Explainer

Our court system is built around a false or better said, forced, politeness. This means that words have meaning in the context of the Supreme Court that aren’t obvious outside of those that watch The Court.

The Education Industry also does this. When my children were in kindergarten, I had a meeting with their teachers. The teacher said something to the effect of, “Your son is not sharing with his friends.”

I was surprised at this, to say the least. Then I found out that the school had changed the definition of “friend”.

It seems they had noticed that children treat their friends differently and often times better than those that are not friends. So the school changed the definition of “friend” to mean any classmate or student the child interacts with.

The court is filled with this sort of rhetoric, using polite words of friends when it is more likely that somebody wants to rip their lying opponent’s throat out.

This is a polite way of saying that the state has made the claim that Garcia is a member of MS-13 but that the Supreme Court doesn’t accept it as proven.

Fact: An Immigration Judge (Article II Judge), found that Garcia was a member of MS-13.

This is also polite court speak for said but not proven.

Fact: Garcia is charged with a crime, he is an illegal alien. He has a removal order put in place under Biden.

This is Court speak for, “You were wrong. We are returning it to you to fix.” The word “requires” is an order. It is telling the inferior court judge that he MUST correct their error.

“Clarification” means that the inferior court said something wrong.

With normal people, this is the equivalent of “I believe you are mistaken” when you want to say, “What you said is wrong. And the entire room is dumber for having had to listen to it.”

“…unclear, and may exceed the District Court’s authority” is court talk for something like. “Either you meant what you said which is outside your authority, OR you meant something else. You must have meant something else. Make it clear you didn’t mean what you said.”

This is as strong of language that I’ve read in a SCOTUS opinion.

Sometimes, I will be in a discussion with somebody, and they will say something insulting or rude to me. I will respond, “Did you intend to call me ignorant/a lier/stupid/racist?” If I’m saying this, I’m pretty darn sure they said it intentionally. This gives them an opportunity to walk it back without me forcing the issue.

The intended scope of the term “effectuate” in the District Court’s order was clear. The judge was ordering the US government to put Garcia in front of the Judge by midnight. And that judge didn’t care what the government had to do to accomplish his order.

“…with due regard”, “deference”, and “conduct of foreign affairs.” are all code. “Due regard” is SCOTUS telling the inferior courts that the Executive branch is co-equal with the legislative and judicial branch. “Deference” means that the executive branch is responsible for the executive branch, not the courts.

The last part, “conduct of foreign affairs,” means that this is a limited ruling. If it has to do with foreign affairs, the executive branch is responsible, not the judicial or legislative branches. This also means that if it is not “foreign affairs”, the court might have the authority to step in, after giving due regard and deference.

Conclusion

There are many situations where the setting demands a level of decorum, of the trappings of respect. In oral arguments before the Supreme Court, it is proper to refer to the opposing council as “my friend.” To call congress critters “honorable”.

Unfortunately, there are those in the business of selling panic know that most people will not understand forced respect, instead they will latch on to the thing that is panic worthy, or which is what they want to hear.

The order heretofore entered by THE CHIEF JUSTICE is vacated sounds like it is a loss for the administration. It is not. The stay issued by the Chief Justice did what it was supposed to do. It protected the administration from charges of contempt.

The differences between effectuate and facilitate is lost on the masses. The number of people who believe that the administration was ordered to return Garcia to the United States is nearly unbelievable.

They want to believe that Trump is breaking the law.

As Allyson says, “read the bill”. Unfortunately, I believe that the plain text of Supreme Court opinions is beyond the comprehension of most people suffering from TDS.

In the best of all worlds, the states would look at the Constitution, look at their laws, and gut their regulations until every last regulation aligned with our Constitution.

This is not the best of all worlds. There are too many politicians who are agenda-driven. There are too many courts that are agenda-driven. The agenda is more important than the Constitution or The People.

This means that judges who have an agenda will look for ways to manipulate case law or the lack of case law.

Does the Second Amendment apply to the states? We don’t think so. The Supreme Court never said that it does, so our opinion is the correct opinion.

Because our legal system is built on common law, the law must apply to everyone equally. Once a decision has been made based on a particular line of reasoning, other, similar decisions should have the same result.

In rogue courts, this will ratchet in only one direction. If the case law favors The People but at odds with the court’s agenda, the case law won’t apply. If the case law favors the court’s agenda, then it will apply.

One of the lawyers I follow or use to follow puts it as, “Congress writes the bill, the President makes it law, the Courts decide what it means.”

It doesn’t matter what the intentions of Congress and the Executive branch might be when drafting and creating law, it only matters how the Courts interpret the law.

There are 600+ Federal District Court Judges. Each of them has an opinion about what the law means. Some of them attempt to respect, to adhere to the Constitution, some of them do not. Regardless, because there are so many, there will be differences in opinion.

To bring the inferior courts into agreement, each district court reports to a circuit court. The circuit courts will accept cases for review and publish opinions, which the inferior district courts must follow.

This brings the district courts into alignment within a circuit. Unfortunately, the inferior circuit courts are often agenda-driven. This means that the circuits will split on agenda differences. The Fifth Circuit court is more likely to find for The People, for The Constitution. The Ninth Circuit is more likely to find for the state, against The People.

When the circuits split, or if the matter is of importance to the Supreme Court, they might agree to hear a case. When the Supreme Court issues their Opinion, the inferior courts should follow instructions the Supreme Court issues.

The Process

A court case starts by a person filing a suit. In a criminal case, this is the state, as represented by the prosecutor. The case is filed against someone. Remember that corporations are legally people. I’m going to ignore the criminal side, as I’m just not interested in that side, at this time.

The person opening the suit is the plaintiff. The other party is the defendant. The plaintiff will state a harm and request relief from the harm. The court must be able to grant that relief.

Let’s consider a common situation, a divorced man has been ordered to pay child support. He works to better himself and finds himself promoted or working in a better paying job. His ex-wife can file suit to have the child support increased.

She will allege that he is making more money, part of which should be going to his children.

There is alleged harm, he is shorting his children. The court can remedy the situation by ordering him to pay more in child support. The court grants her the relief she was seeking

Turn it around, a divorced man goes to pick up his children. His ex-wife refuses to hand them over for visitation. It is a Friday, the courts are closed, he goes home without his children.

On Monday, he attempts to file a suit. He alleges that his ex-wife denied him his visitation rights. He asks that he get the weekend with his children.

There is no way for the court to give that weekend back. It is gone. It is not a case for the courts. There is no relief the court can grant to fix the harm that was done.

There must be standing and an active conflict for the courts to act.

The suit makes allegations. If the allegations are about the law, the plaintiffs can request summary judgment. This means that the case can be decided by the courts without requiring facts/evidence be provided.

If there is a need for evidence to be collected, that requires fact finding.

Consider these two suits, 1) The plaintiffs file suit asking for a summary judgment finding that requiring permits to carry a firearm is unconstitutional. 2) The plaintiffs file suite asking for an injunction forcing the sheriff’s department to issue permits to carry in a timely fashion.

In the first case, there is no evidence or facts to be found. It is a matter of law. Per case law, when a constitutional challenge is made, the plaintiff needs to show that the proposed conduct implicates the plain text of The Constitution. Once the plaintiffs have shown that implication, the burden shifts to the state to prove the modern regulation is inline with this Nation’s historical tradition of regulation.

Note that this language is similar to what we saw in Bruen. That is because Bruen didn’t invent anything new. This has been the standard for at least a hundred years.

In the second case, the plaintiffs will need to prove that the sheriff’s department is not issuing permits in a timely fashion.

The steps of the case:

1. File suit
2. Request Temporary Restraining Order
3. Request Preliminary Injunction
4. Request Summary Judgment
5. TRO granted or denied.
6. Pleadings filed regarding the Preliminary Injunction
7. Hearing on the Preliminary Injunction
8. Preliminary Injunction granted or denied
9. Pleadings filed regarding Summary Judgment
10. Hearing on the Summary Judgment
11. Summary Judgment granted or denied

Until the case has reached step 11, Summary Judgment granted or denied, the case is in an interlocutory state.

Temporary Restraining Order (TRO)

When a case is filed, “bad things” could be happening, which needs to be stopped immediately.

A person gets notice they are to be evicted the following day. They request a TRO to stop the eviction.

An alien is detained and will be deported. Their lawyer files a suit to stop the deportation and requests a TRO to stop the alien from being removed from the local jurisdiction.

A TRO lasts until a preliminary injunction is issued or denied. They are supposed to only a short period of time. If it is an urgent matter, then the preliminary injunction should be briefed and heard in a short period of time. A week, maybe two should be the limit of a TRO.

We see one of the issues with rogue courts, such as the Ninth. The Supreme Court has stated that TROs, Preliminary Injunctions, and stays are extraordinary actions which require the Winter Factors be used. Here, the Ninth has said that an inferior, district court, can use the Winter Factors, or use a sliding scale.

When using a sliding scale, the inferior court is supposed to use the “balance of hardships”. Balance of hardships is not part of the Winter Factors. This gives courts in the Ninth Circuit to decide that anything is a hardship, which allows them to grant TROs, Preliminary Injunctions, and Stays when the party requesting them hasn’t shown a likelihood of success on the merits.

Preliminary Injunction

For a preliminary injunction, the court needs the plaintiffs and defendants to file briefs to demonstrate why the preliminary injunction should be granted or denied. The plaintiff files their motion for a preliminary injunction. The defendant files their response. The plaintiff then files a reply to the response.

If the court requires more, they will request more. If defendants feel they need to reply to the reply, they ask permission of the court to do so.

The court then schedules a hearing. The parties can meet independently of the hearing. They can file a joint motion on what they think the preliminary injunction should be. The plaintiffs can file a motion suggesting what the wording of the preliminary injunction should be. The defendants might file a “we don’t think it should be granted, but if it is, this is what the wording should be.”

After the hearing, the court will issue their order granting, denying or granting in part and denying in part the requested preliminary injunction.

The process of getting a preliminary injunction is adversarial. The process of getting a TRO is not.

If a preliminary injunction is granted, that injunction will be in place until final judgment is issued.

Final Judgment

After the preliminary injunction is granted (or not), the parties start filing their arguments, briefs, motions. Amicus Curiae can file briefs as well.

During this process, the parties will meet, discuss what can and cannot be agreed to between them. Anytime an agreement is reached between the parties, a motion if filed with the court to get the court’s approval.

There will be status reports and hearings to make sure everybody is on track to have everything filed on time.

Finally, there will be arguments made in court.

After the arguments have been made, the court will make their decision and issue their final judgment.

When the final judgment is given, the case is no longer in an interlocutory state, at the district level.

Appeals

Normally, a TRO cannot be appealed. The thinking is that since it lasts such a short time, by the time the superior court has heard the arguments, the TRO should have expired.

Since a TRO is supposed to maintain the status quo, there should be nothing in a TRO that cannot be undone, with a proper application of money.

If a party appeals a TRO or the denial of a TRO, the superior court should apply the Winter Factors and there must be an extraordinary reason for the intervention.

To have the Supreme Court hear an appeal regarding a TRO is almost unheard of. To have them action a TRO is even rarer.

The normal method that is used to stop a TRO with a deadline is to grant an administrative stay long enough for the deadline to pass. This gives the defendant time to respond without facing contempt charges.

Again, TROs normal cannot be appealed.

A Preliminary Injunction can be appealed. Since a Preliminary Injunction lasts for the duration of the case, a “bad” Preliminary Injunction can cause immense damage.

It is also the case that a Preliminary Injunction should not normally grant the relief sought in final judgment. If what you are asking for in final judgment is for the homeowner to stop hoarding rainwater and the preliminary injunction requires the rainwater to be distributed to all their neighbors, there is no way to make the homeowner whole when the dry season hits.

The Preliminary Injunction might require the homeowner to retain that rainwater, not using it nor releasing it.

The Preliminary Injunction can be appealed. From the District Court it is appealed to the Circuit Court. From there it could be appealed to the Supreme Court.

After the final judgment is issued, the case at the District Level is done. The case is no longer in an interlocutory state.

Findings of fact cannot be appealed. Thus, if the District Court finds that the sheriff is taking 18 months on average to issue a permit to carry, the sheriff can appeal that finding of fact.

They can appeal the procedure and rules used to make the determination. For example, the sheriff submitted documentation showing that 10,000 permits were granted within 30 days, but the district court refused to accept the documentation because the staples were in the wrong place.

Relief From Appeals

There must be an active controversy for a court to intervene. If there is no active controversy, the case is moot.

A criminal on death row is appealing his sentence. He dies of a heart attack. There is no longer a controversy, the case is moot.

There are exceptions for this. The most common was abortion cases. Since a pregnancy lasts 9 months and most court cases take years, there is no possibility for an abortion case to be heard at the appeals level before the woman is no longer pregnant.

The rogue inferior courts have been throwing out Second Amendment challenges from 18 year-olds because they age out. To resolve this, their needs to be an organization involved representing all members under 21. As the individual plaintiffs age out, the organization adds new 18-year-old plaintiffs.

The superior court can grant stays and injunctions. These are temporary in nature. They are designed to change the state of preliminary injunctions or final judgments.

If the superior court finds that the inferior court got it wrong, they can vacate the lower court’s judgment. Normally, the case is then remanded (returned) to the inferior court for them to correct whatever it was they did wrong.

In our example, the inferior district court issued a preliminary injunction requiring the homeowner from using the collected rainwater or from wasting it. The appeals court can stay that injunction, allowing the homeowner to use the rainwater while waiting for the final judgment.

In the same way, if the inferior district court did not issue an injunction, the plaintiffs (not the homeowner) could appeal and the appeals court could issue an injunction, stopping the homeowner from using or destroying the rainwater.

SCOTUS and Interlocutory State Cases

The Supreme Court produces thousands of words per day per justice. They hear oral arguments. They read 10s of thousands of words in filings in cases.

Unlike myself, they need to read everything. I normally skip the boring stuff or the state’s BS. It isn’t worth my time.

This means they hear about 70 cases per term. This is in addition to making a few dozen to a few hundred orders per week.

This last Monday, they issued orders in 78 cases.

Anything the Supreme Court does or says becomes precedent. If they were to grant cert to cases in an interlocutory state, the number of requests for cert would skyrocket. They already get in excess of 7000 petitions for cert every term.

It is a big deal, therefore, when the Supreme Court grants cert on a case that is in an interlocutory state.

They don’t normally hear requests for stays or injunctions from cases in an interlocutory state.

The fact that they have made statements in a few Second Amendment challenges that were at the TRO or Preliminary Injunction state is astonishing.

Conclusion

The Second Amendment community needs to fight to a final judgment as quickly as possible. If we ask for a TRO, and it isn’t granted, that was a waste of our resources. If it is granted, the state will appeal to the circuit courts, where it will be stayed. The circuit court can then delay the case for many months.

The Supreme Court will not step in, while a case is just starting

If we ask for a preliminary injunction, either we are denied, in which case it just cost us resources and time, or we are granted the injunction which will be appealed, and the entire case is again delayed.

We want the case completed at the district level as quickly as possible. If we win, the state will appeal, but now we are on the way to the Supreme Court. If we lose, we appeal, we are still on our way to the Supreme Court.

We won, again.

These inferior rogue courts lose and the media plays it up as a win.

The short of it, the state (not bad guys) transferred Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to the El Salvador “super max”. Garcia was under a court order to be kept in the United States.

Garcia is a bad person. The state says he is a member of MS-18, he claims he is not. He does not appear to have a criminal record outside of being here illegally. He was detained under the Biden Puppet administration.

His transfer was a mistake. The state acknowledges this.

The District Judge issued another of those magic TROs. He overstepped his Article III power when he ordered the Government to facilitate and effectuate the return of [Garcia] to the United States by no later than 11:59PM on Monday, April 7.

To understand this win, it is necessary to understand the power of a court. When a court gives an order, it must be followed or the court can find you in contempt. Being in contempt can cause people to be arrested.

In this particular case, I believe it is Kristi Noem who would have been held in contempt.

The TRO uses two different terms with different legal meanings. The first is to “facilitate”. This is telling the Government to work with El Salvador to get Garcia back. It could be the Government paying money, it could be other diplomatic pressure, or it could be a simple “please give him back.”

The difficulty the Government has is that Garcia is a member of MS-13. Under El Salvador law, this means he is a terrorist. As a terrorist in El Salvador, he will be detained in their super max under their laws.

Under the facilitate requirement, as long as the Government was working to get Garcia returned to the United States, they were within the boundaries of the TRO.

The second term, “effectuate” is different. This is a get-it-done requirement. This requires that Garcia be back in the United States before midnight on the 7th. If the Government does not have Garcia back in the United States by that deadline, they will be in contempt.

Whatever the full reasons might be for the state not wanting Garcia back, it is unreasonable to expect the state to negotiate the return of Garcia and to have him back in the states within the deadline given by the court.

Chief Justice Roberts quashed this TRO without committing the Court. He issued an administrative stay. Because that stay took the case past the midnight deadline, there was no more threat of contempt.

Having made it past the deadline, the Court then issued an order today.

Yep, the district court was just slapped down for overreaching its power.

The government is no longer required to return Garcia, they are required to work towards getting him back. Meanwhile, they can continue the court case at the district level, which might end with Garcia staying in El Salvador.

The government is only required to share, what it can, about the steps they are taking to facilitate the return of Garcia.

“We’ve scheduled a meeting with the representative of El Salvador.” Which is 4 weeks from now. They can slow walk this thing.

BLUF: Miracle Gro is basically minerals salts and coloring, which can (but doesn’t always) help short term, but long term will destroy the beneficial things in your soil. It’s expensive and messy and can harm your vegetables. Free and low cost alternatives include animal manure, natural mulch, etc… all of which add to rather than depleting from the soil.

I’m not sure if any of you are aware of the demon Monsanto. Coming from the Left, as I do, I have a real hate for Monsanto. However, I also learned hate for them through local farmers who are very conservative Trump supporters. Monsanto is not a good company, for a LOT of reasons. I don’t want to write about them, so I am offering you an article to go read at your own pace (yes, the site is anti-Trump, but their information on this topic is not bad).

Now to Miracle Gro. There’s an incestuous relationship between Monsanto and Miracle Gro which makes me uneasy. Monsanto doesn’t own it Miracle Gro, nor vice versa, but there’s a lot going on between them. That alone is enough to warn me off, however, there’s more. MG was successfully sued for lying about pesticides in their bird food that they manufactured and sold, which led to the death of enough song birds to cause a lot of people to get upset. I realize one legal case by a rabid leftist isn’t enough to cause a conservative to flinch, as it could always just be one they settled out of court to get the suing party to shut up. So I present you with a tracking website keeping dibs on all the court cases MG has lost.

There are places for chemicals. I use chemicals in the garden from time to time. I use chemicals against wasps, because they’re stingy assholes and I’m allergic. There are times when it’s just right to use chemicals. But if you’re paying extra to get something free of chemicals, if you’re actively looking to avoid chemicals, and a company sells you something it says is chemical free and it is not… that’s just not right. And that’s what Miracle Gro seems to be doing.

It’s not even that it’s necessarily “bad chemicals” in their products. I believe that ever MG product has salt in it. While tiny amounts of salt can help add things to your soil that benefit your plants, at least in the short term, it destroys your soil in the long term. Ever heard of Romans “salting the earth” before leaving an area? That’s so the enemy couldn’t plant crops for 20 years or more. That’s how bad salt is for your garden.

If you want to give good fertilizer to your garden and improve your soil, pick up some bunny poop and make bunny poop tea, and use that to water your plants. Pick up some local well aged manure and shovel that in around your plants. Most of the time, if you’re dealing with local folk, it will cost you nothing or very little, because you’re saving those people from having to remove the manure themselves.

When my guy does something I like, I do cheer. When their guy does something I dislike, I’ll boo.

But what happens when my guy does something I like, but which I would boo if their guy did?

I worry about this.

In addition, I look at how I would react if something my guy is doing today, were to be done by their guy tomorrow. I need to be willing to accept both theirs and mine doing this thing.

I was extremely upset when Joe Biden’s masters were ignoring Supreme Court rulings. Is my guy ignoring court rulings?

One of the things to understand is how our Constitutional Republic works. We, The People, have rights. Our state has rights derived from The People of the state.

The federal government and the state government have power. They have power by existing.

The federal Constitution grants authority to the federal government to do certain things, and only those things.

Consider the following, a squad of cops breaks down your door, throws you in irons, transports you to the jail and locks the cage.

Under our Constitution, the cops only have the authority to do so if they have a warrant. If they don’t have that warrant, they do not have the authority to detain you. Did they have the power to do so? Obviously, they did because they did detain you, and they did throw you in jail.

The Supreme Court was not granted any authority under our Constitution. Our Constitution established a Supreme Court, but they didn’t explicitly give the Supreme Court any Authority.

With —Marbury V. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803) the Supreme Court took the authority to arbitrate what was and what was not Constitutional.

We, as a country, have accepted this.

When we look at the courts, they have significant authority, they do not always have the power to enforce their authority.

When the judge looks down from his bench and orders a person into jail, it is Law Enforcement that executes that order. In some cases, the court employs those people. In federal court, the enforcement power rests in the executive branch, such as the federal marshals, who report to DoJ.

So, in the cases I’m looking at, the court has the authority but lacks the power.

Tren de Aragua(TdA)

What is due process as it relates to TdA?

We start with what due process do you have? You are stopped while walking down the street and the cop demands your papers.

You do not have to produce papers when a cop demands them (IANAL). In some states, you might have to identify yourself, but that does not require you to provide papers.

If you have followed your state’s laws regarding providing identification, what next?

Go watch some YouTube videos and reach out to a lawyer in your state. I have nothing to say because I just don’t know.

As a citizen, you have the right to a jury of your peers. You have the right to due process. You have the right to legal representation.

They do not have the authority to just disappear you into a cell.

You will get your day in court. If you are not found guilty, you will be released. It can be expensive, but you don’t get thrown into a cage without due process.

But what if you are here illegally?

If you are an illegal alien, then they only need to prove that you are here illegally. Once they prove that, you can be deported.

The question arises, who do they have to prove legality to? To a judge? To some nameless official? To their drinking buddies? Who?

In the case of TdA and other gangs, like MS-13, they self identify as belonging to those gangs. As part of those gangs, they are not welcome in the United States. Because they are not wanted, they do not have visa or green cards. Since they are not here legally, they can be deported.

But what if they do have a visa or green card?

Simple, those can be revoked. Being a member of such a gang is enough of a reason for the State Department to revoke a visa and/or a green card.

Once they are deported, it becomes the responsibility of the receiving country to deal with those deported.

Well, we decided to fly TdA members to El Salvador. There is an interesting law in El Salvador. According to one source, TdA are by definition criminals in El Salvador.

Under El Salvadorian law, any member of TdA can be arrested and jailed.

When these deportees arrived in El Salvador, the El Salvadorian officials determined if they were indeed members of TdA.

Since they were in El Salvador, they are, by definition, criminals. Thus, they can be jailed.

They were then in processed and get to stay in the comfort of El Salvador super max prison.

Was due process served? Yes. Could it have been abused? Yes. Will it be abused when the democrats regain power? Yes, it will.

How do I know that it will be abused by democrats? Because they did so over the last four years.

This is the current version of section §922(g). The word “felon” does not appear. All definitions are included within the list.

As you read on, notice that we have gone from actually crossing state lines to “affecting commerce”. This is a huge power grab by the federal government. The Constitution authorizes them to regulate interstate commerce.

The power grab is that they now claim the can regulate anything that might affect interstate commerce.
This is not how it started.

This does not seem to include as much as the current law does.

In October 1968, the law changed

Here we see that they have explicitly excluded misdemeanors with possible imprisonment of less than two years. The old version was greater than one year.

Read that last line carefully. In November 1968, a person who was a “prohibited person” could no receive any firearm or ammunition which had been shipped in interstate or foreign commerce. They could still keep and bear arms. They could not buy or be given guns that crossed state lines.

This means that it was perfectly legal for a prohibited person to keep all the firearms they owned before becoming prohibited and they could manufacture firearms for their use. All legal.

It also meant, that if they were to buy direct from a manufacturer, that would be legal. For example, if they lived in New Hampshire, they could go to the Sig Store and purchase a gun manufactured by Sig in NH.

Section (h) was rewritten to reference section (g) for who was prohibited. We also see that it is no longer receiving a firearm that is a crime, it is in possessing.

We still see that the limitation is on firearms that cross state lines. We see this in many federal laws. They will reference something crossing state lines being regulated. This is because that is all the Constitution authorizes the federal government to regulate.

These changes were part of “Firearms Owners’ Protection Act”. I just love it when something that is about protecting my rights adds more limits on rights. Yeah, I know, bad people.

In 1996, §§ 921-922 were amended to add definitions and text to prohibit who has been convicted in any court of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence..

In 1998, in an “Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations” bill, they changed the definition of an illegal alien.

Conclusion

1) reading lawsuits is easy compared to reading “Public Laws”. They write bills like patch files. Instead of showing us the new version with strike through and underline to show removed and new text, they say things like (I) by inserting “transfer of a firearm to or” before “receipt”; and (II) by striking “(g) or (n)” and inserting “(d), (g), or (n) (as applicable)”.

I read that stuff all the time, but I have tools that make it easy to see the changes.

2) The law expands little by little, infringing more and more. What starts with something that feels reasonable ends with something that is totally unconstitutional.

I am NOT a Lawyer. That being said, I do analyze large systems all the time. And as my mentor used to say, “The justice system is just a system.”

History of the case:

January 20, 2025: EO 14,169 was signed by President Trump. “It is the policy of the United States that no further United States foreign assistance shall be disbursed in a manner that is not fully aligned with the foreign policy of the President”

This is the long-term goal. No more foreign aid that is at odds with the President’s foreign policy.

for programmatic efficiency and consistency with United States foreign policy…immediately pause new obligations and disbursements of development assistance funds to foreign countries

Stop all foreign aid payments until we have reviewed it for alignment with current foreign policy. Don’t enter into any new contracts while paused.

To you and I, this seems like a logical and reasonable situation. There was a short fuse put on the order of 90 days. Each agency had only 90 days to evaluate the situation and report.

Within the EO, there is an allowance for the Secretary of State to issue waivers. If some entity had a need, and it aligned with our foreign policy, they could get a waiver now to receive funds.

February 10, 2025: Plaintiffs/Respondents (Bad guys) challenged the pause. The alleged violations of the APA and the Constitution.

February 13, 2025: The District court (inferior to the circuit courts which are inferior to the Supreme Court) granted relief. The court did not give the government (good guys) an opportunity to file an opposition brief.

The court said that a pause wasn’t arbitrary or capricious, the government had not considered that aid recipients might be butt hurt.

Having issued the TRO, the State Department started issuing payments again. The difference was that before issuing a payment, they were evaluating how that “aid” aligned with our foreign policy.

The order, however, allowed the agency defendants to “take action to enforce the terms of particular contracts, including with respect to expirations, modifications, or terminations pursuant to contractual provisions.”

The government obeyed the rules as set out by the court. The plaintiffs (still the bad guys) did not see the faucet of cash open, so went whining back to the court claiming that the government was violating the court’s order.

February 24, 2025: One of the plaintiffs filed an emergency motion to enforce the court’s order.

February 25, 2025: The court held another hearing. The court did not give the state time to file a written response to the emergency motion. The court then granted the motion from the bench. (Not a written order, yet)

The court did not address multiple issues the state brought up.

Instead, the court ordered the state to pay all invoices and letters of credit drawdown by 2359 on the 26th.

This amounted to around $2billion. The order ignored due dates, standard accounting practices of verification, and other aspects of the contract.

When I send out an invoice, my clients have a certain amount of time to pay the invoice. Normally, 30 days.

Government contracts often have longer delays built in. IIRC our contracts with the government had 90 day due dates.

What the court ordered was that the government had to pay invoices received by January 24th even if the invoice wasn’t due for many days.

After this hearing and new order, the government filed for an emergency stay pending appeal to the D.C. Circuit court.

The motion asked for an administrative stay by 1300 on the 26th. If not an administrative stay, the government wanted a ruling by 1600. These time frames are very fast, but the government was given about 36 hours to issue 2 Billion Dollars.

February 26, 2025: The Circuit court asked the plaintiffs (bad guys, still) to file a response by 1300. This is the deadline the state put forth for an administrative stay.

The circuit court didn’t issue the stay, nor did they rule on the motions. Instead, they dragged their feet. With time running out, the government appealed to the Supreme Court.

Just before the midnight deadline, Chief Justice Roberts issued an administrative stay. The Court then asked for a response by 1200 on February 28th.

February 28, 2025: Everybody got their briefings in. The state by normal rules can reply to the response.

March 3, 2025: The state filed their reply to the response to the motion.

March 5, 2025: The application was referred to the Court. An opinion was later issued.

Analysis

There is so much going on and so many moving parts, it is easy to get lost without picking up the minutia.

What we wanted was for the Supreme Court to roll up a newspaper and swat the inferior courts across the snoot a few dozen times. They didn’t.

The district court’s order was labeled a TRO, it was acting as a Preliminary Injunction, and the modified order granted relief that before the adversarial part of the case took place.

Said differently, the plaintiffs want the money to flow. The government says that they have paused spending. The plaintiffs seek the relief of having the money flow. The court’s original order said, “The money must flow.” The government started spending. The plaintiffs claimed that it wasn’t fast enough. The court “modified” their original order and said, “let the money flow”.

Thus, the court actually granted the relief the plaintiffs wanted.

What the Supreme Court’s opinion said was: The application is denied

This is the takeaway. The government has to start the money flowing again.

But here are the important parts that aren’t being noticed in some of the postings I’ve seen (all).

This is an order to the inferior court to change their order and correct deficiencies.

What the government (good guys) were asking for was time to present their case. The inferior district court stripped them of that right. They were not allowed to respond in writing. They were not given time to make appeals safely. In addition, they were ordered to do things which they cannot recover from.

If they pay some of these bills, there is no clawback available to the government. We know that the entities receiving that money will disperse it so fast heads will spin.

I don’t know what Barrett was thinking, but she sided with the denial of the application. I don’t trust Chief Justice Roberts to take risks. He much prefers the safer path, the more limited opinions. It always surprises me when he does join with
Thomas and the rest of that team.

But, in my opinion, the big takeaway is that the inferior court has to consider feasibility. They have to make sure that their order is clear.

The other part of this is that this should take the case out of the TRO state and into the Preliminary Injunction state. While a case is in the TRO state, there are limits in what can be appealed.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in this case.

It is difficult to actually conceive of how long the battle for our Second Amendment rights has been going on. It started in 1792 and has continued through tomorrow.

In the founding era, there were a number of racist and religious exceptions. These were designed to keep arms out of the hands of Negros, mixed race people, Indians, certain religions, and other deplorable. By the 1870s, all of these exceptions were found to be unconstitutional, leaving very few infringements that would survive constitutional muster.

At this time, temporarily denying the right to people that have been adjudicated violent in a court of law is the only one I know of. See: —Marbury V. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803)

In the early 1900s, New York City decided to ignore the Constitution and passed the Sullivan Act. The Sullivan Act was designed to disarm those that would stand up to the corrupt bosses who controlled the city. They used a permitting system.

They claimed that this was constitutional because some people did get permits and everybody could beg for permission from the government for that permission slip. This continued until 2022, with the Bruen decision, the corrupt NYC permitting scheme was shutdown. For all of 10 seconds.

The Bruen response bill attempted to create a statewide “sensitive” places replacement.

After the Sullivan Act, the infringers decided to ban handguns, machine guns, and short shotguns. They did this by placing a tax on these guns that was so outrageous that The People could no longer afford them.

They did not accomplish this. What they got instead was a functional ban on Short Barreled Rifles, Short Barreled Shotguns, Machine guns, and Silencers. By 1936, this was the accepted law of the land.

Using a saying that had not yet been published, in the late 1960s the infringers took advantage of a crisis to stop mail order gun sales. The GCA of 1968 created FFLs and required in person sales of firearms.

The claim was that those FFLs wouldn’t sell to bad people.

When bad things kept happening, they tried more gun control. Mostly permitting schemes that made it nearly impossible for The People to get permission.

Using another crisis, they got the Brady Act passed. Thank goodness, the NRA was fighting for some level of a win. The original intention was to create a system where buyers would have to get permission from the government for any gun purchase.

This was in the form of a “background check” with no limit on how long it took or how intrusive it might be. The NRA got the NICS system for us. Along with a “not denied is proceed”. It put the onus on the government to complete the check rapidly.

In 1986, we got a win with a poison pill. This was the Firearms Owner Protection Act. This was designed to protect firearm owners from being persecuted by the ATF.

There was a time when describing the internal workings of a machine gun was being construed by the ATF as manufacturing a machine gun. Selling a gun or two could get you sent to prison for not having an FFL. It was bad. There are stories of ATF agents hanging around gun shows seeking people to arrest or FFLs to bust for trivial things.

The bad part of the Firearms Owner’s Protection Act was the Hughes Amendment. The infringers had realized that the NFA had outlived its usefulness.

In 1934, the $200 surcharge for transferring a machinegun was unreachable for most of The People. When a M3 machinegun was selling for under 30 dollars, $200 was nearly impossible. An ad for a Colt M16 shows a price of $236.00 plus $5.00 for shipping. By the mid-1980s, the price was around $1800.

At $1800, a $200 surcharge wasn’t as bad.

One of the problems that started happening after 1986, when the NFA was closed to new machineguns, was a price boost of $200 every time a NFA item changed hands.

Consider buying a silencer today. The can costs $500 + $200. If you want to sell the can, you would like to get $700, to recover your costs. Now, this doesn’t work. Given the choice of a used can for $700 + $200 tax or a new can for $500 + $200 tax, you buy new. Thus keeping the costs of silencer’s down.

After 1986, there were no new machineguns. This means that every transfer increases the cost of that gun by at least $200.

At this point, the infringers moved to stop the sale of all firearms. The method they decided on was to sue firearm retailers and manufacturers out of business.

What they did was they found a bloody victim and then sued the FFL that sold the gun. They knew they would not win the case, but the cost of litigation was punishment enough.

In 2005, bipartisan legislation was passed to stop this lawfare. The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) was designed to protect entities in the lawful commerce in arms from frivolous lawsuits.

And it worked.

Until Sandy Hook.

They sued Remington Arms because they owned Bushmaster who manufactured the rifle that the asshole used to murder children and teachers.

What they claimed was that Bushmaster produced ads that caused the asshole to decide to murder his mother. Steal her keys to the safe. Open the safe. Steal the AR-15 within. To drive the car he stole from his mother to the school. And there murder children and teachers.

It was all the fault of the manly man ads that Bushmaster used to sell guns.

The lower state court dismissed the case based on the PLCAA. It was appealed up to the Connecticut Supreme Court. They decided the case could move forward. That was appealed to the Supreme Court, who denied cert.

Remington was bleeding money, and this case didn’t help. They went bankrupt. The hull of the company had no assets and no people. The insurance companies were on the hook for the money involved in the suit.

They settled. No gun people were involved in that disaster. It was a purely money motivated decision.

Which brings us to this case. Sorry for this long history.

Mexico was approached by the usual suspects. They filed in Massachusetts claiming that all the gun manufacturers were causing horrible things in Mexico.

The argument goes something like this:

The Cartels get guns from an illegal gun dealer. That illegal gun dealer purchased that gun from an illegal gun smuggler. The illegal gun smuggler purchased the gun from a straw purchaser. The straw committed felonies when they filled out the 4473 and when they sold the gun. The FFL knows that some of the guns he sells are being sold to straw purchasers. The distributor knows that the retailer knows that he is selling some guns to straw purchasers. The manufacturer knows that they are selling to distributors that know that the FFL is selling some guns to straw purchasers.

Therefore, the gun manufacture is guilty of adding and abetting murder in Mexico.

Yeah, it is that bad.

The lawyer for the petitioners (good guys) gave his opening statement explaining this. He then stated that the path between crime and manufacture had too many intermediate steps to make them responsible. This is known as “proximate cause analysis”.

He didn’t say anything about PLCAA.

Thomas started the questioning. The conservatives asked the right types of questions.

Then Sotomayor stepped up to the plate. And asked good questions. Not great, but good.

After Gorsuch and Barrette, Kagan asked questions. Again, not great, but good.

Then the surprise of the day.

Jackson started asking questions. And her leading question was, “Why wasn’t this stopped by PLCAA?”

It was a Good question.

I’m looking forward to reading the court’s opinion. At this point, I am finding myself thinking that this maybe a 9-0 opinion.

Transcript of oral arguments in 23-1141

When I was in elementary school, the principal still had a paddle hanging on the wall behind him. The principal was the person that hired and fired teachers and all other staff at the school. They had significant power.

To quote Stan Lee, “With great power comes great responsibility.”

Most principals did use their power responsibly. They used the power of the paddle to control their schools. They used the power to hire and fire to control their staff. And they did not abuse that power.

Unfortunately, when there are positions with great power, that power attracts people who are interested in power.

There was abuse. There were principals that abused the power of the paddle, taking it over that line. There were principals that hired and fired at a whim. Being a teacher had no stability.

The answer that was put into place was to remove the power of the paddle and the power to fire from principals.

Today, teachers are one of the most protected professions in the country. In my state, it is illegal for anybody to speak negatively of a teacher at a board meeting. You cannot say that a teacher is a bad teacher.

The only way that I could make that statement was to say my kids have Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Jones and Mr. Kilroy as teachers. Mr. Kilroy and Mrs. Smith do a fantastic job.

I had to leave “but Mrs. Jones sucks as a teacher” out. To say anything negative was forbidden.

Our president was given the job as chief executive. He was given the job of commander in chief. He is in charge of the executive branch.

This is stated in our Constitution, under Article II.

He delegates power to different people to oversee the executive branch.

Unfortunately, like those principles of times past, the power to fire somebody at will was abused by some.

To deal with that abuse, Congress stepped in and usurped the power and responsibility of the president. They did this by passing unconstitutional laws, which have not yet been struck down.

Our first highlight is almost constitutional. Where it fails is “for a term of 5 years”. Congress does not have the authority to set term limits for appointees. Appointees serve at the pleasure of the president.

Prior to Trump, this was never an issue. All such appointees tendered their resignation when a new administration came into office. Nobody had to be fired.

The Special Counsel may be removed by the President only for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office. is unconstitutional. Why? Because every person in the executive branch serves at the pleasure of the president.

When congress put limits on when the Special Counsel could be fired, they overstepped their authority as granted by The People through Our Constitution.

Simple.

Challenges

Dellinger was fired. He was fired because the president did not trust him. Or because the gentleman wore bow ties instead of real ties. It doesn’t matter. He serves at the pleasure of The President.

When he was fired, he ran to the courts and asked the court to unfire him.

The court granted an “Administrative Stay”, stopping the firing. Now administrative stay is in quotes in all the paperwork by the state (good guys) filed and here because it is a made up term.

Courts can grant injunctions, temporary or otherwise. Superior courts can issue stays against inferior courts. Courts can issue administrative stays against themselves or inferior courts.

The common example is when an inferior court grants an injunction or final judgment, and they know the decision will be appealed. Rather than give the parties whiplash, they put an administrative stay on their order go give the parties time to appeal.

If the superior court does not issue a stay, then the administrative stay expires and the order or judgment goes into effect.

In this case, the plaintiff (bad guy) claims that he was fired in violation of 5 U.S.C. §1211(b). The Administrative Procedures Act.

He was. The state (good guys) did not offer any reason when the fired about Dellinger about “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office” Thus, they did not meet the requirements of the APA regarding Dellinger.

I do not believe that the state attempted to justify the firing under the APA. Instead, the state made a Constitutional Challenge.

Otherwise known as a Civil Rights case.

This triggers a bunch of legal stuff I am not confident in my knowledge about. I.e. I don’t know what I don’t know.

I do know that the challenge should be addressed via the Winter factors.

The most important of which is the likelihood of success on the merits. Followed by irreparable harm, balance of equities, and public interest.

The Supreme Court has ruled that any denial of a Constitutionally protected right is irreparable harm. They have also stated that violation of a Constitutionally protected right balances to the person harmed. And that the public has no interest in enforcing an unconstitutional law.

In other words, if the challenger is likely to win on the merits, they win on all four Winter factors.

The Order

(“ultra vires” means “beyond legal power or authority”)

This is the judge saying that the President broke the law when he fired Dellinger.

The judge reasoned:

My interpretation of the judge’s reason is: Since Congress created this position in the executive branch, they get to decide the limits on what the President can do regarding this position, regardless of what the Constitution says.

Conclusion

Social media is all a fuss about Trump losing. This isn’t over. This case took 3 weeks to go from filed to final judgment. It has already been appealed to the D.C. Circuit Court.

This is being done on an expedited basis. If the Circuit court does not issue a stay on this, the state (good guys) will appeal to the Supreme Court for a stay pending the appeal.

It is my belief that a stay will be granted by the D.C. Circuit court or by the Supreme Court. This will stop the delay tactics that the left loves to use. If they want this done, they will have to push to get it done as quickly as possible.

This case started in the United States District Court (D.D.C.) This is the court that covers Washington, D.C.

Two cases were brought AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition v. United States Department of State and Global Health Council v. Trump. Docket Number: 25-cv-400 and 25-cv-402.

The two cases were filed in the same court at nearly the same time.

After the district court issued their TRO, the Trump administration appealed to the D.C. Circuit court.

The state’s motion is better than I expected. My expectation was that this was going to be a full throated attack based on Article II standing and authorizations.

The state goes on to point out that the court’s order requires them to pay all invoices and drawn-down requests even if those payments are not due, have not had normal vetting done (was the work done), have not been checked against the statement of work, or that these bills are legitimate in any way.

The state also points out that there is no court record (it is not in the record) of the bills that the plaintiffs (bad guys) want paid.

Of note, the state (the good guys), are pushing that this is a constitutional issue.

When a case is appealed at the district level, it is appealed to the Circuit court. It is very unusual to skip directly to the Supreme Court. This was done.

The state did appeal to the Circuit court. They were intending on dorking around to force the state to either pay the $2 billion or to directly violate the district court’s order. When the state filed with the Supreme Court, they informed the Circuit Court, which then issued their opinion.

There is a guideline in the court system that says that TROs cannot be appealed. This does not stop the state (as bad guys) from appealing TROs that go against them. This happened in —Marbury V. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803).

The Circuit court was unwilling because the state (good guys) didn’t appeal the TRO when it was not as intrusive. The Circuit claims that this means the TRO can’t be appealed. They cited to Dellinger v. Bessent which is another case where the rogue inferior court decided that they could order the president around.

Before the midnight deadline, Chief Justice John Roberts issued an administrative stay.

I was surprised there was not more yelling about a single judge (Justice) doing this. But that could be because even the leftest understood that screaming about a single justice stopping a single judge might undermine their position.

An administrative stay is issued before any briefings on the merits have taken place. They are issued when there is a possibility of a whip-lash situation. We saw this in the Duncan case out of California.

The district court issued a final judgment saying that California’s ban on magazines was unconstitutional. This happened before Bruen. This led to what is known as “freedom week” when millions of magazines flooded into California. The state appealed to the Ninth Circus, which then put a stay on the judgment, stopping freedom week.

When the same judge found that California’s magazine ban was still unconstitutional, post Bruen, he issued his final judgment and then put a 30-day administrative stay on his judgment.

The state did appeal. The Ninth Circus did issue a stay. There was no Freedom Week II.

The Chief Justice has ordered the parties to have all briefings in by noon today. The Supreme Court will then issue their order regarding vacating or staying the TRO. That will likely happen on Monday.

Question of the week?

Are you tired of winning yet? Is this what you voted for?