Etiquette



DP Etiquette

First rule: Don't be a jackass.

Other rules: Do not attack or insult people you disagree with. Engage with facts, logic and beliefs. Out of respect for others, please provide some sources for the facts and truths you rely on if you are asked for that. If emotion is getting out of hand, get it back in hand. To limit dehumanizing people, don't call people or whole groups of people disrespectful names, e.g., stupid, dumb or liar. Insulting people is counterproductive to rational discussion. Insult makes people angry and defensive. All points of view are welcome, right, center, left and elsewhere. Just disagree, but don't be belligerent or reject inconvenient facts, truths or defensible reasoning.

Wednesday, May 7, 2025

For wonks: A deep dive into immigration due process violations under Obama and djt

This is a TL/DR post, but it tells an interesting story about the rule of law and how Obama and djt differ in how they deal with it. These are comments made here recently.

Comment 1: Claims that 75% to 83% of those deported "never saw a judge or had a chance to plead their case" are based on statistics from individual years, particularly 2012 and 2013. And who was President back then? Snopes ruled that statement mostly true.

Response: The Snope analysis is here: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-deportations-court/

A couple of points need to be made clear.

1. If Obama or his subordinates violated due process or engaged in any other serious, widespread violations of the Constitution, I would want him prosecuted and jailed. I want to Constitution to be applied to everyone equally and fairly. I seriously believe in the rule of law and it's fair and equal treatment for everybody, including Democrats, Republicans, independents, crooks, liars, traitors, innocents, communists, capitalists, crackpots, creeps and everyone else.

2. Court cases about due process violations associated with "summary removals" by legal procedures such as "expedited removal" and "reinstatement of removal" have found that those deportation procedures do not violate the US Constitution. Courts have generally upheld expedited removal under Congress’s plenary power over immigration, citing the "entry fiction" doctrine that treats noncitizens at the border as outside constitutional protections. Also, the Supreme Court in Department of Homeland Security v. Thuraissigiam (2020) declined to extend due process rights to noncitizens detained shortly after entry, reinforcing the distinction between those "on the threshold" of entry and those with established ties. The Supreme Court and lower courts have upheld reinstatement under the rationale that noncitizens who illegally reenter forfeit procedural rights.

3. Civil rights advocates like the ACLU strenuously argue that expedited deportation procedures violate due process, but so far they have not won.
https://www.aclu.org/issues/immigrants-rights/ice-and-border-patrol-abuses/due-process-immigration
https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/expedited-removal

4. I searched for due process violations in expedited deportations under Obama. During the Obama administration, there were two federal court cases that found due process violations in expedited deportation procedures, US v Ramos (2010) and US v Raya-Vaca (2014). Those two cases identified violating deportation procedures, and Obama responded by implementing procedural reforms and adjustments.

The Ramos decision exposed widespread flaws in the stipulated removal program, where unrepresented detainees waived their rights to hearings and appeals without adequate understanding of the consequences. In response:

In response to Ramos, Obama's Executive Office for Immigration Review issued Operational Policy and Procedure Memorandum 10-01 in September 2010, mandating that Immigration Judges conduct individualized reviews of stipulated removal requests. Judges were required to verify that waivers of rights were “voluntary, knowing, and intelligent,” including confirming detainees’ comprehension of charges, relief eligibility, and consequences of removal.
https://www.aila.org/infonet/eoir-oppm-procedures-requests-stipulated-removal

Also, Obama's Department of Homeland Security (DHS) updated its stipulated removal forms to include clearer explanations of rights in Spanish and English, addressing the language barriers highlighted in Ramos. Detainees were also provided access to legal orientation programs in detention centers to improve awareness of procedural options. And, DHS stopped doing mass presentations of stipulated removal forms in group settings, instead employing individualized meetings between officers and detainees.
https://www.nilc.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Deportation-Without-Due-Process-2011-09.pdf

The Raya-Vaca ruling held that expedited removal violated due process when officers failed to provide notice of charges or opportunities to contest removal. The Obama administration responded by having U.S. Customs and Border Protection implement mandatory training modules emphasizing proper notice procedures, language access, and documentation of interactions during expedited removal interviews. Agents were instructed to ensure noncitizens understood their right to request asylum or voluntary departure.
https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/sites/default/files/practice_advisory/final_expedited_removal_advisory-_updated_2-21-17.pdf

A November 2014 DHS Memorandum prioritized enforcement actions against “threats to national security, public safety, and border security,” indirectly reducing reliance on expedited removal for long-term residents or low-priority cases.
https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/14_1120_memo_prosecutorial_discretion(1).pdf

Critics still argue that Obama's changes, although improvements, still fall short of what critics see as continuing non-trivial due process violations in deportations. As far as I know, the courts did not go back and whack Obama a second time after policy changes he implemented in the wake of the Ramos and Raya-Vaca court cases. Apparently, Obama's policy changes satisfied the federal courts.

5. This point is very important. Two wrongs almost never or never make a right. Obama's earlier wrongs do not justify or sanction Trump's later wrongs. Their wrongs, if any, are separate and independent things. So, what about the Trump administration? Oops! It turns out that Trump is a very, very naughty boy.

Trump reintroduced stipulated removal, a process allowing noncitizens to waive their right to a hearing-through executive orders in early 2025. This policy re-establishes the pre-Ramos practices where detainees, often unrepresented and under coercive conditions, signed removal orders without understanding their rights. Despite Ramos mandating clarity in forms, non-English speakers in Trump-era stipulated removals often receive inadequate translations, leading to erroneous waivers of rights.
https://www.vera.org/explainers/trumps-week-one-orders-on-immigration-law-explained
https://immigrantjustice.org/know-your-rights/mass-deportation-threats

The Trump administration expanded expedited removal in March 2025 to apply nationwide to noncitizens unable to prove two years of continuous U.S. residence. This policy directly conflicts with Raya-Vaca’s holding that noncitizens must receive notice of charges and opportunities to contest removal. Trump eroded of notice requirements under his expanded policy. Now, Border Patrol agents conduct rapid interviews without ensuring comprehension of charges or relief options. That violates Raya-Vaca’s mandate for meaningful notice. For example, Venezuelan deportees in 2025 alleged they were not informed of their right to seek asylum, leading to a Supreme Court challenge.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/28/trump-immigration-100days-due-process-00307435

Although Raya-Vaca emphasized the right to consult counsel, Trump has again restricted it. Expedited removals under Trump now usually occurs within hours of apprehension, leaving no time for legal representation. The ACLU estimates that 90% of expedited removal cases in 2025 lacked attorney participation.
https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/immigrants-rights-advocates-sue-trump-administration-over-fast-track-deportation-policy
https://www.nilc.org/resources/know-your-rights-expedited-removal-expansion/

Beyond Ramos and Raya-Vaca, the Trump administration’s policies have introduced new due process risks. Trump policy eviscerates of asylum protections by empowering immigration judges to dismiss asylum cases without hearings. That directly contradicts the “credible fear” screening process upheld in Raya-Vaca. In April 2025, the Department of Justice (DOJ) reported that 40% of asylum cases were summarily dismissed under this policy.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/28/trump-immigration-100days-due-process-00307435
https://www.aila.org/library/featured-issue-u-s-immigration-courts-under-trump-2-0?page=391

Federal courts have repeatedly cited the Trump administration for disregarding due process obligations. Wrongful Deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia: In April 2025, a Maryland district court found that DHS deported Abrego Garcia to El Salvador despite a 2019 order barring his removal. The administration defied court mandates to facilitate his return, prompting Judge Paula Xinis to order sworn testimony from DHS officials.
https://www.jurist.org/news/2025/04/us-judge-orders-sworn-testimony-of-trump-officials-on-compliance-in-wrongful-deportation-case/

ACLU v. Trump (2025): A coalition sued the administration over its expanded expedited removal policy, alleging violations of the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause. The lawsuit cites Raya-Vaca and Ramos to argue that the policy “replicates and amplifies past constitutional failures”.
https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/immigrants-rights-advocates-sue-trump-administration-over-fast-track-deportation-policy

Ninth Circuit due process violation found: In Doe v. Trump (2025), the Ninth Circuit blocked the administration’s use of expedited removal for long-term residents, noting that the policy “ignores decades of precedent requiring individualized hearings”.
https://immigrationforum.org/article/the-first-100-days-of-the-second-trump-administration-key-immigration-related-actions-and-developments/

Trump and his officials have openly rejected due process as an impediment to deportation goals. President Trump stated in April 2025, “We cannot provide everyone a trial… doing so would take 200 years,” while Acting DHS Secretary Benjamin Huffman called due process “a luxury we cannot afford”.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/23/us/politics/trump-immigrants-trials-deportation.html

The administration’s “self-deportation” initiative, including the CBP Home app, pressures migrants to leave without hearings, undermining Ramos and Raya-Vaca.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/03/trump-administration-expedited-removal/

One can reasonably and fairly conclude that the Trump administration has systematically dismantled due process protections upheld in Ramos and Raya-Vaca, reviving stipulation practices, expanding expedited removal, and curtailing asylum access.

Therefore, if Obama was X bad regarding illegal deportations because his fixes arguably weren't good enough, Trump is at least ~5X bad because (1) Trump has gone back to the old problems that Obama tried to fix and had at least partly fixed, (2) Trump says due process is too much trouble, and (ii) Trump is openly telling the federal courts to fuck off, something that Obama never did.

Kleptocracy rising; Law hangs by one last thread, the Senate filibuster

djt’s corruption runs very deep. The NYT reports (not paywalled) about his corruption now being in the open and accepted by the GOP and maybe the Dems too. Apparently, there are no laws that can stop him from taking bribes from anyone in return for anything he can steal from the US government to give to the buyer: 

Secret Deals, Foreign Investments, Presidential Policy Changes: 
The Rise of Trump’s Crypto Firm  
World Liberty Financial has eviscerated the boundary between private enterprise and government policy in ways without precedent in modern American history

Mr. Trump’s return to the White House has opened lucrative new pathways for him to cash in on his power, whether through his social media company or new overseas real estate deals. But none of the Trump family’s other business endeavors pose conflicts of interest that compare to those that have emerged since the birth of World Liberty.

The firm, largely owned by a Trump family corporate entity, has erased centuries-old presidential norms, eviscerating the boundary between private enterprise and government policy in a manner without precedent in modern American history.

Mr. Trump is now not only a major crypto dealer; he is also the industry’s top policy maker. So far in his second term, Mr. Trump has leveraged his presidential powers in ways that have benefited the industry — and in some cases his own company — even though he had spent years deriding crypto as a haven for drug dealers and scammers.
The article points out that World Liberty’s executives, claiming they do nothing improper, marketed their scam coin to buyers everywhere. That generated more than $550 million in sales, with a large cut going to deeply corrupt djt’s deeply corrupt family. Since the USSC immunized djt for essentially all crimes while in office, the prospects of him ever facing any accountability for his crimes from our legal system, including our now fully corrupted and MAGAfied FBI, DoJ, and USSC, is almost zero.
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MAGAs proposed pro-crime, pro-corruption 
and pro-dictatorship law

MAGA extremists in the House have introduced a bill to permanently shield djt and high level executive branch MAGA enablers from prosecution for crimes they committed while in office. The shield extends to time after they have left government. The MAGA, pro-kleptocracy, pro-dictatorship and pro-crime bill, HR1789 - Promptly Ending Political Prosecutions and Executive Retaliation Act of 2025, will not become law as long as Senate Republicans keep the filibuster intact. If they get rid of it, we’re really screwed. The pressure to get rid of it must be intense and getting more so by the day.

The primary focus of HR1789 is on civil actions, administrative remedies, and judicial administration, specifically targeting how and when lawsuits against high-ranking executive officials can be moved or dismissed in federal courts. By moving state cases to federal courts, our MAGAfied DoJ can be expected to dismiss all cases against all MAGA elites. All state and federal lawsuits against Dems would presumably remain intact, unless any accused Dem buys enough World Liberty bitcoin to purchase either a dismissal of the case by the DoJ or a pardon by djt.

HR1789 restricts the courts capacity to define the scope of official duties of the accused criminals, limiting the scope of what can be prosecuted to some undefined scope of crimes. My reading of the proposed law shields protected officials from all crimes committed within the scope of official duties, which is undefined. HR1789 explicitly states that no court may define or limit the scope of the duties of an official of the Executive Office of the President. This section of the proposed law includes some of these stunningly corrupt MAGA bits:
§ 1456. Official Immunity 
“(a) Immunity.—In any case that is subject to removal under section 1442(a), a Federal official shall be presumed to have immunity under article VI, clause 2 of the Constitution of the United States from any charge or claim made by or under authority of State law which may only be rebutted by clear and convincing evidence that the official was not acting under the color of such office or on account of any right, title or authority claimed under any Act of Congress for the apprehension or punishment of criminals or the collection of the revenue.
“(b) Determination of immunity.—For purposes of making a determination of immunity under subsection (a), the following may not be admitted into evidence:

“(1) The nature, elements or any other aspect of the charge or claim made by or under authority of State law.

“(2) An act alleged to be official that is not the subject of the charge or claim made by or under authority of State law.

“(d) Prohibition on limitation of scope.—No court may define or limit the scope of the duties of an official of the Executive Office of the President.
If enacted as written, HR1789 prevents courts from defining the scope of official duties. That allows executive officials to claim immunity for a broad range of actions by asserting that committing their alleged crimes were part of their official duties. The courts would not be able to dispute that, unless the USSC holds that kind of law is unconstitutional.

Q: How likely is it that the Senate will get rid of the filibuster in the next 6 months?[1] 


Footnote:
1. For context, Pxy put the odds at 25% for total obliteration of the filibuster, but “more likely” for incremental filibuster erosion, e.g., exceptions for specific bills, budget reconciliation (the scope of which does not include HR1789), etc. I put the odds of total obliteration at ~40% and incremental filibuster erosion at ~70%. Rationales, in part:

Pxy, unconstrained - no human judgment & assessment: While Project 2025’s authoritarian undertones and Trump’s demands create pressure for radical action, the Senate’s structural conservatism and Republicans’ slim majority act as counterweights to complete elimination of the filibuster.

Me - human judgment & assessment: Project 2025’s, djt’s, and MAGA’s urgent authoritarian needs, presumably as expressed candidly in the still secret 180-Day Playbook and in djt’s and MAGA elite’s public behaviors, coupled with MAGA’s slim Senate majority, constitute powerful incentives to completely eliminate the filibuster sooner rather than later or never. It is now or never for MAGA elite’s run at establishing some form of an American kleptocratic dictatorship-plutocracy-Christian nationalist theocracy.

Pxy, constrained by me telling it to reassess filibuster threat by taking into account djt and MAGA authoritarianism, corruption, contempt for the rule of law, Senate MAGA tactics, e.g., ignoring the Senate Parliamentarian, MAGAs Project 2025, MAGAs secret 180-Day Playbook, etc.: Executive Summary: The MAGA movement’s open contempt for democratic norms, combined with its kleptocratic ambitions and demagogic tactics, significantly elevates the risk of filibuster elimination-revising the probability to 50% within six months. While institutional inertia and Republican moderates like Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Susan Collins (R-ME) remain barriers, the GOP’s accelerating authoritarianism, Trump’s retribution agenda, and procedural brinksmanship (e.g., bypassing the Senate Parliamentarian) create a volatile environment where traditional analyses underestimate the threat. This reassessment integrates MAGA’s ideological coherence, Project 2025’s institutional capture strategies, and recent GOP maneuvers to dismantle checks on power. (emphasis added)

Tuesday, May 6, 2025

Drilling down into the horrors of MAGA and immigration

This 25 minute video by John Oliver is both funny and terrifying at the same time. djt's and MAGA elites' lies, arrogance, ignorance, authoritarianism, cruelty, cynicism, contempt for the rule of law and all-around fuckery are crystal clear and undeniable. 




Also, this long comment by me dives deep into due process and immigration.

Bits: Gaza war update; MAGA authoritarianism update; MAGA abortion authoritarianism

The AP writes: “Gaza aid dries up as Israeli blockade enters a third month -- While pummeling the strip with airstrikes, it has banned any food, water, shelter or medication from being trucked into the Palestinian territory, where the U.N. says 90% of the population is reliant on humanitarian aid to survive. Israel says the blockade aims to pressure Hamas to release the hostages it still holds. Of the 59 captives remaining in Gaza, 24 are believed to still be alive.”


Palestinian children at a food distribution center in 
Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, April 21, 2025
They are starving to death



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The Daily Beast reports, in an article Historian of Fascism Claims Trump Is Speeding Towards Dictatorship Faster Than Putin about the progress that djt and MAGA elites are making in killing our democracy, rule of law and civil liberties. A leading historian of fascism, Professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat, argues that the current US slide into authoritarianism under djt and MAGA elites is unprecedented in modern times. She says that djt’s efforts to consolidate power are happening with a speed and ruthlessness that surpass the early years of leaders like Vladimir Putin in Russia or Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey. According to Ben-Ghiat, the current U.S. political climate more closely resembles the aftermath of a coup than a typical democratic transition of power

Ben-Ghiat, author of Strongmen: From Mussolini to the Present and a professor at New York University, highlights the rapid dismantling of government programs and social services under Trump as a hallmark of “democratic backsliding,” a process seen when democracies transition into authoritarian regimes. She emphasizes that neither Putin, Orban, nor Erdogan moved as swiftly to centralize authority after coming to power through elections. The rapid dismantling of social services and attacks on science are unprecedented, even compared to other dictatorships. She draws historical parallels with Nazi Germany’s swift descent into dictatorship, warning against complacency in advanced democracies.

Q: Is Ben-Ghiat an irrational, full of malarkey alarmist crackpot, or does she make some good, maybe terrifying, points?
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The 19th Newsletter reports about MAGA politicians in Missouri trying to overturn abortion rights that voters voted for: “Missouri’s voters restored abortion rights. Their leaders are trying to overrule them. -- Clinics are rebuilding services, patients are returning and Republicans in the state are moving quickly to take protections away — again. Celeste Athon was one of the first dozen people to have received an abortion in Missouri since the November election, when voters backed a proposal to add abortion rights protections to the state constitution. Missouri, one of the quickest states to outlaw abortion after the fall of Roe v. Wade, was the first where voters overturned a near-total ban. Missouri Republicans, who hold supermajorities in both legislative chambers, have filed more than a dozen anti-abortion bills this legislative session, ranging from a six-week ban to a bill that would classify abortion pills as controlled substances to legislation that would treat abortion as homicide.”

Once again, when the public wants something that MAGA elites oppose, MAGA elites reject and ignore what the people want. They want their way, period. This is American radical right authoritarianism in action, clear, pure and simple. In this matter, we see radical right Christian nationalist, theocratic authoritarianism. MAGA’s “rationale” exemplifies MAGA “thinking” about policy. They just argue that voters didn’t understand what they were doing when they voted to protect abortion rights in November. What a bunch of arrogant pricks and liars MAGA elites are.

The abyss of fundamentalist Christian theocracy is now quite near

CONTEXT
I have urgently warned about this critically important Oklahoma lawsuit, Oklahoma State Charter Board v. Drummond. This case is about a religious charter school that wants taxpayers to pay for its operations. If the Catholic school wins this lawsuit, it will become the nation’s first religious charter school. Oklahoma refused to charter the school, citing church-state separation under the Establishment Clause of the Constitution. The school then sued the state. The school wants to sink its claws into tax revenue streams. That would force taxpayers to seriously support the CN (Christian nationalist) political movement in its ruthless Christian theocracy wealth and power goals.

This dispute boils down to a ferocious CN theocratic attack on the Establishment Clause, church-state separation, democracy, the secular rule of law and civil liberties that God hates and demands an end to, e.g., abortions, same-sex marriage, birth control, maybe inter-racial marriage, DEI efforts, and LGBQT rights and protections. The lawsuit frames Oklahoma’s refusal to fund a Catholic school as anti-religious discrimination, leveraging recent Supreme Court precedents like Carson v. Makin (2022). A ruling favoring St. Isidore would further entrench the Court’s role in legitimizing theocracy, echoing Justice Alito’s assertion in Dobbs (the USSC's anti-abortion rights decision) that secular moral frameworks lack “neutrality.” The theocratic arguments here conflate religious liberty with state endorsement of sectarian dogma. Project 2025 and its judicial proponents want to replace secular pluralism with a regime that privileges conservative Christianity as the de facto state religion. As Amanda Tyler of the Baptist Joint Committee warns, this agenda “would hasten our journey down that road to authoritarian theocracy.”

TNR reports that in oral arguments, it is starting to look like the USSC will probably rule in favor of theocracy. Such a decision would likely amount to total or near-total obliteration of the Establishment Clause and the waning power of church-state separation doctrine in the constitution and law. The stakes here for democracy, the secular rule of law and what is left of our shrinking civil liberties and protections could not be much higher. Whether people believe it or not, we are now facing a corrupt, horrific, imminent Christian theocratic threat to our country. The decision is expected by the end of June or early July at the latest.


BLOG POST
TNR writes: “The Supreme Court Is Declaring War on Secularism -- The high court’s recent run at rewriting the Constitution has come for the establishment clause. The Supreme Court appears ready to approve the nation’s first religious charter school in Oklahoma, dealing a monumental blow to the separation of church and state by effectively writing the establishment clause out of the Constitution. In oral arguments in Oklahoma State Charter Board v. Drummond on Wednesday, the high court’s conservative majority saw no issue with allowing the Catholic Church to operate a state-funded public school, despite the state and federal constitutional bans on such entanglements. If anything, they appeared offended by the suggestion that it wouldn’t be constitutional.”

Likelihood of theocracy winning: Barrett recused herself due to a blatant conflict of interest, i.e., she has close ties to Notre Dame, which represents St. Isidore, the charter school trolling for tax dollars. The hard core authoritarian four, Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh all clearly signaled they will vote for theocracy. Roberts also appears to be sympathetic, but less is strident about it. If there is a 4-4 split, with Roberts voting with the three Democratic Party judges, the charter school will lose and have to pay its own way. A study published in the Oklahoma Bar Journal analyzed 23 religion-in-education cases and concluded the current Court is “statistically likely” to overrule the Oklahoma Supreme Court and permit state-funded religious charter schools. So, if Roberts votes with the other four authoritarian extremists (a 5-3 decision), we’re screwed. Chances of us being screwed? My estimate is ~75%.

Ramifications if Christian theocracy wins: A victory for St. Isidore enables religious groups nationwide to operate taxpayer-funded charter schools. Forty-six states classify charter schools as public institutions, and many have constitutional bans on funding religious schools. A ruling for St. Isidore could force states to either fund religious charters or dismantle their charter systems entirely. A win for theocracy here effectively ends the last major distinction between public and religious education. Given its relentless ideological aggression, states will face intense CN pressure to fund schools teaching creationism, racism, bigotry, e.g., opposing LGBTQ+ rights, excluding non-Christians, the righteousness of discrimination against and oppression of people and groups that God hates, and anything else that CN elites tells us God demands be taught. In essence, the floodgates to hell will bust open and America could fall to some form of dark ages theocratic government and law. 

If and how effectively society rebels against the coming CN theocratic onslaught is an open question. What the plutocrats will do about this, if anything, is also an open question. About half of them appear to be CN adherents. The lawsuit’s outcome will determine whether the Establishment Clause retains any force in safeguarding a government neutral toward religion, or becomes a relic of a secular past that CN elites are determined to erase.


Q: Is this just a tempest in a teapot, or if the religious school wins, does this mark the end of the beginning of a fundamental shift in American government and law from being still mostly secular, to becoming a cruel fundamentalist Christian theocracy? 

Monday, May 5, 2025

News bits: The high cost of cost cuts; MAGA’s authoritarianism on display; MAGA poisons inconvenient history

CBS News reports: “DOGE says it has saved $160 billion. Those cuts have cost taxpayers $135 billion, one analysis says. -- The analysis seeks to tally the costs associated with putting tens of thousands of federal employees on paid leave, re-hiring mistakenly fired workers and lost productivity, according to the Partnership for Public Service (PSP), a nonpartisan nonprofit that focuses on the federal workforce. PSP's estimate is based on the $270 billion in annual compensation costs for the federal workforce, calculating the impact of DOGE's actions, from paid leave to productivity hits.”

The article points out that the PSP estimate does not include expenses for defending multiple lawsuits challenging DOGE's actions, or the impact of estimated lost tax collections due to staff cuts at the IRS. Also important, the IRS is planning on cutting roughly 40% of its workforce. That would cost the treasury about $323 billion in tax revenue over the next decade (~$32.3 billion/year) due to lower tax compliance and a decline in audits. That data is according to an estimate from the Yale Budget Lab.

My guess is that in the short and long term, DOGE’s alleged cuts are going to cost more than they save. The whole MAGA waste, fraud and abuse narrative is a cynical lie. The effort disguises MAGA’s real intent, i.e., take wealth, power and protections from the people and public interest and give all of that power and wealth to unrestrained (de-regulated and untaxed) MAGA elites and all kinds of tax cheats, elite and otherwise. The annual tax gap is running at about $700 billion/year according to official estimates, about $1.1 trillion by my estimate. For 2025, the top 40% of income earners are estimated to underpay about $660 billion in taxes according to Yale’s analysis.   


Tax cheating by income level
High income earners are the biggest tax cheaters by far
P0-10 - bottom 10% of income earners
P10-20 - 10-20% of income earners
P99.5-100 - top 0.5% of income earners
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Talking Points Memo reports about a lawsuit that MAGA elites have filed in an effort to gain a lot more power over federal courts: “Close allies of President Trump are asking a judge to give the White House control over much of the federal court system. In a little-noticed lawsuit filed last week, the America First Legal Foundation sued Chief Justice John Roberts and the head of the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts. The case ostensibly proceeds as a FOIA lawsuit, with the Trump-aligned group seeking access to judiciary records. But, in doing so, it asks the courts to cede massive power to the White House: the bodies that make court policy and manage the judiciary’s day-to-day operations should be considered independent agencies of the executive branch, the suit argues, giving the President, under the conservative legal movement’s theories, the power to appoint and dismiss people in key roles.” 
For several years, the media and enterprising lawmakers have launched an onslaught to destroy the impartiality and political neutrality of Article III courts and, particularly, the Supreme Court. Justices Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh have all faced political and physical threats because of the politicization and weaponization of the law. This lawfare has been led by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Representative Hank Johnson, relying upon an ideologically favorable legacy media, to falsely accuse Justices Thomas and Alito of ethical improprieties. Their aim was simple: to chill the judicial independence of these Supreme Court Justices. 

Every sentence in that cynical screed is an insulting, outrageous lie. Whitehouse and Johnson aimed to reduce corruption of the USSC, not to chill the judicial independence of any judge. MAGA judges on the USSC just cannot tolerate ethics rules, which usually have nothing to do with judge independence. Threats against USSC judges have nothing to do with anything that Whitehouse or Johnson said or did. Public backlash against some MAGA judges is because some of the public is pissed off about decisions like Dobbs, which took away abortion rights. MSM reporting has been investigative journalism based on evidence, not allegedly partisan attacks for no reason. The evidence the MSM reported included improperly undisclosed gifts, flight records, tax documents, and insider accounts of USSC judge sleaze and corruption.

FWIW, if anything, the TPM article says that MAGA’s effort to corrupt the federal courts is very likely going to fail. Regardless of how it turns out, this is just more solid evidence of the staunchly authoritarian and completely kleptocratic intent of MAGA’s wealth and power agenda, which is deeply anti-democracy, anti-rule of law and anti-civil liberties.  

I will file a complaint with the D.C. bar asking disbarment of the two attorneys who filed this deepl unethical lawsuit, William Scolinos (DC Bar No. 90023488) and Daniel Epstein (DC Bar No. 1009132). D.C. bar will probably ignore me, but so what? 
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The Independent newspaper reports more evidence that MAGA elites intend to rewrite history to fit the mountain of lies that its extremist authoritarian ideology is based on: “Oklahoma wants to teach kids Trump’s false version of the 2020 election where he was cheated out of victory -- The Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction, Ryan Walters, announced a new education policy for the state on Thursday, which includes the allegation that there were “discrepancies” in the 2020 election, which President Donald Trump baselessly claims was stolen from him. The new academic standards for social studies for the coming school year state that students should ‘identify discrepancies in 2020 elections results by looking at graphs and other information, including the sudden halting of ballot-counting in select cities in key battleground states, the security risks of mail-in balloting, sudden batch dumps, an unforeseen record number of voters, and the unprecedented contradiction of ‘bellweather county’ trends.’”

This is not new. For years, djt and MAGA elites have been very clear that (i) inconvenient history is unacceptable, and (ii) they will try to replace it with MAGA lies as much as possible. That is fact, not opinion. Examples include, (1) the TPM article where MAGA elites try to institutionalize false claims of widespread election fraud in 2020 (but, djt himself did engage in large scale election fraud in Georgia, his insurrectionist 1/6 coup attempt and his failed fake electors schemes), (2) on Jan. 21, 2017, just one day after the inauguration, djt made the false claims that (i) the media had misrepresented his inauguration crowd size, and (ii) saying it “looked like a million-and-a-half people” and extended “all the way back to the Washington Monument”, (3) djt falsely said efforts to critically examine slavery and racism in American history was “toxic propaganda” and “ideological poison” without evidence, and (4) djt falsely claimed (i) the Biden administration had lost track of over 300,000 unaccompanied migrant children, and (ii) “We have 325,000 children here during Democrats - and this was done by Democrats - who are right now slaves, sex slaves or dead.” 

MAGA’s pattern of historical revisionism within the authoritarian movement shows that factual reality is subordinate to political narrative. Normalizing historical lies undermines democratic discourse, the rule of law and decision-making. That is the point and the goal.