Scrutable

I hope you're right but given what he's managed in 3 months (is it really only that long) I'm not holding out hope. His lawyers may be sh.t but they are very good at finding very obscure laws that allow them to do things no-one else would think of doing. And even if he doesn't have a legal basis, if no one's going to stop him what does it matter if it's legal?

dyqik wrote: Sun Apr 13, 2025 3:31 pm

Fishnut wrote: Sat Apr 12, 2025 9:21 pm By the time of the next presidential election I can see the 22nd amendment being repealed and the Insurrection Act invoked.

I wish people would actually read the Constitution before commenting on it.

The only way that the 22nd Amendment can be repealed is via a vote of 2/3rds of Congress, and then ratification by 3/4 of the States. That's not possible before 2028, because more than 1/4 of States are Democrat controlled.

Similarly, all talk about cancelling elections is raging gibberish. Elections happen on a Constitutionally determined timescale. If they don't take place, then Trump doesn't get any new laws and no budget to operate the government.

Elections not being fair is another matter, but elections are run by the States, not by the Federal government.

But what if Trump just ignores those and goes ahead anyway? He's already ignoring the Supreme Court

jimbob wrote: Sun Apr 13, 2025 9:12 pm

dyqik wrote: Sun Apr 13, 2025 3:31 pm

Fishnut wrote: Sat Apr 12, 2025 9:21 pm By the time of the next presidential election I can see the 22nd amendment being repealed and the Insurrection Act invoked.

I wish people would actually read the Constitution before commenting on it.

The only way that the 22nd Amendment can be repealed is via a vote of 2/3rds of Congress, and then ratification by 3/4 of the States. That's not possible before 2028, because more than 1/4 of States are Democrat controlled.

Similarly, all talk about cancelling elections is raging gibberish. Elections happen on a Constitutionally determined timescale. If they don't take place, then Trump doesn't get any new laws and no budget to operate the government.

Elections not being fair is another matter, but elections are run by the States, not by the Federal government.

But what if Trump just ignores those and goes ahead anyway? He's already ignoring the Supreme Court

Then anyone can ignore him, because he isn't President. The President only has power because the courts enforce that power.

Fishnut wrote: Sun Apr 13, 2025 7:50 pm I hope you're right but given what he's managed in 3 months (is it really only that long) I'm not holding out hope. His lawyers may be sh.t but they are very good at finding very obscure laws that allow them to do things no-one else would think of doing. And even if he doesn't have a legal basis, if no one's going to stop him what does it matter if it's legal?

Most of what he's done so far is not legal. It just takes a long time for the courts to catch up. For example, the Supreme Court already ruled that deportation without due process is unconstitutional, but the results of that have not filtered down to the final judgements yet.

The Trumpish effect on British libraries?

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/ ... ps-spreads

dyqik wrote: Sun Apr 13, 2025 10:08 pm

Fishnut wrote: Sun Apr 13, 2025 7:50 pm I hope you're right but given what he's managed in 3 months (is it really only that long) I'm not holding out hope. His lawyers may be sh.t but they are very good at finding very obscure laws that allow them to do things no-one else would think of doing. And even if he doesn't have a legal basis, if no one's going to stop him what does it matter if it's legal?

Most of what he's done so far is not legal. It just takes a long time for the courts to catch up. For example, the Supreme Court already ruled that deportation without due process is unconstitutional, but the results of that have not filtered down to the final judgements yet.

And Kilmar Abrego Garcia won't benefit from this. Because he's out of US jurisdiction. What is to stop this being repeated? Maybe the SCOTUS could issue an injunction and charge those who carry those out with contempt of court (or whatever the US equivalent is) but Trump could just pardon them.

A federal court cannot enforce it's rulings if any sanctions are voided by the president.

Bukele after a talk with Trump has declared he won't be sending Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the US.

Trump has now floated the idea with the Bukele of sending US citizens to prisons in El Salvador. Trump and his sycophants in the DOJ will not doubt attemp this by shipping them off on military aircraft and then stalling when it is pointed out how illegal this is.

Chris Preston wrote: Mon Apr 14, 2025 6:46 pm Bukele after a talk with Trump has declared he won't be sending Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the US.

Trump has now floated the idea with the Bukele of sending US citizens to prisons in El Salvador. Trump and his sycophants in the DOJ will not doubt attemp this by shipping them off on military aircraft and then stalling when it is pointed out how illegal this is.

Exactly. Anyone can be out of US jurisdiction and with a personal ally of Trump and the US courts can do nothing about it in time. Unless Trump is impeached. Which isn't looking likely

jimbob wrote: Mon Apr 14, 2025 7:24 pm Exactly. Anyone can be out of US jurisdiction and with a personal ally of Trump and the US courts can do nothing about it in time. Unless Trump is impeached. Which isn't looking likely

At least not before the mid-terms - assuming USA'ians come to there senses and reject republicans in droves to give the dem's the majority needed. Sadly I don't see this happening at all.

TopBadger wrote: Mon Apr 14, 2025 8:10 pm

jimbob wrote: Mon Apr 14, 2025 7:24 pm Exactly. Anyone can be out of US jurisdiction and with a personal ally of Trump and the US courts can do nothing about it in time. Unless Trump is impeached. Which isn't looking likely

At least not before the mid-terms - assuming USA'ians come to there senses and reject republicans in droves to give the dem's the majority needed. Sadly I don't see this happening at all.

By that time lots of married women won't be easily able to vote.

It is shameful that the SAVE Act passed the House, and I'm sure Trump would sign it if it reached him, but it hasn't passed the Senate. Unless the Senate blows up the filibuster, which I don't anticipate, there is no real chance that it will become law.

DOGE was "exfiltrating sensitive data for unknown reasons" from the National Labor Relations Board. Activities were deliberately hidden (logs removed etc.). Suggestions that confidential cases of employee complaints etc. were the targets, and that backdoors might have been created.

Brightonian wrote: Tue Apr 15, 2025 8:08 pm DOGE was "exfiltrating sensitive data for unknown reasons" from the National Labor Relations Board. Activities were deliberately hidden (logs removed etc.). Suggestions that confidential cases of employee complaints etc. were the targets, and that backdoors might have been created.

Oh, and one of the newly created DOGE accounts immediately logged in from a Russian IP address.

ICE discovered that they arrested the wrong person, but were told to “Take him anyway”. He’s now in a concentration camp in El Salvador.


https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/af ... dcfe&ei=16

DHS is now telling US-born citizens they need to self deport in 7 days. https://www.yahoo.com/news/u-born-attor ... 39395.html

The email was likely sent in error, but in this shitshow, errors are not being corrected. There is seemingly no oversight of anything.

"Sources close to JD Vance" are again indicating that "free speech" will be an important concession he will require from Britain for a trade deal. A couple of weeks ago Starmer denied it was an issue that came up in discussions in March, though Vance did separately criticise British laws preventing demonstrations outside abortion locations.

Britain does have important free speech deficits. We have recently been complaining about excessive powers to prevent all kinds of protests, not just abortion ones. But it's a bit ripe to be lectured on that by a US government that is aggressively arm-twisting people to clamp down on pro-Palestinian protests, and denies entry to an academic on the faint grounds that he criticised Trump. The Grauniad today entertainingly reminds us of a variety of stuff like that.

From a trade perspective, what the Americans are really concerned about are online controls that impact the ability of US media companies to sell their services online here. And that's a fair enough point to bring up in trade negotiations. Though the Graun article above makes a nice comparison of that to British food standards (substantially aligned to EU standards) that exclude imports from the US of certain foods made to lower US standards, especially meat and poultry. It is ultimately the same kind of issue, though it seems unlikely the US will not be making much of an issue about that.

I suspect some kind of accommodation might be agreed. If somehow it can be used as an excuse to fix a bunch of other damaging restrictions on free speech, like our excessive libel laws, that would be nice. But somehow I don't hold out much hope for that.

One of these 6'3", 224lbs people is not like the others

jimbob wrote: Thu Apr 17, 2025 3:09 pm One of these 6'3", 224lbs people is not like the others

Screenshot_20250417-142255.png

Oh sorry, were you making a point? I was too distracted by Hemsworth's body

https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/1913241658579440126

This is not normal. Boasting about ignoring the courts.

jimbob wrote: Sun Apr 20, 2025 7:32 am https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/1913241658579440126

This is not normal. Boasting about ignoring the courts.

But it's helpful in removing any doubt that the White House deliberately defied a court order. I will laugh so hard if this becomes an example of "anything you do say" used against them in court.

Martin Y wrote: Mon Apr 21, 2025 9:21 am

jimbob wrote: Sun Apr 20, 2025 7:32 am https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/1913241658579440126

This is not normal. Boasting about ignoring the courts.

But it's helpful in removing any doubt that the White House deliberately defied a court order. I will laugh so hard if this becomes an example of "anything you do say" used against them in court.

I was thinking that too

dyqik wrote: Mon Mar 10, 2025 5:03 pm

Woodchopper wrote: Mon Mar 10, 2025 3:57 pm

shpalman wrote: Mon Mar 10, 2025 2:56 pm https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c80y3yx1jdyo

I suspect that someone in a similar situation would have got into trouble in other countries as well. Its common that people can't be an au pair and be given free accommodation and food in exchange for work while on a normal tourist entry or visa. For example, in the UK someone would need to establish a right to work in Britain: https://www.gov.uk/au-pairs-employment-law/au-pairs

Yeah, that's a basic no-no in almost any country, and absolutely nothing to do with Trump. You also can't do volunteer work on a tourist visa in the US, because it's too hard to police whether you are getting paid in kind, or overseas.

Similar case here. https://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/36066069 ... i-auckland

People on social media have been expressing outrage that a couple of German backpackers got deported. But in the featured social media post they mentioned that they’d told the immigration officials that while travelling they did free lance work.

That kind of activity would also not be allowed for a US citizen visiting the Schengen area as a tourist. If they wanted to do remote work they’d need to get a work visa.

Similarly, tourists from outside Schengen are expected to be able to show that they have enough money to cover their entire stay, and would be treated with suspicion if they had trouble doing that.

Martin Y wrote: Mon Apr 21, 2025 9:21 am

jimbob wrote: Sun Apr 20, 2025 7:32 am https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/1913241658579440126

This is not normal. Boasting about ignoring the courts.

But it's helpful in removing any doubt that the White House deliberately defied a court order. I will laugh so hard if this becomes an example of "anything you do say" used against them in court.

Which court?

Well I'm not necessarily thinking of some end of level boss confrontation with the supremes.

One of those uppity far-left activists which is all they appear to have as judges in the lower courts would do for an amusing challenge to any presumption that the administration will act in good faith and observe the law. Now they've boasted that they won't, they've earned the right to be treated as a bad faith actor.

Martin Y wrote: Mon Apr 21, 2025 1:05 pm Well I'm not necessarily thinking of some end of level boss confrontation with the supremes.

You should be thinking along those lines. At 1am on Saturday morning, the Supreme Court in a 7-2 majority issued an emergency restraining order against the government deporting people in the North District of Texas without a chance for the due process that the Supreme Court ruled had to be given just a week or so ago. This was 6 hours after the government promised in court that they weren't going to deport anyone on Friday night or Saturday.

As a result of the Supreme Court order, several buses containing deportees turned around from heading to the airfield early on Saturday morning.

To issue the order, the Supreme Court ignored the appeals in place in Appeals courts before the Appeals courts could rule, and did not even give time for the two dissenting justices (the usual suspects) to write their dissent. This is a substantial break with court procedures.