Tag: Courts

How Do Ya Like That First Amendment?

Posted on by documentingdescent

Hope you enjoyed your Bill of Rights, because even more than in prior years, it’s the Bill of Rights* – with the asterisk denoting ‘some limitations apply’.

The natural outgrowth of this Charlie Kirk shit has been, rather predictably, for Trump and his minions to decide that cracking down on the Left and the Democratic party is the only way out of this horrible state of affairs. I mean, why wouldn’t they? They’ve been itching for some kind of leftist to punch a cop or look sideways at an ICE agent, to give them an excuse to declare martial law and start crushing people under their boots.

The alacrity with which the administration is moving right now certainly suggests that Stephen Miller already had this plan waiting in the wings, prepped for him to push the button and fire up his brownshirts. Of course, there’s no actual connection between left wing policies and murderous intent, but truth is not a quality that matters much to this admin. The fact that Tyler Robinson may have had a trans roommate or may have been dating them and may have been tired of Kirk’s hate-spreading is less important than The Message: The Left Is Here To Destroy America.

Concurrent to all this, the Department of Justice removed a study they themselves commissioned during Trump’s first term, because it indicates the vast majority of all political violence in the United States is perpetrated by the right wing. Even if you don’t want to spend your time reading through the NIJ report on how conservatives will gleefully murder their opponents, it’s easy to count the attacks and compare figures.

If your memory is bad, go back a few days ago, when Fox News talking head Brian Kilmeade suggested the solution to the homelessness epidemic in the United States would be to just kill anyone who’s homeless. Oh, sure, he walked it back and apologized, but don’t get it twisted: this ghoul meant it, and he’s sorry he got called out for being a psychopath. He’s just saying the quiet part out loud.

And people like him have the temerity to lecture others on being heartless about Kirk’s death? Get fucking real.

Speaking of which, Jimmy Kimmel’s comments on Charlie Kirk has gotten him removed from the air indefinitely – ABC (aka Disney) followed suit after Nexstar (owners of a lot of local, rural TV stations) pulled him. Both pulled him after FCC Chairman Brendan Carr basically said “No mocking Trump or I’ll go out of my way to fuck you over.” Good thing Trump vowed not to weaponize government. So what did Kimmel say that was so horrible?

We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.

That’s it? I say worse things when I stub my toe on the way to the toilet. Sinclair Media’s gone so far as to say they won’t reinstate Kimmel unless he both apologizes and donates an undisclosed sum to Kirk’s Turning Point USA group. Which will happen around half past never.

Make no mistake as to why ABC/Disney and Nexstar are doing this, however: they have no deep-seated love of Trump or his crew. But they do both love money. Nexstar as a proposed merger with TV giant Tegna, and ABC/Disney is trying to buy streaming service FUBO. Both of these require FCC approval. This is 100% pay to play bullshit from the FCC and Carr.

Carr’s gone even further after his success with Kimmel: he says the FCC is gonna pull the licenses for anyone who’s critical of the Trump administration. The linked article says Trump said this – and he did – but earlier today Carr concurred with what Trump suggested. That’s not how FCC licenses work, but when has legality or “how shit works” ever stopped these clowns?

You know you done gone too far into Fascism Central when both Karl Rove and Tucker Carlson are speaking out against what you’re doing. When you lose Bowtie Franco and Turdblossom, you fucked up.

The Feds are also actively grasping with their little hands at voter registration rolls across the United States, claiming they need to “examine voter registration to safeguard election integrity”. Yeah, that’s not within your power or purview, and states rightly should tell you to go fuck yourself.

Transparent efforts to see who to target for intimidation and/or malicious prosecution.

The FBI is also rolling full tilt into insanity, with Kash Patel at the helm. Mr. Internet Troll, Mr. 4chan Shitposter himself. He’s got two big winners here, and I can’t even really comment on them, they’re both so fucking horrifying and stupid.

#1: Backing up Trump’s play, Antifa is a terrorist organization! This doesn’t actually mean shit; only designating something a foreign terrorist organization has legal meaning and unlocks things. Domestic? Well, we generally don’t give a shit about that. He coulda done this at any time, so why now? Somebody pointed out that he’s like a shark when it comes to being in the news: he has to keep swimming or he’ll die. He’s thrown his base red meat, because if he’s not in the headlines, he’s losing. Besides, it’s not like an official declaration will meaningfully change how law enforcement will kick the shit out of you. They were always gonna.

#2: FBI to Categorize Trans People As “Nihilistic Violent Extremist” Threat Group, Report Says. This is coming from Ken Klipperstein and he’s rarely wrong, so I expect this to happen. How the fuck do you categorize a sexuality/identity as… a political movement? You know what, I’m not even gonna bother. It’s evil and it’s stupid and these people should never be given a moment’s peace for the rest of their goddamn lives.

Supreme Court: Being Brown is Sus

Posted on by documentingdescent

The Supreme Court today lifted a restriction on ICE/CBP that prevented them from stopping and questioning people based on their job, the language they were speaking, or color of their skin. In essence, being brown or working blue collar jobs is now considered grounds to suspect somebody doesn’t have valid immigration status in the United States.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh said the order went too far in restricting ICE/CPB, and furnished us with this gem of wisdom:

To be clear, apparent ethnicity alone cannot furnish reasonable suspicion; under this Court’s case law regarding immigration stops, however, it can be a ‘relevant factor’ when considered along with other salient factors.

To paraphrase LawDork, aka Chris Geidner, “Brett, do you know what the 4th Amendment is?” Or more succinctly, since ICE/CPB was grabbing people SOLELY on these factors, why are you pissing on us and telling us it’s raining by suggesting there are other factors they give a shit about?

I guess I didn’t expect anything else from the Supreme Court right now, but I’m still disappointed and infuriated.

Denaturalization and You!

Posted on by documentingdescent

It would appear the Trump DOJ is gonna go full steam ahead with attempting to denaturalize citizens based not just on having lied on their N-400 application, but now for having politics the Trump admin finds objectionable.

You know. Just like I and many other said they would.

Sure, the memo from Brett Shumate lists the expected (and currently legal) culprits, such as engaging in terrorism against the United States, lying about criminal records on your N-400, et cetera. But the last item on Shumate’s list is “posing a potential danger to national security” – and, as we’ve seen with the political activists jailed by the admin, merely saying something that disagrees with their policies has been ground to be filed as a danger to national security.

I don’t know if this kind of bullshit will survive the courts – despite the doom from certain friends of mine, losses in court have slowed or stopped Trump admin bullshit over the past six months. But regardless, they’re gonna try to push the narrative that they not only have the right but duty to kick people off the citizenship rolls for disagreement.

The Republican megabill that expands ICE’s budget from around 10 billion (all inclusive) to around 100 billion is now in the House for reconciliation with the Senate version. My hopes are not high that anything truly heinous will be removed, but hey, maybe I’ll get surprised.

It’s so fucking tiring to wake up every day and look at the news and ask, “How have the people in power decided to willfully make all of our lives worse today?”

Birthright Citizenship and the Supreme Court

Posted on by documentingdescent

In keeping with their usual standard of dickery, the Supreme Court made a very bizzaro 6-3 ruling today regarding Trump’s EO over birthright citizenship.

They didn’t rule on if it was constitutional or not, but they ruled lower courts can’t stop EOs from being enforced. They specifically stated that universal injunctions pending court decisions exceed the authority granted them in the constitution. So universal injunctions are out. What this means is that in 28 states, people now born in them to non-citizens do not get birthright citizenship, but identical circumstances in the other states mean they are citizens.

This is gonna cause some seriously tangled shit in courts. It’s a cowardly move made by fascist, coward supreme court justices. Ones who do not give a single shit about the kind of mess they’re causing.

Make no mistake: that EO is a lawless order. The Supreme Court didn’t even have the balls to go full fascist, probably because Roberts wants to protect “his legacy”. So instead they just ruled nobody but them can block lawless orders like this. So effectively, it’s legal, because nobody’s allowed to stop it.

I don’t have any linked articles on this, but Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic primary for NYC’s mayoral election, and the right wingers and oligarchs are absolutely losing their shit over him. Demanding Trump de-naturalize him for lying on his permanent residency form, because obviously he wants to topple the United States, rather than just, y’know, improve New York.

This is especially funny because it implies he was some kind of radical when he filled out his permanent residency forms. You know. When he was seven fucking years old.

ICE Does Not Care About the Law

Posted on by documentingdescent

ICE has deported a father who is legally protected from deportation by court order to El Salvador’s CECOT megaprison. Apparently ICE does not give a shit about court orders.

File under the “No Shit” heading, obviously. I warned about this when they came for Mahmoud Khalil, and we saw it with the total lack of due process for people getting carted off to El Salvador without any semblance of due process. ICE’s attitude has been “trust me, bro” when it comes to their vetting of who gets sent to CECOT.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a refugee from El Salvador, owing to the fact that he and his family were under threat by Salvadorean gangs. He came to the United States in 2011 due to threats of murder, kidnapping and torture against him and his family. This was part of an extortion attempt by the gangs in question. After his asylum hearings, he was granted a status of “withholding of removal”, preventing deportation.

He was also accused in of being a member of MS-13 in 2019. He was picked up in a Home Depot parking lot while looking for work, and was identified as an MS-13 member by virtue of having tattoos and an accusation by an unnamed source; he was found by the judge to not be a member of MS-13, and his withholding of removal status maintained. This finding was due to the accusation having no proof, with even the police saying they did not believe the accuser and did not believe Abrego-Garcia was a gang member.

JD Vance has claimed Abrego Garcia is a “convicted gang member.” No. There was no conviction, only an accusation. JD Vance is a fucking liar. To state it a second time, Abrego Garcia’s withholding of removal was maintained, and no conviction occurred.

Yet nonetheless, Abrego Garcia was deported to CECOT. ICE personnel stopped his car after picking up his son on March 12, saying his status had changed.

The White House and ICE know they fucked this up. They have stated so. This was all a “administrative error”. Hell of a administrative error to deport a pan to a megaprison for an indeterminate sentence. “Although ICE was aware of his protection from removal to El Salvador, Abrego Garcia was removed to El Salvador because of an administrative error,” the government told the court.

It is the contention of the Trump administration that they are powerless to return Abrego Garcia to the United States. They definition have no interest in pursuing his return, based on their inaction and diffidence to his situation. They have offered two excuses for their inaction.

One reason is that they say they have no authority over El Salvadorian imprisonments. While technically true, when has that ever stopped the United States from demanding prisoner releases in the past?

The second reason is that Trump’s “primacy in foreign affairs” outweighs the interests of Abrego Garcia and his family. Abrego Garcia’s lawyer, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, had some choice words about that.

If that’s true, the immigration laws are meaningless – all of them – because the government can deport whoever they want, wherever they want, whenever they want, and no court can do anything about it once it’s done.”

The will eventually come for your neighbors, your friends, even you, if we allow this kind of thing to continue.

No Brakes on the Musk Train

Posted on by documentingdescent

Musk gave away two checks for 1 million dollars each last night, as Wisconsin’s supreme court declined to take up AG Kaul’s lawsuit. They gave no reasoning behind their decision, but promised to give it at a later date. I have heard it argued that the lawsuit was not the correct path, because it’s a criminal affair, but I have no confirmation on that.

I mean, Kaul probably should have criminally charged Musk. As Nick Cave put it in “Until the End of the World”, however, we’re in the age full of “men with big mouths and no guts.”

I’ve also heard it reported that in his 100 minute speech, he called for the elimination of the Federal Reserve, and creating a federal crypto banking system to run parallel to the US Dollar.

Frankly, I can’t find any independent reporting on that, and I’m not listening to him for five minutes, much less 100. So those can remain rumor for now.

“Now Let Them Enforce It”

Posted on by documentingdescent

In a move that should surprise no one who has even once paid attention to Donald Trump’s modus operandi, U.S. District Judge John McConnell has found that the White House is in violation of a court order requiring them to restore funding to federal departments and agencies. Currently locked out due to the White House’s funding freeze, units like the National Institute of Health can’t pay for obligations that are already on the books.

In a nutshell, the judge ordered them to unfreeze the funds, and they just haven’t complied. JD Vance, in tweets during the Superbowl on Sunday, suggested courts don’t have the authority to tell the President what to do. Other than the years they spent demanding Biden adhere to court orders, this is farcical on the face of it. If the courts don’t have the authority to dictate law in terms of the Executive Branch, then there is absolutely no reason to listen to anything the Supreme Court says whatsoever when it comes to the Executive.

The problem is, of course, that there is no mechanism for the courts to enforce this sort of thing in terms of physical people who will arrive and force it, aside from possibly the US Marshals.

This is, of course, on purpose. The phrase “constitutional crisis” may seem overused these days, but in this case it’s pretty valid. Should Trump decide not to listen to the court order, we’ll be ramming head first into a wall at Mach 1. And Chief Justice Roberts will no doubt wring his hands and go, “Well shit.” Well, Roberts, you set this shit up. We’re ALL on the ride now.

This isn’t the first time this has happened. In 1832, in Worcester v. Georgia, President Andrew Jackson apocryphally said “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!” He did express similar sentiments, however.