In a 5-4 decision today, the Supreme Court upheld Trump's odious travel ban. (Opinion is here).

A positive note in the ruling: It finally overrules the Court's ruling in Korematsu v. U.S approving Japanese interment camps. [More...]

The Forward has an article titled "Why Stephen Miller Is The Most Hated Jew In America — By Fellow Jews"

How did we get stuck with him? Michael Wolff, in his book Fire and Fury, says Steve Bannon, who brought him on board, used to refer to Miller as "my typist." [More...]

Donald Trump continues his outlandish attempts to rip the fabric of our country's most cherished principles: Today it's due process.

According to Trump, we don't need no stinkin' trials, or judges.

“When somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring them back from where they came,” he said.

Does he even know that the law provides for asylum and that asylum seekers enter the country lawfully?

“What President Trump has suggested here is both illegal and unconstitutional. Any official who has sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution and laws should disavow it unequivocally,” said Omar Jadwat, director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project.

Trump says "Our system is a mockery to good immigration policy and Law and Order." What's next? Will he argue that migrants without proper papers should be shot at the border, so we don't have to pay to return them? I wouldn't be surprised.

It's not our system that's a mockery, it is Donald Trump that has made a mockery of America.

I don't know how you make a peace deal in the Middle East without Israel and Palestine being on board. Jared is going to do it we're told, even without Abbas. He thinks his plan is so good he can just release it to the media and the Palestinian people will want to accept it, even if their leaders don't.

Sounds like he's going to offer the Palestinians some real or imaginary economic benefits in hopes that will get them so unified they demand their leaders accept the deal.

My thought: Trump must be expecting a very bad week with Mueller and thus wants to deflect attention from what's coming -- so he's bringing out Jared, dusting him off and announcing a one-sided peace deal.

Huge, ground-breaking decision from the Supreme Court today! In a 7 to 2 ruling, the Court said a search warrant is needed for cops to obtain cell site location information from phone companies.

The opinion is here.

The case before us involves the Government’s acquisition of wireless carrier cell-site records revealing the location of Carpenter’s cell phone whenever it made orreceived calls. This sort of digital data—personal location information maintained by a third party—does not fit neatly under existing precedents.

More....

James Corden for Mayor of the World.

During one of the worst and most shameful weeks in recent American history, evoking nothing but disgust for the vulgarian in the oval office and his wife who is either beyond tone deaf or truly doesn't give a sh*t (as evident from the jacket she wore to board a plane taking her to the border for her photo op and unsuccessful attempt at damage control), James Corden got to escape to London, where he put on joyful shows all week.

The highlight of the week was Thursday night and the carpool karaoke with Paul McCartney. It began traditionally, and then broke the mold. I won't spoil it for those who haven't seen it, but it was an absolute joy to watch. [More...]

Stephen Miller's great-grandfather flunked his citizenship test. Check out #Resistance Genealogy. "Unless your ancestors came on a slave ship or you’re Native American,” you came here as an immigrant, says Jennifer Mendelsohn, who created the #resistancegenealogy hashtag last summer".

More on Miller here.

The Sheriff in El Paso County, TX has refused to allow deputies working overtime to work at temporary shelters housing migrant children:

The El Paso County sheriff prohibited his deputies from working off-duty at a temporary shelter housing migrant children, saying he refused to support the Trump administration’s “unjust” policy of separating families at the border.

[More...]

The Bureau of Prisons has issued an alert. An immigrant detainee at FCI Victorville in California has been diagnosed with the very contagious chicken pox disease.

“Measures are being taken to identify and contain inmate contacts who are at risk for getting chickenpox,” the letter said. It was sent out midday Monday via email to over 800 prison staff members.

.... E-U Housing Unit is one of about 12 units in the medium security facility where ICE has contracted with the Bureau of prisons to house up to 1,000 adult male immigrant detainees.

[More...]

Beware the person who cannot accept accountability for his own missteps. Donald Trump today issued an executive order on separating parents and children at the border. He continues to blame Congress instead of his own Executive Orders for the mess his policies created. He even has the gall to name it "Affording Congress an Opportunity to Address Family Separation."

It is unfortunate that Congress’s failure to act and court orders have put the Administration in the position of separating alien families to effectively enforce the law.

No one caused these separations but the Trump Administration itself. [More...]

Four major airlines are saying no to Donald Trump's policy that separates migrant children from their parents at the border:

American, Frontier, Southwest and United airlines are refusing to fly immigrant children separated from their parents for the federal government, the latest resistance to the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy for undocumented border crossings.

All four airlines said they had no evidence that they have transported children under the policy yet. But they each said the policy runs counter to their corporate goals of connecting people.

As if Donald Trump hasn't done enough to debase our country and its values, he's stepping in another pile of dung today. It will shortly be announced that the U.S. is withdrawing from the U.N. Human Rights Council.

Trump thinks he can trample on the rights of the disenfranchised, including children.He hopes to misdirect the conversation to lay blame on Democrats. It's a con game. The carnival barker is demanding Democrats pass an immigration bill with funding for his border wall.

McClatchy reports today that data shows officials may have lost track of 6,000 children. [More...]

The Governors of four states have refused to send National Guard troops to the southwest border because of Trump's parent-child separation policy.

The states are Maryland, Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island. Let's hope the list grows.

Nationwide protests are being scheduled around the country for June 30.

Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper signed an executive order today that prevents any state agency from separating a parent and child for immigration purposes.

“The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s policy and practice of separating children from their parents when arriving at the southern border is offensive to our core values as Coloradans and as a country,” Hickenlooper’s executive order says. “The administration announced a ‘zero tolerance’ policy in the spring of 2018 resulting in family separations. The administration has recently stated that the purpose of the policy is to intimidate immigrants and deter crossings.”

The text of the Order reads in part:

“No state agency may deprive any person of services or benefits to which he or she is legally entitled because of a person’s immigration status, except as required by state or federal law.

...No state agency may use any state resources, including but not limited to moneys, equipment, or personnel, for the purpose of separating any child from his or her parent or legal guardian on the sole ground that such parent or legal guardian is present in the United States in violation of federal immigration laws.”

You can read the Order here. [More...]

Update: With 54% of the vote counted, right wing candidate Ivan Duque has been elected President of Colombia. Really disappointing. Both candidates had a female running mate. Marta Lucía Ramírez will be the first female VP of Colombia. (Had Petro won, the VP would have been Ángela María Robledo. As of the results so far, Duque won in Medellin by 500,000 votes while Petro won in Bogota by 400,000 votes.

Original Post:

Colombia voted in the runoff election today for President. Their choice is right-wing Ivan Duque or leftist Gustavo Petro, a former M-19 rebel and Mayor of Bogota. Harvard-educated Duque, who has the support of evangelicals and ultraconservatives that reject gay marriage and adoption, as well as uber-right former President Alvaro Uribe, and is a huge proponent of escalating the war on drugs, is favored to win. It's seen as a classic fight between right and left. [More...]

From Texas Monthly: "What's Really Happening at the Border" -- an interview with Anne Chandler, "executive director of the Houston office of the nonprofit Tahirih Justice Center, which focuses on helping immigrant women and children, she has been traveling to the border and to detention centers, listening to the parents’ stories." What they do:

We run the Children’s Border Project, and we work with hundreds of kids that have been released from ORR (Office of Refugee Resettlement) care. We are not a legal service provider that does work when they’re in the shelters. To date, most of our work with that issue of family separation has been working with the parents in the days when they are being separated: when they’re in the federal courthouse being convicted; partnering with the federal public defenders; and then in the adult detention center, as they have no idea how to communicate or speak to their children or get them back before being deported.

[More...]