Author: condor

I’ll Discuss This One — When Done With The “Flu Brain Fog”…

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This case was argued on Monday, April 21 at the Supremes.

Friday afternoon, the Court directed the parties to give it guidance on whether the Secretary of HHS has independent authority to appoint task force members, or if he needs new and case by case consent of the Congress to do so:

…KENNEDY, SEC. OF H&HS, ET AL. V. BRAIDWOOD MGMT., INC., ET AL. (24-316)

The parties are directed to file supplemental letter briefs addressing the following question: Whether Congress has “by Law” vested the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services with the authority to appoint members of the United States Preventive Services Task Force. U. S. Const. art. II, §2, cl. 2.

The briefs should address this Court’s decisions in United States v. Hartwell, 6 Wall. 385 (1868), and United States v. Smith, 124 U. S. 525 (1888). The briefs, not to exceed 15 pages, are to be filed simultaneously with the Clerk and served upon opposing counsel on or before 2 p.m., Monday, May 5, 2025…

We shall see, but I suspect the Justices are struggling with 1868 cases, where horse and buggy transmitted and facilitated various workings of government — wondering whether to adopt those compromises reached — and processing them wholesale, in the internet enabled, instant electronic delivery age.

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He Lawlessly Tried To Cripple American Innovation — Now, He Wants Praise — For Stopping… The Crippling?! Damn.

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Tangerine 2.0 has flip-flopped again — on student visas. But you won’t hear any additional complaint from me.

It seems he’s finally figured out that the futures of United States bioscience, med-tech, pharma and computer sciences sectors are driven by the US student visas program. See this, from Politico:

…The Trump administration has restored the student visa registrations of thousands of foreign students studying in the United States who had minor — and often dismissed — legal infractions.

The Justice Department announced the wholesale reversal in federal court Friday after weeks of intense scrutiny by courts and dozens of restraining orders issued by judges who deemed the mass termination of students from a federal database — used by universities and the federal government to track foreign students in the U.S. — as flagrantly illegal…

Yikes — he sure is a putz. But this will help US industry — immeasurably — if he will stick with it. Although I guess all he’s really doing is ending the crippling — that he created. Geez.

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DC Court: Trump Cannot Unilaterally Rescind NLRB Sanctioned Collective Bargaining Agreements. Yawn.

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A case we’ve not covered before here; but as expected. This all should come as no surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention.

Tangerine 2.0 has long preposterously imagined that he alone possesses powers that — in no one’s wildest fantasies — would one expect competent jurists would ever countenance — so too, tonight:

…Upon consideration of Plaintiff’s Motion for a Preliminary Injunction [Dkt. No. 9], it is hereby GRANTED; it is

FURTHER ORDER that Section 2 of the Executive Order, Exclusions from Federal Labor-Management Relations Programs (Mar. 27, 2025), is unlawful as applied to the Defendants who are heads of agencies with employees represented by the Plaintiff; it is

FURTHER ORDER that the Office of Personnel Management’s Guidance on Executive Order Exclusions from Federal Labor-Management Programs (Mar. 27, 2025) (“OPM Guidance”), on the Executive Order is unlawful as applied to the Defendants who are heads of agencies with employees represented by the Plaintiff; it is

FURTHER ORDERED that all Defendants, with the exception of President Trump, are enjoined from implementing Section 2 of Executive Order…

Yep — that’s like 3 for over 100, now breaking for him. [That is, with a batting average like that — he’d never get to the plate for even the Toledo Mud Hens, in Spring ball.] Hilarious.

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[U X2] Tangent: Travis Hunter (All Everything!) Selected No. 2 By Jacksonville (Home State)…

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Many will recall that I closely followed the careers of both Hunter and Sanders at my University of Colorado Buffs, mentioning their exploits here numerous times. Perhaps ad nauseum. But that pink suit is… the biz-ness, no?!

Now they are on — to what are undoubtedly going to be $50-$100 million careers. Here’s that:

…Jaguars Jump Up to No. 2 to Snag Travis Hunter in Massive Deal at Start of NFL Draft…

The Jaguars send the No. 5 pick in the first round, along with the No. 36 pick (second-round), No. 126 (fourth-round) and next year’s first-round pick for the right to take Hunter, according to ESPN. The Browns send pick No. 2, No. 104 (fourth-round) and No. 200 (sixth-round) back to Jacksonville…

Blockbuster — to open the draft at Lambeau! Now we wait to see who gets Shedeur Sanders — cool — though in fairness, this is a year rich with top flight quarterbacks, and fewer teams that really need a franchise quarterback… So Shedeur has slipped beyond the first round and may not be taken util later this evening, in the second or even third round. But he too, will make vast millions of dollars and deserve it!

Updated (three times) — late Friday night (and I don’t think anyone expected this!): Shedeur remains undrafted at the end of the third round. In the fifth round, at 144 overall, Shedeur is drafted by the Cleveland Browns. That’s puzzling at best — but Tom Brady, a six time Super Bowl winning QB, wasn’t drafted until the sixth round his year. Still…

That’s… crazy.

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[U X2] Perhaps Someone Explained The Law Of Libel, To Kash Patel?!

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Updated Sat. @ Noon: Libel Per Se — several people with purported eye witness accounts say “…Shannon Crawford |
The person left her courtroom, walked by the agents and even rode the elevator down with one. How is that on her? Because it just sounds like incompetent agents that look like fools…” If these accounts hold up, Kash Patel will owe millions for libel (just like Giuliani in 2020).

And John better go get his facts straight. What he wrote here on Sunday morning is libel per se. End update.

Welp, as has been widely reported, a post on X-itter that Kash Patel (as director of the FBI) put up yesterday… has been deleted. See at right.

In the United States, accusing someone of a felony falsely (in this case, of obstruction of justice — by a well-respected sitting judge) is called libel per se. So, if Kash Patel is unable to win a conviction — on his wild eyed claims about the Milwaukee judge… this post from his personal account arguably leaves him personally liable for libel per se. Damages are presumed.

And you may well imagine that libeling a well respected judge in Milwaukee by claiming she committed felonies – specifically the felony of obstruction of justice – could well run into the millions of dollars of damages.

It was willfully-reckless, it was hasty (at best!), and it was attention-seeking. All of which are unbecoming in an FBI director. But as you can see hundreds of us have screenshots of what he said/wrote — and he won’t be able to walk away from it.

The people who cleave to Trump are almost to a person, universally… evil. And Kash may have just stepped in a Rudy Giuliani sized mud-hole.

[Separately, in passing — and it may be petty of me, but I must remark that the idea that Melania is wearing a traditional most devout and virtuous Catholic mourning veil — at the Pope’s funeral today (remember “I don’t care — do you?“)… is nearly blasphemous. I would safely bet that she hasn’t been inside a Catholic Church on an ordinary Sunday morning since she was a child.] Ugh.

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George Santos Gets 87 Months: Justice.

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This man’s depravity defined both Tangerine 1.0, and the MAGA supplicant GOP of 2018-2021.

He committed intentional fraud in his fundraising efforts, lied about his background, constantly, had used several different aliases and claimed to be “Jew-Ish”. All to grab more money from unwitting donors. I am more than happy to see the end of this story — in a federal lock up for close to eight years:

…George Santos became a punch line to an unfortunate joke before his career on Capitol Hill even began. In December 2022, just weeks before he was sworn in as a member of Congress, the New York Republican was exposed as a prolific liar, having created a detailed personal narrative that bore no resemblance to reality.

But it wasn’t long before Santos’ troubles grew considerably worse: The GOP politician wasn’t just a fabulist, he was also a criminal. Five months into his congressional career, the Justice Department charged the then-congressman with seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, one count of theft of public funds, and two counts of making materially false statements to the House of Representatives. Soon after, prosecutors filed additional charges against Santos, accusing him of, among other things, identity theft and charging a supporter’s credit card and then transferring the money to his personal bank account….

Excellent!

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[U] I’ll Wait To See If Kash Patel Has Any Actual Evidence Here…

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Updated at 6 PM CDT: Hinderaker would prefer to bring a lynch mob for her — rather than see any actual evidence. Not surprising; it’s in his DNA. But ugly just the same.

Me? I want Kash to show me the evidence, before I decide. Yawn. End, updated portion.

For the moment, color me decidedly skeptical about the idea that he has solid evidence to suggest that a Milwaukee County judge obstructed the federal law officers’ investigation.

As I say, cases are decided on evidence in court, not headlines — ones garnered by any wanna be rockstar FBI head. Here’s the NYT:

…Federal agents arrested a county judge in Milwaukee, accusing her of shielding an immigrant from the authorities….

I do know that in Chicago occasionally, judges have allowed asylum seekers / migrants (who were being tracked by federal ICE agents, during Tangerine 1.0) …the able judges allowed the bailiffs to let the asylum-seekers slip out the back door at 26th and California, while the federal agent sat in court — waiting for them to appear.

So, even if we accept that that is what happened here in Milwaukee, there is a strong argument that a judge has the right to police her own courtroom. And if the federal agents did not notify the bailiff that they wanted a hold for the particular detainee… the judge is perfectly free to grant them either furlough or bail — especially while the ICE agents are out getting donuts(!). That is presumptively lawful.

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[U: Polls!] Flu Edition: Guest Post — By Rigby!

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Sorry to see that you’re not feeling well. Since you’re sick, allow me to pick up the baton and run with a couple of things:

1) John Hinderaker’s post, Meat Is Back!

Good! I hope this means we’ll be seeing fewer posts from John about how the Democrats are going to force us all to eat bugs.

2) William Otis’s post, High minded blather impersonating Deep Thought

This one is rich. Bill complains about David Brooks’s column condemning Trump’s authoritarian lawlessness, writing:

What Brooks and the Left can’t get over is that Trump won. For them, respecting the results of a free election and all that jazz is soooooooooo yesterday.

Riiiiiight. Because objecting to a president’s policies (as Bill certainly did under Biden and Obama) is exactly the same as falsely proclaiming that the election was rigged, and instigating a violent (but deeply stupid) insurrection attempt.

After bleating on and on about Brooks’s supposedly hyperbolic wailing, Bill finally concedes something:

I get it that the Left has gone over the edge about Trump. In truth, there are reasons for this, some of them serious and quite worrisome. Paul and I have not been shy about discussing them and we will not be shy about discussing them in the future. But that the editors at the once-august New York Times allow Brooks’ brand of eighth grade “civilization-is-at-stake” emoting into print is, if nothing else, depressing (not to mention one more reason that respect for journalism has cratered).

So, in other words, Brooks’s concerns are completely valid, but there’s a correct way to object to the administration’s lawlessness, and Paul and Bill have been demonstrating it every day by mildly murmuring their mild concerns about the blatant Constitutional violations we’ve been seeing from this administration on a regular basis.

Be sure to keep that up, Paul and Bill. It’s sure to make an impact any day now.

Update, Friday morning — Condor sees that at least Bill and Paul admit reality, about Trump’s vast unpopularity (unlike Glahn/Hinderaker’s ongoing delusions). They know he’s going to cause a blue tsunami (again!) in 2026 — just as in 2018. They even post similar charts, to the one I posted earlier this week. So reality is setting in for at least those two boys. Silver linings, indeed:

[U: More Nonsense!] Hinderaker: Utterly Delusional, Thinks Universities Must Act More Scrupulously Than… Trump?!

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Updated Sat. Night, 04.26.25 — Hinderaker (again, clutching at straws) tries to offer tonight… some now decade-old anecdote, for the proposition that academia at Harvard is rampant with fraud and false evidence planting. This wild eyed conjecture / conclusion he reaches because the then Dean of Harvard’s law school didn’t personally respond to him — about his dubious skepticism during the spate of racist incidents — at the law school that year (2015). Wow.

How utterly narcissistic do you have to be to believe that people with busy lives owe you a specific response, when (I am certain) you don’t donate a penny to your alma mater(?). End trivial update. Monday’s status hearing ought to be a Corker, in Boston!

Not that that isn’t a very low bar to clear, but the point is since I have handled the defense of more than a few federal whistleblower / False Claim Act cases… the idea that Tangerine 2.0 might successfully assert that Harvard and the others have made the kind of lies that would be actionable under the False Claim Act, all while directly lying from the White House himself about all manner of things, but especially what DE&I does… do, and doesn’t do… is simply preposterous.

At bottom, those actions are equitable in nature… And the whistleblower must show that he or she was scrupulously truthful while the party charged was willfully lying, to the detriment of the purse-strings of the federal government.

Here, the federal government itself is willfully lying about the universities. And sum, there’s no sensible federal judge who would ever let Trump prevail in an action like that.

But very nice lil’ clutch at silly straws there Johnny boy… never mind that everything the university is doing is first amendment protected. And thus beyond the reach of the False Claims Act. Onward.

More Evidence — That Mr. Khalil Is None Of The Moronic Things Trump Claims He Is…

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This afternnon, his lawyers filed in New Jersey the supplemental materials they have made available in immigration court — to show that this graduate student was nothing but a good candidate to be an American permanent resident.

There are letters of support from members of the Jewish community, faculty members at Columbia, and people he worked with at various nonprofits. It turns out that the one claim Noem made — about him working for what she felt was a “subversive” organization (without evidence, or any impartial hearing!)… Was actually an internship that he was required to take as part of a Columbia U. graduate course credit. These Trumpers are both incompetent and malignant:

…Mr. Mahmoud Khalil served as an intern at the UNRWA Representative Office in New York, on a full-time basis from 7 June to 31 August 2023 and on a part-time basis from 1 September to 30 November 2023 to allow for the continuation of his studies at Columbia University….

Now you know.

[And I may take to simply posting links to documents rather than summarizing them for a few days because (completely uncharacteristically) I’ve come down with some goofy flu and fever.

I tested and it’s not Covid but it may take me a few days to bounce back… So keep it spinning in good karma while I’m gone. Out.]

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