In pretty much any other administration, Signalgate would have been more than enough for heads to roll. Targeting individual law firms for punishment by Executive Order because they represented people and cases that angered the president would have been a huge scandal, as would firing the personnel staffing nuclear weapons only to have to rehire them, if they could be found, as a demonstration of utter incompetence.
Even the most basic elements of administrative incompetence would have been more than enough to launch a dozen congressional inquiries, from why there is no toilet paper in federal office buildings to why staff were required to return to their offices only to find no room and be forced to work from their cars in parking lots. Unless, of course, DOGE came with guys with guns to evict non-executive branch staff from a privately owned building because they had no clue how they fit into the administrative scheme.
Or maybe the millions wasted on shipping accused gangbangers to Gitmo or El Salvador based on nothing more than the say-so of our brave trusted ICE guys who put their lives on the line arresting barbers with a soccer tat. Then there is the potential military seizure of Greenland because the president has desires.
The other day, a commenter here questioned how SJ had become all Trump, all the time. It’s a question I’ve asked myself. The crazy has become tiresome, tedious and yet it remains unrelenting. Daily, if not hourly, some bold new initiative peeks out from behind where the Resolute Desk once sat before Elon’s kid wiped a booger on it that defies reason and, too often, the law.
It’s not my fault this is happening, but the fact remains that it is happening. As already discussed, the strategy is to “flood the zone” by doing so many things at such rapid pace that defy norms, reason and, very often, the Constitution that no one can focus for long on any particular initiative. And it works. Consider that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth kept reiterating laughably idiotic denials, waiting for the focus to shift away from Signalgate to the next outrage so we would forget what a lying incompetent fool he is and let it go.
Some of you support the outcomes you believe will follow from Trump’s and Musk’s initiatives, and will believe any rationalization to allow you not to face it’s idiocy or illegality. Some of you have left comments here that were legally nonsensical, but are sold by MAGA outlets and influencers to the groundings who are either too clueless or too credulous to ask questions or think harder. Unexplaining idiocy takes too much effort and, frankly, rarely works. Believing is seeing, and you believe. You can’t be fixed.
The myriad legal issues implicated in Trump’s daily hourly actions have come to overshadow most, if not all, other legal issues. It’s not that law isn’t happening elsewhere. It’s not that cops aren’t behaving badly anymore. It’s not that judges aren’t issuing decisions pertaining to matter not involving Trump. It’s that these issues pale in the face of fundamental disruptions to our democracy and national functioning.
Should the focus on Trump’s flood of unlawful and crazy actions continue, or should it be ignored in favor of lesser legal issues? Much as I’m beyond bored of Trump, I fail to see how I can address legal issues while not addressing the legal issues raised by the craziness. Have we reached the point of Trump fatigue where it’s no longer useful to point out the moment’s unconstitutional action since it will be forgotten as soon as the next moment’s unconstitutional action arises?
*First, this does not mean TT will become a regular thing again. Second, I’m taking a huge risk that the nutjobs will feel empowered to come out of the woodwork and spew their MAGA nonsense. Third, this is a very real issue for me and I am interested in other people’s thoughts about it. Note the word “thoughts.”
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I think you should keep SJ’s focus on the abuse of power and the utter failure of BigLaw and most members of Congress to stand the f— up and push back against the disregard for due process and the Constitution. And yes, please, keep shining a light on whatever the next assault on this republic will be by a narcissistic grifter-in-chief and the kackistrocracy he has installed. Hasn’t history taught us that ignoring or trying to placate the evil just becomes tacit consent?
But then, I am not a lawyer, yada yada yada.
“Kackistrocracy” I love the new word and give you back “kleptoplutocratic oligarchy”.
I think yours is actually a more accurate description than mine.
Yes, it’s a bore. Trump’s a bore. No, there is no other choice but to deal with his actions.
Twofer Tuesday.
Maybe set yourself a Trump limit and make a weekly post summarizing the Trump stuff of the week.
As a big fan, I will always read, but I find myself less excited each morning than I once was. I used to wonder what new thing I never heard of will be covered and what new thing I will learn.
Now I am pretty confident that I will read about Trump, and, he is such a legalistic bumbler that it’s not a big revelation that what he is doing is wrong and why – though your perspective is often still enlightening.
I really did enjoy when you would write about something I never would have read about anywhere else and taught me something about law or took a perspective that I wouldn’t have considered and might not agree with.
Nodding along every morning with you that Trump is a buffoon is boring.
Scott,
Don’t stop. There is only one Simplejustice blog. Please continue your unique, honest, appraisals with evidence and humor.
This is the second time you’ve spouted that “guys with guns” nonsense. The guys with guns who turned over the “Peace” institute to Doge were police officers. Maybe they made the wrong decision, but that’s for courts to decide. What happened was utterly mundane, and calling them “guys with guns” paints a false picture of the incident.
what happened to “not making people stupider”?
And yes, the descent from an interesting law blog featuring wide-ranging discussions of legal issues to a TDS-fueled pearl-clutching echo chamber is disappointing, and I am patiently waiting for you to get over it.
https://blog.simplejustice.us/2014/04/05/evil-in-albuquerque/
That’s the first time I could find the Host referring to the police as “guys with guns”. April, 2014. It took roughly fifteen seconds to get that example, along with many others. Whatever happened to not making people stupider, indeed.
Saying “guys with guns” in a discussion about police is different from saying “DOGE came with guys with guns”, without mentioning that those guys were police officers. One is misleading, one isn’t. What’s wrong with “DOGE came with police”? This is a perfect example of how TDS has affected this formerly excellent blog.
“Guys with guns” is an unflattering phrase referring to “police”. They are people. They carry guns. They are guys with guns. The Host has consistently referred to them as such, and the examples both occurred in discussions concerning what the guys with guns got up to. I wonder why you don’t like it in this context in particular. Trump Apologist Syndrome, maybe?
At least from your other reply, you’re able to criticize him. That’s a start. Perhaps there is a glimmer of hope for you.
I’ve been criticizing Trump from the very beginning. I pointed out years ago that he is an actor pretending to be President. Most of my criticisms get trashed because they conflict with the MSM narrative.
Just because I don’t buy into the idea that he is “literally Hitler” or an ignoramus, doesn’t mean that I buy into the “Trump is a genius playing 5D chess” narrative. If you love Trump, or if you hate him, you are buying what he is selling.
They came with many guys with guns, including private security contractors, and they took over USIP by having private security contractors immediately seize the gun safe at USIP, triggering an emergency security lockdown by the security on staff at the time, without ever having explained any of this to the people at USIP. That’s a significantly more “guys with guns” type of takeover than the standard process by which the police simply ask people to leave a building.
I am an avid reader of the blog. The focus on Trump is unavoidable as he rules by decree and violates the Constitution. I enjoy your insights, so yes, keep it up. I trust you to find the most important or interesting things to write about.
So then Trump can’t run for a third term?
He said he can. He said he has been so advised by credible legal scholars.
Secretary of the Interior Burgum says there is room on Mount Rushmore for another President, and that President should be Donald Trump.
There have been recent calls for a new $250 bill with the image of President Trump.
How can anyone be bored?
Are these “credible legal scholars” also “like, English professors” who think “the weave” is “brilliant”?
And are any of them in the room now?
(Style points for those who got the latter joke.)
There’s no choice, I think, but to continue covering Trump’s utter disregard for the rule of law. Everything we do depends on these fundamental principles. Judges follow the law, we laugh at their jokes, and parties before them do what they say. When it’s goddamn POTUS, the most powerful person on the planet, flouting such basic prescriptions, the resulting chaos is going to be catastrophically terrible such that any other issue would be moot.
None of these acts are or will be forgotten. The next guy, whoever it is, will do the same things but potentially in reverse. I know you said thoughts, but I’m afraid short-term and long-term now that Trump opened the door to pushing his office’s vast authority to its full limits and beyond. Please keep writing about the most pressing topics you see.
There is a lot of activity, but also a lot of blocking. It is uncertain how many actual “outcomes” there will be, once the dust has settled. Perhaps the public will be fortunate, and the forces of right and left will spend themselves into exhaustion fighting over every hill and duck pond.
SJ has historically been focused mainly on criminal defense and civil liberty issues. Accordingly, it would make some logical sense to cover those erosions of basic protections that have not been successfully blocked. For example, the continuation of extraordinary renditions, based solely (as it now appears) on a checklist scoring system as the only “safeguard” to determine (with “high confidence,” we are assured) who is or is not a Tren de Argua gangster.
The mainstream media, for their part, are doing a miserable job of covering these developments. Generally, they have missed the procedural sections of the relevant law entirely, and fail to cover any of the substantive detail of the opinions explaining the reasons for the court decisions. Accordingly, and as amply reflected by the prevailing commentary in social media, most members of the public still do not understand what is happening or why the extraordinary rendition mechanism doesn’t fit with the Alien Enemies Act or constitutional norms. Although it is still early in the century, this wholesale expansion of imprisonment without a judicial determination of probable cause, without bail, and without any trial is a major 21st century criminal law development. The notion of punishing law firms for particular client representations is also likely to make the charts. While it is difficult to conceive of these practices persisting in the long term, if they do persist the concept of our criminal justice system will be very different than what it has been. The major developments that seem to be feeding into that effort are worth following, while some of the lesser antics may not be.
I agree, and B. highlights an issue that I didn’t clearly articulate in my previous comment. By focusing on partisan outrage over every stupid Trump trick, you are falling for his schtick. The real damage being done by the Trump administration is non-partisan, and he is working hand in hand with his “opponents” on the left. For example, the massive bait-and-switch that he pulled regarding deportation of illegals. Trump voters should be outraged by this, but they aren’t, because the media doesn’t talk about it (neither left, nor right, nor “alternative”). Trump promised mass deportations of the millions of invaders who streamed in during the “Biden” years, but he didn’t deliver. Right-wing media claims that he deported 100K, less than 1%. Instead of mass deportations, we get the the undermining of our constitutional rights, and the rule of law, branded as deportation.
Sending soccer fans to a prison in El Salvador is not deportation; it is extraordinary rendition. Revoking the green cards of anti-Israel protestors isn’t deportation; it is an attack on the right to free speech. The media focuses on nonsense while our rights are undermined. The El Salvador thing was obviously unconstitutional, as was Bush’s kidnapping of random goat herders to be tortured in Guantanamo, and Obama’s murdering of American citizens without any legal process. Why did they choose a notoriously anti-Trump judge to strike down this blatantly unconstitutional act? Because they aren’t really against it. Even if the Supreme Court eventually strikes it down (which isn’t guaranteed; they didn’t stop Bush nor Obama), right-wingers will blame Boasberg and when the next administration does something similar, they won’t have any credibility to argue against it.
Even if you talk about these real issues, they will get lost among the daily Trump gossip. Focus!
I especially agree with the lack of good explanation by media. I don’t know if this is driven more by focus on brief soundbites and/or number of views more than content, or by members of the media not understanding the legal issues (and being unwilling to get a competent explanation given the rush to get news out). I don’t want “Trump bad”, I want analysis of why (and, rarer this term, acknowledgment of when he has a good point), and some distinction between legal albeit unwelcome to many policy choices (the partisan outrage noted by PGP even over things that are legal), versus actual (or threatened) violations of the constitution and other laws (non-partisan, and much worse, wrongness).
Also re the media, while I think even a damaged Biden would be better than Trump and would make more sense, possible media complicity in covering up his problems was wrong. What’s the point in paying for media (directly or indirectly through viewing ads) if the media is going to deliberately conceal important facts?
Ultimately, as long as it’s not retreading old ground (Trump is firing everyone in the IRS AGAIN, or the like), it’s useful analysis and I count your blog as one of the stops to get informed about the day’s events. Going back to the well is for MSNBC and Fox. Simple Justice is for whatever you want it to be, but it’s traditionally been about the most current or significant legal issues happening.
It’s just that that’s been Trump, and that’s okay.
Chaos and distraction are tactics designed to direct attention away from and camouflage the real objective which is the dismantling of the Republic and the establishment of the Fourth Reich. So far it seems to be working!! As his MAGAsty challenges every right granted by the Constitution, including the most basic right to vote.
While shielding his illegal and unconstitutional, but willing, usurpation of Congressional authority behind the “He who saves his country violates no laws “ immunity granted him by SCOTUS’ ridiculous ruling, he is free to do whatever he “desires” as he and his crowd of Project 25 implementers dismantle the fundamental institutions of our Government and attack the people who sit in judgement of his illegal actions as MAGAts watch in delight and cheer him on.
Still, Trump made no attempt during the campaign to disguise his intentions and we should not be surprised that he bold-faced lied to the voters and they accepted the lies and voted him in! So, why are we surprised? We were warned and were getting what we voted for.
This is the same path taken in Germany bringing Hitler into power and as granted by the Enabling Act of 1932, the blueprint for Project25. SHG will likely censor this comment as he has in the past. The similarities of then and now are too great to ignore before it’s too late!
“In pretty much any other administration, Signalgate would have been more than enough for heads to roll.” — SHG today
“No leading officials were fired over the Iraq/W.M.D. debacle. There were no notable resignations when Barack Obama’s Libya intervention turned that country into a war-torn terrorist haven. No heads rolled when the Afghanistan papers revealed official dishonesty, and Biden’s foreign policy team did not quit after the Afghanistan withdrawal became a bloody rout. Given that record, you can argue that Hegseth or Waltz should resign over operational security failures even if those failures didn’t have tragic consequences — but it’s silly to act shocked when they do not.” — Ross Douthat, NYT, three days ago
Make every post about DJT if you want, but I thought that I should take issue with the statement that other administrations would have acted differently when someone messed up and invited a reporter to a Signal chat.
Ross dishonestly – but he’s saying something, so of course it isn’t honest – equate the two events.
The Iraq/WMD issue differs for a number of reasons. First, as far as I was aware all communication between WH Officials was done once the proper channels. Second, they did not take steps to make sure that records of the conversation would not be retrievable. Third, it did not involve the disbursement of classified information to someone not cleared to see it.
The issue with Signalgate is that all 3 of the primary issues are there – non-official means of communication, efforts to make at least parts of the conversation unrecoverable, and the sharing (though perhaps inadvertently but does that make it better) of classified information with a journalist.
There is a fourth issue, that being that while the USA was saying there were WMDs, most major intelligence agencies (up to and including Mossad) also were convinced Iraq had WMDs, largely because Sadam spent a lot of time trying to convince everyone that he DID have them. But that’s not central to the plot here, so I’m not counting that.
Being strongly against many of Trump’s actions are like being strongly against the death penalty. Over time, when it doesn’t affect you, your family, or anyone you know, the issue(s) slowly disappear from one’s disdain.
OTOH, I’m rather certain Trump does something in the next few years that negatively affects me. I’ll wait to get upset . Taxes, war? I haven’t a clue and won’t guess.
You’re not writing about “Trump”. You’re writing about important issues related to the administration currently running the most powerful nation in the world. Anyone who has read you for more than the last six weeks or so knows that you’re just as willing to take the other end of the political spectrum to task for its failings. For whatever its worth (at the risk of appearing to give a tummy rub), I value the way you think about things, even when, or perhaps especially when, i disagree with you.
So…please keep going.
I agree! It is not that SHG is writing about Trump, per se, all the time. One day he is writing about disdain for norms, another about lying, another about delusional economic theories, or impetuous foreign policy decisions. And then, more neutrally, there are pieces about about the separation of powers, the rule of law, and the importance of free speech. It’s just that Trump is the epicenter of all of that. It kind of reminds me of Sir William Osler’s line: “He who knows syphilis knows all of medicine.” There is the modern corollary is: He who knows Trump knows all of law and politics. (And probably syphilis too.)
I haven’t commented on here in probably half a decade, but I’ve never stopped reading daily. I just wanted to speak up and say that I very much appreciate the hard and neverending work you continue to put in to documenting the legal ramifications of this administration’s rule by fiat. There are precious few places to get this kind of actual expert analysis in a factual and nonpartisan way without an agenda or narrative, so thank you and I hope you keep on keeping on.
I’ve only been visiting here for a short time, so my opinion will matter less than most. I don’t even know what Tuesday Talk means.
I keep revisiting because of the often humorous, but always insightful commentary.
The problem with Trump coverage across most of the sites I read is the hyperbole on both sides. He’s either a 5-D chess master owning the libs or he’s literal Hitler. I think the rhetoric here is starting to trend a little – just a little – towards the latter even though the topics are on point.
I still think if the democrats had treated him like a normal politician and gone after the real policy and legal issues of his first term instead of raging about Russia, Russia, Russia and pushing doomed impeachments, he would have faded into history by now with little legacy.
I agree that the due process issues are troubling and that his delusions about tariffs are dangerous, and that following the law matters. Hyperbole doesn’t persuade though, and it can eventually push people away that are open to discussion or that just want to understand the issues better.
Boomer, Your comments take this thread IMHO. I remember a member of Congress being taken seriously by the media with a threat to file articles of impeachment the day after Trump’s first inauguration. Not one full day in office.
We are paying a heavy price for Russia, Russia, Russia.
I come here because I want to read what you think is of the most importance legally and to get your viewpoint. Frequently, what you think is important turns out to be more important than some of the headlines of the time. I’ve always valued your resistance to headlines.
However, if Trump fatigue is a thing for yourself and others and if it is possible to focus on legal things that are not Trump, maybe there could be a once a week legal issues that are not Trump related.
I realize this might not be reasonable or possible currently and I appreciate the vigor and wit with which you have savaged the irrationality of our moment.
Thanks!
Dan
It seems you’re pre-emptively asking for forgiveness or understanding on those days you chose to post on some topic that isn’t about Trump when he’s again done … something. I’m sure there’s some clever quote about commenting on topics that aren’t “above the fold”. Perhaps it’s more important now to find stories not about Trump that are worth highlighting.
You have become boring. I would enjoy a weekly Trump dump, but 5 days a week is too much.
It’s Your Party.
Write what you like. No one cares about the people who find it boring. No one reads their blogs.
“You can’t be fixed” sounds eerily like “We just hated each other”. Spain, 1937.