Donald Trump and Jefferson Sessions lose another round in court, this time on the threat to withhold federal funds from cities that don't comply with its requests to detain undocumented persons when released from state and local jails or assist in enforcing federal immigration laws.

A judge in San Francisco on Tuesday temporarily blocked President Trump’s efforts to starve localities of federal funds when they limit their cooperation with immigration enforcement, a stinging rejection of his threats to make so-called sanctuary cities fall in line.

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Ted Cruz is hardly the first to propose using forfeited assets from Mexican drug traffickers to pay for a border wall. In February, Rep. James Sensebrenner introduced H.R. 1067: Build up Illegal Line Defenses with Assets Lawfully Lifted Act of 2017, aka the "Build Act." You can read it here. (It's gone nowhere, and Sensenbrenner seems to have pulled his news release on it from his website.)

Despite being unoriginal, Ted Cruz' "El Chapo Act" will not get a border wall built, even in the unlikely event it passes Congress.

First, El Chapo is facing a criminal, not civil forfeiture. Before anything can be criminally forfeited, a criminal conviction is required. Unless El Chapo pleads guilty (and why would he since he's likely to get the same life sentence handed down last month to Alfredo Beltran-Leyva who also pleaded guilty) a conviction will take a year or two or more. If he loses and appeals, the conviction and judgment aren't final until the appeals are over. No money could be distributed or spent before then.

Second, there isn't any evidence El Chapo has money or property in the U.S. If his assets are in Mexico, the U.S. can't get its hands on it without Mexico's agreement. There's a treaty on the topic.

Why would Mexico agree to let the U.S. have El Chapo's assets to be used for a border wall when it doesn't want a wall? [More...]

Biggest lie of the weekend by the Trump Administration: Chief of staff, Reince Priebus on Meet the Press (according to the New York Times):

“We expect a massive increase in military spending. We expect money for border security in this bill....And it ought to be. Because the president won overwhelmingly. And everyone understands the border wall was part of it.” (my emphasis)

More than 10 million people voted for Trump's opponents than voted for him. I'd say that's an overall rejection, not an endorsement, for his positions on issues. [More...]

I haven't followed the news this week, so there's been little to write about. That will probably change soon. In the meantime, here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

I'm looking forward to the start of the Univision series El Chapo tonight. The fictionalized series about the life of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman was based on the collective work of screenwriters and journalists in Univision's investigative unit who have followed El Chapo for years. From the Columbia Journalism Review:

To construct the narrative of El Chapo, the screenwriters and journalists had to learn to understand and accommodate each other’s perspective. While scriptwriters have the creative licence to tell a story in the most engaging and dramatic way, journalists are wed to the reality of what actually happened. Reyes describes it as a mixture of fun and frustration. “Fun because it’s a creative process,” he says. “But at the same time, we journalists are fact-addicts, and we think that reality is colorful, interesting, and complex enough that you don’t need to make it up.”

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In the news: 7 things Trump and Sessions Get Wrong About MS-13

Jeff Sessions wants the border wall to hurry up.

Ivanka Trump is going to participate in the W20 (Women 20) summit in Germany next week. Her topic is "women's economic empowerment." She can share her experience in one sentence: Be born with a rich father, then marry a rich husband.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Massachussetts is throwing out 21,000 drug convictions due to the lab fraud by chemist Annie Dookhan. (Background here.) Dookhan was convicted in 2013 and jailed. She was released on parole in 2016.

Most of the defendants have already served their time. Dismissal is just the first step: [more...]

Bill O’Reilly is leaving Fox News.

“After a thorough and careful review of the allegations, the company and Bill O’Reilly have agreed that Bill O’Reilly will not be returning to the Fox News Channel,” 21st Century Fox, Fox News’s parent company, said in a statement.

O’Reilly lost more than 50 advertisers due to the allegations of sexual harassment and reports that some claims were settled with financial payments. O’Reilly denies the sexual assault allegations and his lawyers have said he is the victim of a left-wing smear campaign.

Financially, O'Reilly will probably never have to work again. [More...]

The Supreme Court rejected an appeal by the State of Arkansas to lift the stay of execution on Don Davis, an inmate scheduled to be executed Monday night. (It conceded the stay as to a second defendant, Bruce Ward.)

Arkansas scheduled 8 executions for 11 days in April because it's running short on Midazolam, one of the execution drugs.

Arkansas has not executed anyone in 12 years, but Gov. Asa Hutchinson is chomping at the bit:

In a statement, Gov. Asa Hutchinson said he's disappointed after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to lift a stay. The Republican governor says he was heartened by other court rulings Monday that could pave the way for Arkansas to execute several more inmates before the end of April.

The Arkansas Gazette has more here.

Happy Easter to all who are celebrating.

Alec Baldwin returned to Saturday Night Live last night. I missed it but the video is here.

I watched all 15 episodes of "Ingobernable" this weekend on Netflix, with actress Kate del Castillo as the First Lady of Mexico, on the run after being framed for the murder of her husband. It's about corruption and extra-judicial killings inside and outside the Government. It incorporates a fictionalized version of the disappearance of the 43 students in Guerrero, Mexico (changing the location to the barrio of Tepito near Mexico City and the number to 39), castigates the DEA and CIA for being white collar criminals and no different than the cartels, and blames the U.S. and its insatiable demand for drugs for the violence in Mexico.

If you have Netflix, watch the President's planned speech (available with subtitles) in Episode 6. It's a good reminder our war on drugs, about to be ramped up by Jefferson Sessions, is not only a failure at home, but abroad. (Sessions is not just so last year, but so last generation. Clueless beyond hope.)[More....]

Here's a new open thread, all topics welcome.

First Syria. Now Trump's military bombs Afghanistan with the biggest non-nuclear bomb in the U.S. arsenal. The purpose: Taking out a tunnel system created by ISIS's Wilayat Khorasan. (Note: ISIS in the Khorasan is not the same as al Qaeda's group of fighters from the Khorasan region.)

ISIS's Khorasan Wilayat is primarily in the Nangarhar and Kunar provinces. ISIS announced its formation in 2015.

We bring the mujahideen the good news of the Islamic State’s expansion to Khorasan (a region encompassing Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other nearby lands). Therefore, we call upon all the mujahideen in Khorasan to join the caravan of the Khilafah [caliphate] and abandon disunity and factionalism.