Valkygrrl tipped me off to the Supreme Court case of Patel v. Garland, a 5-4 decision involving both ethics and law. It’s almost too complicated to describe, so I recommend you read it, including Justice Gorsuch’s dissent, here.

It’s a terrific example of where the role of the Court diverges from what the average citizen thinks it is. The majority held that federal law bars courts from reviewing a judge’s alleged factual error in an immigration matter: Patel was held to have forfeited his chance at getting back on a path to citizenship because he had—mistakenly, he claims—stated falsely that he was a citizen on a key document. The trial judge ruled that this was intentional; Gorsuch states that this was an obvious error on the judge’s part, and that justice demands a judicial reversal. The conservative majority held that the decision could not be reviewed one way or the other.

“Today, the court holds that a federal bureaucracy can make an obvious factual error, one that will result in an individual’s removal from this country, and nothing can be done about it,” Gorsuch wrote. “No court may even hear the case. It is a bold claim promising dire consequences for countless lawful immigrants.” But the majority, in opinion by Justice Barrett, said federal law bans judicial review of decisions by immigration judges that deny discretionary relief from deportation, and the ban also prevents judicial review of factual findings underlying the denial of relief.

As the Waco Kid (“Blazing Saddles”) would say, “Boy, is she strict!”

I don’t understand why Gorsuch is so convinced Patel is being honest when he says he checked the wrong box by accident. Nor was he exactly a “lawful immigrant”: he came to the U.S. illegally to begin with.

1. From the “Quotes that would instantly make up my mind about who to vote for” Dept.: Kathy Burnett, one of the Republicans on the ballot in the GOP primary to determine who runs for the open U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania (Dr. Oz is among her competition, and the Trump endorsed candidate), was asked if she would support whoever got the nomination if she didn’t, and said,

“I have no intentions of supporting globalists. I believe we have ran out of room on this runway for this spaceship. I believe we have very little rope left to just roll the dice and we’ll see how it all works out on the other end. I believe our country is in trouble. I don’t believe we have much longer and I believe what I have done is I have made it possible where Pennsylvanians do not have to hold their nose and vote for the lesser of two evils this time. I don’t think we have room to just vote for any old warm body with an R next to their name. I think we can do better than that.”

The fact that someone who talks and thinks like that can even be this close to a seat in the Senate is sufficient reason to start looking for a real spaceship.

2. New York, New York! Continue reading →

Well, I’ve about had it. I just spent 45 minutes that I will want back on my deathbed trying to find an actual link to the Buffalo shooter’s “alleged manifesto.” Maybe you can find it, and good for you, but it should not be that difficult, and I am sick of this crap. These sources are counting on most readers simply relying on their interpretations, and their interpretations cannot and must not be trusted. The word from Protect Democrats Media Central went out that there was an opportunity to politicize the shooting, which left 10 dead, by blaming it on Fox News and Tucker Carlson. In one particularly odious headline in Rolling Stone, this reasoning was used to impugn all Republicans: “The Buffalo Shooter Isn’t a ‘Lone Wolf.’ He’s a Mainstream Republican.” Nice. Yet I couldn’t find any such smear piece that allowed readers to read what was driving this theory.

Over at the reliably conservative PJ Media, Matt Margolis provided his debunking of the Fox/Tucker narrative, writing in part,

A search of the entire manifesto also yields no mentions of Tucker Carlson and specifically mentions “the internet” as where he got his beliefs…the shooter describes himself as “authoritarian left-wing,” but the left [is] trying to blame ‘right-wing extremism’…Later in the manifest, the shooter insists, “I would prefer to call myself a populist. But you can call me an ethno-nationalist eco-fascist national socialist if you want, I wouldn’t disagree with you.” He also repeatedly attacks capitalists, and rejected the conservative label because, he wrote, “conservativism is corporatism in disguise, I want no part of it.”

But Margolis doesn’t link to a copy of the document either! Why should I trust him? Why should I, or anyone, trust any of these biased, manipulative messengers? Let me see this “alleged” manifesto, and I’ll decide who to blame. Believe me, I’ll be happy to point the finger at Tucker Carlson or Fox News if the text supports that. Now over at Liberty Unyielding, a right-wing site, the case is made that “The Great Replacement” is really a Left-inspired concept, and implies that this makes the other side of the ideological divide blameworthy for the 18-year-old’s rampage. But that site only links to a single page of the 180 page document!

I’m sick of our rotten, unprofessional, arrogant, unethical communications and information networks and agents. They are all untrustworthy. I detest every one of them.

Continue reading →