Wednesday Open Thread

What's on your mind?

Comments

[BrotherMovesOn]

*** Happy Anniversary President Washington. ***

[Stephen Lathrop]

Yet another day passes with no sign that any court in the United States intends to defend the Constitution against administrative contempt. Or, more prosaically, even to enforce law on behalf of people unjustly seized without due process, and incarcerated in a torture prison abroad.

Make no mistake. With contempt of court flagrantly asserted by the Administration, timidity of the courts to enforce against that contempt invites corrupt national government to consolidate power to impose tyranny.

[Martinned2]

Forget about the courts, when are the *people* of the United States going to defend their Constitution?

[Stephen Lathrop]

Martinned2 — Good question. My guess? Probably not until the people see that leaving defense of American constitutionalism to the courts is hopeless—if then.

That is why I want the courts to act quickly—for the courts to fail sooner if that is to be the nation's fate, and thus stir the people to act sooner in their own defense. Otherwise, the administration gets more time to consolidate power against the people before they get organized.

For instance, the ongoing decay observable in American media institutions I take to be an indicator that a defensive power useful to the people is continuously diminishing. I expect organized labor power, such as it is, to shortly come under focused attack, with its leaders at least under threat of arrest and imprisonment if they act to organize political resistance. I expect an effort to bypass the power of the purse. The Trump administration has yet to fully organize a source to fund armed force against popular resistance, but I expect it to move quickly to get that done too, likely by impounding tariff revenues as it collects them.

The time to stop tyrants is always sooner, not later. History is replete with examples of multi-decade tyrannical regimes which might have been thwarted by prompt resistance at their outset. The American courts, with their everlasting love of protracted process, are thus ill suited to match the present emergency. I would like the courts to succeed, more than anything, but do not think waiting long for that to happen is wise.

[Brett Bellmore]

The courts haven't been any use in defending the Constitution since at least FDR's first term. Once Presidents and the Senate realized that they could escape being bound to the Constitution by the courts by the simple expedient of nominating yes-men to the courts, it was all over.

[Sarcastr0]

Riiiight. Your political philosophy is just empirically true, a fact of reality. You really believe that?

[Joe_dallas]

The faux outrage of the the trump's administration lawless behavior rings hollow when those same people failed to voice complaints about biden's and obama's lawless behavior

[David Nieporent]

Whataboutwhataboutwhatabout.

[Krayt]

Incorrect. It just shows both sides are badly wrong assholes!

[SRG2]

That is a criticism of people, but it does not rebut the quite legitimate and justified criticism of the Trump regime.

I don't know why the cultists think that an accusation of hypocrisy serves to defend Trump, Bondi, etc.

[Brett Bellmore]

Shall I explain that for you?

It's because the criticism of Trump is intended to influence election outcomes, and elections are not judgements solely on the incumbent, they are A-B comparisons between the incumbent and challenger.

This means that the nature of the likely challenger actually IS relevant when you're criticizing an office holder. Because you're criticizing him with the goal of putting somebody else in his place, and the nature of that somebody else is, inherently, relevant to the discussion.

Or to put it more crudely, when you complain that my shit stinks, it's not 'whataboutism' to point out that yours does, too. It's just putting it in context.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bellmore — That explanation fails. Whatabouters cite wildly, including folks who will never run again for office, and others who never have, and never will run for office. So you have answered a question about whatabout, with a whatabout.

Plus which, Trump is the worst candidate for president in our lifetime. No one else has been comparable. You want Trump anyway. You are a cult member.

And you remain stupid about your own motivation. You are smart enough to see what a mess Trump is; but that is why you like him. The worse he is, the more harm he inflicts on the nation, the more it outrages people you hate. Turns out, outraging people you hate is your entire motivation.

[Joe_dallas]

SL - your deflection with "whataboutism " only confirms your hypocrisy.

[SRG2]

Shall I explain that for you?

"I don't understand why" is - or should be - commonly understood to be a rhetorical device where the speaker does indeed understand why. Your explanation doesn't hold water, regardless.

[David Nieporent]

Or to put it more crudely, when you complain that my shit stinks, it's not 'whataboutism' to point out that yours does, too. It's just putting it in context.

That's literally what whataboutism is. It's the definition of whataboutism.

And your explanation/defense of it is just incorrect. bookkeeper_joe's attack was not on Trump's challenger. (Even if Trump were running for anything, which he isn't.) It was an attack on people who criticize Trump.

[Joe_dallas]

We are not defending Trump
We are pointing the double standard / hypocrisy of the typical leftists.

Quite a few leftists resort to "whataboutism" in attempts to hide their leftist double standard and hypocrisy.

[SRG2]

Do you concede the criticism of Trump advanced by these purported leftists?

BTW "leftist" does not mean "anyone who opposes Trump" though that seems to be the cultists' definition particularly here. I am often accused of being a leftist by the ignorant or stupid.

[Brett Bellmore]

I think a lot of the criticism is valid; Trump's second term has been characterized by a lot of clumsy mistakes, and a profound disregard for procedural niceties on a scale that sometimes amounts to constitutional violations. Sometimes. OTOH, the resistance to him in the judiciary and bureaucracy hasn't exactly been obsessively rule abiding, either. It's a civil war by other means.

I think he's generally trying to do the right thing, which is refreshing, but our system isn't set up for the President to single handedly do the right thing without cooperation by Congress. And Congress has been largely missing in action these 100 days.

I said a while back that people should have paid more attention to his meeting with Argentina President Milei, that Trump was planning on emulating him here. That still seems to be the case, Milei wasn't exactly scrupulous as to means, either.

Argentina, of course, was pretty far gone by the time Milei took over, and so the public there gave him the slack he needed to show results, and then the results persuaded them to let him keep at it.

Are the American people convinced things were bad enough to justify a home-grown Milei? I suspect not. But if Trump can accumulate enough actual accomplishments before the judicial resistance stops him, the public may decide to let him continue, and then where will the judicial resistance be?

[Darwinnie]

So you believe the American system of governance is so far gone and corrupt that Trump is fine to achieve his goals by any means necessary? What’s your limiting principle, because I see nothing you advocate that would limit Trump’s people from rounding up politician foes and “others” who stand in his way.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, I think he should be less sloppy, and pay more attention to procedural details. And that Congress should get off their dead ass and start carrying their share of the load.

But I also think he's doing a lot of things that needed doing, even if he's doing them the wrong way. We're not as far gone as Argentina was, but we're pretty far gone in a lot of ways, and only drastic action will save us.

My chief point was that I don't think anybody should be really surprised that he's cutting corners to try to get big things done fast. That he would was the proper take-away from that meeting with Milei.

[Sarcastr0]

Brett wants America to be led by a Latin American strongman.

That's bad.

[not guilty]

No, Brett, President Trump is not trying to do the right thing at all.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/29/us/politics/trump-abrego-garcia-deported.html?campaign_id=190&emc=edit_ufn_20250430&instance_id=153596&nl=from-the-times&regi_id=59209117&segment_id=197023&user_id=86ac9094018f7140c62a54a4e93c075f

Trump is ignoring the late Molly Ivins' First Rule of Holes: STOP DIGGING!!

[Stephen Lathrop]

Joe_dallas — Exactly. As with Bellmore, you are not defending Trump. You are not stupid enough to try that. But you are stupid enough, and sufficiently lacking in self-awareness, to like Trump. You like Trump because he is a terrible president, and a worse person. You hope you can count on Trump to do more than anyone else could do to hurt people you hate. Those are bog-standard MAGA politics, and that is all there is to them.

[David Nieporent]

We are not defending Trump
We are pointing the double standard / hypocrisy of the typical leftists.

Weird that you're aware enough to admit that this is your argument, but too unaware to realize how stupid it is.

Normal, sane person: "Trump is awful! He has done X, Y, and Z which are terrible!"
bookkeeper_joe: "Well, you're a hypocrite!"

[Joe_dallas]

DN - Confirming his hypocrisy

[David Nieporent]

You're using a big word you don't understand. But whether I'm a hypocrite has no bearing on whether Trump is Satan, and since Trump is president and I'm a commenter on an Internet blog, Trump's character flaws are a bit more pertinent to and impactful on the world than mine.

[Joe_dallas]

I have never said Trump was a nice guy, nor have other commentators such as Brent

Yet its noted that you never complained about Biden's or obama's unconstitutional actions, demonstrating again your leftist hypocrisy.

[David Nieporent]

I have never said Trump was a nice guy, nor have other commentators such as Brent

Um, yes, that's literally the point! Rather than defending Trump against criticism, you try to deflect and distract from the criticism by changing the subject to the person speaking. That's what whatabouting is!

Yet its noted that you never complained about Biden's or obama's unconstitutional actions, demonstrating again your leftist hypocrisy.

Again: both irrelevant and a lie.

[A Woman of No Importance]

But if you're going to point out hypocrisy, isn't it hypocritical to only point it out on one side? I don't recall you ever calling out Republican/conservative hypocrisy; it only bothers you when the left does it. For that matter, most of the whataboutism I've seen here comes from the right, yet, again, you only seem concerned when it comes from the left.

Which means you either don't think the Republicans'conservatives do it, in which case you're a fool, or you yourself are the biggest hypocrite here.

[Frank Drackman]

be careful what you ask the people for, they might not give you the answer that you want them to

[Doug Heffernan]

When enough of those who chose this guy can admit to themselves and others that they were sold a bill of goods. Doing that is not easy, especially when it would cause social isolation. It would take a critical mass such that isolation would be more common for those that continued to stick with the guy.

The tariffs may be enough to create such a critical mass. Price increases and product unavailability would be difficult for trump to blame on anyone else, although he will surely try. His best chance at retaining some degree of popularity is to end his run as tariff man immediately. He can continue to ship people to foreign prisons without due process and ignore courts and remain somewhat popular, but not the tariff stuff. Enough people will never care about due process or respect for courts. If you care about those things, you should hope that he doesn't cave on the tariffs anytime soon.

[Brett Bellmore]

My problem last November was that the choice was between one bill of goods and another bill of goods, (The third and fourth bills of goods had no chance of winning.) and I had to decide which would be less destructive.

I still think Trump is largely pursuing the right ends, but his means suck. Or, as Reason put it a few weeks ago, Trump Is Giving Everyone What They Want In the Dumbest Way Possible

But that's maybe still better than having somebody cleverly pursuing ends opposed to mine, which was the alternative I was facing.

[shawn_dude]

The choice was between one bill of goods and another bill of goods according to the right wing news sources I consume who have consistently lied to me and hidden how terrible Trump is and how good the alternatives were in order to continue profiting off my ignorance.

FTFY.

[TaioF920]

Tariffs don't lead to price increases. They lead to lower corporate margins, which is what all the banksters who control the media care about.

You bought their lie, hook, line and sinker.

[Brett Bellmore]

Actually, it's entirely situational. Depending on circumstances and elasticity of demand, tariffs can hit the corporate margin OR the price, or some mix of them.

[Joe_dallas]

correct - same with any cost increase, whether the cost increase is due to materials, labor, or tax increases. Who absorbs the increase costs is a function of elasticity of demand / supply and demand curves.

[Malika the Maiz]

To be clear, it’s a tax on imported goods that as an empirical matter raises the price ultimately paid by the consumer.

[Joe_dallas]

malika
take a beginners clas in micro economics 101
Brett's and my statement is correct

[Malika the Maiz]

I think a beginner’s class decades ago is all you’ve got.

[Joe_dallas]

take a refresher class in micro economics

[Brett Bellmore]

To a variable extent depending on a lot of factors.

If your foreign producer has been enjoying a high profit margin, and consumer elasticity is low, the foreign producer will be better off swallowing some portion of the tariff, possibly most of it, in order to not lose the market.

[Malika the Maiz]

“the foreign producer will be better off swallowing some portion of the tariff, possibly most of it”

So, “as an empirical matter raises the price ultimately paid by the consumer.”

[Joe_dallas]

as noted above - you are very much due for a refresher course in micro economics.

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

Martinned, a foreign actor, is illegally calling for insurrection by US citizens.

Reported to DOGE and the DOD.

[Malika the Maiz]

Send the report by Signal so ‘Hic Hegseth will be sure to see it!

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Some are using the courts, protesting, speaking up at meet-ups of their representatives, some colleges and law firms are pushing back, and so forth. The people have done a few things.

[shawn_dude]

While mass protests in liberal bastions are a good sign, nothing will change until we see more of them happening in conservative cities in the middle of conservative states. Let's face it, they're not bothered one iota regarding the gestapo-style mass roundups of anyone that speaks Spanish. The only thing they'll respond to is financial pain. That's why Trump freaked out when he thought Amazon was going to note the tariff amount next to all of its imported goods. Too many people still think tariffs aren't US taxes on US citizens.

Another question: what do you think it would take to get a 2/3rds majority in the Senate to agree to convict at an impeachment trial? (or to get enough GOP senators to call in sick that day such that 2/3rds of a quorum are Democrats?)

[Don Nico]

Stephen,
I am not sure what you expected unless there are cases you can cite in which the government has crated complete roadblock to the case proceeding, or in which the attorneys for the government are being actively insulting to court.
I don't oppose contempt citations, but they should be an infrequently used tool.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Nope. The rate of issuance for contempt citations ought to match the rate at which contempt of court happens. But not in a linear way. After evidence shows a systematic resort to contempt, contempt citations ought to skyrocket.

Systematic resort to contempt is already evident. It is already past time for the courts to take notice of contemptuous conduct happening in one court, and treat it as abuse of process everywhere.

No more patient, per-court, step-by-step, tip-toe toward contempt, as if a systematic pattern of massive resistance against judicial constraint by the administration were invisible. That pattern is already evident—opposed by some, cheered on by others, but obvious to everyone.

Few can doubt advocacy to pretend that pattern does not exist, and thus to continue with slow-walking procedures, is coming mainly from people who want judicial constraint of the administration to fail. Those people have already seen judicial constraint fail in the case of Trump v. United States. They want more of the same.

No thanks, not during an existential crisis for American constitutionalism.

[Don Nico]

In that case you advocate a judicial tyranny because it is inevitable that a citation due to every disagreement degenerates into unelected officials imposing their whims and political preferences on whomever is in theor courtroom. That is what the judiciary in Israel has degenerated into, a profoundly anti-democratic institution.
Better that judges maintain a sense of balance and restraint as they have for most of the life of this country.

[David Nieporent]

That doesn't even make sense as a criticism; courts are supposed to be anti-democratic. They're supposed to uphold the law, not cater to the will of the majority.

[Speaking for normal people]

Just the opposite !! Some low-level super-liberal Ketanji-Brown clone is stopping the President from doing his job. If due process were the issue, 'Hillary', you would have said something about Obama''s 3 MILLION deportations. Did I miss your outraged postings fromtaht time? No.

[Brett Bellmore]

Obama didn't HAVE 3 million deportations. He just started calling people turned back at the border "deportations", contrary to prior practice.

[Sarcastr0]

I haven’t been able to find a source for this. Where did you hear it?

[Brett Bellmore]

High deportation figures are misleading

"WASHINGTON — Immigration activists have sharply criticized President Obama for a rising volume of deportations, labeling him the “deporter in chief” and staging large protests that have harmed his standing with some Latinos, a key group of voters for Democrats.

But the portrait of a steadily increasing number of deportations rests on statistics that conceal almost as much as they disclose. A closer examination shows that immigrants living illegally in most of the continental U.S. are less likely to be deported today than before Obama came to office, according to immigration data.

Expulsions of people who are settled and working in the United States have fallen steadily since his first year in office, and are down more than 40% since 2009.

On the other side of the ledger, the number of people deported at or near the border has gone up — primarily as a result of changing who gets counted in the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency’s deportation statistics.

The vast majority of those border crossers would not have been treated as formal deportations under most previous administrations. If all removals were tallied, the total sent back to Mexico each year would have been far higher under those previous administrations than it is now."

Under Obama you'd get bussed back over the border and counted as a deportation if you were caught near the border, but if you got more than about 100 miles from the border, you were safe, he'd basically stopped deportations from the interior.

This was actually widely complained about at the time, but probably not in sources you were following, which would have actually been complaining about too many deportations because they were taking the new numbers at face value.

[Sarcastr0]

Thanks.
Though a focus on the border versus visa overstayers might have been made in good faith, ya know! (and "under most previous administrations" is odd phrasing).

But...has this baseline changed since then? Because for now it looks like we can compare Obama, Trump, and Biden's numbers at least.

[Brett Bellmore]

That's why I follow the USCIS "Southern border encounters" numbers, which at least have kept a uniform methodology through this period. It's pretty unambiguous that Trump was and is wildly more successful at reducing illegal border crossings than Obama or especially Biden, on account of actually trying to.

I really don't know if the definition of "deportation" kept getting switched back and forth after Obama as administrations changed places. Google is pretty much worthless at this point for that sort of detailed question.

[shawn_dude]

Do you think, with Trump's infamous ego, that he would reverse the Obama methodology and thus make his numbers look smaller in comparison? The man is so obsessed with numbers that he held his inauguration ceremony indoors to prevent a repeat of his 2016 embarrassment.

The bottom line with all this dick-measuring on deportation numbers is that the last two Democrats were highly successful at deportations without having to demonize an entire race of people or brag about violating their civil rights. Trump barks so much about his deportations and how brutal they are but, in the end, he's less successful than his predecessors.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Selective editing by Bellmore omitted that his source described how Obama was also fingerprinting and recording data on immigrants caught near the border in the U.S., to build a record to constrain them from returning. The system Bellmore likes just turned them around and released them in Mexico to try again. Or so it says in his source.

[Brett Bellmore]

So limiting my quotes to fair use is now "selective editing"? I gave a link to the original source, Lathrop, which is something your precious newspapers scarcely ever do, lest their own genuinely selective editing or mere paraphrases be exposed.

[Frank Drackman]

and put "Kids in Cages" remember the Bullshit when the Fake News published the photos during Trump's first term, not admitting they were from 2014

[Michael P]

https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-obama-deportations-20140402-story.html says that (a) what changed was formally deporting people caught at the border rather than just sending them back, (b) this change started under GWB (but apparently late enough that it didn't change his numbers much) and (c) Obama significantly cut back other deportations, and would have had a large drop without the "bonus" deportations from the Bush policy change.

[Sarcastr0]

Huh. The single exact same story as Brett had.

If this is the main source, no wonder I had trouble.

[Brett Bellmore]

Here's another source: Removals vs returns: how to think about Obama’s deportation record

Or Mother Jones: The Obama Administration’s 2 Million Deportations, Explained

As I said, it was probably a matter of the sources you were familiar with not having any interest in the distinction, and taking his numbers at face value. Right wing sources were pretty focused on it at the time.

[Michael P]

"Right wing sources were pretty focused on it at the time."

Definitely so. I suspect we came upon the same source today because it's what search engines (or at least Bing/DDG) return as an early hit now, perhaps because it's the lead source for a Snopes entry on the topic.

[Brett Bellmore]

"this change started under GWB"

And it's worth mentioning that Bush got a lot of grief from Republicans over his lax border enforcement, too.

[Frank Drackman]

More like what "Border Enforcement", "Lax" would have been an improvement. That and his abortion of a Medicare Prescription Drug plan, that even Bill Clinton wouldn't have been able to get through, lucky for him the DemoKKKrats ran Lurch in 2004

[jb]

Of course, all of Trump's deportation numbers also include people aprehended near the border, so the Obama vs. Trump vs. Biden numbers are pretty apples-to-apples.

It is true that border crossings increase a lot during the first half of Biden's administration, but were much lower in the second half. They've decreased further under Trump, but part of this is just removing the CBP One appointments which counted as "border encounters" even though they were scheduled appointments with CBP agents.

[Kazinski]

Well at least the Wisconsin Supreme Court has decided that nobody is above the law, even superior court judges:

Wisconsin Supreme Court suspends judge accused of obstructing immigration agents

https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/29/us/judge-hannah-dugan-suspended-immigrant-arrest/index.html

[Martinned2]

Can someone help me work out the website of the Wisconsin Supreme Court? CNN says there is supposed to be an order, but I can't find it on the court's website:

https://www.wicourts.gov/supreme/scorder.jsp?docket_number=&range=This+week&begin_date=04-28-2025&end_date=05-02-2025&party_name=&Submit=Search

[Frank Drackman]

"CNN says"
well THAT's your problem

[Drewski]

Order: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25922648-in-re-dugan-supreme-court-adminstrative-order-04-29-25/

Criminal complaint: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25919404-complaintuscourtswied11162910/

Release conditions: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25919332-20315758913/

[Martinned]

That'll teach me for commenting here instead of working...

This category is blocked: Personal Network Storage and Backup.

[Magister]

You could try
https://www.wispolitics.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/250429SC_Dugan.pdf
when you're on break from work.

[John F. Carr]

I understand the Wisconsin judge to be in the same position as her predecessor in Massachusetts - suspended with pay. The suspension may be a routine consqeuence of a pending felony charge. In Massachusetts all trial judges are state employees and the top court had to decide whether the judge's suspension was with or without pay. Charged with obstructing Trump = with pay.

[AmosArch]

wah wah the government shouldn't obey the will of the President. They should obey the will of some random internet commentator on a law blog almost nobody knows about. Thats like...more democracy or something.

[Martinned2]

Why don't we start with the government obeying the courts? That would already be quite an improvement.

[TaioF920]

Not if the courts are lawless.

[AmosArch]

Unless you think any low ranking (leftwing) Judge in the Country has the authority of a Monarch over the entire country and can issue whatever decree they want and do whatever they want including helping criminals evade the authorities whenever they feel like it then certain courts have not exactly presented themselves as institutions that should be obeyed.

[TaioF920]

Especially when those judges are DEI appointees of Democrat Party presidents.

These judges shouldn't be allowed to hear Trump cases unless they were approved by at least 80 senators

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

He does think that. He's a European serf, used to be lorded over by Royalty.

It's in his genes to be ruled.

[Malika the Maiz]

And yet it’s Magnus lovingly bootlicker federal officials here every day!

[DaveM]

This is an unserious take. You're going to get a bunch of "ataboy" claps on the back from the rest of the players in Left field, and snark from the fans in the stands.

[not guilty]

It appears that we now have our first judicial ruling after an evidentiary hearing on whether anyone whom the Trump administration seeks to deport under the Alien Enemies Act is in fact a member of Tren de Aragua. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txwd.1172835379/gov.uscourts.txwd.1172835379.27.0_1.pdf

And, I suspect, Pam (Bottle) Blondie's domestic partner John Wakefield and Kristi Noem's husband Bryon Noem now have new orifices to play with when they make whoopee.

The operative provisions of Senior United States District Judge David Briones's Memorandum Opinion and Order specifically relating to the instant habeas corpus petitioners state:

IT IS HEREBY ORDERED Petitioners’ Julio Cesar Sanchez Puentes and Luddis Norelia Sanchez Garcia’s “Amended Verified Petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241 and Request for Order to Show Cause,” ECF No. 9, is GRANTED.

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED Petitioners Julio Cesar Sanchez Puentes and Luddis Norelia Sanchez Garcia SHALL BE AND ARE RELEASED from federal immigration custody, EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY.

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED Respondents Angel Garite, Mary De-Anda-Ybarra, Todd Lyons, Kristi Noem, and Pam Bondi are ENJOINED from detaining or re-detaining Petitioners Julio Cesar Sanchez Puentes and Luddis Norelia Sanchez Garcia’s on the basis of an alien enemy designation pursuant to “Invocation of the Alien Enemies Act Regarding the Invasion of the United States by Tren de Aragua”, Pres. Proc. No. 10903, 90 FR 13033, and therefore both Petitioners SHALL BE IMMEDIATELY RELEASED from custody. IT IS FURTHER ORDERED Respondents Angel Garite, Mary De-Anda-Ybarra, Todd Lyons, Kristi Noem, and Pam Bondi are ENJOINED from detaining or re-detaining Petitioners Julio Cesar Sanchez Puentes and Luddis Norelia Sanchez Garcia’s so long as their Temporary Protected States remains valid under law, and therefore both Petitioners SHALL BE IMMEDIATELY RELEASED from custody.

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED Respondents Angel Garite, Mary De-Anda-Ybarra, Todd Lyons, Knisti Noem, and Pam Bondi SHALL PROVIDE undersigned counsel with a thirty (30)- day notice and an opportunity to respond if Respondents attempt to re-detain Petitioners Julio Cesar Sanchez Puentes and Luddis Norelia Sanchez Garcia on the basis of immigration status under the Immigration and Nationality Act or the Alien Enemies Act pursuant to the TdA Proclamation.

(Capitalization and boldface in original.)

Glory hallelujah! The Trump administration goons have had a full and fair opportunity to offer “clear, unequivocal, and convincing” evidence of the Petitioners' membership in Tren de Aragua. As the prophet Daniel said to Belshaz'zar the Chalde'an king, interpreting the writing on the wall, "TEKEL, you have been weighed in the balances and found wanting." Daniel 5:27 (RSV). And as Groucho Marx said, time wounds all heels.

In that there are other issues remaining in the case (such as whether the United States is actively in an ongoing military conflict), this does not appear to be a final order for purposes of Fed.R.Civ.P. 54(b). The Petitioners, though, have filed a Motion to Enforce Judgment. On April 25 the District Court ordered the Respondents to respond within five days. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txwd.1172835379/gov.uscourts.txwd.1172835379.31.0.pdf

[Martinned2]

American law is procedural law is weird. So the court ordered the plaintiffs to be released immediately, and so naturally they had to file a motion to ask to be released immediately?

[Zarniwoop]

The need for the Apr 28 fling is not crystal clear to me, but it seems like ICE might have released them - but then imposed ankle monitoring and other conditions that Plaintiffs feel is without justification.

[Stephen Lathrop]

I will not celebrate any such appearance of judicial power until the respondents either release their prisoners, or arrive in court to defend themselves against charges of contempt.

Nor will I celebrate much until all the persons illegally seized and deported to a life of torture in CECOT have been returned to the U.S. and afforded due process.

[Frank Drackman]

So you won't be celebrating much

[TaioF920]

Why do you care so much about a non-American who doesn't belong here in the first place?

[David Nieporent]

If it makes you feel any better, I will not shed any tears when you are sent to CECOT without a hearing.

[SRG2]

We don't. We care about the regime acting unconstitutionally in a way which could lead to graver and more dictatorial constitutional infringements down the road,

Why are you so content with the regime breaching the Constitution?

The cultists' inability to see the principles instead of the persons is evidently pathological.

[Krayt]

We don't. We care about the regime acting unconstitutionally in a way which could lead to graver and more dictatorial constitutional infringements down the road,

I concur! All who love liberty should be concerned with unconstitutional behaviors that have been shown, repeatedly through history, to be a grave danger.

Why, just last month, Turkey's dictator arrested his likely opponent, dug into his past to get his college to reject his 30 year old transfer application, declare his degree null, and therefore he can't even be on the ballot, on top of whatever the hell he was arrested for.

God damn, that's some historically evil stuff, faceted to be about rule of law. One commentator here even said he liked that stuff, in reference to Turkey.

[grb]

TaioF920 : "Why do you care so much about a non-American...."

1. I have no doubt a large percentage of those "disappeared" into a Central American gulag were members of Tren de Aragua.

2. But I also have no doubt a large percent weren't. Because this is the kind of incompetent half-ass stunt typical of all Trump's actions; because the "evidence" used to justify such a weighty move is often thin to the point of nothingness; and because press accounts have made clear multiple deportees weren't gangsters.

3. So Trump is unjustly destroying lives in a hellhole foreign prison as a cynical empty stunt.

4. So, yeah, I care. The question is why you don't, and you can see the reason at a rally Trump held yesterday. He showed a video of brown-skinned people in chains and the audience roared with cheers. I bet there were similar scene in Germany back in the late-30s, perhaps with Goebbels describing Jews deported to the Polish border. I bet the people cheering then didn't care whether that action was legally justified or not. I bet they never stopped their mindless "Heil Hitlers" to think about the lives destroyed either.

[Speaking for normal people]

That looks about 75% copied from elsewhere ...but let me tell you from the neighborhood "Folks esp those with kids support Pres completely" you have no kids, you have money, this is all just bar chatter for you.

[Michael P]

You really are a garbage person.

[Sarcastr0]

I'm no fan of that juvenile nonsense either, but kinda hypocritical of you to call it out, eh?

[Michael P]

Only if you have trouble distinguishing between calling third parties juvenile names based on random personal attributes and making crude speculation about their intimate lives from criticizing people to their faces for behaving badly in direct response to that bad behavior.

In other words, it might seem that way to you, DMN and a few others, but not to normal people.

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah crude juvinalia against public figures versus bast personal insults.

I do think there is a difference.

[Michael P]

"bast personal insults"

I have never called anyone a lying cat-faced pony soldier. Even if I had, the important differences are the relevance to the topic and the target's ability to see and respond.

[Malika the Maiz]

lol, Sarc, don’t you know that when Mike calls someone a not normal garbage person it’s (R)eally not the same!

[tylertusta]

Just wait until Mr. Guilty starts explaining that a female attorney's allegedly fake breasts are indicative that she's a liar and a bad attorney.

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

>And, I suspect, Pam (Bottle) Blondie's domestic partner John Wakefield and Kristi Noem's husband Bryon Noem now have new orifices to play with when they make whoopee.

I'm surprised you didn't sprinkle in a "nigger this" or "nigger that" in there given one of them is racially impure.

[Malika the Maiz]

Of course, that sounds like what you’d write (and Mike would not clutch his pearls then, they’d be out for cleaning that day I guess).

[jb]

"And, I suspect, Pam (Bottle) Blondie's domestic partner John Wakefield and Kristi Noem's husband Bryon Noem now have new orifices to play with when they make whoopee."

That's gross. Don't be like that.

[Jerry B.]

"IT IS FURTHER ORDERED Petitioners Julio Cesar Sanchez Puentes and Luddis Norelia Sanchez Garcia SHALL BE AND ARE RELEASED from federal immigration custody, EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY."

Wanna bet they disappear into the illegal immigrant demimonde?

[Glaucomatose]

While it is true that a petitioner may generally bear the burden of proof in habeas proceedings in other contexts, this is not a typical habeas proceeding. These habeas proceedings encompass the ultimate question of whether removal from the United States is warranted under the AEA and the TdA Proclamation. It is well-established removal proceedings, unless otherwise modified by Congress, require the Government to establish its allegations by "clear, unequivocal, and convincing evidence."

I'm not a habeas expert but find this interesting: while the court shows very clearly that the government lacks the proper evidence to remove the petitioners, I don't know how this extends to saying that the petitioners have satisfied the burden of proof for habeas corpus. In other words: bar on removal, yes, but requirement to release and reinstate TPS? Maybe someone here who practices in this area would know better; I wonder if those requirements will survive on appeal, particularly to the 5th.

[Zarniwoop]

The Court determined that gov’t’s evidence was utterly deficient on the TdA allegations, and also that their Temp Protected Status (TPS) meant the ICE was barred by statute from incarcerating them on any other INA basis during their appeals of TPS issues. I tried to see if the gov’t even tried to argue against that, but courtlistener shows the (late-filed) opposition as “unavailable on PACER”

[Zarniwoop]

TL,DR: the gov’t continues to FAFO when it comes to asserting AEA without actual evidence.

NG’s metaphor is crude, but wow the district court really does not pull its punches on the deficiencies of the gov’t’s case. The discussion of the gov’t’s evidentiary failures at pp.24-33 is pretty stunning to see in a judicial opinion. This judge is not happy.

“The Court would not accept this evidence even in a case where only nominal damages were at stake”
“shoddy affidavits and contradictory testimony”
“Respondents don’t have it. It’s not here.” (emphasis in original)
“Like Petitioner Sanchez Garcia’s case, Petitioner Sanchez Puentes’ case is just as concerning, if not more, based on the admitted lack of any evidence whatsoever.” (emphasis in original)
“This Court takes clear offense to Respondents wasting judicial resources to admit to the Court that it has no evidence, yet seek to have this Court determine that Petitioner Sanchez Puentes is ‘guilty by association’. This Court found no need to even allow closing arguments as to Petitioner Sanchez Puentes at the April 23, 2025 Habeas Corpus Hearing.”

And then after expressing unambiguous displeasure at the gov’t, and “unpredictable and inconsistent” prior attempts to deport based on the AEA with 24hr notice … he entered an district wide order that the gov’t shall not deport based on the AEA without providing 21 days notice. He also ordered that such folks can’t be removed from W.D.Tx (presumably to prevent more Three Card Prisoner Monte by ICE). See pp.35-37.

[John F. Carr]

The order concludes with a district-wide anti-removal injunction. I think that is procedurally improper without a pending request for class certification.

As I read the judge's order I thought of the case of Rahina Ibrahim, who got on the no-fly list when an agent made a mistake filling out a badly designed form. The government doesn't really know why the petitioners in Texas are enemy aliens. The computer says they are. And the case of a search warrant for a Massachusetts woman's vagina issued after somebody heard a rumor on the street that she kept drugs in there.

[David Nieporent]

In one of the court cases the TdA gang evaluation form used by ICE was submitted. Basically, it's a point system, with targets getting points for tattoos, alleged TdA symbols on social media, being convicted of certain crimes, being arrested for certain crimes, committing certain crimes, self-identification, hanging out with TdA members, communicating or doing business with TdA members, witness testimony, cops claiming they're TdA members, etc.

If you score enough points, you are deemed a confirmed TdA member. But the threshold is pretty low, rely on the cops not making things up, and rely heavily on guilt by association.

[Martinned2]

In Canada political parties that lose an election still have a leader, but it will be interesting to see whether Pierre Poilievre will be able to stay on as leader of the Conservatives. As far as I can tell the first civil wars have already broken out, and realistically he can't stay on unless someone gives him a safe seat pretty quickly.

[Kazinski]

If North Texas secedes it won't matter much.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/27/the-quiet-threat-to-canadian-unity-isnt-quebec-its-alberta-00311719K

"The Liberals’ fourth straight federal election win keeps Alberta and Ottawa on a collision course, raising the once unthinkable prospect of a referendum on the Prairie province’s separation from Canada."

[Martinned2]

Don't be silly. (That goes to you and to Politico both.)

[Kazinski]

Well the premier did just change the law to require only 10% of the voters in the last election to vote to sign petitions to schedule a vote on independence.

And the last time a province had a vote to secede was way back in 1995, so its hardly unprecedented.

Maybe the National Post needs to sober up too:

'Hockey and nostalgia' won't keep us together: Some Albertans say they're serious about separation after Liberal win
The Liberals' fourth straight federal election win keeps Alberta and Ottawa on a collision course

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/albertans-say-theyre-serious-about-separation-after-liberal-win

[Martinned2]

O, I'm sure "some Albertans" are serious about seceding, just like "some Texans" are. And I'm sure fiddling with the rules for a referendum (which won't be up to the premier, for the avoidance of doubt) is the sort of thing you can do ahead of a general election to improve your chances. But Alberta is not going to secede. For one thing, even in Alberta they hate Trump more than they hate the Liberal Party: https://edmonton.citynews.ca/video/2025/03/14/just-12-of-albertans-approve-of-trump-poll/

[Kazinski]

Its up to the provincial parliament, and they passed it and the premier signed it.

And what's Trump got to do with it?

The vote is for independence not statehood.

[Martinned2]

The vote is for independence not statehood.

Sure, Jan.

[Krayt]

Independence votes should be by some kind of supermajority. So, too, should joining a new org, like the EU.

Simple majority is not actually the voice of god, and is highly susceptible to the blowing winds of political passion, which is the one thing people with the one real superpower that exists are good at: charismatic demagogues.

In short, no, 51% of the people do not have any justified authority to drag the other 49% away from their current constitutional scheme, and its protections.

Political thugs love 51% because they can hide behind the vox populi vox dei sophistry as justification. While that may be ok for normal laws passed under a constitutional regime, the rules about passing those laws, the constitution, should get buy in from most people. If you can't get most people to agree on that, it probably shouldn't be in your constitution.

Leaving is the same level event as creating a constitution itself. Say no to weasels trying to fast track these things!

[tylertusta]

I agree that a simple majority is insufficient, especially if there is an embittered minority who vehemently opposes independence and/or admission into another nation's sovereignty.

Going by a simple majority (or even a plurality) is a recipe for terrorism, insurgency, civil war, or worse.

[Frank Drackman]

IIRC (Big "If") Quebec used to have a pretty strong Secession movement, of course they used to have a Major League Baseball team too before the Expos "seceded" to DC (by way of Puerto Rico), so it was a while back,
Remember crossing the border into Manitoba back in the 70's with all the signs in French and English, when you had more French speaking peoples in Mobile Alabama than the entire province of Manitoba.
but seems they realized they were better off being part of Amurica's Defacto 51st State than actually Independent

Frank

[Dr. Ed 2]

I was right -- the Spanish blackout was caused by their reliance on pixie dust and unicorn flatulance.

"Eduardo Prieto, head of operation services at Red Eléctrica, said two “disconnection events” occurred just a second apart shortly before Monday’s blackout. These took place in Extremadura, in southwestern Spain, a region with significant solar energy production.

“At 12:33, there was a very significant loss of electricity generation in Extremadura. The system managed to recover, but a second and a half later it failed again and didn’t recover,” Prieto said at a news conference. There is no indication the outage was caused by human error, he said.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/cause-of-spain-power-outage-still-unclear-after-mass-blackout-travel-chaos/ar-AA1DRkM3

[Martinned2]

Oh, if the guy from the grid company says that the grid company didn't screw up, that's alright then. Maybe the grid company should build some more interconnectors with France (and Italy), so that the system can better respond to temporary local imbalances.

https://elpais.com/economia/2025-04-30/la-interconexion-entre-francia-y-la-peninsula-iberica-el-talon-de-aquiles-eterno-de-la-red-electrica-espanola.html

[Kazinski]

Well on April 16 Spain went 100% renewable for the first time ever on a weekday, so that gives you an idea of how dependent Spain is on renewables.

Then 9 days later they have an unprecedented 10 hour nationwide blackout?

Must be completely unrelated.

https://x.com/Gabby_Hoffman/status/1916860832878645552

[Martinned2]

For one thing, I'm not sure what the status of the system 9 days before is supposed to prove.

Secondly, the increase in the use of renewables isn't some sudden surprise. It is literally the job of the grid company to build and maintain a grid that can deal with the increased use of renewables. And if they screw that up, that's on them.

[Kazinski]

Well then think about it for a while, do I have to explain everything?

But its just a fact that its harder to stabilize the grid when renewables are a major component. The politicians pass a law saying the grid operator has to prioritize renewables, then the grid operator gets blamed for incompetence when the grid fails.

[Martinned2]

The politicians pass a law saying the grid operator has to prioritize renewables

Did they?

[Michael P]

https://thecorner.eu/news-spain/spain-economy/spain-approves-its-first-climate-change-law-at-least-74-renewable-electricity-production-by-2030/94869/

[Martinned2]

Where does that say that the grid operator has to [unreasonably] prioritise renewables?

It's the job of the grid operators to build and maintain a grid that can connect everything that needs connecting. The fact that the energy mix changes is irrelevant to that general duty. The question is whether policymakers put unreasonable requirements on the grid operator, i.e. an obligation to connect more power stations than it was capable of connecting, or at least more than it was capable of connecting given the resources at its disposal.

A general statute favouring renewables isn't remotely the same thing.

[Joe_dallas]

Everyone agrees that it is the job of the grid operator to insure the grid maintains reliability.

Its the use of renewables, especially at high penetrations, that make maintaining reliability much more difficult.

[Martinned]

True, which is why typically the grid company gets funded extra to increase the capacity of various things, build more interconnectors, etc.

In many European countries the system operator and/or grid company has tenders for reserve capacity, which result in power stations being paid to provide additional generation capacity for use in case of supply problems.

None of that is an insurmountable problem, and there is no reason to skip right past the possibility of Red Eléctrica screwing up.

[Joe_dallas]

Martinned 37 minutes ago
"None of that is an insurmountable problem, and there is no reason to skip right past the possibility of Red Eléctrica screwing up."

martin -
You are falling for many of the fallacies promoted by renewable advocates. LCOE is a prime example of the distortions made by renewable advocates. LCOE computation claims renewable generation costs are less than fossil fuel generation costs, yet the cost of intermediacy and stability are borne by the fossil fuel plants. As renewable penetration goes higher, the ability to maintain stability is lost because sources providing stability is significantly reduced. Its at least a few decades off before techologly and engineering develop to a point stability can be maintained in a high renewable grid.

[Michael P]

Just have a district court order the sun to rise in the east, too. Hold Howard Lutnick in contempt because NOAA doesn't implement the order.

[Brett Bellmore]

What, you think the Spanish utilities gave up on reliable power plants that were already built and running voluntarily?

You saw this in Germany, too: Spending money to demolish working plants in order to make reconsidering the decision to shut them down impossible.

[Martinned2]

What does that have to do with the grid?

[Brett Bellmore]

OK, I get it: You just don't want to admit that shutting down reliable sources in favor of unreliable sources is bad for grid stability. Carry on, I won't waste your time further.

[Martinned]

Do you mind if I insist that maintaining grid stability is the job of the grid company (or, if that's a separate entity, the system operator) and that if there is a problem with the grid I'm allowed to start by blaming the people who get paid to maintain the grid?

[Brett Bellmore]

Sure, so long as you understand that the government might not be letting them do what is necessary to accomplish that.

It's all very well and good to say to the grid operators, "Your job was to keep it stable.", but you have to allow them to do their job, not hit them with mandates that make sure it can't be done.

[Joe_dallas]

Martinned2 1 hour ago
Flag Comment
Mute User
"What does that have to do with the grid?"

Are you being serious with that inane question?
Power generation plants are the single biggest component of the "grid".

[Martinned]

No, they are not. Power stations are *attached to* the grid, they are not part of the grid.

[Joe_dallas]

martin -

from AI
Yes, power stations are an integral part of the national grid. The national grid is a network of infrastructure, including power stations, transmission lines, and substations, that delivers electricity from generation sources to consumers.

[Joe_dallas]

wikipedia
"An electrical grid (or electricity network) is an interconnected network for electricity delivery from producers to consumers. Electrical grids consist of power stations, electrical substations to step voltage up or down, electric power transmission to carry power over long distances, and finally electric power distribution to customers.

[Sarcastr0]

You have done no work to show an actual relation, Kaz.

[Kazinski]

Sure I did, on Monday. You are responsible for previous material.

"However, energy experts have blamed a heavy reliance on solar and wind farms in Spain for leaving the region’s power grid vulnerable to such a crisis."

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/blackout-risk-made-worse-net-201539284.html

[Sarcastr0]

That, needless to say, doesn't establish anything.

It has quotes from people saying 'yeah, sure, could be!' People being from energy consulting groups and the fucking Reform Party.

If you're going to put out a hard-and-fast thesis like 'A caused Y' you need to do better than that.

Same author, same publication:
What caused power outages in Spain and Portugal?

Embrace uncertainty.

[Kazinski]

"Embrace uncertainty."

I think you are beginning to understand what solar and wind do to the grid.

Hydro, Nat gas and nuclear and coal are putting out power in steady amounts controlled by the plant operator.

Wind can vary moment by moment with gusts and lulls, solar depending on the day can be pretty reliable, but imagine what happens when its 25-30% cloudy and a front is moving through you can have entire solar fields blocked, then exposed in a matter of minutes and have it happen at random to solar installations across a wide area.

[Sarcastr0]

You have already stepped back from your thesis of 3 hours ago, I see.

[Brett Bellmore]

Or maybe you just didn't understand it in the first place.

[jb]

So far it still all seems like speculation.

What's the theory, that there was an unexpected solar eclipse in Extremadura? I get that (some forms of) renewables can be less reliable than fossil fuels, but that's going to show up in big trend lines, not in a sudden loss of power and then another one a second and a half later. The sun doesn't just abruptly turn on and off.

[Brett Bellmore]

The theory is that while the major power plants have had all the stability problems worked out, and are generally putting out very consistent amounts of power to begin with, the 'renewable' sources are both putting out highly random amounts of power at a huge number of sites, AND the systems for regulating that power output have not been stress tested in the real world.

So, you get a day when 'renewable' output is high enough to cover all demand, and the very reliable plants get shut down, the system goes unstable, because the regulation at all those distributed sites isn't up to maintaining grid stability at that high a level of penetration.

Now, over time you might improve those regulation systems, but you can't do squat about the fact that neither sunlight nor wind is 'dispatchable', so a 'renewable' based grid is always going to start out with more cause for instability than a conventional grid, and the task of keeping it going will always be harder.

[Michael P]

https://apnews.com/article/spain-power-outage-france-portugal-europe-grid-electricity-f091ffd3e51dfd3612edb2389eac1e11 says:

Around noon, there was a big jump in the magnitude of the fluctuations, with the voltage measured going up and down by about 15 volts every 1.5 seconds, Marshall said.

“The way I would interpret our data,” Marshall said about Monday’s events, “is that the grid is struggling. Something’s wrong. And it’s showing increasing signs of instability.”

That doesn't by itself mean the instability was due to renewables, but traditional power plants usually have much more inertia than would allow large, short-term swings like that.

[Sarcastr0]

Miles better than Kaz. This is a factual statement, properly caveated.

Thanks.

[Martinned2]

Let's start at the beginning: Do you understand how alternating current works?

[Michael P]

I mostly move paper around now (as a system engineer), but my first degree was in electrical engineering. In context, it is obvious that the system mentioned measures RMS (or less likely peak or peak-to-peak) voltage. In Europe, the standard for a single phase of AC is 230 V at 50 Hz, so the instantaneous voltage referenced to ground normally swings by 650 V (230 V*2*sqrt(2)) every 20 milliseconds. But that's not what the system was reporting or the guy was talking about.

[Brett Bellmore]

Amusingly, if you plot the amount of current necessary to cause a heart attack vs frequency, 60 hz is the frequency that most efficiently stops your heart. Learned that back in one of my bio-safety classes, back in the late 70's. Too bad it's a bit late to switch to a safer standard.

[Martinned]

Somehow the system keeps eating my reply to this comment (under either username).

[Martinned]

I wonder what it is about my longer comment that causes that 403 error.

[Martinned]

Am I not allowed to talk about 50 Hz and 49 Hz?

[Martinned]

Weird.

[Brett Bellmore]

Occasionally Reason's comment system does that to me, too.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Somehow the system keeps eating my reply "

The commenting system is just embarrassed for you after Michael's response to you. Be glad.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Do you understand how alternating current works?"

"first degree was in electrical engineering"

Michael from the high rope!

[Dr. Ed 2]

Incandescent lamps would have absorbed a 15 volt swing by using more when voltage increased.

[Michael P]

Most transformers are designed for that kind of variation in supply voltage, too, but the instability was almost certainly induced by supply rather than demand -- for example, a feedback loop where power plants stepped down or switched off their output in response to swings in (something) but did so synchronously enough that they instead contributed to a swing in the opposite direction. Think of soldiers breaking stride when crossing a bridge.

[Frank Drackman]

by "renewable" do you mean Coal, Oil, and Natural Gas?
Because unless you're one of those barefoot "Creationists" who believe Jay-Hay created them all during the first week, they're still being "renewed".

[Brett Bellmore]

Nuclear certainly ought to be considered "renewable", because the supply of fuel is likely to run out only after plate tectonics shuts down on Earth; As long as the crust is moving about, and mountains are being eroded into the sea, the sea will have more than enough fissile material in it to power everything we need on Earth.

Extraction of fission fuel from the sea has already been proven at a commercially viable efficiency, you should not expect any increase in surface mining of Uranium at this point, even if we go sane and do a major build-out of nuclear power.

Oh, and since plate tectonics isn't expected to shut down until after the Sun moves off the main sequence, and consumes the Earth, photovoltaics won't be very useful at that point, either.

[hobie]

I toured southwest Spain (Gibraltar area) and it was, in my opinion, the armpit of Europe - completely trashy compared to the rest of Spain (but that topic is for another day). Anyway, down there they have plenty of sustained wind and there are a sea of wind turbines as far as the eye can see, all chugging away. Quite impressive

[Frank Drackman]

Is there any place you don't criticize? My experience in Spain was limited to Rota, but the beautiful women were worth the stench of the Spanish Men (that came out wrong, I mean they had BO) Walked around with a constant boner. (Stealing from Rodney Dangerfield) You'd see this great ass walking down the street, follow it, and find it it's a 75 yr old Granny! (In Rodney's version it's a guy)
and besides, Daniel says it's the best place he's ever seen, and I'll take (Sir) Elton's word over yours any day.
Oh, that "Armpit" smell? the Rat smells his own cheese first

[David Nieporent]

So there's an article that says the cause is "still unclear," and Dr. Ed assumes that means his expertise on Maine history gives him insight into the cause?

[Malika the Maiz]

At least it wasn’t from Ed’s documentary on Maine Justice:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p-qPkzXvpS8

[SRG2]

What Dr Ed is really saying: "those foreigners screwed up, that proves that we're #1! Go team!"

What an insecure little fuckwit he is.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I'm relieved I voted third party this time around rather than for Trump, who I feared would sell out the unborn and ignore the national debt.

Now he's up to other bad stuff which is not only wrong in itself, but might prompt swing voters, in frustration, to hand the country back to the Democrats, thus punishing the United States for Trump's actions.

If there were a way to arrange a peaceful retirement for Trump (I hear Saint Helena is nice at this time of year), then tribunes like J. D. Vance could step up to defend Trump's *legitimate* issues while avoiding his caudillo-like behavior.

Or everyone could just vote Democrat and then find out why they opposed progressive rule in the first place.

Or in other words, I'm not putting my trust in princes.

[Martinned2]

That's one of the many flaws of the US system. In parliamentary systems a leader who is simply unsuited for the job (Liz Truss) or who has lived past their best by date (Trudeau) can be removed at any time. In the US you're stuck with them for years more.

[Speaking for normal people]

Trudeau was around for many years when US would have canned his ass Do you really defend 10 years of the guy in this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaCY4K9P8ZY

AN UTTER FOOL...10 years !!!

[Frank Drackman]

Sleepy Joe could have been "removed" at any time, it just took a Debate to do it

[Brett Bellmore]

"If there were a way to arrange a peaceful retirement for Trump"

If Democrats had cut out the lawfare against him, he might very well have retired. Instead they made it clear the only way he wasn't going to end impoverished and in prison was if he was reelected President.

[Martinned2]

Yes, isn't it terrible that the (criminal) justice system so inconvenienced Trump that he had no choice but to run for President and make himself immune? Of course, in any proper democracy being elected wouldn't have insulated him from the legal consequences of his actions, but I guess that ship has sailed in the US some time ago.

[Frank Drackman]

July 13, 2024 must have been a horrible day for you, but not for the reason it was a horrible day for most people. When did you realize Kums-a-lot wasn't going to be "47"??

[Kazinski]

The US and India have finalized the framework for a trade deal on April 21. A key component is allowing India access to US natural gas:

"Posing a strategic vulnerability is India’s reliance on imported energy, which includes over 85% of its crude oil and roughly 50% of its natural gas. The government looks to more than double natural gas’s share of the energy mix to 15% by 2030. U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) suppliers have surpassed the United Arab Emirates to become India’s second-largest LNG supplier, trailing only Qatar.

A key player in this unfolding saga is GAIL, Limited, India’s state-owned natural gas company. On April 11, GAIL issued a tender to procure 1 million metric tons per annum of LNG from an existing or new U.S. LNG liquefaction project, with operations commencing by 2030. The agreement, potentially extendable by 5 to 10 years, signals India’s commitment to U.S. supplies.

GAIL had to stall a similar process in 2023 to buy a stake in a U.S. LNG plant after then-President Joe Biden banned export permits for LNG projects. It took the Trump administration’s return to the White House in 2024 to lift the ban."

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/04/29/india-us-deal-signals-energy-sovereignty-and-climate-cults-demise/

[Martinned2]

Is the framework for a trade deal the same thing as a trade deal? If not, when might we expect the actual trade deal? And when will anything actually come into effect? And will this be a US Senate-approved treaty?

[Martinned2]

Meanwhile, the US business community learned yesterday that ultimately it doesn't matter how much money you pay Trump, he will still not accept anything other than 100% subservience.

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/29/business/white-house-calls-report-that-amazon-is-adding-a-tariff-charge-a-hostile-action/index.html

[Kazinski]

I heard it was one sub-site on Amazon that had broached the idea, but no firm plans.

Of course Amazon as a whole would never breakout tariffs as a separate component of the price, it would make no sense whatsoever.

It would tell customers and competitors both of Amazon and its sub sellers and vendors, exactly what the wholesale cost of items are, and their gross margins.

Nobody does that, so it was a bullshit claim anyway.

[Martinned2]

It would tell customers and competitors both of Amazon and its sub sellers and vendors, exactly what the wholesale cost of items are, and their gross margins.

Could you walk me through how it would do that? How is this idea different from US shops that show prices without the sales tax already added?

[Kazinski]

That's easy. Tariffs are based on the cost the importer pays for the item, and of course the tariff schedules are published.

So if I'm buying a Black and Decker blender for 60$ on Amazon, and the cost attributed to the tariff is $12.50, then I know that Black and Decker paid 10$ for the blender, because the tariff is 125% of the price the importer paid. The rest is taxes, distribution, sales and marketing overhead and net profit.

Gross profit is defined as the sales price - cost of goods sold.

[Martinned2]

That assumes that Amazon is the relevant importer, which makes sense when Amazon acts as the seller, but less so when you're buying your blender on Amazon Marketplace. In a lot of situations you, the consumer, might be the importer, and the tariff gets calculated based on the non-tariff price you agreed to pay.

[Brett Bellmore]

My understanding is that they were doing this only for a side thing Amazon runs where you can direct order from another country without Amazon handling the transaction.

So they HAD TO inform the customer of the tariff, because the customer, not Amazon, would be paying it, separately, to the government.

[Martinned2]

So they HAD TO inform the customer of the tariff, because the customer, not Amazon, would be paying it, separately, to the government.

That can't be right. The whole point is that foreigners pay Trump tariffs, not Americans!

[Brett Bellmore]

Look, I'm discussing actual economics here, not political slogans.

[Martinned2]

Are you suggesting that the US government makes economic policy based on "slogans" rather than "actual economics"?

[Brett Bellmore]

Often, yeah.

[TaioF920]

Tariffs are a tax on gross margins, not the consumer.

[Martinned]

They are definitely not a tax on margins. (Although I guess Trump could theoretically calculate them any way he likes.)

[David Nieporent]

Tariffs are sales taxes, which consumers pay.

[ThePublius]

There's no reason to rename them. Tariffs are tariffs, just that. And sales taxes are sales taxes, and just that. They are not the same, or there wouldn't be two names for them.

No, consumers don't pay tariffs, importers do. Consumers pay sales taxes. If the price of a good goes up because of a tariff, a consumer can choose to not purchase the good.

Why are you conflating them?

[David Nieporent]

There's no reason to rename them.

That's great, then, because I didn't rename them. I merely classified them.

Why are you conflating them?

Because you're wrong; consumers pay sales taxes in exactly the same way they pay tariffs. The fact that the sales tax is itemized on your invoice and the tariff generally isn't does not change the economic realities of the transaction.

[Ska]

Eh, I had a big picture accounting explanation, but it's not helpful.

Sales taxes are a liability to a business and an expense to the consumer. Tariffs are an expense to the business. They are different, and they are accounted for differently.

[Life of Brian]

Tariffs are sales taxes

We've been through this ad nauseam. Under your theory, ANY distribution related expense for any particular good is a "sales tax." You're free to have whatever weird mental model you like, but you could at least stop pretending it's commonly understood or even sensical.

[Krayt]

Remember many VAT style places are opposed to revealing this info lest the people react.. poorly...to their betters' self-funding mechanisms.

The US tries to hide CC charges from The People.

Margaret Thatcher tried her poll tax, to force The People to realize just how damned much they were actually paying, and it backfired as they didn't wanna know.

Amazon should call out these additional costs. Set it against a prospective income tax cancellation.

[Frank Drackman]

there were Tariffs during Sleepy Joe's term (even if Sleepy Joe didn't know there were Tariffs, or that he had a term)
Why didn't Amazon note the Tariffs in their prices then?
Hmmmmmm??????????
It would actually be a good thing, make it much easier to "Buy Amurican"

[Martinned2]

I dug it up for another reason, but here is Douglas Adams's lizards planet. It's one of the bits of the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy that I think about the most, because it identifies a very real problem about (our) democracy.

“It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..."
"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"
"No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did," said Ford. "It is."
"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."
"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"
"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."
"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?"
"What?"
"I said," said Ford, with an increasing air of urgency creeping into his voice, "have you got any gin?"
"I'll look. Tell me about the lizards."
Ford shrugged again.
"Some people say that the lizards are the best thing that ever happenned to them," he said. "They're completely wrong of course, completely and utterly wrong, but someone's got to say it."
"But that's terrible," said Arthur.
"Listen, bud," said Ford, "if I had one Altairian dollar for every time I heard one bit of the Universe look at another bit of the Universe and say 'That's terrible' I wouldn't be sitting here like a lemon looking for a gin.”

[SRG2]

Two of the truest political writers in the English language were Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett.

[Martinned]

I'm now reading the Discworld books. I'd started reading the whole series about 10 years ago, but stopped about 16 novels in for some reason. Time to pick it up again.

[Brett Bellmore]

I don't think I ever got that far in, but it was a good series.

[Zarniwoop]

The Sam Vimes Boots Theory of Economics is always a fave:

The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

[Brett Bellmore]

And that illustrates one of the things that bothered me about Diskworld.

It's a pseudo medieval society, and they have cardboard?

Sure, cardboard, in the sense of especially thick paper, was invented in 15th century China, so maybe they could have it, but cardboard, in the sense of a cheap material that poor people might use in place of leather, is a very modern development dependent on industrial machinery. And the Diskworld, or anyway the part An-Morpork exists in, (Unlike the counter-weight continent, which is apparently at about 1900's level of technology.) is NOT an industrial society!

[A Japanese Student]

There is one interesting case before the Supreme Court: Nicholson v. W.L. York, Inc., docketed 23-7490. This pro se & IFP petition was relisted this week, and it doesn't come from a prison. This case involves when a statute of limitations begins to run in a §1981 case. (Although the petition was filed pro se, and November 23, 2024 letter by the Respondent suggests she was still pro se at that time, a reply brief was filed by an attorney.)

On one hand, the precedent (Nat'l Railroad Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 536 U.S. 101 (2002)) seems to foreclose the argument. It specifically ruled that hostile work-environment claim is the exception, and in this particular suit, the plaintiff did not bring that. On the other hand, when the Court later decided that a new paycheck does not restart statute of limitations under Title VII, Congress rejected that interpretation. Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 550 U.S. 618 (2007), superseded by Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 (PL111-2).

There is another question: even if the statute of limitations for alleged discriminatory acts in 2014 and 2016 were barred, was the court right in granting summary judgment as to 2017 and 2021 acts, for which the four-year clock hasn't expired (on the theory that the claim accrued upon initial discriminatory act)? Congressional repudiation of Ledbetter suggests that the answer is no.

[Drewski]

Well, the thing about 1981 accrual is this:
[Throws smoke bomb]

[Martinned2]

Because of yesterday's ECJ judgment about Malta's investor citizenship, I took a moment to dig out the judgment of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council where the Law Lords talk about how (and whether) judges should make law. It's a weird and obscure case about insolvency law in the British Virgin Islands, but some big hitters get mentioned, particularly in this section:

Judicial law-making

The liquidators are plainly right to say that the common law develops, sometimes radically, to meet changing circumstances. It hardly requires citation of authority to make that point. No-one now doubts that judges make law, although English and Scottish judges were slow to acknowledge it until the seminal writings by Lords Reid, Denning and Devlin, citation of which is unnecessary. But there are limits to their power to make law. In Kleinwort Benson Ltd v Lincoln City Council [1999] 2 AC 349 Lord Goff of Chieveley said (at p 378):

"When a judge decides a case which comes before him, he does so on the basis of what he understands the law to be. This he discovers from the applicable statutes, if any, and from precedents drawn from reports of previous judicial decisions. Nowadays, he derives much assistance from academic writings in interpreting statutes and, more especially, the effect of reported cases; and he has regard, where appropriate, to decisions of judges in other jurisdictions. In the course of deciding the case before him he may, on occasion, develop the common law in the perceived interests of justice, though as a general rule he does this 'only interstitially,' to use the expression of O. W. Holmes J. in Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen (1917) 244 U.S. 205, 221. This means not only that he must act within the confines of the doctrine of precedent, but that the change so made must be seen as a development, usually a very modest development, of existing principle and so can take its place as a congruent part of the common law as a whole. In this process, what Maitland has called the 'seamless web,' and I myself (The Search for Principle, Proc. Brit. Acad. vol. LXIX (1983) 170, 186) have called the 'mosaic,' of the common law, is kept in a constant state of adaptation and repair …."
What Justice Holmes said in the passage to which Lord Goff referred was: "I recognise without hesitation that judges do and must legislate, but they can do so only interstitially." The point was developed by Justice Cardozo in The Nature of the Legal Process (1921), at pp 103, 113:

"We must keep within those interstitial limits which precedent and custom and the long and silent and almost indefinable practice of other judges throughout the centuries of the common law have set to judge-made innovations … We do not pick our rules of law full-blossomed from the trees… "[The judge] legislates only between gaps. He fills the open spaces in the law ..."

More recently similar points have been made by eminent judges of our time. Judge Richard Posner said in How Judges Think (2008), at p 86:

"The amount of legislating that a judge does depends on the breadth of his 'zone of reasonableness' – the area within which he has discretion to decide a case either way without disgracing himself."

And Lord Bingham said, in The Business of Judging (2000), p 32:

"On the whole, the law advances in small steps, not by giant bounds."

https://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKPC/2014/36.html

(And yes, what is happening here is that British judges quoted American judges while sitting as a court of appeal in a case about Bermuda law.)

[Commenter_XY]

Today is day 572 of captivity for Edan Alexander, an American citizen held hostage by Judeocidal terrorists.

POTUS Trump: Bring him home.

[Martinned2]

Trump can't do that, because this person isn't in the US. So obviously the US administration is powerless to act here.

[Frank Drackman]

Is there a second in the day your sphincter isn't aching over "47" ass rape of the Kums-a-lot/Sergeant Pepper-Waltz ticket?

[Malika the Maiz]

Zing!

[Michael P]

Martinned now thinks that a district court judge can order the US president to start wars. Figures.

[Martinned2]

Wait, who do you think has the power in the US to start a war?

[Malika the Maiz]

I think we actually have video of Mike answering that question.

https://media1.tenor.com/m/cct6YHveYikAAAAd/leader-cult.gif

[Commenter_XY]

Next up: trial, and jail time. The charges will NOT be dropped quietly.

https://www.breitbart.com/news/wisconsin-high-court-suspends-milwaukee-judge-accused-of-helping-man-evade-immigration-authorities/

One reservation: If Paul Clements is really her lawyer, as reported, then I want to hear more. He is a brilliant lawyer.

[jb]

I think this was posted here the other day, but if you want to read the steelman version of the argument in her favor it's here:

https://statuskuo.substack.com/p/coming-for-the-judges

I think the fact she took the guy out through the jury room is a bad look, but seems to early to draw firm conclusions, especially without hearing more than the government's version.

Mostly unrelated: does it really take multiple DEA and FBI agents to try and arrest one guy in a courthouse?

[BBSquatter]

What's on your mind?

The collapse of our nation is on many peoples minds, which is why they rejected vapid, neurocognitively impaired puppets Biden/Harris, and voted for a moral cripple, entertainer /TV producer, real estate mogul like Donald Trump, a continuation of narcissistic politicians in the mold of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, beta males like George W. Bush and his father George HW Bush, and Hollywood B rated actors like Ronald Reagan.

Earl Warren's SCOTUS started us on this trajectory, and the Left Wing lurch since then, influenced by Marxist thought supplanting Judeo-Christian philosophy in Western civilization, have brought us to where we are

A Milwaukee Judge, a product of the aforementioned Left Wing Marxist lurch, forgot her role, and chose to be driven by the Left's religious dogmas of "social justice principles", a religion Dugan cultivated as an attorney working for non-profit legal agencies like Catholic Charities,

HANNAH DUGAN: TRANSFORMATIONAL LAW
Hannah Dugan: The agency faced challenging times. I helped stabilize finances and operations, and legal restructuring the agency by evaluating its programs for efficiency, mission-focus, and efficacy. I felt rewarded to redirect its path towards successes based not only on evidence-based decision making but also on measuring decisions against social justice principles.
https://www.milwaukeeindependent.com/profiles/hannah-dugan-transformational-law/

She has now made her narcissistic blunder into a look alike OJ Simpson circus:

Judge Hannah Dugan has all-star legal team, including ‘LeBron James of lawyers’
https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/local/2025/04/29/see-the-legal-players-in-the-case-against-milwaukee-judge-hannah-dugan/83327855007/

the WI Supreme Court wisely concluded the circus came to town and stopped the theater, for now:

The Wisconsin Supreme Court has tonight suspended Dugan from “exercising the powers of a circuit court judge in the State of Wisconsin, effective the date of this order,” during the pendency of this matter.
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25922648-in-re-dugan-supreme-court-adminstrative-order-04-29-25/

Meanwhile we see (not read) headlines to articles authored by Ilya Somin, Sasha Volokh, David Post, et al that are as predictable as CNN DNC talking points, all reinforcing the intellectual decline within the academy

We no longer have a consensus in this nation, one that existed prior to Earl Warren's SCOTUS as articulated by John Courtney Murray SJ in 1960 with his classic book:

We Hold These Truths: Catholic Reflections on the American Proposition
JOHN COURTNEY MURRAY, S.J.
SHEED AND WARD
https://library.georgetown.edu/woodstock/Murray/whtt_index

The fact that we as a nation can no longer have intellectual discussions on grave matters, and now apparently resort to full throttled amygdala based "gotchas" is extremely worrisome. No wonder Americans have taken up the Second Amendment as their last stand and purchased weapons and ammo in massive numbers to defend their families from the increasing rage rhetoric from the Left, and incitement to violence by Democrats. None of this will end well. Survival of the fittest is here. This is not progression but regression, all predictable and preventable.

[Speaking for normal people]

Okay, but 'survival of the fittest' is a tautology. You can't predict but whatever survives you will call the fittest. YAAAAWN

[Brett Bellmore]

Since it's fitness to survive, that does kind of make sense.

[Speaking for normal people]

I left this page and my eye caught this utterly strange statement of yours

We no longer have a consensus in this nation, one that existed prior to Earl Warren's SCOTUS as articulated by John Courtney Murray SJ in 1960 with his classic book:

We Hold These Truths: Catholic Reflections on the American Proposition

YIKES...so much insanity in that
The consensus was what Lincoln called civil religion, basically the natural theology of the Bible , open to reason, and condensed in the Declaratin of Independence's 3 'we hold these truths"
NO to John Courtney Murray SJ

This is --- and you are not aware of it --- just the Hanby, Deneen line of argument about the posioned Founding. THE FOUNDING IS OUR SHARED CULTURE.

REad THomas G West, Robert Reilly, Harry Jaffa, Justin Buckley Dyer, etc And esp the late Donald Lutz: Our rights orgininated in the BIble, in Natural Law , and in the 20 Stare Constitutions that were in existence BEFORE the national constitution

It goes off drastically under FDR , Woodrow Wilson ( see Ronald J Pestritto)

[Malika the Maiz]

Yeah, Earl Warren, the former prosecutor and Republican AG and governor of California, big time Marxist! Lol

[Moderation4ever]

Remember he let black kids in the nice white schools.

[Frank Drackman]

Well he did lock up a bunch of Asian peoples in concentration camps

[Life of Brian]

Judge Hannah Dugan has all-star legal team, including ‘LeBron James of lawyers’

Most interestingly in that list, I would be fascinated to know who's footing the bill for Paul Frickin Clement to grace this rando state judge with his ~$2500/hr services.

Looping back to our discussion on this a couple of days ago, this sort of major-league pile on seems to signal just the slightest bit of concern on the defense side that this might actually go somewhere.

[Jerry B.]

"I would be fascinated to know who's footing the bill for Paul Frickin Clement to grace this rando state judge with his ~$2500/hr services."

Act Blue (George Soros)?

[Malika the Maiz]

The Jews, amirite Jerry?

[apedad]

Summary of Fiscal Year 2024 Annual FOIA Reports Published

The Office of Information Policy (OIP) has released its Summary of Annual FOIA Reports for Fiscal Year (FY) 2024. This summary provides an overview of FOIA activities across the government during the previous fiscal year, looks at key statistics in FOIA administration, and identifies trends in FOIA processing.

As highlighted in this year's summary, the (Biden) government received yet another record-setting 1,501,432 requests during FY 2024 – a 25.15% increase in requests received over last fiscal year. Agencies largely kept pace with this demand by processing 1,499,265 requests. Agencies received 20,115 administrative appeals and processed 18,575 appeals, with more than two-thirds of federal agencies ending FY 2024 with no pending appeals. In addition to responding to requests and administrative appeals, agencies continued to make vast amounts of information available proactively. Agencies’ FOIA offices and program offices continued to proactively disclose millions of records, with FOIA Offices in particular posting significantly more records in FY 2024 as compared to FY 2023.

https://www.justice.gov/oip/blog/summary-fiscal-year-2024-annual-foia-reports-published

While trust and confidence in our govt is reaching all time lows (including during the Biden Adminstration), at least millions of Americans are asking for - and receiving - govt data to keep oversight.

It'll be interesting to see what this report likes next year.

Note: The Trump Administration has been making some positive statements and decisions on FOIA so we'll see next year if they're in earnest.

[Glaucomatose]

“After promising transparency, RFK guts public records teams at HHS
APRIL 3, 20255:02 AM ET”

Seems like it’s off to a good start

[Malika the Maiz]

Trump Becomes The First American President To Lose A Canadian Election

https://bsky.app/profile/thorbenson.bsky.social/post/3lnwa7nkub22o

[Frank Drackman]

Done tole you, ain't got no job, how I sposed to get money to pay dis rent?
Ha! beat you to your obsession with me
Who lost the US erection??? that's all that matters to me,
Seriously, Canada's GDP is about the same as New York State's not insignificant, but not especially noteworthy either.

[Malika the Maiz]

Sad, pathetic person creates fake persona to perform on legal blog comment website. We’re talking Patton Oswald Big Fan levels of desperation and derangement.

If weirdo losers like this are what MAGA attracts no wonder the Canadians wanted none of that!

[Frank Drackman]

It was Lee Harvey Oswald, idiot

[Frank Drackman]

Oh, and it's Patton "Oswalt" not "Oswald", and you have the Balls (literally) to bust mine for my spelling

[Malika the Maiz]

lol, says pathetic person whose performed persona thought JFK’s killer was the the star of Big Fan!

I know you play the Drackman character as a dolt but you might consider some rewrites!

[Malika the Maiz]

Checking in on our anti-elites:

“Later Usha enjoyed an evening visit to the Colosseum — which her husband had also been scheduled to attend before a last-minute change of plan — where she was given a personal tour of the arena, famous for its gladiatorial combats and naval battles, by Alfonsina Russo, the director.

Lesser mortals unlucky enough to have booked their own visit had to make do with a refund — but not all of them had got the message. There were chaotic scenes as some would-be visitors tried to open the gates surrounding the building, while others climbed over the fences, ticket in hand, trying to force their way in. Some chanted “shame” or anti-American slogans when they learnt the reason for the closure, Italian media reported.

Among the disappointed was Stephen Fishler, 58, a businessman from New York who arrived with his family in good time for his 6pm slot, but was turned away without explanation. “What does he think he is, special?” complained Fishler, himself a Trump voter. “JD should have waited until the Americans who had tickets had their visit and then gone in.” His wife, Anila, tried to calm him down and blamed the Italians.”

https://www.thetimes.com/world/europe/article/jd-vance-visit-vatican-rome-t2hrm5cc6?region=global

[Armchair]

And in other news...

Chinese national who illegally voted in Michigan...Skips trial

https://www.theblaze.com/news/chinese-national-accused-of-voting-in-us-election-skips-hearing-prompting-bench-warrant

I'm kinda tired of this nonsense.

[Michael P]

As they say:

That didn't happen.
And if it did, it wasn't that bad.
And if it was, that's not a big deal.
And if it is, that's not my fault.
And if it was, I didn't mean it.
And if I did, you deserved it.

[Malika the Maiz]

Well, of course you’d like to forestall what would be obvious replies to the article. Taking the Blaze’s reporting as true, the guy seemed confused about whether his status allowed him to vote and turned himself in and for doing so he was facing a stiff penalty. The system seemed to have worked pretty good.

[Moderation4ever]

This seems to be a common occurrence with the voting violations. Many of the voters were confused about some aspect of voting regulations. Now the number is small and when you consider the votes cast it is not surprising that this sometimes happen. But does provide the opportunity to some to blow it out of proportion.

[SRG2]

As I have noted, it is a common cognitive deficiency of conservatives - indeed it might be almost universal - that they are influenced by specific cases regardless of how rare far more than the general situation as supported by statistics and facts. It's a kind of complement to the availability heuristic.

[Brett Bellmore]

Or to put it a different way, a common cognitive deficiency of liberals is that they don't understand the concept of "existence proofs", that if they're denying that something happens, you only have to demonstrate one instance of it to prove they're wrong.

At that point it becomes an argument over whether it happens often enough to care about, and things get complicated and somewhat subjective.

[Moderation4ever]

Nobody is denying that people vote illegally. The fact is that the number of illegal votes is insignificant and not outside what one would expect in the voting system.

[Brett Bellmore]

I have seen people in this very site deny that people vote illegally.

[Jerry B.]

"...they are influenced by specific cases regardless of how rare..."

Like "Cancer Boy", or "Deported Daughter", Or "Daddy's gone to El Salvador", etc.?

[Armchair]

"The system seemed to have worked pretty good."

Except for the whole "skipping out on the trial" part.

[Malika the Maiz]

That happens for all kinds of offenses.

[Armchair]

That does not mean the system is working good, just because other people break the system.

[jb]

Unless you think that everyone charged with any crime should be held in jail until trial no matter what this is going to happen sometimes.

An interesting question might be do foreign nationals skip trial more than citizens? That might be interesting information to inform bail decisions.

[Malika the Maiz]

It means the system that might be broken isn’t voting, but something like pre-trial detention.

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

Damn dude, that's exactly the stages the Democrats go through on here.

That's like Sacastr0's script.

[Malika the Maiz]

After Helene, N.C. bill could make it easier to declare missing loved ones dead

“North Carolina law states that even if a person has been missing for a long time — “unheard of for seven years, or for any other period” — he or she is not automatically presumed dead. In deciding to make that legal declaration, a judge can take into account whether the person was “exposed to a specific peril of death.” But the law says nothing about the circumstances of a natural disaster.

White wanted to change that — both for Ayers’s family, and for the families of the handful of other victims still missing after Helene. In late January, she created a change.org petition, imploring state lawmakers to amend the statute and shorten the waiting period.

Changing the law, she added, was not about circumventing due process. “It’s about recognizing the unique circumstances surrounding these tragedies and offering a path forward for grieving families,” wrote White, 31. “It’s about acknowledging that waiting 7 years for legal closure after a catastrophic event is unnecessarily cruel and serves no just purpose.

Her plea soon reached state Rep. Dudley Greene (R), whose district includes parts of several counties battered by Helene, including the small community of Relief, where Stephen and Alena Ayers lived… In March, along with another House colleague, he introduced H.B. 537, dubbed “Alena’s Law,” which would amend current law to allow families of missing people to pursue a declaration of death after 90 days if a disappearance coincided with a disaster.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2025/04/30/north-carolina-hurricane-helene-missing-persons-law/

[Moderation4ever]

Tomorrow is May 1 and traditionally on May Day The Volokh Conspiracy runs a column in Remembrance of the Victims of Communism. I thought we could celebrate the eve of this day as Remembrance of the Victims of Capitalism. I invite commentors to list people who were victims when the pursuit of profit was put ahead of people and decency.

My own contribution this year will be to the Scottish Highlanders removed during the Highland Clearances which occurred from about 1750 to 1860. People were moved from land that had been inhabited by generations of their ancestors before them, often the evictions were carried out with brute force, resulting in changing the way of life and landscape of the highlands. All done to increase profits for the lairds.

[Martinned2]

The Highlanders fought against the English, lost, and got their asses kicked as a result. How is that different from pretty much the entire rest of human history before the 20th century?

[Moderation4ever]

It is common in history that subjugated people are moved move out to make way for bigger profits. I did not say it was unique, I said it was an example of victims of capitalism.

[Martinned2]

What you're describing would make just about all victims of pre-20th century warfare victims of capitalism. And that seems generous.

[Brett Bellmore]

Even the victims of communism are victims of capitalism in that sense, in as much as communism is state capitalism.

Actual capitalism, (Defined as deferring consumption in order to invest instead in increased productive capacity, aka "capital".) is one of those irreversible developments in human history, like the invention of agriculture, which ends up universally adopted. Even the people who purport to be attacking it practice it.

[SRG2]

communism is state capitalism.

It isn't.

[Michael P]

That was Brett's entire point.

[SRG2]

Clearly not. Nor is his definition of capitalism accurate.

[Brett Bellmore]

To the extent communism actually exists in the world, it is state capitalism. The theoretical sort that supposedly wouldn't be state capitalism never ever happens.

[Stephen Lathrop]

How is that different from pretty much the entire rest of human history before the 20th century?

Martinned2 — Strikingly different than the history of the lowland Scots in the borderlands. Those emigrated in large numbers to the U.S.

Here, they settled Appalachia, and lived out their long-accustomed feckless standards of personal liberty, outlandish emphasis on personal honor, plus hostility to everyone else. They managed to spread that ethos westward through the deep South during the antebellum era. Today, they comprise MAGA's backbone.

On the whole, it has been a giant success story. Never before in history has that ethnic tradition been so well positioned to inflict so much damage on everyone else in the world. They take pride in that.

[Krayt]

These are victims of governmental thug abuses. It isn't capitalism, which derives from freedom from manipulative thugs.

[Martinned2]

Let's see if the Administration will obey this one: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.447078/gov.uscourts.cand.447078.87.0.pdf

The Court ORDERS as follows:

Defendants are ENJOINED from withdrawing the services or funds provided by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (“ORR”) as of March 20, 2025, under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 (“TVPRA”), 8 U.S.C. § 1232(c)(5), and ORR’s Foundational Rule, 45 C.F.R. § 410.1309(a)(4), particularly ORR’s provision of funds for direct legal representation services to unaccompanied children. This injunction precludes cutting off access to congressionally appropriated funding for its duration.

[Moderation4ever]

It has been 46 days since the Trump Administration mistakenly sent
Kilmar Abrego Garcia to an El Salvator prison. And also, almost a month since they admitted the error. Yet the administration has done nothing to correct the error.

[Armchair]

You would have them invade a sovereign country to steal one of that country's own citizens and forcibly move him back to the US?

[Malika the Maiz]

Have they even asked for him? I know after the order the White House posted online a couple times “he’s not coming back!” Bad faith.

[David Nieporent]

Look, Armchair is making a bad faith argument! Must be a day ending in 'y.'

[Michael P]

Both him and the Dutch guy up-thread who seems confused about the difference between starting and declaring a war.

[SRG2]

The two are different but neither are applicable.

[ducksalad]

Tuesday, 4/29/25: "President Donald Trump acknowledged Tuesday that he has the power to return wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States, but has no plans to do so."

https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/30/us/trump-could-bring-abrego-garcia-back-us-hnk/index.html

In his increasing dementia, Trump doesn't realize that his own statements undermine the arguments his attorneys made in court, as well as the bad faith arguments made by his online supporters.

[Krayt]

This, order invasion, is a fraudulent talking point.

What could, and should, happen. President-to-president, "We sent you this guy by mistake. In the interests of international comity, and because being friends with the US is always helpful for your trade, would you sent him back?" "Sure."

What actually happened, "Pssst, Ok, you keep him and lie you're not gonna send him back, then we will immediately sigh, throw up our hands in resignation, and go 'Oh, well. I guess that's that.' "

[David Nieporent]

Not only did Trump confirm the 'nothing he can do; what do you want him to do, invade El Salvador?' is a lie, but he also all-but-confirmed that 'Trump asked and Bukele said no' is a lie. Trump never asked.

[apedad]

In an Oval Office interview with ABC News’s Terry Moran, Trump was asked about Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran native who had been living in Maryland under a protective order before being sent to the Central American country’s most notorious prison.

“You could get him back,” Moran said to the president. “There’s a phone on this desk.”

“I could,” Trump replied.

Moran continued: “You could pick it up, and with all the power of the presidency, you could call up the president of El Salvador and say, ‘Send him back,’ right now.”

“And if he were the gentleman that you say he is, I would do that,” Trump told the senior correspondent. “But he’s not.”

[Frank Drackman]

Maybe if Abrego didn't have "Kill-more" in his name people wouldn't think he was so dangerous.

[David Nieporent]

Since 2015, we've seen this dynamic play out hundreds of times, if not more:

1. Trump says/does something stupid/awful.
2. Decent people criticize him.
3. Trump apologists explain why he didn't really mean that, but instead meant something far more benign and dummy woke leftist libtards are unfairly misinterpreting him.
4. Trump saws the limb off from under his own supporters by saying, "No, I really meant the stupid/awful thing."

And we see it here again:
Trump deports someone unlawfully, gets called on it, and defies a court order. People blast him for refusing to fix his error. His supporters rush to say that he's not refusing, that the judge is crazy to issue that order, that Trump is powerless and that liberals want Trump to start a war. And then Trump admits what every single person with access to the Internet already knew to be true: Trump could easily get him back, and is just refusing to.

[grb]

David Nieporent : "Since 2015, we've seen this dynamic play out hundreds of times, if not more"

Two Points :

1. Yep. I lost count how many times someone like Kazinski or Brett had their legs cut out from under them because Trump decided to brag about some misdeed they were insisting (insisting!) he didn't do. You might as well go back to when Trump decided to boast about firing Comey to the Russian Ambassador & Foreign Minister ("I faced great pressure because of Russia. That's taken off."). That got him Mueller's investigation. Trump is such a brainless idiot he never knows when to stop bragging.

2. In another exchange in the ABC interview, Trump was asked about the doctored Garcia photo :

Trump : “It says ‘MS-13”

Morgan : “That was Photoshop, so let me just ....”

Trump : “That was Photoshop? Terry, you can’t do that ...”

He went on to argue that MS-13 is as “clear as you can be” on Abrego Garcia's hand. Some people believe Trump doesn't know himself, which is plausible given his diminished mental state. But it's far more likely he was sticking with the original con. Which means, yes, he cut the legs out from under Brett and Kazinski, who denied that with cult earnestness just two days ago.

[Malika the Maiz]

Just recently Mike P, having not seen the news about ICE loading up the bus and heading to the airport or the government’s lawyer’s comment that they reserved the right to deport the next day was thumping his chest as a good lil’ toady of the Mad King yelling “well, there was no reason to think the government planned to deport these people soon so SCOTUS jumped the gun!”

Those reports were produced and, cut off at the knees once again by his Mad King, he slithered off.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Trump could easily get him back, and is just refusing to."

And yet, nothing will change. You will fume, pundits will pundit, courts will issue orders. And Garcia will stay in El Salvador.

Frustrating, isn't it?

[Martinned]

Well yes, I can see why Americans might be frustrated to see the rule of law crumbling around them. The more important question is why aren't you?

[grb]

Bob from Ohio : "And yet, nothing will change."

Thus the perspective from inside the Cult bubble (fresh Kool-Aid served every day!). But outside that sealed enclosure, normal people see something different:

1. Repeatedl, courts all the way up to SCOUS have ruled Trump must stop his lawlessness.

2. The latest rounds of polls show Trump underwater on immigration too. Bob notwithstanding, it seems public opinion can change.

[Malika the Maiz]

Wilhot’s law as satisfying.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Trump could easily get him back, and is just refusing to."

Well, yes, obviously. Haven't I said repeatedly that he screwed up, and then dug in his heels?

That's not to say that the judiciary has the authority to force him to do the things necessary to get him back. They don't, those things involve "foreign policy", and he just doesn't have to do their bidding in that area.

But observing that that's the case is not defending his stubborn refusal to do the right thing anyway. Even though he's right: Garcia is not a nice guy, and really should have been deported, and Trump just screwed up the details of how he went about it.

I doubt Garcia's defenders would be very happy, though, if Trump brought him back and then deported him again the right way.

[Sarcastr0]

Trump was asked about the photoshopped MS-13 on dude’s hand.

He did not react well.

[Currentsitguy]

I've seen the unenhanced blow-up. There are definitely 2 rows of something there, the symbols and something else. What that 2nd row is is difficult to tell. It may say MS-13, it may say something else, I haven't had time to play with Photoshop myself to see what I come up with in enhancement. I'll reserve speculation until a better angle comes out.

[Brett Bellmore]

I took the blowup and expanded it large enough to see individual pixels, and there's a mismatch in color around each of the texts below the actual tattoos. They clearly were photoshopped in, though the individual characters above the tattooes were even more blatant.

[grb]

Yeah, Brett, but the photo wasn't blown-up in the original social media post, was it? It was shown at a scale where you easily see the letters and number as more tattoos. And then Trump said this, " ... he’s got MS-13 tattooed onto his knuckles."

Ever ask why? If the picture was meant to sell the made-up lie Garcia's existing tattooed symbols were gang iconography, why wouldn't he print the picture at a size so they could clearly be seen? Answer: Because that wasn't the intention. The point was to con the vast majority of people who weren't going to blow up the image.

[Brett Bellmore]

First, I don't actually know that it's a lie that his tattoos were gang iconography. Maybe they are, maybe he just has execrable taste in body art. Maybe they're former gang iconography, that he had modified after getting out of the gang. I really don't know, and don't much care.

I do know that we have extensive evidence that he's a bad dude regardless, and that he was an illegal alien is scarcely disputed at all, that being sufficient cause all by itself to kick him out of the country.

While I think Trump really bungled the details of his deportation, I am entirely satisfied that he should have been deported. After a hearing to get the hold on his deportation specifically to El Salvador canceled as moot, or to someplace other than El Salvador, but deported.

Second, I had no trouble at all discerning that the letters and numbers above the tattoos were merely captions. That much was blatant. I had to do a little work to confirm that the words below the tattooes were photoshopped in, and I'm not impressed with any media outlet that couldn't pick up on that.

But the presence of captions doesn't change the tattooes, or the fact that he was eminently deportable even without them.

[David Nieporent]

I do know that we have extensive evidence that he's a bad dude regardless,

We do not. Let's steelman this, but focus only on facts, not suspicions:

1) His wife accused him of domestic violence a few years ago. (But she didn't follow through on it so he was never charged with, let alone convicted of, anything.)
2) He was driving a car with a bunch of other Hispanic people inside. (Who are totally unidentified; we have no idea about their status. The cops didn't even bother to give him a ticket, let alone arrest him for, this.)
3) He was standing in a Home Depot parking lot in broad daylight near 3 other people, two of whom were believed to be MS-13. Police said he was "loitering." (He was charged with nothing at all.)
4) A dirty cop claimed that an unknown informant claimed that he was MS-13. (Neither the cop nor the informant — if the informant existed — identified any crimes Garcia had ever committed.)

What about that list makes him a known "bad dude"? He has never been convicted of a crime. He has never been charged with a crime. He has never been arrested for a crime. He was never seen in possession of weapons, drugs, or significant amounts of money. He has never been identified as socializing with, communicating with, or doing business with, any gang member, unless you want to count the Home Depot parking lot incident.

and that he was an illegal alien is scarcely disputed at all,

It's not disputed at all; he admits it.

[grb]

Brett Bellmore : "I really don't know, and don't much care"

Of course you don't. And you're purposely missing the point: Showing the letters/numbers MS-13 at a scale where they would be seen as tattoos by casual observers and then TELLING people "he’s got MS-13 tattooed onto his knuckles" was a con to smear Garcia with fake proof. That the lie is easily disproved doesn't prover good intentions.

Trump tells easily disproved lies all the time. He assumes the dupes will mindlessly accept them, the Cultists (take a bow, Brett) will twist themselves into rubbery knots creating spurious excuses, and it will make no difference when the lying is exposed. As I noted before, Trump hasn't come up with a coherent story how the election was "stolen" after years of continual lying. He knows the dupes and Cultists don't care.

[jb]

Imagine being so in love with Trump that you need to somehow rationalize even the dumbest things he says. Here's an image with a pretty clear view of two of the tattoos:

https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/owyXmPvP67Vi.S0doREdNQ--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTEyNDI7aD02OTM-/https://media.zenfs.com/en/aol_ny_post_us_news_articles_123/90eda4dca671bd841003165a0c919f8a

There's obviously no "1" or "3" above the tattoos (nor, for that matter, small "cross" or "skull" written underneath them).

[ThePublius]

What are you talking about? The MS13 was a legend added to decode the symbols. He obviously has tattoos on his fingers, and all signs point to them being identified with MS-13. And, more evidence of his gang membership is emerging.

Why are you, and so many on the left, advocating for this thug?

[David Nieporent]

What are you talking about? The MS13 was a legend added to decode the symbols. He obviously has tattoos on his fingers, and all signs point to them being identified with MS-13.

What are you talking about? Literally no signs point to them being identified with MS-13. There is not a single example anyone has cited of any person anywhere in the world who used those symbols (or even a similar rebus) to signify MS-13 membership.

And, more evidence of his gang membership is emerging.

No evidence of any gang membership, let alone "more," has emerged.

Why are you, and so many on the left, advocating for this thug?

We are advocating for the rule of law, and the decent treatment of people.

[ThePublius]

This "no evidence" claim is a common refrain from the left. There is plenty of evidence, reviewed by multiple judges:

"But the judge who presided over his 2019 case said that based on the confidential information, there was sufficient evidence to support Mr Abrego Garcia's gang membership. That finding was later upheld by another judge.

As a result Mr Abrego Garcia was refused bail and remained in custody. During this time he applied for asylum to prevent his deportation to El Salvador.

In October 2019 he was granted a "withholding of removal" order, court documents show - a status different from asylum, but one which prevented the US government from sending him back to El Salvador because he could face harm.

Mr Abrego Garcia's lawyers say that he was granted the status based on his "well-founded" fear of persecution by Barrio-18, the main rival gang of MS-13."

Rival gang? So, he must be in a gang for their to be a rival gang, no?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1k4072e3nno

"Kilmar Abrego Garcia was accused of being a gang member in 2018 court papers, The Post can reveal — as the fight continues over whether the deported illegal immigrant dad was a part of MS-13.

Abrego Garcia’s wife’s ex made the claim when he filed documents seeking an emergency court hearing on the custody of the couple’s two children.

“She is dating a gang member,” Jennifer Vasquez Sura’s ex, Edwin Trejo Ramos alleged in the petition filed in Prince George’s County Circuit Court in Maryland."

https://nypost.com/2025/04/29/us-news/kilmar-abrego-garcia-accused-of-being-gang-banger-in-2018-court-docs/

[Malika the Maiz]

“Mr Abrego Garcia's lawyers say that he was granted the status based on his "well-founded" fear of persecution by Barrio-18, the main rival gang of MS-13.

He said that prior to him entering the US, his family and their business had been threatened and extorted by Barrio-18.”

This entire passage doesn’t prove much of anything. Since the article has a lot about whether he is or was in MS-13 the reference to the “rival” gang, first mentioned here, by itself most naturally means they were introducing Barrio to the reader.

[Krayt]

"See? He was a member of the gang, as evidenced by being threatened by the other gang, judges found that credible, so we gave him temporary asylum! Proof! Don't believe us, believe the judges!"

"Ok, so why did you sent him back?"

"Uhhhhhhh..."

[Malika the Maiz]

Uh, my point is that saying his family and business were threatened by a gang doesn’t necessarily mean he was in one, the “rival@ language could likely be the author introducing what Barrio is.

[David Nieporent]

You notice the one thing not found in your post? Evidence.

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

From reddit's front page to your keyboard! Amazing...

Hey maybe I'm missing a step.

From some Soro's/Democrat billion-dollar NGO to Sacastr0's keyboard & to reddit's front page...

[David Nieporent]

Trump was asked about the photoshopped MS-13 on dude’s hand.

Most people thought that Trump ordered the photo doctored because he was trying to deceive the public. But in retrospect, it is entirely possible that one of Trump's aides did it to deceive Trump himself. They needed Trump to be fired up and uncooperative, so they figured that they would just 'show' Trump that the guy actually had the characters "MS-13" as a tattoo.

(Possibility #3: they showed Trump the unaltered photo, and he didn't grasp this insane rebus argument, so they captioned it to explain it to him, and he's so dumb that he thought this was real.)

[Estragon]

As I said the other day, the sudden appearance here of experts on the symbology of tattoos on central and South American individuals is stunning. Very reminiscent of the commenters (Armchair was one, but there were others) who suddenly displayed intimate knowledge of traditional and historical Haitian culinary practices trying to justify a similarly ridiculous claim last summer.

One surprise to me at least is that these folks never seem to learn. Publius, Amos, others— The need to reflexively defend Don is so overwhelming that they actually come onto this space— in their own free time— to push this rebus nonsense.

And then in true Trumpian fashion Don pulls the rug out from under all his loyalists in the ABC interview, completely torpedoing the “oh it’s just a caption decoding the rebus” line!

Actually, on the Haitians eating pets thing, JD did the rug pulling when he admitted the claim was an intentional lie (or what some people around here might call “directionally true”). And the cycle repeats.

One of Trump’s more admirable qualities is his ability (wittingly or unwittingly) to humiliate his most sycophantic supporters. And that is once again on display here. Will a lesson be learned? I know how I’d bet.

[Estragon]

Which leads me to the larger point. Why the pseudo intellectual veneer? Why is it so critical to the mental state of some commentators to seize upon these obviously bogus captioned tattoo pictures in order to attempt to rhetorically justify the result they clearly desire and support anyways: unilateral executively-determined removals and internment without hearings?

[Malika the Maiz]

You know the answer. They don’t value the moral worth of any outgroup, in fact they revel in their suffering and they are emboldened to tell people who tell them that’s messed up that it is their critics who are as false and phoney as they are.

[Currentsitguy]

Western PA is an absolute wreck this morning after the severe storms yesterday. Half a million without power, trees down and buildings wrecked everywhere. I'm in a little island of light with everything off around me, I'm guessing it's because 300 yards to my West is the highest point in the county and I often get shielded from the worst. I feel awful for the absolute mess I am seeing on the local news this morning.

[Malika the Maiz]

Truly terrible, be safe.

[hobie]

With President Elect Musk cutting woke-ass FEMA, don't expect the hoedowns in the area to resume any time soon. Condolences.

[Currentsitguy]

I doubt it's bad enough it would even qualify under any Admin. No real completely destroyed homes or widespread flooding, just trees down everywhere, mass power outages, lots of roof damage, a lot of mashed cars, one electrocution death...

If they could help in anyway maybe send spare chainsaws.

[Brett Bellmore]

Kind of like Helene in my area: The mountains got FEMA, we got chainsaws out. Because it's flat enough here there wasn't substantial flooding.

There are still houses here around Greenville that are smashed in by falling trees, and have not been fixed yet. I think some people might have skimped on their home insurance. And removal of fallen trees that aren't blocking roads is still hardly begun.

[ThePublius]

And yet, "Trump Administration approves $1.4B plan to help western NC rebuild after Helene," while Biden and team D did pretty close to nothing to help those typically red voters.

[hobie]

I heard Huckabee and Cotton were beseeching Trump to send them woke-ass FEMA money for their floods because Arkansas was denied. I'm not sure Sarah realizes she's joined the group beneath the bus. Remember how them same two people victim-blamed the people of California? Of course you don't

[Martinned]

Hang on, didn't DOGE abolish FEMA?

[ThePublius]

Why do you always have to make it personal?

[hobie]

I haven't said 'hayseed' once today

[Frank Drackman]

there used to be a certain "Conspirator" who persisted (HT Poke-a-hontas) in calling peoples the K-word, until he went all Judge Crater, oh wait, too "Boomer" of me, he went all umm "Jimmy Hoffa"

[Malika the Maiz]

This sad sack wakes up every day and decides to “perform” a made up character on an obscure legal blog comments page.

This is the kind of nut attracted to MAGA. He probably lives with the Qanon Shaman.

[David Nieporent]

This sad sack wakes up every day and decides to “perform” a made up character on an obscure legal blog comments page.

And then you inexplicably and very very very annoyingly respond to it, contributing absolutely nothing except noise pollution.

[Malika the Maiz]

I think you’re confused about a few things.

1. These nuts are marginal.
In fact, they are a critical part of Trump’s movement. You should read Black Pill by Elle Reeve.

2. The best way to deal with wackjob trolls is to ignore and not “feed” them.
Empirically that’s not the case. However, humiliating and tying them to opponents that don’t want that humiliation, does.

[Frank Drackman]

@ David Neverpotent,
"I think this could be the beginning of the beautiful (no Homo) friendship"
I'll talk to you later, gotta talk to these Gestapo Goons, something about one of their Officers getting shot, some Major Strasser or something, shouldn't take too long, the Gendarme already have their "Usual Suspects"

[Malika the Maiz]

Biden-Harris Administration Provides $860 Million for Hurricane Helene and Milton Survivors and Communities

https://www.fema.gov/press-release/20241014/biden-harris-administration-provides-860-million-hurricane-helene-and-milton

[Frank Drackman]

$860 million? Yeah right, I'd say except for peoples who happened to have "Trump/Vance" signs in what was left of their yards, except the DEI monkeys running FEMA were such fuck ups they fucked everyone over, part of why North Carolina, which was supposed to be a "Toss Up" wasn't, and "45/47" won Florida by over a million votes(1.4 million to be exact, what did "W" win by in 2000? 500? and not 500 thousand, 500 total)

Frank

[Armchair]

In other news...Russia continues to advance.

In 2023, Russia gained ~700 square kilometers in Ukraine
In 2024, Russia gained 4100 square kilometers. Equal to the size of Rhode Island.

Pointing out facts isn't propaganda. Ignoring facts and pretending they don't exist is propaganda. Having a real understanding of the situation is important.

[tylertusta]

For context, the Russian gains were spread out over several sectors of the front lines and not one chunk. A couple of square miles here, and a few dozen over there, and that's where the 4,100 km aggregate figure comes from.

It's still not good. Not only does the lost territory start adding up, but it also demonstrates that this is still a war of attrition that Russia is willing (and seemingly capable) of continuing.

[Poxigah145]

There is one thing for certain. Polls matter very little in today's political arena. 40% of America's population hates him, 40% loves him, and the middle 20% vacillate from day to day. Meaning that "majority now disapproves of Trump's handling of" whatever issue just means that a few in the middle 20% changed their minds, at least at the moment.

It doesn't mean Trump should change course, as the 40% that hate him will always hate him, no matter what he does.

[hobie]

[snaps out of it] Oh sorry, I was just swapping out Biden for Trump in your comment

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

How'd that work out for you?

[Martinned]

It's not like he's ever going to run for anything again, or cares about anyone else's electoral prospects.

[Frank Drackman]

Are you dense? "45/47" regularly jokes about running in 28'

Frank

[Moderation4ever]

The thing is I predict that 2028 will be like 2020 and people will again be sick of Trump. So, it is far more likely that he will lose 2028 and want to run again in 2032. This will of course block out other Republican candidates in 2028 and again in 2032.

[apedad]

You're you're gay and you might attend drag shows but you're also a Republican so . . . let's run for Lt Gov of Virginia!

Uh oh . . . other Republicans don't like that.

~~~~~

(Current Gov) Youngkin sparks GOP firestorm after wading into Virginia election controversy

On Friday, Youngkin’s team confirmed the governor called Reid to ask him to step down as the nominee following a report that Republican researchers came across sexually explicit photos on Tumblr with the same username Reid uses on other accounts.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5273167-youngkin-virginia-republicans/

[Michael P]

Didn't you people want conservatives to walk the walk after they criticized that legislator from California with a "throuple" and complained about some staffer posting a gay sex video that was recorded in a Senate room?

[hobie]

As long as he doesn't advocate for peace in GAZA, I don't see what the big deal is

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

He has no business being in the public eye.

America needs to restore her standards.

[John F. Carr]

Meanwhile, out of sight and out of mind, India and Pakistan prepare to fight another war. Some years ago I read that Pakistan's nuclear weapons are deliberately kept in a disassembled state that requires substantial effort to prepare for use. Most of Pakistan does not want a Dr. Strangelove scenario.

[hobie]

I remember in 2020 when some Nixon (the leader of the least racist party in America) tapes were released with him chatting to Kissinger in 1971:

“Undoubtedly the most unattractive women in the world are the Indian women,” said Mr. Nixon.

“The most sexless, nothing, these people. I mean, people say, what about the Black Africans? Well, you can see something, the vitality there, I mean they have a little animal-like charm, but God, those Indians, ack, pathetic. Uch.”

“To me, they turn me off. How the hell do they turn other people on, Henry? Tell me.” “I don’t know how they reproduce!”

“I tell you, the Pakistanis are fine people, but they are primitive in their mental structure.” He added, “They just don’t have the subtlety of the Indians.”

[Frank Drackman]

He one more gone, he one more John who make the mistake,
now any of you Poindexters get that reference, I'll be impressed, even if you use your Google machine.
But except for Jackie K and Melania, has there been a recent First Lady who would inspire any normal male to pleasure himself? Just in my lifetime, "Ladybird" Ugg, "Plastic" Pat Nixon? why do you think Milhouse was such a tight ass? he wasn't getting any, Betty Ford? surprised that Gerald wasn't the Alcoholic in the fambily, Rosalyn Carter, Nancy Reagan, not bad looking broads, but not spank-bank material, Barbara Bush, I guess if you're into women who look like George Washington (or "Sam the Eagle" from the Muppets) Hillary Rodman, Mrs "W", Michelle the O, and Dr Jill? Eureka, I've just discovered the cure for Priapism!

[hobie]

Trump at the Michigan rally:

“Well, I’ll tell ya, I certainly don’t mind having a tax increase, and the only reason I wouldn’t support it is because I saw Bush where they said, where he said ‘Read my lips’ and he lost an election. He would have lost it anyway, but he lost an election. He got beat up pretty good. I would be honored to pay more, but I don’t want to be in a position where we lose an election because I was generous, but me, as a rich person, would not mind paying and you know, we’re talking about very little.”

[Martinned]

I know I should be working, but this is just too "sad but hilarious" not to share:

Senate Republicans added an amendment to bipartisan legislation addressing rising antisemitism on college campuses that could be seen as a concession to Christian conservatives who wanted to protect those who preach that the Jews killed Jesus.

The final language of the Antisemitism Awareness Act was posted online on Tuesday ahead of a committee vote.

The added language, which is referred to as a “manager’s amendment” and proposed by the committee’s chair, Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, states that the legislation would not “diminish or infringe upon any right protected under the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, including the free exercise of religion.”

https://forward.com/fast-forward/716347/antisemitism-bill-congress-jews-jesus/

If this were a Volokh law school exam, that would be good for at least an hour's worth of writing:

Discuss:
1. The free speech clause implications of this proposal.
2. The establishment clause implications of this proposal.
3. The utter insanity of writing the world's oldest antisemitic trope into legislation that is ostensibly about combating antisemitism.

[Brett Bellmore]

Can you clarify this a bit? Are you actually going to claim that "Nothing in this Act shall be construed to diminish or infringe upon any right protected under the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States," is an anti-semitic trope? I'm not seeing it.

Because unless that's your claim, they objectively did NOT write an antisemitic trope into the legislation.

[Martinned]

Christian conservatives who wanted to protect those who preach that the Jews killed Jesus

[Bob from Ohio]

"could be seen"

Solid analysis!

[Malika the Maiz]

You should click through on some of the links

[Malika the Maiz]

That definition cites “claims of Jews killing Jesus” as an example of “classic antisemitism,” which sparked opposition from some conservative Republicans. “Religious leaders back home are very concerned about some of the language in that bill, that it pushes against what the scripture said,” Marshall said. “Obviously as a born again Christian I believe that the Holy Bible is the word of God. I think that we’re not supposed to alter the word. So I’m just guessing the House overlooked something.” Marshall, a Kansas Republican, said Thursday that he opposes antisemitism, but if the bill comes up for a vote in the Senate he would offer an amendment that would strike the language.

Read more at: https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article288246510.html#storylink=cpy

[Malika the Maiz]

“But Greene, posting on X, formerly Twitter, laid out a different concern: that the bill threatened Christian expression.

“Antisemitism is wrong, but I will not be voting for the Antisemitism Awareness Act of 2023 (H.R. 6090) today that could convict Christians of antisemitism for believing the Gospel that says Jesus was handed over to Herod to be crucified by the Jews,”

[Griffin Klema]

One of the most damning things I took away from Moran's interview of Trump was his abandonment of journalism in making a statement of fact rather than asking a question, which Trump rightly identified as such:

-------------------------------
TERRY MORAN: -- ... There have been no referrals to the Justice Department on any of this --

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, you don't know that, do you? How do you know that?

TERRY MORAN: They generally -- alright. There's been no investigation from the Justice Department --

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: How do you know that?

TERRY MORAN: I'm asking you, sir.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: No, you're not askin' me. You made a statement. You're not asking me --

TERRY MORAN: Now, I'm asking you.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: That was a statement that you made. There have been --

TERRY MORAN: Now, I'm asking.
-------------------------------

Oh, so "now" Moran is "asking" only after he was embarrassed by the President? What a hack. He's no journalist and that his conduct passes for journalism these days says a lot about the legacy media. Moran should be fired. So too with his editors that allowed his clear political animus. Moran's questions were surely reviewed by someone higher up before they were greenlighted for primetime. Wouldn't an editor have the same question for Moran first: "That sounds like a statement. Can you back that up with fact?" ABC News is total garbage, and that "interview" showed it. And so I thought this was a amusing exchange:

-------------------------------
TERRY MORAN: Do you trust [Vladimir Putin]?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I don't trust you. I don't trust -- I don't trust a lot of people. I don't trust you. Look at you. You come in all shootin' for bear. You're so happy to do the interview.

TERRY MORAN: I am happy --

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And then you start hitting me with fake questions. You start tellin' me that a guy -- whose hand is covered with a tattoo --

TERRY MORAN: Alright. We're back to that.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: -- doesn't have the tattoo, you know.

TERRY MORAN: Alright.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I mean, you're being dishonest.

***

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: .... We had a president that was grossly incompetent. You knew it, I knew it, and everybody knew it. But you guys didn't want to write it because you're fake news.

TERRY MORAN: Alright. Thank you --

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And, by the way, ABC is one of the worst. I have to be honest with you --
-------------------------------

Kudos to Trump for maintaining his composure, though maybe it wasn't that hard, knowing that he was dealing with a clear idiot in Moran.

[Malika the Maiz]

You think journalists can’t reference what they think are facts in interviews?

[David Nieporent]

What is amazing is how cultists like this suffering from TDS think this exchange made Trump look good.

[ducksalad]

Some of the old timer commenters here are upset that this site has drifted away from analysis of legal issues. So, here's some legal analysis provided by our executive branch:

The case we have against 60 Minutes, CBS, and Paramount is a true WINNER. They cheated and defrauded the American People at levels never seen before in the Political Arena. Kamala Harris, during Early Voting and, immediately before Election Day, was asked a question, and gave an answer, that was so bad and incompetent that it would have cost her many of the Votes that she ended up getting. It was a disastrous answer! 60 Minutes and its corporate parents, in order that this not have a negative impact on her, removed and deleted Kamala’s entire answer, every word of it, and replaced it with a response that she gave later on to an entirely different question. The new answer was not good, but it didn’t show Gross Incompetence like the one that was removed by 60 Minutes. In other words, 60 Minutes perpetrated a Giant FRAUD against the American People, the Federal Elections Commission, and the Federal Communications System. Despite all of the above, and Paramount’s/CBS’/60 Minutes’ admittance to this crime and, with other similar corrupt removals of answers to questions, the Failing New York Times, which is Fake News both in writing and polling, claims that “people” said that the case is baseless. They don’t mean that, they just have a non curable case of TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, possibly to the point where the Times’ interjection makes them liable for tortious interference, including in Elections, which we are intently studying. The bottom line is that what 60 Minutes and its corporate owners have committed is one of the most egregious illegalities in Broadcast History. Nothing like this, the illegal creation of an answer for a Presidential Candidate, has ever been done before, they have to pay a price for it, and the Times should also be on the hook for their likely unlawful behavior. It is vital to hold these Liars and Fraudsters accountable!

[Martinned]

It would be more compelling if more of it was in ALL CAPS.

[Martinned]

More non-terrible news:

A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the immediate release of a Columbia University student who was detained by immigration authorities and targeted for deportation over his involvement in pro-Palestinian protests.

Mohsen Mahdawi was arrested by immigration authorities as part of a crackdown on foreign students who were legally studying in the United States. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has invoked a rarely used provision of immigration law to target some of the students for deportation by declaring that their continued presence in the country harms America’s foreign policy interests.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/30/judge-frees-columbia-student-activist-whom-trump-administration-wants-to-deport-00317981

And in this case he's already been freed.

[Zarniwoop]

Docket here (though it’s not well populated yet, and I don’t see today’s order, alas): https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69888582/mahdawi-v-trump/

[Malika the Maiz]

So, AG Pam Bondi made this claim:

https://x.com/AGPamBondi/status/1917311265774727323?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1917311265774727323%7Ctwgr%5E0e09aaeb3fc9fbbfdb581c540c1642ba4502fcd0%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com%2F2025%2F04%2Fbreaking-bad-2

“In President Trump’s first 100 days we’ve seized over 22 million fentanyl laced pills, saving over 119 Million lives.”

That’s like a third of the US population.

I’m curious, would the usual toadies of the Mad King and his viziers like to try to defend that claim?

Maybe more the usual route of whataboutism?

I remember when, I think it was Sotomayer, misstated a statistic wildly in oral arguments and many here said this was conclusive proof of her idiocy. Does Pam’s white skin, blonde hair and/or partisan affiliation make this less worse?

Note: this game can also be played with Trump’s assertion that egg prices have come down under his administration by 93%.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Trump says he ‘could’ return Abrego Garcia to US, but won’t

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5274438-donald-trump-abc-news-interview-kilmar-abrego-garcia/

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Judge Xinis ordered the resumption of expedited discovery in the Abrego Garcia case, setting a series of deadlines over the next two weeks.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mdd.578815/gov.uscourts.mdd.578815.107.0_1.pdf

[David Nieporent]

Huh. I thought the unexplained pause based on secret filings suggested that a possible deal was imminent. It appears not.