Supreme Court

US Supreme Court Deals Blow to Climate Action: Ruling Limits Administration’s Ability to Restrict Carbon Emissions from Power Plants

By Krista Shennum | – Fellow, Environment and Human Rights | – ( Human Rights Watch) – In a significant setback for climate action, the United States Supreme Court ruled yesterday to limit the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) ability to restrict greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. The ruling prevents the EPA from using its […]

Climate Crisis

The Supreme Court has curtailed EPA’s power to regulate Carbon Pollution – and sent a Warning to other Regulators

The Conversation

By Patrick Parenteau, Vermont Law School | – In a highly anticipated but not unexpected 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled on June 30, 2022, that the Obama adminstration’s Clean Power Plan exceeded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s authority under the Clean Air Act. The ruling doesn’t take away the EPA’s power to regulate carbon […]

Far Right

The Right-Wing’s Attempt to Militarize American Politics

Tomdispatch

( Tomdispatch.com) – Increasingly, it seems, Americans have an anger problem. All too many of us now have the urge to use name-calling, violent social-media posts, threats, baseball bats, and guns to do what we once did with persuasion and voting. For example, during the year after Donald Trump entered the Oval Office, threats of […]

Guns

American gun culture is based on frontier mythology – but ignores how common gun restrictions were in the Old West

The Conversation

By Pierre M. Atlas, Indiana University | – In the wake of the Buffalo and Uvalde mass shootings, 70% of Republicans said it is more important to protect gun rights than to control gun violence, while 92% of Democrats and 54% of independents expressed the opposite view. Just weeks after those mass shootings, Republicans and […]

Bill of Rights

Why the Supreme Court’s Football Decision is a Game-Changer on School Prayer

The Conversation

Charles J. Russo, University of Dayton | – The U.S. Supreme Court has consistently banned school-sponsored prayer in public schools. At the same time, lower courts have generally forbidden public school employees from openly praying in the workplace, even if no students are involved. Yet on June 27, 2022, the Supreme Court effectively gave individual […]

Bill of Rights

Abortion Rights should be considered a key Plank of religious Freedom

Minnesota Reformer

| Opinion | By Walter McClure | – ( Minnesota Reformer ) – Our Constitution guarantees all of us the right to free exercise of our personal religious and moral beliefs, be they for or against abortion. The law has no right to interfere with what a person believes God or conscience dictates about abortion. […]

Feminism

Roe v Wade: Men benefit from Abortion Rights too – and should speak about Them More

The Conversation

By Stephen Burrell, Durham University and Sandy Ruxton, Durham University | – It’s striking that, as with many other gender equality issues, the positions of men in relation to abortion are rarely discussed. In some regards, this is for good reasons. Abortion is a healthcare issue for women (and trans and non-binary people with uteruses). […]

Apartheid

Top 6 Worst Supreme Court Decisions in History

Juan Cole

1. Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) I explained elsewhere, “Although we all learn about the 1857 Dred Scott decision in school, we aren’t usually told that it actually should be called the Harriet and Dred Scott decision, since Scott’s wife was also a plaintiff in the suit. History.com explains that Dred Scott had been enslaved […]

Feminism

A revolutionary Ruling – and Striking Down Abortion Rights is only the Beginning

The Conversation

By Morgan Marietta | – The Supreme Court’s decision to reverse 50 years of constitutional protection for the right to get an abortion is more than 200 pages long. Morgan Marietta, a political scientist at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, and editor of the annual SCOTUS series at Palgrave Macmillan, studies the ideas and ideology […]