This extrapolation is exactly what's missing in the national dialog of the past 4 years and why we are facing this destruction. Just saying the word fascism is not enough. Turning the clock back to the 1700's before the American Revolution sounds odd too....
But describing what this is and the logical etrajectory and how it effects us all is the way to communicate.
Annabel Ascher: Today's column by Professor Joyce Vance (We are in this together!) cites a judicial opinion by Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson, III of the U.S. Court of Appeals (4th Circuit):
"Rejecting the government’s 258-page “EMERGENCY MOTION FOR STAY PENDING APPEAL AND PETITION FOR WRIT OF MANDAMUS,” the Fourth Circuit wrote “we shall not micromanage the efforts of a fine district judge attempting to implement the Supreme Court’s recent decision.” The Trump administration’s motion claimed Judge Xinis had “crossed” a constitutional line and unleashed a “fishing expedition” in her discovery order. “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,” Judge Wilkinson continued.
Then came some unstinting criticism of the Trump administration. “The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that 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 courthouses still hold dear.”
He continued, in much the same vein as we discussed last night, that everyone—criminal or saint, or ordinary human; citizen or not—is entitled to due process under the Constitution. “The government asserts that Abrego Garcia is a terrorist and a member of MS-13. Perhaps, but perhaps not. Regardless, he is still entitled to due process. If the government is confident of its position, it should be assured that position will prevail in proceedings to terminate the withholding of removal order.” In other words, if the government thinks it’s got such good factual proof of that, what is it so worried about? It can present its proof, and it should prevail in getting Abrego Garcia removed from this country.
Then, in a burst of common sense that was apparent to constituents at Senator Grassley’s town hall early this week when they asked why the president of the United States didn’t have to obey court order, the opinion asks, “Moreover, the government has conceded that Abrego Garcia was wrongly or ‘mistakenly’ deported. Why then should it not make what was wrong, right?”
Judge Wilkinson rejects the government’s position that the Supreme Court decision in the case would “allow the government to do essentially nothing,” writing that the Court’s decision:
“Requires the government ‘to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.…
“‘Facilitate’ is an active verb. It requires that steps be taken as the Supreme Court has made perfectly clear…. The plain and active meaning of the word cannot be diluted by its constriction, as the government would have it, to a narrow term of art. We are not bound in this context by a definition crafted by an administrative agency and contained in a mere policy directive….
“Thus, the government’s argument that all it must do is ‘remove any domestic barriers to [Abrego Garcia’s] return,’…is not well taken in light of the Supreme Court’s command that the government facilitate Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador.
“‘Facilitation’ does not permit the admittedly erroneous deportation of an individual to the one country’s prisons that the withholding order forbids and, further, to do so in disregard of a court order that the government not so subtly spurns….
“Allowing all this would…reduce the rule of law to lawlessness and tarnish the very values for which Americans of diverse views and persuasions have always stood.”
"That important closing statement made, Judge Wilkinson then makes clear that he is writing to the Supreme Court, too:
“If today the Executive claims the right to deport without due process and in disregard of court orders, what assurance will there be tomorrow that it will not deport American citizens and then disclaim responsibility to bring them home? And what assurance shall there be that the Executive will not train its broad discretionary powers upon its political enemies? The threat, even if not the actuality, would always be present, and the Executive’s obligation to ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed’ would lose its meaning.”
"Then, the court chastises the executive branch: “The respect that courts must accord the Executive must be reciprocated by the Executive’s respect for the courts. Too often today this has not been the case, as calls for impeachment of judges for decisions the Executive disfavors and exhortations to disregard court orders sadly illustrate.”
"Judge Wilkinson reminds President Trump of the approach taken by President Eisenhower when the Court ordered integration in America’s schools. “Putting his ‘personal opinions’ aside, President Eisenhower honored his ‘inescapable’ duty to enforce the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education II to desegregate schools ‘with all deliberate speed.’”
This extrapolation is exactly what's missing in the national dialog of the past 4 years and why we are facing this destruction. Just saying the word fascism is not enough. Turning the clock back to the 1700's before the American Revolution sounds odd too....
But describing what this is and the logical etrajectory and how it effects us all is the way to communicate.
Let's hope its not too late.
Annabel Ascher: When even Germany votes 20% for AfD (Alternative for Germany (Deutschland)), the outlook is dire.
Trump 2.0 shows Americans to have willed a nightmare of human rights outrages.
The scenes playing out with indiscriminate and forced deportations to a Salvadorean torture camp are worse than any horror film.
It is as if the South had won the Civil War, there had not been a Civil Rights Movement or FDR's New Deal or LBJ's War on Poverty or Great Society.
That only the Westward expansion of genocide against First Nation Peoples had gone on and Jim Crow is alive and well.
As with The Raven,
"Is there hope in Gilead.
"Quoth the Raven, Nevermore."
Yes, right now they are winning.
The resistance has not had one substantive win--by that I mean a true end of a policy implements by the Regime.
They have had substantive wins, such as the hand picked cabinet. Such as the tariff/insider trading scam.
And there are a bunch of items still in play--but an honest assessment show that in every case, they have the stronger hand at the moment.
Can we actually organize a meaningful response? Quoting the West Wing's Leo McGarry--"It's six/five and you pick 'em"
Only time will tell. I have no idea if prayer works, but I am doing it anyhow.
Annabel Ascher: Today's column by Professor Joyce Vance (We are in this together!) cites a judicial opinion by Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson, III of the U.S. Court of Appeals (4th Circuit):
"Rejecting the government’s 258-page “EMERGENCY MOTION FOR STAY PENDING APPEAL AND PETITION FOR WRIT OF MANDAMUS,” the Fourth Circuit wrote “we shall not micromanage the efforts of a fine district judge attempting to implement the Supreme Court’s recent decision.” The Trump administration’s motion claimed Judge Xinis had “crossed” a constitutional line and unleashed a “fishing expedition” in her discovery order. “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,” Judge Wilkinson continued.
Then came some unstinting criticism of the Trump administration. “The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that 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 courthouses still hold dear.”
He continued, in much the same vein as we discussed last night, that everyone—criminal or saint, or ordinary human; citizen or not—is entitled to due process under the Constitution. “The government asserts that Abrego Garcia is a terrorist and a member of MS-13. Perhaps, but perhaps not. Regardless, he is still entitled to due process. If the government is confident of its position, it should be assured that position will prevail in proceedings to terminate the withholding of removal order.” In other words, if the government thinks it’s got such good factual proof of that, what is it so worried about? It can present its proof, and it should prevail in getting Abrego Garcia removed from this country.
Then, in a burst of common sense that was apparent to constituents at Senator Grassley’s town hall early this week when they asked why the president of the United States didn’t have to obey court order, the opinion asks, “Moreover, the government has conceded that Abrego Garcia was wrongly or ‘mistakenly’ deported. Why then should it not make what was wrong, right?”
Judge Wilkinson rejects the government’s position that the Supreme Court decision in the case would “allow the government to do essentially nothing,” writing that the Court’s decision:
“Requires the government ‘to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.…
“‘Facilitate’ is an active verb. It requires that steps be taken as the Supreme Court has made perfectly clear…. The plain and active meaning of the word cannot be diluted by its constriction, as the government would have it, to a narrow term of art. We are not bound in this context by a definition crafted by an administrative agency and contained in a mere policy directive….
“Thus, the government’s argument that all it must do is ‘remove any domestic barriers to [Abrego Garcia’s] return,’…is not well taken in light of the Supreme Court’s command that the government facilitate Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador.
“‘Facilitation’ does not permit the admittedly erroneous deportation of an individual to the one country’s prisons that the withholding order forbids and, further, to do so in disregard of a court order that the government not so subtly spurns….
“Allowing all this would…reduce the rule of law to lawlessness and tarnish the very values for which Americans of diverse views and persuasions have always stood.”
"That important closing statement made, Judge Wilkinson then makes clear that he is writing to the Supreme Court, too:
“If today the Executive claims the right to deport without due process and in disregard of court orders, what assurance will there be tomorrow that it will not deport American citizens and then disclaim responsibility to bring them home? And what assurance shall there be that the Executive will not train its broad discretionary powers upon its political enemies? The threat, even if not the actuality, would always be present, and the Executive’s obligation to ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed’ would lose its meaning.”
"Then, the court chastises the executive branch: “The respect that courts must accord the Executive must be reciprocated by the Executive’s respect for the courts. Too often today this has not been the case, as calls for impeachment of judges for decisions the Executive disfavors and exhortations to disregard court orders sadly illustrate.”
"Judge Wilkinson reminds President Trump of the approach taken by President Eisenhower when the Court ordered integration in America’s schools. “Putting his ‘personal opinions’ aside, President Eisenhower honored his ‘inescapable’ duty to enforce the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education II to desegregate schools ‘with all deliberate speed.’”
https://joycevance.substack.com/p/a-fourth-circuit-judge-warns-against
Our Founders set up a system, we all now, of countervailing powers checks upon each branch.
The problem is not alone Trump or this regime.
The problem is an overly emboldened Executive.
The cure is to cut severely into the Executive's powers and check it with a more powerful judiciary and Congress (both houses).
Even a left-wing Presidency can lead us astray, as with the War in Vietnam.
It is the Presidency that must be trimmed at the wing so it cannot fly.