If the tariffs stand, what would stop a Democratic Congress from conferring to the President the power to unilaterally increase income tax rates upon finding an “emergency”?
Father. Trial lawyer. Curious. Persistent. Posts are not legal advice. All views are mine alone.
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If the tariffs stand, what would stop a Democratic Congress from conferring to the President the power to unilaterally increase income tax rates upon finding an “emergency”?
Recently got a good result in court, so today, we dine like (Burger) Kings.
I have a thirteen year old daughter. I can’t imagine losing her in just one year to the kind of senseless, savage violence that took Emmett Till.
One key to resisting fascism is simply saying “no” when a government official makes a lawless request clothed in the authority of their office. The grand jury here said “no.”
It takes two countries to invade: one to invade and one to get invaded.
Only he’s allowed to have infractions.
These language battles also betray a deeper malaise within the party—an utter lack of confidence that it can shape the narrative. Poll-testing is always backward looking. People want a better future. Make a case. Don’t obsess that the wrong word might offend people. 3/3
Trump is an effective communicator because his voice is his—not some Frankensteined pablum built from workshops, focus groups, poll-testing, and consultants. Both the words on Third Way’s list and Third Way’s attempt to ban the words on the list suffer the same defect. They are not authentic. 2/
Third Way took a lot of heat for its “no no” list of forbidden words. The issue with Dems, as I see it, is that everything is top-down rather than bottom-up. The words on the list feel like academic constructs. The decision to ban them is straight from focus groups and consultants. 1/
Then I suppose he supports the deployment of federal troops to every city in his state where there is crime.
The prolonged public torturing of a single man because the state cannot admit to its errors is not something that occurs in a free country
I knew I recognized that name: www.law360.com/pulse/amp/ar...
If you burn an American flag, you get a year in jail. If you attack a Capitol police officer with an American flag, you get a pardon.
The Supreme Court made possible the administration's threats to send Mr Abrego Garcia to Uganda -- because the Court blocked the lower court decisions that had restricted the gov'ts ability to send noncitizens to far-flung places they've never been & where they could face violence, torture, & death.
Biden appointed a special counsel. He did not personally direct law enforcement to go after his enemies. Trump was also asked repeatedly to return the classified documents without a search. He refused.
They gaslit you all throughout the election.
Time to recruit the Afrikaners.
It’s always personal with these national branding decisions.
Former DOJ pardon attorney says that Trump has pardoned rapists, murderers, and child sex offenders
It reminds me very much of the pretexts advanced to throw out the 2020 election. If those reasons were good enough to cancel an election, no election could ever be legitimate—including the 2016 election that Trump won.
The occupied cities are ordinary American cities. There are no historically abnormal levels of any social malady. The only historical abnormality is a President and an entire political party that wants to invade and occupy militarily American cities.
There isn't a city, state, or county across this nation that doesn't have issues that make it far from perfect. None of that justifies military dictatorship as a governing solution.
Alone? No J’Bisco?
I view it as a moral obligation to stand up for Bolton, even though he refused to testify at Trump’s impeachment and instead withheld his candor until his book came out. He’s a flawed human. If you wait for the perfect victim of fascism before you speak up, it will be too late.
If current crime levels justify troops on the streets, then troops would have been justified at any time in the last 50 years. Crime is the same or lower than it has been for decades. If crime has not changed materially, what has changed? The President, Congress, the Supreme Court, and our culture.
A rare wedge issue
yes he absolutely is .... John Roberts Is Responsible For America’s Embarrassing Gerrymandering Mess talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/john-ro...
Absolutely 💯
If you support an authoritarian because you agree with the authoritarian now, be advised that you may not agree with him forever, and he may not consider you to be on his team forever. You don’t control what the authoritarian believes, and you don’t control who he likes.
Not as severe as the early photoshop. But it’s a reminder that there is no degree of obsequiousness that can assure safety.
How do I distinguish these mirror image redistricting efforts? I know: I will make up a distinction that does not exist.
I regret the authoritarian lurch. He could have done more to oppose Trump when it mattered. thehill.com/homenews/adm...
I recall when the Court did not hesitate to enjoin Biden’s loan forgiveness program.
Endlessly credulous about the pretextual actions of an authoritarian. It's not about mortgages. It's not about antisemitism. It's not about crime.
The Supreme Court refused to recognize a cause of action for partisan gerrymandering. It found that the cause of action was not justiciable because there was no workable judicial standard that could be applied. Kagan wrote a scathing dissent. Now we have mid-census redistricting.
A good “stress test” for your argument is “would this argument justify the tyranny of Kim Jong Il”? If so, it’s probably a bad argument (even if the statistics stated here are factually true, which I very much doubt).
They’re going for a Duma-Putin relationship.
The majority of DC residents do not think increasing the guard presence will lead to more public safety. And even if it did, a majority do not want “more public safety” at any a price. North Korea has plenty of public safety.
The majority of DC residents do not think increasing the guard presence will lead to more public safety. And even if it did, a majority do not want “more public safety” at any a price. North Korea has plenty of public safety.
“Tariff your way to the top”
Does anyone remember how Trump really got traction as a politician? Birtherism targeting Obama. He recognized early on that many on the right favored comforting conspiracy theories over discomforting truths. And he went all in, like Watters advises below.
Not being paid for your labor, beatings, no civil rights, and no freedom are all terrible. But the destruction of the family unit is most harrowing to me. Your children are ripped from you and sold, never to be seen again. Your siblings similarly sent away forever.
Hey, did you know that the NLRB has operated in violation of the Constitution for 90 years? It's right there in this original Constitution we found in 2025.
It takes a lot of hubris to believe everyone has had it wrong for 100 years, but you are among the few with the wisdom and understanding to know they were wrong, and now you will set it right. Those who think this way are true disciples of a “living Constitution.”
Before we grow inured to it: a system built to ensure one side always wins no matter how that side performs is not a democracy.
Historically, we believed rule of law produces the best economic outcomes (we are drifting away from this). I’m deeply skeptical that engineering talent is the sole or even predominant determinant of success in a system without rule of law.
Hungary, an ailing economy in Europe
These agents got to grow up in a country that didn’t have masked federal agents detaining and beating people. They were free to form whatever beliefs they chose. Now they work to deny Americans the same rights they enjoyed during their formative years. Really low.
How will federal deployments in DC reduce the lethality of violent crime that Fox News raises below? It seems like lethality would best be addressed by taking away lethal weapons—not deploying federal troops/agents. So is this Fox News author a closeted gun control advocate?
He would have deployed ICE to help the insurrectionists. There’s no question about it.
1.
I don’t see him denying that he’s ruining the country. Also, I doubt he says this if he weren’t wearing a mask. The mask destroys community trust, both because it declares to the public that the mask wearer has something to hide and because it emboldens the mask wearer to act lawlessly.
@gavinnewsom.bsky.social: "This guy is trying to get a Nobel Peace Prize? When he's bringing war to the American people? He sent the United States Marines into the United States of America."
There is a “lost cause” mythology eagerly peddled in some circles about Trump’s 2020 loss. Apparently Putin endorses this mythology, which tells you all you need to know about the mythology’s accuracy as well as the allegiances of those who peddle it.
If the Government’s powers are being limited, the equities automatically balance in their favor, but if it’s the rights of the people, eh.
Some troops surveyed said they no longer trust U.S. law as useful guidance, saying “Trump will issue illegal orders.” talkingpointsmemo.com/news/majorit...
Time to petition for a rehearing en banc by the entire DC Circuit bench. This “proceeding involves a question of exceptional importance.” www.dccourts.gov/sites/defaul...
Bork got a vote (unlike Garland). 6 GOP Senators voted against him. Bork is a pretext to justify every authoritarian lurch by the GOP since. And even if you grant the premise that Dems were wrong (they weren’t), it still doesn’t follow that you have to embrace authoritarianism in response.
It’s literally almost impossible to do less than hoagie man
It’s literally almost impossible to do less than hoagie man
California should hire a bunch of former BLS professionals and then recreate and publish the reports as they have always been done.
Many have criticized that system and attempted to reform it. But the Supreme Court, on a 5-4 vote with the majority consisting of GOP-appointed justices, struck those reforms. If the GOP wants stricter fundraising laws, there is probably room to compromise. 3/3
The democratic legislators did not deny quorum because they hoped to secure the reward of partial hotel reimbursement. They made a decision to take a stand and then some have been fundraising off of it. That is how our system of political donations works. 2/
If Abbott were correct that state legislators have violated bribery law because they are fundraising off of their quorum position, fundraising off of any legislative vote would be bribery. That’s obviously not true, because politicians fundraise off their votes all the time. 1/
It’s like they brought Clarence Darrow back from beyond the grave, educated him on the concept of Arby’s roast beef, and told him “make sure your cross examination educates the jury on what Arby’s roast beef in the pants *really* means.”
“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” John Adams
Well, I suppose that settles it. Who needs crime statistics when you can witness youths doing wheelies on ATVs? Impossible for crime to be down under those circumstances. If youth wheelies then crime same or higher. Logic FTW!
Raskin: In any event, if he really cared about public safety in DC… he would not have pardoned 1600 insurrectionists and violent cop beaters on his first day in office.
Imagine my relief as a resident of an inner DC suburb. Finally I can go back to feeling just as safe as I did before the deployment, only significantly more irritated.
If only its critics would stop criticizing it!
Trump in last 7 months: * $ from assorted cryptos * Dinner/exclusive WH tour to highest bidders (memecoin) * Kingdom gifts USA a jet for his use * CEO gifts him a gold bar in the Oval Office live on TV * Headliner at opening of his private $ golf course * Billion $ family deals overseas
The astonishing thing about Watergate, in contrast to today, is how the President was actually shamed into leaving office. Imagine that: shame.
Vought spent his pre-Trump career in the House and Senate He pivoted to his imperial theory of executive power after he couldn’t work his will through Congress. The fact he started in Congress gives away the game, though: even he thought spending is a congressional power.
Apart from the discriminatory aspects of this decision, it’s also arbitrary and capricious, which may make it unlawful under the Administrative Procedures Act. The APA exempts “military functions” from its reach. Denying pensions wouldn’t seem to qualify.
Could it be challenged as arbitrary and capricious under the APA?
If you want to contact a university professor, probably best to use a non-university email for the time being.
Yep. I am also curious why a controversy brought by a Maine legislator barred from voting or speaking based on an anti-trans social media post was justiciable on the shadow docket in Libby v Fecteau, but partisan gerrymandering is not. Justiciability is applied very unevenly.
The judge who presided over Trump’s tax fraud case said that Trump and his co-defendants’ "complete lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological" and "the frauds found here leap off the page and shock the conscience." Their expert witnesses “simply denied reality.”
one of the single best deals in streaming. i've been paying for PBS Passport for years. it rules
The FCC had major concerns about the Paramount/Skydance merger and they all went away once Paramount pulled Donald Trump’s biggest critic off the air. Colbert is fired and immediately the merger is approved. These people don’t hide the corruption. They celebrate it.
One Book “Jeffrey Epstein and Me: This Sort of Thing is My Bag, Baby” by Donald J. Trump.
From earlier in the same opinion: “Because the parties ‘bargained for the arbitrator's construction of their agreement,’ an arbitral decision ‘even arguably construing or applying the contract’ must stand, regardless of a court's view of its (de)merits.”
We shall dispel all suspicions about our connection to Epstein’s underage sex trafficking operation by pardoning his first lieutenant.
Stunning charts show how disproportionately the Roberts Court favors the Trump regime. "This pattern exemplifies what scholars call 'autocratic legalism'—the systematic weaponization of legal institutions to consolidate power while maintaining the appearance of legal process."
It was exactly 6 months ago that this administration issued blanket pardons to everyone involved in the January 6 insurrection.
This is also why a Supreme Court at war with its own lower courts will have trouble working its will. Judges are all lawyers. They know how to read an order narrowly or broadly.
Yes. Slavery is the obvious origin. But we have so many recent examples within our own lifetimes.
Abu ghraib and Guantanamo Bay in Bush II. Masked ICE agents and CECOT now. Japanese internment during WWII. McCarthyism. Jim Crow. Slavery. We have a thread within our national culture that is really illiberal.
This is like Saddam winning elections with 99% of the vote in Iraq.
We can’t all be laser-focused on the profound questions of the day like, for instance, whether Coke should use real sugar or Rosie O’Donnell should keep her US citizenship.
You joined one thing. It became something else. I mourn what it once was. I’m excited to see what institution you join next. There are a lot of great places vying to fill the void vacated by the Post and others.
I did not see the revision, but I prefer accuracy. I think that was about a 10% relief rate.
Even better if the Court denied the prior President of the opposite political party similar relief 100% of the time!
According to this Supreme Court, President Biden's Department of Education was exceeding its power by trying to forgive peoples' student loans. President Trump, on the other hand, has the power to just completely dismantle the entire Education Department.
Since April 4, #SCOTUS has issued 15 rulings on 17 emergency applications filed by Trump (three birthright citizenship apps were consolidated). It has granted relief to Trump ... in all 15 rulings. It has written majority opinions in only 3. Today's order is the 7th with no explanation *at all.*