The Trump administration used three federal agencies attempting to save face over an accidental deportation.
‘Keep Him Where He Is’: How Trump Officials Debated Handling of the Abrego Garcia Case.
www.nytimes.com/2025/05/21/u…— Greg Todd (@1gregtodd.bsky.social) May 21, 2025 at 6:43 PM
The Washington Post explained how Trump’s inner circle conspired to kidnap an individual and hustle him (among others) beyond reach, they hoped, of the law. The NYTimes prefers to document the hapless bureaucrats scrambling to clean up the debris left by some mysterious twist… [gift link]
A mistake had been made. That much was clear.
The Trump administration had deported a Maryland man named Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to a prison in El Salvador, even though a judge had issued a ruling expressly prohibiting that from happening.
But when the news reached the Department of Homeland Security, it set off a dayslong scramble and clashes among officials in three different agencies over how to deal with what everyone knew had been an error. As it became clear that keeping it quiet was not an option, D.H.S. officials floated a series of ideas to control the story that raised alarms among Justice Department lawyers on the case.
In the days before the government’s error became public, D.H.S. officials discussed trying to portray Mr. Abrego Garcia as a “leader” of the violent street gang MS-13, even though they could find no evidence to support the claim. They considered ways to nullify the original order that barred his deportation to El Salvador. They sought to downplay the danger he might face in one of that country’s most notorious prisons.
And in the end, a senior Justice Department lawyer, Erez Reuveni, who counseled bringing Mr. Abrego Garcia back to the United States, was fired for what Attorney General Pam Bondi said was a failure to “zealously advocate on behalf of the United States.”…
To this day, Mr. Abrego Garcia remains locked up in El Salvador despite court rulings demanding that the United States work toward securing his release. And he got there in the first place through what everyone agreed was a bureaucratic slip-up.
“This was an administrative error,” James Percival, a D.H.S. official appointed by Mr. Trump, wrote to his colleagues on March 30. “(Not that we should say publicly.)”
Tricia McLaughlin, a D.H.S. spokeswoman, said in a statement that Mr. Abrego Garcia’s deportation was part of “a highly sensitive counterterrorism operation with national security implications.”
“We invoked the state secrets privilege over many of the details — of course our officials discussed what should be divulged publicly,” she added. “This just proves they are responsible public servants putting the safety of the American people first. The leakers of these emails, on the other hand, clearly do not care about public safety.”…
According to the documents, administration officials realized quickly that the case had sweeping implications for Mr. Trump’s efforts to remove other immigrants from the United States and send them to a Salvadoran megaprison.
As Mr. Reuveni pointed out to the group, the case potentially “jeopardizes many far more important initiatives of the current administration.” If the government fought and lost, it could have legal repercussions, not least of which for the nearly 140 Venezuelans who were sent to the same facility under the authority of a rarely used wartime law, the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.
Ultimately, three courts — including the Supreme Court — pushed back against the White House, ordering Trump officials to at least take steps toward freeing Mr. Abrego Garcia. But Mr. Trump and some of his top aides have taken a defiant stance, insisting that Mr. Abrego Garcia will not be coming back to the United States.
The turmoil started on March 12, when Mr. Abrego Garcia was arrested as he drove home from work in Maryland, swept up as immigration agents scrambled to meet one of Mr. Trump signature promises: the biggest deportation operation in U.S. history…
… [O]fficials at D.H.S. began to float the idea internally that Mr. Abrego Garcia was a leader in MS-13, a violent street gang at the center of the president’s deportation agenda.
If that were the case, it might make leaving him in El Salvador more palatable.
The only problem was that nobody seemed to know if it was true…
Mr. Abrego Garcia has never been charged with, let alone convicted of, being a member of the gang. He has said that he came to the United States illegally more than a decade ago because he was fleeing a different gang, Barrio 18.
During his deportation proceedings in 2019, some evidence was introduced that he belonged to MS-13, but Judge Xinis has cast doubt on it, saying in a court order that the “‘evidence’ against Abrego Garcia consisted of nothing more than his Chicago Bulls hat and hoodie, and a vague, uncorroborated allegation from a confidential informant.”
In 2019, an immigration judge in Maryland had ruled that Mr. Abrego Garcia should not be sent to El Salvador at all because the gang was “targeting him and threatening him with death” over his family’s business selling pupusas…
Joseph A. Darrow, who is one of Mr. Reuveni’s former colleagues and left his own job in the immigration section last month, said in an interview that people in the office were “shocked and despondent” over the retribution that Mr. Reuveni faced.
Two other lawyers who worked with Mr. Reuveni also left in recent weeks, citing his firing.
“I agree with what Joe wrote in his goodbye email — this was an act of intimidation against all the attorneys who work here,” said Erin Ryan, a trial lawyer who announced her resignation on May 16 in an email.
She said it “put us in an impossible position where we have to decide between keeping this job pushing a partisan agenda, or maintaining our ethical obligation to the court and thus our bar license.
“I choose the latter.”
Proof of Live – Ohio Meetup
Josie
I hope that all these tRump sycophants lose their bar licenses eventually.
ETA: And while I’m hoping for the moon, I want Mr. Abrego Garcia to be able to sue them into oblivion.
Lyrebird
Thank you Anne Laurie!! What a mess.
side note:
I tried to click on the link about Mr Reuveni himself, but only got a glimpse as the NYT paywall came up. Made the mistake of Googling
I am not sure what this crap is, but it’s a YouTube link with AI content about maybe someone else with the same name, and it claims to be a channel with US Immigration info. Suspicious for sure
ETA:
@Josie: SECONDED!!! Mr. Abrego Garcia ought to be able to sue for defamation for sure! THEY KNOW THEY ARE LYING!!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Josie: Two excellent goals
LeftCoastYankee
God I want scream every time I see “mistakes” used in the passive voice. Like they are just unruly critters wandering into being….
The orange minions are incompetent AND evil. Just find your spine and say it NYT.
Belafon
How do you restrain a country if the only people left are evil? This is meant to be complementary to the question that has been brought up before, most recently in Black Panther: Is it better to fight a lawbreaking government from the inside or outside?
dc
I know everyone here already knows this, but damn the NYT and pretty much all other major media, Abrego García and everyone on that plane with him were not deported, they were abducted and imprisoned in a horrific El Salvador prison without due process, all of them. “A mistake was made”, no, it was policy, “a mistake was made” makes it not only passive and impersonal, but the NYT accepts that the action itself was fine, just that this one “mistake” “slipped” through, a booboo.
Rusty
The failure of the NYT is in the first line, “A mistake had been made.” There was no mistake, the administration didn’t care who he was or what he did or dint do, they want to be able to deport people at will. The passive voice is just icing on the cake, no one is at fault! Oopsy!! But of course someone is at fault. Would be nice if the NYT spent time on that.
Elizabelle
This here is why that Satanacious House Bill last night strips out courts being able to cite the executive branch with contempt. Kristi Noem should be cooling her heels in a detention cell at this very moment.
And yes. Disbarment for those involved in this circus.
Mr. Bemused Senior
Better that that competent and evil. It’s the one saving grace.
Belafon
@Elizabelle: I want a court to sanction, the executive to say you can’t, and then the side that wants the sanction to sue saying that’s an unconstitutional restriction on the judiciary.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Elizabelle:
This bill just gets worse and worse. I can’t believe this.
Could this (and other horrible things) be stripped out by the Senate later?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Belafon:
This
Medicine Man
Love that passive language. “A mistake had been made. That much was clear.” Yeah, right.
jonas
@Elizabelle: I think it was Josh Marshall who suggested maintaining a shadow DOJ of sorts staffed with fired federal prosecutors and other experts just to document the atrocities and gather evidence for future prosecutions/disbarments over this stuff.
We’re going to need a second Nuremberg Trial after all this is over. You think the Germans would let us borrow the courthouse there again, just for old times’ sake?
Elizabelle
@jonas: Ja.
Elizabelle
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): We can hope. The Senate had better.
bbleh
I’m still optimistic that when this is past — and I think it mostly will be within a year or so, once Congressional Reps get the Midterm Willies, and maybe before that if the economy really goes into a tailspin — the MAGAts and the neo-Fascists and the rest of them will basically be shunned for the rest of their lives.
Of course, even if that happens, it will just cause them to redouble their resentment and feelings of victimhood, which they have even now and which they routinely trot out whenever their actions are criticized (“very unfair,” “Democrats did it first,” “we wouldn’t have to do this if libruls hadn’t…”).
But one silver lining is, it’s an easy call: they’re write-offs. Fight back, and if you see them sinking, send them hopes and prayers. (Save the anchor unless it’s really necessary.)
H.E.Wolf
I’m calling my elected officials on this topic every week. They will continue to get an earful about this, as long as it takes. (I am very persistent. Gadflies also ran.)
tam1MI
The legacy media is too busy trying to unravel the nefarious conspiracy surrounding Joe Biden being old.
RaflW
@Elizabelle: “House Bill strips out courts being able to cite the executive branch with contempt.”
CJ Roberts, your precious power base is being destroyed by a renegade political party. You gonna do … anything?
Belafon
@jonas: Will we be in a position to be able to impose that type of punishment on ourselves as a country? Or will other countries need to intervene?
jonas
I’ve stopped making bets on when Americans will finally decide Republicans have gone too far and banish them to the political wilderness like they did post-Watergate. About 40% of the electorate has been permanently MAGA-fied and I doubt they’ll be going anywhere in my lifetime.
Remember it’s not a political movement, it’s a cult.
LeftCoastYankee
@Mr. Bemused Senior:
And they keep firing those competent enough to know what’s workable.
It is possible this ends up worse. Is random incoherent breaking of shit in lieu of coherent evil plans better? I don’t really want to know, but I suspect we’ll find out.
kindness
@Elizabelle: The insertion into the bill saying the courts can’t rule on executive actions will be overturned as clearly unconstitutional. Trumpco knows most their adventures aren’t legal which is why they are getting the courts to play whack a mole. Eventually, not soon enough, the courts will start jailing Trump officials. Then we’ll see.
Suzanne
@Medicine Man: Yeah, it’s not clear that a “mistake had been made”. For it to be a mistake, one has to intend not to do that thing!
Old School
Elizabelle
@kindness:
@bbleh: I hope both of you are correct. There has to be a point too far. Trump’s pronouncements outrace the consequences and complications.
It is an assault on our hope and sanity, as well as our government and civil society.
prostratedragon
Pupusas, eh? Could be an idea for Betty’s party, if she still needs one. Bit of mindful snacking you don’t need to say anything about.
Elizabelle
@Old School: That’s ridiculous.
Noem is a devil. She is ugly and hateful.
Is some of this to force Harvard and other universities to spend millions on legal counsel?
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@jonas:
And should be treated as such. Alas, as mentioned, it’s turned into a damned large cult.
terraformer
In keeping with the best practices outlined in 1984, I fully expect statements such as:
will be rolled out for a host of no-good, very bad, and evil things the MAGA regime will do between now and whenever they get sent out of town for good. They will cloak their misdeeds in such speak, because they know approximately 37% of American citizens will not only believe them, but will want to.
rikyrah
JUST PHUCKING EVIL.
EVIL
EVIL
JoyceH
@kindness: While we are awaiting that glorious day when trumpies start being jailed, let’s remember that no one, not even the president, is immune from civil lawsuits. I want to see everyone wronged by this administration filing lawsuits. From the illegally fired to the slandered. I want to see Springsteen and Swift and Beyoncé filing suit for defamation – no, they were NOT paid to endorse Harris. I want to see the makers of the mmr vaccine sue RFK – no, there is NOT “aborted fetus debris” in their vaccines. There could be hundreds, even thousands, of lawsuits, keeping these evil people too busy defending themselves to commit more atrocities. Heck, Trump does something lawsuit-worthy every day!
Belafon
@Elizabelle: Or surrender.
Ruckus
Many of you are saying that this maladministration made mistakes.
They didn’t.
They broke the law and they knew/know they broke the law, they just do not give a damn because they think they are above the law. shitforbrains entire maladministration should be sent to that prison in El Salvador.
If lawless behavior like this is not stopped, we will have lost this country, and what it actually stands for. And it isn’t imprisioning bad humans, it is imprisioning whoever they damn well please. This isn’t the country that I served in the US military for, not in any way, shape or form.
TONYG
This is one of the dozens of reasons why I cannot respect the people that I know who are Trump supporters. Their stupidity is no excuse for their cruelty. Honestly, fuck them.
billcinsd
@Old School: Isn’t this a Bill of Attainder? or is it OK because it was not the legislature doing this?
JPL
@Old School: I just saw that. So now all international who are enrolled will have to transfer.
prostratedragon
@Elizabelle: I think it’s much more far-reaching than that.
WTFGhost
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Technically, the bill can’t pass reconciliation with that provision. Pragmatically, the Republican Senate can override the parliamentarian with a majority vote.
I’m not sure the judiciary would obey such a law; the SCOTUS might recognize that they will need to hold Democratic officeholders in contempt, and say that it’s an unconstitutional overreach, removing the ability of the court to provide any check on the executive branch.
That would be the common sense play. But the SCOTUS can override common sense with a simple majority vote, so (shrugs).
Steve in the ATL
@Elizabelle: @Belafon: haven’t read the thread, but see Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803), in which the judicial branch gave itself the power to trump (ha!) congress and the executive branch by declaring laws unconstitutional.
I doubt that John “Roger Taney II” Roberts and his minions will let this provision stand.
Professor Bigfoot
Your keyboard to God’s monitor.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: At least six justices will vote against diminishing their power.
Matt McIrvin
@kindness: Well, Trump can just issue an executive order saying the courts can’t declare it unconstitutional! Then the courts can’t declare him in contempt for doing it.
It’s like one of those John Woo scenes where everybody has a gun pointed at everybody else. A white dove flies through the frame.
Belafon
@billcinsd: I haven’t heard if Harvard’s lawyers have started responding to a lot of this stuff being directed at them, but I wouldn’t know where to look.
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus: I could see 7-2, with A**** and T***** agreeing–again–to be T****’s bitch.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: I was playing it safe with a dumbass to be named later as well.
WTFGhost
@Belafon: They might get some help from alumni – I understand Harvard has a law school. Still, like arsonists, the Trump administration can do a lot of damage, to a lot of people. On the positive side, the more petty Trump gets, the more other people will realize they need to resist. And Trump can’t help but be petty.
tobie
@Old School: This feels like a national suicide pack and, I’m sorry, none of us here signed on to this. Imagine if the US hadn’t welcomed immigrants in the past. Where would we be but in the economic gutter?
Matt McIrvin
@kindness:
Who actually does that? U. S. Marshals? Can’t Trump order them not to do it?
Gin & Tonic
@Elizabelle: I wonder if that bill would have passed if Democrats hadn’t chosen to run terminally ill septuagenarian candidates in several races.
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus: you covered with “at least”. The seventh vote may depend on how drunk Kavanaugh is when he tells his clerks what to write. Much like the way we practice law!
tobie
@Steve in the ATL: How would this provision get to SCOTUS? Would one or many states have to sue?
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Matt McIrvin:
We’ve asked that question repeatedly over the last several months and I’ve yet to find a definitive answer.
The assumption is that it’s US Marshals. And it would be riveting to see them come face-to-face with Secret Service agents trying to serve some court order. Talk about a “constitutional crisis”!
Steve in the ATL
@tobie: I haven’t read the bill itself to see the exact wording, but one way or another there will be plenty of entities with standing to sue and SCOTUS will not delay dismissing this poorly thought out provision.
me
Harvard had overseas branch campuses before. Perhaps they’ll just do it again.
prostratedragon
@Gin & Tonic: People who count these things say yes, it would have; there were at least five votes they could have got if needed.
Timill
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Today’s Status Kuo does some looking at all those problems.
bbleh
@jonas: I think it’s more like 1/3. The rest are hangers-on and/or “vibe voters” who aren’t really bought in, and they’ll peel off quickly once things start going badly sideways.
Mostly tho, I meant the operatives and factotums, primarily in DC — the active ones.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Timill:
Thanks.
Go-to part from the piece:
WTFGhost
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Technically, without orders expressly overriding them, law enforcement officers will respect an arrest warrant.
If Trump ordered SS or other officers not to respect an arrest warrant, that’s the constitutional crisis right there – he’s there to see that the laws are executed faithfully, not order law enforcement to disrespect lawful orders.
The net effect might not be much, though – Trump will probably preemptively pardon criminal contempt charges.
What happens next, alas, depends on polling.
JPL
Let’s remember that it was Roberts’ that did this by declaring that trump had the rights of a king.
jonas
Theoretically true. Of course the SCOTUS has also ruled that he can’t be held accountable for something like ordering law enforcement to disrespect lawful orders.
trollhattan
Republicans at their Republican worst.
Ruckus
@WTFGhost:
He’s not acting petty.
This is his last chance to be a, what’s that word, a human being. But then he doesn’t know how to do that and he isn’t capable of learning anything approaching the – what are those words, oh yeah, the fucking truth.
And there seems to be a not insignificant percentage of the population that wants far worse.
I have zero idea why human beings need to be like this, except that a segment of humanity has been like this since there were more than 4 or 5 of us on the planet, who believe they are better than everyone else and they keep proving themselves wrong. And a fix for this? At the very least I’m smart enough not to hold my breath waiting for it.
gene108
@Josie:
In Trump v. United States, not only did the SCOTUS give the President absolute immunity for official acts, but other government officials some sort of limited immunity (don’t remember the exact term) for executing the orders.
I think it will make suing Bondi, Noem, Miller, etc. much harder than it used to be.
Belafon
@trollhattan:
“We must sell oil, because doing other things would reduce the bribes I receive.”
Ruckus
@trollhattan:
It must be rather smelly to live an entire life with one’s head stuffed that far up their own (or someone else’s) large exit port. Maybe the problem is that they’ve never actually had a breath of actual air, you know that stuff with oxygen in it, what with their heads located in an exit port. Must be difficult to move around, especially forward, it’s obvious it’s blocked their vision and ability to actually smell the world around them. And it’s given them only one thing to eat, which has ruined their thought process, their concept of good and bad smells/tastes, and the world around them…..
I wonder if there is a cure for this…..
On the other hand if we actually do bring on a lot of electric vehicles maybe the air might get clear enough that we don’t have to actually have smog warnings, you know those stay inside concepts.
Ruckus
@gene108:
Official acts
Like actually doing his duty instead of deporting people without cause or law? Being an actual president, not a dictator? Sure he has the power to do that. Doing what he is doing, hiring the people that are willing to destroy this nation? Yeah I’d don’t see that as what they meant. And if it is, it seems that it is way too late to do anything about it.
sab
How is this guy’s (Abrego-Garcias) wife supporting their kids? He’s stuck in jail and she has little kids. Is there a go fund me?
And all the other families with transported (not deported , no hearings) fathers.
trollhattan
@Ruckus:
LA with an electrical fleet would magically not have the nation’s most polluted air. The horrors! See also, Bakersfield, Visalia, Fresno, Modesto, Sacramento and on and on. Pretty soon you’re counting up about a tenth of the nation and other states are welcome to follow along.
Interesting, of course, coming from the “States Rights!” crowd, the same folks who want to do away with Brown V. Board because “that’s a local matter.”
Ruckus
@jonas:
Remember it’s not a political movement, it’s a cult.
This needed to be repeated.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: The GOP had an additional (iirc) three votes in its pocket.
Ruckus
@trollhattan:
Yeah, can’t have any of that!
Actually trying to make the world better?
Yeah, can’t have any of that!
Actually not being pompous arrogant jackasses.
Yeah, can’t have any of that!
I’ll stop here, otherwise everyone would be asleep before I finished….
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Omnes Omnibus: But it must somehow be the Democrats’ fault…
Belafon
If the Slate truck comes out next year like they’re promising, Republicans are going to have to do a mad scramble to respond to that.
prostratedragon
Surely someone has already posted this. Twice can’t hurt.
“Land of Hope and Dreams”
Jay
https://bsky.app/profile/reichlinmelnick.bsky.social/post/3lprsh5vtzs2u
Ruckus
@trollhattan:
It’s going to take a lot because there are more than a few people that seemingly do not want progress, they want regress. Life was better then. (When the hell was then?) Well I’m an old fart and can tell you that is pure bullshit. It was quieter, less traffic, jobs were scarcer and didn’t pay all that well, cars were crap, in the way back.
Life is more crowded. That’s it, the end. Every thing else is better, medicine, vehicles, homes, even food. Not that food was necessarily bad in the way back but it is far easier today than making a meal back then. Medicine is not just better it’s dramatically better. Cars are better. Ever watch a 9 inch B&W tv from the 1950s? More ghosts than a haunted house. Ever see a computer (or actually any electronics) from the 60s? I was in the USN in the early 70s and went to 2 electronic schools after boot camp. Much of the “electronics” we were taught used vacuum tubes that of course failed regularly. I was assigned to one of the earliest ships with transistors in all the electronics. The effort and crew required to maintain everything working had gone down over 200% The world we live in today is very thankfully not the same one I was born into – other than we still have pompous, arrogant, ignorant human beings who think they are the shit. And they are. But not in the manner they assume. (remember assume is short for making an ass out of u and me) But it is far easier to see them now and see who and what they are.
Jay
BP’s Pulse signed a deal to bring DC Fast Charging Stations to Waffle House.
Eolirin
@Gin & Tonic: Yes. It would have.
Radio Dave, Lurker
@Ruckus:
Well, early in my military service, I regularly heard about a fabled hydromechanical cranial-rectal inversion correction device, so maybe…?
Eolirin
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: The courts can deputize anyone they want to carry out their contempt orders, iirc.
Belafon
@Jay: “But, your Honor, by deciding not to charge them with anything, there’s no process we’re violating that denies them their rights.”
Eolirin
@trollhattan: California should ignore them and enforce their regulations anyway.
Belafon
BTW, here is where I’m going to lay a chunk of blame on liberals, including myself. We should have done a better – or any – job at encouraging our kids to go into the police forces or groups such as ICE. Why didn’t we? Well, we wanted our kids to have a better life than us, so we pushed them towards careers that make more money than we did. We also talked about how bad cops were without really doing anything about it. So the police force is overloaded with people that shouldn’t be in it. Now, not every person should be a police officer, but I suspect some of our kids would have been pretty good at it and would have made a difference.
trollhattan
@Ruckus:
Well and properly ranted. Not only did that ’50s teevee have zero in common with today’s, it cost months in wages, and that’s before the aerial.
Dad installed them as a side gig and in NW Iowa that included a 40′ antenna mast to catch a signal. And they needed a LOT of repair. Those RCA color sets? If you moved it the color guns needed alignment. Every. Time.
OTOH look at your life when it’s in color.
Any time I cycle near a classic ’50s or ’60s car I’m reminded of just how nasty the exhaust is. Now multiply them by 20 million, which is the California I learned about going away to uni. Yellow air. Frickin’ yellow.
Jay
@Belafon:
It puts paid to the lie that “they are going after the criminals”.
They are going after the easiest to find (lazy Nazi’s) and destroying the US’s Immigration System in the process.
Ruckus
@Radio Dave, Lurker:
Hey! I heard about the same thing!
Gin & Tonic
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: Luckily it’s been raining all day here, so that straw man is not endangering me.
I have long advocated, in this very forum, for younger political leaders at all levels. It just so happens that the last eight Congressional representatives to die in office were all Democrats. Perhaps some of those deaths were totally unexpected, but I’d have to be convinced how e.g. having Gerry Connolly run not just for re-election but for a leadership role on an important committee when he was terminally ill was good for the Democratic Party or the country (or for him and his family, for that matter.)
Ruckus
@trollhattan:
Hell they took up a big chunk of room if and when you bought a bigger screen. Now with LED tv you can hang them on the wall and have a huge TV – like sitting about 3/4 of the way back from the screen in a theater. I have a 65 inch flat screen and other than wall space it doesn’t take up any room. And uses far less electricity than any old vacuum tube POS. Modern life, whoda known?
prostratedragon
@trollhattan:
And took up the entire living room.
Elizabelle
@Gin & Tonic: I hear you. And suspect the Democrats are discussing that among themselves. In fairness, Citizens United opening the dark money floodgates probably means it is safer to go with a candidate with name recognition and a record to run on.
But Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s hubris undermined too much of the good she did. Learn up.
catclub
@Elizabelle:
That kind of thing should never go into a reconciliation bill. It is not tax revenue or spending.
How much of a straight shooter will the parliamentarian be?
Bill Arnold
He did the research!
SSA chief expects no mass layoffs, backs DOGE and AI in push for ‘digital-first’ agency (Jory Heckman, May 21, 2025)
Jay
@Belafon:
ACAB. Many, many, many, many, former KKKOPs have exposed how the entire Policing system, from training, psycology to working is designed to create Nazi’s.
You can’t “regulate them”, they have Police Unions, see NYPD.
You can’t even train them. RCMP training is a year, not the few days it is in the US, and you pretty much have to have a law degree to get in. And yet, here in Coquitlam, we have 3 RCMP Officers under suspension, facing discipline, (which in this case, may be more than a slap on the wrist*), for being Nazi’s. And guess what, they are not white males.
My Dad was RCMP for 20 years. The pay was not great, but it was enough for 1 income house hold and home ownership. The pension and benefits however, were great. That was long before the KKKops morphed into a Military Occupation Force.
Depending on where you are, and the Police Union, the pay can be garbage, or the pay can be great. In the NYPD, overtime alone can net you $200K plus. How does that work you ask? It’s called an 11th hour arrest. As your shift ends, you make an arrest. Any arrest will do. So you get paid OT for the booking, paperwork, logging evidence, the arraignment.
And that is why 82% of NYPD arrests occur during the last 20 minutes of an officers shift, and result in a 2% conviction rate.
*they showed no contrition for their actions, and defended their actions at the hearings, acted as a “gang” and may wind up facing criminal charges, rather than “desk duty” or a brief suspension.
Ruckus
@Gin & Tonic:
Part of the problem with old elected legislators is that if they do good, do you want to risk replacing them?
My dad and then I had the same issues sometimes because our business took highly skilled manual labor. We made molds for plastic and aluminum parts. Sure you could train someone and we did, often having apprentices because while it was manual labor, sometimes rather dirty and always potentially dangerous, it paid well. And one had to know trigonometry, well before the advent of calculators. Actually we once made molds for a hand held calculator. I cheated early on and used a slide rule. Calculators are BETTER!
The world has changed a dramatic amount in the lifetimes of many still alive today. And yet humans often revert to the concept of life from long ago. I wish they would get a fucking clue and move on, but then that concept seems to be entirely lost on many who walk on 2 legs.
Jay
America is going to be Trump’s 7th bankruptcy.
prostratedragon
David Kaye:
Context from Hugo Mendez:
I think this is part of a deliberate strategy to destroy the broad base and influence of these institutions, in this case by restricting the pool from which students can encounter one another.
Jackie
@catclub:
I believe the Senate can ignore or override the parliamentarian?
Professor Bigfoot
@Belafon: Remember that American police culture was born in antebellum slave patrols; and is carried today in police union halls (it’s not coincidence that Trump’s first major endorsement was the national Fraternal Order of Police).
Absent imposition of national standards for training, behavior, etc— that is, absent a fundamental change in American police culture, there’s very individual recruits can change.
In fact are more likely to be changed by the culture than the other way around.
Bill Arnold
@Jay:
The USA voted for its own destruction.
karen gail
This goes under “trump crime cartel:”
Don Junior is feeling the “calling” to run for President, he claims that people are telling him he should run.
I read a short story where Trump family had become the “rulers” of US and started nuclear war; Don, Jr was angry and pushed the button for launch when another country defied him.
prostratedragon
Carl Bergstrom:
Elizabelle
@prostratedragon: Why? Because we are the United States of Putin. We do not live in the same America led by Joe Biden.
Jay
prostratedragon
@Elizabelle: They are traitors.
lowtechcyclist
@tobie:
Well, I for one wouldn’t even exist, since none of my grandparents would have met each other. My father’s parents immigrated from different parts what was then Tsarist Russia shortly before WWI, and met each other over here. And my maternal grandmother immigrated from Scotland shortly after WWI and met my maternal grandfather, my only American-born grandparent, over here.
Today’s immigrants are mostly doing all the messy, difficult, and dangerous jobs that nobody else wants to do. Picking strawberries, working in chicken processing plants, installing roofs, trimming and cutting down trees, stuff like that. Without them, we simply don’t have the labor force to fill those jobs, and there aren’t any appreciable numbers of American citizens seeking out those jobs.
We just plain need these people. If Trump and his minions actually succeeded in rounding up and deporting a million of them, let alone the 11 million he’s talked about, it would cause major problems for the rest of us.
Glidwrith
@billcinsd: Husband says judge has already blocked this crap.
Now reading rest of thread.
lowtechcyclist
They need to stop using that word with respect to the persons we’ve sent to El Salvador.
Deportation is when you release someone in another country, normally the country from which they came.
This is the sentencing of people to a prison sentence of indefinite length, quite possibly for life, and quite possibly involving either forced labor or torture, not only without trial but without even the least bit of due process. And they are being held without any ability or opportunity to communicate with anyone outside their prison, either attorneys or loved ones.
“In a land that’s known as freedom, how can such a thing be fair?” asked Graham Nash more than half a century ago, under very different circumstances. Seems like the question applies here and now as well.
SW
Why don’t they just stick him in the witness relocation program?
PatD
@Belafon: The NYPD has more than 30k cops on the force. Does that include some liberals, left of center voting types? Of course it does. Just as the military has a good number of Democrats. What matters is policy, procedure, ethics, professionalism, adequate civilian oversight etc. Otherwise even the good ones will get dragged down by the bad and the status quo wins out.
What we’ve seen in big cities is that elected Dems have given up holding law enforcement accountable to professional standards and are often afraid of them. In many places Dem voters are checked out of local politics. That’s how we get Eric Adams and Andrew Cuomo types.
Gloria DryGarden
@Professor Bigfoot: I would like to think She is working on it..
Gloria DryGarden
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: riveting indeed. I will look forward to it.
I can think about this without ill-wishing anyone, just that they be held to the law and given appropriate consequences. And if the president isn’t an “official” of the government, then, certain non-officials too, can be, please oh goddess, detained and held to the law.
Matt McIrvin
@lowtechcyclist: My maternal grandfather was born a US citizen in South Dakota… and his native language was Norwegian, the language of his immigrant household.
When he was a little kid, his mother died of pandemic flu and he and his many siblings all got adopted by other families in town. So he had to adjust to speaking a new language at home.
Which was Danish.
I often think about that when people complain about how today’s immigrants are *different*–they don’t assimilate, they don’t speak English. This is what they’ve said about every group of immigrants since before the United States was a country. These people would have considered Grandpa’s hometown a scary no-go zone in 1921.
Another Scott
@trollhattan: +1
A guy down the street has a ratty ~ 1966 427 Corvette that he drives occasionally. It has to run a rich mixture so that it doesn’t ping, and it smells like an old refinery when he drives by from all the unburnt gas – even 50 feet away.
Emissions and fuel economy standard have made a huge, huge difference to improving the quality of life for just about everyone on the planet. Youngsters, and oldsters who want to minimize the progress, should look at photos from the early 1970s.
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Another Scott
@prostratedragon: 47 wants every institution in America, and around the world, to pay fealty to him. He wants there to be no independent source of power or influence.
This Harvard thing is yet another aspect of that.
Nobody should be surprised when he goes after the NFL or MLB or NBA or the casinos or the Southern Baptists or the Mormons or the Catholics or any other group you can name. He wants everyone to defer to him as God Emperor.
He’s going to keep pushing until he is stopped. It’s what he does.
He will be stopped, sooner or later…
Grr…
Best wishes,
Scott.