Court Clash, Weekend Whats
Among the many immigrants the Trump administration sent to a draconian prison in El Salvador is (at least) one who they admit was sent there in error. Yet, the administration has thus far argued it can’t or won’t bring back Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia. The case reached the Supreme Court where all nine justices agreed (think about that for a second) that the administration “must ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.” Well, today, the Trump administration defied a federal judge’s order to provide an explanation for how it intended to do so. The executive branch going out on a limb with this position is extreme for several reasons. First, the person who was sent to a foreign jail by mistake is still there as the government delays. Second, the notion that a person sent to a foreign prison cannot be returned doesn’t bode well for due process for immigrants, or for anyone else. (Trump Says He’d “Love” to Deport US Citizens to El Salvador Gulags if It’s Legal.) Third, it calls into question whether this executive branch will follow the directives of the judicial branch. NYT: Trump Administration Defies Judge Seeking Details on Plan to Return Wrongly Deported Man.
+ WaPo (Gift Article): The Supreme Court just set up a potentially huge clash with Trump.
+ “The Trump administration could choose to comply with the court order and secure Abrego Garcia’s return. It could also choose the path of open defiance. But it might instead make a token effort to retrieve Abrego Garcia and then shrug, telling the Court that it tried its best but was unsuccessful.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Confrontation Between Trump and the Supreme Court Has Arrived.
+ Here’s an interesting (if depressing) conversation between Andrew Weissmann and Lawrence O’Donnell about the Justice Department’s remarkable callousness in this case, and what’s at stake.
+ This is a critical case. But it’s just one example of people being sent to a foreign prison, rounded up, or deported without due process. The New Yorker: The Mystery of ICE’s Unidentifiable Arrests.
+ NYT (Gift Article): Social Security Lists Thousands of Migrants as Dead to Prompt Them to Self-Deport.
+ She Worked in a Harvard Lab to Reverse Aging, Until ICE Jailed Her. (Feel safer?) And: Australian with working visa detained and deported on returning to US from sister’s memorial. “He says the official then told him: ‘Trump is back in town; we’re doing things the way we should have always been doing them.'”
Error Salon
Christy Powers has “worked through three economic downturns since 1999. Operating out of Frederick, Maryland, a commuter-train ride from Washington, Powers said more and more of her clients—especially the large swath of federal workers—are ‘coming in telling me how stressed they are.’ Others are halting services altogether to save cash. Is Powers a financial planner? A real estate agent? Nope: She’s a massage therapist, and she and her service-industry colleagues working in beauty, hair and personal care have been witnessing firsthand some of the earliest possible signs the US is tumbling into recession.” Bloomberg (Gift Article): The Beauty Salon Recession Indicator.
+ Looks like the beauty salon indicator is pretty accurate. US consumer sentiment plummets to second-lowest level on records going back to 1952.
+ “The United States gets vital goods from China that cannot be replaced any time soon or made at home at anything less than prohibitive cost. Reducing such dependence on China may be a reason for action, but fighting the current war before doing so is a recipe for almost certain defeat, at enormous cost.” Foreign Affairs: Beijing Has Escalation Dominance in the U.S.-China Tariff Fight.
+ So has the impact on consumer sentiment and retirement accounts shaken Trump’s support? Among the swing voters, probably. Among the true believers, hell no. WSJ (Gift Article): Trust Unshaken: Trump Voters Are Sticking With Their Guy. “When Trump at last announced the tariffs—levied on friends and enemies—many of them saw the move less in economic terms than as a moment of redemption: The country had gone astray, and something had to be done. Even something radical.”
Playing Ketchup
Speaking at a summit put on by tech investors, U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon praised the use of A1 in education several times. Not AI, but A1, like the sauce. “McMahon said she’d heard about ‘a school system that’s going to start making sure that first graders, or even pre-Ks, have A1 teaching in every year,’ which she said was a ‘wonderful thing.'” Linda McMahon mixed up AI and A.1. — so of course now the steak sauce is all over it.
Weekend Whats
What to Watch: I’m hardly the first person to recommend Adolescence on Netflix. But it really is awesome. Everyone in the cast is excellent, the topic couldn’t be more timely, and somehow, each entire episode is shot in a single take. For something a little lighter, the very excellent show Hacks returns to Max this weekend. And this season includes the excellent Jimmy Kimmel playing himself on the show. Hacks star Jean Smart appeared on Kimmel this week and it was, as you’d imagine, incredibly enjoyable.
+ What to Hear: An Evening with Elton John and Brandi Carlile on Paramount Plus is filled with songs from the duo’s new album and some of their biggest individual hits. Need to be cheered up? This will work. For more music, this is first weekend at Coachella, and the best way to watch is from your own couch. Coachella will be streaming on YouTube. But wait, there’s more. Lady Gaga was recently on Howard Stern and killed on a couple of songs, including an acoustic version of Abracadabra and Perfect Celebrity.
Extra, Extra
Don’t Even Think It: Rubio “said that while Khalil’s activities were ‘otherwise lawful,’ letting him remain in the country would undermine ‘U.S. policy to combat anti-Semitism around the world and in the United States, in addition to efforts to protect Jewish students from harassment and violence in the United States.” AP: Pressed for evidence against Mahmoud Khalil, government cites its power to deport people for beliefs. NBC: 130 Jewish Georgetown members slam Trump for ‘weaponizing’ faith in arresting professor. The question isn’t whether you agree with the views being espoused, but whether you believe views should be allowed to be espoused. Yair Rosenberg in The Atlantic (Gift Article): Trump’s Jewish Cover Story. “Presented as an attempt to protect Jews on campus, these threats are actually part of a much wider war against American higher education, which Trump and his allies perceive as a citadel of hostile cultural power.” (Here’s a tought for your Passover Seder this weekend: Don’t trust people who think Heiling is funny to protect Jewish interests.)
+ Yale Tide: Yesterday, I shared my concern about Timothy Snyder and Jason Stanley leaving the United States. Obey Watch. It’s definitely worth reading Snyder’s take on the matter: On leaving Yale. “I did not leave Yale because of anything Trump is doing; the chronology and the psychology are all wrong; I was not and am not fleeing anything.”
+ Whoops: “Doctors, researchers and public health experts warn that the measles outbreak, which has grown to more than 600 cases, may just be the beginning. They say outbreaks of preventable diseases could get much worse with falling vaccination rates and the Trump administration slashing spending on the country’s public health infrastructure.” “Not Just Measles”: Whooping Cough Cases Are Soaring as Vaccine Rates Decline.
+ Gov in the Time of Cholera: “At least five children and three adults with cholera died as they went in search of treatment in South Sudan after aid cuts by the Trump administration shuttered local health clinics during the country’s worst cholera outbreak in decades, the international charity Save the Children reported this week.” NYT (Gift Article): Children Seeking Cholera Care Die After U.S. Cuts Aid, Charity Says.
+ Space Force Feeding: Space Force Colonel Removed After Disavowing JD Vance’s Comments About Acquiring Greenland.
+ Commencement Speech: “Does it do justice to what she’s witnessing — to the Trump administration’s abandonment of, and indifference to, a man consigned to a hellhole in El Salvador because of an administrative error? To Trump’s morally perverse rewrite of history, in which Ukraine is evil and Russia rightly aggrieved? To his pardoning of the savages who smashed their way into the Capitol and bloodied police officers on Jan. 6, 2021? To his veneration of autocrats and his administration’s fervent efforts to turn him into one? To its conception of power not as a blessing that compels you to be generous but as a bludgeon that allows you to be cruel?” Frank Bruni in the NYT: What Do You Tell a College Student Graduating Into This America? (Maybe it’s safest to just say, “Congrats.”)
+ Lightning Crashes: “Lightning strikes kill millions of trees each year — but it turns out that some large tropical trees can not only survive a strike, but also benefit from its effects, according to a recent study.”
+ Blowin’ in the Wind? People in Northern China have a more pressing concern than the building trade war. The building winds. Millions told to stay indoors as China braces for strong winds. State media has warned that “some people weighing less than 110lbs may be ‘easily blown away.'”
Feel Good Friday
If you missed it earlier this week, check out the story of two baseball teams with long losing streaks that were broken during a double-header.
+ Dying US man uses his last months for community service in all 50 states.
+ In a World First, Researchers Mapped Part of a Mouse’s Brain in Incredible Detail. It’s a Leap Forward for Neuroscience.
+ US ballerina Ksenia Karelina reunites with fiancé as she returns from Russian prison.
+ Galapagos tortoises at Philadelphia Zoo become first-time parents at nearly 100. (They’ll come to wish they had waited.)
+ On the Road in a Giant Almond.
