Most Dangerous Man

Supreme Surprise:  Yesterday in a 6 to 3 decision the Supreme Court extended the Civil Rights Act’s Title VII employment protections to the LGBT community, providing a shock to those who thought that Trump’s newest justices were preprogrammed to always rule in the interests of the most conservative of the conservatives.  Even more surprising, the groundbreaking opinion was written by Trump appointee Neil Gorsuch who based his decision on a “textualist” reading of the word sex, concluding that the Title VII prohibition against employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin covered sexual orientation and identity even though it’s fair to conclude that few, if any, gave that expanded definition much consideration in 1964.  Chief Justice Roberts and the four liberal judges joined Gorsuch’s opinion while newest Justice Kavanaugh, who Senator Susan Collins once assured us would do the right thing for the LGBT community, joined conservative Justices Alito and Thomas in their dissent, arguing that only Congress had the right to extend the Title VII protections.  A number of conservatives, particularly the usual chorus of evangelists and faux evangelists expressed outrage while a number of Republicans actually breathed a sigh of relief at having the Court take the heat for “interpreting” the law to reflect changing public views.  Curiously enough, the Wall Street Journal’s Editorial Board blamed the decision on Justice Elena Kagan, saying that her influence had turned Gorsuch to the dark side.  As to Gorsuch, don’t be too impressed, he’s hardly gone soft, he’s likely to find other ways to torture progressives going forward.  Separately the Court also rejected the Trump administration’s efforts to void California’s sanctuary law, that’s the law that restricts state and local law enforcement agencies from cooperating with federal immigration authorities, and turned down the opportunity to rule on several pending Second Amendment cases that gun control advocates feared and gun advocates hoped would have expanded gun ownership rights.   Finally, at least for yesterday as the Court has more rulings to make including one on DACA, the Court also refused to reexamine the highly topical and much criticized legal doctrine that shields police and other government officials from lawsuits over their conduct.  Trump who has been doing his best to screw with the LGBT community’s rights, responded to the Court’s ruling by saying it’s a “very powerful decision” adding that he’d abide by the ruling.  Assuming he does, his ban on transgender people in the military as well as his Friday announcement rolling back Obamacare’s protections for transgender people should go away but don’t expect him to stop trying to make his most conservative followers happy.  Over the weekend Trump’s State Department ordered the US Ambassador to South Korea take down a rainbow flag and a Black Lives Matter banner.  As to the Black Lives Matter movement and police reform, Trump has promised to deliver one of his “powerful” orders on that subject today but he’s also threatening to invade Seattle to force the city’s Mayor and the State’s Governor to exert more control over the city.  In other disruptive news, the North Korean’s blew up their liaison office with South Korea last night.  Either they find being out of the spotlight problematic, want to extort something from the west, are suffering more from coronavirus than they’d like to admit, are just frustrated with good buddy Trump or all of the above.

Viral Musings:  Although Trump continues to insist that hydroxychloroquine is a COVID cure-all, yesterday the FDA pulled the emergency authorization for the drug to be used for the treatment of COVID. Not to worry, Trump’s HHS head Azar says that Trump’s followers can still press their doctors to write them off label prescriptions. As to the pandemic, nothing to worry about there either because Trump says that the only reason that the virus is spiking in states like Arizona, Florida, Texas and even upcoming political rally locale Oklahoma is because of all the testing that’s being done. Who but Trump knew that “if we stopped the testing we’d have fewer cases.”  That’s a message that Virus Chair/VP Pence told Governors to share with their constituencies on a secret but leaked call yesterday. Not surprisingly, Trump and Pence are most definitely wrong about that, there is more testing, still not enough but more, however the percentage of people tested who are showing up positive in those hotspots is too high, an indication that the virus is still spreading like wild fire through an inadequately swept forest, to borrow another one of Trump’s favorite excuses. As to Trump’s Tulsa plans, his campaign team is now planning to accommodate Trump’s overflow fans in a neighboring arena and unlike the super rich donors who attended Trump’s recent NJ fundraiser, the Tulsa crowd won’t get free COVID tests, though they will have their temperatures checked, have access to sanitizer and will be given masks if they want them.  What could go wrong?

Et Cetera:  Former national security advisor John Bolton, who refused to testify to Congress about Trump’s illegal Ukraine actions, is about to release his “The Room Where it Happened Book” even though the administration still hasn’t signed off on its content.  Trump who insists that everything he ever said to Bolton is protected by executive privilege is freaked and threatening to sue.  The Bolton book isn’t the only one about to drop, Trump’s niece psychologist Mary Trump, who apparently was the source of much of the financial and tax information that served as the basis of the NY Times’ Pulitzer Prize winning article on Trump’s real estate inheritance and tax finagling is also about to drop a book.  Her book entitled “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man,” is due out on July 28.  To put it mildly Mary, the daughter of Trump’s deceased brother Fred, is no fan of her uncle, her book is expected to contain some damning revelations.  Also on the revelatory   front, although he promised lots of transparency Treasury Secretary Mnuchin is doing his best to hide the names of the corporate recipients of the trillions of dollars of stimulus aid.  Makes you wonder what he’s hiding. And to no one but Republican Senator Tim Scott’s surprise, Senate Majority Leader McConnell doesn’t plan to take up a police reform package until after the July 4^th recess, just because.