MAGA attacks on the rule of law intensify

There seems to have recently arisen a slew of MAGA attacks on the rule of law and people who try to use the law to oppose djt, MAGA elites and illegal MAGA policies. In the process of venting its morally rotted rage and bigotry, djt and MAGA elites are now openly breaking laws that get in the way of their rage, bigotry and revenge lust.

People, this is serious. Major lines are probably being crossed in the name of djt's and MAGA's mindless rage, intense bigotry and vengeance lust. 

My post from yesterday is one example. In that situation, djt is seeking personal vengeance against a law firm that represent djt's opponents. His attacks are grounded in lies and defamation, not any actual law breaking. The anti-democracy sentiment and anti-rule of law moral rot speaks for itself.

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But wait! It gets worse!

But MAGA's open contempt for the rule of law gets a lot worse than that. A hell of a lot worse.

On March 6, djt issued an EO (executive order) directing all federal agencies to "enforce" a rule that mandates financial guarantees from parties requesting injunctions. The rule under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65(c) is in place to ensure coverage of potential costs or losses if the court later deems that a temporary restraining order or an injunction was wrongly issued. 

The problem with djt's EO is that federal courts have discretion and wide latitude to enforce FRCP 65(c). Under current practice, if a party cannot make the financial guarantee, the court may still issue a temporary restraining order or an injunction but may require alternative arrangements or a waiver of the bond. In some cases, courts have set nominal bonds, such as zero dollars, especially when the plaintiff seeks to protect constitutional rights and a substantial bond would block access to judicial review. 

Why is djt doing this? Obviously to deter legitimate legal challenges to the illegal actions that djt and MAGA elites are now taking. The EO puts it in demagogic MAGAspeak like this: 

Unelected district judges have issued sweeping injunctions beyond their authority, inserting themselves into executive policymaking and stalling policies voters supported. Activist groups file meritless suits for fundraising and political gain, facing no consequences when they lose, while taxpayers bear the costs and delays.

What djt means by judges acting "beyond their authority" is that judges have issued orders that block the lawbreaking that djt and MAGA elites want to engage in. What djt means by activist groups filing "meritless suits" is people and groups who go to court to oppose the lawbreaking that djt and MAGA elites want to engage in. Finally, what djt means by "executive policymaking and stalling policies voters supported" is that he wants unrestricted power to do whatever he wants. He lies when he refers to "stalling policies voters supported." If voters really understood what is going on, most would probably oppose most of what djt and MAGA elites are doing.   

This is a damned serious attack on the rule of law and respect for facts and true truths. 

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And, there's this attack on free speech and political opposition

A disturbing article the AP published shows the depth of djt's and MAGA's bigotry:

Immigration agents arrest Palestinian activist 

who helped lead Columbia University protests

Federal immigration authorities arrested a Palestinian activist Saturday who played a prominent role in Columbia University’s protests against Israel, a significant escalation in the Trump administration’s pledge to detain and deport student activists.

Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia until this past December, was inside his university-owned apartment Saturday night when several Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents entered and took him into custody, his attorney, Amy Greer, told The Associated Press.

Spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin signaled the arrest was directly connected to Khalil’s role in the protests, alleging he “led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.”

As ICE agents arrived at Khalil’s Manhattan residence Saturday night, they also threatened to arrest Khalil’s wife, an American citizen who is eight months pregnant, Greer said.

Here, djt is following through on his threats to get rid of pro-Palestine foreign student protesters. They are being targeted on the grounds of anti-Semitism and supporting Hamas. This is a deadly serious attack on free speech and political opposition. Now, the US government sees legitimate criticism of Israel as illegal anti-Semitism. The burden of proof is on the US government to prove that Khalil's protests were in support of HAMAS, not legitimate criticism of Israel.

It's not clear if this was legal. At the arrest, ICE agents said they were acting on State Department orders to revoke Khalil’s student visa, but when they were informed that Khalil was in the United States as a permanent resident with a green card, the agent said they were revoking that instead. In other words, ICE agents had no fracking idea of what they were doing. And, ICE was supposed to present a warrant to the university, but when asked if that was done, the university refused to answer the question. I take that to mean that no warrant was produced. 

Under current law, a president does not have direct authority to revoke the residency status of a person with permanent resident status and a green card. Residency status revocation is possible for things like (i) a green card holder spending too much time outside the U.S. without a re-entry permit, or (ii) engaging in fraudulent activities or being convicted of certain crimes such as drug trafficking, domestic violence or crimes involving moral turpitude. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security confirmed Khalil’s arrest in a statement Sunday, describing it as being “in support of President Trump’s executive orders prohibiting anti-Semitism.”

From what I can tell, djt and MAGA thugs are crossing the line here and breaking laws. But before I change my mind, I'll put the burden of proof on djt to show he isn't breaking laws. Proof will only come after a court case. That assumes there can be a court case because Khalil has "disappeared" while in custody. He may have already been deported and not in a position to go to court in the US. 

Q: Is it reasonable (or rational) or not to think that djt is breaking laws and otherwise doing his best to limit opposition in courts to what he is doing? 

djt attacks lawyers and the legal system

Canadian Lawyer Magazine reports about how djt is going to deal with lawyers and the legal system whenever they get in the way:

Trump issues sweeping order against global law firm that represented enemies

President Donald Trump has escalated his campaign against legal firms associated with his political rivals, signing an executive order that severely restricts the operations of Perkins Coie. The order, signed on March 6, revokes security clearances for its employees, cancels government contracts with the firm, and limits its lawyers' access to federal buildings and officials. The move follows a similar order targeting Covington & Burling, which had provided legal services for Special Counsel Jack Smith.

While the previous action against Covington & Burling sought to strip security clearances and contracts, the Perkins Coie order extends beyond that, preventing its lawyers from accessing federal agencies and limiting their ability to work in government roles. Legal experts warn that this could set a precedent discouraging law firms from representing political adversaries, raising concerns over fairness in the legal profession.

Trump’s animosity toward Perkins Coie dates back to 2016 when two of its former attorneys, Marc Elias and Michael Sussmann, were linked to the FBI investigation into potential connections between Trump’s campaign and Russia. Although both attorneys have long since departed from the firm, the executive order denounces Perkins Coie’s role in the compilation of a dossier containing unverified allegations against Trump. The order accuses the firm of “undermining democratic elections, the integrity of our courts, and honest law enforcement.”

This is serious. Here, djt attacks lawyers and the legal system for doing what it is supposed to do. His accusations against the law firm are lies and defamation. What djt and MAGA elites clearly want to do is undermine democratic elections, the integrity of the courts, and honest law enforcement, precisely the things he falsely accuses the law firm of doing. The problem is, now as usual, djt cannot be prosecuted for any crimes or civil violations. He break laws, knowing that he will get away with it.

Sunday MAGA bits; Persistence of authoritarianism; MAGA's mental grip; MAGA corruption update

Thinking about authoritarianism

It looks like MAGA news is gonna be mostly bad to awful for as long as MAGA has significant power. Let’s just say that the MAGA mindset, like all forms of authoritarianism, kleptocracy and wealth and power lust are always present in society to some highly variable extent. MAGA and its equivalents will probably never be completely defeated. The war of mostly dishonest speech (polarizing demagoguery) harnessed to concentrate wealth and power among elites vs honest speech harnessed to somewhat spread wealth and power run throughout human history. 

Yeah, sometimes authoritarians in power are defeated in war, e.g., the German Nazis, Italian fascists and Japanese imperialists in WW2. Sometimes authoritarianism collapses under the weight of its incompetence, corruption, cruelty and arrogance, e.g., fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the 1991 disintegration of the Soviet Union. But even those defeats and setbacks never completely eliminated authoritarianism from any society. Authoritarianism sometimes gets pushed to the fringes of society and has little or no political power, but it never completely goes away. 

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CNN reports that some people who voted for djt and then lost their job due to djt's wrecking ball, still support him and stand by their vote:

Michael Graugnard said he voted for President Donald Trump in the 2024 election because he felt Trump was the best candidate to improve the economy.

But three months into his new role as an attorney advisor for the US Department of Agriculture, Graugnard was laid off along with thousands of other federal employees. The termination, Graugnard said, came as a surprise given his managers had assured him his job was safe.

“I was devastated,” Graugnard told CNN, adding this was his dream job and he had just moved to Little Rock, Arkansas, with his pregnant wife and toddler for the position. “I was expecting to spend the rest of my life doing it.”

Graugnard said while he supports government efficiency, he “didn’t vote for it to be implemented the way it’s being implemented.”

“I voted confidently with the intent that it was going to be done in a way that was technocratic and efficient and a bit more rational, and that’s not what happened,” Graugnard said.

Still, Graugnard said he does not regret voting for Trump.

“I still support all of the goals of the administration, and I think that I can respectfully disagree with the way those things are carried out,” he said.

He was confident that djt would be technocratic and efficient and a bit more rational? One can only wonder what a “bit more rational” means in the face of djt’s irrationality and bad faith.

The important point here is that this is evidence of how much pain and disruption some djt voters are willing to accept. They need to rationalize what happened to them protect their self-esteem and identity. They have to either keep supporting djt and rationalize the irrational, or painfully come to see how deceived and wrong they were. That kind of evidence tells me that many or most djt voters are willing to take a lot of pain to mentally protect themselves. It is hard to envision much or any backlash from people with that kind of tribal (cult?) loyalty.

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US senator Chris Murphy (D-CN) seems to be vexed about MAGAland corruption:

U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on Thursday spoke on the U.S. Senate floor to expose the unprecedented corruption of the Trump administration’s first six weeks in office. Murphy condemned Trump’s normalization of pay-to-play politics, where billionaire donors dictate policy and taxpayer money is funneled into the pockets of the president, Elon Musk, and the corporate elite.

“In the first six weeks of the Trump presidency, Trump and Elon Musk and their billionaire friends have engaged in a stunning rampage of open public corruption,” Murphy said. “It’s not fundamentally different than what happened in Russia. These are efforts to steal from the American people to enrich themselves. And their strategy is to do it all out in the open, to do it at such a dizzying pace that the country just gets overwhelmed or anesthetized or dulled into a sense that we just all have to accept the corruption – or, maybe more charitably, that this is just how government works, that government is just corrupt, and so the fact that it’s happening out in the open instead of happening secretly, well, it’s really nothing new.”

“This is how democracies die,” Murphy continued. “Democracies die when the very powerful people steal from us so regularly, so openly, so unapologetically, that we come to believe that it’s normal. And listen, I understand that many Americans may think that all of this stuff just used to happen quietly, and the only difference is that Trump and Musk are just putting it all out in the open.

Murphy asserted some real good examples of blatant MAGA corruption and corruption enablement. One is the launch of Trump’s meme coin, enabling anyone seeking to influence the administration to privately funnel money directly to the president. So far djt has hauled in almost $100 million in "fees" for meme coin transactions. Also mentioned is the gutting and manipulation of corruption watchdog agencies like the NLRB, CFPB, EPA and OSHA to benefit Elon Musk, the billionaires in Trump’s cabinet, and other MAGA elites at the expense of consumers, workers and the environment. 

Hm, is it just me, or is Murphy’s argument not very compelling? He claims the scale of corruption under MAGA is larger than thus unacceptable. A year or so ago, this would probably have struck me as something fairly important. But now, meh. Murphy is right that corruption used to happen secretly. But how much worse is it now? Now it’s normalized and in the open. Is open corruption better than secret? I don’t know. I’ll ask.

Q (Pro-search mode): In a democracy, is it better for democracy and the public interest for corruption to be done in secret or better done in the open?[1]

A: .... short analysis .... 

Conclusion

While some argue that transparency can sometimes facilitate corrupt transactions by lowering transaction costs, the overall benefit of open corruption is that it allows for public scrutiny and potential legal action. In contrast, secret corruption undermines democracy by creating a culture of impunity and eroding public trust. Therefore, it is better for democracy and the public interest if corruption is done in the open, as this increases the chances of detection and accountability.

There you have it. Maybe corruption MAGA style is better for democracy and the public interest than old fashioned, bipartisan pay-to-play corruption. What a fracking mess.

Q: How compelling is Murphy’s evidence-based and apparently correct analysis about the overall level and impact of MAGA corruption?

Murphy’s corruption chart

Footnote:

1. 

Q (Deep research mode -- same Q): In a democracy, is it better for democracy and the public interest for corruption to be done in secret or better done in the open?

A: .... Open governance frameworks like those advocated by the Open Government Partnership enable real-time public scrutiny of procurement processes, with evidence showing that nations implementing open contracting systems reduce procurement costs by 11-17% while increasing competition among vendors 1 6. The publication of lobbying registries and official meeting calendars in countries like Lithuania and Georgia has demonstrably reduced opportunities for undisclosed influence peddling, creating what political scientists term “accountability through visibility” 14. 

.... gigantic analysis ....

Conclusion: Toward Optimized Transparency Regimes
The evidence decisively favors transparent corruption over secret malfeasance, though with crucial caveats. While secrecy enables corruption's metastasization, poorly designed transparency measures risk normalizing unethical conduct. The solution lies in “smart transparency”—systems that expose corrupt networks while raising coordination costs through:

Dynamic Disclosure: Real-time rather than retrospective reporting

Contextual Anonymization: Protecting whistleblowers while exposing principals

Civic Empowerment: Training publics to effectively utilize open data

Democracies combining these elements see 54% faster corruption case resolutions and 38% higher public trust levels compared to partial reforms 3 7. As global corruption evolves, so must transparency frameworks—not as simple panaceas but as continually refined tools in democracy’s essential toolkit.

Getting at the truth: Shifting the burden of proof from the accuser to the accused

A psychological barrier that some people face when hearing criticisms of djt and MAGA elites generally is that there is no direct evidence of illegality or malicious intent. Consonant with how courts are usually portrayed to work, the prosecutor or accuser has the burden of proof and to show the accused is liable or guilty of the accusations. But courts do not always work that way [1].

I suspect that understanding is a big part of why some or maybe many people simply refuse to believe that many or all of the accusations against djt and MAGA elites are real or at least worthy of serious consideration. I can see the appeal in holding that belief. It simplifies politics quite a lot. And, for people who are disposed to support what djt and MAGA elites say and do, it prevents a ton of cognitive dissonance or unpleasant feelings.

But is it really irrationally biased or unreasonably subjective for Americans to distrust the rhetoric, motives and actions of djt and MAGA elites? After all, they're innocent until proven liable or guilty, right? Well, no, not right. Here, we are talking about the court of public opinion, not a court of law. And, for US citizens, I believe the people have a right and moral imperative to know the truth. People have every right to distrust liars, dictators, plutocrats, theocrats, kleptocrats and other untrustworthy people and groups in power.

I demand clear & convincing evidence I'm wrong

In my firm opinion and based on all the evidence in the public record, shifting the burden of proof onto djt and MAGA elites is both objective and rational. As a reality check, I asked Perp to think about it:

Q: In view of all evidence in the public record, is it objective or not to distrust what Trump and most MAGA elites say and do, or is shifting the burden of proof onto Trump and most MAGA elites unreasonably biased or irrational?

A: Distrusting what Trump and most MAGA elites say and do can be seen as objective based on the evidence in the public record.

 
Objective Grounds for Distrust
Pattern of False or Misleading Statements: Donald Trump has been documented making thousands of false or misleading claims during his presidency, averaging over 20 per day 2. This pattern of behavior erodes trust in his statements.

Legal Issues and Convictions: Trump has faced numerous legal challenges, including a conviction for falsifying business records, which involved hiding payments related to allegations of extramarital affairs 1 6. This conviction adds to concerns about his integrity.

Controversial Rhetoric and Policies: The MAGA movement is known for its divisive rhetoric and controversial policies, which have been criticized for promoting conspiracy theories and misinformation 4 8. This environment fosters skepticism about the truthfulness of their claims.

Immunity and Legal Maneuvers: Trump's efforts to invoke immunity and his legal team's maneuvers to dismiss cases have raised questions about accountability and the rule of law 1 3.

Shifting the Burden of Proof
Shifting the burden of proof onto Trump and MAGA elites is not inherently biased or irrational. In legal and public discourse, individuals or groups making claims are typically expected to provide evidence to support those claims. Given the historical context of misinformation and legal controversies surrounding Trump and the MAGA movement, it is reasonable to require them to demonstrate the truthfulness of their statements and actions.

However, it is crucial to maintain an open-minded approach and consider evidence objectively, rather than assuming guilt or falsehood without proof. This balance ensures that skepticism is based on evidence rather than prejudice.

In conclusion, while skepticism towards Trump and MAGA elites can be justified based on past behavior and public record, it is important to remain objective and consider new evidence as it arises.

Yes, it is important to remain objective and consider new evidence as it arises. What new evidence? The evidence that djt and MAGA elites could show to demonstrate their clean intentions and good will actions. djt and MAGA elites have a proven track record of chronic lies, outrageous slanders, crackpot conspiracy theories and irrational, unwarranted emotional manipulation. 

In my opinion, it is mostly biased and/or subjective to not shift the burden of proof onto djt and MAGA elites, who are known by lots of reliable evidence to be untrustworthy. They damned well owe us an explanation backed up by lots of solid evidence. 

Q: Are you a person who at least sometimes falls back on the innocent until proven guilty concept when members of the public make unproven allegations against politicians with a track record of untrustworthiness?

Footnote:

1.  Perp discusses burden shifting in courts:

Q: Under what circumstances and in what kind of lawsuits or prosecutions does the burden of proof shift from the accuser to the accused?

A: The burden of proof can shift from the accuser to the accused in various legal contexts, both in criminal and civil cases.

Criminal Cases
Affirmative Defenses: In criminal cases, the burden of proof generally rests on the prosecution. However, if the defendant raises an affirmative defense, such as self-defense, insanity, or alibi, the burden shifts to the defendant to prove these defenses. The defendant does not need to prove their innocence beyond a reasonable doubt but must provide enough evidence to raise a reasonable doubt in the minds of the jury or judge 1 6.

Mistaken Identity: If the defendant claims mistaken identity, they may need to provide evidence supporting this claim, though the primary burden remains on the prosecution to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt 1.

Civil Cases
Affirmative Defenses: In civil cases, if the defendant asserts an affirmative defense, such as assumption of risk or failure to mitigate damages, the burden shifts to the defendant to prove these defenses 2 7.

Negligence Per Se: If a plaintiff alleges negligence per se, the defendant may be considered guilty of committing a criminal act as part of the breach of duty. In such cases, the burden can shift to the defendant to prove they exercised reasonable care 2.

Employment Discrimination: Once a plaintiff establishes a prima facie case of discrimination, the burden shifts to the defendant to show a non-discriminatory reason for their actions. If the defendant provides such a reason, the burden shifts back to the plaintiff to prove that the reason is pretextual 3 7.

Contract Disputes: While the plaintiff typically bears the burden of proving the existence of a contract and its breach, the defendant may need to prove any affirmative defenses they raise, such as fraud in the inducement or duress 4.

Policy and Fairness: The allocation of the burden of proof is often a matter of policy and fairness, based on the specific circumstances of the case 5.