Fridays with Nicole Sandler

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  2. sfvalues says:

    Playbook:
    1. Say there’s some terrible crisis only you can fix
    2. Do something you claim is to fix that crisis but causes an actual crisis
    3. Declare a state of emergency and claim extraordinary powers

  4. wa_rickf says:

    $4.89 / gal for gas. I have NEVER, EVER seen that.

    I asked the guy at the gas station, why. He said our region gets its gas from Canada.

    (Are effing kidding me?!?)

    • e.a. foster says:

      The lowest price for gas in Vancouver, B.C. is $164.9 a litre.
      There are 3.785 liters in a gallon. After this math fails me. It might work out to about $6.24 a gallon.
      Well if they are getting their gas from Canada it won’t be from B.C. because our prices go up every time the State of Washington refineries switch their mixture. I think we’re a tad short of refineries in B.C. and I don’t think Alberta has a lot of them either because pipelines bring the tar to other places Ontario has 4 refineries.
      Alberta produces “heavy oil” more like tar and Canada’s refineries are only suited to lighter oil so if some one is getting gas at those prices Congrats.

  5. dopefish says:

    OT: according to this CNN story, Judge Paula Xinis of the US District Court in Maryland has ordered the federal government to get Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national, back from the Salvadoran prison they shipped him to by 11:59pm on Monday.

    “I don’t see how they can even plausibly argue that there’s no capacity to bring someone back,” [Garcia’s lawyer] Sandoval-Moshenberg said. “Maybe they could have made that argument prior to Wednesday of last week, but as soon as they put Kristi Noem within the walls of that prison, they really kneecap their argument to say that they can’t get someone out of that prison — because they got Kristi Noem out of that prison.”

    Stephen Miller, Trump’s White House deputy chief of staff, on Friday called Xinis a “Marxist judge” who “now thinks she’s president of El Salvador.”

    • laua fries says:

      it is not that they CANT it is that they CAN and it would open the door to demands for them to bringing back More –

      [Welcome to emptywheel. I suspect you may have made a typo in your username; it triggered auto-moderation. Please let me know if you did/didn’t by replying to this comment. Thanks. /~Rayne]

    • dopefish says:

      According to ABC News, the DOJ lawyer who was in front of Xinis in that case has now been placed on administrative leave for a “failure to zealously advocate” for the government’s position. His supervisor was also placed on leave.

      “At my direction, every Department of Justice attorney is required to zealously advocate on behalf of the United States,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement on Saturday. “Any attorney who fails to abide by this direction will face consequences.”

      I was already skeptical that the gov’t would make any attempt to comply with this order. I wonder what their excuse will be on Tuesday?

      • earlofhuntingdon says:

        What Dragon Lady Bondi meant was that every DoJ Attorney ws obligated to zealously advocate on behalf of Donald Trump. The interests of the USG don’t enter into it.

    • harpie says:

      I apologize, dopefish, I was so worked up about this pre-coffee this morning,
      I actually started a new conversation below [and one comment in the pokey]
      without checking to see if anyone had brought it up yet.

      I am, however, now caffeinated and will do better.

  6. Savage Librarian says:

    Ranter Rave Op

    Uh-oh, Peter Navarro,
    With tales as tall as Kilimanjaro,
    Your tariff expert, so bizarro,
    Make-believe man: beg, steal or borrow.

    Ron Vara took us for a ride,
    Homunculus or Mr. Hyde?
    By his gaze you’ve tariff-eyed,
    And all because of pride you lied.

    How exactly will you spin
    this apparent mortal sin?
    Or maybe it’s a looney-bin
    you prefer with your kingpin.

    With ambition from pole to pole,
    GOP now owns the rigmarole,
    (But despite rumors of a grassy knoll)
    Even Cancun Ted wants Cruz control.

  7. Matt Foley says:

    I CANCEL EVERY DEMONIC ATTACK AGAINST YOU, YOUR MIND, YOUR BODY, YOUR CALLING AND YOUR FINANCES IN THE NAME OF JESUS!
    –Paula White-Cain
    April 5, 2025

    Whew! For a minute there I thought we were in big trouble.

  8. Matt Foley says:

    Trump played golf rather than honor the 4 dead suckers and losers from Lithuania. Nothing bothers this guy! Total MAGA stud! Fist bump and flag emojis!

  9. harpie says:

    I hope you don’t mind, Marcy, but I am so worked up about this,
    I just have to continue from this now closed post/comment:
    https://www.emptywheel.net/2025/04/01/the-three-kinds-of-fuck-ups-kristi-noem-committed-on-march-15/#comment-1093277
    where I continued from a previous THREAD and began with this:

    I am going to reproduce an entire Josh Gerstein THREAD
    re what ‘s happening with Kilmar Abrego-Garcia: [italics and bold added]

    … and continue through:

    DOJ lawyer Erez Reuveni says Abrego-Garcia is subject to a 2019 removal order that was valid to deport him to other countries but not El Salvador.

    Judge [XINIS] asks if [DOJ lawyer] Reuveni has a copy.
    Reuveni: “I do not have that order. It is not in the record.” ??? […]

    …and continue through Aaron Reichlin-Melnick saying::

    This is actually fascinating if true. As I’ve noted to several media sources already, this is actually how the DOJ/ICE normally handle wrongful removals; they admit error and work to bring someone back.

    So this suggests
    DOJ is pushing the Trump admin to do the right thing,
    and they’re refusing.

  10. harpie says:

    This is Erez Reuveni, the DOJ lawyer I’m talking about in my comment that’s in the pokey:

    Justice Dept. Accuses Top Immigration Lawyer of Failing to Follow Orders
    Erez Reuveni conceded in court that the deportation last month of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, who had a court order allowing him to stay in the United States, should never have taken place. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/05/us/politics/justice-dept-immigration-lawyer-leave.html Glenn Thrush April 5, 2025

    In court, he admitted to Judge Xinis that he COULD NOT Habeas the Final Order of Removal!

    [from Politico; Reuveni to Xinis IN COURT:]
    “I am also frustrated that I have no answer for you on a lot of these questions,” said Erez Reuveni, an assistant director in the Justice Department’s Office of Immigration Litigation.

    “The government made a choice here to produce no evidence.” […]

    • harpie says:

      https://bsky.app/profile/joshuajfriedman.com/post/3lm5k26xwqs2e
      April 6, 2025 at 9:21 AM

      NEW: As the Fourth Circuit today considers whether to block her order, Judge Paula Xinis releases a strong opinion defending it, calling Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s detention “wholly lawless” and her order “the narrowest, daresay only, relief warranted.” [Link] [THREAD]
      […]
      The Trump administration “cling[s] to the stunning proposition that they can forcibly remove any person—migrant and U.S. citizen alike—to prisons outside the United States, and then baldly assert they have no way to effectuate return.” […]

      • gruntfuttock says:

        So, the next time he trolls up here in Scotland, if I grab him and lock him up in my work van, he’s got no power to get him back to America?

        Really?!

        Not that I want to, you know, I want to stay as far away from this demented knob-brain as possible but, supposing I had this nasty little wasp factory thing to mess around with …?

        (just adding that this is SATIRE)

    • harpie says:

      I just want to say that there are some people who think Reuveni just should have not gone to court for the TRUMP Regime and quit before hand, and I get that…

      but I think maybe then we would not have
      such a clear record of the extent of their fvcking criminality.

      • Doug in Ohio says:

        Agreed. Reuveni courageously put a number of key admissions on the record, as quoted by Judge Xinis in today’s filing:
        (p. 2) Mr. Reuveni: “We have nothing to say on the merits. We concede he should not have been removed to El Salvador.”
        (p. 4, concerning the 2019 “withholding of removal” immigration court order that allowed Abrego Garcia to stay in the U.S., issued after a DHS attempt to deport him) Mr. Reuveni: “The government did not appeal that decision, so it is final.”
        (p. 4, concerning the conspicuously missing order of removal) Mr. Reuveni: “There’s no dispute that the order could not be used to send Mr. Abrego Garcia to El Salvador.”)

        Reuveni performed a great public service. The whole 22-page filing by Judge Xinis is an eye-opening barnburner refuting every DHS/DOJ rationalization for deporting Abrego Garcia and for trying to avoid the responsibility to retrieve him ASAP.

  11. e.a. foster says:

    When the news reported the response of the DOJ lawyer almost chocked and laughed. OMG, that was funny. It was also a smart move. He outed his employer and now its on the record. You can’t argue anything with out having been given the information. Bondi advised the press the lawyer didn’t do his job and was on “leave” . Now I suspect she was trying to avoid the issue and pass the buck, but really if that is the best she can do, she’s as dumb as a hammer.
    If this wasn’t so tragic it would make for a fun t.v. series, sort of like the Yes Minister British comedy show.

    • harpie says:

      TRUMP appeals to SCOTUS
      [RE per Mazie: timing: OK the 4th circuit backed up the district court judge just as DOJ was filing its emergency application.]

      https://bsky.app/profile/stevenmazie.bsky.social/post/3lma7uyf4x225
      April 7, 2025 at 10:57 AM

      BREAKING: Trump DOJ files another emergency appeal to SCOTUS. This one is fighting a judge’s order to have a Maryland man the government admits was *mistakenly* sent to the prison in El Salvador returned to the United States. [THREAD]

      • harpie says:

        I meant to write RE: timing, per Mazie

        And I DO wonder about that timing.

        Also, part of Mazie’s THREAD about the SCOTUS appeal:

        The application continues the trend of increasingly hot rhetoric in the Trump administration’s condemnation of federal judges.

        Government complains that the judge’s order violates America’s separation of powers and El Salvador’s sovereignty

        Here the govt acknowledges that Mr. Abrego Garcia had won a “withholding from removal” to El Salvador in 2019. But says hey, if he were to have another proceeding today, he wouldn’t get this relief.

        That last bit! They are acknowledging their animus.

      • harpie says:

        Andrew Torrez re: timing:

        https://bsky.app/profile/andrewtorrez.bsky.social/post/3lmaca6vki22l
        April 7, 2025 at 11:39 AM

        1/ Either the 4th Circuit is clairvoyant or the Trump administration has become predictable in its lies. [screenshot][THREAD]

        Here’s the 4th Cir, minutes before Trump asked SCOTUS to stay Judge Xinis’s order requiring the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia by midnight tonight, suggesting that the admin might lie…

        2/ …and argue Abrego Garcia never asked to be returned.

        And right on schedule, here’s the Trump admin, minutes later, asking the Supreme Court to stay Judge Xinis’s order based on that lie. [screenshot]

    • harpie says:

      From the Friedman THREAD:

      Judges Thacker and King call the govt’s arguments “unconscionable”: “The United States Government has no legal authority to snatch a person who is lawfully present in the United States off the street and remove him from the country without due process.”

      From Kyle Cheney’s THREAD:
      https[:]//bsky.app/profile/kyledcheney[.]bsky.social/post/3lmaaccur2a2c

      MORE: The panel, which ruled unanimously, scolds the Justice Department for penalizing the lawyers who argued the case. “The duty of zealous representation is tempered by the duty of candor to the court … and the duty to uphold the rule of law.”

    • harpie says:

      More from Friedman’s THREAD:

      Even the conservative Judge Wilkinson, a Reagan appointee, writes separately to condemn the government’s arguments: “It takes no small amount of imagination to understand that this is a path of perfect lawlessness, one that courts cannot condone.”

      And Mazie:

      So we will find out within *hours* if SCOTUS issues an administrative stay to give the government a brief reprieve on bringing the Maryland man back.

      If it does, that *doesn’t* mean it will ultimately side with the govt. It just means a brief pause while the justices can consider the application.

      • harpie says:

        Continuation of Bower THREAD:

        April 7, 2025 at 3:52 PM
        Garcia actually filed a response to the government’s application to vacate around the same time Roberts issued the order: [LINK]

        OR [via George Peakes]
        US CHIEF JUSTICE PAUSES ORDER TO RETURN WRONGFULLY DEPORTED MAN

  13. harpie says:

    Spencer Ackerman, today:

    The War at Home El Salvador And The Dark Lessons of Guantanamo The Salvadoran slavery-prison now used for migrant renditions reflects the infamous detention center—with some updates https://www.forever-wars.com/el-salvador-and-the-dark-lessons-of-guantanamo/
    Spencer Ackerman 07 Apr 2025

    […] But CECOT reflects an important difference that indicates the Trump people have learned from what the Bush administration perceived as a vast judicial overreach opposing Guantanamo.

    At the dawn of the War on Terror, the Bush administration established Guantanamo to be a place beyond the reach of the law.
    […]
    But starting in 2004 and culminating in 2008, federal courts—and, in a handful of major rulings, the Supreme Court—rejected Bush’s assertion that those at Guantanamo possessed neither legal rights to challenge their detention nor redress to seek it in U.S. federal court. I want to be clear that judicial constraints on Guantanamo were never as robust as Bush feared and as the detainees hoped. […]

    • harpie says:

      Ackerman, cont’d:

      […] CECOT solves that problem. Kilmar Abrego Garcia, rendered by the Department of Homeland Security to CECOT nearly a month ago, is the victim of what the Justice Department has acknowledged is an administrative error. But the Justice Department just as quickly asserted that his rendition can have no remedy, because Abrego Garcia is not in their custody. Then it punished the attorney who conceded Abrego Garcia’s rendition represented an error.

      In this regard, CECOT is an opportunity for the Trump administration to have what the Bush administration meant Guantanamo Bay to be: a place truly beyond the reach of the law. It represents a reset to the ambitions of the first stage of the War on Terror, one that learned from the reversals of the subsequent stages. After all, no court ever injuncted the U.S. from extraordinary renditions—and we will never know basic information about those renditions, including just how many people the U.S. rendered. […]

    • harpie says:

      Carol Rosenberg re: Guantanamo:

      https://bsky.app/profile/carolrosenbergnyt.bsky.social/post/3lm3etpsyn22j
      April 5, 2025 at 12:43 PM

      The Trump administration carried out its first direct deportation from Guantanamo Bay to Nicaragua this week — and other news about the offshore outpost in ICE detention. [link]

      Links to NYTimes April 4, 2025:
      How Guantánamo Bay Figures in the Trump Immigration Crackdown In two months, around 400 migrants have been held there, mostly Venezuelan and Nicaraguan citizens designated for deportation. [Carol Rosenberg has been reporting on U.S. military activities at the Navy base in Cuba since 1999.]

      • P J Evans says:

        I know who should be there – and it isn’t any of the people who are currently held there.

    • harpie says:

      https://bsky.app/profile/nkalamb.bsky.social/post/3lm5tggxqos2s
      April 6, 2025 at 12:09 PM [emphasis added]

      “My detention at Guantanamo changed me.
      The isolation, the deprivation… it broke us down.”

      A Venezuelan man who entered the US for a CBP One appointment on Jan. 19, 2025—and violated no laws—describes the horrors of Guantanamo detention aka imprisonment. [screenshots]
      [Center for Constitutional Rights LINK]

      Links to Center for Constitutional Rights Declaration of Luis Alberto Castillo Rivera

    • harpie says:

      In NOT Guantanamo detention news:

      Trump Administration Aims to Spend $45 Billion to Expand Immigrant Detention A request for proposals for new detention facilities and other services would allow the government to expedite the contracting process and rapidly expand detention. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/07/us/politics/trump-administration-immigrant-detention-facilities-services.html April 7, 2025 Updated 2:58 p.m. ET

      […] ICE is already expecting a large windfall from the G.O.P. budget plan, which Senate Republicans approved on Saturday. That measure lays out a significant spending increase for the administration’s immigration agenda — up to $175 billion over the next 10 years to the committees overseeing immigration enforcement, among other things. The $45 billion request to contractors would put ICE in a position to more readily spend those funds.

      The request also invites the Defense Department to use its own money for immigrant detention under the same plan. […]

      • P J Evans says:

        About 90% of that should go to training agents so. among other things, they can tell personal tattoos from “gang tattoos”. And they should have to lose all of their own tats.
        (No, I have no sympathy for them.)

  14. harpie says:

    Anna Bower, Re: Government’s SCOTUS application [which Sauer signed]:

    https://bsky.app/profile/annabower.bsky.social/post/3lmak32syd22s
    April 7, 2025 at 1:21 PM [emphasis added]

    Interesting choice of words in the government’s SCOTUS application, which refers to Abrego Garcia as an “enemy alien.”

    The government has claimed that Garcia was removed under the Immigration and Nationality Act, **not** the Alien Enemies Act. [link][screenshot]

    (Worth noting, too, that the government has alleged that Garcia is a member of MS-13. But there the Alien Enemies Act proclamation that Trump issued last month relates to Tren de Aragua, not MS-13.)

    To be clear, the government reiterates in this same brief that Abrego Garcia was on a plane of people removed pursuant to the INA, not the AEA. So they’re not changing their argument on that point, though using the “enemy alien” language is odd imo given the background.

    • harpie says:

      Steve Vladeck:
      https://bsky.app/profile/stevevladeck.bsky.social/post/3lmablcife226
      April 7, 2025 at 11:28 AM

      “MS-13 members such as Abrego.”

      This is what we lawyers call an allegation, not a fact.

      Another sign of the times that it’s in a brief filed in the Supreme Court by the Solicitor General of the United States. [SAUER]

      Marcy:
      https[:]//bsky.app/profile/emptywheel.bsky[.]social/post/3lmahzqivvk2r
      April 7, 2025 at 1:23 PM [< I broke that link because I added it later]

      Ut oh.
      Now we can grill John Sauer about DOJ lying about the third plane.

    • harpie says:

      Kyle Cheney:

      https://bsky.app/profile/kyledcheney.bsky.social/post/3lmah3awkny2u
      April 7, 2025 at 1:06 PM

      The administration seems to take two positions on MS-13.

      In the Abrego Garcia case, it says bringing a suspected MS-13 member back to the US is dangerous, even if he remains detained, because MS-13 can be violent and recruit others in US facilities. 1/2 [screenshot] [SCOTUS application link]

      Yet the Trump administration has repeatedly touted its efforts to extradite nunmerous MS-13 leaders TO the US for prosecution. [screenshots] [Link]

      Links to DOJ: High-Ranking MS-13 Leader Arraigned in Long Island Federal Court on Terrorism and Racketeering Charges After His Arrest in Mexico 3/19/25

    • harpie says:

      Here’s Pam BONDI on Fox News Sunday:

      https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lm5ttz56js2g
      April 6, 2025 at 12:17 PM

      BREAM: Wouldn’t it be helpful in making your case to show what you have explaining these allegations?

      BONDI: Members of ICE have testified that he is an MS-13 gang member … we have to rely on what ICE says. He have to rely on what Homeland Security says. [VIDEO]

      • P J Evans says:

        Bondi knows better.
        When ICE can’t tell the difference between a team logo and a gang tattoo, they’re not qualified to make those decisions. and their advice to higher-ups should be treated as the fantasy that it is. (Also ICE and CBP, like cops, tends to act like a gang itself.)

  15. harpie says:

    1] https://bsky.app/profile/chrisgeidner.bsky.social/post/3lmb2myokvs2c
    April 7, 2025 at 6:56 PM

    BREAKING: The Supreme Court, on a 5-4 vote, ends the [BOASBERG] TROs in the Alien Enemies Act litigation, holding challenges must be brought in habeas and in the jurisdiction in which detainees are held. The court also holds that notice and an actual opportunity to bring a habeas case must be given. [THREAD]

    Sotomayor writes the main dissent, in which Kagan and Jackson join in full and Barrett joins in part. Jackson also dissents separately. [Link][screenshots]

    • harpie says:

      2] https://bsky.app/profile/joshuajfriedman.com/post/3lmbd7x2e7c2u
      April 7, 2025 at 9:30 PM

      NEW: The Trump administration tells Judge Boasberg that now that SCOTUS has ruled, he should dismiss the Venezuelan plaintiffs’ case for lack of jurisdiction—and also abandon his efforts to determine whether and how it defied his orders! [link][screenshot]

      The names of senior DOJ attorneys August Flentje and Erez Reuveni—reportedly relieved of their duties after having admitted error on behalf of the government in the Abrego Garcia case—no longer appear on the signature page. [screenshot]
      [BONDI, BLANCHE, BOVE, MIZELLE, ROTH, ENSIGN]

      • P J Evans says:

        I wonder what threats/promises he made to SCCOTUS to result in such blatantly bad decisions.

      • harpie says:

        https://bsky.app/profile/kyledcheney.bsky.social/post/3lmcm7qtl3k2h
        April 8, 2025 at 9:44 AM

        JUST IN: Judge Boasberg has canceled today’s hearing on the Alien Enemies Act, in light of the Supreme Court ruling, but he is asking the plaintiffs whether they see any other basis to pursue a preliminary injunction (seems unlikely). [screenshot]

        https[:]//talkingpointsmemo[.]com/morning-memo/scotus-launches-itself-into-the-worst-of-the-trump-cases David Kurtz April 8, 2025 10:24 a.m.

        The Justice Department filed a snotty notice of the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Alien Enemies Act to Judge Boasberg and asked him to end his inquiry into whether the Trump administration violated his order blocking the deportations and should be held in contempt.

        Boasberg’s initial response [link to Cheney post, above] did not tip his hand on the contempt proceedings. The Supreme Court did Boasberg no favors in depriving him of jurisdiction, but that alone should not be enough – in theory – to end the contempt proceeding.

    • harpie says:

      140. The Disturbing Myopia of Trump v. J.G.G.
      In normal times, it might be possible to defend the Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling on Monday vacating a pair of temporary restraining orders in the Alien Enemy Act case. But these aren’t normal times. https://www.stevevladeck.com/p/140-the-disturbing-myopia-of-trump Steve Vladeck Apr 07, 2025

      […] Thus, there will be judicial review of the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemy Act, and that’s a good thing. But the review we end up with will be far more impoverished than what was already unfolding before Chief Judge Boasberg. That review may still suffice in individual cases, but what the Court’s ruling completely refuses to engage with (unlike Justice Sotomayor’s dissent, which tackles it head-on) is how much the Trump administration is attempting to use the Alien Enemy Act systemically—for mass, summary removals rather than case-by-case, individualized adjudications. By relying upon an unpersuasive procedural technicality to force more individualized litigation, the Court is effectively bringing a pea-shooter to a gunfight. [emphasis original]

      • harpie says:

        The end of Vladeck’s essay:

        […] And it opens the door to the alarming possibility that the Court is not, in fact, ready to accept how profound a threat the Trump administration poses to the rule of law—not because the Court is upholding what the government is doing, but because a majority of the justices are willing to let the government win on procedural technicalities in contexts in which the real-world costs are increasingly severe. It’s not too late for the Court to reverse this pattern. But it’s getting late quickly.

      • P J Evans says:

        Whatever legacy Roberts was hoping to leave, this stuff is going to be a BIG part of it.
        He’s more like Roger Taney than he should ever want to be.

      • harpie says:

        Lee Kovarsky responds to Vladeck’s essay:

        https://bsky.app/profile/kovarsky.bsky.social/post/3lmbctxbhwc2h
        April 7, 2025 at 9:23 PM

        THE SUPREME COURT’S TdA OPINION IS TERRIFYING.

        Not because it’s wrong, although it is, but because of how comfortable the Court seems in abusing authority to get to what it must see as an institutionally desirable outcome.
        1/
        […]
        It’s so bad, in fact, that I break with those suggesting that this stuff is the result of the shadow-docket posture. The mistreatment of authority is so extreme that it had to be on purpose, & the opinion seems to have been reverse engineered to provide a veneer of legality to a policy decision.
        /e [/18]

    • harpie says:

      SCOTUS, 5-4, backs Trump effort to end one route for Alien Enemies Act challenges The court was unanimous that challenges could be brought, but the limit — only habeas claims can be brought — raises significant questions and concerns. https://www.lawdork.com/p/scotus-5-4-trump-aea-challenge-habeas
      Chris Geidner Apr 07, 2025

      On Monday, the five men on the U.S. Supreme Court said they would take President Donald Trump and his administration at their word in litigation over Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. This despite the fact that these are the very people who have spent the past 24 days trying to avoid; manipulate; deceive; and, in at least one instance, likely outright ignore the courts in the litigation.

      The four women justices would do no such thing and said so — although Justice Amy Coney Barrett held back a little more than the others. [..]

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