Now that the new executive order on immigration has been stopped by two federal courts, it’s beginning to look like Donald Trump is going to be a premature lame duck president.
The reason I say that has to do with the reasoning that the judges used in the two rulings. In both cases, the judges looked at Trump’s public declarations of intent to bar Muslims from immigrating to the United States and read the travel ban in the light of those declarations.
They both concluded that even though the latest travel ban doesn’t refer explicitly to Islam, it is clear from the president’s own prior statements of intention and the fact that all the countries involved are by far majority Muslim nations, the intent of the ban is to limit Muslim immigration. Which violates the First Amendment to the Constitution.
That means that federal courts have ruled that Trump intentionally violated his oath of office by ordering the travel ban. Of course the rulings could be overturned. But if they stand, then that judgment against him stands.
If a president knowingly and intentionally acts to subvert any part of the Constitution, he can’t be taken seriously as a legitimate president. He should step down.
One passage in the Hawaiian ruling had me cheering. In response to the notion that the order only concerned a fraction of the world’s Muslim population, Judge Derrick Watson wrote, “The illogic of the government’s contentions is palpable. The notion that one can demonstrate animus toward any group of people only by targeting all of them is fundamentally flawed. The court declines to relegate its Establishment Clause analysis to a purely mathematical exercise.”
As a mathematician, I don’t care to see mathematics abused. Thank you, Judge Watson.
Also, when a president accuses anyone in the country of a crime and declares that accusation to be the last word on the subject, even if the person accused is his predecessor, he is in effect assuming the power of a judge and jury and violating the separation of powers of the Constitution, and that is also a violation of his oath of office. If he wants Obama charged with a crime, he can do what any citizen can do if they have evidence of a crime, which is to turn that evidence over to a prosecutor who can take it before a real judge. Trump is not a judge.
Meanwhile, look at all the budget cuts we can look forward to! We’re going to save so much money not paying for Americorps, the National Endowments for the Arts and for humanities, and public broadcasting, we’re all going to get brand new nuclear bombs. Everyone look under your seats! You get a bomb! And you get a bomb! And you!
It’s just wonderful that Trump is going to keep us so safe by building more nukes and a wall with the money that we were just going to use to keep our schools and hospitals running.
It was reported today as I write this that the new Secretary of State and possibly the last human remaining at the State Department won’t rule out an attack on North Korea in the near future. Does anyone believe that can be prevented? There’s likely no one left at the State Department who could arrange talks with the North Korean government to avert war. Besides, what’s the point of building more weapons if you can’t use them up?
I feel so safe. I have friends who already can’t get the medicine they need to stay alive and Trump and Republican supporters would take away health insurance for 24 million Americans, to multiply the number that can’t get the medicine or treatment they need? He wants to cut funding for senior citizen subsidized housing by 10 percent?
But when grandma gets tossed to the streets she won’t have to fear encountering illegal immigrants. Her safety is being looked after by our president.
One bright shining beacon of light this week: When it was suggested by White House press secretary Sean Spicer that Obama arranged for Trump Tower surveillance by persuading the British to do it for him, Britain told Trump, “Shut up.” And he did.
A whole new generation of Americans is going to grow up as Anglophiles.