Discover Top Posts Tagged with #illegal actions

Matt Davies

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Disrupting "business as usual"

April 1, 2025

Robert B. Hubbell

We have many positive developments to discuss, but I want to start with a weekly reminder:

Virtually all of the cuts and layoffs imposed through Doge violate the Constitution and federal law. We must not normalize them by simply saying, “Doge ordered 10,000 cuts in XYZ Agency.” Rather, we must say, “In violation of the Constitution, the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 and congressional appropriations, Doge and Trump illegally terminated / cut etc.” Or some shorter variation of that statement.

If Congress were a functioning constitutional entity, Trump would have been impeached, convicted, and removed from office by today, April 1, 2025. The only reason that Trump is able to continue his unlawful rampage is because congressional Republicans are cowards and collaborators who refuse to hold him to account for his violation of the Constitution.

This is not normal, legal, or constitutional. Don’t allow the extraordinary assault on the Constitution to become “business as usual.” It is not.

As I write on Monday evening, Senator Cory Booker is conducting a one-person filibuster, holding the Senate floor as long as he is able. The point of Senator Booker’s disruption is to remind us that we cannot act as if a rolling coup is “business as usual.”

In our own way, each of must disrupt “business as usual” in order to save the rule of law.

So much losing for Trump—and, sadly, for the American people.

In a moment, I will review Trump's legal losses, which continue to mount by the hour. But it is important to recognize that Trump's legal losses are occurring in a domestic dumpster fire of self-inflicted pain and misery because of Trump's obsession with tariffs. Sadly, every American will share in the pain inflicted by Trump's lunatic economic policies.

The stock markets have had their worst quarter in three years. The last time this happened was when the combined effects of post-pandemic inflation and oil disruptions caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine battered the markets. See WSJ, U.S. Stocks Post Worst Quarter Since 2022 on Threat of Trade War.

Indeed, Trump's erratic tariff proclamations are making the European stock markets look like a safer alternative to the US stock market. Per the WSJ article,

“For the first time in a while, you can have a conversation about: Might European equities be the best place to be for the next two or three years?” said John Porter, chief investment officer at Newton Investment Management, which has been buying European stocks in many of its strategies in recent months. “You can have that conversation for reasons other than they’re cheap.”

In a truly breathtaking development, two US allies and major trading partners—Japan and South Korea—are coordinating with China on an economic response to Trump's Tariffs. See Business Times, China, Japan, South Korea Agree on Joint Response to U.S. Tariffs, Eye New Regional Trade Pact.

Trump is literally driving our allies into the welcoming embrace of our enemies!

And lest you accuse me of focusing on issues that most Americans do not care about, they are paying attention to the economy. Consumer confidence in the economy hit a twelve-year low—as in a “twelve year low”—in March. See CNBC, (3/25/2025) Consumer confidence in where the economy is headed hits 12-year low.

Per CNBC,

[T]he measure for future expectations told an even darker story, with the index tumbling 9.6 points to 65.2, the lowest reading in 12 years and well below the 80 level that is considered a signal for a recession ahead. The index measures respondents’ outlook for income, business and job prospects.

There is no joy or satisfaction in reporting on Trump's damage to the economy. But we should take confidence from the fact that political gravity still exists and that Trump will pay a heavy price for his unlawful rampage. The anger and anxiety you feel burning in your chest is shared by tens of millions of Americans—or more. Trump is sowing the seeds of his own political demise and the destruction of the GOP as a political party.

Legal landscape

The legal community continues to push back against the Vichy-style surrender by Paul Weiss and Skadden Arps. (Say their names to shame them until they realize that the cost of complicity is greater than the price of courage.).

A group of Georgetown Law students withdrew from a Skadden Arps-sponsored event hosted in its DC office to recruit students interested in energy law. See Above the Law, Georgetown Law Student Group Calls Skadden Cowards, Opts Out Of Recruitment Event.

Ouch! It has to hurt when a group of students looking for jobs at firms like Skadden can demonstrate more courage and dedication to the rule of law than one of the most powerful law firms in the US.

Charlie Sykes has penned an essay on his Substack blog that lets us know how he really feels about Skadden Arps and Paul Weiss. Sykes writes like Molly Ivins and swears like Lyndon Johnson, so don’t read his essay on your computer screen while at work. See Charlie Sykes, To the Contrary, The Quislings and Cowards of Big Law. (Note: Charlie uses strong language that might offend some readers.)

If you can’t quite find the words to capture your contempt for Paul Weiss and Skadden Arps, let Charlie Sykes do it for you. He writes of Skadden,

Actually, no “strong-arming,” was required at all, was it? You folded like a limp dish rag. You didn’t wait for an executive order. You didn’t join with your fellow lawyers at Jenner & Block, Perkins Coie, or WilmerHale in fighting back. You didn’t stand on any principle. You embraced your ignominy with enthusiasm. You pathetic Vichy flunkies. You tell your clients that you provide fearless advocacy, but in the pinch, you scattered like bloated, terrified rats, too afraid to litigate or fight, even when it was obvious you would win.

I digress, but I confess to vicarious pleasure in allowing Charlie Sykes to say things that I would not include in my PG-13 newsletter.

Trump administration continues to suffer setbacks in court.

US District Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco blocked Trump's plan to end temporary protected status for 350,000 Venezuelans in the US. See AP News, Judge pauses Trump administration plans to end temporary legal protections for Venezuelans. (“Temporary Protected Status was set to expire April 7 after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem reversed protections granted by the Biden administration.”)

A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal refused to stay an order by US District Judge Settle that blocks implementation of the ban on transgender people in the military. That was a confusing sentence. The effect of the Ninth Circuit ruling is that transgender people can remain in the military—for now. See Reuters, Appeals court won't delay block on US military's transgender ban.

In a state law action, a federal judge blocked the implementation of an Alabama law that seeks to prosecute people who help Alabama residents obtain abortions outside of the state. See Chris Geidner in Law Dork (Substack), Breaking: Fed court rules Alabama AG's threatened abortion-fund prosecutions unconstitutional

New lawsuits challenging Trump executive order on elections

A broad coalition of Democrats has sued the Trump administration to block his executive order that purports to regulate how states run federal elections. See NYTimes, Democrats Sue to Block Elections Order They Call Unconstitutional. (Accessible to all.)

Per the NYTimes (whose headline deserves an award in the category of “Most Gutless Reporting in the Both-Sider Category of Cowardice):

The 70-page lawsuit, filed in Federal District Court in Washington, D.C., accuses the president of vastly ovCdenialism, nowhere does it (nor could it) identify any legal authority he possesses to impose such sweeping changes upon how Americans vote,” the lawsuit says. “The reason why is clear: The president possesses no such authority.”

The lawsuit was filed by the Elias Law Group on behalf of the DNC, DSCC, DCCC, Chuck Schumer, and Hakeem Jeffries (among others). See Democracy Docket, Democrats Sue to Block Trump Bid to Control Elections.

A second lawsuit was filed by League Of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and others that raises many of the same issues. The complaint was filed by Norm Eisen of the State Democracy Defenders Fund.

The LULAC Complaint is here: LULAC v. Office of the President. I recommend reading the first few paragraphs to get a flavor of the constitutional issues being challenged in the lawsuit.

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

#Robert B Hubbell #Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter #rule of law #lawlessness #see you in court #business as usual #illegal orders #illegal actions

The president says the US will "go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country".

I have worked around members of the Minnesota Somali community. Actually I worked with them for quite a few years. I found them to be hard working, respectful, and really the best sort of people. I enjoyed my interactions. I have relatives that live near Willmar, where there is a large community. They have had no problems with the community. Anyone that says otherwise is a racist that is lying.

To use the terms he did against a community such as the Somalis is despicable. I normally would not refer to anyone as ‘garbage’ but I will make an exception.

Donald Trump is GARBAGE. Racist garbage. It is way past time that the piece of garbage occupying the White House and shaming the US was removed.

BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY.

In don’t care if he’s impeached, Amendment 25ed, has a heart attack, or what. But that piece of garbage has to be removed.

As far as the ICE operation that he wants to start to remove these fine people. This needs to be opposed by the people of Minnesota. If I were still living there I would be on the front lines to disrupt their criminal actions.

BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY.

#president trump #united states #america #somali #minnesota #donald trump #republican #politics #human rights #illegal actions

Always with a new oc. I will have a million by the end.

Tagging: @unicornscotty @cowboy-anon @tears-and-lilies @sideblogformindtrash @whumpasaurus101

CW: blood tw, whumpee used as a weapon, cruel whumper, pet whump, swearing, broken whumpee, mafia? Definitely illegal actions, whumpee as a whumper, beating, degrading language

Mercury

There was a commotion outside the door to his office, there always was after an assignment. The door burst open with one of the newest henchmen, a gaggle of others trying to desperately stop him as he entered.

#tw blood #cruel whumper #violent whumpee #pet whump #broken whumpee #illegal actions #whumpee used as a weapon #swearing #beating #degrading langauge #whumpee as a whumper #mercury

Food For Fraught http://Newsday.com/matt

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

March 31, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

Apr 01, 2025

On April 1, 1861, Secretary of State William Henry Seward wrote an astonishing letter to President Abraham Lincoln. Less than a month after Lincoln had taken office, Seward had little faith in the apparently uneducated president from the raw West and was angry that the Cabinet had overruled him to provision South Carolina’s Fort Sumter rather than evacuating it. Seward was convinced that he, rather than Lincoln, should lead the administration.

Seward complained that Lincoln had not yet established “a policy either domestic or foreign” and said he had figured out the solution to the nation’s political crisis, in which seven states—South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas—had seceded from the Union in the weeks after Lincoln was elected president but before he took office. “[W]e must,” Seward wrote, “Change the question before the Public from one upon Slavery, or about Slavery for a question upon Union or Disunion.”

The way to do that, he wrote, was to rally Americans around the flag. To do so, he told Lincoln, “I would demand explanations from Spain and France, categorically, at once. I would seek explanations from Great Britain and Russia, and send agents into Canada, Mexico and Central America, to rouse a vigorous continental spirit of independence on this continent against European intervention. And if satisfactory explanations are not received from Spain and France, Would convene Congress and declare war against them.”

Modestly, Seward concluded: “Either the President must do it himself…or Devolve it upon some member of his Cabinet…. It is not in my especial province. But I neither seek to evade nor assume responsibility.”

In other words, Seward proposed taking charge of the U.S. government from the elected president, and then bringing Americans together by starting a war with Spain, France, Great Britain, or Russia—who was on the other side really didn’t matter. A crisis could be created with any of them. The point was to quell dissent at home by turning Americans against another country.

Lincoln spoke directly to Seward about his letter and then dropped the matter, leaving the secretary of state’s preposterous suggestion on the floor like the lead balloon it was. The two went on to forge a strong relationship, with Lincoln as the head of the administration and without starting a war with another country.

But Seward’s missive demonstrated a historical truism: when one country invades another, it usually reflects the problems of the invader’s domestic politics, no matter what the justification for the invasion is.

Although President Donald Trump never mentioned taking over Greenland—or Canada, or Panama, or Mexico—during the 2024 campaign, he has made such takeovers a key objective of his administration. On March 6, Trump addressed “the incredible people of Greenland” during a joint session of Congress, telling them that the U.S. needs Greenland “for national security and even international security…. And I think we’re going to get it. One way or the other, we’re going to get it.” On March 29, Trump told Kristen Welker of NBC News: “We’ll get Greenland. Yeah, 100%.” He said that there’s a “good possibility that we could do it without military force” but that “I don’t take anything off the table.”

On Friday, Vice President J.D. Vance led a delegation to Greenland, an island of about 56,000 people that is a semiautonomous territory of Denmark. As founding members of both the United Nations in 1945 and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949, Denmark and the United States are allies of long standing. Immediately after World War II, the American military maintained 17 bases and installations in Greenland, with thousands of soldiers, but now it maintains only the Pituffik Space Base on Greenland’s northwest coast with about 200 soldiers. It was there that Vance landed with his wife, as well as disgraced national security advisor Mike Waltz, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, and Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) on Friday after Greenlanders and Danes opposed a more extended itinerary.

Vance told Denmark it had “underinvested in the people of Greenland, and you have underinvested in the security architecture of this incredible, beautiful landmass filled with incredible people. That has to change.” Danish Prime Minister Mette Fredriksen dismissed Vance’s assertion, saying that Denmark is “a good and strong ally.” Danish foreign minister Løkke Rasmussen noted that a 1951 agreement between the U.S. and Denmark “offers ample opportunity for the United States to have a much stronger military presence in Greenland. If that is what you wish, then let us discuss it.”

Greenland sits between the United States, Europe, and Russia on the Arctic Circle, where melting ice is making the seas more navigable. Climate change also offers access to Greenland’s rare earth minerals that are of strategic importance for modern economies, as well as oil and gas reserves.

The Trump regime wants those resources, but perhaps even more to the point, the U.S. invading another country—any other country, but particularly an ally—demolishes a key founding principle of the post–World War II order: that countries will respect each other’s borders and sovereignty. In seizing Greenland from Denmark, the U.S. would justify Russia’s seizure of Ukrainian territory.

That the United States is even talking about this is bonkers. Leaders from Greenland and Denmark have said the island is not for sale. National security scholar Tom Nichols posted: “The President of the United States just implied he would use force against an ally in an unprovoked war of aggression and conquest—and the entire world is so used to ignoring him like a crazy grandpa in the attic that it’s not the biggest story on the planet.”

A Fox News poll conducted from March 14 to March 17 showed that only 26% of Americans like the idea of taking over Greenland.

Americans also aren’t keen about the regime sweeping up legal U.S. residents in its deportation programs. A CBS News/YouGov survey from March 27–28 showed that 71% of Americans thought it was “not acceptable” for immigration authorities to mistakenly detain legal U.S. residents as part of the regime’s larger deportation program, while only 29% thought it would be acceptable.

And yet, today Nick Miroff of The Atlantic reported that Trump administration attorneys admitted in a court filing that officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement had seized and deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia by accident. Abrego Garcia fled gang threats in El Salvador when he was 16, and came to the U.S. He has no criminal record, works full time as a union sheet metal apprentice, is married to an American citizen, and is the father of a disabled U.S. citizen. He had been granted legal protected status from return to El Salvador after a judge found he was likely to be targeted by gangs if he was sent back.

The U.S. government did not charge Abrego Garcia with a crime but deported him to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) because of an administrative error. “This was an oversight,” the government told the court. But, because he is no longer in U.S. custody, the government said it is beyond the reach of U.S. courts to get him back.

Abrego Garcia’s attorney, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, told Miroff he had never seen a case where the government ignored protective legal status and deported someone. “They claim that the court is powerless to order any relief,’’ he told Miroff. “If that’s true, the immigration laws are meaningless—all of them—because the government can deport whoever they want, wherever they want, whenever they want, and no court can do anything about it once it’s done.”

Tomorrow, voters will have a chance to weigh in on the government when elections take place in two Florida districts to fill seats vacated by the resignations of Mike Waltz, now national security advisor, and Matt Gaetz. Wisconsin, too, will hold an election, for a ten-year term on the state supreme court. That position will likely determine whether Wisconsin’s congressional maps remain gerrymandered in favor of Republicans, permitting them to pick up more seats than they have earned. Such skewing has made it possible for Republicans to retain control of the House of Representatives, and candidate Susan Crawford is likely to vote in favor of fair maps to replace the gerrymandered ones.

While it is supposed to be a nonpartisan election, President Trump has thrown his weight behind candidate Brad Schimel. Billionaire Elon Musk has thrown his checkbook, putting almost $20 million behind Schimel. On Sunday Musk traveled to Wisconsin, where he said the election could determine “the future of America and Western Civilization,” warning that a court with Crawford on it would redraw the gerrymandered districts and “add seats for Democrats.”

On Sunday, Musk gave away two checks for $1 million each to individuals who attended his rally for Schimel and signed a petition against “activist judges”. Musk got around the Wisconsin law against exchanging an item of value to get someone to vote or not to vote by claiming the checks were for “spokesperson agreements.” But the video recorded by one of the recipients linked her vote to Musk’s check, saying, “I did exactly what Elon Musk told everyone to do: sign the petition, refer friends and family, vote, and now I have a million dollars.”

The other check for a million dollars went to the chair of the Wisconsin College Republicans, who has worked for Republican campaigns.

“Let me talk for a minute or two about my opponent, Elon Musk,” Crawford told supporters on Monday. She announced her candidacy for the race before Trump was elected, and according to Scott Bauer of the Associated Press, she said she never imagined she would be fighting against “the richest man in the world.”

Wisconsin Democratic Party chair Ben Wikler said he thought “people do not want to see Elon Musk buying election after election after election. If it works here, he’s going to do it all over the country.”

Meanwhile Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) has been speaking on the floor of the Senate since 7:00 tonight because, he said, “I believe sincerely that our country is in crisis.” “These are not normal times in America. And they should not be treated as such in the United States Senate.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Food for Fraught #Matt Davies #William Henry Seward #Abraham Lincoln #American History #Greenland #distraction #Cory Booker #not normal #Musk #illegal actions #lawlessness #rule of law #illegal deportations

If I put a spell on the stack then realize I don’t have the mana to cast it (because of, say, trinisphere), where does it go?

If you ever take an illegal action and realize that it’s illegal before the action is complete, then the whole action is undone. In the case you describe, the card you’re trying to cast goes back to your hand and anything you did to try to pay for it is also undone, e.g. tapping lands for mana.

#mtg #illegal actions #basketofpuppies

10 Crimes People Would Most Love to Commit

Our newest Top 10 List can be found here: http://www.toptenz.net/10-crimes-people-love-commit.php - written by Samuel Theodros

#toptenz

#crime #criminal acts #getting away with murder #hidden fantasies #illegal actions #Crime

*Pop*

you have now reached level 18, you can now vote, drink, have children and go to prison.

#borfday #bortday #birthday #i'm going to need to make sure i'm not caught from now on #illegal actions

I had a situation come up while playing in a weekly Modern Event at my LGS. My opponent had a Leyline of Sanctity and no creatures, while I had a Grim Lavamancer and a couple other creatures in play. I made an error and activated the Lavamancer's ability targeting my opponent (forgetting about his Leyline). What is the correct way to resolve the situation, my opponent said that since there were other legal targets in play I now had to target myself or 1 of my creatures. Is this correct?

That’s incorrect.

You made an illegal play, so that illegal action will be undone. You’ll untap the Lavamancer and the source of the mana used to pay its activation cost, as well as putting the exiled cards back into your graveyard. (If you’re playing at competitive REL, you’d also get a warning for commiting a Game Rule Violation.)

#illegal actions #tournament rules #whiplash047