Raw Story

The U.S. Supreme Court voted 6-3 to allow an Oregon city to target homeless people for sleeping on public property.

The ruling handed down Friday overturns a 2022 decision by 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, with the court's conservatives finding that the measures enacted by Grants Pass city officials do not violate the Constitution's Eighth Amendment banning cruel and unusual punishment, reported NBC News.

The ordinances prohibit sleeping or camping on publicly owned property and impose fines of up to several hundred dollars and exclusion orders banning individuals from public property.

The appeals court had ruled 2-1 that the city cannot “enforce its anti-camping ordinances against homeless persons for the mere act of sleeping outside with rudimentary protection from the elements, or for sleeping in their car at night, when there is no other place in the city for them to go.”

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That ruling had applied to all nine states in the 9th Circuit's jurisdiction, some of which have large populations of homeless people, including California.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor read from her dissent from the bench, saying "sleep is a biological necessity, not a crime."

"For some people, sleeping outside is their only option," Sotomayor said. "The City of Grants Pass jails and fines those people for sleeping anywhere in public at any time, including in their cars, if they use as little as a blanket to keep warm or a rolled-up shirt as a pillow. For people with no access to shelter, that punishes them for being homeless. That is unconscionable and unconstitutional."

The Supreme Court ruled Friday on two pivotal cases that strip federal agencies of substantial power to interpret the law.

Supreme Court Justices issued rulings in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless v. Department of Commerce — both challenges to a decades-old precedent that says courts must defer to government agencies’s interpretation of statutes.

The vote was 6-3 in the former and 6-2 in the latter, from which Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was recused, to overrule the court's 1984 decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council.

Chief Justice John Roberts authored the opinion and Justice Elena Kagan the dissent.

"Rather than safeguarding reliance interests, Chevron affirmatively destroys them," Roberts wrote, "Under Chevron, a statutory ambiguity, no matter why it is there, becomes a license authorizing an agency to change positions as much as it likes."

Kagan condemned the decision in no uncertain terms as blatant power-grab.

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"In one fell swoop, the majority today gives itself exclusive power over every open issue—no matter how expertise-driven or policy-laden—involving the meaning of regulatory law," she writes.

"As if it did not have enough on its plate, the majority turns itself into the country’s administrative czar. It defends that move as one (suddenly) required by the (nearly 80-year-old) Administrative Procedure Act. But the Act makes no such demand. Today’s decision is not one Congress directed. It is entirely the majority’s choice."

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday issued a ruling that could upend hundreds of January 6th-related cases.

In the ruling, the court ordered that prosecutors who charged rioters with obstructing or impeding an official proceeding must show that they tampered with physical evidence in order to meet the criteria met by the statute.

The vote was 6-3, with Justice Amy Coney Barrett dissenting, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

In the explainer, SCOTUS Blog wrote, "The court holds that to prove a violation of the law, the government must show that the defendant impaired the availability or integrity for use in an official proceeding of records, documents, objects, or other things used in an official proceeding, or attempted to do so."

About 27 individuals are still in prison today and they could be released today because they haven't served their full charge.

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The case the court was deciding involved Joseph Fischer, an off-duty Pennsylvania police officer who entered the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and was charged with obstruction of an official proceeding. It's the same crime many other Jan .6 defendants have been charged.

Fischer, Edward Lang, and Garret Miller were indicted for their role in the riot. They were charged with "assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers and misdemeanor offenses of disorderly conduct," the indictment read. All of the charges were involved in the broader attempt to obstruct a congressional proceeding.

But Fischer's lawyers argued before that Supreme Court that the obstruction of a congressional proceedings charge should be thrown out because the law that he was charged with violating was only intended to apply to evidence tampering.

The decision will have major impact on Jack Smith's election interference case against Donald Trump, who is charged with the same crime.

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A lower court agreed with him, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for Washington, D.C. reversed it and it was ultimately sent to the Supreme Court.

"Some justices expressed concerns that the government’s interpretation of the law could sweep in too much conduct, while others appeared to agree with the government that the law was intended as a 'catchall' provision to cover all kinds of conduct," SCOTUSBlog said.

"And still others appeared to propose a narrower reading of the statute that would still allow the charge against Fischer to stand."

About 300 cases for Jan. 6 attackers will be impacted by the decision.

Trump’s supporters took an early victory lap Thursday as President Joe Biden stumbled through a debate performance that had onlookers shocked.

“Biden couldn’t get hired as a Walmart greeter and he has the nuclear codes,” wrote Marjorie Taylor Greene on X.

She added, “No stamina.”

“Can Joe Biden even live another 4 years, let alone be president?”

Even some Democrats expressed shock as Biden appeared old and confused during the CNN debate, frequently losing his train of thought and speaking with a raspy and weak voice.

“Heads are going to roll,’ wrote The Independent’s White House correspondent Andrew Feinberg.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz, a staunch Trump supporter, wrote on X, “Dems are going to dump Biden. Get ready for Michelle Obama as their nominee.”

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“What is Joe looking at?” wrote Lauren Boebert (R-CO). “He’s literally staring off into space, lost.”

She added, “President Trump is eviscerating Jacked up Joe on his network, with his moderators, and under his rules."

“The choice couldn’t be clearer in November.”

J.D. Vance (R-OH), a favorite for Trump’s vice president pick, wrote, “Trump has so much more energy and clarity than Biden, it’s just an insane contrast."

“One guy can do the job and the other can’t," he then added.

Before the debate even ended on Thursday night, President Joe Biden's team seemed to be in damage control.

Kelly O'Donnell, senior White House correspondent for NBCNews, tweeted that two sources familiar with the "situation" offered a possible explanation: “President Biden has a cold.”

O'Donnell reported, citing multiple sources, that the president tested negative for COVID-19.

The explanation predictably didn't appear to land with social media users watching the debate, which could send Democrats into full-blown panic mode.

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"Mop up operation," wrote @Cernovich.

"Biden has dementia, not a cold," tweeted @pepesgrandma.

"Are you sure he doesn’t have a coma?" chortled @BurtMaclin_FBI.

"Longest cold I’ve ever seen," wrote @GoPackGo541.

Within the first hour, Intelligencer political columnist Jonathan Chait asked what many Democrats across the country were thinking: "Time to panic?"

"Joe Biden has started this debate looking wan," he wrote. "His voice is soft, he has looked down, and he lost his train of thought during one answer, ending on the garbled note 'we beat Medicare.' He meant they beat Pharma by winning a provision to allow Medicare to negotiation prescription drugs, but it did not track in real time."

If Biden does not turn around his performance over the course of this, I think Democrats will reach full-blown panic."

During a portion of the CNN debate on the Middle East and the Israel/Hamas War, former President Donald Trump took a bizarre turn by using "Palestinian" as a slur when addressing President Joe Biden.

Biden has "become like a Palestinian" Trump said — except he's a "weak one."

Commenters on social media barely knew how to process this remark.

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"Trump just throwing around 'Palestinian' as a pejorative. Brazen anti-Palestinian racism has been normalized in America," wrote former MSNBC commentator Mehdi Hasan Thursday night.

"I’m sorry but did Donald Trump just say that Joe Biden is a bad Palestinian?!?" wrote the account @ArmandDoma, a San Francisco-based anti-Trump activist.

"Did Trump just call Biden a 'weak Palestinian'?! this is really bad….." wrote the account @D_Radiance.

"Trump just called Biden a Palestinian... 'a bad one.' So many things are wrong and gross and despicable about this statement..." wrote CUNY presidential professor Marc Lamont Hill.