Razor Wire and the Supremacy Clause

 

The Supreme Court decided 5-4 that the federal government can remove the razor wire barrier erected by Gov. Abbott along the US border with Mexico. Note that I didn't say the "Texas border" because this is our border with another country. It should not be a states' rights issue. And yet four Justices, Alito, Gorsuch, Thomas and Kavanaugh (should I say, the usual suspects?) thought that it's just fine for a governor to put up a trap like something out of the Saw franchise between the US and Mexico. 

For human beings to be injured or killed by. A potential international incident in the making--it shouldn't be Abbott's call. It should be logical that the supremacy clause pertains here, but they seem to be starting from agreeing with the Republican governor against the Biden Administration with a rationale TBD. 

The reason this bothers me is that a standoff between the US government and the state government at the border feeds into the weird secessionist thing Texas has going, lately. Me being, well, me, I can't refrain from noticing that Texas secessionism has been encouraged by Russian propaganda. (They were behind a lot of support for "Calexit" as well.)

Not that I think Greg Abbott or the four Supreme Court justices are working for the Russians mind you. I only question what the whole entire fuck they think the US government is for and why they would want to undermine it for what looks to me like partisan dick-slappery.

But now for something a bit different--

I guess I got down this way of thinking by another strange item that I read today that Putin wants Alaska back. And I mean, sure--this is pure Vova. Unite the three Russias. Get the former Soviet states back together. Restore the territories of the Russian empire. He's a wild and crazy guy. He says crazy things, and is responsible for giving Trump at least a kind of election win in 2020--in Russian textbooks, anyway, by repeating his claims the election was "stolen." 

Look, Trump's campaign in 2016 changed the party's stance on Ukraine and MAGA's today don't seem to understand why we should continue support for them. Trump flat out rejected the idea that the US would come to the assistance of Europe if attacked and said NATO was "dead." For all I know, Trump would give Russia Alaska if Putin said the US would get Greenland when he invades Denmark (the cream is gone from Trump's Oreo, the cheese has slipped off his cracker, his mentos is compost, etc.)

Anyway--just things I think about.