Welcome to CaturSaturday, September 20, 2025, the sabbath for all good Jewish cats and National String Cheese Day. I love the stuff but never buy it (it’s a great snack). Here’s how they make it:
It’s also International Eat an Apple Day, International Red Panda Day, National Fried Rice Day, National Pepperoni Pizza Day, World Paella Day, and National Punch Day (the drink, not the blow).
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the September 20 Wikipedia page.
I will be going to Boston on Monday, and so Monday’s Hili dialogue, and about a week after that, will be truncated as I’ll be traveling. As always, I do my best.
There is a Google Doodle today about photosynthesis. Click on the Doodle to see where it goes (I think it was written by AI!) These didactic Doodles are meant to educate us and symbolize that it’s “back to school” time.
Da Nooz:
*Now here’s a headline that you’ll want to read about: “Draft bill would authorize Trump to kill people he deems narco-terrorists.” Well of course Trump wouldn’t be pulling the trigger, but the thought of him deciding to kill people who aren’t properly identified is frightening (remember, Obama and other Democratic Presidents also authorized long-distance killing of terrorists, but Trump seems to be doing it without sufficient evidence). Anyway, an excerpt:
Draft legislation is circulating at the White House and on Capitol Hill that would hand President Trump sweeping power to wage war against drug cartels he deems to be “terrorists,” as well as against any nation he says has harbored or aided them, according to people familiar with the matter.
A wide range of legal specialists have said that U.S. military attacks this month on two boats suspected of smuggling drugs in the Caribbean Sea were illegal. But Mr. Trump has claimed that the Constitution gave him the power he needed to authorize them.
It was not clear who wrote the draft congressional authorization or whether it could pass the Republican-led Congress, but the White House has been passing it around the executive branch.
The broadly worded proposal, which would legally authorize the president to kill people he deems narco-terrorists and attack countries he says helped them, has set off alarm bells in some quarters of the executive branch and on Capitol Hill, according to people who spoke on the condition of anonymity about sensitive internal deliberations.
Three people familiar with the matter said that Representative Cory Mills, a Florida Republican and combat veteran who sits on the Armed Services Committee, was involved in developing the draft. Mr. Mills, a staunch Trump ally, declined to comment on the potential legislation or his role. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, declined to comment, citing a policy against discussing “drafts that may or may not be circulating.”
The U.S. has done this twice so far, and the videos are pretty grim: boats exploding as missiles or guns blow them out of the water. Nobody stops the boats to inspect them or anything: they’re just incinerated. In none of these cases have they told us what evidence there was for the occupants being “narco-terrorists”. And can’t they be apprehended and tried rather than incinerated? The idea of Trump having a Constitutional right to kill people if he thinks they fall into this category defies belief.
*Well, ICE is busy in Chicago arresting immigrants as Trump has clearly targeted Chicago in his “operation Midway Blitz:
As encounters with federal immigration agents around Chicago increase, tactics used by activists and immigrant leaders to fight back are also escalating.
The Trump administration has singled out Chicago as its latest mark for immigration enforcement, using traffic stops in immigrant-heavy areas and targeting day laborers outside hardware stores.
“We will not back down,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem posted Thursday on X, recirculating dramatic footage of arrests at a suburban Chicago home days earlier.
Activists and local leaders are also defiant, trying to deter agents, warn residents and keep attention on a man killed by an immigration officer last week.
As U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement launched a new operation this month, the focus appeared to be on traffic stops in largely immigrant and Latino neighborhoods and suburbs. This week, activists say arrests of day laborers are on the rise, echoing enforcement trends elsewhere.
Federal agents were spotted at roughly half a dozen Home Depot and Menards stores in the Chicago area, resulting in individual arrests, according to activists.
“Our neighbors who build, paint, fix and beautify this city have been the target of these unwarranted attacks,” said Miguel Alvelo Rivera with the Latino Union, which advocates for day laborers.
He spoke Thursday near a Home Depot in the heavily Latino Brighton Park neighborhood where ICE agents were spotted a day earlier.
In immigrant and activist circles, the arrests are commonly referred to as abductions because many agents wear masks, drive unmarked vehicles and don’t have insignia on their clothes.
Here’s a tweet from Kristi Noem’s X feed showing what’s going on in Chicago. It’s scary:
We will not back down. pic.twitter.com/iPRSFgTaMs
— Secretary Kristi Noem (@Sec_Noem) September 18, 2025
I wish they’d stop the mask-wearing and anonymous policing, though I do think it’s okay to enforce the law. But everybody abducted according to law also deserves a hearing before an immigration judge before their case is settled, and I’m not sure they’re getting any of that.
*As always, I’m going to steal a few items from Nellie Bowles’s weekly news-and-snark column in the doomed Free Press. This week’s colum is called “TGIF: The real motive is now that it seems,” and was written by Nellie herself. There’s a lot about the Kirk killing and his murderer, and I’ll have to condense it to three paragraphs:
→ Fallout from a political assassination: . . . Okay, now what about the real lefties? What are they hearing this week? That the killer was a right-wing vigilante, naturally. Here’s Heather Cox Richardson, the most successful progressive writer in America, with a huge business on Substack (I’m not jealous, you’re jealous). “But in fact, the alleged shooter was not someone on the left. The alleged killer, Tyler Robinson, is a young white man from a Republican, gun enthusiast family, who appears to have embraced the far right, disliking Kirk for being insufficiently radical.” Yes, the dominant theory is that he was a so-called groyper, a hard-right meme guy who thinks Republican leadership is too soft. Which I guess means he assassinated Charlie Kirk for being too liberal?
. . .So what is the truth? The accused killer seems to have been an internet-addled young man with newly left-wing politics, a love of furry porn video games, and a trans lover. It appears to be a political assassination by someone in the general zone of sanity (maybe an outskirt of the town of Sane,but certainly located somewhere in Cogent County). Investigators say he engraved “Hey fascist! Catch!” on one of the bullets and “Bella Ciao” on another, a reference to an Italian anti-fascist anthem. According to authorities, he wrote to his romantic partner: “I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can’t be negotiated out. If I am able to grab my rifle unseen, I will have left no evidence.”
I think the fear is that if the killer is a lefty, it would justify some kind of crackdown on normal progressives, so we all must lie. But no crackdown is justified, regardless of the kind of porn video game this kid played or who his roommate was! And it’s not a reporter’s job to lie! If a centrist lesbian went on a shooting spree, I would argue 1) that’s bad and she should be in gay jail, and 2) I have nothing to do with her and should not suffer tribal retribution. But, you see, the modern reporter does believe in tribal retribution. And so the modern reporter must lie about the killer.
→ Pam Bondi’s rough week: During an interview on The Katie Miller Podcast, Attorney General Pam Bondi spoke about those celebrating Charlie Kirk’s death, saying that “There’s free speech and then there’s hate speech, and there is no place, especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie, in our society. . . . We will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech.”
As the (brilliant, gorgeous, looking great lately) editors of The Free Press put it, Bondi managed to do the impossible: unite the country in opposition to her complete lack of understanding of the Constitution. Bondi did try to walk it back. But we all need a big civics class, and it needs to be tailored for MAGA, tailored to appeal to a certain sensibility. What I’m thinking is a shirtless man riding a horse, an eagle on his arm, talking about how saying “the president sucks” is legal, cowboy. Free speech is based and high-IQ, no cuck, my boys, he says, as he tips his cowboy hat. I take my macros with a side of lib tears and Texas v. Johnson, broski.
→ How is Dearborn real: At a Dearborn, Michigan, city council meeting last week, there was an argument over recently installed street signs honoring Osama Siblani (a local newsman who referred to Hamas and Hezbollah as “freedom fighters” and was just generally a very pro-Hez activist, which is a de facto requirement to work in media lately). One Dearborn resident dissented, saying, “He’s a promoter of Hezbollah and Hamas,” and said the signs were akin to naming a road “Hezbollah Street or Hamas Street.” Mayor Abdullah Hammoud did not like this. He called the resident “a bigot,” saying: “You are racist, and you’re an Islamophobe. . . . Although you live here, I want you to know as mayor, you are not welcome here. And the day you move out of the city will be the day that I launch a parade celebrating the fact that you moved out of this city.” The mayor said this. To a citizen of his town. On camera!
What is going on in Dearborn? And please, dude, leave that city. Let Mayor Hammoud do the parade. Because he’s gonna get you one way or another. You realize the police report to him? Speaking of which: I want everyone in Dearborn to know I love whatever is going on with Hezbollah Avenue and have no opinions on anything, nor any interest in entering the state of Michigan, pay me no mind. Go Blue.
Here’s a video of the mayor’s reaction as described above:
*According to the WaPo, Kamala Harris’s new book is causing a kerfuffle—among Democrats! Bolding is from the WaPo, highlighting the “takeaways”:
For years, Harris was one of the most cautious figures in the upper echelon of politics — serving as a loyal vice president to President Joe Biden, rebuffing questions about his health, mental agility and ability to serve. But she dispenses with that caution in her candid new memoir — “107 Days,” to be published Tuesday — in which she writes about her regrets in not dissuading him from running again and the way his team undermined and dismissed her as his No. 2.
Here are takeaways from Harris’s new memoir. [Bolding is the WaPo’s]
Harris worried Shapiro wouldn’t be comfortable as No. 2.
Harris saw Buttigieg, her first choice, as too risky.
Too risky? I love Mayor Pete. His response:
“I had nagging concerns that of America: to accept a woman, a Black woman, a Black woman married to a Jewish man,” she writes. “It was too big a risk.”
Buttigieg told Politico on Thursday that he was “surprised” to read the passage from the book suggesting that he was too risky and added that he and Harris did not discuss that aspect of her decision.
“My experience in politics has been that the way that you earn trust with voters is based mostly on what they think you’re going to do for their lives, not on categories,” he told Politico. “I wouldn’t have run for president [in 2020] if I didn’t believe that.
Harris acknowledges some campaign missteps.
and. , ,
Harris’s team was shocked by the outcome on election night.
When Jen O’Malley Dillon, Harris’s campaign manager, broke the news, Harris recalls being in shock, barely able to breathe. She repeated over and over, “My God, what will happen to our country?”
We’ve fallen out of the coconut tree! Let us hope that Harris is not considered a viable candidate for the next Presidential election. It irks me that my fellow Democrats received Harris’s nomination with great “joy.”
*At the NYT, Michael Hirschorn, the CEO of Ish Entertainment, laments the demise of free speech as instantiated by Jimmy Kimmel’s canellation; Hirschorn’s piece is called, “We can no longer tell ourselves this isn’t really happening.” It’s dire, I tell you! An excerpt:
Until Wednesday’s shocking announcement that ABC was cancelling Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show because of comments he made about Charlie Kirk’s killing, it was possible, if one squinted hard enough, to pretend that a broad free speech crackdown was not underway. The down-the-road cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s late-night show on CBS was chalked up to financial concerns, though anyone in the business not paid to think otherwise believes Mr. Colbert’s elegant skewerings of President Trump and MAGA were the real reason.
The silencing of Mr. Kimmel, following an explicit threat by Brendan Carr, the head of ABC’s regulator, the Federal Communications Commission, is the mask of “free speech” coming off for good.
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Mr. Carr told a far-right podcaster on Wednesday, suggesting that the government would take action against Disney, ABC’s parent company, if it failed to dispense with Mr. Kimmel. Two owners of local ABC affiliates, Nexstar and Sinclair — both of which are known for their right-leaning political orientation, and both of which have pending deals that need the F.C.C.’s approval — had reportedly already demanded action. Disney caved within a day. There was some vague talk of finding a pathway for Mr. Kimmel to return, but his contract is up in May and he is highly unlikely to ever host on network television again.
The clampdown on establishment media and entertainment isn’t just getting started. Incited by Mr. Trump’s thin-skinned responses to even the mildest mockery or criticism, and inflamed by political opportunism in the wake of Mr. Kirk’s death, it is far further along than most people may realize. Everyone now is waiting for word on what will happen to Jon Stewart, the one-day-a-week host of “The Daily Show,” which like Mr. Colbert’s, comes under Paramount’s umbrella. Mr. Stewart this summer ended a segment on Mr. Colbert’s cancellation with a rousing song, backed by a gospel chorus and filled with profanity, spewing invective at his corporate overlords.
After the recent sale of Paramount, those overlords are now Skydance Media, run by David Ellison, the son of one of Mr. Trump’s biggest supporters, Larry Ellison, the centibillionaire chief executive of Oracle. Numerous media reports suggest that the younger Mr. Ellison will install a new leader at CBS News: Bari Weiss, the former New York Times editor and writer who founded The Free Press, a particularly deft practitioner of the shell-game politics of free speech. Skydance has also announced a bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company of CNN, and Oracle is part of the consortium Mr. Trump assembled for the possible purchase of the U.S. version of TikTok. That hat trick would give the Ellisons unrivaled power over both old and new media. Federal regulators are unlikely to object.
With the exception of Netflix, a hugely profitable public company without apparent immediate need for government favor, every studio is either already compromised or about to be.
There are more examples, but you get the point. The executive branch of our government is now in the business of using its power to censor speech it doesn’t like (including pulling broadcast licenses), which means speech critical of Trump or MAGA stuff. Welcome to Nineteen Eighty-Four, only 40 years too late. The Washington Post has a similar piece.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili makes a funny:
Hili: You look bigger today than yesterday.
Me: That’s just a matter of perspective.
In Polish:
Hili: Jesteś dziś większy niż wczoraj.
Ja: To tylko kwestia perspektywy.
*******************
From Give Me a Sign:
Another d*g meme, this one from Now That’s Wild:
From Things With Faces:
Masih is back sending videos of Iranian women defying the law, and good for them. Here are two; the first one is the one I’m highlighting, but I couldn’t separate it from the other:
Iranian women are sending me videos asking the same question: “Why do Iranian men perform concerts while women are silenced?”
Yes, you heard me ; In Iran, women are banned from singing solo on stage and performing concerts. Yet men still hold concerts, as if half the nation’s… https://t.co/tGG0dNINOM pic.twitter.com/vfIho2XU0X— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) September 18, 2025
Why is the Scottish government dragging its heels in implementing the new law that defines “men” and “women”. Does anybody know?
You can almost feel @MichelleThomson pain as she pleads with the @scotgov to implement the Supreme Court ruling on sex. There’s no reason for John Swinney to drag his feet on this. Does he despise women? Or is he too feart to stand up to the TRA activists in his party? Either… https://t.co/p3KO9ZWyhE
— Susan Dalgety (@DalgetySusan) September 17, 2025
Speaking of which, this comes from Luana:
🚨Here is a photograph taken at a classical studies summer school for 16 year olds at Wadham College at the University of Oxford.
A male lecturer wearing fetish gear (including a BDSM collar) is teaching children about womanhood.@UniofOxford – This is a safeguarding concern. pic.twitter.com/d8yNmSllQq
— James Esses (@JamesEsses) September 17, 2025
A fun (and amazing) tweet sent by Malcolm:
Fun fact.
There were just 32 years between the maiden flight of the Spitfire and the Concorde’s. pic.twitter.com/MoHonFHR8v
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) September 2, 2025
One from my feed; look at that punctilious kitty!
Leopard standing on hind legs to get better view – Kruger National Park.. 🐆 pic.twitter.com/tSl1UQTPxW
— 𝕐o̴g̴ (@Yoda4ever) September 18, 2025
One I reposted from the Auschwitz Memorial:
This Dutch Jewish boy was gassed to death immediately upon arriving at Auschwitz. He was eighteen.
— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-09-20T10:40:49.824Z
Two posts from Dr. Cobb. Sound up for this beautiful family of mallards:
Ducklings running. Something wholesome to make you smile. I put out bird seed for the ducks every year. They'll quack by the back door so I'll come out with a cup of seed. Each year about 5 pairs of mallards nest in the backyard. #nature #cute #animals #birds #wildlife #viral
— See Through Canoe (@seethroughcanoe.bsky.social) 2025-09-17T18:59:42.322Z
. . . and a lovely ghost crab:
I wanted to get a video of this ghost crab but every time I got close to their hole they scuttled back in, so I tried getting clever with it. I made a little sandcastle and shoved my phone into it, hit record, and walked away. Crab was VERY suspicious of this addition to their environment.
— Sarah McAnulty, Ph.D. (@sarahmackattack.bsky.social) 2025-09-19T12:30:27.118Z
Sal Mercogliano does a regular videocast called “What’s Going On With Shipping” in which he, a merchant marine expert usually discusses major shipping issues such as in the Red Sea or issues around China and right of passage for international cargo traffic and shipping accidents. This week he addressed the attack on the small alleged drug smuggling boat off Venezuala. He discusses history, laws of the sea, and various aspects of the vessels involved. Url should be
Great podcast, Jim. As a trader I found the most useful and profitable info is in sometimes obscure places like that.
best to you,
D.A.
NYC
Glad it is helpful, david. I generally find this democratization of information to be amazing if we are careful to properly curate. Jury still out on overall impact on society of mis and dis information.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Mistakes are part of the dues that one pays for a full life. -Sophia Loren, actor and singer (b. 20 Sep 1934)
Michelle Thomson is great, and the thread you shared also has four other female MSPs making speeches on the same topic. We still have the Hate Crime Bill here, implemented by the SNP, that gives protection to a man wearing a dress but not to a woman wearing the same dress. This is because they refuse to include hate based on sex in the bill.
Is it any wonder that people are disillusioned with politics?
That’s a better explanation than most.
As to the affaire Kimmel, the talk show hosts are the most visible features of the Left media hegemony. Even if they were all fired and the shows cancelled, it wouldn’t be a ripple in the ocean of Leftist propaganda that blanket the airwaves and the press. The fact that we are flooded with stories about how terrible it is that ABC pulled Kimmel’s show after their affiliates revolted (and steeply declining viewership) is proof of that. The FCC does have the statutory requirement to enforce fair and balanced presentation. Broadcasting is not a right. Do I think that the Administration should actively go after left-wing gadflies? No. Would I cry if other networks and publishers started self-censoring? Not a tear.
Senator Ted Cruz is apparently upset with the FCC. Do you think he is a left media supporter?
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1kwzgrwdd0o
And this notion of “Leftist propaganda” is amusing. And “Left media hegemony”? During a time when Fox Propaganda—excuse me, Fox News—dominates all other television news sources?
It’s time for the Fox News tropes to die, just as Fox viewers are. Its relative rank among other cable channels is largely irrelevant: nearly all the country ignores cable news.
The average Fox viewer is nearing 70; over half their audience has long learned how to navigate Medicare statements. Total viewership is in the single-digit millions. On any given day, fewer than 1% of American adults tune into Fox Prime Time. (No typo. One.) Tucker Carlson used to get more, but even as their top show, he was attracting barely 1.5% of adults. We can say Fox has outsized influence because the country’s largest overgrown toddler tunes in, but then we could say the same about Fox’s competitors, because he porn watches them, too.
Propaganda, as you put it, has moved online. It has no allegiance to any political party, it embraces mostly the young but also the old, and it has a particular affinity for those among the highly educated who live online.
Eve Barlow posted this:
“Here is some small print about the FCC.
“The FCC prohibits the broadcast of false information about a crime or a catastrophe if: the broadcaster knows the information is false.”
Me: Kimmel would’ve known that what he claimed was false. Lying for the cause is a no-no regardless of the cause.
“The FCC does have the statutory requirement to enforce fair and balanced presentation.”
Could you give documentation of that?
The Fairness Doctrine was rescinded by the FCC in 1987 and Perplexity AI says:
“There is currently no federal statute or FCC rule mandating “fair and balanced” presentation on radio, television, or cable.”
The FCC’s “fairness doctrine” re fair and balanced presentation was withdrawn over 35 years ago. There is still considerable controversy over whether or not this was a bad move.
Jerry, what makes you think that illegal aliens are being deported “without any of that” due process? This piece from ABC News explains what due process is, for the administrative non-punitive process of deporting unwanted aliens.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/constitution-supreme-court-due-process-trump-deportees-analysis/story?id=121485100
The U.S. Dept.of Homeland Security ‘s website sets out in more detail the consequences of entering the country illegally (“without inspection”) and the due process that kicks in when someone is discovered, and when a visa expires or is revoked.
If there are aliens being deported without going before an immigration judge, I will bet that the reason is that in those cases they don’t have such a right. But unless you know that aliens entitled to at least a brief hearing aren’t getting even that, it seems unfair to raise that suspicion. If President Trump ignores the law, why is he spending so much effort attempting to get legal support for his immigration enforcement activities, appealing (but obeying) adverse decisions, not defying them? If he has placed himself above the law, why is he bothering so scrupulously to follow it?
Why? Salami slicing, not scaring the horses.
Sorry Barbara, but I must side with Leslie on this one. And not the boss.
There is a lower bar of jurisprudential … tolerance? rights? for illegal immigrants than ordinary “criminals” – the full spectrum of rights don’t necessarily apply to them (depending on circumstances). Not how I’d like it but how it is.
In the meaty, sausage making institution of Immigration Courts, (used to be INS, later Homeland Security) where I practiced briefly, getting “rid of” (inelegant phrasing there) people who bust into our country is… kinda perfunctory when it comes to their “status” – whether they can be here or not. (Usually not, even in one case I did – when they’re actually deceased. A bizarre day for me.)
Administrative law is different from criminal law. Were our border jumper arrested for a crime… he’d have the same rights as all of us Americans. And should.
THAT’S the grit here – the difference – immigration/administrative law is separate.
Our intuitions don’t match this. This is the hard part, conceptually.
all the best,
D.A., J.D.
NYC
“If [Trump] has placed himself above the law, why is he bothering so scrupulously to follow it?”
I have no specialized knowledge of these issues, but my understanding is that Trump has not always been following the law, and simply hopes that friendly courts and judges will support him later.
The social dilemma, if I may put it that way, is that there are two extremes in the popular views of illegal immigrants in the U.S. The MAGA view is that they are mostly rapists, murderers, violent gang members, and criminals just by virtue of being undocumented, and the very liberal view is that undocumented immigrants are often, perhaps usually, hard working, tax paying people who keep a low profile, have lower rates of crime than U.S. citizens, and are guilty only of the civil offense of being in the U.S. without authorization. There’s little room for any middle-ground.
Leaving aside the merits of President Trump’s policies, that’s a contradiction in terms. Logically, you can’t break the law (or not follow it) and then have friendly judges “support” you. If they support you, it means you really were following the law in the first place, in the opinion of the only people who count — the judges. If you shoot someone but then convince a judge (or jury) that you acted in lawful self-defence, then you didn’t break the law. You’ll be acquitted, not forgiven or indulged. That’s how a rule-of-law country works. The common rabble doesn’t get to decide if conduct was lawful any more than the fans in the ballpark decide if the umpire called an infield fly properly.
President Trump’s allegedly illegal behaviour since he took office centres around Separation of Powers. He claims executive authority to implement various controversial policies. His enemies want to keep him from succeeding because they think the other candidate should be in the White House, not him, implementing executive policies more to their liking. (They don’t care if what he is doing is illegal, they just want to stop him from doing it.) Eventually the Supreme Court will decide the matter. If the President wins at the Supreme Court, that he’s not engaging in executive over-reach, then his policy is by definition legal (constitutional.)
Only a few cases have reached the Supreme Court, notably the one where the President claimed authority to deport illegal aliens to willing countries where they are not citizens. Many swore this was blatantly illegal on its face. Turns out it wasn’t. How about that! His authority to impose “emergency” tariffs without Congressional legislation specifically enabling each one on each country will be resolved in October, so we hear. It he loses, he can’t collect the tariffs. If he wins, he can. The Supreme Court isn’t going to say, “Well, your tariffs are illegal (because not legislated by Congress) but we’re going to let you impose and collect them anyway.”
I am persuadable. Show me a for-instance where President Trump defied an adverse Supreme Court ruling, or a lower-court injunction, and with brute force got his civil-servant henchmen to implement an executive order that violated the Constitution. (Spoiler alert. He will never do this because he knows the Democrats will themselves defy the Constitution and lock him up for the rest of his days in retaliation as soon as they regain power. Once a President says, “The Supreme Court has decided. Let it enforce its ruling.” — which Andrew Jackson did not say — there is no going back.)
I had in mind cases such as the presidential documents he retained in Mar-a-Lago. It seems pretty clear that he broke the law, several laws possibly, but he relied on a friendly judge in Florida to slow-walk the case as his lawyers filed motion after motion until he was finally elected and the case was simply dropped.
I’ll defer to your superior understanding of legal theory here — I’m just a dumb cardiologist — but many of us do believe that the Trump administration breaks the law, often in fairly blatant fashion, and relies on friendly courts to find that there was some wrinkle that excuses them — while we suspect that a different court would have come to a much different conclusion.
The related point it that it has indeed been that case that the Trump administration has lost a number of cases at the Supreme Court level: the best interpretation of many such cases is that Trump knew he was breaking the law but hoped for a friendly ruling, which didn’t happen.
Otherwise i have no response to your imagined story about the motives of Democrats/Liberals/Progressives who have been critical of Trump.
What sickened me about Kamala Harris’s book—excerpts from the book; I haven’t read the book (yet)—is the way she decided on her running mate. It was all about identity, the person’s identity or background rather than the person’s ideas or qualifications. She is a shining example of what is wrong with the country.
Has there ever been a modern VP choice that was NOT based on “identity”?
Indeed. The obsession with identity politics on the left is at toxic levels.
The way the system is set up it’s more about who is likely to get you more votes, and that’s up to one’s judgment. If you want it to be based on qualifications as you see it, change the system. Right now, it is the people who decide what qualifies for qualifications. It could include a candidate being black, white, off white, purple, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, or a believer in the Great Wirtz of Pulheim.
Do you think that Mike Pence being a strong Christian played a role in his selection? No? It might have. It matters little to me because I don’t have a problem with that, because that’s how the system works.
Harris herself might have benefited from her identity alone when she was considered for VP.
If the candidate for president is black, do you think their party might want someone white for VP? So what?
Identity is not something I would consider, and that too is allowed in this system.
And the lady from Alaska: she too was considered well qualified. But she lost.
You’re really going to read it Norman? Good luck, mate.
I fear it’ll be written by AI, ghostwriters and mainly be about… Kamala Harris.
But I welcome your report!
all the best my friend,
D.A.
NYC
Kristi Noem’s video is sickening. Using Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” in the background is particularly offensive as it has the lyric “here we are now, entertain us”. That’s what the video is: entertainment. Making light of ripping people from their homes. But given what else Noem stands for: anti abortion, pro-gun, anti the EPA, pro oil, shooting off fireworks despite the risk of fire, photo ops in full make-up, hair extensions & face filler in front jailed prisoners, what else can we expect of her? And she kills puppies.
Modern version of bread and circuses. Despicable video. Despicable, ugly person.
Harsh, Ms. Baker, harsh.
I’m not wild about the lady but in truth she UTTERLY lost me at the dog thing. I’ve been called callous, in my varied life, seeing some things…. but anything against dogs is my weak point. I’ll brook no cruelty to animals, particularly dogs.
D.A.
NYC
True, but then it long has been. We know that under Biden, for example, the government bullied the pre-Elon Twitter and other social media companies into censoring content it didn’t like.
It also funded a range of NGOs that would act as pressure groups for censorship (justifying this by labelling stuff it didn’t like as “misinformation”).
And states sued the Biden administration for “censorship” and lost. Though a bit murky…maybe SCOTUS will some day clarify if a similar case reaches them.
In June 2024, the Supreme Court ruled in Murthy v. Missouri and overturned the lower court’s injunction against the Biden administration.
Reasoning: The 6–3 majority opinion, authored by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, stated that the plaintiffs—the states and individual social media users—lacked the legal standing to sue. The court found that the plaintiffs failed to prove a direct link between the government’s communications and any specific content moderation actions taken by the social media companies.
Limited effect: The ruling dismissed the case on a procedural basis and did not decide the core First Amendment question of whether the government’s actions constituted coercion or censorship.
Thanks for bringing that up, Mark. Much of what we discuss about free speech revolves around what speech can be explicitly prohibited by the government — very little is the short answer. But equally important is to get a handle on what actions short of explicit prohibition, which has legal force, count as intimidation strong enough to amount to censorship. The person being intimidated can always refuse to submit, and keep publishing — the government can’t arrest him and smash his printing press. But almost everyone has a pressure point that can be exploited to get him to say “Transwomen are women.” Where does bare-knuckle high-stakes politics, which is all about intimidation and concession, leave off and illegal censorship begin?
Your last question is a good one. I’m glad I’ll never be in a position to have to answer it!
About the drug interdiction strikes- I think a couple of things should be considered here.
Firstly, most of the media is always going to frame these stories in ways that imply or accuse Trump of monstrous crimes. Even if doing so requires omission of or invention of facts.
Secondly, such military operations involve lots of people, a long chain of command, and strict rules of engagement. The dramatic little film clip was certainly proceeded by a lot of much less sexy verification and observation. The processes leading up to the bit shown are going to be kept secret, as such things should be.
The boats shown are built and equipped for the specific purpose of smuggling. They are not fishing or pleasure boating. They are not flying flags, they do not respond to radio calls, and do not use AIS.
I have spent a decent part of my career participating in similar operations. What never happens is someone says “hey, I see a boat, lets blow it up!”.
“The boats shown are built and equipped for the specific purpose of smuggling. They are not fishing or pleasure boating. They are not flying flags, they do not respond to radio calls, and do not use AIS.”
While there may be a few speculations that these boats were not being used for smuggling, that is not really the point. Even drug smuggling in international waters might not justify the extra-judicial execution of the smugglers.
Neither you nor I have seen what transpired in the minutes or hours before the exhibited footage. Nor do we know the rules of engagement used here.
Certainly the intelligence sources and methods used to detect and identify the craft are not public knowledge.
I guess in a larger sense, questions to ask include whether USCG or USN craft have the right to stop and inspect suspected smugglers. Then, if they refuse to stop or identify themselves, can we escalate? Or do we just have to let them go?
Also, if we know from our intelligence assets that a particular boat is carrying a known cargo from a particular cartel stronghold to a particular destination, can that influence our response?