(I remember these.)
Dick Cheney by Ann Telnaes
The original Darth Vader dies Read on Substack
I’ve been in the editorial cartooning profession for over 30 years so I covered both George W Bush administrations. I can safely say I drew more cartoons of his vice president than I did of GW.
(Yes, I titled my book “DICK”)
Once I heard Dick Cheney say these words, I felt I had his caricature down.
The Week Ahead by Joyce Vance
November 2, 2025 Read on Substack
This Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear the Trump tariffs case, arguably one of the most important cases it will hear all term.
But, it’s important to understand that this is not a case about tariffs in general or about whether they are good policy. It’s a case about specific tariffs that President Trump imposed in February and whether he had the statutory authority to impose them. In other words, this is yet another example of Trump attempting to seize power that neither the Constitution nor our laws grant him and going to the Supreme Court in hopes they will validate it nonetheless. After argument, the Supreme Court will decide whether Trump had the legal authority to impose these tariffs in two cases.
We’ve been tracking this issue since Trump first threatened to impose tariffs, waffling back and forth seemingly from minute to minute. We studied the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s decision that rejected Trump’s effort to impose tariffs using IEEPA (I-E-Pa), the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, for the very simple reason that the Act, unlike other statutes that do give a president the right to impose tariffs, doesn’t mention tariffs at all. It does not give the president any authority to impose them under the statute that he has expressly said he used to do so. This is the kind of textualist argument conservative justices have backed in other cases, and to abandon that approach here would be a sharp and hypocritical departure for them. Last term, Justice Gorsuch wrote that the justices’ primary focus should be on the text of the statute.
The Constitution gives the power to impose taxes, which includes tariffs, to Congress. Because IEEPA doesn’t extend that power to the president, his use of it here is just a power grab, the kind of practice the Supreme Court should push back against if it intends to remain relevant to the American experiment. The Federal Circuit’s decision pointed out that while other laws expressly give the president the power to impose tariffs, IEEPA does not. Congress knows how to give the president the power to impose tariffs when it wants to and because it did not do so here, that should be the end of the inquiry. The administration should lose here. So what we hear in oral argument, even though it won’t necessarily signal where individual judges will end up, is worth following closely to see what tea leaves can be read for this case. It may also give us some sense of whether the Court intends to act as a check in other cases involving Trump’s power grabs.
The “major questions” will also be in play on Wednesday. You may recall it from recent terms of Court, where a conservative majority has recently used it to say there must be clear guidance from Congress before a federal agency can act on a major question of economic or political significance. Here’s the wrinkle: The Court has only used the doctrine to hamstring the Biden administration, and not to hinder Trump.
The Federal Circuit used these cases as precedent against the Trump administration. “Tariffs of unlimited duration on imports of nearly all goods from nearly every country with which the United States conducts trade” is “both ‘unheralded’ and ‘transformative,’” the court wrote, concluding that as a result, the administration needed to be able to “point to clear congressional authorization” for its tariffs. The absence of any language in the statute authorizing them was fatal to Trump’s case in the lower court. But the sardonic joke among appellate lawyers has been that the major questions doctrine only applies to Democratic administrations. On Wednesday, we will see whether that holds up and if the Court’s conservative majority is willing to twist itself into pretzel logic to support this administration’s political objectives.
There are other issues to look at this week:
As the Trump administration continues its extraterritorial strikes on supposed drug traffickers, there is increasing concern about the legality of that conduct. Georgetown law professor Steve Vladeck and I will take up that issue on Monday evening at 9 p.m. ET/8 CT in a Substack Live (if you subscribe to Civil Discourse, you’ll receive an email inviting you to join us when we go live, so mark your calendars and be ready).
As we head into the week, there are billboards up on the expressway heading toward U.S. Southern Command, in Doral, Florida, that tell troops “Don’t let them make you break the law” in response to those attacks.
New billboards are going up near Miami, Chicago, and Memphis, Tennessee, as well, a warning to troops being deployed in American cities. The billboards are part of a campaign by veterans to support and encourage the troops to uphold military order.
If you’ve forgotten about DOGE, unfortunately, it’s time to remember. There are reports that the Pentagon’s DOGE unit “is leading efforts to overhaul the U.S. military drone program, including streamlining procurement, expand homegrown production, and acquire tens of thousands of cheap drones in the coming months.” And the Bulwark reported that Rear Admiral Kurt Rothenhaus was recently removed from his post as chief of naval research, the top post at the Office of Naval Research (ONR), and replaced by Rachel Riley, who has been working in DOGE-related roles in the Trump administration. Although she was a Rhodes Scholar, Riley, 33, has “no apparent naval experience.”
There are also reports of DOGE interfering with the Department of Agriculture. Senator Dick Durbin tweeted that “President Trump and the DOGE cowboys want to close and diminish critical agricultural research at the University of Illinois. The only other soybean lab like that in the world is in…China. Our President is ceding our agriculture research leadership to China.”
Remember back in February, when Trump floated the idea that everyone could get a $5,000 check from all of DOGE’s “savings”? That didn’t work out so well, did it? You may want to remember this for Thanksgiving dinner.
Tuesday is election day. There is the Virginia governor’s race and the New York City mayoral race. Also, the governorship is at issue in New Jersey. A California ballot initiative will determine whether that state will engage in defensive redistricting designed to offset the aggressive way the Trump administration has demanded Republican states use it to spike the balance between the two parties in the House in their favor, effectively letting politicians choose their voters, instead of the other way around. There is also a race in Pennsylvania, where three Democratic members of the state Supreme Court face retention votes that could be highly significant in the potential 2028 battleground state.
Vote.org, a nonpartisan voter registration and engagement platform, announced a “huge spike” in voter registration ahead of the elections, with their online registration platform being used more than twice as many times as they were during the comparable 2021 election cycle.
They reported that:
It’s good news for pro-democracy Americans.
The house will remain out of session, yet again this week.
Epstein. Epstein. Epstein.
But as we all know, that means SNAP is still in danger, which means many of our fellow citizens could begin to go hungry this week if the administration tries to skirt compliance with or obtains an injunction staying decisions by a court in Massachusetts, and a more specific one in Rhode Island, which require the administration to use emergency dollars to fund SNAP. There, Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr. ordered the USDA to distribute contingency funds and to report to the Court on its progress by 12:00 p.m. on Monday, November 3. Expect more litigation this week.
ICE agents are still engaging in “enforcement actions” in American communities and residential neighborhoods. Stories of abuses are circulating; it’s a critical moment for using our skills to ferret out misinformation and focus on the truth. This photo is from a Day of the Dead celebration in New Orleans.
It is clear that this is a week that will require us to summon our courage and continue to pay close attention. The times are far too important for us to look away. Remind yourself that dictators use overwhelm as a tactic for getting people to give up and submit to their rule. Let’s not do that to us.
We’re in this together,
Joyce
Maga doing what they do, be arrogant thugs. Hugs
This post continues my thoughts on the quote from “Ted Lasso” who said “be curious, not judgemental”.
Some time ago I learned that the psychotic magic of any supervisor or manager is the ability to take the attitude and issues of the workers in stride and gather them towards getting a task done. I’ve worked with some interesting people; rapists, drug dealers, people who were mentally disturbed, folks who used drugs and alcohol, the violent and even just the stubborn and immature.
Each of these men and women brought their own magic along with their own baggage, and I have been routinely blessed and amazed with what they can do. When working with rough people – those who rose above were a joy, others ultimately did not fit the organization, some went to jail, a few actually died.
But, this year, wow – it has really pushed me to lengths and depths I’d hoped never to see, and that has taken its toll on me. I’ve experienced depression, anger, and pain that required me to see a very unaffordable doctor – but not before I finally lost my temper. In that moment, the fear of the shop failing, the anger of the current political environment, the depression and the debilitating pain came together to have me behaving in an unprofessional, if verbally artistic and vulgar, manner.
Others who have been subject to this person’s ways were very understanding, two were quite giggly about it and no one was critical of me for my lost temper. Quite frankly, the guy is a prototypical engineer: thinks he’s smarter than everyone. But he’s also taking care of a recently disabled wife, is in financial hardship, frustrated that he’s tied the end of his career to this business. Once you get beyond his insecurities, he’s fairly funny, has had a lot of interesting experiences, and is surprisingly smart.
I knew I was wrong; took a short cut to feel self-righteous. Yet somehow I became a part of a group because I lost my temper and did something stupid. I responded unprofessionally because I was hurting, I was angry, I felt abused and disrespected. I responded unprofessionally not because of what he said that time, any time, but because of my own inability to deal constructively with my problems, and the task did not get completed.
That person is outside of my authority. And yes, the ceo should have put better controls on him so he wouldn’t abuse his people. But, it got me thinking. The aftermath of this had me curious about group mentality, shared grievances, and how maga people are acting.
Right or wrong, they feel they have grievances. They feel angry, abused, disrespected. I find it very interesting that they have chosen to latch on to the first charismatic fool that blasts out their pain for them to the point that they refuse to recognize this foundering wreck for what he is! Maga’ts follow his words like mana, respond violently when countered, and all for a person who doesn’t share their goals or their reality. In short, their pain and emotional turmoil has caused them to lose their curiosity.
Now there is fair evidence to say that magats have not been abused and disrespected, to which I would argue that they have. These folks have taken the words of faux news and those such to heart; they have had their fears stoked, they are defensive and angry because they confuse their fears and angers for a reality that doesn’t bear investigation.
So disillusioned and angry with reality in the scope of the manipulation their preferred information sources provide that they sometimes aggressively believe everyone is a liar except, ironically, those lying to them. Worse, they misconstrue opinion bias for research, and really don’t appreciate being told that.
So, some of you who have weathered this are screaming in your head “who cares!” – and some of you have actually screamed this out-loud. This is not our fault, I can hear you say – but it is our problem. As any of us who have tried to reach these folks can attest, seeking to change their outlook, to get them to consider things differently, to listen to f’ing reason! is incredibly difficult.
And, somehow, 70million of these fools voted in the last election. 70million defensive, angry, uninformed and misinformed people who can’t listen to anyone not associated with tRump are voting on our future. They think we are wimps, naive snowflakes because a 30-second news-cycle bombastically bullshitted them, and they liked it.
I find that very curious and extremely frightening, and I have no idea what to do about it.
Part III coming soon to a Scottie’s Blogs near you. 🙂
Hugs.
Randy.
If you listen to the GOP, they will tell you this shutdown is the fault of the Dems. In a sense, they are correct. The Dems aren’t allowing the budget to go forward without ACA Healthcare Subsidies. They tell us that they will be more than happy to discuss the topic once the budget is signed. This is analogous to “…the beatings will continue until morale improves…”, and asks the Dems to give up the only tool they have to stop the gop’s continuing efforts to destroy the ACA and have the suffering of millions of people who don’t get their healthcare insurance from their employers or their personal wealth. The goopy is lying to us all, again, still, and the damn fools who routinely vote against their own personal interests believe them. Again. Still.
Simply said: The goopy ones have believed the lies because it is more important to them to believe the lies than to put out the effort to look further into the issues. They value the shared identity and emotional tickle of “getting the libs” over their own needs, their own health, and even the care of the community’s children.
Hugs.
Randy
by Nicole Foy
Democrats in the House and Senate announced plans for a wide-ranging investigation into immigration agents’ detention of citizens after a ProPublica story found that more than 170 Americans have been held by immigration officials this year.
Minority leaders of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations said the joint investigation into the detention of U.S. citizens and other allegations of misconduct by immigration agents would include a hearing in Los Angeles.
“Over 170 U.S. Citizens are being arrested. Why? Because they look like me. Because they are of Latino origin. Or because they are suspected to not be a U.S. citizen, or because they are suspected of crimes they have not committed,” Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the ranking Democrat on the House committee, said during a Monday press conference in Los Angeles with Mayor Karen Bass.
Garcia said the investigators are demanding all records and documents showing how U.S. citizens are treated by immigration officials in Los Angeles and around the country. “We want to understand what they are doing in our neighborhoods, how it is being funded,” he said.
Our investigation found that at least 50 citizens have been detained based on questions about their citizenship as of Oct. 5. They were almost all Latino. Roughly 130 others have been detained after raids or protests on allegations of assaulting officers or interfering with arrests. Many of those cases have wilted under scrutiny.
We found Americans have been dragged, tackled, beaten, tased and shot by immigration agents. At least two dozen citizens have reported being held for at least a day without access to a phone or a lawyer.
Bass and Garcia said the mistreatment of citizens has come amid the arrests of immigrants reporting for check-ins and immigration court, and the administration’s repeated blocking of congressional attempts to visit and conduct oversight in federal detention facilities like the one in Los Angeles.
“It’s important that we say today that what is happening to undocumented residents is also happening to U.S. citizens, which means this can happen to anyone, to all of us, at any period of time,” Bass said.
Our article has also prompted members of Congress to write to the Department of Homeland Security.
In one letter sent on Monday to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, Garcia and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said citizens in cities like Los Angeles have borne the brunt of the administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement.
“The impact of these arrests has not been evenly distributed across the country, and cities like Chicago, Portland, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles have been targeted,” Garcia and Blumenthal wrote. “Troublingly, the pattern of U.S. Citizen arrests coincides with an alarming increase in racial profiling — particularly of Latinos — which has been well documented in Los Angeles.”
DHS has not replied to previous letters.
Asked about the concerns from elected leaders, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin rejected claims that immigration agents have been engaging in racial profiling. She said in a statement to ProPublica that a temporary ruling by the Supreme Court in September had “vindicated” the administration “whether Mayor Bass or Rep. Garcia like it or not.”
“DHS enforces federal immigration law without fear, favor, or prejudice,” McLaughlin wrote. “Claims by the media, agitators, and sanctuary politicians like Mayor Bass and Rep. Garcia that ICE is targeting U.S. citizens, making unconstitutional arrests, and ‘trampling on civil liberties’ are FALSE.”
White House Deputy Press Secretary Abigail Jackson told ProPublica in an email that “unhinged rhetoric from activists and Democrat politicians” was responsible for an increase in assaults on ICE officers.
On social media, Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller derided Bass’ press conference as “abject lies.”
“Violent leftists have been arrested and charged with illegally obstructing federal law enforcement, a felony,” Miller wrote Monday night on X. “Let that sink in: open borders Democrats have incited leftists to violently attack ICE.”
Of the cases we tracked through Oct. 5, we found nearly 50 instances where charges have never been filed or the cases were dismissed. Our count found at least eight citizens have pleaded guilty, mostly to misdemeanors, including for failing to follow orders. Others are still facing charges for more serious accusations, including for allegedly ramming an agent’s car. (The driver has pleaded not guilty.)
Our account did not count citizens arrested later, after some sort of judicial process, or those detained by local law enforcement or the National Guard. That included cases of some people charged with serious crimes, like throwing rocks or tossing a flare to start a fire.
Scottie's Playtime 