Supreme Strikeout

So how are all of these Supreme Court rulings working out for Trump?  Okay, let's review:

This month, the Court ruled that the 1964 Civil Rights Act, while originally written and passed with blacks in mind, protects any underserved and underprivileged minority, hence it bans discrimination against homosexuals, bisexuals, transsexuals, and any other sexual you can think of.  (LGBT?  Sorry, I'm not into unpronounceable acronyms.)  Justice Neil Gorsuch -  a Trump appointee - wrote the majority opinion.

The Court also ruled that the state of California does not have to acquiesce to the federal government and provide state troopers or any other forms of assistance to enforce immigration laws.  It's a solidly conservative opinion, upholding the rights of the states guaranteed by the Tenth Amendment.

And finally, the Court ruled against Trump's effort to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, meant to help immigrant children brought to this country in infancy by their parents stay in the U.S.  The kids covered by the program aren't out of the woods yet, but Chief Justice John Roberts isn't going to let Trump end the program as he wants to, because the procedure Trump has followed is unconstitutional.

And this all happened within a week.

Once again, we were reminded that the Supreme Court is independent, it answers to no President, and lifetime appointments are not necessarily a bad thing.

Just remember to vote for Biden in November.  Because, all of that notwithstanding, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 87 years old. 

Bad and Good

The fatal shooting of Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta perplexes me to no end; when are these cops engaged in what Marvin Gaye once called "trigger-happy policing" going to get it?  Just when it seemed that the nations; 18,000 police departments seem to be on the way to reform, the cops arresting Brooks for a DUI take it easy with him and handle him gently at first, doing exactly what they're supposed to be doing, then they go haywire and shoot him dead when he tries to run away.  Atlanta's police chief has since resigned, and the two officers are in hot water. 

The Supreme Court, at least, has provided some needed good news.  The Court allowed the 1964 Civil Rights Act to be extended to lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transsexuals (why are they initialized in that order?), with Justice Neil Gorsuch - a Trump appointee - saying that, when the law was written, it was aimed at helping all groups traditionally denied their civil rights, not just blacks.  Now people of non-heterosexual orientation can't be fired from their jobs for being who they are.

The Court also ruled that California doesn't have to help the federal government enforce immigration laws it feels are unjust if it doesn't want to.  That should have surprised no one because it was in accordance with the originalist, states' rights doctrine the Roberts Court has followed since Roberts himself became Chief Justice.  

I also have good news about the COVID-19 virus.  A steroid can be use to mitigate symptoms of COVID-19 patients and save lives.  Now if we can only get a vaccine . . ..

Patience.  (No pun intended.)        

Kentucky Fried Politics

The loss of Trey Grayson to Tea Party darling Rand Paul in Tuesday's U.S. Senate Republican primary in Kentucky was a personal blow to the state's senior senator, Mitch McConnell, who had backed Grayson and may have hurt him by making him appear to be the establishment candidate. To have your man rebuffed in your own state is embarrassing enough. But Rand Paul's recent and previous statements about civil rights has given McConnell more reason to be red-faced. The news that Paul apparently opposes the law that protects those with faces of other colors from discrimination has spread like wildfire across a bluegrass meadow.

Paul opposes the title in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that bars people who own businesses from refusing to serve blacks not because he is racist - oh, no, of course he isn't! - but because he opposes laws that infringe on the right of business owners to choose whom to serve and associate with and whom not to. It's an extension of Paul's and his father Ron Paul's loopy argument that government should not intervene with the rights of private businesses. never mind discrimination against minorities - if we followed the Paul family's logic to the letter in every circumstance, there'd be even less regulation against oil companies like BP than there is now (if that's possible).

Hardly surprisingly, at last one Fox commentator has come out in Paul's defense - specifically, noted misogynist John Stossel (formerly of ABC's "20/20") who said that restaurant owners, hoteliers and the like should have the right to refuse service to anyone they wish, even men with moustaches like Stossel, if they so choose. Well, if I owned a restaurant, I know of one mustachioed man I wouldn't serve! Not because of Stossel's moustache per se, mind you, but because of the cheesiness of it.

The Republican party may not distance themselves from Rush Limbaugh, but they should distance themselves from Rand Paul. His comments fan the flames of racism, whether he personally has any tolerance for black people or not. Mitch McConnell should be the first person in the Republican party to do so. Because he's from Kentucky? No, because his wife is former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, a Chinese-American woman. Without the 1964 civil rights law, hotel managers could refuse to give rooms to interracial couples.

This story certainly made everyone forget Richard Blumenthal. :-O