It’s like Hollywood is shooting a sequel to Idiocracy in the White House with Trump and his minions comprising the cast: Idiocracy 2 The Second Dumbing.
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I swear, when I first saw this a couple of days ago I was sure it had to be an Onion article, but nooooo …
It is like Poe’s Law applied to MAGA politics. You can’t tell the difference between reality and parody anymore.
MTG missed reducing inflation, and ending the war in Ukraine. She’s none too bright, but I am too busy managing my schadenfreude overload at the minute…fnarr
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When MTG starts to sound like a voice of reason, you know you are in deep trouble.
This ain’t good.
Bezos headed to Italy for his wedding. The Italian people are my heroes of the day…
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I hope this isn’t indicative of where we’re heading as a society, although it sure looks like it…
Cue American version of Aktion T4 in 3 … 2 … 1 …
Latest from the Supreme Kangaroo Kourt of the United States:
They postponed implementation of the Cheeto’s EO that eliminates “birthright citizenship” for 30 days, but did not rule on the merits of the case. I guess Alito needs more time to find a 16th century ruling that he can use to justify overturning a century-and-a-half’s precedence on 14th amendment jurisprudence, such as U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898).
They also limited nationwide injunctions imposed by federal judges that have been a (justified) thorn in the Cheeto’s side.
The opposition is strangely quiet about this ruling. It is so Kafkaesque that it serves as a sad reminder that ultimately the rule of law is a fiction, a little bit like the concept of money: once enough of us quit supporting it, it can be altered pretty much randomly. Particularly now that the unthinkable has been rendered worthy of consideration.
I mean, birthright citizenship and due process as a human right have been enshrined in the law forever as you point out. But there is basically nothing the regime won’t question (or try to wreck). Nothing sacred – not even really the “word of God” which, until fairly recently, was used to support rather than degrade the rule of law and legal precedent.
Lately I have been making life decisions under the assumption that on some kind of alarmingly short timescale, this country will become a hellscape of collapse and upheaval, because beyond a certain point I’m not sure how it can really even function. My wife has long had an itch for example to take a cross country Amtrack ride to CA and back and I am pushing her to plan that out for this fall because (and this is the part I’m not telling her) by the fall of 2026 such an adventure may no longer be safe. Even she understands that taking a connecting train up to Banff or something like that isn’t going to happen, as US citizens are being harassed when returning to the US over just having an unflattering meme about Trump or Vance on their cell phone.
Every day, I better understand the curse “may you live in interesting times”.
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It’s going to result in scientifically illiterate kids graduating from high school, and that’s going to impact our competitiveness as a nation, especially compared to other countries that don’t follow regressive education policies.
It’ll also lead to increased rates of teen pregnancies as sex education will be another area that insecure, prudish parents will opt their kids out of.
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People are easier to control in those circumstances, eh?
I said the above before I had time to read the court’s opinion. Now that I’ve read it, I found this:
We must therefore ask whether universal injunctions are sufficiently “analogous” to the relief issued “‘by the High Court of Chancery in England at the time of the adoption of the Constitution and the enactment of the original Judiciary Act.’” Grupo Mexicano, 527 U. S., at 318–319 (quoting A. Dobie, Handbook of Federal Jurisdiction and Procedure 660 (1928)). The answer is no: Neither the universal injunction nor any analogous form of relief was available in the High
Court of Chancery in England at the time of the founding. Equity offered a mechanism for the Crown “to secure justice where it would not be secured by the ordinary and existing processes of law.” G. Adams, The Origin of English Equity, 16 Colum. L. Rev. 87, 91 (1916). This “judicial prerogative of the King” thus extended to “those causes which the ordinary judges were incapable of determining.” 1 J. Pomeroy, Equity Jurisprudence §31, p. 27 (1881). Eventually, the
Crown instituted the “practice of delegating the cases” that “came before” the judicial prerogative “to the chancellor for his sole decision.” Id., §34, at 28. This “became the common mode of dealing with such controversies.” Ibid.
They’ll ignore a hundred years of American jurisprudence, but won’t hesitate to cite something from English common law from the 18th century. Even more evidence they’re trying to cast Trump in the role of king…
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Some of the legal movers and shakers who are very much about protecting democracy and have filed (and won) are saying this isn’t as bad as it looks, it just changes how they file lawsuits – instead of individuals or orgs requesting injunctions they have to be national scope class action suits and as I understand it (so take it with a grain of salt), those are decided in lower courts, so this is really more a way for SCOTUS to decline to be flooded with these and provide a particular path for lower courts to hear them. Class action suits have already been filed. I even saw someone argue that Justice Jackson is wrong, this is not an existential threat to the Constitution.
I have to read up more on this in my copious spare time, lol. But if people like Marc Elias and Norm Eisen are not totally having a cow then maybe all is not entirely lost. Nevertheless I am disturbed that any court is not dismissing something this drop-dead obvious and disingenuous right out of hand – perhaps refusing to even entertain it. All this parsing, delaying and punting does not inspire confidence. High-powered lawyers are, I suppose, more accustomed to such shenanigans but that doesn’t mean they are optimal.
The Supreme Court declined to strike down the injunction lower courts imposed on Biden’s SAVE plan to forgive student debt. Seems like they’re using their supermajority to favor the conservative agenda.
And another death in ICE custody … this time a Canadian:
