Farewell to religious freedom, and Trump’s ballroom bribery balderdash
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/4/25/800027344/series/farewell-to-religious-freedom-and-trumps-ballroom-bribery-balderdash/
Farewell to religious freedom, and Trump’s ballroom bribery balderdash
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.
Not one, not two, but three federal circuit courts of appeal covered themselves in glory this week. The Fifth Circuit is here to erode the separation of church and state, the Eleventh showed up to reward Florida’s bad behavior, and the D.C. Circuit is gonna let Trump do whatever Trump wants to do.
The Fifth Circuit is developing a very unique view of the First Amendment
Cases about whether public schools can be forced by the government to display not just a Judeo-Christian text, but only one government-approved, enshrined-in-law evangelical Protestant version of that text, should be slam dunks.
Indeed, those same public schools have instructed generations of schoolchildren that one of the foundational premises of American democracy is the separation between church and state. But these days, we’ve got the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals just wilding out and saying that a Texas law requiring all public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments somehow doesn’t violate that separation for … reasons.
Per one of the Trumpiest judges to ever do it, in his majority opinion, Judge Kyle Duncan huffily declared that a law requiring every public school classroom to display a poster with the King James Version text of the Ten Commandments “looks nothing like historical religious establishment.”
It doesn’t?
Per Duncan, the separation of church and state is only implicated if the state tells churches how they could worship or punishes someone for rejecting the Ten Commandments or takes your tax dollars to support clergy. It also “does not co-op churches to perform civic functions.”
Come on, man. This is impossibly, deliberately slippery. No, the law didn’t say “we hereby outsource evangelical churches to perform the civic function of education,” but it did say, essentially, “the civic function of education now must include a specific religious text with the specific religious language used by specific, conservative, evangelical churches.”
Red states keep passing these laws, knowing full well that they will get blocked by lower courts that are actually honoring the Constitution. That’s what happened here with the Texas law and what recently happened with Arkansas’s similar nonsense last month. But what they’re counting on is that, much like with abortion, an openly unconstitutional law will make its way to the highest court so that the theocrats running the place can explain that our whole understanding of the separation between church and state is just wrong and that actually, a mandatory display of the Ten Commandments is what the founders wanted all along.
Heads, Florida and the feds win. Tails, everyone else loses.
The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals just rewarded both the state of Florida and the federal government for the little reindeer game they’ve been playing about Alligator Alcatraz.
Here’s how it works: you can’t sue the federal government over the Everglades environmental disaster/concentration camp, because it is entirely Florida’s responsibility and therefore the federal environmental review requirements don’t apply. Sure, Trump and the dearly departed former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have said that Florida got a $600 million FEMA grant for the project. But you see, said the 11th Circuit, the state paid upfront and was going to seek reimbursement from the federal government, but they just hadn’t gotten around to it yet.
Sure, nothing about this means that Florida can’t just ask for that sweet $600 million another time, at which point both DeSantis and the Trump administration will have to figure out a new way to say that there is no federal control of the facility clearly built exclusively for federal immigration control. It’s a neat trick that means the prison will continue to stay open while lawsuits proceed, despite horrifying conditions.
Sanctions for thee but not for me: The DOJ story
The DOJ tried to get a federal judge to sanction an immigration attorney for the extremely unethical behavior of making a perfectly fine argument that simply didn’t win the day.
If you’re thinking that is not usually a thing that warrants sanctions, you are right, and that’s what the chief judge for the U.S. District of Guam told the DOJ: “His legal argument failed, but he made a good faith argument of what he contends the law should be, and this is not a sanctionable offense.”
At least we finally found something the DOJ thinks is worth sanctioning an attorney for, since the DOJ does not believe that it is a problem to lie to the court or to refuse to follow court orders, or even to keep saying you are the U.S. attorney when you are not—looking at you, Lindsey Halligan.
Trump still has a lot of free time for his personal litigation efforts
You’d think being responsible for a war, spiking gas prices, a crashing economy, and his own catastrophically low approval ratings would be enough for Trump to shoulder these days, but never fear—he’s carved out some “me time” to pick fights in his personal lawsuits.
To be fair, this is a rare lawsuit against Trump, and it isn’t all that surprising that he’s fighting tooth and nail on this one, as it’s the last remaining case stemming from Jan. 6. Trump insists he shouldn’t have to provide any discovery in this civil case brought by Democratic lawmakers and Capitol police because he has very special immunity from criminal consequences, an immunity U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta recently told him does not actually apply here.
Given that Trump’s stance on Jan. 6 is that it was a noble, peaceful endeavor, why wouldn’t he want to provide testimony and documents showing it in all its glory? Instead, he’s just running to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to try and get them to stop it. Wuss.
The ballroom deal is worse than you thought
On any given day, it’s a toss-up as to what is happening with Trump’s ballroom bribe palace.
Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon blocked further construction, except for anything related to national security, until Trump obtained congressional approval. The administration promptly decided that this included all construction, because one day the drone-proof glass on the ballroom could save the president’s life, or something.
When the plaintiffs asked him to clarify his order, Judge Leon issued a “did I stutter?” kind of order, saying that invoking national security was not some blank check to just keep building and barring any aboveground construction.
Enter the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals emergency panel, swooping in again to say that the real harm is if anything stops Trump while courts are deciding whether what Trump is doing is legal. So, Trump now gets to keep building for several more weeks, since oral arguments in the case won’t even happen until June 5. It’s terrific to have a system where the only harm that seems to matter is that to Dear Leader.
Meanwhile, we’ve learned a little bit more about the contract for this monstrosity, but only after Public Citizen had to sue to force the Most Transparent Administration In History to give it up. As you might expect from an effort helmed by Trump’s favorite personal fundraiser, rather than an actual government agreement, it’s ridiculously scuzzy.
Donors can remain anonymous, because you wouldn’t want everyone to know how eager you were to bribe the president, right? There are conflict of interest provisions that apply to the Park Service and Interior Department, but none for the White House or Trump.
Secret donations! Secret contracts! No conflicts! Totally how democratic government works!
Daily Kos is free for everyone—no paywall, no barriers. Help keep it that way
Daily Kos is committed to keeping all our content free. That's why we don't have a paywall, and never will. However, Daily Kos' revenue is down, and we may not be able to continue producing the quality of work you have come to expect from us. Donations from our readers are our largest source of income. If you value independent, accessible, paywall-free journalism, please consider making a donation today.
No comments:
Post a Comment