Um … What. The. Actual. Fuck?
The Trump administration is considering suspending the writ of habeas corpus, the legal right to challenge one’s detention, Stephen Miller, a top White House adviser, said on Friday.
“The constitution is clear, and that of course is the supreme law of the land, that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus could be suspended in time of invasion. So that’s an option we’re actively looking at. A lot of it depends on whether the courts do the right thing or not,” Miller said to a group of reporters at the White House.
The US constitution says: “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” The writ of habeas corpus has only been suspended four times in US history, most notably by Abraham Lincoln during the civil war. It was also suspended during efforts to fight the Ku Klux Klan in the 19th century in South Carolina, in the Philippines in 1905 and after Pearl Harbor.
Suspending habeas corpus would be an extremely aggressive move that would dramatically escalate the Trump administration’s efforts to attack the rule of law in American courts as it tries to deport people without giving them a chance to challenge the basis of their removals.
This is a good example of what I believe to be the basic dynamic going on in the US.
Trump isn’t really leading this autocratic coup. He’s a tool of the people who backed and made up the Heritage Foundation and the like.
None of them want to, for instance, suspend habeas corpus because they actually consider immigrants to be an invading force - that’s just rhetoric to stir up the base and provide cover for their real goals.
Both Trump and his handlers want to suspend habeas corpus so that they can imprison whoever they want whenever they want.
But while his handlers want to do it for the standard autocratic reasons - so that they can disappear dissidents and political rivals and the like - Trump wants it just because he’s thin-skinned, egotistical, petty and vindictive, and he wants to be able to punish people who piss him off.
So they share a goal, but for different reasons.
That’s how we end up with a relatively nuanced coup apparently being led by a delusional moron - the Heritage Foundation and the other conspirators have arranged things so that the toddler in chief can be allowed to basically run free, telling his lies and throwing his tantrums, and it ends up benefitting them.
Trump isn’t really leading this autocratic coup. He’s a tool of the people who backed and made up the Heritage Foundation and the like.
I never liked this kind of thinking. I heard the same crap from my parents when Biden was in office, and it sounds just as conspiratorial now as it did then.
Occam’s Razor: Trump and his cronies are just stupid fascist douchebags and this is a useful way to get power that is straight out of a typical fascist playbook. The idea that there’s some secret group “handling” him is a movie plot, not reality.
Don’t forget Hanlon! There’s a fair amount of incompetence happening here.
Ah, drat! Usually I’m the one reminding people of Hanlon. Hoist by my own petard!
Hanlon’s razor always gives you the closest shave.
I mean, he’s already ignoring the constitution by ignoring Congress’s power of the purse, deporting/jailing people without trail…
Not sure if people have noticed but… we’re sort of not in a democracy any longer…
I guess we can hang the “sort of” shingle out until 2026. Something’s either going to hit the wall or the fan.
Start murdering your overlords. You have the guns. You have the bullets. Find your balls. Murder your government. Every single one of them that stands in the way of your constitution.
“You’re all cowards! How dare you not immediately jump up and recklessly risk the lives of yourself and everyone around you while I sit back and watch?”
The issue is most of the people with guns and excessive ammo are quite happy with how things are going.
The health & safety of most citizens & residents of the USA are now under threat daily by a GOP-controlled federal government that ignores due process of the law & is taking extraordinary measures to suspend rights & unjustifiably terrorize innocent, peaceful & productive people of all stripes within our country
