Politics

The Sky Should Be Falling!

Just a short follow up. In one day the portfolio I am following recovered about 530%.

That is to say, the reported loss over the last 6 days has gone from 3.58% yesterday to 0.19% today.

Just stay the course and things will get better.

If you are invested in the market, don’t panic. As CBMTTek pointed out, February 2024 the S&P 500 was doing just fine, at the same level. The media wasn’t screaming about the economy tanking.

What is curious is the lack of panic in 2021/22 when the supply chain was in shambles. Ports were not moving products, ships were idling offshore, trains were not getting loaded at ports, etc… and the Secretary of Transportation was at home on maternity leave. Why no panic then?
— CBMTTek

He’s correct. The amount of panic the media projects is tempered by which party is in control.

A 0.001% drop in the market when Trump does something is cause to panic, which causes the sheep to sell, causing the market to drop. A 1.000% drop in the market when a Dem is in office creates a cricket like ambiance. And saying anything makes you a conspiracy theorist.

brown chicken eggs on the background of the eggshell

The Sky Is Falling!

Trump has put multiple tariffs into place. These tariffs cause changes in supply chains and in the costs to produce certain goods.

Every product produced requires raw goods, tooling, work space, and skills to create.

Consider a simple BLT. The raw goods are bacon, bacon, bacon, lettuce, tomato, bread, mayo. Having all of those raw goods does not a BLT make.

You have to have the correct tooling. The tooling here is a way of cooking the bacon, such as a grill top, cutting tomatoes, cutting bread, spreading the mayo.

Once the sandwich is produced, it has to be packaged for delivery. That requires still more raw goods.

When you sell that sandwich, you include the cost of the raw materials that go into it, you include the cost of the packaging, you include the cost of the tools, the building you used, and you include the cost of labor. You then need to include the cost the government imposes on you.

The cost of your raw goods includes the price you pay for the goods, the cost the government imposes on those goods, such as tariffs and VAT, and the cost of transporting the raw goods to your location.

Once you have all those costs, you add profit to come up with the price you will charge your customers.

Now, let’s change the product, instead of creating a sandwich, you are creating a gear. Your raw goods are iron and pattern making materials. You will use your tools to convert pattern making materials into patterns. You will then use those patterns to cast gear blanks. You will then turn those gear blanks into finished gears by applying different tools.

You have converted raw materials, with knowledge, skill and labor, into a finished product, a gear.

That gear is sold at a price which is profitable to you. That gear is likely a raw material for some other business.

Tariffs add to the cost of anything imported into a country that imposes imports. Imports are decided on the origin country or the country of manufacture.

Consider a car that is manufactured in Detroit. If that car includes raw materials that are imported from other countries, those materials that have tariffs applied will cost more.

There are no “complexities” to this. The “PANIC!” people want you to think there are, that’s not true. Every business keeps track of the cost of raw materials. If they don’t know the costs, they can’t set prices. It doesn’t matter if Ford, Canada produces the part or Ford, Flynt creates the part. There is a cost that is paid to have that part in the Ford, Detroit plant to put into a new car.

In a well-functioning business, they are always looking at the cost of raw materials. The cost of raw materials includes the cost of taxes (tariffs) and transportation.

It also includes the cost of bad materials. If you are paying a $1.00 for a widget and there is a 10% failure rate, that means you are paying $1.10 for each working part. If somebody else has the same widget with a cost (price + extra costs) of $1.05 and a failure rate of 0.1% that means they are only scrapping 1 in 1000 widgets.

In this case, it is actually cheaper to buy the “more expensive” widget.

Included in the cost calculations are longer-term issues. If the ball bearings you purchase are not properly heat treated, and you assemble them into a high-precision roller bearing which then fails in a million dollar engine, there is a heck of a lot more costs involved.

We know that people will change their purchasing habits when the cost of needed goods goes up. We saw this when Americans switched from steak to ground beef as their primary meat. Look at the CPI for food, you’ll see that in the past it had steak on it, today it has ground beef.

Because the cost of goods goes up, people will look for better prices. If that search leads to a local business, so much the better.

Unfortunately, local business might not be set up to cope with a large influx of new business. This leads to shortages.

In a market-driven economy, this leads to people consumers offering more or producers charging more. This is called a “signal”.

Because this signal exists, asking for more of that product, producers will attempt to create more product. This could be as simple as turning on an extra machine or as complex as standing up an entirely new production plant.

When this is going on, “the market” will respond. The market responds by buying or selling ownership in different companies. If a company that used to clear $2,000,000 per year is now projected to clear $4,000,000 per year is likely to attract buyers. A company that is seeing their income drop is likely to attract sellers.

This causes market fluctuations.

Over the course of yesterday, the portfolio that I follow was up as much as 1% yet closed down 0.82% Since Trump announced the tariffs, the portfolio has lost 3.53%

On $100,000 that’s a $3,530 loss.

And it is meaningless. That portfolio will go up again.

The people who are screaming the loudest are the people with millions in the stock market. If that are looking at a $10,000,000 portfolio, a 3.53% drop is $353,000 “loss”. That is more than a 1/4 million dollars in just a few days.

But it only becomes a loss if they sell now. If they hold on to those securities and the price recovers or goes up, then they will “make money”. But again, that is only true if they actually sell the security to realize the profits they made.

There is no reason to panic. The sky is not falling. If anything, this might be a good time to look at putting money into the market. The trick is to buy when near the bottom of the sell-off.

The only reason I know this, is I did some research this last week. I am NOT the person you want to take financial advise from.

Young married couple husband and wife sitting at home having problems in their marriage and a cold relationship. A boyfriend and a girlfriend roommates have an argument about spending too much money

Sham Marriage

Immigration law in the United States is garbage. For many years, we did accept immigrants. Americans to be.

We were the melting pot. You came to the United States, proud of your original country, or hating it, then you work to become an American.

The stories of parents demanding that their children only speak English, to become even more American.

If you want to see a group of very proud people, just watch a group of immigrants become citizens. They work hard for that privilege.

But the Democrats had to ruin it. First, JFK signed the Community Mental Health Act. This is the act that closed mental institutions.

Yes, there were things wrong with mental health institutions. On the other hand, there are so many mentally ill people living on the streets.

But Teddy did worse. He pushed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. This law abolished the discriminatory national origins quotas that favored immigrants from Northern and Western Europe.

In other words, he made a person from a third world shithole in Africa just as eligible as an Engineer from Germany. In addition, it pushed family-based immigrant visas.

The fallout from this could be anticipated, and was. Since immigration law favors family connections over what is best for the United States, family connections became much more valuable.

Before the Immigration and Nationality Act, if a couple wanted to come to the United States, both applied for visas and both worked towards becoming Citizens. Both were vetted and the needs of the United States were taken into account.

Afterward, we saw the concept of anchor immigrants. These were people who were admitted to the United States. Once established, they then sponsored other members of their family for visas.

Having a single immigrant become a citizen often leads to their spouse, their children, their parents all being granted visas. If any of those became citizens, they could sponsor even more relatives.

As more and more people applied to become citizens, the wait times started to go up. But there was a shortcut.

There are two methods of creating a family-connection. By birth, or by marriage.

Under current law, marrying a US Citizen will get you a visa, a green card, and a good start towards citizenship.

It became so common that laws were put in place to stop “sham-marriages”.

A sham-marriage is a marriage that exists only for the purpose of becoming a citizen.

How common are these sham-marriage? Common enough, that I knew of a woman who was taken advantage of by a middle eastern man.

But what are the odds of knowing two such women?

Yeah, it turns out that I know another woman that was taken in by a Muslim, once he had his citizenship, he divorced her, tried to take her kid, failed at taking the kids but was now an American Citizen.

Please leave a comment if you know anybody who was taken advantage of or who participated in a sham-marriage. I’m curious.

Legal Case Analysis

Mahmoud Khalil v. William P. Joyce, 25-cv-01935, (S.D.N.Y.)

This is an interesting and challenging case, for me.

This is a Constitutional challenge to Mahmoud being detained and then deported. His claim is that this is a violation of his First and Fifth Amendment protected rights. Because it is a violation of his rights, the court should grant him relief.

Mahmoud is an Arab that claims to be a Palestinian. He entered the United States in December 2022 on a student visa to study for a Master’s degree at Columbia University in New York. He completed that degree in December 2024 and is going to graduate in May 2025. He married in November 2024 and got a green card.

He was granted a green card because he was married to a US citizen. He is still an alien, just not illegal. He has not overstayed his visa, nor is he required to leave when his visa expires.

His lawyer describes his actions in this way:

As a Palestinian, M.K. has felt compelled to be an outspoken advocate for Palestinian human rights and more recently, to speak out against Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the role of Columbia University in financing and in other ways facilitating the genocide. M.K. is committed to being a voice for his People, and calling on the rest of the world to stop providing weapons and support to enable the genocide in contravention with international law.

This describes his actions as speech. Regardless of how reprehensible that speech might be, it is still protected. The First Amendment protects reprehensible speech, not just the words we want to hear. It is easy to believe in “free speech” if the only allowed speech is that which we agree with.

This case is seeking the following relief:

  1. Assume jurisdiction over this matter
  2. Declare that the state violated Mahmoud’s First amendment and Fifth Amendment protected rights
  3. To keep Mahmoud in New York
  4. Release Mahmoud
  5. Pay Mahmoud’s legal fees

Item 3 is mooted because Mahmoud was out of New York before the case was filed. In a later filing they requested that he be returned to New York.

So we look at the Constitutional challenge. One of the things to note is that not all the Constitution applies to everyone. Some apply to Citizens and some apply to “the people”. The rights limited to citizens are called out by the term “citizen”. The rest of the time the founders use the terms “the people”, “person”, and “the accused.”

The Supreme Court has issued many opinions that restrict “The People” to those with a strong connection to the community politic.

With these in mind, it seems clear that Mahmoud is a member of the people. His rights are protected by most of the Constitution.

Is he challenging a federal law prohibiting the free exercise of or abridgment of his speech? Not directly.

Instead, he challenges the law as applied to him, His claim is that he can’t speak while detained and that the threat of detention has a chilling effect on his ability to speak freely.

The state has not justified his detention in court documents — yet. Instead, they are fighting the most relevant parts first. Bluntly, I don’t care if this asshole is deported or rotting in a jail cell. He’s not out there intimidating the people of the United States.

What the state did was they revoked his visa and his green card.

When can a green card be revoked?

5. Security-Related Reasons

Green card holders who engage in activities deemed threatening to U.S. national security can lose their status. This includes involvement in terrorism, espionage, or other activities that undermine the safety of the United States.

Examples of Security Violations

  • Membership in Terrorist Organizations: Being part of or assisting a terrorist group can lead to immediate revocation and deportation.
  • Espionage or Treason: Activities related to spying, intelligence gathering for foreign governments, or attempts to overthrow the government are considered severe violations.

Consequences: In addition to deportation, individuals accused of such activities may face criminal prosecution and significant legal penalties.

How a Green Card Can Be Revoked - Rebecca Black Immigration Law, (last visited Mar. 12, 2025)

What this means is that the state need only prove that Mahmoud was part of or assisting a terrorist group. Hamas is a designated terrorist group.

Conclusion

The left loves to talk about hate speech. They love it because it allows them to justify their violence. Hate speech is always in the eye of the offended.

“Violent” speech is violence, according to the left.

Violence can be countered with violence.

Therefore, you saying something that they disagree with is hate speech, which in turn is violence, which means they can punch you.

In the other direction, any real, physical violence they engage in is “just protests” and is “speech” protected by the Constitution.

They are going to lose this one. I’ve seen to many good filings from this administration to believe they aren’t going to win. Maybe not at the district level with all the rogue inferior judges, but they will win higher up.

Angry stone age caveman in animal pelt with long beard waves his prehistoric club in the air while ranting, 3d illustration render

NPCs and Taxes

One of the great things about following people on X is that you get news faster and from different points of view.

One of the worst things about X is that you get idiot NPC talking points dumped into your feed constantly.

For the last three weeks, every weekend, there is a spat of NPCs telling me that Trump has gone golfing. That he has gone golfing every weekend since he took office. That his golfing has cost some number of millions of dollars. The number is the same across every post.

This week, the talking points included that Trump was golfing while there were fires on Long Island. How can he be so cruel. And he went golfing last weekend during the fires in North and South Carolina.

Last weekend it was about how the fires in the Carolina’s were happening despite the claims of good forest management. Claims that there wasn’t water to fight the fires. While showing the same video of firefighters using water to fight the fires.

The biggest NPC talking point has been on “Tax cuts for Billionaires.” The claim is that Trump is taking money away from veterans, the sick, and the elderly to give to his “billionaire friends”.

If you open the curtain and peek behind it, you find that they are lying.

So let’s do a little numbering.

We are going to look at somebody making $12000/year, $50,000/year, $100,000/year, $500,000/year, and a million dollars per year.

We use a progressive tax rate, so as your income goes up, so does your tax rate.

Income Tax Rate Amount
Paid
$0 10% $0
$11,601 12% $1,160.12
$12,000 12% $1,208.00
$47,151 22% $5,426.22
$50,000 22% $6,053.00
$100,000 22% $17,053.00
$100,526 24% $17,168.74
$191,951 32% $39,110.98
$243,726 35% $55,679.06
$500,000 35% $145,374.64
$609,351 37% $183,647.49
$1,000,000 37% $328,197.62

Somebody with an income of $1,000,000 pays 328 thousand dollars in taxes. If everybody got a 1% tax cut, he would get to keep $3,281 of his money. The person making $50k per year would get to keep $500 of his money. Oh my goodness.

So what are these huge tax cuts that “Trump gave his billionaire friends?” The Trump tax cuts apply to everybody. The NPCs claim that everybody getting tax cuts is not fair because a millionaire gets $3k back, but regular folk only get $500 back. This is so horrible, that they proposed an amendment that would have increased the tax rate of people making more than $999,999.

This would have added another tax bracket. They are literally saying that if we don’t raise the taxes on those making more than $999,999 we are giving a tax cut.

It doesn’t make sense to anybody except NPCs.

This entire talking point also avoids the question of how billionaires make their money.

If I was working a full-time job and pulling in a billion dollars per year, I would be charging $480,769.23/hour.

It isn’t happening. A million dollars per year income is only $480/hour.

Yes, there are some professions that charge at the $500 to $1000 per hour rate, but they are generally not taking it all home. Instead, that hourly rate goes into paying for many people.

What a millionaire does is they make money by investing. Pretend you made $174,000 in 2024. After paying all your bills, you might take home $50 to $75 thousand for fun stuff.

Now, supposed you took that $50k and invested it in a stock, like $TEM in January 2025 at $32/share. If you sold it at the end of February 2025 at $89.44 you would have made a profit of $89k. Not a bad return over the course of a month.

This is a short-term capital gain which gets taxed at your as above, according to your tax bracket. On the other hand, if you hold that stock for a full 12 months and then sell it, you would only get taxed at 15%, not 24%. That is a 9% savings in taxes.

If you were to have a taxable income of over $533k/year, then your rate would be 20% on that $89k, not 37%. That translates to savings of $15,140.

Trump is not talking about cutting the capital gains taxes. He is talking about income tax changes.

Representatives make $174k/year. $TEM was one of the purchases a representative made in February.

This is the same language game that congress critters make every year. “We made cuts to the budget!” translation, “We aren’t going to spend as much as we wanted to. We are only spending $500,000 more, not the $3.3 million more we wanted”

A cut is when the amount spent this year is less than the amount spent last year.


I believe that I managed to lose some of my article. Still, it is just a rant.

Sad middle age woman crying sitting in the night at home

Being a Federal Employee

My mentor was a federal employee. He, and his team, worked odd hours. I would put in my 8 hours as a contractor and then go to his lab and work with him and his team until midnight or later.

Somewhere along the way, people noticed that his team didn’t have set hours and raised a fuss. They complained to the IG that he and his team were mis-reporting their hours.

This led to the IG sending people to investigate.

Now, this was in a secured area. During normal hours, you could just walk in after you should your badge. After hours, you had to sign in and out.

What this meant was that his team had security logs showing when they left for the night. And with a bit of work, they also had the time when people got to work.

After a thorough investigation, they found that yes, the team was misreporting their hours.

They were underreporting by 10 to 15 hours per week.

For me, it didn’t make any difference. I was on salary to the contractor. The time I spent with my mentor, working on projects for the government, were not billable hours. I didn’t care. I learned astonishing things.

Our system administrators were a pair of very sharp ladies. They arrived on time and they left on time. During their 8 hours, they worked constantly. I never felt like they gave less than 100%. When they needed to work late, they did.

Others I worked with were the same way. They gave their 8 hours and left. We got what we were paying for.

Some scientists over worked too.

Then there were the “slackers”. They arrived at work exactly on time. They went to their desks, were seen, then went to the restroom for their morning dump. This lasted anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes.

Subsequently, they went and did a bit of work before it was time for morning break. After the morning break, they had a pee smoke break. Then lunch, then a bit of work, then home, exactly on time.

Total time working, maybe an hour and a half.

A former friend worked for the state government. He was proud of the fact that he got paid for 8 hours of work per day, but on a normal day, he only spent about 2 hours working. The rest of the time he was doing own time projects/stuff.

Now, sometimes people look like they are cheating, but they aren’t really.

We had a group of scientists that looked lazy. They would get to work and sit around talking, reading the paper, for anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour or two. Then they would get busy pouring over results for a couple of hours. Then they would have another long gab session.

After that, they would spend a bit of time putzing with their program before telling the program to “run”.

They would twiddle their thumbs doing nothing until quitting time.

They were incredibly productive. They submitted a run before they left for the day. That would run overnight. If they had the parameters right, the run would complete shortly after they got to work. They would then analyze the results and submit the next run.

On Fridays, they would submit jobs that would run all weekend long. That made Mondays look like they were goofing off for an extended time as they waited for the runs to complete.

Their work was so important that it justified a major computer upgrade. The new computer was 4 times as fast. What used to take them 16 hours of run time now only took 4 hours. They should now be able to get two or three runs per day done.

Nope. With the faster computer, they were able to get more detailed results in the same 16-hour run time. They adjusted to the increased speed by answering more of the question more accurately.

All of this is to say, when I see former federal employees screaming about being fired, my heart gives a little thump of happiness. If they are good or needed, they will be rehired. In the meantime, learn to code. I hear COBOL is a good choice.

State of New York v Trump (Stop DOGING)

Whenever I see a motion for a TRO, Preliminary Injunction or a Stay, the opinion of the court always includes a reference to —How a Green Card Can Be Revoked - Rebecca Black Immigration Law, (last visited Mar. 12, 2025).

These are known as the “Winter Factors”. They must be addressed in order by the court before granting any of the above.

The first factor is the likelihood of success on the merits. Is the person requesting the TRO, PI or Stay going to win the case in the end? If it is more likely than not, then the first factor has been met.

The second factor is the question of the amount and type of harm being done. The key phrase is irreparable harm. In short, this means that the harm cannot be redressed by throwing money at it. All violations of Constitutionally protected rights are considered irreparable harm. You will never again have that opportunity at that moment of time with those people listening back again.

The third factor is the balance of equities. Who will be most harmed whether the motion is granted or not granted. If the motion being granted will force a business to close, while not granting it will impose an eyesore, the balance of equities’ favorers not granting the motion.

The final factor is what is in the best interest of the public. The public has no interest in enforcing unconstitutional laws. This always favors The People. The state will often argue that “keeping the public safe” is the correct scale to use for determining what is in the publics best interests.

The court did not use the Winter Factors.

Injunctive relief “is an extraordinary and drastic remedy, one that should not be granted unless the movant, by a clear showing, carries the burden of persuasion.” Sussman v. Crawford, 488 F.3d 136, 139 (2d Cir. 2007) (per curiam) (cleaned up). Plaintiffs seeking a preliminary injunction must show that “(1) they are likely to succeed on the merits; (2) they are likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief; (3) the balance of equities tips in their favor; and (4) an injunction is in the public interest.” New York v. U.S. Dep’t of Educ., 477 F. Supp. 3d 279, 293 (S.D.N.Y. 2020). If the federal government is the opposing party, then the latter two factors merge. Id. at 294 (citing Nken v. Holder, 556 U.S. 418, 435 (2009)). Moreover, the establishment of irreparable harm is the “single most important prerequisite for the issuance of a preliminary injunction.” Faiveley Transp. Malmo AB v. Wabtec Corp., 559 F.3d 110, 118 (2d Cir. 2009) (quotation marks and citations omitted).

And this is why she is using the Nken instead of Winter To be able to discount the likelihood of success because of the amount of harm. In other words, instead of having to prove they are likely to win on the merits, the plaintiffs have chosen to prove that they might be horribly harmed if some hypothetical comes true.

Yeah, that doesn’t make much sense to me.

IANAL. My opinion is that the first question to be resolved is if the APA law(s) passed by congress limiting the power of the President are constitutional. If they are not constitutional, then they must be vacated and there is no cause for the case.

Instead, the court assumes the APA overrides the authority granted to the President under the Constitution. She then turns the Winter standard on its head.

Even though the text reads To establish a likelihood of success on the merits, a plaintiff need not show that success is an absolute certainty. It need only make a showing that the probability of … prevailing is better than fifty percent.

The plaintiff bears the burden. Not the defendant. This judge says it is the States that bear the burden.

The gist of this is that the courts are planning to ignore the Constitutional issues as much as possible and instead base their opinions on laws that are unconstitutional.

canadian attorney clowning around and banging the gavel on his head

State of New York v. Donald J. Trump

A hearing was held on Friday. I expect the judge to issue an order regarding the Preliminary Injunction on Monday.

The TRO expired on Friday, so the judge will either issue an order regarding the case. If she is going to go rogue, she will want to have that done on Monday to stop the President from doing his duty. If she wants to respect the constitution, she will issue an order denying the preliminary injunction.

In my businesses, I sometimes had a bookkeeper. She would receive the bills, make entries in the books, then bring me checks to sign to pay those bills.

I could also tell her to issue a check to somebody or some business. It was never her job to tell me not to pay that person, nor to verify if that entity was supposed to get the money. It was my job to make sure that when I told her to pay an entity, that entity should be paid, and how much.

She was supposed to tell me “no”, only if it would run afoul of the law or if we didn’t have the cash for it. If it meant we would be short later, she still did it.

The Bureau of Fiscal Service (BFS) is that bookkeeper for the Federal Government. They are tasked with making payments. They are not tasked with verifying that the payment should be made.

The decision to make a payment comes from other entities within the bureaucracy.

A federal agency will develop, certify, and send a “payment file” to BFS through the Secure Payment System (SPS) with instructions on who is to be paid, when, and how much.
How a Green Card Can Be Revoked - Rebecca Black Immigration Law, (last visited Mar. 12, 2025)

These payment files are checked against a list of “don’t pay”. If the recipient of the payment is on any of those lists, the payment is held. The agency that sent the payment file is responsible for determining if the payment is proper.

In the best of worlds, this would mean that no payments went to bad actors.

Now consider the case of the President issuing an Executive Order stopping payments to purple people eaters. There are dozens of agencies that send money to purple people eaters. All of those agencies are responsible for stopping payment files from going through to pay purple people eaters.

The BFS receives a payment file to send a payment to a PPE. If that PPE is not on the do not pay list, they will send the payment to that PPE. If the PPE is on a no pay list, the payment is held and the agency is informed.

If that agency sends back “pay it”, the BFS pays it. And the PPE gets money, regardless of what the President ordered.

When the bureaucracy is working with the President, every agency would have heard the “stop payments to PPEs” and would have done so. Any payment files that were already sent might be called back or stopped. If the BFS flags a payment as going to a PPE, everybody says “good job”.

If the bureaucracy is at odds with the President, they ignore the EO and do whatever the hell they want. If BFS flags any payments, they just order them paid.

If some agencies are attempting to obey the President, there can still be others that are not.

Worse, in many cases, contracts are let and budgeted. Some low level GS-2 with TDS can order a payment on a contract they control, and it just gets paid. Even if all of his bosses have told him “no”.

The President has ordered that no more payments to PPEs be made. To make this happen, he can either send people who are willing to obey him to every agency and every desk where somebody can send a payment to a PPE.

Or, he can send a few people to the BFS, and they can analyze each payment file as it comes in, check to see if it is a PPE payment.

Watching the bookkeepers doesn’t mean that the bookkeepers are doing something “wrong”, it is just the proper chock point in the flow of money.

The argument being made by these former treasury officials is that “career officials” are non-partisan and can be trusted to do the right thing.

For decades, BFS has been staffed by nonpartisan career employees led by nonpartisan career official…

There appears to be a claim without evidence that these workers are nonpartisan. At least they left off the “nonpartisan” when describing the fiscal assistant secretary, their boss.

They claim that all these nonpartisan career employees have undergone a security screening. Screening is one of those weasel words we see people use when they want the reader to think one thing when it isn’t true.

When I purchase a firearm, I fill out a 4473 and a “background check” is performed. This is a type of “security screening”. Having undergone a “thorough security screening” does not mean that this person has a clearance. If they had clearances, the brief would have said they have clearances.

This is intended to make it seem that the DOGE team’s actual clearances are not as thorough or complete as the BFS security screening. The reality is that any real clearance is likely better than the screenings these people got.

There is more, I’ll leave you with Grok’s explanation, it isn’t bad.

The document you’ve uploaded is a legal brief titled “BRIEF OF AMICI CURIAE FORMER TREASURY DEPARTMENT OFFICIALS IN SUPPORT OF PLAINTIFFS’ MOTION FOR A PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION” in a case before the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Case No. 25-CV-01144). Here’s a detailed explanation:
Case Overview
  • Parties Involved: The State of New York and others are the plaintiffs, suing Donald J. Trump, in his official capacity as President, and others as defendants.
  • Context: The case revolves around actions by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk, which has been granted access to the Bureau of Fiscal Services (BFS) payment systems within the U.S. Department of Treasury. This access is controversial and forms the basis of the legal challenge.
Amici Curiae (Friends of the Court)
  • Interest: The brief is submitted by former Treasury officials who have extensive experience with the BFS payment systems. They argue that their expertise provides valuable insight into the potential risks of the situation.
  • Purpose: Their brief supports the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction, which is a court order to stop an action temporarily until the case is decided.
Summary of Argument
  • Background: The brief outlines how DOGE, under Musk’s leadership, sought access to BFS systems, which manage federal payments, after resistance from career Treasury officials. This access was purportedly to cut federal spending by stopping certain payments.
  • Concerns: The amici express significant concerns regarding:
    • Political Interference: The risk of politically motivated decisions to withhold payments to entities or individuals based on policy disagreements.
    • Cybersecurity and Privacy: The potential for breaches involving sensitive personal and financial data.
    • Operational Risks: The danger of disrupting the payment system, which could delay or halt critical payments like Social Security.
Detailed Argument
I. Role of BFS
  • Functions: BFS is responsible for disbursing federal payments, processing about 1.3 billion transactions annually, and managing sensitive information like Social Security Numbers and bank details.
  • Process: Agencies certify payment files which BFS then processes, ensuring funds go to the right recipients without determining eligibility, which is the agencies’ role.
II. Risks of DOGE Access
  • Illegal Withholding: DOGE could illegally block payments based on political motives, bypassing the usual checks by career civil servants.
  • Data Security: Access by DOGE personnel could compromise sensitive data, leading to privacy issues or misuse of information for competitive advantage.
  • Operational Security: There’s a risk of system vulnerabilities due to inadequate vetting or training of DOGE personnel, increasing chances of cyber threats.
  • System Integrity: Even without malicious intent, changes or interference could disrupt the timely processing of payments, impacting trust and reliability.
III. Limitations of “Read-Only” Access
  • Ineffectiveness: Even limited access could enable DOGE to influence payment decisions through existing personnel, posing similar risks as full access.
Conclusion
  • The amici argue that the access granted to DOGE officials poses significant risks to the integrity of federal payment systems, advocating for the court to grant the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction to prevent further access or misuse.
Key Points:
  • Legal Implications: The brief highlights potential violations of law, like illegal impoundment, where funds are withheld contrary to congressional intent.
  • Historical Context: It underscores the traditional non-political management of BFS by career officials, contrasting this with the current political oversight.
  • Public Trust: The integrity of payment systems is crucial for public trust and the functioning of government programs.
This brief is a call for judicial intervention to preserve the non-political, secure, and reliable operation of federal payment systems against what the amici perceive as inappropriate political interference.

— Grok

The United States of America v. New York State

You might have heard that the DoJ is suing Hochul and James. This is not quite true. They are being sued in their official capacity. So the Governor, Attorney General, and head of the DMV of New York state are being sued.

What is the suit about?

New York will give a license to illegal aliens. I am not sure how that works, but they do.

The license indicates that the person is an illegal alien. As an illegal alien, they have extra rights under New York law.

In particular, the “Green Light” law requires the DMV to inform the illegal alien anytime the feds request information about them from the DMV.

In 2019, New York amended its Vehicle and Traffic Law to include a provision known as the “Green Light Law.”
See N.Y. Veh. & Traf. § 201.12. The Green Light Law generally bars the sharing of New York State Department of Motor Vehicles (“DMV”) records or information (e.g., addresses, vehicle registrations, identification photos) with federal immigration agencies. See id. § 201.12(a). And it requires New York’s DMV Commissioner to promptly tip off any illegal alien when a federal immigration agency has requested his or her information. See § 201.12(b). As its supporters and sponsors made clear, the Green Light Law was passed to directly impair the enforcement of the federal immigration laws in New York. And those lawmakers have achieved their objective.

Things are happening.

Business concept Strategy of goldenf Chess Game, 3d rendering.

4D Chess?

Never attribute to malice, that which can be adequately explained by stupidity, Never interrupt your enemy when they are making a mistake., Your enemy is not stupid.

In 2016, I was listening to Ben Shapiro, he had a hate on for Trump. He would often say something to the effect, “The people who think Trump is playing 4D chess are wrong.”

I think I liked his analysis better when he was anti-Trump. He is all in this time around.

I do think that Trump was attempting to play chess during his first term. Unfortunately, people kept taking his pieces and knocking over the board. He lost.

Trump 2.0 is moving fast. He is moving so fast that the left can’t keep up. We can’t keep up. I wake up, go on X and look for what happened in the last 8 hours. And I’m often surprised.

As Second Amendment activists, we know exactly how the game will be played. We know that states that are anti-gun are going to pass regulations to infringe on The People. We know that the rogue lower courts will rule in favor of the state. We know that any relief will be blocked. We know that it will take years to get even one case decided.

Since June 2022, we have not seen a single 2A win. Every win in the lower courts has been halted at the circuit level. Every “temporary restraining order” has been upheld against us. Every preliminary injunction has been stayed, against us.

We have not won a single battle yet.

That doesn’t mean we aren’t winning. It means that this is a war, not a battle. We have to fight. We shall go to the end. We shall fight in the Ninth, we shall fight in the Seventh and Second, we shall fight in the Forth, we shall fight to the Supreme Court. We shall never surrender. With apologies to Winston Churchill.

Trump 2.0 came into office with a bang. The left was working hard to show a “peaceful transfer of power”, so they could club the right with the events of J6th.

But Donald hit the ground running. I believe he signed over 200 Executive Orders on his first day. Held multiple press conferences and attended a ball. I’m tired just thinking about his day.

There were surprises in those Executive Orders. The biggest for me was that everything was done right. When he announced the formation of DOGE, I was skeptical.

I “knew” that it would be challenged and DOGE would be devolved because it didn’t come through Congress.

I was wrong. He out played me as I looked over his shoulder. He didn’t create DOGE out of thin air. He renamed an existing agency. He then told the new agency to go do their job, with Elon leading it.

The promises he made, I expected to take months to accomplish. He was keeping promises within minutes of taking office. And not in ceremonial ways.

He issued an Executive Order giving the US AG 30 days to report what to do about the anti-2A situation within the Federal government. Last month, I would have considered this to be a shot fired over the bow of the enemy. I would have expected results sometime in late 2026.

Today, I expect the report to hit his desk in 20 some days. I expect actions to happen the same day. This is the speed that Trump is moving at.

As I said, in the Second Amendment advocacy space, we know what is going to happen. How do we know? We’ve seen it too many times in the past.

Trump 2.0 is out playing the left in so many areas. Why should I assume he messed up with these court cases?

When the state is fighting The People, they want things to move as slowly as possible.

The case in New York was filed at 9pm on Friday. The TRO was in place by 1AM Saturday morning. The TRO was modified by 5PM Monday.

Having set out the limits, the Trump administration has provided documentation to the court by 4PM on Tuesday to make sure that DOGE people will still have access. They have taken the “loophole” opening and driven a train through it.

They are obeying the letter of the TRO while doing what needs to be done. They are preparing to take this to the next level.

I believe they will attempt to combine multiple cases from rogue courts, headed by political provocateurs. These combined cases will be taken straight to the Supreme Court.

To put a since of speed on this, the case I’m following is averaging 10 new docket entries per day. At this pace, I should be tired of this case in the next 2 days.