M2D Newsletter (4/26/18)
Happy Thursday, and what a blessed day it is. Tickets to Monsters to Destroy in New York are now officially available!
Click here to get a ticket or two or three. Bring your frands and famz. I’d love to see you there! Proceeds go to Human Rights First, a nonpartisan human rights organization I partner with, to offset the cost of sponsoring this holy event…
…which, unfortunately, looks like it’ll be relevant in June, when the Supreme Court is expected to issue its ruling on the travel ban. Judging (extremely good pun intended) by how the oral arguments went yesterday, the court will uphold the ban.
The question at the heart of the proceedings was whether the court should take the law at face value or factor in President Trump’s statements about a Muslim ban, which could lead to a determination that, no, the ban is not about national security.
The justices will likely rule that the president has authority to issue the ban, whether or not it’s a good idea. Having spent over a year looking into the subject — particularly the security impact of refugees, who’ve been hit particularly hard by the ban — I’d say it’s not a good idea, as would 55 security experts.
Noel Francisco, the federal government’s attorney, counters that the ban comes from “a worldwide review of security risks,” which he also insisted was conducted responsibly on the “world wide web” by two of the remaining seven people working full time on “government things.”
Luckily, I conducted my own review, as you can see from a snippet from my conversation with Nafee, a 21-year-old from Damascus. On the campaign trail, then-candidate Trump said Syrian refugees will be the “great Trojan Horse.” I put that notion to the test.
Despite Nafee’s knowledge of mythology, I’m not surprised that the Supreme Court will likely say it’s okay to keep people like him out. The justices seemed to be leaning that way ahead of the hearing. In any event, I’ll carry on as if it’s up to the people to counter bigoted legislation and hold our representatives accountable because, in this case, it is.
Come see for yourself on June 1st! (And expect a personal video message when you get a ticket.)
Ben
