When is a presidential pardon not a pardon?

The New Neo Posted on by

Whenever Trump exercises executive power, causing the courts to rule on the limits of presidential power – something that has occurred with most presidents including Obama and Biden – it’s one of politics’ many bleak ironies that the very same people who shriek “Hitler!” at Trump would and did defend any power stretch of Obama’s and Biden’s. And those same people were decidedly incurious about who might be running the White House during Biden’s obvious cognitive decline.

Then it was recently revealed that the vast majority of Biden’s executive orders were signed with autopen. These were not little thank-you notes, or congratulations from the president on reaching your 100th birthday. These were important orders that are not ordinarily treated that way:

The majority of official documents signed by President Joe Biden allegedly used the same autopen signature, reinvigorating concerns over the former president’s mental acuity and if he “actually ordered the signature of relevant legal documents,” a report published by an arm of the Heritage Foundation found.

“WHOEVER CONTROLLED THE AUTOPEN CONTROLLED THE PRESIDENCY,” the Oversight Project, which is an initiative within the conservative Heritage Foundation that investigates the government to bolster transparency, posted to X on Thursday.

“We gathered every document we could find with Biden’s signature over the course of his presidency. All used the same autopen signature except for the announcement that the former President was dropping out of the race last year. Here is the autopen signature,” the group claimed on X, accompanied by photo examples.

Autopen signatures are ones that are automatically produced by a machine, as opposed to an authentic, handwritten signature. …

Republican Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey sent a letter to the Department of Justice on Wednesday of last week demanding an investigation be opened into whether Biden’s “cognitive decline allowed unelected staff to push through radical policy without his knowing approval.”

That article was from March 9.

Now President Trump has questioned whether Biden’s pardons are operative if it turns out he didn’t know he issued them; it’s not about autopen use per se but rather autopen use without knowledge (either lack of knowledge because of cognitive decline or – what would be an even stronger argument – lack of knowledge because the president wasn’t even informed in the first place). It’s a good question, one that (as far as I know) has never been adjudicated. Here’s the AP’s completely “objective” take [my emphasis]:

President Donald Trump accused his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden of using the mechanical device to sign pardoning documents, rather than doing so by hand. Trump claimed, without providing evidence, that Biden had no knowledge or approval of the documents.

How on earth could Trump be expected to provide ironclad evidence that proves Biden didn’t know? The evidence that was provided so far does imply it, however, if most of the documents were not signed by Biden himself. I don’t think he has a hand disability that would explain the lack of actual signature, nor has anyone in the Biden camp attempted to explain as yet.

So till then it seems reasonable to question the signatures and force the courts – preferably SCOTUS – into a decision on the merits. It may be that there is such as strong presumption that a president is in control of both his signature and his autopen that the pardons will be declared legal. But Trump’s point is well-taken and worthy of an investigation and ruling.

Venezuela welcomes some new inmates: Trump and his court order “defiance”

The New Neo Posted on by

I haven’t seen any polls on this topic, but my guess is that only the most “progressive” of voters are against sending these gang members back home.

For the most part, the MSM articles I found label this action of the Trump administration as the president’s defiance of a court order or ignoring of a court order; for example: ABC headline “Trump administration ignores judge’s order to turn deportation planes around”; the BBC headline “US deports hundreds of Venezuelans despite court order.” However, it appears that Trump neither ignored nor defied a court order; he and his lawyers anticipated it, finessed it, and responded to it as well. Like the deportation or hate it, it came before the court order and is a deliberate test of whether a president has this power, as well as whether a federal judge has the power to block it at all.

Axios (surprisingly) has what I consider a somewhat (not entirely) decent and relatively succinct summary of events. A few excerpts:

The Trump administration says it ignored a Saturday court order to turn around two planeloads of alleged Venezuelan gang members because the flights were over international waters and therefore the ruling didn’t apply, two senior officials tell Axios. …

The White House welcomes that fight. “This is headed to the Supreme Court. And we’re going to win,” a senior White House official told Axios. …

Trump’s advisers contend U.S. District Judge James Boasberg overstepped his authority by issuing an order that blocked the president from deporting about 250 alleged Tren de Aragua gang members under the Alien Enemies Act of 1789.

The war-time law gives the executive extreme immense power to deport noncitizens without a judicial hearing. But it has been little-used, particularly in peacetime.

“It’s the [legal] showdown that was always going to happen between the two branches of government,” a senior White House official said. …

They didn’t actually set out to defy a court order. “We wanted them on the ground first, before a judge could get the case, but this is how it worked out,” said the official.

I’ve read many articles about the judge’s ruling, and I have yet to find one that states clearly what his legal basis was for issuing it. I assume, however, it was the idea that the deportees were not afforded due process. Here the NY Post comes close to saying that:

The temporary ruling will put a 14-day restraining order on use of the wartime act, which the Trump administration hopes to use to deport any migrant it identifies as a gang member without following normal criminal and immigration channels. …

Boasberg’s ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and Democracy Forward challenging the removal of five Venezuelan men under the centuries-old law — which was reportedly signed on Friday. …

The Alien Enemies Act has only been used three times before in American history, all during wartime. …

Trump’s proclamation’s language, however, contends the gang is effectively at war with the United States and Venezuelan nationals are now “liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as Alien Enemies.” …

Trump signed a presidential order in January, designating Tren de Aragua a foreign terrorist organization, clearing a path for immigration officials to start rounding up its members for removal.

I assume another of the questions for the court is whether the act is limited to wartime in the “formal declaration of war” sense, and also the aforementioned issue of whether a mere District Court judge can call a halt to such a deportation action by a duly elected president.

The left is in outrage and shouting “constitutional crisis,” but the Constitution is not being challenged, just the power of this judge, the interpretation of the Act, and the timing of the order in relation to the location of the gang members at the time. At least, that’s the way it seems to me.

I’m in NYC …

The New Neo Posted on by

… for the first time in five years. The last time I was here was for a niece’s wedding that took place a few months before COVID. And now I’m here for a different niece’s wedding. Last time I came in a car. This time no more driving in NYC; I’ve lot my nerve for that.

So I did something I haven’t done in about 55 years: I took the bus to the Port Authority Terminal.

The bus ride was fine. I was really wondering how the Port Authority Terminal would be faring after all those many years. I remember it as having always been seedy, full of drunks and crazy people and what used to be called vagrants but are now the un-housed. But when I got off the bus and entered the terminal, I immediately noticed that it’s been somewhat spiffied up in the intervening half-century. It’s cleaner, for one thing, and brighter – and it may be one of the few places in the US that now has fewer crazies and street people than before. That’s not to say it has none, of course. But it really did seem to be, if not a pleasant place, at least a less unpleasant place.

I’m planning to be in New York for a week. But don’t worry, I also plan to keep up with the blogging.

Those Dying Swans

The New Neo Posted on by

“The Dying Swan” is not my favorite dance – not by a longshot. It’s a schmaltzy little number that was choreographed by Fokine a hundred and twenty years ago as a concert piece to display the expressive talents of Anna Pavlova, who is said to have danced it four thousand times. Very little happens with the feet except the fast little fluttery movements on pointe known as bourrées; the dance is pretty much all arms, head, and face. Technically it’s simple, although not everyone does the same exact movements. Artistically it’s difficult.

Here’s the extraordinary Galina Ulanova performing it at the age of 46 in 1956. Note in particular the part that starts around 2:18 and goes to about 2:37, where Ulanova does something I haven’t seen in other videos of the dance: her swan struggles mightily to fly, flails and fails, and then a wild panic sets in. I’ve never seen anyone else convey that degree of animal fear in the role. And at the end, Ulanova doesn’t just gracefully fold herself down like so many other dancers. She really seems to die:

Here’s Pavlova, the original, in a blurry movie. It’s a very precious record of her style:

Here’s Plisetskaya of the magical arms, in 1959:

This last video is of Natalia Osipova from a few years ago. It holds no interest for me, although I am sure her technical skill is superlative. But there is not a single moment where she convinces me that she might be a swan rather than a ballet dancer emoting and making pretty pictures:

South Africa’s ambassador to the US is sent packing

The New Neo Posted on by

This doesn’t sound like diplomat-speak:

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday that South Africa’s ambassador to the United States “is no longer welcome” in the country, in the latest Trump administration move targeting the African nation.

Rubio, in a post on X, accused Ebrahim Rasool of being a “race-baiting politician” who hates President Donald Trump and declared him “persona non grata.”

Rubio linked to a Breitbart story about a talk Rasool gave during a South African think tank’s webinar.

Rasool, speaking by videoconference, talked about Trump ally Elon Musk’s outreach to far-right figures in Europe as a “dog whistle” in a global movement trying to rally people who see themselves as part of an “embattled white community.” …

It is highly unusual for the U.S. to expel a foreign ambassador, although lower-ranking diplomats are more frequently targeted with persona non grata status.

You may have noticed – as I did – that “Ebrahim Rasool” sounds like a Muslim name. Here’s some of Rasool’s background:

Ebrahim Rasool was born 15 July 1962 in District Six, Cape Town to a Muslim family of mixed English-Javanese-Dutch-Indian heritage. Since he was classified as Coloured by the apartheid system, when he was nine years old, he and his family were forcefully evicted from the area due to the government declaring the area a “Whites – only” residential suburb.

Rasool has had a long career in politics in South Africa, starting during the apartheid era. Here’s more of his history:

On 14 July 2008, Rasool was recalled from the position of premier by the National Executive Committee of the ANC, as the ANC leadership had disapproved of him giving preference to the large Muslim and Cape Coloured populations in the Western Cape.

At one time, race determined just about everything in South Africa. To a large extent, I think it still does.

It should come as no surprise whatsoever that Rasool also is Hamas-friendly:

In a Semafor report earlier this week, a South African cited Rasool’s strident criticism of Israel — with the news site describing him as one of the South African government’s “most ardent pro-Palestine voices” — as the reason for his struggle to secure meetings with US officials.

He has also appeared to express support for Hamas, posting a photo to Facebook in September 2023 of a scarf that he said was signed by the terror group’s then leader Ismail Haniyeh and which he received during an “ITI programme with Hamas to share strategic wisdom in the face of Arab ‘normalisation,’ further Israeli occupation , & US approval.”

NOTE: South Africa has long had a fairly large population of ethnic Indians, and I recall that Gandhi spent many years there – 21, to be exact. It was where he developed many of his political beliefs, and where he experienced the most prejudice compared to other places he had lived, such as London.

It’s hard to say goodbye to your MAGA friends but unfortunately they’re Nazis

The New Neo Posted on by

This is the sort of thing a lot of people are watching:

From the comments there, for example:

It’s so true. And it’s painful to deal with.

Yup! Thnx for your input about what we are all going through. It’s so friggin tragic ?

Yeah. I found that out in 2020.

I deleted every friend/ acquaintance I had. In this red state, they were all MAGAT. It was totally liberating!
I do feel a bit sad about only 1 of them of which I knew for 40 years. I do miss the person she used to be.
However I am better off without those toxic people.

Hi Cheri, it may seem harsh but it’s true and necessary.

I’ve lost 7 people who were once very dear to me because of MAGA. One, Mark S. became my BEST friend in 1965. I guess I never REALLY knew him at all.

Seems like the “loss” of those people was that commenter’s own choice – but he or she sees it as an inevitable outcome of their Nazi-esque political positions.

Reports of the demise of the Democrat Party: are they premature or not?

The New Neo Posted on by

Political fortunes are strange. A political party can go bankrupt of ideas slowly and then all at once. It certainly seems as though that’s happened to the Democrats.

Their formerly-appealing ideas – appealing to slightly over half the country for many years – went like this: Trump is a demon; Republicans are racist, xenophobic, homophobes who are out to hurt poor people and everyone except the GOP’s greedy fat-cat supporters; Democrats are the truth-tellers and all the rest is “without evidence.”

Somewhere along the line that message got stale. Maybe it was the naked injustice of the lawfare charges against Trump and the left’s relentless pursuit of them. Maybe it was four years of denial of the reality of a cognitively-challenged president. Maybe it was the preposterous insistence that biological men should be able to compete against women just by declaring themselves to be women. Maybe it was the wars that happened on Biden’s watch, or the ignominy of the Afghanistan withdrawal. Maybe it was that young people like to rebel, and after being force-fed so much leftism, supporting conservatives becomes rebelliousness.

And maybe it’s also the utter ridiculousness of the current crop of Democrats, such as this:

Tensions between prominent Democrat leaders grew Friday, as former Speaker Nancy Pelosi rebuked Senate Leader Chuck Schumer for caving on the Republican continuing resolution (CR). At the same time, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries refused to comment on his future as a leader.

The striking remarks by Pelosi (D-CA) and the lack of response by Jeffries (D-NY) speak volumes about how disappointed they are with Schumer’s actions. …

The remarkable level of disarray and infighting in the Democratic party has been simmering for a while, but Schumer’s offer to go along with the CR and temporarily keep the government open appears to have been a bridge too far for some.

The Democrats have long operated as though messaging is the key to victory – that, plus demographics and identity group voting. Both things did not work in 2024. Anyone who actually listened to Kamala Harris’ interviews could see that she was struggling to say anything of substance, and kept repeating memorized talking points that didn’t necessarily have much to do with the questions being asked. People knew that inflation was hurting them in the supermarkets, and no amount of pointing to figures that the rate of inflation had slowed could tell them there wasn’t a problem. Trump’s supporters had never deserted him, but in 2024 they got assistance even from some Black and Hispanic men, who decided that Trump would be a better bet. That in particular probably shook Democrat operatives to their cores.

Not all that long ago Democrats looked invincible. A lot of people on the right who believed the 2020 election was won by cheating also believed there never would be another Republican victory. It also looked as though Trump might be going to prison. But look what happened instead. The reversal – beginning, I believe, with Trump’s surviving the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania – has been stunning. I don’t think the Democrats know what hit them.

But as I see it, Trump’s success in consolidating support during his term will depend on results. He certainly gets A for effort so far; it’s been a whirlwind. But in a way – and forgive the mixed metaphor – it’s a high-wire act. Almost everything Trump does has been high-risk. He will have to produce: for example,ceasefires that don’t offend either side too much; the reduction of inflation, fraud, and waste; the clean-up of agency partisanship and persecution of political enemies without unjustly persecuting his enemies; and the end of unchecked open borders and the deportation of criminal illegal aliens (he’s already made a good showing there).

How forgiving will the American people be if all those things don’t happen? How many people will want the pendulum to swing right back to the left? I don’t know the answer. I just know that I cheer for every good result he can accomplish, because I do not want to see the left regain power.

Happy pi day

The New Neo Posted on by

I just learned that today is pi day.

No, not that kind of pie. National Pie Day comes on January 23rd – and now that I’ve learned that, I plan to celebrate next year. Pie is one of my very favorite desserts.

Today is Pi Day – this kind of pi:

Pi Day is supposed to be a celebration of math. Good luck with that – it’s been my experience that people either like math or they don’t. My mother hated it, my father liked it, and I liked it to right up to some point in college where it suddenly became opaque to me. Perhaps that was because my professor at the time couldn’t speak English and therefore could explain nothing to us. Or perhaps I had simply reached my math ceiling, like the guy in the photo.

So, let’s celebrate!