DL Open Thread: Wednesday, April 2, 2025

Liberal Wins Wisconsin Supreme Court Race.  Hope those newly-minted Musk millionaires cashed those checks already:

The Democratic-backed candidate for Wisconsin Supreme Court defeated a challenger endorsed by President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk on Tuesday, cementing a liberal majority for at least three more years.

Susan Crawford, a Dane County judge who led legal fights to protect union power and abortion rights and to oppose voter ID, defeated Republican-backed Brad Schimel in a race that broke records for spending, was on pace to be the highest-turnout Wisconsin Supreme Court election ever and became a proxy fight for the nation’s political battles.

The first major election in the country since November was seen as a litmus test of how voters feel about Trump’s first months back in office and the role played by Musk, whose Department of Government Efficiency has torn through federal agencies and laid off thousands of workers. Musk traveled to Wisconsin on Sunday to make a pitch for Schimel and personally hand out two $1 million checks to voters.

Also, as I predicted, Rethugs won the two special elections for House seats vacated by R’s.  Florida is political fools’ gold for D’s, has been ever since Hillary touted the ‘blue wall around Florida’.  The state has become a Trump mag(a)net,  siphoning assholes from across the country.

RFK Jr. Guts Public Health.  You name it, he’s cutting it.  LIHEAP, worker protection,  pretty much everything else:

The sheer breadth of the cuts is staggering: The layoffs affected agencies that exist to fight deadly pathogens, to protect the nation’s drug supply, to finance and carry out cutting-edge research—along with countless other divisions and offices that touch everything from rural health to early childhood care.

As with previous Trump administration efforts to downsize the federal workforce, the legality of Tuesday’s mass layoffs is an open question—in two separate ways, according to David Super, a professor of constitutional and administrative law at Georgetown Law.

“Firing ten thousand experienced federal employees is not a plausible, good-faith method of accomplishing the purposes Congress assigned to those agencies by law,” Super told me via email, arguing that such “arbitrary and capricious” actions violate the Administrative Procedure Act.

“This also will prevent the expenditure of the funds Congress appropriated for these agencies to perform their statutory functions,” Super added. “As such, it is an unlawful impoundment, violating the continuing appropriations law that President Trump himself signed a few weeks ago.”

Perhaps the courts will save us.  We know the D’s won’t.  Although, kudos to Cory Booker.  Perhaps he’ll shame some of his colleagues out of their torpor.

Stop Falling For Trump’s Only Trick.  From, who else, Josh Marshall:

Amid the chaos and cacophony of Donald Trump’s second term, we’re sucked into this new mini-debate over a potential Trump third term. NBC News got the ball rolling with a headline that read: “Trump won’t rule out seeking third term in the White House, tells NBC News ‘there are methods’ for doing so.” They were roundly criticized for that framing and other news organizations did better by putting the matter more squarely in their headline. For instance, there was The Washington Post, whose headline ran “Trump suggests ‘methods’ exist for bid for unconstitutional third term.”

That’s better, certainly. But there’s only one proper response to all these comments: “No, you’re not.”

Full stop. That’s the whole response.

This is a predictable and consistent pattern we must be deeply familiar with by now. Someone asks — or Donald Trump asks to be asked — a question about his doing something which is either outrageous, illegal, impossible, etc. The response is always some version of “I can if I want to …” or “I’m considering it … ” or “I’m not ruling it out …” or some version of “Many people want me to…”

And we’re off.

The device is simple and straightforward: an invitation to imagine that the only thing that matters is Donald Trump’s will, what he decides, what he wants to do, what he claims he can do, etc. etc. This simple dynamic is the only thing that matters. It is a public spectacle of angst, terror, sadness around the power of Donald Trump’s will. You’ve seen it playing out over the last couple days. New headlines: He says there are “methods”! “He won’t rule it out!”

Seriously, stop doing this! Not just the press but individual people who will make the decision about the future of this country.

‘Administrative Error’ Sends Maryland Father To El Salvador Prison.  Trump can’t/won’t bring him back:

The Trump administration acknowledged in a court filing Monday that it had grabbed a Maryland father with protected legal status and mistakenly deported him to El Salvador, but said that U.S. courts lack jurisdiction to order his return from the megaprison where he’s now locked up.

The case appears to be the first time the Trump administration has admitted to errors when it sent three planeloads of Salvadoran and Venezuelan deportees to El Salvador’s grim “Terrorism Confinement Center” on March 15. Attorneys for several Venezuelan deportees have said that the Trump administration falsely labeled their clients as gang members because of their tattoos. Trump officials have disputed those claims.

Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, Abrego Garcia’s attorney, said he’s never seen a case in which the government knowingly deported someone who had already received protected legal status from an immigration judge. He is asking the court to order the Trump administration to ask for Abrego Garcia’s return and, if necessary, to withhold payment to the Salvadoran government, which says it’s charging the United States $6 million a year to jail U.S. deportees.

Trump-administration attorneys told the court to dismiss the request on multiple grounds, including that Trump’s “primacy in foreign affairs” outweighs the interests of Abrego Garcia and his family.

Because ‘primacy in foreign affairs’ means he can deport whoever the fuck he wants to.  Did I get that right?

Delaware’s Never Gonna Have Legalized Marijuana.  The latest SNAFU:

Applicants for a license to be part of Delaware’s recreational marijuana business are still waiting for their criminal background checks.

“We’re at the mercy of the FBI,” (NEPO baby and) Delaware Safety and Homeland Security Secretary Joshua Bushweller (Brian’s kid!) recently told WDEL News. The Office of Marijuana Commissioner is under DSHS.

The state was recently informed by the FBI that its request for a service code to conduct the statutorily-required criminal background checks has been denied. The OMC said it would be working “expeditiously” with the General Assembly to develop proposed legislation that would contain criteria to satisfy the FBI.

The code is needed by the  State Bureau of Identification and the Delaware Department of Justice in order to conduct the criminal checks.

This development comes months after the OMC conducted business license lotteries. OMC is currently operating without a commissioner. The first and so far only Marijuana Commissioner, Robert Coupe, resigned.

 “The Office of Marijuana Commissioner had one very specific job defined by state law: to license new, legal adult-use businesses which had always included this background check process,” Delaware Cannabis Advocacy Network Executive Director Zoë Patchell said. 

“We’re not hopeful that a change in legislation is going to make much of a difference in terms of approval from the FBI,” Patchell added.

Hey, the state didn’t need that revenue, anyway.  Did I get that right?

What do you want to talk about?