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The Supreme Court blocked Donald Trump’s administration from another round of deportations under the Alien Enemies Act in the early hours of Saturday. Their ruling was made after lawyers said in an emergency appeal that a group of immigrants from Venezuela detained in Texas were slated for deportation, potentially to El Salvador, in violation of a previous Supreme Court decision affirming the immigrants’ right to challenge their removal.

The short ruling was filed at 1 a.m. It ordered the Trump administration to freeze the deportations “until further order of this court.

It’s not every day that the highest court in the land talks about the constitutional laws around pornography, but such cases have regularly made for landmark rulings. And should today’s Supreme Court arguments about an age-verification law for websites like Pornhub go down in history, future legal scholars will be treated to some bizarre lines of questioning from the justices.

Scotus heard about two hours of oral argument today pertaining to Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, in which a trade association of the adult industry has challenged a...

After months of delay, legal sparring, and constitutional uncertainty, President-elect Donald Trump today was sentenced to an “unconditional discharge” over his felony conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records related to hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels.

The “unconditional discharge” sentence — which is what the prosecution recommended — allows Trump to avoid any prison time, fines, probation, or other punishment, as in just over a week, he will be sworn in as president and receive immunity from legal repercussions.

Trump appeared in court virtually from Florida to receive his sentence,...

Donald Trump’s winning streak at the Supreme Court has come to an end. Today, the conservative-dominated panel announced it won’t block the president-elect’s sentencing in his New York criminal trial.

Trump was convicted in his hush-money case in May. He was found guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records stemming from a payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election so she would stay quiet about their alleged affair. Judge Juan Merchan is set to sentence the president-elect on Friday, 10 days before he...

Donald Trump’s sentencing in his New York hush-money trial will proceed on Friday, after the Supreme Court declined the president-elect’s emergency appeal to halt the proceedings.

In an order posted this evening, the court said that “the burden that sentencing will impose on the President-Elect’s responsibilities is relatively insubstantial in light of the trial court’s stated intent to impose a sentence of ‘unconditional discharge’ after a brief virtual hearing.”

The justices were referring to New York Judge Juan Merchan’s indication that Trump will face no incarceration when he imposes his sentence. But Trump had still appealed Merchan’s order, as well as his refusal to dismiss his conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.

The court said that Trump’s claims that there were “evidentiary violations” during the trial could be “addressed in the ordinary course on appeal.”

The court said that four of the justices — Clarence Thomas,...

In his first term as president, Donald Trump built a conservative 6-3 supermajority on the Supreme Court. Ever since, the nation’s highest court has repeatedly issued increasingly extreme, far-right decisions on topics of abortion, race, the environment, corruption, and much more.

The Supreme Court has eliminated federal protections for abortion rights; limited the federal government’s ability to regulate carbon emissions, protect Americans’ drinking water, and limit ozone pollution; gutted federal agencies’ ability to implement regulations generally; opened up long-standing regulations to new challenges; made it easier for states...

“Weekend Update” took rapid-fire aim at President-elect Donald Trump and those in his orbit, from Rfk Jr. to Elon Musk to Matt Gaetz.

But of course, “Saturday Night Live’s” faux newscast opened with a bit about the healthcare CEO killer story that has rivited the nation since United HealthCare CEO Brian Thompson was brazenly shot in Midtown Manhattan on Dec. 4. “Weekend Update” anchor Colin Jost noted that the country has been engaged “in the delicate, sensitive debate over who will play this guy in the Netflix miniseries.”

Jost also noted that the while the accused shooter, Luigi Mangione, is suspected of harboring hostility toward corporate America, the facts of the case don’t line up. “Yet he went to Starbucks before the shooting and was caught at a McDonald’s — perhaps his greatest crime was hypocrisy,” Jost said.

Jost and his co-anchor Michael Che then alternated zingers about Trump and his associates.

Since Donald Trump is the gift that keeps giving for SNL, Weekend Update’s Colin Jost took the requisite swipe at the president-elect’s recent Time cover by reasoning that “no person on earth has taken up more of our goddamn time.”

Michael Che then took the baton by saying how Amazon is planning to donate $1 million to Trump’s inauguration because “Amazon and Trump want to ship stuff out as fast as possible.”

“Trump also said Friday he would try to permanently end Daylight Savings Time by challenging the sun to a staring contest,” responded Jost, as the infamous shot of Trump looking up at the sun was flashed in the corner.

Here are some other political bon mots from behind the desk Saturday:

“It was announced that Matt Gaetz will host a new talk show on One American News Network called the Matt Gaetz Show,” said Che. “He...

Andrew Ferguson, a Republican on the Federal Trade Commission, has been named as the agency’s chair.

President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday appointed Ferguson as he vowed to continue contesting “Big Tech censorship” and “protecting Freedom of Speech.”

Ferguson will be the “most America First, and pro-innovation FTC Chair in our Country’s History,” Trump wrote in a statement issued posted on Truth Social.

The nomination comes after Trump’s selection of Gail Slater, a veteran tech and media policy adviser who’s had stints at Fox Corp. and Roku, to the top antitrust post at the Justice Department. That move was also motivated to curb the reach of “Big Tech,” which has “run wild for years” and is “stifling competition in our most innovative sector,” Trump said.

On the FTC, which he was appointed to in April, Ferguson has dissented from an agency initiative to ban non-compete clauses in...

There’s a scene in Shiori Ito’s searing documentary Black Box Diaries, in which the director, who is also the film’s subject, tells a swarm of reporters about trying to press criminal charges against her rapist. Like many sexual violence survivors forced into this ritual of public re-litigation, she is a model of what society has come to expect of courageous women. Her face betrays no emotion and she is dressed in the chaste uniform of the aggrieved: delicate earrings (Ito opts for pearls), a conservatively tailored blouse (a black button down here), and wearing little to no makeup (faint signs of blush and a single stroke of eyeliner).

Ito’s voice remains calm as she recounts the police’s initial refusal to accept her victim’s report and their arsenal of excuses: Sex crimes were difficult to investigate, they said; her rapist, Noriyuki Yamaguchi, the former Washington Bureau...

For months now, Leonard Leo — a conservative legal activist with a billion-dollar slush fund and an influential hand in the workings of the Supreme Court — has been refusing to comply with a Senate subpoena regarding his financial relationship with Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.

Senate Democrats sent the subpoena six months ago, but they haven’t moved to enforce it. Doing so would require 60 votes under the Senate’s filibuster rules, and Republicans have no intent of helping Democrats scrutinize the activities of one of their most important allies.

Updated: President Joe Biden’s star-filled fundraiser in Los Angeles — in which he took part in a conversation with former President Barack Obama and Jimmy Kimmel — is now expected to raise at least $30 million, according to a source close to the campaign.

During the roughly 40-minute sit down, Biden, Obama and Kimmel touted the current administration’s accomplishments, but a good part of the talk was devoted to warnings about another Trump term and even bafflement at the way that the former Celebrity Apprentice host has shattered so many political and institutional norms.

Biden said that “one of the scariest parts” of another Donald Trump is that he would likely have the ability to appoint two more Supreme Court nominees.

“The Supreme Court has never been as out of kilter as it is today,” Biden said. “…The fact of the matter is that this has never been a court that...

The Senate Judiciary Committee revealed that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas failed to disclose three more private jet trips gifted to him by billionaire megadonor Harlan Crow. This discovery adds to the growing scrutiny that surrounds the personal and financial ties of the nation’s top judicial figures.

According to the committee’s document, Thomas neglected to report a gifted flight to Kalispell, Montana, in 2017, another to Savannah, Georgia, his hometown, in 2019, and one to San Jose, California, in 2021. The purposes of these extremely brief trips, which sometimes lasted no longer than a day, remain unclear.

The code of ethics for Supreme Court justices encourages them to disclose free transportation, lodging, meals and other gifts on their annual financial disclosure forms. However, this code is non-binding and lacks an enforceable mechanism to ensure compliance.

This development arrives amid a turbulent year for the Supreme Court, as the justices face heightened...

The Supreme Court has struck down a federal ban on “bump stocks,” a firearm accessory that allows semi-automatic rifles to fire more quickly than with a standard stock.

The legality of bump stocks garnered renewed scrutiny in 2017, after a gunman used one to shoot and and kill 60 people — and injured more than 400 others — during a mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest music festival in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on Friday that the 1934 National Firearms Act’s ban on the public sale of fully automatic weapons, or machine guns,...

Add three more private jet rides to the tally of gifts Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has accepted from right-wing billionaires. A Senate investigation into Thomas’ relationship with conservative megadonor Harlan Crow revealed three additional, unreported trips by the justice on Crow’s personal jet.

Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee obtained information on the flights through a written response from Thomas’ attorney, who disclosed that the justice had taken flights on Crow’s plane to Glacier National Park in Montana, Washington D.C., and Georgia.

Thomas’ relationship with Crow,...

Justice Samuel Alito spoke candidly about the ideological battle between the left and the right — discussing the difficulty of living “peacefully” with ideological opponents in the face of “fundamental” differences that “can’t be compromised.” He endorsed what his interlocutor described as a necessary fight to “return our country to a place of godliness.” And Alito offered a blunt assessment of how America’s polarization will ultimately be resolved: “One side or the other is going to win.”

Alito made these remarks in conversation at the Supreme Court Historical Society...

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has formally disclosed a 2019 trip to Bali, Indonesia, paid for by billionaire Harlan Crow, according to Thomas’s annual financial disclosure report released on Friday.

The luxurious vacation to the Indonesian island was at the center of an ethics controversy last year after the nonprofit news outlet ProPublica reported on it, sparking months of scrutiny over lavish travel accepted by some Supreme Court justices. Despite the previous reporting, Thomas had just formally disclosed the Bali trip.

In the disclosure, Thomas states that Crow and his wife, Kathy, covered the “food and lodging” costs for the July 2019 Bali trip but did not provide a specific dollar value. Thomas also reported a separate trip to a private club in Monte Rio, California, paid for by the Crows that same month.

The annual financial disclosures provide only a broad outline of the justices’ finances, outside income and gifts.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has finally decided to disclose gifts he received from a GOP megadonor. The gifts in question were reported on last year by ProPublica, kicking off an ethical scandal surrounding the longtime conservative justice.

Thomas, in a financial disclosure made public on Friday, acknowledged that conservative billionaire Harlan Crow paid for Thomas to join him on trips to Bali and California in 2019. Thomas wrote in the filing that he “inadvertently omitted” the gifts from Crow in previous filings and that his inclusion of the gifts on...

A new report by the watchdog group Fix the Court has exposed the enormous number of gifts Supreme Court justices have received since the early 2000s. The data, released on Friday, paints a disturbing picture of the ethical landscape at the highest levels of the judiciary.

The data shows that over the past two decades, Supreme Court justices have collectively accepted nearly $5 million in gifts, with one justice, Clarence Thomas, accounting for the vast majority of this figure. Thomas, nominated to the Supreme Court by former President George H.W. Bush, has received $4,042,286 in 193 gifts since 2004. The group has identified an additional 126 “likely but not confirmed” gifts received by Thomas.

The report also highlights the discrepancy between the gifts received and the number of gifts reported by the justices on their financial disclosure forms. According to the data, out of the nearly 200 gifts received by Thomas, he only reported 27 on his official filings.

Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s husband is currently representing Fox Corp., the parent company of Fox News, in a defamation lawsuit, according to court records reviewed by Rolling Stone. The lawsuit relates to reports by one of Fox’s local stations.

Jesse Barrett is a trial lawyer and managing partner at SouthBank Legal. He heads the firm’s Washington, D.C., office, which opened after Justice Barrett joined the high court. While the SouthBank Legal website says that Jesse Barrett “focuses on white-collar criminal defense, internal investigations, and complex commercial litigation,...

A new online service, MyConnext, will enable professionals in the entertainment industry with info on how to report harassment and misconduct in the workplace. The service arrives via the Hollywood Commission, an organization whose mission is to combat abuse and power disparity in the film world, which is led by Anita Hill.

“MyConnext is a powerful, new, secure, all-in-one online tool, resource center, and reporting system for entertainment industry workers exploring their options when confronting harassment, bullying, or any workplace abuse,” a message on the Hollywood Commission’s website says.

The Supreme Court determined on Thursday that South Carolina Republicans did not engage in racial gerrymandering when redrawing the map of the state’s 1st Congressional district, overturning a lower court ruling by the District of South Carolina.

In a 6-3 ruling the conservative majority of the court, comprised of Justices Samuel Alito, John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, held that they saw no evidence that the Republican-controlled state legislature was motivated by racial bias when it removed 30,000 predominantly Black residents from the 1st...

Multiple Senators have joined the chorus of Democrats in Congress calling on Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito to recuse himself from cases relating to the 2020 election and Jan. 6 after a second flag associated with the insurrection was reported at his New Jersey residence.

Most prominently, Senate Judiciary Chairman Sen. Dick Durbin (D–Ill.) called for Alito’s recusal and the adoption of a code of ethics for justices amid the fallout from the Supreme Court’s ongoing controversies.

“This incident is yet another example of apparent ethical misconduct by a sitting justice,...

Picture two protests involving the American flag.

In one of them, a star NFL quarterback kneels during the singing of the national anthem. The reason? To call attention to the true, real plight of Black Americans whose lives seem not to matter as much as white ones — part of the unfinished business of American democracy. For this, he is booed, vilified, and effectively banned from the NFL. He never works as a quarterback again.

Now picture a second protest. A sitting Supreme Court justice (or perhaps his wife, but with...

After The New York Times reported that the American flag outside Justice Samuel Alito’s home was flown upside down in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham criticized the conservative judge for failing to “think it through.”

“Emotions are apparently high in that neighborhood but no, it’s not good judgment to do that,” Graham told HuffPost on Monday. “I don’t know what role ― he said his wife was insulted and got mad ― I assume that be true, but he’s still a Supreme Court justice.

French cinema’s Judith Godrèche, a former child star-turned-filmmaker and prominent #MeToo activist, weighed in during Cannes Day 4 on the April 25 reversal of Harvey Weinstein’s rape conviction in New York, slamming it as “an absolute nightmare.”

Speaking with TheWrap founder and editor-in-chief Sharon Waxman on Thursday as part of TheWrap Conversations at the Brand Innovators Salon D’Affaires, Godrèche expressed sympathy for the women who may have to testify again if a new trial is held.

“It’s a nightmare, an absolute nightmare. I can’t even imagine,” Godrèche said. “Somehow people [like] him are winning. There is enough pain and hurt that it should not be allowed. It’s insane when you think about it. Listen, I may have to face my abusers [one day]. You have to be so brave to do this.”

She added: “I wondered how [Weinstein] had so much money to keep paying for lawyers. I thought, ‘Wow,...

Lily Allen and Olivia Rodrigo: together again! On Friday, Rodrigo surprised her Guts world tour crowd in London by bringing out Allen for a duet of the British star’s 2006 classic “Smile,” reuniting the pair after they performed together at Glastonbury Festival in 2022.

“I think she’s the most clever songwriter. And the coolest girl in London,” Rodrigo said onstage Friday. “I think the best day of my whole career was when I got to sing with her at Glastonbury. I absolutely adore her. Will you please give it up for Miss Lily Allen.

Following the Capitol riots in 2021, an upside-down U.S. flag flew outside the home of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.

The New York Times published a photo of the inverted flag, reporting that it was seen at the Alitos’ home in Alexandria, Virginia, on January 17, 2021, for several days, distressing neighbors.

“I had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag,” Alito said in an emailed statement. “It was briefly placed by Mrs. Alito in response to a neighbor’s use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs.”

His wife, Martha-Ann Alito, fought with another family in the neighborhood about an anti-Trump sign placed on their lawn.

The neighbors perceived the flag as a political statement. In the weeks after the 2020 election, the upside-down flag had become a symbol of the “Stop the Steal” movement, in which Donald Trump’s supporters falsely claimed that Joe Biden’s victory...

United for Democracy, a coalition of progressive groups and labor unions, is gearing up to launch a $10 million persuasion and base activation campaign centered on “the Maga Supreme Court.” The coalition will spend $1 million on ads in Arizona and Pennsylvania, as well as in the Washington, D.C., area, and the campaign will also involve canvassing and events, officials tell Rolling Stone.

The United for Democracy coalition, which launched last year with a seven-figure ad buy, counts 140 member organizations, including major labor unions, reproductive rights advocates, environmental groups, and liberal think tanks.

At an Alabama judicial conference on Friday, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas responded to the criticism against him and his wife, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas.

Thomas and Ginni have faced public criticism for Thomas’ failure to disclose the extensive lavish gifts he’s accepted from his wealthy conservative friends. Text messages and emails revealed Ginni’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election by appealing to officials and lawmakers. Thomas was found to be involved in several cases related to the 2020 election, including the January 6 Capitol riot.

“My wife and I, the last two or three years, it’s been—just the nastiness and the lies—it’s just incredible,” Thomas said at the conference.

The Supreme Court Justice expressed his disappointment in the current state of the federal courts. He claimed people were seeking sympathetic judges and that the Supreme Court was less stable than it had been in the past.

Thomas...

Justice Clarence Thomas took the opportunity during a judicial conference in Alabama on Friday to criticize the “nastiness” and “lies” he’s faced following bombshell reports that conservative megadonor Harlan Crow had funded the justice’s lavish lifestyle for decades.

According to Politico, while addressing a room of judges, attorneys and other court personnel in the 11th Circuit Judicial Conference at the conference, Thomas repeatedly denounced his critics and called Washington a “hideous place.”

When asked about working in a world that appeared mean-spirted, the justice replied, “I think there’s challenges to that.

The U.S. Supreme Court has endorsed open-ended recovery of damages for copyright infringement, ruling that music producer Sherman Nealy can pursue over a decade’s worth of damages for an unlicensed sample of his work by Flo Rida in his 2008 tune “In the Ayer.”

The finding, in a 6-3 ruling issued on Thursday, could expand the scope of damages in cases in which plaintiffs were previously barred from recovering money for infringement that occurred more than three years before the filing of a lawsuit. In some cases, claimants could potentially get a bigger payout by waiting to sue and letting damages stack rather than trying to stop the alleged infringement as long as they bring a lawsuit within the statute of limitations.

“There is no time limit on monetary recovery,” wrote justice Elena Kagan in the majority opinion. “So a copyright owner possessing a timely claim for infringement is entitled to damages,...

In the season 11 premiere of Last Week Tonight, host John Oliver made a playful offer to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas when he proposed that if Thomas resigned from the court, he would receive a new motorhome and an annual payment of $1 million from Oliver himself until one of them passed away.

Oliver said on his show, “A million dollars a year and a brand-new condo on wheels, and all you have to do in return is sign the contract and get the f— off the Supreme Court.” Oliver told the justice to respond to his offer in 30 days.

Thomas did not accept the offer within the allotted 30-day period, which led to mixed emotions for Oliver.

Oliver revealed that the contract was real. He and his team spoke to experts about the possibility, and everyone agreed, “This is somehow legal.” He added that HBO itself would not front the money on the deal.

Last Week Tonight host John Oliver almost indentured himself to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

A few months ago, he made Thomas an offer: if he would resign, Oliver would give him $1 million a year until one of them died, plus a new motor home. He gave Thomas 30 days to accept.

Thomas, as we all know, is still on the Supreme Court, and Oliver admitted his relief during an appearance Monday on Late Night With Seth Meyers.

“It was both a huge relief and massively disappointing that he didn’t take it,” he told Meyers. And even though Oliver’s wife was not thrilled when he made the initial offer, he said he’d be willing to make the offer again.

“As long as he gets out before they’re doing the June decisions, I would be willing to open discussions again,” Oliver said. “If you want to get in...

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has been criticized for his remarks in a case about the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot. The criticism stems from Thomas’ questioning and his wife’s alleged involvement in the conspiracy surrounding the events leading up to the riot.

In the Supreme Court hearing on a case related to the Capitol riot, Thomas raised the question of whether the federal government had previously charged individuals with obstruction of an official proceeding in the context of violent protests. This statement received backlash on social media, with some critics interpreting it as downplaying the severity of the insurrection.

Former CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin criticized Thomas, saying that his wife’s alleged connection to the conspiracy influenced his handling of the case. Thomas’ wife, Virginia Thomas, had conversations with former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, where she urged him to overturn the 2020 election results. Virginia raised funds...

Update: Supreme Court justices expressed skepticism of Donald Trump’s argument that presidents enjoy broad immunity, but they wrestled with which certain official acts could be shielded from prosecution and which would not.

There were some suggestions of sending the case base to lower courts to decide, on an individual basis, which of the charges against Trump could be deemed as private acts and subject to criminal liability. That is a prospect that could lead to further delay in Trump’s election conspiracy case, perhaps until after the 2024 election.

A number of the justices expressed concerns that their decision in the case would impact future presidents after they leave office and the extent to which they could be subject to criminal prosecution. Justice Samuel Alito hypothesized about political rivals being prosecuted and “a cycle that destabilizes the functioning of our country.”

Justice John Roberts in particular seemed to find troubles...

In 2022, the fall of Roe v. Wade ignited concerns that access to contraception may be the next target. Legislative records of many Republican lawmakers reveal that these fears are not baseless.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas advocated for a reconsideration of long-standing precedents, such as the landmark 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut decision, which granted married couples the right to use contraceptives without government interference. Thomas’s opinion poses a direct threat to contraception rights.

President Joe Biden recently announced measures aimed at reducing barriers to contraceptive access. On Twitter, Biden accused “Maga Republicans” of attempting to restrict women in America from safe and Fda-approved contraception, even in states where women’s healthcare choices remain protected.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) challenged the president’s statement and asserted that “Maga Republicans” are not trying to obstruct women’s access to contraceptives and that Biden shouldn’t mislead women by suggesting that...

Donald Trump — the man most responsible for triggering the end of a federal right to abortion — announced Monday that if he wins the presidential election in November, he does not plan to support further federal restrictions on the practice and would allow it to remain a state issue.

“My view is now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint,” Trump began. (The word “everybody” is being used liberally here: Roughly two-thirds of voters disapprove of the Supreme Court’s decision overruling Roe v. Wade, according to a recent survey.

Senator J.D. Vance denied that Republicans are trying to restrict access to birth control, despite mounting evidence to the contrary. The senator claimed he doesn’t know “any Republican, at least not a Republican with a brain, that’s trying to take those rights away from people.”

The topic came up during Vance’s appearance Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union after host Jake Tapper asked about the Texas Supreme Court blocking a woman from obtaining an abortion even though her fetus has a fatal genetic condition. Vance...

When notorious pedophile and wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein died in a jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking minors, he left conspiracy theorists with a tangled web of lurid mysteries that would keep them busy for years to come. Suspicions that Epstein hadn’t really hanged himself soon gave way to claims of a vast coverup — the man supposedly murdered to prevent him from revealing the worst secrets of the global elite.

Now, four years later, far-right politicians and commentators are again fixated on Epstein’s personal connections,...

Add Samuel Alito to the list of conservative Supreme Court justices with questionable (at best) ethics, according to a new report from ProPublica.

In 2008, two years after he joined the nation’s highest court, Alito went on a pricey Alaskan fishing trip with a Republican billionaire named Paul Singer. Singer even flew Alito out on his private jet. Alito didn’t report the trip, nor did he recuse himself when Singer’s hedge fund had a case come before the court.

ProPublica sent Alito a series of questions about the trip.

Clarence Thomas doesn’t seem to realize why a Supreme Court justice regularly accepting lavish gifts from a GOP megadonor, and then failing to report those gifts, is such a big deal.

“Harlan and Kathy Crow are among our dearest friends, and we have been friends for over twenty-five years. As friends do, we have joined them on a number of family trips during the more than quarter century we have known them,” the conservative justice said in a statement responding to a damning ProPublica report detailing how billionaire Harlan...

Roy Wood Jr. was a bit baffled on Thursday night’s episode of “The Daily Show” after it was revealed that a Republican billionaire has apparently gifted Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas several luxury gifts and trips over the last two decades. Wood couldn’t help but wonder why this man spent so much money on one justice, when he could’ve had another for a lot less.

In a bombshell report from ProPublica released Thursday, it was revealed that Harlan Crow, the real estate magnate and Republican megadonor who bankrolled a documentary about Thomas that got consideration for a 2020 Oscar, also provided decades’ worth of undisclosed luxury vacations to the Supreme Court justice.

In the report, Crow claimed he’s never tried to influence Thomas’ opinion on any cases or issues, and at that, Wood had a good laugh.

Also Read:

‘The Daily Show’ Goes On-Location to Investigate Melania Trump’s Absence,...

Conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has been regularly taking luxury trips financed by a billionaire Republican donor for over 20 years, according to a new investigation from ProPublica.

Thomas “virtually every year” has accepted rides on private jets, stays at private resorts, and invitations to hang out on superyachts owned by real-estate mogul Harlan Crow. He hasn’t disclosed any of it, which ethics experts spoken to by ProPublica say could violate a federal law requiring justices to disclose most gifts.

Meanwhile, Thomas has been one of the most conservative...

Teens in Texas today can’t get birth control at federally funded clinics without their parents’ permission. That goes for new patients, as well those already on the pill or receiving quarterly shots, who now need permission before getting a refill. It also goes for teens who already have children of their own, putting underage moms in the awkward position of being in charge of their children’s medical decisions, while still not being in control of their own. (In addition to having one of the highest teen birth rates,...

When I think of the sitcoms that raised me, I don’t usually think of “Smart Guy,” and for that I am sorry.

“Smart Guy” often gets lost in the pantheon of sitcom lore, eclipsed by decades of long-running predecessors like “Full House,” “Fresh Prince,” and more. Created by Danny Kallis, the series stars Tahj Mowry as T.J. Henderson, a 10-year-old genius who skips from fourth to tenth grade and has to navigate high school with older kids — including his two siblings. It ran from 1997 to 1999 on the WB and aired reruns on the Disney Channel until 2003.

That’s when I and many other young millennials found the exceptional series. “Smart Guy” became the foundation of my sitcom education in tandem with “Boy Meets World,” a post-school package deal viewing (usually with my dad sharing the couch). In the years that followed, “Boy” moved to ABC Family, but “Smart Guy...

Former President Donald Trump thanked Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, for professing to the Jan. 6 committee her belief the election was stolen. “I’d like to thank a great woman, Ginni Thomas, for her courage in saying … that she still believes the 2020 election was stolen,” Trump said during a rally in Michigan on Saturday night. “She didn’t wilt under pressure like so many others who are weak people, stupid people. She said what she thought, what she believed.”

Trump’s words came off like a...

Ginni Thomas, conservative political activist and wife to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, voluntarily met with the Jan. 6 committee this week, and in her testimony, claimed that she and her husband actively avoid talking about their work together. But on Friday’s episode of “The View,” the hosts weren’t buying a single word of that.

In her prepared statements to the select committee this week, Thomas said that “my husband has never spoken with me about pending cases at the Court. It’s an iron clad rule in our home,” and noted that Justice Thomas is “uninterested in politics.” As a result, “I generally do not discuss with him my day-to-day work in politics, the topics I am working on, who I am calling, emailing, texting, or meeting.”

And while “The View” host Sunny Hostin noted that it might be Ok if Justice Thomas were uninterested in politics, particularly...

Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows was kept informed of efforts to seize voting machines and other schemes to overturn the 2020 election by Trump allies in contested states, according to a trove of text messages obtained by CNN.

In a text exchange from Dec. 23, 2020, mere days before a riotous mob attempted to sabotage the Electoral College certification of President Joe Biden’s win, conspiracy theorist and former Army colonel Phil Waldron updated Meadows on his efforts to have voting machines in Maricopa County, Arizona, seized and examined.

Complaining...

A Trump-appointed Federal judge in Florida has voided a national mask mandate for airplanes and other transportation. “Wearing a mask cleans nothing,” U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle wrote in her decision on Monday. “At most, it traps virus droplets. But it neither ‘sanitizes’ the person wearing the mask nor ‘sanitizes’ the conveyance.”

Mizelle, 35, was only eight years out of law school at University of Florida when Trump appointed her to the lifetime position in 2020. The Daily Beast noted at the time that her only trial experience was as an intern,...