Okay, so there’s a principle in law, which is that one calls a document by the thing it purports to be. If it is not valid, you prepend “purported” in the contexts where it would be ambiguous otherwise, and explain your reasons as to why and the readers will know what you’re trying to say. You do not play word games with finding creative and insulting things to call it.
This is what the judge ordered:
The Parties are prohibited from referring to the purported “settlement agreement,” or using, offering, admitting, or citing any of its provisions in any judicial, administrative, regulatory, arbitration, or any other official proceeding as evidence of a “settlement” reached in this matter, Case No. 26-cv-20609-KMW (S.D. Fla. 2026).63 “Plaintiffs” means the named Plaintiffs in this lawsuit: President Donald J. Trump, Donald J. Trump, Jr., Eric Trump, the Trump Organization, LLC and includes any of their agents, representatives, officers, directors, employees, partners, corporate agents, subsidiaries, affiliates, or any other person acting in concert with the party or under the party’s control, whether directly or indirectly. “Defendants” means the Internal Revenue Service and the United States Department of the Treasury.
This order doesn’t seem to explicit prohibit the parties from following the terms of the settlement. Merely that the settlement is not to be spoken of again in court.
There are two other orders. One of them is to issue a disciplinary referral against Trump lawyer Alejandro Brito to the Florida Bar. This is the court telling the bar association that they strongly believe the lawyer in question has committed a violation of ethical rules. However, I frankly do not find it particularly likely that the Florida Bar will act strongly on this referral, though I’m open to being surprised. The second order is to ban Trump lawyer Daniel Epstein from filing any more applications for pro hac vice in the Southern District of Florida. A pro hac vice application is a tool used to request permission from a court to represent someone for one case only when the lawyer in question doesn’t have a valid licence to practise in the state where the case is being conducted.
The old owners could’ve been fined into bankruptcy and then the franchise was sold to someone else.
There was a filling station in my town which was also significantly cheaper. About 40-50 cents less than nearby stations. I used it for years but also wondered how it was so cheap. Then one day, I went there and the price had gone up from the bargain of a decade to merely reasonable. I was wondering why but then I noticed that someone had put a sticker next to the dispenser keypad that wasn’t there before: a fuel tax sticker. It’s required by law on all fuel pumps here but I guess I just never noticed that they just never had one there previously.
No points for guessing what happened lol
Another W for the DSA
I’ve never heard of a Libertarian propose more government agencies or more expansive welfare programmes.
Back in 2020, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination named Andrew Yang proposed creating a new Department of Technology to regulate technology companies, because, as he put it, technology is now a huge part of our lives and economy and the current regulatory framework is completely unequipped to handle the torrential downpour of bullshit coming from Silicon Valley.
He wasn’t right about everything, and I didn’t vote for him, but that was certainly a good idea in hindsight.
I know you mean to say it can’t be repealed by an Act of Congress, but the word “repeal” also applies to constitutional amendments. This is what the text of Amendment 21 said:
Section 1. The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.
Not “nullified”. Repealed.
Company run by right-wing billionaire: We lost all our money, sales are down 600%, and our CEO got arrested for sexting a 13-year-old girl
Stock: Up 1.2%
As leftists in America, we all must realise: This is our party, and we need to fight to win it back.
Your vote in primary election can often be more influential than your vote in the general election. And any campaigning activity you do in the party’s primary will be twice as impactful as activities during the general.
The titles are each missing a colon.
The new Acting Attorney General, Todd Blanche[:] We’re not going to prosecute the predators in the Epstein files or release their names to the public
Acting AG[:] We’re not going to prosecute the predators in the Epstein files or release their names to the public
The collection of texts today known as the Bible were not written at once. There’s actually a lot of interesting history about how it came to be, but the short of it is that there were a multitude of maybe-canon Christian texts floating around during the early period of Christianity. These texts were written decades or even centuries apart, and often falsely attributed to authors who did not write them. There was also the Septuagint, a Greek text which was a translation of various Jewish scriptures, many of which now form the Old Testament.
The early Christian church decided which of these were deemed to be canon and which were non-canon. The canon texts were compiled together to form what is now the Bible. Everything else that was deemed not canon is called the Apocrypha. Many of these texts were also deemed heretical or blasphemous to read, publish, or teach by the various ecumenical councils.
Each Christian denomination has a slightly different version of the Bible depending on which decisions and ecumenical councils they accept.
The most interesting difference would be the Bible of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (also known as the Mormon Church), which has an additional text called the Book of Mormon. That was written in the 19th century by a guy named Joseph Smith, an American religious leader who founded Mormonism. According to Mormon theology, it contains the revalations he received from God about various other unknown saints who lived in America and other holy happenings which took place, making the US a second holy land of sorts. His group travelled to the western United States to find their own promised land and establish a Mormon theocracy (they were successful; it’s now the US state of Utah).
There’s no historical evidence that any of these texts were intended to be read as anything other than religious scripture, but keep in mind that in Biblical times, people seemed to have had a really difficult time differentiating texts written by people having fever dreams versus actual genuine accounts of observed events or legitimate attempts to write scripture. If you want a fun time, you can read some of the Apocrypha, which are often similar in style to the canonical gospels but are slightly… weirder. The line between religion and insanity was not so easily found back then. Regardless of their authors’ original intent, the Apocrypha certainly can be read for entertainment in the 21st century.
“Der Führer is leading this,” Göring told Das Reich.
“It’s his play call to do it this way,” the Reichstag president said, adding that the NSDAP chancellor has “already conceded that he wants to turn down the volume” on anti-Jewish operations.
To be fair, Congress could fix this easily as well:
AN ACT
To enforce the act of November 19, 2025 entitled “an act to require the Attorney General to release all documents and records in possession of the Department of Justice relating to Jeffrey Epstein, and for other purposes.”
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
Section 1. Short title.
This act may be cited as the Epstein Files Transparency (Enforcement) Act of 2026.
Section 2. Court may order release of files
(a) Notwithstanding any other section of law, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (“District Court”) has jurisdiction over and may, upon the application of the Attorney-General, or any authorised legal representative of any State or the District of Columbia, issue a writ of mandamus to order any person who appear to have in his or her possession or control, files, documents, or any other information of any description or type whatsoever, subject to disclosure under the Epstein Files Transparency Act of 2025, to disclose or cause to disclose such material.
(b) A writ issued under subsection (a) of this act may be directed to any officer, agent, secretary, or employee of the United States, or any person under or formerly under the employ thereof, or to the Department of Justice, the Attorney-General, or any person under the employ thereof, or any combination of the above-mentioned persons or organisations.
© The District Court has jurisdiction to rule on matters pertaining to whether material is subject to disclosure under the Epstein Files Transparency Act of 2025.
(d) Nothing in this section authorises a court to order a person to testify if such testimony may be used as evidence against them in a criminal proceeding.
Section 3. Penalty for non-compliance
(a) A person who fails to comply with a writ issued under Section 1 of this act, may, at the discretion of the District Court, be held in contempt of court and punished with imprisonment until such time that such person complies with the order of the court, and be issued a formal caution that further non-compliance will result in criminal liability.
(b)(1) A person who fails to comply with a writ issued under Section 1 of this act and who refuses to comply despite a caution issued by the District Court under subsection (a) of this section commits an offence and may be punished with imprisonment for a period not less than four years and not greater than eight years and fined an amount equal to their total taxable income under the Internal Revenue Code from four years before the date of their conviction until the date of their conviction.
(b)(2) The District Court may compel the production of records from the Internal Revenue Service for the purpose of the calculation of fine amounts under this section.
© In addition to criminal penalties imposed by this section, the salary of any employee of the United States or person who is entitled to draw a salary paid from funds belonging to the United States, who fails to comply with a writ issued under Section 1 of this act, is five cents per month until January 21, 2029, notwithstanding the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007 or any other law to the contrary, and such person shall not be entitled to any payment of any kind or for any purpose whatsoever other than for salary purposes from the United States, or any officer, employee, department, or agency thereof.
(d) A person who fails to comply with a writ issued under Section 1 of this act is disqualified from practicing as an attorney in any court of the United States and/or of the District of Columbia until January 21, 2029.
Place your bets!
jazzy background music starts playing
Bets must be placed in the form of cookies 🍪
Funny, because even though that’s a total of 95% tax, it reduces $89 million down to $4.45 million, which is still enough to live a ridiculously luxurious lifestyle. For us plebs, that would mean we have to find some way to spend $370,000 every month. It just goes to show how much we under-tax the wealthy in this country.
If your primary source of income is now being taxed at over 70% (50% “sin tax” + 15% income tax + 8% Medicare/social security tax) then that creates a pretty strong incentive to move, because the cost of not moving is even greater.
There is no “I can’t afford to move” at these numbers. At this rate it would make sense to even borrow money to move.
Yes, progress is fragile and needs constant defending. This is an important observation you have made.
The claims are already out of time. And Trump is only entitled to a few thousand dollars per occurrence anyway. If the IRS actually had reasonable lawyers representing them, they’d have settled this case for maybe $50,000. Ten billion dollars is a Dr. Evil-level demand.