President calls ruling ‘too bad for our Country’ but says Congress should ‘start today’ to end matter – key US politics stories from Tuesday, 30 June at a glanceThe US supreme court has upheld birthright citizenship, which provides nearly all people born in the country with citizenship, ruling against a central piece of Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda.Trump called the ruling “too bad for our Country”, but said the US Congress should now take up the matter legislatively, suggesting another avenue to keep the issue alive. Continue reading...
This was always the plan for the anti-trans zealots who saw girls’ sports as an easy entry point from which to decimate trans people’s civil rights protections.
The post Even the Liberal Supreme Court Justices Ceded Ground in the Fight for Trans Existence appeared first on The Intercept.
The Supreme Court ruled correctly on birthright citizenship, but the vote revealed an outrageous conclusion from the dissenting justices, says Harvard Law Professor and Bloomberg Opinion columnist Noah Feldman. (Source: Bloomberg)
Today, the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s Day One executive order canceling the right to birthright citizenship. Good. That executive order declared that children born in the U.S. would not be considered citizens if their parents were living in the country illegally or were visiting the country on temporary visas.The executive order never took effect. It was quickly blocked by multiple lower courts because it appeared to directly conflict with the 14th Amendment, which states that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”The Trump regime appealed the lower-court rulings, contending that the 14th Amendment’s citizenship provision had been misunderstood for more than a century. The administration argued that the drafters of the amendment were focused on guaranteeing citizenship for the children of former slaves—and that the amendment was never intended to extend citizenship to the children of people who weren’t living in the country legally. Trump and his Solicitor General, who argued this case before the Court, also said that narrowing birthright citizenship was necessary to prevent “birth tourism”—the practice of immigrants coming to the U.S. to give birth here and obtain citizenship for their child.Trump has been vowing to try to change the law since entering politics in 2015, arguing the 14th Amendment was written specifically to enshrine the rights of freed slaves. His critics have countered that it was always designed to apply to the children of immigrants too. A 1898 Supreme Court decision confirmed that U.S.-born children of immigrant parents are entitled to American citizenship.Today, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the deeply-rooted understanding that virtually everyone born on American soil is automatically a U.S. citizen was enshrined in the Constitution with the passage of the 14th Amendment in in 1868: “Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights—to freely participate in our political community,” Roberts wrote. “The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to every free-born person in this land. We keep that promise today.”In another era, this would have been a no-brainer. No constitutional lawyer I know thought the Court would decide otherwise. The lower federal courts had consistently and unanimously ruled against Trump. Had Trump won, it would have probably caused panic among recent immigrants and their families. Although Trump has insisted his policy would apply only to future births, it was far from clear that the logic of any win for Trump wouldn’t apply retrospectively if a future president (JD Vance? perish the thought) wanted to go there. What I find troubling is that the decision was 5 to 4 rather than unanimous or nearly so, as it should have been. Only five of the nine justice ruled against Trump on constitutional grounds. Brett Kavanaugh dissented on statutory grounds; while agreeing that Trump’s executive order was unlawful, he argued that the court should have resolved the case under federal immigration law rather than the Constitution. The Court’s three most conservative justices — Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Samuel Alito — dissented. Thomas wrote for the group: “The Court adds to the sad history of the Fourteenth Amendment, which was designed and understood to secure equal rights for the freed blacks but has instead been repurposed for political projects that the Reconstruction Congress did not support.”Pure and utter claptrap.Thomas, Gorsuch, and Alito are so far to the right of America that their views on this case and other matters should be presumed bonkers. Yet what’s particularly sobering is that Trump is only one justice away from having a Supreme Court majority that would have gone his way on this absurd reading of the 14th Amendment. Clearly, the Supreme Court must be changed — either by expanding the number of justices or by invoking term limits on Supreme Court justices. The Constitution would permit both remedies. Perhaps the best thing about today’s majority decision is that it’s such a direct repudiation of Tump, who has long taken a personal interest in the issue. During his 2024 campaign, he made curtailing birthright citizenship a key element of his immigration platform. When the high court heard arguments on the case in April, Trump took the unprecedented step of showing up in person for the hearing, making him the first sitting president ever to attend a Supreme Court argument. For the Court to so directly reject his position today is surely a humiliation for Trump. Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.
A veteran journalist and former New York Times public editor called out CBS News' gesture toward public accountability as a "blatant sham."The network's Donald Trump-aligned new owners tapped Kenneth R. Weinstein, a former chief executive of the right-leaning Hudson Institute, to review complaints about its coverage as ombudsman, but media expert Margaret Sullivan wrote on her "American Crisis" Substack that he had failed to be independent or transparent as promised."From the get-go, there was no reason to think this would be a real thing — a person whose first responsibility was to the CBS audience and whose first interest was fairness in the public interest," Sullivan wrote. "First off, Weinstein had no background in supervising news coverage. He was a denizen of the right-leaning think tank, the Hudson Institute, a vocal champion of Israel, a critic of the Biden administration and a big donor to Republican and pro-Trump political groups.""I’m not sure how this amounts to independence," she added.Weinstein had been "notably unresponsive" to viewer complaints about CBS News, which has seen "60 Minutes" stars like Anderson Cooper and Scott Pelley flee and ratings collapse, and Sullivan said the network's ombudsman had done remarkably little to respond to the tumult."Despite the lip service to 'transparency,' his role was never meant to face outwards, as is the norm with news ombudsmen; rather, if he saw a problem, he’d report it to his corporate bosses," Sullivan wrote.The Times recently reported on Weinstein's public silence, noting that he hadn't issued any statements about the CBS News controversies or issued any guidance to staffers, and employees say he's told them he is scheduled to work only one day a month."It’s absurd," Sullivan wrote."I know something about this because I was the fifth 'public editor' at the New York Times, a role dedicated to making sure the news organization was fair and was serving the public interest," she added. "The way the Times’s position was structured created actual, not fake, transparency."Sullivan compared her workload – several blog posts each week and a more formal column every other week, in addition to fielding hundred of emails and calls – to Weinstein's duties, and she suggested five topics the CBS News ombudsman could look into during his seemingly singular workday.For example, Sullivan urged him to investigate editor-in-chief Bari Weiss delaying Alfonsi's El Salvador prison report amid a pending merger; mass departures of top talent like Cooper, Pelley and "60 Minutes" executive producer Tanya Simon; CBS Evening News' ratings collapse under Dokoupil; CBS Mornings' steep audience drop post-Pelley; and whether Weiss's pro-Israel views compromise Gaza coverage independence."I could go on, but you get the picture," Sullivan said. "So does the public, if comments on the Times article are any indication. It’s (yet another) embarrassment to CBS News."
Legal analyst and journalist Marcy Wheeler, who writes under the handle EmptyWheel, mocked Fox News host Laura Ingraham this week over a segment celebrating the end of Biden-era protections for Haitian immigrants, arguing Ingraham's framing revealed "two telling confessions."The segment aired during Fox's coverage from Trump's Great American State Fair in Washington, D.C. In it, Ingraham promoted comments from White House adviser Stephen Miller declaring the Biden administration's Haiti policy finished."STEPHEN MILLER MAKES IT CLEAR: BIDEN'S HAITI POLICY IS OVER," Ingraham wrote in a post sharing the clip, quoting the assessment that the policy "was one of the most heinous things this government has ever done."That characterization is what caught Wheeler's attention, and she reacted with mock astonishment, arguing Ingraham had inadvertently revealed more than she intended."WOWOW," Wheeler wrote, before laying out what she framed as two unintended admissions.The first, according to Wheeler, was a matter of basic timeline: that Ingraham "doesn't know who was President in 2010 or 2017" — years relevant to when Haitians received Temporary Protected Status following natural disasters, under administrations that included Trump's own first term.The second, Wheeler argued, was more pointed — that Ingraham apparently considers renewing protections for immigrants from disaster-stricken countries to be, in her framing, "one of the most heinous things this government has ever done.""Two telling confessions," Wheeler wrote.The jab lands on a recurring criticism of the right's messaging around Haitian TPS — that the timeline of who granted and extended those protections is more bipartisan and complicated than the clean partisan story suggests, and that casting humanitarian protections as among the government's worst acts says more about the speaker's priorities than about the policy itself.The exchange comes amid intense scrutiny of the administration's move to end TPS for hundreds of thousands of Haitians, a decision recently cleared by the Supreme Court and condemned by critics as racially motivated.
Bill Maher did not suddenly become a conservative. That is what makes his recent comments to Vice President JD Vance so politically revealing.Maher is still Maher — a liberal comedian, secular critic of Christianity, supporter of abortion, and longtime enemy of the religious right. He is not about to show up at a Turning Point USA conference in a red cap. He is not quoting Milton Friedman at CPAC. He is not becoming a Baptist.Bill Maher is not moving right because Republicans suddenly became perfect. He is moving right because Democrats moved left into madness.Yet in a recent conversation with Vance, Maher said his 2028 vote is “in play.” He said he could imagine voting for Vance or Marco Rubio if Republicans nominated the right candidate.That should terrify Democrats.Maher does not represent the average American voter in every respect. But he represents something dangerous for Democrats: the liberal who still remembers what liberalism used to be. He remembers when Democrats imagined themselves as the party of free speech, civil liberties, working-class people, and common sense. He remembers when liberals mocked religious fundamentalists rather than replacing them with secular versions in HR departments, faculty lounges, and school boards.Maher’s point was not that Republicans have become irresistible. It was that Democrats have become repellent.That is the real story.For years, Democrats have comforted themselves with the idea that the country is divided over Donald Trump. Maher’s comments reveal a different problem. What happens when the choice is not Trump? What happens when the Republican nominee is Vance, Rubio, or someone else who can speak fluently about the failures of the left without carrying all of Trump’s baggage?Then, Democrats have to defend themselves. That is where things get difficult.Look at New York City.The city that once elected Rudy Giuliani after years of chaos and vowed never to forget 9/11 is becoming the showcase for democratic socialism and outright communism. Candidates backed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the Democratic Socialists of America just swept important Democratic primaries.RELATED: ‘Weak and pathetic’: Mamdani-backed radicals sweep Democratic establishment in New York’s electoral bloodbath Michael M. Santiago/Getty ImagesThese candidates are not progressive in the old sense. They reject the assumptions that once made the Democratic Party nationally competitive. They talk as if capitalism is the enemy, policing is oppression, borders are immoral, and Israel is uniquely evil among nations. They embrace socialism, excuse anti-Semitism, and treat Western civilization as a crime scene.The old Democratic establishment used to understand that this was a problem. It knew America was not a socialist country. It knew most Americans did not want their cities run by activists. It knew Americans might debate the policies of Israel while still rejecting anti-Semitism.Now, the Democratic establishment mostly shrugs. Or worse, it congratulates the winners and pretends this is normal.It is not normal.It is not normal for open socialists to become the energy center of a major American political party. It is not normal for candidates surrounded by anti-Israel radicalism to be treated as the future. It is not normal for Jewish voters to be told, in effect, that their concerns about anti-Semitism are merely bad-faith efforts to silence criticism of Israel.That is one reason Maher’s discomfort matters. He is not a Christian Zionist or conservative evangelical. He is an irreverent liberal comedian who can see that something has gone wrong when the left cannot clearly distinguish between criticism of a government and hostility toward Jews as Jews.Anti-Semitism is not the only issue.The same problem appears in gender ideology. Americans are generally willing to be kind and decent to adults who identify as transgender. What they will not do is surrender reality.They do not want boys in girls’ sports. They do not want men in women’s prisons. They do not want children rushed into medical pathways that can alter their bodies permanently. They do not want schools hiding gender transitions from parents. They do not want bureaucrats punishing anyone who says male and female are real categories grounded in nature.Yet the Democratic Party has made this agenda a test of moral purity. Ordinary Americans who believe the obvious — that men are not women — are treated as bigots.This is political insanity. It is also moral bullying.The left first demanded tolerance. Then it demanded affirmation. Then it demanded participation. Now it demands that Americans deny what they can see with their own eyes. If they refuse, they are told they are hateful.That kind of politics creates backlash.
