Patocka

In Chicago

Screenshot of a Colorado Republicans tweet discouraging people from patronizing a coffee shop with a sign up saying they refuse to serve racists and bigots.

Weird how many racists like to self-identify themselves as racists.

This is a great post:

The Alien Enemies Act and the Major Questions Doctrine The Trump administration's claims that illegal migration and drug smuggling qualify as an "invasion" or a "predatory incursion" under the Alien Enemies Act go against the major questions doctrine.

In this post, I explain why the major questions doctrine provides additional reason to reject Trump's claims of sweeping detention/deportation power under the Alien Enemies Act, which he claims is triggered by illegal migration and drug smuggling: reason.com/volokh/2025/...

next they’ll ban chupacabra

Flash Report: Claims of Nick Fuentes’ Growing Popularity Are Unsupported by Data - Open Measures Open Measures builds accessible and transparent products to contextualize the spread of harmful online information that impacts public discourse and global events.

Recent news coverage of extremist media personality Nick Fuentes might give readers the impression his audience is booming in size. But after reviewing our data, our researchers have some serious doubts that’s the case.

openmeasures.io/nick-fuentes...

Both this and in their story on Bannon and Epstein, Guardian has done it right.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

One Year to Defend Elections Trump’s pardons of Rudy Giuliani and other election deniers are a reminder that the 2026 midterms will face an extraordinary new source of pressure: the federal government itself.

The president’s pardons of election deniers like Rudy Giuliani send a clear message: If you try to steal an election for his team, Donald Trump will have your back. bit.ly/3LDvVqz

They really are going with immaculate asymmetry of tariffs, which didn't raise prices when they were imposed but will cut them when they're withdrawn.

The introduction of words like "ethics" and "ought" into conversations about science seems almost always to engender a tension not unlike, I would say, the strain one can sense rising when-ever, in conversation with elderly German university professors, one happens to allude to the career of one of their colleagues who prospered during the Hitler years. In the latter situation, the lowering of the social temperature betrays the fear that something "unfortu-nate" might be said, especially that the colleague's past inability to renounce his personal ambitions for the sake of morality might be mentioned. There is a recognition, then, of course, that the conduct not only of the colleague, but of all German academicians of the time, is in question. In the former situation, the tension betrays a similar concern, for ethics, at bottom, deals with nothing so much as renunciation. The tension betrays the fear that something will be said about what science, that is, scientists, ought and ought not to do. And there is a recognition that what might be talked about doesn't apply merely to science generally or to some abstract population known as scientists, but to the very people present.

This was written 50 years ago.

I wonder if in 25 years there will be situations like this about the “AI” years and whatever the current flavor of fascism will be known as then.

(Weizenbaum, Computer Power and Human Reason, 1976)

Emoluments clause? In *this* economy?

Trump Organization Is Said to Be in Talks on a Saudi Government Real Estate Deal

If I were writing a long article about how Saudi Arabia is bribing Trump with big-dollar real estate deals, I think I’d at least mention that this is plainly unconstitutional. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/15/w...

The Epstein emails are filled with people who say they've changed. Or that they didn't know what was going on. Or that their thirst for access, attention and book deals made it necessary for them to remain silent on the evil they saw. MTG is cut from that same cloth.

This week’s pardons—Rudy Giuliani, who helped incite Jan 6, & other Jan 6 participants—show open partisanship at DOJ

Trump crony Ed Martin’s “no MAGA left behind” tweet sends the message: commit crimes, support him, & you’re safe

That’s not America

I explained on @theweekendmsnow.bsky.social👇 -TN

Wut?

Epstein Emails Reveal a Lost New York The disgraced financier’s recently released documents are steeped in a clubby world that is all but gone.

Seriously, what is wrong with these people?

So instead of the gov’t paying the insurance company for the policy you chose, they pay you & you pay the insurance company for the same policy.

I mean, if the $ amount was identical & it could *only* be used to buy ACA-compliant policies, that’d be fine. Pointless & far less efficient but fine. 1/

I sometimes assign this LA Times op-ed from Jesse Ball to my 1L criminal law class; always gets an interesting conversation going.

www.latimes.com/opinion/op-e....

Dressed up like you’re in patrol in Fallujah, passing some retired banker from Myers Park out to pick up birdseed.

“How about no”: FCC boss Brendan Carr says he won’t end news distortion probes Carr rejects criticism from four former FCC chairs, including three Republicans.

We're ruled by people with all the wit of a snotty 12-year-old: arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...

Immigration arrests surge in Hawaii as federal agents target courthouses Advocates and legal experts say many arrests are happening quietly, often when immigrants show up at state courts.

Immigration raids in Hawaiʻi are especially ironic since the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi was illegally overthrown and the Hawaiian Islands annexed by the United States against the will of the people.

Justice Department to Investigate Epstein Ties, but Not to Trump

This line in the NYT:

“.. the near-complete breakdown of the Justice Department’s traditional independence to prosecute cases based on facts and the law, as opposed to presidential fiat.”

@nytimes.com
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/14/u...

With a Trump pardon in hand, Stewart Rhodes says he’s ‘rebuilding’ the Oath Keepers After vowing to bring back his group, Rhodes added that he’d like to see the president “order us all to come together ... under his command.”

"'Right now, under federal statutes, President Trump can call us up as the militia,' he said

Rhodes added that he’d like to see Trump 'order us all to come together in our counties under his command'...”

www.ms.now/rachel-maddo...

Border Patrol enforcement begins in Charlotte. One man said his truck's window was shattered Saturday, Nov. 15, 2025, saw CBP agents carry out operations in the city.

The man recounts his experience here

US Bishops have responded to attacks by Border Czar Tom Homan: “The bishops of the United States have spoken together and in unity with Pope Leo XIV.”

I wanted to share probably the most important sermon I’ve given and it’s while I’m being arrested. It’s torture pure and simple what happens at #Broadview. I’m ok, though I was thrown to the ground and choked with my pectoral cross. A review of the video shows I was peaceful - did I deserve this?

TW: video showcasing a violent display of force by federal agents

From Charlotte, NC. Seen it shared on a few NC based IG pages. Based on this video, federal agents using the same tactics we’ve seen the last few months in Chicago.

War with Venezuela makes no sense.

Unless you’re hoping to take their oil and use the Alien Enemies Act to deport hundreds of thousands of immigrants.

I don’t think US taxpayers should subsidize treason against the United States