Author: Buck Banks

That Pesky Old ‘Intuitive Sense of Liberty

Buck Banks

“It is difficult in some cases to get to the very heart of the matter. But in this case, it is not hard at all. The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the assemblage of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody, there is nothing that can be done. This should be shocking not only to judges but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from the courthouse still hold dear.”

— Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson, a Reagan appointee and conservative icon, in an opinion about the Maryland man wrongly-deported to El Salvador.

Is Ocasio-Cortez Running for President?

Buck Banks

$10 million

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) “raised nearly $10 million in the first three months of 2025, a stunning total for a House member and almost two-thirds of what she raised total in 2023 and 2024 combined,” the Daily Beast reports. “These funds came from more than 250,000 individual donors, with an average contribution of $21. Know what that sounds a lot like? The fundraising haul of a presidential candidate.”

Three-Quarters of Americans Are Religious

Buck Banks

76%

Americans’ religious preferences have generally held steady in the past five years, after a sharp increase in the percentage of Americans with no religious affiliation and concurrent declines in Protestant and Catholic identification over the prior two decades, according to Gallup. In 2024, 45% of Americans identified as Protestant or nondenominational Christian, 21% as Catholic and 10% as another religion, with 22% not identifying with any religion. Those figures are each within one percentage point of their 2018-2020 levels.

Canadians Are Pissed

Buck Banks

“Canadians—40 million Canadians—are at a fever pitch right now. They’re willing to sacrifice. They’re patriotic, like patriotism I’ve never seen. We always say how Canadians are so polite. Well, they’re at a fever pitch right now and willing to do anything and sacrifice anything to protect their sovereignty.”

— Ontario Premier Doug Ford, in a conversation with David Frum.

U.S. State Department Likely Violated Human Rights Law with $6 Million Payment for El Salvador Prison

Buck Banks

megavision.com
The U.S. State Department is paying El Salvador $6 million to house hundreds of immigrants deported from the United States in an immense and brutal prison there, Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, reports Florida Phoenix.

But a U.S. law bars State’s financial support of “units of foreign security forces” — which can include military and law enforcement staff in prisons — facing credible allegations of gross human rights violations. That has led those who wrote what’s known as the Leahy Law and enforced it for years to question the legality of the $6 million payment made as President Donald Trump carries out his campaign of mass deportation.

The Trump administration on March 15 sent 261 men to CECOT, after invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to apply to Venezuelan nationals 14 and older who are suspected members of the gang Tren de Aragua.

On March 30, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said another 17 nationals from El Salvador were sent to CECOT, again alleging gang ties. On Sunday, Rubio said 10 more men were sent to the prison in El Salvador, and noted how “the alliance between” the U.S. and El Salvador “has become an example for security and prosperity in our hemisphere.”