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October 14, 2025

As SCOTUS Enters a New Term, These Cases May Grant Trump Unbridled Authority

Rulings on the Supreme Court’s “emergency docket” foreshadow its abiding deference to Trump.

The Supreme Court’s new term, which began last week, presents the court with a monumental opportunity to hand Donald Trump unbridled executive authority and eviscerate the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution. The court appears poised to rubber stamp many of Trump’s worst abuses, from the imposition of massive tariffs to seizing control of federal agencies created by Congress.

Although there are 39 cases on the court’s regular docket, it has already handled nearly 30 cases with temporary unsigned orders on its “emergency docket.” In those cases, the high court granted Trump’s requests to block orders from lower courts 20 times and ruled against his administration in only three cases; the others led to mixed rulings.

Even though the cases in which the high court has already opined are not final decisions on the merits, they provide a preview of what we can expect during this term after full briefing and oral arguments.

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October 7, 2025

The Effects of US-Israel Bond are ‘Etched Into the Mass Graves of Gaza,’ International Legal Complaint Says

As the number of Palestinians killed by Israel in Gaza exceeds 67,000 and famine has reached the “catastrophic” phase, thousands of taxpayers across the country have united with Palestinian-Americans to file an international legal complaint against the U.S. government for funding Israel’s genocide in Gaza. 

An initial petition was filed in the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in Washington D.C., on May 15, 2025, by Taxpayers Against Genocide (TAG) and the National Lawyers Guild. It charged the United States with aiding and abetting Israel in its commission of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity in Gaza, in violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, and the Geneva Convention. The petition alleged that the U.S. violated the American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man. 

On Oct. 7, 2025, the second anniversary of Israel’s horrific genocide in Gaza, the petitioners filed an amended and expanded petition with the IACHR. It includes substantial evidence of the U.S. role in the Israeli campaign of starvation and adds new Palestinian-American petitioners. It also documents the sanctions imposed by the Trump Administration against UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, officials of the International Criminal Court (ICC), and Palestinian human rights organizations for their efforts to hold Israeli leaders accountable for their grave human rights violations. 

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September 29, 2025

As UN Turns 80, Trump Continues US Violation of Charter’s Limits on Use of Force

Donald Trump has ignored UN rules about attacking other nations, but he is not the first US president to do so.

In his inflammatory September 23 speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Donald Trump expressed contempt for the UN, falsely claiming he had ended seven wars and stating, “I realized that the United Nations wasn’t there for us. I thought of it really after the fact … that being the case, what is the purpose of the United Nations?”

If Trump studied history, he would know the answer to that question.

Eighty years ago, after two world wars claimed millions of lives, nations around the world — including the United States — came together and established the UN system “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.”

The UN Charter requires that all states settle their disputes peacefully and refrain from the use of armed force except in self-defense under Article 51, after an armed attack against a UN state by another state, or when the Security Council authorizes it.

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September 22, 2025

Teachers and Unions Fight Back as UC Campuses Prepare to Fuel Trump’s Witch Hunt

A coalition of University of California faculty, students, staff, and labor unions are suing the Trump administration.

Outrage flared last week about the University of California’s capitulation to this era’s resurgent McCarthyism, as news spread that the university has provided the names of at least 160 students, faculty members, and staff at the University of California, Berkeley, to federal officials who – under the guise of investigating “alleged antisemitic incidents” – are scrutinizing people who have expressed opposition to Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Judith Butler, a UC Berkeley philosophy professor and Jewish critic of the Israeli government, said in a recent interview with Democracy Now!, “There is no good evidence that antisemitism is rampant on campus,” adding, “To take a position against genocide is certainly not an antisemitic thing to do. Most Jews are against genocide, and we were taught to be against genocide, and we were taught, as well, that ‘never again’ is a slogan that should apply to all people.” Butler noted that most of those whose names were reported to the administration had not been apprised of the allegations against them.

A Truthout analysis of a voluntary agreement signed by the University of California and the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights nine months ago reveals that more such disclosures from other schools may be yet to come. In December 2024, after the election of Donald Trump but under the auspices of the outgoing Biden administration, the University of California promised to also hand over names of people who either reported or were the subject of allegations of discrimination at five other University of California campuses – UCLA, UC Santa Barbara, UC San Diego, UC Davis, and UC Santa Cruz.

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September 4, 2025

Federal Judge Said Trump Can’t Be National Police Chief. Will His Word Be Final?

A federal district court held that Trump “willfully” violated the Posse Comitatus Act by sending troops to enforce immigration law in L.A.

Donald Trump appears fixated on “creating a national police force with the President as its chief,” U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer wrote, holding that Trump’s deployment of federal troops to Los Angeles to enforce the immigration laws was illegal. Trump has already sent troops to Washington, D.C., and has also set his sights on Oakland, San Francisco, Chicago, and Baltimore.

Trump will appeal the ruling. The appellate courts will determine whether he will be allowed to use the military as his personal police force, notwithstanding the clear command of the Posse Comitatus Act.

In his 52-page decision, Breyer ruled that defendants Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and the Department of Defense “willfully” violated the Posse Comitatus Act, a 1878 law that prohibits the use of the military to enforce domestic laws. The act now forbids the willful use of “any part of the Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the Air Force, or the Space Force as a posse comitatus [power of the county] or otherwise to execute the laws.” It only allows exceptions that are expressly authorized by the Constitution or act of Congress, such as the Insurrection Act, which Trump did not invoke.

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August 29, 2025

The Supreme Court Asks Why It Shouldn’t Gut the Voting Rights Act


We may well see the elimination of the 11 Black-majority districts — all Democratic — in GOP-controlled Southern states.

In what may prove to be the most consequential redistricting case to come before the Supreme Court, Louisiana is urging the court to gut the main provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) and ban any consideration of race in redistricting. Louisiana filed its brief after the high court on August 1 asked the parties whether compliance with Section 2 of the (VRA) violates the Constitution’s 14th or 15th Amendments. By framing that question, the court may be signaling its intention to eviscerate the VRA.

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August 12, 2025

Netanyahu’s Plan to Occupy Gaza Violates World Court Ruling That Israeli Occupation is Illegal

As the death toll of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip surpasses 61,000 and Israel continues to starve Gazans to death, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made clear that Israel plans to occupy all of Gaza. When asked in an August 7 appearance on Fox News whether Israel would “take control of all of Gaza,” Netanyahu replied, “We intend to.”

The Israeli Occupation Forces say they already control about 75 percent of Gaza. The remaining 25 percent includes Gaza City, Khan Younis, and many neighborhoods and refugee camps in central Gaza. 

Israel’s occupation of Gaza flies in the face of the July 19 ruling of the International Court of Justice (ICJ, or World Court). In its landmark 83-page advisory opinion, the ICJ held, “The sustained abuse by Israel of its position as an occupying Power, through annexation and an assertion of permanent control over the Occupied Palestinian Territory and continued frustration of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, violates fundamental principles of international law and renders Israel’s presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory unlawful.” 

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July 29, 2025

World Court Says Polluter States Must Compensate Victims for Harms They Cause

The ICJ’s landmark ruling says there is an international human right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment.


A new ruling from the World Court provides climate activists new tools for demanding accountability.

On July 23, in a stunning 140 page advisory opinion, the International Court of Justice (ICJ, or World Court) held for the first time that there is a human right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, and countries have a legal obligation to protect the climate from greenhouse gas emissions. The ICJ found that climate change poses “an existential problem of planetary proportions that imperils all forms of life and the very health of our planet.”

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July 14, 2025

Ex-UN Special Rapporteur Says Francesca Albanese Deserves Nobel Prize, Not US Sanctions

The US is punishing UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for her scathing reports on Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

The day after Donald Trump welcomed indicted war criminal Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the United States for the third time in less than six months, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio imposed sanctions against UN Special Rapporteur on Occupied Palestine Francesca Albanese for her clear-eyed critiques of Israel’s genocide.

In a July 9 press statement, Rubio charged that Albanese “has directly engaged with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in efforts to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute nationals of the United States or Israel, without the consent of those two countries.” He alleged that Albanese “has spewed unabashed antisemitism, expressed support for terrorism, and open contempt for the United States, Israel, and the West … including recommending that the ICC, without a legitimate basis, issue arrest warrants” for Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

“No comment on mafia style intimidation techniques,” Albanese responded to the sanctions in a text message to Al Jazeera. “Busy reminding member states of their obligations to stop and punish genocide. And those who profit from it.” She queried why she had been sanctioned: “for having exposed a genocide? For having denounced the system? They never challenged me on the facts.”

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June 30, 2025

By Ruling Against Nationwide Injunctions, SCOTUS Affirms the Imperial Presidency

SCOTUS stripped federal judges of their authority to protect people throughout the US when the president breaks the law.

Continuing in their shameful deference to the president, Donald Trump’s lackeys on the Supreme Court once again affirmed the superiority of the executive over the other two branches of government. Last year, the high court ruled that presidents are immune from prosecution when they carry out official functions. Now, that same court has stripped federal judges of their authority to protect people throughout the nation when the president breaks the law.

More than two dozen nationwide (“universal”) injunctions blocking several of Trump’s policies were in effect as of mid-May. Those policies include a more stringent voter ID requirement; a rule requiring that mail-in ballots be received by Election Day; an effort to freeze $3 trillion in federal spending to review whether the disbursement of those funds aligned with administration policies; a demand that public schools eliminate DEI programs or risk losing some of the $75 billion in federal funds; and allowing over 25,000 children to enter deportation proceedings without lawyers.

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