The Supremes in June

A rainbow of flamingos

Spoiler Alert: I am going to venture into a minefield of political musings, something I rarely, if ever, do on my blog. But this has been quite a month of incredible rulings made by the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS). It started off in the middle of the month with a ruling that makes it illegal to fire someone because of being gay or transgender. Not only that, but the argument supporting the ruling was written by Neil Gorsuch, a conservative. (Read this CNN Opinion article about it.)

And then SCOTUS disallowed the Administration from throwing out DACA (Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals) as currently written. But it held out hope for the administration to fix it and then re-submit it, which would then allow for the immediate deportation of all 7 million DACA recipients. (Article from The Hill about this one.) For now, though, they are safe from deportation.

And, today, SCOTUS ruled that Louisiana's abortion law is unconstitutional. They pointed out that many hospitals in the region are religiously affiliated or conservative and don't allow abortions to take place in their facilities in any event, which severely limits the number of doctors who can carry out the procedure.

The law required that doctors providing abortions have admitting privileges to nearby hospitals, which the justices said led to an undue burden on women. Chief Justice John Roberts joined liberal justices in the 5-4 decision in a blow to anti-abortion groups. The court struck down a similar policy in Texas in 2016, the opinion noted.

There is one more bombshell ruling still to come, and that is whether or not Congress has a right to get ahold of Trump's tax returns. Although it seems to be mostly related to our current president, it will also establish the boundaries between the executive branch and Congress that are not at all clear at the present time.

The court is expected to determine the scope of congressional power to issue subpoenas in furtherance of its legislative function, and whether the President has "absolute immunity" from even being investigated criminally while in office. 

I'm not sure when this ruling will be given, but I am hoping it will show that we voters should definitely be given that information. But hey, three out of four isn't bad. I know I may be upsetting some of my long-time readers with this post, but I simply couldn't resist writing this after today's ruling.
:-)