Category: Uncategorized

Tangerine and Rudy G. Violated The 19th Century Anti-KKK Acts, Last Month — In Inciting Riots: Federal Suit In DC, Brought By NAACP

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If any member of the current GOP feels anything other than nausea, at reading the below. . . they are lost souls. The former president, and nominal head of that party, along with his consigliere, and domestic white terror groups. . . are being sued in a 21st Century version of the 19th Century anti-Klan lawsuits. Pre-planned, well-organized, domestic racial terror we haven’t seen on this scale in over 75 years.

Make no mistake — this was terrorism — with racial animus, at its heart. That is. . . astonishing. But that is. . . today’s GOP, per the sworn complaint at law, in DC:

. . .Plaintiff, the Honorable Bennie G. Thompson, Member of the United States House of Representatives, brings this action against the Defendants for conspiring to prevent him and other Members of Congress from discharging these official duties, in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1985(1). Enacted as the “Ku Klux Klan Act” in 1871, Section 1985(1) was intended to protect against conspiracies, through violence and intimidation, that sought to prevent Members of Congress from discharging their official duties. The statute was enacted in response to violence and intimidation in which the Ku Klux Klan and other organizations were engaged during that time period. . . .

Under the Ku Klux Klan Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1985(1), Defendants may not “conspire to prevent, by force, intimidation, or threat, any person. . . holding any office, trust, or place of confidence under the United States. . . from discharging any duties thereof; or to induce by like means any officer of the United States to leave any. . . place[] where his duties as an officer are required to be performed, or. . . to molest, interrupt, hinder, or impede him in the discharge of his official duties. . . .”

Defendants Trump, Giuliani, Proud Boys, and Oath Keepers plotted, coordinated, and executed a common plan to prevent Congress from discharging its official duties in certifying the results of the presidential election. . . .

I am off now, to shovel another new 18 inches of snow, soft and powdery — and work off some of this rage. . . rage about an ugly side of. . . America. One I had once naively hoped / thought we largely left behind over a half-century ago. Or at least 30 years ago. Not so, it seems. U G L Y.

नमस्ते

Texas Absolutely Will Lose Its ACA Of 2010 Challenge At The Supremes…

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We said so in November, and December. And as we said they would, the Biden Administration last week weighed in to defend the ACA of 2010 from the ill-starred nonsense Texas has been pushing for over four years.

It has been argued in the Supreme Court, and as we said at the time, Texas got its head handed to it.

Here is the official two-page letter, articulating the Biden Administration support for the ACA.

It is likely that in just a few weeks we will see a dismissal without an opinion, or an opinion obliterating the Texas nonsense (which claimed preposterously that Congress could not zero out a tax provision). Onward, out into the snow — for some late night shovelling — grinning.

नमस्ते

It’s Been Five Long Years Since The Below… And To His Credit, Mr. Biden Once Again Tackles It: “Sensible Gun Control”

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I am reposting this, to remind all that Mr. Biden’s Valentine’s Day initiative on banning assault weapons is not new. In fact, it is timed to the anniversary of Parkland.

And, since it is old, not new — that is in fact why it is more urgent than ever. Under Team Tangerine (and insane runaway grabs by the gun lobby), we saw four years of mass shootings, and the graphic at lower left documented, in part, how often it was an AR-15 or AK-47 style assault weapon that took scorces of innocent lives. Once should be too often, but over 690 dead — and injured? What is wrong with us, as a nation? The NRA is bankrupt. We must strike now, and treat gun violence like a communicable disease — use what we’ve learned at the CDC, to address it. Do read this below Obama era 2016 piece, as well, now. Onward — to a better tomorrow — a safer, saner one. And stay out of the monstrous weather this week, one and all. . . . smile.

Original Dateline | 01.06.2016: Later this week, our 44th President will act on his own — under his inherent Article II executive branch powers — (since the Congress hasn’t the courage to do so) to impose (by rule) sensible solution-sets — on the issue of guns, and gun-violence, here in the United States.

I hope you will give him your support, in this courageous attempt to address, and remediate, what has become a disgraceful public health emergency in America. We are, by almost any measure, in terms of the relative risks of gun death, the most dangerous developed nation on Earth. This is no less a real public health emergency than the Ebola virus was in Africa, last year. And so, I concur that we need to spend significant additional time and additional resources addressing it, as a CDC-style public health crisis. Unfortunately, there are far too many guns already out there (both lawfully, and many more, not so) to effectively completely curtail them here in the United States, but we can certainly get much more creative — about sensible regulation on ammunition.

That is where I’d lay my groundwork, for rulemaking — I’d make it much more daunting to get one’s hands on more than a small amount of ammo. Seriously, what sensible explanation can there be for a large stockpile of high-powered ammunition, in one’s home? In addition, I’d make the ammo very expensive.

Not a panacea, by any means (as there will always be a small minority that will manufacture their own ammo), but a good first step. I hope you’ll join me in supporting sensible limits on guns and ammo availability.

No right is absolute — and we must now admit that the N.R.A. backed lunacy on gun rights has gone off-track. When that lobby opposed reforms after Sandy Hook, and again after San Bernadino, I think they lost the support, and good will, of most sensible people. Here’s a bit from this morning’s New York Times:

. . . .The newfound momentum reflects a strategy to steer clear of a Republican-led Congress that has proved unwilling to touch existing federal gun laws after years of intense lobbying on both sides of the debate.

With tens of millions of dollars to spend thanks to backers like Michael R. Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York, gun control groups have secured a number of surprising recent successes in Connecticut, Delaware and elsewhere. And they are now looking to state and local officials to win approval for tougher background checks and other measures from Nevada to Maine. . . .

Pleas join Mr. Obama — and declare that we — as a single nation, united — will tackle our gun- and gun-violence problems, as public health emergencies here in 2016. Thank you — for listening.

[UPDATED 01.05.2016: More New York Times graphical background — on gun ownership trends — here.]

नमस्ते

Ebola Now Resurgent In Guinea As Well As DRC… Twelfth Outbreak Fully Underway.

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I wish we had better news to close out Valentine’s 2021… but this is reality: Ebola is back in mountainous central Africa.

Here is the latest, via The Hill, this evening:

…In a statement Sunday, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Guinea’s national laboratory had confirmed three cases in the community of Goueke, near the city of N’Zerekore in the country’s interior forest region. The first case occurred in a nurse who died on Jan. 28.

Two people who attended the nurse’s funeral have died, and four more have reported Ebola-like symptoms and are hospitalized….

Now, all you future MDs… do stay hunkered down, in the Middle South, as a foot may well have fallen by this time tomorrow night. Stay safe and warm one and all, with all that precious, future science-bearing cargo…. smile.

नमस्ते

So Many, Many Things… COULD Go Sideways. It Is True — But We Choose To Believe It Will All Go Flawlessly — Come Thursday…

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And we know that NASA’s done it three times before, with perfect success — Spirit, Opportunity and Insight — using the same tech. Sticking a soft landing, and rolling a buggy away from the soft landing, at least.

The helicopter is new — but it will work.

And I do understand — there are still many urgent problems we must address here on Earth — but this gives STEM kids great hope. So on we go, to Thursday… and in Español this time — at this link:

…El programa se emitirá a las 2:30 p.m. EST en la página web de la agencia y en sus cuentas de redes sociales en español: Twitter, Facebook y YouTube. “Juntos perseveramos” se empezará a emitir antes del aterrizaje de Perseverance en el Planeta Rojo, el cual tendrá lugar aproximadamente a las 3:55 p.m.

“Estoy muy orgullosa de los esfuerzos de la NASA para compartir mejor la emoción del aterrizaje del rover Perseverance con los casi 500 millones de hispanohablantes en el mundo. “Juntos perseveramos” es el primer programa en español de la NASA para un histórico aterrizaje en otro planeta y mostrará la diversidad del equipo de la NASA tras Mars 2020 “, dijo Bhayva Lal, jefa interina de personal de la NASA. “El nombre del programa reconoce que la perseverancia y la diversidad son fundamentales para que la NASA lleve a cabo con éxito misiones ambiciosas como el aterrizaje Perseverance de la próxima semana”.

“Juntos perseveramos” será presentado por la ingeniera de Perseverance Diana Trujillo. Una sección pregrabada incluirá entrevistas con científicos, ingenieros y astronautas hispanos de la NASA. También habrá un segmento infantil en colaboración con Sésamo. Estudiantes y prominentes figuras hispanas del mundo del entretenimiento, el periodismo y la política también enviarán mensajes de apoyo. Trujillo ofrecerá traducción en vivo de inglés a español y comentarios durante la fase de entrada, descenso y aterrizaje de Perseverance en Marte….

And back here on Jasoom, the shoveling is done, once again — and I have Chilean cherries (a bowl full!), ripe bananas and fresh baked sweet-rolls, hot coffee and OJ — and… the end of “Ghost” is coming on. All is well with my small world, on Valentine’s 2021. Smile… I trust it is in yours, as well. [You looked… amazing, at B-ball, and in the kitchen — smiling in a sweater from the side view!]

नमस्ते

Texas Simply Looks Weak — And Foolish, Now… As Does USDC Judge [Team Tangerine] Tipton

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On a nearly silent, snow padded Saturday morning in near white out conditions, here. . . we sip hot coffee, eat a banana and drink icy OJ. . . while the state-wide elected GOP loons down in Texas. . . twist, in the wind — of over three decades of well-settled federal law. Grin.

Below is. . . ever more wood — for the now roaring fire — to burn up the lawless attempt by Texas to declare itself a “super-state” (or a mini-nation, if you prefer). Add this to the fine brief filed last night. Texas simply has no answer for any of this, and if Judge Tipton holds otherwise by or on the 23rd, he is at best incompetent, and at worst. . . dishonest.

The Biden Administration also filed an excellent 55 page brief overnight.
but the below is from RAICES, then — a bit:

. . .The statutory provision on which Texas relies was enacted in 1996. Three years later, Reno v. American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, 525 U.S. 471, 484 (1999) (“AADC”), directly addressed the role of discretion in immigration enforcement and its relationship to the 1996 statute which contained that new provision. As Justice Scalia explained for the Court, “execut[ing] removal orders” is “prosecution of [a] stage[] in the deportation process,” and “[a]t each stage the Executive has discretion to abandon the endeavor.” Id. at 483 (first alteration in original). Thus, the Court made clear, executive branch authorities “may. . . decline to execute a final order of deportation.” Id. at 484. The Court further noted that the 1996 amendments were enacted against the backdrop of the executive branch’s prior “regular practice . . . of exercising that discretion for humanitarian reasons or simply for its own convenience.” Id. at 483–84. Far from doing away with the discretion to stay removals, Congress enacted other provisions in the 1996 law that sought “to give some measure of protection to” such “discretionary determinations,” including—specifically—determinations regarding deferred action (an executive branch decision to decline to enforce certain removal orders). Id. at 485.

In other words, the Supreme Court has already recognized that under the very statute on which Texas relies, the executive branch retains its longstanding discretion to stay removal. See also Nken v. Holder, 556 U.S. 418, 439–40 (2009) (Alito, J., dissenting) (“Once an order of removal has become final, it may be executed at any time” — but “the Executive Branch” may still “stay its own hand.”). The Fifth Circuit has likewise affirmed this principle. Texas v. United States, 809 F.3d 134, 167–68 & n.105 (5th Cir. 2015) (quoting AADC); see also Naidoo v. INS, 39 F. Supp. 2d 755, 761 (W.D. La. 1999) (“Requests for stays . . . are committed to the discretion of the” executive branch).

Texas does not grapple with AADC and its progeny. Instead, it focuses on a single word in § 1231(a)(1)(A) — “shall” — contending that Congress thus eliminated the executive branch’s longstanding discretion to stay removal for those in the removal period. But it is a “fundamental principle of statutory construction (and, indeed, of language itself) that the meaning of a word cannot be determined in isolation, but must be drawn from the context in which it is used. . . .”

All soon to be sorted out — against the lawless characters who still sit — in state-wide elected offices in the State of Texas. Time to go run the shovel for a bit of a workout. . . smiling; ever smiling.

नमस्ते

New York, California, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington All Tell Texas To “Take A Seat, Son.”

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The above states, all cogently versed in the actually-applicable federal law, have signed on to a 21 page amicus brief tonight, tell Texas… that it is… clueless.

The Amici also make plain that Judge Tipton’s TRO is wrongful. That will be rectified in a few weeks, but this is the sort of brief I was referring to, two nights ago, in opposition to the xenophobic mess other amici filed that night. Do read this one, instead:

…Texas seeks sweeping nationwide relief that would harm millions of residents in Amici States who are immigrants themselves or who count immigrants among their family members, neighbors, and colleagues. And Texas’s reliance on the eleventh-hour agreement that it signed with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) not only violates fundamental principles of federal law, but disrespects the sovereignty of its fellow States, who neither signed nor consented to the terms of this agreement. This Court should reject Texas’s arguments and decline to issue a preliminary injunction here….

It has long been recognized that the Executive Branch has the discretion to “decline to execute a final order of deportation.” Reno v. Am.-Arab Anti-Discrimination Comm., 525 U.S. 471, 484, (1999) — a step further, even, than the mere temporary pause on removals ordered here. Such discretion is expressly recognized by federal law, such as 8 C.F.R. § 1241.6(a), which provides DHS with discretion to stay removal “for such time and under such conditions as [the agency] may deem appropriate.” See also 8 U.S.C. § 1231(a)(3) (recognizing circumstances in which the executive branch does not remove an individual within 90-days of the order of removal); 8 C.F.R. § 1241.6(a).

This “[d]iscretion in the enforcement of immigration law embraces immediate human concerns”—namely, the severe harms and disruptions that removals cause to immigrants, their families, and their communities. Arizona, 567 U.S. at 396. The long history of Executive Branch decisions to desist from removals is also sensible given that such enforcement inevitably harms foreign nationals, whose treatment within this country is “[o]ne of the most important and delicate of all international relationships,” Hines v. Davidowitz, 312 U.S. 52, 64 (1941)….

Have a non-blizzard-obscured, non ice-stormed, non-WAY-sub-zero weekend, now — one and all of good will… grinning.

नमस्ते

Portland Press Freedoms Case Now… Ending. Again, Ending An Appeal From Tangerine’s Complete Loss.

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The freedom to collect the news, by and for a free press, will now prevail.

The time of the Tangerine dictator has come to an end. So too this appeal, in a piece of federal litigation where Team Tangerine, via Chad Wolf, sought to repress a free press — doing its job in Portland.

…This appeal involves a preliminary injunction that requires federal law enforcement officers in Portland to exempt journalists and legal observers from obeying otherwise lawful orders to disperse. This Court has scheduled the case for oral argument on March 3, 2021.

Due to the recent change in administration, there is new leadership at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Marshals Service.

To allow new agency officials sufficient time to become familiar with the issues in this case and determine how they wish to proceed, the government respectfully moves to remove this case from the argument calendar and to place this appeal in abeyance, with status reports due at 60-day intervals. Plaintiffs have authorized us to state that they consent to this motion….

Now you know — so he ends… not with a bang, but with a whimper.

नमस्ते

A Second Person In DRC Has Now Died Of Ebola; Up To 72 Were In Close Contact With The First Ebola Fatality… Discouraging.

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Look, to a certain extent this was always just a question of… “when“, not “whether“.

It’s what we’ve taken to calling “the fire next time” — after the Rev. Dr. King Jr.’s immortal turn of phrase (and. . . it is as one would expect, biblical1, at that). Viral epidemics just work that way, as a matter of human biology.

Even so, the best course is to ring vaccinate every contact of a contact, as rapidly as they can each be identified — to arrest the new spread.

From NPR’s reporting, then — the latest. But this is likely to get worse in the Democratic Republic of Congo, before it gets better:

…A second person who had contracted the Ebola virus died this week in the Democratic Republic of Congo, marking another outbreak just three months after the nation outlasted the virus’s second-worst outbreak in history.

The latest victim was from the North Kivu province, the World Health Organization and the DRC’s health ministry said in a statement Thursday.

This death comes one week after a 42-year-old woman died from Ebola. The wife of an Ebola survivor, she entered an intensive care unit Feb. 4 and died the same day. She was buried on Feb. 5, but not under proper burial practices to prevent the spread of Ebola; during prior outbreaks, the handling of bodies was kept to a minimum and done by trained teams….

Do keep a good thought for North Kivu, in the DRC… and we should expect that to the extent US folks refuse the COVID-19 vaccine when their turn comes up, we will see pockets of outbreaks like this in the communities where they and their families reside. Unfortunate in the extreme, for people who cannot do science — but the best offense here is a strong defense. Get the vaccine. That protects you from anyone who doesn’t get the vaccine, and turns up positive. Onward.

नमस्ते

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1. The Old Testament has it set down, in the book of the Prophet Malachi 4:1-3 (in the Hebrew version of that book, 3:15-17); and the New, at First Corinthians 3:12-15. Now you know.

Regular Readers Will Recall That Baby-T Lost Completely To TikTok And WeChat…

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In a minor, and wholly-expected interim outcome, overnight — the Biden Administration advised the DC Circuit Court of Appeals (which court has already heard oral argument) in an appeal of a Tangerine loss (on free expression grounds) — that it would respectfully ask the able appellate panel to hold off on any published decision (even though the same was almost certain to go against Baby-T) — as Mr. Biden is likely to find a less “speech restrictive” way to achieve the same security ends (if he deems it needed, at all), without the Draconian nonsense the prior goons tried to implement, by a lawless executive order.

This also means that ByteDance need not divest TikTokUS right away, to be clear. It is nearly a certainty that Mr. Biden will realize that the First Amendment can be protected, while keeping our nation safe. In truth, we all know Tangerine was just butt-sore that the kids of TokTok made a fool of him in Tulsa. But now all that is likely at an end. Perfect. From the overnight filing then:

…This appeal involves a series of prohibitions issued by the Secretary of Commerce that regulate various transactions with TikTok Inc. and its parent company ByteDance Ltd….

As the Biden Administration has taken office, the Department of Commerce has begun a review of certain recently issued agency actions, including the Secretary’s prohibitions regarding the TikTok mobile application at issue in this appeal. In relation to those prohibitions, the Department plans to conduct an evaluation of the underlying record justifying those prohibitions. The government will then be better positioned to determine whether the national security threat described in the President’s August 6, 2020 Executive Order, and the regulatory purpose of protecting the security of Americans and their data, continue to warrant the identified prohibitions….

In sum — sanity is making a comeback. Onward, smiling wryly… do cherish your freedom to express yourself, and to associate with whom you choose… for that is the American way.

नमस्ते