On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down an important ruling regarding the interpretation of the definition of "waters of the United States" (WOTUS) in Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency that stopped unconstitutional overreach by the federal government in its tracks. National Review explained:

In Sackett, the EPA argued that the Court should defer to the agency’s “broad and unqualified” reading of WOTUS, such that it might cover all the water in the country. The only limiting principle is a “nexus” test nowhere found in the statute, requiring an assessment of aggregate effects of all “similarly situated” waters on the local ecosystem of a body of water that is or could be navigable. Whatever that is, it is not law. All nine justices were unanimous in rejecting the EPA’s “nexus” test. The Court thus finally ruled in favor of property owners who had been fighting the agency for 19 years over whether they could move dirt and rock onto water that was on the opposite side of a road from a non-navigable creek that feeds into a once-navigable lake, on the theory that the aggregate effect of the Sacketts’ body of water when combined with an unconnected fen would harm the lake.

Yesterday’s Senate Judiciary “Supreme Court Ethics Reform” hearing had three Senators who took the spotlight, representing the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The Good

The good was Republican Senator John Kennedy who totally destroyed Democrat witness Kedric Payne of the Campaign Legal Center. 

Senator Kennedy slams the biased Twitter posts of a key witness, who called some justices "politicians in robes who thrive in a system where access and influence are for sale" and said Chief Justice John Roberts was "a disgrace." pic.twitter.com/6DLEXqf1oW

— The Article III Project (A3P) (@Article3Project) May 2, 2023

Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin, the Democrat Party, and their media sycophants have been trying to build a case against Republican-appointed Supreme Court Justices leading up to Durbin’s "Supreme Court Ethics Reform" hearing on Tuesday. This is part of the Democrats' long term effort to undermine the legitimacy of the Supreme Court, but the reality is it may be undermining Durbin’s legitimacy. 

First off, it is worth noting that all nine Supreme Court Justices pushed back against the Durbin’s efforts:

All nine justices, in a rare step, on Tuesday released a joint statement reaffirming their voluntary adherence to a general code of conduct but rebutting proposals for independent oversight, mandatory compliance with ethics rules and greater transparency in cases of recusal.

The implication, though not expressly stated, is that the court unanimously rejects legislation proposed by Democrats seeking to impose on the justices the same ethics obligations applied to all other federal judges. . . .

"If the full Court or any subset of the Court were to review the recusal decisions of individual justices," they wrote, "it would create an undesirable situation in which the Court could affect the outcome of a case by selecting who among its members may participate."

Later, they added that public disclosure of the basis for recusal could "encourage strategic behavior by lawyers who may seek to prompt recusals in future cases" by framing them a certain way in an attempt to disqualify a particular member of the court.

On Wednesday, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee for the first time this Congress. Like in past hearings, Attorney General Garland failed to own up to the obvious problems with the Department of Justice (DOJ) under his leadership. However, a major admission he made alluded to an undeniable failure of the Biden Administration as a whole—Biden's Border Crisis:

Attorney General Merrick Garland says Mexican drug cartels unleashed the fentanyl crisis on the U.S. "on purpose," and urged the Mexican government to "do more" to combat drug trafficking.

On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court announced that after months of looking into the source of the leaked opinion in the landmark abortion ruling, Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization, there is no identifiable suspect.

BREAKING: The Supreme Court says it has been unable to identify "by a preponderance of the evidence" who leaked the Dobbs opinion last year.

A statement from the court, along with a report on the leak investigation, is posted here: https://t.co/cVMLKkbCb9

— SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) January 19, 2023

"Lefty legal commentator" Mark Stern has attacked U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas yet again. This time, he has misconstrued a picture of Justice Thomas with former U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker as proof of Justice Thomas' alleged "interest in politics." Mark Paoletta explains:

In April, Justice Thomas hosted a reception at the Supreme Court for recent inductees into the Horatio Alger Association. This organization has awarded $235 million in scholarships to more than 35,000 at-risk students. Herschel Walker was one of many inductees this year, so he attended the event too. 

Earlier this week, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed a lower court's ruling to keep the pandemic-era Title 42 immigration policy in place which many see as the only thing stopping the crisis out our southern border from becoming even more out of control than it already is. National Review reported:

In a filing, Chief Justice Roberts stayed the lower court order that ended the pandemic-era policy, which had allowed the administration to expel illegal immigrants as a means to prevent the spread of communicable diseases. Roberts gave the DOJ until Tuesday at 5:00 p.m. to file a response to the states petitioning to maintain Title 42.

This morning, the United States Supreme Court heard three hours of oral argument in Moore v. Harper, a highly-charged redistricting case out of North Carolina.

How highly charged? Well, mainstream media and voting rights groups have called it the case that "threatens" to "upend democracy." But a quick look at today's arguments shows a different story.

I'll be following today's oral argument in #MooreVHarper and will do tweet thread here. For overview of issues, see my three posts: https://t.co/7dW0ukyXO9https://t.co/ln1GLw7LGjhttps://t.co/H9vISnCSBX

— Ed Whelan (@EdWhelanEPPC) December 7, 2022

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina ("the UNC case") and Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College ("the Harvard case"), which, together, are expected to overturn Grutter v. Bollinger and hold that the use of affirmative action policies in college admissions is unconstitutional.

Happening now: about 100 people, mostly Asian, are gathered in front of the Supreme Court to rally against affirmative action, one day before hearings begin in the Harvard/UNC cases. They are holding signs like: “I am Asian American, I have a dream too” pic.twitter.com/J6f4FKzian

— Amy Qin (@amyyqin) October 30, 2022

Leftists have been waging an endless war on the legitimacy of the Supreme Court, often resorting to attacking the spouses of Conservative Supreme Court Justices—especially Ginni Thomas, wife to Justice Clarence Thomas. But this time, the attacks were broadened to include not only the spouses of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett but also liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. A September article appearing in Politico posits that conflict of interest disclosure requirements for the Justices' spouses are far too lenient, "fanning fears of outside influences."