DrWebSeeing Things – Trump Guts and Dismantles – by Liza Donnelly
And Justice Jackson speaks out
By Liza Donnelly, Jul 13, 2025
Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is making news by expressing concern about our democracy, and she wants people to know about it. She is the newest member of the court, and is getting rebuked for speaking in public about the court. “She’s breaking the fourth wall, speaking beyond the court,” said Melissa Murray, a law professor at New York University. “She is alarmed at what the court is doing and is sounding that in a different register, one that is less concerned with the appearance of collegiality and more concerned with how the court appears to the public.”
Jackson said the majority imperiled the rule of law, creating “a zone of lawlessness within which the executive has the prerogative to take or leave the law as it wishes.”
Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote a stinging rebuke after Jackson wrote a second dissenting opinion to the case about birthright citizenship: “Justice Jackson, however, chooses a startling line of attack that is tethered neither to these sources nor, frankly, to any doctrine whatsoever.”
This makes me wonder if what Jackson is doing could be very important. I am by nature a rule-follower, and always thought the justices of the Supreme Court were to follow the court rules and not speak personally; this historically that has been the case from my observations. They are supposed to be legal “brains” who interpret the law, not individuals with opinions. I am excited that she is speaking out.
We need this kind of rule breaking right now.
“I’m not afraid to use my voice,”she said about when she writes a dissent for a case. When asked by the moderator, what keeps you up at night, Jackson replied:
“I would say the state of our democracy. I am really very interested in getting people focussed and invested in what is happening in our country and in our government.”
In a supposed effort to cut the budget, Trump is gutting emergency relief capabilities at a time when global warming is increasing the events in the US. OUr government is no long agile in preparing for or responding to weather emergencies. Trump’s budget proposal for the next fiscal year would close 10 laboratories run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and he has dramatically scaled-down the Federal Emergency Management Agency which would shift the costs of disaster response and recovery to the states. The administration has already revoked $3.6 billion in grants from FEMA. Kristi Noem, homeland security director said:
FEMA, for one, “has been slow to respond at the federal level. It’s even been slower to get the resources to Americans in crisis,” Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, said last week at a meeting convened by the president to recommend changes to the agency. “That is why this entire agency needs to be eliminated as it exists today and remade into a responsive agency. We owe it to all the American people to deliver the most efficient and the most effective disaster response.”
Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.
Continue/Read Original Article Here: Trump Guts and Dismantles – by Liza Donnelly
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Susan Larson ♀️🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️🌈
