Injustice for All is a weekly series about how the Trump administration is trying to weaponize the justice system—and the people who are fighting back.
Farewell, Ten Commandments—but likely not for long
Red states continue to compete to see which of them can run the very worst laboratory of democracy. Arkansas’ contribution to this was to pass an objectively unconstitutional law mandating that the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public school classroom or library. The language for display was mandated as well: no matter your creed or faith, you get to see the Protestant King James Version.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks, an Obama appointee, blocked the law as objectively unconstitutional. Brooks also pointed out, though, that this is exactly what Arkansas was hoping for:
Why would Arkansas pass an obviously unconstitutional law? Most likely because the State is part of a coordinated strategy among several states to inject Christian religious doctrine into public-school classrooms. These states view the past decade of rulings by the Supreme Court on religious displays in public spaces as a signal that the Court would be open to revisiting its precedent on religious displays in the public school context.
He’s not wrong. This Supreme Court has been very into religious freedom for only one special group, a freedom that somehow keeps allowing conservative Christians to encroach on the space of public schools. What Arkansas is doing here looks a lot like the successful approach Mississippi took in Dobbs v. Jackson. There, the state passed an abortion law that was objectively unconstitutional under Roe v. Wade, hoping that would allow the highest court to just throw out Roe instead. There’s no real reason to think the court won’t do the same in this instance.
Trump wants SCOTUS to say Second Amendment isn’t for users of demon weed
In June, a Pennsylvania federal district court agreed with the Department of Justice that blocking medical cannabis users from owning firearms does not violate the Second Amendment. Now, the Trump administration is taking its well-worn, almost always successful, path to the Supreme Court, asking it to bless the only gun control measure it seems to believe in.
Hey, even this administration has to believe in some gun control limits, right? Surely every grandmother with a weed card for her sciatica cannot be trusted to own a gun, regardless of whether she has ever committed a crime, and this administration isn’t afraid to say so! You know who needs guns, though? Famous antisemitic convicted felons. The administration also isn’t afraid to gut funding from gun violence protection efforts, because that stuff is for wusses.
DOJ lawyers continue to show up to court knowing nothing
For most lawyers, showing up to federal court insisting that you have no idea what your client is doing is unthinkable. For the Department of Justice under Attorney General Pam Bondi, that’s just basic strategy. In the latest gambit involving a case over mass grant terminations by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. District Court Judge Beryl A. Howell could not get the government to explain exactly how the agency had decided to terminate all those grants so lickety-split. The judge asked the lawyer for the government whether the process was “that USDA followed to have one of the DOGE … people do a word search for ‘climate change’ and ‘DEI’ … and target those for termination?”
Seems pretty much exactly what keeps occurring! But hey, the DOJ attorney is just as in the dark as all of us. Perhaps, he admitted, that could have been how they found the suspicious grants, but then they looked at them further on an individual basis, “but it’s hard for me to comment on a hypothetical.”
Related | Trump may have a magical immunity shield, but DOJ lawyers sure don’t
Pal, it’s not a hypothetical. It’s an actual question about the actual actions of your actual client, and if you were behaving like an actual lawyer, you’d have an answer for this. Instead, you’re trying to dodge having to admit that some random script kid weenies in the Department of Government Efficiency got to terminate billions of dollars in grants by doing a “Ctrl-F” for “climate change” and pounding that delete key.
Utah GOP state legislator not really beating the pedocon allegations
Ah, Republicans. Ever the champions of the children. Take Utah state Sen. Stuart Adams, who moved heaven and earth to protect a teenager involved in a child rape case. Of course, Adams intervened on behalf of the 18-year-old charged with child rape, not his 13-year-old victim. But you have to understand! The 18-year-old was a relative! Can’t let him rot in prison on four felony counts just because of pesky Utah law saying that people under 14 can’t consent.
So instead, Adams shepherded a law change where if an 18-year-old is charged with child rape, as was the case here, they get to be tried as a minor as long as they were in high school at the time. Oh, and he made the law retroactive, so his family member got no jail time. Between this and Trump rake-stepping over his decades-long friendship with an accused sex trafficker, the pedocon theory really has some legs.
How many chances does Florida GOP Rep. Cory Mills get, anyway?
An ex-girlfriend of Super MAGA Florida Congressman Cory Mills has filed a police report alleging that he threatened her that he would release sexually explicit pictures and videos of her. It’s called revenge porn, Cory. You might be familiar with the concept, having voted just a few months ago for a law criminalizing the posting of nonconsensual explicit images online?
Mills is shocked, SHOCKED that anyone thinks he would do such a thing.
“These claims are false and misrepresent the nature of my interactions,” he said. “I have always conducted myself with integrity, both personally and in service to Florida’s 7th District.”
Buddy, it was just six months ago that you avoided arrest for assaulting an entirely different woman thanks to Trump pal Ed Martin refusing to sign off on the prosecution when he was Interim U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C. Come on.