Saturday, April 12, 2025

I personally find it hard to sort through the news to identify both the stories that are important and the sources that are trustworthy. I don't have it all figured out, but maybe people would be interested in seeing what I'm reading and the news I find noteworthy. Rather than spamming social media with individual links, I thought I'd start collecting that info and sharing it periodically here. If you want, I believe you can also subscribe to receive the posts via email as they are published. I hope you find it helpful, and please feel free to let me know what you think.

Since this is my first post, the link collection was less organic than it will be going forward, and I do not expect to typically include this much commentary from me.

Dystopia Watch

The Trump administration snatching up people and sending them to an El Salvadoran prison (CECOT) without due process is unconscionable. The conditions there amount to torture. They're doing this to people present in the US legally and with no known criminal history anywhere. Most persons sent there are from Venezuela, and some unknown portion of them have never been to El Salvador. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem says these people should stay there "for the rest of their lives." I don't think this is an unreasonable thing to say:

Kilmar Abrego Garcia was one of the people sent to the El Salvadoran torture prison. The Trump administration admits he was sent there by mistake. He had been living legally in Maryland where he had been for 14 years, had a federal work permit and was lawfully employed, is married to a US citizen, has children who are US citizens, and had previously obtained an order forbidding his deportation to El Salvador because he faces gang persecution if he returned there.

This week, SCOTUS largely affirmed the district court's order commanding the Trump admin to return Abrego Garcia, stating that the order commanding the Trump admin to "facilitate" his return is proper. However, SCOTUS went on to state that ordering the administration to "effectuate" his return might go to too far, depending on what "effectuate" means, and that the trial court should clarify what it means "with due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs."

If that sounds to you like an invitation for the Trump administration to play more games, that is how the Trump administration saw it. At a hearing on Friday April 11, 2025, the government decided to play games, stating it did not have answers for the court regarding where Mr. Abrego Garcia is, what efforts the government took to get him back, and what efforts the government will take in the future. The judge ordered daily updates on those topics and set another hearing for Tuesday, April 15.

Separately, SCOTUS ruled that the Trump administration's decisions about deportations under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 are subject to judicial review and that persons to be deported under the AEA are entitled to an opportunity to challenge that decision. Those things are both good.

But the Court further held that the nature of the challenge in the case at issue was improper, and that deportees need to bring habeas cases instead, a procedure that will likely be difficult for most deportees take advantage of. Reading between the lines, I suspect that SCOTUS wanted to vacate the order to try to prevent the trial court from sanctioning the government, which while totally justified might create additional headaches for SCOTUS.

Notably, Justice Sotomayor stated in dissent that "[t]he implication of the Government’s position is that not only noncitizens but also United States citizens could be taken off the streets, forced onto planes, and confined to foreign prisons with no opportunity for redress if judicial review is denied unlawfully before removal." Similarly, I think this is a fair way to think about the ruling:

Notably, both of these SCOTUS opinions came in appeals of temporary restraining orders, which typically aren't supposed to be appealable at all.

Marco Rubio admits he's deporting Khalil Mahmoud because of his beliefs.

The Economy

Here's a story that I don't think is getting nearly enough attention: Trump's tariffs (presumably in conjunction with the other things he has done to harm hinder the long-term financial health of the government and the health of the US economy) appear to be causing capital to exit US treasuries and may threaten the dollar's status as the world's global reserve currency. Here's a reddit comment--read with caution, but it seems plausible--that posits a theory of what is going on. I'm not sure it's possible to overstate how bad the dollar losing reserve currency status would be.

Trump and his policies are tanking tourism to the US.

Birthright Citizenship

You may not know, but there's been some hubbub in legal academia around Trump's executive order attacking birthright citizenship. The overwhelming consensus is that the order is obviously unconstitutional, but there has been an effort in a small segment legal academia to frame the order plausibly valid. Law professor Evan Bernick has been doing yeoman's work explaining why those defending the executive order are extremely wrong. I think a non-legal audience can follow his points, and I suggest you check out his first, second, third, and fourth blog posts on the topic.

Corruption Watch

Democrats call for investigation of Trump administration for insider trading following Trump's partial pause of his newly announced tariffs. I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if Trump people were trading on non-public info, but I don't really see Dems citing specific evidence of it, though here's a reddit post that attempts to do so.

Trump announced the US will stop enforcing a law that makes it illegal to bribe foreign government officials.

It's been overshadowed by Elon Musk's slightly larger campaign contributions, but last cycle political giving by cryptocurrency interests topped $245M, dwarfing contributions from any other industry. Since taking office, Trump has dropped more than a dozen criminal cases against crypto firms, and this week DOJ announced it is disbanding the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team, a group of experts focused on the criminal misuse of cryptocurrencies.

Miscellanea

Rolling Stone published an oral history of the movie What About Bob? (Sorry if you can't get past the paywall.)