Judiciary

CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin blasted Antonin Scalia in a Tuesday column for The New Yorker, after the conservative Supreme Court justice cracked a joke during the oral arguments regarding the same-sex "marriage" cases. Toobin asserted that Justice Scalia's "rather refreshing" line in reaction to a pro-traditional marriage activist's disruption during the hearing was a "shocking, ugly moment…

Introducing a segment on Wednesday's NBC Today about the Supreme Court set "to weigh the historic arguments in a case that could bring same-sex marriage to all fifty states," co-host Matt Lauer hyped the political implications of the ruling: "...the issue is quickly becoming a major factor in the 2016 presidential race."

All three of the network evening newscasts offered coverage on Tuesday of the Supreme Court’s oral arguments regarding the gay marriage that was proclaimed to be a “landmark case” that was certain to produce “a watershed ruling” on “marriage equality.” On ABC’s World News Tonight, anchor David Muir began the show’s coverage by declaring the “landmark case” will answer whether or not “gay couples…

Ahead of Tuesday's Supreme Court hearing on gay marriage, all three network morning shows hailed the "landmark cases" involved in the "historic arguments." On CBS This Morning, correspondent Jan Crawford proclaimed: "You know, for many people this is the civil rights issue of our time, whether or not gays and lesbians are going to be treated equally and allowed to marry just like heterosexual in…

The title of a famous essay by Jonathan Swift and that of Tuesday's article by Brian Beutler each starts with “A Modest Proposal.” There are, however, many differences concerning the two pieces. One is that Swift’s was a satire, whereas Beutler’s is a fantasy. Another is that pretty much anyone who somehow took Swift’s proposal seriously would find it horrifying, while Beutler’s suggestion --…

On Wednesday night, the “big three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC declined to cover the latest in the legal battle over President Obama’s executive action on illegal immigration as U.S. District Judge denied the Obama administration’s request for an injunction that would have allowed his plan to go forward. Announced late Tuesday night, U.S. District Judge Hanen blasted the request and declared that the…

Mark Joseph Stern argues that a crucial shortcoming of John Strand’s play The Originalist is its out-of-date portrayal of Scalia as “a principled conservative, a brilliant and complex man who resists partisan classification.” Nowadays, however, Scalia’s “ideology…looks less conservative than Republican…Twenty years ago Scalia was the unpredictable justice, the renegade who thought both flag…

Former New York Times Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse, pontificating from her regular perch at nytimes.com, unapologetically urged the conservative Supreme Court justices to embrace left-wing emotional and political symbolism on voting rights: "Would the court really have had the nerve to do it, with the memories of the march’s veterans still echoing for the world to hear and with…

Veteran journalist Steven Waldman, a former Washington correspondent for Newsweek and a senior adviser to the Federal Communications Commission for two years during Obama’s first term, argues that an Obama nomination would be “good for [Hillary], and very good for progressives. Would he want it? It’s possible he’d view it as too confining, but it may be the only job a former president can get…

During his opening monologue on Thursday’s Tonight Show, host Jimmy Fallon made a few jests toward Vice President Joe Biden and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and each of their chances of winning the 2016 presidential election. Fallon began the gag by playing a clip of Clinton speaking to the abortion group EMILY’s List on Tuesday night and asking if they “someday want to see a woman…

When it comes to right-wingers and the Affordable Care Act, biology and race are destiny. That’s the word from lefty pundit Marcotte, who argued in a Thursday column for Talking Points Memo that the “fight against Obamacare has been about needling the gender- and race-based resentments of the conservative base.”

In a piece headlined “The Supreme Court vs. Reality,” Jeff Shesol claims that when the SCOTUS agreed to hear King v. Burwell, it showed that “most or maybe all of the Court’s Republican appointees will entertain any argument, no matter how silly, that can derail or dismember the supposed abomination that is Obamacare.”

Continuing the standard set by NBC’s Today, on Wednesday night the major broadcast networks played up the fears that “health care coverage for millions” might be lost and “could doom ObamaCare” if the U.S. Supreme Court, in a case heard on Wednesday, rules against the federal government and its federal subsidies. ABC and NBC used covert liberal activists, with ABC turning to an ABC News…

On Wednesday's NBC Today, news anchor Natalie Morales warned viewers: "The U.S. Supreme Court today takes up a legal challenge that could doom the Affordable Care Act, better known as ObamaCare." In the report that followed, correspondent Pete Williams declared the high court would "determine whether millions of people will lose their health insurance."