Supreme Court justices will return to Washington on Monday for their first closed-door conference to discuss cases petitioned to them, a week ahead of the beginning of the high court’s new term featuring several major cases. The high court’s “long conference,” held the week before the new Supreme Court term, will feature thousands of…
Page B1From§Eachthe breakfast edition — 1 October 2026
Roberts calls Trump's ballroom "likely unlawful," loses 5-4, retreats to his island anyway.
As it ran on the front
John Roberts's island privacy is dead. It is survived by the chief justice himself, now harder to find than the address once was. It was preceded in death by the ballroom.
On August 31, the ballroom went first. The Supreme Court let construction on the White House's new ballroom continue under a split decision, and this time Roberts crossed the aisle, siding with the Court's three liberals against its other five conservatives, telling the government the project was "likely unlawful" even as it kept rising. The majority let it proceed anyway. He had already signed the earlier solo order permitting the work to begin; his own dissent couldn't undo his own prior signature. Survived by the ballroom, still standing.…
…(cont) On September 5, Missouri filed the next complaint, an emergency application asking the Court — addressed to Justice Brett Kavanaugh specifically — to overturn a state court's block on a new congressional map before the November election. Win or lose, a map fight like that lands on the chief justice's desk eventually; he assigns the opinions.
The new term hadn't opened yet. It started gathering itself on September 28, a week ahead of the actual opening, when the justices sat for the "long conference," sorting thousands of petitions behind closed doors — a free-speech case, a lobster-surveillance case, the penny-ante and the consequential filed into the same stack, waiting for argument days later.
That is the docket Roberts returns to.
In lieu of flowers, leave him the paddle. Read the docket yourself — the congressional map, the fall calendar, the next emergency application are coming whether the chief justice is on the dock or back on the bench.
“This is the guy who signed off on letting the ballroom go up, then wrote a dissent saying it was unlawful, and now he's paddleboarding away from the mess he helped make possible. The Court keeps ruling for the guy with the gold ballroom and then acting surprised when people show up at the dock to ask why.”
“The chief justice is entitled to a private life like any American — well, any American whose ballroom ruling triggers federal protests, I suppose that's not exactly private anymore, is it. Look, the Court ruled on the law, not on real estate, and if people can't separate the two that's an education problem, not a Roberts problem. Did I just blame the voters for reading the docket? That's not the line, scratch that.”
Earlier in this story
- Trump loses his newest H-1B fight and his 26th voter-roll fight to two judges in one week. By Sal · the milkman edition, 1 October 2026
The receipts
After decades of potlucks and paddle-boarding on Maine’s midcoast, rising anger and protests have left the Supreme Court’s chief justice more isolated than ever.
· Split Supreme Court Allows Trump Ballroom Construction That Chief Justice Calls 'Likely Unlawful' from the morgue, 31 Aug 2026
· Missouri asks Supreme Court to overturn block of new congressional map before election from the morgue, 5 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.