June 27, 2019: President Trump Insults the Supreme Court,

 

6/27/19: If you like insults, President Trump is on a hot streak. Thursday, he slammed a star on the U.S. women’s soccer team and insulted the memory of a dead American war hero. He also insulted Robert Mueller, and claimed without evidence that Mueller broke the law. 

Today, Trump insults the U.S. Supreme Court, calling a decision to block a question on the 2020 Census, asking whether people living at a given address are citizens or not, “totally ridiculous [emphasis added, unless otherwise noted].” 

In a 5-4 vote, the majority said the rational cited by the Trump administration for asking the question was “contrived.” 

So, let’s go to the U.S. Constitution.  

Article I, Section 2, requires that a census be taken every ten years, counting all “free Persons,” excluding “Indians not taxed,” and tossing in “three fifths of all other Persons” to establish state populations. 

Those “three fifths” were slaves. That meant every five slaves counted as three white persons in determining population. 

These populations become the basis for purposes of representation in the U.S. House of Representatives and for apportionment of any direct taxes.

 

Okay. I’m checking Article I, Section 2 again. Nope. The words “citizen” and “citizenship” do not pertain. Every census, starting in 1790, counted non-citizens for purposes of determining population. A German immigrant in Pennsylvania at that time, an Irish immigrant in Massachusetts in 1850 and a Chinese immigrant in California in 1890 counted. They might someday become citizens (save the Chinese person, since all Chinese were excluded from citizenship), but they counted. 

The slaves were counted till 1860, even though they weren’t legally persons, but, rather, property. 

Ironically, Justice Clarence Thomas voted to allow the question, because in the Make America Great Again days it would have been liked this. Five Clarences

       would equal

   three Tucker Carlsons.

And we know how much Tucker Carlson and his crew would love that if it were still true today. (See our post for 7/14/20.)

 

* 

IN OTHER COURT NEWS, Paul Manafort, the president’s favorite felon, gets hauled before the New York State Supreme Court. Manafort pleads not guilty to 16 new felony counts. These include mortgage fraud, business fraud, and just about every kind of fraud you can think of, including flossing fraud. 

Any more court news today? Yes! And thanks for asking! Reporters from The New York Times convince two women, friends of E. Jean Carroll (who lodged a rape allegation against Trump last week), to go on record. For several days, they had hoped to remain anonymous. 

Today the Times convinced both, Lisa Birnbach and Carol Martin, to corroborate Carroll’s accusation. 

On the day of the alleged rape, Ms. Carroll called a friend at work. It was around 5 o’clock in the afternoon. 

From the sidewalk, she phoned Lisa Birnbach, a friend and author of “The Official Preppy Handbook.” Ms. Carroll was laughing at first as she described an encounter she said she had just had in a Bergdorf dressing room with Donald J. Trump that began as cheeky banter. But what she was saying didn’t strike Ms. Birnbach as funny. “I remember her being very overwrought,” Ms. Birnbach said in an interview. “I remember her repeatedly saying, ‘He pulled down my tights, he pulled down my tights.’” When Ms. Carroll finished her account, Ms. Birnbach said, “‘I think he raped you.’”

 

“Let’s go to the police,” she recalled telling Ms. Carroll. But Ms. Carroll refused. A day or two later, she described the episode to another friend, Carol Martin…She advised Ms. Carroll to stay silent.

 

Ms. Birnbach explained why she had decided to step up. “I saw some horrible things that people were posting on social media,” Ms. Birnbach said. “I believe E. Jean in this episode that she recounted to me in 1996. Yes. Without hesitation. She’s not a fabulist. She doesn’t make things up.” 

Ms. Carroll told reporters she had not wanted to relive the incident; but the #MeToo movement in 2017 shook her up. In a book coming out next week, she explains how the incident played out.  

The Times tells the rest: 

…she and Mr. Trump had recognized each other at Bergdorf’s [an upscale department store in New York City], talked playfully about what gift he might buy for a woman, and ended up in the lingerie department, challenging each other to try on a lilac bodysuit. She remembered thinking it would make a great story.

 

But in the dressing room, with no one nearby, Ms. Carroll said Mr. Trump pushed her against a wall, pulled down her tights and put his penis inside her. “It was violent, I fought, but didn’t think of it as …” she trailed off, never saying “rape.” “I have a hard time even saying that word,” she said.

 

She said she blamed herself for going into the dressing room with him. “What an idiot,” she said. “You don’t combine lingerie and going in a closed room.”

 

You might say you don’t combine attractive women and Donald J. Trump in any setting where he thinks he can grab a pussy and get away with sexual assault.