JUSTICES CELEBRATE CYBER MONDAY WITH PERUSAL OF APPLE STORE | Why Roberts Decided To Rebuke Trump | Were Midterms Pure Gold Or Pure Applesauce
November 26, 2018
THERE'S AN APP FOR THAT
|“Anyone who wants to get an app for an iPhone has only one place to go — Apple’s own App Store.” Pete Williams with NBC News reports on the case before SCOTUS today regarding whether customers can sue Apple for what amounts to a monopoly that jacks up prices. Williams reports, “If the justices allow the case to go forward in the lower courts and Apple eventually loses, that could disrupt the App Store. Even though the average price of an app is just over one dollar, the App Store generated an estimated $11 billion in revenue for the company in 2017. A ruling that Apple was running an illegal monopoly could expose it to millions of dollars in damages.”
MIXED REVIEWS
|The justices seemed skeptical today in hearing the Apple case, with all four liberals clearly concerned over the monopoly in question, and with three of the conservative justices expressing similar concern at different points throughout the argument.
OLDIE BUT A GOODIE
|It may be old news by now, but it’s worth remembering that just last week CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS delivered a rare rebuke to the president. Wednesday, Roberts released a statement in which he criticized PRESIDENT TRUMP for calling the judge who ruled against his administration’s asylum policy “an Obama judge.” The statement read: “We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges. What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them. That independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.”
BITES BACK
|The president — per usual — didn’t waste time barking back at CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS with two tweets that read: “Sorry Chief Justice John Roberts, but you do indeed have ‘Obama judges,’ and they have a much different point of view than the people who are charged with the safety of our country. It would be great if the 9th Circuit was indeed an ‘independent judiciary,’ but if it is why…..,” the president wrote, followed by: “…..are so many opposing view (on Border and Safety) cases filed there, and why are a vast number of those cases overturned. Please study the numbers, they are shocking. We need protection and security — these rulings are making our country unsafe! Very dangerous and unwise!”
OK SO WHY NOW
|It’s no secret that the chief justice cares a great deal about the perception of the federal judiciary — but why did he choose the eve of Thanksgiving to speak out on just one of many attacks the president has hurled against the third branch? That’s the question John Cassidy with The New Yorker seeks to answer. He suggests that if you read between the lines of the chief justice’s statement, you’ll see that he is drawing a line in the sand but is unlikely to make any further comments on the issue.
PURE GOLD OR PURE APPLESAUCE
|Carl Hulse with The New York Times explains that although Republicans thought BRETT KAVANAUGH’S confirmation to the Supreme Court was “pure gold” for the midterms, the results from Election Day tell a very different story. “In the end,” he writes, “the most contentious Supreme Court confirmation drama in decades resulted in a split midterm decision that suggests that Democrats might have gained ground in their fledgling efforts to make the court as mobilizing an issue to their voters as it has long been to Republicans.”
A LIFE WORTH LIVING
|Tony Mauro reports for Law.com that JUSTICE ANTHONY KENNEDY will be honored next month by The American Lawyer with a Lifetime Achievement Award for his service on the Supreme Court. Clap it up, clap it up!