Weekend Vibes [DOT 8/11/25]

8/11/25 MegMegMcGee 20
Image via Shutterstock

Hope everyone had a great week! Last night’s Oktoberfest was a success until it started raining. It was late though so it was probably time to pack it in anyway.

Apparently this is a strategic move? Or is it strateg-ery?

Supreme Court lets Trump pause full SNAP payments for now
https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/07/politics/trump-administration-supreme-court-snap-benefits

Here's the promised longer explainer:www.stevevladeck.com/p/190-snap-wtf

— Steve Vladeck (@stevevladeck.bsky.social) 2025-11-08T03:42:26.311Z

‘Huge victory’ in Portland as judge’s final order bars Trump from sending national guard
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/07/final-order-trump-national-guard-portland

JFC

House cleaner shot to death on front porch after going to wrong house in Indianapolis suburb
https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/07/us/whitestown-indiana-house-cleaner-shot

2026 Grammy nominations are led by Kendrick Lamar
https://www.npr.org/2025/11/07/nx-s1-5600968/2026-grammys-complete-list-of-nominations

Hope everyone has a great day!

avataravataravataravataravataravataravataravataravatar

20 Comments

  1. …I continue to be impressed by the smart lady trying to do everyone’s damn job because she knows she works with a majority of shameless dumbasses that attempt something akin to weaponized incompetence like a spoiled brat instead of anything you’d call “supreme” in a good…or indeed scrupulously legal…way…but…holy hell is it a bug that should be a feature that you can’t just do the whole junta “…jail – just straight to jail…believe it or not” thing when the actively pursued play by the asshole that could follow a golf analogy is to lose all your balls in the roughest long-grass you can get a caddy to kick them into before stamping them into the turf…so you can take the stroke penalty to drop the next one somewhere you couldn’t have hit in while obeying the laws of physics & your own corporeal limitations

    In an order circulated to the Court’s press corps at 9:17 p.m. ET, Jackson issued the administrative stay sought by the Trump administration. But her order says a lot more than the typical administrative stay—which usually contains nothing other than boilerplate. As Jackson wrote, “Given the First Circuit’s representations, an administrative stay is required to facilitate the First Circuit’s expeditious resolution of the pending stay motion.” Thus, she stayed the two orders from Judge McConnell “pending disposition of the motion for a stay pending appeal” in the First Circuit, “or further order of Justice Jackson or of the Court.” And as the order concludes, “This administrative stay will terminate forty-eight hours after the First Circuit’s resolution of the pending motion, which the First Circuit is expected to issue with dispatch.”

    The first thing to say about this order is that I’ve never seen anything quite like it before. Circuit Justices don’t usually explain administrative stays, and certainly not with this much detail about the timing. Here, Justice Jackson is clearly telling the First Circuit to hustle—a message I am sure the court of appeals will receive and act upon.

    As for why Justice Jackson did it, to me, the clue is the last sentence. Had Jackson refused to issue an administrative stay, it’s entirely possible (indeed, she may already have known) that a majority of her colleagues were ready to do it themselves. I still think that this is what happened back in April when the full Court intervened shortly before 1 a.m., without explaining why Justice Alito hadn’t, in the A.A.R.P. Alien Enemies Act case. And from Jackson’s perspective, an administrative stay from the full Court would’ve been worse—almost certainly because it would have been open-ended (that is, it would not have had a deadline). The upshot would’ve been that Judge McConnell’s order could’ve remained frozen indefinitely while the full Court took its time. Yesterday’s grant of a stay in Trump v. Orr, for instance, came 48 days after the Justice Department first sought emergency relief.

    Instead, by keeping the case for herself and granting the same relief, in contrast, Justice Jackson was able to directly influence the timing in both the First Circuit and the Supreme Court, at least for now. She nudged the First Circuit (which I expect to rule by the end of the weekend, Monday at the latest); and, assuming that court rules against the Trump administration, she also tied her colleagues’ hands—by having her administrative stay expire 48 hours after the First Circuit rules. Of course, the full Court can extend the administrative stay (and Jackson can do it herself). But this way, at least, she’s putting pressure on everyone—the First Circuit and the full Court—to move very quickly in deciding whether or not Judge McConnell’s orders should be allowed to go into effect. From where I’m sitting, that’s why Justice Jackson, the most vocal critic among the justices of the Court’s behavior in Trump-related emergency applications, ruled herself here—rather than allowing the full Court to overrule her. It drastically increases the odds of the full Supreme Court resolving this issue by the end of next week—one way or the other.

    …I mean…it’s a good explainer with some equally helpful links & such but it feels as though…I dunno…it is a feature not a bug of the legal system that you can’t bang someone up just on the basis of “I mean just look at the thing – anyone can see what he’s doing”

    …but what *he* does is basically the shit where the spoiled kid pisses someone off or steals their shit or otherwise puts the spoil in spoiled until it makes some other kid(s) mad enough they aim to make the spoiled one feel it…& that kid is before all else a coward in his bones…so he runs to a grown up & tries not to look like he’s humping their leg the way he did that flag while shrieking that the nasty bullies are being mean to him for no reason

    …&…for my money…most people understand who the asshole is in that scenario…& that if as the adult you keep that ass un-kicked by its peers & lay down your grown up law that if anything happens to him he doesn’t like it’s everyone else who’ll be punished but also everyone has to do whatever he says or he can claim that counts

    …you’re a shitty fucking parent who can’t see your brat is a brat & bully & that ass-kicking might even be what that fucked up generation that grew up between the nazis & the mutually assured destruction euphemistically referred to as “character building”

    …or…that’s just me & it’s true what they say about growing up to eventually become your own parents…&…not as an only child…which may or may not be important…but…the bits of his generation of that family that aren’t day-glo on the daily…give or take the whole “who’s brian cox if it’s them succession is about not the murdochs” thing…do we think even one of those has/had ever voted for their sibling…or wouldn’t find his approach to getting to have his way for the purposes he prizes in the face of a game-able playbook for keeping the court from really getting its teeth in your ass utterly transparent?

    …& now he is literally doing that to the point of taking food off the table of children & voters alike to the tune of 1/8 of the nation…to preserve a narrative talking point that provides a fig leaf to the fiction they’ve run getting on for what…20%…25% of the session the one lady was elected to serve in…& been in session for less than a month *of business weeks* in 5 calendar months…so she couldn’t un-kick the can they froze before it landed down the road on a spot we passed already while they busied themselves not passing anything?

    …how in this world is that not something you can prosecute a president for *easier* than you can the little shithead taunting his victims from behind the apron strings like tom while the lady tries for jerry with the rolling pin…or vice versa if that’s how you see your loyalties in that scenario?

    …if the circuit justice for that batshit texas district was ms jackson maybe they wouldn’t hit that up the way they do an alito’s watch…& what a difference that might have made in the competitive market of the judge shopper

    …here’s hoping this time next week it’s less tempting to talk about that one about the 1/4lb burger being a better deal than the 1/3lb for the same money in the context of the original meaning of “decimate”?

    …1 in 10 gone & you’re decimated…it’s a 10% loss…though I’m pretty sure a bunch of people assume from context it’s a 9 lost from 10 thing that implies near total destruction

    …but…if 1/8 americans are in receipt of SNAP…& you assume that distribution to be even across demographics so that it applies with equal probability to all eligible voters…which it won’t but makes the math easier & I’m not sure doing it rigorously wouldn’t make it look worse as an idea

    …if with-holding that from 1/8 of your voters makes them not want to vote for the people that did that…& about 1/3 people are apparently willing to play weathervane for you until they get dizzy turning circles…let’s see…that might claw you back 1/3 of that 1/8…but…not to make unkind generalizations…the bulk of your voters aren’t the handful of people & families & businesses-that-are-people-when-it’s-campaign-time or familes-that-are-countries-when-the-courts-come-calling or whatever…so a more rigorous accounting probably more than negates that advantage in terms of overcoming the probability that they think you’re explicitly fucking them & theirs

    …decimating your voting base would actually be a less damaging strategy?

  2. Authorities are considering whether to charge an Indiana homeowner who they say shot and killed a woman working as a house cleaner after she mistakenly went to the wrong address.
    considering?
    Eastwood said he will have to pore over investigators’ findings to understand what happened in the moments leading up to the shooting. That means reviewing “every second” of witnesses’ taped interviews and doorbell footage if police bring him any, he said.

    “You need to understand all the details so you can understand what happened and what is reasonable,” Eastwood said. “One of the hardest things today in this world is to agree on what’s reasonable. As a prosecutor, those are things we have to grapple with.”
    yeah…im going to go out on a limb here and say its not reasonable…nor is it stopping an unlawful entry of the dwelling…on account of they….they havent entered the fucking dwelling yet….fuck me….no wonder posties just throw packages in the general direction of the front door over there…fucking dangerous to ring the bell

    • It’s inexcusable.
      Do you know what I do if someone I don’t know rings my doorbell? I open the window next to the door and talk to the person that way. Nobody gets hurt.
      One of my neighbors has a ring camera and just tells me they won’t answer the door if they don’t recognize who is there. Nobody gets hurt.
      It’s almost like there are ways to resolve an issue without resorting to shooting?

  3. I am crippled. Nonetheless, during the Republican shutdown of SNAP, and in the spirit of Comrade Zohran, I have taken to rollating around the corner to the shambolic storefront “church” near me and am volunteering at their food pantry. No one, in a rich and industrialized Western country like the US, should be living like this. We’ve been fighting the War on Poverty since pretty much the day I was born 62 years ago. We’re lossing.

      • Forgot to mention that he’s apparently selling pardons, so if someone has enough cash, they’re free to go. Putin, however, probably just calls him and tells him what to do.

        • …that’s more adjustment of the tab than a bag of cash…but deutsche bank got into some sticky places being the set of arms between him & all sorts of sketchy elbows with moscow’s strings attached

          …who owes who over the “russia hoax” is a little fluid at this point, you’d think…they’re both much more inclined to see it as all the things the other guy owes them for without which they wouldn’t be where they are, after all?

  9. Tomorrow is cold and dreary with our first hard freeze forecast, so today I’m going to be puttering around in my veggie garden for anything left that can come in. I’ve been doing that for a few weekends now, but there’s some green onions and a few other things that definitely won’t survive a freeze.

Leave a Reply