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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 7, 2025

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Bukele has said that the US is paying El Salvador to hold the prisoners on an ongoing basis. If he is telling the truth, this looks awfully like "the seller would make minor changes on normal commercial terms if the buyer asked them to." In reality, it may also be "the seller can tell if the actual buyer (i.e. Trump, not America) actually wants the thing, and a request that is obviously made under coercion will be ignored"

There is a common asset protection strategy of putting your wealth in the name of a trust lawyer in an offshore jurisdiction. The legal arrangement is that the lawyer has broad discretion to manage your wealth in the interests of a long list of extended family members. The practical arrangement is that the lawyer will manage your wealth to your instructions unless you are acting under a court order in favour of your business creditors, your ex-wife, the parents of the kid you ran over while drunk, the IRS etc. The US courts typical response is to throw the clown in jail for contempt and tell the trust lawyer that his client would very much prefer not to be in jail, so send money now. Unfortunately the US courts can't jail the President for contempt.

Hmm, then I'll amend what I wrote above about redressability. If the US is paying to house this particular guy, then it is likely a remedy to order the US to stop paying.

This applies to the Venezuelan prisoners. Garcia is a Salvadoran citizen and is being imprisoned indefinitely in El Salvador without a trial on the word of one US confidential informant (who may or may not exist) that he's in MS-13.