Reasoning And Talk About All That Interests Me

Category: Politics

SCOTUS Delivers A Trojan Horse In Recent Nationwide Injunctions Ruling

Understanding the ruling, the shift in legal accountability, and how it might not be the win some people think it is.

I’m gonna say something that will probably tick off my Democrat friends, but kind of also throw off my Republican friends, because I’m not saying what they think I’m saying.

I’m glad SCOTUS ruled the way they did, re: nationwide injunctions by lower courts.

Yes, I’m still politically unaffiliated and no, I’m not taking sides. This has to do with politics, but more than that, it’s about our legal framework as a country.

Before I get into what I want to say, there’s a bit of history to cover first.

For most of US history, lower courts issuing nationwide injunctions wasn’t a thing. It really wasn’t.

The first use was back in the 1960s. Then, in the 40 years after that – from the 60s to early 2000s – it was only used a few times.

It really took off during the Obama era, where it was used A LOT. And looking at both Trump eras, it’s still being used quite a bit.

Unlike what a lot of talking heads and pundits like to say, or even the administration, it’s not a “rogue judge” making a call. It’s usually a ruling that happens when a case going before a single judge.

That said, nationwide injunctions were meant to be rare – a legal safeguard. But in our growing and hostile political landscape, they became a tactical weapon, and yes, they were abused.

But it was only a legal Band-Aid, and not real legal work.

I say that believing that they were abused because it was a quick and easy fix so that we didn’t have to do what we’ve always done – battle it out on the legal merits.

As a result, there wasn’t really any real consequence when authorities broke the law or violated the Constitution.

It became a political game of tit-for-tat where nobody ever really faced consequences.

What SCOTUS’s ruling did was reset the legal field.

Now, SCOTUS has said that the executive order trying to dismantle birthright citizenship, and others, can be challenged under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) – which is what we did before lower courts leaned so heavily on nationwide injunctions.

And here’s the part that I think people are sleeping on – there’s real accountability now.

Under the APA, while the president himself might enjoy protections, the departments in the executive branch that carry out illegal orders – DHS, DOJ, HHS, etc. – can be held liable, and not just civilly. Criminally.

See, nationwide injunctions were also a shield.

The widespread use of nationwide injunctions didn’t just block executive actions; in a weird way, they also shielded the executive branch from deeper legal consequences.

By blocking policies outright, there was never a trial. No evidence weighed. No rulings on constitutional grounds. No civil or criminal liability assessed.

So yeah, while it might seem like a loss to my Democrat friends? It’s really not.

This was a correction.

In my opinion, I see it as a correction of an imbalance in the legal system.

Now is the time – the opportunity – for states to start working together again, to start building real legal foundations that can’t be knocked over by a handful of executive orders.

We haven’t had that in a while.

And here’s the part that really got my mind turning.

Almost everyone I know is calling this a win for Trump – but is it really? Follow me here.

With nationwide injunctions as they were, the DOJ was essentially defending one big lawsuit. Now? Now, they have defend hundreds, maybe thousands, of smaller lawsuits from every corner of the country.

That’s not a win. That’s a legal siege.

So, why did I call it a Trojan Horse ruling?

Because once I realized that the DOJ was about to bombarded with so many cases, I had to ask the question, “Did SCOTUS know this would happen?“

Because if SCOTUS knew this would happen – and trust me, I’m pretty sure they did – then this wasn’t just a ruling.

It was a Trojan Horse. It looked like a gift to executive power. Like the Court was saying, “Here – you don’t have to deal with nationwide injunctions anymore.”

But what they really did was crack the door wide open for localized lawsuits, fragmented rulings, and death by a thousand court filings.

It’s judicial judo. Redirect the force. Let them exhaust themselves trying to fight it all at once.

If that was intentional – and I think it might have been – then this might be the most silent but loud judicial protest we’ve seen in modern history.

And it’s already started with the recent rulings in California.

July 13, 2025
Why Are Black People Making Kamala Harris Choose Only Part of Her Identity?
I realize this post may be divisive, especially in our current political climate, but I feel the need to explain this.

Earlier today, I saw a post that was a deliberate slight against Kamala Harris, and I have to admit I was taken aback by it.

This is the image.

The person who shared that image added the caption, “Bol girl stop playing which is it?“.

My gut wrenched a little bit, because it wasn’t just a black person that shared it and asked that question.

It was a black pastor.

And if you look at his timeline, he was talking about how black people should stop voting for color and look at their policies, and then he goes on in great detail about her color, circulating a lie that her father is Indian too and the just immigrated to Jamaica, and she isn’t really black.

As a black person with a mixed background, it was hurtful because I remember being told by bullies that, “I’m not really black” because I wasn’t like them.

I didn’t walk, talk, dress or act like them, and I wasn’t like any other black person they knew, so I must not be black.

Well, I quickly set them straight, and I’m going to set the record straight about Kamala Harris too, (not that she needs me to, but because apparently some people in my sphere of influence needs to hear it from a peer in their own circles).

For the record, (addressing the claim that her father was Indian too and they just immigrated to Jamaica), Kamala Harris’ mother was born in Painganadu, India, (almost a couple hundred miles south of Chennai), and her father was born in Saint Ann’s Bay, Jamaica.

The claim is a blatant and mean-spirited lie — whatever the reason or purpose for it, I don’t know, but it is a lie.

I’d also point out that it’s also the same kind of ill-spirited and hateful political nonsense that fed Obama’s birther conspiracy.

It’s interesting to see how the same black people who were upset about the birther conspiracy, do the exact same thing to a black woman. It’s hypocritical at the very least.

Regarding how she identifies, you all know that she can be BOTH right?

First of all, “Black” isn’t a nationality or country of origin, and second, Kamala Harris’ parents, as was made clear, were Indian and Jamaican. And she is an American.

What that means is:
1. She can identify as black.
2. She can identify as Indian.
3. She can identify as Asian (because India is on the Asian continent).
4. She can identify as Asian-American.
5. She can identify as Indian-American.
6. She can identify as Jamaican-American.
And this one will flip you…

Jamaica has African roots, so she can even identify as African-American and claim her African roots just as much as any other black American person can.

NONE of that means she isn’t a black woman.

She is a black woman with a diverse heritage, and she doesn’t have to choose which part of her heritage she has to identify by, and it’s wrong and small-minded for anyone to expect or demand that she does – especially of black people.

She can be all of it and honor all of her heritage.

Stop trying to make people of mixed heritage choose part of their identity and ignore the rest.
August 19, 2020
OPINION: Paying For Social Security With The General Fund Is Socialism

The more I think about the president’s plan to make payroll taxes permanent and pay for Social Security, Medicare and other disability and insurance programs with the general fund, the more I think the president might be a secret Democrat.

Follow me here.

If we’re SO against having taxpayers pay for everyone’s healthcare because Universal Healthcare is socialism, then we should also be against having taxpayers pay for everyone’s Social Security, Medicare, disability and insurance programs too, shouldn’t we – because that is also socialism.

The general fund IS taxpayer money – so the president’s plan to pay for Social Security, Medicare, etc. with the general fund? It’s a debt to the public.

That is EXACTLY what democrats have been trying to do with healthcare, except it’s WAY more.

Democrats only wanted general healthcare. The president’s plan will add to the taxpayer burden Social Security, Medicare, disability, and other retirement and insurance programs that the payroll tax covers.

The president is giving democrats a HUGE win as I see it.

I don’t think the president thought this one all the way through. Up front it sounds like a nice plan – we’ll defer payroll taxes until the end of the year, put money back into the employee’s pockets, etc. etc.

It’s a nice pitch, but if you really think a few moves ahead, more money in your pocket means you pay more in taxes, and you’ll still have the burden of paying for Social Security, Medicare, and the other programs because they’ll be paid for out of the general fund.

Of course, instead of paying it just for yourself when you retire, you’re paying it for everyone else too.

How is that not socialism?

What I think will happen is that this that they’ll use this as an opportunity to phase out all of those programs.

One of the most effective strategies the republican party uses to cut a program they can’t just cut without facing outrage from the public is to defund it.

The programs are still there. They just aren’t being funded. Same difference.

For decades the republican party has been to brand programs like Social Security and Medicare as entitlements so they can cut them under the banner of “cutting entitlements to reduce deficit spending” and prop up themselves as the party of fiscal responsibility.

The problem is that nobody was buying it. These programs are paid for with payroll taxes, which means that they don’t add to the deficit or to the national debt, and people were paying for them directly, with matching funds.

That’s not an entitlement. It’s a savings and investment.

This makes it pretty dicey territory when the programs get cut, and/or when Congress spends from it, because neither are supposed to happen; and if they do spend from it, they should pay it back.

What the president’s plan will do is make Social Security, Medicare and other programs that payrolls taxes currently pay for entitlements, by shifting the burden of costs to the taxpayers.

Those programs will then be counted as deficit spending and add to the national debt. What they’re doing is making those programs “entitlements”, and “the party of fiscal responsibility” will, I think, use that to defund those programs.

Of course, are they doing to refund the money that hard-working Americans have paid into those programs their entire working lives? I highly doubt that.

On of my friends, a Trump supporter, says the president has this and will figure it out, but right now I can’t help but think that this was the plan all along.

The deficit is out of control, and the crackdown on immigration has cost the government untold millions of dollars, because one of the things about the programs payroll taxes cover is that immigrants pay into these programs and they’ll never be able to collect because you have to be a citizen.

There is a surplus of money, or should have been, but Congress couldn’t keep putting their hands into the piggy bank.

That’s YOUR money they’re spending…

Listen to the Mnuchin explain on the Fox News Sunday interview.

As I said… I can help but think this was the plan all along.

What do you think?

August 11, 2020