The US Supreme Court

[L'Emmerdeur]

Mild correction: Constitutional due process rights apply to all within the borders of the US, not just citizens.

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That middle of the night ruling was a strong signal that the majority of the court is fed up with being lied to. Except for Alito and Thomas of course. They understand that sometimes you have to lie to get things done, like stomping on the human and constitutional rights of those deemed undesirable.

Some nice Kafkaesque work going on: 'The government has no plans to remove anyone that’s filed a habeas petition.' The same government in the first place having asserted it can effectively prevent these 'detainees' from filing habeas petitions notwithstanding.

'Alito’s Emergency Deportation Dissent Misrepresents the Most Crucial Fact in the Case'

Late on Saturday night, Justice Samuel Alito released his dissent from the Supreme Court’s order—issued nearly 24 hours earlier—blocking the allegedly impending deportation of Venezuelan migrants under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. It is highly unusual for the court to rush out an order before a dissenting justice has the chance to complete their opinion, reflecting the urgency of its intervention. That delay between the majority’s order and the publication of the dissent gave Alito plenty of time to raise persuasive objections to the court’s ruling. He failed on every level, misstating key points of law in a bid to bail out the president (which was joined only by Justice Clarence Thomas). Perhaps Alito’s most egregious misrepresentation, however, was not legal, but factual: The justice wrote that Trump administration lawyers “informed” a federal judge that “no” deportations “were planned to occur” on Friday or Saturday, so there was no need for emergency action. That is false. And what the Justice Department actually said in court reinforces the wisdom and necessity of the Supreme Court’s dramatic move.

Alito’s claim that there were no “planned” deportations originates from a hearing that U.S. District Judge James Boasberg held in Washington, D.C., on Friday evening. By that point, the American Civil Liberties Union had credible information from multiple sources that the government was loading Venezuelan migrants on buses heading to the Abilene, Texas, airport for rendition flights to El Salvador. These sources confirmed that federal officials had failed to provide these migrants with the due process rights recently afforded to them by the Supreme Court, including a meaningful opportunity to contest their removal. Instead, the government allegedly intended to deport them just 24 hours after coercing them into signing a “notice” in English that failed to inform them of their rights. Despite ample evidence of imminent, unlawful rendition flights, the conservative federal courts in Texas refused to act. The ACLU thus asked Boasberg for an emergency hearing on Friday night, and the judge summoned Justice Department attorney Drew Ensign to explain the administration’s plans.

[Description of Ensign equivocating and tap-dancing in an attempt to buy time for the flights to depart.]

Layered into this equivocation was an even deeper distortion. Ensign told Boasberg that “the government has no plans to remove anyone that’s filed a habeas petition”—that is, a challenge to their expulsion to El Salvador. But Ensign then admitted that the government is still preventing migrants from filing habeas petitions in the first place. The attorney insisted that despite the Supreme Court’s call for due process, federal officials did not have to inform migrants of their rights, or give them more than 24 hours’ notice before loading them on a flight to El Salvador. This threadbare process, Ensign told Boasberg, satisfied the government’s constitutional obligations. His assurance that “the government has no plans to remove anyone that’s filed a habeas petition” was therefore nearly meaningless given that the government claimed the authority to thwart those petitions from being filed in the first place.

In light of the full context and Ensign’s specific choice of words, Alito was simply wrong to claim that the Justice Department denied plans to fly out migrants on Friday or Saturday. Set aside the fact that DHS “reserve[d] the right to remove people” on Saturday. Set aside the bad-faith scheme hatched by administration officials to sabotage habeas petitions by denying migrants real due process. The truth is that Ensign himself refused to say with certainty that migrants were safe from imminent removal. And just last month, the government allegedly deprived him of real-time information about rendition flights—for the express purpose of hiding those flights from the court. Alito’s confidence that no migrants would be illegally renditioned was not just misplaced, but actively misleading.

[Tero]

There are dozens of people who could have stopped Trump 2022-2024. Now it will take a good number of senators andcthe speaker of the house.

[L'Emmerdeur]

Justice Alito is on a roll--motivated mendacity his chosen mode.

'Alito Managed to Mangle the Plot of a Children’s Book During Supreme Court Arguments'

The Supreme Court’s conservative justices unleashed a torrent of homophobia on Tuesday as they debated the meaning and propriety of several LGBTQ-themed children’s books. Throughout arguments in Mahmoud v. Taylor, these justices voiced concern—and at times, outright disgust—toward these books for portraying LGBTQ+ people as normal and loving. They argued that parents should have a First Amendment right to shield their children from such material in public schools, ostensibly to protect them from exposure to diverse families under the auspices of religious liberty. Justice Samuel Alito reserved special ire for Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, a gentle picture book that homophobic parents initially attempted to censor when it debuted in 2008. Alito suggested, over the objections of Justice Sonia Sotomayor, that the book is devious propaganda aimed at indoctrinating children who harbor reservations about same-sex marriage.

He is wrong. Alito did not just arguably miss the point of the book; he fundamentally distorted it. As author Sarah Brannen told me on Wednesday, “The book is written very simply, in language a 5-year-old can understand.” Brannen speculated that Alito “was being deliberately misleading” in his summary of Uncle Bobby’s Wedding from the bench, part of a broader effort to vilify both the school board and same-sex families. This paranoid homophobia lies at the heart of the whole case. The Republican-appointed justices made it abundantly clear that they think woke educators are inculcating children with radical, pro-LGBTQ+ values in violation of their parents’ religious beliefs. These justices sound eager to give parents a veto over classroom materials to prevent their children from learning about LGBTQ+ families. And they have zero concern for the profoundly stigmatizing message this censorship sends to children who belong to those very families.

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[Alito:] “I don’t think anybody can read that and say, well, this is just telling children that there are occasions when men marry other men, that Uncle Bobby gets married to his boyfriend, Jamie. And everybody’s happy and … everyone accepts this—except for the little girl, Chloe, who has reservations about it. But her mother corrects her: ‘No, you shouldn’t have any reservations about this.’ As I said, it has a clear moral message.”

Sotomayor then interrupted. “Wait a minute,” she said, audibly irritated. “The reservation is about …” But Alito stepped in before she could finish. “Can I finish, please?” he asked, his voice rising. Chief Justice John Roberts gave him the floor to continue his tirade.

Sotomayor’s direct rebuke of Alito was highly unusual: When justices seek to address their colleagues on the bench during arguments, they typically go through the attorney before them. Sotomayor felt it was urgently important to address Alito’s claim—and rightly so, because he was wrong. Alito claimed that Chloe had moral “reservations” about Uncle Bobby marrying his boyfriend—as if her “reservations” were about a man marrying another man. But the book makes it abundantly clear that Chloe’s reservations are not about Uncle Bobby’s sexual orientation. Rather, she frets that he won’t have as much time to spend with her.

[L'Emmerdeur]

What happens when MAGA finally realizes they're really not going to manage to conjure into existence their imagined former greatness? That the culture has simply rolled past their ideal of white hetero Christian male supremacy. They can pass laws intended to immiserate their chosen 'others' and crush people's dreams, but they'll only manage to wound rather than eliminate the parts of society they fear, despise, and (in some cases) hate.

I suppose their struggle will continue, even if they can bring some version of a Christofascist government into existence. The government has never been anywhere near expressing the reality of the culture of the nation. Brutal minority rule might carry the day for a while but I don't think it has real staying power. Yeah, call me an optimist--the demonic forces will prevail against the righteous Christians sooner or later.

'Too late to opt-out: Supreme Court ultimately can't save the religious right's futile book bans'

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Tuesday for Mahmoud v. Taylor, which has become known as the "don't say gay" case, because it's over conservative objections to children's books, taught in Maryland classrooms, that position queerness as a normal fact of life. The arguments involved a lot of legalese about "burden" versus "coercion," or what constitutes a "sincerely held" religious belief. But at the heart of the battle was a more philosophical question, one with an answer that should be self-evident: Is it possible to "respect" someone while trying to erase their existence?

The case regards a Montgomery County school board's decision to include books featuring same-sex marriage, trans characters and a Pride parade as part of their curriculum. The Becket Fund, a religious right organization, is suing on behalf of parents who want to opt their kids out of lessons involving these books, claiming that mere exposure to the books violates their religious beliefs. The school district's lawyer told the court these books are no different than books portraying women working or soldiers fighting in wars, both behaviors proscribed by some religions. "These lessons are students should treat their peers with respect," he said. Exposing kids to different beliefs is not a mandate that they follow them, he argued, just an education in what the world looks like.

If the Supreme Court rules for the religious right, "I don't think that explicit bans are likely, in the sense that school districts would forbid students from having certain books," explained Ian Millhiser, the legal analyst at Vox. Still, he said that such a ruling could "deter public schools from assigning any books with LGBTQ themes or from using books with queer characters in the classroom." It would functionally create a national version of Florida's "don't say gay" law that has suppressed free expression in the classroom.

The right's lawyer argued that censoring these books wasn't about disrespecting queer people, but protecting "children's innocence." It's a nonsense argument, however, as it assumes there's a "respectful" way to erase people. But it was also quite silly, as if hiding these books would shield children from the knowledge that LGBTQ identities exist. (An unspoken corrollary is the false view they can prevent children from growing up queer.) The case illustrates the animating futility at the heart of the MAGA movement: they will never manifest their dream of a past "great" America, when "queer" wasn't a thing. Such a period never existed, but especially not in an era when queer people are visible in pop culture, the internet, and the general community. The government can force teachers not to say "gay" in school, but kids are going to hear about it everywhere else.

During arguments, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson made this point most clearly, asking the plaintiffs' lawyers how far this parental right to "opt out" should go. She asked if a gay teacher would be allowed to have a wedding photo on her desk? Or if a student group put up "love is love" posters in the hallway? Or if a trans teacher insisted that the students use their preferred name and pronouns? On this last point, the conservative lawyer insisted the teacher has no right to tell students how to address them.

This answer gave the game away. It's standard practice for teachers to dictate how students address them: First name or last name? Miss or Mrs? Only trans people, in this lawyer's determination, don't deserve this basic respect from students. It's just about insulting them, not "protecting" kids from the knowledge of trans identities. But Jackson's larger point is crucial. Blocking a few books from classrooms won't hide the existence of queerness from kids. And efforts to go down that futile path only lead to ever more draconian censorship, such as telling queer teachers to hide their spouses, while allowing straight teachers freedom to talk about theirs. At which point, the fiction that "respect" and "equality" are being maintained is a joke.

The Becket Fund's efforts to get around this problem rely on pure bad faith, by misrepresenting or even lying about what's in the books to make it seem like they're sexually explicit. Their communications strategy has foreground "Pride Puppy," a short storybook chronicling a family's day at a Pride parade. The Becket lawyers claim the book "invites three- and four-year-olds to look for images of things they might find at a pride parade, including an 'intersex [flag],' a '[drag] king' and '[drag] queen,' 'leather,' 'underwear,' and an image of a celebrated LGBTQ activist and sex worker, 'Marsha P. Johnson.'"

All words meant to make homophobic adults imagine scandalous material, but the book itself is entirely innocent, which readers can verify by watching this 3-minute video of a woman reading it, complete with the illustrations. As a blog post by the illustrator points out, "The leather mentioned is a leather jacket, a fairly common article of clothing that even children sometimes wear!" The drag performers are just dressed-up adults. The "underwear" is worn outside the clothes, like a superhero costume. The drawing of Johnson doesn't mention her history. Similarly, the Becket lawyer insisted that another book tells kids their gender "changes based on the weather," but provides no evidence in the voluminous court filings. When asked by Justice Sonia Sotomayor what's wrong with pictures of same-sex couples holding hands, the Becket lawyer pivoted to saying some parents object to adult films, as if they are the same thing.

[macdoc]

Good post √
Is it time to have a LIKE button attached to posts. Surely this software can handle that.

[L'Emmerdeur]

Generally not a fan of 'like' buttons myself but thank you for the note of appreciation.

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A bit of a pickle for the right wing zealot/MAGA supermajority on the court. Previously they've claimed to be guided by a strict adherence to 'history and tradition' when interpreting the US Constitution. None of them is a historian and their historical assertions have often been strenuously disputed by genuine historians. Still, it's their claim and they're sticking to it.

This 'brilliant amateur' historian pose is often melded with a potent element of bald-faced mendacity--Alito, I'm looking mostly at you. In this case, to advance their Christian supremacist agenda they'll have to find a way around the 'history and tradition' standard. The author of the piece below offers some hope, but I'm not inclined to agree with him.

It seems more likely they'll find a way to endorse publicly funded parochial schools. Either by simply asserting that 'religious freedom' overrides other civil considerations, or by fashioning a bass-ackward mangling of 'history and tradition' that they will claim to have discovered via their deep and oh-so-unbiased insight into 18th and 19th century America. I'm not against being pleasantly surprised but doubt that'll happen.

'Oklahoma is Asking the Supreme Court to Ignore History'

Oklahoma is forcing the Supreme Court to choose: Either the justices can allow more religious control of public schools, or they can respect the wishes of the Founding Fathers. They can’t do both.

The Founding Fathers didn’t see eye to eye on all the details, but people in the founding era did agree that it would be the death of public schooling if schools came under the authority of any specific religious denomination, or even if a school appeared to favor one denomination over another. Many believed that public schools had a duty to encourage religion as a general idea and could even offer some generic religious instruction, but a line was drawn at direct control.

The reason was that public schooling was not just an educational offering but also a project of building a national identity and citizenry. No public school could ever be run by a church, because no public school should teach any religious idea that divided Americans. In the centuries since, that fundamental principle has remained intact. By the 1960s, the idea of any devotional practice in school had come to seem divisive, so the Supreme Court prohibited teacher-led prayers and school-sponsored religious devotions of any kind. The wholesale exclusions of religious practices were new, but the guiding principle was as old as the United States itself.

Oklahoma’s plan for a public school run by the Catholic Church would upend that principle. It would fly in the face of the Founding Fathers’ intentions and go against two centuries of American tradition. And it puts the six members of the Supreme Court’s conservative majority in a bind. In previous decisions, they have insisted that they will be guided by history, using that rationale to allow for more religion in public schools. In this case, however, if they want to follow their own rules, they must decide in the other direction.

[An examination of US history and tradition which definitely doesn't support the concept of government paying for religiously run schools.]

Today’s conservative politicians might not see a problem with creating divisions among Americans, but the leaders of the founding generation definitely did. The purpose of early public schools was to bring young America together, and those schools carefully excluded any religious idea that might drive it apart.

The justices can now either score a short-term win for today’s religious conservatives, or respect centuries of history and precedent. Let’s hope they follow their own guidelines and strengthen one of the best traditions of America’s past.

[Brian Peacock]

History, so it is said, is written by the winners.

[Svartalf]

well, it's currently being rewritten by absolute wieners

[Brian Peacock]

I set 'em up. You knock 'em down.

[Brian Peacock]

Seriously though. History isn't a set of objective facts. It's always a culturally contingent interpretation of materials and events.

[Tero]

Marsha actually brings up a point. The courts are not as clearly outlined. The founding fathers just assumed there would be courts. That first ruling gave them a lot of power. The current court gave Trump immunity. First court to chip away at their own power.

The state attorneys general have a big job for 4 years.

[Tero]

MAGA voters discover: the disabled are ripping me off! No more DEI, no more taxes going to support freeloaders. No more public schools!

https://www.npr.org/2025/04/28/nx-s1-53 ... rimination

... But when her family moved to Minnesota for her father's job, Tharpe's new school in the Twin Cities refused to accommodate her late-day schedule. As a result, her school-time hours were reduced to 65% of what her peers received.

...the Osseo Area School System, claiming that it failed to live up to the requirements specified under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Rehabilitation Act, and the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act