stevenkesslar

Hey, come on. I'm not into prestige or names or fancy destinations. I'm a romantic. I want the Golfer of America.

I am starting this as a new post to pull it back from Judge Dugan on to the broader issue. And my main point is that Trump is a moron. So even on an issue that he should be winning on, immigration, he is starting to lose. This is a gift to Democrats. It is a gift to Democrats because this was a huge unforced error of Biden, Harris, and Democrats. Trump and Chris LaCivita have both broken down why he won very simply: high prices, and the border. I'd add a third issue they ran on, but left unsaid: old Biden. I don't think Biden could stop high prices, any more than Trump could stop COVID. Biden could not stop aging. Arguably if he had stepped out of the way earlier and there were a Democratic primary ........... blah blah blah ............... Harris or someone else could have won. But she did an amazing job shifting the momentum late in the game. She almost snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. So the only thing I would single out as a huge error that was completely avoidable was the border. Biden could have been Deporter In Chief like Obama. Some of Harris's worst moments were early in her term as Veep when she did come across very badly on TV specifically on the border. They tried to fix the problem in 2024, with a bipartisan bill. But by then it may have been too little too late. Killing that bill was a bittersweet victory for Trump. Killing it may have helped him win. But it also would have helped him - AND JUDGES - fix the problem he was elected to fix right now. So he can only blame himself. I think part of the problem is that Democrats simply can't help themselves. There are too many liberal activist groups with an agenda that does not resonate with working class Hispanics or Blacks, but that does resonate with liberal donors and activists. This does drive people like Ruy Teixeira up the fucking wall. Biden could not or would not say no to them. Had Harris been like Bill Clinton and gone after the immigration liberals to make a "Sister Souljah" point, who knows? Like she could have said the one thing she would have done differently was close the fucking border, which she wanted to all along. But she didn't, or couldn't. If someone like Bill Clinton (let's say Rahm Emanuel) comes along in 2028 and says this stuff that will horrify the White college liberals Teixeira despises, maybe he or she can win. But my point is that if you believe that Democrats simply can't help themselves, Trump can help us by creating law or precedent that boxes Democrats in. If Trump does that, it will be a gift in disguise. Behind Trump’s push to erode immigrant due process rights In his first 100 days, Donald Trump has attacked due process rights in the immigration system, which could lead to more permanent consequences than his first term. Trump seems to love to throw a bomb in the middle of the room as a way to force change. I posted a great essay written by a conservative explaining why the bomb he threw in the room on tariffs is almost certain to fuck things up. It created chaos already. It may cause a recession, and destroy his Presidency. On immigration, I'd argue his strategy actually makes more sense. While that headline plays to the idea that Trump is evil or Hitler, I think the story illustrates some method to the madness. People are pissed about immigration. And last year lots of polls said that a majority wanted it fixed. Trump and LaCivita are right. They knew this, and used it to pound nails in Kamala's coffin. Even if Trump wants to be a dictator, I think there are people around him that know he won't be. They are more interested in moving things to the right - permanently. So what that articles says, which seems accurate, is that there is a strategy to throw bombs in the room to try to force SCOTUS, or Congress, or both to lay down law or precedent that makes life harder for undocumented immigrants. Or bad hombres, if you prefer. If that is what actually happens, which seems likely, I'll argue it is a gift to Democrats. Immigration activists might say it is a tragedy. But if I wanted to piss them off, I would say blame yourselves, assholes. You went way too far, and pissed off middle America. Like working class Latinos. So you created this extreme reaction. So learn something. But to make my party sound worse, and helpless, maybe Democrats can't do that. Politics can be very complicated. So instead SCOTUS and a Republican Congress pass laws that say this is the way it is gonna be. I could see that as a gift. That way, whether AOC or Rahm Emanuel win in 2028, who I only use to represent two different wings, they know what the law says. And then they can say, "Sorry. I can't open the border. I have to follow the law." I hope Trump with his chaos and bomb throwing at least manages to do that in four years. What I also hope Trump does is be stupid, which of course he predictably will be. And the moron wannabe dictator inside him, a pig-brained narcissist, is fucking seething with fury that some activist judge has the power to thwart him. I am quite sure he would love to send Judge Dugan to El Salvador. Who gives a flying fuck whether there is a judicial warrant to do so? Trump doesn't. He has made that very clear. Trump administration must follow court orders, most Americans say I'd guess this is where and why Trump is going too far, just 100 days in. I think it mostly explains why he has moved from net approval on immigration, to net disapproval. It is one thing to go after bad hombres who beat their wife. It is another thing to go after due process and activist judges, who actually are trying to fix the problem. Americans don't like it. Even a conservative SCOTUS does not like it. Why would Trump want to pick this fight? Maybe, like Democrats, he can not help himself. He is a wannabe dictator, who does cry like a bitch when he does not get his way. And he does have the brain of a pig. So someone like Bill Clinton could usually override his worst narcissistic impulses with his brain. Trump can't. So he constantly does really dumb shit that cripples his Presidency. This is the same script as Act One. He really can't help himself. It is worth noting that Democrats and Republicans agree that most judges are not "fair and impartial". SCOTUS itself has net disapproval, and that is partly because Americans now see SCOTUS as too conservative. I have no doubt that most Republicans and perhaps most Democrats would see Judge Dugan as not being "fair and impartial." I would not argue she is impartial. She is a social justice activist who cleverly told ICE to go fuck themselves, and will probably get away with it. The axiom in politics is when you're explaining, you're losing. I think in this case the equivalent is when you are fighting judges, rather than bad hombres who beat their wives, Trump is losing. And the polls do confirm that Trump is now losing. It is a fact. So maybe some MAGA fanatics feel happy that Judge Dugan was arrested. But as far as I am concerned, she won and Trump lost already. It may be true that most Americans would say she is not "fair and impartial". Many, maybe a majority, might say she should go to jail. But in her eyes, so what? In her eyes, she stood up for what she believes in - due process. She may actually be thinking, "I won, and Trump lost." And if she thinks that, she is probably right. The polls are clear. Trump does not want this to be a fight with judges over due process. And yet HE is making it that way. Democrats should be grateful. It is a gift.

They may prosecute her. Will they win? I'm not a lawyer. But I doubt it. I know I went overboard on posting. But this is one where the devil is in the details. With the law, the devil is always in the details. And she is a judge with a background as a social justice warrior. So that right there strongly suggests she knows what she is doing. There is no way she could have planned this. I also think it is unlikely that ICE planned to target the judge as an "activist judge". I don't think ICE is that organized. If they were, they would have had a judicial warrant, which they did not. I think a lot of this is just how it happened to work out, in the moment. That said, since the judge has a history as a social justice activist, I would not be surprised if she wants this to go to a trial. In the eyes of many MAGA folks, she is the Wicked Witch. In the eyes of a lot of people, who are not fanatics, she is a hero fighting against Trump and for due process. And it seems clear that Team Trump is making unforced errors by shifting the target from bad hombres who beat their wife to a female judge who is devoted to due process. Depending on how strong her beliefs are, she may want to ride this thing and use it as a vehicle to push back against Trump. Certainly there are a lot of people, including many moderates, who feel that way on this issue.

I’m a Conservative Economist. Here Are 6 Reasons Trump’s Plans Won’t Work. Even on their own terms, Trump’s economic promises defy logic. That is far and away the best article I have read since Trump was elected about why his economic policies will not only fail. Trump's policies don't even make sense. And it's all written from the perspective of a conservative agenda. There's a lot of whining about how Democrats are lost, and have no clue what to do about it. Meanwhile, Democrats are now leading in the generic ballot by a few points. So much for the death of the Democratic Party, which actually gained one House seat in 2024 while Trump won by 49.8 % of the vote. I think the best choice, largely because it is the only choice, is for Democrats to just let the train race toward the brick wall it is headed to. The deficit will get a lot worse. Budget hawks will gasp in horror. The rich will get richer, and fat cat tax cuts will help. We may have a recession. They will whack away at Medicaid that hurts working class Trump supporters. And this won't bring back the millions of manufacturing jobs America lost while a Republican, George W. Bush, was President and pushing a free trade agenda. Let them eat economic misery that they are creating.

How do you solve a problem like Maria? In other words, good luck. That's a simple answer. Here's the book length version, anchored in a really thoughtful Politico article. How Gen Z Became the Most Gullible Generation The almighty algorithm is fueling conspiracy theories among young people and ruining their ability to tell fact from fiction on the internet. That recent article does not answer your question. It just expands it. Or, I could say, it expands the horror. Arguably, we now have an entire generation of Americans who knows nothing but this. This is reality now. Meaning, there is no reality. Reality is the bullshit they see on the internet. And believe. I have a specific memory, which is weird one, about when this started. So I'll blame it on Barack Obama and Big Bird! 😨 There was a moment in the debate in 2012 when Romney was pushed on how he would cut the federal deficit. He said he would cut PBS. So one of Obama's clever staffers used that to come up with this clever meme-like idea. I forget the name of the woman who came up with the idea. But she said in an interview that the point was not really the ad, which was funny and effective. The point was the meme. It spread online virally. Big Bird! So the whole idea was that Romney was a doofus, because he saw the villain as Big Bird. To go one step further, in 2012 the Obama campaign was generally viewed as having done an amazing job of using social media, like Facebook, to get Millennials to vote for him. While I was delighted with Obama winning, I also remember being horrified at the time. And thinking we are introducing gremlins into the body politic. In fairness, the ad and meme are funny and effective. And it is about a real issue: budget deficits, fiscal priorities, economic stewardship, just expressed in a funny way. But it felt like we are really bringing this down to a dumb level, and it will probably only get worse. It did. In 2016 there were a lot of articles about how Trump had artfully used Facebook algorithms and simple and often deceptive micro-targeted ads to win. Most of it was probably bullshit that Facebook pushed to promote how effective Facebook is. But by 2016 I felt the gremlins have now come back to haunt us. 2024 was a cesspool. It becomes more and more stupid, and less and less connected to reality. To their credit, I would say The Nelk Boys came up with some wicked funny stuff mocking "woke" bullshit that I laugh my ass off when I watch it. Trump credited them, probably appropriately, with helping him to win by getting young men to watch their funny pro-Trump videos. So, again, it is not all just lies and bullshit. It was getting young men to laugh at woke bullshit. It is a way of doing politics. But there is no question that social media has lowered the standards, to the point that there are almost no standards left. Reality is just whatever bullshit you see on social media. And nobody trusts anybody like Walter Cronkite to mediate the truth. So I just believe whatever Trump says, if I'm MAGA. That said, we have been here and done this before. We've had periods of massive polarization (like The Civil War) where a lot of journalism was no more lies than and propaganda. This is not new. One of the most interesting comments I heard in the last few years was by one of my nephew's wife. I was with a few of my brothers and a few nephews and nieces. And we were talking about whether we were optimistic or pessimistic about the future. The comment the wife made is that artificial intelligence is going to be the huge challenge of her generation, that will cause massive problems. But she is optimistic that eventually Millennials and Gen Z will figure it out. I hope. It will likely get worse before it gets better. But I hope she is right that eventually young people will sort it out. And I also think she is right that Boomers probably don't even matter, anymore. Even though she didn't say it that bluntly. I think it's younger generations who will have to sort out, assuming they can, whether this great social media experiment is really new and improved, or just a nightmare of lies and bullshit. I will say this. We are for sure no longer in the cute days when Barack Obama was using social media to spread funny memes that are based on truth. The social media titans, especially X and Musk, are aligning closer and closer to Trump. Give us our fucking tax cuts. Get rid of regulations and laws we don't like. Fuck everything and everyone else. We are the new robber barons. We bought America. We run it. We tell people what stupid lies we want them to listen to that support what we want. Fuck you and fuck what you want. We could give a shit. I think a powerful reaction to all that is going to build. A lot of younger Gen Z, especially young men, voted for Trump because they reacted to real things: Biden's inflation, wars, COVID lockdowns, attacks on toxic masculinity, cancel culture. Now the pendulum is probably going to swing the other way. And, like my nephew's wife suggested, this bullshit is part of the reason why.

For anyone actually interested in the law, I found what appears to be a long and thoughtful analysis of this issue. Specifically, did Judge Dugan break the law, which her attorney already says she did not do? Of course, we should always be suspicious of what we read on the internet. But, in a nutshell, this poster argues that this is a legal grey area. After reading this, it clarifies to me why Judge Dugan asked if ICE had a judicial warrant. If they had one, which arguably they should have if they wanted to do this right, it seems to me (I'm not a lawyer) like she would have had little or no legal space but to help ICE. Since they did not have a judicial warrant, she may have decided this was her call, in her courtroom. And clearly she did not feel she had to, or wanted to, help them. Instead of using the quote function, for ease of reading I am just going to cut, paste, and italicize this long post from Reddit that hopefully outlines what the law says about this situation, and specifically about the arrest warrant. Did ICE have a warrant? Let's find another source. https://abcnews.go.com/US/judge-hannah-dugan-arrested-fbi-allegedly-helping-undocumented/story?id=121161497%C2%A0 Let's see what the difference is. https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/us-news/hannah-dugans-arrest-brings-up-judicial-vs-administrative-warrant-debate-key-differences-101745615265117.html If they want access to a non-public space, they need a judicial warrant. I'm going to assume it's not advised practice for ICE to arrest people at the courthouse as it disincentives people from actually showing up for their trial. This administration and their cult following don't really care about procedures though or due process. If they're a criminal defendant, it should have been easy to get a judicial warrant. Instead, they wanted to create a spectacle with ICE because Trump supporters eat that up. In conclusion, it's a grey area. That won't stop them from saying it's clear and they should have more room to arrest "activist judges" which the Trump cult will naturally defend. Obviously that post is from someone left of center, but who bothered to try to explain some legal nuances. The thread itself is interesting. Most of the posts are attacks on Trump and his authoritarian or even "Nazi" proclivities. But others point out a very sensible question: why is this a hill Democrats want to die on? The guy was already deported once, and he entered the US illegally again. And he now has a criminal complaint. It was the criminal complaint that enabled ICE to do their job and match fingerprints and plan to arrest this guy. Nothing wrong, so far. Just ICE doing its job. And even targeting a bad hombre, not some poor farm worker. It is interesting that ICE did not have a judicial warrant. The author implies ICE had an intent to purposely target an "activist" judge. I would not assume that. Whatever the reason, which could have been they did not have the time, or maybe it was just easier to sign their own arrest warrant, it clearly ended up making a legal difference as this played out with this particular judge. There's a separate issue cited in articles and posts about whether it is bad form for ICE to arrest undocumented immigrants at their own court proceedings, since it "disincentivizes" them from appearing in court. I am glad no one identifying themselves as a Democratic leader is making THAT argument. The guy beat the shit out of his room mate. That was what got ICE involved. I have no problem with the idea that if you beat the shit out of anyone and end up in court after already being deported once, of course we will bust your ass at the court house. And please. Tell your bad hombre amigos, asshole. As a practical matter, of course the word will get out and other undocumented immigrants who allegedly commit crimes will simply avoid the court house. But that is not ICE's fault. And arguably it just helps build an even clearer legal case against some asshole who doesn't show up in court when he is supposed to. I won't weigh in on the legal question of what Dugan did. Some MAGA judge likely would have done the opposite, and congratulated ICE for doing their job. So some of this is about dissent. Can people disagree with Trump, or does anyone who does not agree have to worry about being arrested? I'm pretty sure Dugan was thinking that through as it played out. If I had to bet, she covered her ass legally. Although if it is a grey area, she also must have decided she was willing to take some risk. She has a history as a social justice advocate. So one way to look at this is, "Why piss this person off? Why make her the bad hombre, instead of the asshole who appeared in her court?" Whatever the legal verdict, I have reached my political verdict. This actually explains why Trump and Homan are stupid and reckless. They constantly make unforced errors. Someone thorough and cautious would have probably had the judicial warrant in hand. But, had he not, why target an activist judge? They got the bad hombre, anyway. Why make the activist judge the issue? She clearly is a hero to a lot of people now. It is just a fact that it is easier to go after a bad hombre who breaks the law and assaults people than it is to go after any judge of any political ideology who is a warrior for due process, at least in her own mind. Why this fight? Two opposing things can be true in politics at the same time. I think it is also true that it would be stupid for Democrats, or judges, to defend wife beaters who break the law. And no doubt many people will be just like @unicorn, and conclude very quickly that legal nuances mean nothing. And this judge is just wrong for not helping ICE. But she is not defending a criminal, or his behavior. She is defending due process. If she said, "You are Nazi scum, ICE should be abolished, and you are picking on a nice guy," she is defending an alleged criminal. If she makes the issue the arrest warrant, and says go talk to the chief judge, she has made the issue due process. At the very least, once the target is a judge who says she is passionate about due process, you are on a much more slippery slope. And whether this judge actually woke up that morning itching for a public fight that shifted the focus from the male wife beater to the female judge, she clearly decided to embrace it as it was happening. She sounds like she knows what she is doing. Why make the target judges? It just seems like the same kind of incompetent unforced political error Trump makes constantly, that erodes public confidence in him. And that's not my theory. The polls already reflect growing disapproval, specifically on his immigration policies. I think this is why. It would be far smarter to embrace the bill a moderate Democrat and a conservative Republican wrote that empowers judges to deport people, and hires more of them.

So thanks for answering my question. No, and no. You do not understand what happened. And you confirmed that you think there is only one way to view this, regardless of the facts or the law. I do not agree with you. So now you have told me I am a "fanatic" twice. While I am not a judge or lawyer, it is clear that there is both a general issue about due process, which SCOTUS and a majority of Americans say Trump is inattentive to, and a specific issue about due process in the case you cite. Again, you don't care about the law, or due process, or the legality or morality of what the judge did. You have judged her already, and reached a verdict. Because I am interested in the facts and the law and don't agree with your pre-determined verdict, I am a "fanatic". I don't know that your verdict would stand up in a court of law. First, you said something about a deportation order. I don't think such an order exists, and now you seem to have dropped the idea. The guy was legally deported once, during Obama's Presidency. And we probably agree he should be deported again - legally. Nothing fanatical about that. Your post is about what the judge did. What she said, according to the news reports, is that the arrest warrant was not legal. This is a key point, which you don't care about or view as relevant. I have no way of knowing whether the judge is correct, and they did not have a legal arrest warrant. But she certainly was not "ignoring" it. She was saying she is a judge, and this arrest warrant is not legal. That does not sound like the actions of a "fanatic" or a fan of wife battering to me. But thanks for your opinion. I have been a landlord for 25 years, with hundreds of tenants. And I can count the number of evictions I ever needed on one hand. The first and only time I tried to do it myself, as a young and ignorant landlord, I got a book on landlord/tenant law in my state and copied verbatim a draft eviction notice. The notice was thrown out as illegal because in the year since the book was published the law changed. And specified that the notice must not only state the day the tenant must leave by, but the time of day. It was a minor technicality. But the lesson I learned was always have a lawyer do it for me. Of course, the great thing about El Salvador is these legal nuances don't matter, at least in some cases. You can do lots of fun stuff with golf clubs, and the heads of assholes with no legal rights. So if your point is that these details of the law are irrelevant, and the judge is guilty and ICE should be free to arrest the guy because they want to deport him and he has no rights, you are entitled to your opinion. But the more you write the more you are exposing that you are the one who does not understand, or care about, the law. The thing that turned me off the most about the story, at least in the brief explanation you initially gave, is the idea that this guy was issued an "Expedited Removal Order" in 2013, and he is still here. How expedited is that? It sounds like a joke. This is not accurate. The source you cited, ABC, is technically not wrong. They just left out this key fact, which USA Today did not: Again, this is when Deporter In Chief Obama reigned. He was not a fanatic, nor am I. He legally deported a lot of people, including this guy. I want Andy Beshear or someone like him as POTUS, who will make it incredibly clear, with a handsome farm boy Southern drawl, that we Democrats will legally deport your ass if you are an undocumented Mexican who beats your wife. I think the Mexican women I know would generally agree. Obama did, and in fact deported his ass. Legally. I am curious about this issue about an arrest warrant. You are not. I think this is why Tom Homan was an abject failure in Act One, and seems like he is well on his way to being a failure again. And it may be why Americans are now turning against Trump even on immigration, and saying they don't approve of his actions. I am way more concerned about fentanyl flooding in and killing over 100,000 Americans than I am about some Mexican guy who beats someone up for playing loud music. That is not either/or. But Homan opened the floodgates that killed huge numbers of Americans. It is not acceptable. So if he instead wants to grandstand because he can't stop Americans from being killed, he better make sure his agents understand the law, and follow it. Maybe they did. But they may not have. And, either way, you don't give a shit. Trump is an asshole and largely to blame. One of the best parts of that bipartisan immigration law Trump got killed in 2024 is they wanted to empower judges, and hire more of them, to expedite these legal processes. Trump killed that. If you cared, which you don't, you would know that the authors of the bill, like Lankford and Sinema, stressed that with immigration law in particular, it is all about the legal details. So once you say you don't care about the details, you make yourself irrelevant to any pragmatic and workable solution. I am actually glad to know that when this guy was ordered deported in 2013, they did deport him quickly. I spent lots of time in Mexico at that time. And it aligns with my general understanding. Obama was seen as a bad ass deporter. Lots of stories about that. If Trump wants to argue the problem is judges who believe in due process and won't let a murderous failure like Homan do whatever the fuck he wants, he is just planning his own failure in Act Two. The polls already are starting to reflect this.

I didn't bother to watch the videos, because you are boring and predictable. It's always going to be some GIF or JPG with some insult that shows you are better at insults than facts. Kudos to upgrading the insults with a video. Do you know what the law actually says regarding what the judge did? Do you care? Is there any small part of your professional experience or canon or ethics as a doctor that suggests in any way that a judge might know the law on this matter, better than you or me? Or even better than immigration officials? Do you care? Do you actually even understand what happened? It seems not. Instead of trying to understand what happened, you just go off about "fanatics" and "fans of wife batterers" and whatever goofy insult you can come up with. You keep referring to a "deportation order" which seems to be a figment of your imagination, or ego. At least based on what you posted, and I read. If the articles I cited are correct, we know this guy was legally deported in 2013, when Obama was POTUS. Neither Obama, nor I, are fanatics or fans of wife batterers. So all you have are ignorant insults. What I think we know is immigration officers had an arrest warrant, which is not a deportation order. We know the judge said the warrant was not valid for some reason, and she referred them to the chief judge. We have no idea when or how this guy got back in the US, at least based on what I read. I can imply that the law is of no concern to you. Basically you think this guy is an asshole. So ICE should just cart his ass away, and let's not worry about the law. Fine. But you have no evidence that most people agree with you. I posted evidence that a bare majority of Americans want due process, even with assholes who should be deported - legally. I hope SCOTUS, as conservative as it is, upholds judges who uphold due process. To me, that actually is a conservative idea.

Trump-aligned club for the ultra rich launches in Washington I love it. I'm sure there won't be a Tik Tok video on how you working class folks who voted for us are not welcome at our club. Where we talk about what tax cuts we want for ourselves, or what public safety regulations really get under Elon's skin. Poor little rich men. Even though they bought the best White House and SCOTUS and Congress money can buy, nobody will let them speak. At least they now have a place where they can get a word, or a tax cut, in edgewise. Meanwhile, the rest of us can eat journalists.

Do you know what the law actually says regarding what she did? If this is just a narrow matter of what the law says, which I know is always up to a judge or jury, common sense tells me to never bet against a judge knowing what the law that governs her own court room says. At the very least, I would guess it is ambiguous enough that she can argue that she followed the letter of the law. That has nothing to do with whether or not the judge is a liberal or conservative. It has to do with the common sense idea that no judge wants to lose her job, or go to jail.

Thanks for the diagnosis, Doc. Even though it ignores everything I said. Since you missed it, you are the one with a pre-determined conclusion. You obviously think the judge is in the wrong. There are a whole lots of facts that you either don't understand, or don't care about. Was this judge under any legal obligation to help the immigration officers in her court room? If so, why did she repeatedly demand they leave? That implies she either was under no legal obligation to help them, or she is a judge who has no clue about the law. Was this judge correct that they needed a different warrant to arrest the man? Why did the judge direct the immigration officers to see the chief judge? Does any of this matter, or does anyone on a jury who even thinks these questions matter get maligned as "fans of the wife batterer" in your mind? I will repeat a political point you clearly do not get, because you are resistant to it, like a bacteria. The point some Democratic leaders are making, seemingly effectively, is "We're not for wife beaters. We're for due process. And we're for judges who stand for due process." SCOTUS is saying the same. I say that because the poll I cited shows a majority, barely, support the concerns for due process. Which, in this case, actually does relate to whether the immigration officers had a valid arrest warrant. You've made it clear that you have decided how you feel, and these questions about facts don't really concern you or interest you. That's fine. But don't malign me as a fan of a wife batterer. I'm not. I personally am good with the idea that the guy is deported, again, legally. Still want to know whether Judge Dugan can arrange for Andy Beshear to be POTUS, so he can legally deport assholes like Obama did. And so we can move beyond these dumb and fact-resistant debates.

There is a lesson from the same sex marriage fight that applies here. The bumper sticker is simple: IT'S PUBLIC OPINION, STUPID! The Supremes are captives of public opinion, and mostly see themselves that way. For all I know, by 2028 Trump will be elected as permanent King in an 80/20 landslide. Why? Every Latino man wants to pay $100,000 to own a truck. If Trump can figure this tariff shit out so that every middle class Latino guy has to pay $100,000 to own a truck, that's his ticket to love and royalty. Just kidding. Trump is a dumb ass, and his approval rating is dropping like a rock. So not even his circle jerk buddies like Alito and Thomas think Trump will be a handsome young King by 2028. Nor will JD. So they have to worry about what the public thinks about them. I think they read the polls. They know not even most Republicans want a King Trump. That's my theory. So far, Trump's disapproval is whatever it was in Act One, minus two points or one month. So right now he is at 52 % disapproval. He is actually catching up quickly to where he was in 2017, although right now he is still about one point better than his 53 % disapproval rate in April 2017. And we know in 2017 it just got worse. So is there any reason for the Supremes to think this guy will have an 80 % approval rating when we all figure out he really should be our king? I doubt it. Same thing with same sex marriage. There are may Gay men who believe that victory was primarily or even exclusively a legal victory. And there are many legal heroes in that war. I can't find the quotes, and I wish I had written them down somewhere. But I am pretty sure even SCOTUS members have discussed how they had their eyes on the polls. It is not a coincidence that same sex marriage gained majority support in public opinion polls right around the time SCOTUS made it legal. Those two things were interactive, I think. It was public opinion, stupid! Of course, that was a different SCOTUS. I agree with your skepticism about this gang of nine. There are a few of the right wingers, like Thomas, who really do seem to not give a shit what people think about him. Which is fine, since I have zero respect for him. But I think most of the conservatives, and especially Roberts, have their eyes on the polls. If it comes down to who is the asshole, and who is the reasonable moderate, Roberts is going to at least try to be the reasonable moderate, I think.

I think that is what at least some Democrats are doing. The bumper sticker is: DUE PROCESS. And that is the bumper sticker of SCOTUS, too, at least some of the time. But you are skeptical of whether they mean it. Which seems rational to me. My comments were directed to what @unicorn wants to discuss, which is the specific details of the case. Neither he nor I are lawyers or judges. From the very little I know, I like this judge. Like if we were going to have a nationally televised debate between her and Tom Homan, I would bet on her to win. Both on the specifics of the law, and the drama of some social justice Judge Judy ranting with conviction about due process while Tom Homan does his tough guy "I don't want him to rape your daughter" routine. She would probe about how many American kids he stopped from being killed, since he is all about public safety. That said, we all have to be honest. Tom Homan is sexy as fuck!

So I was curious. Here is some context you did not state. This is a quote from Dugan: So right out of the gate, I agree with her statement completely. If I were on a jury selection panel, and I were honest, my guess is I would be eliminated because I view the world the way she does. I can live with that. This is about the context: So here is a test. Which best describes this situation: A. This fucker is an asshole. He was deported once, and he did not get the memo. Now he is fucking with people again. Get him the fuck out. Send him to El Salvador. Beat his fucking head with a golf club. And, yes. Take that last swing, so his fucking brains explode. Teach the fucker a lesson, and everyone else like him. B. As a matter of law, this judge fucked up. When immigration officials say, "Jump!", by law she has only one good legal response: "How high?" She fucked up. By law, she has to do whatever immigration officials want her to do. Trump wants to make a point here, and the law is on his side. C. ICE, Tom Homan, and these particular immigration officials fucked up. They are not paying attention to the law. They are grandstanding, while lots of Americans die of fentanyl they have no idea how to stop. So, as the judge's attorney said, this has nothing to do with public safety. The immigration officials had no legal right to arrest this guy in her court room. She is correct that they needed a different kind of warrant to make the arrest. She directed them to the chief judge, presumably to deal with the legal requirements involved in doing what they wanted to do. I'm guessing all three answers would get lots of backers, if we did poll America with these three choices. My guess is that "C" is closest to the correct legal answer. This judge has her own convictions about due process, and has been around the block. So, without the benefit of being a lawyer or judge, I would guess she knew what she was doing. Both in terms of her own view of the world, and in terms of what the law actually says. But there is no question that a lot of people would view this as abhorrent. And think the greater good is send the asshole to El Salvador and find a nice sturdy golf club to at least scare the shit out of him with. Politically, I will restate my point a third time. What I now know is this guy was deported in 2013 by the biggest bad ass of all. A total fucking sadist. A cruel son a bitch. And the fucking worthless Deporter In Chief of all time: Barack Hussein Obama. Fucker! Why is he back in the US? I don't know. Maybe he snuck in while Sleepy Joe was at the beach. Or maybe he snuck in while Tom Homan was failing to stop the fentanyl crisis. Beats me. But I want Obama back. Or, I want Andy Beshear in 2028. Let him be the country boy from Kentucky who says the Democratic Party deports people who rape the daughters of good Trump voting country folk in Kentucky. By the way, gotta add this. Restore the Biden child tax credit, because in addition to not wanting illegals to rape your daughter, I want her to escape poverty and prosper. And this tax credit is money paid by Elon Musk, who can afford to pay more in taxes so your daughter is not poor. And maybe next time vote for me, not Trump. That is the solution I want. Ask Judge Dugan if she can do that.

Correct. There are no polls about this particular situation. And I specifically avoided commenting on it because, if I were on a jury, I would want to know about the details. The relevant part of the polls, to me, is this. There is more concern about due process, in general, than I might have guessed. Forget about MAGA diehards. I might guess some lifelong Democrat in NYC says there is too much crime. So yeah. If some wife beater who has been in this country for more than a fucking decade illegally is sent to El Salvador to be tortured, with no due process, I have no problem with that. Hasta la vista, pendejo! In terms of this specific case, I have no clue. I'll repeat what I said. If I were looking at it from the perspective of a judge, I would probably think the right way to do this is the legal process needs to play out. If I were Tom Homan, and I believe what I read and hear 24/7, the right way to do this is just deport the son of a bitch. He is a gang member. He beats his wife. He is a terrorist. He is an illegal. Fuck him. He deserves no due process. I'm not sure whether I even fairly characterized what a judge would think, or what Tom Homan thinks. I do think Tom Homan completely failed in his first act, in Trump's first term. And he got tens of thousands of Americans killed by letting fentanyl flood through the borders. So I am not particularly sympathetic to anything he says, or any "deport them now, no questions asked" strategy. It seems like a majority of Americans agree with me. But, if you and I were on the jury in this particular case, I think we are both saying we would want to be fair, and we would want more information. Was it reasonable for ICE to arrest the judge? Based on what you posted, it seems so. I hope the judge was aware of the risk she was taking when she did what she allegedly did. Does she deserve her day in court? Yes, of course. I'll also repeat that, in general, as a partisan and loyal Democrat, I think my party fucked up royally. These are unforced errors. Whatever the facts are, which I do not know, it sounds awful to say we are the party that wants wife beaters to run loose lawlessly. That is not what anyone is actually saying. But that is how Trump and his pollsters make it sound. The good news to me, as a partisan and loyal Democrat, is that some leaders of my party are saying, "We are not for wife beaters. We are for due process." A conservative SCOTUS is saying the same thing. And the polls suggest that resonates with a bare majority of Americans.

The polls on this are interesting, and a bit surprising. So first I will make three points about why you are right, and then cite polls that say you are wrong. 1. No one likes a wife beater or a woman beater. A wife beater staying illegally in the country is worse. A wife beater who also sends other to the hospital should be easy to ship off to be tortured in some place no one wants to go. 2. This was a massive unforced error. It was clear for at least a few years that chaos at the border that spread across the country was becoming more and more unpopular specifically among Democratic or D-leaning Independent constituencies in blue cities or states. Trump's pollsters clearly figured that out, and honed in on it in all kinds of ways. 3. The interest groups pushing the policies Trump lambastes are the ones Ruy Teixiera despises and says have to be purged. Because they insist on forcing Democrats to adopt positions that are wildly unpopular. He makes a good argument that even Hispanics don't buy what the pro-immigration interest groups push. Which is why more and more will vote Republican. So for all these reasons, these people just suck. Please. Torture them. They deserve what Joel just got in The Last Of Us. 😨 And yet, survey says: Trump is getting negative marks on immigration, polls show It actually surprised me that half the country would say it's wrong to send people who somebody says are gang members to El Salvador with no court hearing. It makes perfect sense to me that most judges, who probably think courts do support the rule of law, would say even a wife beater (Garcia) or a woman beater deserves a court hearing. I would guess a majority of Americans might be fine with overlooking due process for gang members who do bad things. But maybe not. There is nothing "woke" or radical about a conservative SCOTUS telling Trump he went too far. Kudos to them. It is probably partly why the polls are shifting.

That simple. Celebrate. I hope they do. You didn't ask the question that is more interesting: does a peace deal mean anything? Does Putin want peace? That's far more complicated. Putin now runs a war economy. Russia is a gas station that kills people. So I don't think much of the world trusts Putin. Probably even Master Xi, who at least has Putin's testicles in a leash. Trump also is betraying core American principles,and core US and allied institutions. But, as I said above, my opinion is that his supporters basically voted for Trump to manage America's decline. Even if they didn't intend it. So Trump is going about managing America's decline and empowering Russia and China. Woo hoo! Whether there is a peace deal or not, I at least hope Trump guarantees that Putin restrains himself in Ukraine until 2028. If only to let Trump go about his business of managing American decline. Putin has no reason to get in the way of that. He can wait to attack Ukraine later Trump, a fool, seems to understand at least that much. He is publicly baiting Putin to meet some very low and basic standard of human decency. Like, "Come on, Vlad. Can we agree not to kill children on Easter?" For the record, I publicly oppose killing Ukrainian kids on Easter. Could you check with Genocide Man and see how he feels about this?

Trump says Putin may not want to ‘stop the war’ in Ukraine Gosh! I am shocked! What is wrong with Politico? This must be wrong. Vlad is the sweetest guy around. And I personally saw the Tik Tok video @Barknaway posted of Zelenskyy, the Hitler-like dictator, mass murdering hundreds of thousands of innocent Russian children. It is obvious Ukraine started this war and all Ukrainians who die deserve to be killed. Putin is ‘playing America as a patsy,’ Grassley warns Trump Gosh! I am shocked! What is wrong with Grassley? He must be senile. Personally I am hoping Putin is elected as the next Pope. But it's almost too much to hope that such a humanitarian will be chosen. Putin is too good for that. Gosh! WTF? It is almost like Grassley is saying Trump is wrong about Putin or something? Grassley needs to take his meds. Poll: Canadians despise Trump and distrust US Gosh! I am shocked! What the fuck is wrong with Canadians? Didn't they get the memo that Trump is successfully unifying the whole world against China, and that is the best way to lower prices for the middle class - even in Canada? How fucking stupid can these people be? Maybe it's time for Putin to invade Canada and give it to us! Although maybe Canada should go with Putin, along with Crimea. Who needs these assholes?

Good point. Since my theme of the day is that W. was actually far worse than Trump, so far, there are a few very important facts we agree on in relation to your argument. If you want to somehow blame Ukraine or the US or NATO for Genocide Man starting a war in 2022, I think your best argument is how W. and the US started the Iraq War. That's the main thing we seemingly agree on. And I would NOT include Afghanistan. The USSR invaded Afghanistan unprovoked. But the US was provoked by 9/11. You can argue whether or not the war made sense, especially after decades of grinding stalemate. I think Vice President Biden was right that Obama should have pulled the plug on Afghanistan in 2009. But whatever anyone wants to argue, Afghanistan harbored terrorists who killed thousands of innocent Americans. And however fucked up it got, I think one good outcome - which Putin himself supported at the time - was to show that acts of terrorism against big powerful nations means you will end up being fish food at the bottom of the ocean. Like bin Laden did. The Iraq war, on the other hand, was based on total bullshit. It was an unprovoked imperialist war. Putin and some European leaders, like Schroeder, tried to stop it. So the US arguing that Putin had no right to invade Ukraine after we decided to invade Iraq, unleashing a similarly unnecessary bloodbath, has always been a weak point. Putin simply decided to do what W. did, with his coalition of the willing limited to North Korea, Iran, and kinda sorta China. And, at the most basic level, Trump is seeking to end a war. Not start one. In the context of everything that happened, I personally view it as a massive betrayal of democracy and US institutions. As well as of Ukraine and NATO and Europe and other allies. But even viewed that way, Trump seeking peace is a lesser evil than W. starting a war in Iraq, in my view. I've thought about this one a lot, since it is how I get around the problem of dealing with family members I love, but deeply disagree with. My Dad was a WWII veteran and Reagan Republican who fully supported the Iraq War. So I just avoided the topic. I could still admire his patriotism. Even if it seemed very misguided. I think the long brutal impact of the Iraq War has a lot to do with why Republicans eventually turned against the idea of intervening in places like Ukraine and adopting "America First." Although the same "America First" Republicans still want to arm up for a war with China. So has anything really changed? These days, I have a niece and nephew I am close to who are pro-Trump. Even though I love her, it is easy to dismiss my niece as ignorant and reactionary. She watches Gutfeld and has no idea who Kevin McCarthy is, or what forces in the Republican Party drove him from power. Or why. My nephew is much smarter. He can talk fluidly about the discussion he had with W. about subprime when he and his partners at the big firm he works at paid Bush for a private discussion when he was in his post-Presidency "give a speech" days. But when my rich conservative nephew lets his guard down it is clear that he is naive about Congress, and politics. He mostly thinks they all suck. So it kind of makes sense that he'll just embrace a knee jerk notion of "America First." In my mind, it's pretty simple. And it fits very well with how the world and nations have always worked. My Dad, not necessarily by choice, happened to be born into the generation that, more than any other one, built the American century in the blood of WW II. Russians know even more than Americans about how awful that was. Along with his other children, I got the benefit of that global US leadership. But also witnessed some of the excesses like Iraq. And now some of his grandkids are embracing "America First", and saying we really don't want the American Century after all. Or maybe they do. But in some naive and poorly thought out way. Trump has no idea what he is doing. Whatever it is my beloved conservative family members are thinking, I still love them. Even though I know by voting for Trump they set America on the path to managing its own decline. Which Trump will do, ineptly. It's not the worst thing in human history. I'd argue the Iraq War was worse. I am hoping Ukraine is relatively safe as long as Trump is in power. Trump is a fool, but Genocide Man is not. So he'll try to appease Trump with praise and gestures, even as he concedes nothing. But Putin would be a fool to piss off Trump, who whether by design or accident is a remarkably good asset for Putin and his cronies and their interests. Europeans are not fools, either. So this means they hopefully have four years to seriously prepare for Genocide Man, Unleashed, after Trump is gone. Or whatever comes after Genocide Man. Russia is still a far weaker country than the US. And the Ukraine War cost Russia a lot, and the US pretty much nothing. This is not a strategic win for Russia. At least not yet. But congratulations! You don't deserve it. But congratulations, anyway.

In a word, yes. Although in some alternative reality, I suppose it is possible that Ukrainians parachuted into Moscow on Feb. 24, 2022. And started sadistically and genocidally slaughtering innocent people in the suburbs of Moscow. Maybe that is what Genocide Man wants you to believe. It's the same as saying that Trump won by 60 % of the vote in 2020, or whatever. And instead of certifying his landslide win Democrats sent a mob to the White House and trashed it and shit on the Oval Office desk and forced Trump to flee. Total bullshit. Genocide Man is still Genocide Man, and Trump is still a felon and a liar. Facts don't change. Buy enjoy playing Goebbels. Even if you suck at it.

I think that explains it. It is far less sinister or stupid motive than it seems. In fact, it actually is something to be proud about regarding America. That quote is what Steve Bannon told Michael Wolff about Muller going after Trump. It is a perfect quote in my mind. Bannon is a hit man who seems to have a love/hate relationship with Trump, who is an even more gifted hit man than Bannon is. And these people know what they are talking about when they use the term "hit man". If you are not Michael Wolff in disguise, you should be. You sure agree with most of what he writes about Trump. Pretty much what you wrote as recently as today. So as Wolff explains in his Act One book on Trump, and in the interview, Mueller was concerned about institutional stability. So he thought it was better to let Trump run out the clock, rather than give him a reason to blow things up by trying to throw his dumb ass in jail. Arguably, Mueller was not wrong. Trump ran out the clock, botched COVID, got lots of Republicans killed by pushing lies about vaccines, and lost to Biden. As if to prove Mueller was right, Trump only acted aggressively to take down democracy when he lost, and it was time to sick the mob on Congress. The far greater act of incompetence in my view was Merrick Garland. After what McConnell did to his SCOTUS nomination, Garland had every reason to want to be a hitman, in my mind. But he seems like he has the soul of a choir boy. So if Bannon is correct that the problem with Mueller was that you should not count on a Marine to be a hit man, why would one expect a choir boy to be a hit man? Garland had FOUR FUCKING YEARS to do what every fucking poll showed most Americans wanted him to do: bring Trump to justice for The Jubilant Patriotic Cop Beating, and let a jury decide. He fucked it up. Like I said, this actually can all be seen as a compliment to America. Most people would say Marines are actually hit men. But if you buy Bannon's logic, he understands that most professional military men and women have actual souls, unlike him and Trump. Trump seems like less of a fluke than he did in 2019, when Wolff wrote his book on Act One. He's back, after winning a plurality of the vote. So now one has to conclude that a big chunk of America actually wants a crazy hit man. And it also raises the question: did we now give Trump exactly what Muller feared? A reason to tear down the institutions and system that did him wrong? Maybe so. That said, the reassuring thing about Wolff's argument is that he thinks Trump is primarily a dumb ass who lacks the ability to plan or reflect. All he wants is attention. So the best hope is we just wait 1,361 days for the nightmare to end, unless Trump kicks the bucket before then. Cheer up. Only 1,361 days to go!

Well, you are of course correct about her. But I'm still rooting for her making something of herself. She has 87 months for re-invention. If Trump could do it, surely she can, too. I think Bruce Jenner was on to something. But the fatal mistake is the world didn't really need a transgender Republican in the era of Trump and LGBTQ-bashing. So Santos can learn from Caitlyn's grave mistake. By the time our gal gets out, we will have a Democratic POTUS. And America will be ready for a transgender Democrat, bursting with new personalities and an insanely cutting edge fashion sense, to run for her old seat. Stranger things have happened. And are happening right now.

Well, we will always have our devotion to virile young men with well hung cocks, Sis. That has already given us a lifetime of good fortune. Not to mention oodles of nutritious cum. What more could a girl ask for? Well, maybe a nice POTUS. But isn't that asking a bit much? The author of the essay trashing W. I cited agrees with you about W.'s personal qualities, of course. I think the fact that W. was popular, and came across as a decent guy who would bring you chicken soup if you were sick, actually helps explain why he was, if you buy the argument, the most destructive president in modern times. Even the MAGA faithful admire Trump thanks to his lack of kindness. He's an asshole. But he's their asshole. So it is actually a blessing that Trump is such a stupid fool, with small fingers to boot! It took years and two wars for W. to encounter the kind of resistance Trump has after a few months of his lousy second act.

Since I have been doing more than my fair share trashing Trump as the insolent pig, let me take a break for a minute and do the opposite. What I'm about to say in not really a compliment to Trump. Or my country, which I love. But I think it is mostly true. My neat party trick I've exhausted with most family and friends who are anti-Trump is I will ask them this. If you got to eliminate one POTUS from history, and it was either W. or Trump, which would you pick? Since most people I am close to are anti-Trump, including several mostly Republican siblings (they are the college-educated kind), the unanimous answer has been they would get rid of Trump. Then I surprise them by saying I would get rid of W. in a heartbeat. And keep Trump, as much as I despise him. It leads to interesting discussions. Most people despise Trump's crudeness, his contempt for democracy and the institutions it is based in, and his "megalomaniac" nature, to quote one brother. My reasons for dumping Bush are: 1) the Iraq War, 2) the subprime lending crisis, and how it blew up the world, and 3) the fact that he got away with those two horrors, and a lot more, while mostly being both popular and successfully authoritarian in a way that Trump will never be. Plus he was either a damn good liar. Or a fool who believed the shit his own warmongers fed him about WMD. Trump has 1,361 days to prove me wrong, and destroy the global economy. Or start a nuclear war. But the conclusion I am reaching is that W. represented the worst parts of US imperialism, and cowboy capitalism. Whereas Trump simply is a symbol of US decline. W.'s eight year reign had massively destructive consequences, globally. Bush was right that, in a real way, he was the last Republican POTUS. Everything about Trump is a conservative reaction to everything Bush fucked up. I'm a patriot. But given the choice between the imperialism of W. or the ignorant and crooked American decline of Trump, I think the latter is the lesser evil both for the US and the world. Mitch McConnell got it right when he said Republicans choosing Trump was a choice for the management of America's decline. Putin and Xi are thrilled. This guy is on to the same idea: What Donald Trump Learned From George W. Bush The author is right. We have been through this before, and it was objectively worse then. I think under W. much of the world either feared America, or perhaps respected us, or both. Now the rest of the world laughs at us, and plots against us. And Trump thinks he is winning. What a complete fool. But we deserve it. 49.8 % of us voted for this piece of shit leader, who is managing America's decline. We are a lesser nation thanks to him. But we voted for it. It's a democracy, and still will be. So we own the mess. Ugh! But hey. We still have 1,361 days to go!

US Supreme Court halts deportation of detained Venezuelans These fuckers need to be deported. And now. Especially that Black bitch. She was a DEI hire for sure. Same as that old Black smelly ass rapist with the pubic hair on his glasses or whatever. The incompetent Black asshole has DEI written all over his face. And what is up with that Latina? And, no, none of that Latinx shit anymore. And yes, I mean that ugly woman, who is clearly not like the attractive White woman standing beside her. She would fit right into a prison in El Salvador. Probably even speaks some Third World language or whatever. Maybe we should give a pass to The Jew. Trump is all in on Jews over Muslims. Who hires these socialists? Send them to fucking El Salvador now.