Monday Open Thread

What's on your mind?

Comments

[not guilty]

In regard to the litigation seeking to prevent the Trump administration from summarily deporting resident aliens who sympathize with Hamas, I am surprised that no one (at least no one of whom I am aware) has discussed the line of federal cases recognizing resident alienage as a suspect classification for purposes of constitutional equal protection guaranties, such that the proponent of discrimination between citizens and aliens must justify the disparate treatment according to strict scrutiny. See e.g., Graham v. Richardson, 403 U.S. 365 (1971). As early as 1886 SCOTUS recognized that:

The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution is not confined to the protection of citizens. It says: "Nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." These provisions are universal in their application, to all persons within the territorial jurisdiction, without regard to any differences of race, of color, or of nationality; and the equal protection of the laws is a pledge of the protection of equal laws. . . . The questions we have to consider and decide in these cases, therefore, are to be treated as involving the rights of every citizen of the United States equally with those of the strangers and aliens who now invoke the jurisdiction of the court.

Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, 369 (1886). SCOTUS opined in Truax v. Raich, 239 U.S. 33, 33-34 (1915):

An alien admitted to the United States under the Federal law has not only the privilege of entering and abiding in the United States, but also of entering and abiding in any State, and being an inhabitant of any State entitles him, under the Fourteenth Amendment, to the equal protection of its laws. The description in the Fourteenth Amendment of any person within the jurisdiction of the United States includes aliens.

The Supreme Court discussed the interplay between federal regulation of immigration and state laws which subject resident aliens to disparate treatment in Takahashi v. Fish & Game Comm'n, 334 U.S. 410 (1948):

It does not follow, as California seems to argue, that, because the United States regulates immigration and naturalization in part on the basis of race and color classifications, a state can adopt one or more of the same classifications to prevent lawfully admitted aliens within its borders from earning a living in the same way that other state inhabitants earn their living. The Federal Government has broad constitutional powers in determining what aliens shall be admitted to the United States, the period they may remain, regulation of their conduct before naturalization, and the terms and conditions of their naturalization. See Hines v. Davidowitz, 312 U.S. 52, 312 U.S. 66. Under the Constitution, the states are granted no such powers; they can neither add to nor take from the conditions lawfully imposed by Congress upon admission, naturalization and residence of aliens in the United States or the several states. State laws which impose discriminatory burdens upon the entrance or residence of aliens lawfully within the United States conflict with this constitutionally derived federal power to regulate immigration, and have accordingly been held invalid. Moreover, Congress, in the enactment of a comprehensive legislative plan for the nationwide control and regulation of immigration and naturalization, has broadly provided:

"All persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right in every State and Territory to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind, and to no other."

16 Stat. 140, 144, 8 U.S.C. § 41. The protection of this section has been held to extend to aliens as well as to citizens.

334 U.S. at 418-419 (footnotes omitted.) See also Graham v. Richardson, 403 U.S. 365, 377 (1971).

Yick Wo, Truax and Takahashi were each decided before SCOTUS recognized in Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497, 499 (1954), that while the Fifth Amendment contains no equal protection clause, it does forbid discrimination that is "so unjustifiable as to be violative of due process." The Supreme Court thereafter recognized that since Bolling, its approach to Fifth Amendment equal protection claims has always been precisely the same as to equal protection claims under the Fourteenth Amendment.” Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld, 420 U.S. 636, 638 n.2 (1975). See also Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 93 (1976) (“Equal protection analysis in the Fifth Amendment area is the same as that under the Fourteenth Amendment.”)

In Graham v. Richardson, 403 U.S. 365 (1971), the Supreme Court explicitly recognized alienage as a suspect classification for equal protection purposes. " The [resident alienage] classifications involved in the instant cases . . . are inherently suspect, and are therefore subject to strict judicial scrutiny whether or not a fundamental right is impaired." Id., at 376.

The Supreme Court has more recently opined that "Aliens, even aliens whose presence in this country is unlawful, have long been recognized as 'persons' guaranteed due process of law by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments." Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 210 (1982). Due Process and Equal Protection guaranties are not confined to the protection of citizens. "These provisions are universal in their application, to all persons within the territorial jurisdiction" of the United States. Id., at 212.

I cannot fathom why counsel for the Hamas sympathizers have not raised a straight up equal protection challenge based upon Graham v. Richardson.

[A Japanese Student]

The answer: the claim that Fourteenth Amendment and Fifth Amendment provide for the same equal protection test applies to all classifications except alienage. Mathews v. Diaz, 426 U.S. 67, 80 (1976)

[ReaderY]

Exactly. If Not Guilty hasn’t realized that, he’s completely missed what’s going on. The legal system gives the political branches a very free hand when it comes to dealing with foreigners.

States don’t have foreign policy considerations, so they have to treat foreigners equally. But the federal government is entitled to base how it treats aliens on whether or not it likes the country they’re from.

[CountmontyC]

There is also the possibility that if it becomes too difficult to expel visa holders the solution might be to not let them in in the first place. We don't have to let anyone in.
The law of unintended consequences could very easily come into play.

[Martinned2]

"unintended" by who?

[Frank Drackman]

Who's on first

[NvEric]

What's on second

[CountmontyC]

By you and your ilk. You are so focused on keeping a bunch of criminals here to try and own President Trump that you are unable to see the potential unintended consequences of making it so difficult to get rid of them that the Trump Administration may simply stop allowing them in.

[Martinned2]

Don't be silly. The Trump Administration wants to stop anyone (brown) coming into the country regardless. They don't need an excuse from me an my "ilk".

[Don Nico]

The Fellow plays the Race Card thinking that it is trumps.

[Martinned2]

Take it up with the Supreme Court

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13769

[Don Nico]

Martin,
Sorry, SCOTUS never said Arabs were BIPOCs.

[CountmontyC]

Well that is all they have even if it overdrawn and most sane people reject it out of hand.

[Sarcastr0]

The sanest people.

[CountmontyC]

Both are grammatically correct.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Or simply expel them ALL....

Remember the so-called "Muslim Ban"? If we can't expel troublemakers, we can expel them all and not let any more in.

[not guilty]

Au contraire. The Supreme Court in Mathews v. Diaz, 426 U.S. 67 (1976), considered whether discrimination between disparate classes of aliens was invidious:

The real question presented by this case is not whether discrimination between citizens and aliens is permissible; rather, it is whether the statutory discrimination within the class of aliens -- allowing benefits to some aliens but not to others -- is permissible.

Id., at 80.

The freedom of speech secured by the First Amendment against abridgment by the United States is similarly secured to all persons by the Fourteenth against abridgment by a state. Schneider v. State, 308 U.S. 147, 160 (1939). The First Amendment of the Federal Constitution expressly guarantees that right against abridgment by Congress. DeJonge v. Oregon, 299 U.S. 353, 364 (1937). "[U]nder the Equal Protection Clause, not to mention the First Amendment itself, government may not grant the use of a forum to people whose views it finds acceptable, but deny use to those wishing to express less favored or more controversial views." Carey v. Brown, 447 U.S. 455, 463 (1980), quoting Police Department of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U.S. 92, 96 (1972).

A fortiori, deportation of a resident alien Hamas supporter based upon governmental disapproval of his message or viewpoint violates equal protection guaranties.

[Frank Drackman]

Verbal Diarrhea much? Like Judge Robert Jackson and Honest Abe said, the Constitution isn’t a suicide pact

[A Japanese Student]

I did read that. The parts preceding the sentence, however, does strongly suggest that strict scrutiny does not apply in federal context.

The First Amendment argument is wholly independent from alienage being a suspect class.

[Ridgeway]

But if Aliens have First Amendment rights, abridgement of those rights would be analyzed under "fundamental rights" jurisprudence (which would trigger strict scrutiny) rather than "equal protection" jurisprudence where it might not.

[A Japanese Student]

Yes. To clarify:

The parts preceding the sentence [in Mathews, supra - "The real question" part], however, does strongly suggest that strict scrutiny [for being a suspect class] does not apply in federal context [compared to state context, as explained in precedents that not guilty cited].

[not guilty]

"But if Aliens have First Amendment rights, abridgement of those rights would be analyzed under 'fundamental rights' jurisprudence (which would trigger strict scrutiny) rather than 'equal protection' jurisprudence where it might not."

In the equal protection context, strict scrutiny applies both to constitutionally suspect classifications, Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peña, 515 U.S. 200 (1995), and to classifications that burden a fundamental right. Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U.S. 330 (1972).

[ReaderY]

The 14th Amendment doesn’t apply to the federal government. The case specifically refers to “abridgment by a state.” The federal government is not a state.

There is a long line of cases saying aliens can be deported for reasons that a state could not make a crime. The First Amendment definitely protects aliens against criminal prosecution for speech. That’s why I’ve objected to referring to these folks as criminals. But the federal government can deport for pure foreign policy reasons, reasons that don’t even have to have anything to do with anything the aliens have themselves personally done.

I think you’re going to have to grapple in a serious way with Harisiades v. Shaugnessey, which specifically held that deporting aliens for disfavored speech (membership in the Communist Party) does not violate either the First Amendment or 5th Amendment Due Process,

[not guilty]

In Harisiades v. Shaughnessy, 342 U.S. 580 (1952), the Communist Party, during the period of the alien's membership, taught and advocated overthrow of the Government of the United States by force and violence. Id., at 584. That was then not regarded as speech protected by the First Amendment. Id., at 592; Dennis v. United States, 341 U.S. 494 (1951), overruled in Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969).

Since the expression at issue in Harisiades was then unprotected, it does not stand for the proposition that a resident alien can lawfully be deported for First Amendment protected speech.

[Kazinski]

None will help Khalil if he lied on his green card application. I have filled out a few green card applications in my time, and they clearly ask about affiliations with other organizations, including NGO's.

If he was affiliated with the UNRWA and didn't disclose it he is screwed.

[Commenter_XY]

This is the correct answer. Khalil is toast b/c of his lying on the forms. Not guilty and others would like to make this a high and mighty case on free speech and due process.

The truth is, it is a rather mundane case of lying on federal forms; perjury.

The legal shenanigans are merely a legal speed bump. He's out.

[not guilty]

As I have asked you before, XY, when and where did you review Mr. Khalid's visa application?

It is noteworthy that the Trump administration has not raised lying on federal forms as a basis for deportation.

[Commenter_XY]

The SecState has already publicly stated Khalil lied on his forms. You have a problem with consequences, not the constitution, IMO. NG, I appreciate your posts on cases relevant to the legal questions at hand. I learn (and have learned!) a lot. Still working on correct use of 'on four corners', lol.

Ultimately, I think you lose because foreign aliens simply don't have the same P&I that citizens do and INA grants a lot of leeway to the SecState (rightly, I think). You don't agree with that proposition. SCOTUS will eventually have it's say.

[Martinned2]

You mean Marco "oopsie" Rubio? Oh, that's alright then. I'm sure he wouldn't lie "publicly".

[not guilty]

"The SecState has already publicly stated Khalil lied on his forms."

Isn't it peculiar that the Secretary of State has made no such declaration under of penalty of perjury in Mr. Khalil's lawsuit? https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69719040/mk-v-joyce/

[Commenter_XY]

No, not at all peculiar, NG. SecState Rubio has been quite forthcoming, and has stated that in addition to Khalil, there are 300+ other hamas supporting assholes aliens who had their visas and green cards revoked. And they're looking for many, many more.

CBP-One awaits the hamas homies and harpies, they should self-deport now.

[Martinned2]

Isn't wrongthink terrible? Off with their heads!

[Commenter_XY]

No, not 'off with their heads'.

More like, 'Kindly sit your ass down in the plane seat, and enjoy the ride home. Want a diet coke?'

[Martinned2]

That depends on where they're deported to. If Khalil is deported to Algeria, which I gather is his country of citizenship, he will presumably be OK. If they send him back to Lebanon, where he lived before he moved to the US, he might get an Israeli bomb dropped on his head. And if they hand him over to the Israelis, he might disappear into some memory hole never to be heard from again.

[Frank Drackman]

only after he picks up his passport from the Saudi embassy

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

The best thing would be to deport him to the UK.

There the government will shower all sorts of largesse on him and treat him like royalty because he's not White. They'll even imprison anyone who dares criticize him.

[Don Nico]

"If they send him back to Lebanon..."
Then I hope that he is sent to Lebanon.

[Dr. Ed 2]

If he is from a place where he was not safe, he should have been so happy to be in the US that he waved our flag and asked us what he could do to make us happy.

"Don't beat up other students", we would have said.

[David Nieporent]

Um, he is white.

[Michael P]

Given the current stage of the proceedings, no, not at all. The administration wants to set other precedents than "Democrats are stupid yet again".

[Noscitur a sociis]

Isn't it peculiar that the Secretary of State has made no such declaration under of penalty of perjury in Mr. Khalil's lawsuit?

Not really, since nothing has happened in the case where one would expect Sec. Rubio to submit such a declaration.

[Brett Bellmore]

You could deduce that he lied on his forms, just from the fact that he was organizing pro-Hamas protests almost from the moment he landed in the US. It's not like he was perfectly innocuous and then got radicalized in the space of a few weeks here in the US.

[Sarcastr0]

YOU could deduce that.

I don't think it's common practice to submit fan fiction in court.

Though we are probably approaching that day.

[Brett Bellmore]

Man, if you don't like a conclusion, no amount of evidence will cause you to entertain it.

[Sarcastr0]

Your evidence is vibes. It’s always vibes.

And you are the worst at understanding other people. Why not just quit doing telepathy?

[Brett Bellmore]

What "vibes"? He acted contrary to the signed declaration within weeks of entering the country. That's not "vibes", that's what most people would call "evidence".

[Thought about __ all my life]

Meaning what? We should trust you and not Trump and the authorities?
Presumption is, the law was followed

[hobie]

So you don't like people lying on federal forms, eh?

[Martinned2]

I'm sure he's willing to make an exception for falconry-related forms. https://www.loweringthebar.net/2024/11/november-surprise-state-finally-releases-rfk-jr-s-falconry-records.html

[hobie]

Last month a female student from India had her apartment raided by ICE. A year ago she had signed a petition supporting Palestine. However, the pretext the State Department used was that she had once received a summons to appear in court on an unrelated matter, but the matter had been dismissed by the judge, yet visa application requires one to list legal matters like a summons. Because the matter was dismissed in preliminary stages, the student erroneously assumed it didn't count for listing on visa application. Little Marco disagreed

"But ain't that America, home of the free! Little pink houses for you and me."

[Martinned2]

Americans sure do love their paperwork. It's the only country I'm aware of where you have to sign a bunch of forms to *leave* the hospital.

[Frank Drackman]

total Bullshit, people leave "Against Medical Advice" all the time

[Brett Bellmore]

And are better off for it a lot of the time. You stay too long in a hospital, you're more likely to die of something you contracted there, than of what you arrived with.

[Bwaaah]

That is so true. With all due respect to a hospital's ability to deliver critical care, and notwithstanding its applicability to handling particular health care needs, it's about the most dangerous place in the world for a sick person to be.

As I've struggled with patients and advocated on their behalf to get out, these cold functionaries step forward and say something like, "We have to advise against you leaving at this time." I've never actually determined who "we" are, but I suspect some of them are the administrators who track which beds are insured at a sufficient daily reimbursement rate as to make the bed a profitable one for at least another day. Still, the direct care providers have been much more circumspect about the sensibility of staying or leaving, and nurses in particular have given me winks as to suggest that I'm probably on the right track.

Look for the good nurses, and take advantage of them for sidebar conferences. They are the most experienced, wise, patient-centric practitioners on the scene.

[bernard11]

it's about the most dangerous place in the world for a sick person to be.

It's true the death rate is high. Not exactly a random sample, though.

[Brett Bellmore]

True, it isn't shocking that people admitted to hospitals have a high death rate. That they frequently die of something they caught in the hospital, rather than what they were admitted for, on the other hand... It's called "nosocomial" or "Healthcare Associated" infection, and it's deplorably common.

[bernard11]

Yes Brett. I agree.

Just having fun.

[NvEric]

One can leave anytime

[Commenter_XY]

The student can cheer on hamas from her home country India. Looks like her lawyer did a terrible job = ...she had once received a summons to appear in court on an unrelated matter...

Maybe she can sue for ineffective counsel from Hyderabad.

[Martinned2]

Sure. Who needs free speech anyway?

[hobie]

I support Palestinians, doesn't mean I support Hamas. This has been explained to you over and over again, XY. Often in very simple terms with simple words (no pictures unfortunately). I cannot tell if you are too stupid to understand the difference or if you just willfully ignore it

[Don Nico]

" doesn't mean...." but almost does that you support the claim that no Jews should live in Palestine, not even the Arab ones.

[hobie]

Off topic...but I never said I supported that either

[Don Nico]

I guess you don't know what the vast majority of Palestinians in Gaza or the West Bank think. That is their strong belief. It is the ideology of the PA.

[hobie]

That's just you conflating, Nico. Saves you from engaging in critical thought

[Don Nico]

No, hoble, that is just gross denial, prevents you from dealing with reality.

[Bob from Ohio]

"doesn't mean I support Hamas"

I support Germany, doesn't mean I support the Nazis.

[hobie]

Precisely

[Bob from Ohio]

You just said that in WW2 you backed Germany.

[Commenter_XY]

Well golly gee hobie, I guess I am just too stupid to understand the difference. Try dumbing it down some more.

[Kleppe]

The Palestinians elected Hamas lol

[Thought about __ all my life]

I'm your average Joe guy. I don't really care for politicians. John Mellencamp

[Frank Drackman]

I liked him better before he changed his name

[not guilty]

"None will help Khalil if he lied on his green card application. I have filled out a few green card applications in my time, and they clearly ask about affiliations with other organizations, including NGO's."

If that were in fact the case, why has the government not asserted the same to this point? (The word "if" is doing some heavy lifting here.) Even if it were, then the burden of persuasion remains on the government.

[Commenter_XY]

There is no 'if' here. Khalil lied on the forms as to his beliefs and associations.

[not guilty]

How do you claim to know that, XY? I have asked you that before, and you ran away like Usain Bolt.

[Brett Bellmore]

We know it because he took up pro-Hamas campus activism almost the moment he arrived, leading any rational person to conclude that his affiliation with Hamas had existed at the time he filled out the forms.

[not guilty]

Speculation and conjecture -- which the government quite conspicuously has not asserted as the basis for revocation of the green card.

[Commenter_XY]

In the meantime, Khalil the hamas homie sits in a detention cell. He has a lot of time to think about the bad choices he made in life, starting with his choice of supporting Judeocidal terrorists.

[Martinned2]

Detained for having an unpopular opinion. I thought we were supposed to have some free speech absolutists in charge of the US now? What happened to that?

[Sarcastr0]

Commenter, please quit proving Martinned's low opinion of our free speech culture is correct.

It's embarrassing.

[Commenter_XY]

I'm not embarrassed at all, Sarcastr0.

The moral travesty is you are perfectly fine with foreign alien Judeocidal terror sympathizers being allowed to remain in this country.

You are blind.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Commenter, please quit proving Martinned's low opinion of our free speech culture is correct."

Says the guy who's OK with the government punishing people for saying that there are two genders.

[Kleppe]

Who is this "we"? I feel compelled to remind newcomers that Martinned is a European. Time to pay your own bills, Heinz!

[Frank Drackman]

I heard his cellmate Anton has this game he plays with new inmates, he flips a quarter and you have to call it

[not guilty]

"In the meantime, Khalil the hamas homie sits in a detention cell. He has a lot of time to think about the bad choices he made in life, starting with his choice of supporting Judeocidal terrorists."

Oh, no!! We certainly can't abide thoughtcrime!

George Orwell's 1984 is not an instruction manual, however much the MAGA cult would like for it to be.

[David Nieporent]

We know it because he took up pro-Hamas campus activism almost the moment he arrived, leading any rational person to conclude that his affiliation with Hamas had existed at the time he filled out the forms.

Do you think there is a question on the form asking whether one likes Israel?

[Commenter_XY]

There is not. However, there are questions relative to past associations, beliefs, and affiliations with groups espousing terror. Khalid checks those boxes.

[not guilty]

Again, XY, how the hell do you claim to know? When and where did you inspect Mr. Khalid's documents?

[Commenter_XY]

NG, it is all coming out in Court. No matter what. Works for me, as Khalil sits in detention. Maybe they can stick him with the gangbangers we're deporting. They're made for each other.

[Kazinski]

Maybe you should review the source material on the case as you often advocate.

For myself I will just take CNN's word that the government filed a brief with the allegation, they reported it last week:

"Khalil “sought to procure an immigration benefit by fraud of willful misrepresentation of a material fact,” the government wrote in the brief filed Sunday. “Regardless of his allegations concerning political speech, Khalil withheld membership in certain organizations … It is black-letter law that misrepresentations in this context are not protected speech.”

Trump administration accuses pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil of hiding info on his green card application
By Andy Rose, Gloria Pazmino and Sabrina Souza, CNN
Updated 8:40 PM EDT, Tue March 25, 2025

[not guilty]

What original source material do you claim to be relying on, Kazinski?

A CNN report doesn't suffice, and statements of counsel in a brief are not evidence.

The docket sheet is here: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69719040/mk-v-joyce/ Have at it trying to find any declaration or other evidence supporting your claim.

[Kazinski]

Maybe you are looking at the wrong docket.

Last 2 entries:
"Mar 19, 2025

CASE TRANSFERRED OUT ELECTRONICALLY from the U.S.D.C. Southern District of New York to the United States District Court - District of District of New Jersey. (tro)

Case Transferred Out - District Transfer

Mar 19, 2025

Received e-mail from the United States District Court - District of New Jersey acknowledging receipt of transferred case. Assigned Case Number: 3:25-cv-01963, filed on 3/19/2025. (vba)

Received Acknowledgment (Electronic Case Transfer)

[not guilty]

I still don't see any original source materials, Kazinski.

[Kazinski]

Funny, CNN, ABC, etc are all reporting on the brief. ABC even quotes from the brief:

"According to recent court filings, President Donald Trump's administration said Khalil failed to disclose when applying for his green card last year that his employment by the Syria Office at the British Embassy in Beirut went "beyond 2022" and that he was a "political affairs officer" for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees from June to November 2023.

"Khalil is now charged as inadmissible at the time of his adjustment of status because he sought to procure an immigration benefit by fraud of willful misrepresentation of a material fact," attorneys for the administration said in the filing."

You aren't suggesting the DOJ is lying to the court are you?

https://abcnews.go.com/US/trump-administration-claims-palestinian-activist-mahmoud-khalil-misrepresented/story?id=120108978

[Michael P]

No, he's saying that he believes all the media are part of a conspiracy to lie about a court filing because he can't find the filing.

It's surprisingly on brand for him.

[not guilty]

Statements in briefs are not evidence, Kazinski. And if a lawyer from Trump's DOJ said "Good morning" to me, I would look out the window to confirm it.

I have linked to the docket sheets. Show me the declaration from anyone with personal knowledge.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Statements in briefs are not evidence, Kazinski

They sure as hell are evidence of what the government has asserted, which was what you were claiming they have not done.

If that were in fact the case, why has the government not asserted the same to this point?

You can't even keep track of what you're claiming.

[not guilty]

I have written hundreds of appellate briefs, WuzYoungOnceToo. A bare assertion in a brief, unsupported by evidence, means jack shit.

Show me the declaration(s) of those who assert personal knowledge of the underlying facts.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

I have written hundreds of appellate briefs, WuzYoungOnceToo.

That's amazing, given your inability to understand simple English.

A bare assertion in a brief, unsupported by evidence, means jack shit.

It means that they have in fact made the assertion that you ignorantly claimed they have not. Don't hurt yourself dragging those goalpost down the field.

[Nelson]

You do understand that an assertion without any support is just hot air, right?

[Riva]

NG is just a BSer. Like most others commenting here. I’ve seen more legal insight in a yahoo comment chain. In their defense, many of the posts are equally lacking in merit. And further evidence of the irrelevance of legal academia, although it does seem to pay well.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

You do understand that an assertion without any support is just hot air, right?

You do understand that the claim was not that the DOJ lacked support for it's assertion, but that it never made the assertion at all...which is clearly false....right?

[Kazinski]

These are all pretrial briefs in a civil action, where both sides are still disputing the final venue.

The government now doesn't have to prove its case, it just has to say what they intend to prove.

But by all means NG request leave to file an amicus and tell the judge how he's screwing up, and be sure to tell him about all your appellant briefs.

I'm sure he will be anxious to entertain your brief.

[Sarcastr0]

"Trump administration claims"

Comer all over again.

[Kazinski]

Comer is still Chairman of the house oversight committee.

The two IRS whistleblowers are now senior Treasury officials working on overhauling and reforming the IRS.

Where's Joe?

Where's Hunter? Besides dropping all his lawsuits, and wondering where his secret Service detail is? Oh, and thanking daddy for pardoning him all the way back to 2014 when he started getting paid by Burisma.

Comer shed needed light on Biden's money laundering, so much light Biden felt the need to issue "The five preemptive pardons were issued to James Biden, Joe's younger brother; Sara Jones Biden, James' wife; Valerie Biden Owens, Joe's younger sister; John T. Owens', Valerie's husband; and Francis W. Biden, Joe's younger brother."

[Sarcastr0]

He lied over and over; you fell for it every time. You've been humiliated in these comments threads for it quite a bit.

And now you've mostly devolved into cheering on spiteful pettiness from Trump.

Way to start bad and get worse.

[Kazinski]

Maybe you can show me any claim that Comer made that turned out to be false.

[Sarcastr0]

Every time he promised a bombshell.
Every whistleblower whose testimony under oath would bring down Biden’s sprawling crime empire.

It was like clockwork every week you claimed Biden was going down and when called on it the next week you had a new thing that was gonna for sure take him down this time.

[Kazinski]

So nothing?

And lets be clear, I called for an investigation because the DOJ wouldn't do it. But I specifically argued against attempting an impeachment, and for leaving judgment to the voters.

It would be ridiculous to claim Biden was going down, other than falling down stairs, or losing the election.

However I did say frequently starting at least 2 years ago that Biden was too old.

[David Nieporent]

Maybe you can show me any claim that Comer made that turned out to be false.

Well, he claimed that Devon Archer had implicated Hunter + Joe Biden in some bribery stuff, and then it turned out when the transcript was released that Archer's testimony was exactly the opposite: that Hunter never promised anything from Joe, that Joe Biden had never discussed Hunter's business, that in fact the removal of the corrupt Ukrainian prosecutor was bad for Burisma, not a favor to Hunter.

[bernard11]

So suddenly DOJ is a model of veracity.

IANAL, but instead of claiming and asserting, maybe the government could just show the application, and the information that was misrepresented.

As usual, they dodge and evade when there is a simple way to prove their point.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

So suddenly DOJ is a model of veracity.

Well, given that the question was...

why has the government not asserted the same to this point?

...all that needs to be shown is that the government (via the DOJ) has, in fact, made such an assertion. And that has been shown.

As usual, you're an idiot.

[Life of Brian]

IANAL, but instead of claiming and asserting, maybe the government could just show the application, and the information that was misrepresented.

1. The amended charging document I linked below describes the specific information he omitted from his application.
2. If they had publicized his actual Form I-485, which is 24 pages chock-full of pretty personal info, wouldn't you be all up in arms about privacy violations?
3. Putting aside 2, would seeing the actual application really satisfy you, or would you just pivot to arguing whether the omissions really should matter?

[grb]

WuzYoungOnceToo : "As usual, you're an idiot"

And yet bernard11 raises a point that's difficult to explain. It isn't just the fact nothing from this White House can be trusted without absolute proof. There has never been another Administration so filled to the brim with pathological liars.

Nor is it just the fact they could have shown us the relevant form but haven't. (And Life of Brian's child-like weaseling aside, there is such a thing as redaction).

Instead we're left to wonder why the White House waited on disclosing this sure-fire point in its favor - instead leading with a much more shaky & nebulous case. Someone not required to turn their brains off 24/7 by Cult strictures - like Wuz or LOB - would find that suspicious.

[Life of Brian]

there is such a thing as redaction

As I just said below, if the government redacted all the irrelevant personal info from the form, you'd just yelp that the supposedly undisclosed info was hidden behind the redactions. Whereas Khalil himself is in the perfect position to leave unredacted only the actual disclosures the government claims he didn't make -- if he did indeed make them. For some odd reason, he's chosen a different strategy.

[grb]

Life of Brian : "(whatever)"

Again : Why wait to produce this strong point in the government's favor? If you want to exercise your ability to produce ever more implausible excuses, why not fab-up an answer to that question?

[Life of Brian]

Why wait to produce this strong point in the government's favor?

Have a legal theory for why that would matter, or are you just making noise?

Again, if it's an outright lie Khalil can readily show that. He's not even trying.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

And yet bernard11 raises a point that's difficult to explain.

That point being that he isn't capable of following a thread and what is being debated in it, leading to both he and ng (who was the one who made the erroneous claim to begin with) issuing responses that were irrelevant to that claim. Sorry, but your response is just a sad exercise in misdirection from that fact.

[Kazinski]

Kind of ridiculous to hang your hat on this.

The government isn't going to lie on an easily provable or disprovable statement of fact.

Khalil's attorney isn't even disputing it, he's hang his hat on claiming its a pretense and not the reason for deporting him, and he's right, but it doesn't matter. Just like Capone claiming the tax charge was just a pretense wouldn't help.

[grb]

Kazinski : "Kind of ridiculous to hang your hat on this."

1. You want "ridiculous" off the charts?

Nuclear-powered "ridiculous"? Turbo-charged "ridiculous"? Mega-galactic-scale "ridiculous" bigger than the entire universe?

That's any argument based on the veracity of this White House. Bloody hell, Kazinski, you've taken zombified Cultish bootlicking to new depths with that one! Can you be any more absurd? Why don't you get back to us when DOGE produces a single document that isn't riddled with crude lying. Or when the Trump White House finally names one of those 150yr old Social Security recipients. Or when Trump himself can string together three separate breaths without a new lie.

2. That said, it would be powerful evidence if Khalil's attorney did or didn't deny the allegation. Because there are reasonable odds he (or she) isn't a sociopathic liar. So has the attorney made any statement on the point? If so, a citation would be welcome.

[Life of Brian]

That said, it would be powerful evidence one way or another if Khalil's attorney did or didn't deny the allegation.

Indeed it is as I've said multiple times in this thread, including directly to you.

[grb]

Life of Brian : " .... as I've said multiple times in this thread...."

Citation?

Because no one in his right mind would trust you on anything. You whored away every last bit of self-integrity long ago.

[Life of Brian]

Citation?

Having run out of anything that he can even try to pass off as an actual argument, troll feigns inability to read! At least 3 times:

"OTOH, if Khalil did indeed disclose that which the government has pled he didn't, he could instantly put that to bed by offering the relevant I-485 pages himself. Instead, pages 9 and 10 of the reply brief don't contest the factual allegations one iota, instead just pounding the table about "continued retaliation" &c."

"Whereas Khalil himself is in the perfect position to leave unredacted only the actual disclosures the government claims he didn't make -- if he did indeed make them. For some odd reason, he's chosen a different strategy."

"Again, if it's an outright lie Khalil can readily show that. He's not even trying."

[Kazinski]

Well there is the wrinkle that form in question may well have been filed electronically, so the evidence won't be a printed form it will be electronic log entries.

[Nelson]

“ The government isn't going to lie on an easily provable or disprovable statement of fact.”

Apparently you fell asleep and missed Trump’s entire political career.

[not guilty]

FWIW, the New Jersey docket sheet reflects no activity since the transfer. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69755532/khalil-v-joyce/

[Life of Brian]

I believe it was John F. Carr that noted a week or two ago that the docket had changed again: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69757814/khalil-v-joyce/

The amended charging document is here.

[not guilty]

Thank you for the link, LoB.

Did you notice what is missing? As in, any statement attesting the correctness of the facts recited therein, such as a declaration under penalty of perjury under 28 U.S.C. § 1346 or a recitation that the deportation officer has personal knowledge.

That omission is quite glaring. No one is willing to swear to tell the truth and face any consequence for failing to do so.

[Life of Brian]

Seems like you're reflexively jumping on the same red herring bandwagon that I've already extensively addressed in surrounding threads. Maybe catch up on those first.

[David Nieporent]

You're looking at the wrong docket; that's the SDNY one. It's since been transferred to DNJ: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69757814/khalil-v-joyce/

The allegation — not made in a sworn format, of course — is in D.E. 99, pages 3 and 23.

The original seizure of Khalil was based solely on we-hate-arabs. But they subsequently added the claim that he lied on his green card adjustment of status application by omitting three pieces of information: that he was a member of CUAD, that he worked for UNRWA, and that he worked for the British government.

[Life of Brian]

not made in a sworn format, of course

This really seems like a red herring. The only way the government could prove the negative (that he didn't diclose certain facts at all) would be to disclose the entire application form (full of irrelevant PI as I mentioned above, and if the government were to redact it then folks would just start tooting about how they redacted the disclosure they say he didn't make).

OTOH, if Khalil did indeed disclose that which the government has pled he didn't, he could instantly put that to bed by offering the relevant I-485 pages himself. Instead, pages 9 and 10 of the reply brief don't contest the factual allegations one iota, instead just pounding the table about "continued retaliation" &c.

[David Nieporent]

This really seems like a red herring. The only way the government could prove the negative (that he didn't diclose certain facts at all) would be to disclose the entire application form (full of irrelevant PI as I mentioned above, and if the government were to redact it then folks would just start tooting about how they redacted the disclosure they say he didn't make).

Nobody would be saying that if they fully disclosed the info to the judge and only redacted sensitive information in the public filing. But that misses my point anyway. They could have submitted a sworn declaration from whichever appropriate government official saying, "I have reviewed this form and he did not include X, Y, and Z on it. I swear under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct." That's how one gets a court to consider evidence. Instead, they just put it in an unsworn brief.

[Life of Brian]

Nobody would be saying that if they fully disclosed the info to the judge and only redacted sensitive information in the public filing.

Of course they would: multiple people on here today are demanding to see the evidence themselves. And again, by definition a redacted document can't show that certain text is found nowhere within it.

That's how one gets a court to consider evidence.

Other than to satisfy (if only) the media-fueled conspiracy theorists, it's not clear to me why the government would present evidence at this juncture. Right now the overall case is just in the pleadings stage, and the current motion practice is just to release Khalil during the pendency of the case. And certainly Khalil has offered nothing himself thus far but Constitution-wrapped handwaving.

[David Nieporent]

it's not clear to me why the government would present evidence at this juncture.

Either the facts are irrelevant at this stage — in which case why include them in the brief at all? — or they're relevant — in which case they need to be supported.

[Life of Brian]

Or, door C: the relevant fact right now is that the government charged him with leaving info out of his application, which they indeed have supported via the charging document.

[not guilty]

Life of Brian, have you ever in your life attempted to persuade a judge or jury of anything? Yes or no?

An unsworn charging document is not evidence.

[Life of Brian]

An unsworn charging document is not evidence.

That's such an amazing argument, Khalil's attorneys put it front and center in their reply brief!

Oh, wait... wrong parallel universe. In this one, they didn't even mention it, or otherwise contest in the slightest that the filed copy of the charging document is indeed exactly what it purports to be. In fact, as I've already mentioned, the reply brief takes "the added charges of removability to Mr. Khalil’s Notice to Appear" as a given.

All pretty compelling breadcrumbs that you're barking up the wrong tree.

[Noscitur a sociis]

PACER and/or CM/ECF is messed up for the New Jersey, the correct case number is 2:25-cv-1963, not 3:25 like in the CourtListener docket you link to. As Kazinski and CNN correctly note, the government accused Khalil of procuring admission by fraud in its opposition to his request for release, ECF No. 99 in the New Jersey case at 12, and has also formally alleged that in the deportation proceedings.

[Commenter_XY]

Well how about that. Lying on his forms. 😉

[bernard11]

A government allegation is far from proof, XY.

[Commenter_XY]

Uh huh. Khalid is toast. But go ahead and be the champion of a Judeocidal terror sympathizer. More power to you.

[bernard11]

You really are a moron.

Do you really think the government shouldn't have to prove its allegations before deporting someone? That if Trump or Rubio say so-and-so's a terrorist that's the end of the story?

Do you have any fucking idea what you are signing on to?

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

You really are a moron.

That means a lot coming from the dipshit who doesn't know the difference between...

"The government hasn't claimed X."

...vs...

"The government hasn't proven X."

[Stephen Lathrop]

not guilty — Of course counter-arguments will tumble forth upon the same baseless presumptions as always—that any persons deported were not lawfully admitted aliens, and thus effectively outlaws, entitled to no protection on any basis whatever.

Challenges to produce in court deportees, and would-be deportees, to examine the truth of any such claims with respect to each of them will continue to be scoffed at. Under the Supreme Court's totalitarian legal regime announced in Trump v. United States, the entire body of law you rely on in your argument above went away, along with everything else except unchecked administrative power.

The Trump administration is for now taking only its first hesitant steps toward a tyranny far worse, in which any legal distinctions in favor of acknowledged citizens also disappear. The sooner the courts take judicial notice that under American constitutionalism totalitarianism itself is unlawful, and requires concerted resistance from every court in the nation, the sooner public safety will be restored to this nation in dire peril.

The final step toward a correction must be Supreme Court initiative to convene and overturn Trump v. United States, as wrongly decided. If that cannot happen, do not look for anything else except an end to American constitutionalism.

Given that, the most pressing question in American public life today is what first steps are available to set in motion a process to pressure the Supreme Court to reverse itself. It seems unlikely that lawyers ruminating upon due process, while limiting themselves within constraints of customary legal decorum, will discover any method to overturn practical Supreme Court supremacy.

No hope ought to be entertained that the power-mad majority on the Court will on their own initiative quail from an objective they have so long sought. At the first sign of hesitation by any of them, the unchecked administrative power the Court unleashed can as readily be turned against members of the Court themselves, and likely would be. Mobs stand ready for mobilization at the President's beck and call, asking only who to target for violence—just as the President is already publicly urging thugs to target subordinate judges.

Thus, I urge lawyers themselves—beginning with those associated in any way with this blog—to begin now to think outside customary legal constraints, and think instead more like the lawyers of America's founding generation. What little safety the nation can hope to preserve along a parlous course to restore American constitutionalism will be better served by expanded scope for legal advocacy, than by any alternative to turn that quest over to a sharply divided citizenry acting on its own wild and disparate initiatives.

Lawyers who blog and comment here are thinking far too cautiously. I ask more of them.

[not guilty]

"The final step toward a correction must be Supreme Court initiative to convene and overturn Trump v. United States, as wrongly decided. If that cannot happen, do not look for anything else except an end to American constitutionalism."

Trump v. United States, 603 U.S. 593 (2024), is an execrable decision. Even so, however, the Supreme Court is a court of review, not a court of first view. The Court cannot convene itself to reconsider a decision.

[Kazinski]

Then the Sovereign People should convene a Grand Jury, would be his next suggestion.

[hobie]

Kinda like Sovereign Citizens, yes?

[Stephen Lathrop]

Not at all like sovereign citizens. Almost exactly the opposite.

[Brett Bellmore]

360 degrees opposite, in fact...

[Stephen Lathrop]

Legitimately humorous, and legitimately stupid. At once.

One of your best.

[David Nieporent]

Not at all like sovereign citizens. Almost exactly the opposite.

No; your arguments, as I have pointed out several times, are literally identical to theirs. The people are sovereign, and thus a band of random schmoes can get together, call themselves a grand jury, and investigate, indict, prosecute government officials.

[Stephen Lathrop]

My arguments differ from sovereign citizens' arguments. Sovereign citizens' arguments I am aware of do not concede that citizens are ever subjects of government.

I join the founders, as I said, in a nearly opposite belief: That joint popular sovereignty assigns a double character to citizenship. In its first aspect, by far the most commonplace, American constitutionalism casts the role of citizens acting in their capacity as individuals as subjects of government. In its second aspect, American constitutionalism casts the role of citizens acting jointly in their sovereign capacity as not only the masters of government, but also as actors whose joint capacities remain at liberty to act unconstrained by anything, including their own Constitution.

The power to act at pleasure and without constraint is a defining feature of sovereignty. Cast it otherwise and the notion of sovereignty itself disappears with the recasting.

There can be no historical doubt whatever that America's Constitution was framed under a premise not only of sovereignty held jointly by America's citizens, but also on expectation that joint sovereignty would remain continuously active. Recognition of that explains in part the historical salience of Franklin's famous remark, "A Republic, if you can keep it."

You, Nieporent are unable either to understand or countenance that historically founded interpretation because as a libertarian ideologue you loath the concept of sovereignty itself. That puts you far closer to the sovereign citizens' arguments than I will ever be. You practically echo them.

Like you, the sovereign citizens detest the notion that they remain subject to joint rule by a majority of their peers. You seem to detest the notion that joint action by citizens is a legitimate way to govern a nation.

Here, once again, is founder James Wilson to explain it to you:

There necessarily exists, in every government, a power from which there is no appeal, and which, for that reason, may be termed supreme, absolute, and uncontrollable . . . Perhaps some politician, who has not considered with sufficient accuracy our political systems, would answer that, in our governments, the supreme power was vested in the constitutions . . . This opinion approaches a step nearer to the truth, but does not reach it. The truth is, that in our governments, the supreme, absolute, and uncontrollable power remains in the people. As our constitutions are superior to our legislatures, so the people are superior to our constitutions. Indeed the superiority, in this last instance, is much greater; for the people possess over our constitution, control in act, as well as right. The consequence is, the people may change constitutions whenever and however they please. This is a right of which no positive institution can ever deprive them.

You may suppose that says the Constitution constrains the people's sovereignty. If you read it closely, the last two sentences disclose the contrary. You are meant to understand the Constitution itself as a positive institution, powerless to constrain the people in exercise of their sovereignty, "whenever and however they please."

The time for sovereign action is perpetual. The manner of sovereign action may be chosen at pleasure. That is Wilson's message.

That has since 1789 been the announced founding principle of the United States of America. Admittedly, honored more in the breach these days than formerly.

[Noscitur a sociis]

There are lots of flavors of sovereign citizen out there, and of course each proclaims itself the one true version and condemns all of heretics. Having spent more time than I’d care to swimming in that more, let me assure you that you would fit in perfectly.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Noscitur — Perhaps you fell in among originalists without noticing. Did they say anything which James Wilson's quote would not support? If so, I am probably less similar to them than you suppose. Actually, you can be sure of that, no matter what.

I am a stranger to you. How likely is it you know enough to disparage me by comparison with others whom I do not know, and you seem to disrespect? The fact is, what you do is announce disrespect without earning credibility by substantive engagement. Come to think of it, you gave occasion to make that same rejoinder a couple of times previous.

Nothing I advocated about sovereign tradidition is original with me, of course; more like original with James Wilson, but of course his political outlook was founded on education among the leaders of the Scottish Enlightenment. So it goes back a way, and has its own deeper basis.

Do you find James Wilson an unimpressive or illegitimate source for original views on American constitutionalism? Do you know who James Wilson was? His role as one of the few signers of both the Declaration and the Constitution. His outsized part in debates during the Philadelphia Convention. His appointment to the Committee of Detail, where the report to the full Convention was written in his hand. His influence in Pennsylvania politics. His appointment by Washington to the first Supreme Court.

A lot of folks do not know any of that, maybe you too. Maybe look Wilson up. You will discover he was not likely a type familiar to your sovereign citizen friends. I'm guessing not many of them ever became influential leaders among a company so august as the American founders.

More generally, with regard to the topic of American sovereignty, I keep getting forced back toward the most fundamental sources, mainly because so many who comment here remain in denial about American history. They cherish alternative notions which the actual history tends too often to debunk.

I get that the question of historical interpretation of American sovereign traditions, taken as a whole, is more complicated than the benchmark original understanding I have so far mentioned. Problem is, until folks concede the influence of the original, and its profound implications for expectations about how the Constitution would work going forward, there is little point to delve into subsequent inflections as if they were separately legitimate foundings in themselves. To do that would obscure the interplay of the old with what came later, which is almost the entire story.

Thus, if Nieporent wants a libertarian tradition instead of one rooted in colonial experience, and in founding era political dynamics, he has to concede he prefers that later tradition, not pretend it is the original, and things have always been that way. They have not been that way. They never were.

[Noscitur a sociis]

I’m basing my assessment on your (increasingly unhinged) rants on this site. And you’re not exactly making yourself sound less sovereign citizen-y here.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Noscitur: "I’m basing my assessment on your (increasingly unhinged) rants on this site."

No, whatever you are basing your, "assessment," on, it is demonstrably not anything which appeared here. We can see your, "assessment." It shows no sign of any source or reference at all.

[Drewski]

"The time for sovereign action is perpetual. The manner of sovereign action may be chosen at pleasure."

It's funny because this is the same justification MAGA used for the January 6 coup attempt. You're a moron who want to throw out the law to shape the country's institutions to your vision, exactly like Trumpists. The horseshoe is real.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Drewski — The principles Wilson announced are indeed complicating politics now. You are quite right, although you mistakenly over-dignify MAGA—which gives no thought at all to questions so untransactional as sovereign legitimacy.

The nation is close to immobilized legally, because the jointly sovereign people remain too-nearly divided politically. Pretense to the contrary does nothing to sharpen judgment about how to respond. Legal comity at this point remains indistinguishable from legal confusion, or legal inaction.

It was for that reason that I began earlier than most commenters here to deplore want of energy in the Biden administration to fulfill the government's highest duty toward its sovereign—to guard jealously the sovereign's power, and thus to act vigorously to thwart rivals. That did not happen.

Had Trump been prosecuted promptly for the crime he actually committed with his violent coup attempt on J6—which was treason (a fact still foolishly denied by almost everyone who comments here)—I doubt the present crisis would have ensued.

Because the crisis has begun, the question which side should win becomes salient. I reject the MAGA/Trump side because I am convinced their rivalry for American sovereignty strays far from restoration of joint popular sovereignty on a republican basis. It is evidently based instead on Trump's personal opportunism, and tyrannical ambition. That does not seem to make choice of sides a close or difficult question.

So in my view, the nation is in a pickle. History teaches that the time to oppose tyrants is at the outset of their ambitions. The price to get rid of them later is too often paid extravagantly, in blood. Thus, even a tyrannical attempt judged less likely to succeed, is wisely judged worth maximal effort to thwart at its outset. That, I think, is the cusp of decision upon which the nation now finds itself poised.

The present posture of crisis is an outset a bit past, but with consolidation of a new tyrannical sovereignty still in question. Thus, republican sovereignty exercised by the jointly sovereign American people continues, but weakened by challenge, and put under constraint by a rival already in possession of the power of government.

Challenged sovereigns who remain powerless to suppress active rivals, typically do not last long. If the present MAGA/Trump challenge to American popular sovereignty cannot be quickly thwarted, quicker-than-expected collapse will likely ensue. So the situation is dire, and deteriorating.

I have been trying to stimulate discussion of realistic alternatives to mobilize what little popular sovereign power remains usable, so far with little sign of success. I conclude by subtraction that whatever hope remains must come from either the courts, or direct action by people taking to the streets. With both alternatives subject to familiar uncertainties.

Either way, the lawyers who comment here seem mysteriously complacent, if not actually quailing. Part of that is undoubtedly habit. But too little vision, combined with too much at stake, forms another part of my impression. Capitulation of prestigious big law enterprises may soon be recognized as a first eddy of an outgoing flood of principles, which will sweep the notion of joint popular sovereignty out to sea.

[Kazinski]

You could be right, but only in a state context, certainly not in a national context.

After all there was no right of the people to vote, serve on a jury, especially a grand jury, elect Senators, no popular vote for President.

Even the people of the states were only guaranteed a Republican government, that is to be governed by their elected representatives, not direct democracy as you imagine.

You seem to have given at least a little thought to how you envision the way it should be, you should write it down, because its certainly not written in our constitution, nor is it inherited in the common law from our British forebearers.

Although some flavor of it is definitely in the Declaration of Independence, which ended what was before, but did not define what came after.

"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

[Stephen Lathrop]

Kazinski — Some good historians have opined that your last paragraph, the very heart of the DoI, was likely cribbed by Jefferson from Wilson. Note the similarity in both logic and tone to the Wilson quote I included in a comment answering Nieporent above.

Note that in later life, Jefferson forthrightly confessed his language in the Declaration was not to be taken as his own, but instead representative of ideas generally current at the time. Note that Jefferson and Wilson were near-contemporaries, with birthdays only months apart, and among generally older men when the Declaration was drafted. Note that both men were by temperament avid scholars of practical political philosophy, but that at that point in Jefferson's career, Wilson was of the two notably the better educated.

If you get that, and recheck the Wilson quote above, it will point you toward some mis-adjusted points of emphasis you seem to be relying upon in your historical analysis.

[Riva]

No one has made such a claim because it would be idiotically too far even for the pathetic judicial insurrectionists. The courts do not make immigration policy. They don’t defend and protect our borders. Hamas is a terrorist organization. Temporary visitors have no constitutional right to enter or remain in this country and certainly no right to do so to promote/support a terrorist organization.

[Dr. Ed 2]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTBnOoBEJP0

A lawyer screwed up....

[Bwaaah]

A beautiful moment in history.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Agreed.

[Martinned2]

Here is an interesting blog post about the recent Colorado judgment against North Dakota, arguing that the Netherlands (where much of Greenpeace's assets are) should refuse to enforce the judgment under the EU's anti-SLAPP directive.

https://verfassungsblog.de/greenpeace-slapp-energy-transfer/

(I don't know enough about the case, or about the anti-SLAPP directive, to have much of a view. I do think that punitive damages generally shouldn't exist, but that's a different discussion.)

[not guilty]

Donald Trump is reportedly claiming that he may seek a third term as president, despite the express language of the Twenty-second Amendment providing that no person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice. https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/trump-says-he-s-not-joking-about-serving-third-term-as-president-and-suggests-one-way-he-thinks-he-could-do-it/ar-AA1BXiZ1?ocid=BingNewsSerp&cvid=b3f5d5cd71f940238108a5bd8fff812b&ei=16

The only lawful way that could be accomplished is by amending the Constitution. Good luck with persuading two thirds of both houses of Congress to propose such an amendment and obtaining ratification by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof.

[Martinned2]

Haven't you heard? By careful originalist analysis it's easy to show that the 22nd Amendment only bans someone from serving two *consecutive* terms. Randy Barnett is working on a law review article demonstrating as much as we speak.

[myself]

So what's the over/under on when Blackman endorses a 3rd term for Trump theory?

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

He and Kurt Lash.

[TwelveInchPianist]

He must read Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joesph Stern.

[ReaderY]

I think you aren’t looking at the correct legal theory. Or the right legal theorist.

https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/the-nazi-jurist/

[ReaderY]

Actually consider the following. He gets elected to the office of Vice President. The person elected as president, by pre-arranged agreement, then resigns, and he becomes President by succession rather than election. The 22nd Amendment omly prohibits being ELECTED to the office of President. A third term term, indeed an indefinite number of further terms, could occur by a means other than election.

[Martinned2]

But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.

[ReaderY]

Why would he be ineligible to the office of President? He would be ineligible to be elected President, but not to the office itself. Election is merely one means of becoming President.

A third (besides election and succession) is for the House of Representatives to choose the President when the Electoral College does not result in a majority candidate. In this case, a President is selected, but not elected.

I don’t think the loophole should be there. But it’s not so obvious that it isn’t.

[Commenter_XY]

Here is the text of 22A. What you say is plausible, ReaderY.

Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this Article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this Article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.

Section 2. This Article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several states within seven years from the date of its submission to the states by the Congress.

[myself]

I'm not an originalist, but I feel like they would be skeptical of a "oh hey, here's a loop hole that allows us to completely circumvent that aspect of the constitution" argument.

Though we might already be closing in on that with Elon Musk, "hey, we don't need to get this person confirmed to cabinet. They can just be an advisor and the president tells the actual cabinet official to do whatever that person says".

[Brett Bellmore]

I AM an originalist, and I am transcendently confident that this supposed work-around would not, in fact, work.

I'm also inclined to think that he's just trolling people. But only modestly confident of that.

[myself]

Eh, I'm pretty sure Trump wants to do it. That's why he's started the discussion so early. It's a trial balloon. He's trying to normalize the idea so that by the time it's 2028 the GOP is fully on board.

Of his various "crazy" talk the only one I suspect might be pure trolling in the annexation of Canada talk, just because he hasn't mentioned the obvious (that it would require military force and not letting Canadians vote).

But the 3rd term? He wants it.

[Commenter_XY]

Nah, he is too old. He is trolling. He himself has said that 'this is it'.

Why do you think he is so impatient to get stuff done?

[Kazinski]

Well since the Roosevelt administration its been endemic, its hardly new ground:

Summary table
President Number of czar titles - Number of
appointees - Appointees NOT confirmed by Senate
Franklin D. Roosevelt 11 19 18
Harry S. Truman 6 5
Dwight D. Eisenhower 1 0
Lyndon B. Johnson 3 1
Richard Nixon 3 5
Gerald Ford 2
Jimmy Carter 2 3 2
Ronald Reagan 1
George H. W. Bush 2 3 0
Bill Clinton 8 11 7
George W. Bush 33 49 28
Barack Obama 38 50 39
Donald Trump 5 6 5
Joe Biden 4 7 4

So if its a constitutional concern you would think it would have come up by now.

[Sarcastr0]

Equating things that aren’t equal again?

[Kazinski]

No, its exactly the same as Czars in the Whitehouse, senior advisors, unconfirmed by the Senate, delegated power and authority by the President.

When President Obama named Elizabeth Warren his Consumer Czar and Special Advisor for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and did not attempt to get her confirmed by the Senate, she had more actual power than Elon has now.

There is no real difference, he delegated her immense power and she had at that time never been elected to any office, or confirmed by the Senate to any office.

[Stephen Lathrop]

My constitutional concern is not presidents taking their pick among private advisors. My constitutional concern is presumptively empowering the private advisors to speak for the President, bypass separation of powers, thwart the power of the purse, ignore due process, and doubtless other details.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Interesting how the 22A would invalidate Trump's current, elected presidency--if he was indeed "elected" president in 2020 (as he continues to insist).

[Martinned2]

Which is particularly odd given that prospective civil servants still have to confirm that they believe that Trump won in 2020 in order to get hired.

[David Nieporent]

I would love for one of the plaintiffs suing over Trump's illegal actions to make that argument in court. It would not work, of course, but it would be darkly humorous to force the Trump DOJ to formally deny that he was elected in 2020.

[Kazinski]

They should set up a gofundme to help offset the consequences of the sanctions they could possibly get, that's as frivolous an argument as frivolous gets. Better save it for a law review, it could definitely get published. Not that any of the DC judges hearing most of these cases would mind.

[not guilty]

The Twelfth Amendment would prohibit the Electoral College from voting Trump (or Barack Obama or George W. Bush) in as Vice-president. Ergo, he could not succeed to the presidency.

[Commenter_XY]

Text of 12A. How does it prohibit, NG? I don't doubt you, but don't see text here that would stop ReaderY's scenario above.

The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and all persons voted for as Vice-President and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate;

The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted;

The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President.[a]

The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States

[not guilty]

"But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States."

The Twelfth and Twenty-second Amendments, read in pari materia, prohibit Donald Trump, Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton each from eligibility for another term as President or as Vice-president.

[Commenter_XY]

ReaderY correctly points out elected. What if the putative POTUS in waiting was not elected, but selected? Seems plausible.

[Don Nico]

That would require at least a double succession.
Mr Trump would be eligible to be elected to be Speaker of the House. If the President dies or is removed, the Speaker does not become VP, thus satisfying NG's comment. If the VP dies, resigns or is removed, the Speaker becomes President, contravening no language of A12 and A22.
True, the probability is vanishingly small.

[not guilty]

"What if the putative POTUS in waiting was not elected, but selected? Seems plausible."

What if?? As Cassandra told Wayne Campbell, if a frog had wings, he wouldn't bump his ass when he hopped. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nV9U23YXgiY

[Kazinski]

Well its not like this sort of wild speculation thing hasn't come up before, I remember quite a bit of it in 2017.

https://www.newsweek.com/hillary-clinton-president-lawrence-lessig-post-686077

[TwelveInchPianist]

Trump isn't constitutionally ineligible to the office of President, just to be elected president. And the Constitution knows how to make the distinction.

Compare Article II:

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years...

With the 22nd Amendment:

No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President...

And note that the framers of the 22A knew how to distinguish between being elected President and holding the office of President.

[hobie]

That would require a switcheroo on Vance's part. And there is no way Vance is slimy enough to instigate the dissolution of the United States in such a way

[Magister]

Has anyone ever gone broke wagering on Vance's sliminess?

[Bwaaah]

Am I mistaken, or is that an uncharacteristically kind remark on your part?

[hobie]

You are mistaken

[Kazinski]

I think the Supreme Court would allow Colorado, and all the other states to keep Trump off the ballot in that case.

Unlike Section 3 of the 14th the 22nd amendment is self executing.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, this is not a close case. He simply cannot be President a third time, period.

[Frank Drackman]

Where did you get your secret Penumbra glasses?

[Brett Bellmore]

This isn't penumbra, it's just reading the damn Constitution. He's been twice elected President, he is now disqualified from becoming President again, by any route whatsoever.

Short of a constitutional amendment, of course.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Suppose Trump (or Obama, Clinton, or Bush) runs for Congress in 2028, wins, and is selected to be the Speaker of the House. At some point in the next two years, the vice president resigns (or dies, or is impeached, whatever) and then the president does too before a successor is chosen. Can you point to the constitutional provision that would stop Trump from becoming president at that point?

[Brett Bellmore]

Last line of the 12th amendment: "But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States."

The 22nd amendment renders Trump ineligible to be President again, which per the 12th amendment renders him ineligible to be VP, and Presidential succession passes through the office of the VP.

[David Nieporent]

The 22nd amendment renders Trump ineligible to be President again,

The too-clever-by-half counterargument is that the 22nd amendment only renders Trump ineligible to be elected president, not to be president.

[TwelveInchPianist]

You think they just stuck the word "elected" in there for no reason?

[Noscitur a sociis]

The 22nd amendment renders Trump ineligible to be President again, which per the 12th amendment renders him ineligible to be VP, and Presidential succession passes through the office of the VP.

No it doesn’t? If the presidency and vice presidency and any lower offices are simultaneously vacant, the next person in the line of succession just becomes president; they don’t pass through all the intermediate offices first. Similarly, if the vice presidency (but not the presidency) becomes vacant, the Speaker of the House doesn’t automatically fill in.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Well, he has to resign first, and then he only acts as President. And the Presidential Succession Act has language about the Speaker failing to qualify to act as President.

[TwelveInchPianist]

The Constitution creates two classes of people, those ineligible to be President, and those unable to be elected President. The 12th Amendment only prevents the former from being VP.

[Noscitur a sociis]

We love textualism!

[Moderation4ever]

It is worth remembering Donals Trump lost reelection the first time he ran for reelection, and I suspect he would lose again. Markets are down and I suspect we are not far off from the next Trump Recession. Trump is an agent of chaos. That may seem good at first but it wears thin quickly.

[Don Nico]

But according the Gavin Newsom the Democrat brand is even more toxic (his word) now than it was a few weeks ago.
But tempi cambiano

[Brett Bellmore]

It's worth remembering that it took the economy totally cratering from the Covid lockdowns for him to lose that election, and even then it was a close race; Without them, he'd already be a retired ex-President.

It's not that he's that great at politics, though. It's just that the Democratic party seems to have lately gotten into the habit of nominating really awful Presidential candidates.

[Moderation4ever]

Precisely as you said, the COVID pandemic showed that the complete incompetence of Trump. Something he is again showing.

[Brett Bellmore]

I will grant you that Trump should have opposed the lockdowns with every fiber of his being, and fired Fauci the moment he took office, though I doubt that's what you meant.

And he did too much blue skying in public, which I criticized at the time. Blue skying, good. Doing it in public, not so good.

He did great work in clearing obstacles to the vaccine being available in record time, which in retrospect was the only thing that mattered. Everything besides that was, at best, medical theater.

[Moderation4ever]

What you are doing is seeing trees and missing the forest. Trump made mistake after mistake because he is incompetent. The fact is you and most of the commenters here would not hire Trump for a job. Yet, you defend him.

[bernard11]

It's worth remembering that it took the economy totally cratering from the Covid lockdowns for him to lose that election,

The pandemic was in fact a gift to Trump, which he stupidly turned into a liability. I mean, it is usually the case that voters "rally 'round the flag" in time of crisis, but Trump beclowned himself by badly minimizing the scope of the pandemic, advocating for crackpot cures, and generally displaying his ignorance.

A serious approach combined with the rapid development of the vaccine, would likely have led to an easy win in 2020.

[Commenter_XY]

Only someone who has lost all perspective would call the pandemic that killed 1MM+ Americans a gift to anyone.

[Moderation4ever]

Did you read the comment? B11 pointed out that Americans tend to rally round their President in a crisis. Trump screwed up so bad that he could get people to rally to him. It was an observation not a perspective.

[Don Nico]

You're absolutely correct bernard. The pandemic should have made Trump unbeatable

[Riva]

No, President Trump is expertly trolling unbalanced political opponents.

[windycityattorney]

Is he also expertly trolling Canada becoming the 51st state? Is he expertly trolling Greenland? Related question: do we want the President to troll? Why would that be perceived as something positive?

Canada and Greenland are not acting like Trump is merely trolling. Nor is Denmark.

When Trump trolls about tariffs and the stock market loses tens of billions...do we chalk it up to just 'trolling?' Are people's 401(k)s so inconsequential to the President? Again, is that what any sane person wants the President spending his time doing? Trolling?

[jb]

The problem is that Trump is Poe's law personified. Sure, a lot of the stuff he says is bullshit that he's just throwing out there to see what sort of reaction he will get. But other parts of it he's completely serious about and actually makes an effort to make them come true. And there's no principled way to tell the difference when he makes each statement, so you have to take them all at least somewhat seriously.

[Drewski]

He obviously isn't. You foreign trolls are following the same playbook you used to claim Project 2025 wasn't Trump's agenda. It doesn't work any more and it's tiresome that you keep trying.

[Dr. Ed 2]

It's been done before on a state level -- people have had their wives run and be the "official" Governor on paper.

It's what Obama tried to do with Biden.

[David Nieporent]

Editor's note: it is in fact not what Obama tried to do with Biden.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Which is not, of course, what is being discussed here with Trump.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Donald Trump is reportedly claiming that he may seek a third term as president,"

One day the lefty cats will stop chasing the laser pointer but today seems not to be that day.

[Brett Bellmore]

If they could stop chasing the laser pointer they wouldn't BE cats...

[Bwaaah]

Nine years of him bandying that thing about, and with the media acting like a laser amplifier, all that's left running about are the cats. Who says you can't herd cats?

Remember that whole "Signal" affair? Stinging tariffs go into effect in 48 hours. And today is just getting started.

[Josh R]

If Trump attempts to execute this obviously ridiculous loophole, will Republicans tow the line. Will pro-Trump Volokh Conspiracy commenters?

Whatever way Trump uses to serve a third term, the Democrats should counter with the one person who has the best chance of beating him: Barrack Obama.

[David Nieporent]

*toe

[John F. Carr]

It would be easier to make a bogus claim to power that depends only on a majority in Congress when the votes are counted. Majority of members or majority of state delegations, depending on how the claim works. I do not think Trump will have the necessary votes. He didn't come close on January 6, 2021.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"The only lawful way that could be accomplished is by amending the Constitution. Good luck with persuading two thirds of both houses of Congress to propose such an amendment and obtaining ratification by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof."

I dunno. I think people might be able to drum up a lot of support for Trump v Obama 2028.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Why shouldn't the US attack Iran?
I think we are going to.

[Commenter_XY]

What is the casus belli?

[Martinned2]

Since when does the US need one? It invaded Iraq because a bunch of Saudis, with Afghani backing, committed a terrorist attack in the US.

[not guilty]

"Since when does the US need one? It invaded Iraq because a bunch of Saudis, with Afghani backing, committed a terrorist attack in the US."

And how did that turn out?

[Don Nico]

And yet almost all members of Congress (with the notable exception of Ted Kennedy, who gave an impressive speech) voted in favor to authorize military force.

[Magister]

23 senators and 133 representatives voted against it despite the post September 11th war on terror hysteria and the outright lies about Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction".

[Don Nico]

Where did your numbers come from?
From Congress.gov:
S.J.Res.23 — 107th Congress (2001-2002) - A joint resolution to authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against those responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United States.
09/14/2001 Submitted in the Senate, considered, and agreed to without amendment and with a preamble by Yea-Nay Vote. 98 - 0.
Record Vote Number: 281. (consideration: CR S9413, S9416-9421; text as passed Senate: CR S9421; text of measure as introduced: CR S9443)
Action By: Senate

[Satchmo_Lives]

That vote was to go into Afghanistan. The vote to go into Iraq was a couple of years later.

[Magister]

That would be an authorization of the use of military force against Al Qaeda and maybe Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan after September 11th. The discussion was invasion of Iraq, authorized in Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 That the Bush administration sought another authorization indicates that the previous one was not sufficient to go after Iraq. No surprise that everyone voted for the resolution to go after those responsible for 9/11.

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

Turns out, John Brennan gave most the 9/11 terrorists their visas.

That earned him a promotion to be CIA Director!

[David Nieporent]

Another lie. John brennan gave zero people visas.

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

I don't care about your stupid pedantic parsing. He was Station Chief in Saudi Arabia and was involved in the issuing of those visas.

Your pedantry is almost as insufferable as Sarcastr0's Komment Karening.

[Juliana Frink]

Suffer the Practiced Internet Trolls! Like David NeoPedant, who dart into traffic with deceptions, deflections and flimsy perceptions intended to shut down a thread.

Thank you, Magnus for not allowing him to get away with it!

[David Nieporent]

John Brennan was indeed station chief in Riyadh at one time. That is, CIA station chief. The CIA does not issue visas. The state department does. Also, Brennan was not station chief in Riyadh at the time their visas were issued. Other than that, great comment!

[John F. Carr]

The casus belli was WMD. The reason was lots of Americans thought Hussein needed to be deposed. The 9/11 attacks made an interventionist foreign policy more politically acceptable.

Remember the Maine!

[Thought about __ all my life]

Don't need anything beyond stated intentions about Israel that violate Ius gentium

Remember FDR when Future Sen McGovern offered to bomb railroad lines to the concnetration camps

[Martinned2]

I'm not sure what you mean by "ius gentium", because that's not a concept that's been used since the Edict of Caracalla gave Roman citizenship to all inhabitants of the Roman Empire, but which stated intention did you have in mind?

Also, there's this:

All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

You're responding to yet another new name for one of my old gray boxes.

I wonder who it is?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Being close on nukes.

[Commenter_XY]

Which, as we subsequently found, was complete bullshit. After the Osirak bombing, Iraq's nuke program was dead; no fuel.

[Martinned2]

Today in Paris the court is handing down its verdict in the prosecution of Marine Le Pen for embezzlement. This is interesting not only because she might end up in prison as a result, but also because she might end up barred from running in the 2027 presidential election.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2025/mar/31/france-marine-le-pen-embezzlement-verdict-europe-news-live

My two cents: I don't think a criminal conviction should result in a person losing their right to run for office (or to vote), unless the crime is something in the vicinity of treason or insurrection, i.e. a crime against the democratic order itself. In any event it should be an additional punishment imposed by the court, not an automatic consequence of conviction.

(And yes, I think that ought to be the law in the US as well. But by the plain meaning of the 14th amendment it isn't.)

[Martinned2]

P.S. a plausible line of argument is suggesting that a conviction would only help the RN in 2027. It would make it easier for them to adopt the mantle of victim, and avoid an unpleasant internal quarrel over the nomination. Jordan Bardella is probably the more electable candidate anyway, because there are plenty of old school conservatives (basically the 2025 version of Von Papen), who wouldn't vote for Le Pen but who might vote for Bardella.

[Martinned2]

The reading of the verdict will still take some time, but the headline is that Le Pen and the eight other accused have been found guilty of embezzlement.

[Kazinski]

What is it with the French, and corruption?

They should rename it East Illinois.

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing – President of France 1974 - 1981
Giscard d'Estaing was involved in a scandal called "l'affaire des diamants" (the diamonds affair) which happened when he was the French Minister of Finance.

Jacques Chirac – President of France 1995 – 2007
In 2011, Chirac was found guilty and convicted for embezzlement and breach of trust in relation to 21 bogus jobs and a charge of illegal conflict of interest concerning seven jobs. The charges dated back to his time as mayor of Paris.

François Mitterrand – President of France 1981 - 1995
From 1982 to 1986, François Mitterrand established an anti-terror unit involving wiretapping – an unusual move as it bypassed the police and judiciary channels. One of the scandals dubbed the "Irish of Vincennes" involved members of the unit being accused of planting weapons and explosives in a Vincennes apartment belonging to three Irish nationals who were then arrested on terrorism charges. More worryingly, it appeared that the unit, under illegal presidential orders, obtained wiretaps on many others including journalists and politicians who may have threatened to reveal elements of his private life (including the fact that he had an illegitimate daughter with his mistress Anne Pingeot, and his part in the Vichy regime during the war).

Nicolas Sarkozy – President of France 2007 – 2012
Sarkozy was previously in court in 2021 for the Bygmalion scandal which charged Sarkozy with diverting from his campaign funds to be spent on lavish events which he subsequently tried to cover up by hiring a PR firm. Sarkozy was convicted for violating France's campaign finance spending limit law (he spent at least €42.8 million on his ….

François Fillon – Prime Minister of France 2007 - 2012
In 2020, French ex-Prime Minister François Fillon and his wife received jail sentences for corruption including misuse of public funds, embezzlement, aggravated fraud, forgery, and falsification of records.

François Hollande – President of France 2012 – 2017
Actually he just had an affair, so he shouldn't be on the list.

https://www.eurostartentreprises.com/en/business-advice/presidential-scandals-and-corruption-in-france

[Martinned2]

Excellent question. France certainly has a problem in this regard.

Then again, one might just as easily ask what the problem is that the far right has with various forms of grift, fraud, and embezzlement. (Not corruption, obviously, because you need power to engage in corruption.)

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/25/eu-watchdog-considering-nigel-farage-investigation-arron-banks

https://www.politico.eu/article/report-eu-anti-fraud-office-probes-belgian-far-right-mep/

[Ridgeway]

Serious answer? I don't think it is a left/right issue. I think it is more an issue that fringe-y parties and organizations that are suddenly able to raise large amounts of money (think BLM for a left-wing example) tend not to have the internal controls or external oversight to avoid improper use of the funds, and then suffer accordingly once under the spotlight.

[Martinned2]

Le Pen's party has been around since 1972. And outside the US raising large amounts of money is usually neither needed nor even legal for a political party.

[Martinned2]

For the record, another option is to borrow money in Moscow, of course: https://www.politico.eu/article/france-marine-le-pen-national-rally-pays-back-russia-loan/

[Martinned2]

Agence France is now reporting that a sentence of ineligibility to stand for office has been imposed on the accused: https://bsky.app/profile/afpfr.bsky.social/post/3llo3ouhivh2p

[Martinned2]

It has now come out that the ban is with immediate effect. We're still waiting to hear how long it will last.

[Riva]

The establishment certainly doesn’t like a candidate supported by the people. Can’t have that. So it must destroy democracy in order to save it. Seems to be a common thread worldwide. We’re still dealing with it here as well.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Great. Make her a Martyr. See what happens next.

[Frank Drackman]

I think France has an invention called the Guillotine and with this invention you can chop off heads

[Martinned2]

The Kremlin and the regime in Hungary have already come out in support of Le Pen. I'm sure she'll love that.

« En effet, de plus en plus de capitales européennes empruntent la voie de la violation des normes démocratiques », a déclaré, lundi, le porte-parole du Kremlin, Dmitri Peskov, lors de son briefing quotidien, répondant à une question sur la condamnation de Mme Le Pen.

Yes, aren't those violations of democratic norms terrible?

https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/live/2025/03/31/en-direct-jugement-de-marine-le-pen-la-dirigeante-du-rn-reconnue-coupable-de-detournement-de-fonds-publics-suivez-le-prononce-des-peines-en-direct_6588724_823448.html

[Martinned2]

The sentence is now in: four years in prison, two of which suspended (and the other two under house arrest), and five years ineligibility to run for office.

https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/live/2025/03/31/en-direct-jugement-de-marine-le-pen-la-dirigeante-du-rn-reconnue-coupable-de-detournement-de-fonds-publics-suivez-le-prononce-des-peines-en-direct_6588724_823448.html

Marine Le Pen condamnée à quatre ans de prison, dont deux ans ferme, et à cinq ans d’inéligibilité avec application immédiate, compromettant sa candidature à la présidentielle 2027
L’ancienne présidente du Rassemblement national (RN), reconnue coupable de détournement de fonds publics dans l’affaire des assistants parlementaires du Front national (devenu RN), a été condamnée à une peine de quatre ans d’emprisonnement dont deux ans ferme, aménageable avec un bracelet électronique, 100 000 euros d’amende, et cinq ans d’inéligibilité, avec exécution provisoire.

Conformément aux réquisitions du parquet, cette dernière peine est assortie d’une exécution provisoire, ce qui signifie que cette peine d’inéligibilité s’applique immédiatement en cas de condamnation, y compris en cas d’appel.

Si Marine Le Pen conserve son mandat de députée du Pas-de-Calais, les conséquences politiques du jugement sont implacables : dans l’attente d’une décision future, elle ne pourra se présenter à aucune élection dans un délai de cinq ans, soit d’ici à l’après l’élection présidentielle de 2027.

Pour rappel, fin novembre 2024, le parquet avait requis contre Marine Le Pen cinq ans de prison dont trois années avec sursis, 300 000 euros d’amende et cinq ans d’inéligibilité avec une exécution provisoire.

[Riva]

Not surprising. They practically invented modern lawfare. The Big Guy is undoubtedly envious.

[Commenter_XY]

VP JD Vance called it weeks ago, in his speech. Remarkably prescient.

[Dr. Ed 2]

The problem is that this the third country where a court or political establishment has sought to hamstring the popular populist party.

The center-right parties refuse to associate with them and this leads to governments that are quite a bit to the left of the electorate. Eventually this is going to cause a breakdown in governance.

If she can't run, talk is that her son-in-law (who is of Italian ancestry) might.

[Martinned2]

As Kazinski explained above, in France politicians get prosecuted for corruption all the time. If you don't want to do the time, don't do the crime.

[Martinned2]

Yes, Vance, Putin, and Orbin are all outraged. #NosciturASociis.

[Dr. Ed 2]

“Parents and guardians have the right to access their child’s education records to guide and safeguard their child’s mental, emotional, and physical well-being. Any policy to the contrary is both illegal and immoral,” said Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. “A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to meet with several young people who shared their detransitioning stories. It is deeply concerning to hear that teachers and school counselors in Maine are reportedly encouraging and helping students to undergo so-called ‘gender transitions’ while keeping parents in the dark. The Trump Administration will enforce all federal laws to safeguard students and families.”

https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-launches-investigation-maine-department-of-education-alleged-ferpa-violations

[Martinned2]

If there's one person who we should listen to when it comes to the moral upbringing of our youth, it's definitely the WWE lady!

[Frank Drackman]

First intelligent comment you've said

[Don Nico]

That has to be the most rediculous choice ever for a Cabinett Officer. It might even convince a person to support dissoling that Secretariat.

[Bob from Ohio]

Ex-Mayor Pete was appointed because he liked choo choos.

Its a management job. The education dept. doesn't really do education. She ran a company and was SBA director. Plus knew the President personally so has good access.

[Don Nico]

choo-choos are transportation

[Bob from Ohio]

He didn't have experience with trains other than a passenger.

[Don Nico]

And what does McMahon know about education?

[Frank Drackman]

What do you know about satisfying a woman?
Your wife would like to know

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

She has a bachelor's degree in - gasp! - French.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Taught in a Normal School -- it was taught with a specific focus on teaching it in high schools.

[Don Nico]

You made my point.

[Dr. Ed 2]

She also was qualified to teach high school French when she graduated from college.

[Noscitur a sociis]

That seems like a fair consideration when considering someone for a job as a high school French teacher. What does it have to do with her fitness to be the Secretary of Education?

[David Nieporent]

Oh, please don't get Dr. Ed started on how she really had an education degree even though she didn't have an education degree.

[Frank Drackman]

Not having an Ed-Jew-ma-cation degree is a “Feature” not a bug, I’d love to see JYD (Google it) put you in a double reverse Nelson

[Dr. Ed 2]

Columbia: https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/ed-hhs-and-gsa-respond-columbia-universitys-actions-comply-joint-task-force-pre-conditions

And then the interim President resigns

[Kazinski]

Trump had a good week in the Appellate courts first the DC Court of Appeals stayed the district court judges opinion ordering Cathy Harris, a member of the Merit Systems Protection Board, and Gwynne Wilcox, of the National Labor Relations Board be reinstated to their positions.

The 3 judge panel not only reversed the Summary Judgement ruling of lower court but granted the governments motion for a stay, bit then denied a request for a stay of the stay.

I got a little heat for saying a few weeks ago that it was a presidents duty to contest laws he thought was unconstitutional, some even called me lawless, so it was pretty sweet to read this in the opinion:
"The district court described the President’s removal of Wilcox as a “power grab” and “blatantly illegal.” But unconstitutional statutes are void ab initio because Congress lacks the authority to enact them. Such statutes are not law, so it is not “illegal” for the President to violate them."

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cadc.41813/gov.uscourts.cadc.41813.01208724995.0.pdf

The other big win was in the 4th Circuit:

Appeals Court clears the way for Musk, DOGE to resume cuts to USAID

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/28/appeals-court-usaid-ruling-doge-00259154

[Commenter_XY]

Thus showing, the judicial 'resistance' is more like a speed bump.

[Martinned2]

Isn't the US constitution great?

[Commenter_XY]

Indeed, it is. You seem to think I have a problem with the litigation. I do not. Our system is working exactly as designed. I don't expect you, an antisemitic foreigner, to even comprehend this. You do after all, live in the EU.

POTUS Trump and his team will win some cases (speed bump), and lose some cases (you pushed a little too far). That is par for the course for any presidency. Consider Obama's presidency, he got shot down by SCOTUS numerous times. The world did not end. The system worked as designed. It is no different today.

What changed? The shoe is on the other foot, and the caterwauling is all about the payback. The bill came due, and now it is time to pay.

[Martinned2]

Our system is working exactly as designed.

Exactly. Which is why the US is descending into strongman authoritarianism, just like every other country that has experimented with a US-style constitution in the last 100+ years.

[Kazinski]

Well at least no one here has to worry about going to jail for calling a fat mayor fat.

https://x.com/goddeketal/status/1828166246254195084?t=cm-gr-tjWG7aodtWAwRMbw&s=19

[Martinned2]

Fortunately neither does anyone in Germany, which has a less draconian criminal justice system than the (only) one you're familiar with.

[Frank Drackman]

it's "drackmonian" yes, those German prisons are just pinnacles of criminal justice reform!

[Kazinski]

Oh, I don't doubt the German justice system is quite progressive:

"A woman in Germany has been given a harsher sentence than a convicted rapist after she was found guilty of defaming him.

Maja R, a 20-year-old from Hamburg, called him a “disgraceful rapist pig” and a “disgusting freak”, defamatory under German law.

He was one of nine attackers who gang-raped a 15-year-old girl in a Hamburg park in 2020, in a case that shocked the city.

Maja R was sentenced to a weekend in jail for her verbal attacks. The rapist was given a suspended sentence and served no prison time due to his age.

The sentence has sparked anger over what critics see as the flaws in Germany’s judicial system, with disproportionate punishment for defamation."

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/german-woman-given-harsher-sentence-than-rapist-for-calling-him-pig/OQUQ46ARKBEO7KLQLFREDWP2HQ/

[Frank Drackman]

Like with Amurican Prisons, the Showers are the most dangerous place

Frank "why do I smell bitter Almonds?"

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

UK just legalized race-based sentencing.

Of course, we all know that means Whites will get harsher treatments than non-Whites.

Oh, they'll also arrest you if you tweet about how unfair that is.

...

This is why the UK is not an ally. They have foreign values that are very un-American.

[Martinned2]

Yes. One example of how Germany has a non-draconian criminal justice system is that it doesn't treat 15 year olds like adults.

[Frank Drackman]

Yes, the German Juvenile justice system is respected worldwide!

[Bob from Ohio]

One example of how Germany has a non-draconian criminal justice system is that it gives rapists a slap on the wrist. Good job!

[Don Nico]

You only say that while DJT is POTUS. Was Mr Biden a strong man or just a feeble dude?

[Martinned2]

The power of the US president has been out of whack since the New Deal at least, and arguably since the founding. One has more occasion to talk about that fact when there's a president who goes around abusing his power, but it's true regardless.

[Don Nico]

I won't argue with you about that.

[jb]

I'm pretty confused.

During the Obama administration I don't remember Obama or his billionaire co-President calling for the impeachment of judges who made decisions they disagreed with, or anyone proposing to redesign the entire lower court system in order to avoid decisions he didn't like. As far as I can tell most of the caterwauling is coming from the right at this point.

I think in general you're right that the system is working, but the concern from the left is that the right wants to blow up and the checks and balances as much as with any of the individual policies that Trump is trying to steamroll through.

[Kazinski]

It looks like both Harris and Wilcox are gearing up to try to go the en banc route, playing the short game to try to get back in and gum up the works on DOGE firings.

It may just entice SC to get involved sooner, but they have already mostly lost so likely have little to lose.

[Commenter_XY]

Correct. They already lost, so they go down in flames.

[Kazinski]

Well the hope is, at least for Harris, is the en banc circuit will set aside the stay of the Injunction and she can go back to work ordering the reinstatement of as many federal workers as she can, before the ax falls again.

I am sure Wilcox has a to do list at NLRB too.

[Commenter_XY]

Domestic terror, or just petty crime? Which is it?

https://www.abqjournal.com/news/article_b2ea1f1c-5933-403b-8035-2dafcabaa79e.html

The Republican Party of New Mexico’s entryway was destroyed by a “deliberate act of arson” Sunday morning, by a molotov cocktail.

[Martinned2]

The Democratic Party of New Mexico condemns “any vandalism at the Republican Party of New Mexico headquarters as strongly as possible,” spokesperson Daniel Garcia said in a statement.

“We firmly maintain that this sort of act has absolutely no place in our democracy, and that peaceful discourse and organization are the only ways to approach political differences in our country,” Garcia said. “We hope whoever is responsible is found and held accountable.”

[Sarcastr0]

Of course this crime needs to be gone after. This isn’t a violent invasion of the Capitol, after all.

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

Why are you serving a Fascist Regime? Where are your vaunted principles?

I guess they end at your cushy, no-show, no-work, overpaid Fascist Regime job...

[Brett Bellmore]

That's true: Nobody committed arson against the Capitol that day, that I'm aware of. Seriously, what IS it with you, downplaying how serious arson is?

[Sarcastr0]

Where do you see me downplaying arson?

[Bob from Ohio]

Multiple times during the 2020 BLM riots.

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

He's already forgotten about the Summer of Love. Just like they've forgotten about their authoritarian COVID demands. Take babies away from parents! Take away their jobs! Take away their healthcare! Ban them from life-saving surgeries! But in a totally not-fascist way!

[Sarcastr0]

As I recall you lot were trying to equate it with murder.
Kinda like the latest terrorism push.

[Brett Bellmore]

When somebody dies of arson, it IS classed as murder, even if the death was unintended.

And attempted arson of an occupied building IS attempted murder. That happened multiple times during the BLM/Antifa riots, not that we could get you to care.

Like I said, you can't seem to take arson seriously, what's up with that?

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

He doesn't take any crimes seriously when they're committed by and in service of his tribe.

Look at his diminishing of the ongoing, organized, and well-funded domestic terror campaign going on as we speak.

[Sarcastr0]

"When somebody dies of arson, it IS classed as murder"

Stop the presses.

That happened multiple times during the BLM/Antifa riots, not that we could get you to care.
I'm quite sure I didn't say murders by arson were fine, actually.

You continue to have issues with narrativizing liberals as villains.

[Commenter_XY]

Brett, isn't it obvious. It is (D)ifferent!

[Drewski]

Let's all remember the time this hypocrite advocated for lynching the North Carolina Supreme Court: https://reason.com/volokh/2022/08/19/north-carolina-state-supreme-court-makes-a-bold-move/?comments=true#comments

[bernard11]

Nobody downplayed arson. Go back and find someone who did.

Many of the liberal commenters here in fact specifically condemned those who engaged in arson or vandalism.

We did not, however, think that peaceful demonstrators should be considered criminals because of those acts by some.

[Bob from Ohio]

"peaceful demonstrators should be considered criminals because of those acts by some"

Offer does not apply to January 6, 2025.

[Bob from Ohio]

2021 of course

[jb]

Not so. I haven't seen anyone call for any sort of punishment for people standing outside the Capitol on Jan 6 and protesting there, and AIUI that was the vast majority of the participants/protestors that day.

[bernard11]

Actually, it does, despite your cultish beliefs.

[David Nieporent]

Of course this crime needs to be gone after. This isn’t a violent invasion of the Capitol, after all.

It was probably a false flag. I blame Kash Patel's FBI.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I missed the burning of the Capitol. Please post photos.

[Martinned2]

It turns out only the US is allowed to renegotiate (non-binding) deals.

Trump promises ‘big, big problems’ if Zelenskyy backs out of minerals deal

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

Those Obama-ites illegally and treasonously advising Zelenskyy are gonna get their justice.

[SRG2]

Treasonous? How so? Is Ukraine now an enemy, and Russia an ally?

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

They're advising Ukraine in ways that undermine US policy.

They are not registered as FARA agents.

That's treason.

[David Nieporent]

It literally is not treason. Nor would they need to be registered under FARA if all they were doing is advising the Ukrainian government. Also, this is all in your head.

[SRG2]

Treason is defined in the Constitution. You should try reading it sometime.

[apedad]

The Department of Justice Announces Affirmative Litigation Against the American Federation of Government Employees to Protect National Security

(Thursday, 3/27/25), the President issued an Executive Order entitled Exclusions from Federal Labor-Management Relations Programs. This order reflected the President’s determination that several federal agencies and subdivisions perform investigative and national security work and that those agencies may not be required to collectively bargain consistent with our national security.

The plaintiff agencies have collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) with the defendants, which are locals, councils, and Division 10 of the American Federation of Government Employees; those CBAs prevent the plaintiffs from implementing workforce policies that would help them further their national security missions. The plaintiff agencies therefore wish to terminate their CBAs. But to avoid unnecessary labor strife and to ensure legal certainty, they filed this declaratory judgment action to confirm that they are legally entitled to do so.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/department-justice-announces-affirmative-litigation-against-american-federation-government

" . . . they filed this declaratory judgment action to confirm that they are legally entitled to do so."

Alright, I'll buy this mother-may-I approach instead of the slash and burn - and then see if they get away with it.

[Commenter_XY]

What noted conservative wrote this, regarding collective bargaining for public sector employees?

All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations. The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress. Accordingly, administrative officials and employees alike are governed and guided, and in many instances restricted, by laws which establish policies, procedures, or rules in personnel matters.

Particularly, I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place in the functions of any organization of Government employees. Upon employees in the Federal service rests the obligation to serve the whole people, whose interests and welfare require orderliness and continuity in the conduct of Government activities. This obligation is paramount. Since their own services have to do with the functioning of the Government, a strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable.

Sounds like Reagan, doesn't it? It wasn't.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Could either been FDR or George Meaney -- both opposed public sector unions.

[SRG2]

I assume that the dislike of public sector unions extends to police unions.

[bernard11]

Since it's quiz time, who said(emphasis added):

The method that we have tried to adopt is reciprocal negotiation of tariff reductions with other countries. This seems to me a wrong procedure. In the first place, it ensures a slow pace. He moves fastest who moves alone. In the second place, it fosters an erroneous view of the basic problem. It makes it appear as if tariffs help the country imposing them but hurt other countries, as if when we reduce a tariff we give up something good and should get something in return in the form of a reduction in the tariffs imposed by other countries. In truth, the situation is quite different. Our tariffs hurt us as well as other countries. We would be benefited by dispensing with our tariffs even if other countries did not. We would of course be benefited even more if they reduce theirs but our benefiting does not require that they reduce tariffs. Self-interests coincide and do not conflict.

[Commenter_XY]

Answer: That notable conservative, Franklin Delano Roosevelt

[Commenter_XY]

Is jury nullification a way to address perceived injustice? Meaning, some of these legal cases against selected Trump admin policies will go to trial. Presumably with a jury.

If you're a lawyer defending a hamas harpy or homie, what stops you from trying jury nullification, especially in blue state paradises? That is a perfectly legitimate tactic, isn't it? There is nothing illegal about that, is there?

It isn't like I want that tactic to be successful, but is it a tactic a lawyer could adopt?

[not guilty]

Which part(ies), in which lawsuit(s) have demanded a jury? Every suit I am aware of seeks declaratory and/or injunctive relief, which in federal court is not triable as of right to a jury. A district judge theoretically could empanel an advisory jury under Fed.R.Civ.P. 39(c), but why would any judge want to do so?

[Brett Bellmore]

Yes, jury nullification is perfectly legitimate, it's the freaking POINT of having a jury system.

What stops you as a lawyer for a Hamas harpy or whatever from trying it, is the determination of judges to deprive the jury system of it's entire reason for existing.

[Frank Drackman]

haven't been on a Jury since 1983, when I was an unemployed College Screw-dent and $20/day and free lunch sounded pretty good for 2 weeks, (I pretended to be taking notes when I was really drawing the Krebs Cycle) get called occasionally, I pull the "I'm a Doctor" and get out of it, if I ever do serve, I'll be the one guy dissenting, just to be difficult, but I would never have convicted Jack Ruby, or Derek Chauvin (one killed a guy who deserved killing, the other just happened to be there when another guy who deserved killing killed himself (yes, taking an overdose of Fent-a-nol is "Killing Yourself)

Frank

[Brett Bellmore]

I used to have a "turkey cycle" modeled off the Krebs cycle; Roast, eat wings the first day, club sandwiches, make stock from the carcass, soup using instant ramen, which became casserole the next day, then use the stock in the stuffing roasting the next turkey...

Which reminds me, I should thaw another turkey...

[SRG2]

jury nullification is perfectly legitimate, it's the freaking POINT of having a jury system.

One of the points, certainly. US judges are very reluctant to tolerate even a mention of it, however, and it has a bad history in the US particularly with all-white juries in the South when the white defendant was accused of some crime of violence against a black victim.

In Britain it's been tolerated. particularly in cases of obscenity and official secrets. In the latter case, short version: defence barristers say that the government's secret classification was to cover up mistakes, and not to protect the national interest, contrary to the prosecution claim, juries acquit, legislation is passed to reserve the determination of national interest to the government so the jury cannot make an independent finding, defence barristers to the jury, "oh really?" Jury acquits.

[Bob from Ohio]

" it's the freaking POINT of having a jury system."

No, the point of the jury is to have a group of citizens decide if the government has met its burden of proof as to all the elements of an offense beyond a reasonable doubt.

Deciding that they don't like the law allegedly violated is not part of their function. Never was.

[Brett Bellmore]

I know this is shattering news, but William Penn was guilty. So was John Zenger.

[ducksalad]

Deciding that they don't like the law allegedly violated is not part of their function. Never was.

Maybe. In theory. Lawyers certainly say it but then lawyers do say stuff.

In the real world you have no practical way* to keep me off the jury, and no recourse when I vote to acquit for reasons you disapprove of.

And if it's a non-serious case where the defendant isn't dangerous, I even might vote to acquit for no other reason than to teach an obnoxious prosecutor a lesson.

----
*At least the first time. One assumes defiant jurors get put on some off-the-record blacklist prosecutors share among themselves and will get preemptively challenged the next time they're up.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Is jury nullification a way to address perceived injustice? Meaning, some of these legal cases against selected Trump admin policies will go to trial. Presumably with a jury.

It is extremely unlikely that any of these cases will go to trial, and I’m not aware of any that would be tried to a jury if they did.

[Commenter_XY]

Too bad, I would actually like to see some of these cases go to a jury.

[David Nieporent]

Meaning, some of these legal cases against selected Trump admin policies will go to trial. Presumably with a jury.

Virtually none of them will be jury trials. You get a jury if you're seeking money damages. Not if you're seeking to enjoin policies.

[Armchair]

Tesla protests escalate. Now anti-Tesla people are using vehicles to attack counter protesters.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/man-strikes-tesla-counter-protester-vehicle-idaho-police/story?id=120308032

Is it terrorism now?

[hobie]

Good people on both sides

[Michael P]

No, the anti-Tesla rioters are just a bunch of domestic terrorists.

As a 49-year-old man arrived at the Idaho rally, Christopher Talbot, 70, of Meridian, allegedly "made an obscene gesture" toward him and then struck him with his car, police said. Officials identified the man who was struck as a counter-protester, saying he had non-life-threatening injuries and that he drove himself to a nearby hospital.

"Reports indicate the victim had been driving a truck with pro-Trump flags and had just parked and exited his vehicle when Talbot struck him with his car," police said.

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

The saying now is "If you own a Tesla, get a gun".

I'm thinking about buying a Tesla just for the chance at some lawful shooty fun.

[Frank Drackman]

That's too nice, how about shoving the broken bottle up the throwers ass? then you light the rag, it could be called a "Molotov Suppository"

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

lol, I'm stealing that. That's going up on the Frank Hall of Fame.

[Sarcastr0]

Talbot was booked into Ada County Jail and charged with one count of aggravated battery, a felony, according to the Ada County Sheriff's Office

Why is this insufficient for you?

[Armchair]

Fighting terrorism involves going after the leadership and funding apparatus...not just the foot soldiers who are doing the attacks.

[hobie]

That's a good idea. [rubbing chin] Now who would be the de facto leader of America's right wing terror groups that regularly vandalize Jewish, Black and Gay institutions?

[Frank Drackman]

Hakeem the Bad Dream Jefferson for one, Representative Mulla Omar for another, the Very (wrong) Reverend Al Sharpton for 3,

[ThePublius]

"America's right wing terror groups that regularly vandalize Jewish, Black and Gay institutions?"

You keep pushing this stuff, but it's totally bogus. Show me examples of this regular vandalization of Jewish, Black, and Gay institutions. (Hint: there is none.)

Virtually ALL of the vandalization is coming from the left.

[Sarcastr0]

An old dude punched a Trump supporter. He's been duly charged.

Armchair is pushing this as a liberally-funded terrorist plot.

Dude wants a purge.

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

He's just following the data. I expect you approach your scientific policy advising with the same treatment... Ignore inconvenient facts, attack people who bring them up, and then support the goal you supported from the beginning.

Science!

[Sarcastr0]

Vehicular assault, do’h. I knew that.

[Armchair]

Don't blame yourself. It's BOTH....one incident of vehicular assault. Another separate incident of punching a Tesla owner. It's hard to keep all the assaults on Tesla owners straight.

That's before we get to the multiple counts of arson, gunshots, nazi vandalism, and more....

It's like it's "organized" or something.

[Sarcastr0]

That sounds chaotic and random, not like it’s organized at all.

[Armchair]

Glad to know that's how you say it's not organized terrorism...

"Well one guy beat the (Person of certain group) with a bat. The other guy beat him with a crow bar. The third guy beat him with a chain. But since they were different types of weapons, it wasn't organized"...

[Sarcastr0]

The burden is on you. You've provided no evidence of coordination between these events.

Confirmation bias is not going to get you where you want to go.

[Armchair]

Sorry, here's your organization.

https://www.teslatakedown.com/

"Hurting Tesla"

With firearms and arson and vehicular assault....

[Sarcastr0]

That’s a website. No sign of any relationship at all, much less coordination.

Are you arguing it’s behind all these anecdotes you posted?

This website is the smoking gun that there is a terrorist movement against Tesla?

You badly want this to be true for some reason. But you are just not up to actually providing evidence.

That doesn’t stop you.
You aren’t too bright, eh?

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

Because there are no terrorism escalators attached?

The terrorist organization and funding apparatus are still undermining our Sacred Democracy?

[bernard11]

Now anti-Tesla people are using vehicles to attack counter protesters.

Let me help you with that sentence:

One anti-Tesla protester used a vehicle to attack a counter-protestor.

(And isn't this the sort of thing you guys were defending and encouraging not long ago, urging people to drive cars into crowds?)

[Armchair]

"(And isn't this the sort of thing you guys were defending and encouraging not long ago, urging people to drive cars into crowds?)"

-No. That was roundly condemned. (and in case you need it, once again, I condemn it). More importantly, that criminal was charged with multiple hate crime counts, assault, and so on, and was justifiably convicted.

BUT....when someone on the "other side" uses a vehicle to assault a protestor...it is seemingly blown off by people on your side.

[bernard11]

I wasn't just talking about the Charlottesville case.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Not hitting crowds standing on sidewalks where they belong....

[Kazinski]

This is pretty close to terrorism 33 year old man boxes in a 60 year old woman driving a Tesla, gets out of his car and starts punching her.

https://www.wral.com/video/on-cam-tesla-driver-attacked-on-road/21936007/

[Sarcastr0]

What makes that close to terrorism?

It’s a crime; is criminal law not sufficient somehow?

[Life of Brian]

It’s a crime; is criminal law not sufficient somehow?

I recall a number of us asking this exact question during the ooo-shiny phase of "hate crime" laws. Lots of folks (I'm sure not you) patiently explained that of course it's entirely appropriate to look beyond the actual acts and prescribe additional punishment based on the motivation behind them.

[Sarcastr0]

My issue is with mau-mauing into domestic terrorism, with all that does for civil liberties.

It is not with intent as an element of some crimes; that's fine.

Though I do tend to think hate crime laws are too fiddly to be of good use.

[Kazinski]

terrorism
/tĕr′ə-rĭz″əm/

noun
The use of violence or the threat of violence, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political goals.

A woman was stopped while driving on a public road and punched because someone doesn't like the politics of the CEO of the car company, and wants to put fear into people who drive his cars?

I take it back, its not close to terrorism, its the textbook definition of it.

[Sarcastr0]

I hate Musk isn’t a political goal.

Your only evidence otherwise is speculation about a larger plan.

[Kazinski]

You are absolutely ridiculous.

As you said a couple of weeks ago: "unserious", but certainly not trolling, more like unintentional parody.

[Sarcastr0]

I'm unserious? You're arguing that we're currently suffering under a campaign of domestic terrorism!

We've experienced terrorism. This isn't it.

You may take yourself seriously, but arguments like this are pure drama queen.

[Kazinski]

I am not saying this is a serious incident of terrorism, but its definitely on the scale, by definition.

What makes you so ridiculous is when confronted by the actual dictionary definition of terrorism, you try to squirm out of it by claiming there is no political component to it.

Like all the sudden people found out Elon is a bad tipper, and that's why they are keying teslas.

Just ignoring Jasmine Crockett, Tim Walz, Elizabeth Warren, Maxine Waters, etc rantings about Elon.

And you know it, but you twist yourself in a pretzel anyway.

I don't agree with Trump/Rubio targeting Khalil for his speech, but I will freely admit that's what they are doing, while acknowledging they have legal sufficiency to deport him.

I don't make excuses for them targeting Perkins Coie etc, its plainly political and personal revenge, part of me wishes Trump was a less petty, but I also think they have it coming.

If you don't want to make yourself ridiculous then don't reflexively try to refute things everyone knows are true, save your arguments for areas of legitimate disagreement.

[Sarcastr0]

“on the scale, by definition.”

Unclear. And pointlessly formalistic.

Sorry I use words like a normal person.

This is the first time you’ve mentioned not agreeing with Trump.

And they have it coming? Was their skirt too short.
If you can’t take a (newly revealed) heterodox position without weaseling maybe. This wasn’t the right front to take.

You say you want to burn all it down. So forgive me if I find your ‘I’m not a tribal fuckhead’ dance unconvincing.

[Commenter_XY]

The truly hilarious aspect is that he is completely unaware of it. Priceless.

[Frank Drackman]

Ever try and make a "Molotov Cocktail" ?? Idiots use gasoline instead of diesel, (No, I don't know from first hand experience, my Cocktail skills are limited to Martinis (real ones, with Gin) and Old Fashioneds) If the current bombers are anything like former Weatherman/Osama Benefactor Bill Ayers, they'll kill more or each other than any Tesla owners (Bill offed his girlfriend at the time, righteous!)

Frank

[Brett Bellmore]

A lot of people don't realize that: The ignition temperature of diesel is below its boiling point, the ignition temperature of gasoline is way above its boiling point. The result is that splashed gasoline tends to extinguish, while splashed diesel burns.

That's why we didn't soak our cattails in gasoline to make torches as kids. We used oil.

[Dr. Ed 2]

JP-4, the primary USAF jet fuel between 1951 and 1995, was a 50%/50% mixture of gasoline and kerosene. The USN used JP8 which wasn't as volatile because they were on ships, but the reason the USAF used this, I was told, was because it was more explosive than either gasoline or kerosene alone and the military needed to be able to take off instantly while civillian aircraft could warm up the engines.

The other thing about gasoline is that liquid gasoline will not burn, only the vapor, while I believe that liquid oil will. At -35 degrees, i.e. a can of gasoline left outdoors overnight at that (or a lower) temperature and poured into an open top tin can, will NOT catch fire when you drop a lit match into it. It goes out as if dropped into water, as will the next couple. Eventually there is enough (heavier than air) gasoline vapor in the can to catch, and that produces enough heat to boil off some more, and within a minute the whole can is burning.

The other interesting thing is that *at* zero degrees (F), Diesel trucks start blowing a steady column of steam out the exhaust.

[Absaroka]

At any temperature any engine that burns hydrocarbons[1] is putting out water vapor and CO2. That water vapor may or may not be visible as steam depending on the temperature of the exhaust and ambient conditions.

[1]hydro...carbons!!!

[Moderation4ever]

No, because as a retired chemist, I understand that working with explosive chemicals is a good way to blow yourself up. Risk management experts will tell you It is usually not a case of "if", but rather "when".

[Frank Drackman]

Sort of like the book
"Identification of Poisonous Mushrooms, how to Tell a Mushroom from a Toadstool"
by the late Doctor Morton Keptstoned.

that's from one of the funniest Gilligan's Island episodes, "The Postman Cometh"
When they learn that Mary Ann's boyfriend back home has moved on to another girl, Gilligan, Skipper, and the Professor try to boost her confidence by competing for her attention, each taking a different romantic approach. Overwhelmed by their antics, Mary Ann dreams that she is a terminally ill patient on her favorite radio soap opera

Frank

[John F. Carr]

Axios reports Israel is trying to find countries willing to take Palestinians from Gaza. Candidates include South Sudan and Somalia. Israel should check with Rwanda, which was willing to take migrants from the UK if the price was right. Indonesia, with the world's largest Muslim population, is also on the list.

https://www.axios.com/2025/03/28/israel-move-palestinians-gaza-indonesia-somalia

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

If they want to ship them to Somalia, why not Minnesota?

[Frank Drackman]

Word! there are parts of MSP where you'd swear you were in Terror-Anne

[Commenter_XY]

It is going to happen, John F Carr, the gazans will leave.

[Martinned2]

Have they tried Madagascar?

[hobie]

A hilarious island if movies are to be believed

[hobie]

Just 'disappear' them like we now do in America.

Better yet, load 'em into boxcars and ship 'em to a ghetto in Warsaw

[ThePublius]

Who's disappearing people in America?

[Brett Bellmore]

Planned Parenthood?

[Frank Drackman]

Only 60 million or so Afro-Amuricans

[Dr. Ed 2]

I want to know who rebuilt the tracks into Auschwitz and why.
Not only are they in very good shape, but they have screws instead of spikes, that's fairly new technology, definitely Post-WWII.

[David Nieporent]

The last time you made this claim, someone patiently explained you were wrong. And yet, you felt the need to repeat the wrong thing over again. Why?

[Absaroka]

It's rather a pattern of his. Ed doesn't seem to be a fan of learning.

Train minutiae aside, why is upkeep of museum displays surprising? They replace rotten wood in USS Constitution from time to time, and I'd bet good money the rigging isn't original. Ditto for the wheels on the cannon at Gettysburg.

He will no doubt be shocked to learn the rails at the Golden Spike National Historical Park aren't original. What sinister motive is behind that?

"Although the line was abandoned in 1904 (bypassed by the Lucin Cutoff) and the original rails were removed in 1942 to serve the war effort, the site presently includes 2 miles (3.2 km) of rebuilt track from the summit area (where the rail systems were joined) to a train storage building. The rebuilt track was designed to be an authentic representation of the 1869 rails."

It's not even the real Golden Spike! What are they trying to hide!

[Martinned2]

Indeed. In camp Westerbork, the main Dutch concentration camp from where the Germans transported people to Auschwitz, has train tracks bent to point towards the heavens.

https://kampwesterbork.nl/en/

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

El Salvador seems willing?

[Armchair]

Is it terrorism now?

Perhaps the most inexplicable item here...the 2017 shooting of Congressional Republicans at a baseball practice by left-wing extremist James Hodgkinson. Even the DA for Alexandria called it terrorism.

But the FBI strangely labelled it "Suicide by cop" for years, with the labelling led by Andrew McCabe.

https://justthenews.com/government/security/kash-patel-says-fbis-yearslong-stonewalling-2017-congressional-baseball

Why label it "Suicide by cop?" One potential answer...a label of "terrorism" may have mandated certain items and investigations...and McCabe didn't want that.

[Sarcastr0]

2017. Internal document. Kesh Patel seeming kinda desperate to show Trump he's doing something.

So you're just going to use deep cuts like this to argue...what, the left are terrorist antisemites and should be purged?

This is lame as fuck.

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

Great comment! The Great Contribut0 strikes again! We ain't a bunch of Charlie Brown's that's for sure. We get to see The Great Contribut0!

[Armchair]

It's coming out now, but it's very very odd that such a direct terrorist attack was labelled as "suicide by cop".

Again, why? Why the resistance to changing it? These are important questions.

[Sarcastr0]

it's very very odd

I don't know the internal culture of the FBI enough to judge what we should be seeing in deep cut FOUO docs, nor do I care.

You're trying to jump this up into a scandal. I've been surprised by what the right can get moving before, but this seems a helluva reach.

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

Looking into a crazed Bernie Sanders campaign worker shooting up a Congressional baseball game and then being diminished and covered up by the FBI is just ginning up fake scandals, guys!!!

People shoot at Congressmen all the time, it's totally normal and totally not anything worth thinking about! I'm surprised people are talking about, sheesh!?!!?

[tylertusta]

The internal designation of the 2017 assassination attempt became public a few years ago. As I recall, it came out from some official from the DOJ/FBI who was testifying in front of a Congressional committee. This official was trying to spin it and Congress was not having any of it.

It wasn't long after that when the government belatedly reclassified the incident as domestic terrorism.

[tylertusta]

Why label it "Suicide by cop?"

Cui bono?

In my view, it was a convergence of motives.

Trump's enemies didn't want him or his allies in Congress to seem sympathetic, and as we may recall the Resistance was in full swing at that time.

Additionally, there's a tendency for people to rationalize away bad behavior from their in-group. In this case, the in-group is the left, hence the editorial decisions to minimize the attempted assassination from much of the media.

[David Nieporent]

Director Patel did in hours what previous FBI leadership couldn’t do in 8 years,"

Weird how they sort of forget to mention who appointed that previous FBI leadership.

Also, they provide nothing except their perennial victim complex for why the hell it matters. No, a label of terrorism doesn't "mandate certain items and investigations," whatever that handwavy language is supposed to mean.

[tylertusta]

I think you of all people would agree that Trump didn't always make good choices for his nominations.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

It's more the apparent belief that whatever happened didn't really happen, "because reasons"...

[Noscitur a sociis]

Conspicuously absent from that article: anything indicating that Andrew McCabe or anyone else at the FBI did label it “suicide by cop”.

[Armchair]

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/29/fbi-suicide-by-cop-2017-baseball-shooting-485002

[Commenter_XY]

Ouch. LOL.

[Noscitur a sociis]

I think you probably mean this one:

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/21/2017-baseball-field-shooting-fbi-conculsion-483993

It’s still a little thin on exactly what what the FBI did that they’re complaining about. (To be clear, I’m not disputing that the FBI did it. But I’d know exactly what happened before getting mad about it.)

[David Nieporent]

It’s still a little thin on exactly what what the FBI did that they’re complaining about.

As far as I can tell, they wanted the FBI — Trump's FBI, mind you — to declare it an act of terrorism so that they could go around saying, "We were the victims of a terrorist attack."

[Armchair]

"As far as I can tell, "

And you base that on what evidence exactly?

[David Nieporent]

On reading what they wrote.

[Armchair]

Well, they (The FBI) did hold onto the files for 8 years, despite Congress repeatedly asking for them.

I can see wanting to know first. But if I wanted to know, and then for 8 years the FBI stonewalled on providing the files...I might get a little mad and suspicious.

[Sarcastr0]

So the substance may be small beans, but you think the procedure is enough to get yourself some domestic terrorism wank.

It's not news to say that the FBI is too abstemious with requests for information. Not sure that's evidence they're covering up a big terrorism by calling it something else.

[David Nieporent]

But if I wanted to know, and then for 8 years the FBI stonewalled on providing the files...I might get a little mad and suspicious.

How's your examination of the JFK files going?

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

I asked this yesterday, and no one took me up.

Why do CJ Roberts and many others assert that judges are just impartial umpires interpreting the law and demanding they be treated as such, while plaintiffs judge shop and judges play "keep away" from other judges?

Why is it beyond the pale for President Trump to just state out loud what we all can easily infer from the behaviors of the people in the judicial system?

Seriously, why do we have to pretend these judges are neutral umpires when they clearly are not? ...as strongly indicated by activities like judge shopping and the judges intentionally playing keep-away from other districts.

Is this a key part of the same fake reality that Democrats live in? Is that what political correctness is all about? Maintaining some fake reality?

[SRG2]

You were doing fine up until this: "Is this a key part of the same fake reality that Democrats live in? "

It is a fiction that judges are neutral, but a useful one. They are certainly more inclined to neutrality in judgment than the rest of us - note how some Trump-appointed judges ruled against him during the Sreal hoax. But it is utterly preposterous to suppose that this fake reality is limited to Democrats. The whole idea of "originalist" jurisprudence was to devise a spurious claim to neutrality while supporting conservative positions.

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

Those are some good points. Let me add a little more context to my statement. CJ Roberts as aghast that someone would insinuate judges are biased.

That is when the fiction of judges being neutral isn't useful to society, it's used to prop up a fake and unearned reputation and is only useful to the biased judges.

If CJ Roberts is concerned about the reputation of the Judiciary, he should take action instead of getting butthurt when someone expresses what we all know to be true.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

"The whole idea of "originalist" jurisprudence was to devise a spurious claim to neutrality while supporting conservative positions."

That is not true.

I'm sure there are some people who adopted originalist jurisprudence based on expected outcomes, but the same is obviously also the case for other forms of jurisprudence.

[Armchair]

"Tesla takedown" or Astroturf?

https://www.fairfaxtimes.com/articles/local-teslatakedown-reveals-grassroots-protests-are-astroturf/article_1c368d4d-708c-4074-b5fa-5eaf6a32ea97.html

"Shouts rang out last Saturday at the Tesla dealership on Tyco Road in Tysons, as they have across the country since late February when fiery #TeslaTakedown protests started targeting Tesla founder Elon Musk for his work in the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

“Recall Elon!”

“People over profits!”

A man shouted into a bullhorn: “Tell me what democracy looks like.”

The crowd responded, “This is what democracy looks like.”

But as the man juggled an anti-Elon sign, his bullhorn and a script with pre-written chants, the Tyco Road protest, its organizers, and its participants revealed a broader story about the #TeslaTakedown events popping up nationwide: the AstroTurf nature of the multimillion-dollar professional protest industry, with the footprints of two behemoth enterprises, a $12.6 million political nonprofit, the Indivisible Project, and the Democratic Party. While local chapters of the Democratic Party have put their names to only a small percentage of the protests, their direct involvement is important because it underscores the partisan motivation behind some of the protests."

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

Everything the Left does is astroturfed. They have no real support.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm not sure everything they do is astroturfed, but certainly an enormous percentage of it is.

I think that's why the USAID cuts terrify them. Their whole activism ecosystem is threatened if the funds being laundered that way are cut off; They can't afford to finance it themselves.

[Sarcastr0]

Certainly!

That USAID was funding leftist American protests is one of those things that should require evidence. Not for Brett!

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

lol, broaden your news horizons. They've found 20 NGOs funding these events, many are former recipients of USAID.

When are you gonna get sick of being so embarrasingly low-information and do something about it?

Probably around the same time you find where you lost your principles and stop working for a Fascist Regime.

[Joe_dallas]

Magnus - he lives in a leftist echo chamber. Why would you expect him to know what is happening in the real world outside that bubble.

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

I'm hoping that if I Sarcastr0 him enough, he'll develop a sense of self-awareness.

I've been working on him for years, he's my passion project.

[Michael P]

Why are Democrats so eager to boast that Democrat-cy looks like astroturf mobs harassing businesses?

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

And terrorizing citizens... don't leave off that important part.

[David Nieporent]

While local chapters of the Democratic Party have put their names to only a small percentage of the protests, their direct involvement is important because it underscores the partisan motivation behind some of the protests."

Sometimes MAGA are stupid, and sometimes they're incomprehensibly stupid. All of the protests have partisan motivation! So what??!?!?! What does that have to do with whether they're "grassroots" or not?

[Armchair]

"So what??!?!?!"

Why is Astroturfing an issue?

"Astroturfing is the deceptive practice of hiding the sponsors of an orchestrated message or organization (e.g., political, economic, advertising, religious, or public relations) to make it appear as though it originates from, and is supported by, unsolicited grassroots participants. It is a practice intended to give the statements or organizations credibility by withholding information about the source's financial backers.

The implication behind the use of the term is that instead of a "true" or "natural" grassroots effort behind the activity in question, there is a "fake" or "artificial" appearance of support. It is increasingly recognized as a problem in social media, e-commerce, and politics. Astroturfing can influence public opinion by flooding platforms like political blogs, news sites, and review websites with manipulated content. Some groups accused of astroturfing argue that they are legitimately helping citizen activists to make their voices heard."

"In the book Grassroots for Hire: Public Affairs Consultants in American Democracy, Edward Walker defines "astroturfing" as public participation that is perceived as heavily incented, as fraudulent (claims are attributed to those who did not make such statements), or as an elite campaign masquerading as a mass movement.[18] Although not all campaigns by professional grassroots lobbying consultants meet this definition, the book finds that the elite-sponsored grassroots campaigns often fail when they are not transparent about their sources of sponsorship and/or fail to develop partnerships with constituencies that have an independent interest in the issue. "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing

[David Nieporent]

It's like you didn't read what I wrote. I didn't ask what astroturfing was. I asked why it mattered if it had "partisan motivation."

[Armchair]

If you don't understand what Astroturfing is (and you clearly didn't)...then I needed to provide more knowledge for you.

I'm doing that a lot lately.

[Sarcastr0]

Clearly!

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

2.1 million new non-citizen Social Security Numbers were issued in FY2024

That's a lot of Democrat voters, and they still lost... lol

[Frank Drackman]

C'mon Man, they can't vote!

[Joe_dallas]

Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2 2 hours ago
Flag Comment
Mute User
"2.1 million new non-citizen Social Security Numbers were issued in FY2024."

A searchable data base to confirm that a person is a citizen or is here legally! Lets pretend ICE doesnt confirm ID prior to deporation

[David Nieporent]

That is not any voters.

[Frank Drackman]

Want a Doomsday Scenario?
The 20th Amendment, which does more than just set the beginning date for Presidential terms, in short, it, wait, you're mostly all Shysters, I'll just cite the pertinent clauses,

Section 3. If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President-elect shall have died, the Vice President-elect shall become President. If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President-elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President-elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified; and the CONGRESS MAY BY LAW PROVIDE FOR THE CASE wherein neither a President-elect nor a Vice President-elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified.
Capitalized the one section for the Slow Conspirators (Bronx Joe), but it's only been 92 years and Congress still hasn't made any laws for such a Sitch-you-Asian.
Unlikely scenario, sure, like Voters not understanding a "Butterfly" ballot, that's what we Gaspassers do, look at the worst case Scenario, for example, if you have low levels of Psuedocholinesterase, you'll be paralyzed for hours from the typical dose of Succinylcholine used for intubation instead of a few minutes. And if you carry the gene for Malignant Hyperthermia you'll be dead within minutes of exposure to the volatile Anesthetics unless you're treated immediately with Dantrolene (does your local Surgi-center have it? it's not expired? anyone know how to give it?)

Frank

[Armchair]

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, currently one of the top Democratic candidates for New Jersey governor,

"“Now the enemy comes in. You, the Crips, and the Bloods, they’ll send people in to give you rumors about your brother over there. These demons will even kill a policeman and then blame it on you. You dealing with a devil, man. You’re not dealing with righteous people. This cracker is the real devil. And you better wake up and realize that.”"

This is who the Democrats want to lead NJ....

https://jonathanturley.org/2025/03/29/reimagine-new-jersey-newark-mayor-ras-baraka-shown-in-video-supporting-farrakhans-racist-violent-views/

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

That's mainstream Democrat thought. He's a shoe-in, Democrats are counting the votes.

[David Nieporent]

What evidence is there that "This is who the Democrats want to lead NJ"? He's one of six declared candidates and has gotten exactly zero primary votes so far.

[Armchair]

What evidence is there that "This is who the Democrats want to lead NJ"

Just those pesky polls where Baraka has the highest net approval of any of those candidates AND the highest name recognition. Just that.

[David Nieporent]

So we'll just put you down as bad at math, then. Or logic. No, having higher net favorable in a poll (even if the election were to be held today, which of course it isn't) does not mean that most respondents would pick that candidate in more than a two-candidate race.

[Armchair]

You asked for evidence. Not 100% guaranteed results. I provided evidence. High favorability and name recognition in a limited field is "evidence" of people's intentions

Don't blame me if you can't word your questions properly.

[Sarcastr0]

Your thesis is: "This is who the Democrats want to lead NJ."

High name recognition cuts *against* your thesis. It fuels approval ratings without indicating actual approval.

[Commenter_XY]

Sounds like T-Bone, Cory Booker's friend.

[Michael P]

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna197046

New conversations with Black men who voted for Donald Trump in swing states in November showed that nearly all of them remain staunchly with him, but his administration’s Department of Government Efficiency and his tariffs are potential pain points for the president among his supporters.

So much for supposed voters' remorse.

[Riva]

Does no one care about the blatant cheating of the Yankees? They’re going to destroy baseball. Every home run record is now meaningless. I despise the Yankees as much as democrats.

[Frank Drackman]

Maybe the Brewers should get some MLB pitchers

[ThePublius]

So, they designed a new bat, with the help of MIT, that's within the specs/limits of MLB bats. How is that cheating?

[Longtobefree]

Because it's the Yankees!!!

[Frank Drackman]

Bob Gibson or Don Drysdale would have nipped this BS in the effing Bud (ht B Fife)
Hard to hit a 98mph fastball at your ear,
Used to pitch in Highschool, I’d throw at batters just to “keep them loose”

[Riva]

The redesigned “bat” is not a bat. It is something never used professionally in the sport. And It was used in an underhanded way to give the yankees an unfair advantage.

Did I mention how much I hate the Yankees? Of course, I genuinely loathe NY too. But the Yankees are a special kind of contemptible.

[Frank Drackman]

Wait! there's more!
Section 4. The Congress may by law provide for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the House of Representatives may choose a President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them, and for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the Senate may choose a Vice President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them.
So suppose the 2024 Erection had been thrown to the House (I know, crazy, but imagine that the DemoKKKrat's had a candidate, I don't know, like Sleepy Joe, who could actually win some of the "Battleground" States
Erection goes to the House, each state voting separately (Yes, the one Representative from Alaska, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming, get the same votes as all of the representatives from California, Texas, Florida, New York...
OK, the erection goes to the House, Sleepy Joe dies, does "45" become "47" by default?

Frank

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

Taking a 30,000 ft view on the Democracy Protectors actions, globally, over the past few years...

What's one striking pattern starting to emerge? If you're an outsider, popular politician, the institutions are going to go after you.

You see, they have to imprison you or ban you from office (or attempt to), to save Democracy! Because that's what saving Democracy looks like, disenfranchising millions of voters! Then you can further save Democracy by making illegal to tweet a criticism about their tactics!

Now that's how you find consensus! Ban any non-consensus expression!

Also, two years from now people like SRG will be saying "See, Britain loves their big government, no one ever complains!"

[hobie]

"You see, they have to imprison you or ban you from office (or attempt to), to save Democracy!"

MAGA runs all branches of government. Have been for months. If anyone disappears off the streets, or if any college or law firm or city gets cancelled...guess who's doing it

"Then you can further save Democracy by making illegal to tweet a criticism about their tactics!"

Want me to flesh that one out for you? See above...

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

They don't run the Deep State branch, the Mainstream Media branch, nor do they run the 667 district judges whom they have to seek unanimous consent from to implement any MAGA policy.

[ThePublius]

You lie like a rug. Think Trump runs the judiciary? And you think he's 'disappearing' people? Give me a break.

[Sarcastr0]

Grabbing people for their speech and not telling their lawyer where they are sure has the shape of disappearing someone.

I like to think we've kept up on everyone they've done this to, but how would we know?

[Bob from Ohio]

"shape of disappearing"

Her location is on the ICE website I believe. Plus everyone literally knows her location.

[A Japanese Student]

Here in Japan, a new fiscal year starts in hours. The House of Councilors passed the budget with an amendment earlier today, and the House of Representatives concurred just now. This is the first time a budget was amended in the House of Councilors before passage.

Ordinarily the lower house would pass the budget by March 2, starting 30-day clock for automatic approval. Being in a minority government precluded this option. In addition, the Cabinet, facing criticisms from doctors and patients, postponed some changes to health insurance systems. (They wanted to raise the maximum amount a patient has to pay per month.) This required changes to the budget.

[hobie]

I actually heard about this on NPR this morning. It's nice having a news source that investigates and reports things.

I also keep seeing videos on the ridiculously cheap houses out in the Japanese boonies. Some say it is a gold mine, but more say only a fool would buy into it. What say you?

[Frank Drackman]

You’re just the fool they’re looking for, I hear there’s some really hot properties in Fukushima, OK, you like National Pubic Radio, but why not mention One Amurica News? If you actually want investigative reporting

[Brett Bellmore]

You can get really cheap houses in the boonies in Japan and Italy. The difference being, the Italians would actually let you immigrate so you could live in one. Immigrating to Japan is practically impossible.

[Dr. Ed 2]

We had that problem in the 1960s and early 1970s.

[Dr. Ed 2]

"‘Lives Are in Danger’ After a Trump Admin Spreadsheet Leak, Sources Say" https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-leak-danger-spreadsheet-state-department-usaid-1235306394/

This is bullshite -- if we can't be told what USAID was doing, they ought not have been doing it.

And as to LGBTQUXYZ being unpopular in some parts of the world, what the hell ever happened to respecting other people's cultures and religions? Why is this the ONLY time we don't?

And why are we subsidizing LGBTQUXYZ activism anyway?!?

Sunlight is the best disinfectant and I think we should have every dollar accounted for on a public website. Don't want this, don't spend taxpayer dollars...

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

Lives are in danger if the government operates in sunlight!!

Won't someone please think of the endangered lives!!!

[Frank Drackman]

Watching the Marxist Stream Media literally cream themselves over Congresswoman Vicki Spartz (R, IN) getting yelled at a "Town Meeting" (usually attended by the Town Idiots)
Somehow I'm not believing all these Whitey-White flannel wearing doughy middle aged White guys are all outraged some Towel-head foreign exchange student at Columbia is being deported.
"A man from Westfield asked Spartz about the Trump administration’s efforts to deport people who are not legally in the U.S., including whether those threatened with deportation deserve “due process.”
Spartz, who was born in Ukraine, told the crowd she came to the country legally. People who do not follow the legal processes should not get due process, she said.
The response drew one of many waves of boos and shouts that punctuated the course of the evening."

[BBradley273]

the same left wing terrorist apologists who love the islamic radicals in hamas are cool with men busting in other men's arseholes

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

yawn

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

This is what I call a "hole in one" mutation. Buh-bye!

[Bored Lawyer]

And in the scandals-you-are-not-going-to-hear-about department:

Study found US gas exports did not impact climate change, so Biden admin buried it, officials say
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-buried-govt-study-us-gas-exports-cut-against-climate-goals-officials-say

The U.S. exports of Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) were increasing, mostly to Europe. This not only helped our European allies, but weakened Russia, which makes a lot of revenue from selling natural gas to Western Europe. Environmentalists protested, so the Biden Administration halted it, and commissioned a climate change study. Surprise, study said that exporting LNG would not affect the global climate. So Biden buried the report.

So US industry was weakened, Europe became more dependent on Russia, and Putin was strengthened.

Next time someone complains about how Trump loves Putin too much, remind them of this fiasco. (And, yes, IMO, Trump needs to start using the stick on the Putin donkey.)

[Brett Bellmore]

Reminds me of the time that Obama canceled the low radiation dose study, just in time to prevent them from reporting that the LNT hypothesis was total hooey, and radiation hormesis was the real deal, thus undermining decades of anti-nuke regulations.

Democrats only like science when it says what they want to hear...

[JoeFromtheBronx]

The First Amendment definitely protects aliens against criminal prosecution for speech. That’s why I’ve objected to referring to these folks as criminals. But the federal government can deport for pure foreign policy reasons

There is not a "no law involving criminal prosecution" limit to the 1A. They can deport for a variety of reasons.

They cannot do it in a way that violates the First Amendment. The 1A is not just a barrier to illicit criminal laws. And, whatever the reason, including "foreign policy," Congress is restrained.

There are other limits, including due process of law.

[Bored Lawyer]

You are assuming that aliens have the same First Amendment rights as citizens. They don't. There are lots of noxious ideologies that citizens have a right to express (e.g., the Nazis have a right to march in Skokie). That does not mean that the First Amendment bars the State Department from denying a visa to an avowed Nazi. Or deporting an alien who came here and then began spouting Nazi ideology.

[BBradley273]

there's a policy argument for giving more protections to green card holders than other aliens, but in the end, they're not entitled to any. become a citizen if you want full rights.

[Sarcastr0]

You are stating what you want the law to be, not what the law is.

And what you want the law to be is kinda shitty for a free society.

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

Do you think it's shittier than banning gas stoves or banning low-cost high deductible healthcare?

[David Nieporent]

I don't approve of any of those bans, but the constitution doesn't protect appliances; it does protect speech.

[apedad]

In the 1945 case Bridges v. Wixon, Justice Douglas defended the First Amendment rights of resident aliens, noting that the First Amendment makes “no exception in favor of deportation laws.” The majority in Verdugo-Urquidez acknowledged a contrary holding in Plyler v. Doe, granting that illegal immigrants were protected by the Equal Protection Clause. Finally, the Court ruled in the 2001 case Zadvydas v. Davis that the federal government’s power to enforce immigration law “is subject to important constitutional limitations.”

https://jolt.law.harvard.edu/digest/rojas-v-moore-immigrants-and-the-first-amendment

Sheesh BL, at least Google shit before you spew nonsense.

[Josh R]

"[N]o exception in favor of deportation laws" is from Murphy's concurrence, not Douglas' opinion. It's not settled law.

[Sarcastr0]

Yes, this is my understanding as well. Anyone making grand pronouncements about the law coming down on one side or the other is ahead of their skis.

That being said, I think wanting to regulate the speech of immigrants shows you to be an enemy of liberty independent of the formal legality.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Douglas rested on due process ("The rules are designed to protect the interests of the alien and to afford him due process of law.") without deciding the wider issues ("unnecessary for us to consider the larger constitutional questions"). That often applies today. Moving past first principles -- which we should think about -- due process protections show the Administration is overstepping.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

You are assuming that aliens have the same First Amendment rights as citizens.

Where? I said that the 1A limits Congress. I didn't say noncitizens have the "same" rights as citizens in that context. Both have some.

[Bored Lawyer]

Then that begs the question. Do aliens have the right to promote ideology that is antithetical to US values? Use my example of a Nazi applying for a visa, or who got one and now the US wishes to deport him.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

I spoke broadly about the 1A not only supplying limits on criminal prosecutions. We can discuss other things, including how entry and deportation are not the same thing. etc.

(I'll now provide a longer discussion that goes beyond my original comment.)

The Supreme Court has held that Congress has broad power to not allow entry. Cases like Trump v. Hawaii applied entry criteria that set forth certain requirements. It held that they were applied legitimately. A Nazi applying for a visa would have some protection from the guidelines for denial being apply arbitrarily.

That opinion also addressed claims that the Establishment Clause was violated. It held that the EC was not violated. EC still applied.

The opinion also noted:

although foreign nationals seeking admission have no constitutional right to entry, this Court has engaged in a circumscribed judicial inquiry when the denial of a visa allegedly burdens the constitutional rights of a U. S. citizen.

Another limit on the denial of a visa. It shows even regarding entry, the Constitution might provide a limit.

Once a noncitizen is already in the country, they have the right to speak and pray in ways deemed "antithetical to US values." That is an open-ended and vague thing.

Congress has the power to deport people for breaking the law and a variety of other things if due process is followed. I put aside how good a policy that might be.

Some vague "antithetical to US values" ground does not seem constitutional to me, acknowledging, as one person noted, just how far the law goes has not been pressed.

[Bored Lawyer]

I was not writing a statute. An ideology that would require dismantling of a republican form of government (Nazism, fascism) or that promotes racial supremacy (Nazism, South African apartheid) or that promotes violence and terrorism to advance political goals should all be a basis for exclusion.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Answering the limited question cited here, mere advocacy in my view is a problematic reason to block entry, but current law broadly allows it. Noting even there as applied the rule might be problematic. Once here, it is even more problematic to deport for mere advocacy especially given the open-ended way one or more of those things are defined. Trump's very contestable position on numerous "Americana" positions underlines the point.

[Josh R]

Right. The point is Trump gets to decide what ideologies justify deportation, which shockingly enough, could be anything bad said about him or his policies (Gulf of Mexico, you're outa here).

[Commenter_XY]

Except that it isn't anti-Trump statements that got these students visas and/or green cards revoked.

What DID get them revoked was espousing support for hamas, a Judeocidal terror group. And in the case of many, harassment of Jewish students, property destruction, vandalism. There is no question that their attendance at (and support for) hamas rallies is completely at odds with our foreign policy.

I don't think any student visa or green card holder will be deported for simply saying, "Yo, Trump is an asshole!" It hasn't happened yet, though I grant there are 45 months to go, and who knows what could happen (ok, I am just messing with you now, lol).

[David Nieporent]

The Turkish grad student from Tufts did not espouse support for Hamas. Nor is there any allegation — let alone evidence! — that she harassed anyone, destroyed any property, or vandalized anything.

[Josh R]

Trump is arguing that he is authorized to deport any alien he determines harms the USA. You should be against given the King that power.

[Bob from Ohio]

"There are other limits, including due process of law."

If we cannot police student visa holders for bad behavior and speech less than criminal acts, the only solution is no more student visas.

[Sarcastr0]

Solution to…what problem exactly?

[Bob from Ohio]

"bad behavior and speech less than criminal acts" as I said

[Sarcastr0]

Gotta keep that Ideological hygiene up!

[Bob from Ohio]

they're just guests. They don't get to crap in our beds like a citizen does.

[Frank Drackman]

That’s a Bingo!
Is that how you say it?
“That’s a Bingo”?

[Sarcastr0]

You didn't even blink at the concept of ideological hygiene being enforced by the government.

[Bob from Ohio]

I didn't fully understand it, just figured you disagreed, didn't know I had to blink.

I suppose it is a Nazi reference based on your response.

[Sarcastr0]

No it’s not a reference, it’s just a terrible dystopian concept.

[Bored Lawyer]

Due process is not limited to criminal acts, though. Even a civil deprivation requires some level of notice and hearing.

For example, suppose a policeman misbehaves against a suspect, e.g., assaults him. He might be subject to criminal prosecution. He might be subject to a civil suit for damages for violating his Constitutional rights. Or he might be subject to dismissal from the force as unfit. Each of these have different levels of procedure that are required; not surprisingly, it's easier to dismiss the cop for being unfit than to convict him and send him to jail. But due process governs all of them, it's just that different process is "due."

[JoeFromtheBronx]

A French court convicted French far-right leader Marine Le Pen of embezzlement Monday and barred her from running for political office for five years, French news outlets reported — a stunning decision that could upend the 2027 presidential election, in which Le Pen was considered a leading contender.

What a concept.

[Bored Lawyer]

Unelected judges decide the voters can't vote for whom they want. "Democracy" is said to be protected. US Leftists are jealous. .

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

They tried, but failed. All these oppression tactics surely stem from socialized concerns and communications among the Establishmentarians. It may or may not be coordinated, but they're all the same pattern.

[Sarcastr0]

Unelected judges have convicted her of a crime. You just gonna slide right into she’s a victim of a judicial conspiracy?

[Bob from Ohio]

No French judge is going to acquit a fascist.

[Sarcastr0]

Ok Bob.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Yes. Now that I can access the Washington Post article via an archive link:

But her chances, and her political career, could be in question if the Paris Criminal Court on Monday applies the sentence requested by prosecutors in the case: five years’ imprisonment, a 300,000 euro fine and an immediate five-year ban from public office.

French law provides a route here not present in the U.S. context. A federal prosecutor cannot generally ask for a five-year ban from public office. Other countries also leave open this ban from public office opportunity. People familiar with French law can comment.

[Martinned2]

Removal of eligibility to stand for office is an additional measure that's been on the books for as long as French democracy has existed, just like the removal of the right to vote, the removal of the right to hold certain (public) offices, etc. The relevant provision is art. 311-14 of the Criminal Code: https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/article_lc/LEGIARTI000038313262

The specific application of these provisions to elected officials was updated most recently in 2016 with the Loi Sapin 2. Guess who was always a big fan of tougher sentences for corrupt officials, back when the officials in question were Sarkozy and Fillon?

https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/dossierlegislatif/JORFDOLE000032319792/

[BBradley273]

not much different from what was attempted in the u.s. with trump, or what the courts did with the homosexual marriage referendums.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

I'm not quite seeing the connection to marriage referenda.

Many former (and some sitting) government officials have been prosecuted in this country.

Blocking them from running for office is a different matter. The 14A does have a provision, but the attempt to apply it to Trump was not done in a criminal context.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Unelected judges decide the voters can't vote for whom they want."

Two EU states this year! Its only March.

Much democracy.

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

Romania, France, Brazil, Moldova banned opposition leaders.
Ukraine suspended all elections.
Germany is trying to ban AfD.
American tried to ban Trump.

---
These are the democracy savers saving our Sacred Democracies!

[Martinned2]

Still better democracy than yours, so maybe start fixing your own mess.

[hobie]

Unelected judges rule on lots of things. You gonna stand for it and let it keep happening, Bored Lawyer?

[Commenter_XY]

The US Leftists are upset the shot missed, and all the legal cases failed.

[Martinned2]

Yes. It is generally better if the law is enforced without politics entering into the equation, but that ship has sailed in the US a long time ago.

[Martinned2]

As Kazinski explained above, in France politicians get prosecuted for corruption all the time. If you don't want to do the time, don't do the crime.

[Kazinski]

Wow. I got something right?

I'm going to bookmark this.

[hobie]

If only she had had been actively running for office. Then this would be lawfare. But it's the off season so she's legitimately pinched

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

That's the only time one has political opposition? When they are actively campaigning for an upcoming office?

That's a pretty strict and narrow definition, probably not shared by many people with whole brains.

[ThePublius]

Oh, so now you make the rules about what's lawfare and what's not? She was leading in the polls, while 'actively running' or not. And it's clear she would have run.

[Sarcastr0]

You want to come at the conviction, come at the conviction.

Just jumping straight to 'she's a victim of ze libs' is tribalism above facts.

[ThePublius]

Who are you, hobie's lawyer, or bodyguard, or something? Your reply doesn't even make sense, you're just trying to be an internet bully.

[Sarcastr0]

I point out bad arguments. You had one. I hope that puts to rest your speculation of my motives.

Now, do you have any evidence this conviction isn't legitimate?

[hobie]

You mask-hating patriots sure do clutch pearls easily when you get cyberbullied

[ThePublius]

"Mask hating?" What the heck are you talking about?

(Are you still wearing a mask around?)

[Martinned2]

And it's also pretty likely that her party would have nominated Bardella instead of her, because he has broader cross-party appeal. But none of that is relevant for the question of whether she committed the crime she was accused of.

[Dr. Ed 2]

"[L]aborers were less concerned with constitutional rights and more alarmed at the widening disparity between rich and poor in the colonies. Colonial elites were successful at linking this alarm to what they perceived as a corrupt imperial political system, thus mobilizing the masses.

Naval impressment in colonial port cities and the increasing inability of working men and women in the colonies to purchase their own land further inflamed public sentiment against the British Empire.”

[Kazinski]

It actually shows the superiority of our system, where the people decide what is disqualifying for federal elected officials.

I don't know if she's guilty or not, it wouldn't surprise me either way, but I don't think it should be up to a court to make the final decision on her fitness for office.

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

Nothing funnier than watching those videos of shift changes at the totally organic Tesla protests.

[ThePublius]

Yea, I saw one video where the protesters all walked away exactly at noon.

Who's paying for this?

[Sarcastr0]

It is a textbook authoritarian play to insist all protests are organized by outside agitators.

I've lost track of which shitposter Magnus is, but you agree with his ravings to your determent.

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

It's authoritarian to observe a shift change on video at a totally organic Democrat protest and comment about it!!

Your eyes are tyrannizing you!!!

Meanwhile, you continue to work for a Fascist Regime implementing Fascist policies. Nice.

[ThePublius]

1. I'm not an authoritarian;
2. I never said 'all protests;'
3. we know, for a fact, that there are at least 2 'NGOs' organizing and funding these Tesla protests;
4. what you are doing is textbook leftist denial and mockery.

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

He's our resident Komment Karen. Just as insufferable.

[Sarcastr0]

You: “ Who's paying for this?”

Don’t crab walk away now!

[ThePublius]

I have since found out who's paying for it.

[Sarcastr0]

So much for the conspiracy I guess.

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

The TakedownTesla website had a page dedicated to the 20+ NGOs funding them.

They took it down. But the internet never forgets.

Of course you never heard of this.

[Martinned2]

Well yes, that has to be right. Because after all "The People" only have one opinion, which is coincidentally the same opinion as ThePublius's opinion (nomen est omen). So anyone who disagrees with ThePublius must be an outside agitator and an Enemy Of The People.

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

How do you intentionally foment terrorist violence?

Why you canonize your murderous hero's of course.

The Luigi Mangione Access To Healthcare Act was just introduced in CA.

https://ktla.com/news/california/proposed-california-ballot-initiative-luigi-mangione-act-would-make-it-harder-for-insurers-to-deny-medical-care/

[tylertusta]

Nothing says "We Condemn Murder" like naming a proposed law after an alleged murderer and in a positive light.

[tylertusta]

Also, this proposed law is a quick way to make insurance impossible to get in California.

[Longtobefree]

Forget it Magnus, it's California.

[ThePublius]

This is absolutely disgraceful. The congress should propose a Brian Thompson bill shaming the California legislature for this. In it, they should cut federal funding to CA for healthcare.

[ducksalad]

What did the California legislature have to do with this, Publius?

[David Nieporent]

1) That is terrible.
2) Nothing was "just introduced." As always, you lie. It's a possible ballot initiative, that one random guy came up with and proposed a name for. It isn't even at the signature gathering stage yet, let alone the voting stage.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

You can't really expect him to think for himself before amplifying nonsense. I certainly wouldn't.

[SRG2]

The EO concerning the Smithsonian, etc. leads to a curious wrinkle. If the idea is to remove divisive and anti-American exhibits, as we have been told, surely we can expect the removal of all Confederacy displays, objects, etc? Because in American history, nothing was more divisive and anti-American than the Confederacy - certainly not DEI.

Let's see whether the regime actually believes what it espouses. Or is the Confederacy exempt?

[ThePublius]

The Confederacy is a notable part of American history, and should be covered. Denigrating whites and ignoring conservative blacks of note, like Justice Clarence Thomas, is wrong. Get it?

[Moderation4ever]

The Confederacy is part of American history and Americans should be taught that Confederate leaders were not hero's but traders to our country. They tried to split apart this country to preserve their right to hold other people in bondage. To benefit themselves from the hard work of others they held in bondage.

[ThePublius]

"traders?" 🙂

But I digress. I don't think the Civil War was just about slavery. But I know people are polarized on this issue, and it's pointless to debate it.

[SRG2]

Sure. It was predominantly about slavery - as the early secession documents make clear. But pro-Confederate types have just enough sensitivity to realise that most Americans, even many Trump supporters, think slavery was a bad thing, and so prefer to argue that it weas really about states rights, and pay no attention the the traitors' own words.

Defending the Confederacy - which you did not do, I hasten to add - is scarcely better than defending Nazi Germany, AFAIC.

[not guilty]

The Civil War was primarily about treason in support of human chattel slavery. "States' rights" has had an odious meaning ever since.

[Kazinski]

Grant in his memoirs got it exactly right:

"I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse. I do not question, however, the sincerity of the great mass of those who were opposed to us.”

[David Nieporent]

The Confederacy is a notable part of American history, and should be covered.

Do you think there's any debate in this country about whether the confederacy should be covered? As opposed to how the confederacy should be covered?

[ThePublius]

Do you ever state things, like opinions or analysis, or do you just ask questions?

[David Nieporent]

What do you think? Is there some way, perhaps, that you could find out for yourself the answer to your question?

[Sarcastr0]

Inevitable, but well executed and amusing nonetheless.

[SRG2]

I agree that it is a notable part of American history but I didn't dispute that. The Confederacy was, as I said, divisive and anti-American, and by the criteria set by the regime, should hence be no more retained in Federal museums than the DEI/Woke stuff that so offends them.

[M L]

Curious whether the leftists here still think government spending, deficits and debt are nothing to worry about at all, a la MMT, or that they're anything less that an extremely urgent problem.

"The U.S. has benefited from the dollar serving as the world’s reserve currency for decades. But that’s not guaranteed to last forever," Fink wrote in his BlackRock annual letter, pointing to ballooning nation debt that’s seen this year’s interest payments alone top $952 billion.

“By 2030, mandatory government spending and debt service will consume all federal revenue, creating a permanent deficit. If the U.S. doesn’t get its debt under control, if deficits keep ballooning, America risks losing that position to digital assets like bitcoin.”

U.S. debt has soared over recent years, topping $34 trillion at the beginning of 2024 before climbing over $35 trillion just a year later, with Covid-era stimulus measures contributing to massive government spending and helping to send inflation spiraling out of control in 2022.

Inflation of over 10% forced the Federal Reserve to hike interest rates at a historical clip, pushing up debt interest payments and fueling fears of a "death spiral." . . .

Fink’s warning echos similar sentiment expressed by the likes of Tesla billionaire Elon Musk, who last month called the climbing U.S. debt clock “terrifying" and last year repeatedly warned of U.S. financial collapse while on the campaign trail for Trump.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2025/03/31/a-safer-bet-blackrock-ceo-issues-huge-952-billion-bitcoin-price-warning-to-the-us-dollar/

[Stephen Lathrop]

As always, the solution to problems involving deficits and intractable government expense is taxation, specifically increased taxation levied on people who have money.

As astonishing as it may seem to right wingers, neither more-intensive immiseration of the already-impoverished, nor increased taxation of a tapped-out middle class with no money to spare, nor borrowing more to postpone a reckoning, have any promise to address debt and deficit problems.

Large increases in taxation of the rich, combined with modest reductions in expenditures—chosen to avoid hurting poor people, and limited only to those—are the only ways to escape budgetary angst.

Agitate for fiscal conservatism? Get ready to tax the rich. You have no other choice but nonsense.

[M L]

Stephen,

You spend a lot of time here pontificating. Generally you seem to consider yourself to be someone with highly sophisticated and informed viewpoints that are superior to most people especially "right wingers."

So how is it possible that you haven't looked into even the very first fact or two that would be relevant?

A few seconds on google indicates that the total wealth of all the billionaires in the US is 6.7 trillion, while US annual spending is 6.8 trillion. So even if you literally confiscated everything from every billionaire and turned them into paupers, it wouldn't even fund government spending for a single year. That's setting aside that these assets, of course, are not liquid and absolutely could not be liquidated. And those are assets not income. If we very generously assume that their annual income is 20% of their assets, that's 1.34 trillion. If we further assume that you are talking about something like raising taxes on their income by 20% of the income, that's $268 billion in annual taxes. A drop in the bucket.

I'm continually amazed at the stupidity of "smart people."

[Jmaie]

"Get ready to tax the rich. You have no other choice but nonsense."

Agreed, and that's regardless of whether you are arguing for fiscal conservatism or not (full blown believers in MMT can drop out here.)

The problem of course is to determine the line between the rich and the rest of us. It's human nature for folks to place that line somewhere above their own income.

Our family makes a comfortable middle-class living, as defined by being food and house secure, new cars as needed, yearly vacations, etc. We have friends who pull down probably double our annual income on three days work per week, have vacation homes, etc. They are politically very progressive. And yet they do not consider themselves in the group that should pay more.

[ducksalad]

Kristen Welker’s entire first half hour of the Lowly Rated Meet the Fake Press this morning, was devoted to the boring Signal Witch Hunt. She doesn’t want to talk in detail about anything that matters like how well we are doing against the Houthis, substantive Peace Talks with Russia and Ukraine or, Iran, Iran, Iran. She wastes my Administration’s time by talking to them about “NOTHING.” Why can’t NBC, one of the Worst Broadcasters on Television, hire people that are honest and credible? The reason they don’t is because their Chairman, Brian Roberts, is a pathetic Loser, who is petrified of the Left, and always will be. Comcast’s MSNBC and NBC have fought me for years, spending almost all of their waking hours making up Fake Stories — and look, I’m PRESIDENT, with really high Poll Numbers and Great Accomplishments. Good job Brian!

[Stephen Lathrop]

I yield to no one in loathing Kristen Welker's handling of the venerable Meet the Press platform. She looks tense, scripted. And incapability to think on her feet remains the essence of her brand. And she has not grown with the job. Get rid of her. There must be literally thousands who could do it better.

I guess that makes me a critic of Brian Roberts as well.

Your, "Fake Story, crap, remains crap, nonetheless.

The Signal chat scandal is not less than worthy of reporting. It is a more important story than the attention it has so far received has reported. It needs the undivided attention of a team of top investigative reporters—admittedly not the kind of thing we any longer expect from broadcast news—with the sometimes exception of Rachel Maddow on MSNBC.

Maddow does break major stories on air. She too seems to be getting undermined by her superiors, who cut her staff recently. I expect her shortly either to go elsewhere, or decide to give up. I hope it is not the latter.

[questioner7]

Re: two-two presidential limit: the Constitution only says you can't be "_elected_ to the office of the President more than twice" -- inheriting the presidency as a vice president doesn't count. It also says "no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President", but if Trump is only ineligible to be elected president -- but not to inherit the office -- then he's not ineligible for the office. So, he could get elected Vice President then have the president resign in his favor. Isn't that a glaring loophole that needs to be fixed?

[Moderation4ever]

It is no loophole because anyone who would work as hard as is necessary to get elected would not resign. The idea is simply ludicrous.

[ducksalad]

Unfortunately I think it's quite plausible.

The proposed maneuver isn't an ostensibly sincere candidate working hard to get elected and then resigning. I believe the idea is that J.D. Vance and Trump would swap places only nominally for the open purpose of using the loophole. Not even wink wink nudge nudge - they would very loudly promise, as the central platform of their campaign, Vance's resignation literally seconds after being sworn in. Trump would campaign as and for president and cover the big events. Vance would act like a VP candidate, talk mainly about how great Trump is, and do the backwater events.

Trump believes Vance would play along, and I think Vance knows who is the star of this clown show. Vance knows he'd be non-viable if Trump turned on him.

Trump believes he is popular enough that his base will understand and go along the plan, and I don't think he is completely wrong. But he would need to get essentially all of them to buy it.

Perhaps you think Vance would betray Trump on the stage at inauguration. But after the campaign that would be just as great an offense against democracy as the third term.

[Moderation4ever]

First, I don't think Vance is such a low life that he would agree to the scheme suggested. Trump would have to find a real low-life and that would not be hard as his orbit has many. The problem is that any low-life willing to support Trump in a scheme to hand the Presidency back to Trump is the same kind of low life to hold onto the Presidency once he has it. I am guessing the new President's first official act would be to have Trump arrested for the J6 insurrection and in that way get Trump out of the picture completely.

[Commenter_XY]

Agree...I think ReaderY has this one right. It is within the realm of statistical possibility. But it won't happen with POTUS Trump. He is too old. This is it for him.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Hard not to draw a parallel with what Medvedev and Putin did in 2008...

[ThePublius]

The Democrat Party Is Criminal.

"- Democrats did give MILLIONS of illegals Social Security Numbers
- They were REGISTERING TO VOTE
- Elon Musk has confirmation THEY DID VOTE
- Democrats qualified illegals for MAX SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFITS
- They enrolled in Medicaid with their new Social Security Numbers

See graph in video:

“Then you'll notice there's a strange, what jumped out at us when we saw these numbers. We're like, what is this? In 2021, you see 270,000 people, it goes all the way to 2.1 million and 2024. These are non-citizens that are getting social security numbers.

This is a mind-blowing charge. This literally blew us away.”

“If I hadn't seen this myself, I'm not sure I believed it. I went through it myself and mapped it. And Elon is right. This is true. The defaults in the system from social security to all of the benefit programs have been set to max inclusion, MAX PAY for these people and minimum collection.

We found 1.3 million of them already on Medicaid as an example. We've gone through on every benefit program we went through, we found groups from this particular group of people, this 5.5 million people in those benefit programs.

And then what was really, really disturbing us was why we're asking ourselves why.
So we actually just took a sample and looked at voter registration records and we found people here registered to vote in this population. Yes.

Who did vote? We found some by sampling that ACTUALLY DID VOTE.

We have referred them to prosecution at the Homeland Security Investigation Service. Yeah. Already, already. That is already happening right now. The truly disturbing thing though, I just want you to know this, a truly disturbing thing to me, and the darkest thing about this, to me, the voter fraud is terrible.”"

https://x.com/WallStreetApes/status/1906526419079082173

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

Between this and their massive graft ring with billions of taxpayer funds funding their ideological comrades, we now understand the histrionics.

Also, don't forget they paid organizations to inform illegals how to apply for the up to $14,000 in EITC per year.

How stupid, conceptually, is a "refundable tax credit" to begin with? It's commie/Washington nonsense & doublespeak. If you have no tax liability, you should get no refund.

[M L]

I was curious about this presentation in the video. Here's an article with some context.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14555187/elon-musk-doge-truth-illegal-immigrants-social-security.html

I guess we'll see what comes of it.

[grb]

M L : "I guess we'll see what comes of it."

Will that be before or after Musk produces one of those 150yr old Social Security earners? We're still waiting on that. Then there were his lies about USAID recipients. His lies about the astronauts on the ISS. His lie that 40% of calls to the Social Security Administration phone center are fraudulent. His lie that the government was paying celebrities to visit Ukraine. His lie about congressional salaries. His lie about a $40 million payout to the NY Times by the government. His lie about $59 million to luxury New York City hotels “to house illegal migrants.” His lies about USAID administrator Samantha Power's net worth. His multiple lies about the 2020 election.

Musk lied about Lebron James' kid, saying his health issues were caused by vaccines. He lied about Israeli stats on covid, saying “zero young healthy individuals died of COVID-19”–his claim then refuted by Israel’s health minister. He lied about the cause of the California wildfires, lied about the measures taken to stop them, then lied the state had "decriminalized looting." When Musk was embarrassed over eliminating anti-Ebola efforts in his DOGE stunt, he immediately got in front of the cameras and said everything was restored. Of course that was another empty lie.

As was his lie Donald John Trump is "an honest man". That may be Musk's biggest, but I admit to being impressed by the sheer brazenness of his lie he could build a transatlantic tunnel for 20 billion dollars. As always, he said it with a nearly straight face - excepting that tiny little smirk signaling how super, super clever he thinks lying is. As for the Most Pathetic category, that would be Musk lying about his personal video game success. What is he? Ten years old ?!?

https://www.dezeen.com/2024/12/18/transatlantic-tunnel-elon-musk-boring-company/

So tell us, ML, why do you enjoy being the dupe when Trump and Musk lie?
Don't you have any self-respect left?

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

You know the answer to that!

[ReaderY]

Yeah right. It’s on twitter so it must true. What next? Democrats have horns? Obama killed Christian babies and used their blood to make the matza for the passover sedars he held at the White House?

Yeah right.

[ducksalad]

Plenty of signs this is bullshit being sold to the gullible.

- Conveniently conflates "non-citizens" with "illegals". Permanent residents not only can get a SSN, they are required to in order to work. This alone justifies dismissing the rest of it.

- The video starts with nonsense about how hard they had to work to "discover" these numbers, and how it took all kinds of bravery.

- Out of a group of several hundred thousand permanent residents, several tens of thousands will transition to citizenship in any given year. The federal government hands out voter registration forms at the naturalization ceremony. It would be surprising if you *didn't* find names of people who were noncitizens in early 2024 and voted in late 2024.

- The official numbers for non-citizen SSNs versus year are here, scroll to the second page:

https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/statcomps/ssi_asr/2023/sect05.pdf

Needless to say they don't agree with the slides. I guess that's why they have to claim they bravely discovered the "real" numbers.

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

https://x.com/BGatesIsaPyscho/status/1906465828259643830

“A Toddler (2-4years old) was suspended from a nursery after being accused of being transphobic”

“All staff & pupils should feel safe”

These people aren't our allies. They're lunatics. What's the geopolitical version of the phrase "Never stick your dick in crazy"?

[ReaderY]

Trump has labeled protests Musk has called for the arrest and prosecution, as terrorists, of people he accuses of funding protests against Tesla, claimijg they are responsible for any vandalism that occurs. And he has named named and called for specific Democratic fund-raisers arrest based on his say-so.

Talk about going full Nazi.

[ThePublius]

It's not full Nazi, it's full anti-Nazi.

[Kazinski]

I am sure there is going to be some heavy lean on the people who are getting arrested to see what payments, if any they got, and whether they received any encouragement for illegal acts to go with any funds.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

But of course. That's what the show trials will be for.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Happy International Transgender Day of Visibility.

I hope that doesn't trigger too many people. After all, even some serious people around here feel it necessary to make sure people know they aren't too "woke" on trans issues.

Also, a reminder:

https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/biden-did-not-set-transgender-day-visibility-annually-coincide-with-easter-2024-04-05/

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

Woah, it's been FACT CHECKED!!!!

I don't know who is more reliable;
- 51 Current and Former National Security experts,
- 99% Climate Scientists
- 90% of Harvard Lawyers
- MSM/USAID Fact Checkers

lmao, only clowns still believe that "fact check" MSM/USAID nonsense.

[grb]

Fact checking worked fine until you sold your soul to whore for a sleazy liar, Magnus.

Looks like the problem begins & ends with you.

[Sarcastr0]

https://www.reddit.com/r/196/comments/1jjksvs/rule/#lightbox

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

1776 Patriots, FYSA

https://thecmp.org/sales-and-service/1911-information/

The Good Guys in charge relaunched the program to buy surplus 1911s.

If you own a Tesla, how about ordering a few and getting in on some of the fun?

[ThePublius]

The 1911 is my favorite. John Moses Browning was a genius. I might want to get a CMP 1911, but I already have two, one a 1963 vintage Colt Commercial model, the pinnacle of their craft in Hartford. And, Geez, I have probably a dozen magazines, and at least 1500 empty cases, 1,000+ bullets, plenty of primers and powder (Unique, Bullseye, Titegroup, etc.) ....

(I'm also into Ruger single actions, Walther PPK's, and so on.)

[ThePublius]

Damn! No shipments to Massachusetts. F' my state.

[Krayt]

The Bay Staters are coming! The Bay Staters are coming!

[Frank Drackman]

There is this invention called the Internets, just sayin

[Dr. Ed 2]

How much???

[Kazinski]

Trump is starting to lose patience with Putin's stalling on a Ukraine peace deal:

Trump threatens tariffs on Russian oil if no Ukraine ceasefire, according to NBC News interview
Trump reported to criticize Putin's comments on Zelenskiy's leadership
Trump plans to speak with Putin this week, NBC News says
ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE, March 30 (Reuters) - U.S. President

"Donald Trump said on Sunday he was "pissed off" at Russian President Vladimir Putin and will impose secondary tariffs of 25% to 50% on buyers of Russian oil if he feels Moscow is blocking his efforts to end the war in Ukraine.
Trump told NBC News he was very angry after Putin last week criticized the credibility of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's leadership, the television network reported, citing a telephone interview early on Sunday."

https://www.reuters.com/world/trump-threatens-secondary-tariffs-russian-oil-if-unable-make-deal-ukraine-2025-03-30/

[ducksalad]

Trump told NBC News he was very angry after Putin last week criticized the credibility of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's leadership

Flashback to February 18, 2025 (BBC):

Trump calls Zelensky a 'dictator' as he hits back at 'disinformation' criticism

[Krayt]

Gosh, some of these nasty dictators, literally the best at killing their political enemies, play hardball. When you have advantage over your enemy, you bear down unto the complete destruction of them.

[ducksalad]

My sarcasm detector is giving an uncertain reading....

[Michael P]

This is probably Trump playing 4D chess with Putin.

(Some people would call that H chess, but not everyone measures that way.)

[Kazinski]

Even flatworms will turn away from pain.

I think Trump's negotiating isn't even chess which is complicated enough in 2d.

But I think he has the leverage he needs with both carrots and sticks to eventually get a deal done.

Putin of course is hoping for more carrots than sticks by stalling, I'm glad to see Trump reaching for sticks.

[grb]

Uh huh. Trump wanted a treaty with the Taliban. So he got down on his knees and gave them everything they wanted while asking for nothing in return. Then he gave them more. Then he gave the mullahs stuff they never even thought to ask for. While "negotiations" were underway, the Taliban truck-bombed Bagram Air Base - but that didn't slow the give-away a bit. It went on & on until the mullahs were satiated, fat & happy. Then Trump got his piece of paper to wave in air. Just like Neville Chamberlain.

Trump talked tough then too, Kazinski. There was no shortage of schoolyard bully-boy rhetoric even as he gave away the store & signed the premises over the Taliban. He wanted his piece of paper. He didn't care about out allies a bit. Total appeasement was the quickest way from Point A to B.

Now, let's review the current situation : (1) Trump wants his piece of paper. (2) He hates Ukraine for various juvenile/mentally-ill reasons. (3) Putin is his Daddy.

All of which suggests your "pride" at Trump being a hard-nosed negotiator is you, Kazinski, in full Dupe-mode once more.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Sorry, is this one of those times we are supposed to believe what Trump says, or one of those times we are supposed to believe he's "just trolling"?

[Undergrad Teacher]

My undergraduate students have expressed interest in exploring the question of citing non-U.S. precedents in U.S. law. Can anyone suggest articles to show to them and/or good background reading for me?

[Sarcastr0]

This is good if you have the time to listen to it; you could grab some banger clips from it IMO.

https://www.c-span.org/program/public-affairs-event/constitutional-relevance-of-foreign-court-decisions/139715

[John F. Carr]

The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled that the state equivalent of the Fair Housing Act does not require Fitchburg to permit a "sober house" with 13 occupants in a residential district. City ordinances allow only four unrelated people to live together in a housing unit. The operator of the facility cried "discrimination!" People in rehab are legally considered handicapped. The city replied that it was, consistent with state law, treating the occupants the same as any other group of unrelated people. In fact the Zoning Board of Appeals was willing to bend the rules and grant a special permit for a three family residence limited to 12 unrelated occupants. The operator sued for the 13th occupant and lost.

This case caught my attention because laws often require cities and towns to put up with alcoholics and addicts who residents think would be better off in Boston Harbor. (Boston plans to spend around $100 million to house drug addicts on one of the islands in Boston Harbor because nobody wants them on the mainland.)

BAK Realty v. Fitchburg, https://www.mass.gov/files/documents/2025/03/28/j13639.pdf

[Dr. Ed 2]

Can he now go to Federal Court under ada?

John, be fair, that hospital property is the ONLY cheap land in Boston, the only piece rich folk aren't fighting over.

[ThePublius]

New topic.

Trade in ivory is essentially verboten. But with all of the technology we have now, including lab or factory grown meat, why can't we "grow" ivory in the lab, and then factories? I'd love to have ivory grips for several of my handguns, and also an ivory letter opener, and other things.

What do you think?

[Frank Drackman]

Same reason they can’t do it with peoples J-Hay has the rights, and he’s a vengeful SOB

[ducksalad]

Is it important to you that it has the chemistry and microscopic structure of ivory? If not, and you just like the looks, texture, and warm feel, there have been pretty decent facsimiles for a long time.

But it does sound like something there would be at least a niche market for.

[ThePublius]

I've looked at some, like Avorin, giraffe bone, Magna-Tusk™, and others. Haven't seen any of these in person, except I have some Avorin for pool cue tips I was making. I'd like to check out the others, but it's a costly exercise.

I kick myself for not buying ivory grip blanks a guy was selling at a gun show 25 or 30 years ago....

I just bought some wood grips for a 1911; I wish I could have found checkered ivory grip panels in my state (to make it a legal transaction), but, alas....

[Brett Bellmore]

The reason we can't do it is that the proverbial "they" have decided that the best way to make trade in poached ivory difficult is to ban ALL trade in ivory, regardless of source. As they see no value in permitting people to use ivory, it seems to them to be all benefit, no cost. ("They" do not view reduced liberty as a cost.)

[Noscitur a sociis]

Here’s an article about a similar effort with rhino horns:

https://www.npr.org/2024/01/17/1224271419/endangered-rhino-horn-conservation-poaching

Essentially, the technology isn’t there yet, (although it’s probably close, see this on artificial human teeth: https://dentistry.co.uk/2025/02/10/lab-grown-replacement-teeth-successfully-implanted-into-jaws/) and conservation groups are strongly opposed to reopening the market for these products because they think it will increase poaching, which makes it hard to attract the capital necessary to get it over the line.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Depends on why ivory is banned.

"They" ban vaping in many situations because it's "morally similar" to smoking, not because of any harm caused by vaping itself.

[Frank Drackman]

Just when you’re worried maybe the D’s have figured it out(like they did after the 1988 Erection, I can think of worse times than Clinton 93-01.
Big bit on PMS-NBC about how people’s “pronouns” will be the big Ish-yew in 28’ (I’m more acquainted with the “adjectives” (Asshole, Race-isn’t, Homo- fobe, Auburn fan, Yankee)
Seriously, I could see myself voting for a Vetterman over a Milk Toast Christ Christy

[hobie]

The Rev was right to clear out when he did. You deplorables aren't easy to stomach these days. This outfit has gone full turning and turning in the widening gyre all up in this bitch

[ThePublius]

Don't let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya.

[SRG2]

Says the man full of passionate intensity

[ThePublius]

Meaning what, exactly?

[Sarcastr0]

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43290/the-second-coming

[John F. Carr]

A Boston Municipal Court judge held an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in contempt for arresting a criminal defendant outside the courthouse in the middle of a trial. This is indirect contempt and must be prosecuted like any other case. I expect the case will be removed to federal court and the charges dismissed because the agent was only doing his job.

The charges against the defendant were dismissed with prejudice. The judge suspected the prosecutor failed to prevent the arrest.

Boston Municipal Court is part of Massachusetts' state trial court system. It's not a local kangaroo court like municipal courts elsewhere in the country.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/03/31/metro/ice-detention-defendant-trial-judge-investigation/

[SRG2]

and the charges dismissed because the agent was only obeying orders.

FTFY

[Brett Bellmore]

Lawful orders, at that.

And, sure, the prosecutor failed to prevent the arrest; The prosecutor had no legal duty to prevent the arrest. He had no legal power to prevent the arrest.

I think all you've done here is to demonstrate that the Boston Municipal Court has become a kangaroo court.

[Dr. Ed 2]

The first circuit said ICE could do this:
https://www.casemine.com/commentary/us/first-circuit-upholds-ice's-authority-to-conduct-civil-arrests-in-courthouses/view

Hence not only will a Federal Court throw out the contempt, but I can see Bondi prosecuting the judge under 18 U.S. Code § 242.

[SRG2]

I think it is obvious that Canada should acquire Greenland.

[Commenter_XY]

And then we (America) can acquire Canada as a territorial possession. You're a brilliant strategist. 😉

[Dan Schiavetta]

You think you’re funny but you’re not.

[Commenter_XY]

Then your humor meter is in need of repair.

[Frank Drackman]

maybe Canada should acquire a military first

[grb]

It's extremely certain Trump is someone who likes to see himself in the mirror. On the same principle, he's on a spat of pardoning white-collar crooks, scam artists, and criminals.

1. On Thursday, Trump pardoned Arthur Hayes, Benjamin Delo and Samuel Reed. They pled guilty in 2022 to violating an anti-money-laundering component of the Banking Secrecy Act with their BitMEX cryptocurrency exchange.

2. On Friday, he pardoned Ozy Media CEO Carlos Watson, who was literally en route to prison following a financial conspiracy conviction.

3. Also Friday, he pardoned electric truck CEO Trevor Milton, who faced four years in prison and hundreds in millions of dollars in restitution for defrauding his shareholders.

Re Milton, Trump said this : “They went after him. They went after his family, they went after his businesses. They say the thing that he did wrong was he was one of the first people that supported a gentleman named Donald Trump for president.”

Of course that's just another lie. FEC records show Milton has donated just under $2 million to Trump’s campaign and related committees since 2016, but all but $3,500 of that came after Milton's legal troubles. What’s more, Milton’s first donation to Trump came at the end of July 2016 ― months after Trump had locked down the Republican nomination.

So maybe there was some payoff action there, but maybe not. The Brotherhood of Sleazy Crooks is probably enough to explain it.

[ThePublius]

O.k., now do the Biden pardons (which I'm sure he wasn't aware of, someone using the autopen...).

[Noscitur a sociis]

The Biden pardons were indefensible. Why is it good for Trump to do the same?

[Dan Schiavetta]

Quite defensible. If the incoming President promises to prosecute someone who has committed no crime, what do you expect?

[Noscitur a sociis]

Are those the only pardons that Biden issued?

[TwelveInchPianist]

"If the incoming President promises to prosecute someone who has committed no crime, what do you expect?"

A no bill by a grand jury? A dismissal by a judge? An acquittal?

But of course Trump made no such promise.

[Magister]

Trump repeatedly threatened to prosecute or jail or execute political opponents. Do you really not recall Trump calling for military tribunals for people who were not in the military? How about jailing reporters who won't reveal sources and threatening them with sexual assault in jail to persuade them? Here's one less than complete summary.

[Michael P]

In that case, Trump's political opponents should not have broken the law.

Failing that, they should not have made such a point of prosecuting him and his allies on awful legal and factual bases. Obama set quite a precedent for jailing reporters who refused to reveal sources. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, you pretend to be offended by the process rather than its current application.

[Sarcastr0]

LOL if at this late date you think actually breaking the law has anything to do with Trump going after people.

[Michael P]

The ironic projection, it burns.

[Sarcastr0]

This is relevant only if revenge justifies the means.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Trump repeatedly threatened to prosecute or jail or execute political opponents. "

He didn't say he'd prosecute people who hadn't committed any crime. Presumably he'd investigate and find crimes such people may have committed.

"How about jailing reporters who won't reveal sources and threatening them with sexual assault in jail to persuade them?"

It's called criminal or civil contempt, and it happens all the time.

[Magister]

No reason to presume that Donald Trump would do things with investigation and prosecution of crimes.
Sexual assault in prison is used all the time for criminal or civil contempt?
He called for “one real rough, nasty” and “violent day” of police retaliation in order to eradicate crime “immediately”, which doesn't sound like investigation or prosecuting crime.
Putting people in jail for the way they talk:

You know, you have these guys like playing the ref, like the great Bobby Knight. These people should be put in jail the way they talk about our judges and our justices, trying to get them to sway their vote, sway their decision.

And of course his famous "lock her up".

Your claims that none of this is targeted at people who have not committed crimes are ludicrous. Trump already sent a bunch of men to prison without trial (Venezuelans to an El Salvadoran prison); his administration admits already that at least one of those should not have been sent. And this is being cheered as exactly what he should be doing by the MAGA cult.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Fantasy Trump! So much more reassuring than real Trump.

TwelveInch, I will give you benefit of the doubt. You could be an obligate Fox watcher, who never once paid attention to anything else.

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

So another Democrat judge as ruled that if you are medically disqualified from military service, you must be allowed to serve if you are a transgender. Do you think he will next dictate their MOS's and duty stations? Constitutionally dictate, of course.

[ReaderY]

Mr. Trump has expressed certain personal opinions about how he thinks states should run elections which, in his usual grandiose way, he has styled an “executive order.” States and other parties are suing to “block” this “order.”

It seems to me that if news reports of the complaints are accurate - sometimes a big if these days - the complaints on their face would appear essentially plead the plaintiffs out of court. The complaints candidly acknowledge that Trump has no power to enforce any of these personal opinions of his. Indeed that’s their merits case! The implications of their case is that his choice to decorate his stationary with the phrase “executive order” makes mo more legal difference than any other piece of art or quote or doodle he chooses to decorate his ststionary with. So why waste judges time? It seems to me thet when Trump says something that is acknowledgedly unenforceable, suits should be dismissed for lack of standing unless and until some clueless idiot takes them seriously and actually does something that affects the plaintiffs. The fact that the plaintiffs dislike his personal opinions or the way he decorates his stationary or the grandiose nicknames he gives his personal doodlings is simply no business of the courts.

Suppose that tomorrow Trump “ordered” the sun to rise in the west and set in the east. Would parties have standing to sue on grounds that, if enforced, this order would harm them because they’d be injured if the earth abruptly reversed its direction of rotation? I don’t think so. There has to be some plausible threat of enforcement. I just don’t see that here. The plaintiffs seem to simply assume that if Trump says something, it will somehow magically happen unless they sue to stop it.

Courts deal in cases and controversies. Voodoo injury claims - claims that one merely sticking performative pins in a doll, writing performative “orders” on a piece of paper or other purely performative symbolic actions will somehow harm them - are just not the kind of injury claims that can give Article III courts standing. Trump’s various symbolic, performative actions done “for show” are nonjusticiable. Only orders that are enforcible in fact even potentially give standing. There has to be plausible enforcibility.

It’s important for judges to stand up and say when Trump’s “orders” simply can’t be taken seriously enough to warrant a judicial case. Doing so is not only more faithful to Article III, it also shows more backbone and a more sober will than getting all upset whenever Mr. Trump opens his mouth, and taking everything he says seriously.

In the end, having the backbone to simply ignore the voodoo display, confident that voodoo doesn’t actually work, diminishes the voodoo artist’s hold on others and others’ fear of him much more than judges demeaning their role by treating the performance as if it were something with real effect, and ordering him to stop sticking pins in dolls, decorating his stationary with his opinions styled as “executive orders,” or whatever will float his boat, inflate his ego, or mislead his followers into thinking he’s accomplishing something.

I’d say the same if tomorrow he issued an “executive order” proclaiming Canada and Greenland are now US states. In the absence of enforcement action, he can decorate his stationary with whatever fairy tells about what he’s accomplishing he wishes to and it’s none of the courts’ damn business if he does.

[Dan Schiavetta]

“A President’s executive orders are of no effect” is a novel legal argument. Of course, we’ve never had a spoiled, immature idiot as President before.

[ReaderY]

How exactly could this “order” result in the states or other parties being injured? He “orders” the states to do something. They don’t do it. So what? Is something supposed to happen after that? What exactly?

See the 1986 4th Circuit case Doe v. Duling as an example of a court actually doing this.

https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F2/782/782.F2d.1202.85-1326.html

This business of thinking that just because something is written on the books it has to be taken seriously doesn’t work in only one direction. It cuts both ways. When Trump issues “orders” to people he has no authority ro order, everyone ignoring him is the best course of action. Otherwise, he can do his little voodoo, watch us get all scared, and take advantage of our little superstitions.

[ReaderY]

See in general Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority. When there is possible authority, by all means sue and have the judge decide it. But for orders that are so completely without authority that a claim authority exists is patently frivolous, they should simply be disobeyed. And judges should dismiss cases for lack of standing and basically say that. As in Doe v. Duling, if disobediance has no consequences, there is no standing. If someone tries to enforce them anyway, then of course you can sue.

[Stephen Lathrop]

ReaderY — Can you explain to me why I have no cause for concern if Trump's lawless orders might not be disobeyed, but instead eagerly followed? Trump has both subordinates and political allies who have power to, for instance, deport me to El Salvador, where I could be imprisoned without legal recourse. Do you insist the courts must permit that to happen before I can get standing? Can the question turn on a competition between how swiftly an order against me can be enforced, as compared to how fast I am able to get a court's attention?

Likewise, do I really not have any politically cognizable interest if Trump orders Harvard, with which I have no personal association, to teach Trump's favored curriculum, and omit to teach
all else?

You seem to posit that the courts have no legitimate role to defend the nation's political system, despite the oaths sworn by the judges and justices to defend the Constitution. My preference is to continue to rely on that standard, instead of to experiment with your new one.

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

Listen, if they haven't deported you after ALL of my reports, I think you're safe.

Everyday I wake up, exercise, shower, journal, then pray. Then I report you to ICE and Sarcastr0 to DOGE.

Justice is coming... slowly but surely...

[David Nieporent]

Do you insist the courts must permit that to happen before I can get standing?

No, but the risk of it happening must be imminent. See City of Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U.S. 95 (1983): someone who had previously been placed in a dangerous chokehold by the LAPD had standing to sue for damages he suffered from that chokehold, but did not have standing to sue to enjoin the future use of such chokeholds because he had failed to establish any likelihood of being personally subjected to such chokeholds in the future.

[Brett Bellmore]

"ReaderY — Can you explain to me why I have no cause for concern if Trump's lawless orders might not be disobeyed, but instead eagerly followed?"

Well, in THIS context because it would be a case of the state voluntarily doing something within its own power to decide to do?

[ReaderY]

I would agree with Brett here. The President has always been entitled to use his bully pulpit to encourage states to do things voluntarily. The fact he is advocating things you strongly disagee with doesn’t change this. I don’t think his styling his opinions “orders” changes this either. If state officials enthusiastically want to follow the President’s advice, that’s no concern of the judiciary.

Judges deciding these cases will have to give reasons for dismissing the lawsuits for lack of standing. That means they will have to explain that the President has no ability to actually enforce his “orders” regarding how states conduct their elections, they are nothing more than his opinions, and there are no consequences if state officials do not follow them. I’ll just point out that while the result will be a dismissal rather than a restraining order, an opinion on these lines may well say everything that needs to be said for state officials who don’t want to take Mr. Trump’s advice and feel they need a judicial blessing for not doing so.

[Martinned2]

This is something I've been wondering about. Why do so many people feel the need to resign when Trump orders them to do something flagrantly unlawful? Just ignore him.

[ReaderY]

The question of whether there are consequences is a pragmatic one. Trump can fire federal employees for disobeying his orders whether his orders are lawful or not. But he can’t fire state officials.

It’s not the unlawfulness of the order per se. It’s the existence of consequences for ignoring it that determines Article III standing.

[Martinned2]

So let him fire them. If he wants to do something illegal, he should at least suffer the maximum consequences. Why make it easy/easier for him by resigning? (See also: Saturday night massacre.)

[David Nieporent]

I'm not sure how the SNM supports rather than undermines your point. First, nobody contends that Nixon firing Cox was illegal.
Second, Richardson/Ruckleshaus resigning rather than refusing did not insulate Nixon from the maximum consequences; it underscored how bad his actions were.

[Martinned2]

That would have been underscored even more if he'd had to fire a whole bunch of other people in addition to Cox.

[David Nieporent]

Counterfactuals are impossible to prove, but given the actual impact of the SNM, I don't see how firing Richardson/Ruckleshaus would have had any additional effect over them resigning rather than following his order. (Don't know why you think it's "a whole bunch." Presumably Bork still would've fired Cox, for the same reasons he did IRL.)

And even speaking generally rather than talking about the actual historical event, not sure why you think firings are worse PR for the president than resignations. If Trump fires someone, he's going to turn it on them and say that they were fired for cause — at the very least, insubordination. And lots of people would nod their heads and agree that he had the right to do so. But resigning puts the focus squarely on the reason for the resignation: the order he gave.

[Frank Drackman]

Something about today, can’t put my finger on it, I love the Designated Hitter, Artificial Turf, the NFL kickoff rule, Soccer, Rap, “Friends” SUV’s, Fat people, Surgeons, Arabs, especially Akeem the Bad Dream, Priapism Slap-a-Jap, and Mullah Omar, Mayonnaise, Vegetables, Salads, National Pubic Radio/Pubic Broadcasting, the UN, and the University of Alabama, think Cums-a-lot would have been a great POTUS, and maybe Sergeant Pepper Waltz, the best, or at least, first openly gay VPOTUS, can’t pin it down, something about the date

Frank

[Bwaaah]

Tuesday...a day to confess your innermost affections.

Mayonnaise?

[grb]

I looked and double-looked before finally deciding this was April Fools. But every day is at this point.

The U.S. Navy will name its next aircraft carrier the USS Musk according to an executive order to be issued later today. The vessel, which was originally to be christened the USS Enterprise (CVN 80), is expected to be launched by Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) in November. It will be the first carrier named after a serving Senior Advisor to the President.

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2025/04/new-u-s-navy-aircraft-carrier-to-be-named-uss-musk/

[Michael P]

Your double-looking didn't extend to a first read of the last paragraph of that article, did it?

Meanwhile, it now seems likely that the oldest commissioner ship in the U.S. Navy, the USS Constitution, will be disposed of. The vintage vessel, which is made of wood, is no longer considered fit for purpose. Speaking over the weekend, a spokesperson for DOGE noted that wooden ships have no place in a modern warfare. This will also free up the Navy’s oak forests for commercial purposes.

[grb]

Touché.... I admit to not following the article to its absurdist conclusion.

[tylertusta]

Gracefully conceded! It's good for the soul to admit a mistake, however small.

[grb]

But now I'm totally paranoid for the rest of the day. Take this item from one of my architectural sites:

"IKEA is working on plans for a linear store that would depart from the Swedish home-furnishings retailer's usual labyrinthine layout, Dezeen can reveal. Planned for an unconfirmed site, the proposed outlet will stretch to almost two kilometres in length to accommodate all the necessary showrooms and warehouse space.

An architectural rendering obtained by Dezeen shows a long, narrow volume in IKEA's signature blue and yellow colours. The move is a response to increasing concerns about shoppers getting lost inside IKEA stores, which have long been associated with a meandering one-way floorplan."

https://www.dezeen.com/2025/04/01/ikea-two-kilometre-long-store/

Granted, the article discusses an Ikea store designed to look like a giant meatball by the last paragraph, but ya still have to get there.

[tylertusta]

This is the one day of the year where people don't take articles at face value. If only people acted this way the rest of the year.

[grb]

tylertusta : "If only people acted this way the rest of the year."

1. That comment is completely on-point.
2. Trump's Cult would particularly benefit.

[tylertusta]

3. The Anti-Trump Cult would benefit just as much as everybody else.

[Absaroka]

That's obvious #fakenews. IKEA depends on lost shoppers to make meatballs.

[Martinned2]

This post on Balkinization about birthright citizenship and tribal treaties reminded me of a question I've had for a while:

How can it be that those treaties are still valid law today? (As McGirt v. Oklahoma seems to suggest.)

Just like a person can't make a valid contract with himself, a state can't make a treaty with itself. And just like a contract between two companies ends if those companies merge, a treaty between two states must surely also end if those states merge. (There haven't been a lot of mergers between states, so there aren't really clear examples of this. But surely it must be right.) So then how can the US be bound in international law by a treaty between itself and its own sub-national entity?

And if the US is no longer bound in international law by the treaties made in the past between the US and the native American tribes, what is the legal basis for Congress's authority to do things like exempting crimes committed on indian reservations from state jurisdiction (18 U. S. C. §1153(a), which was at issue in McGirt)? Unless that's legislation to implement a treaty, based on the necessary & proper clause read in conjunction with the treaty power, I'm not sure what the legal basis might be.

[Brett Bellmore]

Essentially the Court's position is that they're not going to stop Congress from repudiating lawfully entered into treaties, but that Congress has to do its own dirty work itself, the Court won't do it for them.

So the treaties remain in force until Congress explicitly repudiates them, because they were lawfully entered into at the time, and the passage of time alone does not repeal them.

[Martinned2]

No, not the passage of time. But the tribes being incorporated into the United States? Why doesn't Oklahoma tell Congress to buzz off?

[Martinned2]

Meanwhile, the unelected Spanish judges are getting involved in something much more important than elections: La Liga.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/apr/01/carlo-ancelotti-trial-accused-tax-fraud-real-madrid-manager

[SRG2]

An ‘Administrative Error’ Sends a Maryland Father to a Salvadoran Prison
The Trump administration says that it mistakenly deported an immigrant with protected status but that courts are powerless to order his return.

The case appears to be the first time the Trump administration has admitted to errors when it sent three planeloads of Salvadoran and Venezuelan deportees to El Salvador’s grim “Terrorism Confinement Center” on March 15. Attorneys for several Venezuelan deportees have said that the Trump administration falsely labeled their clients as gang members because of their tattoos. Trump officials have disputed those claims.

And some cultists here were likewise sceptical despite its being bleeding obvious that this would happen.

Trump administration attorneys told the court to dismiss the request [to El Salvador to release him] on multiple grounds, including that Trump’s “primacy in foreign affairs” outweighs the interests of Abrego Garcia and his family.

“They claim that the court is powerless to order any relief,’’ Sandoval-Moshenberg told me. “If that’s true, the immigration laws are meaningless—all of them—because the government can deport whoever they want, wherever they want, whenever they want, and no court can do anything about it once it’s done.”

This is obscene yet utterly predictable.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Nobody who supports Trump will care about this.

[grb]

Dan Schiavetta : "Nobody who supports Trump will care about this."

Vance, when asked about the mistake : "It’s gross to get fired up about gang members getting deported while ignoring citizens they victimize."

Which proves your point. He just doubled-down on the lie, knowing any mistreatment of brown-skinned people is yummy porn to the political base - even if based entirely on lies. This was a stunt which required bodies for the TV cameras. And no one who's followed the scattershot bungling theatrics of this Administration believes the stunt was done with any kind of professionalism, care, or diligence. The only question is what percent of the deportees were sent to a hellhole prison for no reason whatsoever. Fifty percent? Seventy percent? Odds are it's a high number.

You don't follow niceties of Justice and Decency when making right-wing porn.

[David Nieporent]

Vance, when asked about the mistake :

You forgot the scare quotes around "mistake."

[David Nieporent]

This is obscene yet utterly predictable.

Yes. As I said would happen in one of the previous long discussions on this, the U.S. argues that because the guy is in a Salvadoran prison, he is no longer in U.S. custody and thus it cannot be ordered to produce him.

There is literally no reason this couldn't apply to U.S. citizens as well.

[tylertusta]

This "Maryland father" (who is allegedly a MS-13 member and not covered under Boasberg's TRO) might get to return to the US only to have his pending asylum claim denied, a final order for removal issued, and then deported again.

[David Nieporent]

and then deported again

But even if so, not to El Salvador.

[tylertusta]

Why would we not deport a Salvadoran national to El Salvador?

Has El Salvador now refused to accept their nationals?

[David Nieporent]

Why would we not deport a Salvadoran national to El Salvador?

Because the Convention Against Torture does not let us send people to places where they're likely to be tortured, and there's a judicial order granting withholding of removal of this guy to El Salvador.

[tylertusta]

Because the Convention Against Torture does not let us send people to places where they're likely to be tortured

"Likely" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in this sentence.

Somehow this wasn't a problem during the Biden years, yet it's magically transformed into one during the Trump years.

... and there's a judicial order granting withholding of removal of this guy to El Salvador.

You mean his pending asylum application? Or is there something else?

[David Nieporent]

You mean his pending asylum application? Or is there something else?

I'm not sure why you're talking about the facts of a case when you don't know the facts of a case. And I'm also not sure why you're trying to re-litigate an issue that even the Trump administration admits. Garcia applied for asylum as well as for withholding of removal to El Salvador. He was found removable, but the judge granted the latter, which meant that he could not be sent to El Salvador.
​

Somehow this wasn't a problem during the Biden years, yet it's magically transformed into one during the Trump years.

I don't have any idea what the "this" and "it" refers to in this statement. But obviously "somehow" Biden didn't go around deporting people in violation of the law, whereas Trump "magically" does.

[tylertusta]

I'm not sure why you're talking about the facts of a case when you don't know the facts of a case

This is a public chat and I asked you a question. If you aren't prepared to discuss with us non-lawyers, and get emotional when we do ask questions, then why are you even here?

I don't have any idea what the "this" and "it" refers to in this statement.

I am referring to deportations of MS-13 gang members to El Salvador.

[bernard11]

What is the evidence he is an MS-13 member?

Apparently, someone once said so. These people are lying to cover up a terrible mistake that they refuse to correct.

And the Trumpists cheer. Unbelievable fucking assholes.

[tylertusta]

Apparently he was determined to be a MS-13 member but when facing deportation he came up with a cockamamie story about torture by local gangs in El Salvador.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Yes, maybe he'll just walk out of that prison and return to the US on his own...

[ReaderY]

I have been trying to argue that lawyers for immigrants should do their best to avoid undermining the usability of a writ of habeas corpus because I think the Great Writ may work in circumstances where nothing else does. As Galadriel said to Frodo, “May it be a light for you in the darkness when all other lights go out.”

I think it could work here. Government officials in fact have the ability to produce Mr. Garcia. They can pay Salvadoran officials to release him and put him on a plane and escourt him to court. Where the government actively seeks to evade jurisdiction, I think the rules can be gotten around.

Mr. Garcia would be entitled to be released if he can claim, as appears quite possible, that he is not dangerous. The Alien Enemies Act contains statutory language that entitles non-dangerous alien enemies to be given a “reasonable” amount of time to settle their affairs and voluntarily leave without being subjected to detention. I think this statutory language permits a judge to order Mr. Garcia’s release for this “reasonable” period in a TRO as a preliminary matter, with the government restrained from detaining or deporting him. Because this statutory right arises within the AEA itself, a judge could order this very early, without having to decide contested merits issues like the validity of Trump’s AEA proclamation. I believe this statuory basis to demand immediate release may be unique to a habeas corpus action under the AEA, and may not be available if any other source of law is used.

[David Nieporent]

Government officials in fact have the ability to produce Mr. Garcia. They can pay Salvadoran officials to release him

Again, that's not how habeas works.¹ And certainly the U.S. government takes the position that it can't.
​
​
¹They can also send Seal Team Six to retrieve him, but that's not a habeas argument.

[tylertusta]

Perhaps the plaintiffs should have filed in DC and asked Judge Boasberg to order the Seals in.

[ReaderY]

This just strikes me as a bogus argument so far as a practical (as distinct from technical jurisdictional) argument is concerned. We are paying El Salvador to keep these folks in their prisons for us, not as a favor but as a simple business transaction. You really think that with a business arrangement like this, we can’t pay them to release a prisoner into our custody?

[David Nieporent]

This just strikes me as a bogus argument so far as a practical (as distinct from technical jurisdictional) argument is concerned.

We're talking about law here. Not your personal ideas of what should or can be done. (I used the Seal Team 6 argument to underscore that point.)

[Magister]

Is there any judicial process other than habeas by which this deportation, which the Trump administration admits it was wrong to do, can be remedied?

[ReaderY]

So the claim they can’t produce the body is based on a technical legal argument, not a practical, factual one. Just wanted to clarify.

[Stephen Lathrop]

One practical fact would be that El Salvador could not produce a body if it were already burned up in the prison crematorium. How does anyone know this guy is not already dead?

[bernard11]

And certainly the U.S. government takes the position that it can't.

Which is ridiculous. El Salvador has no interest in keeping the guy in jail. Does anyone think they wouldn't turn him over for a million dollars?

But Trump and Vance would rather make shit up to cover their asses.

[John F. Carr]

I wanted to put this in the "enjoining a memo" category but it's a rare instance of a federal judge using his discretion to enter a declaratory judgment instead.

Albama Attorney General Steve Marshall suggested conspiracies to get abortions out of state might be punished. Lawsuits followed. Judge Myron Thompson entered a declaratory judgment:

It is DECLARED that the defendant’s use of the provisions of Alabama’s criminal code to prosecute those who assist individuals seeking to leave Alabama to obtain abortion care in a State where abortion is legal would violate both the First Amendment and the right to travel.

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67649369/yellowhammer-fund-v-marshall-lead/

As befits an old judge appointed by President Carter, the order is in a typewriter font.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Good old Courier. I occasionally see a law firm still using it.

My favorite font (yes, I know, technically "typeface") is Fairfield Medium because it looks like the font of my old Olympia portable.

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

With Grassley's proposed bill and the one in the House, the Democrat's Lawfare Goose is about to be cooked.

Get fucked, you biased hack judges and lawfare conspirators.

[SRG2]

Probably unconstitutional. See Art III

[tylertusta]

I'd go a step further.

Prohibit district court judges from issuing nationwide injunctions on a TRO basis altogether, and only allow them on a PI, which has the benefit of briefing. Even then, a nationwide injunction would not enter into force until an en banc circuit court approves it after they also hold a hearing and have the issue briefed.

That incentivizes the appeals courts to better oversee the district courts under them lest they use up all of their time working on just nationwide injunctions all day every day.

[SRG2]

I thought you lot disapproved of hearings. Or is it only when the regime abducts people?

[tylertusta]

"you lot"

[SRG2]

What about it? Makes a change from writing "you cultists".

[David Nieporent]

Prohibit district court judges from issuing nationwide injunctions on a TRO basis altogether, and only allow them on a PI, which has the benefit of briefing.

The entire point of a TRO is to preserve the status quo until there can be time to litigate a PI.

[tylertusta]

If you can't play nicely with your toys, you don't deserve to have them.

[David Nieporent]

So you don't think the president should have the authority to do any of the things he's proposing to do? Me neither!

[tylertusta]

Is this the best possible response you could have made here?

Do you want a do-over?

[David Nieporent]

No, I think I gave the "we should let the government do whatever it wants without scrutiny because the courts correctly tried to put speed bumps on the road to the government doing whatever it wants without scrutiny" argument the serious response it deserved.

Note that virtually¹ every one of the things that have been TROed or enjoined was a self-inflicted injury by Trump. By that I mean that virtually² none of them were actual emergencies. There was no need to round up and deport people on no notice, to invoke the AEA, to fire employees without notice, to try to sanction lawyers and universities, etc. They created the exigencies that necessitated the immediate judicial relief sought.
​
​
¹I actually cannot think of a single exception, but I say "virtually" to leave open the possibility that I'm forgetting one.
²See FN 1.

[tylertusta]

No, I think I gave the "we should let the government do whatever it wants without scrutiny because the courts correctly tried to put speed bumps on the road to the government doing whatever it wants without scrutiny" argument the serious response it deserved.

I feel the same way about judges who assert jurisdiction that they do not have to issue TROs based on one-sided representations. The judge I'm specifically steamed about is Judge Ali and his mishandling of his USAID case.

As I said before, if you do not play nicely with your toys you don't get to keep them.

[Magister]

It's sad that you think vindications of constitutional rights are toys.

[tylertusta]

NGOs have a constitutional right to be paid money notwithstanding the terms of their actual contracts or whether they actually completed work?

That's news to me!

[Magister]

I'm thinking of cases where orders were granted to prevent violations of due process and equal protection. (Having to follow laws regarding how federal contracts are terminated would not usually be a constitutional violation, but it's also not a toy.)

Similar to the quotation from A Man for All Seasons, when they come for you after all the "toys" are taken away, where will you hide?

[tylertusta]

Having to follow laws regarding how federal contracts are terminated would not usually be a constitutional violation, but it's also not a toy

That's my point: Judge Ali was not following the law. He asserted jurisdiction for what amounted to a contractual dispute when the venue for that was the Federal Court of Claims.

Then he issued a TRO, and then he expanded that TRO to cover non-plaintiffs. It was gross overreach on his part, and he had to be gently walked back from the ledge by SCOTUS.

[Magister]

So you are happy to see removed constitutional guarantees and the benefit of law because you think one judge was wrong. The Supreme Court seems to think Judge Ali was not wrong, even if it encouraged him to clarify his order.

[tylertusta]

The Court didn't say that Ali's order was not wrong. However, the effect of a week-long stay and their unofficial order for Ali to redraw the contours of his order implies that a majority of the court thinks he went too far.

because you think one judge was wrong

I didn't say that injunction abuse in a TRO has only happened one time. I used Ali's misdeeds in the USAID case as an especially bad example. He's not the only one:

Judge Boasberg's TdA case out of DC, Judge Oetken for the Voice of America case out of NY, Judge McConnell's case for federal spending black , and Judge Englemeyer's bonkers TRO that blocked even the Treasury Secretary from accessing his own systems.

There's plenty of insanity to go around.

So you are happy to see removed constitutional guarantees and the benefit of law

This concern is overblown. TROs are being abused by plaintiffs and judges with agendas, and I want to end that abuse.

They have other avenues with which they can get relief.

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

To preserve the status quo for the litigants before the court, right?

[jb]

I bet you were very concerned about this when Republicans were forum shopping for specific judges to issue nationwide injunctions during the Biden administration.

[tylertusta]

I wasn't especially concerned, since (to the best of my knowledge) none of the nationwide injunctions were done through a TRO, but rather through PIs.

Judges gave the government the ability to brief and argue its case before issuing a PI.

In some cases the judges stayed their own injunctions. When the district court did not do that, in many cases the appellate court promptly stepped in and stayed it themselves. Even then, I think SCOTUS had to step in only a couple of times.

And even in instances where a NI continued, the district courts moved promptly to issue final judgements.

These are wholly different circumstances than what we're seeing now, and since conservatives are apt to play the same stupid TRO games during the next leftwing administration, things should be reformed now.

[jb]

Likely a big difference is that most of the places where PIs were issued against the Biden administration were in response to relatively orderly rulemaking where there was plenty of time to brief and argue the issue before the rule took effect. The Trump administration actions that the TROs have been applied to have been issued through EOs or other executive actions with immediate effect, ending funding, terminating employees, etc. where there's no way to brief the issue prior to pretty substantial effects already taking place.

Would be interesting to see if you have specific counterexamples that don't fit this pattern on either side. I admit that I'm not up to speed on every nationwide injunction that's been put in place against Biden or Trump.

[tylertusta]

... where there's no way to brief the issue prior to pretty substantial effects already taking place.

To my knowledge, only the AEA case involves this kind of immediacy of a pending action. The planes were about to take off, after all.

Most of the rest were either not especially urgent or a case where judges are trying to claw back a status quo that no longer exists.

[SRG2]

Can the Executive strip a legitimately naturalised citizen of their citizenship and then deport them?

1. Why no: "Citizenship can be revoked if the government proves that a naturalized citizen obtained their citizenship through fraud, misrepresentation, or concealment of material facts during the naturalization process" or through helping someone else fraudulently becoming a citizen, (or military service discharge in some instances). So if their naturalisation was legitimate, there are no grounds for denaturalisation.

2. Why yes: the Executive declares that they had decided that the citizen misrepresented or concealed facts and that therefore they were stripping him of his citizenship, and they have already deported him. As he wasn't a citizen he didn't get a hearing.

Under the regime, #2 becomes a possibility. Absent a hearing, what is to stop the regime from doing something like this? Answer: nothing. It would be too late to challenge their action. Possibly the deported citizen could later challenge the decision - provided he was not in an El Salvador prison or similar.

[Commenter_XY]

No....simply put, citizenship is a one-way ticket.

[SRG2]

Well, as I've already said why naturalisation can be revoked, the question is what would stop the regime revoking naturalisation claiming fraud/misrepresentation and deporting the citizen before anyone can do anything about it? What are the guarantees that the regime will follow the law concerning denaturalisation?

[bernard11]

But you endorse unilateral, unchallengeable, determinations by Trump that someone has done something that merits deportation.

So to you it's not a one-way street at all.

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

Let's take some bets, which judge do you think will put a TRO on the DoD having the same standards for men and women for a given MOS?

That whacko Democrat judge that said fitness standards have a long history of being used to intentionally discriminate? Or Boasburg, the Deep State's hatchet man?

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

Turns out that Chen guy in SF that did the nationwide TRO against changing the status those TPS Venezuelans ignored the clear language of the law, and a recent 9th Circuit ruling on this same issue.

Why should his TRO be honored when he's this much of a piece of Democrat trash?
https://x.com/bonchieredstate/status/1907068654845390931

This is just blatant judicial tyranny. Who is going to stop this soft coup by these garbage Democrat judges?

[SRG2]

What "clear language of the law" are you talking about?

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

This is why I don't provide links, typically.

They don't matter.

[SRG2]

This is why I don't provide links, typically.

How convenient.

Here's the act: https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title50/chapter3&edition=prelim

From the actual act.

Whenever there is a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government, or any invasion or predatory incursion is perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States by any foreign nation or government

Drug cartels are not foreign nations nor governments.(and fwiw MS-13 is a US gang.) and there is no invasion nor predatory incursion.by any reasonable definition.

Did the aliens have time to settle their affairs?

When an alien who becomes liable as an enemy, in the manner prescribed in section 21 of this title, is not chargeable with actual hostility, or other crime against the public safety, he shall be allowed, for the recovery, disposal, and removal of his goods and effects, and for his departure, the full time which is or shall be stipulated by any treaty then in force between the United States and the hostile nation or government of which he is a native citizen, denizen, or subject; and where no such treaty exists, or is in force, the President may ascertain and declare such reasonable time as may be consistent with the public safety, and according to the dictates of humanity and national hospitality.

The public safety requirement is not an exemption - after all, once an alien is in custody he is no longer a threat.

There has to be a hearing:

After any such proclamation has been made, the several courts of the United States, having criminal jurisdiction, and the several justices and judges of the courts of the United States, are authorized and it shall be their duty, upon complaint against any alien enemy resident and at large within such jurisdiction or district, to the danger of the public peace or safety, and contrary to the tenor or intent of such proclamation, or other regulations which the President may have established, to cause such alien to be duly apprehended and conveyed before such court, judge, or justice; and after a full examination and hearing on such complaint, and sufficient cause appearing, to order such alien to be removed out of the territory of the United State

Do ICE officers have the authority to arrest these aliens? No. It's the job of marshals or their deputies:

When an alien enemy is required by the President, or by order of any court, judge, or justice, to depart and to be removed, it shall be the duty of the marshal of the district in which he shall be apprehended to provide therefor and to execute such order in person, or by his deputy or other discreet person to be employed by him,

Perhaps you will prove your point by rejecting the clear words of the law. I will bet you never read the Act.

[David Nieporent]

You're talking about Trump's TdA proclamation. VoltageGuy is talking about Trump's revocation of TPS status for all Venezuelans present in this country.

But contrary to the tweet Voltage linked to, the court addressed and rejected the government's interpretation of that provision of the statute. Here's the decision. The relevant discussion is on pages 23-27.

https://www.aclusocal.org/sites/default/files/2025.03.31_93_order_granting_postponement_motion.pdf

The TL;DR: the TPS statute says that the DHS head can designate a country where the conditions are such that TPS is warranted (and can then end such a designation). The TPS statute says that a court can't review whether such designation (or termination thereof) is valid. But that's not what the court did here.

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

You agree the judge on the part that ending the TPS status is "vacating" and not "terminating"?

And while "terminating" is clear, "vacating" isn't?

Maybe the judge and the plaintiffs could've called the action "smorgasborging" that isn't in the statue either.

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

lol you look so stupid

[Magister]

Your link to a couple of screenshots and an angry comment is almost useless because the amount of work to find what it's talking about is so substantial. Judge Chen addressed the government's argument with respect to § 1254a(b)(5)(A) at length; the order itself appears to be available online.

Edited: Too slow; David Nieporent already posted that link and commented on what the court did.

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

Right. Judge said this action was "vacating" and not "terminating", hence he gets to review it because the statue doesn't say anything about "vacating" only "terminating".

Thats about as stupid as it gets.

[Magister]

Not the only thing he said; judicial review remains for questions of constitutionality, among other reasons.

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

I don't see how foreign nations have any sort of constitutional claims to how they are being designated by the federal government that thusly empowers this judge to review the designation.

Maybe that judge does, he did say this "smacks of racism". Maybe once a BIPOC country gets flagged as a status to qualify for TPS, then it really is racist to say that BIPOC country is in better shape and no longer qualifies for TPS. Just like how it's racist to claim a black can get their own ID to vote with. And "smacks of racism" is clearly unconstitutional. Especially when dealing with foreign nations and categorizing them...

[David Nieporent]

I don't see how foreign nations have any sort of constitutional claims to how they are being designated by the federal government that thusly empowers this judge to review the designation.

They don't, of course. Foreign nations aren't the ones asserting claims in this case.

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

I forgot Mr. Pedant is around.

Of course my claims extend to foreign nationals of those countries. Foreign nations aren't sentient beings and cannot do anything without an actual human doing it.

You may not have realized that foreign nations weren't sentient and maybe that's why you got hung up on that detail.

[David Nieporent]

Of course, your claims don't extend to foreign nationals of those countries; you specifically were talking about the countries. And the countries are not parties to the litigation, and the people bringing these claims are not doing so on behalf of the countries.