bobbourque.bsky.social
@bobbourque.bsky.social
I’ve been a lawyer and a scientist, but not in that order
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As luck has it, I'm writing about Grant's Attorney General Amos Akerman, who said that Reconstruction required a firm hand with lawbreakers.

"It is the business of a judge to terrify evil men, not to coax them.”
Maybe federal judges will realize it's time to stop dicking around and time to start throwing people in jail themselves.
April 25, 2025 at 3:22 PM
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I invented a new phone to help save time in the morning
April 19, 2025 at 1:45 PM
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CARNEY: “.. we have to prepare for America’s threats to our very sovereignty. They want our land, our resources, they want our water, they want our country.” 🇨🇦

@politico.com
www.politico.com/news/2025/04...
April 19, 2025 at 2:45 PM
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My adult daughter Rachel works everyday, pays taxes, loves going to movies with her friends, and listens to awful (IMO) music.

Our U.S. Dept HHS has lost all of its humanity, compassion, and intellectual curiosity
April 17, 2025 at 11:22 AM
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This, from the Holocaust Memorial Museum.
April 14, 2025 at 8:53 PM
This is grotesque
We've reached the point where Republicans are flying to El Salvador to visit one of the most vicious prisons in the world to have photo ops so they can prove their loyalty to the President of the United States.
April 16, 2025 at 6:52 PM
Astonishing is a good way to describe it
The Justice Department states that it cannot “forcibly extract an alien from the domestic custody of a foreign sovereign nation” and strongly suggests that it cannot—and will not—do anything further to bring Abrego Garcia back home.

An astonishing filing: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
April 14, 2025 at 11:23 PM
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The Justice Department states that it cannot “forcibly extract an alien from the domestic custody of a foreign sovereign nation” and strongly suggests that it cannot—and will not—do anything further to bring Abrego Garcia back home.

An astonishing filing: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
April 14, 2025 at 10:09 PM
Come on NY Times. Courts don’t “urge.” Courts order. There is a court ORDER that the Administration is flagrantly violating by pretending that it can’t do anything to get him back in the US.
April 14, 2025 at 8:22 PM
Amen
Any Democratic politician who doesn't understand Nayib Bukele's grave offense against the sovereignty of the American people and constitutional order and say as much publicly should have no future in elected office. talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/bukel...
Bukele’s Offense Against the American People
Here’s how I look at today’s White House spectacle. I don’t really...
talkingpointsmemo.com
April 14, 2025 at 8:04 PM
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Harvard squarely standing up to the Trump. Its lawyers to the regime: “The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights. Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the […]

[Original post on mastodon.social]
April 14, 2025 at 5:37 PM
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The president is conducting a press event with the primary purpose of flouting the decisions of the courts and the letter and spirit of U.S. law. It is a press event to celebrate the Constitutional crisis and serial violation of human rights he has set in motion.
COLLINS: Can President Bukele weigh in on this? Do you plan to return Garcia?

BUKELE: How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? Of course I'm not going to do it. The question is preposterous

TRUMP: These are sick people
April 14, 2025 at 4:13 PM
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Exiling people beyond the protection of US law without due process is not only unconstitutional, it's a rejection of the entire American revolutionary project. Sending people "beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences" is one of the grievances enumerated in the Declaration of Independence.
UPDATE: Trump seems to say for the first time that U.S. lacks ability to recover those sent to El Salvador if government deports someone erroneously. Says it’s totally up to Bukele. Seems to leave out that he could … ask Bukele to help fix an error. www.politico.com/news/2025/04...
April 13, 2025 at 12:28 AM
Good thread
What’s this new executive order directing the Department of Defense to take over huge amounts of public land on the border? Simple: it’s yet another abuse of emergency powers—this one seemingly designed to make an end-run around the Posse Comitatus Act. 1/17 www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...
Military Mission for Sealing the Southern Border of the United States and Repelling Invasions
NATIONAL SECURITY PRESIDENTIAL MEMORANDUM/NSPM-4 MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE               THE SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR               THE
www.whitehouse.gov
April 12, 2025 at 7:27 PM
LOL!
Approach each day with the childlike wonder of a New York Times reporter reading a new press release from a demented 30-something right-wing basement blogger wholly devoted to the reversal of civil rights
April 11, 2025 at 2:03 PM
Good thread
Autistic traits are genetic and exist across every single human population, which means they had already evolved before Homo Sapiens migrated out of Africa. Autistic traits exist because they conferred our ancestors an evolutionary advantage due to its association with systematic thinking. 1/x
RFK Jr: "By September we will know what has caused the autism epidemic and we will be able to eliminate those exposures."
April 11, 2025 at 1:50 PM
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Trump: "Have you noticed that lots of law firms have been signing up with Trump? $100 million. Another $100 million for -- ah -- damages that they've done ... they give me a lot of money considering they've done nothing wrong."
April 8, 2025 at 8:26 PM
I’m no fan of Rand Paul, but he is right. The tariffs are based on there being an “emergency.” There is no emergency, and there is no basis for the tariffs, or any other “emergency” measure.
Rand Paul just called Trump a tyrant. 👇
April 7, 2025 at 7:42 PM
Judge Thacker, Fourth Circuit, today: Government’s action “snatching” Garcia off the street and sending him to El Salvador without due process is “unconscionable”
April 7, 2025 at 5:30 PM
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Good article but calling it “Trump’s fight against antisemitism” is to agree that this is what he is actually doing, when he insults Jews with whom he disagrees, surrounds himself with people who do Nazi salutes, echo the Great Replacement theory, demonize Soros, etc.
www.nytimes.com/2025/04/02/u...
Trump’s Fight Against Antisemitism Has Become Fraught for Many Jews
American Jews have watched with both alarm and enthusiasm as strong-arm tactics, including arrests of activists, have been deployed in their name.
www.nytimes.com
April 5, 2025 at 11:53 AM
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I attribute it to Trump's skill as a conman. The marks always believe they are in on the con.
Bankers and CEOs’ surprise and dismay over Trump’s massive tariffs appears genuine.

They really did believe in an Imaginary Reliable Trump, one who was tossing meat to the rubes but would do what a Wall St. CEO would do, and told each other this to the point it was socially-reinforced groupthink.
Tariffs Expose Wall Street's Misplaced Faith in Trump
Bankers and business leaders imagine a more reliable, less protectionist version of the president than the one that actually exists. Now they're finding out the hard way.
www.arcdigital.media
April 5, 2025 at 11:53 AM
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Bessent is a craven careerist and coward if he believes Trump is harming the economy and says nothing and goes along with this.
Talked to a business friend deeply involved in CEO world, knows Trump and Scott Bessent. Calls Trump “a drunk driver taking the economy off the cliff into a needless recession,’ says Bessent told him he agrees. Predicts “he’ll be the shortest tenured Sec of Treasury in history.”
April 5, 2025 at 12:19 PM
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I get the desire to explain what the Trump administration is doing through rational political science, I really do. But such an approach misses a fundamental truth. danieldrezner.substack.com/p/there-are-...
There Are No Adults in the Room
A brief note on the inherent media problem with covering galactically stupid policies.
danieldrezner.substack.com
April 5, 2025 at 11:50 AM
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What is taught to senior military leaders at our nation’s War Colleges is that a nation’s power emanates from four areas:
-Strength of diplomacy
-Strength of economy
-Strength of its military
-Strength of truthful public information.

All combine to determine power on the global stage.
April 5, 2025 at 12:22 PM