"The Nation's" legal analyst Elie Mystal is furious with a set of unanimous decisions that came out of the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday.
"It's MAKE LIBERALS WALK THE PLANK DAY, at SCOTUS," he wrote in a thread on Bluesky.
Among the opinions was a decision written by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson in a reverse discrimination case, Ames v. Ohio Dept. of Youth Services. Marlean Ames alleged she was discriminated against for being straight in a job that promoted LGBTQ+ people.
She claimed she had lost out on a promotion in favor of a gay woman, and then demoted and replaced by a gay man.
A federal district court had ruled the Department of Youth Services had "legitimate, nondiscriminatory business reasons" to pas over Ames for promotion, but the Supreme Court unanimously disagreed.
"Ames subsequently filed this lawsuit against the agency under Title VII, alleging that she was denied the management promotion and demoted because of her sexual orientation," the ruling summarized.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson explained that there shouldn't be different standards for discrimination and reverse-discrimination cases and revived her case, giving Ames the go-ahead to sue.
As MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin explained, it'll likely increase the number of cases brought by those who believe they're being discriminated against, but it doesn't mean they'll actually win those suits.
In another case ruled on by the Supreme Court, Smith & Wesson Brands v. Mexico, the High Court held that Mexico could not sue gun manufacturers under the Protect Law Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA).
"Mexico ... had sued seven gun manufacturers, all based in the United States, alleging that their sale of guns essentially aided and abetted the trafficking of guns into Mexico, causing harm to Mexican citizens," Rubin explained on MSNBC. "And they sued in the United States.
"Today, the Supreme Court is holding that an existing federal statute that bars many types of lawsuits against gun manufacturers bars this one, too, that the government of Mexico did not plausibly allege that the manufacturer's own actions aided and abetted the trafficking of guns outside this country, such that it caused injury to Mexico's residents."
She said that it's a setback for Mexico in its ongoing efforts to "hold gun manufacturers responsible for increased gun violence deaths in its own country."
Mystal recalled that he had an entire chapter in his book advocating for the repeal of the PLCAA. The book focuses on the slew of bad laws on the books in the U.S.
He also said that of the five cases that were read on Thursday, four were unanimous, and he had "NO IDEA why these decisions couldn't have been brought to us, like, ANY TIME IN MAY, but whatever."
It's still a "win" for conservatives, he assessed.
What he noted was the order in which the cases were read. The liberals read the unanimous cases, which makes him think they didn't "win" the larger cases that are still pending.
New York congressional candidate Mike Sacks commented, "[Justice John] Roberts hoping this'll give him cover for what he's got planned for the rest of the month."
"Rest of the term is gonna be super f----- yo," Mystal said.
See the Rubin clip below or click here.
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