Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

Just google some Westboro Baptist Church photos if you want to remember what this guy was famous for. Sadly, he might have felt right at home in today's America. 

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• I got an up close and personal look at the new copper "crown" that will go on top of the Wise County Courthouse. They actually just "made it" using the best estimate of what the original one looked like based upon drawings and images. (I had a desire to put my initials on it.) 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• If went to bed last night thinking you were up to the date with the latest status of Texas' new immigration law, think again. You might have thought that the Supreme Court "allows Texas immigration law to go into effect." You would be wrong. These morning headlines are also now wrong.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Why wrong? Late last night the Fifth Circuit put the law on hold again.
  
  
  
• So what's going down?  You have every right to be confused. Stay with me here. 
• Texas passed an (unconstitutional) immigration bill, Senate Bill 4,  allowing Texas peace officers to enforce immigration laws. This is the law co-sponsored by Rep. David Spiller who is on your TV all the time about this story. 
• A federal judge struck it down and "enjoined" the law -- preventing Texas from enforcing it - in late February.
• Texas then appealed to the Fifth Circuit and asked two things: (1) to declare the law constitutional and (2) to stay/stop the lower district court from enforcing it's order that the law can't go into effect. Normally, this formal Stay Application is decided within a week while the bigger constitutional question can take months or even years.
• Important: The Fifth Circuit didn't rule on the Stay Application but did something increasingly weird: It ordered an Administrative Stay of the district court's ruling until they could decide that formal Stay Application. It was just a stopgap measure. This meant that Texas could enforce the law unless the Supreme Court got involved with the Administrative Stay.
• The Supreme Court then did get involved and stayed the Administrative Stay twice in the last couple of weeks. (Confused yet? It's like a double negative. That meant the immigration law could not be enforced.) They figured that the Fifth Circuit would just rule on the formal Stay Application and then this whole Administrative Stay mess would become moot.
• Well, yesterday everyone went crazy when the Supreme Court let the Administrative Stay go into effect (which meant Texas officers could start arresting "illegals")  but, reading between the lines, they basically said: We are kind of frustrated with this whole process so the Fifth Circuit needs to get off their butts and rule on the formal Stay Application. That's what the concurrence said:
  
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• Then the Fifth Circuit, feeling the wrath of the Supreme Court and within hours of the Supreme Court ruling yesterday, ordered a hearing on the Stay Application for this morning.
  
  
  
• Then, to make everyone's head spin, the Fifth Circuit, yesterday evening, dissolved its own Administrative Stay meaning the law remains enjoined by the district court. 
  
  
  
• It's important to note that NONE of this has anything to do with whether the law is constitutional or not. It all is about whether the law will or will not go into effect while that issue is decided. And in the meantime, the Fifth Circuit might to decide grant the Stay Application, and then that will go back to the Supreme Court. 
• In less high brow litigation, this happened in an Atlanta courtroom yesterday. Video.
  
  
  
• And in that same case, an equally jaw-dropping pleading was filed yesterday. 
  
  
  
• I would love to tell you what this is all about, but the brief article is almost impossible to follow.
  
  
  
• This guy is a moron. All he had to do is show up and assert the Fifth Amendment. Instead, he is such a Trump MAGA worshiper that he's going to prison. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
• President Biden is going to Dallas today for fundraisers with one of them in the home of Russell Budd.  Budd is a partner in Baron & Budd the big plaintiffs firm which got rich off asbestos litigation.  (The Baron of Baron & Budd is the late Fred Baron who was involved in the scandal that took down presidential candidate John Edwards back in the day.)
  
  
  
• Good grief. Police say it looks like murder-suicide in this San Antonio case. An Amber Alert had gone out a couple of days ago. 
  
  
  
• Sports: NIT woes updated.
  
  
  
• You are running out of time: Sign of for the Liberally Lean Pick 'Em Tourney.