Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

The Messenger got a lot of blowback for somehow running that photo with that headline on Facebook when the wreck had nothing to do with a local girls high school basketball team. 

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• Aviation news. And old rock band news.
  
  
  
• Sheesh.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• It begins.  Trump is now ignoring court orders. This is a major, major deal. But no one cares because he's trying to "slash government spending." We are in strange and dangerous days.
  

  

  
  

  

  
  
  
  
• And there is no practical legal way to force Trump to comply.  What can the judge do? Hold him in contempt and order the United States Marshals Service, which is under Trump's new AG Pam Bondi, to arrest him or other government officials?  They wouldn't do it. 
• J.D. Vance told us this was coming back in 2021. Video.
  
  
  
• In a shocking move, AG Pam Bondi's Justice Department ordered the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York to drop the prosecution against the New York mayor. One of the reasons for the order is that Trump needs him for immigration enforcement in NYC. That's not the way things are supposed to work. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
• The hits just keep coming.  He's also a former contestant on Trump's Celebrity Apprentice.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Trump has drawn a line in the sand in the Hamas/Israel conflict. And that phrase "all the hostages" is a big phrase in that sentence. 
  
   
  
  
  
• What are we doing? 
  
  
  
• In Page Six news:
  
  
  
  
  
  
• This was wild, and apparently there's a video with her in it. I'm not saying that Nancy Mace is just trying to get ahead of something consensual and embarrassing, but making the allegations on the House floor is notable since she has absolute immunity there from any defamation claim because of the Speech and Debate clause. 
  
  
  
  
• In an odd twist, Rep. Ronny Jackson has been added as a plaintiff to Trump's silly lawsuit against CBS and 60 Minutes for the Kamala Harris edited interview. "Trump filed the suit in Amarillo, Texas, where it is being heard by a Trump-appointed judge [Matthew Kacsmaryk]. By adding Jackson as a plaintiff, the Trump team argued the congressman was harmed by the 60 Minutes interview and that the case should remain in Texas."
  
  
  
• And for legal (and authoritarian) news regarding defamation, keep an eye on this case filed in the Supreme Court on Friday:
  
  
    
  
  
  
• Is there any chance that too many teams make the high school basketball playoffs? From last night:
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Legal nerdy news for criminal practitioners: I don't know if it will pass, but a bill has been filed in the Texas Senate to extremely gut the Michael Morton Act. A long thread with a great explanation here.