{"id":37295,"date":"2026-06-29T05:00:43","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T09:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/?p=37295"},"modified":"2026-06-28T21:20:52","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T01:20:52","slug":"reading-the-scotus-tea-leaves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/29\/reading-the-scotus-tea-leaves\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading the SCOTUS Tea Leaves"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, I believe this is the last week of the Supreme Court session.\u00a0 And most of the big decisions have been handed down.\u00a0 But the 600-pound gorilla in the court, birthright citizenship, is still hanging out there.\u00a0 And so, I\u2019ve been trying to decide whether leaving it for the last means it\u2019s more likely to be overturned or confirmed.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a real puzzle.\u00a0 Rejecting Trump\u2019s challenge to the birthright citizenship interpretation of the 14th<\/sup> amendment is the conventional reading and if the court was unwilling to buck convention, then would they leave it to the end to minimize the amount of abuse they would inevitably receive from Donald Trump?\u00a0 Or does leaving it to the end signal that they are going to go out with a bang this year and save the biggest decision for last?<\/p>\n

The pessimist in me says they\u2019re going to deny Trump.\u00a0 After all you have the three commies who will surely vote against Trump and you also have John Roberts who is a squish and almost certainly would be afraid of taking such a stance even if he were completely convinced of the logic.\u00a0 So that\u2019s 4\/5 without any other waverers.\u00a0 How sure am I that the other five will be unanimous for Trump\u2019s argument?\u00a0 Well, not very.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019ve decided to force myself to take an optimistic stance on this highly important ruling.\u00a0 I\u2019m throwing my weight behind a Trump victory.\u00a0 Whenever the last day of the term is, I predict that the Supreme Court of the United States of America will vote by a 5\/4 margin that children born in the United States, to non-citizens are not automatically citizens of this country.<\/p>\n

And that decision along with the recent decision allowing Trump to terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for roughly 350,000 Haitians (and about 6,000 Syrians) will allow him to accelerate his immigration policies.<\/p>\n

TPS is a humanitarian program that allows nationals from countries facing ongoing crises (e.g., natural disasters, violence, or instability) to live and work legally in the U.S. without facing deportation while conditions in their home country remain unsafe.\u00a0 And that means they never leave.<\/p>\n

So, I\u2019m using this earlier decision as a rationale for my mindless optimism.\u00a0 The thought is, if the justices were wise enough to see the logic that allows one president to declare something an emergency and another to declare the emergency over, then they can see the logic that would make the 14th<\/sup> amendment a stopgap to enfranchise the children of freed slaves but not want to utilize it to allow illegal aliens to steal American citizenship for their children.<\/p>\n

Alright, have I convinced myself?\u00a0 Have I convinced you?<\/p>\n

SURE!!!<\/p>\n

Well, stay tuned.\u00a0 The decision is in the next few days and it will tell us quite a bit about our current Supreme Court.\u00a0 Who knows, maybe Hakeem Jeffries is right.\u00a0 Maybe we need to increase the court to thirteen justices and flood it with wild-eyed conservatives who will do my bidding.\u00a0 Or maybe we\u2019re just entering the silly season and I need a vacation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, I believe this is the last week of the Supreme Court session.\u00a0 And most of the big decisions have been handed down.\u00a0 But the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1442,576],"class_list":["post-37295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","tag-birthright-citizenship","tag-scotus"],"yoast_head":"\nReading the SCOTUS Tea Leaves - Orion's Cold Fire<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/29\/reading-the-scotus-tea-leaves\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Reading the SCOTUS Tea Leaves - 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