Tuesday, August 25, 2026

Requiescat in pace

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The Monsters Are Coming To Maple Street

How we treat others is a reflection of who we are.
Texas Standard: When someone who’s deaf comes in contact with the immigration system, what services are they entitled to receive and what about others with disabilities, too?

Julia Métraux: So under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, any place that receives federal funding is supposed to accommodate the needs of disabled people, and that includes deaf people.

And it’s detention centers and courts where immigration proceedings happen, they both receive federal funding. So deaf people under this law are supposed to have access to sign language interpreters when they request them.

Tell me how this actually plays out in real time. If there’s an immigration enforcement operation, are they supposed to have someone on hand to help a deaf person interact in each of those encounters?

I have to say, just like encounters on the street, I have never heard of a sign language interpreter accompanying ICE agents. Never heard of that happening. I really don’t think it’s happening. But when it comes to being in detention centers, when people are asked to have an interpreter, they’re supposed to get them.

One of the people I spoke to, Emilio, he called Texas home for close to four years. He was prodded to get on a bus. He asked for an interpreter to get more help to understand what’s going on.

Emilio’s from Venezuela originally, and they didn’t give an interpreter. It was only when the bus got to the Mexican border that he realized that, oh, I’m being dropped off in Mexico, a country where I am not from. He did not have a passport on him because he was detained at an asylum check-in.

There are definitely other instances as well. For example, people in ICE detention not having access to interpreters when they’re trying to get medical help just with regular interactions with guards. And there’s no public information on just how often deaf people are given interpreters.

However, there are definitely stories of people just not having access when they need it. Just imagine if you’re the only person who really speaks your language and you’re alone in ICE detention, and how much more brutal that is.

There’s another problem that would arise from sign language barriers, and that’s interpreters who can’t sign in the migrant’s language, right?

Yeah, and so this organization called Hands United, which helped deaf immigrants and their families, told me that the U.S. does not recognize certification for sign language interpreters for languages other than American Sign Language.

So interpreters are essentially taken at their word that they can actually interpret in another form of sign language, like Venezuelan Sign Language, Mexican Sign Language. This leads to people sometimes getting very poor-quality interpreters, because there’s just no certification process in the United States for that.

You know, something else that strikes me: There have been a lot of concern about the masking of ICE agents, especially when enforcement actions are taking place, and that unto itself, it would seem, would pose a barrier for many deaf migrants, no?

I spoke to the president of the National Hispanic Latino Association of the Deaf, and he told me about this being a major concern when you’re dealing with an ICE agent and they’re asking you questions.

By the way, it’s also not true that deaf people can read people’s lips perfectly. I feel like that’s a common misconception. But it is helpful, so when a deaf person doesn’t even have access to that, that just is a lot more scary because you don’t know what’s going on.

You also report that staff cuts have affected deaf migrants. Say more about that.

So there’s something called the Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, and when there’s a complaint that Section 504, that I previously mentioned, is not being followed, you’re supposed to be able to file a complaint there.

So there used to be around 150 staff members in this office under the Department of Homeland Security, and all but two were laid off last year, and so this office is basically not operating.

But this is happening at a time when ICE, as I understand it, has been staffing up.

Yeah absolutely and they basically completely just gutted the enforcement that’s supposed to look over whether or not people with disability accommodation, they’re being followed.

What comes next here, Julia? Are you seeing any momentum or movement on this issue?

I think there’s a problem faced when there’s a minority of people that face an issue.

It’s hard to necessarily get a large movement around something. There are not a lot of disability and deaf organizations that are doing work specifically focusing on helping deaf people in the immigration system. Hands United is a far minority of groups. So that’s definitely a challenge.

There’s not one clear way forward, but people are definitely trying. There are definitely lawsuits happening.

It’s a developing story, as they say.

I would say there’s not necessarily a clear end in sight to any of this, just because it’s definitely part of the deportation machine and there’s an not an end in sight for that either.
Meanwhile:
Gov. Greg Abbott has asked a federal judge to reject Minnesota's effort to force the extradition of an immigration officer arrested in Texas, saying he has "serious concerns" whether the officer is actually a fugitive from justice.

Abbott said state officials are still investigating whether Christian Castro, who is being held in Cameron County Jail, can be classified as a fugitive because he didn't flee Minnesota but was apparently reassigned to Texas by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Minnesota is also seeking a court order keeping Castro in custody beyond Thursday for fear he would "flee and avoid prosecution." In Texas, people awaiting extradition cannot be held longer than 90 days. Castro was arrested in Cameron County on May 29 on a warrant issued by a Minnesota court.

Abbott, in a brief filed Monday, asked the judge to deny the request, noting Castro's freedom would have "no effect on the Governor's ability to issue a warrant to extradite." "The ninety-day period limits pre-warrant detention; it does not impose a ninety-day deadline on the Governor to approve or deny the demanding State's request," Abbott told the court.

Both sides are due to appear for a Tuesday hearing in Brownsville regarding Minnesota's request.

...

In particular, Abbott's filing says it appears Castro did not flee Minnesota but instead returned to Texas for his job obligations, citing media reports that quoted the ICE officer's defense attorney.

The governor has instructed interim Texas Secretary of State Robert Howden — who was a senior adviser to Abbott before taking on the role — to investigate Castro's circumstances and whether he should be turned over to Minnesota's custody.

"Based on publicly available information indicating that Mr. Castro was compelled to return to Texas on orders of the federal government, I have serious doubts that the prerequisites for extradition have been met," Abbott wrote in a July 31 letter to Howden.

Howden's report is still pending so Abbott has not made a decision regarding the extradition request, the Monday court filing said. Howden's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"Once the Secretary of State concludes his investigation, the Governor may conclude that the statutory requirements for extradition are satisfied, or he may conclude that they are not," the filing said. "Either way, Governor Abbott is entitled to see that deliberative process through and is entitled to the presumption of regularity afforded to government acts."
Minnesota alleges Texas is in violation of federal and state law. I’m not an expert on interstate extradition, but the Constitution appears to back Minnesota. So why is Abbott doing this?
Abbott shot back later that day during an unrelated news conference.

After expressing his distrust of Walz, the Texas governor pointed to a wide-ranging welfare fraud scandal in Minnesota that the Trump administration used to justify Operation Metro Surge, a crackdown that also led to the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens by federal immigration officers.

"While they're making demands, I got a demand of my own and that is: It's time for Minnesota to step up and repay the United States of America and Americans for all the fraud that they have committed in their state under federal programs," Abbott said last week.
He’s in a fight for reelection, and he’s only leading his Democratic opponent by 1 point. And he’s playing his Trump card.

If you know the “Twilight Zone” episode the title references, you know the monsters are us. Not alien invaders, or foreign invaders; just panicky us. But panic stops working after a bit. These stories are all stories about the consequences of inflaming panic. The silver lining of the cloud is that panic isn’t working anymore.
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How It’s Done

Norm Eisen of Democracy Defenders Fund: “Please don't overreact to Roberts Court decision on the contemplated USPS ballot moves

They simply held that the injunction came too early in the process, before there was a final rule.

Now we HAVE a final rule & we will litigate it.”
Election security expert David Becker: “There is another injunction in place, and even the majority of the Court agreed that a new lawsuit could be appropriately filed after a final Postal Service rule was issued. In fact, the final Postal Service rule was issued late last week, though the Court seems to be ignorant of that fact. I expect that the states will file a new lawsuit and that this order will remain blocked for 2026.”
How lawyers litigate.
"Politics is oftentimes pretty stupid.” Iowa Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand gave a masterclass on how to dismantle an opponent…by leading with humanity, then letting the hard facts do the heavy lifting.

Watch Sand speak on his Republican opponent, Zach Lahn:

“He's a human being. Politics is oftentimes pretty stupid. I think that we can acknowledge that me and my opponent are human beings, and that everyone who runs for office should be willing to do that, because it's important... we don't need to demonize people, and we don't need to lie about them, either.”

“He has lived outside of Iowa for most of the last 20 years... voted in Kansas in 2018, and in 2020, and in 2022... registered to vote in Iowa in 2024, just in time to say that he was a resident to run for governor.”

“75 nights in Wichita, Kansas, to 51 nights in Belle Plaine, Iowa. Now, he can say what he wants about where he lives. I'm a numbers guy. The numbers are 75 there and 51 here.”

“There's 3.1 million people in this state, and I do not believe that we can solve those problems effectively with a guy who's going to mail it in from two states away half the time.”
How you campaign like an adult, rather than a shrieking child.
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Toddler With A Shotgun

Thinks he’s King of the World.
In the newest round of diplomatic rows surrounding tariffs between the U.S. and Canada and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s comments saying that U.S. negotiators saw the French language as an “irritant,” U.S. President Donald J. Trump has said that he “would never interfere with” the Canadians speaking French. Per President Trump, the comment from Prime Minister Carney is a lie that further hampers already stalled negotiations.
Imagines that he has any credibility left.
President Donald J. Trump has posted to Truth Social stating that Iran is failing to pay "large segments of their military" and is "killing protesters...at levels not seen before," describing the situation as a "humanitarian crisis of epic proportions" that "must be stopped, NOW."

The claim of mass killings appears to refer to the January 2026 nationwide protests, when Iranian security forces carried out a major crackdown in which several thousand were killed.

There have not been credible reports of a comparable new mass killing of protesters in recent weeks. Iran has, however, continued its crackdown through arrests, executions and prosecutions of people accused of participating in the January protests. The European Union and 26 other countries condemned Iran's execution of protesters earlier this month.

President Trump's comments come as his administration has sharply escalated pressure on Tehran, most recently announcing Operation Economic Outcast, an effort to isolate Iran economically and cut off remaining financial lifelines.
And doesn’t realize he’s run out of shells.
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“I Saw The Best Minds Of My Generation…”

 I want to respect Mike Luttig, but this;

That's the day that the 120th Congress is due to be sworn in. But that assumes that Republicans will agree to seat the newly elected Democrats. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has already shown a proclivity to delaying the certification of duly elected members after he held up Rep. Adelita Grijalva's (D-AZ) swearing-in for 50 days in 2025.

Congress adjourns at "high noon" on January 3, which means that Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is no longer technically in charge of seating new members. In that scenario, the House Clerk would notify elected members that they have been seated. Luttig warned that Republicans may try to corrupt this process to maintain power after the midterms.

"There are already discussions around the country that Mike Johnson would fire the existing clerk and replace that clerk with a loyalist," Luttig said.

That poses a problem for newly elected members representing states with election conspiracists working in the halls of power, Luttig added. If the states refuse to certify a member's election, then the House Clerk would not list those members on the roll to be notified of their seating.

Trump hinted at this possibility in February when he told MAGA media personality Dan Bongino that Republicans needed to control the midterms to win the elections, a statement Luttig described as "breathtaking."
…is a sign of being lost somewhere in the conspiracy wilds of the internet.

Johnson held up seating Grijalva much the same way McConnell refused to let Obama select a finat Justice before his second term ended. Bending the rules, but not exactly breaking them. Foot dragging is annoying, but it isn’t as serious as refusing to seat an entire Freshman class of House members just because of party affiliation.

Refusing to seat duly elected Representatives would be a bridge too far. They would eventually be seated, and the first order of business would be to strip the power to appoint the Clerk from the Speaker. And then they’d fire the rogue clerk. And probably give Johnson the MTG treatment: bar him from any and all committees, making him as useless as tits on a boar hog. Cast him into perdition.

Luttig’s “theory” also depends on states selectively denying Democrats their victories. Certifying elections is a ministerial act, not a discretionary one. Every Democrat refused a seating in the House on those grounds would win her/his lawsuit. And think of the animosity it would generate among House members.

I think Judge Luttig needs to get off the internet. His grip on reality is getting sweaty.
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Monday, August 24, 2026

Ban Bans, or, The Lighter Side Of The News

Rich Hollywood stars can afford to hire someone to invest 12% of their income and turn it into millions. Wage slaves (the vast majority of us) can’t give up 12% of our income, nor would it ever be enough to invest. 12% of nothing is still nothing. Here: The Rupert post will come back up in a minute. That was worth the price of admission. Pence should run for President on the idea of treating people with decency and respect?

Somehow I don’t think that’s what Ingraham means. Treating people with decency and respect is probably Sharia law, anyway.
El-Sayed: Do you know what canon law is? I don’t begrudge you your right to practice your faith as you choose. I don’t know why the idea that I can practice my faith as I choose is a problem. Nobody is trying to push Sharia law on anyone else, just like I hope nobody is trying to push canon law on anybody else.
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And Then I Remember That Trump Is An Incompetent Buffoon

 And I just laugh and laugh 😹.

While the Trump administration is likely to celebrate the ruling, GOP strategist Shermichael Singleton called on Trump to abandon the scheme altogether. He warned during an interview on CNN's "The Lead" that the order could hurt Republicans going forward, considering that their base relies on mail-in voting to increase turnout in rural areas and among senior citizens.

"Keep in mind, a couple of years ago, many Republicans advocated for mail-in balloting because we were looking at the projections of our voters," Singleton said. "They were getting older. They live in far places. We wanted to make sure that those people had an opportunity to participate."

"I view this a little differently from the president," Singleton said. "I would encourage him to strongly reconsider this, because on the other side, the voters are younger. There's an enthusiasm gap, too. And those folks appear to be willing to turn out in higher numbers."
Now, there are a few things going on here. One is the nationwide injunction in a separate case, unaffected by this order. But I expect the DOJ has an appeal pending on that one. Although I confess, I don’t know if they’ve appealed it to the appellate court yet, and I don’t think the Supremes are going to reach down and snatch it from the trial court (although stranger things have happened).

But the efficiency of the USPS is called into question here. This could well fuck up ballot delivery in several states, including Trump’s ballot. The ensuing chaos would be all on him, especially if the Postal Service is in possession of valid ballots after Election Day. (Yes, I know the idea is USPS never delivers them, but they’ll fuck that up, and probably try to fix it on the backend in some states). Especially if those ballots are presumed to be GOP ballots. Are they counted? Or no? Now you run into state law deadlines you can’t override with an EO or a shadow docket order.

What say the Sinister Six then? I don’t know that the order will be held to apply this close to Election Day (but I don’t know that the Court has clarified that). But I also don’t doubt USPS will have a lot of explaining to do if it’s holding ballots after the polls close; or just holding ballots it refused to deliver. If the GOP loses badly, what does Trump do then? Who does he blame?

Shit, now I’m glad Texas made it harder to vote by mail. Now I don’t have to vote a provisional ballot while they wait for the one I’d have gotten in the mail to never be returned. Indeed, had Trump considered how many voters who usually mail in a ballot will find it harder to vote as they have to prove they never got one? That’s a whole new way to suppress turnout. Trump really is our man on their side.

Incompetence is its own accountability, in the end.

Well, I wrote the above, and then Professor Vladeck published, so pardon me while I dub him in, with commentary:
First, the executive order at issue has two different sets of provisions under challenge. Section 2 of the EO is directed toward DHS, and deals with the sharing of “citizenship lists” between the federal government and states. Section 3 (the really troubling part) is directed toward the U.S. Postal Service, and is the part that, if fully implemented, would allow the USPS to refuse to deliver mail-in ballots in states that don’t match their voter rolls to DHS’s own (likely deeply incomplete) list. So keep these two different sections in mind.

Second, there are two different cases at the forefront of challenges to the executive order, both pending before Judge Talwani in the District of Massachusetts. One is California v. Trump (a challenge by blue states); the other is League of Women Voters of Massachusetts v. Trump (a challenge by private organizations/voters). Critically, Judge Talwani has issued injunctions against the executive order in both cases. But Monday’s Supreme Court ruling applies only to one of them—the one brought by the states. For unimportant procedural reasons, the League of Women Voters case moved a bit slower, and Judge Talwani’s injunction in that case remains in effect. Even though the Solicitor General had asked the Supreme Court to reach out and pour cold water on that injunction, too, I don’t see anything in the 10-page majority opinion that speaks to the validity of that injunction one way or the other.
The Six could still address the other injunction, but they haven’t yet. Curiouser and curiouser.
Third, late Friday night, the U.S. Postal Service (finally) released the “Final Rule” that was supposed to be published by the end of July that purports to implement Trump’s executive order. It’s that rule, not the executive order itself, that would be the basis for the USPS messing with mail-in ballots come October and November. The rule itself acknowledges the injunctions in both the California and League of Women Voters cases, and provides it won’t go into effect so long as those injunctions remain in force (as one of them still does). And in the League of Women Voters case, Judge Talwani has already indicated that she is inclined to block that rule, too—for the same reasons she enjoined the executive order. That ruling may come as soon as tomorrow—which is when any opposition to such a ruling from the government is due at 8:00 a.m. ET. (The rule is currently set to be “published” in the Federal Register on Wednesday.)
So unless the Six act on the injunction they ignored, USPS is abiding by that injunction. “Big win,” indeed. 
Fourth, and just to be as clear as possible about this, it’s the still-to-come litigation over the USPS Final Rule that’s going to be critical here. In a moment, I’ll get to how the majority opinion from the Supreme Court may and may not influence the trajectory of the League of Women Voters case, but until and unless the injunction of the executive order in that case, or a subsequent TRO or injunction of the USPS Final Rule itself, is vacated by the First Circuit or the Supreme Court, the status quo (that is to say, no mail-in ballot mischief) will persist. The USPS Final Rule itself can’t go into effect until the League of Women Voters injunction is frozen.

Fifth, and turning to the Supreme Court’s actual ruling, the core of the majority opinion is that the blue states brought their challenge too soon. My own view is that both of the dissenting opinions (one by Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justice Kagan; and one by Justice Jackson) already had the better of this argument before the USPS issued its Final Rule last Friday. But to suggest today that these cases are premature is, to use a technical word, bollocks. It’s not going to matter, because the League of Women Voters case will almost certainly be “ripe.” But it’s still a ridiculous rationalization by the Court that I’ll try to write more about later this week.
This “reason” is what the nattering nabobs used to call a “technicality.” It is that, but it’s also not the basis for a major victory dance.
Sixth, the “ripeness” part of the opinion likely won’t matter much in the League of Women Voters case. Neither will the standing analysis, since voters dealing with a USPS Final Rule are, in numerous material respects, differently situated from blue states challenging the executive order on its face. The part of the majority opinion that may carry over is its discussion of “irreparable harm.” Justice Jackson, as usual, is right about how the majority is once again perverting that concept (as I noted just this morning in discussing the Chief Justice’s “administrative stay” in the ballroom case). But the majority’s wrongheaded irreparable harm analysis will surely apply to a challenge to the USPS Final Rule, too. That should mean that the inevitable emergency application in the League of Women Voters case comes down to the underlying legality of the USPS Final Rule (which would be bad for Trump), except that…

Seventh, the shadow looming over all of this is the “Purcell principle,” the idea that, as election day draws nigh, federal courts should stay their hand rather than issue coercive orders changing the rules for when and how people vote. Purcell is the source of significant controversy and criticism, almost all of it deserved. Among the charges are that (some of) the justices are ruthlessly inconsistent in when they do and don’t apply Purcell—leading to the worry that an injunction against the USPS Final Rule might be deemed “too close to the election,” and stayed under Purcell. That’s a genuine concern, and given the Court’s own repeated transgressions of the Purcell principle earlier this term in Texas, Louisiana, and Alabama, to hide behind it to allow the USPS Final Rule to go into effect would be as indefensible and anti-democratic a ruling as the Court has handed down in a very long time. That brings me to…

Eighth, there’s still a lot to play for in these cases. My own view is that the Court should have denied the stay, especially with respect to section 3, for the reasons the unanimous First Circuit panel articulated in California (Judge Dunlap dissented only as to section 2). But even with tonight’s stay, section 3 remains blocked; the USPS Final Rule remains frozen; and the real question is going to be what happens with the (seemingly inevitable) TRO or injunction against the USPS Final Rule that’s still to come in the League of Women Voters case.
IOW: what a pile of shit they dumped. It’s an even dumber and less defensible opinion than I thought it was. But I think I know why they didn’t freeze the other injunction; and I’m not sure they’re likely to.

I don’t think the majority want this case messing up their vacation; and they don’t want the LWV case on their docket come October (especially with early voting starting that month in many states). So let’s see if this pitiful squeak (“ripeness is all”? Really?) gets any further attention from the trial court, the 1st Circuit, or the Sinister Six. Because as it stands now, per the rules of the USPS, nothing has changed. 😹
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I’m No Longer Sure They Listen To The Words Coming Out Of Their Mouths

Vance thinks he made a funny. But the late demands of the U.S. were clearly aimed at making Canada the 51sr state, de facto if not de jure. So we’re reneging on our NATO commitments? Maybe you should mention that to Congress…. Now we’re setting fire to the dollar as the reserve currency of the world? Because you don’t really have that much power.  Did Stephen Miller write this fantasist nonsense? The world has seen the “full reach” of American military power. We don’t really have any more economic power than that. That’s not his worst historical analogy today. Which is saying something. How many nations rallied to our side after February 28, when Trump started bombing Iran? And now the ones that don’t, we’ll isolate? How does that work? When we isolate people the world, who ends up isolated?
Reporter: Chinese banks have often been talked about being targeted, but we don't see any of those institutions targeted here…

Bessent: No one is above the reach of the US sanctions…. When the hammer of US Treasury actions falls upon them, they will have no one to blame but themselves.
Why is the Secretary of the Treasury talking like a comic book villain? I mean, seriously. It’s almost cute that you don’t think that’s what you’ve been doing today.

And that comparison you made to D-Day? You do understand we had allies on D-Day? We didn’t get them later after we’d lost half our invading force on the beaches of France. Which is the third reason why your analogy fails. And not the first reason why the comparison is so offensive.

Did Stephen Miller write this shit?
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Surprising No One…

The Sinister Six never saw a Presidential order it couldn’t at least allow to procwhile it waits several weeks to even sit again. The irreparable harm is always to the President, when his name is Trump.*

And reaction was swift:
The court “hands a provisional win to Trump over his effort to exert control over mail-in ballots,” Hurley told his followers, but added that “questions remain about whether the underlying proposal is lawful, as majority concedes. Plus a nationwide injunction in a different case remains in effect, for now.”

David Badash, founder and editor of The New Civil Rights Movement, called the decision “highly questionable," while liberal commentator Jeff Tiedrich mocked the court’s conservative majority.

“Can’t wait for there to be a Democratic president so the Supreme Court can start saying no again,” he wrote.

"It’s not a Supreme Court anymore—it’s the Institute for the Advancement of Christofascism," Seth Abramson, a retired journalism professor and former prosecutor, said in a social media post. "Don’t listen to these normopath lawyers insisting precedents still hold water with these six religious zealots; they don’t. They don’t even follow the irreparable harm rule in equity cases."

CNN legal analyst Elie Honig, meanwhile, said the order was “definitely a big win” for the Trump administration.
The only person I disagree with there is Eli Honig, mainly because of my high regard for Professor Vladeck:
#BREAKING: Over dissents from the three Dem. appointees, #SCOTUS has *granted* the Trump administration’s request to freeze a district court injunction that had blocked the mail-in ballots executive order. But Trump’s EO remains blocked by a different injunction in a different case—at least for now:

And as soon as tomorrow, Judge Talwani may also issue a TRO against the new rule the USPS issued Friday night to implement the EO.

In other words, this is a small win for the Trump administration, but *not* a ruling that fully clears the way for Trump to mess with mail-in ballots come November.
I’m just going to add this comment from the Professor about the “administrative stay” on the ballroom, while we wait for the Professor’s comments on this new ruling.
Late Friday afternoon, Chief Justice Roberts issued a one-sentence administrative stay keeping Judge Richard Leon’s injunction against above-ground construction of the new White House ballroom on hold “pending further order” of the Chief Justice or the Court. (In English, Roberts allowed ballroom construction to continue.) There was no reasoning, no vote count, and no dissent—because, as I’ve explained before, these kinds of “administrative” stays are issued by a single justice (the “circuit justice” responsible for the lower courts from which the case came) to buy time for the full Court to act.

The problem with Roberts’s administrative stay isn’t that it was unexplained; it’s that no defensible explanation for it exists. Other than a March 2024 concurrence by Justice Barrett (which was about administrative stays issued by courts of appeals), the justices have never publicly identified any criteria for an “administrative” stay, as opposed to a stay pending appeal. But irreparable harm has to be at least part of the equation. And there’s just no universe in which a party is “irreparably” harmed by a temporary pause in construction; indeed, it wouldn’t be a construction project without unplanned, temporary pauses.

For quirky procedural reasons, it’s possible that Roberts’s Friday afternoon intervention isn’t necessarily a harbinger of how the full Court is going to rule (I’m skeptical, alas). But whether it is or not, the real takeaway from the ballroom case, at least at this juncture, is that it’s long past time for the justices to publicly articulate criteria for when they should (and shouldn’t) issue “administrative” stays—and, even more importantly, to follow them.
The context here is a basic principle of due process: that the law is known so those to whom the law applies know, at least ostensibly, what the rules are. That’s intentionally general; let me explain how it’s supposed to work.

I noted recently that courts issue orders, and sometimes issue opinions. Trial court judges usually just sign a terse document of a paragraph or two, concluding with “IT IS SO ORDERED.” At least that’s how I remember it 33 years later. Sometimes they write an opinion explaining the order; but appellate courts always write an opinion. The purpose of the opinion is actually very simple: to state what the law is given the facts of this case, and why the law applies as it does to those facts, and what law applies (and what law doesn’t).  The purpose is related to that principle of due process: so everyone, especially lawyers and judges, know what the law is on similar facts going forward. Otherwise, you’re just guessing, and the law is the whim of the last judges standing.

Under our constitution, those last judges are the justices of the Supreme Court.

Which is what Professor Vladeck is complaining about. In terms established by Kurt Vonnegut: “No damned cat, and no damned cradle!” The Supremes aren’t even trying to explain what they are doing, much less justify it. Or, as the NYT Pitchbot succinctly put it:
Critics of the Supreme Court’s emergency docket say it grants the executive branch too much power. But when a Democrat is president again that same docket will be used to limit the executive branch’s power.
To which the Professor sagely replied:
The satire lies in its absence.
Satire is not the only thing missing. Satire is a pleasure to read, but has no place in reality. Satire is a commentary, not a judicial order. The Sinister Six act as if they were apart from the world, and above it; especially apart from and above we, the people.  I live in hope that there will be a new and different Congress in January, and that it will remind the Sinister Six that Art. I gives Congress authority over the office established by Art. II, and gives them even more authority over the courts it establishes pursuant to Art. III. And that power runs far deeper and broader than just expanding the size of the Court (which really can’t be enacted before 2029, because…why would you do that now?). Ethics, forced retirement, even rules of procedure, can be enforced on the Supreme Court, because Art. III not only allows, but presumes that Congressional authority. After all, the Congress is the representative body of we, the people. That’s why Art. I is so extensive, and Art. III just says there will be a Supreme Court and a Chief Justice, and leaves the rest to Congress. Congress can do a great deal to remind the Sinister Six of that without expanding the bench of the Court (yet), or waiting for Trump to leave.

Congress is also the body that can originate Constitutional amendments. They’ve done it before to reverse Supreme Court rulings; high time to do it again.


*”Irreparable harm” is a term of art from equity. Injunctions are creatures of equity, and one reason they are granted is that the harm can’t be repaired by a judgment later. Justice will not be done, IOW, by allowing the status quo to stand while the case proceeds. Lower courts have suspended the ballroom construction on this point (allowing construction to proceed while the case is pending obviates the relief sought by the case).
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Where It All Winds Up

The Republicans haven’t done anything in two years except investigate their political enemies.

So Democrats should retake the Congress, and emulate the Republicans.

🤦‍♂️

An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, leaves the whole world blind and toothless.
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Jingo!

I live in a border state, and relatively close to the border. I (used to) see immigrants from south of the border all the time. I know where they live, nearby.

The local school district used to have a minor problem with immigrant children who would disappear from school after 3 or 4 months. The family had to move because they couldn’t make the rent. It could take about 3 months for that situation to allow for a forcible entry and detainer (eviction suit, to you) action. 

Those people were not taking up houses. They weren’t even taking up apartments anyone else wanted to live in. Well, maybe besides the homeless squatting in abandoned apartment complexes. The apartments immigrants like Vance is talking about are living in are just above abandoned buildings, for the most part. They aren’t taking jobs washing floors and dishes and mowing lawns that rightly belong to white men, either. Frankly, how we treat them is shameful, and that comes back to ideas Vance is espousing.

What Vance is promoting here is racism and jingoism. It’s no better than the lies he told about Haitians in Ohio. He hasn’t learned any shame since then. It’s unlikely he ever will. 
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This Is The Biggest Story I Heard About The Race ‘Round D.C.

gtconway3d “Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, himself in a regular suit and tie, approached a group of racecar drivers hanging out by the paddock. ….

“‘Good luck today,’ Mr. Lutnick told them. ‘Enjoy it. This is all of Washington, just for you.’

“He walked away. One of the drivers turned and shrugged.

“‘I honestly have no idea who that was,’ he said.”
It’s also the best story, IMHO. All these people in Trump’s orbit all so thirsty.

Which tells you how I get my news. I won’t even log in to the NYT via the gift link in that tweet. OTOH, the Lovely Wife pays attention to regular news for me, and she didn’t see anything about it, either.

I still want to know where the ticket proceeds went. I don’t doubt the accounting for them is squirrelly as hell.
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Tools

And what does that have to do with the price of gas? Or food? Or housing? Or the fact that inflation is up but wages aren’t? Here’s a hint for Sean: almost everybody earns a wage. Very few people own stocks and, those who do usually own them through a mutual fund in a 401K; which just as often loses money as earns it.

A rising stock market only means the rich are getting richer, not that all boats are equally rising. And besides, the standard of measure is a marketing tool, not an economic one.
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Sunday, August 23, 2026

The Sport Of…Kings?

Where’s the ticket money going? Sure they are. Ask ‘em again tomorrow. Let them buy $14 beer.🍺  From the people who brought you the National State Fair, or whatever that debacle was called. Gonna have to slow down, huh? The pace car sets the pace.
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Time To Take The Reins

ICE:
"Leave us alone... people need to stop telling us how to do what we do best.”
The rest of the country: Not only no, hell no!
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I Don’t Make The Rules

Calling someone a racist is still forbidden.🚫 

Calling someone a socialist, as an epithet, is o-kay. 👌
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The Sad Truth Is…

Trump thought this would work. And that it still can.

Trump is using section 338 of the Tariff Act if 1930 (Smoot Hawley). Maybe Congress needs to get around to rescinding that, and negating any tariffs issued under it.
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…From The Head….

😳Sean Duffy threatens Canada during bizarre Fox hit 😳

Transportation Secretary Duffy for some reason weighed in on Trump's Canada tariffs, lying that Mark Carney "doesn't have a military" and threatening that if his country "thinks they're gonna go to war with Donald Trump and actually win that war with the US, I think it's foolish on their part"

Duffy also bragged about the fact that beer will be sold at today's Indycar race in downtown DC as though it's one of Trump's signature accomplishments

The whole thing was weird. Here's a supercut:
Well, Trump said he might send the military into the bond market: Beer and Formula One cars in August in downtown D.C. What could go wrong ?

Maybe the military will have to intervene…against the weather and the road conditions.
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🤦‍♂️

Carney: "With the strongest fiscal position in the G7 and a resilient economy, Canada has all the resources we need to pivot and to prosper. We are creating jobs in this economy at four times the rate of the US. Our non-US exports are up sharply. They're on track to double over the next decade."
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Saturday, August 22, 2026

Todd Blanche Says This Is Fine

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Yeah, This Is Gonna Be Great

Who’s paying to replace all those covers? So, damage to the cars moving at 185 mph or higher, damage to the manhole covers. What could go wrong? Poverty sucks, right?
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Incompetence And Venality…

...in government... ...is not a winning strategy.
"In a few states, like Florida in particular, a lot of Hispanic voters who did vote for Trump in 2024 are now watching their friends, their family members, their employees be deported, and that doesn’t strike them as a golden age. After a moment where Hispanic voters gave Trump a chance, they have gone back to their historical voter tendencies. They’re really not here for the Stephen Miller show."
Nobody is here for that. Unlike Trump? Or does Bash mean Talarico’s Xianity is not “evangelical” Xianity, so he’s “showing off.” 🤬
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35 Years Ago

Clinton balanced the budget (no, not in ‘91). It did him little to no good politically, and nobody else seemed to notice much. It hasn’t been balanced since, although the GOP through-line has consistently been less money for people, more money for defense contractors.

And the GOP  “solution” has always been “growth,” unless a Democrat is in the White House, and then it’s “cut spending on people.”

Trump is doing both. Job growth is stagnant, inflation is rising, and trade negotiations with Canada broke down, auguring 50% tariffs on both sides of the border.  We’ll see how all that works out in November.
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Friday, August 21, 2026

Why Trump Needs That Ballroom Bunker

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Remain Calm! All Is Well!

In the bond markets? Where? I’m hearing very distinct echoes of 2020. Election challenges worked really well that time. Reasonable question. As long as they talk about Iran not getting a nuclear weapon, and how badly Trump needs a ballroom. Oh, and how gas at $4 a gallon is good for you, the voter. TACO is a kind of weathervane.

And now he’s sundowning in South Carolina.
Sure he did. Focusing on what’s important. One of these things is a hoax. The other things are simply lies. You decide. There’s a reason nobody ever heard about it, Grandpa. He’s already forgotten, hasn’t he? Do you want to share with the class? Grandpa needs his warm milk, and bed. The putative leader of the free world. Good night, everybody!
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Do They Think This Is Working For Them?

The lack of self awareness is stunning. Isn’t that the argument against “endless wars”? Did his grandfather happen to mention that when you point a finger at someone, there’s three more pointing back at you? Or anything about stones and glass houses? Birds of a feather?  "Who you gonna believe? Me? Or your lyin’ eyes?”  What I just asked. It’s like Bizzaro World 🗺️ for stoners. Our man on their side.
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Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

The likeliest way to read this:
Chief Justice Roberts has issued an “administrative” stay In the ballroom case—which effectively allows Trump to keep doing what he’s doing while the full Court decides whether to let him keep working indefinitely while the case moves forward (which it probably will, given this intervention).
... is that Roberts never met a Presidential expansion of power he didn’t like.  An unlikely read would look at this: ... and wonder again if Roberts isn’t trying to avoid a head on collision with Trump in a case where Trump could create a true constitutional crisis, because he’s an idiot. And never met a crisis he didn’t like.*

The problem is that, as much as it claims to be a co-equal third branch of government, the courts are no such thing. Art. III doesn’t even give the Supreme Court its name; it only establishes a title of Chief Justice, much as Art. I describes a Speaker of the House (they perhaps had in mind the non-partisan office of the House of Commons. Whatever was envisioned, it wasn’t well-defined. The same is true of the office of “Chief Justice.”). Art. III only says there shall by a supreme court, and lesser courts, all as established by Congress. Art. III is far more “we’ll have a court system, too,” than it is even the outline of a blueprint. The judiciary is not set up as “coequal,” anymore than the Presidency is. Congress certifies the election of the President; and Congress can remove the President from office, basically on whatever grounds it chooses. The President has no such authority over Congress. The President is charged with executing the laws passed by Congress. He can veto a law, but Congress can override the veto. And if Congress doesn’t like the way he’s executing the laws, they can engage in oversight, up to and including removal from office. Trump presents the clearest need for that in American history; but I’m not holding my breath. The Constitution doesn’t make Congress this feckless. History did that.

In any case, I don’t think the President can do whatever he wants to the White House grounds without Congressional authorization, especially when it involves reallocating funds Congress authorized for other purposes (like the national parks). But I digress…

The Supreme Court is established by Congress.  It didn’t have its own building until 1935. Its jurisdiction is established by Congress. The appellate and trial courts are established by Congress. Congress could shrink the Supreme Court to 3, or expand it to 33. It can control the court’s procedures, determine when it meets, even take the building back. The court is not co-equal to Congress and the President. It is entirely a creature of statute, down to its name. And Congress writes those statutes.

The Court has no army, no police force, no arm of authority to enforce its rulings (the ruling is the judicial order; the opinion is why). In a sense, its orders are advisory. We follow them because we agree the judiciary is acting decently and in good order, and that we need a judicial system to provide and maintain justice (however well or poorly it does so). Some of the court’s rulings in the’50’s and’60’s were implemented only because the executive (Ike, JFK, LBJ) used military and police force to make it so. Without that, Brown v Board might just have been a nice idea. We don’t always agree about decency and good order, but the courts are stuck when some of us strongly disagree with them. And it’s worth noting that Brown v Board was an important ruling, but we needed the Civil Rights Act and the VRA to really make things happen. And yes, there’s a reason John Roberts spent his legal career trying to gut the VRA. But again, I digress….

That’s the way it ordinarily works. The court orders, the executive, if necessary, sees that the order is executed. That is, after all, the chief purpose of the office of the President according to Art. II. Trump, clearly, and beyond argument, doesn’t give a wet snap for Art. II.

So what if Trump asked Stalin’s apocryphal question: “How many troops does Roberts have?” No one imagines Ike or JFK or LBJ asking that. But Trump? Blanche would have the OLC produce an opinion in a heartbeat, and Trump would order the Marines to protect the construction site.

We can at least imagine him doing it.

Does Roberts want to allow Trump to continue construction of the ballroom? I think so. I don’t think he can get 4 more votes to raise it to a constitutional authority, à la presidential immunity.  But I think he can round up more than four votes for the proposition that Trump can do it until Congress says otherwise.

Which Congress needs to do in January, anyway. Trump is pilfering government funds for this vanity project, something else the Court may well allow as the prerogative of the “unitary executive.” There is a proposal to expand the Court to 13, equal to the number of appellate districts. It’s a sound argument, but the application should be held until at least 2029. In the meantime, Congress can impose a retirement age on the Court consistent with the lower courts, and an ethics oversight body.  Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Congress does, in this case; and it’s high time they reclaimed that responsibility; and authority.

*To be clear, I don’t think Roberts read that tweet and thought “Oh shit!” But I wouldn’t be surprised if the Chief Justice has a legitimate concern, however small, that Trump redux might be willing to blunder into a constitutional crisis that would expose the Court’s pretensions to co-equal authority, and force it to rely on what has, so far, been a supine Congress that might not change enough in the Senate to make a difference. And then again, might change too much to make Roberts comfortable.

The joy of living in interesting times.
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🤬

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I’m Old Enough To Remember…

... when $86,000 a year WAS rich. When I entered law school, I dreamed of coming out and earning $35,000 a year. For me that was practically beyond the dreams of avarice. By the time I ever did earn that much (decades later), it didn’t mean what it had before.

What my parents paid for a house in 1960, would buy a nice car today. Not a luxury car, just a nice one. And so on and so on. 

I won’t even veer off to the argument that we’d be better off pursuing spiritual enrichment (putting your neighbors and fellow humans first, and yourself last; not idle navel gazing and worrying about your karma). We’ll stick with the material American Dream, even though we have a unique religious foundation (people didn’t stop coming here seeking religious freedom when the Pilgrims landed).

It is still money that matters in the U.S.A. 🎶

But all we’ve done is create a world where we need more things. Look at 1950’s Warner Brothers cartoons; or Disney’s House of Tommorow in Tomorrow Land (the 1950’s version).  Wildly oversimplified visions, which make it seem like everything appears without effort. At the same time, the houses are remarkably spare. Most houses today rival the clutter of Sherlock Holmes’ Victorian bachelor digs. Which is not the only way the ‘50’s got the future wrong.

Bradbury got closer with home “TV rooms,” where the walls were TV screens. But the BBC retelling of the Dracula story tops them all. There is a great scene where the vampire, having been trapped for a century or so, escapes into the modern world. He rhapsodizes to an English housewife in her cluttered home about modern creature comforts that kings in castles of old would envy, and says if people then had what we have now, no one would ever leave their house.

Would that it were that simple, right? None of that stuff is free. It’s all a question of perspective, and the perspective of a man who doesn’t have to work for those comforts, is not the wise position he thinks it is. And as Thoreau pointed out, what we own ends up owning us. Acquiring stuff becomes a burden no amount of income can alleviate.

Dracula’s analysis, and Gingrich’s, is also a grossly misplaced set of values, and valuation. 

But then, it’s Gingrich; what else do you expect?
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