Does this mean that the 15-23 million "migrants" here illegally are each entitled to individual hearings? It seems they are, under this reasoning (UPDATED)

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BREAKING: Anti-Trump Judge Makes Another Outrageous Ruling

“These are just friends we haven’t met yet; but we will, as the decades go by”

Exactly as the democrats intended when they opened the border

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg is at it again. In a mind-boggling 37-page decision, he has blocked the Trump administration from swiftly deporting members of the notorious Tren de Aragua gang.

“Boasberg's memorandum opinion, which accompanied the order, maintains that these individuals must have "the opportunity to challenge their designation as alien enemies." In other words, we're giving suspected gang members a chance to argue that they're actually upstanding citizens who deserve to stay in our country.

“Now he has the audacity to say that the court “need not resolve the thorny question of whether the judiciary has the authority to assess this claim in the first place.” This is an obvious reaction to the Trump administration’s position that district court judges don’t have the authority to micromanage the president of the United States or the executive branch.”

Boasberg’s opinion continues:

That is because Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on another equally fundamental theory: before they may be deported, they are entitled to individualized hearings to determine whether the Act applies to them at all. As the Government itself concedes, the awesome power granted by the Act may be brought to bear only on those who are, in fact, “alien enemies.” And the Supreme Court and this Circuit have long maintained that federal courts are equipped to adjudicate that question when individuals threatened with detention and removal challenge their designation as such. Because the named Plaintiffs dispute that they are members of Tren de Aragua, they may not be deported until a court has been able to decide the merits of their challenge. Nor may any members of the provisionally certified class be removed until they have been given the opportunity to challenge their designations as well. The Motion to Vacate will thus be denied.

UPDATE: Burning Madolf posted this in the comments, but it’d be shame if it were hidden there.

Full Tweet:

An FBI attorney pled guilty to a felony for doctoring evidence and lying to the FISA court so the FBI could continue to illegally spy on President Trump and his campaign as part of the Russian collusion hoax. Crossfire Hurricane is the biggest scandal in American history.

DC Obama Judge Jeb Boasberg, who served on the FISA court, ignored the sentencing recommendation of imprisonment and gave FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith probation. This is when Jeb Boasberg destroyed his credibility. Don’t let Jeb Boasberg fool anyone that he is somehow the guardian of the court’s integrity. Jeb Boasberg is the Democrats’ court jester.

Seems like an idea that’s overdue, but you could change my mind, perhaps

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“And I also want a date”

(Hell, I don’t know why these two people have five arms — ask Grok)

I can see this working either way; in some instances to the advantage of the buyer, who sees the numbers he’s bidding against and doesn’t go wildly over the asked price just to ensure he gets the house. But in other cases it’s the seller who comes out ahead when bidders see that they’ll have to up their game. Might be a wash, in the general, if not the specific, and I’m inclined to favor transparency. Realtor readers, buyers, sellers, what say you?

Real estate website gives buyers a window on competitive bids for Connecticut listings

[I disable Java on the Safari browser to get arund the GT paywall - you may have an easier way]

As open houses gear up in Connecticut with the arrival of the spring real estate selling season, a free website is opening windows on what rival bidders are offering for those homes — with a Massachusetts startup looking to add more brokerages using it.

Final Offer is being used in Connecticut by William Pitt Sotheby's International Realty based in Stamford, with a statewide map of listings online at www.finaloffer.com. Final Offer makes the information available for free to registered users on bids for residential properties, with text alerts available for when a new bid is entered on any property. That gives house hunters instant intel, allowing them to mull whether to raise their own offer on the spot.

>>>>>

William Pitt Sotheby's broker Colette Kabasakalian is a fan, saying it peels away what she calls "hush-hush" negotiations that frustrates some buyers. A seller is not obligated to accept the highest offer — other motivations could be in play such as an all-cash offer or a buyer waiving an inspection — but buyers at least know where their offer ranks compared to others.

"It is a unique way of showing complete transparency when it comes to bidding wars — and we've been in bidding wars for many years now," said Kabasakalian, a broker in the firm's Ridgefield office. "A lot of times, buyers are frustrated because they may have lost a house by $1,000 and didn't know it. And they they could have gone higher."

A Ridgefield client's property ended up selling for $275,000 above the asking price based on counteroffers from buyers using the platform, which Kabasakalian said convinced her sellers can benefit as well.

>>>>>

In addition to William Pitt Sotheby's, others with Connecticut listings on Final Offer as of Friday included properties listed by agents with RE/MAX Rise based in Naugatuck, and Century 21 Shutters & Sails which has offices in Stonington, Groton and East Lyme.

We’re in for a battle as these cases move forward

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ICYMI: We've got updates on the Georgetown student being targeted for deportation as well as the judge trying to stop it

President Donald Trump has apparently run afoul of the almighty judiciary cabal that rules the country yet again, as yet another federal judge has blocked an attempt by the administration to deport a Georgetown University student for allegedly spreading pro-Hamas propaganda.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, Badar Khan Suri faced deportation for "sharing Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media."

By which we mean he likes to hang out with actual terrorist leaders:

Bonus material:

Last fall, when Virginia cleared the names of 1,600 noncitizens off the voter rolls to protect against election fraud, Giles ordered the names be reinstated. The U.S. Supreme Court had to intervene to allow Virginia to ban foreigners from voting.

We’re still paying the price, and will be for decades to come

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Never forget, never forgive.

Five Years Ago Today

Boris Johnson orders UK lockdown to be enforced by police.

Boris Johnson will order police to enforce a strict coronavirus lockdown, with a ban on gatherings of more than two people and strict limits on exercise, as he told the British public: “You must stay at home.”

The prime minister ratcheted up Britain’s response with an address to the nation on Monday evening, warning that people would only be allowed outside to buy food or medication, exercise alone once a day, or to travel to work if absolutely necessary.

All non-essential shops will close with immediate effect, as will playgrounds and libraries, he said in the address from Downing Street.

After days of being accused of sending mixed messages about what the public should do, Johnson significantly escalated his language as he urged people to comply with the more stringent measures.

“You should not be meeting friends. If your friends ask you to meet, you should say no. You should not be meeting family members who do not live in your home. You should not be going shopping except for essentials like food and medicine – and you should do this as little as you can,” he said.

“If you don’t follow the rules, the police will have the powers to enforce them, including through fines and dispersing gatherings.”

The bulk of the article is devoted to the hypocrisy of Britain’s ruling class, the way they carried on partying while confining the peasants to their quarters, but I’m more focused on the shutdown itself and the devestation it caused. The author links to this article in The American Conservative that discusses Boris Johnson, but has lessons for Americans as well:

Boris Johnson Missed His Churchill Moment. The pandemic was Boris’s biggest test. He failed.

The entire world had surrendered to the People’s Republic of China, adopting its totalitarian disease-control strategy, and unlike France or Poland in World War II, we surrendered without a shot being fired. If any man in the world was well-positioned to stand against this, it was the garrulous British renegade, Boris Johnson. Instead, the United Kingdom became a police state.

Under Johnson, Britain had some of the harshest pandemic lockdowns in the developed world. The crazy thing, though, is that they almost didn’t. 

In those fatal few weeks of March 2020, Johnson’s government was much slower to impose all-consuming measures than most other European countries. When Johnson finally announced the nationwide lockdown on March 23, a CNN analyst asked, “What took Boris Johnson so long?” The reason, the analyst concluded, was that Johnson is “not naturally comfortable with removing anyone's personal liberties.” Throughout his long political career, Johnson had shown a libertarian streak and a rare tendency towards common sense. Like Trump, his instincts were correct.

Johnson was ultimately inspired to change course by Britain’s Fauci, Dr. Neil Ferguson, an Imperial College London researcher who worked for the government until he was forced to resign for breaking lockdowns himself to sleep with his married mistress. Ferguson, in a hugely influential study published in March 2020, recommended “social distancing of the entire population” for 18 months or more until a vaccine was developed.

This was a solution pioneered by the People’s Republic of China, which at the time was unprecedented in Britain or any other Western nation. But Ferguson was itching to implement it, and he later marveled at how easy it had been to import Chinese policy: “[China is] a communist one party state, we said. We couldn’t get away with it in Europe, we thought… and then Italy did it. And we realised we could… If China had not done it, the year would have been very different.”

When Johnson’s idol, Winston Churchill, first came to power in 1940, France was in the process of falling to Nazi Germany. Most of the other great European powers had already fallen. For a time, Britain stood alone in the world, the sole defender of the West, with Churchill at its helm. Even when his own ministers urged him to accept Hitler’s peace offer, Churchill held firm to his convictions and chose to fight on.

This is the laudable mantle that Johnson has, all his life, aspired to shoulder. He faced just such a defining moment in March of 2020. The entire world had surrendered to the People’s Republic of China, adopting its totalitarian disease-control strategy, and unlike France or Poland in World War II, we surrendered without a shot being fired. If any man in the world was well-positioned to stand against this, it was the garrulous British renegade, Boris Johnson. 

Instead, the United Kingdom became a police state.

…. As in the United States, lockdowns ruined a great many lives in Britain. The economic and social costs of this colossal mistake will take decades to fully untangle. Worse, Johnson helped legitimize the principle of public-health-over-freedom that will surely rear its ugly head again and again, haunting us for decades to come. The proper disease metaphor here, perhaps, is herpes.

….

One can imagine a world in which Boris Johnson had defiantly announced that he would not shut down the United Kingdom, and that people would be free to go about their business, taking whatever personal health precautions they saw fit. He might have even invoked that most British of slogans: “Keep calm and carry on.” Of course, he would have been very unpopular for a time. The media would have called him a lot of bad names. But it would have been the Churchillian act, to stand stolidly by the truth, to “never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense,” to “never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”

Well, not the entire world: How Sweden proved the world wrong about lockdowns: The evidence is clear: authoritarian restrictions did not save more lives.

(A bad) sign of the times

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DoorDash, Klarna sign deal for deferred, installment food delivery payments.

DoorDash and Klarna, a company that offers “buy now, pay later” programs, have come together on a deal for deferred and installment food delivery payments.

“In the coming months, DoorDash customers will be able to enjoy Klarna’s seamless range of payment options when purchasing groceries, retail, and even DashPass Annual Plan – on DoorDash.com or through the DoorDash app,” according to a webpage on the deal on Klarna’s website.

It’s DoorDash’s first BNPL alliance and gives users of the restaurant delivery service a new way to pay for meals. Klarna said in a press release that DoorDash customers will be able to pay in full at checkout, split payments into four equal interest-free installments, or defer to dates that align conveniently with payday schedules.

“Our partnership with DoorDash marks an important milestone in Klarna’s expansion into everyday spending categories,” Klarna’s Chief Commercial Officer David Sykes said on the page.

“By offering smarter, more flexible payment solutions for groceries, takeout, and retail essentials, we’re making convenience even more accessible for millions of Americans,” Sykes added.

And as usual, reality marches behind The Bee:

HotAir’s Duane Patterson is less than lukewarm on this new way to finance a fast food meal:

No, no, no. A thousand times, no. Do not listen to the siren song of "pay the full amount in 7 days and it's interest-free." Do not fall for the APR starts at 0% line. Why? Because if you're occupying the station in life where you have to engage in the equivalent of a payroll advance loan for your chicken nugget meal, you're not qualifying for 0% APR. You're going to be at the other end of the spectrum, which is around 33%. And that's already on top of Klarna tacking on another 10% service charge on top of Door Dash's 10-15% delivery charge, which is on top of your fast food check, which is elevated to an absurd amount after paying entry-level employees $20 dollars an hour. Right here is where I draw the line. 

My goal is not normalizing snobbery. But the cold, hard reality is if you're feeling the need to finance your Happy Meal, literally adapting 100-year-old Wimpy economics meant to be a joke well into the 21st Century with all of its high-tech conveniences, it's time to think about stuff you can make at home. It's a hell of a lot cheaper, and it's an awful lot better for you, in most cases. 

Patterson certainly offers something to chew on.

"Unhinged" — sort of redundant, no?

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Unhinged trans-rights protester lunges at conservative NYC mom at off-the-rails education meeting

The troubling incident happened Wednesday at District 2’s Community Education Council meeting on the Upper East Side when an irate woman refused to let conservative parent advocate Maud Maron leave, video shows.

“She lunged at me, she barred the door with her body and she said I couldn’t leave,” said Maron, who is now calling on the feds to ensure safety at the group’s increasingly chaotic meetings.

The irate woman, a parent of two trans kids, and other protesters followed then followed Maron from the building and through the school yard.

Because who and what says “boys in girls’ shorts sports better than Hamas supporters and Covimaniacs?

Face masks, Palestinian scarves and birthday hats for the one-year anniversary of the protests, chanting and singing variations of Queen’s “We Will Rock You” and the hymn “This Little Light of Mine” that focused on trans kids and voting out CEC members.

One more (and the last, until the next one)

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Burning Teslas

So the sum is that the vandals, the climate alarmism that boosts Tesla sales, the subsidy pushers in the federal government, and the owner-victims are all on the Left. Fewer Republicans have the money to buy such expensive vehicles, and anyway, they don’t want to switch from their internal combustion engine. They can mostly stand aside and watch incendiary lefties attack each other.

One consequence is that Tesla owners now festoon their cars and trucks with bumper stickers bearing such slogans as, “I bought this car before we knew Elon was crazy,” and “Vintage Tesla, pre-madness edition.” The stickers serve two purposes, one boastful and the other appeasing. They signal that the owner is of a liberal and tolerant ilk, hates Musk and Trump, and is thus on the side of the angels (and the fire bombers). They are also a sort of defensive manifesto, implying to the vandals, “Don’t wreck my ride; I’m on your side.”

Given the presumed political leanings of (most) Tesla owners, recent attacks on them and their cars are giving a new meaning to auto-phagy

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