Supreme Court rejects Trump mail-ballot rule for good, third time this year

…(cont) Then I flip forward and there's August 26, a Monday, and the Court is 6 to 3, and the ruling isn't about the ballots at all, it's about who's allowed to ask — California and twenty-two other states didn't have what the Court called standing. So the block comes off. I wrote that down too, with a question mark after it, because I couldn't tell you yet what happens to a rule that's legal to ask about but nobody's shown has to work.

Somewhere in there — the receipt says "last week," measuring back from a Thursday — a district judge in Massachusetts, a woman named Talwani, blocks the Postal Service from putting the rule into effect at all. Not the standing question this time. The rule itself.

September 3rd, a Thursday, the administration goes back to the Supreme Court and asks them to lift that block too. Five days later — Tuesday the 8th — I've got a page that says 250 sitting and former members of Congress signed onto a brief asking the Court to leave the block where Talwani put it. All 47 of the Senate Democrats, every one of them, that's the whole conference, not most of it. Better than 90 percent of the House Democrats. And 15 former Republicans who used to have the same job somebody's holding now.

September 10th, a Thursday, three judges on the First Circuit look at what Talwani did and they don't just leave it — they call it "likely" something, and I'm not going to say the word again yet, because I said it already and I don't want to wear it out before I'm done with it.

And Monday, the 14th, the Supreme Court agrees. Denies the emergency request. Leaves the block standing. Two justices dissent, but it stands.

Here's the part I keep going back to the garage for, if you want to know why my hands smell like the fan belt I've been meaning to replace for three weeks. A car doesn't get an inspection sticker that says PASS FOR NOW. It's PASS or it isn't, until the next time they check. I asked the guy at the counter about that once and he just shrugged and told me the sticker's good till it isn't. Fine. I can live with that on a Buick.

But the New York Post ran this same Monday ruling under the words "for now." Not for good. For now. Same order, same day, same Court — one outlet's got it stamped permanent and another's got it stamped temporary, and I don't have a third page that settles which one the sticker actually says.

Oh — hang on, before you go, one more thing, since you're still standing here. Three judges said it. Three appeals judges said it likely. Now the highest court in the country's let it stand. Five separate benches, five separate weeks, reaching for the same page in the same book — so when one paper says "for good" and the paper right next to it says "for now" about the identical Monday ruling, I have to ask you, since you're better with words than I am: which one of those was ever actually unlawful?