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Posted
3 minutes ago, Willfully Horn said:

My daughter’s microbiology research at UT Health was terminated today. In her meeting, she was told about a letter in which the federal government threatened UT’s accreditation.

Are you willing to share, at least vaguely, what kind of research it was? Asking solely for when I'm arguing with one particular person IRL in mind and he says, "Maybe they should've pulled the plug, dude."

Posted
1 minute ago, Valmy77 said:

Is microbiology research offensive to Republicans now?

UT has been ordered to scrub any vestige of DEI from its curricula. I’m assuming a flagged word is associated with her research. 

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Posted (edited)
3 minutes ago, bolverk said:

Are you willing to share, at least vaguely, what kind of research it was? Asking solely for when I'm arguing with one particular person IRL in mind and he says, "Maybe they should've pulled the plug, dude."

Bacteria and viruses with unusual properties. 

Edited by Willfully Horn
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Posted
6 minutes ago, Valmy77 said:

Is microbiology research offensive to Republicans now?

No it’s related to federal money getting pulled, and NONE of these universities are willing to spend a dime of their billions of endowment to fund commitments. 

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Posted
Just now, Pato del Muerto said:

No it’s related to federal money getting pulled, and NONE of these universities are willing to spend a dime of their billions of endowment to fund commitments. 

My daughter’s research was actually being funded by UT, a decision made after the NIH funding was withdrawn.

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Posted
14 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

 

you're aware of abbott's plan for UT ??

I am aware that UT has become fully enveloped in the far right political toolkit.  Is that what you mean?

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Posted

This is what I’ve been saying:



If there is no means of obtaining redress through the courts…then what does a person have left? The only rational course of action is to ensure that the regime does not take you into custody at all, because if they do, they can disappear you, and it’s over. You’re done.
Much better to fight by any means available on the front end. That’s just simple logic, and the main negative of opting out of the rule of law: all that’s left is rule of the gun.
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Posted (edited)
12 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

This is what I’ve been saying:
 

 


If there is no means of obtaining redress through the courts…then what does a person have left? The only rational course of action is to ensure that the regime does not take you into custody at all, because if they do, they can disappear you, and it’s over. You’re done.
Much better to fight by any means available on the front end. That’s just simple logic, and the main negative of opting out of the rule of law: all that’s left is rule of the gun.

 

 

Shooting masked federal employee trying to abduct you is a MAGA wet dream. I’m sure they’ll be totally ok with it when ICE agents get it wrong again and try to kidnap a legal, albeit  brown, citizen packing heat.

Edited by Dnaguy
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Posted
21 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

This is what I’ve been saying:
 

 


If there is no means of obtaining redress through the courts…then what does a person have left? The only rational course of action is to ensure that the regime does not take you into custody at all, because if they do, they can disappear you, and it’s over. You’re done.
Much better to fight by any means available on the front end. That’s just simple logic, and the main negative of opting out of the rule of law: all that’s left is rule of the gun.

 

I reread the Milagro Beanfield War last weekend. Pissed off geriatrics with shotguns have a place in turnip’s America. Also, crosses, sprouting like mushrooms across the land, with a message to pray for the departed, lost, souls of the magats.

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Posted (edited)

A lawyer's spring break trip to the Dominican Republic with his family ended on a troubling note at Detroit Metro Airport on Sunday: He was detained by federal agents, questioned about his clients, and asked to give up his cellphone, he says.

But Dearborn attorney Amir Makled, who is representing a pro-Palestinian demonstrator who was arrested at the University of Michigan last year, stood his ground. He didn't give up his phone.

 

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/wayne/2025/04/07/lawyer-for-u-m-protester-held-at-airport-refused-to-give-feds-his-phone/82978891007/

 

 

no words 🥺🥺🥺

Edited by tx 3 putt
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Posted (edited)

The drone wars are coming soon to the Texas border.

Quote

U.S. President Donald Trump's administration is considering drone strikes on drug cartels in Mexico to combat trafficking across the southern border, NBC News reported on Tuesday.

It cited six current and former U.S. military, law enforcement and intelligence officials with knowledge of the matter.

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/trump-administration-weighs-drone-strikes-mexican-cartels-nbc-news-reports-2025-04-08/

Edited by Willfully Horn
Posted
6 hours ago, tx 3 putt said:

A lawyer's spring break trip to the Dominican Republic with his family ended on a troubling note at Detroit Metro Airport on Sunday: He was detained by federal agents, questioned about his clients, and asked to give up his cellphone, he says.

But Dearborn attorney Amir Makled, who is representing a pro-Palestinian demonstrator who was arrested at the University of Michigan last year, stood his ground. He didn't give up his phone...

I was reading a little of this in the 'Papers please...' thread in DT. While Makled was successful in keeping his phone, I noticed the feds obtained his contact list. When agents questioned him about one or two names, IIRC, Makled stated only that they were his clients and did not divulge further. However, now that the feds have a list of names and numbers from his phone, isn't it probable that those in his contacts, regardless of status, can now be surveilled and harassed if they were not already? Seems like the government could easily make things quite uncomfortable for a legal reps circle of not only clients but friends and family. When word travels, as it does, then finding representation for future deportees becomes difficult.

 

Intimidation tactics are not in the least fashy are they? /sarcasm

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Posted
1 minute ago, Firemans4Horn said:


Derp

I mean we can laugh about it but the Nazis were fucking clowns too. Hell, the Supreme Court just gave Trump the legal grounds for “if we deport you to a foreign slave labor prison before you can get a lawyer, you’re fucked”

They decide who “enemies” are and you have no realistic chance for judicial review. That’s where we are now. 
 

Given that the IRS will now share data with DHS - mass deportations to concentration camps ran by private prisons is next. 
 

Things are very very dark

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Posted
3 hours ago, Mrs Whiggins said:

I was reading a little of this in the 'Papers please...' thread in DT. While Makled was successful in keeping his phone, I noticed the feds obtained his contact list. When agents questioned him about one or two names, IIRC, Makled stated only that they were his clients and did not divulge further. However, now that the feds have a list of names and numbers from his phone, isn't it probable that those in his contacts, regardless of status, can now be surveilled and harassed if they were not already? Seems like the government could easily make things quite uncomfortable for a legal reps circle of not only clients but friends and family. When word travels, as it does, then finding representation for future deportees becomes difficult.

 

Intimidation tactics are not in the least fashy are they? /sarcasm

 

they'll soon be picked up and kicked out of the us 

Posted

Not sure how long ago this was written by James Greenberg. But it's pretty good:

Quote

The confidence game doesn’t begin with a lie. It begins with a story—one so emotionally resonant it feels like truth. It offers meaning, identifies villains, flatters the audience, and—when fully deployed—quietly opens the vault.

Donald Trump’s political rise is not just a break from convention. It’s a textbook long con. Not in the casual sense of dishonesty, but in the classic structure: the Big Lie, the emotional hook, the moving target, the victim narrative, and finally, the identity trap—where the mark can no longer afford to walk away because belief has become inseparable from self.

The script is familiar. Whether in a Ponzi scheme, a shell company, or a populist campaign, the pattern is the same. The conman begins not with evidence but with a narrative. Trump’s version is always some variation on a central myth: America has been betrayed, the system is rigged, and only he can fix it. The villains rotate—immigrants, globalists, bureaucrats, journalists—but the goal is constant: create clarity through division, and turn grievance into identity.

The genius of this narrative lies not in its truth, but in its simplicity. It sells not just an outcome, but a self-image. You’re not just supporting a candidate. You’re seeing through the lies. You’re part of the resistance. To believe is to belong. To doubt is to defect.

This is the first move of the long con: the Big Lie. Not just a falsehood, but a worldview. “The election was stolen.” “The deep state is after me because I’m fighting for you.” These aren’t claims to debate. They’re loyalty tests. And the price of failing them is exile from the story you’ve been promised.

And the mark? The mark is not foolish. The mark is angry, disillusioned, and tired of being told to trust institutions that no longer deliver. Trump didn’t invent that despair—he capitalized on it. He gave it direction. He gave it enemies. And he offered himself as both weapon and refuge.

Once belief takes hold, facts become noise. The con fuses politics with identity, and identity with moral survival. Doubting Trump means doubting yourself. And so the mark invests more, not less.

But a con doesn’t pay off. So the grifter keeps moving the goalposts. The wall? Still coming. The swamp? Still draining. The deep state? Still lurking. Every failure becomes proof of sabotage. Every delay, evidence of how powerful the enemy must be. The promise is always just out of reach—and that’s the point.

And when reality intervenes—when courts reject his claims, when fraud is exposed, when indictments land—Trump doesn’t retreat. He adapts. Exposure becomes persecution. Accountability becomes martyrdom. The scam becomes sacred.

This is the fatal turn in the long con: when truth no longer matters. When reality is no longer shared. What remains is not democracy but spectacle—a theater of grievance, rage, and blind loyalty.

We’ve seen this before.

Mussolini cast himself as a savior while dismantling Italy’s institutions. Berlusconi blurred corruption with charisma, laundering scandal through media control. Ferdinand Marcos used crisis to seize power and enrich allies. Joseph McCarthy waved blank papers and claimed they named traitors. Each man sold lies as loyalty, and each hollowed out public trust from within.

And there may be another layer to this performance: a financial con wrapped inside the political one. The chaos isn’t incidental. It may be the plan.

In times of upheaval, those closest to power often find ways to turn disruption into wealth. Trump’s erratic tariff wars, billed as economic nationalism, upended markets, collapsed sectors, and triggered retaliatory shocks. But while farmers went bankrupt and consumers paid more, the market opened space for those with foresight—or insider access—to buy low and consolidate.

Geographer David Harvey calls this accumulation by dispossession: crisis used not to correct the system, but to extract from it. Devalue public assets. Destabilize protections. Create just enough chaos to buy cheap what others are forced to abandon. It’s not just policy failure—it’s extraction dressed as populism.

The con isn’t just psychological. It’s material. It’s not just about being lied to—it’s about being looted.

And that’s what makes this moment different—and more dangerous. The scam isn’t happening outside the system. It’s running through it. Congress, the courts, and the press are not just targets. They’re props. The goal isn’t to fix government. It’s to turn it into a shell—one that can still collect taxes, enforce laws, and declare wars, but no longer serve the people who fund it.

The stakes are no longer just political. They’re existential. Can we still agree on what happened? On what’s real?

Because here’s the brutal truth about every confidence game: it doesn’t end when the lie is exposed. It ends only when the mark walks away. And that is the hardest part—because it requires admitting not just that you were lied to, but that you believed it. That what felt like belonging was, in fact, betrayal.

But if that reckoning doesn’t come—if the spell isn’t broken—the damage won’t stop at the believer’s door. This isn’t just a private illusion. This is a public unraveling. A national hollowing-out of trust, truth, and democracy itself.

And so we must hope—urgently and without illusion—that those caught in the story come to see what it is. That they see the man behind the curtain, the sleight of hand, the fantasy sold as fate.

Because if they don’t, this story won’t end with the emperor having no clothes.

It will end with all of us—every institution, every safeguard, every principle—stripped bare. Not just humiliated, but exposed. Not just misled, but fleeced.

If the con holds, we don’t just lose our shirts.

We lose the republic.

https://substack.com/@jamesbgreenberg

https://substack.com/@jamesbgreenberg?fbclid=IwY2xjawJiGVVleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHjhGn8jGaK-nxeQQepF-NZfr4nkT18SbDpwm_61RCM-B1iXyzbFXZeoHjNB2_aem_cc-fV08n-SmAweQv-JGx-w

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Posted
12 hours ago, Willfully Horn said:

When was war declared upon Venezuela? Or, are our enemies something turnip gets to unilaterally decide?

There's a shit ton of questions to be answered in the litigation.  But the one this was decided on is what is the proper court in which to bring these challenges.

The Supreme Court decided that the proper court is the one in which a petition for habeas corpus lies, which is a district court in the state and judicial district in which the petitioner is detained.

As a matter of first principles, deciding that the trial court lacked jurisdiction is just the kind of basis that a "shadow docket" decision is based on.  But that is the case only where the law is clear on which court has jurisdiction.

But, which court has jurisdiction and whether the petitioner's claims are governed by habeas corpus, only, or some other remedy, in this case the Administrative Procedure Act, is a novel question in this context, never before decided.

So they fucking decided it on an emergency motion on the shadow docket, making new law.  Also notable that they explicitly said "venue is wrong."  Venue is a relatively minor thing that does not affect a court's power to rule; a court that entirely lacks jurisdiction is powerless, one that is not a proper venue should be transferred to one that is proper, but that can happen later in time and does not invalidate the courts' rulings.

Complete.  Fucking.  Bullshit.

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Posted (edited)
9 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

There's a shit ton of questions to be answered in the litigation.  But the one this was decided on is what is the proper court in which to bring these challenges.

The Supreme Court decided that the proper court is the one in which a petition for habeas corpus lies, which is a district court in the state and judicial district in which the petitioner is detained.

As a matter of first principles, deciding that the trial court lacked jurisdiction is just the kind of basis that a "shadow docket" decision is based on.  But that is the case only where the law is clear on which court has jurisdiction.

But, which court has jurisdiction and whether the petitioner's claims are governed by habeas corpus, only, or some other remedy, in this case the Administrative Procedure Act, is a novel question in this context, never before decided.

So they fucking decided it on an emergency motion on the shadow docket, making new law.  Also notable that they explicitly said "venue is wrong."  Venue is a relatively minor thing that does not affect a court's power to rule; a court that entirely lacks jurisdiction is powerless, one that is not a proper venue should be transferred to one that is proper, but that can happen later in time and does not invalidate the courts' rulings.

Complete.  Fucking.  Bullshit.

When the legislative branch fails to rein in the Executive,

And the Judiciary fails to stop the Executive.

All that's left is the Executive.

Edited by bolverk
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Posted
Just now, bolverk said:

When the legislative branch fails to rein in the Executive,

And the judiciary fails to stop the Executive.

All that's left is the Executive.

And the executioner.

That's how this ends.  It's just a question of who is on the receiving end of the axe.  Right now, signs point to "us" as the recipients.

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Posted (edited)
12 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

This is what I’ve been saying:
 

 


If there is no means of obtaining redress through the courts…then what does a person have left? The only rational course of action is to ensure that the regime does not take you into custody at all, because if they do, they can disappear you, and it’s over. You’re done.
Much better to fight by any means available on the front end. That’s just simple logic, and the main negative of opting out of the rule of law: all that’s left is rule of the gun.

 

well isn't the republican wet dream that if you feel your life is threatened in any way, lethal force in return is justified? re: Zimmerman, Rittenhouse.

How am i supposed to know masked men in plain clothes are LEOs?

 

 

.

Edited by yoladu
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Posted (edited)

Also note that Steve Vladeck has left UT Law for Georgetown.  Care to guess why?

The erstwhile professor also notes that the major questions and non-delegation doctrines used against the "administrative state" heavily weigh against Trump's exercise of tariff power pursuant to virtually unlimited delegation of major questions to the executive.

Edited by TwiceHorn
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Posted
8 minutes ago, yoladu said:

for the life of me, I can't figure out how he got in his head that groceries is an old fashioned term.

dunno but that reminds me, i need to get to the dry goods and sundries store today. 

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Posted
4 minutes ago, mchookem said:

dunno but that reminds me, i need to get to the dry goods and sundries store today. 

Don't forget to stop off at the Five & Dime while you're in town. They got a deal on Tuesdays, offering free oats for your horsies while they wait at the hitching post.

Posted
13 hours ago, Dahobbs said:

@Ojo Rojo still think Roberts is on the up and up?

Just because a justice sides with one side or the other on an opinion does not mean they have abandoned the Constitution or are a toady for the administration.  This opinion, though on the surface is a win for Trump, actually gives rights to the detained.  It's more of an opinion about procedure than substance.

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Posted
1 hour ago, yoladu said:

for the life of me, I can't figure out how he got in his head that groceries is an old fashioned term.

While a seemingly trivial point, it really isn't.  It illustrates his senility.

Posted
55 minutes ago, bolverk said:

Don't forget to stop off at the Five & Dime while you're in town. They got a deal on Tuesdays, offering free oats for your horsies while they wait at the hitching post.

The one run by Mr. McGee down by old man Johnson’s farm? 

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Posted
8 minutes ago, Ojo Rojo said:

Just because a justice sides with one side or the other on an opinion does not mean they have abandoned the Constitution or are a toady for the administration.  This opinion, though on the surface is a win for Trump, actually gives rights to the detained.  It's more of an opinion about procedure than substance.

I think I hate you more than the actual nazis. 

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Posted
1 minute ago, NAVY said:

The one run by Mr. McGee down by old man Johnson’s farm? 

Good place to do something close to nothing I hear.

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Posted

@Firemans4Horn@Brisketexan What?  The opinion gives due process rights to the detained and says that they have to have their habeas petitions heard where they are detained.  It also didn't reach the big question, which is whether the AEA applied.  This hasn't played all the way out yet.

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Posted
5 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Oh, bullshit. It provides a "win" with zero ability to enforce or address it. It literally vacates what should have been an unappealable order that was also the only way the Court had to keep Trump from violating the law. The opinion glosses over the fact that administration was violating the known law and rights of people legally in the United States. How exactly are people supposed to enforce their habeas claim when the administration isn't providing the required notice and is instead just instantly deporting them? What mechanism does the person or the court have to fix that? Roberts simply abandons that core issue. Read the dissent. Your answer is bullshit and you should be ashamed of yourself. 

Sorry, dude.  You're wrong.

From SCOTUSblog: The court made clear that – as the government agrees – the plaintiffs, as well as others who may be detained or removed under the AEA, are entitled to be notified “that they are subject to removal under the Act.” Moreover, the court added, addressing an argument made by lawyers for the plaintiffs during oral arguments in the lower courts, the government must provide that notice “within a reasonable time and in such a manner as will allow them to actually seek habeas relief in the proper venue before such removal occurs.”

4 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

I think I hate you more than the actual nazis. 

You have issues.

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Posted
2 minutes ago, Ojo Rojo said:

@Firemans4Horn@Brisketexan What?  The opinion gives due process rights to the detained and says that they have to have their habeas petitions heard where they are detained.  It also didn't reach the big question, which is whether the AEA applied.  This hasn't played all the way out yet.

Let's say ICE black bags you in New York. Within one hour, they move you to New Jersey, then within two hours they fly you to Louisiana. Within another 12 hours, they're flying you to El Salvador. During this time, you're not told where you even are and you're not allowed to contact anyone.

How the fuck are you going to file a habeas petition in the correct jurisdiction? 

Just now, Ojo Rojo said:

Sorry, dude.  You're wrong.

From SCOTUSblog: The court made clear that – as the government agrees – the plaintiffs, as well as others who may be detained or removed under the AEA, are entitled to be notified “that they are subject to removal under the Act.” Moreover, the court added, addressing an argument made by lawyers for the plaintiffs during oral arguments in the lower courts, the government must provide that notice “within a reasonable time and in such a manner as will allow them to actually seek habeas relief in the proper venue before such removal occurs.”

You have issues.

We all have issues right now. Some of us are more honest about them than others.

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Posted
1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

There's a shit ton of questions to be answered in the litigation.  But the one this was decided on is what is the proper court in which to bring these challenges.

The Supreme Court decided that the proper court is the one in which a petition for habeas corpus lies, which is a district court in the state and judicial district in which the petitioner is detained.

As a matter of first principles, deciding that the trial court lacked jurisdiction is just the kind of basis that a "shadow docket" decision is based on.  But that is the case only where the law is clear on which court has jurisdiction.

But, which court has jurisdiction and whether the petitioner's claims are governed by habeas corpus, only, or some other remedy, in this case the Administrative Procedure Act, is a novel question in this context, never before decided.

So they fucking decided it on an emergency motion on the shadow docket, making new law.  Also notable that they explicitly said "venue is wrong."  Venue is a relatively minor thing that does not affect a court's power to rule; a court that entirely lacks jurisdiction is powerless, one that is not a proper venue should be transferred to one that is proper, but that can happen later in time and does not invalidate the courts' rulings.

Complete.  Fucking.  Bullshit.

Also note that by confining review to the habeas corpus court, where the deportee is detained, means that the Administration can select the venue/judge by where they detain the deportee.  So, expect a deportation facility to be constructed in Amarillo ASAP.  And there's always Andrew Hanen in Brownsville.

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Posted
2 minutes ago, Ojo Rojo said:

Sorry, dude.  You're wrong.

From SCOTUSblog: The court made clear that – as the government agrees – the plaintiffs, as well as others who may be detained or removed under the AEA, are entitled to be notified “that they are subject to removal under the Act.” Moreover, the court added, addressing an argument made by lawyers for the plaintiffs during oral arguments in the lower courts, the government must provide that notice “within a reasonable time and in such a manner as will allow them to actually seek habeas relief in the proper venue before such removal occurs.”

You have issues.

Aside from all of the other stuff, SCOTUS decided a novel issue of law on the emergency application docket.

That's.  Just.  Wrong.

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Posted

A fucking Reagan appointee just noted that this is a path to perfect lawlessness and supposedly-not-a-nazi Ojo is here explaining that actually it's fine.

You're either lying to us or to yourself, and I'm entirely out of patience for people doing either.

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Posted (edited)
5 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

Moreover, the court added, addressing an argument made by lawyers for the plaintiffs during oral arguments in the lower courts, the government must provide that notice “within a reasonable time and in such a manner as will allow them to actually seek habeas relief in the proper venue before such removal occurs.”

Dicta which is meaningless.  Once the government does an end-around that and does not provide notice before removal occurs (which is exactly what they have been doing, and will continue to do), you will be in a prison in El Salvador.  And now, it's too late -- no remedy is available, because you are out of US government hands.  That is the fucking play.  How do we know?  Because they are actually running it, right now, in real-time.  The court alluded to a solution that the Regime will not allow to be implemented.

You still.  Don't.  Fucking.  Get it.  (I'm referring to Ojo, not you Wildcat).

Edited by Brisketexan
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