Blake Stovall

Is this the guy that tweets a lot of attempts at jokes and satire but genuinely is not funny at all?

lmao I'll allow it

Screenshot of a tweet by @briebriejoy that says: debated with my mom over the holidays because she sees (white people) tacos as an easy meal to put out prior to a big holiday meal, whereas I see it as unnecessarily complicated. Why? It's not "difficult" to make, but there are a lot of moving parts. You have to saute meat, heat up refried beans, decant black olives, slice up red onions, prep shredded lettuce, dice tomatoes, dish out sour cream and shredded cheese, and put out salsa. You also have to warm the shells in the oven. Each of those toppings goes in its own serving container that has to be cleaned afterward while the uneaten bits are stored away -- again in separate little containers. I think it would be easier to roast chicken with potatoes or broil some salmon & serve with rice than to make tacos, even though those meals feel more substantive. When I'm talking about how to cook for people who are overwhelmed and who have executive dysfunction, this is what I'm talking about.

can you imagine if Bernie had won the 2020 election and this is the caliber of person he had on staff

He must have just figured out that he can make an AI bot talk to him like a virgin.

I don't think that follows because efficiency gains are likely asymptotic and at some point the additional cost surpasses the efficiency gains.

I don't see why basic taxation and redistribution isn't sufficient to solve the problem you have but I haven't really spent much time thinking about it.

Productivity increases are not necessarily correlated with the amount of work performed by a worker.

Assume I pay you to operate a machine that makes ten widgets an hour then I buy a machine with double the output and no add'l work on your part. Should your pay double?

Yes

I am fucking dying

Right but sometimes the productivity gains result from capital investment so it makes sense that sometimes productivity and wage increases aren’t correlated. If I pay you to operate a widget machine and then I buy one that makes widgets faster, some of that productivity increase comes back to me.

@schizanon.bsky.social lol wut

Why would you benchmark against productivity increases?

A large portion of productivity gains starting in the 70s are likely due to the increasing use of computers, which would explain why productivity gains increased more than wages.

For the doubters about the demand list: Thune is literally saying they won't engage with a list that more or less just asks to recodify that it's illegal to break the laws they're already breaking. Now they have congressional Republicans committed to letting masked goons break into your home

I think my biggest change vis-a-vis religion over the past few years is that I now allocate zero weight to people saying they believe a particular religion. If you want to tell me you are religious, tell me the specific principles you believe and how your life and politics reflect them.

James Whitonis: Is it true that getting drugs off the streets is one of your top priorities? 22h Congresswoman Nancy Mace: Absurd. Crazy Left-wing FAKE NEWS. Just absurd. This is what happens when you have someone who goes against the machine, like Trump. And like Trump she is suing the pants off ALL MEDIA who print it. Office of Rep. Nancy Mace 22h

Me: Please reply to this comment if Nancy Mace is currently face down in a pile of drugs. Instant auto reply from Nancy Mace: Absurd. Crazy Left-wing FAKE NEWS. Just absurd. This is what happens when you have someone who goes against the machine, like Trump. And like Trump she is suing the pants off ALL MEDIA who print it. Office of Rep. Nancy Mace

Nancy Mace has an auto responder for comments containing the word “drugs”.

I love this place

at any point in these three posts did you answer the question I asked?

which do you think will have a bigger impact on ICE operations: lighting dumpsters on fire or disabling their means of transportation?

He hasn’t blocked me yet. Did you say something else or is it just cause you’re a woman?

I want to know why they think lighting a dumpster on fire is the right property crime for the moment and not slashing the tires of ICE vehicles.

Literally cannot get enough of the anarchists losing their shit about the protesting tactics. Amazing stuff, keep them going

Absolutely but that doesn’t really excuse them forming opinions about ideologies based on their interactions with random people on Twitter

Journalist and “lifelong antifascist” just now learning about Cato

Given Cato’s history of being incredibly principled and saying the same things repeatedly for decades, this is simply telling on yourself

You are incredibly stupid.

Also I can think of about twenty less dangerous property crimes with less serious punishments that could be done to better accomplish the underlying goals.

"On December 2, 1783, then-Commander-in-Chief George Washington penned: “America is open to receive not only the Opulent & respected Stranger, but the oppressed & persecuted of all Nations & Religions.”1 More than two centuries later, Congress reaffirmed President Washington’s vision by establishing the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program. See 8 U.S.C. § 1254a (TPS statute). It provides humanitarian relief to foreign nationals in the United States who come from disaster-stricken countries. It also brings in substantial revenue, with TPS holders generating $5.2 billion in taxes annually. See Part VI. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem has a different take. [screenshot of tweet].

So says the official responsible for overseeing the TPS program. And one of those (her word) “damn” countries is Haiti. Relevant here, three days before making the above post, Secretary Noem announced she would terminate Haiti’s TPS designation as of February 3, 2026. See 90 Fed. Reg. 54733 (Nov. 28, 2025) (Termination). Plaintiffs are five Haitian TPS holders. They are not, it emerges, “killers, leeches, or entitlement junkies.” They are instead: Fritz Emmanuel Lesly Miot, a neuroscientist researching Alzheimer’s disease, Dkt. 90 (Second Am. Compl. (SAC)) ¶ 1; Rudolph Civil, a software engineer at a national bank, id. ¶ 2; Marlene Gail Noble, a laboratory assistant in a toxicology department, id. ¶ 3; Marica Merline Laguerre, a college economics major, id. ¶ 4; and Vilbrun Dorsainvil, a full-time registered nurse, id. ¶ 5. They claim that Secretary Noem’s decision violates the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. § 706(2), and the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The Government counters that the Court does not have jurisdiction, and, in any case, the Secretary did not violate the law. Plaintiffs seek to stay the Secretary’s decision under 5 U.S.C. § 705 pending the outcome of this litigation. See Dkt. 81 (§ 705 Mot.). To decide their motion, the Court considers first whether it has jurisdiction. It does. See Part II. It then considers: whether Plaintiffs have a substantial likelihood of success on the merits; whether they will be irreparably harmed absent a stay; and whether a merged balance of the equities and public interest analysis favors a stay. See Part III. Each element favors Plaintiffs. See Parts IV, V, and VI. Plaintiffs charge that Secretary Noem preordained her termination decision and did so because of hostility to nonwhite immigrants. This seems substantially likely. Secretary Noem

has terminated every TPS country designation to have reached her desk—twelve countries up, twelve countries down. See Section IV.A.2. Her conclusion that Haiti (a majority nonwhite country) faces merely “concerning” conditions cannot be squared with the “perfect storm of suffering” and “staggering” “humanitarian toll” described in page-after-page of the Certified Administrative Record (CAR). See Section IV.A.3.a. She ignored Congress’s requirement that she “review the conditions” in Haiti only “after” consulting “with appropriate agencies.” 8 U.S.C. § 1254a(b)(3)(A); see Section IV.A.1. Indeed, she did not consult other agencies at all. See id. Her “national interest” analysis focuses on Haitians outside the United States or here illegally, ignoring that Haitian TPS holders already live here, and legally so. See Section IV.A.3.b. And though she states that the analysis must include “economic considerations,” she ignores altogether the billions Haitian TPS holders contribute to the economy. See id. The Government’s primary response is that the TPS statute gives the Secretary unbounded discretion to make whatever determination she wants, any way she wants. And, yes, the statute does grant her some discretion. But not unbounded discretion. To the contrary, Congress passed the TPS statute to standardize the then ad hoc temporary protection system—to replace executive whim with statutory predictability. See Section I.A. As to irreparable harm, the Government contends that, at most, the harms to Haitian TPS holders are speculative. But the Department of State (State) warns [screenshot]

Dkt. 100 (§ 705 Reply) at 20–21.4 “Do not travel to Haiti for any reason” does not exactly scream, as Secretary Noem concluded, suitable for return. And so, the Government studiously does not argue that Plaintiffs will suffer no harm if removed to Haiti. Instead, it argues Plaintiffs will not certainly suffer irreparable harm because DHS might not remove them. But this fails to take Secretary Noem at her word: “WE DON’T WANT THEM. NOT ONE.” See Section IV.B.2.b. Finally, the balance of equities and public interest favor a stay. The Government does not cite any reason termination must occur post haste. Secretary Noem complains of strains unlawful immigrants place on our immigration-enforcement system. Her answer? Turn 352,959 lawful immigrants into unlawful immigrants overnight. She complains of strains to our economy. Her answer? Turn employed lawful immigrants who contribute billions in taxes into the legally unemployable. She complains of strains to our healthcare system. Her answer? Turn the insured into the uninsured. This approach is many things—in the public interest is not one of them. For the reasons below, the Court GRANTS Plaintiffs’ Renewed Motion for a Stay Under 5 U.S.C. § 705, Dkt. 81.

Even if you don't have time to read all 83 pages of Judge Reyes's opinion barring the Trump administration from rescinding Temporary Protected Status for 350,000+ Haitians, please at least check out the four-page introduction.

It's a tour de force:

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...