AI disaster

 

Even worse...

Trump/Musk attack on the legal system

 

Bingo.

Chuck Schumer would like to think he can regain relevance.

And he won't get it with statements about waiting for the Republicans to wake up and dump Trump, or ones like this:

Rule of law

 

The law is now simply a tool for Trump's use.  

Pardons of violent J6 criminals.  Now Padilla charges dropped.  It seems as though Trump is arranging his private army.

Just heard an interview today that mentioned Hitler's pardoning of the criminals that would eventually become his storm troopers.  

Surprising Montana climate ruling

Above (and around) the law

Many of the lawyers who are not implicated in the indictment—including those in Trump’s own White House and Justice Department—are dyed-in-the-wool conservatives who believe wholeheartedly in the movement’s goals and objectives, yet balked at the proposition of a straight-up coup. Former Attorney General Bill Barr, Vice President Mike Pence, and former White House counsel Don McGahn fall into that category. The lawyers who star prominently in the indictment fall into another camp: those willing to break democracy for Trump and Trumpism. Those are the unnamed but publicly identified co-conspirators: John Eastman, Clark, Sidney Powell, Kenneth Chesebro, Boris Epshteyn (reportedly), and Rudy Giuliani. It’s also the crew of lawyers who signed their names to the flurry of bogus complaints attempting to overturn the election by nullifying millions of votes and legitimizing fake electors—people like Harry MacDougald, Emily P. Newman, Julia Z. Haller, Lin Wood, and Howard Kleinhendler.

Pay attention, because that will be the cohort that determines the future of American democracy. We need to name that camp and understand it, because the right flank of the legal profession has adamantly refused to police itself, and the legal profession as a whole has hardly raced to hold its most destructive and dangerous members to account. Leading players in the Jan. 6 indictment, including Eastman and Clark, were once luminaries of the Federalist Society, a network of conservative lawyers who hoist one another into positions of power. Yet the Federalist Society has consistently refused to denounce their complicity, or revoke their membership, or even condemn the coup itself. Instead, the conservative legal movement has welcomed these men—who have expressed no remorse for their actions—back into the fold. Lawyers on the right appear uninterested in exploring how colleagues who were once deemed most likely to succeed have overnight become most likely to be indicted.

[...]

Anyone who was shocked by the details of Smith’s latest indictment might also be surprised to learn just how much worse it could have been—because rogue lawyers, including movement judges, just barely lost a series of pivotal battles. The Wisconsin Supreme Court, for example, came one vote away from nullifying thousands of ballots, thus overturning Joe Biden’s victory in the state and setting the stage for the Legislature to assign fake electors to Trump. It failed only because a single member of the conservative majority, Justice Brian Hagedorn, refused to go along with his hard-right Trumpist colleagues. We are lucky that Hagedorn was principled enough to reject this plot under immense pressure and criticism from his own party. But the fate of free and fair elections should not rely on sheer luck. (Wisconsin voters this spring elevated the liberal Justice Janet Protasiewicz to their state Supreme Court, sending a signal that they generally prefer jurists who do not facilitate coups; Protasiewicz was sworn in on Tuesday, shortly before the indictment was unsealed.)

[...]

[C]onsider moves taking place right now, from efforts to unseat democratically elected officials in Tennessee, to ending majority rule for ballot initiatives in Ohio, to Alabama’s refusal to enact racially representative maps as required by the Supreme Court. The line between antidemocratic lawyers and movement lawyers as demarcated in the Trump indictment grows blurrier by the day as lawyers who claim to be Republicans work to undermine the popular vote.

  Slate

There might be a future in it

In which case, would an AI attorney be cheaper to hire than a real person?  Could they reduce the back-up in court-provided public defenders?  

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

MAGA

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

"Uterus Inquisition Squad"

Access to medicine shouldn’t be controversial, and it wouldn’t be but for the Christian fundamentalist forces who’ve been emboldened by the right-wing takeover of the Judicial Branch and the Supreme Court’s revocation of reproductive rights. Now, at the very moment mifepristone has become one of the few means of securing widespread abortion access, these people have targeted it for destruction. Back in November, the inaccurately named Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) brought a lawsuit against the FDA challenging its initial approval of mifepristone. The ADF claims that the FDA did not follow its own procedures when it approved the drug.

The lawsuit is so ridiculous that it hardly warrants discussion on the merits. First of all, the statute of limitations allows challenges to FDA procedures for only six years and mifepristone has been approved for over 20. Moreover, Congress passed an amendment to the Food and Drug Act in 2007 that revised the FDA’s procedures and deemed any drug previously approved by the agency to be in compliance with the new rules. There are also jurisdictional problems with the lawsuit. But even if you overlook all these technical legal hurdles, the ADF’s core argument—that the FDA failed to consider the dangers of mifepristone—is wrong. Mifepristone is safe, and no amount of Gregorian chanting from the self-appointed Uterus Inquisition Squad can prove it otherwise.

Unfortunately, we have to treat this incoherent nonsense masquerading as a lawsuit as a serious threat to abortion drugs because of the judge who recently got hold of the case: Matthew Kacsmaryk. Kacsmaryk is a Trump-appointed district court judge in Texas.

[...]

He was an anti-gay crusader for a Christian right law firm before Trump raised him up to be a judge. He claims that homosexuality is a “disorder.” He’s attacked the right to contraception and denounced the “sexual revolution” of the 1960s and ’70s.

[...]

[This case has] not ended up in front of Kacsmaryk by accident or bad luck. Right-wingers have actively sought out Kacsmaryk for their most dubious legal claims by means of the 21st-century version of “forum shopping.”

[...]

In the past, one of the more popular forms of forum-shopping saw lawyers trying to game out whether a state court or federal one would lead to a better outcome. They could do this because many state and federal laws overlap, and many corporations (and the federal government) can be sued in any state they do business in.

[...]

The Supreme Court tried to put a stop to this kind of forum shopping in 1938, in a case called Erie Railroad v. Tompkins. The so-called Erie Doctrine required that in cases where there is a question of whether to apply federal or state law, a federal judge must apply the law as it would be understood in the states where the judge resides.

[...]

You’ll never see a challenge to federal gun regulations filed in California, or a lawsuit against the fossil-fuel industry filed in Texas. Lawyers will always seek to take advantage of the laws most favorable to their clients or positions, wherever those laws happen to exist.

[...]

[L]awyers Steven Vladek and Max Wolson point out that Texas regularly removes cases to federal court to get specific judges, and it works.

[...]

But that’s not what right-wingers are doing now. Instead, they are “judge shopping”—trying to take advantage of the fact that the judges themselves apply the laws differently based on which party appointed them and whether they have even a basic grasp of logic or fairness.

[...]

In the North District of Texas, judges are assigned based on their “divisions,” which break the region down to places like Dallas, Lubbock, and Amarillo. Kacsmaryk is the district judge for Amarillo and, by rule, is assigned every single federal case filed there. If you bring a federal case in Amarillo, you are guaranteed to get Judge Kacsmaryk. As Ian Milihiser put it on Vox, this rule makes Judge Kacsmaryk “one of the most consequential public officials in modern-day America.”

[...]

Meanwhile, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton regularly files suit in the Southern District of Texas, Victoria Division, where the case is guaranteed to end up in front of Judge Drew Tipton, another Trump appointee who is a virulent anti-immigration crusader. Paxton did it again this week to challenge another Biden immigration policy.

[...]

There are no laws, rules, or doctrines to stop this kind of behavior. Arguably, both conservative and liberal lawyers can (and do) engage in judge shopping at some level. What’s supposed to make the process fruitless are the circuit courts of appeal and, ultimately, the Supreme Court.

  The Nation

So much for any liberal lawyer's hopes of judge or forum shopping advantage.

[C]ertain courts of appeal, like that of the Fifth Circuit that presides over Texas, have been captured by right-wing extremists just like the rest of the Republican Party. More problematically, we’ve seen the Supreme Court act quickly to overrule liberal district court judges on emergency appeal but leave in place rulings from conservatives for at least as long as it takes for their cases to make it all the way up to the highest court through normal order. That’s a process that can take years, and sometimes span presidential administrations.

[...]

When you file a lawsuit, the judge should be picked from a pool of all federal judges in a state, and if we’re talking about a federal law, any judge in the country should be in the hopper.

[...]

The circuits exist so that travel wouldn’t be too taxing for the judges, who lived in some central region of the district. But judges no longer need to take two horses and a palanquin hoisted by slaves to get from New Orleans to Amarillo. A Delta flight and an Uber can get anybody anywhere in this country in under 12 hours.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 04/13/2023:  The Texas judge ruled as expected.  Scrambling ensued.

Still ridiculous.

Well, good

Backstory is here in case you've forgotten who this little shithead is.

In West Virginia

Texas governor in a race to the bottom

The competition is stiff, but he's keeping up.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

She will be truly insufferable now

Article

Greene has been horrible all along, but the campaign will be full of righteous indignation and victorious blather.  "They tried to stop her.  They failed!"  It would probably have been better if this case hadn't been filed.  She'll probably win for sure now.  Democrats often shoot themselves in the foot.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Line 'em up

Not sure they'll have the votes. I'm guessing they won't.  But it will certainly put Senators on the record.  It will be interesting to see how those who have said they favor keeping Roe twist up a defense of voting no.

UPDATE:

Jesus wept

"For a term of not more than life."  Well, that's a relief.  

Evil, evil people.

https://twitter.com/ErinInTheMorn/status/1500984912752648200

Make America Russia in the 40s

This is some scary shit, people.  

Whoomp, there it is

Were the Supreme Court justices who let Texas' abortion law stand really blind to this eventuality?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

DOJ lawsuit against Texas

US Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Department of Justice have filed a complaint against the state of Texas in an attempt to stop enforcement of the state’s anti-abortion law, which empowers bounty hunters to deprive women and pregnant people of their constitutional rights.

In terms of legal authority, this was the most the DOJ could do. The Justice Department is not empowered to, say, give Texas back to Mexico or force Gregg Abbott to push a bowling ball out of his urethra against his will. It cannot stop the law; all it can do is ask courts to stop the law and support the Constitution.

[...]

After the district court, the case will be appealed to the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, a court controlled by some of the most radical conservatives in the entire country. And after that, the case will be appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States, where conservative justices have been handpicked for their theocratic views and hostility to women.

[...]

Senate Bill 8 is premised on a brazen attempt by Texas to avoid judicial review. By empowering private citizens, as opposed to government officials, to enforce its restrictions, Texas claims that it, the state, cannot be held in violation of the Constitution. This is the argument that the Supreme Court accepted last week with its 5-4, one-paragraph decision to allow the Texas law to go forward—a decision the court released in the dead of night, without any of the conservatives having the guts to sign their name to their evil.

[...]

Under relevant precedents, the state can be sued for constitutional violations when it empowers private citizens with the powers of law enforcement. If conservatives on the Supreme Court were intellectually honest, Garland has solved their legal problem by pointing to their own precedents regarding state enforcement under the guise of private action.

Of course, the conservatives on the Supreme Court are not intellectually honest.

[...]

Luckily, the DOJ seems to have anticipated this and so gives the Supreme Court something else to think about. The complaint invokes the principle of “intergovernmental immunity,” which is the concept that individual states cannot prevent the federal government from enforcing federal laws.

[...]

Garland argues that there are many federal officials operating throughout Texas who could also be accused of aiding or abetting abortion services, merely by carrying out their official duties as required by law. The DOJ complaint mentions the Department of Labor, the Office of Refugee Resettlement, the Bureau of Prisons, the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Office of Personnel Management, and the Department of Defense as federal agencies, operating inside Texas, who have a legal duty to facilitate or provide information about abortion services.

[...]

Under the brazen and unconstitutional Texas law, a corrections officer who allows a pregnant inmate to receive constitutionally protected medical care could be sued by a private bounty hunter for $10,000. This is a violation of the intergovernmental immunity principle. It also gives the Department of Justice standing to sue now and not later, because right now the Texas law is causing harm to identifiable government interests.

[...]

If the Supreme Court rejects these arguments, maybe that will be the day Democrats finally wise up to what a permanent conservative majority on the court really means and get serious about expanding the court. The Justice Department is doing the right and normal thing by bringing this complaint. If they lose, maybe people will be willing to do some abnormal things to protect the constitutional rights of women.

[...]

The conservatives on the Supreme Court might love controlling women and forcing them to give birth against their will. But do they really want to vitiate the principle of intergovernmental immunity? Because, if they do, I’d like to share some laws New York state could pass regarding the work of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, Border Patrol, and the Department of Homeland Security. I would very much like to become wealthy by being a private bounty hunter who can sue ICE agents for $10,000 every time they “aid or abet” a deportation order. Let’s make that happen, Governor Hochul.

[...]

The president said he was ordering a “whole of government” response to Texas, and specifically called out the Department of Justice and the Department of Health & Human Services. DOJ has shot its shot; let’s see what HHS has in store. Let’s see if there is executive action forthcoming. Heck, I’d like to see the Department of Transportation providing free plane flights back to America for people in Texas seeking constitutionally protected medical care after six weeks of pregnancy.

  Elie Mystal @ The Nation

UPDATE:

Jesus wept

Well, he doesn't say "future rapists."  Just that he's going to get all rapists off the streets.  And I'm pretty sure he can't know who the rapists are before they actually rape.  So, in essence, that's future rapists.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

A word to the wise

On Wednesday, the Department of Justice released two documents warning states that they have to follow federal law before, during and after elections. Without naming names, the first set of guidelines generally called out states that have moved to change their election laws to restrict voters’ access to the polls after the 2020 election. The second is focused on the “audit” still taking place in Arizona, along with potential copycats.

[...]

Nowhere in the first document does it explicitly say the department will be targeting state legislators, election officials or anyone else using Trump’s rhetoric to make voting harder. Instead, it just casually points out that several federal laws could be violated in the process of doing so, even if that just involves rolling procedures back to their pre-pandemic standards:

Since the 2020 election, some States have responded by permanently adopting their COVID-19 modifications; by contrast, other States have barred continued use of those practices or have imposed additional restrictions on voting by mail or early voting. In view of these developments, guidance concerning federal statutes affecting methods of voting is appropriate.

The Department’s enforcement policy does not consider a jurisdiction’s re-adoption of prior voting laws or procedures to be presumptively lawful; instead, the Department will review a jurisdiction’s changes in voting laws or procedures for compliance with all federal laws regarding elections, as the facts and circumstances warrant.

[...]

The department has already made clear it is willing to go to court to enforce those laws. Last month, the Justice Department sued Georgia under the Voting Rights Act, alleging that the state’s recently passed election law unfairly targeted minority voters. The guidelines issued Wednesday are a shot across the bow of any states that would like to follow Georgia’s lead.

Even more interesting — and ominous — is the document focused on “Federal Law Constraints on Post-Election ‘Audits.’” (Scare quotes theirs!) In it, the Justice Department reminds readers the 2020 election was “the most secure in American history” and that none of the recounts required under state law “produced evidence of either wrongdoing or mistakes that casts any doubt on the outcome of the national election results.”

[...]

The Justice Department had already warned the Arizona Senate, which approved this farce, that the probe might risk violating federal law. Wednesday’s guidelines are more explicit about what laws might have been broken — and the consequences for breaking them.

[...]

First, it warned that handing over election records to “private actors who have neither experience nor expertise in handling such records and who are unfamiliar with the obligations imposed by federal law” — i.e., Cyber Ninjas, the firm running the show in Arizona — would likely be a violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1960.

[...]

Second, the guidelines stress that intimidation of voters — which a door-knocking scheme could qualify as — is, in fact, super illegal and that intimidation doesn’t have to involve physical threats.

[...]

“Jurisdictions that authorize or conduct audits must ensure that the way those reviews are conducted has neither the purpose nor the effect of dissuading qualified citizens from participating in the electoral process,” the Justice Department wrote. “If they do not, the Department will act to ensure that all eligible citizens feel safe in exercising their right to register and cast a ballot in future elections.”

[...]

Taken together, the two documents can be considered part of Attorney General Merrick Garland’s “f--- around and find out” doctrine on voting rights. (Not that he’d ever call it that.)

  MSNBC

Bill Barr would have.

Garland announced in June that his department will make countering new election restrictions a major priority for the Civil Rights Division. Already this year, 18 states have enacted 30 laws that make voting more difficult, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Hundreds more bills have been proposed in states across the country. The new guidelines are a sharp promise that any future shenanigans will be met with a swift challenge.

Are these guidance documents enough on their own to stop Republicans' three-step plan to thwart democracy? No: That will require Congress passing new laws to bolster the Justice Department's currently flagging arsenal. But it’s heartening to see that Garland intends to do what he can in the meantime.

And if Congress doesn't get the job done, what Garland can do won't be enough.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Unequal application of the law

[An anti-Cuban government]  rally caused an hours-long closure on part of the Palmetto Expressway in Miami-Dade County. It was the sort of scene envisioned by a divisive Florida law that Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) pushed amid last year’s wave of racial justice demonstrations. The legislation calls for protesters to be cited if they block traffic.

But no citations were given Tuesday, according to state and local law enforcement. Critics took issue with the lack of citations, saying the law is unclear or unevenly applied. DeSantis, who invoked the possibility of protesters shutting down a highway as he signed the bill into law, has been vocal in his support of rallies against the Cuban government. Asked about the Palmetto Expressway protests during a Tuesday roundtable with reporters, he said the recent demonstrations were “fundamentally different” than last summer’s protests that had inspired the law.

[...]

Critics of the law questioned DeSantis’s political aims when arguing that it didn’t apply to the people protesting the Cuban government. Exiles from the island are an integral voting bloc for the Republican Party in South Florida.

[...]

At the signing ceremony, the governor called the measure “the strongest anti-rioting, pro-law-enforcement piece of legislation in the country.”

“Just think about it, you’re driving home from work, and all of a sudden, you have people out there shutting down a highway, and we worked hard to make sure that didn’t happen in Florida,” said DeSantis, who described the 2020 protests as “really unprecedented disorder and rioting.” “They start to do that, [then] there needs to be swift penalties.”

[...]

The anti-rioting law, signed after protests that followed the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, says a person is committing a riot if “he or she willfully participates in a violent public disturbance involving an assembly of three or more people.” The measure also increases the penalties for any violence, burglary, looting or property damage during protests. Under the law, anyone arrested on unlawful-assembly charges must be held without bail until a first appearance in court.

A person shall be cited for a pedestrian violation if they “willfully obstruct the free, convenient, and normal use of a public street, highway or road.”

[...]

The law was put to use this week in Tampa, when two men were arrested during protests against the Cuban government.

Julian Rodriguez-Rodriguez, 30, and Maikel Vasquez-Pico, 39, were among the protesters who blocked traffic at Dale Mabry Highway and Interstate 275 on Tuesday, the Tampa Bay Times reported. Records show the men, who were arrested on multiple charges, were being held in jail until their first appearance in court because of the “anti-rioting” law.

[...]

Bob White, the chairman of the Republican Liberty Caucus of Florida, who opposed the bill because it could be used against conservative protesters, said the law signed by DeSantis “makes no distinction between the type of protest or the ideology behind the protest.”

If police or prosecutors wish to use the law to target these demonstrators, it is outside the hands of DeSantis and Republican lawmakers, he said.

  WaPo

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.