David Cole, national legal director of the ACLU, on today’s Supreme Court fubar:
The Supreme Court’s approval of President Trump’s travel ban barring entry to some 150 million people from five overwhelmingly Muslim countries is likely to be judged by history as one of the court’s greatest failures — in a league with Dred Scott v. Sandford, which helped bring on the Civil War, and Korematsu v. United States, which upheld the wartime detention of more than 110,000 Japanese Americans and noncitizens of Japanese descent.
Gee, what might the common element be? Singling out a particular group – a non-white group – for Special Treatment and thus general social odium? Yes, that’s the one.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., perhaps recognizing the disturbing parallels, sought to distance the court from this critique by declaring, nearly 75 years after the fact, that Korematsu “was gravely wrong the day it was decided” and that it has “nothing to do with this case.” But it has everything to do with this case: In Trump v. Hawaii, as in Korematsu and Dred Scott, the court was asked to stand up for the rights of the vulnerable against the biases of the powerful — and failed.
Refused. It’s not as if the 5 tried and failed; they refused.
In Trump v. Hawaii, there was overwhelming evidence that Trump’s ban targeted Muslims. As a presidential candidate, Trump called for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” because, he asserted, “Islam hates us.” He explained that he would do so by using territories as a proxy for religion, because “people were so upset when I used the word Muslim.” One week after taking office, he did just that. In case there were any doubt, he said in an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network that day that the order would give priority to Syrian Christians over Muslim refugees.
The foreigner has no rights which the Trump man is bound to respect.
Comments
18 responses to “Among the top worst”
Does that ban include Muslims from Saudi Arabia, original home, ideological and financial base of one Osama bin Laden?
Does 2 + 2 = 5?
Wow, that sounds like a lot of people. I don’t think we can really take in 150 million people from anywhere. Maybe Trump was right after all?
Or maybe the ACLU director should defend his position without saying stupid shit like that.
Speaking of stupid shit, maybe you could reflect on the fact that the ban bars all of those people, rather than straw manning that the entire lot are about to turn up?
Five overwhelmingly Muslim countries…that Trump has no business deals with. Not Saudi Arabia, not Pakistan…
Seriously, Skeletor. Come on. Obviously the point is not that 150 million people are turned away at the door, the point is that 150 million people are told to fuck right off.
“…150 million people are told to fuck right off.”
Actually, I think that number is closer to 7 billion.
It’s only going to get worse. Kennedy — who, as frustrating as he may be, was at least good on a handful of issues — is retiring.
Say goodbye to Roe v. Wade.
He’s probably dying… Otherwise he might wait until the midterms were over.
I doubt it. This is the end of the Supreme Court term, and is the customary time for justices to resign if they’re going to. Allows the possibility of confirming a new justice before the new term begins in October.
Trump’s nominee will be confirmed before the midterms.
Goodbye to Roe v Wade, the ACA, unions, Medicare and Medicaid, Social Security, the Voting Rights Act, clean water, environmental protections in general…
I’m sure Jill Stein will be along shortly to explain to us all how that stuff doesn’t really matter.
And I’m sure I will hear from all my students/colleagues who are “moderate, leaning slightly left” (their description, not mine) how it would have been just as bad (maybe worse) with Hillary because e-mails.
iknklast,
I can’t tell if you’re being facetious or not. I was under the impression that “but her emails!” has become so discredited that everyone who stayed home/voted third party is too embarrassed to cite that as a reason. And if not, are these people equally outraged that Trump is using an insecure smartphone, and that various Trump officials have been caught using personal email for work purposes? Or does IT security protocol only matter when that bitc— I mean, when that strident and shrill wo– er, candidate — does it?
Nailed it.
Screechy Monkey, I wish I were being facetious. The young man with the office next to mine? Nope, she’s tainted, corrupt, and she deleted e-mails. My students? Nope, she’s tainted, corrupt, and she deleted e-mails. It may be discredited in certain circles, but around here, it’s still the song of the day.
Yeah, I just dropped in to FTB for a tiny minute to see what the response was.
“It’s all HER fault for blowing the election” was a recurring theme.
The US Supreme Court’s decision isn’t necessarily an approval of Trump’s travel ban, it determines that he has the Constitutional right to impose it. That’s the problem in electing a quasi-monarch.
Because, after all, getting more votes than her opponent is a symbol that she did everything wrong. After all, she needed to get votes in “swing states” that have fewer people, are more conservative, more religious, and more patriarchal, as well as being much more intolerant of immigrants, minorities, women, and LGBTQ.
If they want to be honest, they would say “It is all her fault for campaigning while female”.