Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court approved Donald Trump's third version of his travel ban. The Republicans refused to talk to Barack Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland. They waited until the election, then approved Justice Gorsuch --- not by the long established bar of 60 votes -- but by a simple majority.
However, it was Justice Sotomoyer's dissent that will live on in history. She wrote:
The United States of America is a Nation built upon the promise of religious liberty. Our Founders honored that core promise by embedding the principle of religious neutrality in the First Amendment. The Court’s decision today fails to safeguard that fundamental principle. It leaves undisturbed a policy first advertised openly and unequivocally as a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” because the policy now masquerades behind a façade of national-security concerns. But this repackaging does little to cleanse Presidential Proclamation No. 9645 of the appearance of discrimination that the President’s words have created. Based on the evidence in the record, a reasonable observer would conclude that the Proclamation was motivated by anti-Muslim animus. That alone suffices to show that plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits of their Establishment Clause claim. The majority holds otherwise by ignoring the facts, misconstruing our legal precedent, and turning a blind eye to the pain and suffering the Proclamation inflicts upon countless families and individuals, many of whom are United States citizens. Because that troubling result runs contrary to the Constitution and our precedent, I dissent.
The Court essentially refused to get involved in matters of National Security. From here on in, that will be Trump's stated rationale for whatever he does -- including trade tariffs on Canada.
The fat is in the fire. Unless the Democrats retake the House -- and even though it will be a stretch -- the Senate -- the American Future is very dark.
Yesterday's decision was another Dred Scott decision.
Image: RawStory
2 comments:
Dread Scott, Fred Korematsu, and now this decision - the SCOTUS has a poor record of upholding the civil rights of the vulnerable against the bigotry and fearmongering of the powerful.
Cap
I agree, Cap. The lesson Americans should draw from yesterday's decision is that they can't rely on the courts to save them. They're going to have to save themselves -- if they have the smarts to figure out what's going on.
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