monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

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Businesses have raised First Amendment objections to antidiscrimination laws in the past, but the Supreme Court has always rejected them. In 1968, the Court dismissed as “patently frivolous” a South Carolina restaurant chain’s argument that serving black customers “interfere[d] with the ‘free exercise of [its] religion.’”1 Five years later, when private racially segregated schools opposed a prohibition on racial discrimination in admissions, asserting that it violated their freedom of association, the Court acknowledged that “private discrimination may be characterized as a form of exercising freedom of association protected by the First Amendment,” but ruled that such discrimination “has never been accorded affirmative constitutional protections.”2 And in 1984, when a corporate law firm objected that a requirement to consider a woman for partner would interfere with its First Amendment rights to speak and associate, the Court once again rejected the contention, stating that there is “no constitutional right to discriminate.”3 As Justice Sandra Day O’Connor explained in yet another case rejecting a First Amendment exemption from an antidiscrimination law:


"The Constitution does not guarantee a right to choose employees, customers, suppliers, or those with whom one engages in simple commercial transactions, without restraint from the State…. A shopkeeper has no constitutional right to deal only with persons of one sex.4"


If the courts were to recognize a First Amendment exemption to such general regulations of commercial conduct, it would render antidiscrimination laws, and many other business regulations, unenforceable in many settings. Consider the First Amendment right of association. Any prohibition on discrimination can be characterized as a requirement to associate with those with whom one would rather not associate. The Court must choose between the two, and its choice has been clear since Brown v. Board of Education declared segregation unconstitutional.

Religious exemptions are also generally incompatible with antidiscrimination laws. Beyond asking whether a religious belief is sincere, the courts have no way to measure whether religious beliefs are “legitimate.” As a result, a constitutional religious exemption would free any business owner who framed his objection in religious terms from an obligation to treat his customers equally. As Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the Court in rejecting a free exercise claim in 1990, laws of general applicability “could not function” if they were subject to such religious challenges. Quoting an 1878 decision, Scalia warned that such an exemption would “permit every citizen to become a law unto himself.

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Only laws that target religion, or that are intended to deny equal treatment to a protected class, trigger heightened scrutiny under the First Amendment’s religion clause and the Equal Protection clause. In a pluralist society, it is inevitable that many generally applicable laws will have incidental effects on different community members. But unless every man is to be a “law unto himself,” there cannot be an exemption for everyone who complains about a law’s indirect effect on his constitutional rights.

I don't have a lot of criticism of Schmidt here. Normally, reporting that doesn't dig in but rather just provides itself as a conduit for PR, deserves criticism for that.sometimes it's very worthwhile. If not for interviews with Trump, we'd know much less about him.
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What did this interview reveal about Trump that we didn't already know? That he's a narcissist on a galactic scale? That he lies and meanders from topic to topic? That he denies any Russian collusion and sees the justice department as his own personal tool? NO, I say that any journalist given a crack at the Dotard should see it as an opportunity to hold the man accountable. THAT is what has been missing, from the time he descended the escalator and began this beknighted era. Journos have been guided by anxiety about access, ratings and career rather than getting at the truth. Are you saying that it doesn't bother you at all that no one can ask the man ONE ******* uncomfortable question?

Maybe the Kleins should have opened a church instead of a bakery shop.

Quote:

One year out, this may be Mr. Trump’s greatest trick: His tornado of news-making has scrambled Americans’ grasp of time and memory, producing a sort of sensory overload that can make even seismic events — of his creation or otherwise — disappear from the collective consciousness and public view.

He is the magician who swallows a sword no one thought was part of the act, stuffs a dozen rabbits into a hat before the audience can count them — and then merrily tweets about “Fox & Friends” while the crowd strains to remember what show it had paid to attend in the first place.

NYT

Question: Does the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 allow a for-profit company to deny its employees health coverage of contraception to which the employees would otherwise be entitled based on the religious objections of the company's owners?

Conclusion: Yes.

...cheese-eating Justice Kennedy agreed that the Constitution prohibited Congress from discriminating against same-sex couples by denying them the right to marry.

Klein responded by quoting Leviticus: “You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination.”

Anything is possible, but not all things are probable.

One thing is for sure, he's not going to be thrown out of office because of an NYT interview

your constant floating of the idea that he is demented or a sociopath might have a lot more of an effect if it wasn't limited to your circle of followers here who already believe it,

the fact that you have been reading his opinions for 25 years is meaningless in terms of what he presented.