Open Thread

What’s on your mind?

Comments

[thesafesurfer]

The complete and utter disgrace of judges Jeffrey Brown and David Guaderrama in the Texas redistricting decision threatens to destroy the judiciary in the United States. The dissent by Jerry Smith is damning and demands immediate action by the United States Supreme Court.

[Dr. Ed 2]

It's time for wholesale pro-forma impeachments of Federal judges.

And SCOTUS might just toss the VRA...

[Martinned]

You mean the dissent that starts with a three page preliminary statement that is just whining about the other judges on the panel, and then pivots effortlessly to the most classic antisemitic dog whistle of the 21st century?

Judges on multi-judge courts understand how important is the deliberative process to fair and accurate judicial decisionmaking. As I say later in this dissent, judges get paid to disagree as well as to find common ground.
Judges in the majority don’t get to tell a dissenting judge or judges that they can’t participate. If the two judges on this panel get away with what they have done, it sets a horrendous precedent that “might makes right” and the end justifies the means.
The majority might even say “We don’t need to wait for your dissent and wouldn’t read it if we did.” Here, that sort of happened: The entry on the district court docket brings up only Judge Brown’s opinion; the reader has no access to this dissent without opening a separate, non-consecutive docket entry.
So this majority has “won” in terms of diminishing the impact of the dissent and the public’s access to it. In the interest of justice, one can hope it is only a Pyrrhic victory.
When I was a newer on the bench, a friend asked me, “Now that you’ve been a judge for a few years, do you have any particular advice?” I replied, “Always sit with your back to the wall.”
* * * * *
DISSENT
The main winners from Judge Brown’s opinion are George Soros and Gavin Newsom. The obvious losers are the People of Texas and the Rule of Law.

https://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/gov.uscourts.txwd_.1150387.1439.0.pdf

[Brett Bellmore]

What was the antisemitic dog whistle? Not being a dog, I didn't hear it.

It seems a valid complaint. I've never seen a case entry where the dissent wasn't as easy to reach as the majority opinion, have you? I thought this was just standard practice.

True, the dissent has no legal impact, not being the majority opinion, but it does seem an entirely pointless hostile gesture on the majority's part to have not even pretended that there was any point of Smith being on the court.

[Martinned]

There is absolutely no reason to mention George Soros other than to say "look, a global Jewish cabal that secretly controls the world!"

[santamonica811]

Yeah, I'm also at a loss to explain why George Soros was just thrown into the opinion, other than as a dogwhistle to anti-Semites. Brett, you're pretty creative. Why do *you* think the dissent picked that particular person out as one of the two big winners, out of our population of 350,000,000 people? (My own assumption is that the big winners are the almost-half of Texas voters who would have been screwed by the proposed gerrymandering, and the half of American voters, nationwide, who will be at less risk of having a few powerful people in DC and Texas skew the next election.)

At least the dissent didn't pick out as a winner some Mr. Jewie Jewerson Jewiwitz. I'll give the dissent credit for being more subtle than that.

[Martinned]

If this guy stops writing judicial opinions in the style of Breitbart opinion columns, maybe the other judges will let him play in their sandbox. Either way, there is no reason to fill three pages of the F.3d with this whiny nonsense.

[David Nieporent]

3 pages? That's just the preliminary tantrum. There are 104 pages of insane rambling, during which Soros's name is mentioned seventeen times even though he is not a party to the case.

Every lawyer has faced a situation in which his adversary has pissed him off so much that he writes a long, fiery, insulting, unprofessional response… and then, feeling a bit better having gotten it out of his system, deletes said response without sending it, and composes a more measured one. Only… Judge Smith forgot to do that here. He actually published the tantrum.

[Commenter_XY]

The kids are not alright (in the Old Dominion).

https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-school-that-expelled-jews-after-antisemitic-bullying-apologizes-in-settlement/

[Dr. Ed 2]

As I put together a course on the American Revolution for next semester, I am struck on just how similar we are today to the situation in 1775.

We have an autocratic establishment and a populist base that is increasingly alienated.

[Martinned]

I highly doubt that you've suddenly seen the light, so I suspect you are (as usual) very confused about both the situation today and the situation in 1775. But who knows? Care to elaborate?

[santamonica811]

I'm with Ed on this one. Ed's pointing out that Trump is an authoritarian, and has set up an autocratic govt (and molded a compliant Supreme Court) to let him run said government. Ed is also pointing out that his followers are largely populists (plus former conservatives who have whored their morals and ethics), and that these followers are feeling increasingly alienated.

I find it hard to disagree with Ed on this general observation. (His usual breathless predictions about upcoming armed rebellion, insurrection, blood on the streets, etc etc . . . well, that's just Ed being Ed.)

[Dr. Ed 2]

Only in Amherst (Berkley East):
The Rich White Trannies gang up on the Black Christian women.
I'm running out of popcorn watching this....

https://www.amherstindy.org/2025/11/15/a-call-to-action-lgbtqia-caucus-responds-to-the-reinstatement-of-delinda-dykes/

[Martinned]

Have you all signed the petition yet against the evil Mamdani plan to require New York City schools to teach arab numerals?

[Krayt]

Get with the zero!

[santamonica811]

LXXXVI XLVII

Or, as Trump unfortunately said about E. Jean Carroll, "Vidi, vici. Veni"

[David Nieporent]

You botched the joke; it's Arabic numerals.

[apedad]

Florida woman spent 18 months in prison for threatening FBI. Trump pardoned her

Suzanne Ellen Kaye spent a year and a half in a prison cell for social media threats against FBI agents who were going to her home to question her back in 2021 about her possible involvement in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. On Friday, well after Kaye completed her sentence, President Donald J. Trump pardoned her of the crime.

In January 2021, the FBI called Kaye, from Boca Raton, in hopes of interviewing her about her possible involvement in the Jan. 6 attack. The FBI’s national threats operation center had received an online tip. Kaye, it turns out, was not at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, according to court records. But before agents arrived at her home, Kaye posted three videos on her Facebook page, ANGRY Patriot Hippie. One was captioned “F*** the FBI,” and mentioned that agents wanted to meet with her, court records show. Then, she threatened to exercise her “second amendment right to shoot your f****** a**” if the FBI pulled up to her home.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/crime/article312931964.html

But try that today's against Trump's ICE and you'll end up in the pokey.

There are no legal standards under Trump; only double standards.