Owen Barcala

I'm starting to question whether JB can actually read

Tariff ruling jokes during this morning’s SCOTUS argument:

Lawyer suggests the justices could write opinion that’s “160 pages less” here

Alito says he felt left out because he and Sotomayor were the only ones who didn’t write

Sotomayor says they may get another chance in the future 👀

Judge: "I've seen enough"

JUSTICE THOMAS delivered the opinion of the Court. The United States enjoys sovereign immunity and cannot be sued without its consent. By means of the Federal Tort Claims Act, Congress waived that sovereign immunity for certain tort suits based on the conduct of Government employees. See 28 U. S. C. §§2674, 1346(b). But, in the provision at issue in this case, Congress retained sovereign immunity for a wide range of claims about mail. Specifically, the FTCA’s postal exception retains sovereign immunity for all claims “arising out of the loss, miscarriage, or negligent transmission of letters or postal matter.” §2680(b). This case concerns whether this exception applies when postal workers intentionally fail to deliver the mail. We hold that it does.

The Supreme Court's second and final ruling of the day, USPS v. Konan, bars lawsuits against the Postal Service for maliciously and intentionally refusing to deliver someone's mail. It's 5–4, with Gorsuch joining the liberals in dissent. Bad decision! www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...

You get the sense they're mad that there's nothing they can legitimately criticize him for

Jack's chart is a helpful way to conceptualize a good approach

bsky.app/profile/scot...

Yeah, I think that makes sense under the statute, but based on the current law from SCOTUS I think it is much, much harder to get to a point where the President can't fire a USA (as opposed to installing one without consent)

I'm kind of at a loss as to what happens now with this. After excluding Halligan, the court appointed a USA under the statute, and Trump immediately fired him. Does that mean there's just going to be no USA for Virginia until someone gets confirmed?

At least my mistake will bring joy(?) to the world

After I realized what the real term was, I said to a friend 'Did you know it's 'kit and', not 'kitten'?" and my friend was like, "No one else has ever thought it was 'kitten.'"

In light of Clement using the term "kit and caboodle" at argument today, I must confess that until I was 28 I thought it was "kitten caboodle."

*tugs nervously at collar*

"I mean, come on, guys, it's not like you're just a group of politicians in robes. Right, guys? Guys?"

Yeah, I was just thinking that considering the phrase "It is not in Heaven." It's very empowering to say that one shouldn't look to heaven to provide the answers, it's up to us to find or make them.

Years after, Rabbi Natan encountered Elijah the prophet and said to him: What did the Holy One, Blessed be He, do at that time, when Rabbi Yehoshua issued his declaration? Elijah said to him: The Holy One, Blessed be He, smiled and said: My children have triumphed over Me; My children have triumphed over Me.

Right, I almost did a follow up to say, to be clear, this was not at all a bad thing, heaven very much approved of telling the divine voice to shove it!

Right, I know what you mean. The sentence almost didn't look right after I posted it.

This is a fun example of the length people will go to debate things in Jewish law. Contact with certain things can make items ritually impure. Generally, vessels transmit impurity, but broken vessels do not. An oven is a vessel, but what if you cut the oven into segments and put sand between them?

I'm not Jewish but I did take Jewish Law in law school on the advice of my roommate, so I know enough to not give a firm statement about basically anything related to judaism

There's a story in the Talmud about a group of rabbis arguing over oven impurity. One rabbi says, if he is right, heaven itself will prove it. A divine voice emerges from heaven and says he is right in every respect.

The other rabbis then tell the divine voice to butt out of their argument.

Upon review of the unopposed Motions, and consistent with the Court’s authority to enforce its own orders and control the dissemination of discovery materials generated in this case, the Court agrees with the parties’ uniform view. Release of Volume II outside the Department of Justice would plainly offend the Court’s Dismissal Order [ECF No. 672] and the Rule 16 Protective Order [ECF No. 27], both of which remain in force; it would cause irreparable damage to former defendants from disclosure of non-public discovery material implicating still-contested grand jury and privilege concerns; and it would contravene basic notions of fairness and justice in the process, where no adjudication of guilt has been reached following initiation of criminal charges. The Court reasons as follows.

NEW: Judge Aileen Cannon permanently forbids the Department of Justice from releasing Volume II of Jack Smith's report on his prosecution of Trump. Also bars DOJ from sharing "any information or conclusions" from the volume. A sweeping, perpetual gag order. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Trump said the things we all think but can't say, like how a big, strong, powerful man said he wants to kiss him on the mouth

Does it cost more money to not let TSA employees aggressively pat people down?

Gorsuch's concurrence is a classic piece of haterism, it's literally broken down into sections based on who he's attacking

But like many Gorsuch opinions I go back and forth from, 'Haha, get 'em' and 'Hold on now'

"Rarely in modern times"--hold up, I can think of two times in the past year

Incredible opinion. It holds that the common ICE tactic of jumping out of an unidentified rental vehicle and seizing suspected noncitizens while masked violates the Fourth Amendment because the *manner* of the seizure is incompatible with a free society governed by the rule of law.

👀The federal judges in West Virginia, where ICE has been pulling over and detaining people on the freeway, are literally screaming about ICE's tactics.

"It is an assault on the constitutional order," Judge Goodwin says. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

I keep thinking about this sentence, and in particular what an "asserted power of the Crown" includes.

Like, any power kings of England asserted that they had, regardless of whether that was true?

Going through emails at 4:00 on a Friday:

"I'm sure they'll follow up next week."

"They'll probably forget about this one."

"Maybe that case will settle..."

CA5 avoids the 10 Commandments case by saying it will be decided later, in context, but Judge Higginson in dissent is having none of it.

a meme of poe dameron from star wars saying "Somehow Palpatine Returned" but edited to say "Somehow tariffs returned"

how it feels to have SCOTUS knock down tariffs only for Trump to immediately bring them back under another legal authority

Judge orders takeover of Arizona prison health care following years of barbaric medical neglect A federal judge ruled in 2022 that "no legitimate humane system would operate" like Arizona's prison health care system. Three years later, that same judge found the problems still hadn't been fixed.

Latest: A federal judge has stripped control of Arizona's prison healthcare system from the state after more than a decade of litigation over appalling medical neglect and $2 million in contempt fines reason.com/2026/02/20/j...