TEXAS HOLD ‘EM: It’s been two days of whiplash for the Texas law that would empower state and local police agencies to arrest and deport migrants illegally entering the country. Only hours after the Supreme Court reversed its Monday order allowing the law to go into effect, yesterday the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans put it on hold again.

  The issue is whether the Texas law would usurp federal authority to enforce immigration and border protection. The Fifth Circuit scheduled arguments for today on whether the law should remain on hold while its constitutionality wends its way back up to the Supreme Court.

  The Supreme Court in 2012 struck down a similar law in Arizona, declaring that the federal government, not states, had the power to set immigration policy.  

  One critic called the Texas law the “show me your papers act” in which law enforcement could ask anyone to prove they are a legal resident. Local law enforcement chiefs have said their agencies are not trained or equipped to take on the additional task of immigration enforcement.

  When the Supreme Court allowed the law to go into effect the three liberal justices dissented. “Today, the court invites further chaos and crisis in immigration enforcement,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote. “That law upends the federal-state balance of power that has existed for over a century, in which the national government has had exclusive authority over entry and removal of noncitizens.”

ORANGE ALERT: Donald Trump, who refers to the President as “Crooked Joe,” filed a defamation lawsuit against ABC News and anchor George Stephanopoulos for saying on-air that Trump had been found liable for raping the writer E. Jean Carroll.

  During a recent contentious interview with South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace, who has been public about being raped when she was a teenager, Stephanopoulos asked why she continues to support Trump after he was found “liable for rape” in the E. Jean Carroll civil lawsuit.

  The Carroll lawsuit actually found Trump liable for sexual abuse and a separate jury awarded her $83.3 million for defamation. But on the theory of “you know it when you see it,” the judge in the case later clarified that because of New York’s legal definition of “rape,” the jury finding did not literally mean that Carroll “failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape.’”

  Trump has sued other news outlets including The NY Times and CNN with no success.

  Also yesterday, lawyers for Trump filed briefs with the Supreme Court in advance of April 25^tharguments on whether the former president should be afforded total immunity from criminal prosecution.

  “The president cannot function, and the presidency itself cannot retain its vital independence,” the brief said, “if the president faces criminal prosecution for official acts once he leaves office.”

  What has yet to be addressed is whether attempting to overturn the 2020 election should be considered an official act of the presidency.

THE WAR ROOM: Despite warning and pleas from the US about the potential for civilian casualties, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his Parliament yesterday that he is determined to carry out a ground operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah to finish wiping out Hamas militants.

  “I made it as clear as possible to the president that we are determined to complete the elimination of these battalions in Rafah, and there is no way to do this without a ground incursion,” Netanyahu said.

  The Biden administration opposes sending ground troops into Rafah without a plan to evacuate more than one million Palestinians who would be caught in the middle of combat.

  A telephone conversation on Monday was the first direct communication between Biden and Netanyahu in a month, indicating a chilly relationship in the midst of crisis. Netanyahu told the lawmakers, “We have a debate with the Americans over the need to enter Rafah, not over the need to eliminate Hamas, but the need to enter Rafah.” 

THE GOON SQUAD: Two former Mississippi cops who were part of an all-white  police gang known as “The Good Squad” were handed lengthy prison sentences yesterday for the abuse and torture of two Black men who had been visiting in the home of a white woman.

  Jeffrey Middleton, the 46-year-old leader of the group, was sent away for 17 ½ years and Hunter Elward, 31, was sentenced to 20 years. 

  The incident happened in January 2023 after a white person phoned Rankin County Deputy Brett McAlpin to complain that two Black men were staying with a white woman in Braxton. The group known as “The Goon Squad” was sent to deal with the situation violently.

  The six deputies burst into the home and assaulted the two victims with stun guns, a sex toy, and other objects. Elward shot one man in the mouth in a mock execution.

THE SPIN RACK: Former Trump presidential aid Peter Navarro yesterday reported to a federal prison in Florida to serve his four-month sentence for refusing to testify before the House January 6^th committee. “I’m afraid of only one thing,” the 74-year-old Navarro told reporters. “I’m afraid for my country, because this — what they are doing — will have a chilling effect on every American, regardless of their party.” — Saudi Arabia plans to invest $40 billion in the development of artificial intelligence. — Alabama’s Republican-dominated legislature passed a law to ban state funding for diversity, equity and inclusion programs at public universities, local boards of education and government agencies, as well as limiting the teaching of “divisive concepts” regarding race, gender and identity. The law also prohibits public universities and colleges from letting transgender people use bathrooms that correspond to their gender identity.

BELOW THE FOLD: While the world wonders about the missing British Royal Kate Middleton, Melania Trump has been America’s missing person. She was actually seen in the company of the former president yesterday going to vote in the Florida primary.

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