Mourning the end of democracy, rule of constitutional law and civil liberties

 This afternoon, I was contemplating the end of our democracy, collapse for respect for facts and our freedoms in the face of MAGA's gigantic demagogic onslaught. I planned to post a couple of music videos with their lyrics. Then Ron, 'lil stinker that he is, posted this a couple of hours ago while I was contemplating this post:

La Marseillaise

Arise children of the fatherland

The day of glory has arrived
Against us tyranny's
Bloody standard is raised
Listen to the sound in the fields
The howling of these fearsome soldiers
They are coming into our midst
To cut the throats of your sons and consorts

To arms citizens Form your battalions
March, march
Let impure blood
Water our furrows

What do they want this horde of slaves
Of traitors and conspiratorial kings?
For whom these vile chains
These long-prepared irons?
Frenchmen, for us, ah! What outrage
What methods must be taken?
It is us they dare plan
To return to the old slavery!

What! These foreign cohorts!
They would make laws in our courts!
What! These mercenary phalanxes
Would cut down our warrior sons
Good Lord! By chained hands
Our brow would yield under the yoke
The vile despots would have themselves be
The masters of destiny

Tremble, tyrants and traitors
The shame of all good men
Tremble! Your parricidal schemes
Will receive their just reward
Against you we are all soldiers
If they fall, our young heros
France will bear new ones
Ready to join the fight against you

Frenchmen, as magnanimous warriors
Bear or hold back your blows
Spare these sad victims
That they regret taking up arms against us
But not these bloody despots
These accomplices of Bouillé
All these tigers who pitilessly
Ripped out their mothers' wombs

We too shall enlist
When our elders' time has come
To add to the list of deeds
Inscribed upon their tombs
We are much less jealous of surviving them
Than of sharing their coffins
We shall have the sublime pride
Of avenging or joining them

Drive on sacred patriotism
Support our avenging arms
Liberty, cherished liberty
Join the struggle with your defenders
Under our flags, let victory
Hurry to your manly tone
So that in death your enemies

See your triumph and our glory!

La Marseillaise, the national anthem of France, was written in 1792 in bloody French Revolution times. Centuries later, it was adopted as the rallying call to the French resistance to Germany. It was was a form of resistance by being sung in defiance of the Nazi occupation, but usually not openly.

OK, that's way better than anything I've got. I give up.

The now obviously pipsqueak points I wanted to make were safe modern times stuff. So nah, I've got nothing to say that doesn't stain those noble sentiments and that horrific level of Nazi threat. 

Maybe I'll save my pipsqueakery for another time or just stop thinking about the concept of trying to translate music to politics. Others have been there, done that and done that about a trillion times better than me.

But hope springs eternal. I listened to La Marseillaise and instantly understood where it was coming from and how grave the threat was. In time people who still respond to that call to arms will die off. People like me and Ron will be gone. I hope something else takes our place in the endless fight against authoritarian darkness, whatever form it comes in.

No more Jack Daniels

 Lord have mercy, but Canadians do know how to play nice, don't they?

No more Jack Daniels on Ontario shelves. No more Jack Daniels going to British Columbia, nor to Quebec.

THAT ought to teach that Trump a lesson.

At least the Premier of Ontario is now putting a surcharge on electricity to the US and threatening to cut power entirely. Trouble is, the pain will be felt by two Democrat states, NY and Minnesota.

How about stopping ALL exports of potash to any state for now? How about cutting out all oil and gas and lumber exports, for now?

How about reaching a free trade agreement with China? How about denying American military aircraft access to Canadian airfields? There is one near where I live and I see their military planes flying there all the time. Cut 'em off.

How about stopping ALL imports of fruits and vegetables from the US? Can't be done? Nuts, I went shopping last week and checked labels, and in Canada there are more fruits and vegetables on the shelves from Mexico that from the US.

How about restricting all travel to the US? Tell all those Snowbirds that love to prop up the Florida economy, either come home or don't expect any protection of your American neighbors turn nasty.

And finally, unrestrict Jack Daniels, this American expat is missing his fix too much. 

End of  rant. 

Chronicling the fall: Reasoning behind some of the illegal immigrant support for djt

A NYT opinion (not paywalled) based mostly on an interview with two illegal immigrants, Aldair Mata and Jose, who support djt exemplifies that description of the human mind faced with complex politics:

Jose has been whipped into quiet panic this winter by President Trump’s threats of mass deportations. He’s still turning up for his shifts at a wood-finishing factory — he can’t afford not to — but most of his co-workers have stopped coming. His wife is afraid to go to her factory job, and they’re keeping the 11-year-old home from school. Jose was nervous in the restaurant, curling his posture inward and eying the street outside.

One more detail about these friends: They are both fans of Donald Trump. Mr. Mata voted for Trump, and though Jose can’t vote, he tells me that Mr. Trump “has courage.”

But Jose doesn’t hold Mr. Trump responsible. Neither does Mr. Mata. They both blame “the Venezuelans,” which is shorthand for the more than 50,000 migrants (about 30,000 of them Venezuelan) who’ve poured into Chicago since 2022. Most of them came by bus from the Mexican border, dispatched by Republican officials eager to teach the sanctimonious sanctuary cities a lesson. Jose complains that “nothing matters” to the migrants, that some of them commit crimes and receive coveted work permits despite being “lazy.”

“If they hadn’t come,” he said darkly, “none of this would have happened.”

The migrant buses were not just a meanspirited stunt. They worked magnificently well — better, I suspect, than the plan’s architects could have hoped. Wave upon wave of disoriented, often traumatized migrants were unceremoniously deposited in the city, costing Chicago a fortune (nearly $640 million since 2022), infuriating Black and Latino residents who already felt neglected and sowing community resentment that ultimately moved votes.

Many people in Chicago name the buses as the single outstanding factor inspiring record numbers of the city’s Latinos — including those who sneaked across the border themselves or who count undocumented immigrants as their nearest and dearest — to vote for Mr. Trump.

I’ve written before about America’s disingenuous mismanagement of its refugee system. The scale of that failure is demonstrated by this confounding fact: Chicago has thrived and grown strong on illegal immigration. It was legal immigration that destabilized the city. 

If Mr. Trump deports 11 million people, as per his threats, he’ll make history with an unforced error of stupendous scale.

The more migrants came, the more scandalized Mr. Mata became. Venezuelan women approached him at the supermarket, he says, offering to pay for his groceries on prepaid cards they’d been given if he’d pay them half the price in cash. Mr. Mata understood this as evidence of outsize, unnecessary public largess.

He also came to think that — just as Mr. Trump says — the new arrivals were driving up crime. This perception is contradicted by statistics indicating that crime has fallen in Chicago. But Mr. Mata heard stories of late-night train robberies, of Venezuelan women who danced with men at the Mexican bars and then stole their money and phones, of street fights erupting in gunfire.

These anecdotes may or may not be true, but a large majority of Chicago’s migrants haven’t committed any crimes. They are keen to work and are being absorbed into the economy like every preceding wave of immigrants. True, they got plenty of help settling down: hotel rooms, meals, health care, cellphones and, most significantly, work permits — in stark contrast to many Mexican immigrants who still lack legal status even after quietly working, paying taxes and obeying the law for decades.

They believe Mr. Trump is right to deport people — so long as it’s the right people.

“A lot of innocent people are going to end up in Mexico for other people’s fault,” Mr. Mata conceded. “That’s what hurts me. People who pay taxes, who work. Very good people.”

Mata: Voted for djt but fears that “a lot of innocent people

are going to end up in Mexico for other people’s fault.”

Who was at fault, not djt voters, but the Dems, 

other illegal immigrants, both, or neither? 

What a tragic mess. The Dems did not come up with a rational immigration policy. Biden and the Dems blew it. That failure was catastrophic. Current evidence indicates that illegal immigration was a major, necessary factor in kickstarting the current US transition from corrupt democracy to kleptocratic (even more corrupt) authoritarianism. 

One can see the reasoning behind deep resentment emotion triggered in RIIs (resident illegal immigrants) when lots more new illegal immigrants were bussed in and treated well. One can also see the effect that false beliefs in MAGA lies have on instilling false RII perceptions of reality and flawed reasoning, i.e., the new illegals are all criminals. RIIs fear what djt is threatening to do to their lives and families, but nonetheless support him.

As Andre Vasquez, a Chicago alderman explained: “If you feel as a citizen that neither party is serving your benefit — well, Republicans may not line up with you ideologically, but there are people in dire straits, in pain, disenfranchisement. They’ll take a gamble on a carnival ride.” 

Well, now we're on a carnival ride.

Oopsie doodle, carnival ride gone wrong

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?