U.S. Supreme Court avoids abortion question, upholds fetal burial measure

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday sent a mixed message on abortion, refusing to consider reinstating Indiana’s ban on abortions performed because of fetal disability or the sex or race of the fetus while upholding the state’s requirement that fetal remains be buried or cremated after the procedure is done. Both provisions were part of a Republican-backed 2016 law signed by Vice President Mike Pence when he was Indiana’s governor. The action by the justices comes at a time when numerous Republican-governed states including Alabama are approving restrictive abortion laws that the Supreme Court may be called upon to rule on in the future.

In an unsigned ruling, with two of the nine-member court’s liberals dissenting, the Supreme Court decided that a lower court was wrong to conclude that Indiana’s fetal burial provision, which imposed new requirements on abortion clinics, had no legitimate purpose. The court has a 5-4 conservative majority. While the fetal burial provision was not a direct challenge to the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion, the ruling gave anti-abortion proponents a victory at the Supreme Court, which soon may have to decide whether various state laws violate the rights recognized in that landmark ruling.

But the court also indicated a reluctance to directly tackle the abortion issue at least for now, rejecting Indiana’s separate attempt to reinstate its ban on abortions performed because of fetal disability or the sex or race of the fetus. The court left in place the part of an appeals court ruling that struck down that the provision. “While this ruling is limited, the law is part of a larger trend of state laws designed to stigmatize and drive abortion care out of reach. Whether it’s a total ban or a law designed to shut down clinics, politicians are lining up to decimate access to abortion,” said Jennifer Dalven, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, which was part of the legal challenge to the Indiana law.

The fetal burial ruling stated that the Supreme Court has previously said that states have a legitimate interest in the disposal of fetal remains. The court noted that in challenging the law, women’s healthcare and abortion provider Planned Parenthood did not allege that the provision implicated the right of women to obtain an abortion. “This case, as litigated, therefore does not implicate our cases applying the undue burden test to abortion regulations,” the ruling said.

The Indiana case was one of the court’s first major tests in abortion context following the retirement last year of Justice Anthony Kennedy, who was pivotal in defending abortion rights. Kennedy was replaced by President Donald Trump’s conservative appointee Brett Kavanaugh. Anti-abortion activists hope the high court will be more receptive to abortion restrictions following Kennedy’s departure. Alabama, Georgia, Missouri, Mississippi and other states have passed restrictive abortion laws in recent months.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-abortion/u-s-supreme-court-avoids-abortion-question-upholds-fetal-burial-measure-idUSKCN1SY1I5

Top court rejects challenge to rules accommodating Pennsylvania transgender students

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday preserved a Pennsylvania school district’s policy accommodating transgender students, declining to hear a challenge backed by a conservative Christian group to rules letting them use bathrooms matching their gender identity. The justices left in place a 2018 lower court ruling that upheld the Boyertown Area School District policy, which was challenged by six former or current high school students, though the action does not set a national legal precedent. The Supreme Court scrapped plans to hear a major transgender rights case involving bathroom access in public schools in 2017 and has never issued a decisive ruling on the matter.

The students challenging the policy argued that it violated their right to privacy under the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment and a federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in education, known as Title IX. They were backed by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal group that has been involved in several major Supreme Court cases. The Boyertown schools policy allows certain transgender students on a case-by-case basis to use locker rooms and restrooms that correspond to their gender identity. There is only one high school in the district, Boyertown Area Senior High School, which is located in the outer suburbs of Philadelphia.

Democratic former President Barack Obama’s administration in 2016 issued guidance to American public schools to let transgender students use the bathrooms that correspond to their gender identity, a milestone in the history of transgender rights in the United States. That and other Obama policies supporting transgender rights triggered a backlash from Christian conservatives and some Republican politicians. Just a month after taking office in 2017, Republican President Donald Trump’s administration rescinded the Obama guidance. The administration has taken other steps to limit transgender rights including a Justice Department conclusion that a federal law against workplace discrimination on the basis of sex does not cover transgender or gay employees. The Supreme Court on Jan. 22 allowed Trump’s policy barring many transgender people from the military to go into effect, lifting lower court rulings that had blocked it on constitutional grounds while a legal challenge continues. The Trump administration last week also proposed rescinding an Obama-era regulation that protects transgender patients under the Affordable Care Act, often known as Obamacare.

Lawyers for the students challenging the policy said the high school did not notify students or parents about it. During the 2016-2017 academic year, the school district applied the policy to three transgender students. At the time the policy was introduced, the school district removed group showers in the locker rooms and replaced them with individual stalls. The district also added new multi-user bathrooms with individual stalls and built several single-user bathrooms.

The American Civil Liberties Union represents a Pennsylvania gay and transgender rights group that intervened in the case in support of the policy. Among the student challengers, two still attend the school while four others do not. One of the students, identified in the case as Joel Doe, was “embarrassed and confused” when he was in the locker room getting undressed with a transgender student present, his lawyers said in court papers. “Joel Doe was marked down in gym class for failing to change his clothes, and he eventually felt forced to leave the school entirely,” the lawyers wrote. Lawyers for the school district said the challenging students “failed to show any infringement of their rights” and defended the district’s “sound educational policy” in handling transgender students. The Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the school district in June 2018, prompting the challengers to appeal to the Supreme Court.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-transgender/top-court-rejects-challenge-to-rules-accommodating-pennsylvania-transgender-students-idUSKCN1SY1IY

U.S. Supreme Court takes up Mexican border shooting dispute

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to decide whether the family of a Mexican teenager fatally shot while on Mexican soil by a U.S. Border Patrol agent who fired from across the border in Texas can pursue a civil rights lawsuit in American courts. It marks the second time the Supreme Court will consider the legal dispute involving Sergio Adrian Hernandez Guereca, who was 15 when he was slain in 2010 along the U.S.-Mexico border - a case that now will be decided during heightened U.S. tensions with Mexico over President Donald Trump’s border policies. The justices will decide whether to allow the family’s civil lawsuit seeking monetary damages from Border Patrol agent Jesus Mesa to proceed.

The court previously ruled in the same case in 2017, but did not decide the important legal question of whether Hernandez’s family could sue for a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, which bars unjustified deadly force. The lawsuit also states that Hernandez’s right to due process under the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment was violated. The justices instead threw out a ruling by the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that had barred the lawsuit and asked the lower court to reconsider the matter. The 5th Circuit last year again ruled against Hernandez’s relatives, prompting them to seek Supreme Court intervention for a second time.

The high court’s action in this case likely will affect a similar case in which Border Patrol agent Lonnie Swartz fatally shot Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez, a 16-year-old Mexican citizen, from across the border in Arizona. That case is also pending at the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court, with its conservative majority, generally has been reluctant to extend the scope of civil rights protections. For example, it ruled in 2017 that former U.S. officials who served under President George W. Bush could not be sued over the treatment of non-American citizen detainees rounded up in New York after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The Supreme Court, with its conservative majority, generally has been reluctant to extend the scope of civil rights protections. For example, it ruled in 2017 that former U.S. officials who served under President George W. Bush could not be sued over the treatment of non-American citizen detainees rounded up in New York after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-border/u-s-supreme-court-takes-up-mexican-border-shooting-dispute-idUSKCN1SY1JC

Canada to present bill on ratification of new North American trade pact on Wednesday: source

OTTAWA (Reuters) - The Canadian government will formally present draft legislation to ratify a new North American trade pact to parliament on Wednesday, a source familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.

Ottawa said last week that it would press ahead with moves to ratify the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement after the U.S. administration lifted tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum exports.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-canada/canada-to-present-bill-on-ratification-of-new-north-american-trade-pact-on-wednesday-source-idUSKCN1SY21H?il=0

British ex-spy will not talk to U.S. prosecutor examining Trump probe origins: source

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The former British spy who produced a dossier describing alleged links between Donald Trump and Russia will not cooperate with a prosecutor assigned by U.S. Attorney General William Barr to review how the investigations of Trump and his 2016 election campaign began, a source with knowledge of the situation said. Christopher Steele, a former Russia expert for the British spy agency MI6, will not answer questions from prosecutor John Durham, named by Barr to examine the origins of the investigations into Trump and his campaign team, said the source close to Steele’s London-based private investigation firm, Orbis Business Intelligence.

Trump has given Barr broad authority to declassify intelligence materials related to the investigations. Last week Trump ordered the heads of U.S. spy and law enforcement agencies to cooperate with Durham. Steele, who had previously collaborated with the FBI on issues such as corruption in the global soccer organization FIFA, was hired in 2016 by Fusion GPS, a Washington-based private investigations firm working for lawyers representing the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. nton’s presidential campaign. Steele produced for Fusion GPS a set of controversial and sometimes salacious reports describing alleged contacts Trump and his team had with Russians before the election.

Trump says Steele’s “fake dossier” was a key factor behind the investigations and what he claims is a broader “witch hunt” against him. He also accuses senior intelligence officials of improperly “spying” on his campaign. According to documents declassified by the Trump administration, the FBI cited Steele’s reporting as partial justification for electronic surveillance targeting Carter Page, a one-time Trump campaign advisor with business dealings in Russia.

Democrats accuse Trump of trying to turn attention away from the findings of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, whose report into Russian interference in the 2016 election described numerous links between the Trump campaign and Moscow, and said Trump had repeatedly tried to impede the investigation. The source close to Steele’s company said Steele would not cooperate with Durham’s probe but might cooperate with a parallel inquiry by the Justice Department’s Inspector General into how U.S. law enforcement agencies handled pre-election investigations into both Trump and Clinton. Steele also cooperated with Mueller’s investigative team, voluntarily submitting to two interviews in September 2017. He also gave written testimony to the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee in August 2018, the source said. The Justice Department had no immediate comment, and a spokesman for Durham declined to comment.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-steele/british-ex-spy-will-not-talk-to-u-s-prosecutor-examining-trump-probe-origins-source-idUSKCN1SY20K?il=0

>>6609767

I have been watching this narrative for about a week now, it's all based on a book due to come out about them.

>>6609828

If I had to guess..it would be this guy.

Disaster aid bill worth $19.1 billion blocked again in House

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday failed again to pass a $19.1 billion disaster aid bill supported by President Donald Trump after a Republican lawmaker objected to the measure.

Following Senate passage of the legislation last Thursday by a vote of 85-8, House Democratic leaders had hoped to win quick, unanimous approval of the bill on a voice vote and send it to Trump for his expected signature.

But with most lawmakers out of town for a recess until June 4, individual House Republicans have been able to block passage twice - once last Friday and again on Tuesday - by demanding an official roll call vote. Any roll call vote would have to wait until the full House returns to work next week.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-congress-disaster/disaster-aid-bill-worth-19-1-billion-blocked-again-in-house-idUSKCN1SY22M?il=0

>>6609952

I might have dates confused, when did Sessions announce he would step back from the Russia investigation? That date is important for determining..who else is involved.

>>6609971

Just realized I was..replying to this date, in question

>Who in the DOJ authorized Comey to say, on March 20, 2017 …

>>6609952

@

>>6609990

>>6609985