{"id":58856,"date":"2026-02-27T06:00:51","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=58856"},"modified":"2026-02-26T23:45:28","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T07:45:28","slug":"open-thread-february-27-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2026\/02\/27\/open-thread-february-27-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread February 27 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday, I thought the most interesting development was Abrego Garcia&#8217;s vindictive prosecution hearing, which was best covered in two videos, both featuring Adam Klasfeld (one also had Michael Popok and the other also had Glenn Kirschner) and each lasting about a half hour. Bottom line &#8211; the DOJ was on defense as the judge had previously announced that there was clearly probable cause, so only their testimony was taken &#8211; and it had holes in it. I thought those holes looked big enough to drive a Mack truck through, but IANAL.<\/p>\n<p>From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.brennancenter.org\/our-work\/analysis-opinion\/trump-administration-will-collect-social-media-handles-legal-immigrants\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Brennan Center<\/a>. The last I heard, the Constitution (including all its amendments) applied to everyone, not just to citizens. I&#8217;m somewhat concerned that if the regime carves out social media handles as an exception for non-citizens, it will eventually want to use the fact that the Constitution applies to everyone to apply this exemption to citizens as well. That might not get past the courts, but I can see it winning in the Court of Public Opinion.<\/p>\n<p>This certainly never occurred to me &#8211; and it may not have occurred to <a href=\"https:\/\/robertreich.substack.com\/p\/how-california-can-neuter-citizens\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Robert Reich<\/a> before either &#8211; had it, I would have thought that we would have heard of it. It would not fly in all states &#8211; but it might not need to.<\/p>\n<p>Keeping its residents (not only citizens) safe may not be <a href=\"https:\/\/thefuckingnews.substack.com\/p\/as-trump-said-our-duty-is-to-protect\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the number one<\/a>, but even so, it&#8217;s pretty near the top, whether or not it is mentioned. It is what all the first ten amendments are about (although the second no longer has the desired effect.)<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Un-L75VIhPY?si=W2E9d3AJja7s1Vt2\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9oIX1Mi5VME?si=VH0s9TYigpcS4w2G\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-58859\" src=\"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Nazi-wings.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"915\" height=\"711\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Nazi-wings.jpg 915w, https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Nazi-wings-300x233.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Nazi-wings-150x117.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Nazi-wings-768x597.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 915px) 100vw, 915px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday, I thought the most interesting development was Abrego Garcia&#8217;s vindictive prosecution hearing, which was best covered in two videos, both featuring Adam Klasfeld (one also had Michael Popok and the other also had Glenn Kirschner) and each lasting about a half hour. Bottom line &#8211; the DOJ was on defense as the judge had <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2026\/02\/27\/open-thread-february-27-2026\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":58319,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,3,5],"tags":[4355,4554,7166,6889,4531,7165,3767,7164,6331],"class_list":["post-58856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-open-thread","category-personal","category-politics","tag-animals","tag-california","tag-citizens-and-non-citizens","tag-citizens-united","tag-dogs","tag-duties-of-government","tag-filibuster","tag-in-charge","tag-kilmar-abrego-garcia","category-35-id","category-3-id","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}