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You Oughta Know - Unanimous

Unanimous

It was a long and hard-fought journey at the 9th circuit court of appeals, where government lawyers appealed a previous court’s stay of the travel ban. The decision by the appeals court to continue to stay of the executive order is unprecedented and the court’s ruling was unanimous, stating that the government gave no security purpose for the ban, among other things. The Outline has a good rundown of the proceedings if you weren’t able to follow along live and The New York Times reports on the defeat.

Bloomberg’s Sahil Kapur tweeted about the ruling, but paid particular attention to the conclusion, which reads:

In short, although courts owe considerable deference to the President’s policy determinations with respect to immigration and national security, it is beyond question that the federal judiciary retains the authority to adjudicate constitutional challenges to executive action.

Here is a link to the full 29-page brief, which I wanted to link to because it includes many new precedents; Section IV includes the above quote and starts on page thirteen.

Jeff Sessions

After everything that happened with Coretta Scott King’s letter, the fact that Jeff Sessions was confirmed for the role of Attorney General makes it seem like nothing will stop any of the president’s terrible picks from moving forward. The 52-47 vote was mostly along party lines with one Democrat (Sen. Joe Manchin, up for reelection in 2018) joining the Republicans, but specifics matter less than the fact that Sessions has a history of disconcerting civil rights positions and documented “racial insensitivity”. Here are a few resources on the situation:

  • Newsweek Rundown: Who is Jeff Sessions?
  • The Washington Post: Ten things to know about Jeff Sessions
  • NPR on Jeff Sessions’ Racial Remarks of the past. (Also, CNN)
  • ProPublica on a 1990s lawsuit for school funding in Alabama.
  • LA Times discusses Sessions’ uphill battle post-confirmation.
  • The New York Times (from Nov. 2016) on restructuring the DOJ.

Looking Forward to the Weekend

  • Fatherly.com is one of those throw-away email newsletters I get because I signed up for a giveaway somewhere down the line. Either way, their coverage on swearing in front of your kids gives me a little hope.
  • BuzzFeed News reports on the dictionary of all things. This report on Merriam-Webster’s recent definition-based trolling on Twitter is a fantastic way to kick back for those who enjoy words and grammar as much as I do.
  • Hot Sauce is a passion of mine; check out Serious Eats list of the best.
  • Today I learned that the London production of J.K. Rowling’s play (and technical eighth book in the franchise), Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, included a black Hermione, which had some excited and some up in arms, but I tend to simply trust the author (and the idea of progress) on these types of things. Also, a link to the original casting of the movie trio.
  • I am active on Twitter and not-so-much on Facebook, but in this day and age there are so many social networks that it is hard to be a good steward of any one of them. I have a blog because owning my content was of the utmost importance to me and being a good steward of this space is infinitely more important to me than any social network that is just mining my data. I even aggregated all of my previous blog locations, like Tumblr and Blogger, in the attempt to have a canonical location for all my varied content. Manton Reece is a developer who felt strongly enough about this that he is building his own decentralized social network, where owning your content matters. Check it out if this commentary even remotely interested you.