Patterico's Pontifications

4/11/2025

Weekend Open Thread

Filed under: General — Dana @ 7:20 am



[guest post by Dana]

What a week. Trump has only been in the Oval for 91 82 days, but my gosh, it feels like a lifetime.

Anyway, let’s go!

First news item

Is everyone okay with this?:

Details:

In the wake of President Donald Trump’s announcement Wednesday afternoon that he was pausing country-by-country tariffs by 90 days, some experts. . .are raising questions about a statement he posted earlier in the day that may have indicated the massive sell-off in stocks in recent days was coming to an end.

Not long after trading opened at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, Trump took to his Truth Social platform and wrote:

“BE COOL! Everything is going to work out well. The USA will be bigger and better than ever before!”

Four minutes later, he wrote:

“THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT”

Just before 1:30 p.m., Trump announced the pause, sending stocks soaring. The tech-heavy Nasdaq index had its biggest one-day gain since 2008, rising nearly 12%, while the S&P 500 climbed 9.5% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 8%, or about 2,800 points.

Richard Painter, chief ethics lawyer for former G.W. Bush, and now teaches government ethics and security regulation, sums up the problem:

Painter said the incident could result in investigations “into who knew what and when before [Trump] announced he was going to postpone the tariffs on all the countries except for China.”

“This was a terrible idea to make those posts,” Painter said of Trump’s suggestion that it was “a great time to buy.”

Painter further admonished Trump, saying, “I would hope that he would focus on doing his job — and try to calm the markets and have a predictable trade policy and let the markets do their thing without the White House giving what appears to be investment advice.”

Second news item

Good news:

The Trump administration must take steps to return a Maryland resident who was mistakenly deported from the U.S., the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday.

. . .

The high court in an unsigned order with no dissenting votes said the lower court judge “properly requires the Government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.”

Making plain sense:

Justice Sonia Sotomayor said in an opinion that fellow liberal Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson signed onto “the proper remedy is to provide Abrego Garcia with all the process to which he would have been entitled had he not been unlawfully removed to El Salvador.”

How hard do you think the administration will work to make sure the order is followed and they actually ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s return?

Note:

Yes, the Rule of Law means that allegedly very bad guys–indeed, even indisputably very bad guys–are entitled to proper legal process.

UPDATE:

The Trump administration confirmed Saturday that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man illegally deported to El Salvador, is alive but confined in a notorious anti-terrorism prison under the control of the Salvadoran government.

“He is alive and secure in that facility. He is detained pursuant to the sovereign, domestic authority of El Salvador,” Michael Kozak, a top State Department official, said in a two-page, written declaration submitted to a judge under penalty of perjury.

The minimal information Kozak provided fell well short of the details demanded by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, who had ordered the Trump administration to update her not only on Abrego Garcia’s whereabouts but on any steps it had taken to facilitate his return to the United States.

Kozak’s update, submitted 10 minutes after a court-ordered deadline Saturday, included just 49 words on Abrego Garcia’s location and no information about what officials had already done or planned to do to correct their error.

Sounds like Trump is making the excuse that the United States is unable to do anything about bringing Abrego-Garcia back to the U.S. because of El Salvador’s “sole” authority.

Third news item

Wow:

Federal officials have begun contacting University of California faculty members for an antisemitism probe after the school complied with a subpoena from the Trump administration seeking the personal information of around 900 faculty members, two UC employees with knowledge of the situation told POLITICO.

The employees, who were granted anonymity to speak candidly, said federal officials have begun reaching out and speaking with faculty members last week, raising concern from faculty that the federal government is trying to pit them against each other as President Donald Trump continues to cut funding from top universities around the country.

Fourth news item

Just stop with the bullshit:

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called for people to get the measles vaccine while in the same breath falsely claiming it hasn’t been “safety tested” and its protection is short-lived.

. . .

Kennedy also suggested that measles cases are inevitable in the United States because of ebbing immunity from vaccines — a notion doctors say is false.

“We’re always going to have measles, no matter what happens, as the vaccine wanes very quickly,” Kennedy said.

Why does Kennedy even have this job?

Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said two doses of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine offer lifelong protection. That’s because the vaccine stimulates the production of memory cells, he said, which can recognize the virus over a lifetime.

“We eliminated measles from this country. That could never happen if immunity waned,” said Offit, who serves on an independent vaccine advisory committee for the FDA.

Instead of casting doubt upon an effective vaccine, shouldn’t – at the very least – the Health and Human Services Secretary be extolling a proven vaccine and encouraging people to get it? It’s an incredible privilege to have this vaccine readily available in the United States, so why look the gift horse in the mouth.

Fifth news item

First teacher to lose job for breaking Florida’s new rules concerning addressing students:

At the start of the 2023-2024 school year, Florida began requiring educators to get parental permission before calling a student by an alternative to their legal name. Less than two years later, a teacher didn’t comply — and lost her job.

Melissa Calhoun, a teacher at Satellite High School in Brevard County, will not have her contract renewed for the 2025-2026 school year after calling a student by a preferred name without getting a signed form, according to Brevard Public Schools Spokesperson Janet Murnaghan.

Seventh news item

President Zelensky doing what he has to do:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Wednesday that his country is ready to spend up to $50 billion for more US air defenses and aid.

Speaking to local reporters, Zelenskyy framed such a deal as a potential long-standing security arrangement with the US instead of Washington donating stock to Kyiv.

. . .

Zelenskyy previously dismissed the idea of Ukraine retroactively paying for weapons sent in the past.

“But if that issue is raised in the minerals agreement, we will not be taking on old debts,” Zelenskyy said in March. “If it’s about new support, then the United States may impose certain conditions.”

“We understand that this administration won’t do anything for free,” he added.

Note: It’s been one month since Ukraine accepted Trump’s demand for an unconditional ceasefire with Russia. Meanwhile, Russia has repeatedly made it clear, by its endless missile and drone attacks on Ukraine civilian populations, that it never had any intention of agreeing to a ceasefire, let alone abiding by its conditions.

Eighth news item

Paging DOGE!

A Wall Street Journal analysis of daily financial statements issued by the Treasury Department found government spending since the inauguration is $154 billion more than in the same period in 2024 during the administration of former President Joe Biden.

Have a great weekend.

—Dana

288 Responses to “Weekend Open Thread”

  1. Hello.

    Dana (519e36)

  2. Fifth news item: First teacher to lose job for breaking Florida’s new rules concerning addressing students

    Rule of Law.

    The parents not only did not give permission, per the law, they objected to use of the name. The teacher ignored the parents and she was rewarded for her arrogance. What’s the issue?

    lloyd (84c606)

  3. My guess is that Mr. Garcia will simply get deported to a different country, in full compliance with the law. The same folks will object, because their outrage was never about the administration disregarding a judge’s order.

    lloyd (84c606)

  4. @3

    My guess is that Mr. Garcia will simply get deported to a different country, in full compliance with the law. The same folks will object, because their outrage was never about the administration disregarding a judge’s order.

    lloyd (84c606) — 4/11/2025 @ 7:47 am

    Actually, they should return him back to Louisiana to conduct the habeas trial, then deport him to 3rd party.

    whembly (b7cc46)

  5. One Kind of Problem We Don’t Want to Think About:

    In Flu, Gina Kolata describes how quickly, and completely, we tried to forget about the great 1918 Flu pandemic. For example:

    [Alfred] Crosby examined college history textbooks, looking for the 1918 flu. He remarked that the epidemic was notable mostly by its absence. “Of the best-selling texts in United States history, books by such historians as Samuel Eliot Morison, Henry Steele Commager, Richard Hofstadter, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., C. Vann Woodward, and Carl Degler, only one so much as mentions the pandemic. Thomas A. Bailey in The American Pageant gives it one sentence and in that sentence understates the total number of deaths due to it by at least one-half.”

    (p. 52)

    Even now, estimates of the deaths, world wide, vary wildly, from about as many as World War I to about as many as World War II. For the US, the losses were, almost certainly, higher than our losses in World War II.

    Jim Miller (1e5174)

  6. My maternal grandmother and paternal grandfather both were 20 during the Spanish flu and lost their entire families. He was on his way to Europe for the Great War and they sent him home from wherever he was in boot camp.

    Colonel Klink (ret) (96f56a)

  7. Lloyd @ 2,

    It seems reflexive that you immediately assume there is an issue [with the teacher’s contract being terminated].

    Dana (ae15dc)

  8. First news item:

    Richard Painter, chief ethics lawyer for former G.W. Bush, and now teaches government ethics and security regulation, sums up the problem:

    Painter said the incident could result in investigations “into who knew what and when before [Trump] announced he was going to postpone the tariffs on all the countries except for China.”

    Investigations by whom?

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  9. Dana (ae15dc) — 4/11/2025 @ 8:44 am

    Dana, I guess you didn’t read the story you linked to.

    lloyd (4517df)

  10. BTW, did we ever find out what happened to JVW? Hope he’s ok.

    I was out for a time so if this was already answered, apologies.

    lloyd (4517df)

  11. Of course, I read the story, Lloyd. Don’t presume because I post something that I am against it or for it unless I specifically say. I post what’s interesting to me, what is current, and what I hope will stimulate discussion.

    Dana (7e167c)

  12. Dana, I was responding to the story. Who is presuming?

    lloyd (7059c2)

  13. Sinking like a rock:

    Consumer sentiment grew even worse than expected in April as the expected inflation level hit its highest since 1981, a closely watched University of Michigan survey showed Friday.

    The survey’s mid-month reading on consumer sentiment fell to 50.8, down from 57.0 in March and below the Dow Jones consensus estimate for 54.6. The move represented a 10.9% monthly change and was 34.2% lower than a year ago. It was lowest reading since June 2022 and the second lowest in the survey’s history going back to 1952.

    As sentiment moved lower, inflation worries surged.

    Respondents’ expectation for inflation a year from now leaped to 6.7%, the highest level since November 1981 and up from 5% in March. At the five-year horizon, the expectation climbed to 4.4%, a 0.3 percentage point increase from March and the highest since June 1991.

    Other measures in the survey also showed deterioration.

    The current economic conditions index fell to 56.5, an 11.4% drop from March, while the expectations measure slipped to 47.2, a 10.3% fall and its lowest since May 1980. On an annual basis, the two measures dropped 28.5% and 37.9%, respectively.

    Stocks turned negative following the report and Treasury yields added to gains.
    …………
    In addition to the other readings, the survey showed unemployment fears rising to their highest since 2009.
    …………

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  14. What a week. Trump has only been in the Oval for 91 days, but my gosh, it feels like a lifetime.

    1370 days to go. What’s up next week? War with Iran?

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  15. “This was a terrible idea to make those posts,” Painter said of Trump’s suggestion that it was “a great time to buy.”

    He had to provide cover for those he’d already told. By announcing it when he did, he created chaff for the real crooks to hide in.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  16. Regarding measles:

    Again, it is a requirement to have the vaccine before entering Kindergarten in TX and, in my experience, even to enter most pre-schools. If unvaccinated kids are being let into school, then that is an issue that has nothing to do with RFK Jr.

    If kids are vaccinated and it’s not as effective as thought, then that is an issue that also has very little to do with RFK Jr. directly.

    Making it all about RFK Jr is in admission this is about politics not about health.

    lloyd (7059c2)

  17. What’s up next week? War with Iran?

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 4/11/2025 @ 9:15 am

    I’m fine with that.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  18. Trump saw the Pelosi’s get away with insider trading for years.

    lloyd (7059c2)

  19. Actually, it’s only 81 days, not 91, but it feels way longer than 91 days. It’s like a year has been packed into 2.7 months. I know, I know, they said there’d be no math.

    Paul Montagu (84042b)

  20. What’s up next week? War with Iran?

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 4/11/2025 @ 9:15 am

    You say that like it’s a bad thing. A sustained bombing campaign against Iran to destroy its nuclear program would benefit the world.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  21. A sustained bombing campaign against Iran to destroy its nuclear program would benefit the world.
    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 4/11/2025 @ 9:27 am

    But that would negatively impact 401k’s. That makes it bad.

    lloyd (7059c2)

  22. Yes, the Rule of Law means that allegedly very bad guys–indeed, even indisputably very bad guys–are entitled to proper legal process.

    We are seeing a number of places where extended process has created incredible backlogs that the same level of process can never clear. What do we do? We dismiss a lot of cases to clear the dockets. What is the result?

    In criminal prosecutions we see a increase in crime due to lack of enforcement. We see “bail reform” result in releasing violent people because we don’t have the space or inclination to hold them. In ABQ the situation with catch and release is so bad that the governor has called in the National Guard to help police the city. The problem is not a lack of policing, it is a lack of convicting and incarcerating. People talk about SF and merchants fleeing, but it is happening here, too. In the end it is so much “due process” that the process never completes and/or too many cases are thrown out to clear dockets dishonestly.

    Now, we have a situation where, for 3 decades, we have ignored immigration law. We have a President who ran on, and was elected on, a promise to deport some of the millions who took advantage of our fecklessness. Can this be done with the same due process we give those few we actually prosecute for crimes? No, it can’t. I cannot see how that can be disputed (and I suspect that some of those agitating for extended process are doing so to obstruct any deportation).

    Obviously we can’t just let the government round up brown-skinned people and ship them off to foreign hellholes; some level of process is needed and the Trumpies can’t be trusted to offer it on their own. But, if we actually want to see a measurable reduction in illegal presence (and the social benefits that provides) we have to come to terms with a more rapid process than we have seen before this year.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  23. You neglected to mention the part where the Supreme Court told the District Court to stop meddling in the Executive Branch’s affairs.

    NJRob (73cb17)

  24. Actually, it’s only 81 days

    Damn. That adds TEN WHOLE DAYS to Trump’s term.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  25. But, if we actually want to see a measurable reduction in illegal presence (and the social benefits that provides) we have to come to terms with a more rapid process than we have seen before this year.
    Kevin M (a9545f) — 4/11/2025 @ 9:33 am

    That’s a big IF. There are many folks who simply don’t want to see a reduction, and will cloak it in due process. It’s time we just admit it even if they won’t. The prior administration knew exactly what it was doing the past four years.

    lloyd (7059c2)

  26. As for the CA university system…

    For the last several years, they have been in the grip of DEI mania, and are currently considering open defiance of federal demands that such discrimination be curtailed. The irony, of course, is that CA has a Constitution that rejects the idea of racially-based decisions:

    The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.

    Not that the current CA government will ever enforce it.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  27. Now, we have a situation where, for 3 decades, we have ignored immigration law. We have a President who ran on, and was elected on, a promise to deport some of the millions who took advantage of our fecklessness. Can this be done with the same due process we give those few we actually prosecute for crimes? No, it can’t. I cannot see how that can be disputed (and I suspect that some of those agitating for extended process are doing so to obstruct any deportation).

    Obviously we can’t just let the government round up brown-skinned people and ship them off to foreign hellholes; some level of process is needed and the Trumpies can’t be trusted to offer it on their own. But, if we actually want to see a measurable reduction in illegal presence (and the social benefits that provides) we have to come to terms with a more rapid process than we have seen before this year.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 4/11/2025 @ 9:33 am

    As we have discussed, that would require either the Supreme Court to overturn multiple precedents dating back to 1903 (see the Yamataya v. Fisher, for example) to redefine due process for illegal immigrants (which do not now have the same due process requirements for criminal defendants); or Congress would need to pass legislation implementing a new process.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  28. I’m OK with either. What we have now is a suicide pact.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  29. I’m OK with either. What we have now is a suicide pact.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 4/11/2025 @ 9:52 am

    Neither are likely to happen.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  30. But, Rip, your assert that the processes that Biden put in place (or at least tolerated) are those that USSC precedent demands. Can you demonstrate that?

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  31. For example:

    “These cases, however, establish only that aliens receive constitutional protections when they have come within the territory of the United States and developed substantial connections with this country.”

    Does an unsanctioned immigrant who has been here for three years, supporting himself with criminal activity and perhaps joining a gang of similarly situated immigrants, fall into this category? Or is the only process he should receive that defined by statute? Which (guessing) would comprise only factual determinations (status, non-predatory community connections, and a reasonable amount of evidence as to the criminal activity).

    Does a parole of an unsanctioned immigrant (mostly done due to delay in the immigration court systems) grant them 5th amendment rights to process? Or is their status simply suspended (although giving them time to make those community connections that might serve them later)?

    Lastly, Biden did a number of things that previous presidents had not done. Were those previous presidents violating rights?

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  32. Regarding the Florida teacher, the article said that the new rule (not law, rule since it went through the Board of Education, not the legislature) “doesn’t say what the consequences are for educators who don’t comply”, yet the school district decided that sacking the teacher was the best choice instead of a lesser penalty.

    It was apt to compare the two “educators” in the same school district who hosted minors at a house party involving alcohol consumption. They’re being criminally charged, but the school district didn’t sack them but instead put them on paid administrative leave.

    Paul Montagu (84042b)

  33. Paul Montagu (84042b) — 4/11/2025 @ 10:08 am

    The teacher wasn’t sacked. Her contract was up for renewal and is not being renewed.

    From the link:

    Melissa Calhoun, a teacher at Satellite High School in Brevard County, will not have her contract renewed for the 2025-2026 school year after calling a student by a preferred name without getting a signed form, according to Brevard Public Schools Spokesperson Janet Murnaghan.

    lloyd (7059c2)

  34. I don’t know about the other teachers you refer to Paul, but it could be a matter of union rules. They should be fired IMO.

    lloyd (7059c2)

  35. Former Grey’s Anatomy actor diagnosed with ALS:

    Eric Dane, the actor known as the handsome plastic surgeon nicknamed McSteamy in “Grey’s Anatomy,” told People magazine that he has been diagnosed with A.L.S.

    Mr. Dane told the magazine that he was grateful for his family’s support and was excited to return soon to the set of “Euphoria.” His representatives did not immediately respond to emails and phone calls seeking additional information.

    A.L.S., also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a neurological disorder that degrades a patient’s ability to control muscles, speak and eventually breathe without assistance.

    While A.L.S. patients often die within five years of being diagnosed, clinical trials for potential therapies have generated hope about extending a patient’s life by several months.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  36. They’re being criminally charged, but the school district didn’t sack them but instead put them on paid administrative leave.

    Pretty much what the LAUSD does with kiddie rapists.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  37. Weird that news about Ukraine/Russia has been quiet af lately….

    whembly (b7cc46)

  38. But, Rip, your assert that the processes that Biden put in place (or at least tolerated) are those that USSC precedent demands. Can you demonstrate that?

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 4/11/2025 @ 9:55 am

    I’ve never said anything like that; stop making stuff up.

    What I have said is that Congress (and the courts) have granted Presidents wide ranging authority to admit or bar) particular classes of aliens (see 8 U.S.C. § 1182(f)). For example, 8 U.S.C. § 1103(a) gives the President (through the Attorney General) the authority to defer the removal of aliens as an act of prosecutorial discretion (“deferred action”, see also 48 C.F.R. 274a.12(c)(14) “an alien who has been granted deferred action, an act of administrative convenience to the government that gives some cases lower priority….”.)

    Other authorities that a President has to admit aliens include “parole in place” (“The Secretary of Homeland Security…….in his discretion parole into the United States temporarily under such conditions as he may prescribe only on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit any alien applying for admission to the United States……”)

    There is also Deferred Enforced Departure, which has been used to allow aliens to remain in the United States where a natural disaster or domestic conflict had occurred that made it dangerous for people from those countries to return to them (see 8 USC § 1103(a)). Temporary Protected Status ((8 U.S.C. §1254a(b)(1)) is another authority that gives the DHS Secretary to allow aliens to remain in the United States for a limited amount of time. The difference between Deferred Enforced Departure and Temporary Protected Status is that, unlike TPS, a DED designation emanates from the President’s constitutional powers to conduct foreign relations and has no statutory basis. See here for details.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  39. #3 & #4

    What either of you suggest would work for me. The guy comes back and is sent off to a country that will take him, in accordance with the process that would be applicable to him. That would affirm rule of law just fine (and give us a path forward on all the other folks who were sent to El Salvador before any habeas).

    But Trump’s DOJ seems to want to mess around as much as they can. I think they want a series of rulings that outlines just exactly how much they can get away with. Cute. But it’s better than simply defying the court.

    Appalled (b272ac)

  40. BTW, did we ever find out what happened to JVW? Hope he’s ok.

    I was out for a time so if this was already answered, apologies.

    lloyd (4517df) — 4/11/2025 @ 8:58 am

    JVW is just fine. Very busy with work/life.

    Dana (d8dd80)

  41. @40

    JVW is just fine. Very busy with work/life.

    Dana (d8dd80) — 4/11/2025 @ 10:51 am

    ❤️❤️❤️❤️

    whembly (b7cc46)

  42. @39

    What either of you suggest would work for me. The guy comes back and is sent off to a country that will take him, in accordance with the process that would be applicable to him. That would affirm rule of law just fine (and give us a path forward on all the other folks who were sent to El Salvador before any habeas).

    But Trump’s DOJ seems to want to mess around as much as they can. I think they want a series of rulings that outlines just exactly how much they can get away with. Cute. But it’s better than simply defying the court.

    Appalled (b272ac) — 4/11/2025 @ 10:48 am

    The problem, as I read it, is that SCOTUS is basically saying “play nice with each other” and try to work together on this.

    Fat chance…

    I don’t really see any order by SCOTUS that supports the assertion that a district judge can demand the Executive Branch to return that alien.

    It’s seems like a gentle rebuke to all parties involved.

    whembly (b7cc46)

  43. Fox News WH correspondent Pete Doocy is bird bombed while doing his stand-up on the White House lawn (3:00 mark).

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  44. The teacher wasn’t sacked.

    Same difference.

    Paul Montagu (84042b)

  45. Weird that news about Ukraine/Russia has been quiet af lately….

    The Dispatch noticed, too, but I suppose these things happen when the most powerful man on earth launches an economic attack on every country but Russia, thereby benefiting Russia.

    Russian tanks were absent during my visit, but attacks on Kharkiv have remained constant. Strikes were worse before Ukraine was given permission to strike targets inside the Russian border in May 2024, which allowed Ukrainian forces to at least partially neutralize the threat of S-300 missiles. But as evidenced by recent events, the Russian bombardments have not stopped, they’ve just changed forms.

    On March 26, the mayor of Kharkiv reported at least a dozen explosions around the city as a result of Russian strikes. One video that circulated showed soccer players running for their lives on a field as a drone exploded nearby. On March 30, Russian drones hit a military hospital and other buildings, killing two people.

    The attacks have continued, and this month, things have gotten worse. Last week, there were four separate attacks on Kharkiv, including one that killed four and injured 35, including three children. One of the strikes counted a 12-year-old girl among its victims.

    Google Maps tells me Kharkiv is only 13 miles from the Russian border.

    Paul Montagu (84042b)

  46. whembly,

    The Courts can require that the administration take all steps necessary to facilitate the return of the man. Since El Salvador is holding all of these prisoners on our behest, they really should be able to lay their hands on any of these folks who have been shipped there. The idea that they are unable to do this (even though they can make sexy videos with the Secretary of Homeland Security) does not pass the cynical chuckle test.

    If Garcia had simply been released when he got to El Salvador — it’s likely the Maryland Court would have been out of bounds with its ruling.

    Appalled (b272ac)

  47. @38:

    And which of these creates a right to 5th amendment protection that they did not have when the status was granted? Are they are still subject to immediate deportation (after ascertaining facts) as they were then?

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  48. But, Rip, your assert that the processes that Biden put in place (or at least tolerated) are those that USSC precedent demands. Can you demonstrate that?

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 4/11/2025 @ 9:55 am

    I think you are confusing the Supreme Court precedents that I have mentioned regarding due process with the President’s authority to manage immigration enforcement. Two different things.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  49. Appalled,

    It is certainly not believable that the Salvadorean government would reject a polite request. Would they hold Trump up for something extra? It would seem unwise.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  50. I think you are confusing the Supreme Court precedents that I have mentioned regarding due process with the President’s authority to manage immigration enforcement. Two different things.

    Not really. I was trying to make the point that the status quo ante was NOT what the USSC demands, and that Biden’s discretion does not bind a future president. Although some court will.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  51. The WSJ on Trump’s winging it with China…

    It’s all going according to plan, says the White House, and you almost have to smile at this spin in trying to sell President Trump’s partial tariff reversal this week as a triumph. The reality is that Mr. Trump is making it up as he goes, and it would help if he had an actual strategy to deal with China in particular.
    […]
    Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says the U.S. trade goal all along has been to isolate China as a main offender. There’s good reason to treat China differently given its often predatory trade practices. These include cyber attacks on U.S. companies and government; intellectual property theft; unequal treatment of U.S. firms in China; and Covid lies.

    But it isn’t clear what Messrs. Trump and Bessent want from China, and what their strategy is to achieve it. Do they want a complete decoupling of the two economies? That’s what tariff levels of 145% suggest. But that also means large economic disruption in the near and medium term, as some $600 billion in two-way trade goes away or finds new sources and destinations. Strategic decoupling on key goods makes more sense.

    Yet that’s not what Mr. Trump says he wants, and on Wednesday he said he still hopes for a trade deal with China. The tariffs in that case are merely his lever for getting President Xi Jinping to the table. The problem is that tariffs are a blunderbuss weapon that hurts Americans as much as it does Chinese exporters. Markets are saying the U.S. economy will suffer too.

    There’s also the contradiction of how Mr. Trump handles other China issues. The President is doing Mr. Xi a favor by refusing to enforce a law passed by Congress to force the sale of TikTok from Chinese-controlled ByteDance. Last week he extended the deadline for a TikTok sale by another 75 days after China walked away from a looming transaction. Mr. Trump also refuses to impose sanctions on Chinese firms that buy oil from Russia and thus help Moscow’s war machine. These decisions send Mr. Xi the message that Mr. Trump isn’t serious about challenging Chinese abuses.

    If Mr. Trump is serious, the best strategy would be to rally allies to the cause of fighting Chinese mercantilism. But he shows no interest in that either. He squandered his best chance to isolate China on trade in his first term by walking away from the Trans-Pacific Partnership that didn’t include Beijing. China then cut its own deal with many of the countries that the U.S. left in the cold.

    This term Mr. Trump is outright punishing the allies he needs for a coherent China strategy. He’s imposed tariffs on Canada and Mexico and insulted Canadian national pride. He’s hit Japan with 24% tariffs, South Korea with 25%, and Europe with 20%. He’s hit Vietnam with 46%, though the boom in that country’s exports to the U.S. since his first-term tariffs has come at China’s expense.

    Those tariffs are now paused for 90 days, but all of these countries know Mr. Trump could hit them again at any time. He’s also insulted Japan by refusing to let Nippon Steel buy U.S. Steel despite its pledge to invest billions of dollars in U.S. manufacturing. Why should these allies trust Mr. Trump now, if he says he needs them to unite to slow China’s advance of artificial intelligence? They may need China’s market if they can’t access the U.S.

    Mr. Trump’s intellectual problem, or at least one of them, is that he’s fixated on the U.S. trade deficit with friend and foe. The deficit is a non-problem in economic terms. And if there are trade issues with allies, they can be addressed with bilateral or multilateral trade deals.

    By far the biggest problem in the global trading system is the abuse of free-trade rules by the authoritarian regime in China. Mr. Trump’s ad hoc, scattershot tariff policy won’t solve that problem. So far he’s hurting his own cause and country more than he’s hurting the Chinese Communist Party.

    Biden is also guilty of not joining the TPP.

    Paul Montagu (84042b)

  52. Simpler: If Trump were to revoke all the paroles and deferrals that Biden allowed, what would be the remaining process required before deportation? Would it be more than “Are you this person?”

    Would a parolee who refused to comply with a hearing order be at a disadvantage at a future hearing?

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  53. By far the biggest problem in the global trading system is the abuse of free-trade rules by the authoritarian regime in China.

    It is a big problem, and possibly the biggest problem. But the hollowing out of American industry as Capital sought cheap Labor is also a big problem. Not that tariffs are the best way to attack that; direct taxes might work better.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  54. Biden is also guilty of not joining the TPP.

    The TPP had a lot of detractors, at least outside the vote-buying copyright cartel.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  55. Witkoff isn’t negotiating with Putin, he’s working for him, basically agreeing with Putin’s illegal annexations of four eastern regions.

    So, Trump will now again pressure Ukraine to hurry up and be massacred so he can get back to collecting all that sweet, sweet Russian blood money.

    “After talking with Putin’s representative, Vitkoff told Trump that the fastest way to an agreement is to give Russia control over the Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions, — Reuters”

    Witkoff has yet to articulate a single concession that Putin must make. It’s nigh on traitorous.

    Paul Montagu (84042b)

  56. “This was a terrible idea to make those posts,” Painter said of Trump’s suggestion that it was “a great time to buy.”

    That clearly indicated that Trump wanted prices to go up.. but it could not distinguish between him conning people (blowing hot air) or actually trying to do something about it to make it go up.

    Earlier I mentioned short selling. The best way to make money would be to sell short when you knew Trump was going to announce spectacular tariffs. The short seller has no reason to want prices to go up but is afraid they will go up too much. That could reinforce buying pressure – there is also hedge funds unwinding ior q=winding up bets.

    I think Trump really does not want prices to drop too much.

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09)

  57. And which of these creates a right to 5th amendment protection that they did not have when the status was granted? Are they are still subject to immediate deportation (after ascertaining facts) as they were then?

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 4/11/2025 @ 11:39 am

    None of the temporary authorities create a due process right; the right to due process is inherent (see Mathews v. Diaz, 426 U.S. 67, 77 (1976) (There are literally millions of aliens within the jurisdiction of the United States. The Fifth Amendment, as well as the Fourteenth Amendment, protects every one of these persons from deprivation of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.) by their presence in the US, which applies to “all ‘persons’ within the United States, including aliens, whether their presence here is lawful, unlawful, temporary, or permanent” (Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U.S. 678 (2001)). See also Yamataya v. Fisher 189 US 86, (1903), clarifying

    that “an alien who has entered the country, and has become subject in all respects to its jurisdiction, and a part of its population” could not be deported without an “opportunity to be heard upon the questions involving his right to be and remain in the United States.”

    Footnotes omitted.

    Simpler: If Trump were to revoke all the paroles and deferrals that Biden allowed, what would be the remaining process required before deportation? Would it be more than “Are you this person?”

    I presume it would be the same type of immigration hearing other illegal aliens receive.

    Removal proceedings are civil in nature and are not criminal prosecutions. Harisiades v. Shaughnessy, 342 U.S. 580, 594–95 (1952); Zakonaite v. Wolf, 226 U.S. 272, 275 (1912). This fact, however, does not mean that a person may be removed from the United States on the basis of a judgment reached under the civil standard of proof, that is, by a preponderance of the evidence. Rather, the Supreme Court has held, an order of removal may be entered only if the government presents clear, unequivocal, and convincing evidence that the facts alleged as grounds for deportation are true. Woodby v. INS, 385 U.S. 276, 286 (1966). However, an alien in formal removal proceedings has the burden of proving his or her eligibility for discretionary relief from removal. Kimm v. Rosenberg, 363 U.S. 405……..Under provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act, aliens apprehended within the interior of the United States are generally subject to formal removal proceedings, and have a number of procedural protections in those proceedings, including the right to seek counsel at no expense to the government, the right to present evidence at a hearing, the ability to apply for any available relief from removal, the right to administratively appeal an adverse decision, and (to the extent permitted by statute) the right to petition for judicial review of a final order of removal. 8 U.S.C. §§ 1229a(a)(1), (b)(1), (b)(4), (c)(1)(A), (c)(4)(A), (c)(5); 1252(a)(1), (b).

    Source, footnotes 2 & 3

    Would a parolee who refused to comply with a hearing order be at a disadvantage at a future hearing?

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 4/11/2025 @ 11:47 am

    I have absolutely no idea, though I would guess that any illegal alien who doesn’t comply with a hearing order would be subject to a deportation order without another hearing.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  58. How hard do you think the administration will work to make sure the order is followed and they actually ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s return?

    Well, I can tell that earlier Homan told Bukele not to send him back.

    El Salvador President Nayib Bukele to visit the White House on Monday. Now if Trump wants him back, he will surely be let out of prison and be free to leave the country. But how does ajudge supercise this.

    Pro-Trump AM radio hosts are not solid on the facts/ One thought he turned state’s evidence But there is nothing really tyoing him to MS-13

    Bukele has locked up many of his own citizens. About 10% are estimated to be innocent.

    There’s no due process in El Salvador but Bukele has more or less support because of the suffering of people at the hands of these gangs.

    I feel there must be some precedent for this.

    It is rare for a deported person to be ordered back but Nazi concentration camp guard “Ivan the Terrible” was sent back from Israel (and received) after on appeal he was not found guilty of being at Treblinka (based on a false arguments by his lawyers. The obvious explanation is that he simply did not trust the Nazis to win and used the wrong name (I think his mother’s maiden name – it wasn’
    t een really wrong) at first till the Nazis discovered his real name and issued him a new ID card. He was later deported for being a guard at Sobibor. Of course he was free to leave Israel after his trial was over and Israel didn’t want him. (They could have, if the wanted to, rushed his removal to somewhere he didn’t want to go)

    https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/former-nazi-death-camp-guard-john-demjanjuk-deported-germany#:~:text=Relying%20principally%20on%20witness%20testimony,he%20was%20tried%20and%20convicted.

    …Demjanjuk was first tried on allegations of participation in Nazi persecution in a civil denaturalization (citizenship revocation) case decided in 1981. Relying principally on witness testimony, a federal court found at that time that Demjanjuk was a notorious gas chamber operator at the Treblinka extermination center known to prisoners as “Ivan the Terrible.” He was extradited in 1986 to Israel, where he was tried and convicted. However, after the Israeli Supreme Court found that reasonable doubt existed as to whether Demjanjuk was Ivan the Terrible, he was released and returned to the United States in 1993.

    In 1999, the Department of Justice initiated a new denaturalization case against Demjanjuk, relying in large part on captured Nazi documents that came to light following the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union. In revoking his citizenship in 2002, the district court found that, in addition to serving at Sobibor, where approximately 250,000 Jewish men, women, and children were murdered, Demjanjuk had served as an armed guard at Majdanek, a concentration camp and extermination center at which at least 170,000 victims perished. The court also found that Demjanjuk served at Flossenbürg, where thousands of prisoners, confined solely because of their race, religion, national origin or political opinion, died as a result of the inhumane conditions, or were murdered.

    Treblinka and Sobibor were both extermination camps, with very little work done and that was mostly for the ease and comfort of the Nazi guards and to handle corpses because the Nazis were afraid of getting a disease with the least littlest contact with a dead person. Thanks probably to scientific fraud perpetrated on them. This fear lasted until the Nazis found out after the July 1944 plot against Hitler. They had written all their “good deeds” down then torture found it and the Nazis destroyed the records before their surrender.

    It’s quite true. These accused MS-13 people have ben treated worse than Nazis or people connected to al Qaeda (at least after the US took formal custody of them.)

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09)

  59. > I don’t really see any order by SCOTUS that supports the assertion that a district judge can demand the Executive Branch to return that alien.

    Per the per curiam opinion https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a949_lkhn.pdf

    “The order properly requires the Government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.”

    This pretty clearly supports the assertion that the District Court had the power to demand that Abrego Garcia be returned.

    aphrael (1c02d1)

  60. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called for people to get the measles vaccine while in the same breath falsely claiming it hasn’t been “safety tested” and its protection is short-lived.

    If measles itself cancels immunity from other diseases,

    https://www.uclahealth.org/news/article/measles-infection-can-cause-immune-amnesia#:~:text=Researchers%20have%20found%20that%2C%20after,for%20up%20to%20two%20years.

    There is an obvious question: Does the measles vaccine also do that to some degree? It’s a live virus vaccine.

    I don’t see how the approval process would have found that out.

    It seems that it then might be the best course of action would be to give vaccines in the exact right order. Measles first.

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09)

  61. Bring him back to the country, give him a habeas trial, and then remove him to a country that isn’t El Salvador is *fine* as long as whatever process is required under the law is followed and as long as he is able to require that the government prove that he is who they say he is.

    My objection here, notwithstanding Lloyd’s claims otherwise, is to the denial of due process and the violation of a court order. Provide those two things and — while I may disagree with the policy decision — my outrage at the violation of constitutional norms will abate.

    aphrael (1c02d1)

  62. aphrael (1c02d1) — 4/11/2025 @ 12:55 pm

    This pretty clearly supports the assertion that the District Court had the power to demand that Abrego Garcia be returned. return be accepted.

    I think the court could demand a plan for getting El Salvador to release him be devised.

    But if the Trump Administration wants to lie about him I don’t know what the court can do.

    Only political pressure (or the stock market) can get him back.

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09)

  63. Sorry did not close quote after the word “accepted.”

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09)

  64. aphrael (1c02d1) — 4/11/2025 @ 12:57 pm

    as long as he is able to require that the government prove that he is who they say he is.

    The big issue is he what they say he is.

    So far the main thrust of the Administration has been to insist over and over again that he is gang member.

    This happened because Trump was pushing for “mass deportations” and people in government were trying to rack up numbers. (and save money by waiting for planes to fil up)

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09)

  65. Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 4/11/2025 @ 12:23 pm

    subject to a deportation order without another hearing.

    I think the only people subject to a deportation order without another hearing are those who have received a final order of deportation.

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09)

  66. For those keeping score, we now have the Legal Spine Index covering the top 200 law firms, documenting which firms capitulated to Trump, which are standing their ground, and which are keeping their heads down. The number of capitulators is higher than I thought; so far, there are 11 disgraces to the profession, 17 active resisters and 172 wallflowers.

    Paul Montagu (84042b)

  67. But it isn’t clear what Messrs. Trump and Bessent want from China, and what their strategy is to achieve it. Do they want a complete decoupling of the two economies?

    No, they want to collect as much money from China (actually imports from China) as possible.

    Cf The Laffer curve.

    And to make zero or low tariff deals with some countries and punish countries who are slow to negotiate.

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09)

  68. Paul Montagu (84042b) — 4/11/2025 @ 1:08 pm

    Sure, Paul. Perkins Coie, who meddled in an election with outright lies and even misrepresented those lies to the FBI, has a spine. In your world.

    LMAO

    lloyd (d095f1)

  69. Ouch!

    The average rate on the popular 30-year fixed mortgage surged 13 basis points Friday to 7.1%, according to Mortgage News Daily. That’s the highest rate since mid-February.
    ……….
    ………. Mortgage rates loosely follow the yield on the 10-year Treasury.

    “There have been some bad weeks for bonds here and there over the careers of most anyone who’s alive to read these words, but unless your career began before 1981, you just lived through the worst week you’ve ever seen in terms of the jump in 10-year yields,” said Matthew Graham, chief operating officer at Mortgage News Daily.
    ……….
    All of this comes right in the heart of the all-important spring housing market. For most consumers, a home is their single largest investment.

    “Forget about housing in this environment, with mortgage rates back up, consumers certainly concerned about the job market, housing will also be on the weak side,” said Nancy Lazar, chief global economist at Piper Sandler, on CNBC’s “The Exchange” on Friday.
    #########

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  70. Perkins Coie, has no choice but to resist (and maybe hope it gets treated like having a spine.)

    and putting it another way, doesn’t a law firm that sided in an election with outright lies and even misrepresented those lies to the FBI have a spine? Or something.

    But it’s not honest.

    A j-federal judge ruled that punishing Perkins Coie amounted to a bill of attainder.

    Except that’s passed by a legislature.

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09)

  71. Update: DOJ says it won’t comply with Judge Xinis’ order because the deadline she set is “impracticable.” DOJ is under a court order to provide an update on efforts to bring him to the U.S. from El Salvador by 9:30am.

    We are the United States of America. Anything can be done if there’s the will to do it. Having the president call Bukele and tell him that they need to return Abrego Garcia asap is not hard to do. Plus, we are paying them $6 million a year to take these deportees and imprison them. I would think Trump would want to nail Bukele’s hide to the wall and do what he’s told because the US is paying him so much money.

    Dana (f415c1)

  72. Anti-Semitism hardest hit.

    Mahmoud Khalil judge says Trump can deport Palestinian activist over Columbia protests

    A judge has ruled that pro Palestine activist Mahmoud Khalil can be deported due to his involvement in protests at Columbia University.

    Khalil – who was born in a Syrian refugee camp to Palestinian parents – and his team maintain he was exercising his First Amendment right to free speech.

    But in the Friday ruling, Judge Jamee Comans said the government had established by ‘clear and convincing evidence that he is removable’.

    Khalil has been in custody at a Louisiana jail since his arrest. He described himself as a ‘political prisoner’, and slated the squalid conditions he says he is being held in.

    lloyd (d095f1)

  73. Sure, Paul. Perkins Coie, who meddled in an election with outright lies and even misrepresented those lies to the FBI, has a spine. In your world.

    Delusional MAGA propaganda. Their “crime” was to hire FusinGPS for oppo research.

    Paul Montagu (84042b)

  74. > DOJ says it won’t comply with Judge Xinis’ order because the deadline she set is “impracticable.”

    As a former team lead, “what is your plan to do [x]” is not something I would expect to be able to put together in the time frame between when the order was issued and when the deadline was. So i have *some* sympathy for DoJ on this one.

    That said, they should have been working on that plan while the case was at the Supreme Court, as a hedge against the possibility that they’d lose at the Supreme Court. So my sympathy is fairly limited; not having the alternative plan ready strikes me as being terrible, *terrible*, *terrible* lawyering.

    Of course it’s possible (maybe likely) that this isn’t on the lawyers but is on others in the administration who aren’t cooperating with the lawyers.

    aphrael (1c02d1)

  75. And not disclose the ties to Hillary. You forgot that.

    lloyd (4517df)

  76. 5th item. Their is a teacher shortage in floriduh along with everywhere else. If teachers walk out in solidarity there would be know one to replace them and other states would ask them to work in their states.

    asset (45bcff)

  77. And not disclose the ties to Hillary. You forgot that.

    I didn’t forget anything. You don’t understand that they’re a law firm, with attorney-client privilege.

    They’re not obligated to “disclose their ties to Hillary”, and they’re not obliged to report a deal with FusionGPS. Rather, the Hillary campaign was responsible for that, and she misreported a campaign expense as legal fees in typical Clinton sleaze fashion, using Perkins Coie as a cutout, for which she was later fined $106k by the FEC.

    Paul Montagu (84042b)

  78. I wonder how Trump supporters will spin the fact that his administration is spending more than the Biden administration did over the same time period.

    norcal (cdf133)

  79. Trump’s Negotiator Discovers That the Path to Peace Is Through Surrender

    ………..
    ………..Steve Witkoff is in Saint Petersburg today, where he met directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin. There, Trump’s all-purpose negotiator seems to have been comprehensively outmaneuvered by his Russian counterpart.

    According to the “two U.S. officials and five people familiar with the situation” with whom Reuters reporters spoke, “The fastest way to broker a ceasefire in Ukraine, said Witkoff, was to support a strategy that would give Russia ownership of four eastern Ukrainian regions it attempted to annex illegally in 2022.”

    Imagine that! If the United States and its allies sanctioned the appeasement of the Kremlin by forcing Ukraine to give up the territories Moscow tried to seize by force, it could enjoy a temporary reprieve — at least, until Putin presses his territorial ambitions in Europe once again. That’s quite the insight. Why didn’t anyone else think of that?
    …………
    Accepting the concession of the four Ukrainian Oblasts that Moscow unilaterally annexed into the Russian Federation — portions of which the Russian military does not even control — would be a tough pill to swallow. Given the Ukrainian experience behind enemy lines, in which its citizens are summarily executed en masse, raped and tortured, their children kidnapped, and their language and culture subject to stigmatization and extermination — their hesitation is understandable.

    In addition, it’s not clear what the West gets out of this arrangement save the cold comfort that its citizens might derive from a wretched condition that Trump could nonetheless call peace. Indeed, it seems that arriving at that sort of ignominious peace, even if it is so clearly unjust and pretextual that it only sets the stage for another war on terms favorable to America’s enemies in Moscow, is the only objective Witkoff has in mind.
    ………..
    If this were a business deal, neither Witkoff nor Trump would attach their names to it. But politics is a different animal, and the politics of the moment have convinced the representatives of the United States that surrender is their best option. It remains to be seen whether the Ukrainians, the Europeans, or the American people themselves will agree.
    ###########

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  80. “As a former team lead, “what is your plan to do [x]” is not something I would expect to be able to put together in the time frame between when the order was issued and when the deadline was. So i have *some* sympathy for DoJ on this one.”

    You can read the hearing in this thread (may require a bluesky account): https://bsky.app/profile/annabower.bsky.social/post/3lmkj3raobs2j

    The tl;dr is basically the judge is asking for information and the DOJ attorney saying he doesn’t know anything. Judge orders daily status updates including this weekend.

    Davethulhu (14e9e4)

  81. I wonder how Trump supporters will spin the fact that his administration is spending more than the Biden administration did over the same time period.

    Do you have any guess on what it is being spent on?

    BuDuh (4214e4)

  82. Paying for Venezuelans but he is Salvadoran and was thrown in.

    Sammy Finkelman (44ac94)

  83. “I wonder how Trump supporters will spin the fact that his administration is spending more than the Biden administration did over the same time period.”

    They don’t care.

    25% of the existing budget debt occurred during Trump’s first term.
    All of Elon/Doge’s claimed savings were consumed by the military budget increase.
    The planned tax cuts will (just like the ones during his first term) not pay for themselves.

    Davethulhu (14e9e4)

  84. Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 4/11/2025 @ 3:39 pm

    More:

    ……….
    Trump administration officials are increasingly at odds over how to break the deadlock between Ukraine and Russia, with Witkoff and (General Keith Kellogg, the president’s Ukraine envoy) – who favors more direct support for Ukraine – disagreeing on the best course forward, according to the U.S. officials and people familiar with the matter and four Western diplomats who are in touch with administration officials.
    ……….
    In a break with normal security procedures, Witkoff had invited Kirill Dmitriev, the Russian envoy who is under U.S. sanctions following Russia’s invasion, to his personal residence for dinner before the White House meeting.

    That set off alarms inside the White House and the State Department, according to two people familiar with the situation. U.S. officials avoid hosting officials from Russia – which has sophisticated intelligence capabilities – to their homes.

    The dinner was rescheduled and took place at the White House instead.
    ………..
    Some Republicans on Capitol Hill were so concerned about Witkoff’s apparent pro-Russia stance in the Tucker Carlson interview last month that several called National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and Secretary of State Marco Rubio afterward to complain, according to a person familiar with the calls.
    ……….
    Witkoff first publicly floated the idea of handing over to Russia the four Ukrainian regions – Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson – in the March 21 interview with Carlson.
    ………….
    Witkoff’s comments shocked many U.S. national security officials – the special envoy’s rhetoric mirrored that of Russian officials. Western governments have called the hastily organized referendum votes a sham and pledged not to recognize their results.
    ………….
    Despite frequent conversations between Witkoff and Kellogg, the administration has not established a coordinated Ukraine policy process. Contrary to standard practice, the National Security Council has hosted only one principals’ meeting – a meeting that includes all or most of the president’s top national security advisers – on the issue, a person familiar with the matter said, leading to greater confusion inside the administration and among allies in Europe about the direction of the peace talks.

    Two senior Western diplomats who are in touch with the administration said they believe Washington lacks a “clear plan” on how to move forward and what to do if Russia continues to delay.
    ………..

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  85. I wonder how Trump supporters will spin the fact that his administration is spending more than the Biden administration did over the same time period.

    Do you have any guess on what it is being spent on?

    BuDuh (4214e4) — 4/11/2025 @ 4:09 pm

    Dana provided a link at item 8.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  86. Good! Then you can provide a fair and balanced summary.

    BuDuh (4214e4)

  87. A j-federal judge ruled that punishing Perkins Coie amounted to a bill of attainder.

    Except that’s passed by a legislature.

    Maybe they delegated that power to the executive along with all the rest.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  88. Good! Then you can provide a fair and balanced summary.

    BuDuh (4214e4) — 4/11/2025 @ 4:27 pm

    Since Dana posted a link, I have no intention to repeat her post.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  89. I have absolutely no idea, though I would guess that any illegal alien who doesn’t comply with a hearing order would be subject to a deportation order without another hearing.

    Probably he’d get a hearing to determine if he didn’t comply with the previous hearing order.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  90. All I see at the link are totals. I don’t see anything specific. My browser is old. It compresses and overlays some of the data.

    Would you do me a favor, Rip, and just tell me if there are specifics at the provided link? Please.

    BuDuh (4214e4)

  91. Would you do me a favor, Rip, and just tell me if there are specifics at the provided link? Please.

    BuDuh (4214e4) — 4/11/2025 @ 4:36 pm

    There are specifics, with graphs.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  92. …that “an alien who has entered the country, and has become subject in all respects to its jurisdiction, and a part of its population”

    Nice obfuscation, Rip.

    To recap: Immigrant is caught at the border after just crossing illegally. He has no rights to remain in the country and they can send him back the same hour he arrived.

    OR, they can grant him parole, also without a hearing. OR, they can allow him in on an asylum claim pending a later hearing. But according to what you cite, in either case he has NOW (and only NOW) “entered the country” and gained all the rights of any resident.

    Other citations I read say “not so fast” — it is only when he makes real connections into a community that he gains the status of residency. And that determines what showing the state must make to deport. For example, the parole agreement has revocation rules and people can be deported from that status as an administrative matter, subject only to showing some basic facts.

    I think you are using the term “due process” without any reference to what process is due and implying it’s the same in every situation. It isn’t.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  93. “My browser is old”?
    That’s a new one.

    Paul Montagu (84042b)

  94. Other citations I read say “not so fast” — it is only when he makes real connections into a community that he gains the status of residency. And that determines what showing the state must make to deport. For example, the parole agreement has revocation rules and people can be deported from that status as an administrative matter, subject only to showing some basic facts.

    I think you are using the term “due process” without any reference to what process is due and implying it’s the same in every situation. It isn’t.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 4/11/2025 @ 4:42 pm

    It’s not my obfuscation; I am only using the term “due process” as it defined by the cited Supreme Court cases; you on the other hand want a form of “due process” that doesn’t exist in the law.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  95. @84 “They don’t care”

    I hope Democrats, who haven’t cared for decades, can get over their outrage.

    lloyd (5e0f10)

  96. Strange things happen all the time, Paul.

    BuDuh (4214e4)

  97. “I hope Democrats, who haven’t cared for decades, can get over their outrage.”

    Do you care, lloyd?

    the deficit growth under Trump (4 years) was about the same as the deficit growth under Obama (8 years)

    Davethulhu (14e9e4)

  98. Rip, are the numbers in this article a match of some of the WSJ numbers?

    BuDuh (4214e4)

  99. Davethulhu (14e9e4) — 4/11/2025 @ 5:09 pm

    I care, but not enough to self flagellate.

    The game where Republicans take the blame for trying to make Democrat programs sustainable stopped being fun, other than for folks like you. Looks like Trump got wise to it.

    Do you care? Weird how you care so much that you don’t ever seem to offer a solution.

    lloyd (ad7579)

  100. Item 5:

    I think they are writing about the story in the middle of it. I went and read their teacher’s contract and you can’t decline to renew a teacher without following the proper procedure, which includes a Board review. Unless it happened quite long ago (I read the board meeting agendas back through to the beginning of February), the board has not reviewed this action. So, they are still in the middle of things or the district is going to have a grievance filed against it for not following contract.

    Some observations: The state is looking to yank her teaching certificate. (I have talked about this issue before) but honestly if she moves she can probably get employment elsewhere. She’s a fairly young AP level HS English teacher, there are definitely jobs out there. Also I would not be surprised if this turned into a court case against the state.

    Since she’s an AP English teacher, the student may be relatively older, 17 or 18. If the student is 18 this could turn into a different kettle of fish but even if not, older teens often have the legal right to consent to a variety of things and that may contradict this particular edcode.

    The edcode contains a provision that a teacher does not have to tell parents if they believe it would lead to the abuse or neglect of the child.

    It is possible this is going to get messier than Brevard Public Schools intended it to.

    Nic (120c94)

  101. BuDuh (4214e4) — 4/11/2025 @ 5:05 pm

    It worked for me on Edge the same as Chrome.
    How odd.

    Paul Montagu (84042b)

  102. “The game where Republicans take the blame for trying to make Democrat programs sustainable stopped being fun, other than for folks like you. Looks like Trump got wise to it.”

    When did this ever happen? Whenever Republicans come into power, they stop caring about the budget.

    “Do you care? Weird how you care so much that you don’t ever seem to offer a solution.”

    i’m just playing the game according to your rules.

    Davethulhu (88148c)

  103. “When did this ever happen? Whenever Republicans come into power, they stop caring about the budget.”

    Oh, never.

    i’m just playing the game according to your rules.
    Davethulhu (88148c) — 4/11/2025 @ 7:05 pm

    LOL They’re your rules, remember? And anyway, only Nixon could go to China.

    lloyd (5e0f10)

  104. The edcode contains a provision that a teacher does not have to tell parents if they believe it would lead to the abuse or neglect of the child.

    It is possible this is going to get messier than Brevard Public Schools intended it to.

    Nic (120c94) — 4/11/2025 @ 6:03 pm

    I hope the parents are prepared to leave the country.

    The “abuse and neglect” game is well known. Refusing to acknowledge the child’s new name is conveniently evidence itself of abuse and neglect, no?

    lloyd (5e0f10)

  105. “Oh, never.”

    Republicans clearly not in power here.

    “LOL They’re your rules, remember?”

    They’re the rules of the *~Party of Fiscal Responsibility~*

    Davethulhu (88148c)

  106. So, you don’t have a solution. Davethulhu, admit it, you don’t care — other than as a cudgel to hit conservatives with.

    lloyd (5e0f10)

  107. “So, you don’t have a solution. Davethulhu, admit it, you don’t care — other than as a cudgel to hit conservatives with.”

    My solution is “Republicans should stop lying about their concern for the debt/deficit”. I don’t think they’re going to take my advice though, the suckers that vote for them seem to love it.

    Davethulhu (88148c)

  108. Like I said….

    lloyd (5e0f10)

  109. @lloyd@106 Depends on the situation. However my point was that there are a number of things that Brevard Public schools didn’t necessarily consider in taking their current path, which they probably thought would be quiet and avoid bad publicity.

    Nic (120c94)

  110. Paul Montagu (84042b) — 4/11/2025 @ 6:50 pm

    I don’t know why it jumbled everything. It is as if a different aspect ratio, or something, is cramming too much detail into too little space.

    I did look elsewhere and posted a link above. Will you please confirm if the information in the link I posted matches the WSJ? Thanks in advance.

    BuDuh (4214e4)

  111. Just watched “all the presidents men.” With bezo owning wa po he would tell the editor, story is two dangerous to my other businesses spike it! Large washington law firms caving to trump’s threats as are corporations and state governments. The only part of capitalism standing up to trump is the bond market.

    asset (821d48)

  112. I care about the budget. It’s one of the main reasons I supported Republicans. I really wanted Romney and Ryan to win because I believed they had both a sincere interest in balancing the budget and the knowledge and experience to make progress on it. I was pleased when Trump picked Paul Ryan, and his associate rinse whatever his name was to be part of his first administration/inner circle. But it didn’t pan out.

    Now there is no major political party that appears to sincerely care about balancing the budget. Democrats don’t even pretend to care, and as near as I can tell Republicans don’t care enough to take the actions necessary. Or perhaps they care a little bit and mostly want to use it as a tool or pretax to attack programs, they dislike for other reasons.

    I do have to acknowledge that the only people in government who demonstrate that budgetary discipline as a priority at a consistent basis are in the Republican Party. But they are a minority within the party, and it’s been clear in both of Trump‘s administration that he’s unwilling to support that in the face of other priorities.

    Time (c471a2)

  113. Trump’s Climbdown for the Ages
    ………….
    Donald Trump scared people he hadn’t scared before. He didn’t use to scare his policy allies—small-business people, workers, retirees. He did this week. Fear dampens reflexive support. Politicians need reflexive support from the bottom of their base as a platform from which to move. The president weakened his position.

    It is hard to see how it helps him with Republicans in Congress. It demonstrated to them that his judgment can be wrong about big things. So he can be wrong about the “big, beautiful bill.”
    …………..
    The tariff regime made the world doubt his constructiveness and good faith. It would have been understood if he’d gathered allies and taken a big swing at China. Instead he took a big swing at the world, including China. It damaged America’s credibility.

    It wasn’t good to let the world know, or to remind it so vividly, that the way to get America to back off is to tank its bond market. Those bonds, as Zanny Minton Beddoes of the Economist put it, are “the ultimate faith asset.” The world has been reminded they could become the ultimate weak spot.

    …………. What the drama really showed is that Mr. Trump will blink—that when the moment is forced to its crisis, he can back off and climb down. That’s news, and takes the edge of terror off.

    Possible good news: Did the American establishment just make a comeback? I think it did.………..
    …………..
    The president’s overall strategy was never clear beyond “scare everybody.” Mr. Trump puts stock in the madman theory—that a leader gains an edge when foes fear he’ll do something insane. …………
    ………… Candidate Trump was asked if he would use military force if China blockaded Taiwan.

    “I wouldn’t have to, because [Xi Jinping] respects me and he knows I’m f— crazy. I wouldn’t have to. . . . No. I would do economic.”

    Meaning what? “I would tell [him] that if you do this, I’m going to put tariffs on all of your stuff coming in and I’ll slowly, maybe quickly, stop trading with you, and they go bankrupt in two minutes. See, I can do things with tariffs. . . . I would say. ‘If you go into Taiwan, I’m sorry to do this, I’m going to tax you at 150% to 200%.’ ” He might tell China, “ ‘I will put a tariff on everything you send and I’ll even stop trading if you keep it going.’ Because stopping trading is even worse. We’ll go cold turkey.”
    ……………
    It is generally thought that China wouldn’t move on Taiwan in a way that demands a U.S. response while trade between the U.S. and China is crucial to China’s well-being. It is reasonable to ask what would restrain Beijing if that trade relationship were blasted to bits. Might Beijing feel a need to present to its people a win as their financial position deteriorates?
    ………….
    The Republican majorities in both houses of Congress have been irresponsible in relinquishing their authority on tariffs to the executive branch. It amounts to an insult to history, and even to themselves. They are a coequal branch of government, and it is their job to protect their own standing. Instead, as Jonathan Martin notes in Politico, they have reduced themselves to “doing color commentary up in the booth.” ………..
    …………….

    Rip Murdock (75b245)

  114. Another Trump tariff concession:

    Smartphones, laptop computers, memory chips and other electronics will be exempt from President Trump’s sweeping tariffs on China, according to new guidance from the administration, in another step back that could ease some consumer concerns about an immediate spike in costs for electronic products.

    The guidance, published Friday night by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, also exempts machines used to create semiconductors, flat screen TVs, tablets and desktop computers from Trump’s 125% China tariff and his 10% baseline tariff on countries around the world.
    ……………
    …………… Earlier in the week administration officials said that the tariffs on China would encourage the manufacturing of electronics in the U.S.
    ##########

    Rip Murdock (75b245)

  115. Nothing like daily changes to tariff policy to give companies that fuzzy warm feeling about their long-term plans.

    Kevin M (462cce)

  116. The Republican majorities in both houses of Congress have been irresponsible in relinquishing their authority on tariffs to the executive branch.

    It was relinquished long ago and by Democrats. To get it back now would take overriding a veto and/or a USSC climbdown on a 50-year-old mistake.

    Kevin M (462cce)

  117. https://x.com/CDP1882/status/1910565946307002560

    D8versity at the expense of children. The officials engaging in the cover up must be prosecuted and jailed.

    NJRob (af56f2)

  118. To get (Congress’s tariff authority) back now would take overriding a veto and/or a USSC climbdown on a 50-year-old mistake.

    Kevin M (462cce) — 4/12/2025 @ 9:48 am

    As well as overcoming a filibuster.

    Rip Murdock (75b245)

  119. It was relinquished long ago and by Democrats.

    I’m sure some Republicans voted to delegate tariff authority to the President. There have Republican majority Congresses in the past, and they did nothing.

    Rip Murdock (75b245)

  120. Why would Head Cheerleader Bondi do this?

    The Department of Justice said it is reviewing the criminal case brought against a former FBI informant convicted of peddling lies about former President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden and is moving for a judge to release the man from prison immediately while his case is on appeal.

    Alexander Smirnov was sentenced to six years in prison in January after pleading guilty to lying to his FBI handler about the Biden family’s ties to a Ukrainian energy company — in addition to a series of unrelated tax fraud charges.

    Smirnov is nothing short of a flight risk. Maybe Putin passed along his request to Comrade Witkoff.

    Paul Montagu (84042b)

  121. Nothing like daily changes to tariff policy to give companies that fuzzy warm feeling about their long-term plans.

    Kevin M (462cce) — 4/12/2025 @ 9:46 am

    Surrendering prematurely the reciprocal tariffs, and now exempting electronics from China, snows that Trump isn’t serious.

    Rip Murdock (75b245)

  122. If Trump’s trade war is”all about China”, why has he exempted computers, chips, smartphones, TVs, etc from his China tariffs? It makes no sense.

    Rip Murdock (75b245)

  123. I was trying to make the point that the status quo ante was NOT what the USSC demands, and that Biden’s discretion does not bind a future president. Although some court will.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 4/11/2025 @ 11:44 am

    Again, the due process standards for hearings conducted by immigration judges is unrelated to the prosecutorial discretion allowed by US Immigration law.

    For example, the hearing in Louisiana that found Mahmoud Khalil can be deported presumably met the standards as laid out by the Supreme Court. But since immigration judges are part of Department of Justice and are not appointed under Article III of the Constitution, the result is not surprising. No doubt Khalil will appeal to a District Court in Louisiana.

    Rip Murdock (75b245)

  124. > Why would Head Cheerleader Bondi do this?

    Because he was prosecuted for crimes committed for the purpose of harming Trump’s enemies and/or for the purpose of helping Trump, and in Trumpland that means the prosecution was unjust.

    Criminal activity carried out by Trump or his allies is not actually criminal activity, I should think that was abundantly clear by now.

    aphrael (e73b7a)

  125. > It’s one of the main reasons I supported Republicans.

    Republicans have not cared about the budget in a long time; they’ve been willing for at least twenty years to cut taxes without cutting spending, thereby *increasing* the deficit.

    aphrael (e73b7a)

  126. @Rip@124 It doesn’t fit his narrative about manufacturing either. One would think we’d like consumer electronics to go back to being manufactured in the US.

    Nic (120c94)

  127. I’m sure some Republicans voted to delegate tariff authority to the President. There have Republican majority Congresses in the past, and they did nothing.

    It was done in the 30’s. Smoot-Hawley mandated tariffs on many things and when Congress tried to repeal parts of it, Hoover vetoed. In 1934, Congress decided to grant significant tariff power to FDR. Later acts delegated more, but all with the Congress retaining a single-house veto.

    https://www.usconstitution.net/executive-tariff-authority/ (although for some reason they neglect the legislative veto entirely).

    Kevin M (a09364)

  128. Surrendering prematurely the reciprocal tariffs, and now exempting electronics from China, snows that Trump isn’t serious.

    WHat it shows is that there is no plan, unless it has to do with insider trading.

    Kevin M (a09364)

  129. No doubt Khalil will appeal to a District Court in Louisiana.

    Repeat this process for the other 5 million that need deporting.

    Kevin M (a09364)

  130. they’ve been willing for at least twenty years to cut taxes without cutting spending, thereby *increasing* the deficit.

    They have indeed given up on cutting spending, but that’s because they can’t without the Democrats agreeing. If they can’t cut taxes and spending, they’ll just cut taxes. Is it irresponsible? Sure. But sometimes the responsible things are not available and you just have politics.

    As for increasing the deficit, well, not everything is a zero-sum game.

    Kevin M (a09364)

  131. I’m sure some Republicans voted to delegate tariff authority to the President. There have Republican majority Congresses in the past, and they did nothing.

    It was done in the 30’s. ……..

    And in 1962 and 1974. From your link:

    Later acts, such as the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 and the Trade Act of 1974, further evolved this delegated authority. These allowed the President to act on national security concerns through tariffs or respond to unfair foreign trade practices.

    Rip Murdock (75b245)

  132. I think Cantor Fitzgerald, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick’s investment firm, could tell us all the reasons for the so-called tariffs.

    nk (7d04c4)

  133. No doubt Khalil will appeal to a District Court in Louisiana.

    Repeat this process for the other 5 million that need deporting.

    Kevin M (a09364) — 4/12/2025 @ 11:37 am

    Congress has the authority to make changes to the immigration court process, and since Republicans have a majority in both houses, they can make changes to speed up the process.

    Rip Murdock (75b245)

  134. Mahmoud Khalil’s natural born American citizen wife has a right to her husband.

    nk (7d04c4)

  135. Here’s the latest status on Trump’s Master Tariff Strategy…

    The overall US tariff rate is now 25%, down from 29% pre-exemption but still 10x what it was before Trump took office (1/3)

    Accounting for the exemptions on phones & computers, US tariffs on China are now 111%, down from 134% pre-exemption. Yet that is also still 10x what it was before Trump took office (2/3)

    Today’s exemptions caused the tariff rate on computers to drop from 41% to 5% & the rate on phones to drop from 65% to 10%

    Cars remain the largest tariff-affected import, with goods made primarily in China (batteries, toys, game consoles) being hit with the highest tariffs (3/3)

    A 25% average tariff rate by Trump is still in Smoot-Hawley territory and still portends economic disaster. The best we can hope is that this president folds like origami.

    Paul Montagu (84042b)

  136. Mahmoud Khalil’s natural born American citizen wife has a right to her husband.

    nk (7d04c4) — 4/12/2025 @ 12:22 pm

    Not here.

    Rip Murdock (75b245)

  137. To get (Congress’s tariff authority) back now would take overriding a veto and/or a USSC climbdown on a 50-year-old mistake.

    Kevin M (462cce) — 4/12/2025 @ 9:48 am

    It’s more likely that Congress would override a veto (or suspend the filibuster for this issue), which is something they have power to do than the Supreme Court “climbing down” on INS v. Chada, which they cannot do on their own.

    Rip Murdock (75b245)

  138. And in 1962 and 1974. From your link:

    Then in 1983 they lost the legislative veto.

    Kevin M (7338fd)

  139. Mahmoud Khalil’s natural born American citizen wife has a right to her husband.

    She does, and Trump cannot stop her from leaving.

    Kevin M (7338fd)

  140. they cannot do on their own.

    It would take Congress to pass a veto-authorizing law first. As I said, the Chadha decision was a trap door which should not have passed the severability test.

    Kevin M (7338fd)

  141. However, passing such a law at this point would be easier than at some other point, as the Democrats would be on board (getting back the legislative veto is a genuine bipartisan goal, but is always hampered by gored oxen). It would require the GOP Congressmen to break with Trump, which will become more likely as the administration finds more and deeper ditches to drive into.

    Kevin M (7338fd)

  142. It would take Congress to pass a veto-authorizing law first. As I said, the Chadha decision was a trap door which should not have passed the severability test.

    Kevin M (7338fd) — 4/12/2025 @ 1:02 pm

    However, passing such a law at this point would be easier than at some other point, as the Democrats would be on board (getting back the legislative veto is a genuine bipartisan goal, but is always hampered by gored oxen). It would require the GOP Congressmen to break with Trump, which will become more likely as the administration finds more and deeper ditches to drive into.

    Kevin M (7338fd) — 4/12/2025 @ 1:07 pm

    1) Democrats would be in favor only to extent they could use the legislative veto against Trump; when they regain the Presidency not so much.

    2) There would be no guarantee the Supreme Court would reverse its decision.

    3) All water under the bridge. I haven’t heard anyone in Congress say “if only if INS v. Chada had gone the other way we would have been able to veto Trump’s tariffs.”

    Rip Murdock (a82e3d)

  143. Right now Congress can veto Trump’s tariffs, they just need to pass a law as the Constitution intended.

    Rip Murdock (a82e3d)

  144. More about our short-sightedness on Asian trade.

    Notably President Trump walked away from a deal where three of these four countries would have gotten rid of virtually all of their US tariffs and trade barriers.

    It was called TPP and they went ahead without us.

    Trump and Biden both rejected this.

    Paul Montagu (84042b)

  145. Trump and Biden both rejected (TPP).

    Not quite true. The US did sign the TPP agreement while Obama was President, but it wasn’t presented to Congress for a vote because it became an issue in the 2016 presidential campaign (Hillary Clinton also opposed TPP).

    President Trump during his first term pulled the US out the unratified agreement. TPP was a dead letter as far as the US was concerned.

    Biden wanted to renegotiate the environmental and labor provisions, but that wasn’t going to happen after all the work that went into it. Had the US ratified the TPP during the Biden administration (an unlikely prospect), Trump would have pulled the US as soon as he became president.

    Rip Murdock (a82e3d)

  146. See here for a summary of the history of the TPP.

    Rip Murdock (a82e3d)

  147. TTP’s obituary; it had no chance of passing in 2016, or ever. The politics had changed.

    Rip Murdock (a82e3d)

  148. @114 The government used to do a lot less that conservatives wanted not done. Hoover was your man who didn’t believe in government intervention except to break up coal mine strikes and having the military open fire on the bonus army on the washington mall. Anarchists were big back then blowing up the stock market and shooting presidents. Good read: Social history of the machine gun. In 1932 the communist party got over million votes for president and people in Kansas and Iowa were storing food in cellars fearing a communist revolution! FDR came along and said we don’t have to shoot the rich just expand government services and tax the rich. This is why conservatives oppose violence on the left because people who have nothing to lose have a advantage. Mother Jones san francisco general strike. She shoved the machine guns aside aimed at the strikers.

    asset (80fe8e)

  149. Bond market vs trump guess who just submitted?

    asset (80fe8e)

  150. All is not lost for Mahmoud Khalil. His free speech and due process claims will go before federal judge Michael Farbiarz who is …(drumroll)… a Biden appointee.

    lloyd (f80e9a)

  151. I’ve updated Item 2 in the post.

    Dana (51607a)

  152. “Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man”

    LOL

    lloyd (f80e9a)

  153. RIP Canadian film director Ted Kotcheff (91):

    …………
    The Toronto native, who started his admired 60-year career directing for live television, also helmed the social satire Fun With Dick and Jane (1977), starring George Segal and Jane Fonda; the Nick Nolte-Mac Davis dark pro football drama North Dallas Forty (1979); and the action flick Uncommon Valor (1983), starring Gene Hackman.

    Kotcheff and future Hill Street Blues co-creator Michael Kozoll had adapted a book by Canadian writer David Morrell into a movie script for Warner Bros. When the studio passed on the project, Orion Pictures snapped it up, and on Kotcheff’s suggestion, hired Sylvester Stallone to star as John Rambo, a former Green Beret on a suicide mission.

    Made for about $16 million, First Blood (1982) grossed more than $125 million worldwide ($317 million today), gave Stallone his first post-Rocky hit and spawned three sequels — none of which Kotcheff wanted anything to do with.
    …………
    Kotcheff tackled material of a different sort when he directed the cadaver comedy Weekend at Bernie’s (1989)………
    …………
    …………(I)n Australia, Kotcheff helmed the unsettling Wake in Fright (1971), about a schoolteacher (Gary Bond) who gets stranded in the outback and must deal with a group of brutal beer-swillers.
    ………..
    ………… Roger Ebert called Wake in Fright “powerful, genuinely shocking and rather amazing. It comes billed as a ‘horror film’ and contains a great deal of horror, but all of the horror is human and brutally realistic.”
    …………
    Kotcheff made his way back to Canada to direct the low-budget indie The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1974), with Richard Dreyfuss portraying the ambitious son of a working-class Jewish family in Montreal. He had trouble finding his lead, but a recommendation from casting legend Lynn Stalmaster brought him to Dreyfuss.

    “As soon as Richard opened his mouth, it was electric! He had Duddy’s manic energy,” Kotcheff said.
    …………
    In the late 1990s, Dick Wolf, a fan of North Dallas Forty and Duddy Kravitz, pitched Kotcheff on the idea for a cop series about sex crimes and the psychology behind them.
    ………..
    Law & Order: SVU took Kotcheff from directing to producing, and he cast Christopher Meloni and Mariska Hargitay as detectives Elliot Stabler and Olivia Benson. ……..Kotcheff ran SVU for 13 seasons and more than 280 episodes, through 2012.
    …………

    I’ve seen Wake in Fright, one of the weirdest movies you’ll ever see, culminating in an actual kangaroo slaughter.

    Rip Murdock (a82e3d)

  154. (Kilmar Abrego Garcia) is alive and secure in that facility. He is detained pursuant to the sovereign, domestic authority of El Salvador,” Michael Kozak, a top State Department official, said in a two-page, written declaration submitted to a judge under penalty of perjury.

    The government should have included “proof of life” with a photograph of him holding today’s La Prensa Gráfica or El Diario de Hoy newspapers.

    Rip Murdock (a82e3d)

  155. Rip Murdock (a82e3d) — 4/12/2025 @ 5:37 pm

    Correction, Ted Kotcheff was 94 when he died.

    Rip Murdock (a82e3d)

  156. What a week. Trump has only been in the Oval for 91 days, but my gosh, it feels like a lifetime.

    And he has yet to shoot someone on Fifth Avenue.

    nk (7d04c4)

  157. RIP child actor Claude Jarman, Jr. (90):

    ………..
    In films released in 1949, Jarman starred with Jeanette MacDonald in the Lassie movie The Sun Comes Up, played the brother of a rancher on the run (Robert Sterling) in Roughshod and reteamed with Yearling director Clarence Brown to portray a youngster out to prove the innocence of a Black man in Intruder in the Dust, based on the William Faulkner novel and filmed in Oxford, Mississippi.

    A year later, he played the son of a cavalry officer (John Wayne) in John Ford’s Rio Grande (1950).

    Jarman was the 10-year-old son of a Nashville railroad accountant when director Clarence Brown came to his fifth-grade classroom on Valentine’s Day 1945 while randomly visiting schools in the South to scout kids for The Yearling.
    …………
    He was soon hired to play Jody Baxter, the lonely son of Gregory Peck and Jane Wyman’s characters, in The Yearling, adapted from the 1939 book by Pulitzer Prize winner Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings.

    He said it took about two years in Florida to finish the movie; one shot with a deer needed 115 takes to get on film. And to promote the feature, he once walked with a deer on a leash down Fifth Avenue in New York.

    At the 1947 Oscars, Jarman was presented with his Juvenile Academy Award from Shirley Temple at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. He was the seventh youngster to get the miniature trophy, 12 years after Temple was the first. (Years later, the Academy gifted him with a regular-size Oscar, and he proudly displayed both in his home.)
    ………..

    Rip Murdock (a82e3d)

  158. @nk@158 That we know of.

    Nic (120c94)

  159. I thought posters here were smart ;but so little comment on what the bond market did to trump this week. They showed him who the real boss is. Don’t you all here comprehend what just happened?

    asset (163fa1)

  160. Senate and house republicans we don’t dare cross trump! Stock market, big business/billionaires, big law firms and state governments We can’t either! Bond traders/bond market “Hold my beer!” Trump you want tariffs then we want the 34 trillion we loaned U.S. back now!

    asset (163fa1)

  161. > Trump has only been in the Oval for 91 days

    How do you figure?

    11 days in January
    28 days in February
    31 days in March
    12 days in April

    looks like 82 days to me?

    aphrael (11078a)

  162. “if only if INS v. Chada had gone the other way we would have been able to veto Trump’s tariffs.”

    Maybe you should ask them.

    Kevin M (e52aa7)

  163. Right now Congress can veto Trump’s tariffs, they just need to pass a law as the Constitution intended.

    The Constitution intended them to have the sole power to set tariffs. Right there in Article I, Section 8, at the top.

    Kevin M (e52aa7)

  164. @166 the bond market just did it for congress.

    asset (163fa1)

  165. Sigh.

    No, comrade. Donnie climbed up the refrigerator to reach the cookie jar and in the process spilled the cookies and broke the icemaker and now water is leaking out all over the kitchen floor.

    It may be a failure for Donnie, but neither is it a win for the cookie jar or the icemaker or for the rest of the family.

    nk (cebce3)

  166. The Constitution intended them to have the sole power to set tariffs. Right there in Article I, Section 8, at the top.

    Kevin M (e52aa7) — 4/12/2025 @ 11:30 pm

    No argument from me; Congress does have the power to re-write Trump’s tariffs but they are too cowardly to do so (as long as there is a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and a veto-proof majority in both chambers.)

    But the Supreme Court has upheld the delegations of Congress’s tariff setting authority to the President since the 1890s, with the two most important precedents being decided in 1892 and 1935:

    For example, in Marshall Field & Co. v. Clark, 143 U.S. 649 (1892), the Supreme Court upheld a provision of the Tariff Act of 1890……….. holding that the challenged provision “does not, in any real sense, invest the president with the power of legislation.” …………it made the President “the mere agent of the law-making department.” Thus, the Court explained, the challenged provision called upon the President not to make law but simply to execute a law enacted by Congress.

    Reinforcing the latitude Marshall Field afforded to Congress, the Supreme Court in J.W. Hampton, Jr., & Co. v. United States 276 U.S. 394 (1928) upheld a provision of the Tariff Act of 1922 ………… As in Marshall Field, the Court rejected a constitutional challenge to this law from affected importers who argued Congress had impermissibly delegated its legislative power to the President. The Court held that the challenged provision was “not a forbidden delegation of legislative power” since it set forth “an intelligible principle to which the person or body authorized to fix [tariff] rates is directed to conform”………… J.W. Hampton set a key precedent that Congress may delegate authority to the executive branch—in tariff and other matters—provided that it sets forth an “intelligible principle” to govern the executive’s actions.
    ……………
    In more recent cases, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Federal Circuit) has held that Algonquin requires it to reject nondelegation challenges to Section 232 asserted by plaintiffs seeking to enjoin (i.e., stop) the President’s proclamation of steel tariffs. ……….

    As the examples above illustrate, the Supreme Court has held that the Constitution gives Congress broad latitude to delegate authority to adjust tariffs to the President. Indeed, the Court has not struck down laws on any subject as violating J.W. Hampton’s “intelligible principle” standard since 1935………..
    ………….

    Footnotes omitted; paragraph breaks added.

    Rip Murdock (3652c9)

  167. Kevin M (e52aa7) — 4/12/2025 @ 11:30 pm

    More:

    In addition to constitutional challenges to Congress’s delegation of tariff authorities to the executive branch, federal courts have decided legal challenges to the President’s specific uses of those authorities. Parties claiming that the President has exceeded the scope of his statutory authority to impose tariffs sometimes have standing to challenge those tariffs in the Court of International Trade (CIT), which generally has exclusive original jurisdiction over such lawsuits.The Federal Circuit, in turn, has exclusive jurisdiction over appeals from the CIT and therefore has a key role in interpreting the contours of the President’s tariff authorities.

    As explained below, the Federal Circuit has long applied a deferential standard of review to questions regarding the scope of the President’s statutory tariff authorities………. where tariff and other statutes commit decisions or fact-finding to the President’s discretion, the Federal Circuit has held that the President’s discretionary acts are not subject to judicial review.

    In its 1985 decision Maple Leaf Fish Co. v. United States,34 the Federal Circuit articulated a deferential standard for reviewing claims that the President had exceeded the scope of his statutory tariff authorities. ……….. The court reasoned: “In international trade controversies of this highly discretionary kind—involving the President and foreign affairs—this court and its predecessors have often reiterated the very limited role of reviewing courts.” Thus, the court held: “For a court to interpose, there has to be a clear misconstruction of the governing statute, a significant procedural violation, or action outside delegated authority.”
    …………..
    Similarly, in USP Holdings, Inc. v. United States 36 F.4th 1359 (Fed. Cir. 2022), the Federal Circuit upheld the President’s imposition of national security tariffs under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. The court rejected the petitioner’s argument that a national security threat must be “imminent” to impose tariffs under Section 232, holding that Section 232 “provides no basis to impose an imminence requirement.”

    It also held that Section 232’s requirement that the President “determine the nature and duration of the action” did not prevent the President from imposing tariffs indefinitely, with no specified end date. The court reasoned that “claims that the President’s actions violated the statutory authority delegated to him . . . are reviewable [only] to determine whether the President ‘clearly misconstrued’ his statutory authority.”
    ………..

    Footnotes omitted; paragraph breaks added.

    Rip Murdock (3652c9)

  168. Two weeks ago, the WSJ had a short article on the Loser pardoning Trevor Milton “who had been convicted of fraud in federal court for what prosecutors said were his lies to investors about his zero-emission trucks.”

    According to prosecutors Milton “created a video of what appeared to be truck driving normally–but it was really an inoperable prototype rolling down a hill.”

    Milton is being represented by Brad Bondi, Pam’s brother.

    “Milton and his wife donated more than $1.8 million to a Trump fundraising committee in October.”

    His company, Nikola, had a market value that “briefly eclipsed that of automaker Ford”.

    He still faces civil penalties from the SEC.

    Jim Miller (3bcd91)

  169. Milton is being represented by Brad Bondi, Pam’s brother.

    “Milton and his wife donated more than $1.8 million to a Trump fundraising committee in October.”

    Which is why I am not all that excited about Trump “going after” Big Law, blacklisting some of them. They are part of the swamp and their main products are access and influence.

    nk (3b34cf)

  170. ‘This Week’ Transcript 4-13-25

    …………
    JONATHAN KARL (voice over): When he announced his tariffs last week, President Trump called it liberation day. The markets didn’t see it that way.
    ………..
    KARL (voice over): But Trump didn’t seem to care, declaring late last week, “My policies will never change.”

    Even as the markets continued to tank, and his allies on Wall Street pleaded with him to at least take a breather and put his tariffs on hold, Trump stood firm.
    ……………..
    KARL (voice over): It wasn’t just stocks tanking, but bonds, too, and the U.S. dollar. JP Morgan put the risk of recession at 60 percent, warning of higher inflation. Others warning of economic meltdown. For a while, at least, Trump seemed unfazed.

    TRUMP: I know what the hell I’m doing. I know what I’m doing. And you know what I’m doing, too. That’s why you vote for me.
    ………..
    KARL (voice over): Trump writing on social media, quote, “We are waiting for their call. It will happen.” But that call hasn’t come.

    A spokesperson for the Hong Kong office of China’s foreign ministry writing, “We must solemnly tell the U.S., a tariff-wielding barbarian who attempts to force countries to call and beg for mercy, can never expect that call from China.”
    …………
    KARL: I’m joined now by Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick.
    ………..
    KARL: Let’s start with that news late Friday that this exemption on electronics, smartphones, laptop computers and the like. What’s the thinking? Why the exemption?

    LUTNICK: Well, if you remember, over the past couple of months President Trump has called out pharmaceuticals and semiconductors and autos. He called them sector tariffs. And those are not available for negotiation. ………
    ………….
    KARL: But – but – but, wait a minute, I’m – I’m asking you about the exemption, not about – I mean the – the notice that went out Friday night saying that electronics, a wide range of electronics, including smartphones, including components used to make microchips, that these are now exempt from the reciprocal tariffs. Why that move?

    LUTNICK: Well, remember, those products are going to be part of the semiconductor sectoral tariffs which are coming. So, you’re going to see this week there will be a register in the federal registry. There will be a notice put out. That is different types of work.
    ………..
    So, what he’s doing is he’s saying they’re exempt from the reciprocal tariffs but they’re included in the semiconductor tariffs, which are coming in probably a month or two. So, these are coming soon. You shouldn’t think this is really outside of it. Really think of it as being included in the semiconductor space. ………….
    Semiconductors and pharmaceuticals will have a tariff model in order to encourage them to reshore, to be built in America. We need our medicines, and we need semiconductors and our electronics to be built in America.
    …………
    So, this is not like a permanent sort of exemption. He’s just clarifying that these are not available to be negotiated away by countries. These are things that are national security, that we need to be made in America.
    ………….
    KARL: ……….(L)et me ask you about the constitutionality of these tariffs. As you know, the Constitution, right there in Article 1, Section 8, makes it very clear, “the Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises.” Congress has the power to impose tariffs, not the president. And the president has cited this 1977 emergency law that doesn’t mention tariffs.

    This is a law about sanctions, about seizing foreign assets. So, how concerned are you, and are you prepared to defend this in court? As you know, there’s already at least one court challenge to the constitutionality of these tariffs.

    LUTNICK: The president knows the law. The president’s general counsels know the law. They understand this, that Congress has passed law that is gave the president the ability to protect our national security. We need to make medicine in America. If you don’t think that’s national security, you’re not thinking it through. We need to make semiconductors in America. We need steel and aluminum in America. We need to manufacture in America.

    If we just run gigantic trade deficits and sell our soul to the rest of the world, eventually we are going to be the worker for the rest of the world. We’re going to be the thinker for the rest of the world, but they’re going to manufacture. And if some day they say, gee, we’re not sending it to you, we’ll be nothing.
    ………….

    Paragraph breaks added.

    Rip Murdock (3652c9)

  171. New pet peeve — AI search engines

    A number of times recently I’ve tried to get an answer to a complex technical question, by Googling a carefully constructed search, and had the AI that Google uses dumb down the search into the simplest possible (and totally wrong) query. It’s very frustrating. I guess if you don’t know how to use a search engine, it’s helpful, but having quotes and NOTs disappear is maddening.

    Kevin M (44d348)

  172. TRUMP: I know what the hell I’m doing. I know what I’m doing. And you know what I’m doing, too. That’s why you vote for me.

    Fredo: I can handle things! I’m smart! Not like everybody says… like dumb… I’m smart and I want respect!

    Kevin M (44d348)

  173. holding that the challenged provision “does not, in any real sense, invest the president with the power of legislation.” …………it made the President “the mere agent of the law-making department.” Thus, the Court explained, the challenged provision called upon the President not to make law but simply to execute a law enacted by Congress.

    This doesn’t pass the laugh test today.

    The Court held that the challenged provision was “not a forbidden delegation of legislative power” since it set forth “an intelligible principle to which the person or body authorized to fix [tariff] rates is directed to conform”…

    Suppose he isn’t comforming? As for intelligible principle, what pray tell is that?

    Congress does have the power to re-write Trump’s tariffs but they are too cowardly to do so

    Supposedly they are not Trump’s tariffs, but Congresses through their clear and limited delegation. Although what that limit might be is a mystery.

    Kevin M (44d348)

  174. They are part of the swamp and their main products are access and influence.

    And, of course, intimidation. That Big Law would complain of Trump intimidating them must have MAGA rolling on the floor. Karma is a bi*ch.

    Kevin M (44d348)

  175. The Court held that the challenged provision was “not a forbidden delegation of legislative power” since it set forth “an intelligible principle to which the person or body authorized to fix [tariff] rates is directed to conform”…

    Suppose he isn’t comforming? As for intelligible principle, what pray tell is that?

    If the tariffs aren’t “conforming” presumably the Supreme Court could overturn the tariffs, but that’s never happened to date

    Defending the tariffs authorized under the IEEEA will be tougher than under other congressional authorities, but I can see the administration arguing that the “intelligible principle” is national security, such as re-shoring strategic industries .

    However, it will be at least a year before the Supreme Court gets any chance to decide what it means.

    Rip Murdock (3652c9)

  176. Congrats to Mr. McIlroy, winning in sudden death after choking on the 18th (but after a phenomenal on the 17th).
    What an amazing day for golf (yes, I love to watch golf and I watched all four days of the Masters because the course is incredible and it’s an ultimate challenger the players).

    Rory made history as he’s only one of six players in history to win a Grand Slam, meaning winning all four majors over their careers, that’s how tough it is. The other five are Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Nicklaus and Tiger. It’s rarified air.

    It’s a great time of year for sports, starting with the NCAA tournament, then Augusta, then we can catch a little baseball.

    Paul Montagu (84042b)

  177. …phenomenal birdie on the 17th…

    Paul Montagu (84042b)

  178. #169

    The tariffs imposed by Trump arguably are not authorized by the statute he is using. The question in play now isn’t whether Congress can delegate its authority to the executive — the question is whether Congress really handed over the tariff making power to Trump if he can conjure up a bogus emergency for the purpose.

    We may see in the next few days whether the Supreme Court will actually directly oppose Trump on anything he wants, should the El Salvador deportation issue come back to them. Being able to transport citizens and non-citizens to a pet dictatorship and strand them there without a hearing is kind of a huge loophole in our constitutional rights.

    Appalled (466507)

  179. Being able to transport citizens and non-citizens to a pet dictatorship and strand them there without a hearing is kind of a huge loophole in our constitutional rights.
    Appalled (466507) — 4/14/2025 @ 7:20 am

    Appalled, what citizens were transported? Do you have any names?

    lloyd (eef0f8)

  180. >Appalled, what citizens were transported? Do you have any names?

    Trump has openly talked about wanting to send citizens there, and the logic used in the court decisions makes no distinction between citizens and non-citizens.

    Either a court has the power to compel the administration to return someone sent to a foreign torture camp or it doesn’t. The administration is arguing that the court has no such power.

    aphrael (b57129)

  181. Lloyd,

    What’s at stake with the current back and forth between the Courts and the Administration is the principle that the Administration may move someone out of the country (by an oopsie) and then take no apparent action to try to retrieve them. Do you disagree? Trump is fighting awfully hard for this principle (as of 11:05 AM on 4/14). At best, he is feeling out just exactly what he can get the courts to accept in the case of governmental violation of the individual’s rights.

    And then we have this:

    “I’d love that,” he said when asked by reporters Sunday aboard Air Force One about a proposal from El Salvador’s president to take in convicted US citizens into the country’s high-security mega prison. “If they can house these horrible criminals for a lot less money than it costs us, I’m all for it, but I’d only do according to the law, but I have suggested that, you know, why should it stop just to people that cross the border illegally?”

    https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/09/politics/deportees-el-salvador-prison-trump/index.html

    The link between the two of these isn’t that hard to make. And “Trump wouldn’t do that — you can’t believe he’d do that, prove he’d do that” isn’t a persuasive argument.

    Appalled (466507)

  182. Fundamentally, at this point, what’s at stake is whether constitutional rights mean *anything*. If the government can send someone to an overseas torture camp in violation of a court order and can’t be required to undo the action … that’s game, right there. The fourth amendment ceases to have any meaning, and so do all of the other amendments protecting individual rights.

    Personally, I believe the Supreme Court will cave because it knows that Trump will simply ignore it, and at that point the US ceases to be a free country, regardless of our self-image or our claims … because our so-called “rights” are at that point nothing more than privileges to be withdrawn at the whim of the government.

    aphrael (b57129)

  183. #185

    The Trump administration is fighting hard for the principle that, once the body is outside the US, even by mistake, they do not have to take any publicly disclosed actions to get the person back into US custody.

    They want the courts to endorse this BAD. Because it would just be so easy to, right now, ask El Salvador to send the guy back, and be done with this drama.

    Draw your own conclusions on why Trump’s folks want this precedent, and whether the Supremes will ultimately let them have it.

    Appalled (466507)

  184. The link between the two of these isn’t that hard to make. And “Trump wouldn’t do that — you can’t believe he’d do that, prove he’d do that” isn’t a persuasive argument.
    Appalled (466507) — 4/14/2025 @ 8:09 am

    So, you don’t have any names. Just lying for effect, I guess.

    The link is very hard to make, unless one is engaged in citizen deportation fantasy camp. (h/t Rip)

    Appalled, would you rather be deported or killed by a drone strike? The latter has actually happened to American citizens by prior administrations without due process. No strained link is necessary. Show me your comments here where you stridently claimed that any of us are next.

    lloyd (b2f488)

  185. > The link is very hard to make

    Trump is openly saying he wants to send citizens to torture camps abroad, his lawyers are arguing in court that the courts can’t compel the administration to return someone *mistakenly* sent to a torture camp abroad … and you think the link is hard to make?

    Are you blind or are you lying?

    aphrael (b57129)

  186. Either a court has the power to compel the administration to return someone sent to a foreign torture camp or it doesn’t.

    This is a little complicated by the fact that the person of interest is a citizen of the receiving country.

    Kevin M (a09364)

  187. I think that, in the end, “due process” requires *some* process where relevant facts are ascertained.

    Kevin M (a09364)

  188. Lloyd,

    What’s the lie? Please be specific, using my words and what you deem to be a lie. Or retract. You pulled that on Patterico, you would have been banned.

    The statement I think you object to is a conditional prediction, based on what the Supremes might do on El Salvador and what Trump said he wants to do regarding putting people in jail in El Salvador for crimes other than crossing the border illegally. I suggested citizens might be deported to El Salvador and stranded there, based on the legal logic Trump’s DOJ is fighting so hard for. If you don’t agree with that opinion, I am happy to engage directly on the issue.

    Appalled (466507)

  189. > This is a little complicated by the fact that the person of interest is a citizen of the receiving country.

    The argument being presented by the government’s lawyers does not hinge on that distinction at all, they are arguing that since the person of interest is in a foreign jail, anything involving that person of interest falls within the president’s plenary power to conduct foreign affairs, and therefore a court *cannot reach it*.

    The administration’s *open position* is that as soon as a person of interest is out of the country, American court jurisdiction ends, *even if that person’s removal was unlawful under American law*.

    If that is true then there is *zero* effective legal or procedural bar against the administration picking up *anyone it wants* and dispatching them to CECOT to be murdered.

    This is the biggest threat to civil rights since the inception of the Republic.

    aphrael (b57129)

  190. > Appalled, would you rather be deported or killed by a drone strike?

    The issue isn’t just *deportation*, it’s *removal to a torture prison*.

    I’m pretty sure that i’d rather be killed by a drone strike than dispatched to CECOT with no pathway to ever getting out.

    aphrael (b57129)

  191. #189

    I agree with the complication and also the practical impact that El Salvador would have to agree to the guy’s return. The problem is that the US administration is obligated to take steps to attempt to secure this man’s release.

    This is going to prove important once we get to a similar case involving someone from the Tren de Augua bunch, who are held there pursuant to an agreement between the US and El Salvador.

    Appalled (466507)

  192. Congress does have the power to re-write Trump’s tariffs but they are too cowardly to do so

    Supposedly they are not Trump’s tariffs, but Congresses through their clear and limited delegation. Although what that limit might be is a mystery.

    Kevin M (44d348) — 4/13/2025 @ 2:42 pm

    The tariffs are not “Congresses”; they did not pass a tariff bill (as was done prior to 1934) to impose these specific tariffs.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  193. The link is very hard to make, unless one is engaged in citizen deportation fantasy camp. (h/t Rip)

    The administration’s *open position* is that as soon as a person of interest is out of the country, American court jurisdiction ends, *even if that person’s removal was unlawful under American law*.

    If that is true then there is *zero* effective legal or procedural bar against the administration picking up *anyone it wants* and dispatching them to CECOT to be murdered.

    aphrael (b57129) — 4/14/2025 @ 9:38 am

    I can easily imagine the Administration deporting, without a hearing (and in the dead of night), a citizen to a third country; and then telling a court that “Yeah, it was an administrative error, but it’s not our problem, as they are out of our control” which is the essence of the Administration’s argument. It’s less of a “fantasy camp” than thinking Trump will be impeached again, or that the Supreme Court will overrule a 50-year old Supreme Court decision on its own.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  194. Trump to Bukele: “Home-growns are next. The home-growns. You gotta build about five more places. It’s not big enough.”

    https://x.com/atrupar/status/1911824313553928513

    Yes, a very difficult link to make.

    Davethulhu (14e9e4)

  195. @191 Implying that citizens are involved in these deportations is a lie.

    The attempt of this lie, of course, is to blur the lines between citizen and non-citizens. That any action against non-citizens (a “Maryland man” no less) threatens citizens, therefore everyone. It’s silly.

    Appalled, in a post-Obama world, are any of us safe from a drone strike?

    lloyd (00f908)

  196. Again, I’ve been attacked with all sorts of names here. Despite the clear violation of the commenting rules, no one got banned. But, throw up the bat signal to the host. It might work.

    lloyd (f62b34)

  197. “He’s always looking to purchase missiles. Listen, when you start a war, you gotta know you can win a war. You don’t start a war against somebody that’s 20 times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles.”

    https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lmrwfqbb3w27

    Davethulhu (14e9e4)

  198. Lloyd,

    I use a philosophy here — don’t call any fellow poster a liar. It’s a good idea that you should consider. If for no other reason than you probably do not want to be a jerk.

    What you object to is a concern that Trump will (i) send citizens to El Salvador prisons [he said as much today — see the link at #197] and (ii) claim, once the citizens are sent, he can’t lay hands on them because they belong to El Salvador and we do not have to take steps to try to get them back.

    (ii) is a concern about something Trump might do. He has not done it yet. It is the logic of Trump’s DOJ:

    On the flipside, reading “facilitate” as requiring something more than domestic measures would not only flout the Supreme Court’s order, but also violate the separation of powers. The federal courts have no authority to direct the Executive Branch to conduct foreign relations in a particular way, or engage with a foreign sovereign in a given manner. That is the “exclusive power of the President as the sole organ of the federal government in the field of international relations.

    Plaintiffs’ additional relief runs headlong through this constitutional limit. They ask this Court to order Defendants to (i) make demands of the El Salvadoran government (A1), (ii) dispatch personnel onto the soil of an independent, sovereign nation (A2), and (iii) send an aircraft into the airspace of a sovereign foreign nation to extract a citizen of that nation from its custody (A3). ECF 62 at 4. All of those requested orders involve interactions with a foreign sovereign—and potential violations of that sovereignty. But as explained, a federal court cannot compel the Executive Branch to engage in any mandated act of diplomacy or incursion upon the sovereignty of another nation

    https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mdd.578815/gov.uscourts.mdd.578815.65.0.pdf

    The language here basically is “we admitted a mistake and you can’t make us work with El Salvador to try to fix it.” Is that reasonable?

    Your thoughts, beyond look out for drones, are solicited.

    Appalled (ae7092)

  199. TV Tantrum:

    ………..
    Trump took to Truth Social on Sunday to lash out at (60 Minutes) over two specific segments, one about Ukraine and the other about Greenland. The President didn’t like what he heard……..

    “Almost every week, 60 Minutes, which is being sued for Billions of Dollars for the fraud they committed in the 2024 Presidential Election with their Interview of Failed Presidential Candidate Kamala Harris, mentions the name “TRUMP” in a derogatory and defamatory way, but this Weekend’s “BROADCAST” tops them all,” Trump wrote.

    “They did not one, but TWO, major stories on “TRUMP,” one having to do with Ukraine, which I say is a War that would never have happened if the 2020 Election had not been RIGGED, in other words, if I were President and, the other story was having to do with Greenland, casting our Country, as led by me, falsely, inaccurately, and fraudulently,” he continued.
    ………
    According to Deadline, the 60 Minutes segment on Ukraine featured an interview with the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky. During the interview, Scott Pelley stated that Trump “rewrote history, saying, falsely, that Ukraine had started the war” before showing a clip of Trump referring to Zelensky as a “dictator.”

    The segment on Greenland saw Jon Wertheim speaking to residents about their thoughts on the U.S. potentially annexing the country. Many were opposed to the idea, with Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen saying, “Greenland is for Greenlanders, not for anybody else.”

    “Hopefully, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), as headed by its Highly Respected Chairman, Brendan Carr, will impose the maximum fines and punishment, which is substantial, for their unlawful and illegal behavior,” (Trump) concluded. “CBS is out of control, at levels never seen before, and they should pay a big price for this.”
    ……….

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  200. > @191 Implying that citizens are involved in these deportations is a lie.

    Nobody is implying the current deportations involve citizens.

    We are stating:

    (a) the President has said he wants to remove citizens to the same torture camp;

    (b) the President’s lawyers are making legal arguments that do not distinguish between this case and a case involving a citizen, arguing that once the individual (citizen or not) is removed to the torture camp, courts no longer have authority.

    You are consistently refusing to engage with this statement and instead are deflecting to the incorrect claim that people are lying about the current deportations.

    aphrael (3456ea)

  201. @192

    If that is true then there is *zero* effective legal or procedural bar against the administration picking up *anyone it wants* and dispatching them to CECOT to be murdered.

    This is the biggest threat to civil rights since the inception of the Republic.

    aphrael (b57129) — 4/14/2025 @ 9:38 am

    Hmmm…

    No…

    That was the droning of US Citizens during the Obama administration as the biggest civil rights since the inception of the Republic.

    Be honest. This isn’t a case whereby someone saw someone with brown skin being picked up and sent to the gulag with zero due process.

    The person saw at least 3 (if not more) separate hearings and eventually received a removal order.

    That has never changed.

    The removal order was still active as far as I know.

    What he also had, was an order that he couldn’t be shipped back home. That was the mistake, which this administration did attest to.

    The issue, really isn’t about due process.

    The issue is really about the tug of war between the Judiciary and the Executive.

    whembly (b7cc46)

  202. The language here basically is “we admitted a mistake and you can’t make us work with El Salvador to try to fix it.” Is that reasonable?

    Appalled (ae7092) — 4/14/2025 @ 11:22 am

    Yes.

    Courts cannot (nor should they) make the executive to work with foreign government. (unless there’s a treaty involved).

    Could the court encourage the executives to do so? Sure.

    But they don’t have any power to force the executive.

    whembly (b7cc46)

  203. stupid Hitler is completely OK outsourcing prison jobs to El Salvador, but god forgive GM build’s a plant across the river.

    I’m sure, same thing. Constitution, smonstitution.

    Colonel Klink (ret) (96f56a)

  204. > The issue, really isn’t about due process.

    Of course it is.

    The administration claims it can send someone to a foreign gulag in violation of a court order and *nobody* can do anything about it.

    Meanwhile, the President is *openly declaring* that he wants to send American citizens to the same foreign gulag, where the same rules would apply — once the citizens are there, there is nothing anyone can do about it.

    If this is allowed to stand, the bill of rights is a paper tiger, and what we have are not *rights* but rather *privileges* which can, in practice, be withdrawn by the administration on a whim — or just “by mistake”, a mistake which can never be corrected by anyone.

    This is *precisely* the kind of power that the fourth amendment was intended to prevent existing, and it’s *precisely* the kind of power that, when I was a kid, was one of the major differentiators between the communist world and the free world.

    Honest question, Whembly: why do you think it’s ok for the government to remove someone *in violation of a court order* to a torture camp from which they then refuse to retrieve him?

    aphrael (3456ea)

  205. Appalled (ae7092) — 4/14/2025 @ 11:22 am

    I see. You don’t want to address a case that actually involved a U.S. citizen, not some pretend incident or something that might happen.

    My response to your concern is that it hasn’t happened and it’s basically fantasy camp.

    Your response to an actual assassination of a U.S. citizen without due process is a shrug.

    lloyd (f62b34)

  206. As for jerk behavior, there’s been a lot of that here over a long period of time. Glad to see you deciding to call it out right now today.

    lloyd (f62b34)

  207. “He’s always looking to purchase missiles. Listen, when you start a war, you gotta know you can win a war. You don’t start a war against somebody that’s 20 times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles.”
    –Donald J. Trump, today

    Also, Trump said he was “told” that Putin’s Palm Sunday terrorist attack was a “mistake”, but then went on and criticized Zelensky for the “absolutely horrible job” of “allowing” an invasion that Putin started.
    We are in the Realm of the Absurd, where Trump’s is trying to impose his delusions as some sort of reality.

    Zelenskyy didn’t even play a president on a TV show when Putin invaded in 2014. Again, this American president just keeps blaming the victim and not saying a word of criticism about the thug leader of the Russian terrorist state.
    This bears repeating: Trump chose the Greater Evil and is with the terrorists.

    Paul Montagu (84042b)

  208. > My response to your concern is that it hasn’t happened and it’s basically fantasy camp.

    The President is openly saying he wants to send US citizens to a foreign gulag.

    On what basis do you claim that this is “basically fantasy camp”?

    Is it your claim that *the President* is lying when he says he wants this to happen?

    aphrael (3456ea)

  209. aphrael, I’ve heard that Trump lies a lot. I prefer to deal with what actually happened rather than what might happen or wishcasting.

    Do you think a court should order the return of Anwar al-Awlaki to the living world?

    lloyd (f62b34)

  210. @208

    Honest question, Whembly: why do you think it’s ok for the government to remove someone *in violation of a court order* to a torture camp from which they then refuse to retrieve him?

    aphrael (3456ea) — 4/14/2025 @ 12:14 pm

    Look.

    Can we dial down the “torture camp” rhetoric?

    It’s a harsh, hard prison, yes.

    Due Process.

    What didn’t he get?

    He had at least 3 hearings in person (and some unknown number of hearings when he was a no-show).

    Why do you think that’s insufficient?

    Furthermore, the order that he’d not be returned to home stipulates that the gangs at home are a problem…Now? It’s likely mooted.

    So, yes, it’s really about the tensions between the Executives and the Courts whereby both sides are zealously advocating for their positions.

    whembly (b7cc46)

  211. What didn’t he get?

    He didn’t get due process before sent off to a foreign penal colony. There’s no one-off here. He should’ve had his day in court like every other guy who was taken.

    Paul Montagu (84042b)

  212. “Why do you think that’s insufficient?”

    It’s clearly insufficient if he was sent to a place he wasn’t supposed to be sent, in violation of a court order.

    What is the remedy for this violation?

    Davethulhu (14e9e4)

  213. Do you think a court should order the return of Anwar al-Awlaki to the living world?

    I agree that al-Awlaki deserved his day in court (and his murdered 16-year old son), and now Obama has immunity.

    Paul Montagu (84042b)

  214. He’s not supposed to be in El Salvador, and as someone who entered the US illegally he’s not supposed to be here either.

    The remedy is to send him somewhere where he’s not supposed to be.

    lloyd (f62b34)

  215. I agree that al-Awlaki deserved his day in court (and his murdered 16-year old son), and now Obama has immunity.
    Paul Montagu (84042b) — 4/14/2025 @ 12:43 pm

    None of us are safe, Paul. No citizen is safe.

    lloyd (f62b34)

  216. @218 Oooops

    The remedy is to not send him somewhere where he’s not supposed to be.

    lloyd (f62b34)

  217. and now Obama has immunity.
    Paul Montagu (84042b) — 4/14/2025 @ 12:43 pm

    Sure, Paul. Obama was in jeopardy until the immunity decision came down. LOL

    lloyd (f62b34)

  218. >Can we dial down the “torture camp” rhetoric?

    No. It’s an accurate description of the prison in question, and the only reason to downplay it is to mislead people into being ok with a situation which is manifestly not OK.

    aphrael (3456ea)

  219. Sure, Paul. Obama was in jeopardy until the immunity decision came down. LOL

    Trump codified it, thanks to his efforts.
    Oh, and it’s good advice to not pal around al Qaeda.

    Paul Montagu (84042b)

  220. > None of us are safe, Paul. No citizen is safe.

    Correct. Under the legal theory being advanced by the administration in court this week, no citizen is safe from being “accidentally” dispatched to die in a foreign gulag, with no recourse whatsoever once it has been done.

    Why do you support this?

    aphrael (3456ea)

  221. Trump’s latest tariff climbdowns are still above a 20% average tariff rate. This is right-wing, not conservative.

    Paul Montagu (84042b)

  222. I agree that al-Awlaki deserved his day in court (and his murdered 16-year old son), and now Obama has immunity.

    Paul Montagu (84042b) — 4/14/2025 @ 12:43 pm

    Obama doesn’t need “immunity” for al-Awlaki’s killing, he had authority under the Constitution (and the Authorization to Use Military Force) to take whatever actions are necessary to defend the nation.

    Section 2

    (a) IN GENERAL.—That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

    As an al-Qaeda terrorist he was covered by the AUMF, and the fact he was in Yemen, it was unlikely that he would return to the United States. How many American military lives would you be willing to risk to capture him for “his day in court”?

    al-Awlaki was, among other things:

    ……….linked to a series of attacks and plots across the world – from 11 September 2001 to the shootings at Fort Hood in November 2009.
    ……….
    US officials say he was a leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, an offshoot of the militant network in Saudi Arabia and Yemen, and helped recruit Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, external, the Nigerian accused of attempting to blow up an airliner as it flew into Detroit on 25 December 2009.
    ……….
    It also emerged (from the 9/11 Commission) that in 1998 and 1999, while serving as vice-president of an Islamic charity that the FBI described as “a front organisation to funnel money to terrorists”, Awlaki was visited by Ziyad Khaleel, an al-Qaeda operative, and an associate of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, who was serving a life sentence for plotting to blow up landmarks in New York.
    ……….
    It also emerged after the Fort Hood incident, that Awlaki had given the US Army psychiatrist charged with killing 13 people, Maj Nidal Malik Hasan, external, religious advice by email. He had also seen Awlaki preach in Virginia in 2001.

    In July 2009, the cleric stated in a blog post that a Muslim soldier who fought other Muslims was a “heartless beast, bent on evil, who sells his religion for a few dollars”. Following the shootings, Awlaki called Maj Hasan a hero.

    “My support to the operation was because the operation brother Nidal carried out was a courageous one,” he told al-Jazeera.
    ………..

    al-Awlaki’s killing was an exercise of the President’s authority as commander in chief to defend the nation. The death of his son was so entirely his father’s responsibility for endangering his life.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  223. @223

    Trump codified it, thanks to his efforts.

    Huh?

    You mean Trump also droned a US citizen abroad too? Or, that his efforts that lead up to the SCOTUS immunity ruling?

    Oh, and it’s good advice to not pal around al Qaeda.

    Paul Montagu (84042b) — 4/14/2025 @ 1:03 pm

    Same could be said of terrorist organization like MS13.

    Oh…wait.

    whembly (b7cc46)

  224. Disingenuous, whembly, categorically.

    Paul Montagu (84042b)

  225. @224 What do you mean accidentally? Trump just told salvador president to build more prisons for U.S. Citizens! (DU)

    asset (6f1164)

  226. @228

    Disingenuous, whembly, categorically.

    Paul Montagu (84042b) — 4/14/2025 @ 1:40 pm

    How so?

    It seems the outrage is over this illegal MS13 gangbanger, who received numerous hearings, being sent back home…

    Are the same people, who either defended or ignored when Obama droned US citizens.

    Sorry, if you’re not outraged by what Obama did, but are when an illegal alien, determined at some point being MS13 gangbanger nonetheless, was mistakenly sent to El Salvatore…

    Sorry, not sorry, your credibility is nil.

    This isn’t me advocating for this administration’s position.

    For me, personally, in the spirit of comity and respect, this administration should try to get El Salvatore to deport this inmate to another country.

    There’s a middle ground to be had.

    IF your mad that not enough due process is providing sufficient guardrail, be mad at Congress for failing their duties here.

    whembly (b7cc46)

  227. FIFY:

    It seems the outrage is over this illegal MS13 gangbanger, who received numerous hearings, being sent back home…despite a court order forbidding a transfer to El Salvador……

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  228. No. It’s an accurate description of the prison in question,

    I have heard it’s not a great place to be, as if some prisons are, but “torture” implies active measures to, well, torture people. What evidence of actual torture do you have? Or is this just hyperbole?

    Kevin M (fa70ed)

  229. …despite a court order forbidding a transfer to El Salvador……

    And that’s the rub, because the court equated punishment for crimes in his home country to “persecution.” If anything, this is the weak link in the case. I assume that Trump is arguing that his national security duties are more important than following a judge’s mistaken order.

    If El Salvador believes that they have repatriated a criminal, I’m not surprised they don’t want to release him.

    Of course, “What is Truth?”

    Kevin M (fa70ed)

  230. It seems the outrage is over this illegal MS13 gangbanger, who received numerous hearings, being sent back home…

    Still disingenuous, whembly, and unserious. Even the DOJ said it was a mistake.
    If I’ve gotten due process for shoplifting a few years back, doesn’t mean I don’t get process for the more current alleged offense. No less than the Supreme agrees with this.

    Paul Montagu (84042b)

  231. You guys …!

    Some dwarf tinpot of some Third World speck that 99.99% of the world could not find on a map can say “Oopsie!”

    The President of The United States of America should say “We f***ed up. Make it right!”

    Not for Garcia or for 1,000 Garcias. For America!

    nk (d7b4c3)

  232. @226: I had thought we were done with this, but what Rip said.

    Kevin M (fa70ed)

  233. @234

    Still disingenuous, whembly, and unserious. Even the DOJ said it was a mistake.

    Paul Montagu (84042b) — 4/14/2025 @ 2:07 pm

    Bruh.

    I’ve said it was a mistake too.

    My aggravation to this one, is that Obama and drone a US Citizen with nary a peep, but it’s a gd constitutional crisis that an illegal alien gets mistakenly sent to El Salvatore.

    So, forgive me that my give-a-shl!t meter is a weee bit broken here.

    whembly (b7cc46)

  234. …despite a court order forbidding a transfer to El Salvador……

    And that’s the rub, because the court equated punishment for crimes in his home country to “persecution.” …….

    Source? The alleged persecution of Kilmar Abrego Garcia was at the hands of a local gang, not the government:

    A local gang, Barrio 18, began extorting the family for “rent money” and threatened to kill his older brother Cesar—or force him into their gang—if they weren’t paid, court documents state. The family complied but eventually sent Cesar to the U.S.

    Barrio 18 similarly targeted Abrego Garcia, according to his immigration case. When he was 12, the gang threatened to take him away until his father paid them “all of the money that they wanted.” They still watched him as he walked to and from school.

    The family moved 10 minutes away, but the gang threatened to rape and kill Abrego Garcia’s sisters, court records state. The family shut down the business, moved again and eventually sent Abrego Garcia to the U.S.

    The family never went to authorities because of rampant police corruption, according to court filings. …….
    ………..
    In October 2019, an immigration judge denied Abrego Garcia’s asylum request but granted him protection from being deported back to El Salvador because of a “well-founded fear” of gang persecution, according to his case. He was released, and ICE did not appeal.
    ……….

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  235. @236

    @226: I had thought we were done with this, but what Rip said.

    Kevin M (fa70ed) — 4/14/2025 @ 2:09 pm

    Let me posit this.

    The extra-judicial kill is authorized by AUMF. It’s really an assassination.

    But the collateral here was Alawiki’s son, who’s also a citzen.

    That’s an unfortunate collateral expense… yes?

    In Obama position, he and his decision makers had to weigh the risk/reward that assassinating al-Awlaki would offer.

    War is ugly business, and these are hard choices.

    But, at the of the day, al-Awlaki’s son was an innocent US citizen.

    So, here’s the kicker: Almost universally, Obama received some grace, even though there were small detractors making noises about this.

    This MS13 illegal gangbanger was mistakenly sent to El Salvatore.

    The administration admitted to it.

    Hell, again, I acknowledge that this was a mistake.

    But, I can see where the DOJ is going to aggressively protect the Executive from a Judge’s ruling into the foreign policy realm.

    How about this: DON’T ILLEGALLY CROSS THE BORDER INTO THE US AND NONE OF THIS WOULD HAPPEN.

    whembly (b7cc46)

  236. @238

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 4/14/2025 @ 2:21 pm

    The gangs are almost nonexistent in El Salvatore now. So, that claim, while appears unverified, is mooted.

    whembly (b7cc46)

  237. My aggravation to this one, is that Obama and drone a US Citizen with nary a peep, but it’s a gd constitutional crisis that an illegal alien gets mistakenly sent to El Salvatore.

    Your argument is with Rip, whembly, not me.

    Paul Montagu (84042b)

  238. The administration has notified all those who entered the country with waivers through the CBP One app that their entry permission has been cancelled and that they must now leave.

    From the CBP Fact Sheet

    The free CBP One™ mobile application enables noncitizens without
    appropriate documents for admission who seek to travel to the United
    States through certain southwest border land ports of entry (POEs) the
    ability to submit information through a module within the application
    instead of coming directly to wait at a POE.

    Beginning January 12, 2023, noncitizens who seek to travel to the United
    States through southwest border land POEs to request exception from the
    Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Order Suspending the Right To
    Introduce Certain Persons from Countries Where a Quarantinable Communicable
    Disease Exists, may use the CBP One™ mobile application to submit certain
    information in advance, attest that they, a spouse or child accompanying
    them, meet specific vulnerability criteria, and schedule an appointment to
    present themselves for inspection at a participating POE.

    Use of CBP One™ streamlines the experience at the port of entry, may
    reduce wait times, and permits a safe and orderly process at POEs for all
    travelers.

    This allowed people from the comfort of their own homes get permission to enter, so long as they checked the box saying they were fearful for their safety. Which they did. To call this “legal” status conflates it with that of actual legal immigrants. At best they are potential asylum seekers, who have no legal right to remain if that status is not approved.

    Lying rags like the NY Times, are, of course conflating this (“They Followed the Rules. Now Thousands of Migrants Are Told, ‘Leave.’”) and the usual suspects are organizing to clog the courts with hearings, appeals of hearings, appeals of appeals of hearings, etc).

    These were paroles. pending a hearing, with signed agreements that said that paroles could be revoked without cause. Many have asylum requests pending, but that does not mean they can remain in the country until they are heard. “Remain in Mexico” was a thing before, and it may be a thing again. The ease of the CPB One app system may have induced people with no valid asylum need to claim it as a way to go north, so to say that all these folks are refugees is just more conflation.

    The move to terminate the status of people who used the app is part of a wider push by the Trump administration to roll back discretionary programs created by the Biden administration, which had allowed about 1.5 million people to be “paroled” into the country.

    The parole status shielded immigrants from deportation and granted them employment authorization for two years.

    The Homeland Security Department canceled CBP One after Mr. Trump took office, and turned it into a “self-deportation” app, CBP Home, which it hopes migrants will use to prove they have left the United States once they have departed. The administration has also effectively canceled Social Security numbers that immigrants had obtained legally to cut them off from using crucial financial services like bank accounts and credit cards and raise pressure on them to leave.

    Not all parolees have filed formal asylum requests. The question is whether those that have must also depart and wait for their hearing date in Mexico, as people did before Biden created this parole program.

    Kevin M (fa70ed)

  239. The extra-judicial kill is authorized by AUMF. It’s really an assassination.

    But the collateral here was Alawiki’s son, who’s also a citzen.

    That’s an unfortunate collateral expense… yes?

    Yes. In a War (and it was a War), don’t stand with the enemies. Particularly don’t join the enemy leadership, as they are all valid assassination targets. And yes, collateral damage. I feel sorry for the kid having such an ass-wipe father, but them’s the breaks. Past that, IDGAF.

    Kevin M (fa70ed)

  240. As for the kid being innocent, for all you know he was helping his daddy rape captive Yazidi girls.

    What about innocent US-born citizens whose German parents returned them to the Homeland to help the Fuhrer and got drafted into the Wehrmacht? Should US soldiers have checked that possibility before shooting?

    This is just navel-gazing crap.

    Kevin M (fa70ed)

  241. He didn’t get due process before sent off to a foreign penal colony.

    He did. And the 2019 Article 2 court found him to be a member of MS13. In the years since that decision, he did nothing to convince that court otherwise. Now he faced Article 3 justice as a Foreign Terrorist, and that is why SCOTUS did not order him returned.

    BuDuh (b9a166)

  242. Aphreal, I think Lloyds position is that Trump wasn’t being literal and was just expressing anger at his opponents. Therefore he shouldn’t be taken any more seriously then if he said he wanted to put them on a rocket and send them to the outer space.

    Not saying I agree with him, just that his assumption that Trumps statements are empty isn’t entirely without support.

    Time (8abbc4)

  243. Now he faced Article 3 justice as a Foreign Terrorist, and that is why SCOTUS did not order him returned.

    The Supreme Court affirmed 9-0 that he’s entitled to “reasonable time” for due process, which was denied him.

    Paul Montagu (84042b)

  244. The Supreme Court affirmed 9-0 that he’s entitled to “reasonable time” for due process, which was denied him.

    I’ll reread the opinion.

    BuDuh (b9a166)

  245. “The order properly requires the Government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.”
    –Supreme Court decision

    Paul Montagu (84042b)

  246. Looks like somone is making money off Trump’s Tariffs.

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/marjorie-taylor-greene-stocks-trump-tariffs/

    Time (c471a2)

  247. > But, I can see where the DOJ is going to aggressively protect the Executive from a Judge’s ruling into the foreign policy realm.

    Whembly, another question for you.

    Assume for the sake of argument that another mistake results in the administration accidentally sending a US Citizen to CECOT.

    The administration’s position is that, at that point, no court has jurisdiction to order the return of the citizen.

    Are you ok with that?

    aphrael (3456ea)

  248. Coincidence, no doubt:

    The Georgia congresswoman purchased at least tens of thousands of dollars in stock the day before and the day of President Trump’s pause of a sweeping set of tariffs that sent the market soaring.

    Jim Miller (842856)

  249. The Georgia congresswoman purchased at least tens of thousands of dollars in stock the day before and the day of President Trump’s pause of a sweeping set of tariffs that sent the market soaring.

    She bought stocks after panic selling dropped them some 40%. It’s a pretty astute move. If she had insider knowledge of the next day’s announcements, that would be bad. If, instead, she knew what a terrible flip-flopper Trump is and/or had some idea of the pressure he was under to relent (which was pretty obvious), it was simply a good bet.

    Not all stocks recovered, btw. Nvidia is still 30% off its peak. You know what’s a big winner in all this? Walmart, up 15% in the last few days, and 5% since all this started.

    Kevin M (089f1c)

  250. If a court really wanted to get this guy back, they could enjoin ALL deportations until he’s returned. The El Salvador guy is not going to keep him if Trump wants him back.

    Kevin M (089f1c)

  251. A question for the fancy-pants lawyers (I assume there are still a few here).

    The administration and its Salvadoran friend clearly intend to make a mockery of due process, and the Supremes have pre-emptively washed their hands by calling it a foreign-policy issue.

    Do Mr. Abrego Garcia and his American wife and son perhaps have a better chance in civil court?

    Doesn’t his wrongful deportation and pending imprisonment in a gulag for life (despite having fewer convictions than the current President of the United States), denial of human and civil rights, his family’s loss of financial support, his wife’s loss of consortium, and the emotional cruelty inflicted, expose the government to huge liability? And punitive damages?

    Couldn’t they sue for a nine- or ten-figure sum and perhaps entice the government to settle for seven- or eight figures, plus return to the US with citizenship?

    Dave (ff0354)

  252. plus return to the US with citizenship?

    Courts cannot grant citizenship. Only the Executive branch, following Congress’ script, or Congress itself can grant citizenship.

    Kevin M (3d42a3)

  253. The gangs are almost nonexistent in El Salvatore now. So, that claim, while appears unverified, is mooted.

    whembly (b7cc46) — 4/14/2025 @ 2:25 pm

    Assumes facts not in evidence. Source?

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  254. The government hasn’t presented any evidence that Abrego Garcia is a member of MS-13, and the immigration judge (who is an employee of the Justice Department, and not a member of the federal judiciary) in 2019 issued an order (still in effect) that he not to be deported to El Salvador to avoid persecution by local gangs, not the government. Hardly the ruling one would expect by someone who thought Garcia was part of MS-13.

    During his immigration hearing that year, the Salvadoran told the judge then that he feared returning to his home country because of the potential threat of persecution and torture. He applied for asylum, but that option is only available to those who have been in the U.S. around a year. By that point, he had been stateside for about seven years.

    The judge agreed there was a significant threat posed to Abrego Garcia if he was returned home, and despite ordering his removal, barred ICE from sending the migrant back to El Salvador. He was then released from detention and frequently checked in with ICE.
    ………..
    His attorneys claimed, and ICE later confirmed, that the only verification came from a form filled out by the Prince George County Police Department, which based his membership on the fact that “he was wearing a Chicago Bulls hat and a hoodie; and that a confidential informant advised that he was an active member of MS-13 with the Westerns clique” – a group based out of Long Island, New York.
    ………

    There is no evidence that Abrego Garcia has lived in New York ever.

    People seem to forget the fact that the government has admitted that an “administrative error” resulted in Abrego Garcia being sent to El Salvador:

    “Through administrative error, Abrego-Garcia was removed from the United States to El Salvador,” Robert L. Cena, acting field office director for Enforcement Removal Operations (ERO) in Harlingen, wrote in a sworn statement, in which he added: “This was an oversight, and the removal was carried out in good faith based on the existence of a final order of removal and Abrego-Garcia’s purported membership in MS-13.”

    Cena said that ICE was aware of the 2019 order barring Abrego Garcia from deportation to El Salvador — it was on internal paperwork. On March 15, as other illegal immigrants were struck off the flights’ manifest “for various reasons”, Abrego Garcia moved up the list, Cena said. That list did not include the note, which appears to be the genesis of the “administrative error.”

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  255. I doubt there is enough evidence to charge anyone with insider trading.

    Insider trading involves buying or selling a publicly traded company’s stock based on nonpublic, material information about that company.
    Material, nonpublic information is any undisclosed information that could substantially impact an investor’s decision to buy or sell a security. It hinges on who is considered an insider, and what constitutes “material, non-public” information.

    In order to prosecute anyone for insider trading, the government would need to prove that those like MTG received non-public information and then acted upon it. President Trump announced publicly on April 9th through Truth Social that “This is a great time to buy” and later announced the 90-day pause in reciprocal tariffs. Anybody who was paying attention could have guessed that the stock market would have taken off at that point. In order to prove insider trading by Trump would require evidence he told persons in private of what he was going to do, which would be extremely difficult.

    A big nothingburger.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  256. Once all the foreign students that are supporters of Hamas have been deported, what should be done with the American citizen students who support Hamas?

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  257. Courts cannot grant citizenship. Only the Executive branch, following Congress’ script, or Congress itself can grant citizenship.

    Right, the executive branch would be the one to settle any civil suit, and that could (I guess) be part of it.

    If the administration won’t settle, the damages would need to be sufficient to bribe Trump and/or Bukele.

    Dave (ff0354)

  258. A general comment about citizenship.
    To me, it’s a Gold Standard. Americans have the Golden Ticket of citizenship, and other nations should respect it, in part by not kidnapping us on foreign soil in places like Russia, Iran or by Hamas. It should have meaning, both here and abroad.

    If our countrymen are kidnapped, there should be hell to pay if they’re not returned or soon returned, and that’s why I hold Putin and Khamenei and Hamas in full contempt, and why I’m frustrated that we didn’t do enough and quick enough on their behalf.

    Similarly, even though al-Awlaki was an al Qaeda terrorist, he and his son were born in America and were irrevocably American citizens. In deciding to give them a death sentence, Obama didn’t even render an indictment, just targeted them for death with nary a hint of due process. To me, that should never happen to a Golden Ticket holder, no matter how bad the guy is.

    Over a decade ago at the Forvm blog, I was surprised by the number of left-wingers who agreed with Obama’s verdict on the guy, despite all their caterwauling and pearl-clutching about detainees and combatants rights in the Iraq War, which spoke plenty to their partisanship and their falling in line with that lightweight president. But, to me, the Gold Standard should’ve gotten their day in court, no matter how repugnant these humans were.

    The only or best way to have taken out al-Awlaki, IMO, was if al Qaeda high-value targets were in the same room or in close proximity, then it’s just collateral damage because foreign terrorists were there. Wrong time, wrong place for al-Awlaki. But, to me, directly targeting an American citizen crosses an important line.

    And let’s not even get into the killing or murdering of a 16-year old US citizen, which happened two weeks after his dad was killed. He was a kid, an American kid who should’ve been give a chance to live because he was an American. Conor Friedersdorf wrote about Abdulrahman al-Awlaki and the manner in which he was murdered, and it’s sickening. Friedersdorf’s work holds up twelve years later.

    But Americans still don’t know why one of those Americans, a 16-year-old youth, was killed. What is oversight for if not finding that out? Islamist “militants” attacked a CIA compound in Benghazi and Congress is all over it. U.S. missiles kill an American citizen whose name didn’t appear on Team Obama’s kill list, and no one cares to establish exactly what went wrong? When is transparency important if not in cases like this?

    This finally leads to Trump’s malevolent plan to send American citizens–the “Home growns”–to an El Salvadoran penal penalty for whatever unspecified crimes. On its face, it’s a gross violation of the Eighth Amendment. But worse, Trump is devaluing our Gold Standard of citizenship by treating different citizens differently. It’s wrong on multiple levels.

    Paul Montagu (84042b)

  259. Harvard don’t fear the grifter….

    “We have informed the administration through our legal counsel that we will not accept their proposed agreement,” Harvard President Alan M. Garber said in a statement Monday.

    After the administration announced the freezing of the funds, Harvard stood by its statement which added, “The University will not surrender its independence or its constitutional rights.”

    nk (6c45b4)

  260. Paul Montagu (84042b) — 4/14/2025 @ 8:01 pm

    As I asked above, how many American soldiers would you have been willing to sacrifice so that al-Awlaki could have his “day in court”?

    Rip Murdock (3652c9)

  261. Then he should’ve been indicted, Rip.

    Paul Montagu (84042b)

  262. @263 nk, that’s very brave of Harvard, with its $50 billion endowment built in part on taxpayer funds and tax exemptions. They are fighting for survival. #RESIST

    lloyd (505a51)

  263. Yeah. So? What should they be fighting for? A fried egg on their grits and a second slice of chocolate cake?

    nk (314b65)

  264. Well, yes, that’s because Trump is with the terrorists…

    US blocks G7 statement condemning Sumy attack with 35 deads and 119 injured people.

    Trump is a straight traitor. Sorry, he’s on Russias side. Reagan would slap him.

    Paul Montagu (84042b)

  265. Research, invention, and innovation are America’s biggest strengths.

    A Russian puppet would do his best worst to end that, with or without some anti-Semitism horsesh!t rationalization.

    nk (314b65)

  266. Trump’s cosmically stupid tariffs have come to roost in Seattle. And South Carolina.

    China has barred its country’s airlines from accepting deliveries from Boeing in retaliation against Donald Trump’s tariffs.

    The ban will apply to all existing orders from the US manufacturing giant, while Beijing has also told the country’s carriers not to buy any aircraft-related equipment or parts from other American companies.

    Boeing is our country’s largest exporter. Or was, because China is (or was) one of Boeing’s biggest customers.

    Paul Montagu (84042b)

  267. nk (314b65) — 4/15/2025 @ 8:40 am

    Anti-semitism is just the cost of innovation, nk.

    lloyd (dc6969)

  268. #5 and #6 I argued in the first comment that we are reluctant to think about the threats from disease, using Gina Kolata’s argument in Flu. Colonel Klink (ret) described how terribly the 1918 flu epidemic affected his family. Multiply that by tens of millions to get an idea of the impact world wide.

    We should think about those threats, because they won’t disappear, “like magic”. So let me continue by mentioning three more books that I have learned from:

    1. Justinian’s Flea by William Rosen. The “Black Death” weakened the Byzantine empire so much that it was unable to resist the rise of Islam.

    2. Rats, Lice, and History by Hans Zinsser. A “biography” of typhus. A super quirky biography, which I like, but may not be to everyone’s taste. First published in 1934, it is, naturally, somewhat dated.

    3. Plagues and Peoples by the eminent historian, William H. McNeill. Gives a general argument for the importance of disease in history.

    (If you know of other books on the subject worth reading, please share them with us.)

    Jim Miller (875fcd)

  269. Paul Montagu (84042b) — 4/14/2025 @ 8:01 pm

    As I asked above, how many American soldiers would you have been willing to sacrifice so that al-Awlaki could have his “day in court”?

    Rip Murdock (3652c9) — 4/15/2025 @ 7:24 am
    ……………….
    Then he should’ve been indicted, Rip.

    Paul Montagu (84042b) — 4/15/2025 @ 7:34 am

    How would have an indictment make a difference? Indicted or not, it would have been unlikely for al-Awlaki to return to the United States on his own.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  270. He didn’t have to be in the country to be indicted, Rip.
    I accept that we’re not going to agree on this, like with self-pardons.

    Paul Montagu (84042b)

  271. Amateur Hour:

    U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff appeared to backtrack on comments that Iran could be allowed to enrich uranium at a low level in a new nuclear deal with the Trump administration, saying Tuesday that Tehran would have to abandon its enrichment program.

    “A deal with Iran will only be completed if it is a Trump deal,” Witkoff wrote in a post on X, adding that “Iran must stop and eliminate its nuclear enrichment and weaponization program.”

    Witkoff’s statement ran counter to the position he outlined a day earlier when he indicated that limited enrichment could be allowed if it was subject to stringent verification and other steps were taken to prevent Tehran from being able to make a nuclear weapon.
    ……….
    The comments were broadly seen as a sign that the Trump administration was prepared to be flexible in the nuclear talks, which resume Saturday in Oman. But they were at odds with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s demand that Iran’s program be eliminated and its enrichment sites destroyed under American supervision.

    The White House National Security Council and Witkoff’s spokesman didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on his apparent change of position.
    ………..
    “Witkoff’s apparent retreat makes it more difficult for the Trump administration to make diplomatic progress, as public statements indicating the U.S. position is zero enrichment ties the administration to a hardline position from which it will be difficult to retreat,” said Gregory Brew, senior Iran analyst at consultancy Eurasia Group.
    ……….
    Going into the Trump administration’s first round of talks with Iran, which were held last weekend in Oman, Witkoff told The Wall Street Journal that the U.S.’s initial position was that Iran’s nuclear program needs to be dismantled. But he also suggested the White House would be prepared to compromise to reach an agreement.
    ……….
    Witkoff also suggested in his Monday interview that a future accord should cover the missiles that Iran might use to carry a nuclear weapon. He said verification measures should cover “the type of missiles that they have stockpiled there, and it includes the trigger for a bomb.”
    ……….
    Netanyahu has been calling for an agreement like a 2003 accord struck with Libya, whose nuclear program was taken apart. Under that so-called Libya model, Iran’s nuclear program would be eliminated, and its enrichment sites would be destroyed under American supervision.
    ……….

    To paraphrase James Mason in North by Northwest, this problem is best disposed of from a great height.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  272. He didn’t have to be in the country to be indicted, Rip.
    …….
    Paul Montagu (84042b) — 4/15/2025 @ 11:25 am

    I understand that, but what I don’t understand is why indicting al-Awlaki would have made any difference. He still would have been outside the reach of the US to be arrested and face justice; free to continue plotting against the United States.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  273. If you join with the enemy you are subject to all the dangers of war. Being an American citizen simply makes you a traitor, too.

    Kevin M (078eda)

  274. Netanyahu has been calling for an agreement like a 2003 accord struck with Libya, whose nuclear program was taken apart. Under that so-called Libya model, Iran’s nuclear program would be eliminated, and its enrichment sites would be destroyed under American supervision.

    Then, later, we would destabilize and overthrow them?

    Kevin M (078eda)

  275. Under that so-called Libya model, Iran’s nuclear program would be eliminated, and its enrichment sites would be destroyed under American supervision.

    Kevin M (078eda) — 4/16/2025 @ 11:00 am

    Then, later, we would destabilize and overthrow them?

    Eight years later. When we saw a chance, owing to the “Arab Spring” (which was touched of, by accident, by Wikileaks. It released U.S. diplomatic cables from 2010 about Tunisia. The Arab Spring was named after the Prague Spring of 1968.

    But Libya is not a good precedent. Because I don’t think that was really Quaddafi’s nuclear weapons program. It was Iran’s but located in Libya. Quaddafi didn’t really want it for himself.

    So after the United States invaded Iraq because Saddam Hussein would not dispel suspicions about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, he got rid of it, and made sure we knew. (He did not consider what he had a defense – quite the contrary.)

    Iran also halted weaponization – that is, got rid of a lot of targets in Iran. Then, together with North Korea, it started another nuclear weapons program in yet another country: Syria. But Israel destroyed it like they had destroyed the reactor in Iraq in 1981. After that, Syria attempted to get rid of the evidence.

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09)

  276. Jim Miller (875fcd) — 4/15/2025 @ 9:16 am

    (If you know of other books on the subject worth reading, please share them with us.)

    There are some books that deal with just the 1918 flu epidemic and subsequent events.

    I have >i> Plagues and Peoples

    Very good book. First edition was written before AIDS.

    I don’t think I ever heard of Justinian’s Flea

    The “Black Death”

    That is also called the Black Death?

    weakened the Byzantine empire

    Actually, at the time it was called the Roman Republic. Republica Romana.

    Even though it hadn’t been a republic for almost 600 years (but it still had an almost powerless Senate) and the capital was no longer located in Rome and didn’t even, at first, rule over it (although Justinian’s general Belisarius reconquered it) and the common language was Greek not Latin.

    so much that it was unable to resist the rise of Islam.

    That was something like 100 years after Justinian.

    In the meantime, Persia conquered much of he Roman Middle East territories, then Byzantium reconquered it.

    And while he Moslems got much of Anatolia, hey did not conquer Constantinople until 1453. (In the meantime Venice had rules over it for some 50 years or so starting in 1204 while the emperors were exiled to the north of the Black Sea in, I guess what is now Ukraine.

    2. Rats, Lice, and History by Hans Zinsser. A “biography” of typhus. A super quirky biography, which I like, but may not be to everyone’s taste. First published in 1934, it is, naturally, somewhat dated.

    3.

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09)

  277. https://www.racket.news/p/timeline-the-case-of-kilmar-armando

    She explained what the Supreme Court meant last week when it said a lower court ruling “properly requires the government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador.”

    Later:

    President Trump says that aboard Air Force One a day after the Supreme Court upholds a lower court ruling and says the government should “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S.

    Meanwhile, Judge Xinis issues a new order that directs the government to “take all available steps to facilitate the return” of Abrego Garcia. In a hearing, she also makes clear her frustration with the Justice Department.

    “The record, as it stands, is, despite this court’s clear directive, your clients have done nothing to facilitate the return of Mr. Abrego Garcia,” she says.

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09)

  278. Explains how New York State Attorney General Letitia James did the same sort of thing – or worse! – that she successfully sued Donald Trump for.

    https://whitecollarfraud.com/2025/04/16/breaking-federal-housing-agency-refers-ny-ag-letitia-james-to-doj-for-mortgage-fraud-investigation/

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09)

  279. Leftists are expert in following campaign rules.

    Andrew Cuomo, who never ran in a New York city race, fumbled when trying to qualify for 8x matching funds. Software was not set up right.

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09)

  280. New York City Council race Democratic incumbent has no opponent after Republican gets petitions and pulls out of the race and Conservative gets petitions and withdraws names incumbent as his choice and Conservative Party names her as their candidate

    She’s conservative aligned but stupid. And got into a fight with a policeman at a anti-homeless shelter demonstration. This was resolved by reconciliation.

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09)

  281. About those tariffs:

    California sues to block tariffs

    * California announced a lawsuit contesting President Trump’s executive authority to enact international tariffs without congressional approval.
    * The state stands to lose billions in revenue under Trump’s tariff policies.

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday announced a lawsuit contesting President Trump’s executive authority to enact international tariffs without congressional support, which he likened to the commander-in-chief taking a “wrecking ball” to America’s global reputation.

    The legal action argues that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act that Trump cited to impose tariffs does not grant the president the ability to unilaterally adopt tariffs on goods imported to the U.S. The suit from California is the first challenge from any state against Trump’s trade policy.

    “No state is poised to lose more than the state of California,” Newsom said about Trump’s tariffs. “That’s why we’re asserting ourselves on behalf of 40 million Americans.”

    Under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, Trump has implemented 10% baseline tariffs on all imported goods, higher taxes on goods from Mexico, Canada and China, and specific levies on products and materials such as autos and aluminum. The president threatened and then paused additional tariffs on other nations until this summer.

    California, which the governor’s office said engaged in nearly $675 billion in two-way trade last year, stands to lose billions in state revenue under Trump’s tariff policies if international commerce declines and the stock market tanks. Mexico, Canada and China represent the state’s three largest trade partners.

    “The gravity and instability of the situation at hand cannot be overstated,” Bonta said. “The risk to California, to our businesses, our workers, our families, cannot be overstated.”

    Newsom showed glimpses Wednesday of the Democratic firebrand he’s known for as he implored Republicans in Congress to do their jobs.

    “They’re sitting there passively as this guy wrecks the economy of the United States of America, which has dominated the global economy,” Newsom said.

    Kevin M (99864f)

  282. Do you think the 9th Circuit will agree that California has standing?

    Kevin M (99864f)

  283. Do you think the 9th Circuit will agree that California has standing?

    Kevin M (99864f) — 4/16/2025 @ 4:42 pm

    As the article says, California stands to lose billions of dollars in revenue from the reduction of trade through their ports, and will pay higher costs when purchasing imported items, so I expect they do. But it will take years to resolve all of the lawsuits challenging the IEEPA tariffs, so I wouldn’t my breath.

    The more interesting (non-) development is that the US Chamber of Commerce has decided not to challenge Trump’s tariffs in court.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  284. Come for the cruelty, stay for the malevolence.

    After Elon Musk made a public show of remedying an apparent error in DOGE’s massive cuts to foreign aid, the Trump administration has quietly doubled down on its decision to stop sending emergency food to millions of children who are starving in Bangladesh, Somalia, and other countries. Without urgent intervention, many of these children are likely to die within months, experts told me.
    […]
    As DOGE was gutting USAID in February, it alarmed the global-health community by issuing stop-work orders to the two American companies that make a lifesaving peanut paste widely recognized as the best treatment for malnutrition. The companies—Edesia and Mana Nutrition—subsequently received USAID’s go-ahead to continue their work. But soon after that, their contracts were officially canceled. When news of the cancellation was made public, Elon Musk vowed to investigate the issue and “fix it.” Hours later, Musk announced that one contract had been restored days earlier; that night, the second company received notice that its contract had been reinstated.

    According to Mana and Edesia, however, that was only the start of the story. The contracts reinstated in February applied to old orders for emergency therapeutic food that Mana and Edesia were already in the middle of fulfilling. But two weeks ago, without any fanfare, the Trump administration then canceled all of its upcoming orders—that is, everything beyond those old orders that were previously reinstated—according to emails obtained by The Atlantic. The move reneged on an agreement to provide about 3 million children with emergency paste over approximately the next year. What’s more, according to the two companies, the administration has also not awarded separate contracts to shipping companies, leaving much of the food assured by the original reinstated contracts stuck in the United States.

    This again is on Trump, for making sweeping cuts instead of determining which programs and personnel are worthwhile and worth keeping. Preventing children from starving seem worthwhile to me.

    Paul Montagu (84042b)

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