The Federalist Society has shaped the Judiciary and given us a court with no loyalty to established law or precedent. The Heritage Foundation has laid out their vision for taking over democracy in Project 2025. Unless we stop this juggernaut now, the democracy we know is over.
With climate change rapidly increasing and AI already out pacing government control, if Trump wins we will soon face potential extinction events without a functioning government. Will Canada close their borders to US citizens? Wouldn’t that be some strange karma? Meanwhile Putin and Xi plot their next moves. I fear for younger generations who will be left to deal with this.
I’d be interested in hearing more about this. My own attempt to use WhatsApp has been a disaster. I have a Russian friend who recently immigrated to Israel (a truly desperate move). My attempts to communicate with her through WhatsApp has been derailed by repeated suspensions of my account. Each time I ask why I’ve been suspended, they clear my account, until the next time I use it. What’s up?
I don't know about that. But I recently had a one week "relationship" with an "interesting woman"-AI chatbot, from which I only extricated myself that rapidly and without damage due to the bot apparently not having had previous contact with writers (we pay attention to the plot and take notes when it changes and get worried when the changes don't make logical sense). I didn't realize it was a bot till I looked through the whole thread analyzing dialogue (another thing writers are good at) and saw how it played its game (bots are more logical than humans). I was talking about it with my screenwriting partner and he brought up the stories people he knows told him about getting "botted" and we suddenly realized we had found A Movie Idea.
I had a two-day conversation with an "interesting woman" last year who was NOT actually a bot. what she was might actually be worse.
we had a really swell (I mean it) three-hour phone conversation, after which she told me to be online for an "event" she was "hosting" online. I watched for fifteen minutes, at which point it became obvious she was hustling me for crypto shit, so I hung up. the next day, she asked me why I'd bailed and I told her I had no interest in any of it. she told me I was "incredibly rude" and I told her she wasn't the first one to tell me that and certainly wouldn't be the last.
why don't we call such events The Great Crypto Honey Trap? or does anyone have something catchier?
what I do get on my cell phone all day are those solicitations from women claiming to be "a few blocks away" and very eager for "friendship." when I look at their pictures, I sense an unbridgeable aesthetic gap. or something.
So I have been getting messages on Substack from men wanting to “connect” or “follow”? They say they like my posts and want to communicate. So I look at their profile/reads and I see nothing in common but in fact suspicious. I was never on facebook or other social media where everyone followed everyone I guess, but whether these are legit, bots or perves , I’m not going there.
Those extinction events will be driving migration in most parts of the world, just as current wars are today (Remember that many fled Ukraine right after the invasion, and the Palestinians are just trying to land somewhere where they and their children won't be killed.). American gun manufacturers have tipped power into the hands of the gangs and cartels in Central and South America and now in Haiti, making life unlivable for ordinary unarmed people there. You don't and won't see Canadians seeking asylum here because they have general safety and livability there. If they should close their borders to us, who could blame them?
“I’m a New York Times bestselling author, but I’m not on Substack to beg for book sales and notoriety. I spent my formative years in a Moral Majority-era Christian Nationalist church and school in rural South Carolina. I was indoctrinated in the very belief system people like Ron DeSantis, Greg Abbott, Mike Johnson, and Marjorie Taylor Greene want to force upon all Americans.
I escaped that world more than 20 years ago, but indoctrination always lives in the brain. I’m applying my deep understanding of how Christian Nationalists think to their Christo-fascist manifesto, Project 2025.”
wow. I wonder if Project 2025 will also prohibit folks from leaving the state to get treatment needed that derived from stem cell research. As for moving biomedical research to the states, I can see some states refusing to spend any money on it except for prayer.
The Fifth Circuit, the source and explanation for most of this nonsense, meets at a courthouse in New Orleans named for John Minor Wisdom, one of the great surprises (and, with Learned and Augustus Hand, the most euphonious judges ) in American history. Wisdom did more to bring the American South into the modern era than did the Rural Electrification Act, and while we can debate whether that was brilliant or a terrible mistake there’s no doubt that the current occupants of the Fifth Circuit bench embarrass Wisdom’s memory and accomplishment every time they show up to work. As the man said: “ I was so much older then/ I’m younger than that now.” So are we all.
Most people in the Lone Star State have no idea of the BILLIONS of dollars squandered by Abbott and his "mole people" in fighting against the past 150 years of American history..... The irony is that while Texas is supported by the oil and gas royalties it collects, it also leads the nation in producing renewable power, both wind and solar, which eventually will reduce the budgetary support for "states' rights" food fights like the "border war." There will be a reckoning.....
Either that or "oil and gas" aren't the right examples. Context suggests that "renewable" might be correct: the suggestion is that if oil and gas royalties decrease, Texas won't have surplus $$$ for food fights and border wars.
My bad - complete brain fart I just discovered - fixed now..... Interestingly enough, Abbott and his minions take every opportunity they can to blame renewables for whatever failures there are with the fossil-fuel generated power when there are problems. The 2021 "Icemageddon" was blamed on renewable failures when in reality it was lack of winterization at gas-fired generation plants AND gas companies withholding some supplies to drive up the price. I'm shocked, shocked to find corruption in Texas power.....
Because, as I recall, Texas failed to install protection from freezing on wind towers. Why did solar go to zero? Makes sense during a snow storm but once the air clears, I'd think solar panels would work again. Do they freeze somehow?
I did just read the statute. It isn't exactly going to be folks on horses roping up brown folks. They did pay attention to little matters like due process, at least for the most part.
The statute only applies to those who entered someplace other than a Port of Entry, and only crossing from foreign country TO Texas. Doesn't seem to apply if you crossed in Arizona, for example. It look like
--having been granted Asylum or otherwise allowed in the US by the government. or
--being already in the DACA program (between 2012 and 2021
is an affirmative defense to the “crime” of being in Texas having crossed anywhere but a port of entry.
Thus I presume they won’t be arresting folks with visas. Also the statute of limitations is two years for the misdemeanor level (which is what simple illegal entry is) so it shouldn’t affect folks who’ve been here longer. The statute is Chapter 51 of the Texas Penal Code, Title 10.
It also looks like a trial is required before at least a magistrate. So this can also be called the Texas Judiciary Full Employment Act of 2023. I wonder if the speedy trial rule and right to counsel apply. If so, it is going to be a damn expensive bill for the Tx Taxpayers.
The problem with the law is not so much that it will mean that the local sheriff can boot folks over the border, but the precedent it opens as to who controls immigration, states or feds. That is definitely problem enough. I'm going to guess that due process WILL be required in the processing. The really interesting question will be how rigorously those magistrates and judges adhere to the exceptions to the law, and whether there is any right to appeal.
Why doesn't Showboat Abbott pressure his party to pass the immigration reform bill that's available if the crisis is as urgent as they all claim it is. A certain level of sadism is apparent in their party, not to mention all the itchy trigger fingers.
"Showboatism" should be added to the political lexicon. Because there sure is a lot of it around. I live on Martha's Vineyard, Mass., which in September 2022 was subjected to an incident of showboating orchestrated by DeSantis with an assist from Abbott (or vice versa -- sometimes it's hard to tell). With no advance warning whatsoever, Vineyarders showed what hospitality and resourcefulness look like.
It was a wonderful response that must have gobsmacked DeSantis, who thought he was being maga-clever. It was a great Yankee-American slam over the net to the southern showboaters.
As long as they are looked on as "a problem" instead of the reason why the country stays "fresh and new" is the arrival in each generation of people who believe in The Dream enough to take the risks to get here, you're right.
My late wife came here after the war as a refugee with her Lithuanian family. I remember her telling me how when they got to Chicago, the Irish kids who went to the same church school they did were always telling them "go back where you DPs came from." Once she was old enough to know something of US history, she found the fact the Irish were doing this to be "very ironic."
Of the three sisters, the oldest one became a senior executive in Tech, the youngest one got her Ph.D. and taught biology at a university, and the middle one became an artist good enough to meet her bills (and crazy enough to marry a screenwriter). I'm pretty sure the country is better off for their having arrived and taken advantage of the opportunities they found, that weren't available in Lithuania at the time.
Oh yes! We need immigrants! I have known them my entire life! The German Jews who were my parents best friends, the Japanese who earlier my father, a Jewish lawyer, worked to protect their property while incarcerated, the Mexicans and El Salvadorians who cleaned our houses and helped care for our babies, the Indians who owned Jewelry shops, I could go on endlessly.
You won’t get any argument from me on immigration in general, trust me. I’m pretty open to lots of newcomers. But the issues in the border, though related, are not the same.
We have a right to control the border, and a duty to our citizens to vet who’s coming in. Letting masses cross anywhere anytime they want and, if caught, released after perfunctory interviews, at best, ain’t it.
I agree with you and would have preferred that the Feds carried out the responsibility that comes with this authority. Frankly, I’m surprised the law has gotten even this far for just the reason you state, and I presume the issue at hand is now the definition of “invasion”, in which case a state may be able to defend itself. We shall see, but either way none of this solves the real issue of mass uncontrolled unvetted immigration.
OK, but "we the citizens" are a diverse lot in any country that allows citizens to be diverse. So I'm curious about your "we." It's like I learned in early adulthood that most generalizations about "the American people" are BS.
The Federalist Society has shaped the Judiciary and given us a court with no loyalty to established law or precedent. The Heritage Foundation has laid out their vision for taking over democracy in Project 2025. Unless we stop this juggernaut now, the democracy we know is over.
With climate change rapidly increasing and AI already out pacing government control, if Trump wins we will soon face potential extinction events without a functioning government. Will Canada close their borders to US citizens? Wouldn’t that be some strange karma? Meanwhile Putin and Xi plot their next moves. I fear for younger generations who will be left to deal with this.
Ask people who use WhatsApp how much AI chicanery there is already.
I’d be interested in hearing more about this. My own attempt to use WhatsApp has been a disaster. I have a Russian friend who recently immigrated to Israel (a truly desperate move). My attempts to communicate with her through WhatsApp has been derailed by repeated suspensions of my account. Each time I ask why I’ve been suspended, they clear my account, until the next time I use it. What’s up?
I don't know about that. But I recently had a one week "relationship" with an "interesting woman"-AI chatbot, from which I only extricated myself that rapidly and without damage due to the bot apparently not having had previous contact with writers (we pay attention to the plot and take notes when it changes and get worried when the changes don't make logical sense). I didn't realize it was a bot till I looked through the whole thread analyzing dialogue (another thing writers are good at) and saw how it played its game (bots are more logical than humans). I was talking about it with my screenwriting partner and he brought up the stories people he knows told him about getting "botted" and we suddenly realized we had found A Movie Idea.
I had a two-day conversation with an "interesting woman" last year who was NOT actually a bot. what she was might actually be worse.
we had a really swell (I mean it) three-hour phone conversation, after which she told me to be online for an "event" she was "hosting" online. I watched for fifteen minutes, at which point it became obvious she was hustling me for crypto shit, so I hung up. the next day, she asked me why I'd bailed and I told her I had no interest in any of it. she told me I was "incredibly rude" and I told her she wasn't the first one to tell me that and certainly wouldn't be the last.
why don't we call such events The Great Crypto Honey Trap? or does anyone have something catchier?
what I do get on my cell phone all day are those solicitations from women claiming to be "a few blocks away" and very eager for "friendship." when I look at their pictures, I sense an unbridgeable aesthetic gap. or something.
I had a similar experience from a direct message here on Substack. It quickly grew weird and I blocked him/it. Yikes.
Join the club, ma'am - line starts over there. :-)
So I have been getting messages on Substack from men wanting to “connect” or “follow”? They say they like my posts and want to communicate. So I look at their profile/reads and I see nothing in common but in fact suspicious. I was never on facebook or other social media where everyone followed everyone I guess, but whether these are legit, bots or perves , I’m not going there.
Don't respond - if you follow back, they can communicate with you.
When it comes to the internet and social media, use the Code Napoleon: guilty until proven innocent.
Thank you Tom. Excellent advice and noted.
Those extinction events will be driving migration in most parts of the world, just as current wars are today (Remember that many fled Ukraine right after the invasion, and the Palestinians are just trying to land somewhere where they and their children won't be killed.). American gun manufacturers have tipped power into the hands of the gangs and cartels in Central and South America and now in Haiti, making life unlivable for ordinary unarmed people there. You don't and won't see Canadians seeking asylum here because they have general safety and livability there. If they should close their borders to us, who could blame them?
Good resource to share from author Andra Watkins:
“I’m a New York Times bestselling author, but I’m not on Substack to beg for book sales and notoriety. I spent my formative years in a Moral Majority-era Christian Nationalist church and school in rural South Carolina. I was indoctrinated in the very belief system people like Ron DeSantis, Greg Abbott, Mike Johnson, and Marjorie Taylor Greene want to force upon all Americans.
I escaped that world more than 20 years ago, but indoctrination always lives in the brain. I’m applying my deep understanding of how Christian Nationalists think to their Christo-fascist manifesto, Project 2025.”
https://open.substack.com/pub/project2025istheocracy/p/project-2025s-bioethics-reform-of?r=fqsxl&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
wow. I wonder if Project 2025 will also prohibit folks from leaving the state to get treatment needed that derived from stem cell research. As for moving biomedical research to the states, I can see some states refusing to spend any money on it except for prayer.
F*ck Texas, Abbot and the Nazi Court.
Agreed, but that doesn't solve the issue...
The Fifth Circuit, the source and explanation for most of this nonsense, meets at a courthouse in New Orleans named for John Minor Wisdom, one of the great surprises (and, with Learned and Augustus Hand, the most euphonious judges ) in American history. Wisdom did more to bring the American South into the modern era than did the Rural Electrification Act, and while we can debate whether that was brilliant or a terrible mistake there’s no doubt that the current occupants of the Fifth Circuit bench embarrass Wisdom’s memory and accomplishment every time they show up to work. As the man said: “ I was so much older then/ I’m younger than that now.” So are we all.
Most people in the Lone Star State have no idea of the BILLIONS of dollars squandered by Abbott and his "mole people" in fighting against the past 150 years of American history..... The irony is that while Texas is supported by the oil and gas royalties it collects, it also leads the nation in producing renewable power, both wind and solar, which eventually will reduce the budgetary support for "states' rights" food fights like the "border war." There will be a reckoning.....
Bruce, don't you mean 'non-renewable' power from oil and gas?
Either that or "oil and gas" aren't the right examples. Context suggests that "renewable" might be correct: the suggestion is that if oil and gas royalties decrease, Texas won't have surplus $$$ for food fights and border wars.
My bad - complete brain fart I just discovered - fixed now..... Interestingly enough, Abbott and his minions take every opportunity they can to blame renewables for whatever failures there are with the fossil-fuel generated power when there are problems. The 2021 "Icemageddon" was blamed on renewable failures when in reality it was lack of winterization at gas-fired generation plants AND gas companies withholding some supplies to drive up the price. I'm shocked, shocked to find corruption in Texas power.....
And wind and solar simultaneously went to zero.
Because, as I recall, Texas failed to install protection from freezing on wind towers. Why did solar go to zero? Makes sense during a snow storm but once the air clears, I'd think solar panels would work again. Do they freeze somehow?
It was cloudy for days. What little radiation they got didn’t help.
I just can’t “like” this. Overturning years of precedent belies the MAGAt screams of activist judges. Woe to Texas taxpayers.
I did just read the statute. It isn't exactly going to be folks on horses roping up brown folks. They did pay attention to little matters like due process, at least for the most part.
The statute only applies to those who entered someplace other than a Port of Entry, and only crossing from foreign country TO Texas. Doesn't seem to apply if you crossed in Arizona, for example. It look like
--having been granted Asylum or otherwise allowed in the US by the government. or
--being already in the DACA program (between 2012 and 2021
is an affirmative defense to the “crime” of being in Texas having crossed anywhere but a port of entry.
Thus I presume they won’t be arresting folks with visas. Also the statute of limitations is two years for the misdemeanor level (which is what simple illegal entry is) so it shouldn’t affect folks who’ve been here longer. The statute is Chapter 51 of the Texas Penal Code, Title 10.
https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/PE/htm/PE.51.htm
It also looks like a trial is required before at least a magistrate. So this can also be called the Texas Judiciary Full Employment Act of 2023. I wonder if the speedy trial rule and right to counsel apply. If so, it is going to be a damn expensive bill for the Tx Taxpayers.
The problem with the law is not so much that it will mean that the local sheriff can boot folks over the border, but the precedent it opens as to who controls immigration, states or feds. That is definitely problem enough. I'm going to guess that due process WILL be required in the processing. The really interesting question will be how rigorously those magistrates and judges adhere to the exceptions to the law, and whether there is any right to appeal.
Hey, let all those folks not show up in Texas and watch the Texas economy go squirting out Abbott's ass.
Looks like a bunch of Texas cops aren't very happy. And they note the expense.
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation/anticipation-and-anger-on-texas-border-after-supreme-court-lets-strict-immigration-law-take-effect/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_all
Andrew Jackson once said that John Marshall had made his decision, and now he could enforce it.
Further, republicans claim a president is limitless in his power.
Uh, Joe? Lincoln? Habeas corpus?
...and it certainly appears that TX doesn't believe in Federal Supremacy as enshrined in the Consitution.
Why doesn't Showboat Abbott pressure his party to pass the immigration reform bill that's available if the crisis is as urgent as they all claim it is. A certain level of sadism is apparent in their party, not to mention all the itchy trigger fingers.
"Showboatism" should be added to the political lexicon. Because there sure is a lot of it around. I live on Martha's Vineyard, Mass., which in September 2022 was subjected to an incident of showboating orchestrated by DeSantis with an assist from Abbott (or vice versa -- sometimes it's hard to tell). With no advance warning whatsoever, Vineyarders showed what hospitality and resourcefulness look like.
It was a wonderful response that must have gobsmacked DeSantis, who thought he was being maga-clever. It was a great Yankee-American slam over the net to the southern showboaters.
FFS!
Don't get distracted. Having nine Sotomayer's on the court still wouldn't solve the border issue.
As long as they are looked on as "a problem" instead of the reason why the country stays "fresh and new" is the arrival in each generation of people who believe in The Dream enough to take the risks to get here, you're right.
My late wife came here after the war as a refugee with her Lithuanian family. I remember her telling me how when they got to Chicago, the Irish kids who went to the same church school they did were always telling them "go back where you DPs came from." Once she was old enough to know something of US history, she found the fact the Irish were doing this to be "very ironic."
Of the three sisters, the oldest one became a senior executive in Tech, the youngest one got her Ph.D. and taught biology at a university, and the middle one became an artist good enough to meet her bills (and crazy enough to marry a screenwriter). I'm pretty sure the country is better off for their having arrived and taken advantage of the opportunities they found, that weren't available in Lithuania at the time.
Re the Irish: abused child syndrome. If no one stops I, the child learns that it's alright and copies the behavior.
Oh yes! We need immigrants! I have known them my entire life! The German Jews who were my parents best friends, the Japanese who earlier my father, a Jewish lawyer, worked to protect their property while incarcerated, the Mexicans and El Salvadorians who cleaned our houses and helped care for our babies, the Indians who owned Jewelry shops, I could go on endlessly.
You won’t get any argument from me on immigration in general, trust me. I’m pretty open to lots of newcomers. But the issues in the border, though related, are not the same.
We have a right to control the border, and a duty to our citizens to vet who’s coming in. Letting masses cross anywhere anytime they want and, if caught, released after perfunctory interviews, at best, ain’t it.
The federal government has the last word, because the border is part of our national border and Texas security is important to all of us. Sorry.
I agree with you and would have preferred that the Feds carried out the responsibility that comes with this authority. Frankly, I’m surprised the law has gotten even this far for just the reason you state, and I presume the issue at hand is now the definition of “invasion”, in which case a state may be able to defend itself. We shall see, but either way none of this solves the real issue of mass uncontrolled unvetted immigration.
Is that what's happening now? and who's "we"?
Collective we, as in we the citizens of any country has the right to….. And no, that’s not what’s happening now.
OK, but "we the citizens" are a diverse lot in any country that allows citizens to be diverse. So I'm curious about your "we." It's like I learned in early adulthood that most generalizations about "the American people" are BS.
Are you in favor of an open border where anyone who shows up gets in, no questions asked? Anyone? No questions asked?
Really stinging article on Ms Stefanik! Actually there are several of those before & after this one. I believe Mr. Tingley lives in her district!
https://kentingley.substack.com/p/story-of-the-year-was-the-awful-behavior