This seems as good a place as any to post this.
âTurning serious, Roberts emphasized that the President has broad authority to enact policies in response to a national security emergency.â
The only emergency I am aware of that happened around that time was the fact that Donald Trump was elected president. Is that what they are referring to?
The government, imho, had a bad day today in Court. They want to argue that this is a national security issue but canât avoid that Trump is statutorily limited here and is subject to court review. They want to say itâs not a Muslim ban, but then the arbitrariness of it means there is no good national security purpose (no terrorists from any of these countries whereas other countries (ahem Saudi Arabia) were spared the ban). They want to say campaign statements donât matter, but then have to acknowledge that had you replaced âMuslimsâ with âJewsâ and enacted a similar ban on day 2 of the Presidency (as Trump did this ban within the first weeks) that there would be constitutional issues involved here. They want to argue that the facts of this case align with other bans issued by past Presidents, but Katyal keeps stuffing the briefs and exhibits he filed in their faces which the lower courts (triers of fact) said were sufficient to show that Trump exceeded his legal authority.
The only intellectually honest way for the SCOTUS to rule for the govât is if there are 5 justices ready to trade in their robes for MAGA hats. There might be.
âKatyal agreed, but argued that the travel ban was never presented as a response to an emergency, but rather
a solution to a decades-old, ongoing problem of poor information sharing between certain countries and the United Statesa nakedly-transparent scheme for Trump to stick it to âthe brownsâ and feed the racist, Christofoxist lynch mob otherwise known as âthe GOP baseâ.â
Fixed.
There is an audio clip of Solicitor General Franciscoâs final statement to the court in which he says (referring to Trump) "and he has praised Islam as one of the great countries of the world.â
I kid you not - Franciscoâs prepared remarks called Islam a country. Shouldnât that level of ignorance automatically exclude anything he argued from consideration?
In my view, absolutely yes. It shows that the government equated the countries they chose to ban with the majority religion of such countries. It wasnât about whether a particular country (e.g. Pakistan, Saudi Arabia) is a rogue nation that presents a terrorist threat. It was that the selected countries were majority Muslim and were therefore presumptively eligible for or subject to a ban at the POTUSâ discretion.
Chief Justice John Roberts quipped, âImagine, imagine, if you can, that Congress is unable to act when the President asked for legislation.â
So Justice Roberts is saying that if Congress fails to conform to the wishes of the President that the President is then free to enact de-facto legislation on his/her own? Is there something in the Constitution about this that I didnât know about?
Chief Justice John Roberts quipped, âImagine, imagine, if you can, that Congress is unable to act when the President asked for legislation.â
Yikes. I find that statement terribly troubling. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States actually jokes that the U.S. Constitution is completely optional? Sure, the president should try to let Congress pass legislation the way the Constitution requires, but if trump doesnât like what Congress comes up with, heâs welcome to toss it and substitute it with his own laws based on trumpâs bigotry. No prob with that, is there, Roberts?
Katyal countered that that Trumpâs travel ban goes beyond that authority because it is âperpetualâ and includes no sunset clauseâŚ
That would seem to answer Mr. Justice Alitoâs question, but Iâm going to go out on limb and say that âStrip Search Sammyâ donât care. Guess itâs down to Kennedy and Breyer. June will be interesting. And what ânational emergencyâ are we facing again? (Other than @birdford noting the election of Donald Trump to the Presidency)
The whole question comes down to whether SCOTUS will accept Trumpâs pretext as valid on its face or see it for what it is. In an article on another outlet, I read that Justice Kennedy seemed unimpressed with the governmentâs rationale and responded something to the effect of 'I can smell the pretext from here."
Itâs right next to Nambia.
Maybe he had read an article about the âNation of Islamâ and was confused.
âImagine, imagine, if you can, that the courts are unable to interpret the laws as the President desires.â
sic erat scriptum, perhaps?
If we substitute âObamaâ for âTrumpâ, donât we get the presidential creation of DACA when Congress failed to act?
Thatâs probably the most favorable explanation one could offer for Trumpâs level of âunderstanding.â