Justice Amy Coney Barrett has gotten a bad rap lately for siding with the leftist wing of the Supreme Court on a few cases, but if you ever needed a reminder of why ACB was such a pivotal addition to the Supreme Court, look no further than her latest majority opinion, which brutally destroyed Ketanji Brown Jackson for her moronic dissent in Trump v. CASA, Inc.
In a 6-3 decision that handed President Trump a major victory, the Court put the brakes on runaway district judges issuing nationwide injunctions — an abuse that’s become the left’s favorite tool for stalling any policy they dislike.
Jackson’s dissent veered into unhinged territory, and she wildly accused the administration of asking the court for “permission to engage in unlawful behavior” simply for challenging the use of universal injunctions. It was less a legal argument than a melodramatic outburst that was heavy on theatrics, light on logic.
"When the Government says 'do not allow the lower courts to enjoin executive action universally as a remedy for unconstitutional conduct,' what it is actually saying is that the Executive wants to continue doing something that a court has determined violates the Constitution — please allow this," Jackson claimed without evidence.
She went off the rails entirely, claiming the majority’s ruling could somehow create a “zone of lawlessness” where the Executive Branch could “take or leave the law as it wishes,” a hyperbolic fantasy that sounded more like a campaign speech than a serious legal critique.
Barrett, writing for the majority, didn’t just settle for a routine legal reasoning. She delivered a withering rebuke to Jackson’s dissent, slicing straight through the hollow rhetoric and exposing her radical rewrite of two centuries of constitutional law for what it was: ideological fantasy posing as legal reasoning. She didn’t hesitate, didn’t hedge, and delivered the blow with unflinching clarity:
The principal dissent focuses on conventional legal terrain, like the Judiciary Act of 1789 and our cases on equity. JUSTICE JACKSON, however, chooses a startling line of attack that is tethered neither to these sources nor, frankly, to any doctrine whatsoever.
Ouch.
As best we can tell, though, her argument is more extreme still, because its logic does not depend on the entry of a universal injunction: JUSTICE JACKSON appears to believe that the reasoning behind any court order demands “universal adherence,” at least where the Executive is concerned.
Ooooh!
We will not dwell on JUSTICE JACKSON’s argument, which is at odds with more than two centuries’ worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself. We observe only this: JUSTICE JACKSON decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary.
Bam!
JUSTICE JACKSON would do well to heed her own admonition: “[E]veryone, from the President on down, is bound by law.”
Brutal, isn't it?
Barrett exposed Jackson’s dissent as nothing more than a blatant call for judicial supremacy, an idea the Framers explicitly rejected. She reminded the court and the country that the answer to executive overreach isn’t for judges to crown themselves kings. "No one disputes that the Executive has a duty to follow the law,” Barrett explained, "But the Judiciary does not have unbridled authority to enforce this obligation — in fact, sometimes the law prohibits the Judiciary from doing so."
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“When a court concludes that the Executive Branch has acted unlawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too.” In other words: two wrongs don’t make a right, and judges aren’t dictators.
It’s almost comical to watch the left try to spin this. For years, leftists have cheered lower court judges who slap down every Trump policy with a nationwide injunction, no matter how flimsy the legal reasoning. But when the Supreme Court finally steps in to restore constitutional order, suddenly it’s a crisis for “democracy.” Joe Biden routinely boasted about how he was defying the Supreme Court after it ruled his student loan forgiveness was unconstitutional and even campaigned on it.
Barrett’s opinion didn’t just win the day for the Trump administration; it exposed the intellectual bankruptcy of the left’s legal strategy. Jackson’s dissent, dripping with activist rhetoric, was no match for Barrett’s command of history, precedent, and the actual text of the Constitution. The reactions online say it all: conservatives are celebrating a long-overdue return to judicial restraint, while liberals are left sputtering about “imperial executives” as their favorite judicial power grab gets torched.
Barrett didn’t just disagree with Jackson; she obliterated her argument and, in the process, restored a crucial check on judicial overreach. The days of activist judges halting the will of the people with the stroke of a pen are numbered, thanks to a Supreme Court that finally remembers its role.
So yes, Barrett didn’t just slap down Jackson; she delivered a lesson in constitutional government that the left won’t soon forget. And for those of us who still believe in the rule of law, it was a thing of beauty.
As for those who still believe in DEI hires, well...
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