The Daily Reid: Lawless America
A federal judge has found the regime in criminal contempt for disappearing an immigrant to an El Salvador gulag. But who will enforce his ruling?
We have long been a nation with violent instincts. In 2003, U.S. troops grinned for photos as they tortured Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, during a war we should never have been in. And those were just some of the abuses undertaken in our name.
White families brought their children to lynchings in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and often took home gory souvenirs: singed fingers, toes, teeth and ears, while sharing postcards of the gore.
America dropped test bombs that sickened Americans and near-islanders, followed by war bombs that decimated Hirshima and Nagasaki. We dropped nerve agents on children in Vietnam and slaughtered unarmed men, women and children there and in Korea.
America the Lawless is nothing new.
Andrew Jackson, one of the most brazenly sadistic former U.S. presidents, once allegedly said of the Supreme Court and its fourth chief justice: John Marshall has made his ruling, now let him enforce it. Jackson was allegedly talking about the ruling in one of two “Cherokee Indian cases,” Worcester v. Georgia (1832) — and the updated thinking is that he was referring to his disinclination as president, to enforce a ruling by Marshall and the court, that the State of Georgia could not supersede the federal government by passing a law requiring European settlers to obtain a state license before setting up shop in Cherokee territory — or arrest a group of missionaries who violated that law in part because they supported the Cherokees’ right to not be forced off their land. More than 100,000 Georgia Cherokee along with many other tribes would soon be marched to Oklahoma along the Trail of Tears, with Jackson’s eager support and vicious assistance.
The cruelty (to facilitate the land theft) was the point.
Given the violent history of this country, it isn’t entirely surprising that we’ve found our way to a lawless regime that’s willing to sell innocent men to a self-declared dictator and boldly refuse federal court orders to bring him back. Probable cause has now been found that the regime is now in criminal contempt of court. The same federal judge who has now repeatedly ordered them to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the United States.
The question is: who would enforce a contempt ruling? The U.S. Marshalls? They’re under the control of the executive branch. Pam Bondi’s Justice Department? Give me a break.
So if there are courts and there are rulings, but there is no way to enforce them, then there is no law. No law that can save Mr. Abrego Garcia, and no law that can save you, either, when it’s your turn.
May God have mercy on America.
The politics of denial
My mom, Philomena, used to have to explain, in exasperated fashion, that Jonestown was not an actual city or town in Guyana, and that Georgetown, where her family was from, was a completely separate place. Jonestown, the kooky religious commune, was full of American fanatics who joined a California cult centered around a narcissistic Pentecostal preacher and mass murderer named Jim Jones, who was originally from Indiana. He moved his cult to my mother’s home country, long after she had quit South America for London and the U.S., so she had no interesting facts to share with her frequent American interrogators. The whole Jonestown thing annoyed Philomena … a lot.
The denouement of the Jonestown saga came in 1978 — a year after the cult arrived in the Guyanese jungle — when family members of People’s Temple cultists asked their congressman to investigate:
At the behest of concerned family members in the US, the California congressman Leo Ryan organized a delegation of journalists and others to make a fact-finding mission to Jonestown.
The delegation arrived at Jonestown on 17 November 1978 and received a civil audience from Jones, but the visit was hastily called short on 18 November after a member of the commune tried to stab Ryan. The delegation headed back to the airstrip, accompanied by a dozen Jonestown inhabitants who had asked to leave the commune, and escorted by Jones’s watchful deputies.
The delegates never made it off the ground. As they boarded the planes, their escorts drew guns and opened fire. They shot Ryan dead, combing his body with bullets to make certain, and killed four others – including two photographers who captured footage of the attack before dying. Wounded survivors ran or dragged themselves, bleeding, into the forest. (One of Ryan’s aides, Jackie Speier, survived five gunshots and is now a congresswoman representing California’s 14th district.)
Back at Jonestown, Jones announced that it was time to undertake the final “white night”. To quell disagreement, he told inhabitants that Congressman Ryan had already been murdered, sealing the commune’s fate and making “revolutionary suicide” the only possible outcome.
When a U.S. elected official touches down in a foreign country, asking for information on behalf of an American family, they ought to be treated better. They should be safe from harm. And they should actually get to see the person they’re asking to see.
Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen traveled to El Salvador on Thursday, attempting to see Kilmar Abrego Garcia — to check on him on behalf of his American wife and children. He was denied access to his constituent.
The CECOT prison has become a go-to selfie spot for Republican politicians, who have followed DHS Barbie Kristi Noem’s lead in heading to the gulag to be photographed — Abu Ghraib, style.
More on that, and more from Senator Van Hollen:
And just as the Cherokee and other tribes were not the “savages” Andrew Jackson and the white settlers of Georgia and other parts of early America portrayed them to be to provide themselves with an excuse for stealing their land … and Black men were not the serial rapists their former enslavers were (so much so that they invented whole new categories of Black people to explain away their lascivious deeds) … and just as the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were as innocent as the Japanese Americans FDR locked up in concentration camps using the same Alien Enemies Act Trump is using against Kilmar Abrego Garcia and hundreds of others — Mr. Garcia is not a criminal — nor has the government shown us any such evidence, if they have it. There is no court finding stating that he is a rapist, a criminal or a gang member. (Ironically there are civil and criminal findings that Trump is a sexual abuser and a criminal…) Mr. Garcia is a construction worker, with three natural born American children and an American wife, whom the current attorney general from the “family values party” now claims are better off without him. The only thing that is crystal clear is that what the regime is doing to Mr. Garcia and nearly 240 other Latino men, including a hairdresser and a soccer coach — whose only apparent crimes are being Hispanic immigrants — is as monstrous and villainous as anything that’s been done in this country’s sullied history.
And Trump, who apparently is surprised that due process is a thing, will go down in history as our most lawless president — even with Jackson, Nixon, and so many other rotten men on the table.
How to lose a trade war
Donald Trump decided to start a trade war with the whole world, including Canada, Mexico and Europe — though he quickly retreated. But he still thinks he can stick it to China. So how’s that working out? Not well. By some accounts, he has already lost:
“How has it ever been possible in history that the world’s largest creditor would be defeated by the world’s largest debtor?” asks Uncle Ming.
Well, indeed. America’s savings rate has collapsed to 0.6pc of GDP. The US treasury depends on foreign investors to fund a national debt rising higher than ever before, already 122pc of GDP with a structural fiscal deficit of 6pc to 7pc as far as the eye can see. …
…Did Trump have any idea what he was doing when he launched his tariff war against China, jauntily shutting down the anchor trading relationship of the international system?
One might have thought that the political pain threshold of the totalitarian, web-controlling Chinese Communist Party was infinitely higher than the threshold of Walmart-shopping Maga America or Republican politicians facing midterm elections next year. And equally that Xi Jinping has much to gain from defiantly refusing to “kiss ass”, as Trump delicately puts it.
Exports to the US have fallen from a peak of 6.7pc of Chinese GDP in the early 2000s to 2.7pc today.
Almost 86pc of Chinese exports now go to the rest of the world. The maritime Silk Road is turning much of the Global South into a Chinese economic system.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations alone is a bigger market for China than the US. Most of the Mid-East is now listed as pro-China or leaning-China on the geopolitical map of Capital Economics.
It’s not even clear that the dollar will remain the world’s reserve currency, now. Trump’s legacy is clear. He took the economy by the throat, and choked it.
All on the advice of some guy who thinks he can remake the global economy on a weak dollar and Trump’s precious tariffs, and who sold the horse pucky to our chief narcissist by naming it after his house.
The battle for Harvard has only just begun
The regime meanwhile, is upping the ante on Harvard: threatening to revoke the college’s right to admit foreign students unless they agree to snitch on any visa holder who protests on behalf of Palestinians.
The letter threatening Harvard’s authorization to host international students, which was signed by Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, accused Harvard of creating a “hostile learning environment” for Jewish students.
“It is a privilege to have foreign students attend Harvard University, not a guarantee,” the letter read.
American universities may host international students on student visas only if they have certification under the Student and Exchange Visitor Program.
They also have specifically defunded two studies that upset America’s right wing:
Noem added that if Harvard fails to comply with the student records request by April 30, “SEVP will automatically withdraw the school's certification.”
One of the canceled grants is the $1.9 million Blue Campaign Program Evaluation and Violence Advisement grant, which supported research on mass violence and human trafficking prevention efforts. The DHS wrote in the press release that the grant “funded Harvard’s public health propaganda.”
The other canceled grant is the $800,000 Implementation Science for Targeted Violence Prevention, which the DHS alleged “branded conservatives as far-right dissidents in a shockingly skewed study.”
Harvard spokesperson Sarah E. Kennedy O’Reilly wrote in a statement that Harvard is “aware” of the letter, but stands by its assertion on Monday that the University “will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.”
“If federal action is taken against a member of our community, we expect it will be based on clear evidence, follow established legal procedures, and respect the constitutional rights afforded to all individuals,” Kennedy O’Reilly wrot
Plan to settle in for a long and ugly fight.
Joy, I really appreciate the fact that you bring history into your posts. It's what sets your posts apart from others analyzing the same news items. I hope you like this medium and continue writing.
Joy, I love you but I think you've gotten out over your skis a bit. Judge Boasberg has not found the regime in contempt - yet. He has found "probable cause" to hold the regime in contempt and defined a curative process for the regime to avoid a contempt citation.
Secondly, there is a mechanism to prosecute and enforce a criminal contempt citation absent the willingness of the DoJ to do so. The judge can appoint an "outside attorney" to prosecute the order.
Lastly, the process is in reference to the order to halt flights to El Salvador, not the case of the rendition of Abrego Garcia. That issue is under the purview of Judge Xinis.