Milestones Toward an Authoritarian Government

[Triweasel]

That’s a relief I guess. Still ridiculous that he is anywhere near power. Could say that about a lot of these rejects Trump surrounds himself with.

[ArthurItas]

WSJ is woke

[Fish_Actuary]

Sounds like their editorial board is aiding and abetting terrorists.

[tommie.frazier]

[quote=“now_samantha, post:1085, topic:9770”]
Hence the escalation to sworn depositions that increase the odds of resulting in contempt charges.
And the immediate pardon[/quote]

Ifyp

[dr_t_non-fan]

“I’m altering the terms. Pray I don’t alter them again.”

[dr_t_non-fan]

Jesus, Barack, you want get ICE’d?

[Actuary321]

Surprised that hasn’t happened or even talked about.

[vjvj]

Every time I see this thread, I think “Millstones …”, with the visual image of the country being dragged underwater.

[now_samantha]

First amendment, shmirst amendment, amirite? Although about that MSNBC choosing not to call him an MS-13 member:

While the administration refuses to seek Abrego Garcia’s return and publicly accuses him of being an MS-13 “leader” and member of a “foreign terrorist organization” who is “involved in human trafficking,” the government’s attorneys have yet to make these claims in court and they haven’t been supported by any evidence presented.

Trump’s FCC chair blasts MSNBC for ‘news distortion’ over Abrego Garcia coverage

[now_samantha]

You cannot be serious.

A federal prosecutor sent a letteropens in a new tab or window to a medical journal editor, probing whether the publication is “partisan” when it comes to “various scientific debates.”

Edward R. Martin Jr., U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, sent a list of questions to CHEST Editor-in-Chief Peter Mazzone, MD, MPH, of the Cleveland Clinic, asking how the journal handles “misinformation” and “competing viewpoints,” among other things.

Ok, not surprised it is Martin. But still, we are talking about fricking medical journals.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/115180

[JFG]

In the every accusation is a confession file;

Martin’s letter asks five questions, including how the journal assesses its “responsibilities to protect the public from misinformation,” and how it “clearly articulate[s] to the public when you have certain viewpoints that are influenced by your ongoing relations with supporters, funders, advertisers, and others.”

[The_Polymath]

Here is the text of the order from a Guardian article.

The Courts have been very clear that the Trump administration is breaking the law, while Trump and his sycophants continue to stall, ignore, or just outright lie.

The US is headed for a constitutional crisis. I would be very concerned because once they see that they can behave this way with an immigrant, you will have no defense about them doing the exact same thing to you, even as a US Citizen.

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 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.

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. Moreover, the government has conceded that Abrego Garcia was wrongly or “mistakenly” deported. Why then should it not make what was wrong, right?

The Supreme Court’s decision remains, as always, our guidepost. That decision rightly requires the lower federal courts to give “due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs”. That would allow sensitive diplomatic negotiations to be removed from public view. It would recognize as well that the “facilitation” of Abrego Garcia’s return leaves the Executive Branch with options in the execution to which the courts in accordance with the Supreme Court’s decision should extend a genuine deference. That decision struck a balance that does not permit lower courts to leave Article II by the wayside.

The Supreme Court’s decision does not, however, allow the government to do essentially nothing. It 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. “Facilitation” does not sanction the abrogation of habeas corpus through the transfer of custody to foreign detention centers in the manner attempted here. Allowing all this would “facilitate” foreign detention more than it would domestic return. It would reduce the rule of law to lawlessness and tarnish the very values for which Americans of diverse views and persuasions have always stood.

The government is obviously frustrated and displeased with the rulings of the court. Let one thing be clear. Court rulings are not above criticism. Criticism keeps us on our toes and helps us do a better job. Court rulings can overstep, and they can further intrude upon the prerogatives of other branches. Courts thus speak with the knowledge of their imperfections but also with a sense that they instill a fidelity to law that would be sorely missed in their absence.

“Energy in the [E]xecutive” is much to be respected. It can rescue government from its lassitude and recalibrate imbalances too long left unexamined. The knowledge that executive energy is a perishable quality understandably breeds impatience with the courts. Courts, in turn, are frequently attuned to caution and are often uneasy with the Executive Branch’s breakneck pace.

And the differences do not end there. The Executive is inherently focused upon ends; the Judiciary much more so upon means. Ends are bestowed on the Executive by electoral outcomes. Means are entrusted to all of government, but most especially to the Judiciary by the Constitution itself.

The Executive possesses enormous powers to prosecute and to deport, but with powers come restraints. 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.

[ArthurItas]

Trump Media wants the SEC to investigate a hedge fund that has a $105 million...

[Maphistos_Sidekick]

@The_Polymath

Here is the text of the order from a Guardian article.

I noted it in the ICE thread, but it bears repeating:

When reading that order, keep in mind that it was authored by the appellate judge in that circuit who is most deferential to Executive authority.

That opinion was damning. For that opinion to have been issued by that particular judge arguably increases the damnation by an order of magnitude.

[ArthurItas]

Bipartisan Coalition of Over 200 Former Government Officials & Other...

A response to Trump’s retaliatory investigations of Krebs and Taylor for daring to say anything critical of Dear Leader

[dr_t_non-fan]

“What? Nixon did it. So, precedent.”

About time the spines grew.

[ArthurItas]

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/three-prosecutors-corruption-case-against-nyc-mayor-eric-adams-resign-according-2025-04-22/

[ArthurItas]

[Cooke]

Hopefully CBS ignores Trump suggestions on his successor.

[Maphistos_Sidekick]

…unless Trump wants to be the successor and is willing to resign from the Presidency to take up that duty.

I don’t want a President Vance, but he at least lacks the cult power that causes Republican congresscritters’ spines to vanish.