Tag: Courts & the Law
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Trump vs Ballot Envelope
Why, one wonders, does the administration want the Postal Service deciding which envelopes carry a vote? Today the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to let the Postal Service decide which ballot envelopes states are allowed to mail. Solicitor General John Sauer describes the rule as “only modest envelope-design and addressee-information requirements.” But here is…
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Children In Court Alone
Children, detained and alone, facing the government of the United States. This is what deporting the so-called worst of the worst looks like. On Friday, the Trump administration awarded a no-bid $158 million contract for legal services to unaccompanied immigrant children. It went to a group called Our Rescue. Multiple women have sued its founder…
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Trump Anti-Birthright Orders
We are one changed mind away from reopening the question of who is born a citizen. The administration seems intent on doing so. On Thursday, Donald Trump signed two executive orders seeking again to restrict birthright citizenship. Five weeks ago, on June 30, the Supreme Court struck down his first attempt to do so. Trump…
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First Amendment Holds?
For now, the First Amendment held. But states are falling all over themselves to out-MAGA each other and others have passed similar laws. One wonders for how long it can be withstood. This week a federal appeals court ruled that Florida’s so-called Individual Freedom Act violates the First Amendment. The 2022 law, championed by Governor…
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Fire at Will
They had fought a king to escape that power, but today the Court handed it back. Today the Supreme Court ruled in Trump v. Slaughter in a 6-3 decision that Donald Trump can fire the leaders of independent federal agencies at will, erasing a precedent that had stood for 91 years. In 1935, Franklin Roosevelt…
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Bible Required in Texas Schools
State-required Bible reading in public schools. It seems state-sponsored religion is already here. On Friday, the Texas State Board of Education approved a required reading list of Bible stories and Bible verses for every public school student in the state. If implemented, more than 5 million Texas children will read it, roughly one in ten…
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FBI Raids
These are the things we will look back on when we wonder where the groups who help people register to vote have all gone. On Thursday, June 11, FBI agents searched the Cleveland office of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, a group that has been helping people register to vote since 2007. They say more than…
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At Will
A government workforce that can be fired for any reason is a government workforce that serves one man. Wednesday, Donald Trump signed an executive order stripping civil service protections from roughly 8,000 career federal workers. He placed them in a new category called Schedule Policy/Career. They are now at-will employees. Their agencies can fire them…
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State Religion
These are the things we will look back on, when we wonder how it is that we established a state religion. On May 20, the Pentagon ordered a cut to its list of recognized religions from 211 down to 31. Donald Trump’s Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, directed the change, with the accompanying memo cutting roughly…
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Corruption Pardons
This is what corruption decriminalized looks like. Yesterday NPR reported that since returning to office, Donald Trump has pardoned at least fifteen former elected officials and their co-conspirators who were charged or convicted of public corruption. This on top of the 1,500 January 6 rioters he pardoned on day one of his current term. Among…
Notes To My Future Self 