Monday Open Thread

What's on your mind?

Comments

[not guilty]

As he often does, Garry Trudeau offers some trenchant commentary. https://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury

The need to have someone to hate is a primal, powerful and odious thing. Bill Moyers has related an anecdote about his boss, then-Senator Lyndon B. Johnson, recognizing the appeal of racial segregation to lower class whites:

WHILE Lyndon Baines Johnson was a man of time and place, he felt the bitter paradox of both. I was a young man on his staff in 1960 when he gave me a vivid account of that southern schizophrenia he understood and feared. We were in Tennessee. During the motorcade, he spotted some ugly racial epithets scrawled on signs. Late that night in the hotel, when the local dignitaries had finished the last bottles of bourbon and branch water and departed, he started talking about those signs.

"I'll tell you what's at the bottom of it," he said. "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1988/11/13/what-a-real-president-was-like/d483c1be-d0da-43b7-bde6-04e10106ff6c/

Those Tennessee seggers in 1960 surely realized they were on the losing side of a massive cultural shift which would upend their way of life. The same is true of those on the losing side of today's culture war, and they don't like it one little bit.

During the twenty-first century, gays and lesbians have largely become mainstream. Gay bashing, hate speech and overt discrimination against same sex couples has become much less socially acceptable than it was before the advent of marriage equality. I surmise that that is because as gays and lesbians have become more visible, more people now realize that that kind of hatemongering is harmful to someone near and dear to them.

The haters now need a new bogeyman class of people to look down upon. What better target is there than transgendered folks, who are less numerous, less well organized, less politically powerful and less likely to be "out" than same sex attracted people?

[Noscitur a sociis]

transgendered folks

Yikes!

[not guilty]

To-MAY-to, to-MAH-to.

When I was a child, referring to "colored people" was considered polite. Now that is an anachronism, although "people of color" is not. I have yet to understand that distinction.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Vox called you on your bigotry - using "transgendered" rather than "transgender."

This is the faction you've chosen to associate with. You called people who reject their ukases bigots, then you proceed to reject one of the ukases yourself.

You got caught with your knickers down, and your double standards showing.

[Lee Moore]

Worse than merely rejecting trans ukases, not guilty is brushing them off as unimportant. That is way more contemptuous. The tumbrils await.

[not guilty]

Ukase?? I don't think that word means what you seem to think it means.

In any event, I am old enough and cranky enough to be a curmudgeon when I choose to be. I also know when to avoid a pissing contest with a passel of skunks.

Heaven forbid that anyone should respond substantively to the trans hatred that I have called out.

[Commenter_XY]

Isn't that a two-way street = trans hatred

Ask Audrey Hale or Alec McKinney or Snochia Moseley about hatred.

[hobie]

You lost your 'person of substance' card yesterday, XY. The unserious people are, like, three posts down. Go join them

[Frank Drackman]

So you'd be fine with Dr. Rachel Levine (AKA Richard Levine) or Sam Brinton (AKA "Fast Fingers Sammy") having Lockers next to your daughter at Planet Fitness? She comes in from a good workout, and the Good Doctor and Sammy drop their Yoga pants and "Whammo!!!!" (HT Dr. Bill Cosby) there's little Dr. Levine and Sammy Jr in full Rugae (that's an anatomical term, not Jamaican music)

Frank

[Commenter_XY]

And you're the judge, hobie? LMFAO, spare us, please.

[Sarcastr0]

Vox didn’t call him on his bigotry, that’s you strawmannirg so you can hate the left for calling everything bigoted and also go at ng with some false heat.

And even if Vox had said what it didn’t say, they are not the speaker for the Left.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Plenty of progressives hate those who differ from them politically - so they naturally attribute political differences to hate. In practice, that means that anyone who disagrees with Stan calling himself Loretta is motivated by hatred of Stan. Which can justify punishment of anyone who doesn't share Stan's self-image as a woman, or refuses to accommodate him in public restrooms and women's sports teams.

The icing of the cake is progressives exempting themselves from the standards they apply to others - e. g., by using "transgendered."

[Sarcastr0]

Yes, there a stereotype of the toxic leftist for a reason.

But Vox didn't do that, so you're just bringing in a strawman irrelevant to the conversation.

How boring.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

The Vox article promotes the idea that calling someone "transgendered" is like calling someone "colored."

"Transgendered" sounds bigoted to me - if you accept ng/Vox's ridiculous premises.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"The Vox article promotes the idea that calling someone "transgendered" is like calling someone "colored.""

But NG doesn't call black people colored, he calls them Uncle Toms.

[Brett Bellmore]

LOL! Why would any sane person care about being "called out" over something so stupid?

[grb]

Not stupid at all. Today's right-wingers are burdened by nostalgia and regret. In the good old days, they used to hate on blacks, despise jews, loathe hispanics, detest gays, and view women with utter contempt. They could do so openly, confident their fellows would grin and give them a hearty slap on the back. Their hate could be celebrated publicly; it was the bonding ritual that established their superiority to all those lesser types.

But all that was taken from them. Stolen from them. Torn right from their grasp. Now all they have left is the microscopely small number of trans folk. They're the only group left for a old-fashion public orgy of hate. Hell, today's Right can't even harass and torment faggots anymore, that's how bad this "woke" business has gotten for them. They're allowed no fun like in the olden days - except (of course) with trans people.

So if you want an explanation for the 691 laws proposed across the country in 2024 targeting and tormenting trans folk, that's it. Simple nostalgia. Likewise the 615 laws from 2023. Back in the day, they had multiple options to target, torment, and toy-with "inferior types". So many different kinds of people to feel superior to! Now it's all shriveled down to the miniscule number of transsexuals. That's all they have left.

https://translegislation.com/

[not guilty]

The pecker checkers will chase any rabbit to avoid talking about their insidious hatemongering.

This thread illustrates that quite vividly.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Yesterday's protection of women's rights becomes today's insidious hatemongering.

We have always been at war with Eastasia.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Vox called you on your bigotry - using "transgendered" rather than "transgender.""

He regularly uses racial slurs to refer to black people and says that women with large breasts are dishonest, this is much less bigoted than usual.

[Dr. Ed 2]

If I remember my grammar correctly, nominative versus subjective case.

[Frank Drackman]

It’s “Subjunctive” and it’s “Mood” not “Case” , congrats, you molest the Engrish language even worse than I (although people saying “Where is it AT?” Does get on my last nerve, they should do a “Dexter” show where he kills people who end sentences with Prepositions)

[not guilty]

"Does get on my last nerve, they should do a “Dexter” show where he kills people who end sentences with Prepositions"

Yes. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, that is something up with which he should not put.

[Noscitur a sociis]

To paraphrase Winston Churchill,

Nope.

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/07/04/churchill-preposition/

[Noscitur a sociis]

If I remember my grammar correctly, nominative versus subjective case.

This is the genius of Dr. Ed. It doesn’t matter how minor or tangential the point: he can still find a way to get it spectacularly wrong.

[Ridgeway]

I often wonder if he is actually doing some sort of Andy Kaufman-esque routine for his own amusement.

Either that or he is playing a long game to set up an insanity/diminished capacity defense for some crime he is contemplating.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"If I remember my grammar correctly, nominative versus subjective case."

Nominative and subjective case are more or less the same thing. And that's not the distinction you're looking for anyway.

[Dan Schiavetta]

NG

Good point. That has been my experience also.

[Brett Bellmore]

It's a shibboleth in motion. If you retain the same word unchanged, the outsiders eventually catch on, so you swap code words occasionally. Nothing more.

[Dan Schiavetta]

“I don’t know why it is, I only know that it is.”

[Sarcastr0]

Brett found a linguistic conspiracy!

[Brett Bellmore]

Bah, shibboleths evolve naturally, no conspiracy required.

[Sarcastr0]

Shibboleths do not traditionally involve swapping code words occasionally. That's your gloss.

[Stephen Lathrop]

In the early 1980s I had occasion to attend a graduation ceremony incongruously staged in the courtyard of the Harvard Divinity School. Incongruous, because the students were to get graduate degrees from the Harvard Education School.

All that stands out in my memory of that experience were two large trash barrels, placed in the archway by which to gain entry into the courtyard. Each barrel had taped to it a hand-scrawled message on a full-sized sheet of copier paper. On one barrel the label said, "White Paper." On the other barrel, "Paper of Color."

[Dr. Ed 2]

While using electricity produced by power plants that were burning trees cut down for that purpose.

Personally, I would burn the paper and use the trees for paper, as the environment would come out better in the end, but that's just me...

[Noscitur a sociis]

So you think it’s okay to decide for yourself whether or not transgender people’s requested terminology is reasonable enough to be worth the effort to accommodate them?

[Brett Bellmore]

Doesn't freedom of speech pretty much dictate this outcome? The transgendereds' preferred terminology, insofar as it's to be used by OTHER people, is other people's speech, after all. You may be entitled to have your own preferences concerning others' speech, you're not entitled to have those other people care about your preferences.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Doesn't freedom of speech pretty much dictate this outcome?

Freedom of speech doesn’t preclude you from judging the speech other people choose to use. And I’m going to guess that not guilty feels pretty comfortable judging people who don’t, for instance, use transgender people’s preferred pronouns.

[Brett Bellmore]

Freedom of speech means, exactly, that "it’s okay to decide for yourself", is my point.

Decide for others? Not so much.

[Sarcastr0]

Freedom of speech means the government isn't coming after you.

It doesn't mean everyone has to be cool with you should you start being an insulting asshole.

[Jmaie]

[TwelveInchPianist]

NaS's comment is a response to NG, who apparently thinks it's OK for him to decline to use Transgender people's preferred terminology, but not for anybody else.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I think it is more a case of defining down deviancy.

There was a time when pre-marital sex was condemned.

[Frank Drackman]

Does it always have to be Sex with you? Sex! Sex! Sex! I’ve had it up to here with Sex!
Not lately though,

Frank

[Dr. Ed 2]

Well, it IS about sex -- and trannies are upset about how normal men don't find them sexually attractive.

[Frank Drackman]

More Amurican Servicemen died on any random day of LBJs (thankfully) last year in Orifice than in “47”’s entire 4+ years, most of them “Hillbillies”(HT Hobie), it was so bad at the end he grew his hair long like Willie Nelson so nobody would recognize him

Frank

[Moderation4ever]

Sadly, this is true that in any society there is a need to look down on someone. It seems to be part of our nature. The sad thing is that we have gone so far that the only ones we really have to look down upon are the trans individuals.

[not guilty]

The MAGA cult loves Donald Trump because he hates the same people that they do.

Which is pathetic, topside to bottom.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Not entirely.

While there is some extent of that, there always is in populism, it is far more a case of (a) he makes them feel good about themselves and (b) is stopping other people from saying bad things about them.

[Bwaaah]

Most of the college-educated left in the U.S. looks down (with deep feelings of contempt) on every person who voted for DJT, as well as non-college-educated people and immigrants and all the poor stupid toiling people in the world. Sure, they have their pity stories and their pity programs for the pitiful people, but that's just them trying to "give back." They are the upper class, and all else are the lower [stupider] class. "Trans" is just one of their pity categories.

It's such a dodge to focus on distaste for "trans" people when that whole issue is driven by distaste for the left's sudden insistence that this ambiguous class of people be given special whatever-they-say status. People are not fixated on trans people; they are fixated on an absurd rash of leftists trans policies.

But as for hatefulness, the college-educated left has attained supreme status in its contempt for all the people they call stupid, ignorant, poor, transphobic, racist, xenophobic fools...roughly half or more of the American population. As is typical, the educated left plays pretend on issues, with its vast legitimate news media keeping the shine on their giant bubble.

The big problem is transphobia? Gimme a break.

[windycityattorney]

Some perspective: According to the NCAA, out of 510,000 student athletes, 10 are openly trans. 10!!

Yet, we have multiple state's passing laws on this subject, we had a presidential election where hundred(s) million dollars was spent on advertising the topic. We have a US Congress where committee chairs dead name an elected representative and bully a trans member with bathroom police not to mention repeated childish insults from a small but dedicated group of GOP woman?

How do you explain this behavior? Is it an overreaction to what is is perceived as a much bigger problem? Is it scoring cheap political points on an easy target? The amount of trans related ads in the last election was ridiculous and it was almost all anti-trans messaging from the GOP. So clearly someone was told this message would resonate with their voters.

[Life of Brian]

According to the NCAA, out of 510,000 student athletes, 10 are openly trans. 10!!

Actually, NCAA President Charlie Baker said he was personally aware of 10. That's a wee bit different.

[Dr. Ed 2]

And this is the same Charlie Baker who some of us knew for 8 years as Governor of Massachusetts -- and things like out-of-state OUI notifications of truck drivers being put "in a box" instead of being acted on.

His popularity was a mile wide -- and an inch deep.

[windycityattorney]

Fine. Make it 500 trans athletes out of 510,000.

Due to my college basketball watching habits, I was exposed to a lot of Iowa tv programming. The trans athlete shit was literally every g-damn commercial break for 6wks straight. I'd like to see a breakdown on how much money was spent on this topic.

You would have thought it was the most important pressing issue facing America.

[Absaroka]

In fairness, a small number of people affected cuts both ways. Embassies were flying rainbow flags. Our local city government, while pleading poverty in every other case, made a big thing out of repainting crosswalks in rainbow stripes instead of white (and not just when they needed to be repainted because of wear).

Someone with a legal name of Thomas might prefer to be called Thomas, Tom, Tommy, T, Junior, or Bubba. The vast majority of people will pick up on that and call him whatever he likes[1]. But if someone at the DMV or a professor looks at the roll sheet and calls out 'Thomas' instead of 'Tom', most people don't get bent about it, and aren't having nicknames printed on roll sheets with discipline for professors who get the name wrong.

There are extremists on both sides, but the issue got political valence precisely because people in the middle felt like they were getting barraged by trans issues, and they just didn't feel like trans issues merited being the issue of the decade. To coin a phrase, Median People's Lives Matter Too.

[1]but not all ... I go by the 'Tom' version of my name, but a couple of relatives and one lifelong friend use the 'Tommy' equivalent. I have intimated my preference once or twice, then let it drop.

[Satchmo_Lives]

Get back to me when you have a 13 year old daughter made to shower with a male classmate. You guys made it an issue. Don't complain because 80% of the population disagrees and responds. Jeez.

[Satchmo_Lives]

What are the laws they are passing? No men in women's 17 year old boys in locker rooms with 14 year old girls? No biological man can compete in the women's division? I agree, they should not be laws. But take that up with the leftists who suddenly decided common sense doesn't mean shit and they will run schools how they see fit. Let's put boys in girls locker rooms. What could go wrong? They had to pass laws to stop the absurdity of the left. And you blame the legislators?

What ever the number is 10 or 10,000, the impact on women is exponentially greater. Every scholarship given to a man, every roster spot given to a man, and every competition denies a woman a rightly earned place. Not to mention making young women shower with boys. But by all means, screw women to placate a mental illness (at best).

[bernard11]

Most of the college-educated left in the U.S. looks down (with deep feelings of contempt) on every person who voted for DJT, as well as non-college-educated people and immigrants and all the poor stupid toiling people in the world.

It looks to me like it's the Trump people who look down on immigrants, regard them as non-human - "vermin" Trump once called them - mostly criminal. How many complaints have we heard from the Trump cult, including its god, about them being rapists and murderers, and whatnot, in defiance of fact?

Who was it who accused Haitians of eating people's pets, and then stood by it when it was utterly debunked? If you want to see someone looking down, look in the mirror.

And what about the guy who was wrongfully sent to El Salvador? Hey. Too bad, or just an "oopsie." Can't (won't) do anything about it, says the right.

DJT voters? Yeah, I hold them in generally low regard, because they knowingly voted for a destructive, vindictive, ignorant, fool, who is doing great damage to this country.

And do you think the right doesn't hold college educated liberals in contempt? Where have you been living? They hold the whole notion of universities and learning in contempt.

So take your screed and shove it.

[Sarcastr0]

When MAGA folks explain to you that you hate them, and that's why they hate you...that seems a pretty big core of their thinking.

They *feel* disrespected. And at some point that becomes core to their identity, and they will make stuff up to validate their resentment.

From that resentment comes their willingness to wreck the country to own the libs.

[Commenter_XY]

The libs already did a good job wrecking the country. They voted for change 11/5/24.

[Senor Wolf]

The American economy was the best it had ever been at the time of the election and was outperforming other countries. I personally did not like the grip of woke ideology across a number of institutions or the progressive Biden puppet show, but the answer was never to elect a facist moron with even more illiberal tendencies.

[bernard11]

The libs already did a good job wrecking the country.

How so, XY. Economically,

the economy that Trump inherited was fine, characterized by solid GDP growth, robust jobs, low unemployment, rising real wages and improving consumer confidence.

What else did they ruin? The stock market? How's your 401(k) look under Trump?

Our alliances? Trump has wrecked them.

Education. Trump hates it.

[Dr. Ed 2]

GaslightO, what do we have to lose if the economy is wrecked?

You have a nice government job -- most of us don't.

[Dr. Ed 2]

What part of ILLEGAL do you not comprehend?

I like rich people, I don't like bank robbers -- can you see the difference???

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Trump people who look down on immigrants

I don't know of any Trump people who look down on "immigrants". I know a lot who don't like people coming into the country illegally...especially those with criminal tendencies. But of course, being the dishonest asshole you are, you don't distinguish between all immigrants and those who are here illegally, even though those you're attacking do...because you're a dishonest asshole.

"regard them as non-human - "vermin" Trump once called them

Trump never referred to immigrants as "vermin". He took heat from the left for using that term to describe those he was referring to as "radical left thugs"...you lying asshole.

[Mr Ed's Mom too]

Trump never referred to immigrants as "vermin".

That's right. He just correctly pointed out that immigrants are "poisoning the blood of our country" not to mention all the other sacred and precious bodily fluids that they are defiling. We need to export them as quickly as possible before all our fluids are desecrated and we need to increase the tariff charged on immigrants, too. $5 million is not nearly enough and we must make Mexico pay for it.

[David Nieporent]

I don't know of any Trump people who look down on "immigrants".

Yes, you do. You know tons of them. They are all over social media, expressing disdain and hatred for people who came here legally. So you're lying.

[Jmaie]

"Those Tennessee seggers in 1960 surely realized they were on the losing side of a massive cultural shift which would upend their way of life."

But is that true? While the culture shift was recognized it was not at all apparent that it couldn't be contained or avoided.

"The same is true of those on the losing side of today's culture war, and they don't like it one little bit."

I was of the opinion that Roe V. Wade would never be overturned, and reiterated that to my wife whenever she was worried...worst political prognostication I've ever made. Well, that and also that I was sure our first black president would be a conservative. But in any case, how sure are you that Dobbs will eventually be reversed? And if so, how?

[not guilty]

"But is that true? While the culture shift was recognized it was not at all apparent that it couldn't be contained or avoided."

Then-Senator Johnson made his comment in 1960. While the major strides had not yet been taken, enforcement of racially restrictive covenants for real property was outlawed in 1948. The armed forces were desegregated by executive order in 1948. De jure segregation had been dismantled by SCOTUS in 1954, following a string of prior victories by black plaintiffs while the courts were still applying the mendacious "separate but equal" rubric. Congress in 1957 broke a filibuster and enacted a Civil Rights Act. President Eisenhower in 1958 sent federal troops to desegregate schools in Little Rock.

[Jmaie]

Sure, I'm just saying it might be a lot more apparent in hindsight than at the time.

[Noscitur a sociis]

As he often does, Garry Trudeau offers some trenchant commentary.

This seems like pretty weak stuff, both as comedy and commentary.

1. Trump’s executive orders aren’t written in his voice, to the point where imagining him actually personally writing them itself kind of funny.

2. Trump has a very distinct and easily mockable way of speaking, but “You can’t have the trans. You just can’t. I decree it. It’s called a decree.” ain’t it.

3. As far as the actual point, the “head of the NCAA” said that he was “aware of” “less than 10” athletes, not that there were less than 10. And here’s an article from a few weeks after that celebrating the “over 40” trans athletes the author was aware of. Meanswhile, Trudeau appears to have gotten the claim that “they’re almost as rare in high schools” from your old friend, Prof. Yurazz. But see this (pro-trans) analysis estimating it at 122,000 people.

4. Which illustrates that the argument doesn’t make a whole lot of sense: if we’re only talking about a handful of people who are going to be negatively affected by a ban, what’s the big deal?

[TwelveInchPianist]

Spoken like a true MRA. Those poor oppressed men who are not allowed in women's sports, women's restrooms, and women's prisons!

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

The need to have someone to hate is a primal, powerful and odious thing.

This should be cause for some self-reflection on your part (as well as all of the others whose public personas seem to be driven almost entirely by hate-fueled rage at those with whom they disagree, leading them to constant spewing of vitriol and commission of assaults and other acts of mindless violence against the latter)....but it won't, because your hypocrisy and lack of self-awareness know no bounds.

[Kazinski]

The Government is appealing Xinis's order to get Kilmar Garcia back from EL Salvador:

"Late Friday afternoon, a federal district judge ordered the United
States to force El Salvador to send one of its citizens—a member of MS-13, no less—back to the United States by midnight on Monday. If there was ever a case for an emergency stay pending appeal, this would be it.
Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia is presently being held in El Salvador,
by the El Salvadoran Government. The United States does not have control over Abrego Garcia. Or the sovereign nation of El Salvador. Nevertheless, the court’s injunction commands that Defendants accomplish, somehow, Abrego Garcia’s return to the United States in give or take one business day.

That order is indefensible. Foremost, it commands Defendants to do
something they have no independent authority to do: Make El Salvador
release Abrego Garcia, and send him to America. That is why Plaintiffs did not even ask the district court for an order directing Abrego Garcia’s return.
As Plaintiffs themselves acknowledged, a federal court “has no jurisdiction over the Government of El Salvador and cannot force that sovereign nation to release Plaintiff Abrego Garcia from its prison.”

So what would be the international legal process for a government to request the rendition of another country's citizen, other than extradition?

[Michael Ejercito]

I would like to read a copy of the order. Is an American court really demanding that a foreign country send over one of its citizens back to the United States?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Yes.

These judges are running amuck.

[Kazinski]

Here it is:

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mdd.578815/gov.uscourts.mdd.578815.21.0_2.pdf

And the governments appeal.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ca4.178258/gov.uscourts.ca4.178258.3.1.pdf

I think it was Bernard, that made the rather insulting to El Salvador's sovereignty suggestion that we over them 50k to turn over one of their citizens to us.

Lets hypothesize that we did make that offer, and El Salvador counter offered to turn him over if Trump revoked the 10% tariff he slapped on El Salvador last week.

Can the Judge make Trump accept the offer?

[bernard11]

It was me, though I suggested $100K, and then said they might do it for $50K.

That is no insult to El Salvador. Garcia is not being held there because of a crime he committed there. He's there because they accepted $6M to hold a bunch of prisoners. Was that an insult to their sovereignty?

He's also there of course because Trump fucked up and refuses to fix it, like a petulant child who won't clean up his own mess, and because it was done with no hearing, no due process, nothing which gave Garcia a chance to defend himself.

The whole thing - all the deportees - was an act of thuggery and dishonesty. Yeah, I hold those who support it in contempt.

[Kazinski]

Bukele is being paid to house 3rd country gang members, he has an obligation to take back his own citizens.

Do you have any cite that Trump is paying for Salvadorans to be incarcerated in El Salvador?

[David Nieporent]

Well, since Garcia was never convicted of any crime in El Salvador, he couldn't be incarcerated there unless the U.S. was paying for it to happen.

[Mr. Bumble]

Your opinion is not a cite.

[David Nieporent]

I didn't state an opinion.

[Kazinski]

He is a member of MS13, which is enough to get you incarcerated in Salvador.

And I know you don't accept the 2019 Immigration Court ruling he was an MS13 member, but they are a competent fact finder.

[not guilty]

I linked to the memorandum opinion a few minutes ago. The order granting preliminary injunction itself is here: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mdd.578815/gov.uscourts.mdd.578815.21.0_2.pdf

The government of El Salvador is not a party. The operative language of the order states:

"Defendants are hereby ORDERED to facilitate and effectuate the return of Plaintiff Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to the United State by no later than 11:59 PM on Monday, April 7, 2025;

"This preliminary relief is issued to restore Abrego Garcia's access to due process in accordance with the Constitution and governing immigration statutes[.]"

[David Nieporent]

Is an American court really demanding that a foreign country send over one of its citizens back to the United States?

No. It is ordering the American federal government to arrange for the return of a person it illegally transported to a foreign country.

[SRG2]

You will note that the cultists are more outraged over the judge's order than over the unconstitutional deportation.

[Kazinski]

How was the deportation unconstitutional?

[David Nieporent]

SRG used the wrong word. It was illegal, not unconstitutional.

[SRG2]

It is also unconstitutional. They were deprived of liberty without due process of law.

[not guilty]

Kazinski, have you read Judge Xinis's memorandum opinion? https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mdd.578815/gov.uscourts.mdd.578815.31.0.pdf It's quite a tour de force.

What in particular do you claim that she got wrong, and what is your countervailing authority, if any?

[Kazinski]

The government already admitted error deporting him, although I will note that the DOJ has suspended that attorney for not adequately representing the DOJ in that case.

But the judge simply has no authority to order the government to undertake any negotiation with a foreign country for any purpose.

From the appeal petition:

"No federal court has the power to command the Executive to engage in a certain act of foreign relations; that is the exclusive prerogative of Article II, immune from superintendence by Article III. But that is exactly what this order does.
Indeed, it is the only thing it does—requiring Defendants, on the clock, to try to force a foreign country to take a discrete action. That sort of diplomacy is simply intolerable in our system of government."

[Commenter_XY]

The government already admitted error deporting him...

Ooopsie. (fingers crossed)

I am sure Garcia is pure as the driven snow. He is an illegal that got sent home. Adios. Or maybe Vaya con Dios would be more appropriate, considering where he is.

[Martinned2]

It must be nice living in a country where only law-abiding citizens have rights.

[SRG2]

Yesterday XY denied he was an authoritarian. Today he demonstrates that he is.

[not guilty]

"I am sure Garcia is pure as the driven snow. He is an illegal that got sent home. Adios."

XY, as Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously observed, you are entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts.

In 2019, an immigration judge—acting under the authority delegated by the United States Attorney General and pursuant to powers vested by Congress—granted Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia withholding of removal, thereby protecting him from return to his native country, El Salvador. Such protection bars the United States from sending a noncitizen to a country where, more likely than not, he would face persecution that risks his “life or freedom.”

[ducksalad]

Interesting that it was the first Trump administration that said he could stay. This isn't some guy Biden let in.

[BrianL.]

He was in the country legally.

[not guilty]

Abrego Garcia did not enter the country legally. But the 2019 order ensured that he could not lawfully have been removed to El Salvador.

[Sarcastr0]

And thus the ambiguity of 'illegal' as a status.

[Kazinski]

Actually the order didn't protect him from removal to a third country, and the order did not give him legal status.

[Sarcastr0]

removal to a third country

On what authority? You're really straining here.

[David Nieporent]

No, he's correct. Garcia was found to be removable. Only withholding of removal to El Salvador was granted. That means he can be sent to any country willing to accept him, except El Salvador. But — to be clear — that's to be deported, not incarcerated.

[not guilty]

"Actually the order didn't protect him from removal to a third country, and the order did not give him legal status."

Irrespective of whether Abrego Garcia could have been deported elsewhere, the 2019 order expressly prohibited his removal to El Salvador. Trump's bozos did exactly what the order forbade, without an iota of due process.

[damikesc]

Good. Trump should tell the judges to go fuck themselves and notate that national injunctions have zero legitimacy. His people should openly mock them in court and wipe their asses with the orders.

[David Nieporent]

Sieg heil, damikesc.

Also, there is no "national injunction" at issue in this case, so you're stupid as well as fascist.

[bernard11]

Ooopsie. (fingers crossed)

I am sure Garcia is pure as the driven snow.

"Ooopsie." A guy in prison for no reason except government stupidity and malice, and to you it's a fucking ooopsie - who cares?

Can you sink any lower?

[ducksalad]

So, this is the universal loophole y'all have been looking for?
Get anyone - illegal, legal, alien, citizen, innocent, guilty- over the border, by force, and then it's foreign policy and courts can't do anything and the police win.

Fuck no.

[Commenter_XY]

The American people won. One less illegal alien to deal with.

[ducksalad]

Is there anything in the government's reasoning that limits the Oopsie Maneuver to alleged illegal aliens?

[Martinned2]

Of course not. The President has the Inherent Power to kick people out of the country whenever that's necessary for National Security. It doesn't matter whether those people are citizens or not.

[not guilty]

Poe's Law?

[grb]

Clearly Poe's Law, but only because of the author. Kazinski , XY or ML could say something like that in complete sincerity. Hell, they might even chant it together at one of the Cult Covens.....

[Commenter_XY]

Is that chant like your Branch Covidian chant? Maybe we should compare notes. 😉

[BrianL.]

He was not illegal. He was in the country legally.

[Bob from Ohio]

He entered illegally, coning a bureaucrat later doesn't change that.

[Senor Wolf]

It actually does. There was a process the administration could have followed to change his status. But until they did there was a lawful order stating he could not be returned to El Salvador. Trump can use the bully pulpit to shame Congress into changing immigration laws to take away this authority from ALJs but until he does he has to respect these orders and due process. Unless you're saying he should just be allowed to govern as a dictator and disregard rule of law.

[Bob from Ohio]

He reversed the immigration "judge" in a delayed appeal.

"he has to respect these orders "

You misunderstand the process. To paraphrase Voltaire, sending him [and the others} to El Salvador was "décourager les autres".

[not guilty]

"He reversed the immigration 'judge' in a delayed appeal."

Is that as true as everything else you have said, Bob?

According to Judge Xinis's memorandum opinion at pages 3-4:

October 10, 2019, following a full evidentiary hearing, the IJ granted Abrego Garcia withholding of removal to El Salvador pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3)(A). As a matter of law, withholding of removal prohibits DHS from returning an alien to the specific country in which he faces clear probability of persecution. In Abrego Garcia’s case, the IJ concluded that he was entitled to such protection because the Barrio 18 gang had been “targeting him and threatening him with death because of his family’s pupusa business.” ECF No. 1-1 at 2. DHS never appealed the grant of withholding of removal, and so the decision became final on November 9, 2019. See Hr’g Tr., Apr. 4, 2025, 24:15–16 ([Counsel for Defendants] Mr. Reuveni: “The government did not appeal that decision, so it is final.”). Accordingly, as Defendants have repeatedly admitted, they were legally prohibited from deporting Abrego Garcia to El Salvador. See Hr’g Tr., Apr. 4, 2025, 25:6–7 (Mr. Reuveni: “There’s no dispute that the order could not be used to send Mr. Abrego Garcia to El Salvador.”). [Footnote omitted.]

Are you familiar with the concept of judicial estoppel, Bob?

At footnote 6, Judge Xinis wrote:

A decision by an IJ becomes final “upon waiver of appeal or upon expiration of the time to appeal if no appeal is taken within that time.” 8 C.F.R. § 1003.39. The deadline for filing an appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals is 30 days from the date of the decision. See 8 C.F.R. § 1003.38(b). Once final, a grant of withholding of removal prohibits removal to the country of feared persecution absent formal reopening and termination of that protection. See 8 C.F.R. § 208.24.

[Bob from Ohio]

NG, I was making a joke but I don't care what that judge ruled. Not one little bit.

[bernard11]

"One less illegal alien to deal with."

A contempt-worthy comment.

Most illegal aliens have been here for years - a decade or more in many cases.

The only "dealing" necessary is hiring them, which we are glad to do.

[Bob from Ohio]

You're "glad" to commit a crime?

[Commenter_XY]

sniff, sniff...then go get him bernard11. Put YOUR money where your mouth is.

[damikesc]

Send them off.

Unlike leftists, I do not wish them dead. But they need to not be here. My heart does not break for any of them.

[Frank Drackman]

I guess you didn’t get the email from EV to clean up the language (EV, what a Mensch, he’s like “Please refrain from using (Redacted) (Redacted) and (Redacted) when he could just kick my (Redacted) off
Here’s an Anal-ology, you find some Homeless guy sleeping in your house, you call him an Uber, and a Judge says you have to let him stay in your house until his Court hearing in 5 or 6 years,
Wait a minute, you’d think that’s great as long as it was somebody else’s house.
Like Sex Changes for Prosoners it’s why the 24 erection wasn’t even close

[ducksalad]

Also, f*** the stupid house analogy.

[Frank Drackman]

Profanity is the last refuge of Dumb(redacted)
Pretend I'm Hey-Zess (I'm Jewish, but haven't walked on water, raised the dead, drove the money lenders from the Temple (I'm a silent partner in a Pawn, I mean, "Title Loan" business, I only handle the Diamond loans, hey, I'm Jewish (and it's nothing like "Uncut Gems")
come back when you have a (redacted) response
and a pair of (redacted)

Frank "this Rocks got more Carats than Bugs Bunny!"

[not guilty]

Kazinski, the section of the Defendants' Fourth Circuit brief that you quote very conspicuously cites no legal authority. As such, it is merely ipse dixit assertions.

In Nken v. Holder, 556 U.S. 418, 435 (2009), SCOTUS opined that “Aliens who are removed may continue to pursue their petitions for review, and those that prevail can be afforded effective relief by facilitation of their return, along with restoration of the immigration status they had upon removal.”

The Fourth Circuit has recognized that an alien's unlawful removal to El Salvador does not make his request for relief moot. In Lopez-Sorto v. Garland, 103 F.4th 242, 248–53 (4th Cir. 2024), the court concluded that the Defendants could redress wrongful removal to El Salvador by facilitating the plaintiff’s return per DHS’ own directives. Id. at 253.

The instant Defendants are not helpless to facilitate Abrego Garcia's return from El Salvador. As Judge Xinis opined:

Defendants [have] unilaterally placed hundreds of detainees behind the walls of CECOT without ceding control over the detainees’ fates, as the detainees are in CECOT “pending the United States’ decision on their long-term disposition.” See Matthew Lee & Regina Garcia Cano, Trump Officials Secretly Deported Venezuelans and Salvadorans to a Notorious Prison in El Salvador, ASSOCIATED PRESS (Mar. 15, 2025), https://apnews.com/article/trumpdeportations-salvador-tren-aragua-64e72142a171ea57c869c3b35eeecce7. Unlike Abrego Garcia, for whom no reason exists to detain him, Defendants transported many individuals who had been detained in the United States while awaiting immigration proceedings. Yet, despite Defendants’ power to transfer those awaiting hearings to CECOT for a “good price,” Defendants disclaim any ability to secure their return, including Abrego Garcia. ECF No. 11 at 11. Surely, Defendants do not mean to suggest that they have wholesale erased the substantive and procedural protections of the INA in one fell swoop by dropping those individuals in CECOT without recourse. Instead, the record reflects that Defendants have “outsource[d] part of the [United States’] prison system.” See also U.S. Dep’t of Homeland Sec., How It’s Going, DHS,
https://www.dhs.gov/medialibrary/assets/video/59108 (last visited Apr. 4, 2025) (quoting Defendant Noem: “This facility is one of the tools in our toolkit that we will use”).” Thus, just as in any other contract facility, Defendants can and do maintain the power to secure and transport their detainees, Abrego Garcia included.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mdd.578815/gov.uscourts.mdd.578815.31.0.pdf pp. 11-12 (footnotes omitted).

IOW, the federal government is not nearly so impotent as the Defendants disingenuously claim.

[Kazinski]

It actually cites a few:

"The federal courts’ equitable authority is conditioned by the structure of the Constitution. In re Trump, 958 F.3d 274,
297 (4th Cir. 2020) (Wilkinson, J., dissenting). And for that reason, “the federal equity power cannot extend beyond what the separation of powers will allow.” Id.; see Guaranty Trust Co. of N.Y. v. York, 326 U.S. 99, 104-07 (1945). A federal court therefore cannot use its Article III authority to coopt a core prerogative of Article II. "

And
"The Supreme Court has long held that the President is “the sole organ of the federal government in the field of international relations,” United States v. CurtissWright Export Corp., 299 U.S. 304, 320 (1936),"

And
"And it is simply not something that a federal court can order the Executive Branch to do. See, e.g., Lin v. United States, 690 F. App’x 7, 8–9 (D.C. Cir. 2017) (dismissing suit where “Plaintiffs’ injury can only be redressed by foreign nations not before the court”)"

[not guilty]

I said "the section of the Defendants' Fourth Circuit brief that you quote" in your comment above -- which indeed cites no legal authority.

[Kazinski]

Its the introduction.

Your point is pointless.

[David Nieporent]

By the way, the fourth circuit has just rejected the administration's request for relief. (But it has already applied to SCOTUS.)

https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25881148/ca4-ag.pdf

[jb]

On the one hand, it's seems reasonable to suggest that the judiciary shouldn't be able to micromanage the executive's foreign policy.

On the other hand, it seems pretty ridiculous for the executive's position to be "whoopsie!" Doubly so since the administration and its defenders have been arguing that its okay to get people out of the country because then they can appeal and be allowed back in if appropriate. But now they're revealing that the "you can appeal later from outside the country" is just BS: even if the administration agrees it made a mistake in deporting someone, it's still not going to make any effort to correct the mistake. Which just highlights the importance of making sure you're deporting the right people on the way out.

[Satchmo_Lives]

They deported the right people. In Garcia's case they just sent him to the wrong country.

[Mr Ed's Mom too]

"In Garcia's case they just sent him to the wrong country."

Yes, they should have sent him back to Canada where he belongs. Or perhaps New Mexico.

[Sarcastr0]

60 Minutes found no criminal record for 75% of the Venezuelan migrants the U.S. sent to a mega-prison in El Salvador.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/venezuelan-migrants-deportations-el-salvador-prison-60-minutes/

Your...it appears to be NY Post article from the "member of MS-13, no less" bit? Is trying to distract from the forest by picking their favorite tree.

For that guy or all the rest, what you and the Post are supporting is an end-run around any kind of due process. Beyond the assault on our legal system, and on human rights, you could be so short-sighted to want to give that unreviewable power to anyone, let along someone as like Trump.

[Kazinski]

I don't think the NY Post is a party to the case.

"member of MS-13, no less" is quoted from the governments petition to stay the order.

However the government doesn't seem to have taken any action to comply with the order either.

[Dan Schiavetta]

I was in the New York Post yesterday!

The story was quite accurate though.

[SRG2]

https://nypost.com/2025/04/05/us-news/long-island-music-store-allegedly-cheated-violin-owners-lawsuit/

[Dan Schiavetta]

I really wish they hadn't printed that. My client is heartbroken at seeing his father's (and his) name dragged through the mud publicly, but when he sold the business in 2019 he lost control over such things. The musicians referred to in the article were people he knew from years past who started contacting him on the chance that he had some insight into what the hell was happening with their instruments. I ended up representing them too.

The reporter, who had become aware of the court filings, called me out of the blue Friday morning, and when that happens, you have to talk to them. You can't just say "no comment" (which looks suspicious) or "can I call you back when my head's more together?" (because when you call back they're not in, and they end up reporting only the other side of the story). Fortunately I didn't put my foot in my mouth, at least not too far.

[Sarcastr0]

OK then - that may just be what Google had at top when I looked for that.
Not great such a 'we only ignore the law for bad people' take comes from the government brief!

[Frank Drackman]

60 minutes is still in the league? Lets see, they broke the story about Audi's running into other cars all on their own (it was Idiot Audi Owners (double redundant) who couldn't tell the go pedal from the slow one) If you don't remember (it was 1986) 60 Minutes "rigged" an Audi so it would "Sudden Unintended Accelerate"
Dan Blather falling for the "if it's on the Internets it's true" and slandering "W" (silver lining, it got Dan off the air, and he still swears the story was true) and most recently
Lesley Stahl telling an Israeli Hostage he lost weight because he was fat to start with
and for an "Investigative" Series, their title's not even accurate, it's more like 37 minutes after Commercials
I do miss Andy Rooney
"What's the deal with Homos lisping? I knew a few in the Army and they were tough guys from Southie, you made sure you didn't "drop the soap" in the shower when they were in there...."

Frank

[Joe_dallas]

60 minutes hasnt been a credible news organization for the last 20 years

[Bob from Ohio]

We deport people without criminal records all the time. 60 Minutes just tossed a red herring into the discussion.

[Magister]

Do we send people without criminal records to prison all the time? To anticipate some of the likely quibbling, lengthy prison terms with no further possibility of hearings or appeals?

[Bob from Ohio]

Yes we do. We hold plenty of people in immigration "detention" too.

[Magister]

Do they never get hearings? Are they eventually released, even if only in the country they are deported to?

[David Nieporent]

a member of MS-13,

Not sure what you're quoting, but we know that's a lie.

[Kazinski]

A court of appeals filing.

You should tell the judges so they can levy the appropriate sanctions.

[windycityattorney]

Right - the govt claims an informant told them this guy was a leader of MS-13 in New York; a state he never lived in.

Regardless, that allegation isn't in the record of this case but was brought up in his previous case where the court ruled he could not be returned to El Salvador.

The govt has admitted it made a mistake; it has publicly touted its partnership with Bukele and using CECOT and says they are paying for the privilege (6million was previously reported). El Salvador has already returned multiple women because it doesn't detain females at CECOT. So if they can return some detainees why do we think it impossible to return another? And it doesn't have to be El Salvador flying them back. The same US planes that got him there can get him back just like the female detainees.

[not guilty]

Unless the Fourth Circuit grants a stay in the meantime, the deadline fixed by Judge Xinis expires tonight at midnight. I hope that she promptly thereafter issues an order for the Defendants to show cause why they should not be held in civil contempt.

I hope further that after a full and fair evidentiary hearing, she issues an order finding the Defendants in civil contempt and conditionally committing each of them to jail until they comply with last Friday's order, with a purge provision allowing them to show by a reasonable date certain what good faith efforts they have made to secure the return of Abrego Garcia from El Salvador.

[Bob from Ohio]

Keep hope alive! No one is going to jail, except Garcia of course.

[damikesc]

"Unless the Fourth Circuit grants a stay in the meantime, the deadline fixed by Judge Xinis expires tonight at midnight. I hope that she promptly thereafter issues an order for the Defendants to show cause why they should not be held in civil contempt."

Because she has zero authority here and they are offering the respect she warrants.

[Absaroka]

Imagine the following conversation:

Trump: Hey, we sent a guy by mistake ... put him on the next plane back
Bukele: Ha ha, nope, once in never out, not gonna!
T: You aren't listening ... it was an eff-up, send him back right now
B: (hands over ears) La la la la ... can't hear you!
T: If you don't have him on the next plane I'm canceling the deal, no more detainees, no more sweet detainee cash. I'll send them to somewhere else with harsh prisons like Turkey or France.
B: whatev, bye!

If that conversation happened, fine. We'll know it happened because we aren't deporting anyone to CECOT anymore.

But if that conversation didn't happen ... don't try and peddle the 'we can't get him back, sovereign country, blah blah' line. That is telling Judge Judy it's raining.

I'm going to get all old fashioned and sexist here: when anyone who is a man makes a mistake, he tries to make it right.

[Brett Bellmore]

Oh, I agree: If Trump wants him back, he can get him back. Worst case, El Salvador says, "But we keep the money, right?".

[Bob from Ohio]

"If Trump wants him back, he can get him back."

I'm sure he will get right on that.

[Brett Bellmore]

I did say, "if".

[Absaroka]

"If Trump wants him back, he can get him back"

Sorry, it's hard to keep track of who is arguing what. Brett, is your position:

1)the administration has not stated deporting him was a mistake or
2)it was a mistake, but it's OK for the administration to make no effort to fix deportation mistakes?

[Brett Bellmore]

3) Regardless of whether it was a mistake, regardless of whether they make an effort to, or want to, it's within the administration's power to get him back, and any claim to the contrary would be perjury if made in a legal filing.

[Kazinski]

The point is the Judge absolutely has no authority to order the President to even try.

As I have said several times, the President has an institutional obligation to defend his prerogatives from encroachment by he courts or Congress, whether its firing officers at will, or not conducting foreign policy under court order.

This case is as easy a separation of powers gets.

[Commenter_XY]

Kaz, they refuse to acknowledge that. They can squeal all they want.

[Sarcastr0]

So the whoopsie argument is what you are going with.

[Josh R]

Under your logic, the president has exclusive power to deport any alien (and citizen?) he wants to for any reason (he can lie and say it was about foreign policy concerns without review by anyone else).

[Kazinski]

Nope, and the Judge can probably issue an order that the Trump administration issue him a visa so he can return to the US, and continue to litigate his case.

What they cannot do is order Trump, Rubio, Noem, or anyone else to negotiate with a foreign government to release Garcia from custody.

[Josh R]

At first blush that sounds reasonable. But a visa won't get him here without cooperation from El Salvador. Thus in effect, the president can deport any alien (and citizen?) he wants to for any reason while issuing a meaningless visa that permits him to come back.

[Life of Brian]

the govt claims an informant told them this guy was a leader of MS-13 in New York; a state he never lived in.

There seems to be quite a bit lost in multiple layers of translation here. According to plaintiff in paragraph 32 of the complaint, the informant claimed Garcia was a member of "the 'Westerns' clique [that] operates in Brentwood, Long Island."

I see no sign at all (outside Garcia's current media hubbub) of a "Westerns" clique of MS-13 in Long Island or otherwise, but there's an exceptionally well-known clique called Sailors Locos Salvatruchas Westside that has a chapter in Brentwood.

High-profile members of Sailors Locos Salvatruchas Westside historically have operated out of Maryland.

So "he never lived in New York" doesn't seem even remotely dispositive.

[Kazinski]

Its not an assertion something the court should even take notice of.

It was litigated in immigration court several years ago, and appealed, and affirmed.

Its no longer relevant.

Its like claiming Mumia is innocent.

[windycityattorney]

It's possible that the informant is not terribly reliable. If this guy was a high ranking officer in MS13's "western clique" it seems pretty remarkable that he doesn't have a US arrest record. His original arrest in 2019 which led to the original withholding decision was while he was at a home depot waiting with other illegals for a day labor gig.

It's possible that high ranking officers of MS13 are part timers. Maybe they only terrorist at night. OR maybe informants are known to tell officers want they want to hear because they are working off their own cases and don't care how accurate they are.

The government's position on appeal is that he is a known terrorist MS13 member subject to immediate removal due to the designation of MS13 as a foreign terrorist organization. (But see footnote 2 on page 2 https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mdd.578815/gov.uscourts.mdd.578815.31.0.pdf) Where the govt did not assert plaintiff was an enemy combatant or designated terrorist and only raised that issue for the first time on appeal. So there is an issue of waiver here.

Btw, the 4th cir denied the govt's stay motion. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ca4.178258/gov.uscourts.ca4.178258.13.0_2.pdf

There is now an emergency stay petition in the US SUP CT which mirrors most of the arguments made in the 4th Cir.

[Kazinski]

As the filing to the Supreme Court says today, that was the finding by the Immigration Judge in 2019, and the finding was sustained by the Board of Appeals.

That fact has been adequately adjudicated, several years ago.

[hobie]

Just pretend it was tiny, microscopic Saint Ashtray Babbitt that had been accidentally sent. How powerless and incapable would the US be then?

[Frank Drackman]

Wow, that's despicable even for you, you blow little boys with that mouth?

[hobie]

Oh? Is the little terrorist now at 'she who's name must not be spoken' level?

[Frank Drackman]

Since you're into Anal, I'll give you an Anal-ology,
"Just pretend it was tiny, microscopic Saint John Louis that had been accidentally sent. How powerless and incapable would the US be then?"
Speaking of the Late Representative Louis, I heard the National Civil Rights Museums is going to have his Skull on display like they did with Saint Theodore in Pittsburgh (along side Floyd George's Larynx no doubt) this summer.

Frank

[Stephen Lathrop]

That order is indefensible. Foremost, it commands Defendants to do something they have no independent authority to do . . .

Kazinski — Perhaps the order reasonably presumes it orders Defendants to accomplish something they have power to do. Or perhaps it seeks to put Defendants in position to explain why they did something heinous they lacked power to correct.

Either way, I do not think an objection makes sense if it is based on a notion that Defendants have properly eluded all accountability. It would be a reckless court indeed which handed out such a privilege to encourage future unaccountable abuse. Would I be correct to presume you would not want to encourage that either?

[bernard11]

it commands Defendants to do
something they have no independent authority to do: Make El Salvador release Abrego Garcia, and send him to America.

Are you seriously suggesting that it is impossible for the US to get Garcia released? That's laughable.

[Kazinski]

Sure Trump could get him released, but he has no intention of doing so, not on the orders of a district Judge.

Probably not the Supreme Court either.

This is a Hill worth dying on, and there is no doubt Congress will back the President.

[bernard11]

Sure Trump could get him released, but he has no intention of doing so,

Which tells you exactly how big an asshole Trump is.

I mean, what is his fucking excuse? And what is yours for backing him?

[ReaderY]

This is total bullshit. The US government pays the El Salvadorans to release him, just as they are now paying then to lock him up. This bullshit about the El Salvadorans wanting him for their own purposes, about there needing to be an “international extradiction process,” and all this other smoke being blown up the judges’ asses trying to pretend the El Salvadorans are holding these folks based on some sort of reason other than we are paying them to do it, and would want to hold them longer than we are willing to pay them to hold them, is just crap.

[Kazinski]

And Roberts issues the stay.

"Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has temporarily placed on hold a judge’s order that the Trump administration must bring back to the United States a Maryland father it had mistakenly deported to El Salvador.

The decision on Monday came hours after government attorneys asked the Supreme Court to block an earlier ruling that gave the Trump administration until the end of the day to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States"

Roberts' decision will give the court more time to review the case. He ordered lawyers in the case to respond by 5 p.m. Tuesday."
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/supreme-court-puts-hold-on-order-that-deported-maryland-man-must-be-returned-to-us/ar-AA1CtkRB?ocid=BingNewsSerp

[Michael Ejercito]

It was thirty-one years ago that the Chicago Police Department, the Chicago Housing Authority, and HUD tried to deal with the problem of school shootings and gang violence by conducting warrantless searches of the Robert Taylor homes.

Several tenants sued to enjoin this practice.

On April 8, 1994, Judge Wayne Andersen issued a ruling on the merits.

https://archive.md/mgil3

“The erosion of the rights of people on the other side of town will ultimately undermine the rights of each of us,” Andersen said in refusing to lift a ban he imposed last month.

[Frank Drackman]

And it’s worked so well! Imagine how many more people of color would be living in Chicago (speaking of South Chicago, was watching a White Sox game the other day, maybe a hundred fans in the whole park (OK it was raining, 2 hr rain delay, and it was the White Sox)

[Michael Ejercito]

Suppressing and punishing school shootings and gang violence is a noble goals, but not even the noblest of goals allow states to exceed constitutional restraints.

[Frank Drackman]

Yeah right, so why do you have to have a "Firearms Identification Card" to legally purchase a gun in Illinois?

[Michael Ejercito]

Too many judges tolerate the erosion of rights of people on the other side of town.

[Dr. Ed 2]

As many know, in most states, one must graduate from an ABA-approved law school to take the bar exam, a prerequisite to becoming a lawyer.

Let's say Yee Olde State University, a public institution required to observe student First Amendment Rights, has a law school duly approved by the ABA and such.

Let's say that the ABA tells State U Law that unless it prohibits Muslim students from attending, it will no longer be accredited -- and all of its other students won't be able to take the bar exam. Assume there are no exceptions to this, e.g. being able to take that particular state's bar exam.

Mohamed M. Mohamed mentions to a fellow student that he is a Muslim and is duly expelled for merely being a Muslim and holding Muslim beliefs.

Does Mohamed have grounds to sue, and against whom?
The state university that violated his first amd rights, or the ABA which required them to do it?

Yes, this is the Jennifer Keeton case, and I fail to understand why she didn't have a case against either Augusta State or the APA (or both).

[not guilty]

Jennifer was a Muslim who refused to convert to Christianity??

Who knew?

[Noscitur a sociis]

She had a case against Augusta State (that’s why you’ve heard of her). She just lost the case because the courts found that the school’s conduct didn’t violate the first amendment.

[Dr. Ed 2]

This reminds me of a Robin Williams joke that you probably can't tell anymore, which is why I am going to tell it:

The UN finally managed to do something and the three major religions will get to share the holy land. The Jews will get it for Passover and Yom Kippur, the Christians will get it for Christmas and Easter, and the Muslims will get it for Ramadam and that other Muslim holiday, "KaBoom."

On a more serious note, if the Christian Last Supper was a Passover Seder (and it was) then why is Passover on Saturday the 12th instead of on Thursday the 17th, the day before Good Friday?

[not guilty]

"On a more serious note, if the Christian Last Supper was a Passover Seder (and it was) then why is Passover on Saturday the 12th instead of on Thursday the 17th, the day before Good Friday?"

That depends on which gospel you are relying on. John 13:1 says that it was before the feast of the passover. Matthew 26:19-20, Mark 14:17 and Luke 22:12-14 indicate that it was the passover feast.

[Dan Schiavetta]

True. John, writing later, probably changed the date so that Jesus could be seen as the sacrificial lamb.

[Ridgeway]

There has been a lot of ink spilled over the centuries about the timing of the Last Supper, but you are assuming Dr Ed is asking a question that would occur to a reasonably intelligent adult who has a low level of knowledge on this subject.

That is where you make your bloomer.

Dr. Ed is asking a question that a slow-witted 5th grader would ask: Why doesn't the [Jewish] Passover always fall on [Roman Catholic and Protestant] Holy Thursday?

[Dan Schiavetta]

Defending Dr. Ed (for a moment), it is a natural question to ask. Christians know very little about Jewish customs, and (oddly, to me) Jews seem surprised when they find they have to explain Jewish things to non-Jews.

[Bob from Ohio]

"slow-witted 5th grader"

5th graders know the difference between a solar and lunar calendar and who uses what?

[Dr. Ed 2]

It would seem to me that the two would have to correspond lest one become out of synch with the seasons -- which the old calendar without a leap day in it reportedly did.

And with 13.05 lunar cycles per solar year, one would think that a lunar calendar WOULD work itself out of cycle unless reset to some solar reference each year.

But that's just me...

[Josh R]

The Hebrew calendar as a leap month 7 years out of every 19.

[Magister]

You could look it up, Dr. Ed 2. Lunisolar calendars generally add a lunar month every few years to keep them in approximate agreement with solar years. Easter varies in date because it is after the first full moon after the vernal equinox; so lunar cycle considered under a solar calendar rather than the solar cycle considered in a lunisolar calendar.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_calendar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunisolar_calendar

[Frank Drackman]

I’ve got a better one but you’ve got to be able to do an Old Jewish Yenta accent
An Old Jewish Yenta movie reviewer is screening Mel Gibsons newest work, a remake of “Quo Vadis”, during the Coliseum scene she demands the screening be stopped
“The Lions are eating the Jews!” She yells
When told it’s Christian’s they’re eating she agrees to continue.
5 minutes later she again demands the movie be stopped
“That Lion in the back, He’s not eating!”
(rimshot)

[Malika the Maiz]

A small Child
Or
Retarded Person
Is posting here
.)

[Moderation4ever]

You should at least be happy that the Christians Eastern and Western have agreed that in 2025 Easter comes on the same Sunday.

[Dr. Ed 2]

The French Catholic cultures of Quebec (PdQ, Canada) and New Orleans (which is the Arcadians who were in what is now Nova Scotia) both have a major blowout the week before Lent starts on Ash Wednesday.

One of them, I forget which, had a fight with the Pope in the past and hence their celebration is a week AFTER lent starts....

[Magister]

However, one year, King Oswy of Northumbria, who followed the Celtic standard, found his celebration of Easter spoiled because his Queen Eanfleda was still fasting--for her, following the UUCP (sorry, Roman) standard, it was still only Palm Sunday.

It would have been all too easy for her to have yielded to her lord's wish and observe the Celtic Easter, and no one would have remarked upon it. But she stuck out for the standard she wanted, fasted when she could have feasted, and as a result brought about a change which aligned Britain behind one standard.

From an article about information technology standardization by Brian L. Meek, On Julius Caesar, Queen Eanfleda, and the lessons of time past.

[not guilty]

[duplicate comment deleted]

[Dr. Ed 2]

,

[Commenter_XY]

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/406506

Visas revoked for five Harvard students amid US crackdown on anti-Israel activism

The 9B dollar question....How long before all the Fed Gov contracts are pulled? That cannot happen soon enough. And then Brown. And Yale. And Princeton. And Stanford. And a bunch of others. I think I hear a woodchipper in the distance. 😉

Guess what? The Fed Gov contracts can go to other universities who also do research but don't persecute Jews.

[Frank Drackman]

I can think of 1 in East Alabama (OK there’s also Tuskegee, what a great place to do Medical Research!)

[not guilty]

The Constitution empowers Congress to "lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts, and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States."
Art. I, § 8, cl. 1. Incident to this power, Congress may attach conditions on the receipt of federal funds, and has repeatedly employed the power "to further broad policy objectives by conditioning receipt of federal moneys upon compliance by the recipient with federal statutory and administrative directives." South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U.S. 203, 206 (1987).

The Constitution confers no power on the Executive branch to unilaterally attach conditions to the receipt of federal funds.

Commenter_XY blathers, "Guess what? The Fed Gov contracts can go to other universities who also do research but don't persecute Jews."

I must confess surprise that a member of XY's tribe has learned so little from history about the dangers of embracing a totalitarian government. As George Santayna sagely observed in 1905, those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

[Brett Bellmore]

"The Constitution confers no power on the Executive branch to unilaterally attach conditions to the receipt of federal funds."

Well, I kind of think that's an exaggeration, or maybe just misses the point: If the Legislature orders funds handed out to do unconstitutional things, the Executive branch would be under a constitutional obligation to refrain from disbursing the funds, thanks to its independent obligation to uphold the Constitution.

So, is Harvard, in its role as a government agent on account of the federal funding, doing things it is unconstitutional for a government agent to do? That does seem to have been alleged.

[Sarcastr0]

Harvard, in its role as a government agent on account of the federal funding

If you don't know shit about how grants work, it's okay not to post about grants administration.

[Brett Bellmore]

If you want to think that the federal government can fund unconstitutional activities by merely laundering the money through grants, well, whatever it takes to sleep at night.

[Sarcastr0]

That's nothing like what I said.

There is no agency relationship here. There are plenty of terms and conditions, which include following federal law.

If federal law isn't being followed, there are standardized actions the government can take.

You don't appear to understand any of this, so you just made up a story about how grants work and what relationship they create, and oh hey it aligned with what you want to be true.

[Don Nico]

S_0,
You're somewhat of an expert. What agency decides which expenses are allowable under government contracts? Is that each Department? or OMB? or Treasury?

[bernard11]

What is unconstitutional about pro-Palestine demonstrations or speeches?

If Harvard is a government agent wouldn't it be unconstitutional for them to act against students for doing that?

[Commenter_XY]

https://www.jpost.com/international/article-849256

Four More Columbia students lose visas, join over 50 across US in crackdown

Oh, and more Judeocidal terrorist supporting students from Stanford and UC system.

NG, I won't restrict their free speech at all. Why would I? These foreign aliens are free to loudly and proudly advocate and cheer for hamas from their home countries; more power to them. In fact, I want them to do so. I would very much like to see them model what free speech looks like (based on what they learned here from we Americans) and what sacrifices must be made in order to obtain and preserve free speech...from their own country. Americans already know how free speech works (see 1A, free speech is among the P&I citizens have), we got that covered.

You're a citizen. You get to advocate for Judeocidal terrorists in the public square, penalty free. Just like the Nazis and white supremacist's do. As a reminder, hamas currently holds Americans hostage, and advocacy for hamas is particularly odious in the sight of Americans at the present time.

But...forget all of that.

They're toast because they lied on their forms, NG. They're going home.

[Malika the Maiz]

Remember XY heartily backed genocide and ethnic cleansing. He’s tribal from head to toe.

[Commenter_XY]

XY is in favor of hunting down and killing every member of hamas, no matter where they are in the world, since they have declared war against all Jews on Planet Earth, and are dedicated to our extinction. That isn't genocide or ethnic cleansing. It is war.

[Frank Drackman]

Sounds good to me, I can't believe Mahmood Kakill is still alive in that Louisiana jail, the prisoners there are really letting me down

[Malika the Maiz]

Remember, XY was for killing heaps more than that to achieve its now stated objective

[Commenter_XY]

That is correct.

The biggest problem here is that we need to kill more hamas members faster.

[Commenter_XY]

When there is blood in the streets, it is time to buy. Or Leap.

Thanks to POTUS Trump, stocks just went on sale, lol. /sarc

Just remember, there are two parties in a sale (a seller, and a willing buyer). Anyone 'LEAP'ing today on the S&P500 for 2026?

If you don't know what it is, don't bother. You won't learn in time.

[Martinned2]

My (broadly diversified/stock-heavy) portfolio is down 11.38% this month. Thank you Trump!

[Frank Drackman]

Did you just buy it April 1?

[Brett Bellmore]

Great opportunity to buy. How long do you suppose this dip in the stock market will last?

[hobie]

Buy with...what? He just 11% of his wealth...and counting

[Frank Drackman]

With the same imaginary money that he lost from his imaginary "Broadly Diversified Stock Heavy" portfolio.

[Martinned2]

It's not quite that bad. The vast majority of my wealth isn't in my securities portfolio. But the "great opportunity to buy" argument would be stronger if there was some reason to believe that Trump isn't going to make things worse.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, personally I just dump a constant fraction of my income into the market, and when it's low, I end up buying more stocks. It's not like I'll be retiring any time soon, my wife bought a new car last year. :O

[Mr Ed's Mom too]

"It's not like I'll be retiring any time soon, my wife bought a new car last year. :O"

That's what I do too! Every opportunity I get, I buy something I can't afford so that I can prolong my working years as much as possible. Retirement is way overrated, who needs it?

[hobie]

Good point. Who in their right mind would invest with MAGA running things

[Frank Drackman]

Same people who invested when Barry O and Sleepy Joe were.

[hobie]

Both of them presidents had the imprimatur of successfully negotiating the economy out of Republican-caused recessions. Mayor Pete will have to do the same in 2028. You know, you're not very good at this arguing thing, Frankie

[Frank Drackman]

Keep arguing how great Parkinsonian Joe's economy was, and Mayor Booty-Judge? does the White House have enough room for he and Jizz's comfort children? At least with Michael Jackson the kids got some cool rides.

Frank

[hobie]

I only mention Mayor Pete to get an ad hominem. It's almost Pavlovian, Frankie

[Malika the Maiz]

Remember, Frank talks about Parkinsonian Joe but can’t write as well as a third grader (Third Grader?(
?

[Commenter_XY]

Go ahead hobie, sell everything. Please. It will make it that much better for the rest of us.

[Frank Drackman]

Hobie's still waiting for his Best Buy stock to recover

[windycityattorney]

Circuit City was my ticket to easy street! Between that and Blockbuster video it was a mean combo. You gotta have a store to get your electronics and a store to rent your movies to watch on your new electronics, right?? Don't forget all the cables to plug everything in.

[Commenter_XY]

LOL, that was funny - Circuit City, Blockbuster. True story. I once traveled to Dallas and happened to go to Blockbuster Corp HQ for a meeting. Talk about over the top glitz. I knew right then and there, they would fall. Too arrogant.

[Sarcastr0]

Great opportunity to buy
this dip

I'm not as profligate with this word as some, but this is cultish.

The purity of your fealty to Trump doesn't influence the markets, Brett.

[bernard11]

Until 2028.

More seriously, how is this a great opportunity to buy? You think the market magically bounces back? It does, sometimes, when we have sensible economic policy makers.

There is a serious lack of those in DC right now. It's all hackery and Trump ass-kissing.

[Commenter_XY]

20 years from now, this 10% decline will rate a blip.

[Frank Drackman]

more like a few weeks

[Mr Ed's Mom too]

Of course it's temporary. Everything should start to click and make everybody rich! No need to panic, just wait it out. In fifty years or so, everything should be just great.

[Commenter_XY]

How long do you suppose this dip in the stock market will last?

Fair question. The last pieces that have to fall into place by summer are making current rates lower + permanent, and actual reductions in Federal spend. I anticipate a choppy market for Q2 until that legislation passes. Once that legislation passes, a lot of uncertainty just goes away, and the market can accurately reprice securities (upward, in this case).

If Congress does not have legislation completed by Memorial Day, POTUS Trump might want to ask Congress to stay in session and forego a portion of the summer recess to craft a legislative solution. That would be highly unusual, but not unconstitutional. Each House makes their own rules. For all I know, he could already talking to Senator Thune and Speaker Johnson about it.

The second hurdle is the speed at which foreign capital can be deployed on re-industrialization projects. How fast can we break ground and build electric plants? Or build semiconductor fabrication facilities (I am told building them takes years, b/c of the need for extreme clean rooms)?

China is a wild card. They're about to have mass unemployment. Totalitarian states + mass unemployment of military aged males = high likelihood of war.

[Josh R]

What spending do you think will be cut? How much will it amount to?

[David Nieporent]

How exactly do you propose to get foreign capital without running trade deficits?

[Frank Drackman]

Buy low and sell high, like the lottery, you can’t win if you don’t play (I’ve also got $200,000 in Gold, no strategy, I’m just a sucker for coins with Pandas and Kangaroos)

[Mr. Bumble]

For whatever it's worth, gold and other commodities have also experienced a sell off.
For every seller, there needs to be a buyer; who has been the buyer during this sell off?

[bernard11]

If you don't know what it is, don't bother. You won't learn in time.

It's not that complicated. I suspect most commenters here (certainly not all) could learn what a LEAP is in about 15-30 minutes.

They might also learn why options in general are a poor investment for individuals, barring special cases.

[Commenter_XY]

Did you leap, bernard11? B/C, as you say, it is so easy to learn in 15
to 30 minutes. It is easy money, right?

[bernard11]

I didn't leap, because I don't think it's easy money.

From the POV of the individual investor, markets are efficient.

Trust me, I know more about this stuff than you do, by a lot.

[hobie]

hayseeds: The price of things under Biden is intolerable

also hayseeds: The price of things must be tolerated until things get better

[David Nieporent]

Trump is certifiable. At this point the 25th amendment needs to be invoked. He is now proclaiming that he won't negotiate with Europe — thus pulling the rug out from those who insisted that this was just a strategy to get foreign countries to lower their mostly imaginary tariffs — "unless they pay us a lot of money on a yearly basis, number one for present but also for past." This doesn't even rise to the level of gibberish.

[Michael P]

You have become a caricature of yourself. You refused to admit that Biden was practically a vegetable but now insist that Trump must be considered incompetent because you don't like his policies and don't understand English.

[Sarcastr0]

'don't like his policies.'

I wonder how long you'll be able to keep up that reductive pretense as a defense.

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

Komment Karen, which four taxpayers have to work to pay for you fuckin' off being a Klassic Komment Karen?

[Frank Drackman]

They don't call him David Nevercoherent for nothing

[David Nieporent]

It is the equivalent of saying that we won't bring our troops home from Narnia until the fairies return our vital essences to us.

[Michael P]

More like saying the US shouldn't have illegally funded gain-of-function research at WIV. Or that mandatory vaccinations for healthy people were not warranted. The fact that you find fiction easier to deal with that reality isn't a reflection on Donald Trump.

[hobie]

Heh. Still humping that grievance, Michael? Why don't you throw up one of your famous citations on that one.

[Malika the Maiz]

lol, retreating into a whataboutism is all worshipers of the Mad King like Mikie P have left. George W territory is hurtling towards them.

[Sarcastr0]

I really like how after being accused of Narnia-like thinking, Michael goes straight for a right-wing myth.

[Malika the Maiz]

It’s all he has. He knows his King is Mad, but his knees are solidly bent to him.

[Sarcastr0]

I sometimes play the game of who knows and is performing to own the libs who is in so deep they do not.

[Michael P]

The only myth here is that you people can understand English. If you pay attention, you might notice that DMN wasn't accusing me of Narnia-like thinking. See also people who confuse calling out awful analogies with "whataboutusm".

[Malika the Maiz]

lol! Run, weasel, run!

[Sarcastr0]

Narnia-like, Michael.

[Michael P]

"Narnia-like, Michael."

I don't even know what distinction you are trying to make. I wrote "Narnia-like". DMN wrote "like [...] Narnia". He was making an analogy for Donald Trump's thinking, I pointed out that it was a really terrible analogy, and you rebut with "Narnia-like, Michael"? This just supports my contention about the only myth here.

[Malika the Maiz]

Look at this weasel. What’s up with the stock market, weasel?

[bernard11]

Trump must be considered incompetent because you don't like his policies

When policies are those of an incompetent fool, it seems reasonable to conclude that the policy-maker is an incompetent fool.

In fact the policies are worse than incompetent, they are actively destructive.

[Bob from Ohio]

Someone is certifiable, its not Trump though, but you. Your hatred is warping your mind.

[Commenter_XY]

David, can you persuade POTUS Trump's Cabinet of his alleged mental incapacity?

Guess your portfolio is having a bad day. 😉

[Mr Ed's Mom too]

"unless they pay us a lot of money on a yearly basis, number one for present but also for past."

Foreign producers have been selling quality products at affordable prices to American consumers for way too long and must be severely punished.

Bring back the good old days.

Where are the Chevrolet Vegas and Ford Pintos that we so loved? Just imagine what the American automobile industry would be if we had prevented foreign incursion into our sacred markets! Who wouldn't love a 2025 K-car at the bargain price of $100,000?

[Stephen Lathrop]

Trump's tariffs will prove powerless to much increase U.S. manufacturing.

A problem is that economists' theories about tariff futility have already proved ruinously correct. Correct because free trade does generate national wealth more efficiently than tariffed trade can do. And ruinous because no political mechanism has ever existed in this nation to distribute equitably that resulting extra wealth.

Plus which, free-trade economic advocacy explicitly disavows any political responsibility for economists. That, the economists unanimously assert, remains a problem for politicians. It is their job, say the economists, to tell politicians how to maximize wealth. It is the politicians' job, say the economists, to figure out how to distribute wealth.

Unregulated free trade thus advantages the few who enjoy the most direct control over international trade, and its associated politics. The doctrines chosen matter little; the control is all. Both doctrines have empowered the few to keep for themselves a greater share of wealth—and of more total wealth—than they could get otherwise—a far greater share, actually.

Better still, those few have learned they can accomplish that enrichment without risk of investment in manufacturing. Manufacturing will always look especially risky in a regime where political caprice can during one election cycle—and with justification proved by experience—undermine years-long efforts to build manufacturing enterprises. In today's global economy, in the U.S., those remain dependent on an unwavering policy, cast irrationally in favor of political protection—a policy already shown to reduce national wealth. America's so-called rust belt is not so much a belt as a ubiquity.

Experience has thus taught the nation a bitter choice, between decreased national wealth for all, or increased national wealth, but at the political and material expense of almost all. It is a choice between competing parties of would-be oligarchs, with each party championing an opposite plan to impoverish ordinary Americans.

With that as its political premise, Trump's tariff demands have capacity to fool populists into expectation that a policy to reduce national wealth by levying tariffs will paradoxically make most Americans richer. That will not happen. What Trump and his cronies understand is that his pro-tariff stance has done nothing, and intends nothing, to cure the abiding distributional problem.

That problem will persist, tariffs or not. Only politics can deliver a remedy to cure it, just as the economists have insisted.

Thus, America's modern oligarchs remain confident that control of trade will make them personally wealthy enough to preclude equitable distribution of wealth—whether wealth founded on pro-tariff politics, or free market politics. Wealth confers power to corrupt democratic tendencies in the political process. It is for that purpose that the oligarchs have rigged American politics to be disproportionately responsive to wealth.

American populists who back Trump's tariff-touting should expect only bitter disappointment, and further impoverishment. They would be wiser, of course, to demand equitable distribution of wealth. For now, that is a lesson their unwisely chosen pro-tariff leaders intend to deny their populist constituency any chance to learn. It would be the same if free-market leaders continued in control, as Americans have already learned.

The proper economic focus of today's politics must be on distribution. Accumulation has for too long proved a distraction.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Trump's tariffs will prove powerless to much increase U.S. manufacturing."

Largely right, and you nailed it before going off on a tangent: "Manufacturing will always look especially risky in a regime where political caprice can during one election cycle—and with justification proved by experience—undermine years-long efforts to build manufacturing enterprises."

You can see SpaceX bucking this trend, but also illustrating it: They were denied on specious grounds rural broadband funds they'd qualified for after substantial investment. Their Starship development program just emerged from 4 years of relentless regulatory assault. Somebody with shallower pockets than Elon Musk would have been crushed by now, and even Musk might have been crushed in the next 4 years if his gamble in supporting Trump hadn't paid off.

I really don't see how Trump can undo this problem in one term. Undoing it really requires undoing the New Deal, and restoring Lochnerism.

[Moderation4ever]

I think you are missing the point that we live in a world economy. Following WWII much of the world manufacturing base had shift to the US. Europe was in ruins. The US war manufacturing base could be turned over to domestic products. A powerhouse the US could get resources from other countries far below the resources value. Today manufacturing is spread throughout the world and countries demand to be compensated for their resources. It simply doesn't make sense to invest capital in building a manufacturing company in the US for a product better made overseas. You simply cannot turn the clock back to a time when the US was the only economic powerhouse and trying to do that is a losing proposition no matter how long you keep tariffs in place.

[SRG2]

Brett provably does not understand global trade. As I was looking for one of my posts I came across this gem of his:

Trade deficits aren't a product of freedom. They're a product of the federal deficit.

Trade deficits are essentially just us living above our means, and the only way to live above your means for any extended period of time is to borrow.

[Sarcastr0]

I like how he says the US can afford to become protectionist. Even as he says our debt is so high we're bankrupt and have to stop funding all the things he personally doesn't like.

[grb]

Sarcastr0 : "Even as he says our debt is so high we're bankrupt and have to stop funding all the things he personally doesn't like"

And that's even as Brett voted for the candidate who gave a rock-solid pledge to bury the United States under mountains of new federal debt. Because that's how he always votes. I doubt Brett Bellmore has ever missed a chance to vote for whatever presidential candidate promises to deliver more federal red ink.

Trump pledges more debt and thus earns Brett's vote. The Senate wraps up a budget bill with trillions in new debt, but not a word from him. But sometime in the upcoming days, he's sure to give us all a pious little homily on how the federal deficit is "very, very, bad" and "dangerous to the country" and "he really finds debt yucky".

The gross hypocrisy is mindboggling......

[Mr Ed's Mom too]

"Trump pledges more debt and thus earns Brett's vote."

We find ourselves mired in a deep crevasse and the only solution that we have is to spend our way out of it while cutting revenue as much as possible! The "king of debt" will save us!

[Sarcastr0]

undoing the New Deal, and restoring Lochnerism.

THE CHILDREN YEARN FOR THE MINES.

[Brett Bellmore]

Heh, my son watched that movie with some friends Sunday. Then got introduced to how McD's has fallen, when they went there for dinner after to get the movie tie in meal. Took him an hour to get his meal, and they didn't even have a working shake machine.

He was in no mood to hear me explain about the evils of "just too late" inventory practices, which have been almost universally adopted at this point to the detriment of reliable service.

The reason you'd need to restore Lochnerism is because, once a country's political culture accepts as legitimate terminating productive enterprises for political reasons, only a restoration of constitutional limits on such assaults could restore trust in the safety of investments.

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah, BrettLaw requires your wordlview. And it's an awful, authoritarian worldview with pre-modern ideas of economics, civil rights, regulations, labor practices, etc. etc.

[Bwaaah]

Savor the unbridled power of government you tacitly endorsed all these years as it ravishes your ideals. It was always about the ends for you, not the means. And now, you can suck on somebody else's ends as your means are co-opted for the benefit of "others."

Your [almost limitless] rules. Different players. Oopsie.

[Malika the Maiz]

What country are you from, weasel?

[jb]

What do you think just-in-time supply chain management has to do with the New Deal or the made up "freedom to contract"?

It's true that when those supply chains are global in nature they're easier to disrupt (see: Covid), but restraints on that global trade seem pretty antithetical to the legal and economic philosophy underpinning Lochner. And the New Deal seems like the exact sort of investment in the national economy that you'd need--not identical same programs, but some sort of massive investment in manufacturing infrastructure--if you wanted to get back to a world in which the US produced a lot more of the manufactured goods it consumed.

[Brett Bellmore]

I don't think that "Just too late" inventory systems, (As we call it in the auto industry.) have anything to do with the New Deal.

I just think the fad for them explains why fast food chains have become so bad at actually being able to sell you stuff that's clearly on their menu, why you can't get a shake at McD's, why the local BK is occasionally out of, of all things, french fries, why the A&W on the corner didn't have ROOT BEER in the months before it closed. Professional management schools teach that you must extract that last couple of percent of costs that actually represent your service being RELIABLE, in order to maximize profits.

The New Deal represented a fad for central economic planning that was sweeping the world between WWI and WWII, and economic liberty got in the way of central planning.

But it's central planning that has rendered our economy a low trust system where it is difficult to finance long term investments, because the planners might decide at any time to render your investment worthless. And a restoration of economic liberty would allow investors to be confident that they'd be able to profit from their investments even if an administration didn't like it.

[Sarcastr0]

The New Deal is not the cause of just-in-time inventory planning. Not directly, nor through some cultural fad.

That's insane.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yes, that would be insane, and I thought I was quite explicit that I don't believe that: "I don't think that "Just too late" inventory systems, (As we call it in the auto industry.) have anything to do with the New Deal."

Is there some way I could have been more explicit that I didn't believe that? I'm having a hard time figuring out how.

[Sarcastr0]

"The New Deal represented a fad for central economic planning"

"it's central planning that has rendered our economy a low trust system where it is difficult to finance long term investments."

That is you, blaming the New Deal for just-in-time inventorying.

Here is you saying Lochner would save us from just-in-time inventorying:
"And a restoration of economic liberty would allow investors to be confident that they'd be able to profit from their investments even if an administration didn't like it."

So sure seems like you do believe that. Or did, until this comment.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, that's me blaming the New Deal for our being a low trust system in which it is difficult to do long term financing of productive investments on account of their being subject to political vicissitudes thanks to the destruction of economic liberty.

Which is about as orthogonal to JIT inventory systems as it would be possible to be, even if I hadn't explicitly denied any connection twice now.

Really, what it sure seems is that your always questionable capacity to read printed matter in English has taken a turn for the worse recently.

[Sarcastr0]

I certainly see a connection between sticking to short term financing and using just in time systems.

And now you claim your whole thing about the New Deal and short term financing was unrelated to your whole thing about just in time inventorying, even though they appeared in the same comment.

Do you expect me to believe that? Because I don't.

[Stephen Lathrop]

The golf links lie so near the mill
That almost every day
The laboring children can look out
And see the men at play.

— Sarah Cleghorn

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

We should go back to the pre-fair-tariff regime! Wealth was being distributed fairly under that system!!

Great argument!

[Malika the Maiz]

Statist bootlicker wants federal government to use taxes to “fairly” distribute wealth!

[Frank Drackman]

"Malika the Maiz"? are you related to "Cheeze it, the Cops!"??

[Malika the Maiz]

I’m related to all the guys who plowed through Your Mother while Your Dad was away. I tossled Your Hair and gave you that Happy Meal before going into my Master Bedroom you weird loser.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Malika the Maiz — Statist bootlickers kowtow to government. I prefer liberty to oppose government, and to enjoy vindication by joint decree (and ungovernable force greater than government's) supplied from the people themselves. That has proved itself a workable system over more than two centuries; it will likely continue workable, if you can keep it.

[Jmaie]

deleted

[Noscitur a sociis]

As I mentioned the other day, the one bright side (admittedly, not a very bright one) of the tariff plan is that it is so spectacularly stupid that there’s a good chance it will get pulled before too much real damage is done.

The counterpoint is that if it doesn’t, it will be enough of a disaster that Democrats are probably going to be able retake power so easily that they won’t actually need to moderate anything at all, including on economic issues. A point Stephen Lathrop illustrates quite nicely.

[Sarcastr0]

I like to think the national Democrats are a broader group than, say the California Democrats, and have some moderation in their ranks.

[Noscitur a sociis]

There most certainly are moderate Democrats, and one positive sign over the last few months is that people within the party seemed to be starting to realize that they probably ought to start listening to them.

But that’s because the hard left brand was so toxic that it was making Trump look good by comparison. If these tariffs stay in place, the economic disaster is going to have the opposite effect, and Democrats will probably be able to waltz in by simple virtue of not being Trump.

Now, the next election is still a long way off, and I hope that the moderating influences will continue anyway. But empowering the Stephen Lathrops of the world remains a distinct possibility.

[Sarcastr0]

I haven't read that dude in quite some time. But I have been disappointed lately in the low populism games of some who I thought would know better among the Dems in Congress.

I tend to be too optimistic, but I'm optimistic.

[Commenter_XY]

Nas, let me ask you a serious question. POTUS Trump is using power under IEEP to levy tariffs in response to a 'national emergency' he has declared.

Why doesn't anyone argue that there really isn't an emergency, under the statute he is using. ISTM, if there is no emergency, then there is no statutory justification for tariffs.

How does one demonstrate POTUS Trump simply made an honest, well-intentioned mistake, and there really isn't a national emergency? What would a Fed Dist Ct judge look for to say, "Sorry, no can do on the emergency b/c there isn't one as defined by this statute'.

[David Nieporent]

POTUS Trump simply made an honest

Hahahahahahahaha!

[Moderation4ever]

One of the key characteristics of a great leaders is the willingness to stand by people in crisis and difficult times. FDR had fireside chats. George Bush, like him or not, order Airforce One back to Washington to speak to the people after 911. Contrast this with Trump who crashes the stock market and then goes on a personal holiday.

I did hear he won the golf tournament so even if he is an economic incompetent we can all take heart that our President is a good golfer.

[Malika the Maiz]

Markets tank so the Mad King went and played a game where low numbers are good!

[windycityattorney]

The Saudi funded LIV golf tournament at Trump owned Doral this weekend? Trump didn't win that one. https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-resort-host-saudi-arabia-212551383.html Unless by winning you mean collecting lots of money from foreign interests.

He allegedly tied for the senior championship at a different Florida course in Jupiter FL.

No big deal. American stock market loses 6+trillion due to his trade policy and he is out there cheating at golf. Last tally I read, US taxpayers have already spent 25million on Trump's golfing since his re-election all at his own resorts. But don't worry, he will make a big deal about donating his salary back to the US treasury and the MAGA cultists will shed a tear for how generous he is.

Tired of winning yet?

[Jmaie]

"Last tally I read, US taxpayers have already spent 25million on Trump's golfing since his re-election all at his own resorts."

Trump golfing costs the taxpayers less than anything else he chooses to do....

[Moderation4ever]

For all those who dismiss Social Security and talk about putting your money in the stock market should consider the following. If you are a person just entering retirement or getting near at this time and your retirement calculations are based on earnings from a stock portfolio you are likely screwed. Your plans to eat steak every night just got switched to hamburger helper.

[Michael P]

Are you too young to have ever heard the very old advice to shift retirement assets from the stock market and into less volatile forms as one approaches retirement age?

[Malika the Maiz]

lol, “it’s the stock market that’s wrong, not my Dear Mad King!”

[TwelveInchPianist]

Yeah, there are an awful lot of big words in MP's comment.

[Moderation4ever]

I am certainly aware that as a person gets closer to retirement you shift from down to a less aggressive mix. It worth noting that that shift can entails taking capital gains that will be taxed. That tax has to be figured into a person's calculations. The bigger problem here is that your advice works for normal market fluctuation, not for the kind of falls we see here or during market collapses, tec bubble burst and the house market burst. Long term investors understand the market will return, but also understand it may take years for that to happen. If you counting on your investments to retire right now you have a big problem.

[TaioF920]

The fact that the loudest whiners are the liberal Jews on Wall Street shows that Trump is doing the right thing. The stock market doesn't benefit the average American. It just benefits the wealthy, who use it at their personal casino, all while convincing ordinary Americans that their fortunes are tied together.

[Commenter_XY]

M4e, when you say, If you are a person just entering retirement or getting near at this time and your retirement calculations are based on earnings from a stock portfolio you are likely screwed, you demonstrate you don't know math, or history.

You know, the funny thing is M4e, I never heard this concern from you in 2022, when the market was down over 25%. How come?

[bernard11]

So that makes this OK?

[TaioF920]

Yes. I couldn't care less about you Boomers' stock portfolios.

[Jmaie]

If you ever plan on retiring you should care about stock market performance. You will grow out of youthful ignorance one day...

[TaioF920]

I'd rather have a more reasonable entry point than what stonks were 6 days ago.

[Noscitur a sociis]

I’ve been pretty vocal about criticizing my friends on the right for using wrongful behavior on the left as a license to excuse their own wrongdoing. But I can at least understand it. “A Democrat did something stupid so we can be just as stupid now!” is, I have to admit, a new one.

[Moderation4ever]

Please take a minute and reread my comment. My concern was that assuming the stock market was a simple replacement for Social Security is foolish. Variation in the market can limit your access to your money or to accept a loss if you must withdraw money. The 2022 drop was quickly changed, and the market rose overall through the Biden administration. The deeper the losses we experience now the long it will take to recover, just as in 2008.

[Commenter_XY]

I did take that minute. Your comment is still just as historically illiterate and financially innumerate.

If a 10% market correction converts your steak to hamburger helper, you're a truly atrocious investor who should get professional help to protect you from yourself. I mean that sincerely. Use Vanguard's PAS, it is lower cost.

The depth of a market decline has weak correlation, at best, to the length of time needed to recover. Go ahead and look it up.

The best thing you and 95%+ of investors should do right now: Nothing. That is the truth of the matter, and is eminently supportable by historical data.

Bogle said it best: Don't do something, just stand there.

[Moderation4ever]

Well first the choice of food is one area where a person has flexibility. A person fixed costs lie mortgage, car loan, or supplemental health care are fixed. If you have to take out less a person is left reducing cost where they can be flexible. If a person takes out what they planned they eat into the principle they are using to continue to have funds.

I do agree the best thing now is to wait. I am lucky that I have other sources of income, and I am not yet at the point where I am required to begin to take IRA withdrawals. I have been taking IRA withdrawals but may skip doing that this year.

[Malika the Maiz]

Who wants to defend the Mad King’s tariff’s? Let’s hear it “conservatives” and “libertarians.” Defend these taxes and their ruinous effects.

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

CCP has sent out it's talking points. Over the coming week watch Obama, Kamala, MSM, and Maiz start parroting them.

[Moderation4ever]

I am reading the WSJ and Reason and I don't see anyone justifying the tariffs. Guess I need to go to Fox news.

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

Try adjusting your date settings on your search.

Go find a time when a Democrat proposed them or did them. That's where you'll find your news sources defending tariffs.

[Malika the Maiz]

Cite a recent Prez that proposed or did them to this extent, fed bootlicker.

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

"to this extent" weasel words for losers.

[Malika the Maiz]

Trump bootlicker doesn’t do context.

He loves the poorly educated!

[SRG2]

You must be one of those cretinous fuckwits who thinks that because there's an obvious argument against some ignorant policy, everyone who advances that argument must be getting talking points from somewhere else.

I used to think it was just stupidity that led to thinking like this but I realised that it's actually because they themselves lack the education, knowledge and understanding to come up with arguments on their own and hence rely on bubbled media sources, so they assume that's what everyone else does as well.

[Brett Bellmore]

It's been some time now since adjusting date settings on a google search actually worked...

[jb]

Maybe you could provide an example or two? It's hard for us to respond to the made up examples in your head.

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

I promise you I could show you videos of prominent Democrats arguing for these types of tariffs, included reciprocal ones, and it won't make a difference to your thought patterns or beliefs.

[jb]

LOL.

[Jmaie]

Have some faith, give it a try...

[Malika the Maiz]

CCP? lol, like those guys Vizier Elon is intertwined with?

Look at this poor, stupid dupe of the Mad King.

https://x.com/thebeatwithari/status/1165064613798588417

[Michael P]

"Mad King" must be one of those talking points. Or maybe it's talking pints.

[Malika the Maiz]

Did Trump refer to himself as a King?

I get Mikie wishes it didn’t happen. Imagine waking up and you feel like you have to defend this nut!

[ducksalad]

Card carrying (well, card lost in drawer somewhere) member of the LP, and I find the tariffs indefensible. Tariffs are bad on principle, but in this case they're also done stupidly and for ignorant, impulsive reasons.

The only "factual" defense they're putting up is that Democrats did this bad thing and therefore Republican are entitled and compelled to do this bad thing even more.

[Bored Lawyer]

Tariffs are generally bad. Used strategically, they can have a positive effect. Trump's use has been anything but strategic -- it's about as blunderbuss as it gets.

The only possible defense is that (1) Trump views himself as a dealmaker (he even wrote a book about it) and (2) he views this as an outrageous way to force a deal. IOW, the intent is to force trading partners to lower their tariffs. The administration has been sending mixed signals on this.

So far, I would give him a D+. Maybe he can change it, maybe not.

[jb]

He imposed tariffs on countries that had preemptively dropped their tariffs on the US. Hard to understand how he thinks that creates the right incentives for other countries to lower theirs.

[Commenter_XY]

Here is the theory, fwiw, as articulated by Bessent and Lutnick.

Deregulation + lower energy cost + direct foreign investment in US + reduced federal spending/debt = diminished impact of tariffs to unemployment and prices + increased revenue

There is historical support: Harding, Coolidge

[jb]

Bessent seems totally on board with the Senate Republicans' desire to add about $6T to the debt, so it's hard to take that formulation seriously.

[Josh R]

The first, third and fourth terms on the left-hand side have nothing to so with tariffs. The tariffs should stand or fall of their own accord.

Yes, there is increased government revenue from tariffs as well as increased domestic production. But Econ 101 says the increased prices and lower consumer demand are a greater negative.

[Commenter_XY]

It is the combination of things that acting together deliver muted inflation, steady job growth, and more revenue. You have many implicit assumptions in your statement that didn't bear out in 2017-19. Look at the data yourself.

Judging by 2017-19, real wage growth will happen too. Something that did not happen under The Cauliflower (a factor in defeat for the Word Salad Queen).

[Josh R]

Your comment still has nothing to do with tariffs. Or perhaps, you are arguing that there is an interaction between tariffs and deregulation, energy, and federal spending, whereby tariffs enhance the good effects of those things?

If so, where is your data? Is it in 2017-19? Please share it with us. And no, low inflation, decent job growth, revenue and real wage growth aren't those data in and of themselves. You have to show that higher tariffs contributed to those data.

[Commenter_XY]

Are you memory challenged, Josh R? Now let's see, let's probe the ancient mists of time back to 2017-19. Do you recall that dreaded T word being used back then? I do. And I especially recall all the caterwauling back then about how inflation would skyrocket, and the economy would tank and how it was just economic suicide and lunacy and how POTUS Trump and TresSec Mnuchin were morons and incredibly stupid. Were you one of the many prognosticators of doom?

Reality, Josh R. Reality was quite different than the prognostications of doom: lower inflation than today, increased Fed revenues, stronger employment numbers, and real wage gains for the lower 50%.

The Cauliflower, along with a Team D Congress, in contrast, passed the Inflation Reduction Act and got precisely the opposite. I don't suppose that contributed at all to the electoral defeat of Special K and the loss of the Senate. Nah.

I am not particularly worried about POTUS Trump's economic policy. I am much more concerned about Senator Thune and Speaker Johnson delivering the critical votes needed later this year (keep tax policy consistent). Why? POTUS Trump has a track record on economic matters, and it is a good one. He also has an excellent team to provide counsel to him.

[Josh R]

Using the T word is not the same as levying across the board tariffs. We did have limited tariffs in 2017-19, most notably in steel and aluminum. But even those were exempted or lifted within a year or two.

I will give you one thing. If Trump sticks to his guns, we will find out if Econ 101 or Trump is right.

[Commenter_XY]

You know Josh R, if you really think about it, it is entirely possible for econ 101 and POTUS Trump to both be right.

[Noscitur a sociis]

It is, in fact, not.

[Josh R]

How so?

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Defend these taxes and their ruinous effects."

OK. I don't know if they're worse than price controls on food. How's that?

[Malika the Maiz]

"An old fashioned term that we use, 'groceries.' I used it on the campaign. It's such an old-fashioned term, but a beautiful term. Groceries. It says a bag with different things in it. Groceries went through the roof and I campaigned on that, I talked about the word groceries."

Imagine being Mikie P or other MAGAns and waking up seeing this dotard’s latest quote and thinking “he’s my King, I guess I gotta get up and defend him…”

[hobie]

It's a thankless job

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

Wokies,

Soros has given you your marching orders. It's time to put wokeness underground and you pretend like it never happened (like the BLM massacres and revolts, or when Biden was president and his obviously lack of brain, or your COVID idiocy).

“Woke culture is the organic ideology of a narrow elite, drunk with power, and backed by the key power centers of American politics,”

https://x.com/OpenSociety/status/1903121949502607432

Patriots,
A month from now when the hobies, Maiz's, and other assorted retards start pretending like they were never wokies, we must hold them to account. Take your screenshots now.

[Malika the Maiz]

Patriots,

lol, look at this pathetic fed bootlicker!

[Malika the Maiz]

Trevor Milton, just pardoned by Trump for fraud, donated over $2 million to Republicans between September and December of last year, per FEC records. His largest was $920K to the Trump 47 Committee.

Drain the swamp!

[hobie]

Friends of Bill

[Malika the Maiz]

American retirement funds tumbled from federal tax hikes while the Mad King played golf this weekend.

Get those elites, feds and big government Mikie P, Brett, and other bootlickers! Lok

[Martinned2]

Crooked Timber has a nice blog post about this tarriff mess, with quite a few original thoughts, and with uncharacteristically many of them being effectively libertarian in nature: https://crookedtimber.org/2025/04/07/trumps-tariffs-mckinley-and-the-bonapartist-executive/

[Brett Bellmore]

"Mercantilism is never just about the balance of trade. It’s always and everywhere an attempt to direct state violence against those who wish to shape their own lives unguided by the superior wisdom of the nation, the people, or race."

This is a valid observation, certainly. ALL government is the direction of state violence against those who wish to shape their own lives. Sometimes justified, (Your average burglar just wants to shape their own life with somebody else's property!) often not so justified.

I'd be more impressed with Crooked Timber noticing this, if they weren't all about directing state violence against those who wish to shape their own lives, and simply disagree with the elected administration about what constitutes superior wisdom.

[Sarcastr0]

Brett's really leaning into the nihilism these days.

"Things aren't exactly as I think they should be, so anyone objecting to destroying America is a hypocrite."

Brett, of course, loves state violence so long as it protects but does not bind him, and binds but does not protect those he's deemed not worthy.

[Brett Bellmore]

Seriously, I'd say you were losing it, except that, so far as I can tell, you actually lost it a few months ago.

[Malika the Maiz]

Brett. Are you for sudden massive and weird tax increases?

Just say it. You don’t have to bend the knee like Mikie P and others. Are you for this?

[Malika the Maiz]

Wilhots law defines Brett. And FYIGM.

[Commenter_XY]

Tariffs are bad.

So why does the rest of the world use them?

[Noscitur a sociis]

Now do gun control, free speech, and jury trials!

[Commenter_XY]

You first.

[Noscitur a sociis]

I didn’t think my point was complicated enough to be missed, but I’ll make it explicitly.

Other countries are worse than the United States and thus do things worse than we do. We’re richer, freer, and all around better than the rest of the world, because we chose better courses of actions, even if they’re unpopular or unknown in other countries. Not should we start doing anything differently now.

[Michael P]

The irony is not lost on me that the person feigning outrage about someone once likening themselves to royalty (by borrowing a stock phrase) formerly commented under the names "Queen Amalthea" and "Queen Almathea".

[Malika the Maiz]

Lol, look at this sycophant royalist! The problem isn’t his Dear Leader referring to himself as a king, it’s an internet guy referencing royalty in his handle!

This is what bowing to a Mad King does to your brain!

[Sarcastr0]

someone once likening themselves to royalty

Haha you're pathetic.

[Malika the Maiz]

It’s amazing. The obvious way out for people like Mikie P, Brett, etc is just to say:

“Yeah, when he talks about himself as a king, that’s stupid and un-American, wish he didn’t do that.”

“Yeah, the tariffs are incredibly dumb and statist, wish he didn’t do that.”

But that literally doesn’t occur to them. They now *like* the hurt knees they get genuflecting to their Mad King!

[Brett Bellmore]

Whatever. I think you're actually more obsessed with the guy than I am. A kind of cult of anti-personality, it seems like.

I think he's a bad President by any absolute standard, and it sucks that the only alternative was an even worse President. Our politics have gotten deeply pathological. In all political parties! I personally attribute that to the campaign 'reforms' of the late 70's and 80's, and the way they guaranteed that the incumbent major parties would never again have to worry about third parties gaining ground.

This freed the major parties to enter a downward spiral where each was only trying to seem to its own supporters less awful than the other, rather than actually good. While the third parties lost all the serious people once they were guaranteed to be an exercise in futility.

Be that as it may, this demand that I treat him as uniquely bad does not impress me. And over such a trivial matter, too!

[Sarcastr0]

Talking about the tariffs means you're obsessed with Trump?

Man, these defenses of Trump are getting bottom of the barrel.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bellmore — You can better understand the critiques you get. Commenters here do not want you telling them the nation's presidency averages out to shit in a cheeseburger, just so you can defend shit in a cheeseburger. They think you are wrong both ways.

[Brett Bellmore]

And I think I'm right both ways. Trump is a shitty President by any absolute standard. But the same could be said of Biden and could have been said of Harris if she'd won. Presidents have been getting progressively worse over time.

I don't think the people attacking Trump as uniquely bad quite understand this: However manifestly awful they think Trump is, and he IS pretty awful in a lot of ways, he won the popular vote. More voters actually thought Harris was MORE awful!

A guy as awful as Trump didn't twice win the Presidency, and between come within a hair of winning, inexplicably, against great opponents! He only managed it because the Democratic party puked up horrific alternatives, people who never should have been in the same room with a Presidential nominee.

For that matter, he didn't get the nomination by virtue of the GOP being a healthy political party. He got the nomination by virtue of the GOP having been dominated by a clique out of touch with their own base for so long that GOP votes would vote even for TRUMP, just to tear the clique lose from controlling the party. A party base being so sick of their own party's establishment that being a member of that establishment was a fatal handicap for a candidate.

But you want me to pretend that Trump is uniquely bad, which is a way of denying just how awful the rest of the clown show has become. In some ways, he's not the worst guy out there, which is why he won two terms.

And now he's playing dirty, wrestling for control of the government, and if people were actually HAPPY with that government, his efforts would be pathetically, hilariously doomed. But he has a lot of support in that fight, because nobody is really happy with the way the government has been functioning in a long time.

Well, except for the bureaucrats themselves, obviously.

[Sarcastr0]

Winning the popular vote justifies breaking all the laws.

Purestrain authoritarianism.

[Brett Bellmore]

And the bureaucrats chime in.

[Sarcastr0]

Ad hominem?

Pathetic.

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

Hey, can you send me the location of an Amazon locker near you? I'm going to send you a mirror. You lack self awareness, maybe that will help.

[Commenter_XY]

Truth hurts

[Jmaie]

A few days back, Sarcastro called someone out for being the blog's "tone police." Unfortunately for me I was drinking coffee at the time.

[Sarcastr0]

Ad hominem is a fallacious argument; it's not about tone.

ThePublius calls for liberals to be 'delt with, and harshly' but gets mad when people say fuck and shit.

He's a silly man.

[Commenter_XY]

Sarcastr0, he ain't half the hypocrite you are.

[ducksalad]

We can debate whether he's uniquely bad on some universal scale; that would depend on how many points you assign to various crimes and incompetencies.

However, I don't think you can deny that this particularly stupid way of determining tariffs was unique. And I don't think you can dismiss something with impacts approaching trillions of dollars, positive or negative, as "trivial".

[Brett Bellmore]

"Trivial" would be, "long live the king!".

Look, I cast my one vote last year against Harris, not because I thought Trump would be a great President, but because I thought she'd be a worse one. And now I'm along for the ride, just like the rest of you. I'm not freaking out over the market solely because I see no utility in freaking out.

Now, if you tell me that my stock portfolio will go up 20% if I become hysterical, maybe I'd act on that, if you could make a persuasive argument.

I say, chill out, I'm 66 and even I can ride out a year or two of roller coaster markets. (Barring some medical event, I'm not retiring for years yet; My wife bought a new car last year!) And I think this tariff thing is going to be resolved in months, not years.

[TaioF920]

Not to mention that stocks are where they were a little over a year ago. It's not like the dot com crash that wiped out 80%.

[not guilty]

Brett, if you regard "Trump [as] a shitty President by any absolute standard", then why the hell do you genuflect to him at every opportunity?

Do you have a personal affinity for shit?

[Brett Bellmore]

Because you construe anything short of declaring him the worst thing since cholera to be genuflecting.

I've remarked on that trash talk arms race going on, on the left. I'm not competing in it, I'm laughing at it.

[Sarcastr0]

lib libs libs libs

Libs Libs Libs

LIBS LIBS LIBS

LIIIIIIBBBBBSSS!

Trenchant defense, Brett.

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

Great Komment, Komment Karen!!

[Brett Bellmore]

Such incisive arguments hardly require trenchant defenses, Sarcastr0.

What is it you think is "genuflecting"? That I believe a guy who does as well as he does, financially and politically, can't be a moron who's just acting randomly, but instead is generally engaged in planning?

Like I said, only the left's arms race of trash talk could explain believing the contrary.

[bernard11]

Because you construe anything short of declaring him the worst thing since cholera to be genuflecting.

No, Brett. You genuflect. You defend everything he does, no matter what, and some of your defenses are ludicrous. You were even defending his tariffs based on some bizarre long-term idea you invented.

And you can't stop talking about what a genius he is.

[Brett Bellmore]

He's a billionaire who got elected President twice, and nearly so a third time. How much more would he have to do, to get you to admit he was fairly smart?

I'll gladly admit that intelligence is not the only contributor to worldly success, but people without it rarely succeed at anything.

[TaioF920]

He likely realized that Biden's terrible approval ratings showed that the average American doesn't care about the stonk market as much as the Wall Street apologist media lets on.

[grb]

Brett Bellmore : "How much more would he have to do, to get you to admit he was fairly smart?"

And how much more incoherent gibberish and brainless bungling is necessary to prove the opposite to you? The below account isn't completely fair : Fred bankrolled Little Donnie much more than his share of the family wealth alone and then saw scores of millions wasted. But its overall point is valid:

"In an outstanding piece for National Journal, reporter S.V. Dáte notes that in 1974, the real estate empire of Trump’s father, Fred, was worth about $200 million. Trump is one of five siblings, making his stake at that time worth about $40 million. If someone were to invest $40 million in a S&P 500 index in August 1974, reinvest all dividends, not cash out and have to pay capital gains, and pay nothing in investment fees, he’d wind up with about $3.4 billion come August 2015, according to Don’t Quit Your Day Job’s handy S&P calculator.

But if you compare Trump’s performance since 1982, when the stock market started to take off after the early-‘80s recession, it looks pretty abysmal. Forbes estimated that Trump was worth $200 million that year. If he’d put that money in an index fund that year at a 0.15 percent fee, he’d have $6.3 billion today after dividend taxes, almost certainly more than he actually does. This jibes with analyzes prior to Dáte’s which have found that Trump has underperformed compared with the market since 1988; an AP analysis found that if he’d put his money in an index fund that year, he’d have $13 billion today; the S&P calculator similarly suggested he’d have $11.3 billion, after fees and dividend taxes.

But the exact numbers aren’t the point. The point is that after decades of touting his business acumen, his ability to negotiate tough deals and spot good investments, and after spending this entire campaign season arguing that he’s qualified for the presidency based on his skills in the market, Trump nonetheless has an investment record that at best roughly matches and at worst underperforms the market. He did only as well or possibly worse than a retiree with a Vanguard 401(k) did.

That’s not really impressive. Worse, it suggests that his success is almost entirely the result of having inherited money from his father. His own actions might have even cost him money."

https://www.vox.com/2015/9/2/9248963/donald-trump-index-fund

[Sarcastr0]

Trump sure has you working hard day-in day-out to cover for his constant lies, corruption, and fuck-ups.

Doesn't seem a genius type of way to be.

[Brett Bellmore]

Like I keep saying: You're caught up in a trash talk arms race, so you can't admit the obvious. But I'm not involved in that arms race, I'm off to the side laughing at it.

So there's no obstacle at all to me noticing that Trump is a pretty smart guy who makes and carries through plans. Which is, obviously, not the same thing as being morally virtuous.

But that's hard to admit if you've go moral and other virtues confused, and everybody you think is bad has to be incompetent, too.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Trump sure has you working hard day-in day-out to cover for his constant lies, corruption, and fuck-ups."

Says the guy that spent the last four years covering up for his President's mental incapacity.

[TaioF920]

Wall Street whining over stock drops proves the point that the GOP has been out of touch. Most stocks are owned by the wealthy. The corporate media has sold a lie that the average American with $95k in his 401k should spend his whole day worrying about the stock market.

He shouldn't. The ups and downs only really affect the wealthy. It's nice to have a president that doesn't cater to Wall Street, at least as much.

[Stephen Lathrop]

However manifestly awful they think Trump is, and he IS pretty awful in a lot of ways, he won the popular vote.

Bellmore — It is on that basis you are consistently mistaken. With that, you conflate the axis of political principle with the different axis of political preference. To do that takes out the notion of adherence to political principle as a criterion to judge either politicians, or particular political or judicial actions. The notion of political principle itself becomes unworkable unless it can be considered apart from preferred outcomes.

You do not have to agree with anyone on political principles, but you do have to keep questions of principle apart from questions of policy. If you do not, expect no respect from anyone except hacks who agree with you on outcomes.

Assuming you suppose you do respect political principle, please name a few other prominent politicians in our lifetime who have been as contemptuous as Trump has been of this nation's political principles, such as: due process; separation of powers; the power of the purse; respect for individual rights; orderly transfer of power; fealty to see that the laws are faithfully executed; and the power of the judiciary to say what the law is.

I do not ask to hear your specific takes or disagreements on any of those principles. I instead want you to name other politicians active during our lifetimes who have ever violated as many of those principles as Trump does routinely. Just to make it easier for you to avoid obvious errors, please put Joe Biden and Kamala Harris off limits. In fact, although you will find no one but Trump who attempted a coup against the United States, please remember that any political figure who has racked up aggregate violations of principle equivalent to a coup attempt could be a fair candidate.

[David Nieporent]

I love Brett's spin. Trump ran three times. He never broke 50% of the vote even once. He lost the popular vote handily once, lost the popular vote by a large margin a second time, and won the popular vote by a comfortable but smallest margin of the three the other time. In each election, flipping the three closest states would've changed the EC outcome.

And yet Brett characterizes this as Trump almost winning three times, as opposed to almost losing three times.

[Brett Bellmore]

He never broke 50%, but he never got far from it, either.

And my point here is that genuinely stupid people who don't make and carry through plans don't do that well in the real world. In the real world, if somebody wins foot races, you admit they're fast. If they lift heavy weights, you admit they're strong. If they win competitions that require considerable thought and organization, you admit they're smart.

Unless you're addicted to trash talk.

[ducksalad]

I'd argue that our elections are a lot closer to celebrity dance contests than foot races or weightlifting.

Celebrity dance contests don't have much to do with technical dancing skill, and winning elections doesn't have much to do with competence at running the government.

Winning elections is more about who is more willing to use the really effective lies, the primal stuff where the targets get off on hearing it even though they know it's false.

[Stephen Lathrop]

And judicial decisions decided at the Supreme Court level, without ever reaching the merits, are more like skating contests where 6 of the 9 judges are from East Germany.

[bernard11]

He's not just shitty, Brett.

He's destructive.

[TaioF920]

No, what's destructive is putting Wall Streeters in charge of anything.

[apedad]

Trump's DOJ Voices Support for Biden Nursing Home Staffing Rule

The Trump administration delivered a surprisingly full-throated defense of the Biden administration’s disputed nursing home staffing rule in a brief filed Thursday with the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.

The staffing mandate requires most US nursing homes to meet a total mandatory staffing level made up of varying numbers of registered nurses, nursing aides, and licensed practical nurses. It also calls for maintaining an on-site registered nurse around the clock. The requirements apply to all facilities that accept Medicare and Medicaid patients and are to be phased in over several years.

In October, 20 Republican state attorneys general—along with two nursing homes and multiple state organizations representing nonprofit aging services providers—filed a lawsuit claiming the final rule is illegal, arbitrary and capricious, and causes irreparable financial harm. The plaintiffs also sought a preliminary injunction to block implementation of the rule.

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/health-law-and-business/trumps-doj-voices-support-for-biden-nursing-home-staffing-rule

The Centers for Medicare & Medicare Services (fed agency), set standards at, "A facility with 100 residents would need 'at least two or three RNs and at least ten or eleven nurse aides as well as two additional nurse staff (which could be registered nurses, licensed professional nurses, or nurse aides) per shift to meet the new minimum staffing standards.'”

Tough call here since I'm not absolutely convinced the feds should direct the number of personnel required to operate a senior home - but at the same time (if it's receiving federal $$$), then the feds should be able to apply conditions.

[apedad]

For you anti-gov folks, I suggest NOT looking at the CMS org chart.

https://www.cms.gov/about-cms/agency-information/cmsleadership/downloads/cms_organizational_chart.pdf

[ducksalad]

Those numbers seem way too high unless it's a nursing home exclusively for the permanently bedridden or disabled.

Any of the lesser grades of assisted living shouldn't need anything close to that.

[Mr Ed's Mom too]

Back in the day when I managed hundreds of nursing homes and skilled nursing facilities (I wrote all my doctoral dissertations on the management and staffing requirements of facilities for the care and rehabilitation of those run over by diligent, patriotic snow plow drivers) I became obtusely aware of the staffing requirements necessary to properly staff these facilities to the necessary staffing levels. Typical residents, especially the illegal ones recovering from gunshot wounds suffered while trying to wade the Camino Grande, typically require nursing care 24/7 or more. No shite!

edit:

Oh, I almost misremembered to point out that assisted or independent living places whorehouse the elderly without the financial assistance of medicare and medicaid and thank God for that (ptl)! We must keep these facilities for the use only of those willing and able to pay the exorbitant costs and keep the poor and needy out and on the streets where they belong!!!!

[ducksalad]

Actually we're very pleased with the semi-luxury assisted living facility my mom (100 last summer) is staying at. It's up to $6K per month but that is absolutely all inclusive including free happy hour, salon, a small outside garden with each room, and at least six to eight activities a day you or I would pay admission for "outside".

[hobie]

Pretty good turn out for Saturday's protest in west Cleveland. Maybe two thousand people. All wearing USA and Ukraine colors in equal measure. Funny how we're the party of patriotism now.

I, once again, had to drag the pink pussy hat out of storage. It turned out to be a fashion coup on my part. Was the only one there with a pink pussy hat. Ah the good old days: when the most damage he could do is digitally rape women and be the only man in history to lose money running a casino

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

They were bussed in and paid. There are tons of videos online catching the fake and gay protest.

[Bob from Ohio]

Well, you are a pussy.

A protest in Cleveland will sure show ole Donnie.

[hobie]

At least we can protest and wear Ukraine pins without fear. I'd like to see you mask-hating patriots try that at one of your rallies or universities. Like wearing the wrong t-shirt at a parade in Moscow, it's off to Central American Siberia you go!

[Brett Bellmore]

LOL! Hardly the only man in history to manage it. Casinos were actually going bankrupt all over the place at the time Trump's were doing it.

[bernard11]

Do you think those were well-run?

My impression of Trump's disasters is that they were caused by taking on way too much debt - not putting enough equity - so they failed when things didn't go perfectly.

Smart, or even semi-intelligent half-numerate businesspeople don't do that.

[grb]

bernard11 : "Smart, or even semi-intelligent half-numerate businesspeople don't do that."

But Trump never had to be smart or semi-intelligent. Daddy staked him with scores of millions and he blew every penny. So Daddy staked him with scores more millions and (after a brief period of success) he blew every penny again. So Daddy put Little Donnie on a short leash and the latter discovered his only true talent: Hustling the chumps with cons and branding scams. Finally Daddy died and there was a massive asset sale.

See? Nothing in all that required the slightest trace of smart or semi-intelligent discernment, which is fortunate. Because here's Trump from 2016, describing how "smart" he is :

"Trump said in a series of interviews that he does not need to read extensively because he reaches the right decisions “with very little knowledge other than the knowledge I already had, plus the words ‘common sense,’ because I have a lot of common sense and I have a lot of business ability.”

Trump said he is skeptical of experts because “they can’t see the forest for the trees.” He believes that when he makes decisions, people see that he instinctively knows the right thing to do: “A lot of people said, ‘Man, he was more accurate than guys who have studied it all the time.’ ”

Trump said reading long documents is a waste of time because he absorbs the gist of an issue very quickly. “I’m a very efficient guy,” he said. “Now, I could also do it verbally, which is fine. I’d always rather have — I want it short. There’s no reason to do hundreds of pages because I know exactly what it is.”

Trump claimed he never read any market research for his real estate deals either."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/donald-trump-doesnt-read-much-being-president-probably-wouldnt-change-that/2016/07/17/d2ddf2bc-4932-11e6-90a8-fb84201e0645_story.html

And that's how you bankrupt casinos.....

[Estragon]

“Trump is an inheritor … [he] never acknowledges it, but he wouldn’t have been able to do any of the things he did without an inheritance. He absorbed the lessons of inheriting money almost unfiltered: ‘You have this money because you’re special.’ If you read about his childhood, it’s like the textbook worst way to raise a person – you know, he was violent, he was a bully and he was rewarded for that, even as a very small child. And the more money he had, the more he exhibited these bad qualities, and the more people told him he was wonderful.”

[TaioF920]

Speaking of unconstitutional, the Supreme Court just declined to hear the NYS concealed carry law appeal, showing that they weren't serious with Bruen. If that law, which basically prohibits carry everywhere but the sidewalk, is constitutional, then what law is not constitutional?

The courts will not protect gun rights. Only the legislatures may

[hobie]

I guess we'll have to see if this current legislature will be given permission to do something about it

[TaioF920]

What needs to happen is Congress needs to preempt all blue state laws on guns.

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

The Left in 2012: Down with the System! Occupy Wall Street!

The Left in 2025: Hands Off the System! Save Wall Street!

Discuss.

[hobie]

You know how rappers have to give themselves fake honorifics as a pretense to respectability?

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

You don't think I am Dr. Big Balls, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2 in real life?

A decent percent of those are true. For example, I do hold two Ph.D.s. One from my alma mater, the other from one of the sororities. That one should really be P.H.D. though, 😉

[TwelveInchPianist]

"I do hold two Ph.D.s"

One in your mouth, and one in your ass?

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

lol ... and I thought we were BFFs

[TwelveInchPianist]

Yeah, but if you throw one right over the plate...

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

Why isn't the Left calling China or the EU idiots for shooting themselves in the foot by retaliating against Trumps tariffs with their own?

[hobie]

We don't have to say anything

[grb]

Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2 : "Why isn't the Left calling China or the EU idiots for shooting themselves in the foot by retaliating against Trumps tariffs with their own?"

This has got to be the dumbest excuse for an argument anyone has ever seen! Let's use the analogy of war:

A war may be pointless. It may bring only useless carnage, empty destruction, and needless death. It may be launched without without cause or reason beyond the delusions and mental illness of the leader who started it.

But if you're attacked, you have to fight. Even Magnus Troll should be able to work that out, but he's hit upon the throwaway imbecility above as something "clever". Isn't that hilarious!

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

So retaliatory tariffs are justified by the "when you're attacked, you have to fight" doctrine, and placing a tariff on a country is "attacking" them.

You just backed into a defense of Trump's tariffs you doofus.

[jb]

It is in fact dumb and bad for their consumers. But it was also totally predictable, and also bad for the US.

On the other hand, if you buy the explanation that Trump is some sort of master negotiator and using tariffs to get the deal he wants from all of these other countries, then seems like these other countries turn out to be just as savvy and good at negotiating as Trump. Maybe a fair amount smarter since many of their retaliatory tariffs seem to be actually tailored to create pressure on Trump and his voters.

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

If it's so obviously stupid, why are these countries doing it? Do you think these countries are full of idiots who can't see how obviously stupid this is?

[Commenter_XY]

Clearly, that has to be it. The entire world is stupid, but OrangeManBad is just stupider. Or something like that.

[hobie]

I think I understand all the penguin tariffs. Was looking at a large colony squawking and honking and I swear I heard one bleat 'hamas'. Plus I saw a couple of females too close together for comfort. Woke-ass birds. Serves 'em right

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

Imports were recorded from those terroritories, either by mistake or by fraudulent intent.

Thats already been revealed, well to those of us who don't live in the Soros NewZ Bubble, that is.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

The Penguins of Madagascar are not Trump's favorite.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

A discussion of two rulings against Trump's military trans bans. The bans are bad procedurally and substantively (including animus), even in comparison to Trump 1.0.

https://verdict.justia.com/2025/04/07/the-transgender-military-ban-part-i-district-court-rejection-of-deference-and-secretary-of-defense-hegseths-rejection-of-judge-reyes

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm somewhat puzzled by the declaration that transgender people are a suspect classification, particularly the "immutable characteristics" part. It seems quite evident that people who were not previously transgender can become transgender, and the reverse; This would seem to rule out any possibility of being transgender being considered "immutable".

[David Nieporent]

Do you think Jews are a suspect classification?

[Brett Bellmore]

Only because religion is specifically called out in the 1st amendment, rendering distinctions on the basis of religion constitutionally suspect without regard to immutability.

[hobie]

It's almost as if your having problems with people's faith and belief, Brett

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

What's immutable about transgenderism?

How is selecting for people who aren't diagnosed with a mental disorder "discriminating based upon sex"?

[Josh R]

Gender identity would be the suspect classification.

[Brett Bellmore]

If you lie about your sex on a job application, and they find out and fire you, you're being fired for lying, not fired for your sex.

Even if it wouldn't have been a lie if you'd have been of the other sex.

[Josh R]

How is your comment relevant to Joe's link?

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

How is yours? Gender identity is mutable.

[Josh R]

It's probably mutable to the same degree sexual orientation (recognized by most as a trait) is. For many, likely most, it is very, very hard to change. For others it's easier.

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

Since gender identity is mutable then it can't qualify for a special class.

[Josh R]

I guess you think sexual orientation must not be eligible for suspect classification either. I disagree because both are close enough to immutable for legal purposes. But even if I am wrong, the logic in Bostock commands that discrimination on the basis of either is discrimination on the basis of sex, a quasi-suspect classification.

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

immutable is binary. It either is or it isn't. Just like biological sex.

And no, I don't think any particular lifestyle choices should get special status.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Yup. I wonder if transracial people like Rachael Dolzal a suspect classification are. No one had a problem saying that she was lying about her race, but no one wants to say that men who say that they are women are lying about their sex.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

John Oliver (following up the Sunday Doonesbury comic) dealt with trans athletes last night.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flSS1tjoxf0

[Mr Ed's Mom too]

John Oliver? How can anyone trust Oliver after that JFK movie he made? Everybody knows that Jackie did it. Nobody had better reasons. Follow the money.

[Jmaie]

[Estragon]

“I don't think this was foreseeable. I assumed economic rationality would be paramount. My bad.”

Well, Bill, you know what they say about assuming…

[hobie]

Bill further says:

"by placing massive and disproportionate tariffs on our friends and our enemies alike and thereby launching a global economic war against the whole world at once, we are in the process of destroying confidence in our country as a trading partner, as a place to do business, and as a market to invest capital."

Oh Bill, I can think of one country we haven't laid a finger on

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

>Transgender individuals are members of a quasi suspect class: ... are part of a discrete group with immutable characteristics...

Uh, what part of transgenderism is immutable?

And how is excluding people diagnosed with mental disorder discriminating based upon sex?

[Dan Schiavetta]

From David Brooks's piece today in The Atlantic:

"Since coming back to the White House, Trump has caused suffering among Ukrainians, suffering among immigrants who have lived here for decades, suffering among some of the best people I know. Many of my friends in Washington are evangelical Christians who found their vocation in public service—fighting sex trafficking, serving the world’s poor, protecting America from foreign threats, doing biomedical research to cure disease. They are trying to live lives consistent with the gospel of mercy and love. Trump has devastated their work. He isn’t just declaring war on 'wokeness'; he’s declaring war on Christian service—on any kind of service, really."

[Dr. Ed 2]

Is this the same David Brooks who pretended to be a conservative until he got himself established, writing books such as "the real Anita Hill"?

And what part of being a Christian involves getting rich off Federal largess???

[David Nieporent]

Is this the same David Brooks who pretended to be a conservative until he got himself established, writing books such as "the real Anita Hill"?

No, you moron, it isn't. That was David Brock.

[Mr Ed's Mom too]

"No, you moron, it isn't. That was David Brock."
Iceberg, Goldberg, what's the difference? Just like Oliver Stone and Roger Stone are actually the same person. Just ask Lauren Boebert, the world's rock expert
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/lauren-boebert-confuses-oliver-roger-200024714.html

[ThePublius]

David Brooks is full of sh*t.

[Sarcastr0]

Oh my starts and garters, where is your civility?

[ThePublius]

What are "starts and garters?"

[Bob from Ohio]

Its stars, not starts. Its an old fashioned UK phrase for when someone is astonished.

[Commenter_XY]

A rather unusual turn of phrase. I have heard it before.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"What are 'starts and garters?'"

It's how Biff Tannen says he's surprised.

[hobie]

Ah yes, another Republican recession (two for Trump!). Which means Goldman Sachs has projected oil to go below $60/barrel. Good news for gas-loving patriots, bad news for oil companies. Mine is already mothballing all operations in West Africa. There will be no drill baby drill, boys. But don't worry, we'll make a killing on the flip side. You know how every time we have a Republican recession (2009, 2020) Exxon skyrockets to the top of the most valuable companies in the world? The secret is that we've long ago paid for the infrastructure we use. Our price to produce a barrel of oil stays the same in good times and bad. But we're untouchable and feted by you rubes so we can just do what we please...and we do. And since you never learn despite all the previous recessions, we'll just wait this out a bit then hammer you and make a killing. And you'll once again think it is just the vagueries of the marketplace

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

We can just redefine "recession" like they did under Biden redefining "recession", "vaccine", and even "woman".

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Victoria Amelina was a Ukrainian author and poet.

When Russia invaded, she became a witness. To quote a review of her unfinished book, Looking At Women Looking At War:

[S]he was thinking of a different kind of literary project: a book about the women who, like her, were taking huge risks to document the war. She would write this book in English, and in it she would deploy a purposeful jumble of interviews, diary entries, reports from field missions, Ukrainian history and even poetry. Such a book, she believed, wouldn’t only play its small part in holding the perpetrators accountable; one day, it would help to give “lasting peace a chance”.

She died from wounds suffered in a Russian attack in mid-2023. Her friends worked off her notes to release this book.

A collection of her poetry is also forthcoming. This poem is entitled "Sirens":

Air-raid sirens across the country
It feels like everyone is brought out
For execution
But only one person gets targeted
Usually the one at the edge
This time not you; all clear

(Translated by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)

[ReaderY]

The Trump administration has requested the Supreme Court to stay an order requiring a man mistakenly reported to El Salvador to be returned

What do you think of the merits?

https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5235939-doj-supreme-court-deported-man/amp/

[ThePublius]

The court order requiring Trump to bring a man back from El Salvador is not unlike a court order requiring him to bring a man back to life, or pull a rabbit from a hat. These judges are out of control.

[Sarcastr0]

You don't think Trump can bring that guy back if he wants?

Really??

[ThePublius]

That's two questions:

1. Can Trump bring him back? Answer: depends on El Salvador;
2. If he wants? Answer: I don't think he wants, and I don't want him to, either.

[apedad]

Well that's because you're a facist bitch.

Just round up legal people and toss them in the ocean.

[ThePublius]

Likewise, I'm sure.

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

He's forgotten how we was demanding arrests and breaking up families during the COVID vaccine tyranny days.

[ThePublius]

What do you mean by "legal people?" Do you know that Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia was in the U.S. illegally, and is a suspected MS-13 gang member?

[David Nieporent]

You're a suspected Klan member; what's your point?

[ThePublius]

Oh, get lost with your nonsense.

[ThePublius]

"suspected Klan member"

I'm not a Democrat.

[TwelveInchPianist]

He's never at the meetings.

[apedad]

I think I'll take my FACTS from a DOJ lawyer (see below).

[Magister]

If Trump is too weak to get El Salvador to do something so simple, how's he going to deal with more powerful hostile nations (well, we all know how he'll deal with Russia).

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

What does that have to do with the insanity of the judge's order?

[SRG2]

When the Executive kidnaps someone by mistake and has them imprisoned in a foreign country and then refuses to do anything about it, it is they who are out of control.

[ThePublius]

They didn't kidnap anyone. Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia was in the country illegally. Bye, bye!

[SRG2]

He was under a protective order for the Feds not to do what they did -- and they admitted their mistake afterwards. Hence "kidnapping" is reasonable, though "abduction" is also okay.

[ThePublius]

No, it's not, it wasn't kidnapping or abduction. You can't just make stuff up. If it was a mistaken deportation, so be it. But kidnapping and abduction have legal meanings, and neither apply here.

[SRG2]

They also have non-legal rhetorical meanings that are entirely appropriate. There are maybe half-a-dozen people I have ever deferred to in matters of English usage. You're not one of them.

[apedad]

Whatever we legally call it, why can't TrGODmp use his charms (gagging reflex), to get the guy back?

TrGODmp got a political prisoner back from Russia recently.

Getting the guy back really would make him TrGODmp.

[Bob from Ohio]

Cause he doesn't want to. Duh

[John 4]

So Trump's personal desire replaces the law?

[Paladin_44]

So it would seem, to some, that is...

[David Nieporent]

18 U.S.C. § 1201 defines kidnapping: Anyone who unlawfully seizes, confines, decoys, kidnaps, abducts, or carries away and holds for ransom or reward or otherwise any person, except in the case of a minor by the parent thereof.

Yeah, that applies here.

[Commenter_XY]

What is the ransom?

[Noscitur a sociis]

Now try reading the next few words.

[apedad]

Bondi nailed the DOJ lawyer who was working this case and merely stated facts.

"(Erez Reuveni, a) Justice Department lawyer with 15 years of experience at the DOJ has been suspended by the Trump administration after admitting in court that the president mistakenly shipped off a protected Maryland resident to a prison in El Salvador as part of his deportations of Venezuelan migrants under an 18th-century wartime authority, which have since been blocked by a federal judge.

'The facts are conceded,' Reuveni confessed during the hearing, which centered around the deportation of protected Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia. 'Mr. Abrego Garcia should not have been removed,' Reuveni said.

'At my direction, every Department of Justice attorney is required to zealously advocate on behalf of the United States,' Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote in a statement Saturday first reported by The New York Times on Reuveni’s suspension. 'Any attorney who fails to abide by this direction will face consequences,' Bondi said."

https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/should-not-have-been-removed-15-year-vet-at-justice-department-suspended-after-admitting-trump-wrongly-deported-father-with-protected-legal-status/

[David Nieporent]

They then suspended Reuveni's supervisor for good measure.

[Bob from Ohio]

'The facts are conceded,' Reuveni confessed during the hearing, which centered around the deportation of protected Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia. 'Mr. Abrego Garcia should not have been removed,' Reuveni said."

Sounds like Capone's lawyer pleading him guilty in The Untouchables.

[SRG2]

Which United States is Blondi talking about, the US, that is to say, The People and the Constitution, or the narrow political interests of the Trump regime?

[Bob from Ohio]

Who is "Blondi "?

Dagwood's wife? I don't know what she thinks about this.

[SRG2]

Don't be a bigger fuckwit than you have to be.

[ThePublius]

Flagged.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Don't be a bigger f-wit than you have to be."

You made a sexist remark, I made fun of it Next time don't be sexist.

[SRG2]

As if you care

[Dan Schiavetta]

Fired for refusing to violate professional ethics. That's ABA Model Rule 3.3 (don't lie to the Court, or fail to correct a false statement).

[Bob from Ohio]

"Fired"
Suspended

[SRG2]

Do you approve of either action?

[Bob from Ohio]

He admitted the legal conclusion.

[SRG2]

Do you agree with his being suspended for this, and would you approve were he to be fired?

[Bob from Ohio]

He admitted the legal conclusion.

[SRG2]

That's the second time you've avoided the question. Provisional conclusion: intellectually, you know that even the suspension was wrong, emotionally you agree with suspension and firing because hes going against the wishes of Dear Leader. But you know that the latter response, while what you believe, marks you as an authoritarian POS, so you stay shtum.

::

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

https://x.com/bennyjohnson/status/1909245804637749405

That ugly chick who heads the EU says they're ready to negotiate zero-for-zero tariffs (on industrial goods -- for now).

1.) She says they've done that for other trade partners, why hadn't they done that for us? ... because they were screwing us just like Trump says.
2.) She says she's prepared to "defend their interests" (with tariffs).

How is the head of the EU so fucking stupid to believe tariffs defend the EU's interest and not just cause unnecessary harm to it's own people? Is she a DEI hire? Is that why she's so fucking stupid?

[M L]

I keep asking all the "Econ 101" guys here why the EU, Canada, and all these other enlightened countries don't understand "Econ 101."

Maybe we can export the "Econ 101" shills to Europe so they can educate them over there, this would be a great deal.

[ducksalad]

You too. You don't understand the difference between starting a knife fight and defending yourself once the other guy slashes at you.

Most of us figured out the difference before starting kindergarten.

[Ska]

I was four years old when I had my first knife fight, too. 😉

[ducksalad]

Congrats on coming away with at least some of your typing fingers intact. Assuming you're using fingers....

[Brett Bellmore]

But, we're being told that tariffs hurt the side that levies them, not the other side. If somebody starts a knife fight by sinking their knife into their own shin, you don't defend yourself by sticking a knife in your own kidney. You step away from them and leave them be.

So the analogy is terrible, if what we're told about tariffs is true.

But, of course, what we're being told about tariffs is, at best, exaggerated, and tariffs actually hurt BOTH ends of the trading relationship, because they reduce commerce, and commerce, in theory, is beneficial to both ends of the transaction. So, it's less like a knife fight than it is a fist fight, where depending on placement of punches, you may hurt yourself or the other guy more with a punch.

[ducksalad]

OK, your analogy is better.

[Noscitur a sociis]

1. Your objection works both ways though. If Trump is right about (some of) what he says about tariffs—i.e. that they are an effective tool to get other countries to do what you want—then this is exactly the response you’d expect.

2. The key thing that’s being overlooked, of course, is that other countries are led by people who are both just as likely to be economically ignorant as Americans and who are, in one way or another, formally or informally, politically accountable themselves. That means they have a strong motivation to look like they’re fighting back, even if it doesn’t actually serve their national interests.

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

More motivated reasoning.

The issue is that the critics of Trump say tariffs don't do anything but self-inflicted wounds.

Your #1 is not relevant, given the context. Your #2 is incredible given there have been zero reports of other countries being "enlightened" and is excusing making to pre-empt this argument.

What's more likely: everyone in the world is wrong about tariffs except the American Trump critics, or the American Trump critics are wrong about tariffs?

[David Nieporent]

The issue is that the critics of Trump say tariffs don't do anything but self-inflicted wounds.

No, that's not true. Nobody denies that they hurt other countries, too. Trade — despite what the sociopath-in-chief thinks — is not zero-sum. Voluntary trade by definition helps both sides. So sabotaging that trade will hurt other countries. But it'll hurt us more, and more directly.

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

Why don't these other countries have the same calculus as you?

Every other country believes the calculus works out in their favor, not knowing what every American Trump critic knows that it secretly doesn't...

So we're back to the original paradox.

Has there ever been rake you haven't stepped on?

[M L]

That's what I'm saying, why is Europe shooting themselves in the foot, as a response to Trump shooting himself in the foot? Pretty dumb as responses go! And why would you even need to respond to somebody else shooting their own foot anyway?!

We have lots of "Econ 101" guys that should be happy to go over to Europe and set them straight on this.

[Sarcastr0]

You know behavioral economics? How it's about how people often make suboptimal economic choices even when well informed?

It's vastly worse when you get into political economics.

Your 'But Europe did it, and they're not dumb!' is a cartoonishly bad argument.

[M L]

What I'm asking is why are Europe, Canada, China, and most other countries around the world, so stupid and impervious to empirical reality and science? And since we have an abundant supply of really smart people couldn't we send some to help them?

[Sarcastr0]

Noscitur and I both answered your question.

You keep asking it...I think because you're not interested in an answer.

[grb]

M L : "I keep asking all the "Econ 101" guys here why..."

And you keep looking foolish. You can be against war in general, opposed to a war in particular, convinced that war will bring pointless suffering & misery, convinced that war has no rational or just cause, and convinced that war will have no positive result.

But when attacked by a mentally-ill buffoon, what else can you do? You have to fight. In this case, I imagine the rest of the world would also like to establish some deterrence, lest they face Romper Room child-like antics the rest of Trump's term.

[M L]

What's this about war? You think the US was in a trade war from 1776 until NAFTA or something?

[ducksalad]

Magnus can't understand the difference between shooting at someone and shooting back at someone.

He thinks they're the same thing.

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

Why don't you think we are the ones shooting back?

[grb]

Because he doesn't drink the Kool Aid on command like a docile Cultist.

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

Do you not know that these other countries have placed tariffs on us?

lmao wow, that should be criminal keeping so many Democrats that amazingly ignorant.

Seriously, grb, you and your ilk should file a class action suit against whatever IC govie or Soro's NGO grifter dreamed up the load of horse shit you currently believe about the world.

[SRG2]

That ugly chick

Which suggests that she was appointed on merit, not appearance, unlike Trump picks.

[Mr Ed's Mom too]

"That ugly chick"

She's so ugly that The King Donald wouldn't even consider raping her. Clearly, that's why she got the job! Don't want someone that the King will follow around on his hands and knees poking his cold, wet nose where it doesn't belong and discovering that what he thought was an enticing and pneumatic numismatist (what is sexier than a busty bitcoin collector?) is actually a well hung philatelist.

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

Trump just signed a EO targeting the anti-tariff pro-China dissenters in the US.

https://x.com/iAnonPatriot/status/1909207606725337567

Let's hope all your fears about being rounded up and shipped off to El Salvador in the dead of night finally comes true!! *fingers crossed*

[ducksalad]

Always wondered to what extent Marjorie Taylor Greene was really an ignorant unintelligent conspiracy theorist, versus a grifter lathering the rubes.

Based on this I'm leaning toward the lathering:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14575733/Marjorie-Taylor-Greene-stock-market-treasury-bills-donald-trump-tariffs.html

[mulched]

Rev?! Is that you?! Welcome back!!

[Commenter_XY]

My, my.

[ducksalad]

Key differences from the Rev:
1. I've never been banned here and thus am not bitter about it.
2. I've never been to divinity school or worn a stiff white collar.
3. I don't count how many days since EV last used the n-word to accurately quote someone using the n-word.

Key similarity to the Rev:
1. I greatly look forward to you being replaced by your betters.

[Commenter_XY]

This was a hilarious reply. Nicely done. I actually laughed.

[M L]

If I knew markets would tank, I would buy SPY puts and really profit. Buying treasuries is not really a move like that, unless you were also selling stock. In fact, treasury prices declined substantially today. And the article doesn't seem to mention any stock selling, in fact small amounts of stock purchasing.

Perhaps I should have guessed and bought puts, since there was nothing really new or surprising in Trump's announcement, was there?

[ducksalad]

You understand of course that I'm not suggesting MTG did anything akin to insider trading. As you say there was no real surprise in Trump's announcement, other than the stated justifications being even lamer than expected.

I'm merely suggesting that the real MTG (as opposed to the female professional wrestler act she puts on for the rubes) has a normal appreciation for stability and security in her investments and a sober understanding of the likely effects of Trump's policies.

[ThePublius]

And just like that, no one is talking about egg prices anymore.

[apedad]

Yeah, something else must have overcome that.

Tariffs Cause Another Stock Market Rout—Losses Approach $5 Trillion As Dow Plummets Another 2,200 Points

[ThePublius]

Meaning what?

[apedad]

LOSSES APPROACH FIVE TRILLION DOLLARS

[ThePublius]

Just wait - time will tell. You can't judge the market over one week.

[hobie]

One day the fever will break and Publius will feel shame

[Commenter_XY]

What exactly are you worried about, apedad? Whose losses?

Stock market corrections happen, on the average, once every other year. Here is what Schwab was saying back in 2022. The market declined over 20% back then.
https://www.schwab.com/learn/story/market-corrections-are-more-common-than-you-think

Were you worried in 2022?

[MusicAfter Midnight]

A couple more tunes.

This is Sierra Hull and Alison Brown playing an Alison Brown composition. Not your typical five string banjo tune.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpdVh7rqIMA&ab_channel=AlisonBrown

Just a couple guys jamming at the guitar store. Billy Strings (born William Lee Apostol) playing what looks like a very old OM-28 and Marcus King on the Telecaster. Both have been playing professionally from a very early age. Song is a cover of a Merle Haggard tune.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ai0TNApo0lo&ab_channel=CarterVintageGuitars

[hobie]

Today I'm making what is billed as Sicily's most famous dish: pasta con le sarde. The 'le' is throwing me a little...but, whatever. I've acquired a can of one of the new generation of super tuna/sardines. Let's see if it lives up to the billing. Bread crumbs toasted. Onion and fennel mandolined. Bucatini al dente. This is a lot of strange flavors and textures to throw together, so we shall see. I don't have high hopes

[Commenter_XY]

Are you making the pasta yourself, or buying (what brand?)?

[hobie]

There's a market (next to the square we protested in, no less) that has a vendor of fresh pasta. I'm using theirs

[Commenter_XY]

Post the recipe if it turns out Ok.

[hobie]

Will do

[Don Nico]

It is a wonderful dish, best eaten in Sicily. Just do not overcook the pasta.
Another dish of this genre is pasta alla bottarga made with the eggs of the tuna; this is also served with the poor man's cheese (toasted bread crumbs).
I'd argue that Pasta Norma is a very close second, and you would not find it's flavors so strange

[Keldonric]

I did not see it mentioned but apparently there are plans in work for a military parade in D.C.

That should be interesting.

[SRG2]

More extreme stupidity from Dear Leader:

"I spoke to a lot of leaders ... from all over the world. ... I said 'we're not going to have deficits with your country' ... to me a deficit is a loss. We're going to have surpluses or, at worst, we're going to be breaking even."
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/live/trump-tariffs-live-updates-trump-threatens-additional-tariffs-on-china-markets-remain-jittery-191201930.html

The ignorance would be astonishing, if it weren't merely an encapsulation of prior ignorant remarks. It's basically flat-earth economics.

[David Nieporent]

It's basically "diseases are based on an imbalance of humors in the body and medicine is a plot."

[Michael P]

What happened to the Telmarine invasion army?

[Mr Ed's Mom too]

" It's basically flat-earth economics."

The best economics just like flat earth physics is the best physics! Earth must be flat. Just look at all that water out there. Everybody knows that water has to be flat -- just look at the water in your bath tub. Does it curve? No, of course not. And if the earth were truly a ball spinning at 1000 miles per hour (that's faster than a minor stock market correction, you know) circling the sun at 67,000 miles per hour in a Ford Galaxy flying towards the center of the university at a rate of 515000 miles per hour how come the water doesn't go flying off and take us with it? And the Nile river. If all this global stuff were real, how can the Nile river flow north while the Mississippi goes in the other direction? Can a river flow up a neat Hill? MFEGA!

[M L]

Agree or disagree:

The U.S. should abolish income taxes and return to the pre-1913 system of funding the federal government through tariffs and excise taxes rather than income taxes.

[SRG2]

Disagree. I'm also opposed to the gold standard, Prohibition, and the phlogiston hypothesis.

[M L]

Cool. Thoughts on free speech? Limited decentralized self-government?

[SRG2]

Generally in favour.

[Josh R]

Disagree. Econ 101 says tariffs reduce the wealth of the nation.

[M L]

Fascinating. What does Econ 101 say about income taxes?

[Josh R]

They are neutral so long as they contained within the country.

[Commenter_XY]

Partly agree.

Yes: Abolish the income tax (repeal 16th amendment)

I vastly prefer consumption taxes to excise taxes, with a POS (point-of-sale) rebate to lower income/asset purchasers.

A world w/o tariffs is a better world than one with tariffs; I would favor strict reciprocity on tariffs for countries levying tariffs on the US.

[ducksalad]

I would FIRST need to see

(1) credible and hard-to-reverse moves toward abolishing the income tax (for example: constitutional amendment), AND

(2) a sober plan to intelligently reduce spending, based on discussion of the proper role of government, and free of lying, trolling, and demonizing, AND

(3) a hard strip of executive power to jack with tax and tariff rates, including a prohibition on delegation by Congress. Every tax or tariff rate paid by anyone needs to be numerically and objectively set by statute. There should be no non-statutory tax code *at all*.

Until then, no new taxes, no listening to promises of future reductions in return for increases now, no BS about cuts being achieved through vague talk about waste, efficiency, or cheating.

[bernard11]

Wildly disagree. That is an insane suggestion.

[Zarniwoop]

Former WI SCt Justice Gableman loses law license for 3 years due to unethical conduct during his investigation of the 2020 election. From the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

As part of the agreement, Gableman acknowledged he could not successfully defend himself against the allegations against him.

Gableman was hired by Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos in 2021 to review the previous presidential election. The probe turned up no evidence of significant fraud and cost taxpayers $2.3 million.

https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2025/04/07/michael-gableman-would-lose-law-license-for-3-years-under-deal/82980232007/#

The charges include false statements in court petitions, false statements to the state assembly, open records law violations, failure to disclose conflicts, disruptive behavior in court, and false statements to the Office of Legal Regulation.

So yah, that’s some actionable fraud related to the 2020 election … from blindly loyal Trump supporters.

[grb]

Every day there's new insanity from the court of the Mad King.

"The NY Times reports that Bobby Jr is closing down research into sexually transmitted diseases. Is it supposed to be some sort of woke, deep state, waste, fraud and abuse? Do they think that there are companies out there just dying to get into the highly profitable clap tracking business?

Drug-resistant gonorrhea, a form of the widespread sexually transmitted infection, is considered an urgent health threat worldwide. The United States has just lost its ability to detect it.

Among the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention employees fired on Tuesday were 77 scientists who, among other work, gathered samples of gonorrhea and other S.T.I.s from labs nationwide, analyzed the genetic information for signs of drug resistance, and readied the samples for storage at a secure facility. No other researchers at the agency have the expertise, or the software, to continue this work. The abrupt halt has stranded about 1,000 samples of gonorrhea and other sexually transmitted pathogens that had not yet been processed, and perhaps dozens more headed to the agency. There are as many as 30 freezers full of samples that now have no custodians, said one senior C.D.C. official who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation."

https://digbysblog.net/2025/04/07/why-just-tell-me-why/

How will our Cult bootlickers defend this?

[SRG2]

How will our Cult bootlickers defend this?

Something insane like this? "You're supposed to be a virgin until you're married, and then you stay married to one person for life, so how could you possibly get an STD? Only sinners get STDs. so they deserve it."

[Mr Ed's Mom too]

Only sinners get STDs. so they deserve it."

Exactly correct. Just like clean needle exchanges and widespread availability of Narcan encourage drug abuse, so do methods to control the spread of VD encourage wanton illicit sex, voluptuous bodies all over the place entwined like earthworms in the most improbably exotic positions, thrusting and twisting llike a herd of screaming cats in an orgiastic frenzy. It must be stopped!

[Michael P]

Is this guy one of our longstanding leftist commenters, or one of the newer vintage? And won't anyone please think of the poor third-world children this guy was helping in Austria?

https://x.com/matt_vanswol/status/1909266113566785972

[Commenter_XY]

He'll find new work. Austria will just have to manage w/o him.

[Armchair]

Bernie Sanders on Tariffs...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVTFN1QnHow

[Sarcastr0]

I get the fair trade concept, and I don't think it's unreasonable. I think it does a bad job of incentivizing what it seeks to, given the trade interaction between different countries at different tech levels.

But see Dems don't treat Bernie Sanders like Republicans treat Trump. He's allowed to think things and I can say he's wrong.

[Kazinski]

I posted this first on Ilya's post on the now superseded 4th district decision affirming Xinis, SC has now granted the Ad iterative stay.

And now they've completely shut down Boasberg:

"Now the Supreme Court has shutdown Boasberg's TdA case and stripped his jurisdiction.

From my quick reading it appears:

Habeas is the only remedy, and must be applied for in the jurisdiction of confinement, and the APA can not be used to review the AEA.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a931_2c83.pdf"

[Commenter_XY]

So Judge Boasberg committed a judicial error? He, of the FISA court that routinely granted more than 98% of warrant applications, numbering in the thousands every year? That vaunted jurist?

Nah. Must've been a minor ooopsie on his part. 😉

[Kazinski]

Worse error he made is they filed the suit as habeas petitions, then he counseled them to drop their habeas petitions so he could turn it into an APA case and create a nationwide class to order relief for.

[David Nieporent]

They filed it as both.

[tylertusta]

He counseled them to drop the habeas claims so they could pursue only their APA claims in DC.

In hindsight he should have just have transferred them.

[David Nieporent]

If he had just transferred them, then the administration would have illegally deported hundreds or thousands more while the process played out.

[tylertusta]

If Boasberg was going to entertain the farce that he had jurisdiction to begin with when he provisionally certified the class, then he could have pretended that a transferred/refiled habeas case in Texas didn't alter the APA claims his in court.

(It appears that the first principle being invoked here is that the ends justify the means)

[tylertusta]

It turns out that jurisdiction was a big deal after all. Huh. Go figure.

For my next trick: I predict that a majority in SCOTUS has just about reached the end of its rope over these TROs that preserve a status quo that no longer exists.

[Kazinski]

Absolutely.

The Court said "We construe theses TROs as appealable injuctions"

Then next paragraph "We grant the application and vacate the TROs."

Seems like a message is being sent:"your unappealable TRO is going to last about as long as it takes to file an emergency stay petition. "

Or more poetically: "All these TROs gone, like tears in the rain."*

*Roy Batty

[Life of Brian]

This was really the only rational result, but recent decisions haven't always been rational so I'm glad they got there on this one. The alternative would have literally conscripted district courts into a second tier of immigration courts, with backlogs to match. Habeas petitions generally put the burden on the petitioner to show something's amiss, so that should cut down on a large swath of frivolous filings and allow the courts to quickly dispose of ones that are nonetheless filed by overzealous BigLaw pups.