The Latest In Associated Press v. Budowich (Updated)

The Trump Administration changed the name of the body of water between Florida and Texas to the Gulf of America. The Associated Press still calls it the Gulf of Mexico. In response, the Trump Administration excluded the wire service from White House press events. The AP sued three officials within the Trump Administration, seeking to restore access to the Oval Office and other spaces.

In this case, District Judge McFadden ruled against the Trump Administration. But he did not issue an unappealable TRO. Rather, after deliberate briefing and proceedings, on April 8, the court issued a detailed preliminary injunction order requiring the AP to be admitted to press events. (Eugene wrote about the First Amendment issues here.) And unlike some of his colleagues, Judge McFadden stayed his order so that the government could take an appeal to the D.C. Circuit. The stay would expire on April 13.

On April 10, the government filed an appeal to the D.C. Circuit. DOJ sought an emergency motion for a stay and an immediate administrative stay:

The government therefore respectfully requests that this Court enter a stay pending appeal, as well as an immediate administrative stay while the motion is under consideration. At a minimum, the government requests that the Court stay the district court's order through April 20, 2025, in order to permit the Solicitor General time to seek relief from the Supreme Court.

On April 13, the panel (Pillard, Katsas and Rao) ordered oral argument to be set for April 17. But the panel did not rule on the motion for an administrative stay. By the end of April 13, the district court's stay lapsed, and the order went into effect.

Yesterday, on April 14, DOJ submitted a letter to the Court renewing the application for an administrative stay so the Solicitor General could seek emergency relief from the Supreme Court:

Yesterday, the Court scheduled oral argument on the government's emergency motion for a stay pending appeal. We are grateful that the Court is providing us with the opportunity to present argument in support of our motion and appreciate the priority the Court has afforded this matter. The Court has not, however, yet ruled on our request for an administrative stay. Because the district court's stay of its own order expired on Sunday, April 13, that order has now taken effect. As of this morning, the President of the United States is subject to an order imposing terms on which he must admit individuals to the Oval Office and other restricted spaces. In light of the magnitude of this intrusion, a continued stay is warranted until this Court can reach the merits of the government's motion. We accordingly respectfully reiterate our request for an administrative stay. The administrative stay should continue through the time the Court decides the emergency motion and, if that motion is denied, we ask that the stay be extended an additional seven days in order to provide the Solicitor General with an opportunity to seek relief from the Supreme Court.

Also on April 14, the White House apparently excluded the AP from coverage of President Bukele's visit to the Oval Office.

I have a several thoughts.

First, I think DOJ's position is that any injunction running against the administration should be administratively stayed long enough to seek Supreme Court review. President Trump has been fairly consistent in saying that he will follow Supreme Court rulings, though perhaps he thinks "inferior" courts should not be in the business of superintending the executive branch.

Second, DOJ drew what could possibly be the most favorable panel possible on the D.C. Circuit with Judges Katsas and Rao. They chose to not grant an administrative stay. Indeed, the district court order was issued by a well-regarded judge, also appointed by Trump. I am skeptical that Circuit Justice Roberts will vote differently.

Third, as soon as Judge McFadden's order expired, the three named defendants were subject to an injunction: Chief of Staff Susan Wiles, Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich, and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. If any of these three defendants took action to block the A.P. from accessing the Oval Office, or if they directed their subordinates to deny access to the A.P., I think it is possible they could be held in contempt of court. But I'll concede that holding officials in contempt while the legal ruling is on appeal has some problems.

Fourth, it is possible that the decision to exclude the A.P. from Bukele's visit was not performed directly or indirectly by these three named defendants. If so, those other officials could not be held in contempt. Government officials who are not subject to an injunction cannot defy it. And Cooper v. Aaron, for all of its warts, only asserted the judicial supremacy of the Supreme Court, not of the lower courts. I'm also not certain that other officials in the White House, if sued, would be denied qualified immunity, as the case was still pending on appeal.

Fifth, I think we need to be careful when asserting that Trump, or the administration, ignored a court order. Judgments run against named parties, not collectives. Generations of lawyers incorrectly asserted that President Lincoln ignored Chief Justice Taney in Ex Parte Merryman. Scholars were desirous of seeing President Lincoln ignore a Supreme Court order, so they misstated the posture of Merryman. But Seth Barrett Tillman has debunked that myth--no order ran against Lincoln, so there was no order for him to ignore. Here too, the media and critics are desirous of seeing President Trump ignore a judicial order, so they misstate the posture of Budowich. Trump was not a party to the Budowich case, and we have no clue if he was even aware of the exclusion during the Bukele visit. (Though I'm sure some future impeachment committee will try to figure out what he knew and when he knew it.)

Issues are usually more complex than they seem.

Update: On Tuesday evening, it was reported that the White House eliminated the permanent spot for wire services in the press pool:

The White House said Tuesday that it has eliminated a permanent spot for wire services in the White House press pool, ending a long-standing tradition that allowed the outlets to have expanded access to the president's public activities.

According to a White House official, the pool will consist of one print journalist to serve as print pooler; one additional print journalist; a television network crew; a secondary television network or streaming service; one radio journalist; one "new media/independent journalist"; and four photographers.

The wire services in the pool usually included the Associated Press, Bloomberg News and Reuters. Until recently, all three outlets were typically permitted to enter all White House pooled events. But since February, the Associated Press had been banned from White House events over the outlet's decision to continue using the name Gulf of Mexico rather than Gulf of America.

On Tuesday, an AP reporter was permitted to attend a White House event for the first time since Feb. 11 as the president presented the Commander-in-Chief's Trophy to the U.S. Naval Academy football team.

The White House official said that wire services "will be eligible for selection as part of the Pool's daily print-journalist rotation." They added that White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt "reserves the right to add additional journal[ists] to an expanded Pool based on capacity and day-to-day needs."

"Although eligible outlets will generally rotate through these slots, the White House press secretary shall retain day-to-day discretion to determine composition of the pool," the official said. "This is necessary to ensure that the President's message reaches targeted audiences and that outlets with applicable subject-matter expertise are present as events warrant."

The White House did not say when the changes will start.

I'm not sure how this policy affects the ongoing litigation. I also don't know if this policy was in effect when the AP was excluded from President Bukele's visit.

 

Comments

[BBSquatter]

Fifth, I think we need to be careful when asserting that Trump, or the administration, ignored a court order.

That ship has sailed.

Biden’s Student Loan Boast: The Supreme Court ‘Didn’t Stop Me’

"The President ignores the law again as he forgives more student debt. The total is now $138 billion and counting."

Speaking in Culver City, Calif., on Wednesday, Mr. Biden said his original plan to “provide millions of working families with debt relief for their college student debt” was derailed by “MAGA Republicans” and “special interests” who challenged the plan in court. “The Supreme Court blocked it,” Mr. Biden added, “but that didn’t stop me.” He apparently thinks defying the law is a virtue.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/joe-biden-student-debt-forgiveness-supreme-court-0c5204fe

[Gregory]

Did Biden do any loan forgiveness after the scotus ruling under the HEROES act interpretation that the court shot down? I’m very open minded to the idea that Biden was openly disobeying Supreme Court orders, but all I’ve seen is that his administration pivoted to other legal approaches to forgiving student loan forgiveness.

[Darwinnie]

I think you’re right.

[rloquitur]

This is such a bullshit decision. Trump has personal control over the OO and AF1. The courts need to be taken down a peg.

[Rossami]

I made the same basic argument in the last article discussing this case. The only substantive rebuttal was that 'motive matters'. I will agree that motive matters in many context (and the motive in this case looks at best petty and at worst, well, worse) but I'm not convinced yet that motive matters in this specific context. Discretionary access to the Oval Office, Air Force 1 and the White House press room seems more analogous to situations where the legal standard is 'for any reason or none'.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Agreed.
Trump doesn't have to let ANY press in, Biden didn't.

[Zarniwoop]

But if Trump lets "the press" in, Trump can't say "only the white press".

Now do the same for the 1st Amd.

Or, more likely, flail and froth about snowplows while completely missing the point, and claiming "buh-buh-buh-Biden!"

[Rossami]

The moral argument underlying the legal standard about "only the white press" is that you can't do anything about the color of your skin, therefore discrimination on that basis is bad and can be prohibited. That argument doesn't apply to things you can control like your choices about speech.

I'm not saying the 1A can't apply here but you can't just hand-wave it in by saying "now do the same for the 1st Amd". The president clearly can discriminate on the basis of who he likes (including because of what they said about him) when deciding to give one-on-one interviews on any given topic. What is the threshold that says 'being picky about this reporter' is obviously allowed but 'being picky about this group of reporters' is obviously unconstitutional?

Your argument above brings to mind this old cartoon. You need to be more explicit in step two.

[David Nieporent]

Did you read the court's ruling?

[Rossami]

I did. And it still seems to me that the judge largely assumed the conclusion on the question of 1A applicability in a nonpublic forum much like Zarniwoop does above. On page 21 of the decision, the judge explicitly says that "official authority to restrict expression in the Oval Office is at its zenith" but then immediately says that "still, there is a limit" without, in my opinion, laying the necessary groundwork to establish that limit. Several citations to lower court decisions but none approaching the 'at its zenith' situation assumed in this case.

[Joe_dallas]

Did AP get banned because of a little tiff over the Gulf of xxx or because they have been trying to overtake 60 minutes

[David Nieporent]

The former.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Because you did not type "Gulf of America" in your comment, you are now banned from all future White House events.

[Dr. Ed 2]

That's not the only thing in their stylebook.

[David Nieporent]

You were already humiliated last time you tried to make that argument.

[Riva]

Problem has been largely solved. The Trump administration has removed the wire position in the daily press corps rotation altogether. FAFO AP.

[Bob Jones]

1. And Cooper v. Aaron, for all of its warts, only asserted the judicial supremacy of the Supreme Court, not of the lower courts.

Gosh-why bother taking appeal to the supreme court if you lose as the federal government (or officer thereof) then-on this theory just ignore it-the supreme court didn't say anything just a lower court. why bother appealing? The better strategy is to consent to an order or default then the other party will win. afterward, there will be no appeal because the other party won (nothing to appeal) and the federal government would be free to ignore the order since its not from the supreme court.

2. at the same time: Fourth, it is possible that the decision to exclude the A.P. from Bukele's visit was not performed directly or indirectly by these three named defendants.

true-and it was also a day later and they may not off had notice of the expiration of the stay in good faith.

[Bob Jones]

oh wait-i see his point his point isn't that they can ignore lower court rulings just that non named defendants can....disregard the above.

[David Nieporent]

Judgments run against named parties, not collectives.

Injunctions — which is what we're talking about — run against the named parties and the parties’ officers, agents, servants, employees, and attorneys and other persons acting in concert with any of those people.

On April 10, the government filed an appeal to the D.C. Circuit. DOJ sought an emergency motion for a stay and an immediate administrative stay:

Competent attorneys, none of whom work at DOJ anymore, know that all they do is burn their own credibility when they claim that everything is an emergency. The government suffers no harm at all, let alone irreparable harm, if this injunction is in effect.

[wvattorney13]

"Injunctions — which is what we're talking about — run against the named parties and the parties’ officers, agents, servants, employees, and attorneys and other persons acting in concert with any of those people."

Agreed. If this wasn't true, no injunction could ever be enforced. You could just keep naming different people to enforce what the court told you that you couldn't enforce.

[Absaroka]

I think Truman was onto something with 'The Buck Stops Here'.

[shawn_dude]

Trump's desk says "The Big Mac Stops Here."

[David Nieporent]

And Cooper v. Aaron, for all of its warts, only asserted the judicial supremacy of the Supreme Court, not of the lower courts.

Blackman is still so spitting mad about school desegregation that he did not bother to read the case, which says nothing of the kind. (Which is not surprising, since it turns on the nature of the judicial power, which is vested in all Article III federal courts, not just SCOTUS.)

[Zarniwoop]

Prof. Blackman is veering into "pig-biting mad!" territory these days.

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

Listen Josh, if you're not pearl clutching, hysterical, nor in a moral panic then no one around here is going to take you seriously.

You have to be On The Right Side of History to be considered a serious person.

[Longtobefree]

My congratulations to the legal profession; I no longer give a damn about any of it.
I have joined ranks with Professor Bernardo de la Paz.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Great. Stop commenting here.

[Dr. Ed 2]

ABA Delenda Est.

[Bob Jones]

there is however an enormous problem with the suggestion that any lower court ruling should be stayed until supreme court review:

that is when the government wants to remove someone to a place they can't come back from-if you stay the order until the supreme court rules-then he will be gone by then.

[damikesc]

Such is life.

The President is not inferior to 700+ lower court judges. They have abused their, legitimately, non-existent authority to make national injunctions.

They need to be reminded that these national injunctions have no actual basis in any sort of law.

[David Nieporent]

The "lower" in "lower court" refers to their position relative to the Supreme Court, not relative to the president. The judicial power of the United States is vested in lower court judges just as much as in the Supreme Court.

[Bob from Ohio]

"visit to the Oval Office"

I'm sure the judge would obey an Executive Order deciding access to his chambers.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Or, better, a blanket pardon for anyone arrested for trespassing therein.

Trump legally could do this, shouldn't but could.

[LawTalkingGuy]

“The Trump Administration changed the name of the body of water between Florida and Texas to the Gulf of America. The Associated Press still calls it the Gulf of Mexico.”

No. He ordered that the US government refer to it as such. He didn’t “change the name” of that body of water. Nor could he.

[bernard11]

C'mon, LTG.

If can reroute hurricanes with a magic marker surely he can rename bodies of water.

[wvattorney13]

Well who names these things? God? Isn't what the government calls a body of water the typically accepted name for it? And it changes from time to time.

Pass a law saying that only Congress can change such a name, and I'll vote for it, because as long as the executive has this power, I don't know how you can say that it isn't really something's name, only how the government refers to it.

Is Maple Street not really the name of the local street but simply how the government refers to it? What's the difference.

[Martinned2]

Isn't what the government calls a body of water the typically accepted name for it?

You have cause and effect reversed. The government calls a body of water by its typically accepted name.

[wvattorney13]

Governments rename stuff all of the time for reasons. Lee Park in Charlottesville was known as Lee Park for decades. It was renamed twice in the past ten years because the government didn't want people calling it that anymore.

Streets and roads are renamed after prominent people all the time and those streets and roads never were called by those names by anyone, let along some large body of people.

[bernard11]

Consider this question:

What attribute do Lee Park, and streets and roads have in common, that the Gulf of Mexico does not share?

[wvattorney13]

I was responding to the limited assertion that government names only spring up naturally from what people call them.

[Rossami]

The answer, of course, is that the park, streets and roads were named after someone who is now unpopular with the local political leadership. That answer is equally true of the Gulf of Mexico dispute. It's stupid and petty to change the name of the Gulf. It's also stupid and petty to abandon the principles of reconciliation and reopen the race debates just to change the names of those parks, streets, roads, etc.

[Dan Schiavetta]

The answer, of course, is that the Gulf of Mexico is an international body of water bordered by Mexico (for whom it is economically at least as important as it is to us) and Cuba. And it's had that name for centuries and nobody objected, until Trump came along with his fragile sense of masculinity and entitlement.

[Rossami]

Mexicans don't call it the "Gulf of Mexico" either, just like Germans don't call their country "Germany" and neither the Chinese nor the Taiwanese call the body of water between them the "South China Sea". Of all the arguments against Trump's little tirade, that's the stupidest I've heard.

[David Nieporent]

Mexicans don't call it the "Gulf of Mexico" either,

They certainly do, though since their native language is Spanish they say that in Spanish too.

[Rossami]

You seem to have missed the point. Contrary to Dan's claim, international bodies of water bordered by multiple countries do have different names. Sometimes the difference is small (like a translation between two related languages), sometimes quite large - but either way, nothing bad happens. We've been dealing with that problem for a couple millennia. This is just one more instance.

[Rossami]

Not hardly. Governments sometimes bow to prior public conventions when assigning names to things but they very, very often rename things for their own arbitrary reasons.

For a truly stupid example, remember Freedom Fries. For more prosaic examples, pretty much every street ever was either originally named or renamed for government convenience. (You really think all those people spontaneously decided to start calling streets 'Martin Luther King Parkway' or 'Washington Avenue'? Who but a government planner or a mailman would want to live on 133rd Street?

[JasonT20]

Who but a government planner or a mailman would want to live on 133rd Street?

I don't know. There is utility to the residents of a town or city to having streets numbered instead of given arbitrary names, not just mail carriers and government planners.

[shawn_dude]

I'd start with stating the obvious: The POTUS is not "the government." He's arguably a third of it, depending on how one measures, he's less but not more.

Second, the names of things that don't belong to the Federal government cannot be renamed by the Federal government. If POTUS decided to rename California, could he just do that? No. The Gulf of Mexico is bordered by many nations, only one of which is the US, all of whom have a vested interest.

Third, if people ignore the authoritarian-style renaming of a multinational, shared body of water and choose to use the old name when speaking, the POTUS probably has the power to ban their access to the portions of government he controls. Though I vaguely recall a past instance where politicians blocked citizens from official social media account access and lost in court (but cannot find anything via Google. YMMV.)

Fourth, Trump's tantrums over people ignoring his latest dictator move are getting boring.

[wvattorney13]

Instanbul/Constantinople.
Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City
Mumbai/Bombay

Many governments who don't own things call/called them different things. Only when Trump does it is it bad. When Obama did it with Mt. McKinley/Denali it was just fine.

[LawTalkingGuy]

It was fine because everyone in Alaska calls it Denali and had been doing so for forever. The only people who were upset were 1) Trump 2) Ohio republicans with nothing but time on their hands.

[damikesc]

Again, it is OK when you like it. We are all quite aware of it.

[JasonT20]

And, again, since you miss the point, as usual:

Trump certainly has the power to order the executive branch to call it that. Unless, it is written a law somewhere that it is to be called the Gulf of Mexico, then he and everyone else in the executive branch would have to abide by that. It probably isn't, but just to make a note of the possibility.

But he only has the power to make those people call it that. No one else has to. And if he is going to be childish and pett,y like he always is, and try and punish people that won't follow his orders when they don't have to? That becomes a 1st Amendment violation.

I don't see where LawTalkingGuy or anyone else suggested that anyone has to call it Denali or suffer consequences if they don't.

[Noscitur a sociis]

The U.S. government does own that mountain, though.

[JasonT20]

True. But even so, executive orders from the President still only apply to the executive branch and even then only to the extent that they don't conflict with laws on the books or the Constitution.

[BBSquatter]

Instanbul/Constantinople

It was Constantinople for centuries until the Moors (aka Muslims) ransacked it, massacred the Orthodox Christians there, raped their women, desacrated the Hagia Sophia and renamed the city.

Alas, some of us studied Western Civilization and learned to appreciate our history

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Why did Constantinople get the works?

[JasonT20]

That's nobody's business but the Turks.

But, it was also the name of a city that they ruled. The Gulf of Mexico is not U.S. sovereign territory, except for the, what, 12 miles from the shoreline part of it? With something like 200 miles as the "exclusive economic zone" or some such.

[David Nieporent]

Alas, some of us studied Western Civilization and learned to appreciate our history

Not very well, because the sack of Constantinople and massacre of the Orthodox were the acts of the western Christians in the Fourth Crusade. The Turks (not "Moors") didn't come along until much afterward. And the name Istanbul was formally applied many many centuries later, though the Greeks had called it that for many centuries before that.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Yes. The Ottomans kept on calling it Constantinople. That was its official name until 1920 when officially it became Istanbul.

[Carl_N_Brown]

Ho Chi Minh City HCMC is historically and still commonly known as Saigon. The Saigon River runs still through HCMC without a name change. Many South Vietnamese residents refer to Districts 1 and 5 of HCMC as Saigon.

[JasonT20]

As a fact, the name of something is only what people call that thing. The President can sign an executive order saying that all employees of the Executive Branch shall call the body of water in question the "Gulf of America", but that doesn't bind anyone else to call it that. So, what is its "name" in any treaties that the U.S. has signed that were ratified by the Senate? The Gulf of Mexico, I would assume, because that would be what it was called when those treaties were agreed to. The President's order can't change the text of a treaty. It can't make anyone other than executive branch agencies call it the Gulf of America, so if the Associated Press doesn't want to call it that, then Trump cannot do anything about that.

Punishing them for that by excluding them from briefings and events that other press organizations can still attend is (or should be) an obvious violation of their Free Speech rights and probably also a violation of press freedom. Like the other news organizations not punished in that way, they want access to those events in order to further their primary function as a news organization. A first hand report from a journalist that was actually at an event is more valuable and important to their reporting than only being able to repeat what the journalists that were there write about it.

Even more than the legal questions, though, is just how petty and childish the whole thing is. No one should be surprised by Trump's behavior here, as he's always done that. What is still surprising to me is how many people defend a tantrum like that. They seem to think that it is a sign of him being "tough" and "fighting back" or something. I can't imagine any of those people doing anything other than disciplining their children for acting like that, let alone praising that kind of behavior. Yet, their President gets applause for it.

[Rossami]

re: treaties - They're not going to be even slightly affected by a name change. First, different countries have different names for locations as a matter of course. Do you think any of the treaties that Germany signed to end WW2 referred to "Germany" instead of "Deutschland"? Different names are routinely accommodated during treaty translation.

Name changes are less common but also routine and are not sufficient to abrogate a treaty or even to introduce ambiguity into it. Consider Turkey's recent name change to Turkiye (2022), Democratic Kampuchea to the State of Cambodia (1979) to the Kingdom of Cambodia (1993), Holland to the Netherlands (2020). Both Holland and Turkey were signatories to NATO. Neither membership is jeopardized or even questioned despite their name changes.

There are many good reasons to think poorly of Trump's little tiff but 'treaties' isn't one of them.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Trump only has the legal power to compel people in the federal executive branch to call it the Gulf of America in official government documents. He has soft political power to encourage others to do so (like GoogleMaps). He doesn’t have the actual power to change the name that anyone uses for a geographical feature. That power lies with common convention.

For an illustration of the limits of his power to change names, look at Denali: it’s been called that by Alaskan natives for thousands of years. In the 70s, following local practice, the State of Alaska refers to it as Denali in its official documents. Obama ordered the Federal government to use Denali in 2015 (with the support of Alaska republicans over the objection of Ohio republicans who had nothing better to do apparently). Indeed Alaska republicans told Trump not to rescind that order in his first term. His second term he did so, however and the federal government will call it Mt McKinley. But to everyone in Alaska it’s still Denali. He didn’t change the name.

[Zarniwoop]

But to everyone in Alaska it’s still Denali. He didn’t change the name.

That's the part that the petty wanna-be tyrant can't mentally or emotionally accept.

So obviously shitting on the Constitution is the only correct answer for him and his legion of enablers.

[BBSquatter]

That's the part that the petty wanna-be tyrant can't mentally or emotionally accept.

Insert Nazi Marxist salute here

Fighting Back: A Citizen’s Guide to Resistance
https://newrepublic.com/article/193193/fighting-back-citizen-guide-resistance

[Dr. Ed 2]

He could specify that he didn't need to waste his time with anyone who didn't.

Heck, he could conduct news conferences in Latin if he wished, requiring all reporters to ask questions in Latin.

[Devin Watkins]

I believe they were just ordered not to discriminate against the AP based on its viewpoint. There may be many other reasons the AP was not included. It could have been just a random collection and the AP was the odd man out.

[wvattorney13]

That's the problem with enforcement of these types of orders. Trump could allow only Fox News reporters in these events under the guise that he believes that they are the "most professional" or are "fair and balanced" and it seems that there's nothing a judge could do.

That is unless they want to police THIS area of executive branch as well, so that means that there will be federal judges determining eligibility for entry.

The whole viewpoint thing cannot be right. If there was a press organization that touted how the 13th Amendment should be repealed surely that wouldn't be an issue to exclude that organization. But that is a viewpoint, and an unpopular one (the kind we are told are most worthy of protection).

[Martinned2]

Trump could allow only Fox News reporters in these events under the guise that he believes that they are the "most professional" or are "fair and balanced" and it seems that there's nothing a judge could do.

Given that that would be BS to such a degree that no reasonable president could believe it, I'm pretty sure there is plenty a judge could do.

[Martinned2]

We definitely want to make sure that there's a spot for the guy from MyPillow, so that pillow salesmen everywhere can be informed about why the president looks in such splendid health.

[Noscitur a sociis]

But I'll concede that holding officials in contempt while the legal ruling is on appeal has some problems.

This episode illustrate the problem with Prof. Blackman’s theory: if that’s how it worked, it would be the equivalent of automatically staying an injunction pending appeal. Which doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense.

[JasonT20]

Let me just add to all of this the lack of self-awareness or irony in Trump being upset that the AP wouldn't use a name Trump prefers for something.

[Mr. Bumble]

It's simple. Allow the AP in but don't acknowledge their questions.

[David Nieporent]

That would indeed be allowed, as the judge ruled. But you people don't understand Trump. He doesn't want a way to circumvent or navigate his way through this; he wants a confrontation where he can have it established that he can do what he wants. When you look at everything he's been doing in this term through that lens, it makes a lot more sense.

[damikesc]

He could always so no media at all, if that makes the courts all happy inside.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Did you read the comment you’re responding to?

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I feel some relief I didn't vote for Trump the last time around, though I deemed him the lesser evil. Still, evil is evil. ("OMG how can you say Democrats are evil!!! Their only fault is that they care too much bla bla bla")

Trump sometimes acts like a caudillo (except with better fashion choices). I mean "Gulf of America, &^%$ yeah!" Next it will be "Gulf of USA! USA! USA!"

Plus the will-he-or-won't he about whether he'll comply with court orders.

I remarked in an earlier thread (quoting what Leo Tolstoy would have said if he'd thought about it) that each bad politician is bad in his own way. The nature of Trump's badness is such that it's a different kind of badness than Democratic badness. It's less familiar, and is more likely to be covered in the media, so Trump's badness is more jarring than the old boring badness the Democrats serve up.

[Structured Chaos]

What happened to my preferred pronoun?

[Carl_N_Brown]

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that geographical names long
established should not be changed for light and transient causes.

Seriously, masses of maps, reams of reference books, lotsa literary works use the name "Gulf of Mexico".

Besodes, the times I have visited Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, everyone called it "The Gulf" and I suspect most Mexicans call it "El Golfo".

[Sidney r finkel]

"Issues are usually more complex than they seem."

Well yes, if you are someone like Prof. Blackmon who doesn't understand the law and sees his only role as being Chief Legal Apologist for the Trump administration.

[nicmart]

Who profits more from behemoth government than lawyers, and "constitutional" lawyers are career profiteers.

[nicmart]

Josh Blackman: "Issues are usually more complex than they seem."

Queen Elizabeth I: "For these be no childish actions, nor matters wherein you are to deal by cunning of devices, to seek evasions, as the customs of lawyers is."

Reading Volokh is to enter a world in which "the law" is entirely separate from justice, but professional pedants contest the details in a way that would not be unfamiliar to Soviet lawyers.

Mencken, who would never be published by this Reason, got directly to the actual nature of American law and its practitioners:

"If all lawyers were hanged tomorrow, and their bones sold to a mah jong factory, we'd be freer and safer, and our taxes would be reduced by almost a half." Even the ones who are sometimes libertarian.

[John 4]

Too true. Eugene Volokh should, frankly, be ashamed of the community he's fostered here.

[Bob Jones]

note the white house has now complied: it seems like perhaps my theory above that the right people didn't have immediate notice of the stay expiration might have some weight. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/15/white-house-changes-press-pool-00292526