With clear eyes, hard facts, critical thinking, new political strategy, empathy, and a soupçon of Schadenfreude
Category: Situational Awareness
Posts about the situation we are in–the good facts, the bad facts, and the terrible facts. Facts that, if taken on board, will let us “know ourselves, know the other side” and go on to win those hundred battles.
I think sounds of silence signal that the legal part of Team Trump is having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad weekend.
Meanwhile, an insightful op-ed in the N.Y. Times speaks of a recently invented right wing legal principle—the major questions doctrine, newly discovered as a conservative cure for perceived liberal excesses—that requires “clear congressional authorization” when the bureaucrats make decisions of great “economic and political significance.” Otherwise, bye-bye liberal policy adventuresomeness.
Now, Orange Mussolini is the poster child for one who makes decisions of great economic and political significance without a ghost of a shadow of congressional authorization.
On April the 18th of 75—that would be 1775—Paul Revere took a midnight ride. Around midnight on April the 18th of 2025, seven justices of the Supreme Court issued an order. The order was addressed to His Most High Excellency, and it declared, in words or substance, “Yo! Numbnuts! Don’t deport no more undocumented aliens without due process! And, by the way, we’re telling you this at midnight on Good Friday, after unusual and truncated legal procedure, because we don’t trust your fat ass any further than we can throw your fat ass. And that ain’t very far. Have a nice day. Love and kisses, The Supreme Court.”
Justices Alito and Thomas dissented, and promised a written opinion. Two days later the written opinion has appeared over the transom.
The First Question About the Dissent
Back on April 7, in Trump v. J.G.G., Justice Kavanagh wrote,
I agree with the Courts per curiam opinion. Importantly, as the Court stresses, the Court’s disagreement with the dissenters is not over whether the detainees receive judicial review of their transfers—all nine Members of the Court agree that judicial review of their transfers—all nine Members of the Court agree that judicial review is available. The only question is where that judicial review should occur. That venue question turns on … [yadda, yadda, yadda, yadda].
But was Justice Kavanagh telling the truth about the actual views of “all nine Members of the Court”? After all, Justices Alito and Thomas are—how to put this?—often idiosyncratic in their views. And their stated dissent to the Midnight Ruling left open the possibility that they might have dissented because they agreed with the Trump Administration on its dictatorial interpretation of the Alien Enemies Act.
The Answer to the First Question
Well, who knows what Alito and Thomas might do or say at some future time. But, as of this afternoon, we do know what they did not say. Their dissent offers no scintilla of support for Trump’s basic claim, or for any hint that Justice Kavanagh might have misdescribed their views of due process and judicial review.
None. Zero. Not a smidgen. Not a soupçon. Bupkis. Rien. Nada.
The Second Question About the Dissent
The second question is: What are we to glean from the fact that the Alito/Thomas dissent goes on, and on, and on, about how the Supreme Court’s Midnight Ruling is inconsistent with a whole variety of arcane rules of civil procedure?
The Answer to the Second Question
The answer is that seven justices do not Trump’s fat ass any further than they can throw Trump’s fat ass.
And they bloody well want him to know that they don’t trust his fat ass.
And they want him to know that if he goes ahead and puts the next fifty Venzuelans on a plane for El Salvador, without notice and a hearing, then the long anticipated full blown constitutional crisis will be upon us.
The Third Question About the Dissent
Well, then, why did Alito dissent?
The Answer to the Third Question
Alito writes, “ I refused to join the Court’s order because we had no good reason to think that, under the circumstances, issuing an order at midnight was necessary or appropriate.”
Translation? Not entirely clear, but one supposes that it wasn’t “appropriate” because it was in such tension with established procedural laws and precents—and it wasn’t “necessary” because, surely, Trump wasn’t going to play games and put those 50 guys on a plane before the Supreme Court could act.
Let me say that, if Justice Alito actually believes that Team Trump wasn’t trying to make a mockery of the Supreme Court, then I have a very nice bridge in Brooklyn that I am prepared to sell, at a very reasonable price.
The Dissent’s Addendum
The dissent ends thusly:
Both the Executive and the Judiciary have an obligation to follow the law. The Executive must proceed under the terms of our order in Trump v. J.G.G., 604 U.S. ___ (2025) (per curiam), and the Court should follow established procedures.
And what, ladies and germs, is “our order in Trump v. J.G.G.”—the order that Justices Alito and Thomas so warmly embrace?
Why, it is, to quote the exact language of the Supreme Court decision, that detainees under the Alien Enemies Act “must receive notice … that they are subject to removal under the Act. The notice must be afforded within a reasonable time and in such a manner as will allow them to actually seek habeas relief in the proper venue before such removal occurs.”
Millions of Americans are desperate for a quick and effective response to Trump’s attacks on the Constitution. But the election foreclosed that possibility. The courts — even if they have the courage — lack the power to save America.
In this moment, think of the courts as a rear guard, capable of delaying constitutional collapse until the American people finally understand that the life and health of the Constitution is up to them. If they keep electing men like Trump or sycophants like those in his Congress of cowards, then we’ll lose our Republic.
But if a critical mass of Americans do wake up, then the court’s stand will be indispensable to justice and — critically — accountability. Every public official associated with Trump’s defiance of the courts (including his vice president, JD Vance) should be impeached, convicted and barred forever from holding public office.
I know that’s a fantastical vision in the present moment. In a closely divided country, impeachment and removal aren’t viable options, but supermajorities among Americans have existed before. The civil rights movement, empowered in part by the Supreme Court, attained a supermajority that changed America, and a movement to preserve the Constitution can be a supermajority again.
We can’t ask the Supreme Court to do more than it’s able to do, but it must do all that it can. The choices it will face may well be as stark as the choice between segregation and equality, or between internment and freedom.
The court’s past failures have destroyed lives and put our Republic in mortal danger. Its past courage has inspired revolutionary change. Unless Trump backs down, it will face the same choice the court faced in 1954 — yield in the face of enormous resistance or stand even when the politicians fail.
Not to mention defending Trump’s multiple constitutional violations—once the Justice Department has run through all its competent attorneys and the rest have been found in contempt of court.
Hey, Paul, Weiss! Hey, Skadden!
Y’all think y’all are gonna be able to keep on recruiting the cream of the crop from among law school graduates? To do what? To go work for Pam Bondi and be found in contempt of court? Maybe to be disbarred?
I don’t think so.
As I have said before, I was a partner of New York law firms ranked in the #20 to #30 range or thereabouts. Not as rich as Paul Weiss or Skadden, but within spitting distance.
And here’s something I learned. There are some bad people that you can do business with. And there are some bad people that you cannot do business with.
Some people you can buy, and they stay bought. Some people you can buy, but they don’t stay bought.
And Orange Mussolini is a bad person you cannot do business with.
Mainly because, in addition to being bad, he’s also crazy in the head.
Your “agreements” with Orange Mussolini are not legally enforceable, They do not even purport to be legally enforceable. And even if they did purport to be legally enforceable, they’re illusory. Their “terms” are ambiguous. And there was never a mutual manifestation of intent to abide by agreed on terms.
You have to repent of those deals.
And why is that?
Because if you don’t repent of those deals, no one is going to come work for you.
And if competent young lawyers don’t come and work for you, then your business model is going to go up in smoke.
And you can bend over and kiss your $20 million annual compensation goodbye.
Dear President McInnis, Provost Strobel, and Members of the Yale Board of Trustees:
We stand together at a crossroads. American universities are facing extraordinary attacks that threaten the bedrock principles of a democratic society, including rights of free expression, association, and academic freedom. We write as one faculty, to ask you to stand with us now.
We urge you to:
Defend the values and ideals of higher education, and Yale’s specific missionof “improving the world through outstanding research and scholarship, education, preservation, and practice.”
Resist and legally challenge any unlawful demands that threaten academic freedom and university self-governance.
Commit that no department, program, or structure of shared governancewill be reorganized or eliminated in response to political threats.
Protect science and other research at Yale from funding cutoffs, by providing legal and financial support to affected scholars and research units, mobilizing extraordinary resources as necessary.
Defend the rights to free speech on campus recognized in the Woodward Report, including by assisting community members at risk ofgovernment infringement on this right, whether through immigration action or other means.
Work purposefully and proactively with other colleges and universities in collective defense.
We stand united, asking for your courageous leadership. We look forward to standing alongside you in this work.
Signed,
[Yale faculty of all ranks can sign this letterhere.]
Just got off a Zoom with Matilda Moneybags, the head honcho at my financial advisory firm. Someone asked, “Is it possible that we’ll avoid a recession?”
“Yes, it is possible,” Matilda responded.
“But, on the other hand,” she added, “I’m a practicing Catholic, and I believe it’s possible that the Blessed Mother will appear in my living room this afternoon. And if that should happen, I would welcome her to my home.”
“Mister, we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again,” goes the “All in the Family” theme song. Donald Trump, who grew up 15 minutes from Archie Bunker, took it seriously. “We’re bringing wealth back to America,” says tariff-happy Mr. Trump. “That’s a big thing.” Those in the Trump administration with Wall Street experience should know better.
Mr. Trump’s America-first policy, as hallucinated by trade adviser Peter Navarro, is this: Make in America. Invest in America. Everything done by Americans. A self-sufficient, stand-alone country.
It’s more of a political agenda than an economic one—more about protectionism and isolationism. Trade? Globalization? Increased living standards? How quaint.
Look, I’m all for America on top, but America first isn’t how you get there. America first is a vertical model: Do everything. But vertical always fails. Vertical IBM made chips, wrote software, assembled computers and wrapped plastic around them. Vertical AT&T provided phones, wires and both local and long-distance calls.
Fortunately, vertical gave way to horizontal: industries organized into layers of expertise, sorted by value added. Intel and Microsoft owned layers in a horizontal stack that made up personal computers, leveling IBM mainframes. The internet became a horizontal stack of routers, servers and applications, upending AT&T’s network. Even the artificial-intelligence revolution is horizontal—Silicon Valley’s OpenAI uses Nvidia chips made by Taiwan’s TSMCusing Dutch ASML’s equipment.
“Didn’t need no welfare state, everybody pulled his weight,” the theme song goes. Globalism and trade also became a horizontal model, with the U.S. sitting on top of what I call a horizontal empire, sorted by value added. Apple designs iPhones in California but assembles them lower down the stack in China—now shifting toward Vietnam and India—where living standards also increased.
Sadly, this horizontal model causes freak-outs over U.S. trade deficits. But who cares? Forget actual trade numbers. Focus on the margin of the products flowing cross-border. Apple has 34% operating margins. Foxconn, which assembles trade-deficit-boosting iPhones, has operating margins of 3%. Which would you prefer?
TVs, cars, clothes, toys and lumber that we import are all low-margin and usually labor-intensive businesses. We export high-margin software, financial services, drugs and AI applications, all intelligence-intensive businesses. I like to say, “we think, they sweat.” Meanwhile, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick says, “Human beings screwing in little screws to make iPhones, that kind of thing is going to come to America.” You first, Howard.
Getting horizontal got society wealthy. Economists note that trade deficits have a flip side of capital-account surpluses, money that gets invested in the U.S. to offset those trade deficits. But where are they in our economic statistics? Hard to find. Economists can count foreign money that bought Treasury bonds (so Americans don’t have to). But when capital flows into stocks—foreigners own 18% of our equities—the numbers get fuzzy. A net $1,000 buying Google shares can drive its value up $2,000, or $5,000. Google is worth more than $2 trillion, but $2 trillion in cash didn’t get invested—productivity drove its value up.
Mr. Bessent says, “Data is on our side.” Is it? We’ve run cumulative trade deficits since 1999 of $15.4 trillion. Meanwhile, U.S. equity values rose $45 trillion between 1999 and 2024 (both market peaks). U.S. household net worth at the end of 1999: $41 trillion. End of 2024: $160 trillion. Let’s run bigger trade deficits! As long as we keep the margin. Trade and productivity pay. No wonder the market is a yo-yo.
“Gee, our old LaSalle ran great,” the song concludes. So why would you ever want to go back to a vertical, isolationist model for the U.S., leading to higher-rate mortgages and expensive cars? A margin surplus means we let low-margin jobs move overseas and become a high-margin nation. Living standards rose across the globe. Smartphones and autos everywhere. Why go back?
Note to Trump yes-men: Low-wage jobs aren’t the American dream either. Populist protectionism, worsened by tariffs, has been shown to destroy more jobs than it creates. Even the lower-valued jobs that the Trump administration hopes will return may not exist. Most machine and metalworking shops now use programmable machine tools. Factory jobs will require proficiency in operating robots. Fixing education is critical.
“Boo hoo,” one can almost hear, “collapsing stocks only hurt the rich.” Yeah, but it also severely limits access to capital for U.S. companies to fund growth and create better jobs—let alone build new factories. Do we really want that? America can stay first only by sitting on top of a horizontal empire, not by reconstructing a retro isolated vertical island. Going backward is a meathead move. Stop trying to bring back the “All in the Family” nostalgia: “Those were the days!”
On March 31, I posted a video from the Bulwark posing the question “Want to Beat Trump?” and responding to its own rhetorical question like this: “Get him to 32%.”
And why 32 percent? Because that’s a good estimate of the proportion of Americans who are hard core MAGA nutjobs. A lot of those folks will stay with him to the bitter end. After all, he’s God’s Anointed, n’est-ce pas?
But when you strip his support down to the MAGA nutjobs, you’re going to flip Congress.
And the latest polls show that we are indeed well on our way toward stripping down his support to the hard core MAGA nutjobs.
Facing MAGA 