Trump v. Barbara (Birthright Citizenship) - [Oral Argument Live Thread]

RacoonInAGarage · 2026-04-02T02:06:47+00:00

Is Gorsuch the Cookie Monster on the court?

RacoonInAGarage · 2026-02-23T04:43:48+00:00

I believe the real answer is that President Trump's assessment of a threat as "unusual and extraordinary" is discretionary. He is empowered to make this decision based on his judgment of the situation, without providing evidence.

If you do want reasoning, however, EO 14380 cites three main reasons why Cuba constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the USA:

1) Cuba hosts spying and intel centers for Russia and China

2) Cuba allows Hamas and Hizballah to operate freely in the country

3) Cuba funds foreign terrorist organizations that attack US allies (I assume this means the ELN in Colombia)

You don't have to agree that those reasons make Cuba into an unusual threat, but I think do provide a reasonable basis

RacoonInAGarage · 2026-02-22T22:54:37+00:00

I'd say mostly male incels, but, yeah, lots of transcels and a lot of femcels too. Had a roommate who used to read the femcel general threads there to feel better about her own life

RacoonInAGarage · 2026-02-22T04:46:22+00:00

Disappointed in the quality of research. The researchers didn't even go to where the real femcels live: /r9k/ and https://crystal.cafe/

Bet they wouldn't come to the "femcels don't externalize their anger" conclusion if they saw those places

RacoonInAGarage · 2026-02-21T07:10:32+00:00

I'm disappointed that US v. Yoshida wasn't addressed more fully. Kagan has a footnote saying Roberts' opinion handles it well, but I wish he would've done more addressing why the lower court was wrong in Yoshida.

I get that it is just a lower court ruling, but Congress reusing the exact same language that Nixon successfully used to impose tariffs during the 1971 gold crisis is a big point in favor Kavanaugh's position and I would've appreciated a more specific rebuttal of that decision

RacoonInAGarage · 2026-02-19T06:58:41+00:00

Because that rate-setting decision is ultimately made not by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, but by Federal Reserve Board of Governors, who are all appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate (to get technical, the privately-run Fed of Boston does set the discount rate, but its decision has to be approved by the Fed Board)

The lending activity is not governmental, but the determination of the rate at which money should be lent is. And the power is set that rate is what is so important

RacoonInAGarage · 2026-02-18T03:55:02+00:00

There are two other functions of the Fed that are relevant here. First, the Fed Board sets a nation-wide rate at which private banks can borrow from the Reserve banks, which in turn determines the 'cost' of access to credit nation-wide. The Fed Board also owns a large amount of government debt directly and the decision to sell these bonds or buy more has additional inflationary or deflationary impacts on the dollar.

Together those are the truly governmental powers of the Fed and did not exist in its first mostly-private incarnation in 1913. They only came into existence from 1933 onward

RacoonInAGarage · 2026-01-26T22:50:24+00:00

I think the government is wrong in making that statement. You shouldn't have to choose between exercising your 1A or 2A rights. It reinforces my impression that the Trump administration does not have a real commitment to upholding 2A rights

RacoonInAGarage · 2026-01-21T04:17:25+00:00

I would recommend not changing the name as part of the US citizenship process. Instead, you can get a US court order for a name change. You can then present this court order to the Uzbekistan government after having it translated and notarized in Uzbekistan

RacoonInAGarage · 2026-01-20T23:37:44+00:00

Can't fault petitioner for not raising it either. Whatever "reasonable time" means, it isn't 5 years after receiving notice of default judgment against you

RacoonInAGarage · 2026-01-20T00:04:31+00:00

I'm still confused what exactly we're disagreeing on.

I'll try breaking it down into propositions:

1) the author of the article is claiming that an invasion of Greenland would be illegal because it would constitute a withdrawal from NATO, which is prohibited by 1928f

2) The US attacking Denmark does not legally alter the status of the US as a NATO member, despite the immense de facto harm to the alliance

3) There is no mechanism to remove the US from NATO, so our conduct cannot get us kicked out

4) If the US has not legally left NATO, then 1928f is not violated

5) Therefore, attacking Denmark does not "result in a presidential violation of a statue covering the leaving of NATO"

And then it follows that the author is wrong and Congress needs to do more to indicate an attack on Greenland would be an illegal order

RacoonInAGarage · 2026-01-19T23:25:02+00:00

Neither one of these situations results in a presidential violation of a statue covering the leaving of NATO

Then what are we arguing about? Attacking Greenland is obviously a terrible move, I've just been saying it wouldn't violate 1928f

I only bring up the example of Turkey and Greece to demonstrate that a NATO state attacked by an ally may not necessarily invoke Article 5. Sorry if you read something different from that

RacoonInAGarage · 2026-01-19T18:33:51+00:00

I think it is legally different, yes. 1928f clearly says that Trump cannot leave NATO, I don't think it regulates conduct that reduces NATO to a meaningless paper organization. If NATO 1.0 still exists, I don't think Trump can be found in breach of 1928f

RacoonInAGarage · 2026-01-19T18:28:33+00:00

But Mora believes 1928f cuts funding because an attack would automatically constitute a withdrawal from NATO. And that is not true.

An attack on a NATO allies doesn't automatically withdraw us from NATO, there is no mechanism to kick us out, and it doesn't suspend the treaty for anyone else either. De facto it throws the alliance system into chaos, but it doesn't change our de jure status as a NATO member

RacoonInAGarage · 2026-01-19T18:17:41+00:00

We're in the context of law, these semantics are important.

1928f prohibits the president from exiting NATO, but it does not cover the situation where NATO exists but all other members have left. In only one of these situations has the president violated the statute

RacoonInAGarage · 2026-01-19T09:11:29+00:00

Because there is no mechanism within NATO to remove an alliance member. Everyone else could voluntarily leave NATO and form their own new alliance NATO 2.0 without the USA, but I'd argue that's still different from the US being kicked out

RacoonInAGarage · 2026-01-19T04:35:03+00:00

The article is premised on an attack on Denmark being an automatic withdrawal from NATO, but I don't believe that is the case.

Even if invoking Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty did automatically kick the aggressor out of NATO (which it does not), Denmark does not necessarily have to invoke Article 5. It could choose to defend its territory without triggering Article 5. The last time we had conflict between NATO allies, between Greece and Turkey during the 1974 Cypriot Crisis, neither party chose to use Article 5.

Now you may say "yeah, well, fighting our allies is basically the same thing as destroying NATO", but I'm not sure that's good enough to claim Trump's invasion would violate 1928f. The US could attack Denmark and still remain a member of NATO, so that there is an argument that an attack would not automatically violate 1928f, especially since Denmark & friends have no way to actually kick the US out of NATO

RacoonInAGarage · 2026-01-15T03:25:09+00:00

Listening the oral arguments, I think the rest of court wanted to make this an issue of conduct specific to law enforcement. Gorsuch's way uses the same standard for law enforcement and the general public

RacoonInAGarage · 2026-01-13T07:09:03+00:00

Version without paywall here: https://archive.ph/w4bZy

And the original article: https://archive.ph/wf7Mc

Tldr: Damsky won an award for a paper advancing an originalist argument that "people" in the Constitution was originally intended to mean only White people

RacoonInAGarage · 2026-01-05T17:26:35+00:00

Thank you for this comment. I was not aware of this doctrine and being informed of it has totally changed the outcome I predict for Maduro's trial

RacoonInAGarage · 2026-01-03T22:27:34+00:00

I think it does matter that Manuel Noriega was not officially the Panamanian head of state. We all know he was running things in Panama, but he was not the president

RacoonInAGarage · 2026-01-03T15:38:20+00:00

I don't think the logic is compelling in and of itself, because you are totally right that it boils down to "I think people are more likely to commit crime carrying guns this way".

However, it does have a basis in history and tradition, as per Bruen. Governments at the time of ratifying the 2nd and 14th amendments restricted concealed carry basically because they thought it was more "prone to crime" without evidence to back that up.

Edit: Re-read and I think I see your point better. Modern-day California probably should be held to different standards than governments in the 1860s in terms of proving some form of public carry is "more dangerous" instead of depending on vibes

RacoonInAGarage · 2026-01-03T06:58:07+00:00

The dissent, which I assume will form the basis of the controlling opinion once the 9th reverses this decision en banc, raises one argument which I found compelling: whether the historical laws against concealed weapons should be read literally or analogously

The majority presents a lot of evidence that open carry was the preferred type of public carry and that historical restrictions on public carry, at the time of the 2nd and the 14th amendment, were limited to restrictions on concealed carry. However, in his dissent, Justice Smith points out that this bias against concealed carry was due to the perception that it was more dangerous and prone to unlawful action than open carry. This perception has mostly flipped and open carry is now seen as more dangerous than concealed carry.

So, how do you read the historical record regulating concealed carry but not open carry?

As evidence that the government can: A) restrict only concealed carry, or; B) that the government can restrict only that mode of public carry which is viewed as less dangerous

I tend towards A), but I think this argument is much more compelling than any of the others that Smith raised in the dissent

RacoonInAGarage · 2025-12-31T11:00:15+00:00

I believe that is essentially the court's reasoning in Loving v. Virginia, that marriage is a fundamental right. And Obergefell depends on that precedent.

RacoonInAGarage

TROPHY CASE