Did you assume I was defending Putin on this?

Putin’s a piece of shit and I hope all his crap gets plundered and the proceeds transferred to the Ukrainian drone fund.

When the US did this, everyone was quick to call it piracy. Which, to be fair, it practically was, although I can’t say I have any sympathy for Putin.

To be fair, Congress could fix this easily as well:

AN ACT

To enforce the act of November 19, 2025 entitled “an act to require the Attorney General to release all documents and records in possession of the Department of Justice relating to Jeffrey Epstein, and for other purposes.”

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa­tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

Section 1. Short title.

This act may be cited as the Epstein Files Transparency (Enforcement) Act of 2026.

Section 2. Court may order release of files

(a) Notwithstanding any other section of law, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (“District Court”) has jurisdiction over and may, upon the application of the Attorney-General, or any authorised legal representative of any State or the District of Columbia, issue a writ of mandamus to order any person who appear to have in his or her possession or control, files, documents, or any other information of any description or type whatsoever, subject to disclosure under the Epstein Files Transparency Act of 2025, to disclose or cause to disclose such material.

(b) A writ issued under subsection (a) of this act may be directed to any officer, agent, secretary, or employee of the United States, or any person under or formerly under the employ thereof, or to the Department of Justice, the Attorney-General, or any person under the employ thereof, or any combination of the above-mentioned persons or organisations.

© The District Court has jurisdiction to rule on matters pertaining to whether material is subject to disclosure under the Epstein Files Transparency Act of 2025.

(d) Nothing in this section authorises a court to order a person to testify if such testimony may be used as evidence against them in a criminal proceeding.

Section 3. Penalty for non-compliance

(a) A person who fails to comply with a writ issued under Section 1 of this act, may, at the discretion of the District Court, be held in contempt of court and punished with imprisonment until such time that such person complies with the order of the court, and be issued a formal caution that further non-compliance will result in criminal liability.

(b)(1) A person who fails to comply with a writ issued under Section 1 of this act and who refuses to comply despite a caution issued by the District Court under subsection (a) of this section commits an offence and may be punished with imprisonment for a period not less than four years and not greater than eight years and fined an amount equal to their total taxable income under the Internal Revenue Code from four years before the date of their conviction until the date of their conviction.

(b)(2) The District Court may compel the production of records from the Internal Revenue Service for the purpose of the calculation of fine amounts under this section.

© In addition to criminal penalties imposed by this section, the salary of any employee of the United States or person who is entitled to draw a salary paid from funds belonging to the United States, who fails to comply with a writ issued under Section 1 of this act, is five cents per month until January 21, 2029, notwithstanding the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007 or any other law to the contrary, and such person shall not be entitled to any payment of any kind or for any purpose whatsoever other than for salary purposes from the United States, or any officer, employee, department, or agency thereof.

(d) A person who fails to comply with a writ issued under Section 1 of this act is disqualified from practicing as an attorney in any court of the United States and/or of the District of Columbia until January 21, 2029.

Place your bets!

jazzy background music starts playing

• Supreme Court allows the California gerrymander: Pays 2:1
• Supreme Court allows the Texas gerrymander: Pays 1:2
• Supreme Court overturns California gerrymandering but upholds Texas gerrymandering: Pays 1:1
• Supreme Court overturns Texas gerrymandering but upholds California gerrymandering: Pays 100:1
• 2026 election not held as scheduled due to Trump activities: Pays 4:1

Bets must be placed in the form of cookies 🍪

Funny, because even though that’s a total of 95% tax, it reduces $89 million down to $4.45 million, which is still enough to live a ridiculously luxurious lifestyle. For us plebs, that would mean we have to find some way to spend $370,000 every month. It just goes to show how much we under-tax the wealthy in this country.

If your primary source of income is now being taxed at over 70% (50% “sin tax” + 15% income tax + 8% Medicare/social security tax) then that creates a pretty strong incentive to move, because the cost of not moving is even greater.

There is no “I can’t afford to move” at these numbers. At this rate it would make sense to even borrow money to move.

The last part of a Web address is a “TLD”, or “top-level domain”. There used to be relatively few of them, namely .com, .org, .edu, .net, .gov, and .mil. One of the functions of TLDs is to categorise websites so you know what sort of site you’re visiting. The list of valid TLDs is a Web standard and creating a new TLD is not easy.

As time progressed, more and more TLDs were created. You have familiar ones like country-code TLDs which are for each individual country or region, such as .ca for Canada or .es for Spain.

In the past decade, several weirder and more arbitrary TLDs which are just random words with no categorisation purpose whatsoever have popped up, like .party, .xyz, or whatever.

The fact that Google, a private company, can have its own TLD (.google), is an indicator of how supremely influential the company is over the creation of Web standards. Not only does that TLD mean nothing and has no categorisation potential whatsoever (the company largely does not even use it), but based on the original model of only six TLDs, a private company wanting to have its own TLD would have then been considered the pinnacle of hubris.

American law name: Sunshine, Happiness, and Rainbows Act

American law contents: There will be a $500 tax to look at a rainbow and the President is authorised to sell exclusive rights to sunshine at an auction to tech bros. Happiness is now a controlled substance and illegal possession of it without a prescription is now punishable by 30 years imprisonment. Also, strawberry ice cream is now banned, $50 million for a bridge in Indiana, and the salary of the Deputy Archivist is increased by 6% starting next fiscal year.

I think this gets discussed in the context of the European Union whenever Poland or Hungary uses their veto power to block something important. Basically, the idea is to start “EU 2” and then not invite the offending countries. Then say that EU 2 replaces EU 1 and refuse to let anyone else tell you otherwise.

Well, to put it simply, you say “murder” he says “nuh uh”. Now you have to prove he’s wrong and why or he gets off.

Generally speaking, law enforcement can arrest someone based on arrest warrants nationwide, although typically, what happens is that the governor of the state where the crime was committed will make a written extradition demand to the governor of the state where the accused fled to. The receiving governor is constitutionally bound to turn over the person in question, although in reality, for political cases, this can get bogged down in political arguments, and it can result in the governor or attorney-general of one state suing another to force them to arrest the person in question.

One would describe those as the actions of the prerogative state

It does apply. It’s just that for non-high-profile cases, prosecutors are pretty quick to make a decision to prosecute/not prosecute. Years ago, I was arrested and accused of assault, and I was released mere hours after getting to the police station because the prosecutor’s office thought my self-defence claim was good and decided not to file charges. Generally speaking, this is what happens. You get arrested, taken to the police station or to the local jail, and then the police department refers the case to the prosecutor’s office. Someone at the prosecutor’s office reviews the evidence, and then they decide whether they will file charges. If they file one or more charges, then you’re brought before a judge for a preliminary hearing, usually within 24 hours (depends on state law). At the hearing, you will make a plea of guild or not guilty, then either arrange for a lawyer, or the judge will appoint a public defender to represent you. Then your lawyer can make a demand for a speedy trial and/or make any other submissions to the court in your defence.

If the prosecutor’s office decide not to prosecute, they will instruct the police department to release you. Failing that, someone can make a habeas corpus petition on your behalf and a judge will order your release.

He will still try to argue that, and prosecutors need to come up with real reasons why it doesn’t apply. Defence lawyers are not stupid and they will probably think of a way to argue immunity. Those arguments must be anticipated, researched, and rebutted.

The problem is that he could also probably use a federal immunity defence. The prosecutors need time to plan out a good way to attack this defence. The worst possible outcome would be to file charges now, unprepared, and then the guy gets acquitted at trial which forever bars future state prosecution for that offence, or the case is dismissed because prosecutors failed to present a good argument for why the accused is not immune. Prosecutors have only one chance so they tend to make sure their case is as good as they can get before shooting their shot.

It’s actually very rare for murder trials to be argued over whether the accused killed the person in question. Usually, the argument stems from whether the killing counts as murder or whether the evidence that the accused killed the victim is legally admissible.

This is because defence lawyers often advise their clients to waive their right to a speedy trial, so they can get more time to prepare a defence. If you insist on the right to a speedy trial, then it is usually held in a month.

Legally, the law says “too bad”. American law does not recognise the concept of administrative detention. If someone is a danger to the public, then there must be probable cause to believe they have committed a crime before an arrest warrant can be issued. After they are arrested, they must be charged by prosecutors immediately. Or, at least, this is how the normative state works. There are many exceptions in fields like national security and military law.

The law requires people who are arrested to be charged with a crime or released immediately. So in order to obtain an arrest warrant, prosecutors would need to file a criminal complaint followed by an indictment or an information. The accused could then assert their right to a speedy trial and demand an immediate trial. Depending on local court case loads, this could be scheduled in as little as a week (not typical; usually at least a fortnight up to six weeks).

Edit: A slight correction. An arrest warrant can be applied for without filing a complaint, but judges will require that a complaint or some other charging document be filed expeditiously after the accused is taken into custody. It is not legal to hold someone in jail without charge. Criminal procedure laws are not nationally uniform in the US; it varies by state.

So in a nutshell, once someone is arrested, the prosecutors are required, essentially, to already be ready to press charges and go to court. If they are not, then an early arrest followed by a judge ordering their release for lack of charges would be prejudicial to their case.

The Venezuelan government might. But according to some DW reporting and footage earlier today, the actual reaction of ordinary Venezuelans is mixed, and mostly concern and confusion rather than anger or fear. Maduro is generally not popular in Venezuela but I doubt many people really wanted the US to come and kidnap him. And understandably those who supported him are in the streets calling for his release.

Major news organisations in general are really scared when it comes to pointing out things which are extreme, because they believe describing those things as extreme will lead to accusations of sensationalism. The reason they think that is because sensationalist outlets are indeed more likely to describe everything as extreme and make unjustified comparisons to extremities, so major media outlets often think that to be “unbiased” is to refuse to acknowledge that an action is extreme.

Vox described this as the “this is fine” bias.