Jonathan P. Baird

In the annals of American history there have been some truly horrible Supreme Court decisions. I have always thought Dred Scott v Sandford was the worst. Saying African Americans had no claim to freedom or citizenship was a disgrace and humiliated the Court.

But there are other cases that are contenders for the worst. Plessy v Ferguson, the 1896 separate but equal decision and Korematsu v United States that upheld the internment of Japanese Americans during World War 2 are in the running. So is Buck v Bell, a 1927 decision that permitted compulsory sterilization of those deemed unfit, “imbeciles” and others considered undesirable..

I would also include Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the 2022 abortion decision that overturned Roe v Wade. What other case has taken away a constitutional right? What kind of court strips people of their rights?

Still, in the mix, is a new contender – United States v Trump, the presidential immunity decision, decided on the last day of the Court’s last term. That case may be the new worst. Not only did the Court do Donald Trump a huge political favor of delay, the Court majority essentially decided that none of his illegal schemes mattered. Trump wanted no more of his cases heard before the election this fall and the Court majority could not have been more cooperative. They delayed to the last possible minute.

The majority opinion was written by Chief Justice John Roberts. While he had previously been described as a moderate institutionalist, this opinion clarified and cemented that he is as much a hardcore reactionary as the other far right justices.

In writing a decision “for the ages”, it insured that if Trump wins a second term, he will be able to exercise dictatorial power without fear of consequences. To quote from Justice Sotomayor’s dissent:

“The relationship between the President and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power the President is now a king above the law.”

Justice Sotomayor says the Court majority “invents an atextual, ahistorical and unjustifiable immunity that puts the President above the law”. Article II in the Constitution doesn’t mention immunity. The doctrine is entirely court-created. Justice Sotomayor notes the majority’s expansive view of presidential immunity was never recognized by the Framers.

Lost in the majority opinion is the understanding that the Framers went to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787 determined not to replicate the British monarchy they had fought so hard to defeat. They may have disagreed about the relative power of different branches of government but the Framers had a deep antipathy and distrust of executive power.

It was abuse by Great Britain’s King George III and his royal governors that lit the fire of the American revolution. The Framers all agreed that the President’s power should be limited. Key participants in the Constitution’s ratification debates emphasized that the President would remain subject to criminal prosecution. The historical record demonstrates intense anti-monarchical sentiment and a heavy presumption against presidential immunity.

James Madison warned a chief executive “might pervert his administration into a scheme of peculation or oppression”. He said a President’s corruption “might be fatal to the Republic”.

What makes United States v Trump so bad is that the Court majority is recreating, to again quote Madison, “another runaway monarchy”. If Trump wins again, he will dismiss the Federal Court cases filed against him and figure out a way to do crimes within his official duties. Juries won’t be able to consider evidence of his official acts or inquire into his motives.

The crime of which Trump stands accused, conspiracy to thwart the peaceful transfer of power following the 2020 election, is exactly the lawlessness the Founders feared most. They warned about conspiracies to maintain power, disregarding the popular vote. This is the ultimate crime against the people.

No decision of the Supreme Court has ever cut more against the American ideal of democracy and popular rule than United States v Trump. It was designed to make criminal prosecution of a President impossible and it sent a green light message to Trump. In a second term, he could use the Department of Justice or the military as he wishes. The Court won’t interfere.

The Court majority said there is less protection for unofficial, private acts but they wrote the decision in a way that renders unofficial acts a nullity. Justice Sotomayor highlights the “law-free zone around the President” and lays out nightmare scenarios that could play out as a result of the decision.

“When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he will now be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organize a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.”

Democrats have been slow to recognize the gravity of United States v Trump. If Trump wins in November, this case is a license for dictatorship. It is hard to imagine how a case could be worse.

After the death of George Floyd and the movement it provoked, it looked like there might be a serious national effort to address racial bias in policing. It also looked like there might be a genuine dialogue about the appropriate use of force by police in their encounters with the public. Neither happened and both debates were short-circuited.

The July 6 police shooting of 36 year old Sonya Massey, an African-American woman from Springfield, Illinois, is the most prominent example of where lack of progress around police reform has led – an absolutely senseless death at the hands of an out-of-control policeman. This was a shooting that the police could not defend. The local sheriff, Jack Campbell, fired the shooter who was subsequently charged with first degree murder. Campbell said:

“Sonya Massey lost her life due to one unjustifiable and reckless decision from Deputy Sean Grayson. Grayson had other options available that he should have used. His actions were inexcusable and do not reflect the values or training of our office.”

Massey had called 911 because she thought there was an intruder in her house. She had been having mental health issues. She had admitted herself into a 30 day in-patient program in St. Louis but inexplicably she left the program after two days and returned home.

Massey’s mother had called 911 on July 5 to report her daughter was having a mental breakdown. The police were unaware of that call. When they arrived at the Massey residence on July 6, they asked Massey to identify herself to them. Massey went to search for identification but then she went into the kitchen to her stove to turn off a pot of boiling water. One deputy asked her to turn the hot water off.

While she handled the pot, a deputy said he was moving “away from your hot steaming water”. Massey answered “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus”.

The deputy said “Huh?” Massey repeated the rebuke comment and said “I’m sorry”. She then ducked behind a breakfast bar. It appeared she was trying to shield herself. Grayson told her “Drop the f—— pot!” and almost simultaneously fired three shots at Massey’s head, fatally wounding her.

The cops had only been at Massey’s residence for less than three minutes when Grayson fired the shots. After he essentially executed Massey, Grayson made no effort to administer medical care to Massey.

Grayson’s body-worn camera was not operating until after he shot Massey but the other deputy at the scene did have his body-cam rolling. It is likely Grayson thought he could get away with the shooting because he had his body-cam off.

The other body-cam contradicted Grayson’s story. Grayson said Massey came at him with boiling water but that is not what the body-cam showed. In the first dispatch audio, the police told hospital staff Sonya Massey died by suicide. They said “self-inflicted “. The police didn’t take the time to get their story straight.

How many times have we seen this story? In the New York Times, Charles Blow wrote:

“This kind of devastation has happened so often, to so many families, that it has become a motif of Black existence in this country, an enduring injury, a simmering sadness, an ambient terror.”

Even before the Massey killing, Grayson had a checkered history. He had been discharged from the Army for serious misconduct. He had been charged with two DUIs. Since 2020 he had been employed by six law enforcement agencies.

He is an example of what has been called “wandering officers” who drift from police department to police department after being let go under unclear but seemingly unfavorable circumstances. New hires don’t get properly vetted. There are 18,000 law enforcement agencies across the U.S. and there is no national database for tracking and weeding out rogue officers.

Nothing stops someone like Grayson from hiding past misdeeds when they move on to a new police job. According to CNN, there is a police misconduct registry, the National Decertification Index which lists about 55,000 officers who had their law enforcement certificate or license revoked due to misconduct but its coverage is “spotty”. Grayson had never been decertified.

Before he murdered George Floyd, Derek Chauvin had 18 prior complaints filed against him with the Minneapolis Internal Affairs.

Campaign Zero, an organization that studies police violence, found that 2023 was the deadliest year for police violence. There has been no improvement since George Floyd died. Police killed 1,329 people in 2023. Black and brown individuals were disproportionately affected. These 2023 numbers happened even though there has been a national decline in homicides and other violent crimes.

Fewer than 2% of officer-involved shootings are ever prosecuted and less than 1% result in guilty pleas or convictions. Donald Trump, a convicted felon, has been calling for immunity for the police for their “official acts”, something that has been de facto already happening. I would suggest the perception of likely immunity was one factor that propelled Grayson.

The Massey case has led to new calls to revive the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, federal legislation which was drafted to address police brutality and racial profiling. The bill previously passed the House in 2021 but stalled in the Senate.

It is little-remembered that the site of the Massey crime, Springfield, Illinois, the hometown of Abraham Lincoln, was the scene of a race riot and lynchings in 1908. A large white mob lynched two Black men, killed and wounded scores more, destroyed the homes and businesses of Black and Jewish residents and drove thousands from the city. Following in that tradition, Sonya Massey was the victim of a modern-day lynching.

After the coup attempt on January 6, 2021 and considering Donald Trump’s refusal to recognize the results of the 2020 election, it is hard not to worry about election schemes Trump might have up his sleeve. Sometimes paranoia is justified. John Lennon once said, “Paranoia is just a heightened sense of awareness.”

Many political commentators have remarked on Trump’s often-made statements to his fans about how they don’t have to vote. At a Christian summit, he told attendees that they would never need to vote if he becomes President again. He said, “get out and vote, just this time”. He went on “you won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what? It’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine, you won’t have to vote any more, my beautiful Christians”.

Predictably, Democrats lost their minds. This was a typical ambiguous Trump statement that could be interpreted differently. Statements like this always allow Trump plausible deniability when he is accused of wanting to cancel future elections.

When he went on Laura Ingraham’s FOX show, Ingraham gave Trump many opportunities to clarify the “you won’t have to vote again” comment. He gave a less-than-clear answer mostly saying how much Christians support him and how Jewish people who don’t support him “should have their head examined”.

Trump has been saying “we don’t need the votes. I have so many votes”. This is not a one-off comment. He has repeatedly been telling audiences he doesn’t need the votes which is weird even for a candidate who talks excessively about Hannibal Lector, sharks and electrocution. I cannot recall any presidential candidate saying anything comparable in an election year.

I would suggest a different thing to worry about than the cancelling of future elections. I am wondering why Trump is saying he doesn’t need votes now. There is a reason why Trump is saying this. Given his history, the likelihood is that he is saying this because he has another strategy in mind besides getting the most votes and winning the election. If he was serious about winning the vote tally, he would be fighting hard for every vote and he would never discount the importance of voting.

In an important article in the July 29 Rolling Stone, the magazine raised a concern around certification of the 2024 presidential election. They quote Democratic election lawyer Marc Elias:

“I think we are going to see mass refusals to certify the election in November. Everything we are seeing about this election is that the other side is more organized, more ruthless and more prepared.”

Much of the Republican Party remains stuck in conspiracy theories and election denialism. Trump has maintained the fiction that he was cheated in the 2020 presidential race. That belief remains alive and widespread among Republicans including among Republican election officials.

Rolling Stone compiled a list of election officials by culling media reporting about officials who refused to certify results. They write that 70 pro-Trump election deniers ( who they identify by name) are working as local election officials in at least 16 counties across six key battleground states. They go on to say that examination of thousands of posts from hundreds of election officials show unapologetic belief in Trump’s election lies. Elias goes on:

“..Republicans are counting on not just that they can discredit the election in big counties but they are counting on the fact that if they don’t certify in several small counties, you cannot certify these statewide results.”

It is entirely possible that if Trump believes he would lose in the Electoral College, he would opt for other routes to power. Certification disputes could land in court or even the House of Representatives where he probably likes the odds better. The Republicans still have a margin in the House. More House state delegations are controlled by Republicans. In that form of voting, Republicans could have enough power to win in the House and decide the presidency for Trump.

Trump believes the House will hand him the presidency even if the voters pick Harris. He will again cry voter fraud. He probably also thinks that a Supreme Court which has treated him as a king will bend to his wishes..

At the least, certification disputes could result in delay and confusion. The chaos could undermine perception of a free and fair election.

Trump might be hoping this could be a vehicle for him to overturn the popular will. Having a criminal mentality, Trump has no loyalty to democracy and any principled notion that the voters should decide. He is about winning at all cost since that is the surest way for him to avoid jail time. The fact that so many Republicans including their standard bearer remain election deniers means a repeat of post-election irregularities are likely again this year.

The Republican battle plan is increasingly clear. It is a multi-pronged strategy that includes mass voter challenges by Republican lawyers to the eligibility of likely Democratic voters and voter roll maintenance to purge as many likely Democratic voters as possible.
Republicans have amassed an army of lawyers both to make it harder for people to vote and to have their vote counted. Trump has promised lawyers at “every poll booth”.

Voter ID disqualification, challenges to mail ballots and gerrymandering are all favorite tactics. Republican-controlled state legislatures have been laboratories for voter suppression. This is in addition to disputing certification.

Lawsuits are part of the groundwork for laying the claim an election was stolen. Danielle Alvarez, a senior advisor to the RNC and the Trump campaign has said that lawsuits were one of the RNC’s main priorities this year. She has said, “This is something that’s very important to President Trump”.

I think Democrats have been slow to see the Trump game plan and why he says he doesn’t need votes because as he says “we got plenty of votes”. Democrats are underestimating how conniving their opponent is. Too many Democrats still seem to expect normal.

If Trump starts falling behind in the polls, expect his talk about a stolen election will increase. Past history may be the best predictor of what will happen between November 2024-January 2025. Desperation on the Republican side is not likely to produce moderation. It is hard to imagine another January 6 given Biden control of the Executive Branch but violence is certainly a possibility for die-hard Trump supporters who won’t accept election results.

In a genuinely fair election, only the voters decide. That must not change.

President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race obliterated the prevailing political narrative. Instead of old-age Biden versus old-age Trump, we had the emergence of not-old Kamala Harris. The reaction on the Republican side has been both panicked and telling.

About Harris, Wyoming Rep. Harriet Hageman (the one who beat Liz Cheney) said:

“Intellectually, just really kind of the bottom of the barrel. I think she was a DEI hire.”

Hageman’s comment was echoed by Tennessee Republican Rep. Tim Burchett who suggested Biden picked Harris as Vice-President solely because she is Black. “One hundred percent she is a DEI hire,” Burchett said, referring to diversity, equity and inclusion. He went on. “When you go down that route, you take mediocrity and that’s what they have right now”.

Sebastian Gorka, a TV host on far right Newsmax, said Harris was going to be the nominee “because she’s female and her skin color is the correct DEI color”. He also said she “cackles like an insane woman”. Megyn Kelly accused Harris of sleeping her way to the top of California politics.

While House Speaker Mike Johnson has cautioned Republicans about criticizing her ethnicity or her gender, it is a certainty much of the critique of Harris will be around the DEI hire theme. Republicans can’t use the N-word now but the diversity hire theme is the same gist. Unless it is Candace Owens or her equivalent, for conservatives, no Black woman candidate would be considered qualified.

Republicans seem stuck in a time warp. For much of American history only white men could even be considered for high political office. Women and people of color were not part of the equation. They were, per se, ruled out. Republicans appear to long for the good old days of white and male supremacy. Normal for them is having, except for tokens, black women on the bottom rung of powerlessness. This is a party that entertains the great replacement theory.

Part of the racist and sexist attack on Harris is that she is mediocre, intellectually inferior, or somehow unqualified. By any objective standard that is a crazy assertion.

Harris has had a long record of accomplishment. For many years she worked as a prosecutor where she prosecuted homicide, burglary, robbery and sexual assault cases. She got elected twice to serve as District Attorney in San Francisco. She then got elected again two times to serve as Attorney General of California. In 2016 she won her race for the U.S. Senate and in 2020 she was elected Vice-President.

The accusations of mediocrity and intellectual inferiority are absurd. For someone who is so allegedly incompetent, she had a knack for consistently winning. Prosecuting is not exactly an easy job. You have to convince beyond a reasonable doubt. To be effective and persuasive requires strong writing and oral advocacy skills. Saying she is mediocre is essentially a meaningless ad hominem attack. There is no specificity in the allegation. They are trying to erase her impressive credentials.

Conservatives are using the diversity hire theme to discredit Harris. They think only straight white men are qualified. Last year, DEI got blamed for the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, for Boeing’s safety crisis and for the Baltimore Bridge falling down. It is scapegoating.

There are many shallow critiques of racism and sexism. To appreciate what is most offensive about the critique of Harris as a diversity hire, it is necessary to situate the 2024 presidential election inside the broader context of U.S. history. Discrimination was historically baked into America from the beginning. With roots in slavery, black women faced occupational segregation as they were concentrated in jobs that paid lower wages and offered limited upward mobility.

In most of American history, the system quarantined black women in the lowest paying jobs. Legal restrictions kept all women out of high paying jobs that were reserved exclusively for men. The changes around that are relatively recent.

While some real progress has been made, America has never seriously grappled with our structural racism and sexism. Racist and sexist comments about a candidate reflect and reinforce prevailing power dynamics. Any woman or person of color who rises to higher office is still often a first. That is true with Kamala Harris who was the first black woman elected in her state to her various roles over the last couple decades. Being first is anything but mediocre.

Conservatives can’t say all black women should be domestic workers, agricultural workers, care-takers or service workers even if they think that because it is too explicitly racist. So they create the attacks on DEI and wokeness. The purpose is the same: to keep people of color and women in their place at the bottom of the hierarchy. They are creating a new rationale to justify the status quo.

Not surprisingly, racist and sexist attacks on Harris have skyrocketed online since she announced her candidacy. The Global Project Against Hate and Extremism has catalogued a spike in truly ugly racism and misogyny. Much of it is based on the slander that she used sex to advance her career.This has been showing up in far right sites like Truth Social, Gab, Telegram, 4Chan and Rumble.

In the last week or two, we have seen neo-nazis parading in Nashville Tennessee and Howell Michigan, wearing shirts that say “pro-white” while carrying swastika flags. When it comes to racism and sexism, denialism still rules in America. This is not a reassuring sight. One can only hope for a new national willingness to honestly look at and rectify our racial and sexual dark side.

Kamala Harris and Democrats have to contend with the perception that America would never elect a black woman president. Maybe that is one ultimate form racism and sexism take now.

In a term featuring multiple precedent-shattering decisions, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a shocker in Snyder v. United States. The Court narrowed the definition of public corruption in a case that centered on the distinction between bribery and gratuities. The Court majority let a grifting public official off the hook.

Because there were so many big cases on the docket this term, this one slid by, escaping attention, even though it is consequential.

The facts in the case were straightforward. James Snyder, the former mayor of Portage Indiana steered business to a local truck dealership. The city purchased five trash trucks from the dealership for a cost of $1.1 million. After the deal, Snyder went to the dealership and told them, “I need money”. He asked for $15,000. The dealership gave him $13,000.

A federal statute prohibits state or local officials from “corruptly” accepting “anything of value from any person intending to be influenced or rewarded for an official act”. The business had to be for a value of at least $5,000. Snyder testified that the $13,000 payment he received was for consulting services although there was no evidence he did any consulting.

After a two week trial, the federal jury disagreed with Snyder and convicted him. They found he had been corruptly rewarded. The judge sentenced him to one year and nine months in prison.

Although it seemed like a Hail Mary pass, Snyder appealed and he argued that the law in question only made bribes illegal, not gratuities. Snyder argued that bribes were, by definition, payments made before an official act. Gratuities were payments made after an official act as a token of appreciation. So bribes influence a future decision and gratuities reward past ones.

Snyder lost at the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals but it was a different story at the Supreme Court. In an opinion by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the Court majority reversed Snyder’s conviction. Kavanaugh wrote that it was nearly impossible to figure out what constituted a corrupt gift or gratuity. He puzzled over a situation that was not ambiguous. He cited hypothetical scenarios that were vastly different than the facts of the case to make it seem like this was a difficult case to decide.

In her dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissected the Kavanaugh opinion. To quote her:

“Snyder’s absurd and atextual reading of the statute is one only today’s Court could love.”

That sentence alone spoke volumes. The Court is watering down public corruption law in a way that says it is fine for people with vast money to use it to influence state and local government officials. By almost any standard, $13,000 is not small change but the conservatives on the Court wanted to green light such “gratuities”.

Rather than fighting corruption, the Court imposed a limit on the government’s ability to go after bad actors. It is a “spoils belong to the powerful” jurisprudence.

Snyder’s case has a resonance with the Supreme Court’s current ethical problems as exemplified by Justice Clarence Thomas. Thomas too has taken “gratuities” although his are in the $4 million range. I think Justice Jackson had Thomas in mind when she wrote about the reading of the statute as one “only today’s Court could love”. That was her polite way of saying Thomas was bought off.

The Snyder case did not come out of nowhere. It needs to be seen as part of a historical pattern in which the Court has defined down what constitutes public corruption so more people can get away with unethical behavior. I would go back to Citizens United. For decades even before the Citizens United decision, a coterie of ultra-rich conservatives wanted to influence American politics by out-sized spending. Citizens United was the vehicle that allowed the ultra-rich to get around campaign finance law.

Other Supreme Court decisions in the last decade like McDonnell v. United States and the Bridgegate case from New Jersey followed the go-easy-on-corruption trend. The Court turned definitions of corruption into paper tigers.

The go-easy-on-crime doesn’t extend to blue collar criminal defendants, ever. But for white collar defendants, venality is in vogue. The implicit message is rewards are waiting for those unafraid to test the limits of public corruption law. Thomas is the Court’s own example and the Chief Justice says nothing.

In the past, a case like Snyder would have been taboo but with this Court both transparency and accountability are out. It is not surprising that a Court which won’t regulate its own ethics would have such a softened and cavalier attitude toward the ethics of public officials.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) calls the Supreme Court a captured court because dark money has re-made the Court, weakened democracy, and consistently favored the billionaire class. Decisions like Snyder are what you can expect from a captured court. “Gratuities” are there for the taking.

As people give the candidacy of convicted felon and adjudicated sexual assaulter Donald Trump a closer look, more eyes have been drawn to Project 2025, a project launched by the Heritage Foundation, a well-endowed far right think tank. Authors affiliated with Heritage crafted the over 900 page volume which lays out the program for a second Trump term.

Because the Project started receiving critical feedback, Trump made a weak attempt to distance himself from its contents. Trump would like to pretend he has no connection but nothing could be more implausible. Trump and his associates plan to implement the plan immediately if he is again inaugurated President. Many of the authors of Project 2025 served in his administration and it is not a small number.

According to Judd Legum’s Popular Information, of the 38 people who wrote and edited Project 2025, 31 had been appointed or nominated to positions in the Trump administration. The distancing of Trump by himself from Project 2025 is hilarious. But this is a person with less than zero regard for the truth. If he sees any political advantage, he would be embracing it to the max.

Kevin Roberts, the President of the Heritage Foundation, has acknowledged that there is “tremendous overlap” between the RNC platform Agenda 47 and Project 2025. So what is the big deal with Project 2025?

I would argue it is a reactionary blueprint, opposing all the positive changes made in America since the 1960’s. It is an effort to turn back the clock. The Project wants to return to white supremacist dominance like existed in the Jim Crow era. Instead of multi-racial democracy, Project 2025 envisions a Christian nationalist dictatorship run by wealthy white men.

Since there are many aspects to Project 2025, I will zero in on a few aspects I find most pernicious.

Project 2025 is anti-woman and the mentality behind it is misogynist. They believe life begins at conception, a view that absolutely prioritizes fetal personhood over the life of the mother. A major focus is further whittling away women’s reproductive rights.

The plan says,”Abortion pills pose the single greatest threat to unborn children”. They want the FDA to withdraw approval from Mifepristone and Misopristol, two drugs safely used in abortions that have been approved for over 20 years. They want the DOJ to resuscitate the long-moribund 1873 Comstock Act as a vehicle for prosecuting anyone sending or receiving abortion pills.

They also want rules requiring confidentiality of medical records lifted so that states can pursue criminal investigation of women who cross state lines to get an abortion. Punishing women for exercising their rights is a Project 2025 theme

Project 2025 is also anti-immigrant. Even though we saw the horror that was family separation during the Trump years in office, the Project wants to create a new border patrol and immigration agency that would build camps to detain children and families at the border. They intend to enlist the military to round up and deport millions of people who are already in the country, including Dreamers.

The level of cruelty reflected in the immigration chapter is not surprising considering that Trump calls immigrants “vermin” who “poison the blood of America”. You have to ask if this project comes to fruition, who will perform the jobs in agriculture, construction and care-taking? Trump and Project 2025 fail to consider the economic fallout of this unprecedented deportation scheme. It will result in massive worker shortage in the harsh jobs most Americans will not do.

I would also mention the Project’s sexist position on T and U visas. The Project wants to eliminate T and U visas. These have been used to protect victims of human trafficking, domestic violence and female genital mutilation. The disregard for the lives of women could not be more apparent.

Project 2025 is anti-science and it is opposed to efforts to address climate change. These people actually want to double down on fossil fuel production. They plan to close the EPA’s climate change departments and they want to shut down the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) , the government agency which forecasts weather and tracks climate change.

This is far right wing la-la land where if they close their eyes to reality, it won’t happen. It is not surprising that millions in dark money from the oil and gas industry (eg Koch Industries) are funding this effort. The fossil industry campaign to mystify the public about climate change is a continuing corporate crime. NOAA Chief Scientist Dr Sarak Kapnick just said,

“After seeing the 2023 climate analysis, I have to pause and say that the findings are astounding. Not only was 2023 the warmest year in NOAA’s 174-year climate record – it was the warmest by far…We will continue to see records broken and extreme events grow until emissions go to zero.”

I would be remiss if I did not mention the central authoritarian strand of Project 2025. It is about vastly increasing the power of the Executive Branch, including exerting political control over the Department of Justice. This would allow the President to use the DOJ to prosecute those Trump deems “enemies”. Project 2025 is welcoming a dictatorship.

They want to infuse Christian nationalism into every facet of government policy. If they prevail, there will be no more separation of church and state. Government will be promoting evangelical Christianity.

Stepping back, one point that gets lost is that while Donald Trump would like to appear as a rebel, Project 2025 shows he is just a spokesman for the interests of the billionaire class. The policies outlined in Project 2025 are detrimental to democracy and all working people.

Trump is a convicted criminal surrounded by other convicted criminals. His candidacy is fundamentally a vehicle for staying out of jail. Making money for himself remains his greatest obsession. Project 2025 is a combination of Margaret Atwood and George Orwell.

During years working at New Hampshire Legal Assistance, I represented many homeless individuals. The reasons for homelessness were varied: eviction, job loss, divorce, domestic violence and disability, among others. Lack of income always figured in. Circumstances were often beyond the control of the individual.

It was not unusual for the homelessness crisis to cause a mental health breakdown which compounded the depression and anxiety already being experienced. A shredded safety net often failed to provide needed assistance. Unless they could get counsel, a condition that many could not get because need outstripped capacity, people were on their own to sink or swim. Even with counsel, buying time might often be the best a lawyer could do.

Homelessness has been on the rise nationally. According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, roughly 653,100 experience homelessness on any given night, with a 12% increase between 2022 and 2023. Nearly half of those homeless are sleeping outside.

So when the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in at the end of June on the matter of homelessness in the case of Grants Pass v Johnson it was a pivotal moment for homelessness advocates and all who care about homelessness in America. Unfortunately, as has been its pattern, the Supreme Court majority failed, by rendering a callous decision devoid of humanity.

By a 6-3 margin, the conservatives on the Court enforced a camping ban against involuntarily unsheltered residents. The city of Grants Pass, Oregon had passed two ordinances that prohibited camping on public property and camping in a car. “Camping” in the ordinances was defined to include remaining in a place where material used for bedding is placed to maintain a temporary place to live.

The ordinances made it a crime to be homeless. If you are homeless and sleeping within city limits and you use blankets, pillows and cardboard boxes for protection against the elements, you can be fined $295 for a first violation which escalates to $537 if it is not paid. After a second citation, you can get an order that is a ban from city property. You can also get 30 days in jail for criminal trespass and a $1250 fine.

Homeless plaintiffs in Grants Pass had argued that the camping ban violated the Eighth Amendment’s protection against cruel and unusual punishment. The Ninth Circuit, which covers Western states, including Oregon and California, had previously ruled that cities cannot punish people for sleeping outside without providing shelter options.

Grants Pass, a city of just under 40,000 people, has no public shelter. It only had a Christian mission that imposed a number of restrictions and required people to attend two religious services a day, a condition problematic for those not subscribing to that religious belief.

Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the Court majority, found no cruel and unusual punishment in the Grants Pass ordinances. His decision focused on the needs of cities, not the homeless. The justices found state and local officials can clear and punish homeless people for camping on public spaces even if shelter beds are full.

In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor pointed out that “criminalizing homelessness can cause a destabilizing cascade of harm”. She wrote “Sleep is a biological necessity, not a crime. For some people, sleeping outside is their only option”. She goes on that punishing people for being homeless is “unconscionable” and constitutes cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment.

The Court result makes it illegal for someone without a home to exist in a locale. No solution is offered. Overburdened cities and towns will be able to sweep people up and drop them elsewhere, out of sight and out of mind. Cities and town officials just want homeless people to go away and hide the visibility of poverty. They want a quick fix, using police. In this approach, the appearance of public order is the goal – not reducing the number of people without shelter.

As Peter Edelman has written, “the opposite of criminalizing poverty is ending homelessness”. Fines, arrests and jail time are costly and do nothing to solve homelessness. They have never helped one person out of homelessness.

In so many discussions I have had about homelessness, whether it is with liberals or conservatives, I have seen the tendency to blame the homeless for being in that situation, like they are guilty of some moral failing. Both liberals and conservatives maintain a Not in My Back Yard attitude.

The prevailing attitude is to make it so uncomfortable for the homeless that they will voluntarily vacate and move on down the road. I see no difference between liberals and conservatives on this. As a society we have normalized seeing thousands sleeping on the street. Too often our collective response is indifference to human suffering.

We need the political will to make safe and affordable housing a national priority. Two profound factors frame the current picture: a severe housing shortage and unaffordable rents. Any serious plan that tackles housing in America must address both.

The Supreme Court decision in Grants Pass moves things in the wrong direction. The Court demonstrates no sense of obligation to the neediest. We can expect more cities and towns will follow what Grants Pass did. In New Hampshire, Manchester just passed an encampment ban. Public order, not mercy and justice, define our High Court’s jurisprudence.

Back in 2017, in what was the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, a gunman killed 60 people and wounded 411 at a music festival held on the Las Vegas Strip. The gunman who was perched on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel had 14 rifles outfitted with bump stocks. He had smuggled them into his hotel room. He knocked out windows and started firing. Bump stocks can allow rifles to fire up to 800 rounds per minute..

The Las Vegas shooter rattled off over 1000 bullets in the eleven minutes of his deadly shooting spree before he killed himself. The motive for the shooting remains undetermined.

In June, we had the U.S. Supreme Court rule 6-3 in Garland v Cargill that regulations put in place to protect the public from these lethal killing machines could not stand. This was not a Second Amendment case. It was rather a question of statutory interpretation of the regulation drafted after careful study by the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF).

After the Las Vegas shooting, former President Donald Trump had asked the ATF to propose the new regulation banning bump stocks. In December 2018, the ATF presented the regulation which went into effect in March 2019. The legal question in the case was whether rifles with bump stock attachments are machine guns.

Machine guns are banned under the 1934 National Firearms Act. The law goes back to a time when the government concern was stopping Mafia gangsters who were using machine guns in the commission of their crimes.

A bump stock is a replacement shoulder attachment for semiautomatic rifles especially AR and AK-style rifles that harness the recoil from firing to allow a shooter to fire shots in rapid succession. The federal government which had promoted the regulations argued that accessories like bump stocks convert semiautomatic rifles into machine guns.

It is easy to get lost in the intricacies of guns when looking at this case and that is what Justice Clarence Thomas does in his majority opinion. He put in pictures of firing mechanisms in his opinion. Thomas, however, along with the Court majority, entirely misses the forest for the trees.

Classifying bump stocks as not machine guns is obviously wrong. Look at the Las Vegas shooter. The reason he could kill so many so quickly was because of the bump stocks. The Supreme Court majority misses the purpose of the law which was to keep such guns out of the hands of people like that shooter. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who wrote the dissent, was not buying the majority reasoning. To quote her:

“When I see a bird that walks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck.”

There is an absolute out-of-touchness about this Supreme Court. It is like justices are cocooned in their privileged world far removed from common people. As you read this, Justice Thomas may be on a yacht provided by his billionaire buddy and benefactor Harlan Crow. The justices are so insulated from gun violence and the consequences of their decision.

In this last week, the U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, issued a public health advisory on gun violence. He said:

“Firearm violence is an urgent public health issue that has led to loss of life, unimaginable pain and profound grief for far too many Americans.”

In 2020, gun violence became the leading cause of death among U.S. children and adolescents. The firearm mortality rate among youths in the U.S. is 11 times higher than in France, 36 times higher than in Germany and 121 times higher than in Japan. The rate of firearm-related deaths have been steadily rising. Whether in a school, a movie theater or any place where people are congregating, gun violence is far too-often a surprise unwanted intruder.

What is crazy about the Court’s bump stock decision is that the regulation at issue could not be more common sense. It was a response to the Las Vegas shooting. It should have been an easy lay-up.

Justice Thomas’s opinion is a ridiculous result. The law is already far too lax on any gun control reform but the Court evinces no concern about the toll taken. Such opinions will only create disrespect for the Supreme Court because they are undermining public safety. The Court is making it easier for deranged people to gain access to weapons that have no purpose beyond mass murder. Why does any civilian need a bump stock?

It is likely that the Court’s decision will open the door to other gun accessories like forced-reset triggers that allow shooters to fire more than 900 rounds in a minute.with one continuous trigger squeeze. The result is very in keeping with the Court’s posture around administrative agencies. ATF’s regulation got no deference. The Court is replacing agency expertise with a judicial power grab.

While the American public is focused on the presidential race, the big wildly undercovered story is how the Supreme Court has been usurping power for itself at the expense of the other two branches of government. It is the far right project of deconstructing the administrative state. Not allowing the regulation of bump stocks is part of that story.

Whoever the president is, the Court is making itself an obstacle to any progressive change whether it is guns, voting rights, the environment, women’s rights, consumer rights or health care. For many years conservatives whined about the activism of the Warren Court. What is going on with the Roberts court is of an entirely different dimension. Forget stare decisis, forget any effort to achieve the narrowest rulings: this Court is results-driven to achieve the maximum far right Federalist Society vision.

If I was going to offer a motto for the Roberts court it would be “Love the billionaire, hate the homeless”.

For any critic of the Supreme Court, there are too many major cases to respond to substantively which are piled up at the end of the term. The bump stock case is representative of the lack of concern for the public interest evinced by the Court majority. The Court belittles an urgent threat to the American public. Their decision will end up costing many lives.

We just passed the Juneteenth holiday and although it may be the holiday with the coolest name I don’t think the history behind the holiday is well known or well understood. I would argue it is one of our most important holidays because it is a celebration of freedom for all Americans. It represents a turning point in the historical battle to transform America into a place where slavery and its residual legacy are not acceptable.

Back on June 19, 1865, news of emancipation reached the enslaved people in Texas. Union general Gordon Granger stood on a balcony in Galveston, Texas and read the order that announced slavery was over. All slaves were free. This was more than two years after President Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. Confederate soldiers in Texas actually continued to fight in May 1865 even after General Lee had surrendered to Grant at Appomattox, Virginia in April.

You might wonder: how come there were so many enslaved people in Texas and how come they did not know about the Emancipation Proclamation? Texas was one of the eleven Confederate states and it was a slave state.

Settlers brought enslaved people to Texas to exploit them. They wanted to create a cotton-based slave economy like those in the other Southern states that had proved to be enormously profitable. After taking land from Native Americans, the settlers needed the labor of slaves to clear forests, tend the land and plant crops. That work was seen to be too onerous for the settlers but appropriate for the enslaved.

Texas had ignored the Emancipation Proclamation which applied to all the Confederate states. Even after the Confederacy lost the Civil War, slave owners didn’t share that news with their slaves. They tried to keep the exploitation going as long as possible.

In spite of Texans’ braggadocio and their tendency toward self-praise because of its size, Texas has a dark history. During the Civil War, slaveowners who feared the advance of Union troops, moved west to Texas with their slaves to what they perceived as a relative safe zone for slavery. Historians have estimated 150,000 as the number of slaves removed to Texas from Louisiana and Mississippi. Ishmael Reed writes:

“After the invasion of Pennsylvania in the American Civil War, the Confederates, mounted on horseback, marched children and their parents back to slavery, whether they were free or fugitive slaves.”

Maybe no war in American history needs more re-interpretation than the U.S. intervention in Mexico in the 1840’s. Mexico had abolished slavery in 1829 when Texas was still part of that country. White slaveholding immigrants fought for independence and formed the Republic of Texas in 1836. They made slavery legal and it continued to be legal when Texas became a state in 1845.

The Texas Constitution actually forbid the immigration of free Black people and no free person of African descent was permitted to reside permanently in Texas.

The battle of the Alamo in 1836 played a prominent role in Texas history. It is part of Texans’ heroic origin story but critical facts are avoided. Although Mexican General Santa Anna is depicted as a villain, it was the Mexicans who opposed slavery – not the defenders of the Alamo.

The U.S. invasion of Mexico was essentially an imperialist land grab. Many future Confederate leaders and generals including Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis were part of the invasion force. The U.S. President James Polk, our 11th president, was a slaveowner who sought the annexation of Texas and he wanted to expand slavery to Mexico. While he was president, Polk bought 19 enslaved people (13 were children) and he sent them to work on his Mississippi plantation.

It is little known that there was an Underground Railroad that went south to Mexico. Almost all accounts described the Underground Railroad as a northern trek to free states or Canada but there was a Southern route too that went to Mexico.

An estimated 5000 to 10000 enslaved people escaped from bondage into Mexico. Researchers say some went on foot, others rode horses and others snuck aboard ferries bound for Mexican ports. Because Mexico didn’t recognize slavery, it refused to return escaped slaves. Maria Hammock, a historian who is writing a dissertation on the southern route Underground Railroad writes:

“There were clandestine routes and if you got caught you would be killed and lynched, so most people didn’t leave a lot of records.”

Juneteenth needs to be understood in the context of the continuing battle not just against slavery but for equality. When General Gordon Granger stated in his order “all slaves are free”, he also stated:

“This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves…”

Nothing could have been more antithetical to the Confederate vision which was rooted in white supremacy. In spite of Juneteenth and the passage of the 13th Amendment, some enslavers remained unreconciled to the change and they continued to make their former slaves work for no pay. They used threats of violence as enforcement.

Former Confederates did not stop resisting after the Civil War. They tried to glamorize their history with the Lost Cause mythology and then they created a monstrous Jim Crow system. Donald Trump has kind words for General Robert E. Lee and Confederate monuments but that sympathy is entirely undeserved.

Juneteenth is about a vision of freedom for all Americans. It is a recognition of genuine progress and, as such, it is one of our most worthy holidays. Many holidays now seem like only an excuse for a three day weekend. That is not the case with Juneteenth.