The Courts have halted Trump’s bigoted policies, but the Senate wants to confirm all his judges

  The federal courts have proven that they can effectively serve as a check on the Trump administration’s violations of the Constitution, even in the face of President Donald Trump’s attacks on judges. But that may not be true for much longer if the president is allowed to fill a record number of empty seats on the federal courts with judges who will rubber-stamp his agenda.

  The administration has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn two federal appeals courts’ rulings to strike down the president’s travel ban blocking entry of individuals from six Muslim-majority countries. Both courts, one based in Virginia and the other in California, found that the ban targeted a certain religion, citing Trump’s repeated pledges to bar Muslims from entering the United States. Another federal court recently ruled that the administration’s executive order targeting sanctuary cities is unconstitutional because the administration cannot unilaterally withhold funding that Congress has appropriated.

Our Stand: Lay off our young people

  Monday evening we read the comments of many Montgomery-area Facebook users who unleashed a torrent of vile, misguided and utterly disgusting sentiments directed at young people who had organized and lead a symbolic demonstration at Montgomery Regional Airport. The demonstration was in opposition to President Trump's executive order banning travel from seven nations in the Middle East and indefinitely barring refugees from Syria from entering the United States.

  What troubled us most is that the target of the comments, which ranged from insults like "retard" to even accusing the participants of being aimless, unemployed and/or recipients of "government handouts," were in fact high-achieving students from the educational gem LAMP (Loveless Academic Magnet Program), home of some of Montgomery's best and brightest young people. Perhaps those hurling insults online were intimidated by these young people, and we were just witnessing their crippling insecurities bubbling up online.