All that’s missing is torture. They’re working on it.
Schoolchildren learn it:
“I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
During the postwar Red Scare in 1954, we added “under God” between “nation” and “indivisible.”
God has nothing to do with Trump 2.0, nor does justice for all.
Joyce Vance considers how the administration fared in courts on Friday. She suggests that judges are not taking well to the administration’s “saying ‘f*** you’ to the courts over and over again.”
Judge Hernán Vera in Los Angeles ordered the Los Angeles Police Department to stop “assaulting, detaining, and using nonlethal ammunition against journalists who are covering protests” and to stop limiting their movements where conditions do not absolutely require it.
Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong from California’s Central District (in that district only) “granted a temporary restraining order directing DHS/ICE to stop making arrests in violation of the 4th Amendment, using appearance, accent, and type of work to arrest people, because none of those considerations amount to probable cause.”
Someone alert “Border Czar” Tom Homan.
(Remember when Fox News frothed that Barack Obama’s alleged “csars” meant the first black president was turning the country into an authoritarian hellhole? Fox was foreshadowing.)
Then there is the ongoing civil against Abrego Garcia in Maryland. ICE screwed up initially in deporting him to El Salvador in violation of a court order. The government has since spent months vilifying Abrego Garcia in public to somehow justify its mistake rather than admit it. They made him into a worldwide cause célèbre and now mean to make an example of him over it. They can’t wait to deport him to a hellhole like South Sudan:
Yesterday, Judge Paula Xinis heard testimony from a witness she had directed the government to present, and it turned out that the testimony failed to answer some of the very basic questions she has about the case. Questions like, what do you plan to do with Mr. Abrego Garcia if he’s released, and in what country, other than El Salvador, where the government is currently prohibited from sending him, might you dump him? The government is taking a ridiculous posture, saying that unless and until he’s released from criminal custody in the Tennessee case, they aren’t making any plans at all—they just have some vague ideas about the possibilities.
Given that this is the same government we now know from the Erez Reuveni whistleblower case doesn’t feel compelled to comply with courts that rule against Donald Trump’s desired course of action, it’s easy to understand why the Judge was skeptical of the government, telling their lawyers she could no longer presume they were acting in good faith at one point. The presumption of regularity entitles the government to an assumption by the court that its actions are valid and in accordance with the law, placing a burden on any party challenging it to prove otherwise. “You have taken the presumption of regularity and you’ve destroyed it in my view,” Judge Xinis said.
The judge has lost patience with government petulance. For it’s part, the government wants to deport the man to some third world country while working overtime to turn the United States into one.
The Judge was righteously indignant that the government wouldn’t say what it wants to do, maintaining the fiction that some randomly assigned desk officer will decide what happens on the fly if Abrego Garcia is returned to their custody, just like they would in any normal case. It’s ridiculous. The government is saying “f*** you” to the courts over and over again, and the courts seem to be getting the message.
By now, anyone who is paying attention understands that all people in the United States, not just citizens, are entitled to due process, even if it’s just a limited dose of it. It would be easy for the government to provide it. Their steadfast refusal, leading to this entire series of confrontations with the courts, suggests that their objective here is to be so hateful and expose people to so much danger that migrants will deport themselves and stop coming to the United States because the risk of having horrors inflicted on them, bring dropped into a dangerous country where they don’t speak the language, or being sent to CECOT prison is too great. It’s the stepped-up version of then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions saying, “We need to take away children,” in order to deter illegal immigration during a meeting with a U.S. Attorney who expressed concern about the family separation policy back at the start of the first Trump administration. Now that feels quaint.
We added “under God” to the Pledge during the 1950’s manufactured “commie” panic. Will someone propose stripping “and justice for all” over this one over immigrants? Trump 2.0 clearly has no use for it. Put the DOGE boys on it.
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