Let's all keep an eye on Judge Ryan Nelson of the Court of Appeals in the Ninth Circuit, which includes the Pacific Northwest. I think Judge Nelson has a lean and hungry look, and that he is looking at the next several steps up the ladder that ends in that great white temple across the street from the Capitol. On Monday, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit granted a stay on a lower court injunction that forbade the president from sending troops into Portland. Two of the three judges, including Nelson, were Trump appointees, so the decision was no surprise. But Nelson took the opportunity in his concurrence to throw long. His concurrence might as well have been a résumé dropped on the Resolute desk.

Essentially, Nelson ruled that the president may use the military domestically for

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