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muffindoin.bsky.social
much ado about muffin
@muffindoin.bsky.social
370 followers 170 following 1.5K posts
no relation to the muffin man
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muffindoin.bsky.social
the dad is in immense distress and possibly suicidal over the idea of being deported to China, so ICE took his son away
Mr. Gao said that his client had refused to board an ICE flight to China in September because he was fearful of facing government retribution for fleeing the country. Government records show that ICE tried again in October to get Mr. Zheng to board a plane to China, but he refused. When immigration agents arrested Mr. Zheng last month, he became aggressive with officers and hit his forehead against a wall, according to internal records. Several officers placed him in handcuffs, and Mr. Zheng told them that he wanted to die, the records show.
December 4, 2025 at 8:46 PM
muffindoin.bsky.social
crucial support for my "elections are mostly vibes" thesis
There’s still a lesson to be learned. The winds of politics are strong and chaotic. It seems likely that Trump didn’t win because of his ideology, but in spite of it; if voters were excited for his policy agenda, his approval rating wouldn’t have tanked once he started implementing it. The best theory, with the most data behind it, is that Trump rode a wave of simmering resentment to power. People were upset about inflation and whatever else, and they voted for upheaval. A lot of pundits and analysts get this backwards. They think of policy as a method for winning in politics: you propose popular policies, and political victories follow. But it’s often the other way around: you win power due to anything from charisma to sheer circumstance, and you use it to implement good policy.
December 2, 2025 at 8:39 PM
muffindoin.bsky.social
he locked QTs, but while I mostly agree with this, the actual underlying problem is the law. ICE/CBP will continue to exist as long as we have a body of immigration law primarily focused on criminalization and deterrence. can't abolish them without massive legal reform
The problem with ICE is not that it's targeting people who aren't criminals. The problem with ICE is that it's an unaccountable secret deportation police. It cannot be reformed under a better president. It can be made less terrible, but the instrument of repression remains for the next tyrant.
November 26, 2025 at 5:36 PM
muffindoin.bsky.social
someone fucked up pretty bad if DHS isn't even pretending to offer a legitimate rationale. "standard questioning" is secondary inspection at the airport, not throwing him in a hold room for 3 days
Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, said by text Tuesday morning that Dr. Abedini “was detained for standard questioning and was released.”
November 25, 2025 at 10:27 PM
muffindoin.bsky.social
nobody should know this much about RFK Jr's cum
Rockwell Freedom of Speech
November 22, 2025 at 7:01 PM
muffindoin.bsky.social
screenshot of a kid on TikTok with the caption "Was just sick on the floor"
November 22, 2025 at 5:03 PM
muffindoin.bsky.social
this is not the face I was picturing to match that gnarly voice
Dean John Sauer, Solicitor General
November 5, 2025 at 3:25 PM
muffindoin.bsky.social
Stringer Bell we back up meme
November 5, 2025 at 2:20 AM
muffindoin.bsky.social
why does the headline say ICE when the second to last paragraph makes clear it was CBP
A spokesman for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not answer questions about the nature of the injuries McLaughlin said the agents suffered or whether the agency reviewed video footage before McLaughlin issued her statement. The officers who arrested Figueroa do not appear injured in video footage reviewed by the Tribune.
November 3, 2025 at 8:37 PM
muffindoin.bsky.social
love to casually spread a wild conspiracy to my 47K followers, amplified by a guy with 360K, and turn off replies and quotes so no one can correct me

bsky.app/profile/muff...
some doctor i've never heard of insinuating 1800 immigrants were murdered and put in a mass grave, amplified by popehat
October 29, 2025 at 9:36 PM
muffindoin.bsky.social
the NY Ave McDonald's has fallen
McDonald's and American flags at half mast
October 16, 2025 at 5:13 PM
muffindoin.bsky.social
George Washington laser eyes
October 15, 2025 at 3:23 PM
muffindoin.bsky.social
Eiichiro Oda reading this
Tanjiro from Demon Slayer looking at a phone with confusion and disgust
October 12, 2025 at 2:28 PM
muffindoin.bsky.social
Fifteen by Taylor Swift
October 11, 2025 at 4:52 AM
muffindoin.bsky.social
all respect to Marisa, I think the timing and tone of this memo is notable, but I wish the piece mentioned that the authority he's describing is clearly laid out by statute

www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/...
b) OFFICERS AND AGENTS.- (1) DESIGNATION.- The Secretary may designate employees of the Department of Homeland Security, including employees transferred to the Department from the Office of the Federal Protective Service of the General Services Administration pursuant to the Homeland Security Act of 2002, as officers and agents for duty in connection with the protection of property owned or occupied by the Federal Government and persons on the property, including duty in areas outside the proper to the extent necessary to protect the property and persons on the property.
October 10, 2025 at 5:07 PM
muffindoin.bsky.social
The Trump Administration wants 620,000+ people to lose several weeks of pay for the crime of being forbidden from working
After Government Executive reached out to the White House about the change on Monday evening, Axios on Tuesday reported that senior administration officials were developing guidance that furloughed federal workers are not entitled to back pay. The White House officials said it would take a novel interpretation of the back pay law and argue it applied only to the 2019 shutdown. The 2019 back pay measure-which Trump signed into law-explicitly stated that it applied to any employee furloughed during "any lapse in appropriations that begins on or after December 22, 2018." Previously, Congress had to affirmatively pass legislation after each shutdown to ensure furloughed workers were retroactively paid. More than 620,000 employees are currently furloughed, a number that will continue to climb as the shutdown drags on.
October 7, 2025 at 3:07 PM
muffindoin.bsky.social
time and place restrictions on speech? what's next, manner?
Free speech zones and now free speech hours? Are there free speech holidays next? Free speech overtime? What are the free speech benefits and is dental included?
October 6, 2025 at 6:47 PM
muffindoin.bsky.social
married an American citizen and tried to get lawful status repeatedly but couldn't
In 2017, records show, he married an American citizen in Florida. After the wedding, he twice filed for and received one-year work authorizations. He also submitted three more applications for a green card, according to ICE, all of which were denied for reasons the agency did not specify.
October 6, 2025 at 3:11 AM
muffindoin.bsky.social
Des Moines Register has a screenshot of his location in the locator

www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/e...
September 26, 2025 at 7:55 PM
muffindoin.bsky.social
Occam's Razor here is that the 450 were at Fort Bliss (which showed that message in the detainee locator for a while) and the 800 voluntarily departed or were subject to expedited removal (don't need a final order)
As of the end of August, the whereabouts of two-thirds of more than 1,800 men detained at Alligator Alcatraz during the month of July could not be determined by the Miami Herald. The Herald had obtained the names from two detainee rosters. Around 800 detainees showed no record on ICE’s online database. More than 450 listed no location and only instructed the user to “Call ICE for details” — a vague notation that attorneys said could mean that a detainee is still being processed, in the middle of a transfer between two sites or about to be deported. Some Alligator Alcatraz detainees who couldn’t be located in the ICE database might have been deported — even though the internal data obtained by the Herald show the vast majority of detainees didn’t have final orders of removal from a judge before entering the facility. Some of those deportations occurred as a result of detainees deciding to abandon their ongoing immigration cases to put an end to their detention at the facility and its harsh conditions, which included being held in chain-link cages in tents with little protection from the elements.
September 23, 2025 at 6:14 PM
muffindoin.bsky.social
so instead they're saying they "presume" Congress meant to give them authority to override IRS designations of 501c3 status for the purpose of PSLF relief and it would be "paradoxical" for that not to be the case. citation needed.
Background of the Illegality Doctrine The “illegality doctrine” imposes an implied requirement that organizations exempt from taxation under § 501(c)(3) must not have a substantial illegal purpose. This doctrine arises from a common-sense principle: Loss of government revenues from tax exemption is often justified on the grounds that tax-exempt organizations serve desirable public purposes and lessen the government's costs and burdens. As a corollary to this public benefit principle, tax exemption is not justified when an organization has an illegal purpose because the organization does not serve a public purpose, and the organization increases the government's costs and burdens. The illegality doctrine helps ensure that the government is not subsidizing activity that it aims to prevent. (9) A recent example of the application of the illegality doctrine, and a review of said application by a Federal court, is found in Iowaska Church of Healing v. Werfel, 105 F.4th 402 (D.C. Cir. 2024). In this case, the IRS denied an application for 501(c)(3) tax exempt status to an organization whose members' sincerely held religious beliefs involved the consumption of a hallucinogenic drug regulated by the Controlled Substances Act (“CSA”), because it determined that (1) the organization was formed in part for the illegal purpose of distributing a controlled substance; and (2) a substantial part of the organization's activities was in furtherance of that illegal purpose. (10) The D.C. Circuit upheld this decision on the basis that, regardless of the sincerity of its beliefs, until the organization obtained an exemption from the CSA, its primary organizational and operational purpose was facially illegal. (11) The Department's Proposed Changes to the Definition of Qualifying Employer Aligns With, and Are Justified on the Same Basis as, the IRS's Use of the Illegality Doctrine Through the Illegality Doctrine, the IRS excludes organizations engaged in illegal purposes or purposes that are against established public policy from tax exemption under § 501(c)(3) on the basis that they do not serve a public purpose. The Department's proposed changes to the definition of qualifying employer align directly with this approach by excluding organizations engaged in activities with a substantially illegal purpose from being included in the definition of qualifying employer, on the basis that such organizations are engaged in activities that are either explicit violations of State or Federal law or are otherwise in direct contravention of established public policy. Just as benefit to the public is an underlying justification for tax exemption, (12) the purpose of the PSLF program is to encourage individuals to enter and continue in full-time public service employment. (13) All of the activities included within the definition of substantial illegal purpose   (14) are either explicit violations of State or Federal law, and as such, are actions which do not serve the public good. Indeed, violations of law may increase government costs and burdens, which has the opposite effect of actions that actually promote the public good. To maintain internal coherence across the statutes at large, we presume that Congress would not have the Department subsidize activity through the PSLF program that Congress also aims to prevent in other statutes. Indeed, Congress appropriates significant public funds to combat illegal behavior, and it would frustrate the purpose of those appropriations if the Department were also subsidizing illegal behavior in the PSLF program with public funds. Therefore, the Department's exclusion of organizations engaging in such activities from the definition of qualifying em…
September 15, 2025 at 5:58 PM
muffindoin.bsky.social
here's the statutory definition of public service jobs for PSLF. note it applies to *every* 501c3. an executive agency cannot override the clear text of a statute
(B) Public service jobThe term “public service job” means— (i) a full-time job in emergency management, government (excluding time served as a member of Congress), military service, public safety, law enforcement, public health (including nurses, nurse practitioners, nurses in a clinical setting, and full-time professionals engaged in health care practitioner occupations and health care support occupations, as such terms are defined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics), public education, social work in a public child or family service agency, public interest law services (including prosecution or public defense or legal advocacy on behalf of low-income communities at a nonprofit organization), early childhood education (including licensed or regulated childcare, Head Start, and State funded prekindergarten), public service for individuals with disabilities, public service for the elderly, public library sciences, school-based library sciences, school-based library sciences and other school-based services, or at an organization that is described in section 501(c)(3) of title 26 and exempt from taxation under section 501(a) of such title; or (ii) teaching as a full-time faculty member at a Tribal College or University as defined in section 1059c(b) of this title and other faculty teaching in high-needs subject areas or areas of shortage (including nurse faculty, foreign language faculty, and part-time faculty at community colleges), as determined by the Secretary.
September 15, 2025 at 5:58 PM
muffindoin.bsky.social
logging on today
a guy in a suit jumps into the world's biggest bear trap. he looks thrilled
September 11, 2025 at 2:22 PM
muffindoin.bsky.social
Nightfall in Middle-Earth by Blind Guardian
September 9, 2025 at 12:33 AM
muffindoin.bsky.social
does Thorsten think that English settlers stumbled on a river with the pre-existing name "James" and named a town after it?
The Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery were ships that transported colonists to the first permanent English settlement in North America, which was named after what Virginia river? James River
September 5, 2025 at 1:56 PM