rendered":"

This morning, the nine Supreme Court justices spent 170 pages whacking the crap out of each other<\/a>. Also, they declared Trump\u2019s \u201cemergency\u201d tariffs illegal, which everyone who listened to oral argument<\/a> knew was inevitable. The Constitution gives Congress the right to enact levies, and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) does not authorize the president to unilaterally enact a constantly shifting scheme of tariffs based on whoever fails to genuflect sufficiently on any given day. No shit, dude.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Trump: “So I put on a 30% tariff, which is very low. I got an emergency call from I believe the prime minister of Switzerland. She was very aggressive \u2026 I didn’t really like the way she talked to us, so instead of giving her a reduction, I raised it to 39%.”<\/p>\n

\u2014 Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com)<\/a> 2026-02-10T21:18:04.389Z<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

The only real question was how long it would take them to publish the opinion and how ugly it would be \u2014 with\u00a0length of time between argument and opinion correlating directly with cumulative vituperation.<\/p>\n

In the event, it took almost four months, enough time for Justice Kavanaugh to barf out four pages insisting that Trump does, too<\/em> have the power to shout emergency and do whatever he wants, plus 59 pages explaining how this does not<\/em> contradict the major questions doctrine. The Calvinball rule the conservative justices dummied up to restrain Democratic presidents is alive and well, he insists \u2026 just not when a Republican is in the White House.<\/p>\n

Chief Justice Roberts, who wrote the majority\/plurality opinion, spent much of it slagging Kavanaugh for parroting the Trump administration\u2019s arguments uncritically. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe central thrust of the Government\u2019s and the principal dissent\u2019s proposed exceptions appears to be that ambiguous delegations in statutes addressing \u2018the most major of major questions\u2019 should necessarily be construed broadly,\u201d he sniffed, adding that the government\u2019s briefs are \u201cechoed point-for-point by the principal dissent.\u201d<\/p>\n

The major questions doctrine, and its freckle-faced sibling, the non-delegation doctrine, animate the entire order. Chief Justice Roberts, along with Justices Barrett and Gorsuch agree that Congress could not possibly have given Trump tariff authority without saying so with their full chest. The three liberal justices refused to join in the part of the holding based on shit conservatives just made up to ensure that the EPA couldn\u2019t rein in polluters, although they agreed with the part about there being no secret proviso in IEEPA that gives the president the power to screech tariffs into existence on social media. <\/p>\n

This prompted a 45-page lecture from Justice Gorsuch on the sacred virtues of the major questions doctrine. Indeed, none of his female colleagues were spared; Gorsuch heaped extra scorn on Justice Barrett for suggesting that one might infer a congressional delegation of authority from context. <\/p>\n

Barrett crafted her own concurrence, mostly as a response to Gorsuch\u2019s attack.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf JUSTICE GORSUCH thinks that we should forgo the most natural reading of a statute because it is preferable for Congress, rather than the President, to make big decisions, that way lies \u2018a lot of trouble\u2019 for the textualist,\u201d she sighed.<\/p>\n

Justice Kagan has clearly had quite enough of Gorsuch patronizingly douchesplaining HOW TO LAW GOOD.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven how strong his apparent desire for converts, see ante, at 2\u201326, I almost regret to inform him that I am not one,\u201d Justice Kagan wrote in a dissent joined by Justices Sotomayor and Jackson, adding that \u201cI\u2019ll let JUSTICE GORSUCH relitigate on his own our old debates about other statutes, unrelated to the one before us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Justice Thomas spent 17 pages peering into the psyches of the Framers to divine their thoughts on the president\u2019s right to levy tariffs \u2014 Shocker, they\u2019re for it! \u2014 padded with dozens of cites to his own prior writings.<\/p>\n

And Justice Jackson chimed in to add that, if you want to go spelunking to determine legislative intent, the proper inquiry doesn\u2019t begin in the 1770s but in the 1970s when IEEPA was passed.<\/p>\n

It was a slugfest, with the Court\u2019s conservatives bludgeoning each other over the issue of whether the locus of power should be in the unitary executive, or the Court itself. Why shouldn\u2019t<\/em> the conservatives take this opportunity to block any law or executive action they don\u2019t like when they have a 6-3 majority? Jesus, Brett, get with the program!<\/em><\/p>\n

And meanwhile, no justice explained how to unwind this mess and refund the $200 billion in tariffs paid by American companies and consumers \u2014 although Kavanaugh cited the chaos as a reason to let Trump keep violating the law forever. Probably something they should have considered before they let the president collect them for a year, even after lower courts said it was totally illegal?<\/p>\n

Anyway, here\u2019s the president with his very rational response.<\/p>\n

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The post BREAKING: Supreme Court Justices Hate Each Other Like Poison<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This morning, the nine Supreme Court justices spent 170 pages whacking the crap out of each other<\/a>. Also, they declared Trump\u2019s \u201cemergency\u201d tariffs illegal, which everyone who listened to oral argument<\/a> knew was inevitable. The Constitution gives Congress the right to enact levies, and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) does not authorize the president to unilaterally enact a constantly shifting scheme of tariffs based on whoever fails to genuflect sufficiently on any given day. No shit, dude.<\/em><\/p>\n

The only real question was how long it would take them to publish the opinion and how ugly it would be \u2014 with\u00a0length of time between argument and opinion correlating directly with cumulative vituperation.<\/p>\n

In the event, it took almost four months, enough time for Justice Kavanaugh to barf out four pages insisting that Trump does, too<\/em> have the power to shout emergency and do whatever he wants, plus 59 pages explaining how this does not<\/em> contradict the major questions doctrine. The Calvinball rule the conservative justices dummied up to restrain Democratic presidents is alive and well, he insists \u2026 just not when a Republican is in the White House.<\/p>\n

Chief Justice Roberts, who wrote the majority\/plurality opinion, spent much of it slagging Kavanaugh for parroting the Trump administration\u2019s arguments uncritically. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe central thrust of the Government\u2019s and the principal dissent\u2019s proposed exceptions appears to be that ambiguous delegations in statutes addressing \u2018the most major of major questions\u2019 should necessarily be construed broadly,\u201d he sniffed, adding that the government\u2019s briefs are \u201cechoed point-for-point by the principal dissent.\u201d<\/p>\n

The major questions doctrine, and its freckle-faced sibling, the non-delegation doctrine, animate the entire order. Chief Justice Roberts, along with Justices Barrett and Gorsuch agree that Congress could not possibly have given Trump tariff authority without saying so with their full chest. The three liberal justices refused to join in the part of the holding based on shit conservatives just made up to ensure that the EPA couldn\u2019t rein in polluters, although they agreed with the part about there being no secret proviso in IEEPA that gives the president the power to screech tariffs into existence on social media. <\/p>\n

This prompted a 45-page lecture from Justice Gorsuch on the sacred virtues of the major questions doctrine. Indeed, none of his female colleagues were spared; Gorsuch heaped extra scorn on Justice Barrett for suggesting that one might infer a congressional delegation of authority from context. <\/p>\n

Barrett crafted her own concurrence, mostly as a response to Gorsuch\u2019s attack.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf JUSTICE GORSUCH thinks that we should forgo the most natural reading of a statute because it is preferable for Congress, rather than the President, to make big decisions, that way lies \u2018a lot of trouble\u2019 for the textualist,\u201d she sighed.<\/p>\n

Justice Kagan has clearly had quite enough of Gorsuch patronizingly douchesplaining HOW TO LAW GOOD.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven how strong his apparent desire for converts, see ante, at 2\u201326, I almost regret to inform him that I am not one,\u201d Justice Kagan wrote in a dissent joined by Justices Sotomayor and Jackson, adding that \u201cI\u2019ll let JUSTICE GORSUCH relitigate on his own our old debates about other statutes, unrelated to the one before us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Justice Thomas spent 17 pages peering into the psyches of the Framers to divine their thoughts on the president\u2019s right to levy tariffs \u2014 Shocker, they\u2019re for it! \u2014 padded with dozens of cites to his own prior writings.<\/p>\n

And Justice Jackson chimed in to add that, if you want to go spelunking to determine legislative intent, the proper inquiry doesn\u2019t begin in the 1770s but in the 1970s when IEEPA was passed.<\/p>\n

It was a slugfest, with the Court\u2019s conservatives bludgeoning each other over the issue of whether the locus of power should be in the unitary executive, or the Court itself. Why shouldn\u2019t<\/em> the conservatives take this opportunity to block any law or executive action they don\u2019t like when they have a 6-3 majority? Jesus, Brett, get with the program!<\/em><\/p>\n

And meanwhile, no justice explained how to unwind this mess and refund the $200 billion in tariffs paid by American companies and consumers \u2014 although Kavanaugh cited the chaos as a reason to let Trump keep violating the law forever. Probably something they should have considered before they let the president collect them for a year, even after lower courts said it was totally illegal?<\/p>\n

Anyway, here\u2019s the president with his very rational response.<\/p>\n