Pierce: The Supreme Court's Muslim Ban Ruling Signals the End of Our Modern Reconstruction

[babylonsister]

The Supreme Court's Muslim Ban Ruling Signals the End of Our Modern Reconstruction
And we're getting the new Gilded Age simultaneously.
By Charles P. Pierce
Jun 26, 2018


The latest report from Happy Gumdrop Land comes from Chief Justice John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy, who does two shows a night at the Happy Gumdrop Land opera house ever since his smash hit, Citizens United, in which his solo number, “If We Legalize Influence Peddling, Nobody Will Peddle Influence” brought down the house.

On Tuesday, as the Supreme Court upheld the administration’s travel ban by the now loathsomely customary 5-4 majority, Roberts struck up a new tune. One of the points of contention in Trump v. Hawaii was whether or not the most recent iteration of the travel ban was motivated unconstitutionally by anti-Muslim animus. The Hawaii side argued that, given the fact that the president* is an unreconstructed racist who ran an unreconstructed racist campaign chockful of unreconstructed racist rhetoric, this was a pretty safe bet.

From a shady spot halfway up Mount Disingenuous, the Chief explained that:

The Proclamation does not fit this pattern. It cannot be said that it is impossible to “discern a relationship to legitimate state interests” or that the policy is “inexplicable by anything but animus.” Indeed, the dissent can only attempt to argue otherwise by refusing to apply anything resembling rational basis review. But because there is persuasive evidence that the entry suspension has a legitimate grounding in national security concerns, quite apart from any religious hostility, we must accept that independent justification. The Proclamation is expressly premised on legitimate purposes: preventing entry of nationals who cannot be adequately vetted and inducing other nations to improve their practices. The text says nothing about religion. Plaintiffs and the dissent nonetheless emphasize that five of the seven nations currently included in the Proclamation have Muslim-majority populations. Yet that fact alone does not support an inference of religious hostility, given that the policy covers just 8% of the world’s Muslim population and is limited to countries that were previously designated by Congress or prior administrations as posing national security risks.

Roberts also writes that, to prevail, the plaintiffs would have had to a) prove that it was “impossible to ‘discern a relationship to legitimate state interests,'” and b) prove that the ban was “inexplicable by anything but animus.” You’d need a Saturn V to get over that bar.

In other words, just because the president* ran as a religious bigot, and just because his first two tries at this clearly was putting his bigotry into action, that’s no reason to assume that religious bigotry has anything to do with this case because national security.

more...

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a21948919/supreme-court-travel-ban-ruling/

[dhol82]

1. How pathetic is it that we now have a Supreme Court that is in collusion with a

treasonous President.
We are so into dangerous waters.

[Joe Turner]

2. There was no immigration from the Middle East until the 1960s

So, I don't think this ban is a violation of any federal laws. The president can for a myriad of reasons stop immigration from any country. In this case, perhaps given security concerns, this is a good decision.

[babylonsister]

3. Seriously? What security concerns, the

ones the rest of the world seem to be dealing with, or the ones he's trumping up daily to frighten people? Are you scared?

[Joe Turner]

5. Oh I don't know 911, the first World Trade Center Bombing

the Boston Marathon, the Florida nightclub massacre, numerous terrorist attacks in Europe. Could be a good time out. Just sayin

[dhol82]

4. What do you want to bet that the first country off that list will be North Korea?

That’s now a major Bro!

[Joe Turner]

6. Koreans tend to be peaceful

Just sayin.

[dhol82]

7. Not the lunatic in the north

He kills off his own family.
One of the few world leaders who are just as nuts as dump.
He does, however, make a better presentation.

[Hekate]

12. So who fought the Korean War, I mean aside from us? Was it the Indonesians?

Just curious.

[babylonsister]

15. North Koreans don't travel

for the most part so them being on that list in the first place was a joke.

[eppur_se_muova]

8. SRSLY ?? Where did all the Lebanese and Syrians in Northern cities come from ??

Try doing a little reading, courtesy of 5 (five) seconds with Google:

1870s–1920s

While individually Arabs have been immigrating to North America since before the United States became a nation, the first significant period of Arab immigration began in the 1870s and lasted until 1924 when the Johnson-Reed Quota Act was passed nearly ending immigration from this region for the time being.[8] During this period, an estimated 110,000 immigrants entered the United States predominantly from the Ottoman province of Syria, which currently encompasses the countries of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan , and Palestine. [5][8][9]

Arabs immigrating prior to that decade from modern-day Lebanon were regarded as Syrians [8] and were a predominantly Christian population. These early immigrants were variously classified as Turk, Greek, Armenian, and/or Arab,[9][10] until 1899 when the Immigration and Naturalization Service created a Syrian category.[11] In the 1920s, with the Lebanese nationalist movement and the establishment of Lebanon as an independent nation state, immigrants from what is now modern Lebanon started adopting a Lebanese national identity.[10][12]

During this period, there was also a small percentage of Arab Muslim and Druze immigrants, though the size of these groups is hard to determine.[8] Arab Christians historically had a much easier time immigrating to the United States than did Muslims.[3] During this first wave of immigration, greater Syria was still under Ottoman control, but tensions existed between the Arab Muslim and Christians. Out of this environment, many "Syrians" seized this opportunity to emigrate in hopes of a better life, and many came to the United States.[12] Many of the early Arab immigrants thought of themselves as sojourners or al-Nizaleh,[13] and established themselves as peddlers.[8]



much more at .... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_immigration_to_the_United_States#1870s%E2%80%931920s

[Solly Mack]

9. Thank you.

[Hekate]

11. You've got to be shitting me. There were Muslims on this continent in Colonial times...

...just as there were Jews.

[Takket]

10. if he wasn't dead.............

Osama Bin Laden would be smiling right now. The erosion of American values and principles is what he was aiming to do 17 years ago, and the drumpf presidency is a realization of his vision... a frightened ignorant society that destroys itself from within.

[standingtall]

14. Must be getting lonely on JPR

judging by some of the responses of this thread