The rump court ...

People gather outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, U.S., June 29, 2024.
REUTERS/Kevin Mohatt/File Photo

Working in the sc must be like being Sisyphus in having the rock roll back on top of you day after day just after finally getting the bolder back up the hill once again, using all your effort, a process to remain in place until the end of time, a fate not to be wished on any human being possessing a sense of ethics and responsibility of interpreting the law in ways to benefit all and not the very few, something this court is doing in ways most disquieting without question.

To whit ...

• Trump has tested the limits of US presidential powers
• He has won most of the cases decided on emergency basis
• Court has backed Trump at least in part in 21 of 23 cases
• It has taken six different paths in deciding these cases

As she has done several times recently, liberal Justice Elena Kagan last week sounded the alarm after another bold emergency action by the U.S. Supreme Court's conservative majority again let President Donald Trump carry out one of his policies without taking the usual time or deliberation to review its legality.

The court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, allowed Trump to withhold $4 billion in foreign aid despite a judge's decision that he cannot simply not spend funds appropriated by Congress. The emergency docket, with its scant briefing and lack of oral arguments, Kagan wrote in a dissent, was not appropriate for yet another high-stakes decision from the top U.S. judicial body given the "uncharted territory" of the dispute.

Typically, Kagan wrote, "we will decide cases of far less import with far more process and reflection." When the justices start their new nine-month term on Monday, they will assess their regular cases over months before issuing definitive rulings.

Since Trump returned to office on January 20, the court has acted in 23 cases on an emergency basis involving his policies, siding with him fully or partially 21 times, with one case declared moot.

Sisyphus (1548–49) by Titian, Prado Museum, Madrid, Spain

A rump court indeed.