SCOTUS Grants Trump Another Stay, KBJ Issues Another Fiery Solo Dissent, Drawing Rebuke Even From Sotomayor
SCOTUS (8-1) grants stay permitting Trump administration to develop plans for mass layoffs. “Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is emerging as the great dissenter.”
The last time we checked in on Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, her fiery solo dissent (that even Sotomayor and Kagan didn’t join) in the ‘birthright citizenship’ (really, universal injunction) case had earned her much mockery and scorn, including from the six ‘conservative’ Justices, KBJ-isms: I’ll meet your “(wait for it)” and raise you a “full stop”.
KBJ is carving out a niche of solo dissents that play well in the liberal media, drawing her accolades:
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is emerging as the great dissenter in the tradition of John Marshall Harlan. Her opinions will be read long after Amy Coney Barrett is a mere footnote in history.
I look forward to a long and glorious future of Justice Jackson dissents. https://t.co/Ck5pHax2xz
— William A. Jacobson (@wajacobson) July 7, 2025
Sticking with her emerging persona as the Great Dissenter, KBJ penned another fiery solo in a case in which the eight other Justices granted the Trump administration a stay pending appeal halting a district court order preventing planning for mass layoffs. From the Majority Order [emphasis added]:
The application for stay presented to Justice Kagan and by her referred to the Court is granted. The May 22, 2025 preliminary injunction entered by the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, case No. 3:25–cv–3698, is stayed pending the disposition of the appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and disposition of a petition for a writ of certiorari, if such a writ is timely sought. Should certiorari be denied, this stay shall terminate automatically. In the event certiorari is granted, the stay shall terminate upon the sending down of the judgment of this Court.
The District Court’s injunction was based on its view that Executive Order No. 14210, 90 Fed. Reg. 9669 (2025), and a joint memorandum from the Office of Management and Budget and Office of Personnel Management implementing that Executive Order are unlawful. Because the Government is likely to succeed on its argument that the Executive Order and Memorandum are lawful—and because the other factors bearing on whether to grant a stay are satisfied— we grant the application. We express no view on the legality of any Agency RIF and Reorganization Plan produced or approved pursuant to the Executive Order and Memorandum. The District Court enjoined further implementation or approval of the plans based on its view about the illegality of the Executive Order and Memorandum, not on any concurring assessment of the plans themselves. Those plans are not before this Court.
KBJ’s dissent was so over the top, that even Justice Sotomayor – who voted with the majority – felt the need to distance herself from it. The problem with KBJ’s dissent is that she didn’t understand (as the majority pointed out) that the court was not ruling on the merits of the firings, only whether planning could move forward. Sotomayor wrote this Concurring Opinion explaining all this [emphasis added]:
I agree with JUSTICE JACKSON that the President cannot restructure federal agencies in a manner inconsistent with congressional mandates. See post, at 13. Here, however, the relevant Executive Order directs agencies to plan reorganizations and reductions in force “consistent with applicable law,” App. to Application for Stay 2a, and the resulting joint memorandum from the Office of Management and Budget and Office of Personnel Management reiterates as much. The plans themselves are not before this Court, at this stage, and we thus have no occasion to consider whether they can and will be carried out consistent with the constraints of law. I join the Court’s stay because it leaves the District Court free to consider those questions in the first instance.
So both the majority and Sotomayor separately made that point to KBJ. But it didn’t get through, as her lengthy dissent repeatedly considered the merits of a layoff plan that was not even before the court:
This unilateral decision to “transfor[m]” the Federal Government was quickly challenged in federal court. As relevant here, the District Judge thoroughly examined the evidence, considered applicable law, and made a reasoned determination that Executive Branch officials should be enjoined from implementing the mandated restructuring until this legal challenge to the President’s authority to undertake such action could be litigated. But that temporary, practical, harm-reducing preservation of the status quo was no match for this Court’s demonstrated enthusiasm for greenlighting this President’s legally dubious actions in an emergency posture.
The Court has now stayed the District Court’s preliminary injunction—authorizing implementation of Executive Order No. 14210, and all the harmful upheaval that edict entails, while the lower courts evaluate its lawfulness. In my view, this was the wrong decision at the wrong moment, especially given what little this Court knows about what is actually happening on the ground.
Tell us, KBJ, “what is actually happening on the ground”? How long before she starts talking about “lived experience”?
As the self-described ‘Wise Latina’ pointed out, all the court allowed the administration to do was develop plans. The district court prevented even planning, and ruled that the as-yet non-existent plans needed an emergency injunction.
Another KBJ-ism – district court judge have their “fingers on the pulse” of what is happening “on the ground” [emphasis added]:
Given the fact-based nature of the issue in this case and the many serious harms that result from allowing the President to dramatically reconfigure the Federal Government, it was eminently reasonable for the District Court to maintain the status quo while the courts evaluate the lawfulness of the President’s executive action. At bottom, this case is about whether that action amounts to a structural overhaul that usurps Congress’s policymaking prerogatives—and it is hard to imagine deciding that question in any meaningful way after those changes have happened. Yet, for some reason, this Court sees fit to step in now and release the President’s wrecking ball at the outset of this litigation.
In my view, this decision is not only truly unfortunate but also hubristic and senseless. Lower court judges have their fingers on the pulse of what is happening on the ground and are indisputably best positioned to determine the relevant facts—including those that underlie fair assessments of the merits, harms, and equities.
What is KBJ up to? Does it trouble her that even Kagan and Sotomayor don’t join her dissents.
She’s not “the Great Dissenter,” she’s “the Solo Dissenter.”
8-1 decision.
Ketanji Brown Jackson once again gets absolutely embarrassed…
This time Sotomayor (a fellow liberal) explains to her that Trump’s specific plans are not before the Court and that her decision is supposed to be based on the legality, not her personal approval. https://t.co/gcHxwWA7KM pic.twitter.com/Ya0Fehm5j1
— Geiger Capital (@Geiger_Capital) July 8, 2025
Justice Jackson is putting more distance between herself and her colleagues.
In her dissent today she doubles-down on her abrasive and insulting mischaracterizations about what the Court’s majority are allowing.
Today’s dissent was -again – farther than either Justice Sotomayor…
— Shipwreckedcrew (@shipwreckedcrew) July 9, 2025
— Margot Cleveland (@ProfMJCleveland) July 8, 2025
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Comments
Jackson was not nominated because she is an excellent legal scholar, or even a scholar at all. She was nominated to fulfill a campaign promise of a far-gone puppet president and reward her for favorable dispositions in past cases. She has a poorer grasp of constitutional law than the fine people that write for this website. Perhaps even poorer than a second year law student.
She’s a political activist in a robe. Something has to give eventually.
Please.
“IT” was nominated and pushed through because “IT” is black, and given the general worldview even “IT” denies, “IT” has a vagina.
Full Stop!
Those of us with a finger on the pulse of what a female is, our boots on the ground soundly claim that without a scintilla of denial, proudly proclaim that this WO-MAN is an idiot. Those of us with a seat at the table are convinced.
“IT” however does not have a brain.
Poster child for DEI ineptitude.
You have your finger on the pulse of what is happening on the ground.
She could be impeached. That would require the House to impeach her and the Senate to convict her as that is the only way to get rid of her. The Constitution is silent on what the grounds of impeachment can be although it’s fairly well understood it should be something like corruption, senility or other serious matter but it doesn’t specify. This makes it feasible to get rid of her on grounds like she is unqualified, her rulings are well beyond the norm and have no legal basis etc. AOC filed articles of impeachment on Thomas and Alito because she essentially didn’t like their rulings. She tried to inject some nonsense like failure to recuse and stuff but she and the squad who joined her just didn’t like the conservative members.
Filing to impeach her for incompetence is an admission that they were incompetent in confirming her. Don’t expect that option to be viable.
What would happen if a block of justices approached Congress with a recommendation for Jackson’s impeachment? SCOTUS, I would think, has a stake in maintaining its reputation, because a good reputation is essential to the public’s respect for its opinions. KBJ is a loose cannon, threatening that reputation.
Getting a bunch of inferior court judges calling for the impeachment of SC Justice due to imcompetence or overt partisanship simply isnt going to happen.
whether they should call for her impeachment is another story.
With approximately 1/2 of the district and appeals court judges appointed by biden/obuma in support of her, any judges calling for her impeachment is going to look very partisan.
Even if she had a grasp of Constitutional law it wouldn’t matter. She is ruling from deep insider her feelings with no deference to the law or the facts of the cases or questions of process put before her.
She doesn’t care if it is supported by law she is there to stop Trump because she thinks he is evil.
Her dissents may well be read for years. Comedy is fun to read and bad examples are needed.
“William A. Jacobson
@wajacobson
I look forward to a long and glorious future of Justice Jackson dissents.”
I wonder if Manisha is clever enough to realize what you actually said there.
The reality is that she is filling a seat on the USA’s Supreme Court because ancestors came from Africa – and she checks the “black” box on forms and in some peoples’ minds.
She is Clyburn’s penance against Biden because Biden is a racist with a firm connection to the KKK.
Clyburn jumped on the Biden Bandwagon and required Biden to nominate Running on Empty as the payback.
Has anyone heard about the legal battle in Israel over this exact same thing?
The Israeli Supreme Court has been captured by leftists and in Israel the judges nominate their replacements.
The court has claimed that it can examine any law passed by the parliament even without a case brought to its attention.
They can thus veto anything passed by the conservatives even without a complaint from anyone.
Netanyahu tried to rein this in and it caused huge riots before the current war started
I’ve been following that at The Times of Israel (left-leaning) and at The Jewish News Syndicate (conservative).
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
https://www.jns.org/
“She’s a political activist in a robe. Something has to give eventually.”
It has to be noted that what may ‘give’ is belief in the legitimacy of the legal system. Much is at stake.
Subotai Bahadur
This AA appointee really is an exemplar of an oft-cited adage (commonly attributed to Samuel Clemens), “It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.”
Mathematically speaking, where AA is Affirmative Action and DEI was the flavor of the month in the last Administration:
ƒ {AA + DEI} / {Low SAT} + {Low LSAAT} = SCOTUS Appointment
Trump EO: “work to reduce the size of departments to the extent allowed by law
KBJ: “that’s against the law”
That is literally what she tried to rule.
It doesn’t take a constitutional scholar to make the correct ruling, just a C- or better grade in Logic 101, freshman year, undergrad.
I don’t think this is accurate. She is saying this much downsizing is not allowed by law. And in your argument, we’re back to the merits, and so it would not be accurate to say that the question of merits is not before the court (which Sotomayor says, and here I think Sotomayor is making a mistake). It always is, in one form or another. How to determine whether to uphold or reverse anything — a stay, a TRO, a preliminary injunction, or a lower court ruling on the merits? None of it is totally unrelated to merits, or likelihood of success on the merits — is that not correct?
On a more personal level, I sense the presence of a catfight between Sotomayor and KBJ. Wouldn’t they likely be fighting to avoid being seen as the worst on the Court? Sotomayor won the last round by writing by far the better dissent in the Universal Injunction case.
But KBJ won this round if I’m right, because Sotomayor misunderstood KBJ’s dissent, which was better this time than last time. Sotomayor’s comment this time was snappy, but wrong.
I don’t think she said even that. What she is actually saying is that The President can’t run the Executive branch without lower court approval and any plans he has must be run by them before he even makes them. This is even worse than what DA’s are doing now. Trying to make the Executive or Legislative branch seek prior approval from the judicial branch for any action is beyond dangerous and thinking like that is in my view grounds to remove her from the bench as a danger to our Republic.
Actually PrincetonAl’s paraphrase is accurate, which is why Sotomayor objected.
How much? That’s the problem. No specific plan was before the court, so there was nothing that could be said to be “too much”. The only thing the district court enjoined was the order itself, which specifically said the plans were to comply with the law! As Sotomayor said, how can one object to that? As she wrote, as soon as a plan is developed, it can be challenged.
But the merits of what? In this case, only the order, not any specific plan developed in compliance with the order.
Sorry the analysis by PrincetonAl is correct. KJB is demanding that a District CT be allowed to issue an order preventing reductions/restructuring of Executive Branch personnel:
1. ‘consistent with applicable law’
2. Without review of the planned cuts
IOW KJB is arguing that a single District Judge should be allowed to halt the Executive (POTUS) from making reductions without judicial approval. Her position is the functional equivalent of ‘prior restraint’ imposed at will and without review by the Judiciary over the Executive.
because Sotomayor misunderstood KBJ’s dissent
Oof. No. And I don’t think any improvement is detectable.
Trump’s order specifies the plans to make reductions must be made “according to law.” Therefore, the prospective plans, which were not before the lower courts, are (or will be) presumptively legal. The lower court blocked the administration from even making the plans. It’s not possible for SCOTUS to rule about plans that haven’t yet been made. This is why KBJ is out of line. The legality of the plans wasn’t being adjudicated, the authority to make them was. KBJ is presuming the plans will not be made in accordance with law and will be illegal, but there’s no evidence before the courts that this is so because the plans don’t yet exist.
The merits in this case concern Trump’s authority to make the downsizing plans. SCOTUS is saying the administration’s argument that is has the authority to make the plans is likely to win, not that the plans themselves will pass legal muster.
If she had any sense this is what she would do. I read elsewhere that she babbles excessively during arguements though.
WORTHLESS. There is nothing more to say about her.
Dangerous I’d say
Only if she’s allowed to multiply, I think.
If someone ever notifies her that she’s a woman, we’re screwed.
Great and KBJ should never ever ever be using in the same sentence, May I sugguest
Dumb Dissenter
Ignorant Dissenter
Expected Dissenter
DEI Dissenter
Pathetic Dissenter
Or anyone of 10 billion possible adjectives other than Great or anything similar,
KJB got her law degree via night school? After she earned her AA degree and after finally obtaining a GED?
I thought she got it from a box of Cracker Jack.
We all can’t go to Haah-vahd. I’m willing to bet some great lawyers went night school.
It’s just that she is not one of them.
Some great lawyers never went to law school at all.
With great humility, I was one of them.
University of American Samoa. Go Land Crabs!!!
This person can’t tell the difference between a male and a female. Can anyone expect this person to tell the difference what is and what is not before the Court, or is it just so much legalese?
Looks like her lack of understanding only begins with not being able to explain what a woman is…
Diversity hires suck.
She’s the living embodiment of the danger of DEI. Everything that she’s ‘achieved’ has been a direct result of people looking past her obvious stupidity and incompetence solely because she ticked all the boxes.
I’m afraid to tell you that it’s not just the legal profession suffering these DEI fools. Medical schools are handing diplomas to people who are the intellectual mirrors of KBJ. Think about that the next time you’re in the ER with a loved one.
you only wish that some of the physicians/surgeons were mirrors of KBJ;
quite a few of them don’t come anywhere close – even with an open book exam
unfortunately
It’s not just them. Many years ago (10+) I took a PMP prep course. It was open book, and we were allowed to talk (hey, it was prep, not the actual PMP exam). Guy next to me (absolutely an AA person) kept trying to give me his answer to a question. I showed him in the book that his answer was wrong. Didn’t matter. He still submitted his answers. Out of 100 questions, he only got something like 25-30 correct. It was completely sad.
The teacher/professor/proctor/whatever doing the prep exam still passed him. SMH
A potential minor plus of this person is that she may become such an embarrassment and so distasteful to be associated with that, on occasion, one of the fence-sitters does not otherwise drift from the conservative side.
I think this is right. She is undoing all the work Kagan – the only one of the three with a brain and a strategic approach to converting the fence sitters – is doing to persuade the middle of the court.
At worst she is ignored, like a child at the adults table.
Best case – if Barrett finds herself siding with KBJ, she will want to double check her work.
OT: Did you see the story about a reporter who asked Karen Leavitt why the NWS issued the flash flood warning at 1 o’clock in the morning, when most people were asleep? I suppose they should have held the warning until 9:00 AM, when people would be awake and listening.
According to KBJ’s logic, the warning should have been issued a week before in case something might have happened. That question by the reporter was one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard. They obviously have no idea how “watches and warnings” are issued.
My experience has been they issue them at all hours, based on the imminence of the perceived threat.
My wife is a meteorologist (real, not “broadcast”) and 11+ years ago (after we got married) used to work for NWS. You are exactly right. The time of day or night doesn’t matter.
Oh, and she is NOT one of the ClimateCrazies and never has been. She was overjoyed when I asked her to marry me and told her that I didn’t want my wife to HAVE to work outside the home. She quit the next day. ROFL.
Many of the ClimateCrazies my wife used to work with would agree with you. SMH
This reminds me of the apocryphal story of the neighborhood Karen who demanded that the town remove the deer crossing signs in certain areas. Her reasoning was that deer kept getting hit by cars in those areas and they should move the crossings to somewhere safe for the poor little animals.
The Three Stooges are building a house. Curly comes to Moe with a nail.
Curly: Moe, these nails aren’t any good! They’re pointing the wrong way!
Moe: You imbecile. Those nails are for the other side of the house!
I’m going to stick out here and say I thought the dissent was reasonable. She’s doing what Kavanaugh’s concurrence in the Universal Injunctions case said the justices have to do in preliminary stage rulings. They all depend to some extent on an assessment the merits (including “likelihood of success”).
I am glad everyone dumped on her because I want the firings to go forward, and so this is the ruling I wanted to see. But I didn’t see her mischaracterizing what the court is saying. If it were simply that the merits were not before SCOTUS, then any preliminary injunction or TRO, or stay of same, could be overruled automatically. Is that not correct? So then how is the decision made to overrule or not? Some sort of merits test. I think that’s the gist of Kavanaugh’s concurrence I noted above.
No. The President ordered his government to prepare legal plans for firing people. Those plans have never been considered by any court, because they haven’t even been prepared yet. The district court enjoined, not the plans, but the order to prepare them. As Sotomayor said, that order can’t be illegal, because it specifically says that the plans to be prepared must comply with the law. If the government comes up with a plan and you think it doesn’t comply with the law, that will be the time to challenge it. But you can’t challenge it before it exists! You can’t enjoin the order to prepare plans, just because you’re worried that the eventual plans might be illegal; not when the order specifically says don’t make such plans!
But KBJ says firings are already underway. Isn’t that related to plans? How did they get the firings so far done?
Indeed, according to Jackson:
But as the majority and Soto both pointed out, if this is the case then the plaintiffs are free to challenge any specific plan and allege that it is not in compliance with the law, and therefore isn’t what the President ordered. The district court remains free to enjoin any such plan, and of course the government will then be free to ask for such an injunction to be stayed, and that will be the time for SCOTUS to consider the matter. But that’s not the case that was before SCOTUS, because the district court didn’t enjoin any plan, it enjoined the entire project, and on the merits the administration is very likely to succeed in having the project (as opposed to any specific plan under it) upheld.
Correct. the district court prevented the administration from making a plan, not executing one. Of course the POTUS is likely to win on the merits of the argument that he has the authority to make plans “according to law.” The merits of the plan weren’t before the court, because no plan has been made – the district court stopped the making of the plan.
I don’t think this is right. The core executive order is okay, it asks for reductions to the extent permitted by law.
KBJ is trying to say you can’t do any layoffs eg it’s against the law to do any layoffs to the extent permitted by law.
That’s prima facie incorrect and why Sotomayor called out the dissent as essentially dumb.
What the district judges need to challenge is the individual actions by department to say how they go beyond the extent permitted by law. Those actions can be attempted as TROs and evaluated and ruled on by the court. And they don’t have to all be evaluated individually – you can make broader rulings and/or certify a class action response. However that hasn’t happened here yet (it will).
However you can’t blanket deny all layoffs preemptively by saying the executive order source of those layoffs is itself against the law … when the EO says that any layoffs must be conducted to the extent permitted by law.
There is no shortcut called “I am going to stop all layoffs proactively – even legal ones – with a TRO that overturns a legal order because I have my finger on the pulse of things and these layoffs don’t feel right”
But that’s what KBJ did.
I think the District Courts focus should be narrower than that because considering department wide firings means having to issue country wide injunctions, which the Supreme Court has already said is a no no.
They should only be considering individual impacts and redressing those with individual redress not country wide injunctions which will get shot down at SCOTUS.
Jackson is not a great dissenter, just a DNC idiot, too stupid to be able to define what a woman is. Remove it. Take out the Brandon endorsed communist trash.
I keep reading this as KJB being the Great DISASTER 😂
That Sinha chick is right, though. KBJ’s dissents will be read long after she is gone as a DEI warning and in law school classrooms as what not to do.
Bookstores still sell Mein Kampf and Arming America.
Or maybe to start off each class with a laugh.
Jackson: is ‘hubristic and senseless’
Another Biden gift that keeps on confounding.
As with many DEI hires, not qualified.
Dim-witted Jackson’s farcical and intemperate Dhimmi-crat histrionics and activism, masquerading as allegedly sagacious and principled “jurisprudence,” are the predictable result of appointing someone to the SCOTUS bench exclusively because of her skin pigmentation and genitalia.
Impeach her? How about giving her a raise? This Biden selection is great for MAGA. Biden would have selected a predictably leftist judge anyway. This way a sub-moron’s puerile theatrics will bring constant discredit to affirmative action and shine a spotlight on the mid-wit Sotomayor and the cagey Kagan,
they dont see it as a discredit of affirmaction
by any means necessary means just that
I think that’s why Sotomayor pulled the trigger…she’s embarrassed to tears that she’s associated with this moron.
“Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is emerging as the great
dissenter.”
Please define “great,” as used here.*. Just disagreeing is a far cry from greatness. ACB’s slap down of KBJ last week is on a par with Cicero about 2000years ago.
* MSM keeps using that word. I do not think it means what they think it means.
in the tradition of John Marshall Harlan
Who?
Choose your poison ::::
Kentanji could have been an airline pilot due to her skills of her skin color
or
we have her as the scotus justice with the brain power of a 7 year old…at best
kentanji responded:
I got all my education from watching the jeffersons
and they too was movin on up
her finger is on the pulse
and
her thumb is up her arse
I know it looks a LOT like a thumb, but that’s her head.
Are her clerks as dumb as she is, or is she deliberately sidelining/ignoring them? One of the jobs of a clerk is to keep his/her Justice from making stupid mistakes. These points should have been caught and brought to her attention.
Or maybe they were and she didn’t understand what her clerks were telling her.
You have to be self aware to be embarrassed.
“Historian of Reconstruction here, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is emerging as the great dissenter in the tradition of John Marshall Harlan. Her opinions will be read long after Amy Coney Barrett is a mere footnote in history. ” I think that both Prof Sinha and Justice Jackson have no awareness of how disconnected from reality Justice Jackson and her opinions are. However, the prediction is likely to be true but for reasons that Prof. Sinha doesn’t comprehend – legal humor. Future scholars will be amazed, amused, and appalled that such silliness could be appointed to the highest court of the land.
I think she’s lazy. Reading legal stuff is boring. Cant have that.
True, but doesn’t she have clerks? Aren’t they afraid that their association with her will be considered a negative on their resumes?