# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
DENVER -- The presidential election results proved disappointing for about half of the American people.

But for some Denver metro area students, the election of Donald Trump means fear.

Minorities, especially Latinos, woke up Wednesday morning with anxiety over what a Trump presidency means for their futures.

At Noel Community Arts School in Montbello, about 70 percent of students are Latino.

On Wednesday morning, teachers noticed kids were visibly upset, some crying, others angry. So, they started talking about it.

Teachers learned Trump's election is so much more concerning for them because they feel personally targeted.

"At first, I was very shocked, distraught about it," junior Naomi Martinez said.

"I expected the tears. I expected the sorrow. I remember waking up and crying in bed and saying,' What will I say to my kids? How do we deal with today?' said language arts teacher Stephanie Cohen.

Minority students said they're scared about Trump as president with talk of banning Muslims, building walls and deportation squads.

"He proposed (deporting illegal immigrants) to be his main goal for his political career. He's going to get it done," senior Elena Martin Hernandez said.

Students shared their frightened feelings during an all-school assembly, then in classes.

"To me, it hurts me because I know some people's families might be deported. He's breaking the love and laughter and happiness in some people's family. It's not OK," a freshman girl said.

Those feelings then put onto paper and read as a letter to the community.

"We are feeling shocked and astonished at the results of this year's election. We do not understand how anyone could vote for a man who has shown such disrespect to all the members of our community," reads the letter.

It continues for six paragraphs. It ends with, "We can't stand in silence as the voices of our peers and friends are targets. ...We are united in defending their voices and our voices. Hatred is not welcomed here. We will continue to seek our education; we will continue to shine. We are unconquered. We are strong. We are Noel Community Arts High School."

"When I came to them today, I said, 'I get to go home and maybe my life won't be affected by this. But it breaks my heart that your lives could change,'" Cohen said.

But in the end, students go from shock to understanding that a single man can't change all their lives.

Only they can control being their best.

"We need to give a message that just because he won, we are not going to give up," Martinez said.

Cohen said the election of Trump could actually serve to motivate some students to be more involved in school and government.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Minority students share fears about future under Trump presidency

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
DENVER -- The presidential election results proved disappointing for about half of the American people. But for some Denver metro area students, the election of Donald Trump means fear. Minorities, especially Latinos, woke up Wednesday morning with anxiety over what a Trump presidency means for their futures.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
261.

That's the number of hate incidentsThinkProgress has tracked since Nov. 9, 2016, when Donald Trump was declared president-elect. Of the 261 incidents, 109 - or 42% - "included specific references to Trump, his election, or his policies."

Now, the number does seem notably smaller than Southern Poverty Law Center's 867 reported post-election hate crime incidents. ThinkProgress' tracker only included acts of hate violence toward individuals and communities rather than public and private places - like vandalized mosques or spray-painted churches. The incidents listed in ThinkProgress' database also only included incidents that were backed up with news coverage, police reports or through the publication's own investigation into the incident.

According to the report, New York had the highest amount of hate incidents with 33 since Nov. 9. California followed with 27, Texas with 25 and Florida with 18 incidents. The report also found that 26.8% of the incidents targeted Jewish people, black people with 22.9%, people with 13.7%, Muslim people with 11.8%, Latinx with 10.3% and other with 14.9%. The reported incidents included acts of violence toward Trump supporters and protesters under "other."

It should be noted that while hate violence toward Muslims only accounted for 11.8% of the total incidents, Muslims are of all groups listed in the report.

You can find detailed reports of the hate incidents and the interactive database here. ThinkProgress will no longer be tracking hate violence, but ProPublica will be continuing the efforts. You can find their reports here.

Here's a group breakdown of reported hate violence incidents:

Black people

- There were 60 incidents of anti-black hate violence across the country.

- Texas had the highest amount of anti-black hate violence with seven reported incidents.

Jewish people

- There were 70 incidents of anti-semitic hate violence across the country.

- New York had the highest amount of anti-semitic hate violence with 11 reported incidents.

Latinxs

- There were 27 incidents of anti-Latinx hate violence across the country.

- California and Texas had the highest amount of anti-Latinx hate violence with five reported incidents each.

LGBTQ people

- There were 36 incidents of anti-LGBTQ hate violence across the country.

- New York and Texas had the highest amount of anti-LGBTQ hate violence with five reported incidents each.

Muslims

- There were 31 incidents of anti-Muslim violence across the country.

- California had the highest amount of anti-Muslim hate violence with nine reported incidents.

Other

- There were 40 incidents across the country of hate violence against women, immigrants, Trump supporters, anti-Trump protestors and other individuals.

- New York had the highest amount of hate violence with six reported incidents.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Hate crimes since the election: Groups targeted since Trump's win

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
261. That's the number of hate incidentsThinkProgress has tracked since Nov. 9, 2016, when Donald Trump was declared president-elect. Of the 261 incidents, 109 - or 42% - "included specific references to Trump, his election, or his policies." Now, the number does seem notably smaller than Southern Poverty Law Center's 867 reported post-election hate crime incidents.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In the book "The Art of the Deal," Donald Trump and his ghostwriter wrote, "You can't con people, at least not for long." Not surprisingly, Trump's strategy as a presidential candidate has been to directly contradict his own published advice again and again.

Indeed, just the other day Trump colossally tricked almost everyone when he finally denounced the main thrust of his birther crusade by graciously anointing President Barack Obama as an official citizen of the United States. Trump said, "Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy." He continued, "I finished it. I finished it. You know what I mean. President Barack Obama was born in the United States. Period."

Everything he said during his brief remarks about the birther issue late last week was a fabrication, minus the part about Obama being an American citizen. And regarding that, he left out two major aspects of the conspiracy theory - two parts that we can assume he and his fanboys still believe.

Before we dig into what Trump left out, it's important to emphasize that no, Hillary Clinton didn't "start" the birther thing - not by a long shot. In research that I conducted for a book in 2008, I discovered that the movement really began during the 2004 campaign when Obama ran for the U.S. Senate. Around the time Obama delivered his legendary keynote address at the Democratic National Convention, an email allegedly composed by Illinois politician Andy Martin began circulating, titled "Who Is Barack Obama?" The manifesto featured a litany of lies regarding Obama's ethnicity, religion and, of course, his birthplace.

The falsehoods contained in the email were joined by various characters in the political press who, once Obama's name was being circulated as a possible 2008 contender, routinely mixed up his name with Osama Bin Laden's. For some pundits it was accidental; for others, such as Bill Cunningham and Rush Limbaugh, it was entirely deliberate, thereby subliminally and with racist intentions conflating the American non-Muslim politician born in Hawaii with the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. Clever, no?

While the email and the name mix-up stirred underground discussions inside conspiratorial bubbles online, birtherism was never really mainstreamed until NBC News and Bloomberg political analyst Mark Halperin wrote in his column for Time magazine that John McCain should, "Emphasize Barack Hussein Obama's unusual name and exotic background through a Manchurian Candidate prism." Clearly Halperin in February 2008 was paying close attention to the proto-birther movement and thought it'd be an excellent strategy for the presumptive Republican nominee. Halperin also suggested that McCain should "encourage interest groups, bloggers, and right-leaning media to explore Obama's past."

It wasn't until a week later that Hillary Clinton was asked about the issue, to which she replied, "I take [Obama] on the basis of what he says. And, you know, there isn't any reason to doubt that." She continued, "No! There's nothing to base that on, as far as I know." Donald Trump has claimed to know all of the "best words" so surely he would recognize Clinton's words as contrary to the birther claims popularized online and mainstreamed by Halperin.

So, no, Clinton didn't start birtherism. And Trump didn't end it, either (as he has sometimes claimed to have done in 2011 when Obama released his long-form birth certificate). A full two years after Trump "ended" the issue, he tweeted:

"If you like your healthcare plan you can keep it." = "I was born in Hawaii." - Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) Oct. 31, 2013

That's two massive cons in two short sentences. But by merely bestowing the president with citizenship, Trump left out two major prongs of the conspiracy, and the political press, blinded by the spectacle, failed to see it.

Birtherism isn't exclusively about the birth certificate. The place of birth is the seed, but the rest of the conspiracy grew out of it by design and directly involved Obama's religion and whether he's part of a terrorist sleeper cell, as Mark Halperin and Andy Martin originally suggested. The whole point of placing Obama's birth in Kenya rather than his actual birthplace in the Kapiolani Women's Hospital in Honolulu was for the express purpose of characterizing Obama as a terrorist sympathizer at best and an al-Qaida operative at worst. Left to the knee-jerk assumptions of poorly educated red-state voters, it worked extremely well and survives today.

Trump, through these omissions, allowed plenty of wiggle room for his loyal fanboys to continue grappling onto the theory.

Despite Trump's referencing of Clinton's remarks from early March 2008, members of the political press have mostly failed to review those remarks. And if they had, they would've learned that she was responding to a question about Obama's religion, not his birthplace. The religion angle, by the way, is directly linked to Obama's father's birth religion, but the theory conveniently failed to note the fact that Barack Obama Sr. was an atheist at the time of the president's birth in 1961. (Or was he? Hmmm.)

As most conspiracies go, one misreported detail can too easily spawn a slew of other rumors, lies and whisper campaigns. This one is reliant upon gigantic leaps of logic, going something like this: Obama's dad was Kenyan and was born into the Islamic faith, therefore the president had to have been born in Kenya, is probably also Muslim, and because Muslims are carrying out terrorist attacks against American interests, Obama must be a covert operative who will overturn the Constitution while allowing his fellow jihadists to continue to their attacks on American soil. Or worse. Because, they falsely believed, all Muslims are terrorists.

Trump was perhaps the most recognizable marketer of this theory. Still is. And, to repeat, he's yet to renounce two-thirds of the birther theory.

Shortly after Halperin borrowed the conspiracy and injected it into the carotid artery of the 2008 election, and prior to Hillary Clinton's being questioned about Obama's religion, Michelle Obama observed, "They threw in the obvious, ultimate fear bomb. 'When all else fails, be afraid of his name, and what that could stand for, because it's different.'"

The goal, of course, was to stoke racial animosity. It was the Southern strategy's high-water mark, given that the president is African-American. Cable news roundtables in which white pundits concern trolled about Obama's "exotic" name, calling attention to his blackness, became a top-shelf feature of the primaries and continued into the general election when Sarah Palin went rogue and accused the president of "palling around with terrorists." Trump chose to take up the topic from Palin when he had a television show to promote and obviously he was all too willing to go full racist as a means of promoting his NBC vanity project.

Until Trump clarifies his position, he's still very much in the business of birtherism and anyone letting him off the hook is ignoring the major racially driven details inherent in his five-year con - his "ultimate fear bomb."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Muslim card: The "other" birther claim Trump is keeping in play

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In the book "The Art of the Deal," Donald Trump and his ghostwriter wrote, "You can't con people, at least not for long." Not surprisingly, Trump's strategy as a presidential candidate has been to directly contradict his own published advice again and again.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
W.J. Astore
Over the last ten years in the United States. more than 280,000 Americans have died because of guns. Over that same period, roughly 350,000 Americans have died on the roads in vehicular accidents. That's roughly 630,000 Americans dying every decade either in road accidents or by gunshots, which is roughly the number of Americans who died in the horrible carnage of the U.S. Civil War from 1861 to 1865, America's bloodiest war.

In other words, at the hands of guns or vehicles, Americans suffer the equivalent of a civil war-like bloodletting each and every decade. Is it time to declare war on guns and cars?

Apparently not. Instead, our media and leaders prefer to fixate on terrorism, which has accounted for 24 deaths over the same period. Indeed, by the numbers the White supremacist threat to America is twice as serious as threats from ISIS or other external radical groups.

According to the Washington Times,

"In the 14 years since the Sept. 11 terror attacks, nearly twice as many people have been killed in the United States by white supremacists and anti-government radicals than by Muslim jihadis, according to a new study."

"White supremacists and anti-government radicals have killed 48 Americans ... versus 26 killings by Muslim radicals, according to a count by New America, a Washington research center."

"New America program associate David Sterman said the study shows that white supremacy and anti-government idealists are a major problem, that their growth rate needs to be addressed and that there is an 'ignored threat' woven in the fabric of American society."

Given these numbers and realities, why are America's leaders so fixated on hyping the threat of radical Islamic terrorists? Shouldn't we be focusing on saving lives on our roads? Reducing gun accidents and gun crimes and suicide by guns? On reducing hate-filled radicalism within our own country?

We should be, but we're not. Our leaders prefer threat inflation: They believe in making political hay while the foreign terrorist threat shines. So candidates like Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio predictably call for a war on terrorism, for military "boots on the ground" in Syria and Iraq, and (of course) for higher military spending and more surveillance in the name of protecting America. Threat inflation knows no political party, of course, with Hillary Clinton joining the chorus of the talk-toughers against terror.

Threat inflation sells. And threat inflation pays. This is an important theme in Tom Engelhardt's latest tour de force at TomDispatch.com, "The National Security State's Incestuous Relationship with the Islamic State." As Tom notes, threat inflation drives a dance of death even as it eliminates grey zones - opportunities for dialog, diplomacy, compromise, forms of accommodation. It enforces a black and white world of crusaders and jihadists bent on killing one another in the name of righteousness.

Here is how Engelhardt puts it:

the officials of [the U.S. national] security state have bet the farm on the preeminence of the terrorist "threat," which has, not so surprisingly, left them eerily reliant on the Islamic State and other such organizations for the perpetuation of their way of life, their career opportunities, their growing powers, and their relative freedom to infringe on basic rights, as well as for that comfortably all-embracing blanket of secrecy that envelops their activities. Note that, as with so many developments in our world which have caught them by surprise, the officials who run our vast surveillance network and its staggering ranks of intelligence operatives and analysts seemingly hadn't a clue about the IS plot against Paris (even though intelligence officials in at least one other country evidently did). Nonetheless, whether they see actual threats coming or not, they need Paris-style alarms and nightmares, just as they need local "plots," even ones semi-engineered by FBI informers or created online by lone idiots, not lone wolves. Otherwise, why would the media keep prattling on about terrorism or presidential candidates keep humming the terror tune, and how, then, would public panic levels remain reasonably high on the subject when so many other dangers are more pressing in American life?

The relationship between that ever-more powerful shadow government in Washington and the Islamic terrorists of our planet is both mutually reinforcing and unnervingly incestuous.

Of course, Engelhardt knows that terrorism must be fought. The point is not to lose our collective heads over the (much exaggerated) threat of it. To cite Frank Herbert's insight in Dune, "Fear is the mind-killer." Yet our media and leaders seem determined to hype fear so as to kill our minds.

As our media and politicians stoke our fear by exaggerating the threat posed by terrorism, ask yourself to what purpose are they attacking your minds.

Hint: It certainly isn't about keeping you safe.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Terrorism and Threat Inflation: Fear Is the Mind-Killer

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
W.J. Astore Over the last ten years in the United States. more than 280,000 Americans have died because of guns. Over that same period, roughly 350,000 Americans have died on the roads in vehicular accidents. That's roughly 630,000 Americans dying every decade either in road accidents or by gunshots, which is roughly the number of...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
If Trump fails to take climate change seriously, the federal government may do little to address the threat of a warming planet in the next four years. A presidential administration hostile to climate science also threatens to deepen, or at the very least prolong, the skepticism that already exists in American political life. "If the Trump administration continues to push the false claim that global warming is a hoax, not happening, not human caused, or not a serious problem, I'd expect many conservative Republican voters to follow their lead," said Anthony Leiserowitz, the director of Yale University's Program on Climate Change Communication.

The entrenchment of climate-science denial is one of the ways the United States appears to be exceptional relative to the rest of the world. A comparative 2015 study of nine conservative political parties in countries such as Canada, Germany, and Spain concluded that "the U.S. Republican Party is an anomaly in denying anthropogenic climate change." Meanwhile, Americans were least likely to agree that climate change is largely the result of human activity in a 2014 survey of 20 countries, including China, India, Australia, and Great Britain.

Scientific reality does not seem to have escaped the distorting influence of political polarization in the United States. A paper published in Environment earlier this year suggests that as the Tea Party pushed the Republican Party further to the political right, it helped solidify skepticism of man-made climate change within the GOP. That happened as the Tea Party incorporated "anti-environmentalism and climate-change denial into its agenda," the authors write, and subsequently became part of a broader "denial countermovement" made up of fossil-fuel companies as well as conservative think tanks and media outlets.

As the ideological divide between Republicans and Democrats has widened, so has the partisan divide over climate change. Scientific evidence that human activity is the leading cause of global warming has continued to accumulate in recent years, and the evidence for man-made climate change is now overwhelming. In spite of that, Republicans are slightly less convinced than they were a decade and a half ago that the Earth is getting warmer as a result of human activity. Democrats have moved in the opposite direction and become more likely to say that man-made climate change is real. This year, Gallup found that while 85 percent of Democrats believe human activity has lead to higher temperatures, only 38 percent of Republicans agree.

In a deeply divided country, adopting views on climate change that conflict with scientific evidence can actually be a rational choice. Liberals and conservatives frequently spend time with like-minded individuals, and people across the political spectrum may have a better chance of fitting in if they embrace shared partisan beliefs-regardless of whether those beliefs contradict scientific fact. This helps explain why highly educated Republicans are actually more likely to reject climate science. Yale University professor Dan Kahan put it this way in a 2012 Nature article:

For members of the public, being right or wrong about climate-change science will have no impact. Nothing they do as individual consumers or individual voters will meaningfully affect the risks posed by climate change. Yet the impact of taking a position that conflicts with their cultural group could be disastrous. ... Positions on climate change have come to signify the kind of person one is. People whose beliefs are at odds with those of the people with whom they share their basic cultural commitments risk being labelled as weird and obnoxious in the eyes of those on whom they depend for social and financial support.

The complexity of climate science may have made it easier for global warming to get caught up in partisan politics as well. Voters look to the positions adopted by their political party as a kind of mental shortcut when deciding what to make of complicated subjects such as climate change, according to research from Cynthia Rugeley of the University of Minnesota, Duluth, and John David Gerlach of Western Carolina University. That means that if Trump continues to voice climate skepticism after taking office, he could further cement skepticism among conservative voters. "I think it will reinforce climate denial among those who already doubt its existence. To that extent, yes, it will deepen denial," Rugeley said in an interview.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Donald Trump and the Triumph of Climate Denial

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
If Trump fails to take climate change seriously, the federal government may do little to address the threat of a warming planet in the next four years. A presidential administration hostile to climate science also threatens to deepen, or at the very least prolong, the skepticism that already exists in American political life.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Outside contributors' opinions and analysis of the most important issues in politics, science, and culture.

A federal judge in Washington state has imposed a temporary restraining order that prevents enforcement of President Donald Trump's executive order banning residents from seven countries from entering the United States - either as refugees or as travelers. But whether that injunction will be upheld will be decided soon by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, by reputation one of the most liberal appellate courts in the nation. That result will affect the roughly 15 other federal court challenges across the nation, some filed on behalf of specific individuals and some more broad-based.

All of these cases raise an array of constitutional objections to President Trump's executive order, titled Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States. The most common challenges are the Fifth Amendment's protection against the denial of due process of law and extension of equal protection of the law, and the First Amendment's protections against religious discrimination. Challengers also argue that there are statutory problems with the order, such as violations of the Immigration and Nationalization Act, Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and Administrative Procedure Act.

In the case brought by Washington state, now joined by Minnesota (with a pending request by Hawaii to join), Judge James L. Robart focused on the Equal Protection claim during the oral argument, returning to that basic issue several times. The judge also asked about the relevance of Trump's repeated statements on the campaign trail that he sought a "Muslim ban." In his restraining order, however, Robart only said that the state was likely to succeed, without specifying what grounds he thought were strongest.

This makes the arguments the Ninth Circuit will zero in on difficult to predict - not to mention the case's outcome. Importantly, however, the Ninth Circuit at this point is ruling only on the narrow issue of whether the judge's injunction should remain in place or be immediately dissolved. Indeed, there is a question as to whether the appellate court should even be stepping in at such an early stage,given that Judge Robart has not yet held a full hearing.However the Ninth Circuit decides, it's highly likely that review from the United States Supreme Court will be sought.

Do refugees and foreign travelers even possess constitutional rights?

Underlying the litigation is the basic question of whether most of the people covered by the EO even possess "constitutional rights." There is a misconception that the Constitution only applies to "citizens." But since 1886, the United States Supreme Court has been pretty clear that constitutional protections for any "person" include noncitizens.

The noncitizens in the 1886 case Yick Wo v. Hopkins, Chinese nationals who were excluded from citizenship by statute, were clearly residents of California. In contrast, nonresidents seemed to be the main targets of Trump's EO, but in the hours following its late Friday afternoon issuance, there were many conflicting reports and implementations of the EO to long-term permanent residents (green card holders), as well as persons who had different type of resident visas. The White House eventually clarified that it would not enforce the EO against green card holders, although even this remains uncertain.

Even people with little previous connection to the United States may be able to assert some rights when they are harmed by presidential action. Relying on precedent from the era of Yick Wo, the Supreme Court more recently held in Boumediene v. Bush that even when the president acts outside the borders - at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, in that specific case - he lacks the "power to switch the Constitution on or off at will." Even in the case of "enemy combatants," the courts are not simply going to defer to the other branches of government when it comes to constitutional rights.

Another question is whether Washington, as a state, can sue on behalf of those subject to the executive ban. Washington argues that is has standing to do so because of its own proprietary interests (including its universities) and in its role as protector of its people and businesses (including Amazon and Microsoft). Harming such people in turn harms the state, goes the argument.

Interestingly, the best argument in Washington's favor, on this score, is Texas v. United States, a case that the United States has just agreed to hear. The federal appellate court found the state of Texas had standing to challenge President Obama's program giving "DREAMers" (undocumented persons who came to the United States as children) a modicum of protection. In a controversial holding, the court ruled that the cost to Texas of giving noncitizens drivers licenses (which it did not have to do) was sufficient cost to the state to give it a stake in the outcome of the case.

In his brief order, Judge Robarts clearly found that Washington had standing to bring the suit; he also implicitly found that the Constitution was applicable. But he was not explicit about which of the constitutional, or statutory, claims he based his conclusion on.

The fundamental principles that Washington state has invoked

From the court filings, including the briefs now submitted to the Ninth Circuit, the protections of religion, equal protection, and due process emerge as central. Under the First Amendment, there should be no laws "respecting an establishment of religion" or "prohibiting the free exercise" of religion. The 14th Amendment's command that government shall not make or enforce laws which deny to any person "equal protection of the laws," added to the Constitution after the Civil War, was made applicable to the federal government through the Fifth Amendment; those provisions are also likely to inform the Ninth Circuit's decision. Additionally, the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause protects people from having rights denied without sufficient legal process and even from having some fundamental rights denied, no matter the process.

For either the Religion and Equal Protection Clause arguments to gain purchase, judges will likely have to find that the EO intentionally targets Muslims. But that word barely appears in the almost 3,000 word EO. That 1886 case of Yick Wo, involving Chinese noncitizens, is again helpful. The Court pronounced that although a "law itself be fair on its face and impartial in appearance," if it is "applied and administered by public authority with an evil eye and an unequal hand," it will be evaluated accordingly.

In most contemporary situations, establishing the "evil eye" - an intent to discriminate - in a seemingly impartial law is an insurmountable hurdle. Lawmakers generally do not make statements targeting religious or other groups, and even if one legislator is so boorish, the legislature as a whole can disavow that legislator as an outlier.

Here, however, the EO is promulgated by the person of the president, who is repeatedly and widely on the record discussing the need for a Muslim ban. Additionally, the president's intent is corroborated by at least one well-known person, Rudolph Giuliani, who claims to have offered advice in how to draft the EO so that the "Muslim ban" would not, in fact, look like a "Muslim ban."

Moreover, the EO itself does address religion. In its subsection on resuming refugee claims, which the EO suspends for 120 days, it instructs the government to "prioritize refugee claims made by individuals on the basis of religious-based persecution, provided that the religion of the individual is a minority religion in the individual's country of nationality." In the seven nations covered by the EO, the majority religion is Islam. Thus, unless the government considers different sects of Islam as minority religions, only non-Muslims would be eligible for a claim of religious-based persecution.

A key question: how carefully are the administration's policies tailored to its goals?

But the federal government argues that the EO should not be evaluated as a "Muslim ban" because it does not target all Muslim-majority nations but only seven. But, looked at another way, the idiosyncrasy of the list may actually hurt rather than help the EO defenders when it comes time for a different judicial test: an assessment of whether the EO is appropriately tailored to achieve its ends. For while the Constitution's language tends toward the absolute - "make no law" - courts decide how closely the means chosen (the details of the law) relate to the government's desired end - along with an assessment of how vital the government goal is. These standards vary, with government actions that make distinctions based on religion or race usually meriting the highest standard. In those cases, courts will demand a closely tailored fit to a compelling governmental purpose.

In the context of immigration, however, the court might embrace a slightly lesser standard, in which Congress and the executive branch generally receives some deference. The most deferential standard requires only a "reasonable" relationship to a legitimate government interest.

Whatever the standard, the place to start with this analysis is the text of the EO. This EO rehearses its own rationale as preventing another terrorist attack like the one that occurred on September 11, 2001. That is an undoubtedly vital goal. The problem arises, as it so often does, when considering the means chosen to accomplish this. The EO singles out seven specific nations - none of which were implicated in the 9/11 attacks. What's more, the executive order fails to cover nations from which those attackers and subsequent attackers did originate, arguably suggesting that the order is only loosely connected to its goals.

Indeed, Washington state's lawyers could argue that the order does not even pass a basic test of reasonableness. More than 1,000 State Department members signed an official " Dissent Cable" contending that the ban not only fails to achieve its aims but would be counterproductive. Likewise, in a Joint Declaration filed in the Ninth Circuit, a group of former national security, foreign policy, and intelligence officials including Madeline Albright, Janet Napolitano, John Kerry, and Leon Panetta conclude that there is "no national security purpose for a total bar on entry for aliens from the seven named countries." Such a bar, they add, will in fact "harm the interests of the United States." Although such decisions are rare, courts have struck down laws as flatly irrational on more than a few occasions.

Courts can also look beyond the text of the EO. If the Ninth Circuit decides the EO can be characterized as a Muslim ban in disguise, it may conclude that the government's true interest is "animus" against a particular group. Animus is not a legitimate government interest, as the Court most recently held when declaring same-sex marriage bans unconstitutional.

Could the court decide that the administration's defense is disingenuous?

Additionally, some have suggested that the choice of nations included in the ban may have something to do with President Trump's business interests: nations where he (or his sons) have business ties are favored. That would suggest that the government's interest in protecting citizens against terrorism was not its sole motivation. On a few occasions, the Supreme Court has rejected the interest the government has advanced to support its law, essentially concluding that the government was being disingenuous. One of the most famous examples is Loving v. Virginia (1967), in which the Court discounted Virginia's stated reason for its anti-miscegenation law as preserving racial purity for all races; it held that the actual reason for criminalizing interracial marriage was white supremacy.

If a court were to take such a bold step and find that the actual reason was personal finances, this would overlap with a separate ongoing challenge to Trump's presidency under the Emoluments Clause.

The Ninth Circuit may also focus on procedural due process claims, which guarantee that people receive advance notice and an opportunity to be heard before they are deprived of liberty or property. This was surely lacking in the EO's immediate effect and implementation, amid the chaos in airports in the United States and internationally.

More generally, there has been trepidation about the very processes of the law itself. Certainly, many found it alarming that President Trump tweeted his disdain for the decision by referring to the "so-called judge," and later stating: "If something happens blame him [the judge] and court system." Such statements undermine what lawyers understand as the rule of law and our constitutional structure, which includes judicial review.

Therefore, the Trump administration's enforcement of the restraining order - allowing refugees to travel once more - and its appeal of Judge Robart's injunction were greeted with a sense of relief, especially by those opposed to the refugee ban. Court orders, appeals, and other arcane processes are business as usual in the law. So the appeal seemed to signal that at least some of the familiar rules applied, even as everyone acknowledged that we find ourselves in unfamiliar territory with the Trump administration.

The legal process has been reassuringly routine - so far

Not completely unfamiliar terrain, however. In the more conventional scenario, at least in recent decades, it is state officials who refuse to comply with the federal courts. In the infamous "Little Rock" case, Cooper v. Aaron, the governor of Arkansas asserted his ability to substitute his own interpretation of the Constitution in place of the United States Supreme Court's finding in Brown v. Board of Education that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. Importantly, the Court's final authority, established since the 1803 case Marbury v. Madison, was backed by President Eisenhower, who issued his own EO directing the National Guard and other military to enforce the judicial order that Little Rock must integrate its schools.

Trump's willingness to abide by the final legal decision, given his certainty about the rightness of his cause, would be an important test of his commitment to constitutionalism. Many are heartened by the Trump administration's compliance with the injunction, while many are also alarmed by Trump's personal statements deriding the courts by threatening blame should "something" happen. Should Trump outright refuse to comply, this would provoke a genuine constitutional crisis. Then we would be in truly uncharted waters.
Ruthann Robson is a professor at the City University of New York School of Law.
The Big Idea is Vox's home for smart, often scholarly excursions into the most important issues and ideas in politics, science, and culture - typically written by outside contributors. If you have an idea for a piece, pitch us at thebigidea@vox.com.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
A constitutional expert explains the issues at stake in Trump's travel ban

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Outside contributors' opinions and analysis of the most important issues in politics, science, and culture. A federal judge in Washington state has imposed a temporary restraining order that prevents enforcement of President Donald Trump's executive order banning residents from seven countries from entering the United States - either as refugees or as travelers.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Cooperative 'bots' don't need a boss

Robots are getting better all the time at working with humans, but this year several teams demonstrated that these machines can also work together, without human supervision. At a time when roboticists are still struggling to improve how well individual robots sense their surroundings and respond to new situations, letting teams of robots execute their own missions may seem premature. But after years of work, researchers have come up with new software and interactive robots capable of cooperating on rudimentary tasks.

In one study, a thousand robots the size of U.S. quarter coins came together like a marching band to form squares, letters, and other 2D formations. The sheer scale required cheap, easy-to-run robots that could efficiently sense where other robots were. In another project, 10 quadcopters radioed their locations to one another and adjusted their paths to avoid collisions and fly in formation, creating a rotating circle. A third group of robots, inspired by termites, was programmed to build simple structures cooperatively by sensing progress and inferring what the next step needed to be. In yet another experiment, a fleet of robotic boats performed relatively sophisticated group maneuvers, albeit under the command of a central computer that tracked them with a special camera system.

So far, all the collaborative robots rely on relatively crude, local information about their environment and one another, but both they and their sensors are improving rapidly. More, and increasingly impressive, cooperative feats undoubtedly lie ahead. - Elizabeth Pennisi

The birth of birds

It took a lot to turn lumbering cousins of Tyrannosaurus rex into agile hummingbirds and graceful swans. This year, evolutionary biologists figured out the mode and tempo of the spectacular evolutionary transition from dinosaurs to birds.

Their analyses top off 2 decades of fossil discoveries, primarily in China, showing that birdlike innovations-particularly feathers-emerged repeatedly among dinosaurs, well before the first birds appeared. Feathers, it seems, were not just for flying, but also for insulation, display, or possibly balance.

In 2014, several groups compiled and analyzed data on many dinosaur and early bird fossils as well as on extant birds, to see when other birdlike traits actually appeared. One study compared 850 morphological traits among 150 species; another measured the thickness of leg bones of 426 species. They discovered that the dinosaurs that ultimately gave rise to birds steadily got smaller and finer boned over time.

Once the bird body plan crystallized, new avian species arose quite rapidly, probably because their small size enabled them to find food and shelter that their larger kin could not exploit. Birds took off, but their dinosaur ancestors had given them a running start. - Elizabeth Pennisi

Youth serum for real?

This year, in work with profound implications for aging, researchers showed that blood or blood components from a young mouse can rejuvenate an old mouse's muscles and brain. If the results hold up in people-an idea already in testing-factors in young blood could offer the antidote to aging that humanity has sought as far back as Juan Ponce de León's quest for the Fountain of Youth.

These findings grew out of strange-sounding experiments dating back 150 years, in which researchers sew together the skins of two mice to join their circulation. In the early 2000s, the approach was revived to study stem cells. Researchers found that when they connected the circulation of young and old mice, the muscle stem cells in the old mice were better able to regenerate muscle.

Work published in 2014 strengthened the evidence that something in young blood can reverse multiple signs of aging. One group studied a factor isolated from young mouse blood called GDF11, which had already been shown to rejuvenate the heart. They found that it can also boost the muscle strength and endurance of an old mouse and spur neuron growth in the brain. Another team reported that young blood, or even cell-free blood plasma, bolsters an aging mouse's spatial memory.

Now, in the first clinical trial, 18 middle-aged and elderly Alzheimer's patients are receiving injections of plasma donated by young adults. By this time next year, we may know if young blood can fight one of the most feared diseases of aging. - Jocelyn Kaiser

Chips that mimic the brain

John von Neumann may have finally met his match. Nearly 70 years ago, the Hungarian-born polymath sketched out the basic design of modern computers, with separate processing, memory, and control units. But this year, computer engineers at IBM and other companies rolled out a promising alternative: the first large-scale "neuromorphic" chips, designed to process information in ways more akin to living brains.

Chips based on von Neumann's architecture excel at carrying out sequences of logical operations, such as those that underlie spreadsheets and word processors. But they struggle with tasks that integrate vast amounts of data, such as vision.

Our brains take a very different approach. Individual neurons communicate with thousands of their neighbors through chemical signals, enabling the brain to process lots of information in parallel. Different brain regions also specialize for greater efficiency.

The brain's network of 100 billion cells linked by 100 trillion synapses still dwarfs anything neuromorphic chips can muster. But IBM's new TrueNorth chip includes 5.4 billion transistors and 256 million "synapses," and the company is working to tile multiple TrueNorths together to build more complex networks. In the future, brainlike processors could transform fields such as machine vision and environmental monitoring, integrating real-time data from sensors from around the globe. - Robert F. Service

Cells that might cure diabetes

Since the discovery of human embryonic stem (ES) cells, researchers have hoped to wield them against disease. The quest has been frustratingly slow. For more than a decade, for example, labs all over the world have sought to turn ES cells into cells of the pancreas called β cells. β cells respond to rising blood sugar by making insulin, a hormone that allows cells to take up and use glucose. An autoimmune attack that kills β cells leads to type 1 diabetes; replacing them with lab-grown cells might provide a cure.

This year, researchers came closer than ever to that goal, when two groups published methods for growing cells that resemble human β cells. One approach works with both ES cells and so-called induced pluripotent stem cells-reprogrammed cells that can be made from a patient's skin cells. The recipe is complex, and it takes 7 weeks to convert stem cells into the insulin-producing cells. But researchers can grow 200 million of the β-like cells in a 500-ml flask-in theory, enough to treat a patient. The other method takes 6 weeks and can produce one β-like cell for every two ES cells at the start.

To use the cells to treat type 1 diabetes, researchers need to develop ways of protecting them from the autoimmune reaction that kills β cells in the first place. Meanwhile, the grown-to-order cells give scientists an unprecedented chance to study diabetes in the lab. Researchers have already started to compare β cells made from skin cells of healthy subjects with those made from patients with diabetes, hoping to pinpoint the key differences. - Gretchen Vogel

Europe's cave art has a rival

For decades, visitors have marveled at the prehistoric graffiti that fills the Maros caves on the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia: hand stencils outlined in mouth-blown red paint, mixed with pictures of rare "pig-deer" in red and mulberry hues. This year they evoked an extra measure of wonder. Scientists discovered that the images, thought to be about 10,000 years old, are actually four times older-at least as ancient as the famous cave art in Europe.

The finding could rewrite the history of a key stage in the development of the human mind. People in Africa engraved geometric designs on chunks of hematite and on ostrich eggshells as early as 78,000 years ago. But symbolic art first seemed to blossom between 35,000 and 39,000 years ago in Europe, where artists painted vivid representations of rhinos, horses, lions, and women, notably at Chauvet Cave in France. Some archaeologists argued that the European creative explosion reflected a new leap in human abilities, but others thought the capacity for symbolic expression had already developed in Africa, before modern humans left that continent to populate the world.

The new dates in Indonesia end Europe's monopoly on early symbolic art. By measuring the radioactive decay of uranium in small stalactitelike growths that formed atop the paintings, Australian and Indonesian researchers found that the oldest hand stencil is at least 39,900 years old and the animal paintings at least 35,400. If the numbers are accurate, they suggest that humans in Indonesia independently invented symbolic art as early as Europe's cave painters did-or that modern humans were already sophisticated artists when they spread out of Africa starting about 60,000 years ago. - Ann Gibbons

Manipulating memory

Memory is notoriously malleable. Our recollections fade and take on new meanings; sometimes we remember things that never even happened. But just what is happening in our brain as memories are remodeled remains mysterious.

Recently, however, scientists have started to grasp and tinker with memory's physical basis. Last year, in work evocative of films such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Inception, researchers discovered ways to manipulate specific memories in mice using optogenetics, a powerful technique that can trigger nerve cells in animals' brains by zapping them with beams of laser light. In a series of experiments, they showed that they could delete existing memories and "incept" false ones.

This year, researchers went even further: switching the emotional content of a memory in mice from bad to good and vice versa. Under the laser, for example, male mice that had once associated a certain room with being shocked were tricked into acting as though they had once met friendly female mice there instead.

Whether the mice in these experiments actually experienced vivid false memories or just a fuzzy sense of pleasure or fear is unclear. Nor is it clear whether the findings apply to the tricks of memory so familiar to people. Long-sought therapeutic advances, such as treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder, could remain far off. One thing is certain, however: Once considered beyond scientific dissection, memory is finally starting to yield its secrets. - Emily Underwood

Giving life a bigger genetic alphabet

Everywhere on Earth, the genetic code at the heart of living things consists of the same four genetic letters. Everywhere, that is, except in a flask of Escherichia coli bacteria on a lab bench in southern California. There, researchers this year engineered the bacteria to incorporate two additional letters into their genetic alphabet. In addition to the natural nucleotides, in which G pairs with C and A pairs with T, the bacterial DNA includes a novel pair: X and Y.

Researchers around the globe had already devised several pairs of "unnatural" nucleotide bases that, in the test tube, could fit within DNA's double helix. They also managed to get DNA's copying machine, an enzyme known as DNA polymerase, to copy some of these new pairs. But no one had ever made it all happen inside living organisms-until this year.

For now, the new letters in the E. coli DNA don't code for anything, but in principle, researchers could use them to create designer proteins that include "unnatural" building blocks: amino acids beyond the 20 encoded by the bases in normal DNA. Researchers have previously used genetic tricks to do that with natural DNA. But adding the new X-Y combo should make the process far easier. That could be a godsend for makers of medicines and materials. And perhaps not the only one: This year, in a parallel effort to tailor DNA, synthetic biologists also modified its chemistry to create novel catalysts.

Eventually, the expanded genetic code could also serve a more academic pursuit, enabling researchers to test whether bacteria equipped with the excess letters might evolve novel skills not found in their wild kin. That may sound like a scenario for a dystopian techno-thriller, but the researchers say there's no need to worry: Because unnatural DNA letters don't exist outside the lab, any bacterial escapees would not be able to replicate their artificially expanded genetic instructions and pass them on to their offspring. - Robert F. Service

The rise of the CubeSat

A decade ago, CubeSats were just educational tools, a way for university students to place a simple Sputnik in space. Now these 10-centimeter boxes, built with off-the-shelf technology and costing hundreds of thousands of dollars rather than hundreds of millions, have taken off. More than 75 were launched this year, a record. What's more, the little boxes are starting to do real science.

Increased and affordable access to space is driving much of the boom. CubeSats can hitch a ride on commercial or government rockets carrying bigger spacecraft, or they can be pushed out the door of the International Space Station. The rapid-fire launch rate is encouraging something never before seen in space: risk-taking. Designers can tolerate a failure or two and quickly get back in the game. As technology advances, they can also swap in better solar panels, batteries, or processors.

Private money has taken notice, funding companies such as Planet Labs, which is monitoring Earth with a swarm of perennially replaced CubeSats. Their small telescopes take pictures with relatively poor spatial resolution-a few meters-but at frequent intervals. Spy agencies may not be seduced, but Planet Labs' data are plenty useful for monitoring deforestation, urban development, and river changes.

Coming up next: CubeSats that talk to one another while taking measurements. Among other things, such CubeSat constellations will be able to cover more area, faster, or monitor Earth's surface in several wavelengths at once. If they work, CubeSats will have demonstrated not only that small is beautiful, but also that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. - Eric Hand

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Figure][1] Small, disk-shaped robots that maneuver in formation are just one example of the year's progress in self-organizing machines. IMAGE: MICHAEL RUBENSTEIN, HARVARD UNIVERSITY/WYSS INSTITUTE Robots are getting better all the time at working with humans, but this year several teams demonstrated that these machines can also work together, without human supervision.

# data[].attributes.body
threat inflation (of terrorism)
Due to the media, terrorism has become more of a threat. This makes Americans feel that their safety and security is in danger. Americans live in fear for terrorism. It devalues the idea of safety that should be felt in America.

# data[].attributes.body
Muslim stereotyping
Due to terrorist acts by people who are Muslim, there has been a stereotype created that people who are Muslim are bad. The idea of Religiosity that America accepts all religion and to be proud of it.

# data[].attributes.body
Travel Ban
The travel ban moves the value of freedom backwards. People from certain countries(majority is Muslim) cannot enter the United States. The basis of freedom is not present and therefore it loses its value.

# data[].attributes.body
The legalization of same-sex marriage was a big step forward for equality. It further brought the presence of equality and the American value behind it.

# data[].attributes.body
Global warming denial

Most of Donald Trump's administration denies the idea of global warming. There is scientific evidence that global warming is happening and that there needs to be funding for the research of it.

# data[].attributes.body
Instead of Americas "Us or them" statement during the war it is not more internal, as rates of minority targets increase following trumps inauguration

# data[].attributes.body
In 2014, American Scientists created artificial nucleobases . This allows for artificial life forms.

# data[].attributes.body
America was built on this value. The founding fathers wanted to separate from Britain and thus began the idea of individualism