Tag: law

It Actually Is What it Is

White Bull has launched their long-awaited substack focused on business and the intersection of policy on business with a very solid piece on tariffs. This is particularly important, because both the media and most official government positions on tariffs are still stuck in 18th century critiques of European mercantilism and therefore take nothing that has happened and nothing that we’ve learned in the last 250 years into account.

Before the 2024 election Trump said, “Tariffs are the greatest thing ever invented.” While it is typical Trumpian hyperbole, it is not wrong. Following almost 4 decades of globalists being hell bent on eliminating trade barriers, US trade policy supporting exporting US manufacturing to Canada/Mexico with NAFTA, or China with MFN and then accession to WTO (thank you Bill Clinton + Laura Tyson), the US has essentially been subsidizing other nations at its own expense. Tariffs are one of many tools that the US needs to start using to recalibrate its place vis a vis the global marketplace.

The globalists in Congress keep saying that Trump doesn’t know what he is talking about when he discusses who actually pays the tariffs.They say consumers pay the tariffs. Well, they are (partly) right and everyone knows this. What they don’t talk about is that unless the producers who have tariffs levied on them reduce their wholesale prices, the cost to the American consumer will increase by retail price + the tariff %. American consumers are smart enough to shift their buying preferences towards better value, alternative products or wait on purchases until alternatives emerge. American manufacturers will be motivated to bring manufacturing back to the US, since profitability is possible again. Everybody in America wins! At Davos a few weeks ago, even the pragmatic Jaime Dimon came out in favor of tariffs, saying, “I would put into perspective: If it’s a little inflationary, but it’s good for national security, so be it. I mean, get over it.”

Tariffs were a very effective tool for the US during the 1800s, and between 1861-1933 the US had one of the highest average tariff rates on manufactured imports in the world. Is it surprising that after 1933/New Deal, tariffs started to disappear while being replaced by income taxes, sales taxes and a myriad of social programs started to emerge? Tariffs can be raised, lowered or eliminated entirely as needed. But taxes and entitlements rarely disappear creating virtually unlimited budgets for politicians to tap into or steal. And while there is always the danger of a trade war, it looks like many ‘deals’ will get cut to decrease US trade deficits with targeted countries before needing to actually levy the tariffs.

IT IS WHAT IT IS promises to be as significant in the business and technology space as FANDOM PULSE has already proved to be in the entertainment and culture space. If you’re running a side hustle or you’re a full-time entrepreneur with your own small business, you will definitely want to be a part of the conversation there. It’s something I’ve wanted White Bull to do for a long time, simply so I don’t have to, because it is one thing that we just haven’t had in the greater community.

We’ve just never really had a place where those of us who are active in business can discuss what is going on around the world in the context of our business operations, so I think this will be an important step going forward.

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Copyright Must Reform

Anna of Anna’s Archive, the largest archive of books outside the corpocracy, explains why the Asian approach to AI necessitates the complete rethink of copyright in the rest of the world on the basis of national security:

When Z-Library faced shutdown, I had already backed up its entire library and was searching for a platform to house it. That was my motivation for starting Anna’s Archive: a continuation of the mission behind those earlier initiatives. We’ve since grown to be the largest shadow library in the world, hosting more than 140 million copyrighted texts across numerous formats — books, academic papers, magazines, newspapers, and beyond.

Me and my team are ideologues. We believe that preserving and hosting these files is morally right. Libraries around the world are seeing funding cuts, and we can’t trust humanity’s heritage to corporations either.

Then came AI. Virtually all major companies building LLMs contacted us to train on our data. Most (but not all!) US-based companies reconsidered once they realized the illegal nature of our work. By contrast, Chinese firms have enthusiastically embraced our collection, apparently untroubled by its legality. This is notable given China’s role as a signatory to nearly all major international copyright treaties.

We have given high-speed access to about 30 companies. Most of them are LLM companies, and some are data brokers, who will resell our collection. Most are Chinese, though we’ve also worked with companies from the US, Europe, Russia, South Korea, and Japan. DeepSeek admitted that an earlier version was trained on part of our collection, though they’re tight-lipped about their latest model (probably also trained on our data though).

If the West wants to stay ahead in the race of LLMs, and ultimately, AGI, it needs to reconsider its position on copyright, and soon. Whether you agree with us or not on our moral case, this is now becoming a case of economics, and even of national security. All power blocs are building artificial super-scientists, super-hackers, and super-militaries. Freedom of information is becoming a matter of survival for these countries — even a matter of national security.

Our team is from all over the world, and we don’t have a particular alignment. But we’d encourage countries with strong copyright laws to use this existential threat to reform them. So what to do?

Our first recommendation is straightforward: shorten the copyright term. In the US, copyright is granted for 70 years after the author’s death. This is absurd. We can bring this in line with patents, which are granted for 20 years after filing. This should be more than enough time for authors of books, papers, music, art, and other creative works, to get fully compensated for their efforts (including longer-term projects such as movie adaptations).

I could not agree more. Copyright doesn’t protect creators, it protects the corporations who buy up copyrights and utilize them to stifle innovation for decades. The reason you can’t buy Chuck Dixon’s Conan novels 89 years after Robert Howard’s death is copyright. The reason Amazon is free to demolish the legacy of Tolkien, and now James Bond, is copyright. The reason the worst people on the planet control the intellectual properties that people love is copyright.

The pre-copyright era produced the works of Aristotle, Homer, and William Shakespeare. The copyright era didn’t even protect Tanith Lee from Neil Gaiman ripping her off. There is absolutely no justification for the current copyright laws; I’m speaking with one elderly creator now who is seriously contemplating putting his works into the public domain after his death in order to prevent the corpocracy from taking control of it.

But the fact that copyright will put the entire Western corpocracy at a massive disadvantage should at least provide some impetus for things to move in a much more reasonable direction, particularly if the matter is brought to the God-Emperor’s attention.

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Reading Isn’t Stealing

Scott Thurow and the other authors who oppose training AI on their writings are absolutely and utterly in the wrong, as evidenced by their reliance upon “copyright” to make their case against it.

The tech companies are doing it because they want to, and because they can. It’s the most flagrant copyright breach in history, being perpetrated by the richest companies in the world. It’s their typical modus operandi – steal first, and request permission when challenged. 

And instead of trying to prevent this, the British government wants to give them a free pass. That will be catastrophic, not just for writers in the UK, but all over the world. American authors, for example, who demand compensation from the tech giants will be told, ‘Tough – our scraping operation conforms to UK law.’

Copyright, the most crucial protection for any writer, will effectively cease to exist.

It is copyright that is the abuse, not the reading and analysis of books that have been duly purchased and utilized as the reader sees fit. Copyright neither protects the author nor is necessary in order to inspire creative people to create works of art. It’s not at all a surprise that it’s bestselling corporate hacks like Thurow who are most upset by the possibility that AI can churn out books as unoriginal and poorly-written as their own.

As far as the possibility that people will be able to request a “Scott Thurow” novel that will serve as a convincing substitute for the real thing, that is a clear and obvious matter of trademark, and I have no doubt that the AI services will be paying authors and other IP owners for the rights to utilize their trademark in this way; Grimes is already offering a service to record songs that feature an AI facsimile of her voice to sing the vocals.

If this does spell the end of copyright, that is a good thing. The fact that copyright now extends 70 years or more beyond the life of the author, and that it does so as a result of the Devil Mouse putting pressure on the US Congress, is sufficient proof that it has nothing to do with protecting or even benefiting the creators.

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Kash Patel Confirmed

Kash Patel is the new Director of the FBI. We should find out soon if he’s actually the killer he was advertised as being or not. If I were him, I’d fire everyone, shut the place down, then start the investigations into all the bureau’s ex-employees from the new Federal Investigations Agency created by the God-Emperor 2.0.

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Pause, Hammer Time

A federal judge announces that President Trump can “pause” executive branch agencies from spending money, even though he supposedly doesn’t have the right to “stop” them from spending it. Of course, as usual there is no legal definition of a “pause” versus a “stop”. Perhaps some emanations and penumbras can be found to further clarify the matter.

A federal judge on Wednesday reaffirmed his temporary restraining order against the Trump administration’s efforts to freeze billions of dollars in federal grants and loans, but clarified that President Donald Trump does have the authority to pause federal spending if it complies with existing regulations.

Judge John J. McConnell Jr. previously ruled that the White House defied his recent court order to unfreeze the billions of dollars in aid, which stems from funds that were expected to be paused by the Office of Management and Budget.

The Trump administration appealed McConnell’s earlier decision on Monday, but a federal appeals court declined to hear the case and urged McConnell to clarify his order quickly to avoid any further confusion.

McConnell on Wednesday stated that the federal government, including the president, does still have the right to pause federal spending, but has to do so in accordance with preexisting laws, the Washington Examiner reported.

“The [court’s previous order] does not bar both the President and much of the Federal Government from exercising their own lawful authorities to withhold funding,” McConnell wrote.

The judge also emphasized that the federal government does not need the court’s permission to halt spending if it’s clearly within existing guidelines.

“The [restraining order] nor the Court’s subsequent Order require the Defendants to seek ‘preclearance’ from the Court before acting to terminate funding when that decision is based on actual authority in the applicable statutory, regulatory, or grant terms,” McConnell added.

This is just the usual double-talking talmudism of the courts. The more I’ve learned about the courts and the law, the more I’m convinced that courts and lawyers should be banned from any civilized society. Their actions over time are reliably subversive and inevitably inversive. The end results are no different than having a king and his nobles simply making up the rules as they go along, only without accountability and with more corruption.

UPDATE: There appear to be more, and much bigger, changes in the works.

It was very bad news for the permanent bureaucracy that DOGE and Congress are on the same team. It would have been so much better for them had Congress taken umbrage over the Executive refusing to make payment they’d authorized. But it got so much better.

Then Johnson delivered the coup de grâce, the single sentence revealing a ghastly Sword of Damocles dangling on a gossamer thread right above the Deep State’s masked head, and a critical puzzle piece dropped into what we perceive in the strategic brilliance of Trump’s de-Swamping order of operations. Johnson said:

We have a $36 trillion dollar federal debt. We have got to get ahold of these things. You’re going to see it reflected in the reconciliation package that comes forward, you’re going to see it reflected in the appropriations as we go forward, and you’re going to see it in these efforts to cut waste, fraud, and abuse. And we think the final number on that is going to be substantial and a game changer in Washington.

The clear threat was in Johnson’s final sentence. A game-changer in Washington. DOGE isn’t the weapon, it’s just the canary in the limestone mine. Now that Congress knows where the waste is —like USAID, the National Endowment for Democracy, the Department of Education, DEI spending, the Treasury, Social Security, and the rest— legislators are working up a budget bill to nuke the Deep State from orbit.

It’s wonky, but this is very important. The fact Johnson announced a budget bill is critical. Bills related to reconciling the budget can be passed using a process called ‘budget reconciliation,’ which avoids the Senate filibuster and can be approved with a simple majority. In other words, it’s the Deep State’s worst nightmare: first, DOGE identified the bureaucratic bloat, and so now Republicans in Congress have a viable legislative path to cut the guts out of the bloated, mutant Swamp whale…

The same activist judges siding against him using Congress as an excuse, must now twist into legal pretzels somehow arguing that neither Congress nor the Executive hold the power of the purse, which is even less constitutionally plausible. In other words, Trump tricked the judges into committing to a Congressional-powers argument, which becomes moot when Congress does it.

I’d also like to see him remove the possibility of judicial review from all his executive orders; the courts need to be not only circumnavigated, but crushed, for their illegal and extraconstitutional interference into the operations of the Executive and Legislative branches. But the God-Emperor 2.0 is good, and quite possibly he’ll give us both.

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Removing the Obstructions

Karl Denninger explains how President Trump can stop all of the preliminary injunctions and temporary restraining orders being used to obstruct his executive orders:

(c) Security. The court may issue a preliminary injunction or a temporary restraining order only if the movant gives security in an amount that the court considers proper to pay the costs and damages sustained by any party found to have been wrongfully enjoined or restrained. The United States, its officers, and its agencies are not required to give security.

The Federal Government does not have to post such a bond but States and other filers do.

The amount must be sufficient to compensate the loser, so if you ask for a national TRO or injunction in the general sense we’re talking about millions — or even billions. In the case of fraudulent payments being uncovered, as is currently the case, the potential damage from an injunction is in the tens of billions of dollars and the moving states must post said bond.

Who’s going to write that bond? Nobody, in that sort of amount, so they’d have to post it in cash.

Why isn’t the Trump Administration demanding that said bonds be posted with all such filings?

Perhaps they didn’t know this. At any rate, I’m sure they do now.

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No Trannies in 2028

Mentally disordered foreigners imagining that they are women will not be permitted to participate in the 2028 Olympic Games.

Not only did President Donald Trump sign an executive order effectively banning males from competing in women’s sports at publicly-funded institutions (like schools), but Trump also announced he plans to deny foreign transgender athletes entry into the country for the 2028 Summer Olympics.

Trump says he instructed Secretary of State Marco Rubio to “make [it] clear to the International Olympics Committee that America categorically rejects transgender lunacy. We want them to change everything having to do with the Olympics and having to do with this absolutely ridiculous subject… In Los Angeles in 2028, my administration will not stand by and watch men beat and batter female athletes.”

Men who are US citizens won’t be permitted to compete with the women either. That’s the best way to deal with this wicked madness: call it out for what it is, then ban it.

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Tubcuddlee Sues Tubbcuddler


Neil Gaiman Accused of Human Trafficking, Sexual Abuse in New Lawsuit

On Monday, Scarlett Pavlovich filed a lawsuit in federal court against the author Neil Gaiman on human-trafficking charges under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, a law intended to curtail the crime in the United States and abroad. It additionally accused him of sexual abuse, assault, rape, and coercion. Gaiman has previously denied all allegations of nonconsensual sexual activity, which he has been accused of by multiple women.

The complaint also named Amanda Palmer, Gaiman’s estranged wife, accusing her of procuring Pavlovich for Gaiman and failing to warn her about Gaiman’s history of alleged sexual misconduct. The allegations took place in New Zealand in 2022, but Pavlovich’s lawyers filed the case in Wisconsin, where Gaiman owns a home. Pavlovich is simultaneously filing against Palmer in New York and Massachusetts, where she has residency, and will proceed against Palmer in the district of her choosing.

Looks like it just got very, very real for Mr. Gaiman. I won’t be surprised if other plaintiffs, including some of whom we have not hitherto heard, come forward.

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Is Blake Lively Playing a Lawyer?

Now, perhaps the courts are even more corrupted than I think, but this attempt to control who the other side uses to conduct their depositions strikes me as completely insane.

Blake Lively wants Justin Baldoni’s powerful celebrity attorney Bryan Freedman barred from taking her deposition, DailyMail.com can reveal.  The actress’s lawyers have told their counterparts representing Baldoni and his production company Wayfarer that they object to veteran litigator Freedman conducting the under-oath grilling.

The shock demand is revealed in a new letter from Baldoni’s team to the New York judge overseeing the It Ends with Us co-stars’ $400million defamation suit. They say the 37-year-old Gossip Girl alum and wife of Hollywood megastar Ryan Reynolds, 48, has no right to dictate who questions her.

‘Specifically, the Lively Parties’ counsel indicated that they object to Bryan J. Freedman personally, taking Ms. Lively’s deposition, based upon unspecified statements made by Mr. Freedman. When asked to elaborate on the grounds for their objection, counsel for the Lively Parties declined to do so.’

It would appear that the Lively Parties’ counsel not only are not powerful celebrity attorneys, but are not even lawyers at all. Everything they file or say doesn’t appear to just be counterproductive, but genuinely crazy.

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And So It Begins

The Deep State and its pet judiciary are striking back at the God-Emperor:

A federal judge in Seattle has issued a two-week suspension of President Donald Trump’s executive order to restrict birthright citizenship. The move was “blatantly unconstitutional,” Judge John Coughenour said.

The order, signed by Trump immediately after taking office on January 20, sought to deny citizenship to children born in the United States if neither parent is an American citizen or lawful permanent resident.

The decree has been met with a widespread backlash from Democrats and human rights campaigners. More than 20 Democratic-led states, along with the District of Columbia and the city of San Francisco, filed lawsuits in Boston and Seattle, arguing that Trump had violated the US Constitution. Immigrant and civil rights groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), have filed a lawsuit in New Hampshire.

The restraining order sought by Arizona, Illinois, Oregon and Washington was the first such lawsuit to get a hearing before a judge. The ruling applies nationwide, however.

One can learn a lot about one’s enemy from the points which they choose to defend and what their priorities are. It’s interesting to see that protecting so-called “birthright citizenship” is clearly more important to the enemies of America than fighting the deportations. I suspect that one reason is that they feel birthright citizenship is more defensible; another might be that they know dual-citizenship is almost certainly a future target and it will be easier to outlaw once the ban on birthright citizenship is upheld.

Of course, this is going to be a battle. I suspect the ban will be upheld in a limited capacity, so that those designated “enemy combatants” will be barred from conveying citizenship on their children born in the United States. Then, of course, it’s a simple matter to clarify that the term “enemy combatant” includes everyone who has physically invaded the country.

However, it would be much more effective if President Trump simply ordered that none of his executive orders are subject to judicial branch review, which is of course his legal right under the Constitutional principle of the separation of powers. His other recourse would be to declare martial law and suspend the Constitution under the very valid principle of the ongoing foreign invasion of the United States.

But, of course, there are many different fronts to the war with Clown World.

US President Donald Trump is considering reducing his country’s military contingent in Europe by 20% as he reviews Washington’s commitment to the continent, Italian news agency ANSA has reported, citing EU diplomatic sources. If the pullout occurs, the number of US service personnel in Europe will decrease from around 100,000 to 80,000, the agency reported on Wednesday.

He would be wise to pull all the troops out of Europe and Japan. They can’t serve any purpose except as a six-month speed bump on either front, and there is a very good chance he’s going to need them at home. Remember, the Russians spent 27 million lives in defeating both the Germans and the Japanese during WWII. And the Russian federation has 75 percent of the population of the Soviet Union in 1940. Which means the only thing preventing Russia from invading and occupying the entirety of Europe is not the 100,000 US troops stationed there, but Russia’s lack of national interest in expanding its empire.

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