SCOTUS Says No Nationwide Injunctions

In a case related to the Birthright Citizenship question the SCOTUS has ruled that federal courts do not have the authority to issue nationwide injunctions.

The question was triggered by Trump's Executive Orders excluding children born to illegal immigrants and temporary visitors from birthright citizenship.

But this has vexed several presidents both Democrat and Republican because it leads to "judge shopping." This is the art of getting your case heard by a federal judge sympathetic to your position and then getting that decision imposed on the whole country.

This is essentially what happened with the abortion drug mifepristone a few years back before the SCOTUS overruled the restriction.

So what exactly does this mean for Birthright Citizenship? Probably not a whole lot. The order won't go into effect for 30 days and that's plenty of time to file additional lawsuits, including a class action suit, against the EOs.

The SCOTUS really needs to get off its rear end and rule on whether "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" excludes illegal immigrants and temporary visitors from Birthright Citizenship.

Personally I don't think it should exclude illegals because they're here pretty much on a permanent basis but I don't think it should apply to temporary visitors.

Of course what I think doesn't matter. What matters is what the court thinks and I expect it to exclude both when it gets around to deciding.

The Tariffs and Tariff Threats

Trump's tariff strategy actually seems to be working. Countries seem anxious to negotiate trade deals in order to maintain access to the US marketplace.

Of course willing to negotiate and coming to a deal are not the same thing but it seems to be moving in the right direction.

The Fed is still concerned about possible tariff fueled inflation so a rate cut in July looks up in the air but not completely off the table. Trump has made it clear that he will replace Jerome Powell as fed chairman when his term expires.

The stock market has sort of almost recovered from the series of shocks it experienced but is still very volatile and jumpy.

Iran-Israeli Ceasefire

Trump appears to have managed a fragile, but so far reasonably stable, ceasefire between Iran and Israel. How long that will hold up is up in the air.

In the meantime the Pentagon now says that the attack on Iranian nuclear sites wasn't a complete success and may have only delayed the Iranian nuclear program by 6-9 months.

Regardless, it appears to have gotten the Iranians to the negotiating table.

Iran Strikes Back

Iran has attacked a US military base in Qatar. The Qatari say that no damage was done and they sound kind of pissed. They have said they reserve the right to respond. So the conflict potentially spreads.

My question is why do we have a military base in Qatar?

Trump Bombs Iran

Last night Donald Trump announced that the US has bombed three Iranian nuclear sites at Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan. 

Given that the site at Fordo was deep underground the US usedGBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOPs) designed to penetrate and explode underground. Tomahawk missiles were apparently employed to attack the other sites.

I look at this from two angles. First, how sane was this move and second, how effective was it in destroying Iran's nuclear capability.

I think this was completely INSANE and a move that only an ignorant president with ignorant advisors would undertake. The country is also tired of military adventures in the Middle East.

When challenged about this J.D. Vance essentially said that all the past presidents that got involved in the Middle East were dumb and now there's a genius in the White House that knows what needs to be done. Then they wonder why we say it's a cult.

As for its effectiveness, last night Trump claimed a complete success. The Iranians claim they evacuated these facilities a while back and their nuclear capability has not been set back.

This morning, Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, reiterated the complete success claim but when the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine, was asked whether any nuclear capability remained, he responded that the battle damage assessment (BDA) was still ongoing and it was too early to say.

The post attack satellite photos that I saw from the BBC showed a bunch of big holes but not obvious total destruction at Fordo. But that's what you would expect with these bombs. They're designed to penetrate and explode deep underground.

So now what? Iran has declared that it will close the Strait of Hormuz through which an enormous amount of the world's oil passes. There are three US carrier groups in the region so It's not clear to me how they think they're going to accomplish that. Regardless the Stock Market should be a major disaster tomorrow.

Iran can't just do nothing so I suppose we will have to wait and see.

One last thing, Trump is a fucking idiot,

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Clair Obscur Expedition 33 is a video game that is something of a phenomenon at the moment not the least of which because it was developed by a small studio and is being sold for a reasonable $49.99. A number of sites are declaring it a shoo-in for Game of the Year (GOTY).

I just finished the game after 60 hours. Honestly, near the end I just wanted to get it over with to see how the story ended. I see no reason to play it again. I find this lack of replay value a definite negative. Hell, I even played Avowed three times and that took a lot of endurance.

It has a number of very good things about it. The music is haunting, the graphics are surreal, the story is clever and the voice acting is top notch but it's not a good game. The game play is repetitive and downright boring after a while. The boss battles are too long for a game that crashes with some frequency. I find the real time dodge and parry approach a problem. This is supposed to be a turn based game but the deeper you get into it the more your party's survival depends upon your reflexes and remembering what sequence of attacks your current enemy uses. The bottom line is that It's basically a story interrupted by combat. If you win the combat the story continues. If you lose the combat, you go back, get stronger and try again. You then rinse and repeat until you win the combat and the story can continue.

I think it's better than a lot of the stuff that has been published recently and I would certainly recommend it to people who like story based games. But GOTY? Perhaps, because the competition is pretty lackluster at the moment.

So I decided that I wanted a Copy of my College Transcript

Why you ask? Who the hell knows? It just popped into my head one day. So I found this website called Parchment who would contact your school, request the transcript and send it wherever you wanted. The second part was easy because I wanted it.

Still, $9.30 sounded like a bargain if they did all the contacting of the college. So I made an account, typed in my information and indicated that I had graduated from Hunter College of the City University of New York in June of 1969.

A day or two later I got an e-mail from Hunter saying that they couldn't locate my records. OK, that was interesting. They wanted to know if my name changed and asked me to verify the dates. Well, the dates were 1965 to 1969. As for my name, well there a couple of possibilities. Was I using my middle name, middle initial or maybe even a Jr?

So I checked my diploma. Oops, much to my surprise my diploma actually said Lehman College, Formerly Hunter College in the Bronx.

Now I always thought I had been the last graduating class from Hunter College at the Bronx campus and my wife had been the first graduating class from Lehman College. Apparently that was not correct.

So I apologized to Hunter and canceled my order with Parchment. They gave me back my $9.30.

I decided the hell with it but that itch reappeared about two weeks later and I added Lehman College to my Parchment account, paid my $9.30, and put in a request from them.

I got crickets. Finally I looked at my Parchment account and it said that Lehman couldn't locate my records either. I did go to college; I have a diploma and everything. The problem was Parchment insisted that I should get an e-mail from Lehman and I hadn't.

I filled out another problem report from Parchment and they sent me an e-mail essentially saying that I should contact Lehman directly. Since the whole idea of going through Parchment was to avoid having to do that, I checked off the option that said I was no longer interested. I figured they could keep the $9.30 this time.

About two weeks later I get an e-mail from Parchment that Lehman had provided my transcript and I had 30 days to download it which I promptly did.

In reviewing the transcript it became apparent that memories aren't always accurate. For instance, I swore that I got an A in Advanced Calculus but I only got a B. There were also a couple of courses that I had absolutely no memory of taking.

The other interesting thing was I clearly remembered having gotten an Artium Baccalaureatus (AB) degree rather than a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree although they are essentially the same. Yet, my diploma clearly said Bachelor of Arts. So were did this AB thing come from?

There on my transcript, in the box that identified my degree, was AB.

Israel and Iran

The two are going at it in serious terms. Israel has bombed nuclear sites in and around Teheran and have apparently taken out several high ranking Iranian military officers. However the Iranians have apparently shot down two F-35s which no one thought they were capable of doing.

Iran has retaliated with missiles and drones.

The US has been helping Israel to shoot down the Iranian counter measures and has moved two aircraft carriers into the region.

Not surprisingly the stock market is not happy about this especially given Iranian threats to shut the Straits of Hormuz.

In other words just another friendly day in the fucking Middle East.

Riots in Los Angeles

People in LA are not happy with what they consider strong arm tactics by ICE in rounding up illegal immigrants. ICE claims they're criminals and they're simply making the streets safer but the protestors say that's bullshit and it's just plain hardworking people being arrested. They're also claiming that those taken into custody are not being allowed to talk to family or legal counsel.

Every operation has two considerations. The first is whether or not the objective is positive or negative and the second is whether the procedure being used are right or wrong. 

I think both sides in LA need to consider the second part.

Trump has nationalized and deployed National Guard troops and has a contingent of Marines prepared to go in as well. Deploying the National Guard to quell unrest or rioting is not unusual. However deploying the Marines is another issue altogether. What is unusual is the Guard being deployed by the president rather than the governor. However, 10 USC 12406 allows the president to nationalize and deploy the National Guard under three specific circumstances. 

(1) the United States, or any of the Commonwealths or possessions, is invaded or is in danger of invasion by a foreign nation;

(2) there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States; or

(3) the President is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States;

Trump is claiming authorization under the second prong "there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States." Should be interesting to see what the courts have to say about this.