Deus adiuva nos omnes

by liberal japonicus

This interview with Thomas Sipp is worth your time. It has special resonance for me because he has a Japanese mother and American father, which informed his decision to resign to Skadden because of Trump's demands. If someone has a gift link to the transcript, which is here, I'd appreciate it if you posted it in the comments.

Comments

[nous]

Try this link?:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/07/podcasts/the-daily/skadden-lawyer-resigned-trump-thomas-sipp.html?unlocked_article_code=1.-U4.QHIL.-iHatUgs8cPe&smid=url-share

[liberal japonicus]

Thanks nous, I know folks might not want to listen to it, though you do miss the emotion in his voice.

[GftNC]

This is the transcript. It didn't have a Share button, but I am entitled to it, so I hope it works:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/07/podcasts/the-daily/skadden-lawyer-resigned-trump-thomas-sipp.html?showTranscript=1

[Donald]

I will use this as an open thread since it isn’t too busy.

https://religionnews.com/2025/04/07/my-book-was-just-banned-from-the-us-naval-academy-library/

Not surprising that they are doing book- banning now. Scum.

[wj]

Well of course they are. They have figured out, correctly, that education is their enemy. That if they allow young people to learn about the real world in all its diversity, and allow them to learn critical thinking, their worldview and their world is doomed.

The threat to them is especially acute at the military academies. Because if the leaders of the military refuse to accept their delusional world view, their chances of forcing it on the country are substantially reduced.

Adept as they are at shooting themselves in the foot (see tariffs and trade war), they really have nailed it on this one.

[Hartmut]

The comment section of that religionnews post is unfortunately overwhelmingly in support of those book bans and - of course - denies that this is a ban since those books can still be bought online. Same as with school libraries (and there were even attempts by at least one red state government to ban bookshops within several miles of any schools to sell those books. If it was technically feasible they'd probably try to ban online sales too).
They'd probably call the index librorum prohibitorum an informal anti-recommendation list too (btw, the index itself was at one point in time on the index itself. Cynical me would say that was because people took it as a must-read list instead).

[hairshirthedonist]

"SCOTUS isn't completely mad after all" would be my headline this morning.

[wj]

It isn't easy to get this Court to rule unanimously against Trump. Gives an idea of just how far out they were. Both on the deportation ("administrative errors" will happen when you skip little details like a hearing) and the refusal to even try to get the deportee home again.

[Michael Cain]

It isn't easy to get this Court to rule unanimously against Trump.

I thought it would take longer than three months to get to the point where the SCOTUS would be faced with the issue of whether the Executive can ignore court orders. I think this one was unanimous only because it was weasel-worded enough to give some cover to both wings of the Court. The phrase "deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs" in particular. Also plenty of "should" as a mysterious point between "may" and "must".

Jackson supposedly said, "John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it." Often paraphrased to "How many divisions does the Chief Justice control?" More practically, we are right at the point of seeing what happens when the DOJ says it will not enforce some court orders.

On the open thread line, I've gotten to where, mid-morning every day, I pull down my local power authority's energy production mix page. Sometime soon the new solar farm is going to come on line and there will be plenty of time when we're running on 100% renewable power.

[Michael Cain]

Related to the last paragraph, I should have added that this past week the power authority reached a formal agreement for a 400 MWh battery storage facility to be built adjacent to the new solar farm and come on-line in 2026. So far as I can tell, the batteries will be South Korean and subject to Trump's tariffs. OTOH, last year the Korean company broke ground for a multi-billion dollar production plant in the US.