Author: condor

Hinderaker, On Mr. Khalil: No Actual Evidence; Just Racism.

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This is… just sad.

Hinderaker once again trafficks in libelous racist nonsense.

There are no actual (even remotely damning) facts, in his post that would suggest Mr. Khalil did anything unlawful while here in the United States. Protests, coupled to substantial overt acts — to aid Hamas… are what would be required to hold him. And there are none of those, thus far. As John’s admits, in its silence.

But John spins up a series of improbable unsupported conspiracies, mostly about Khalil‘s lawyers… actually, to try to paint him as a covert direct agent of Hamas.

Here in America, we make these decisions — in court rooms — on actual evidence.

There is none of that here — so you may safely ignore everything John has said.

Out.

Mr. Khalil’s Fine Brief Under The All Writs Act — Will Win His Return To New Jersey, In A Few Days…

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Overnight, the petitioner filed his supplemental brief — collecting cases that compel his immediate return to a court near his home, in order to more readily effectuate his right to litigate his habeas corpus petition.

It will easily “trump” Kristi Noem’s nonsensical claims that keeping him nearly 2,000 miles away promotes some odd sense of safety and efficiency. That’s all she’s got. Here’s that fine brief — from the dockets of the federal trial courts in Newark:

…As made clear below, those new authorities only strengthen Mr. Khalil’s arguments. First, ordering Mr. Khalil’s return to this District remains appropriate. And second, Third Circuit law undermines even further Respondents’ arguments that the relief sought through Mr. Khalil’s motion is jurisdictionally barred. Indeed, the relief requested in this Motion turns on the same authority this Court already invoked (ECF 81), in enjoining Respondents from deporting Mr. Khalil. Just as there was no jurisdictional bar to that limited and uncontested equitable relief, there is no jurisdictional bar to the invocation of the Court’s same power, and under related authority, to return Mr. Khalil to this District….

The Third Circuit has stressed that § 1252(g) does not bar review of challenges to the underlying authority of government actions to commence proceedings. Garcia v. Att’y Gen., 553 F.3d 724, 729 (3d Cir. 2009) (holding that § 1252(g) is no bar where petition is not “challenging the discretionary decision to commence proceedings, but is challenging the government’s very authority to commence those proceedings” after limitation period expired) (emphasis in original).

This is especially true here where Respondents attempt to tamper with the integrity of the Court’s exercise of its jurisdiction and with foundational principles of law. See Chehazeh, 666 F.3d at 134….

Now you know. And let’s go, Illini women over Creighton — and for lots more upsets, in the men’s — here in the Second Round! [I am up three games on Mr. Obama in the men’s — but only by 10 points. Woot!]

नमस्ते

I’m So Old, I Remember When Hinderaker Thought Campus “Speech Codes” were BAD!

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Actually, it was just 9 to 17 years ago that Hinderaker was decrying what he wholly imagined were government “campus speech codes”.

He felt they were Unconstitutional – and UNAMERICAN, back then. But that was because Mr. Obama was the one advocating for clearer federal definitions of “hate crimes”.

Tonight, ironically, when Tangerine 2.0 ACTUALlY forces Columbia University to self-censor certain words, ideas and philosophical views on campus (by cutting off $400 million in federal funds) Hinderaker cheers the effort.

Charming. This all stems from student protests surrounding the way Israel’s policies are brutalizing innocent civilians in Gaza. Hinderaker and the other Powerline boys have repeatedly called for harsh criminal penalties against the student protesters.

But when at Dartmouth — during the Vietnam war — John Hinderaker took over a campus administrative building and held it for three days to protest against US policies in Vietnam. He and his cohorts saw their records cleared, their paths opened to Harvard Law School (another clever way to avoid being drafted into the Army to fight Vietnam before the conflict was over) — and made fortunes practicing law that embedded those very same freedoms he used at Dartmouth the protest.

So it is all… a rather puzzling scene, here (now in his 70s) to see him cheering Donald Trump, for officially suppressing campus speech.

I guess I’m just getting old, because it sure seems like as Hinderaker gets older… he becomes more and more… an autocrat’s apologist. He wants less… freedom, for every kid on campus who enrolled at any time after he graduated.

Cra-cra. Out.

Despite All The Whining — Gender Dysphoria Is 23rd On The List — Of REAL GOP Voter Priorities…

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In an apparent reply to a particularly insipid Bill Otis post (deriding a private hospital company’s miscue in asking new parents, on a form, about the gender identity of newborns), Paul Mirengoff finally mustered the fortitude to tell the truth about this non-issue — even for most GOP voters. [Why oh why, though — has it taken him… (checks notes) nearly two decades, to do so? Is he finally fed up with Trump’s and MAGA’s blind “hater-ade” policies? Who knows?!]

This “issue” (such as it is — misframed by the GOP) ranks below 20th place — and in the broader both GOP and Democratic voter bases, it probably ranks about 50th). So here’s Paul’s scolding of Bill:

…The New Jersey [hospital holding company’s] policy doesn’t fall into any of these categories. It’s stupid and annoying, but that’s all.

I should add that a Gallup poll taken after the 2024 election showed that transgender issues ranked 23rd in importance to voters. And, again, I believe those who considered it important were focused on the kinds of policies described in my second paragraph.

At the margin, Democrats running in tough [r]aces need to get on the right side of hot button cultural issues like boys in girls sports and in their bathrooms. This, they can do, and already seem to be doing it….

Gender dysphoria is a vanishingly rare — but real — medical condition. Hilariously, in MAGA Gov. DeSantis’ Florida — in just the last five years, there have been eight separate pieces of legislation passed, and at least two dozen others introduced — on the topic.

But in the past two decades, the number of people under age 20 treated for the condition at any hospital in Florida has been… 12 people.

That’s on a population of over 23 million in Florida. And of those, about 4,363,870 people, or 19.3% of Florida’s population, were under 18 years old.

Twelve people — and the legislature spent probably $1.2 million writing laws about… a medical condition — trying to interfere in the patient physician privilege.

D A M N.

Watch as MAGA “ideas” — such as they are — tank candidates in moderate districts in 2026 — for just this sort of Bill Otis style / defective fear mongering.

Out.

In The Social Security v. DOGE Case (AFSCME v. SSA), Elon Is Getting Shellacked For Lies About “Fraud” That Doesn’t Seem To Exist.

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We today open our coverage here, of the still-unfolding abuses by DOGE, at the US Social Security Administration — with a banger. With a hat tip to EmptyWheel’s fine reporting, we note that USDC Judge Ellen Hollander has repeatedly caught the DOGE boys in lies, or at least highly misleading statements in sworn declarations — about the nature and scope of their highly intrusive access, prior to clearance for security was complete.

Specifically, Marko Ezel (an avowed racist) may be working inside SSA right now (after being run out of other agency roles), and he may well be looking at various individual Americans’ highly private earnings histories — for no legitimate governmental purpose. Here’s the bit of the opinion — and the full 137 pages of it, out of Maryland,now:

…Ironically, the identity of these DOGE affiliates has been concealed because defendants are concerned that the disclosure of even their names would expose them to harassment and thus invade their privacy. The defense does not appear to share a privacy concern for the millions of Americans whose SSA records were made available to the DOGE affiliates, without their consent, and which contain sensitive, confidential, and personally identifiable information….

For example, the Court asked counsel for the government: “[W]hat was the mission and what was the need? What was the purpose in providing access to all of this information?” ECF 45 at 23. The Court again pressed about why the DOGE Team would “need” the scope of information at issue here. Id. at 24, 38. And, toward the end of the hearing, the Court once again gave the government the opportunity to explain the “need for all of those records.” Id. at 84.

Besides cursory, circular statements about members of the DOGE Team in need of all SSA data because of their work to identify fraudulent or improper payments, counsel provided no explanation as to why or how the particular records correlated to the performance of job duties. See, e.g., id. at 21–22 (“The goal is to review… the Social Security Administration’s records to see if there are improper or fraudulent payments. Naturally if one is looking for improper or fraudulent payments, one looks at the data to see if any such payments are made.”); id. at 23 (“[If] one is looking for fraudulent or improper payments that may or may not be going out by the Social Security Administration, one would need to look at the records, the beneficiary data, the payment data in order to do an assessment of that and to recommend potential changes.”); id. at 24 (“I can tell you that they are looking for instances of improper or fraudulent payments and that it is natural that one would look at the data in that system to see if they’ve been substantiated….”); id. at 39 (“These particular people are working at the agency in order to carry out the sort of broad policy prescription contained in the Executive Order. They are also looking at improper payments and potential waste or improper or fraudulent payments….”); id. at 85 (“[I]f you wanted to decide whether or not [a claim for benefits] was improper or not, you would need to look at the records to see if the payment was properly made or if it was fraudulent.”)….

The number of young, feckless and deplorable reprobates spread now by Musk across the federal machinery of governance is… jaw slacking — and should lead to an indictment for him, in any sane world — after the dust settles here.

[And… perhaps trivially (but I do feel a need for some normalcy… in this time of chaos), Mr. Obama and I are tied after the first night on the men’s brackets — women’s tip off in mere moments! Woot?] Onward.

नमस्ते

Kristi Noem Herself Admits That Mr. Khalil Ought To Be Brought Back To NJ, If The Law Is To Be Followed…

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Do note that the pull-quote in blue appears in Homeland Security / ICE’s own papers filed tonight — the ones seeking to keep him in Jena, Louisiana.

It has long been the law that in these sorts of contested, non-judicial-arrest warrant based detentions, the government cannot play tricks to hide the detainee — and defeat challenges by alleging the challenging court has no jurisdiction. That was the central lesson of the Supremes’ holding in Padilla v. Rumsfeld. And Kristi Noem admits it. She just claims… “well, since he’s in Louisiana, let’s just make all the lawyers go there.”

She offers no compelling reason to hold him there — other than the obvious (but unstated) one: it makes the process… the penalty, by keeping him from attending the birth of his child — and secreting him away from his counsel.

…(“Our precedent likewise reflects an adherence to the general rule articulated in Endo, that the government’s post-filing transfer of a § 2241 petitioner out of the court’s territorial jurisdiction does not strip the court of jurisdiction over the petition.”).

Under those circumstances, the court where jurisdiction originally vested may retain the case. See Argueta Anariba, 14 F.4th at 446 (collecting cases)….

[She goes on to say, though: “It is true that at the time Khalil’s original petition was filed, it could have been properly filed in this district. But the SDNY court erred in treating that fact as dispositive….”]

These jamokes are all so… deadly tedious. Tedious. He will be ordered brought back up to New Jersey — Newark, specifically. Onward.

नमस्ते

Power Alley: Africa’s CDC Starts To Chart A New Way Forward, Assuming Tangerine 2.0 Will Be Of Zero Help…

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Ever since 2001, African health advocacy groups have been pushing nations on that continent to allocate about 15 percent of the national spending budgets toward health care and prevention, under the so-called Abuja Declaration — but so far only two nations are on track to achieve the stated goal: Rwanda and Botswana. Backgrounder, here.

Self sufficiency would be wonderful — but feeding people generally comes ahead of vaccines, in Africa. So the goal remains a fair piece off, from here. And thus Tangerine’s senseless cuts… will likely endanger nations across the entire rest of the globe — due to increased risk of ever-more pandemic shocks.

In any event, here is the latest — from just a half-hour ago, at CIDRAP:

…In the DRC, health officials are experiencing a shortage of mpox vaccine amid high uptake. So far, more than 525,000 people have received at least one dose, with coverage in Kinshasa at 70% of the targeted population. He estimated that the region needs 6.4 million more vaccine doses over the next 6 months.

Elsewhere in Africa, Kaseya said Uganda continues to report a high proportion of deaths among its mpox cases, and cases are rising in Tanzania, one of the newly affected countries. So far, Tanzania has reported 55 suspected cases in 16 of its regions….

In many ways, this is the US playing Russian Roulette, with a revolver… but in this case, the revolver doesn’t have one bullet in the six chambers — five of the chambers hold live rounds. Damn.

And (trivially) as has been true for about three fourths of all the tournaments, over nearly 16 years now, Mr. Obama is out to a quick lead over me. He picked Creighton, where I had Louisville — he was right. But I may still catch him, on other upsets! Onward, ever… onward. Smile.

नमस्ते

[Updated, With A Comment By Rigby!] Paul’s Conclusion Is Correct — But His Analysis Is… Spineless, And Boot-Licking — In The Face Of Clear Lawlessness From Would-Be Autocrats.

~ condor ~ 1 Comment

UPDATED @ 3:00 PM EDT — Rigby writes as follows:

“…Paul doesn’t allow non-subscribers to comment on his blog, but I sent him a personal message about his post, since he seems so intent on “both-sidesing” the issue:

…Regarding your latest post, as you likely know, a solution to judge shopping was proposed by the U.S. Judicial Conference last year, which announced a new (non-binding) policy requiring any cases seeking to block state or federal policies in federal district courts to be assigned randomly from larger pools of judges. This modest reform effort drew howls of protest from Republican lawmakers and conservative judges, who vowed not to follow this guidance….

Given the recent rulings against Trump’s policies, I hope the irony isn’t lost on them.

But it probably is….”

[And… as ever (16 out of the last 20 times), Mr. Obama is ahead of me, already — he had Creighton; I had Louisville — in the first game at lunchtime today. He was right. Hah!] End, Updated Portion.

So, I need not belabor this, but to the extent that Stephen Miller suggests insurrection here, in response to court decisions he disagrees with — Mr. Mirengoff’s language should be more direct: people like Miller may well need to sit in jail for a few nights, for contempt of federal court orders — that is likely the only way to get through to morons like him, and Messrs. Ezell and Dill.

But Mirengoff’s ultimate conclusion is sound: soon enough, Tangerine will be out of office, and Democratic CoCs will bury all of this… lawfully.

In the mean time, MAGAts should listen to Paul, here:

…[Some, including many in Tangerine 2.0’s orbit take the view] the president, not the judiciary, should be the ultimate arbiter of what is lawful under the laws of the U.S. including the Constitution. It’s not a case to which I subscribe [Ed. Note: the plain English meaning of the US Constitution points to the OPPOSITE conclusion — the Judiciary decides what the law is or is not, once the CONGRESS passes it]. Nor is it the way the American experiment in a nation of laws, not men, has operated, with considerable success, for more than two centuries.

I see no reason to abandon our traditional approach to resolving challenges to presidential authority just because Trump wants to get things done in a hurry. Arguably, Trump’s hurry is an argument in favor of the traditional approach — an argument that should, perhaps, be especially appealing to conservatives….

I would add that the case for this being any form of judicial over-reach (as Hinderaker, Johnson, Musk, Miller and Cruz are claiming) has… vanished. Both Trump appointees and Obama ones (and Clinton and Reagan ones, too!) have declared what he is doing… completely unlawful. By a margin of about 66 to 3, now.

The ship rights itself — that is the metaphor the founders left for us. And it is happening — in a chaotic and messy way. But it is happening.

Onward.

Perhaps Hinderaker Should Sign Up For Those Remedial Harvard Math Classes, Himself.

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Just a thought.

This, based on his inability / unwillingness to grapple with simple statistical facts (let alone algebraic deductions or calculus inspired inferences), in his last 25 years as a political pundit/blogging “careerist“.

Yeh — I bet they’d let you audit it (by Zoom, from your home in Minnesota), John. The Deans at Harvard would likely even waive your tuition, since it would be of a vast service to humanity — to blunt your lying about statistical matters (especially about racial matters, as at right — just one of hundreds of examples).

Cheers.

[U] March Madness! Condor v. Mr. Obama, 2025 Edition!

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UPDATE: I will not grace this with a separate post. It is preposterous that the MSM is framing the Education “Black Magic Sharpie” scribble as though it means… anything. The Department may only be closed or replaced… by an Act of Congress. What Tangerine 2.0 writes with his crayons, all alone in his playroom… is without ANY force or effect. Just keep reminding all your friends (and enemies) of this FACT. End, update.

Whew. Okay. . . Here is the whole she-bang — and only where our picks diverge, I then mark my calls, in green.

All blue calls are also mine, unless a green name appears above one.

So — we are fairly close — but I picked a few more upsets this year; we both think Duke wins it all.

Onward — but this year you may play against him, directly at Obama.org — just enter your name, email addy and your bracket, and become part of the mailing list / work on the Center in Chicago’s South Shore. Smile. See at right; click to enlarge.

And I have been running behind all morning with a pro bono immigration project, so I just now got the women’s version picked and uploaded (I promise I’ve not looked in on ANY games!). You may follow along with that one, here.

Onward!

नमस्ते