This is that Calvinball Ketanji Brown Jackson warned us about. FIFA doing the SCOTUS thing.
"First, let me say I'm happy that Filar and Balagan gets to play for the U.S. in the World Cup game against Belgium, especially since he's black and he's a birthright citizen. But to be honest, I'm not happy how it happened. You've been watching the World Cup, you know the story. Balagan, the leading American scorer, got a red card against Bosnia after accidentally stepping on another player's foot and was called a foul. A lot of soccer fans thought it was questionable call, but the rules are the rules. The red card gets you an automatic one game suspension, no appeal. Then Donald Trump came along. He personally called the president of FIFA and the next day FIFA lifted the suspension. The first time they've done that in the middle of a World Cup tournament since 1962. Belgium, the team we played X, was outraged, but FIFA wants to stay in Trump's good graces. That's why they gave him the first ever FIFA Peace Prize, whatever that is. So look, maybe the red card was unfair, but here's the thing. Let the coaches handle it, not the president of the United States. If officials bend the rules whenever Trump calls, they're not rules anymore, they're favors. I thought we learned that when Trump called Georgia officials in 2020 and tried to get them to change the election results to find 11,708 votes for him. When rules are fair, people have confidence in the outcome. When they're not, everything falls apart. I'm in the airport on the way home from Montreal, where I was on Saturday when Morocco beat Canada three to zero. Moroccans were cheering in the streets and the Canadians didn't mind because they lost fair and square. But they do mind that Trump came in and changed the rules of the trade agreements they had with the U.S. That's why the bars and restaurants I visited over the weekend no longer sell American liquor. 77% of Canadians have no confidence in Trump. A dramatic turnaround from 15 years ago, when nearly 90% did have confidence in Barack Obama. And 91% of Canadians now say they want less to do with the U.S. I even saw a small protest marching down the street, cursing the USA. Yes, it was tiny, but none of the bystanders on the street said a word back. Can you blame them, though, after Trump tried to annex Canada? And now he's bending the rules at a sports tournament that we're supposed to be hosting with Canada. But here's the kicker. Balagan is a birthright citizen of the United States, born in Brooklyn to Nigerian parents, the same birthright citizenship that Trump tried to abolish until the Supreme Court stopped him. The irony is that Trump doesn't want people like Balagan to be U.S. citizens, but he's happy to use their labor. So, yes, I'll be cheering for Balagan against Belgium, but I'll also be rooting for a different vision of the United States that doesn't have to call in favors to win. Imagine an America the world respects because we play fair, win or lose. That's a country worth cheering for, an America that leads by example, not by extortion."
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This is that Calvinball Ketanji Brown Jackson warned us about. FIFA doing the SCOTUS thing.