[U, X2] Listening In -- On Masterpiece Cakeshop, This Morning...

I will confess that it surprised me not to see Justice Kagan's name, as a dissenting voice -- in last night's Muslim Ban 3.0 order (lifting the trial courts' injunctions, at the SCOTUS). Time to do some research, on background (is the Court shifting, to the right?). I will spend much of the day listening in to the slightly delayed oral arguments in Masterpiece Cakeshop, as it may be a bellwether of sorts, on the Muslim Ban 3.0 cases. And so. . . I'll be off-grid for most of the day. [Updated: Here is the 116 page PDF transcript, from today's argument.]

Just FYI -- and I do expect the Supremes will adhere to the "public accommodation" rule, from the civil rights era cases: if one holds one's business open to the public, and engages in interstate commerce (or uses jurisdictional means), one must not discriminate against one's paying customers, on any prohibited basis. But we shall see.

UPDATED: This morning -- in the Fourth Circuit -- the plaintiffs moved (in a 16-page PDF file) to have the court supplement the record, on the manifest discriminatory purpose, and bias, of the sitting POTUS, thus:

. . .On November 29, 2017, the President used his Twitter account to publish to his more than 43 million followers three videos from the account of Jayda Fransen, the Deputy Leader of Britain First, an extremist political party in the United Kingdom, the mission of which includes opposition to Islam. . . .

. . . .Each of the three videos distributed by the President depicts an act of violence or the destruction of a Christian religious symbol coupled with a caption attributing the actions depicted to a “Muslim” or “Islamist.” In at least one case, the claim is demonstrably false, and in the rest remain unverified. The first video is captioned “Muslim migrant beats up Dutch boy on crutches!. . . .

It does not in fact depict a Muslim migrant. . . .

Is it possible that the Supremes intend to say that, but for Donald Trump's manifest and public discriminatory statements, the Ban 3.0 would have been a lawful exercise of his authority (and thus the trial courts' orders were temporarily lifted, just last night), but due to his clearly articulated (prohibited) motivations -- it must fall (when it is properly before the high court in a few months)? We shall see.

Falling silent for a while. . . .

नमस्ते