This lawsuit is on a really narrow ground: the law says that when the president calls up a state guard into federal service, the orders must issue through the state governor.

In this case, the President wrote the words “Through: The Governor of California” at the top of the memos. But he never actually sent anything to Gavin Newsom, or gave California any formal notice at all.

This suit also doesn’t challenge the active duty marines, which are indisputably under Trump’s chain of command. But they can’t do domestic law enforcement unless the Insurrection Act is invoked (it hasn’t, formally).

I didn’t know that the feds accredited universities. When I was in school, the one that mattered for engineering was ABET or somesuch.

The short answer is that prosecutors do not have absolute immunity when conducting investigative and maybe administrative functions outside the courtroom.

I haven’t read the mayor’s complaint and how he pleads this.

Alina Habba is sued in her personal capacity. If damages are awarded, she is likely to pay out of her own pocket. Facts and evidence discovered during this litigation may also be relevant to her continuing to hold a law license.

The mayor was invited inside the fence line by a federal agent. When the feds changed their mind, he agreed to leave. That’s not trespassing.

You can* sue CBP and Secretary Noem in her official capacity for collecting illegal tariffs from you.

*Probably. I’m not a lawyer. Don’t take legal advice from the Internet.

But then who says what the statutes that Congress passed mean…?

In this case, the court has determined that notices in English only, that give a 24 hour deadline, with no information about how to contact an attorney, are illegal. That amount of notice is not due process as guaranteed by the 5th amendment of the Constitution.

The constitution overrides all parts of federal law, including the Alien Enemies Act. There is no power to suspend the constitution here. Not even a war power. The constitution applies to the plaintiffs in this case, because they are in the territory of the United States. Full stop.

The government has argued to the court, without citing any specific clause of the constitution, that the President enjoys broad “war powers” that prevent the court from looking into any aspect of what the administration is doing here. The court has clearly rejected that argument* with respect to the 5th amendment concerns.

So that is what the law is, and that’s what the law is not. That’s a final decision.

*The court has not decided yet on whether the government can use this reasoning to block any interpretation of the meaning of the words “invasion” or “predatory incursion.” The lower courts that have ruled are something like 4 or 5 to 1, on the side that the judiciary can interpret those words.

EDIT: Actually, I think the one judge that ruled for the AEA proclamation did so by interpreting “invasion” by looking it up in a dictionary. She just used a modern dictionary, while the others have been using 1798 dictionaries.

Everything the Supreme Court orders is “legal”, by definition. That’s what Supreme means. They have taken up the duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. There is no further appeal.

Historically speaking, USSR / Russia, China, and NK have loved to talk up the capabilities of their kit, and these parades were a big part of that. They have frequently failed to deliver on all of their promised capabilities.

In the United States we have done the opposite. We don’t talk about our latest gen aircraft programs; we hide them out in the desert. When we do talk we remain cagey about what we have for years and decades, until long after we’ve started selling it to allies.

I understand that this parade will not show off our real capabilities (not at 25 tanks anyway), but I am saddened that the man feels like he needs to stoop to the level of the adversaries we’ve held for so long.

The alternate exit she allegedly sent them to led back out to the same hallway where ICE was already waiting. An ICE agent rode in the elevator with the guy and his attorney from the sixth floor to the ground floor. ICE agent contacted his confederates from inside the elevator. They confronted the man while crossing the street in front of the court house. The man was arrested after a brief foot chase.

I am not a lawyer, and I am not your lawyer.

Off the top of my head, I can’t really see where or how this is illegal in most US jurisdictions. In “at will” states you can be hired or fired at any time for any reason* or no reason. And likewise you can quit at any time for any reason or no reason. If you can be hired or fired based on this scam, you can be promoted or held back based on it.

Having said that, this is really scammy, and I would not want to work there.

*except discrimination based on: race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age (>40), or genetics. Likewise, retaliation for unlawful sexual harassment.

These guys are in charge of FDA now. They can just start introducing Rx restrictions on the drug through the administrative process. They don’t need to rely on an obsolete statute and one wildcat judge in Amarillo.

I work in engineering, sometimes with startup types that want to develop a “product”. I’m also a coinventor on some patent applications. This response will be based on US perspective and economics.

1. First before all, do a patent search. This is to find out if someone already patented your ideas. If so, you either need to pay them royalties to license the patent(s) or rework your product to avoid the patents. Google Patents is highly accessible for this.
2. Then, if you think you have original, patentable ideas, engage a patent attorney to do a “real” search and to work on filings. This will take money (at least 10s of thousands US) for the initial work. All the major legal jurisdictions are “first to file,” so it no longer helps to mail your notebooks to yourself for proof of date of invention. You have to at least file a provisional application to get a patent priority date. Keep everything top secret until you have that application. Execute non disclosure agreements (NDAs) with any outside firm or individual you talk with. 2b. As an aside, software is not generally patentable any more, on the grounds that math formulas are also not patentable. There may still be some ability to patent software-oriented ideas as business methods or the like. Just because the patent office issued a software patent doesn’t mean it’s enforceable. Courts hold patents to be invalid all the time.
3. I want to impress upon you some view of the real costs of prototype design and what is known as “nonrecurring engineering” (NRE) in the biz. You don’t say, but it sounds like you want some amount of custom electronics coupled with some backend software. Costs can vary considerably depending on circumstance, but I would typically see 100k-300k USD in design and prototype build costs to get initial prototypes with some limited functionality for these components. It could very well take 1 million USD or more to get a more complete product design. This also depends a lot on how you engage engineering talent: turnkey consultants can be the most expensive, or you could save a bunch of up front labor cost by offering equity to a key designer. 3b. I don’t know how complicated this app is, but it’s not unusual for software engineering costs to overshadow the hardware engineering costs, and sometimes by a lot. This might be something to keep in mind if you’re contemplating app development up front paired with virtual hardware plans.
4. A “virtual design” for hardware that is just drawings could be done for cheaper than the prototype quote I gave. I see common prices for that kind of work at least 10k and up to 50k depending on how much initial design work you want or need done (and how the talent is engaged, etc, etc).
5. Manufacturing. Depends of course on what is going into your gadget and how many units you plan to build.
   5a. Custom PCBs can commonly be run in low volumes for relatively cheap. It’s more expensive to solder the components on than just to etch the boards. There are many board houses that let you turn in your design files and get a quote online. 5b. For startup that wants a low volume (~100) of some gadget, you might want to look into contract manufacturers. These will assemble your product per drawings, typically in a non-automated or low-automation fashion. For example, they might have pick and place machines and expensive wave flow solder machines to assemble PCBs, but then the boards are screwed into enclosures by hand. These places might run double or triple the per unit cost of a more automated setup, but it can still be the best option for low numbers of units. 5c. Overseas manufacturing can cut costs through reduced labor bills. The traditional hurdles in the startup environment are long shipping lead times (particularly by sea, 10-12 weeks not uncommon) and the added hassle and complexity of international business dealings. In the US particularly, the recent tariff situation is throwing a monkey wrench right in the middle of this, and I will not attempt to analyze the impact. 5d. A commonly surprising manufacturing cost: if using injection molded plastic for enclosures or the like, the custom molds can cost several 10s of thousands to build and store. This is a fixed cost, so it doesn’t impact the per unit for large volumes, but it is often an expensive hurdle in the total manufacturing process for small startups.
6. Regulatory. It’s highly likely that any consumer facing gadget will need at least some regulatory testing, probably from a dedicated contract test house For example in the US, Underwriters Laboratory (UL) demands safety testing, and the FCC can require “part 15” testing and separate testing if you have a radio (such as WiFi or Bluetooth). As an exercise you could try looking up all of the various logos on the bottom of your favorite gizmo or in the fine print in the manual.

As long as it’s a federal court holding them in contempt, Trump can just pardon them.

Criminal contempt has this problem, but civil contempt is not pardonable, because there is no crime to pardon.

Judge Boasberg is trying to proceed with criminal contempt on the “turn the planes around” order. Whatever happens there, it is unlikely to end in convictions that stick.

Judge Xinis is proceeding towards civil contempt. If she finds someone in willful contempt, she can imprison them until they choose to comply. And the evidence standard in civil contempt is “clear and convincing,” not “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

The infamous immunity ruling gives the President a lot of immunity from criminal prosecution.

But besides that, there’s an older precedent in civil litigation that no judge can write an injunction directly against the President in the performance of his official duties. So all of these TROs and injunctions, including the Friday SC order, either do not apply to the President himself, or they are illegally broad*.

Under this theory of law, the President could theoretically arrest and deport all the people he wants with no judicial intervention – just as long he does all the arrests by himself, and flies the planes by himself, etc. In reality, the fat man is always going to have underlings doing the stuff for him, and they do not have this immunity from civil injunctions.

*This is one of the points raised in Alito’s dissent: the SC order applies to “the Government”, without saying whether the President is included or not.

The “margaritas” were staged props and also inexplicably garnished with cherries.

It is my understanding based on official reporting from our Embassy in San Salvador that Abrego Garcia is currently being held in the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador. He is alive and secure in that facility. He is detained pursuant to the sovereign, domestic authority of El Salvador.

• Michael G. Kozak. US State Dept. April 12, 2025.

Edit: you can track the Maryland court docket here.

The government represented that he was alive in a court filing on Friday or Saturday (I forget which).

Which they failed to do yesterday.

The judge demanded daily status updates on 3 questions. The filing yesterday only responded to question #1*, and completely ignored #2 and 3.

*Additionally, the response to #1 only relayed publicly available information, when the judge specifically ordered an affidavit from someone with personal knowledge of the matter.

Oh, there is absolutely a record.

The “record” that the government lawyer was talking about is just the set of papers filed in this one case. Judges are nominally supposed to make decisions based only on the information that people bring in front of them.

Japanese Americans put into prison camps without a lawful reason or due process.

Ex parte Endo is actually relevant case law in the arguments for this Venezuelan case, since the justification for the Japanese American internment was the same 1798 alien enemies act. The current law of the land from Endo is that the internment of first generation Japanese immigrants, who were not citizens, was legal during the declared war. The internment of second and third generation citizens of Japanese descent was not legal.

Do you think American citizens with brown skin aren’t being arrested and deported by this MAGA cult?

This certainly seems plausible to me, but this scenario is not (yet) alleged in this specific Venezuelan case.

At least one deportee on the planes was really Nicaraguan, and not Venezuelan at all. El Salvador refused to accept him into their torture prison, because they don’t want to piss off their neighbor Nicaragua.

Edit: Also, Judge Millet on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals asked this exact question: “It could have been me. You could throw me on a plane?”. The government’s response to this was, “Your honor, nothing of the sort is in the record!”. Aka, we’re not throwing you on a plane, yet.. Truly, one of the great ways to persuade a jurist to your cause.

Another choice Millet quote: “Nazis got better treatment than this!”. (Referring to Germans deported under the same law during WWII, where they generally had notice, hearings, and the chance to depart voluntarily).