Fred Wellman: BREAKING: The Constitution at the DOD
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The Courts and Supreme Court have reviewed cases around the First Amendment numerous times and expanded our understanding of it. Here is a roll up from the official United States Courts website on the topic.
“The First Amendment has two provisions concerning religion: the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause. The Establishment clause prohibits the government from “establishing” a religion. The precise definition of “establishment” is unclear. Historically, it meant prohibiting state-sponsored churches, such as the Church of England.
Today, what constitutes an “establishment of religion” is often governed under the three-part test set forth by the U.S. Supreme Court in Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971). Under the “Lemon” test, government can assist religion only if (1) the primary purpose of the assistance is secular, (2) the assistance must neither promote nor inhibit religion, and (3) there is no excessive entanglement between church and state.’
It’s that last bit that trips up what Hegseth has done here. The leader of the entire United States military just sent out an invite to share his personal religion with all of his subordinates from an official government account, in a government building, attended by government employees on government time.
That, my friends, is “entanglement between church and state.”
(Fred Wellman more…)
HuffPost: Pete Hegseth’s ‘Incredibly Problematic’ Pentagon Event Raises Serious Concerns
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Steward Beckham: How Memory Haunts Us
The Danger of Forgetting, from Reconstruction to Rwanda
…Memory makes history a precarious endeavor. The victors write it, privileging their triumph over the stories of the trampled. This holds true around the world. Some societies try to remember the darkness, to learn from it. But just as often, we see attempts to edit history, to soften what it says about us and the narratives we cling to.In my own life, I see American history as a textbook example of this paradox. Today, our national memory is in therapy. We’re unearthing voices and stories long buried: Black, Indigenous, immigrant, queer, poor. And that recovery is forcing us to reckon with social constructs, malicious cultural myths, and policies that undermine our claims to exceptionalism. America, as it turns out, is not the pure light it sold itself as. It’s a marvel of marketing, but the product beneath has proven distressingly cheap and alarmingly fragile. That is not easy to say as a born patriot, a lover of national history, despite my place in its shadows and afterthoughts, just because of my natural racial identity.
(Steward Beckham more…)
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Bloomberg: Trump Tax Bill Narrowly Passes House, Overcoming Infighting
Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – May 21, 2025
Just after 1:00 this morning, the House Rules Committee began its hearing on what congressional Republicans have officially named The One Big, Beautiful Bill. If passed, this measure will put Trump’s wish list into law. Although this is technically a budget bill, items in it from that wish list include a significant restriction on “the authority of federal courts to hold government officials in contempt when they violate court orders,” as Dean of Berkeley Law School Erwin Chemerinsky explained in Just Security Monday. “Without the contempt power,” he writes, “judicial orders are meaningless and can be ignored.”
Three judges are currently considering whether the administration is in contempt of court over its apparent disregard for court orders over its rendition of undocumented immigrants to third countries.
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)Robert Reich: The hidden provision in the Big Ugly Bill that makes Trump king
Liz Dye: DHS Caught Violating Court Ban On Foreign Gulag Renditions. Again.
And submitting false affidavits.
Intercept: Nonprofit Killer Provision Quietly Disappears From Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill”
Trump tried to sneak the controversial measure in, but after far-right Republicans tanked the larger bill, the nonprofit provision disappeared.
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Intercept: Trump Is Prosecuting a Congressional Democrat for Doing Her Job. The Media’s Response: No Big Deal.
You’d never know reading the New York Times that charges against Rep. LaMonica McIver are nothing but an authoritarian attack.
(Intercept more…)Jennifer Rubin: Where is the outrage when Trump goes full Erdogan?
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NPR: Judge blocks Trump administration from closing the Education Department
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Root: Trump Ignores Court Rulings. How the Little Rock Nine Proved That’s a Big Problem 70 Years Ago.
President Trump makes it a habit to disregard federal court rulings, but we’ve seen how this story ends before.
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It comes down to a debate over the rights of migrants and Trump’s “deport now, ask questions later” mentality, and it’s drawing eerie comparisons to the struggle for civil rights in this country.
The nine Black students were spit at, beaten and harassed by segregationists just for trying to go to school. The hatred towards the young students was further justified by Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus, who unapologetically resisted the Supreme Court’s 1954 decision. This led to the Cooper v. Aaron ruling of 1958, which reenforced the state’s obligation to desegregate schools. The federal government even had to bring in the National Guard to escort the Little Rock Nine to school.Trump vs. Judge Wilkinson
Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, an 80-year-old President Ronald Reagan appointee, referenced the Cooper v. Aaron ruling after Trump refused to comply with the Supreme Court’s ruling to bring back Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was deported despite a judge’s 2019 ruling barring that very thing from happening, as we previously reported.Wilkinson described the administration’s defiance as “shocking” before reminding Trump to respect the rule of law, adding that it is “all too possible to see in this case an incipient crisis.”
(Root more…)
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Register: Trump announces $175B for Golden Dome defense shield over America
In practice, it’ll cost many times that and almost certainly won’t work
Steve Benen: Trump claims gas costs $1.99 per gallon, becoming his newest unnecessary lie
Asked about Republican plans to cut food aid to low-income families, Donald Trump gave a rambling and dishonest answer that culminated in an unexpected way. “Energy’s down,” the president claimed, apparently referred to consumer costs. “Gasoline? They’re now buying — they’re buying gasoline now for $1.99.”
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NY Times: Trump’s Firings of Rights Watchdog Board Members Were Illegal, Judge Rules
A federal court ruled that President Trump’s removals were illegal and arbitrary and ordered two board members reinstated.
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Astral Codex Ten: The Evidence That A Million Americans Died Of COVID
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American Statesman: FAA issues ground stop at Austin airport over staffing issues; 160 flights delayed
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NPR: Trump ambushes South Africa’s president with false claims of ‘white genocide’
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa walked into an ambush when he met President Trump in the Oval Office on Wednesday.
After a cordial beginning, where Ramaphosa was at pains to stress his desire to improve relations with the U.S., things turned hostile. Trump repeated his false claims of a ‘white genocide’ in South Africa and then ordered the lights dimmed to play videos he said supported his allegation.
Ramaphosa attempted to correct the U.S. leader, but mostly got talked over.
(NPR more…)Intercept: How Trump’s Embrace of Afrikaner “Refugees” Became a Joke in South Africa
NY Times: Trump Claimed a Social Media Video Showed ‘Burial Sites’ of White Farmers. It Didn’t.
La Prensa: Senador Kaine cuestiona a Rubio por defender refugio para afrikáneres y no para perseguidos nicas, cubanos y venezolanos
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MSNBC: Kristi Noem is making the homeland less secure
The former governor is overseeing a vast machine dedicated to encroaching on rights that she may not even know Americans have.
Tracking the Lawsuits Against Trump’s Agenda