It is likely that any tests will be conducted in enclosed underground silos in Nevada. The site to do that has been maintained at some amount of readiness since the last test in 1992.

Nixon was at 31% when he resigned. Dubya also hit the low thirties, but he didn’t resign.

No, it’s clearly the fault of the guy that got shot. That’s why he’s been criminally charged.

(/s but not on the criminal charges. Those are real.)

UPDATE: As the deadline expired today, the prosecution dropped this motion which discloses that they searched an attorney’s phone with a warrant.

Because the stuff on this phone is a landmine of attorney-client privilege, they contend, there must be a complicated and lengthy clean room-style process to sort the privileged stuff from non-privileged.

Comey disagrees and wants to challenge the search warrant first.

I strongly suspect they didn’t actually turn over much of anything today, but we shall see.

In many jurisdictions, courts will allow prosecutors to “remedy” slipups to some degree by delaying the trial date, allowing the defense the same time they would have had to prepare, or at least an adequate time.

It definitely seems like that is not going to happen in this district.

There’s a bunch of complicated case law about missed disclosures and late disclosures.

I care about the guy now. Because I care about the rule of law. I want real trials in my country, where defendants confront the evidence against them fairly. Not show trials and Col. Cathcart “we can’t tell you who Person 3 is” bullshit.

Almost certainly not, for a couple of reasons:

1. This is a civil case. Can’t directly arrest someone within a civil case.

2. To charge criminal contempt, the judge has to refer the case to the prosecutor. But oh my! Look who the prosecutor is (Pam Bondi). Do you expect those dipshits to actually prosecute contempt on this?

There’s a pathway to civil contempt in this case, to remedy ongoing non compliance. Civil contempt can send people to jail until they choose to comply, but there are no criminal charges. No charges = no prosecutor.

However, I don’t expect open or flagrant violations, just some busted deadlines getting the guys out of state. I also expect an immediate appeal and at least 50-50 odds of an emergency stay is this order from the appeals court.

Comey’s attorney told the judge he has plans to bring 4 separate motions to dismiss the case, on 4 separate grounds.

• selective and vindictive prosecution
• Lindsey Halligan was not properly appointed as the US attorney, so she has no authority to charge the case.
• Abuse of grand jury, i.e. the indictment is invalid because the Halligan violated the very loose rules that exist when presenting the case to the grand jury.
• outrageous government conduct. Who knows what that is.

I was surprised he didn’t move to dismiss right there at the arraignment for failure to state an offense.

The prosecutors said they have a bunch of classified evidence they have to sort through. The judge did not like that. There’s no reason for anything to be classified in this case. Comey’s alleged lie was in public to Congress on CSPAN. And he was talking about unclassified stuff.

So this classified documents stuff seems to be a delaying tactic, because these guys have no idea what they’re going to do with discovery. And I’ve heard that eastern district of VA is called the “rocket docket” because the judges like to move fast. They don’t like delays.

Congress has to pass a budget bill to reopen the government, and the President has to sign it into law. If that bill says that the workers are entitled to back pay, then they are entitled to back pay.

BUT this time her own children are facing the premium hikes. That makes everything totally, completely different.

Just for context, almost every federal court is a branch of a state court.

This is not true at all.

Federal courts are part of the judicial branch, not the executive branch. So they don’t shut down when the executive branch “shuts down”, because the shutdown laws don’t apply to them. As a practical matter federal courts can keep running for a while using saved up court fee revenue. They will eventually run out of that money and gave some tough choices about what to do.

There’s a rule that the flight has to be within so many minutes of a diversion airport at all times, and this is hard to do in Antarctica.

Nowadays, 180 minutes is fairly common, and there are some planes and airlines that can go to 240 or even as high as 370.

“Scorched” is the right word here:

• The judge photocopied a handwritten anonymous post card he received directly at the top of the page, before the case caption.
• The post card reads like a veiled threat: “Trump has pardons and tanks. What do you have?”
• then the judge writes a public letter to the post card writer, inviting them to read the opinion too see how it works. At the very end, he invites the post card writer to come see the administration of justice in person, at the Boston court house.
• Out of 161 pages, the judge spends 12 pages talking about Donald Trump’s flaws as a person and as a President. This section is not super related to the main opinion, which is about the first amendment and immigrants.
• This judge was appointed by Ronald Reagan, and he’s been on the bench since approximately forever ago.

The whole piece seems to have serious literary aspirations, not typical of a judicial opinion. Especially with the post card as a literary framing device. The judge seems to be talking, not just to the litigants in this case, but to the average MAGA American, represented by the post card writer. And also to all patriotic Americans, now and in the future. This is a bugle call, cutting above the din, calling to ordinary Americans to retake Constitutionalism as Americanism. The rule of law as American patriotism.

Red is crap. Gotta go blue or clear.

It certainly seems to be going that way. If Trump can just choose not to spend money that Congress appropriated… Well, that’s a lot more power than even George III had when Thomas Jefferson wrote out that listicle of 28 reasons why he sucked.

This is the fringe legal theory called unitary executive becoming not so fringe at all. In fact it seems to be headed towards firmly mainstream, precedential status.

Article II, section 1:

The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.

Everyone used to think this sentence was pretty harmless. It was put in to say there’s one President at the top, instead of an executive committee (which was proposed and debates at the convention).

But to the unitary executive theorists, that one sentence actually means that all of the executive Power must flow through the President, and there can be no executive Power that does not.

The previous thinking is that this power was only talking about the powers specifically listed in Article II, which is not a lot. (Veto, cabinet nominations, pardons, and a few other things). And that if Congress chose to delegate part of its Article I power to the executive branch by passing a law, it could put whatever limitations, checks, and balances it wanted to.

Real hyperloop, not the Musk bullshit. Scaled up pneumatic tube systems operating at orbital speeds (7 km/s).

That’s about the same time as the Know-Nothing party was pushing nativism and anti-immigrant sentiment.

The North Atlantic area is defined in an expansive, but not unlimited, manner. The treaty defines the North Atlantic area as:

• all of North America
• The Atlantic ocean, including islands, north of the Tropic of Cancer
• the “home” territory of any European member.

So, Turkey is at the extreme flank of the area, by having a bit of core territory in Europe. All of Turkey’s territory is covered, though, even the parts not in Europe.

Palestine is not eligible to join the alliance, because its territory is not in Europe or North America.

Some other tidbits: Guam, Hawaii, the Falkland Islands, Reunion, and the British Indian Ocean Territory are all examples of member territories that are not protected because they fall outside the North Atlantic area.