It really is hard predicting which way the Supreme Court is going to rule on any given issue nowadays and here is the latest case in point; just last week the Supreme Court ruled against the President’s attempt to rescind the DACA program with John Roberts siding with the liberals, and then yesterday in a 7-2 decision with Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer voting with the conservatives the highest court in the land ruled for Donald Trump’s fast track deportation policy. Here is more:
The U.S. Supreme Court handed the Trump administration a major victory on a signature issue Thursday, ruling that asylum-seekers whose claims are initially denied by immigration officials have no right to a hearing before a judge.
The decision authorizes the Trump administration to fast-track deportations for thousands of asylum-seekers after bare-bones screening procedures.
Immigrants who make a claim for asylum must initially prove to immigration officials that they have a “credible fear” of persecution in their country of origin to proceed with the full asylum process. If they fail, they can be deported without ever having the opportunity to make their case in court.
He said that neither the right of habeas corpus nor the right to due process of law requires a hearing before a judge for those turned down in their initial asylum screenings. This framework, he said, was properly authorized by Congress in a 1996 law aimed at speeding deportations at the border.
While voting in favor of the policy in the one particular case before the Supreme Court Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer did not agree with Samuel Alito majority statement because they felt it was too broad and that the decision should be limited to this one case.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Senate Democrats block police reform bill
In response to the George Floyd murder and the subsequent protests the Senate Republicans began to craft a police reform bill. This bill included the following reforms:
Among other things, the JUSTICE Act creates a federal system to track police shootings, requires police departments to report no-knock warrants such as the horrific incident in which police officers shot Breonna Taylor, institutes a grant program to help police departments gain access to more body cameras, requires police training on alternatives to the use of force and de-escalation, makes lynching a federal crime, and reforms law enforcement hiring and education. The act also creates economic incentives for local police departments to ban chokeholds.
Despite demanding action on this issue Democrats in the Senate blocked the legislation, calling it unsalvageable even though the Republicans were going to allow Democrats to make amendments to the legislation.
Yet while the Democrats are calling this legislation “unsalvageable” according to the above-linked article it is not all that different from their own version of this bill which is in the House. If the Democrats were truly interested in reforming the police it would seem as if they should have at least debated and amended the Senate bill, and if passed something could have been worked out between the two versions of the bill when it went to conference committee. You know, the way things usually work…
What this shows us is simple, the Democrats are not interested in police reform. Or I should say, the Democrats are not as interested in police reform as they are in using police reform as a political issue during an election cycle or in assuring the Republicans cannot claim any type of victory on police reform before an election.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Back in April, after 35 or so authoritarian governors decided to shut down the economy by putting millions of Americans under house arrest, Donald Trump tried to stem the tide of self-destruction by banning some foreign work visas for 60 days.
With that Executive Order set to expire today it is being reported here that the President is preparing to extend and expand the visa ban until the end of the year. Here is more:
President Donald Trump will sign an executive order extending a freeze on green cards and barring most categories of foreign workers through the end of the year, the White House announced Monday.
The order extends restrictions originally enacted in April due to the coronavirus pandemic, which blocked most people from receiving a permanent residency visa, or green card. The new order also temporarily freezes H1-B visas for highly-skilled workers
The Trump administration is arguing the immigration restrictions are necessary to protect American jobs during a period of historic unemployment, the result of the country’s lockdown this spring to prevent the spread of Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
The executive order applies to H1-B visas, which allow U.S. employers to temporarily hire non-immigrant workers in specialty occupations; H4 visas for spouses of H1-B workers; L visas for temporary workers and most J and H2-B visas. J visas are for work-and-study-based exchange visitor programs and their spouses and dependents — au pairs are exempt, but professors and scholars are not — and H2-B visas for temporary non-agricultural workers.
According to the article it is estimated this will free up 525,000 this year. You already know how the Democratic leadership is going to react to this news, they are going to claim Donald Trump is using the COVID-19 crisis to implement his racist policies because, quite frankly, they are happy with the self-inflicted economic downturn.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalm 118:24 KJV)
Here is this week’s open thread. Please feel free to post links to interesting articles and to discuss whatever issues arise during the course of the day. Nothing is off-topic here.
You can subscribe to America’s Watchtower to receive email updates and you can also follow America’s Watchtower on Facebook and Twitter by clicking the links on the right.
If you are not familiar with Folk Punk here is an introduction, I give you Ryan Harvey and his song “Peace, Justice, and Anarchy.” Enjoy:
It looks like Donald Trump’s immigration policies are 0-2 in the Supreme Court this week. Earlier in the week the Supreme Court refused to take up the administration’s appeal of a lower court ruling on California’s sanctuary law, and yesterday the highest court in the land blocked the President from rescinding DACA.
The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Trump administration cannot carry out its plan to shut down the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which has allowed nearly 800,000 young people, known as Dreamers, to avoid deportation and remain in the U.S.
Chief Justice John Roberts was the swing vote in the 5-4 decision, which deals a big legal defeat to President Donald Trump on the issue of immigration, a major focus of his domestic agenda.
Once again John Roberts sided with the four liberal justices on the Supreme Court. (When can we just start saying the five liberal justices on the Supreme Court were in agreement?)
Oddly enough the court did not rule that Donald Trump could not end the DACA program, the court just did not like his reason for wanting to do so.
Roberts wrote in the decision that the government failed to give an adequate justification for ending the federal program. The administration could again try to shut it down by offering a more detailed explanation for its action
We conclude that the acting secretary did violate” the Administrative Procedure Act, and that the decision to rescind DACA “must be vacated,” Roberts wrote. In his decision, Roberts called the Trump administration’s “total rescission” of DACA “arbitrary and capricious.”
The heart of Robert’s majority opinion held that Trump had broken the laws governing federal agencies when he ended DACA in 2017 because the memorandum that recommended its termination did not address crucial parts of the policy.
Critically, however, Roberts pointed out in his decision that it wasn’t necessarily unconstitutional for the Trump administration to terminate DACA, but the way it did so was.
So it is back to the drawing board. Basically it looks like the Supreme Court punted this issue and now we will have to wait to see if Donald Trump decides to try again this close to when the election is scheduled to take place.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
California’s sanctuary law, which forbids local police from helping Federal immigration agents, was being challenged in the courts. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled that there is nothing in California law which requires local police to assist Federal officers and upheld the law.
The Trump administration challenged the decision and yesterday the Supreme Court handed Donald Trump a major setback to his immigration policy by refusing to hear the appeal. Here is more:
California’s “sanctuary” immigration enforcement law will not go before the U.S. Supreme Court, handing California a capstone victory in an ongoing clash with the federal government.
The high court on Monday turned down the Justice Department’s request to review a federal appeals court decision that largely upheld three California laws. One of the laws passed soon after Donald Trump became president, Senate Bill 54, partitions local law enforcement from federal immigration authorities, protecting arrested immigrants and low-level offenders from deportation.
The federal government asked the Supreme Court to review SB 54. The court announced Monday that it declined that review, though Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas would have heard the case.
The story says only Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas would have agreed to hear the case, but here we find out that Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch refused to hear the appeal so I am guessing this decision was handed down by the whole court and not just a panel. And of course that means John Roberts strikes again…
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Donald Trump to sign police reform Executive Order
In the wake of George Floyd’s murder the Democrats who do not want to defund the police have been preparing police reform legislation but apparently they are not moving fast enough for Donald Trump because according to this story he is going to sign an Executive Order on police reform tomorrow. Here is what is included in his decree:
- Creating credentialing and certification programs in every police department across the nation
- Information sharing — create a national database that can track officers with excessive use of force complaints so they can’t skip from department to department
- Incentivize co-responder programs — have mental health experts accompany officers on responses to non-violent calls involving homelessness, addiction, and other mental health issues
You know how I feel about Executive Orders, I believe the President should let the Congress go through the process and then decide whether or not to sign the police reform legislation when and if it makes it to his desk.
However, we know if Donald Trump waits for the Congress to do its job the Democrats in this very same Congress will claim he is fiddling while America burns, even though they will be the ones who do not get it to his desk. But of course he is damned if he does because I can already predict they are going to claim it does not go far enough.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Sunday, June 14th open thread: ‘Bombtrack’
“This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalm 118:24 KJV)
Here is this week’s open thread. Please feel free to post links to interesting articles and to discuss whatever issues arise during the course of the day. Nothing is off-topic here.
You can subscribe to America’s Watchtower to receive email updates and you can also follow America’s Watchtower on Facebook and Twitter by clicking the links on the right.
Here is Rage Against the Machine performing “Bombtrack” live in 1999:
There has been a growing movement on the left which has reached the halls of the Congress. Knowing how radical the idea sounds the leftists are playing the semantics game, the way they always do, saying they do not want to defund the police but want to reallocate the monies used to fund the police.
Now the movement has actually taken another step forward in Minneapolis, the city council had taken the first step to defund the police and now they are moving to replace the police department. Here is more:
The Minneapolis City Council on Friday unanimously passed a resolution to pursue a community-led public safety system to replace the police department following the death of George Floyd at the hands of the city’s police.
The move comes days after a veto-proof majority of the council voted to disband the police department after the country erupted in protest over the killing of Floyd
“The murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, by Minneapolis police officers is a tragedy that shows that no amount of reforms will prevent lethal violence and abuse by some members of the Police Department against members of our community, especially Black people and people of color,” five council members wrote in the resolution.
According to the above-linked article this movement started before the George Floyd murder but has gained momentum after the killing and now we have reached this point. This is just the beginning step, the article states this sets up a year-long review because nobody knows what is actually going to replace the police department.
I have to believe that in a year from now tensions would have died down and clearer heads will have prevailed, but the Democrats do have this penchant for taking things too far and this could be another example. I believe taking this to this extreme is going to backfire on them but this is just the beginning so strap yourselves in and prepare for a long and bumpy ride.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
In what seems like a lifetime ago at this point, during the Democratic debates there was talk of adding justices to the Supreme Court in order to undo the conservative majority. Of course all the candidates supported this idea in one degree or another.
Since that point COVID-19 and George Floyd have overtaken the news cycle, however the issue of packing the Supreme Court has not gone away and could rear its head if we do indeed have an election at the end of this year.
Here is more:
The movement on the left to pack the Supreme Court is gaining momentum.
A group of progressive organizations is for the first time supporting the proposal to add justices to the court in hopes of weakening the conservative majority, according to a memo provided to POLITICO.
The Progressive Change Institute, Be a Hero, Friends of the Earth, Presente and 350 are among those groups that are newly joining the call, according to organizers. Take Back the Court, Demand Justice and the Sunrise Movement, which previously backed the idea, also signed onto the open letter.
“Trump and the Republicans in Congress have used aggressive tactics, including eliminating the filibuster, to pack the courts with conservative ideologues and prevent the will of the people from being heard,” said Erich Pica, president of the environmental group Friends of the Earth.
Of course these groups fail to mention that the “aggressive tactics” of ending the filibuster for some judicial nominations was started by Harry Reid when the Democrats were in power before the Republicans expanded it to Supreme Court nominees, but that is an ugly little fact the Democrats would rather ignore.
Here is more:
“From the fight for racial justice to efforts to stop climate change and protect our clean air and water, the current configuration of the court has consistently stood in the way of progress. We simply do not have a generation’s worth of time to replace judges.”
In the memo, the progressive organizations accused Republicans of themselves “manipulating the size of the court by refusing to consider President Obama’s nominee for an open seat (and indicating that they would leave the seat open if Hillary Clinton won the 2016 election), then promptly changing Senate rules to fill the seat with a bare majority, rather than the previously-required 60 votes, when Trump took office.”
This, of course, is not a new idea and it has been tried before but these are different times and there is no doubt in my mind the Democrats will not fail this time around if they are in power. On the off chance that Donald Trump somehow does manage to win reelection what do you think the Democrats would say if he tried to do the same in order to secure a conservative majority? Somehow I believe the calls of dictator would ring out all across the halls of the Congress…
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
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