When Skink sent me the decision yesterday, without comment, I opened it to see a mere 38-page ruling from the Eleventh Circuit. In the grand scheme of judicial decisions nowadays, meaning since the advent of computers allowing the facile regurgitation of formulaic and prolix writing, a mere 38-page decision is considered relatively succinct. But still, it came from the swamp and rarely does anything good come from the swamp.*

And so I read, without further introduction, about someone named Katie Woods suing the Florida Department of Education, and the Hillsborough Board of Education. Suddenly the strains of Harper Valley PTA started swirling in my head, because as I dove further and further into the decision, I realized what a petty, absurd and ridiculous case this was. Continue reading →

Zohran Mamdani and Elon Musk have two things in common. They are both naturalized American citizens, and they have both been mentioned as targets of denaturalization by Trump in the past few days. More to the point, the Department of Justice under the auspices of Attorney General Pam Bondi has issued a memorandum as to its civil enforcement that makes denaturalization of American citizens a priority.

The Civil Division shall prioritize and maximally pursue denaturalization proceedings in all cases permitted by law and supported by the evidence. To promote the pursuit of all viable denaturalization cases available under 8 U.S.C. § 1451 and maintain the integrity of the naturalization system while simultaneously ensuring an appropriate allocation of resources, the Civil Division has established the following categories of priorities for denaturalization cases: Continue reading →

Putting aside whether you believe the Supreme Court of the United States is a bunch of Trump-loving partisan hacks or a more conservative court, but still one that prizes legal principle and integrity despite Justice Thomas’ RV, a secondary problem arises out of its decision staying the universal injunction in Trump v. CASA.

Bear in mind that the Court takes on a relative handful of cases, and even then tends to go no further than absolutely necessary to address the issue before the Court. What this means is that thousands of cases go unreviewed by the Supreme Court, and tens of thousand of issues go unresolved, left to some other day in the future that may never come. The latter is called judicial humility. The former is called laziness. Continue reading →

Simon Cameron said “A good politician is one who, when he gets bought, stays bought.” But Thom Tillis, senator from North Carolina, wasn’t bought by Trump and decided that he’d had enough of being owned by him. He opposed the Big Beautiful omnibus reconciliation bill, and within a day learned that Trump would crush him for his disloyalty. Tillis’ response was to announce that he would not be running for Senate again. This bill crossed the threshold of shame for Tillis, even if confirming Hegseth, Gabbard, RFJ Jr. and K$sh Patel did not.

David French ekes out an explanation for the Senate Republicans confirming Trump’s cabinet and high office choices, notwithstanding the Constitution’s placing the onus on the Senate to “advise and consent” so that a malignant president didn’t appoint wholly unqualified but unquestionably loyal hacks to those offices. Continue reading →

Bush hated them. Obama and Biden too. But as Congress became increasingly paralyzed and incapable of real bipartisanship to do the people’s work, president found themselves in the position of either filling the gap by Executive Order or sitting around in the Oval counting their toes in a government incapable of doing much of anything. And so presidents reacted as the most powerful man in the world was wont to do. They grabbed their pen and phone and ran a government.

And when their efforts exceeded their authority, they were smacked with an injunction by a district court judge when someone challenged their authority to act. They hated it. But they complied with it and appealed. No more. Continue reading →

To begin, my uncle served in Vietnam and my father-in-law is a retired Army Colonel. So this whole bit’s going to be very pro military. If that bothers you, go somewhere else today.

It is extremely impressive to me that our military took seven B2 stealth bombers in Missouri, had them fly over 30 hours to Iran, they dropped bombs on targets basically the size of exhaust ports on the Death Star and then flew back home with zero American casualties.

The fact that we dropped said bombs through exhaust ports at Fordo will never stop being funny to me because it means the Iranian “geniuses” who designed that place never saw Star Wars. GEORGE LUCAS DESIGNED THE DEATH STAR THAT WAY SO NO ONE WOULD DO THAT. Wake up, Iran. Continue reading →

On behalf of the United States, the Department of Justice has done the bizarre, incomprehensible and incoherent. In the District of Maryland, Trump has sued its political enemies, all 15 judges of the Maryland district court.

In a 22-page complaint, lawyers for the Justice Department noted — as many administration officials have in recent weeks — that courts across the country have issued an avalanche of injunctions against various parts of President Trump’s agenda almost from the moment that he returned to office.

The lawyers sought to set their suit against Judge Russell and his colleagues in that context, saying that the new standing rule intruded on the White House’s inherent powers to “enforce the nation’s immigration laws.”

District of Maryland Chief Judge George Russell III issued a standing order that directed the clerk to automatically enter an injunction in all habeas petitions prohibiting the government from removing aliens for a period of . . . one day.

This lawsuit involves yet another regrettable example of the unlawful use of equitable powers to restrain the Executive. Specifically, Defendants have instituted an avowedly automatic injunction against the federal government, issued outside the context of any particular case or controversy.

Continue reading →

The polls said it wasn’t going to happen. The polls were wrong. Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani took the primary and will be the candidate for Mayor of New York City. Was it his policies, free everything and tax the rich? Was it his position on Israel, which wasn’t at all antisemitic but supported globalizing the intifada, which totally didn’t mean kill Jews? Was it defunding the police and warehousing the homeless in the subways?

Was it the fact that he was a young, charismatic, well-spoken, good-looking millennial who knew how to use social media? Continue reading →

Far be it for me to argue that an assistant United States attorney wouldn’t lie. Some would. Some have. Some do. That said, the lies generally aren’t of the nature of making things up out of whole cloth. They are also not of the nature that could be readily disproven, whether by written evidence or the testimony of a room full of people with similar claims to credibility. Career AUSAs do not tend to lie, or even massage the truth, when there is a strong possibility that they will get nailed to the wall.

Career assistant Erez Reuveni had been on the job for almost 15 years, long before the current administration and throughout Trump 1.0. It wasn’t until he was given the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a matter of such significant profile that it wouldn’t be handed to the office goofball, that a problem arose. Reuveni did the one thing that his DoJ superiors found intolerable. He told Judge Paula Xinis the truth, that the rendition of Abrego Garcia was a mistake. The Trump DoJ doesn’t make mistakes. Or to be more precise, it doesn’t admit to the mistakes it makes. Continue reading →

Why? Who knows. It’s not as if the 6-3 majority of the Supreme Court explained its reasoning. In staying Boston District Judge Brian Murphy’s preliminary injunction against ICE removing aliens to third-party countries without notice or due process, those nifty/nasty details the Court previously admonished Kristi Noem to provide to Kilmar Abrego Garcia and others similarly situated, the Supreme Court did not consider it worthwhile to provide either explanation or guidance.

Or perhaps it did not because, well, there just wasn’t anything rational to say. Continue reading →