[Image credit: Leah Millis/Reuters]
I have little to add to what Dan McLaughlin already wrote tonight about the utterly lawless, mind-bogglingly outrageous ruling just now handed down by a federal judge in the District Court of Massachusetts in Planned Parenthood of Massachusetts v. Kennedy. The ruling purports to grant a nationwide temporary restraining order invalidating the provision in the One Big Beautiful Bill — just passed by Congress and signed into law — that cancels Planned Parenthood’s federal funding. The district court judge is thus commanding — purely on her own recognizance, with no legal theory to justify her ruling or explanation for Planned Parenthood’s likelihood of success on the merits — the United States to continue funding Planned Parenthood against its express legislative will.
There is nothing to debate about the legal merits of the issue. The plaintiffs offer a farcical “bill of attainder” argument that flunks the most basic principles of constitutional law: Bills of attainder apply only to a notional situation (common in the Founders’ era) where Congress seeks to inflict legal or monetary penalties upon a disfavored person or party — specifically fines or confiscation of ...
