15 thoughts on “Friday Open Thread”

1. DOGE cuts are starting to bleed.

   Chalkbeat: Trump education cuts will affect Colorado, lawmakers are warned

   Disability Law Colorado Co-Legal Director Emily Harvey said students with disabilities have suffered due to staffing cuts in the department’s Office for Civil Rights. The Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, laid off about half the agency’s workforce, including within the civil rights office.

   Harvey said the Denver office had its staffing cut by a third and other offices were eliminated. There are now just 24 employees to oversee over 2,800 active investigations, including cases that can include discrimination against students with disabilities, she said.

   “For many students with disabilities and their families, that means bullying, discrimination and other school rights violations may continue without remedy or recourse,” she said. “It’s not just troubling. It’s unacceptable.”

   Log in to Reply

2. "Today’s builders of Babel tell us that there is no room for losers, and that those who fall along the way are losers. Theirs is the construction site of Hell." – Pope Francis

   Log in to Reply

   1. When I was a kid, we sang a song in Sunday school. “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight.”    ….. diversity

       

      “Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you” is a corollary to the admonishment by Jesus to turn the other cheek.    …….. equity

      “That which you do unto me, you do unto the least of my brethren”. Sort of anthemic for the care of the dispossessed.  …..inclusion

      I hear all these MAGA Trumplicans claim to be Christians. How can that be?

       

      Log in to Reply

      1. I sang that song as a kid too, and remember the melody even though I haven't sung it for, well, let's say "decades." Perhaps some of the other stuff you've mentioned can be found in a T***p Bible, but someone else is going to have to do that research.

         Log in to Reply

      2. The opposite of DEI is HIE–homogeneity, inequity, and exclusion.  I'll take DEI, thanks

         Log in to Reply

3. My gut tells me that there is no one in this administration, and darn few remaining among the Republican party in Congress, able to pass the bar exam for admission to practice in the court of conscience?

   Log in to Reply

4. Powerful and eloquent defense of the Rule of Law and why it is the First Principle of our Constitution and the basis for our freedoms. SCOTUS should take a lesson from this wonderful court ruling.

   A Fourth Circuit Judge Warns Against Reducing The Rule Of Law To Lawlessness

   Log in to Reply

   1. Well, it would be interesting to compare this statement from Wilkinson:

      “If today the Executive claims the right to deport without due process and in disregard of court orders, what assurance will there be tomorrow that it will not deport American citizens and then disclaim responsibility to bring them home?"

      with this one from emperor fdfq:

      "The homegrowns are next, the homegrowns."

      Log in to Reply

      1. I just hope Chief Justice Roberts grows a spine (and a conscience) when this hits the shadow docket soon.  I don't suppose there is a way for SCOTUS to walk back their presidential immunity ruling at this point? 

         Between immunity and Trump's pardon powers for those carrying out his illegal orders, there really is very little keeping us from descending into chaos if the court decisions are ignored.

         Roberts needs to remember, you can't appease a bully, you can only stand up to them.

         Log in to Reply

         1. "I don't suppose there is a way for SCOTUS to walk back their presidential immunity ruling at this point?"

            Actually, there are a couple of ways.

            As that stupid ditz, Susan Collins, learned a few years ago from Brett Kavanaugh, most judges have to adhere to US Supreme Court precedent. The exception is that judges who sit on the Supreme Court can revisit and overrule Supreme Court precedent.

            One way to walk back the immunity decision is to say flat out that "we were wrong" and overrule the case. That is virtually impossible to happen.

            Another way, which is much more plausible, is for SCOTUS to chip away at the immunity decision. Remember, Dobbs did not come out of nowhere and do a complete 180 degree turn on Roe. Before Dobbs, there was Casey and other cases which chipped away at Roe. Dobbs was the last push overturning what still remained of Roe.

            A new case presenting different facts would give SCOTUS the opportunity to refine (or revise) the immunity decision. This is much more likely given John Roberts' temperment and his desire to try to maintain some shred of credibility for the Supreme Court.

            Log in to Reply

            1. I agree, SCOTUS wouldn't simply admit they were wrong.  But I can see where, as you say, a new case with a new set of facts, they could carve out a bad faith/abuse of discretion exception.  It's pretty clear that is exactly what Trump is doing.

               U.S. intelligence contradicts Trump’s justification for mass deportations

               The determination is the most comprehensive assessment to date undercutting the president’s rationale for deporting suspected gang members without due process.

               Trump’s invocation of the [Alien Enemies Act] claims such a link: “TdA is undertaking hostile actions and conducting irregular warfare against the territory of the United States both directly and at the direction, clandestine or otherwise, of the Maduro regime in Venezuela.”

               When asked about the findings, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence dismissed it as the work of “deep state actors” working in conjunction with the media.

               Log in to Reply

      2. Wondering, where do those “worst of the worst” homegrowns, you know — those incorrigible felons with over 30 convictions, report to for self-deportation???  Is there somewhere ICE/DOJ/FBI keeps a list that we can assist their roundups by adding names and addresses to???

         Asking for a serial outlaw . . . 

          

         Log in to Reply

         1. I'm fairly certain this depends on if the homegrown's grandfather had been banished from his home country.

            Log in to Reply

5. Another day, another stock market retreat.

   

   Log in to Reply

   1. So much winning!!!!

      "Tired of all the winning"? You bet your fat orange ass I am; I'm downright f***ing exhausted from all this winning . . . 

      Log in to Reply