Federal Judge on the Alien Enemies Act

US District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. -- a Trump appointee -- barred the administration from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans from the Southern District of Texas,

[The] political question doctrine prohibits the Court from weighing the truth of those factual statements, including whether Maduro directs TdA’s actions or the extent of the referenced criminal activity. Instead, the Court determines whether the factual statements in the Proclamation, taken as true, describe an “invasion” or “predatory incursion” for purposes of the AEA.

Based on the plain, ordinary meaning of those terms in the late 1790’s, the Court concludes that the factual statements do not. The Proclamation makes no reference to and in no manner suggests that a threat exists of an organized, armed group of individuals entering the United States at the direction of Venezuela to conquer the country or assume control over a portion of the nation. Thus, the Proclamation’s language cannot be read as describing conduct that falls within the meaning of “invasion” for purposes of the AEA. As for “predatory incursion,” the Proclamation does not describe an armed group of individuals entering the United States as an organized unit to attack a city, coastal town, or other defined geographical area, with the purpose of plundering or destroying property and lives. While the Proclamation references that TdA members have harmed lives in the United States and engage in crime, the Proclamation does not suggest that they have done so through an organized armed attack, or that Venezuela has threatened or attempted such an attack through TdA members. As a result, the Proclamation also falls short of describing a “predatory incursion” as that concept was understood at the time of the AEA’s enactment.11 For these reasons, the Court concludes that the President’s invocation of the AEA through the Proclamation exceeds the scope of the statute and, as a result, is unlawful. Respondents do not possess the lawful authority under the AEA, and based on the Proclamation, to detain Venezuelan aliens, transfer them within the United States, or remove them from the country.

Polarization, Vaccines, and Autism

Many posts have discussed partisan polarization.

Karlyn Bowman at AEI:

With the increase in measles cases and substantial public awareness of the situation, several new polls have explored attitudes about vaccines. The Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) and YouGov released polls in April, building on data Gallup and others have collected over a long period of time.

Only 6% in the KFF poll had not heard about the increase measles cases in recent years, while 56% had. Sixty-three percent said they had heard or read that MMR vaccines had been “proven to cause autism in children,” a response virtually unchanged from their 2023 poll.

KFF and YouGov both asked whether people believed these reports. Three percent in the KFF poll said the autism claim was definitely true and 20% probably true. Compared to 2023, the responses have been stable, but there were partisan differences. Ten percent of Democrats and 35% of Republicans said the claim that the vaccine causes autism was definitely or probably true. In YouGov’s poll, 8% said the statement “vaccines have been shown to cause autism” was definitely true while 15% said probably true. When Gallup asked in July 2024 if certain vaccines “cause” autism, 13% said they did, 36% did not, with 51% unsure.

...

Gallup shows a significant decline in views about whether childhood vaccines should be required, driven in recent years by Republicans. In 1991, 81% said government should require parents to have their children vaccinated against measles. That’s now 51%. Republicans were also much less likely than Democrats to say it was very important to get kids vaccinated (93% to 52%). In Pew questions in 2019 and 2020, Democrats and Republicans broadly agreed that healthy children should be required to get vaccines, but in 2023, Republicans sharply departed from this view.

Trump, Nixon, Clinton

Many posts have discussed impeachment, including the impeachment of former officials.

At The Bulwark, Jill Lawrence compares Trump to presidents who faced articles of impeachment:

Richard Nixon’s central role in covering up the 1972 Watergate scandal, in which Nixon-campaign spies broke into and bugged the Democratic National Committee office in the Watergate complex in Washington, led two years later to the first and so far only presidential resignation. The House Judiciary Committee approved three articles of impeachment charging Nixon with obstructing its Watergate inquiry, abusing his power by using law enforcement and intelligence agencies to investigate his enemies, and refusing to comply with congressional subpoenas. Nixon resigned before a full House vote, after Republican senators told him the Senate would likely convict him of the charges.

Does Trump check any of these boxes? For sure, and right out in the open, starting with his executive order this month that “directs” Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate ActBlue for possible foreign or dummy contributions (but did not include WinRed, the GOP counterpart, as the AP noted). Trump has also gone after law firms he sees as enemies—threatening to cancel federal contracts, suspend security clearances, and bar lawyers from all federal buildings because he doesn’t like their clients or their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. He’s unleashed similar attacks—and punishment—on universities as well.

Has Trump obstructed justice since taking office this year? It’s more like flouting justice and ignoring the courts. He and his team, including Elon Musk, have shut down investigations, slow-walked or withheld information, and ignored court orders, not least regarding deportations that have sent three children who are U.S. citizens to Honduras and roughly 175 Venezuelans with no criminal record to a nightmare Salvadoran prison, all without due process.

As for compliance with subpoenas, Trump “directed Executive Branch agencies, offices, and officials not to comply” with House subpoenas in the chamber’s 2019 impeachment inquiry, and early signs this time around are not encouraging.


Bill Clinton was impeached in 1998 for lying under oath to a grand jury and for obstructing justice. The charges stemmed from an independent counsel investigation into an Arkansas real estate deal involving the Clintons and morphed into Kenneth Starr’s graphic report on Clinton’s affair with a young White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. The full House approved two of four impeachment articles, but Clinton was acquitted in a Senate trial.

Has Trump lied about sex or covering it up? E. Jean Carroll has accused him of sexually assaulting her in the 1990s in a department store dressing room, and filed two civil defamation suits against him. Trump denied in a deposition and in brief testimony last year that he had ever met her, but two juries have found him liable and courts have awarded Carroll tens of millions in damages. Trump has repeatedly denied he had sex with porn actress Stormy Daniels, but he did not take the stand in last year’s hush-money trial. Daniels testified in detail about the alleged encounter, and Trump lawyer Michael Cohen testified that Trump signed off on all aspects of schemes to bury stories about extramarital affairs. The jury convicted Trump of 34 felonies in connection with falsifying business records to disguise the payoffs.

The DOGE Debacle

Many posts have discussed federal deficits and the federal debt.

 Elizabeth Williamson at NYT:

President Trump and Elon Musk promised taxpayers big savings, maybe even a “DOGE dividend” check in their mailboxes, when the Department of Government Efficiency was let loose on the federal government. Now, as he prepares to step back from his presidential assignment to cut bureaucratic fat, Mr. Musk has said without providing details that DOGE is likely to save taxpayers only $150 billion.

That is about 15 percent of the $1 trillion he pledged to save, less than 8 percent of the $2 trillion in savings he had originally promised and a fraction of the nearly $7 trillion the federal government spent in the 2024 fiscal year.

The errors and obfuscations underlying DOGE’s claims of savings are well documented. Less known are the costs Mr. Musk incurred by taking what Mr. Trump called a “hatchet” to government and the resulting firings, agency lockouts and building seizures that mostly wound up in court.

The Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit organization that studies the federal work force, has used budget figures to produce a rough estimate that firings, re-hirings, lost productivity and paid leave of thousands of workers will cost upward of $135 billion this fiscal year. At the Internal Revenue Service, a DOGE-driven exodus of 22,000 employees would cost about $8.5 billion in revenue in 2026 alone, according to figures from the Budget Lab at Yale University. The total number of departures is expected to be as many as 32,000.

Neither of these estimates includes the cost to taxpayers of defending DOGE’s moves in court. Of about 200 lawsuits and appeals related to Mr. Trump’s agenda, at least 30 implicate the department.

“Not only is Musk vastly overinflating the money he has saved, he is not accounting for the exponentially larger waste that he is creating,” said Max Stier, the chief executive of the Partnership for Public Service. “He’s inflicted these costs on the American people, who will pay them for many years to come.”

 

Decorating the White House

 Carolina A. Miranda at WP:

Every U.S. president has adapted the Oval Office to suit his taste. Franklin Delano Roosevelt placed an animal hide rug on the floor. John F. Kennedy, a World War II naval officer, hung seascapes on the walls. And Barack Obama featured indigenous ceramics on the shelves. But Trump has gone golden, taking the office into baroque and rococo realms typical of 17th- and 18th-century French monarchs. An analysis in the Cut called the decoration “An Interior Designer’s Nightmare.” But the sparkle conveys something more insidious about how Trump views himself. Behold the new Sun King, a wannabe emperor who views his powers as absolute — who governs by executive order, and has been recorded giggling in his gilded chamber with Salvadoran autocrat Nayib Bukele as his administration defies a unanimous Supreme Court ruling that he facilitate the return of a Salvadoran immigrant who was wrongly deported. God save us from the king.

When it came time to choose a design for a presidential residence in the late 18th century, Washington likewise picked one of the more restrained concepts. Conceived by Irish-born architect James Hoban, the White House, as it originally stood, combined the tidy symmetries and boxy practicality of Georgian architecture, a neoclassical style that had been popular in the British Isles during the 18th century. The White House was inspired, in part, by Leinster House in Dublin, which dates to the 1740s and now houses the Irish Parliament — a Georgian structure that is grand in scale but subdued in its surface decoration.

In keeping with the modest tone, the White House’s earliest inhabitants avoided referring to the building as a “presidential palace,” describing it instead as the “executive mansion” or the “President’s House,” the latter of which appears engraved on silver serving objects from the 19th century. It was Theodore Roosevelt who made the informal expression “the White House” the building’s official designation. The U.S. republic’s representative democracy, however imperfect and incomplete, has historically been symbolized by a “house” — not a palace.

Going After Journalists

Many posts have discussed freedom of the press.

 

Attorney General Pam Bondi has revoked former Attorney General Merrick Garland’s policy designed to shield the news media from secret government requests for phone, email and other records.

Text of a new memo obtained by NBC News:

Safeguarding classified, privileged, and other…

— Ken Dilanian (@KenDilanianNBC) April 25, 2025

Polarized Concern About Press Freedom

 

Many posts have discussed freedom of the press.

Naomi Forman-Katz snd Kirsten Eddy at Pew:

Overall, seven-in-ten Americans are at least somewhat concerned about potential restrictions on press freedom – a right that is enshrined in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. This includes 43% who say they are extremely or very concerned. These numbers are almost identical to the findings of an April 2024 survey, when 41% said they were extremely or very concerned and an additional 29% were somewhat concerned.

But in many cases, it is not the same people who are worried. In 2024, during the Biden administration, 47% of Republicans and independents who lean Republican said they were extremely or very concerned about restrictions on press freedoms. Fewer Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (38%) said the same.