April 18, 2026

SCOTUS and the Shadow Docket

A significant portion of Aaron's activity centered on a bombshell New York Times investigation by Jodi Kantor and Adam Liptak revealing the origins of the Supreme Court's shadow docket — specifically the 2016 internal memos behind the order halting Obama's Clean Power Plan. Aaron reposted multiple reactions to the story, including legal scholar Leah Litman's initial signal boost and commentary from Jamelle Bouie noting the striking contrast between Roberts' solicitousness toward fossil fuel executives a decade ago and his current indifference to the chaos Trump's actions have caused for hundreds of thousands of people. Others Aaron amplified pointed out that the memos show Roberts telegraphing his likely ruling before reading briefs or hearing arguments — behavior one commenter called that of "an extreme political hack." The broader takeaway running through Aaron's reposts was that originalism is performative and that the Court has functioned as a political actor on behalf of corporate and conservative interests.

This fed into Aaron's engagement with proposals for Supreme Court reform. He reposted Rep. Sean Casten's pitch for the Restoring Judicial Separation of Powers Act, which would require written, signed explanations for all SCOTUS decisions and use Congress's Article III powers to shift much of the Court's appellate jurisdiction to randomly assigned panels of senior circuit judges. Jamelle Bouie's separate suggestion — that SCOTUS clerks should be hired through a standardized, blind, pooled process rather than chosen by individual justices — also drew a repost from Aaron.

Trump-Era Corruption and Legal Pushback

Aaron reposted a note about reports that Trump was nearing a deal that would effectively funnel $10 billion in taxpayer money to himself, with one commenter — a former diplomat who served in authoritarian states — describing it as corruption beyond anything he had witnessed in those postings. On the legal front, Aaron reposted breaking news that a federal judge had struck down HHS's ban on gender-affirming care in a sharply worded ruling that called out "wanton disregard for the rule of law," explicitly naming RFK Jr. He also reposted a CNN story about a lawsuit involving DHS and ICE that he flagged as "quite a story."

Democratic Party Strategy and Online Discourse

Aaron reposted commentary arguing that Senate Democrats made a significant recruiting error by bringing on Maine Governor Janet Mills as a Senate candidate, given her middling approval ratings and lack of overperformance history — an error compounded by new allegations surfacing around the race. He also briefly weighed in on social media dynamics, questioning why a low-follower account was being allowed to drive an urban-versus-rural debate on the platform.