I got a lift from some of the signs people carried at the protests over the weekend. Like:
Elect a rapist, expect to be screwed.
They’re eating the checks! They’re eating the balances!
My expectations for Trump were low but HOLY FUCK!
For Zelenskyy, we’ll give you Trump and another idiot to be named later.
Also saw a picture of an older gentleman wearing a t-shirt that said, “I too will quit drinking when Trump puts me in his Cabinet.” (Ditto, sir.)
Regarding the protests John Hinderaker, of the wing-nut Power Line blog, wonders: What do they mean, “hands off”? Hands off what? Of many possible replies, how about hands off the Maryland man who, in what the Trump administration calls an “administrative error,” was deported to El Salvador, where he’s now incarcerated in a notorious prison? Lawyers sued on his behalf, and a judge ordered the administration to get him back to our country … by tonight. The administration appealed: its argument is essentially oopsie, too bad, El Salvador has him now, nothing we can do, give us more time so that we can do more nothing.
In a unanimous 3-0 decision, the appeals court today held against the administration, which immediately asked its staff members on the Supreme Court to block the order. It’s almost as if they don’t want their error to be corrected. We’ll see what happens. One of the appeals court judges, J. Harvie Wilkinson, is a Reagan appointee widely regarded as a conservative stalwart. Here is the key paragraph in his decision:
And the government rightfully concedes that it was an “error” and a “mistake” to ignore this process. And, if it is truly a mistake, one would also expect the government to do what it can to rectify it. Most of us attempt to undo, to the extent that we can, the mistakes that we have made. But, to the best of my knowledge, the government has not made the attempt here. The facts of this case thus present the potential for a disturbing loophole: namely the government could whisk individuals to foreign prisons in violation of court orders and then contend, invoking Article II powers, that it is no longer their custodian, and there is nothing that can be done. It takes no small amount of imagination to understand that this is a path of perfect lawlessness, one that courts cannot condone.
I like how he politely casts as a hypothetical what the Trump administration has actually done before rendering judgment on it: “perfect lawlessness.” He may have decided to write separately because the opinion signed by his two colleagues on the bench is more direct, less polite. It concludes:
The United States Government has no legal authority to snatch a person who is lawfully present in the United States off the street and remove him from the country without due process. The Government’s contention otherwise, and its argument that the federal courts are powerless to intervene, are unconscionable.
Hope it’s not Pollyannish to think this could be what it looks like when the country starts to spit out the poison.