Weekend Open Thread
[guest post by Dana]
Let’s go!
First news item
Court denies DOJ appeal:
A federal appeals court has rejected an effort by the justice department to halt a judge’s investigation into whether the Trump administration violated court orders to “facilitate” the release of Kilmar Ábrego García, the Maryland man wrongly deported to El Salvador.
In its order on Thursday, the court said the Trump administration’s request to bar US district judge Paula Xinis from opening her inquiry was “both extraordinary and premature”.
We shall not micromanage the efforts of a fine district judge attempting to implement the supreme court’s recent decision,” the order states.
“It is difficult in some cases to get to the very heart of the matter. But in this case, it is not hard at all,” it continues.
The order can be found here. Take the time read it in its entirety.
The Abrego-Garcia case is a perfect litmus test for whether a person understands and is truly committed to the rule of law. If you can’t admit the plain error here, you are captured and, through either tribal loyalty or blind trust, are losing touch with an important part of what…
— Heath Mayo (@HeathMayo) April 18, 2025
Second news item
Jewish governor’s home firebombed:
The attack occurred hours after the Shapiro family hosted more than two dozen people for the first night of Passover.
The fire was reported at about 2 a.m. ET Sunday and the family was safely evacuated.
Investigators have not released a motive for the attack, but the search warrant represents the most direct indication of why Balmer allegedly hopped a fence at the governor’s mansion, broke windows and hurled Molotov cocktails police said he made from beer bottles and gasoline.
Balmer called 911 less than an hour after the attack, identified himself and told the call-taker that he will not take part in Shapiro’s plans “for what he wants to do to the Palestinian people,” the warrant said. Balmer added Shapiro needed to “stop having my friends killed.”
There has been no decision made yet whether the accused will have a hate crime added to the charges he currently faces. It’s hard to see how that wouldn’t happen, given that the suspect selected the Jewish governor’s home and criticized Shapiro for how he treats the Palestinians.
Then there is this obvious bit of reasoning:
“[Shapiro] has absolutely nothing to do with the war in Gaza. He has absolutely nothing to do with Israel’s policymaking. And the only reason that he was attacked is because he’s Jewish. And it’s one of the repulsive beliefs that a lot of these pro-Palestinian, pro-terrorist activists hold is that all Jews everywhere in the world are somehow legitimate targets for their expressed displeasure with the policies of Israel.”
Spot on.
Third news item
In the first days of March, a team of advisers from President Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency initiative arrived at the. . . headquarters of the National Labor Relations Board.
The DOGE employees. . .appeared to have their sights set on accessing the NLRB’s internal systems. They’ve said their unit’s overall mission is to review agency data for compliance with the new administration’s policies and to cut costs and maximize efficiency.
But according to an official whistleblower disclosure shared with Congress and other federal overseers that was obtained by NPR, subsequent interviews with the whistleblower and records of internal communications, technical staff members were alarmed about what DOGE engineers did when they were granted access, particularly when those staffers noticed a spike in data leaving the agency. It’s possible that the data included sensitive information on unions, ongoing legal cases and corporate secrets — data that four labor law experts tell NPR should almost never leave the NLRB and that has nothing to do with making the government more efficient or cutting spending.
Meanwhile, according to the disclosure and records of internal communications, members of the DOGE team asked that their activities not be logged on the system and then appeared to try to cover their tracks behind them, turning off monitoring tools and manually deleting records of their access — evasive behavior that several cybersecurity experts interviewed by NPR compared to what criminal or state-sponsored hackers might do.
Fourth news item
Marco Rubio ready to walk away from peace talks with Ukraine:
So, we’ve talked about outlines with both sides. I thought we had positive meetings yesterday. Obviously, the Ukrainians have to go back home, they have to run it by their president, they have to take into account their views on all of this. And we hope to hear back from them very soon. But we need to figure out here now, within a matter of days, whether this is doable in the short term. Because if it’s not, then I think we’re just going to move on, from our perspective. The president feels very strongly about that. He has dedicated a lot of time and energy to this, and there are a lot of things going on in the world right now that we need to be focused on.
So, this is important, but there are a lot of other really important things going on that deserve just as much if not more attention. So we want to do everything we can to be helpful. We had a good meeting yesterday. I thought the French, the British, the Germans were very constructive, were very helpful. We thanked them for hosting this, and hopefully we’ll have another meeting early next week at some point where we’ll have some more definitive answers about how close we are to actually making progress. But this isn’t going to go on forever.
It’s so ridiculous. Clearly, Russia doesn’t want peace or a CD ceasefire. If they did, they could’ve had it at any time simply by NOT ATTACKING UKRAINE! But they don’t because they don’t want peace. They want Ukraine. All of it.
So the U.S. plan is apparently to give Russia what it wants and screwing Ukraine:
The US has proposed a plan to its allies aimed at ending Russia’s war against Ukraine, reportedly including provisions to ease sanctions on Moscow and allow Russian-occupied territories to remain under Putin’s control.
Contra to Rubio, JD Vance is feeling optimistic about bringing the war to a close.
Have a good weekend.
—Dana