Chris Johnson

The differences are amazing.

A few months ago, somebody was shooting in the back forty. This caused somebody to report gun shots in the area. Must be some out of stater who has no ability to keep their nose in their own business.

Because it was a “shots heard”, the local cops, who I consider to be good guys, dispatched two officers in two squad cars.

They pull into the driveway. I go to the porch and say, “Hello! Can I help you?”

Per normal procedure, the cop doesn’t answer my question but asks his own.

“Were you shooting?”

“I don’t answer questions.”

If the police come to you, they are investigating a crime or potential crime. They are not there to “help” you, they are there to gather evidence to issue a citation, warning, or arrest somebody.

Anything you say can be used as evidence. It is a consensual encounter, which you can terminate at any time.

The next thing that will happen is the officer will repeat the original question. Most people can’t deal with the pressure of being asked the same question again and again.

My answer was again, “I don’t answer questions.”

The officer, per procedures, will then explain why they are there. They will then suggest that they are just “investigating” to find out what happened. They will then ask again. “Were you shooting?” “I don’t answer questions.”

All of this is per standard investigatory procedures.

At this point, the officer is likely to tell you what the crime was, “Did you know that you can’t shoot within 300 feet of an occupied dwelling?”

Notice the change in language, they are not asking if you did anything, they are asking for your knowledge of the law. Since they are not asking about you, it is more likely you will start talking to them. It doesn’t matter to them if you know or don’t know.

What they are doing is establishing “Mens Rea” or criminal intent. If the law you are breaking has a condition of Mens Rea, it can change what the charge is.

Alex Baldwin had no criminal intent to murder his camera girl. He had every reason to have constructive knowledge that pointing a real gun at a person, cocking the hammer, and pulling the trigger could cause death or significant injury. This is enough to establish Mens Rea for manslaughter charges. (IANAL)

At this point, the cop in question basically gave up and left. No fuss, no muss, no upset on my part.

Fast-forward to yesterday.

Somebody was out in the back forty shooting. I think I heard 16 rounds go off. So what? This is a freedom state.

I didn’t think much of it and went on with my life. This meant cleanup and then working on fixing the busted garage door and other metal working stuff, before being able to get back to wood working.

Two cop cars roll up, and an older cop gets out of his squad. I can see them through the open door of the shop.

He walks up and gets close to the shop but stops maybe twenty feet from the door.

This is intentional. He wants me to step out of the shop, which is part of my house. He cannot enter the shop without permission or a warrant. “Were you shooting?”

Wow, that sounds amazingly familiar. Almost as if it is SOP.

“I don’t answer questions.”

The cop then tries silence. Most people don’t deal well with silence. They want to fill it. So I just stood there smiling as he let the situation drag on.

He then asks again. SOP. I use my SOP, “I don’t answer questions.”

His SOP is in full display. Everything he says is according to the script. And he is getting upset that I won’t answer him.

“If I find out that you were shooting, I’m going to enjoy coming back here.”

“Is that a threat?”

“No, cowards threaten, I’m promising.”

You might think that the fat old man, with a pistol on his hip, (Oh shit, I just realized that even though I didn’t have my jacket on, I had still covered my pistol with my shirt. I thought I was open carrying at that moment) had gotten under his skin.

This is when the bad cop starts to show up in full force. “Why are you refusing to answer? Why are you not cooperating?”

“Because I have a right to not answer questions.”

Another part of the discussion is where they justify asking questions because I could have “potentially done something wrong.”

Notice that they don’t say “broke the law” or “did something illegal”. That is the correct translation of “done something wrong.”

I asked him, “Have you potentially done something wrong? How about him?”

Then the long silence, he could see that this was not going according to script, and the script was running out.

At some point, he switched from asking about potential crimes to “safety.”

“If you wanted to know about safety, you should have asked.”

“I did!” “Actually, you didn’t.” “Why are you being so difficult?”

“When I shoot, I always do it safely. I am always aware of what is beyond my target. I always have a good berm or backstop. I am well aware of the laws controlling when and where I can shoot, and I never violate them.”

The chief walked away. Refused to shake hands. His backup was a bit more polite. When I asked him if he would shake my hand, his response was, “Not now.”

I don’t blame him. If he had been willing to shake hands while his chief had not, it would have looked like he was backing me, and not his boss.

Keep your head on a swivel. Stay out of stupid places. Don’t be out at stupid times. Avoid stupid people. Stay strapped.

We have decided to give away some cards!

The first 20 people who send a mailing address to us at info@troglodite.com will receive 15 cards via USPS first class mail.

Depending on demand, we might ask for a donation to cover the costs.

Thank you!
Chris, Ally, and the rest of the team

A person I like to call my friend, Miggy, recently put his life at risk in a situation where it is not obvious what the risks are.

His article, Proper Tooling Makes Things Easier, shows how easy it is to do things that look safe, but are not.

His problem was that he needed to get under his riding mower to work on the blades. Not a huge issue until you start to look at the requirements for that lift.

The first thing we notice is that he has done an accurate assessment of the load. “Less than 2000 pounds, or 1 ton.”

A one ton chain host will give him the lifting ability he needs.

The next question is, where to attach the chain hoist. This is our first sketch issue, he attached it to a ceiling joist in his garage. These are normally 2×8 but can be as small as 2×6, if they do not carry a load. They are normally in tension to keep the walls from spreading.

A better option would have been to run a beam across multiple joists and then attach the hoist to that. This is an opinion, I would need to verify before doing. There are other issues at play. Using multiple joists will spread the load and make for a safer lift.

Having gotten the chain host in place, he now had to attach the mower to the hoist. He used ratchet straps.

These use flat webbing with a reasonable rating. Unfortunately, these can lose much of their rated strength just by tieing a knot in them. I seem to remember that it is as much as 50%. I, personally, would never use a ratchet strap for a lift that had safety implications, like laying under the lift.

The basket hitch he used is close to a 30° lift. This does not derate the line.

My small lifting straps are 24 ply by 2 inches. The vertical lift is 11,000 pounds. In a 30° basket hitch, it is still 11,000 pounds.

The next issue is his safety. He stated that he had car jack stands under there. This is the scary part for me.

His image showed the jack stand almost completely extended. This means that any lateral movement might cause the jack stand to shift or tip over. This is a scary, scary place to be when the heavy thing above you starts to come down.

My armchair, back seat, Monday night quarterbacking suggests that it would have been safer to transfer the weight to jack stands, as low as possible. Then do the work. It might even have been possible to use cribbing under the unit.

Regardless, I’m happy he was able to safely perform his repairs.

The stories

When I was 18, I was helping my brother pull the engine from a VW. This is a simple procedure.

Disconnect the throttle cable, disconnect and plug the gas line. Remove the rear bumper and deck. Deal with the electrical connections to the engine.

Once that is done, you have to remove four 17 mm nuts. These nuts go on four studs with a half moon to keep them from spinning.

I was the guy under the car. I could do the two bottom nuts myself. Then I would have to reach up, blindly, over the transmission bell housing, find the studs. My brother would then reach behind the fan housing, get a socket on the nut and remove it.

Reaching the studs and nuts was done blind. You can’t see them from there.

Once those nuts are loose, the engine is hanging on its crankshaft. So before you get there, you put a jack under the engine to support it.

When everything is ready, I hold the engine from below, my brother grabs the tail pipes, and then we gently pull the engine out.

Being health young men. Bro was working at an iron works, making parts for bridges. I was riding my bike many miles a day and doing Kendo and Judo. We were in reasonable shape.

On the count, bro pulls, and I guide and apply pressure to move the engine. The engine comes out a good six inches, knocking the jack over.

So there we are, Bro holding up his half of the engine by the tail pipes, me under the engine doing a bench press with no ability to extend, and the engine about 5 inches above my nose.

At this moment, dad, who had been watching from the garage steps, pipes up to give advice.

I have never been prouder of my father than at that instance. I said, “Dad, be quiet. Bro and I have this.”

Dad stuttered, got up and walked into the house.

“Bro, on three we are going to put the engine back. I’ll lift, you push, it should just slide back in. One, Two, Push”

And that engine was back in place.

We reset and pulled the engine with no issues. But it was hairy there, for a minute.

Second Story

My friend was visiting a mutual friend. In their finished basement, they had some furniture hanging from the ceiling.

These were smart people. They understood that threaded eye screws could pull out or unscrew. Instead, they drilled through the joist and put a thorough bolt in place.

All the math was mathing so they didn’t think anything about it. My friend asked them if they had considered dynamic loads. They went “oh shit”

An hour later, all the hanging furniture had been removed. It turns out that the fixtures they were using were not rated to support the dynamic loads of people just plopping into the hanging furniture.

Your FAFO song of the week.

This daddy has more than a shotgun. I believe in the ability to reach out and touch somebody at range, that’s why there are range cards. Of course, there is silent and close as well.

Story Time

I was at the LGS waiting for a 4473 to come through. Ally was standing near, looking over different offerings.

The owner and I were chatting as there was nobody else in the store.

Suddenly, we hear “STOP YOU MF!!!” and some more words I don’t remember.

The door opens to a loud woman screaming back over her shoulder.

I was already turning as the door sounded, I took a step to the left, bladed, my hand was back above the butt of my 1911.

According to Ally, the owner took a step to his left, making space between the two of us, clearing lines of fire.

Ally moved to her right, clearing lines of fire for the owner.

This idiot woman continues into the shop, still yelling over her shoulder. A man follows in, meekly answering her.

The owner greets the man by name and everything slowed back down to real time.

Keep strapped, keep your head on a swivel, stay away from stupid people, stupid places, stupid times.

In —Trump, President of The United States, et all., v. CASA, Inc., et al., 2025 606 U.S., the Supreme Court found, in a 6-3 decision, that universal injunctions are not constitutional. This is great news. It puts a stop to most of the lawfare going on against the Trump Administration.

Unfortunately, it leaves open another method of getting the equivalent, class action suits.

To have a class action suit, the class must first be certified. This is done via Rule 23 —Rules For Appellate Procedure (U.S.) (I’m hoping that is the correct citation). It is such a complex procedure that there are lawyers (and law offices) that do nothing but class action certification attempts.

For the Trump Administration, this complexity is a good thing. It means that it is more difficult to get these universal injunctions.

In reality, we are going to see suits filed as class actions. The anti-American groups will still go judge/court shopping, in an attempt to get a judge, favorable to their cause.

—J.G.G. v. TRUMP, No. 1:25-cv-00766 (D.D.C.) is such an example. They are attempting to get a class certified. They didn’t push hard because the rogue inferior court judge granted them a universal injunction. I suspect they will now go back to the well with a demand for a class certification.

This will not stop rogue judges in inferior courts doing bad things, it will make it more costly at the first step, to the plaintiffs (bad guys)

But what happens when a Democrat issues an EO banning guns?

It doesn’t really change anything. There are people claiming it will, but that is not really the case.

In the past 5 decades, have you read of a single universal injunction granted to The People in a Second Amendment case? Yeah, that is correct. There is none.

The closest we’ve gotten is courts issuing injunctive relief to all members of a group, such as GOA or FPC.

Since we aren’t getting nor will we get universal injunctions, there is no need to be concerned that others won’t be able to get universal injunctions.

If that scary EO comes down in the future, FPC and GOA and the NRA and … will show up in Texas and file suit on behalf of a few individuals. Those individuals will be members of those groups. The groups will then become a party to the suit.

This means that when a Texas district judge issues an injunction, TRO or preliminary, it will protect a large section of the firearm community.

The state will appeal for a stay, pending appeal. The fifth will deny that stay. The case will continue through the merits panel. The state will lose. The state will request an en banc panel. They will lose or their motion for an en banc hearing will be denied.

The state will then either appeal to the Supreme Court, where cert is likely to be granted, remember, this is the scary EO that bans everything. The Supreme Court gets to issue another great opinion on the Second Amendment.

The state could choose to take the L in Texas. Which isn’t a big deal because the plaintiffs will have also filed suit in California, Maryland, Florida, and Illinois.

Florida will go the same way as Texas.

The standard rogue, inferior courts will find for the state and against The People.

This will create a circuit split, which pushes the Supreme Court to take the case.

This sort of thing is at least 8 years in the future.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court seems to be actively looking for the “right” Second Amendment case to take next.

Oh, take a look at Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic where The Court wrote:

The short of that is that the Supreme Court is getting tired of rogue inferior court judges playing dump when it advances their agenda.

Last year, I purchased a Sig P365 XMacro. This is the “large” version of the P365, longer barrel, and a 17 round mag.

It turns out that my nephew wanted the same pistol, having looked at mine, he offered to buy it.

Being a good uncle, I sold it to him at my cost, plus shipping to his local FFL.

Because I was selling it so close to the time I had purchased the gun, we figured the safe thing to do was to send it to his local FFL for the 4473 BS.

The day I shipped it, I knew I had made a mistake. I really wanted that pistol, it felt good in my hand. It pointed like my 1911s. It rang steel.

One issue I have with it, is the magazines. This is a double stacked, single feed magazine. It holds 17 rounds, but the grip is narrow compared to most other double stacked pistols, my Glock and H&K for example.

You cannot load this without a reloading tool. I could get maybe 12 rounds into it before it would become too difficult to do with just my thumb, I could not get 17 rounds into it with just my thumb.

Even with the reloading tool, that final round is a bitch. I hold the magazine flat on the table, slap the tool hard to make room for that final round, then slip it under the feed lips. Without the tool, this is a 15 round magazine. Still better than regular 7 round 1911 mags, or 8 round extended 1911 mags.

So I’m in the process of changing out my EDC pistol. The holster system is the same as I use for the 1911s, but because the Sig weighs less, there is less pulling that side of my pants low. I’ll be picking up a mag holder shortly.

Currently, I’ve got an Alien Gear IWB Cloak Tuck. It has the same adjustments as the Shapeshifter system I use for my other pistols. The difference is in the retention system, the shell doesn’t move to other backers (OWB, Appendix, Shoulder, or paddle), it is only an IWB, and it is slightly slimmer than the Shapeshifter shells.

It isn’t all that difficult to go from 8+1 and a mag to 17+1 with no quick access mags.

Over the coming weeks I’ll do some range time to become comfortable drawing, presenting and hitting what I aim for.

Exciting times.

“Well, bless your heart.”

“Even the gun nuts want assault weapons bans, they keep telling me ‘come and take it'”

“May you live in interesting times.”

All of these sound polite yet are not. They have meaning that is decades or even centuries old.

“Bless your heart” is a southern way of politely saying, “you can go F yourself.”

“Come and take it.” is a reference to Mexico attempting to take a cannon from a small Texas town. They didn’t. It means that we will not go quietly into the dark.

“May you live in interesting times” is a translation of a Chinese curse.

“My estimated colleague” is a term of phrase used in congress to mean, “That MFing AH.” Or similar words.

“My friend” in oral arguments means, “That stupid ass that is arguing with me.”

In the Supreme Court, the majority opinion refers to “the principal dissent” or “JUSTICE KAGAN’s dissent”. If there is only one dissent, they will refer to it as “the dissent.”

They do not call each other out by name. It isn’t polite, it isn’t respectful.

Justice Barrett wrote this. And 5 other justices signed on to it. This is a public spanking of the least qualified justice on the Supreme Court. “…view is at odds…” is court speak for “is wrong.”

I can’t find the words to express how much of a slap in the face this language is. This is the Law Professor talking down to a C- student that didn’t bother to do their homework.

The highlighted phrase indicates that this is not just Justice Barrett with this opinion of Jackson, it is all the Justices that signed on to the majority opinion. There is no mistaking this for anything than what it is. The majority is calling out Jackson as being unqualified to sit on the court.

There are dozens of articles out there talking about how the end to Universal Injunctions is good for this country. This case will end most of the legal battles against the Trump Administration.

The only reason these cases were being filed was to stop the Trump Administration from carrying out their actions. There have been no findings of merit in any of these cases. Merely inferior court judges saying they think the plaintiffs (bad guys) might win, and because it is so important, they are blocking the Administration.

Under normal circumstances, this would be a 3 to 10 year block on the Administration.

Now that the delay tactic is gone, there is no reason to file losing cases. The money will dry up, and these cases will just evaporate.

Conclusion

I have been disappointed that Amy hasn’t voted for cert in a number of Second Amendment cases. What I have noticed is that her arguments are clear and well-founded in our Nation’s history and traditions of regulations. She is doing the right thing, even if I don’t like the outcomes.

This case is still another “plain text, history, and tradition” result. This court has been standing firm in that belief.

When Kagan wrote the majority opinion in S&W v. Mexico, she referenced the plain text of the constitution, the plain text of the regulation, and the history and tradition of this Nation’s regulations.

I’m looking forward to a great Second Amendment opinion in the 2025 Term, likely released in June, 2026.

Trump Wins, Again

My hope is that in 10 years, my grandchildren can read about the 12-day war. Read how the man who did not want to be president became president and brought peace to the middle-east.

President Trump played better than anyone could have expected. And it started on the 20th of January.

When Trump took office in 2016, he was a businessman. He knew that even if it was a hostile takeover, you kept the top people. Everybody wanted things to work. They might hate your guts, but they wanted things to work so they could continue to take home a paycheck.

The government is not like that. Trump was sabotaged before he even took office. People he trusted shouldn’t have been trusted. People he wanted in his team were forced out. The swamp creatures latched on, the media tried to destroy him.

In some ways, losing to Biden is one of the best things that has ever happened to this country. Trump 2.0 is so much better.

Trump started this term as if he were a Democrat. He fired everybody who wasn’t on his team. He is still working on that. And it worked.

He got people in as directors and at cabinet level that believe in him and believe in his vision.

There were no leaks about the bombing attack. None.

D.C. has been a cauldron of leaked secrets since I was a child. Most of those leaks served Democrat interest.

After the attack, there was a leak. A highly placed source, or a person with access to high-level intel, leaked part of a BDA. They seemed to have omitted the part where it was a preliminary BDA with low confidence.

A day later, Trump declared a ceasefire between Israel and Iran. When both parties tried to “empty their tubes” he slapped them both down.

As I write this, there does not seem to be any more exchanges between the two major parties.

In The Supreme Court

Trump keeps winning cases that get to the Court. Sotomayor, Brown, and Kegan keep writing dissents.

It is important to note that the agenda-driven justices have not yet written a single thing about the merits of the cases that are being brought to The Court. It is all about waiting.

As far as I can tell, everyone who is not a sheeple knows that the Trump Administration is going to win these cases.

The leftists don’t care. For them, it is the cost to the Trump Administration and delay, delay, delay.

If these cases were to proceed through the courts as the leftist want, Trump will be out of office before they are resolved.

Consider Duncan, which was filed in 2016. The case went through the District Court, through the merits panel of the Ninth Circuit, through the en banc Ninth Circuit, through a motion for writ of certiorari, was granted certiorari, the Ninth Circuit’s opinion was vacated, the case was remanded to the Ninth, which remanded it to the district court, where another full finding of facts, post-Bruen, won, was appealed to the Ninth, was taken by the original en banc panel, against Ninth Circuit policies, the district opinion was vacated and remanded for final disposition, and is now seeking certiorari for the second time before the Supreme Court.

Nine years! I could easily see rogue inferior courts dragging out cases for years and years.

Regardless of the agenda-driven justices, the Supreme Court has handed out win after win to the Trump Administration.

Truck Sounds

Wednesday, I drove the truck 50 miles or so. It had this really weird sound.

That sound was silence.

It turns out that there really was a second bearing going bad, or which had gone bad.

Because my dude is cool, I was able to observe the work done on my truck. Watching the mechanic use the same methods that I was questioning was nice. On the other hand, watching him do some things just blew my mind.

Even when the metal does not rust, two metal parts in close contact will stick. The axle on the passenger side of the truck was seriously stuck to the hub. It took some heavy work with a 5 lb sledge and a punch to break the axle free.

Jess picked up the air chisel, put a punch in it, walked over to the axle and triggered the air chisel. That axel backed out almost instantly.

Doh, I have that tool. Never even occurred to me to use it.

The cost of the hub for the driver’s side was $10 more than I would have paid at the local shop. With his profit built in, having him (shop owner) source the hub didn’t really cost extra.

It turns out that the job I wasn’t willing to do, replacing the bad flex brake line in the left rear, was a simple job of unscrewing the hose from the two hard lines and replacing it.

I saw that and was irritated that I didn’t do that work myself. Easy, right?

That was, until I saw, as part of the miscellaneous shop items, two new lengths of hard line. Jess had to replace the hard line after they failed while replacing the flex line.

The truck is good for a few thousand more miles.

Stock Market

On the first two days the stock market was open after the start of the 12-day war, my accounts dipped, hard. It was extremely scary.

So I dropped another chunk of money into the market to make some purchases.

As of last night, the market has recovered everything from that dip and a bit more. I expect to see it go up again today.

Woodworking

I’ve started making my workbench. Instead of pulling out the chop saw, I set up a pair of saw horses and used hand tools. I don’t think I’ve ever made cleaner cuts by hand. After 58 years of using handsaws, I might actually have learned how to do it.

One end of the bench has been glued and screwed, and I’m working on the half lap braces. This is my first half lap.

It is finished, the fit is good, as long as I don’t want the other end to touch the opposite leg. I’ll have to refine the joint tomorrow.

Tools

I haven’t been able to find one of my marking gauges. The one I did find didn’t work for me.

The nice option was the 3/4 wide chisel I pulled off the wall. It was properly protected by a cap. It was properly sharpened and worked perfectly.

The other side of this was finding out that I seem to have let somebody borrow the 1″ chisel. How do I know? Because there are chips in the cutting edge. It looks more like a saw blade than a chisel.

It is going to take a bit of work on the grinder to get that edge back. Thank goodness for slow speed 320 grit diamond wheels. Without a grinder, it would take hours to recover that edge.

Oh, those bench chisels are the cheap box store chisels, they are Marple’s.

I now have a “working” No.4 Stanley. I have one of unknown condition of the same general size, and one that seems to be junk. It is nice to have the tools I need.

Question of The Week

How concerned were you that we were about to get stuck in another war?

There are people who blame their actions on “The ’tism’.

I had not heard this term until recently. My oldest son is “on the spectrum.” He barely functions, not from emotional out bursts, but because he just isn’t mature enough.

My youngest son is also “on the spectrum”, he is high function, going to collage, doing well. His issues tend to be socal in nature. In other words, he has not had much success in finding new friends.

My youngest is also on the spectrum. She is very high functioning. You would not suspect she is autistic when interacting with her. She is social and she makes friends.

I was born before the great “autism” hunt. I do not have an official diagnosis of autism. There are many indicators that I am autistic.

A side effect of this was I was able to teach some of my coping methods to my children, to help them.

What does this have to do with making friends?

It means it is hard. It takes an effort.

What you might consider to be a friend is unlikely to be a friend in my eyes.

Just because we are co-workers, and we are friendly with each other, does not mean we are friends.

Most people would have no difficulty in ticking off a dozen friends. Maybe even a dozen close friends.

I’ve had 4 true friends in my lifetime. Two of them were good friends. I say “were” because one is dead, and I am out of contact with the other.

Of the other two, one I have not seen since I left high school. The other is in prison because he is a kiddy diddler.

One I thought was a friend decided that anybody who supported the Supreme Court’s Dobbs’ opinion was no longer a friend to her. And later went as far as to say that anybody who voted for Trump was not a friend and could just fuck off.

Ally tells me that there are people attempting to be friends. I can almost see it, but I don’t feel it.

In 2008, Obama was running for office. It is the moment when I felt my country start to fracture. Friends were starting to turn on each other in ways I had not seen before.

I went to speak to a black co-worker. “Who are you voting for?” “Obama”, “Why?” “Because he’s black.”

Anybody who expressed any hesitation or discomfort about voting for a one—term senator from Illinois, who’s most common vote was “Present” was a “racist”.

It was that bad. Since I was working in a deep blue state at the time, I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t care who they were voting for. I wish they had better reasons than “He’s black.” It was their choice.

Oh, it wasn’t just the black co-workers, it was all the lefties.

How did I spot a lefty? Those were the ones openly talking politics, expressing their opinion about anyone who wasn’t voting for Obama.

From that moment on, I have been called racist, for my beliefs, constantly.

Look at Rep. Hunt. Now there is a black man. I like him. Why? Because he echos my beliefs. He stands up for America.

Now compare him to the half white Obama.

Obama’s mother was white, his father was black, he’s brown.

He ran as a black man. So what?

If every single person of color had voted for him and every single white voted against him, he would not have become the President of the United States. A majority of the people of the United States decided that he was a better man to be president than McCain.

For the next 8 years, I wasn’t allowed to say a negative thing about my President. To do so was to “prove I was racist.”

When Hillary ran for President, I suddenly became misogynistic. No change of my positions, just a different candidate by the Democrats.

And every lefty screamed at me that I was a bad person if I didn’t support every belief they held.

There was a TikTok sketch Ally showed to me. A woman says to her Republican friend that she is leaving the GOP.

Her friend responds with, “I’m sorry you feel you need to leave. We’ve been friends all our lives. You will continue to be my friend and are welcome here, anytime.”

The sketch then changes to a woman leaving the Democrat party. “I’m leaving the party. They just don’t match my core beliefs. You’ve been my friend all my life. You will still be my friend.”

The remaining Democrat woman turns to the first and, with a sneer on her face, “I’m not friends with Nazis”

That is what my life felt like during the Obama era. It was worse under Biden.

Our friendships became defined by our beliefs.

Going out in public, I would hear leftists yapping about how anybody who wasn’t like them was horrible, evil people. Nasty labels were everywhere.

I’ve seen “DemocRAT” from time to time. I’m “MAGAot”, a “fascist”, a “racist”, a “white supremest”, and every other nasty label you can think of.

Those people won’t speak with me. They can’t handle being asked for examples. They can’t handle being called on bullshit. They can’t be bothered to verify any of the narrative they spout with no evidence to back them.

I’m sorry for Ally.

She is a good person. We are good people. If you are in need, we will do our best to help you. When a “co-worker” had an emergency, she didn’t ask, “What are your politics? I only help good people.” No, she opened her pantry to them. She did it with no expectation of anything.

When they tried to repay her, she said, “Pay it forward.”

Well, they did pay it forward. Until they had to treat people by what they do instead of what they were told they do.

Make sure you keep your friends close. Make sure they know you are friends.

Stay strapped. Keep your head on a swivel. Don’t be in stupid places at stupid times.

The district courts have been attacking the Trump administration wherever possible. Many have overstepped their authority to intrude on the Article II executive.

A judge in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts decided that he was a final arbitrator of United States foreign policy. To that end, he issued a preliminary injunction stopping the deportation of criminal illegal aliens to third-party countries.

The criminal is detained in the United States. He is taken before an administrative judge, where he is given full due process. The judge can order the criminal released into our country with orders to report for further legal actions. He can decide that the person is not a criminal alien, and turn him loose or to other authorities. Or he can issue a deportation order.

At times, the criminal is not just here illegally, he has committed some other crime. In those cases, they are given a full trial. When they are found guilty, the judge can sentence them according to sentencing guidelines. After serving their sentence, they are then deported. The Article III judge will have ordered them deported, as part of their sentence.

In the alternative, the judge can just deport them. Make them someone else’s problem.

When we deport somebody, the rules say that they should be deported to the country of origin or to the last country they came through to reach the United States.

I’m not breaking it down. Some people hold multiple citizenships. Some people are citizens of their birth country and then move and become citizens in another country. Just assume that they are being sent to the correct country of origin.

Unfortunately, some of these criminal, illegal, aliens are nasty pieces of work. Many countries will refuse entry to people that they deem to be undesirable.

That includes many countries that feel that somebody convicted of murder is undesirable. Regardless of their citizenship.

My understanding is that under international law, a country is required to accept a deportee who is a citizen of their country.

As we well know, international law doesn’t really mean much. Countries have and do refuse entry to people that commit heinous crimes.

Having all of that in hand, let’s look at the facts of this case, according to Sotomayor.

The person being deported, O.C.G., had a removal order in place. He was being returned to his origin country, Guatemala.

When he learned of this, he begged an Immigration Judge to grant “withholding of removal to Guatemala”. Ok. This means that the next place he can be deported to is the last country he was in. Namely, Mexico.

Now, Sotomayor says that the Immigration Judge granted that withholding of removal to Guatemala and not to Guatemala and Mexico because there was no removal order to Mexico.

There is no record of why the Judge did this, only Sotomayor’s statement. The Judge knew that O.C.G. didn’t want to go to Mexico. He could have granted a withholding of removal to Mexico at the same time.

The judge did not.

Under the Trump administration, they looked at what they had. They had a legal removal order. It is legal to send him back to Mexico or Guatemala by statue, but he can’t be sent to Guatemala.

Bingo, he’s now on his way to Mexico.

When he arrived in Mexico, they said, “We don’t want your ass here.” and promptly deported him to Guatemala. It appears that there was no Immigration Judge in Mexico willing to grant a withholding of removal to Guatemala. Poor O.C.G.

From someplace in Guatemala, O.C.G. reached out to lawyers in the United States to start a class action suit to stop the administration from deporting criminal aliens to third-party countries.

Lacking in Sotomayor’s dissent is anything about O.C.G.’s criminal record. Nor was there was no evidence in the record that O.C.G. suffered any torture in Guatemala.

There is only O.C.G.’s claims.

The Immigration Judge who granted the withholding of removal found that O.C.G. was likely to suffer if deported to Guatemala. Therefore, the United States did not. The United States has no say on what Mexico does with its criminal illegal aliens.

This district judge feels that the United States is responsible for making sure nothing bad happens to these criminals after they are kicked out of our country.

The case is, DHS v. D.V.D. et al., No. 24A1153 606 U.S. ____ (2025).