amerika

[Recusant]

Gunning down civilians in international waters. Just the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine in action. The US has a long and sordid history with its neighbors to the south. It's a war crime you say? "I don't give a shit what you call it"

[Recusant]

The Just Security site has a couple of articles that examine the ramifications of this incident.

"Legal Issues Raised by a Lethal U.S. Military Attack in the Caribbean"

"Using Labels, Not Law, to Justify Lethal Force: Inside the Venezuelan Boat Strike"

[Dark Lightning]

That attack was disgusting on top of unlawful.

[Recusant]

Might as well rag on the rotten Trumpist justices currently holding a secure supermajority in the US Supreme Court. Starting with Chief Justice Roberts.

Though Roberts would like to be viewed as the defender of the Supreme Court's good name, he's really just another flavor of MAGA stooge. For him the "good name" of the court is dispensable when it conflicts with the Trumpist agenda.

That pose of upholding the honor of the court has never been particularly convincing in the first place given that Roberts has made it a career-long pet project to disable and dismantle the Voting Rights Act. To further that goal he's willing to consistently legislate from the bench. Of course in those cases we heard nary a peep from the righteous Republicans that for decades have been wailing a jeremiad against "activist judges" who meddle outside their proper bailiwick.

Here he personally steps up as the brave embodiment of obedience to his master's voice. For reference, according to the US Constitution the "power of the purse" (determining how, when, and where the government will disburse funds) is held by the legislative branch, not the executive branch.

"Chief Justice Roberts keeps in place Trump funding freeze that threatens billions in foreign aid" | AP

Chief Justice John Roberts on Tuesday temporarily kept in place the Trump administration's decision to freeze nearly $5 billion in foreign aid.

Roberts acted on the administration's emergency appeal to the Supreme Court in a case involving billions of dollars in congressionally approved aid. President Donald Trump said last month that he would not spend the money, invoking disputed authority that was last used by a president roughly 50 years ago.

The high court order is temporary, though it suggests the justices will reverse a lower court ruling that withholding the funding was likely illegal. U.S. District Judge Amir Ali ruled last week that Congress would have to approve the decision to withhold the funding.

Trump told House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., in a letter Aug. 28 that he would not spend $4.9 billion in congressionally approved foreign aid, effectively cutting the budget without going through the legislative branch.

[Continues . . .]

* * *

Also, regarding shadow docket shenanigans. Justice Gorsuch rebukes a lower court judge for not correctly interpreting the somewhat terse and often unexplained shadow docket rulings that the six "conservatives" have been spewing out ever since their golden boy, the grotesque mountebank felon president, got back into office.

"I Am Begging the Judge Who Apologized to Neil Gorsuch to Have Some Self-Respect" | Balls & Strikes

Earlier this week, a federal judge in Massachusetts opened a hearing by doing something that federal judges almost never do: offer a sheepish, public apology.

"Before we do anything, I really feel it's incumbent upon me to, on the record here, to apologize to Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, if they think that anything this court has done has been done in defiance of a precedential action of the Supreme Court," said Judge William Young. "I can do nothing more than to say as honestly as I can: I certainly did not so intend, and that is foreign in every respect to the nature of how I have conducted myself as a judicial officer."

Young was responding to a recent concurring opinion from, as you might expect, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, in a decision that allowed President Donald Trump to cancel roughly $800 million in National Institutes of Health research grants because he thinks science is woke. The case had started in Young's courtroom, and Gorsuch took a beat to scold Young for a decision that, in Gorsuch's view, so egregiously flouted other Supreme Court shadow docket orders that he had no choice to conclude that Young was being willfully insubordinate.

"Lower court judges may sometimes disagree with this Court's decisions, but they are never free to defy them," Gorsuch wrote. "When this Court issues a decision, it constitutes a precedent that commands respect in lower courts." He went on to characterize Young's decision as the "third time in a matter of weeks this Court has had to intercede in a case 'squarely controlled' by one of its precedents," and complained that all three interventions should have been "unnecessary," which is basically an admission that Gorsuch got annoyed that someone made him work during what he hoped would be a relaxing end to his summer vacation.

I understand the various reasons Young felt the urge to apologize: Supreme Court justices sit above him on the org chart, and they called him out in public, which is a stressful and embarrassing experience in any workplace. Young, a Reagan appointee, has also spent the last four decades ensconced in an institution that venerates the Court and assumes that its justices in their magisterial wisdom are entitled at all times to a presumption of correctness.

All that said, I am begging William Young to have an ounce of self-respect here. Since Justice Amy Coney Barrett's confirmation in 2020, this Court's six-justice conservative supermajority has specialized in churning out shadow docket decisions that are sloppy, vague, contradictory, incoherent, or—in most cases—some combination thereof. On some occasions, the conservatives assert that these cases are binding on lower courts; on others, they emphasize that these orders are only temporary, and should not necessarily be construed as rulings on the merits. Their only real goal is giving the Trump administration what it wants; dealing with the practical implications of their decisions is almost always left for another day, or not at all.

[Continues . . .]

[Icarus]

I am entirely bewildered  with the behavior of so many people who occupy high places. Why are they, or anyone else, at all beholden to a lying, solipsistic, greedy, con man?

   WTF ?

[The Magic Pudding..]

I am entirely bewildered  with the behavior of so many people who occupy high places. Why are they, or anyone else, at all beholden to a lying, solipsistic, greedy, con man?

   WTF ?

They share beliefs, oh, are we still doing beliefs?
Hates, they share hates and they know what sided their breads buttered on.
Anyway you've got to think of your mental health, go with the flow or you might suffer a bought of defenestration.

[Recusant]

Mentioned the Trump administration defunding mental health programs above. One of the couch-sitters at Fox News has what he thinks is a better approach.

Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade endorsed euthanizing unhoused people suffering from mental health issues who decline getting help. He made the remark during a recent episode where his co-hosts  Ainsley Earhardt and Lawrence Jones were discussing the murder of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska.

The co-hosts posited that the suspect, who has an extensive criminal record and was diagnosed with a mental illness, should have been removed from the streets long before this tragedy occurred.

Jones noted that the incident was just one instance, and added, "but this is happening all across the country, and it's not a money issue." He then claimed that "billions" has been spent on the mental health crisis and for "the homeless population" and that "a lot of them don't want to take the programs" and "don't want" to seek out the necessary help.

"You can't give 'em a choice," he continued. "Either you take the resources that we're going to give you, or you decide that you gotta be locked up in jail. That's the way it has to be now."

Kilmeade then interjected with a disturbingly bonkers suggestion, interrupting Jones to say, "Or uh, involuntary lethal injection. Or something," Kilmeade said. "Just kill 'em." His co-hosts then just glossed right over that shocking comment and continued their conversation.

[source]

[Recusant]

Following the habitually mendacious Leader, the US Department of Justice got caught in a blatant lie. Not just any lie but a lie in court. In other words, the crime of perjury (and not for the first time). Just another day in the USA.

On Wednesday, Donald Trump's Department of Justice made a startling admission in court: It had put forth false information in its effort to secretly deport hundreds of young immigrants to Guatemala in the dead of night. DOJ lawyers had previously told a judge that the children's parents were all clamoring for them to be sent back to Guatemala. In truth, however, not a single parent requested their child's return, and many were not prepared to take them in if they suddenly arrived on their doorstep. This is not the first time lawyers at the Justice Department have been caught lying to the judiciary, and it won't be the last.

[source]

[Recusant]

I've admired Thom Hartmann for years. He's never lost the will to call out bullshit and is not going to surrender to the abject nonsense that dominates American politics.

After Democratic Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband were murdered by a rightwinger with a list of almost 50 other Democrats he planned to kill, and a state senator and his wife were wounded, Trump refused to even call Governor Tim Walz, much less lower flags to half-staff. Democrats, who'd lost a genuine hero, universally called for toning down political rhetoric instead of vengeance or retributive violence.

While the GOP's brand is "We're victims!!!," Democrats are more interested in getting things done for the people. And when they do call out the authoritarianism of this administration, they're pointing to actual policies like masked secret police, military in the streets, Trump grifting billions in crypto, using the FBI to go after his political opponents, and Republicans on the Supreme Court giving Trump immunity from prosecution for actual crimes.

On top of passing legislation, Democratic leaders have consistently condemned political violence without caveat, from Biden's 2020 speech spelling out that "rioting is not protesting" to repeated condemnations after attacks on public officials and public servants.

So when commentators ask both parties to "lower the temperature," we should be honest about what that means in practice.

Too often, it's a request for Democrats to stop calling out the very real way the modern right has mainstreamed eliminationist rhetoric, moral-panic politics, and procedural hardball.

It is a call to pretend that saying "you're child-abusing communists who hate America" versus "you're undermining democracy and endangering people with lies" are mirror images.

They are not.

One is a smear that licenses political violence. The other is a description of a documented pattern of behavior with decades of receipts.

None of that means Democrats are perfect. It means Democrats are operating inside the reality-based world where deals must be made, bills must be passed, and violence is condemned when it appears on your own side.

[Link to full article.]

[Icarus]

The right wingers are noisily blaming the murder of Charles Kirk on all democrats.  Oddly, the shooter is a member of a strongly republican family,region, and church.

If you tell a lie a sufficient number of times, the lie becomes conventional wisdom.

[billy rubin]

he was pretty worthless.

[Recusant]

"Only the best people . . ."

A Trump nominee for a top State Department position deleted thousands upon thousands of inflammatory social media posts, which included hatred for Democrats, support of racist conspiracy theories and one that called for the "death penalty" for a political opponent.

Jeremy Carl, who is under consideration by the Senate for assistant secretary of state for international organizations, was the subject of a CNN KFile investigation. That investigation found that Carl had attempted to delete thousands of posts prior to his nomination in June by President Donald Trump. Carl was previously deputy assistant secretary of the interior during Trump's first term.

[. . .]

In a post from May 2023, Carl said that convicted rioters from the Jan. 6 insurrection were treated worse than Black Americans during the Jim Crow era. A week later, Carl said, "If the U.S. were a serious nation," American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten would be "tried for crimes against America's children and would get the death penalty."

Carl had previously referred to the rioters as "political prisoners" and blamed then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for organizing a "military coup."

"The real coup was against Trump not by Trump," Carl wrote in a post.

Carl repeatedly called the Democratic Party "the treason party," along with referring to Democrats as "evil."

"There is no 'peaceful coexistence' we are going to have when our opposition is led by people like this. We either win or die," Carl wrote in 2021.

Carl's comments were not limited to politics. In July 2021, Carl said the creation of Juneteenth was "race hustling and white-shaming." He specifically referred to white Americans celebrating the holiday as "self-hating white people."

"If you're a white person celebrating Juneteenth, you've already surrendered," Carl wrote.

According to the investigation, Carl posted repeatedly regarding the racist conspiracy theory called "Great Replacement." The conspiracy theory says [there is] an international plot to "replace" white people by bringing nonwhite immigrants to Western countries.

[. . .]

White House spokesperson Anna Kelly defended Carl in a statement to CNN.

"Jeremy Carl did great work during President Trump's first administration, and he is highly qualified to serve as Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations. The administration stands by our nominees."

[source]

[Recusant]

Maybe it'll be proper to start a thread devoted to the descent of the US into an overt police state. The feds seizing control of a state National Guard and deploying them against citizens of that state, already in the works. More of that sort of thing is likely but it's not as if everybody is on board with MAGA jackboots.

The item below tells us one aspect of the police state Trumpists are constructing.

Supreme Court Justice "Where Are Your Papers?" Kavanaugh

"There's a New Lawsuit Against 'Kavanaugh Stops.' It's Absolutely Devastating." | Slate

Gregory Bovino, the officer in charge of roving immigration enforcement in American cities, admitted this week that his agents arrest people based on "how they look." Asked by a WBEZ reporter to elaborate, Bovino said the pertinent question was how "they" appear as "compared to" the reporter, a white man. Bovino's candor stripped away any pretense: Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are detaining individuals because they look Latino.

Three weeks ago, the Supreme Court greenlit that approach, effectively legalizing racial profiling in immigration enforcement by a 6–3 vote. Although the majority did not explain its decision, Justice Brett Kavanaugh tried to muster a defense in a solo concurrence whose reasoning crumbled upon scrutiny. Kavanaugh insisted that ICE agents may use a person's "apparent ethnicity" as a "relevant factor" when deciding whether to arrest them. But he assured readers that agents may use ethnicity only in combination with other, nonracial factors when deciding whom to target. He also insisted that these "immigration stops" are a minor inconvenience for "those individuals who are legally in the country," writing: "The questioning in those circumstances is typically brief, and those individuals may promptly go free after making clear to the immigration officers that they are U.S. citizens or otherwise legally in the United States."

In the short time since Kavanaugh wrote that opinion, his assertions have been proved demonstrably, almost laughably false too many times to count. As Sherrilyn Ifill notes, the justice's claims were already belied by the factual record in that case, which showed ICE agents violently harassing and detaining American citizens for extended periods simply because they are Latino. Now the agency, freed from constitutional restraints by SCOTUS, has stopped pretending to be engaged in anything other than racial profiling. Bovino's admission only confirms what we already knew: These detentions, far from the "brief" inconvenience Kavanaugh described, are often lengthy, violent, and dangerous. Ifill and Anil Kalhan, a professor of law at Drexel University, have proposed calling these detainments "Kavanaugh stops," a label that's quickly catching on.

[Continues . . .]