Reposted by austin
personally the only reason i've heard the song is because my phone tries to take over the car when i'm riding with someone and nobody's car but mine has a cd player anymore.
austin
@atchambers.bsky.social
231 followers 631 following 164 posts
lawyer doing the “data and tech stuff” … human interests include photography, cooking, travel, and sleep | denver, colorado
![On December 11, 2025, President Donald J. Trump announced a pardon for former Mesa County, Colorado, Clerk Tina Peters. A veritable mob of critics emerged to condemn the pardon as unlawful, illegal, not allowed, and fundamentally inconsistent with the narrowly circumscribed powers of the President to “grant pardons and reprieves for Offenses against the United States,” which clearly refers to federal offenses. 1 In response to the hullabaloo, Professor Jerry Edwards bravely “survey[ed] hundreds of years of history in the past few days” and wrote an article “assessing the originalist case.”2 Professor Edwards made the regrettable mistake of posting his article to the Social Science Research Network (“SSRN”), which concluded that his “manuscript [did] not meet the criteria for posting on SSRN” and subsequently removed it3—demonstrating yet another instance of well-documented bias against originalist legal scholarship.4 To the untrained scholar, Professor Edwards’s scholarship may have seemed like he just copied and pasted the lyrics to Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up”5 into a Word document, which spanned approximately a page and a half, and conducted no originalist analysis. Even if Professor Edwards did just that,6 characterizing this discussion as somehow unfitting of other works in the originalist oeuvre7 is, yet again, anti-originalist bias. In this brief essay, which was rushedly written to ensure that the whole commentariat was aware of the “entire literature that disagrees”8 with the notion that the President cannot pardon state crimes, I analyze the lyrics of “Never Gonna Give You Up.” I conclude that it has as direct, helpful, and material a bearing on originalist jurisprudence on the President’s pardon power as any leading originalist scholar could muster.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:q3dycka5ce2gybcbau5gfehd/bafkreiciwxwj5gbuomhmhbkn4gncsoy5icfxwyxijxyzm5hw6q5v4xxj3y)
![IV. CONCLUSION
The U.S. Constitution affords critical protections against Executive action like that ordered
in EO 14230. Government officials, including the President, may not “subject[] individuals to
‘retaliatory actions’ after the fact for having engaged in protected speech.” Hous. Cmty. Coll. Sys.,
595 U.S. at 474 (quoting Nieves, 587 U.S. at 398). They may neither “use the power of the State
to punish or suppress disfavored expression,” Vullo, 602 U.S. at 188, nor engage in the use of
“purely personal and arbitrary power,” Yick Wo, 118 U.S. at 370. In this case, these and other
foundational protections were violated by EO 14230. On that basis, this Court has found that EO
14230 violates the Constitution and is thus null and void. For the reasons explained, plaintiff is
entitled to summary judgment and declaratory and permanent injunctive relief on Counts II
through IX of the Amended Complaint. The government’s motion to dismiss is denied.
An order consistent with this Memorandum Opinion will be entered contemporaneously.
Date: May 2, 2025
__________________________
BERYL A. HOWELL
United States District Judge](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:36eqtmzysqf7wsslczw4uxcd/bafkreiao7yxugdwnz4olk32epcxvgerj5kdhnzylfw6t74rlsuymhegl7q)
