Open Thread

Something is amiss with our new daily auto-post feature, so I'm manually posting the thread today.

Comments

[Kazinski]

What are we to make of Justice Jackson issuing administrative stay to the order requiring the Administration to fully fund SNAP benefits without an appropriation?

I can't quite believe she thinks Federal Judges are bound by the Constitution, but I can't think of any other reason.

[Riva]

Hat tip John Hinderaker powerlineblog.com:

"A rogue Democratic Party judge in Rhode Island, John McConnell, ordered the Trump administration to continue fully funding the food stamp program, even though Congress has not appropriated the money to do so. The order, absurd on its face, is already causing chaos. The administration appealed the order to the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, which denied the administration’s request for a stay of McConnell’s order pending the appeal.

The administration then went to the Supreme Court with an application for an emergency stay. Yesterday, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson (!) issued an administrative stay of McConnell’s order that will remain in effect until two days after the First Circuit rules on the appeal. Given the partisan composition of that court, the Supreme Court may ultimately need to stop the foolishness initiated by Judge McConnell.

What we have seen over the last ten months–hyper-partisan district court judges trying to run the executive branch, by issuing blatantly unconstitutional injunctions, usually “temporary”–is unprecedented in our history. But the Democrats keep making up new rules, and Republicans have no choice but to play by them. Otherwise, Democrats will obtain a permanent, unfair advantage. So, for the remainder of his term, President Trump should appoint federal district court judges who pledge to issue similar temporary injunctions to block Democratic policies, next time we have a Democratic president. Unless the Democrats get a taste of their own medicine, they will shred the Constitution forever."

[Josh R]

The circuit court did not deny a stay pending appeal. It denied an administrative stay while it considered a stay pending appeal. Jackson's order puts in place the administrative stay while the circuit court rules on the stay pending appeal "with dispatch."

[Riva]

They clearly denied relief, allowing the unconstitutional order to go forward. That’s why it was an emergency compelling the administration to go to the S.Ct. You have zero concern over the pattern of unconstitutional orders and gross abuses of judicial power and quibble over irrelevances.

[Riva]

And “irrelevances” perhaps does not properly expose the utter ridiculousness of your comment. You completely miss the point. The judiciary is exploiting “temporary” orders supposedly immune from immediate appellate review to unconstitutionally micromanage the executive. That’s the whole point of this gamesmanship.

[Poxigah146]

What Trump really should do is order Special Forces and SEAL teams to kidnap these rogue judges in the middle of the night and make sure they disappear forever.

Do it to a few, and not a single Democrat Party judge will dare rule against the administration again.

I have faith that there are enough patriots in the military who would carry out this lawful, and necessary, order.

[jb]

AIUI, she wanted to give the Circuit Court time to take a look.

Having said that, if she were being as partisan as she regularly gets accused of, maybe she's just trying to make the Trump administration own the political consequences of fighting in court to make sure people go hungry.

[Poxigah146]

Anyone on food stamps is already a Democrat Party voter anyway.

[Josh R]

It means nothing more than an administrative stay requiring the circuit court to act on the request for a stay before SCOTUS does.

[Bunny495]

I got the feeling this was an attempt by the SC by having Jackson do it was trying to make the point that judges can't go that far off the reservation. Whatever one thinks about SNAP benefits no one disputes Congress has the power of the purse in funding them. In this case the emergency fund had around 4.5 billion dollars and it costs around 8 billion dollars a month to fund SNAP. It is one thing to tell Trump to spend money Congress has approved but telling him to make money to spend out of thin air is another ball of wax.

I can't recall so many lower court rulings being bashed by the SC. Sad to say I don't see any reason to think this will abate any time soon.

[Kazinski]

Here is the order here:
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/26221020-25a539-admin-stay/

[Absaroka]

Three strikes working as intended:

1)First strike, bludgeoned a man to death, 12 year sentence
2)Took a metal pipe to a sleeping man, tried to stab him, 2 years
3)Hit man multiple times with a machete, LWOP

Two years for #2, given the facts and his history, seems very light.

[Longtobefree]

Skin colors and judges political party, please.

[Absaroka]

Don't know or care about those things.

[David Nieporent]

That you would ask is quite telling.

[Kazinski]

Here is a wild theory about the J6 pipe "bomber". The claim is that it was a Capitol Hill Police Officer, who now provides security at the CIA. It of course is wild speculation, but there is one detail that does comport with previously released information from the FBI:

"The 94% gait match to Shauni Kerkhoff looks far more damning when you realize the FBI traced the pipe bomber to the house right next door to hers just within days of January 6.

Investigators linked that address to both a Metro card used by the suspect and a vehicle that picked up the bomber on January 5.

Then the FBI reportedly pulled agents, including @KyleSeraphin, off that lead.

That looks like a cover up."
https://x.com/KanekoaTheGreat/status/1987200977523646815?s=20
More wild speculation here:
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2025/11/08/j6-pipe-bomber-identified-n2666149

This comment is for entertainment purposes only, none of this seems to be from any official investigation.

[jb]

Love this breathless Tweet embedded in the Town hall story:

"This might just be the biggest scandal and conspiracy in American history"

I guess we've moved past "Russiagate" and Arctic Frost being the biggest scandals and conspiracies in American history this week. At least those ones I can understand why folks on the right want to obsess over, but who really cares about the pipe bombs? There seems to be basically zero political valence to the story, but maybe I'm just not far enough down the rabbit hole.

[Kazinski]

Everybody loves a good mystery, and most don't have any political valence.

I was curious about the claim that the FBI had traced the Metro card to an address, so I did a quick search and found a Washington Times Article that has more details, this was printed in 2023:
"Seraphin, who was suspended from the FBI in April 2022 after refusing to get a COVID-19 vaccine and eventually fired last month for alleged unprofessional conduct, criticized the bureau’s early handling of the pipe bomb investigation.

Within days after the discovery of the bombs, he said, FBI investigators reviewed closed-circuit video of the masked pipe bomber as he traveled through the Washington Metro system.

What’s shocking, Mr. Seraphin said, was that the FBI early on linked the bomber to a D.C. MetroRail SmarTrip card. The card indicated that the person got off a train at a Northern Virginia stop after planting both devices on Jan. 5.

“So they tagged the entrance time and the exit time to that card to that guy. And then they found out who bought the card. And the guy who bought the card was not the guy who was using it,” Mr. Seraphin said.

“The card had never been used before. It was bought a year prior by a retired chief master sergeant in the Air Force, and he was a security contractor. So he held a security clearance.”

The FBI had surveillance video that showed the person entering a car with a visible license plate after exiting a Metro stop in Northern Virginia.

“So what they did is they tied whoever the person was that dropped the bombs with [surveillance] cameras all the way through the train and getting into a car with that license plate,” Mr. Seraphin said.

He said the vehicle plate was traced back to the address of the Air Force veteran, whom he and his team eventually surveilled.

“The license plate was either tied back to the guy or the girlfriend of the guy … but it was the same address type of thing,” he said.

“Now, at the end of the day, that makes [him] a person of interest, but it doesn’t make him the subject. … It could have been anybody associated with [the person who dropped off the devices], but it was the place to start.”

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/may/12/jan-6-pipe-bombs-rnc-dnc-were-inoperable-says-ex-a/

Mr. Seraphin and his team surveilled the retired airman, who lived in a Northern Virginia town house, for a couple of days and learned about his background.

Although Mr. Seraphin, who also served in the Air Force, wanted to approach the Air Force veteran and talk to him, his bureau superiors forbade him to do so before his team was removed from the case."

[David Nieporent]

There is no such thing as a "gait match," though. It's junk science.

[Kazinski]

Its at least as good as bite mark forensics.

[bernard11]

I would say just as good, which means worthless.

[Mr. Bumble]

You forgot blood splatter forensics.
Cue Dexter.

[David Nieporent]

Really, just about the only forensic science that has truly been scientifically validated is DNA analysis. Everything else — ballistics, voice analysis, hair and fiber analysis, bullet lead analysis — is at best an investigative tool to rule out matches, not to establish them. Even fingerprints aren't as solid as people think. (It has actually never been established that the premise — that they're unique — is true, but even if it is, identifying matches is art, not science.)

[David Nieporent]

Exactly.

[Bored Lawyer]

There is lots of junk science that goes on in federal and state courts.

[BrotherMovesOn]

"Here is the order here:"
Thank you Jeremiah. Appreciate it.

"This comment is for entertainment purposes only,"
Indeed!

[Kazinski]

Ilhan Omar explains why Minneapolis Somalis can't have nice things:

https://x.com/Checkmatedsl/status/1986897537173803094?s=20

[Bunny495]

Joe Rogan and Elon just discussed how some judges in North Carolina are not required to have a JD. The first post in this thread is about a ruling from a seeming left wing judge that was bashed by the most left leaning judge on the SC. Point is having a JD is probably no guarantee of good decisions.

Over the years I have seen some rulings that seemed wrong to me but recently I can't keep track of how many lower court rulings have been bashed by the SC. While I hope this trend does not continue, I am not hopeful.

[David Nieporent]

The first post is not about a decision that was "bashed by" anyone. No decision was made on the merits — not even a tentative one. This was an administrative stay to give the 1st Circuit time to consider whether to issue an actual stay.

[Life of Brian]

An administrative stay the 1st Cir. itself should have granted, given that the deadline for the order being appealed was the end of that night.

Otherwise, they're just constructively denying the motion to stay while going through the motions of considering it.

[Bunny495]

Once again you ignored the main point of my post and instead go off on confusing tangent. Whatever you think about Jackson issuing a stay my main point about an increasing number of lower court rulings being reversed by the SC still stands. I still stand by my speculation that this trend will increase in the future.

Jackson had the choice of issuing the stay or denying the stay. My analysis of the facts of the case is that MacConnell's ruling will be overturned. Even assuming the best case that the Secretary has the discretionary authority under 7 U.S.C. § 2257 to temporarily transfer a portion of the Section 32 surplus; the key words is discretionary authority (does a judge have the power to order use of discretionary authority). Then there is the question of the "power of the purse" codified in the Antideficiency Act that prohibits federal employees (read Ag Sec) to spend money not voted on by the house under the penalty of discipline, firing, or even criminal penalties.

Bottom line is whether the funding language in the SNAP and Child Nutrition statutes is specific enough to constitute a legal exception to the ADA. Since there words like "permit" and "discretion" in the statutes I don't think a judge has the power to order transferring the funds.

[Poxigah146]

In some ways, having a JD is worse. The shit my law school professors made up is where these Democrat Party judges get their inspiration from in the first place.