This is a highly inconvenient truth, as far as Trump is concerned. He's right in saying that the process of giving all these unauthorised arrivals their due is highly impractical and he's saying that completely over-riding their constitutional rights is, therefore, justified. That is what is at issue. i think this will be the arena in which the impending constitutional crisis in the form of defiance of the Courts will manifest. — Wayfarer

I think you've nailed this being hte crux of how there could even be an actual 'crisis' of government. Trump is correct, and if they were all criminals, that's a rock/hard place issue. But, given the incompetence with which the policies are carried out currently, I'm unsure where I land. I don't think anyone should have rights simply by arriving (illegally) in the country. But I also think all of what's going on rn is insane, in practice if not in theory.

I don't think anyone should have rights simply by arriving (illegally) in the country. — AmadeusD

But they do! That’s the whole point. It’s the same in Australia. It also precipitated a political crisis about ten - fifteen years ago when boats kept arriving, mainly via Indonesia, with asylum seekers from many different countries. Once they’re in Australian jurisdiction, then they do have rights, even if they’ve arrived without any authorisation. Australia developed a pretty draconian exclusion policy and started to incarcerate arrivals in offshore detention in New Guinea and Nauru where many languished for years before ultimately being re-settled. The situation is not so intense now, but then, Australia is an island. But the same kinds of problems are occurring in crossings of the English Channel. That’s what I meant by ‘osmosis’ - once they arrive in a country where human rights are recognised, they can’t be returned to one that doesn’t recognise them, as it’s a human rights violation.

In the US, there is an over-arching need to be seen to be deporting millions of people, and ICE is unable to meet its targets by legitimate means. So it seems that ICE is just pulling out files of individuals and stamping them VIOLENT CRIMINAL - FOR DEPORTATION, and then going and picking them up, bundling them onto planes and out of US jurisdiction. It’s a blatant violation of the constitutional rights of even non-US citizens, which is the grounds on which it has been challenged in the courts. The Supreme Court issued an emergency stay the other day ordering these deportations under the Alien Enemies Act to be stopped pending further consideration.

Of course there are many legitimate grounds for deporting illegally-arrived migrants, but Trump, and especially Stephen Millier, are explicitly xenophobic in their attitude. I expect this is going to continue to be a major source of conflict. Trump’s administration is literally disappearing undesireables to draconian prisons without trial. Like Stalin might have.

Of course there are many legitimate grounds for deporting illegally-arrived migrants — Wayfarer

They're being in the country, for one. Something Crockett seems to not know is a crime.

New Guinea and Nauru — Wayfarer

Yes. A dark chapter.

In the US, there is an over-arching need to be seen to be deporting millions of people — Wayfarer

Hmm. Until Trump, the single thing about immigration i was made aware of through media etc.. as an 'American' tenet, was 'Take on everyone, from everywhere, all the time" and that deporting people was reprehensible, unless a "true criminal" (what that meant, I dont know.. Murder, fraud and rape I assume). But Obama was roughly speaking, anti-immigration. So it struck me as weird.

So it seems that ICE is just... — Wayfarer

Yeah, it pretty much does.

They're being in the country, for one — AmadeusD

That can't be assumed. A subject might arrive illegally seeking refuge from threat of death or starvation. That's why they have to be assessed. Agree that border policy was a major weakness of the previous administration, but abnegation of the Constitution is not a remedy.

In reverse, I generally agree, but I am not entirely sure how I feel about the sacredness of hte Constitution. It's been open to update before. Why not now...

I think it should be assumed. Otherwise, prevarication and 'be nice' ends up where you/we/they are.

The Hegseth issue continues to fester, as he's plainly, utterly incompetent for the role of CEO of the largest organisation in the world. But, hey, since when do facts matter for Trump? Besides, he won't give the media the satisfaction of a resignation. He'll dig in with the usual fire hydrant of mendacity. — Wayfarer

What I find here really showing how Hegseth is crumbling is the following issue, which just shows that he is totally incapable of handling such a position that he is in now:

(Guardian) John Ullyot, who resigned last week after initially serving as Pentagon spokesperson, said in a opinion essay published by Politico on Sunday that the Pentagon has been overwhelmed by staff drama and turnover in the initial months of the second Trump administration.

Ullyot called the situation a “full-blown meltdown” that could cost Hegseth, a 44-year-old former Fox News host and national guard officer, his job as defense secretary.

The notable fact is that Ullyot is one of the Hegseth-guys that came in with the new administration. And it's been those in the MAGA-team that have now been fired from the Pentagon. So now Hegseth is battling out with his own people.

(NBC News) On Friday, according to Ullyot, Hegseth’s chief of staff, Joe Kasper, was removed from his position following the firings of several other senior aides to Hegseth, including deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick and senior adviser Dan Caldwell, as well as the chief of staff to the deputy secretary of defense, Colin Carroll. (Selnick, Caldwell and Carroll said in a statement Saturday: “We are incredibly disappointed by the manner in which our service at the Department of Defense ended. Unnamed Pentagon officials have slandered our character with baseless attacks on our way out the door.”)

“In the aftermath [of the firings], Defense Department officials working for Hegseth tried to smear the aides anonymously to reporters, claiming they were fired for leaking sensitive information as part of an investigation ordered earlier this month,” Ullyot wrote. “Yet none of this is true.” Ullyot said that he was not part of the purge and that he opted to leave the Pentagon when he turned down a position Hegseth had offered him.

So guess we will see how this goes...

This is a highly inconvenient truth, as far as Trump is concerned. He's right in saying that the process of giving all these unauthorised arrivals their due is highly impractical and he's saying that completely over-riding their constitutional rights is, therefore, justified. That is what is at issue. i think this will be the arena in which the impending constitutional crisis in the form of defiance of the Courts will manifest. — Wayfarer

It is already manifesting itself with these issues. And Trump doesn't make it less tense by hinting that US citizens could be sent to foreign prisons like in El Salvador. After all, they want El Salvador to build more prisons.

I somewhere read that there are now less people deported than under Biden, because people obviously aren't so eagerly trying to get into the US. But this is one of those facts I tried to state earlier before Trump came to power: in order to truly deport millions of people you truly have to have people with huge organizational skills to create a huge process which does include the legal system firing on all cylinders. That would be a huge complex thing to orchestrate. Trump is not that kind of organizer, and neither are his lackeys. We already saw his abilities in the way he failed to "build the Wall". So then it's these "photo-op" deportations to El Salvador that are made in response.



It's all a bit ad hoc, all not really thought well, but more of actions improvised on the spot. That is the way how a Trump administration works.

And btw for @NOS4A2, about Kash Patel and the FBI, well, I think in the long run I'm not going to be so wrong... assuming that the director of the FBI matters to the FBI. Of course the actual result of his tenure can be seen and read about only afterwards.

(MSNBC) Since taking office, Patel has misstated key elements of the FBI’s recent work. He reportedly confused intelligence and counterintelligence. He said he planned to spend a lot of time in Las Vegas, where he’s been living, even as others were told that remote work is prohibited. He ordered officials to relocate 1,500 employees from Washington, D.C., and when told the bureau didn’t have the resources for such a restructuring, he reportedly told his subordinates to simply figure out a way to execute his directive.

Perhaps most importantly, the FBI director has taken steps to break down the firewalls that used to exist between his office and the White House. NBC News reported that Patel went so far as to ask about creating a possible hotline that would facilitate direct communication between him and Trump.

In case that weren’t quite enough, NBC News reported on Patel also placing Brian Auten, a government expert on Russia, on leave — which was notable because Auten’s name appeared on Patel’s published list of alleged “deep state” actors.

But I guess Kash is having himself a great time going to UFC matches and wants the UFC to get involved in the physical training of FBI agents.

(ABC News) Newly-installed FBI Director Kash Patel, whose proclaimed plans to overhaul the nation's premier law enforcement agency have rattled many within the bureau, has proposed enhancing the FBI's ranks with help from the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the martial-arts entertainment giant whose wealthy CEO, Dana White, helped boost President Donald Trump's reelection, according to sources who were told of Patel's proposal.

On a teleconference Wednesday with the heads of the FBI's 55 field offices, Patel suggested that he wants the FBI to establish a formal relationship with the UFC, which could develop programs for agents to improve their physical fitness, said sources who had been briefed on Wednesday's call.

At least it isn't Vince McMahon and the WWF-entertainment, seen below in a mock fight with Donald Trump.

Yep, the FBI’s collapse is immanent. Any day now.

Nope. I didn't say that.

These things are quite subtle in many ways. Just as were the issues when FBI looked for moles in CIA, while actually the worst traitor was in the FBI.

It's something you can see only later. Same thing actually with a lot of institutions in the US too.

Of course there are many legitimate grounds for deporting illegally-arrived migrants
— Wayfarer

They're being in the country, for one. — AmadeusD

There's a story today about a Venezualan immigrant, Ricardo Prada Vásquez, (whether documented or not, it doesn't say) who mistakenly crossed the bridge from Detroit into Canada whilst on a food-delivery run. Trying to come back into the US he was stopped at the border and taken into custody. 'On March 15, he told a friend in Chicago that he was among a number of detainees housed in Texas who expected to be repatriated to Venezuela. That evening, the Trump administration flew three planes carrying Venezuelan migrants from the Texas facility to El Salvador, where they have been ever since, locked up in a maximum-security prison and denied contact with the outside world. But Mr. Prada has not been heard from or seen. He is not on a list of 238 people who were deported to El Salvador that day. He does not appear in the photos and videos released by the authorities of shackled men with shaved heads.' Nobody now knows where he is. To all intents and purposes, he's dissappeared, like people do in Russia and China and Iran. But not, until now, in the USA.

But Mr. Prada has not been heard from or seen. He is not on a list of 238 people who were deported to El Salvador that day. He does not appear in the photos and videos released by the authorities of shackled men with shaved heads.' Nobody now knows where he is. To all intents and purposes, he's dissappeared, like people do in Russia and China and Iran. But not, until now, in the USA. — Wayfarer

If people cared about this, they would now drag Trump out of the White House into the Hague court. As always, we can’t really blame the bad people doing bad shit, that’s consistent. I will continue to blame the apathetic, pathetic, lazy and mind numbed public who just continues with their lives without a care in their bones.

It’s the banality of evil and the evil of the ordinary man’s ignorance that I absolutely despise. No one cares until they see the gun barrels pointed at themselves.

This is why I hate the public more than politicians, at least they are consistent. The people, however, are disgusting in their ignorance and apathy.

'Dragging Trump out of the White House' won't happen, but there's a lot of protest movements starting to appear. The judges are holding firm (the Boasberg case has another hearing tomorrow, meanwhile the Judge Xinis has issued a blistering rebuke of Adminstration foot-dragging in the Abrego Garcia case.) And, we've read about the Prada case in the NY Times. If it happened in Russia, nobody would ever read about it. So all is not lost.

Haven’t we already been here? He’s even been judged guilty before. It’s close to being true what he said about shooting someone and getting away with it. Until I see the laws and regulations actually remove him for real, I will consider the laws of the US to be irrelevant, because they doesn’t seem to apply. Even if something were under investigation, there would have been a freezing of his power until investigators are done. Otherwise he could actually do whatever he wants until the slow bureaucracy finds him unfit for office.

In any other nation, even the notion of crimes or breaking the laws would put the president in temporary isolation from power. The US is both corrupt and utterly broken to its core in a way that makes me question if it’s even possible for it to fight back against this abuse of power.

It seems that it is rather built on the idea of trust that there won’t be someone like Trump at the top, but that there’s actually no regulations and laws preventing demagogues from taking power. So there’s no department or part of the government who’s actually able to prevent an authoritarian figure to take power.

Now that the system is being tested, are people sure it will work to protect democracy? Or have the US been naive in their trust in the system to the point of being blind to the risks?

Now that the system is being tested, are people sure it will work to protect democracy? — Christoffer

Many are :pray: for exactly that.

Many are :pray: for exactly that. — Wayfarer

…and what happens if it fails? What will the lazy, apathetic public do then?

"There's a story" is not good enough. That should probably be the stance, particularly with such high heat on the issue.

Continuing from Mar 10, 2025 ...

As shown by our victims’ stories today, Biden’s Department of Justice abused and targeted peaceful Christians while ignoring violent, anti-Christian offenses. Thanks to President Trump, we have ended those abuses, and we will continue to work closely with every member of this Task Force to protect every American’s right to speak and worship freely. — Pamela Bondi · Apr 22, 2025

By the way, Biden is Catholic, Trump is not exactly Christian.
The mentioned cases pale in comparison to Team Trump's goings and doings.
It's been argued that these efforts are attempts at a (forced) cultural revolution.

Harvard is an Anti-Semitic, Far Left Institution, as are numerous others, with students being accepted from all over the World that want to rip our Country apart. The place is a Liberal mess, allowing a certain group of crazed lunatics to enter and exit the classroom and spew fake ANGER AND HATE. It is truly horrific! Now, since our filings began, they act like they are all “American Apple Pie.” Harvard is a threat to Democracy, with a lawyer, who represents me, who should therefore be forced to resign, immediately, or be fired. He’s not that good, anyway, and I hope that my very big and beautiful company, now run by my sons, gets rid of him ASAP! — Trump (verified) · Apr 24, 2025

Good grief. Someone will still try to justify that clown though. (I can't help but wonder if someone is whispering things in his ears.)

Trump is going for all the strengths that the US has had and enjoyed: 1) The Economy, 2) The Alliances it has, 3) The Universities. And he also wants to devalue the dollar.

What’s funny about all this immigration talk is that everyone assumes there’s a problem. There isn’t.

We should be letting even more people in. The entire issue was invented by Republicans for political gain. Much like the national debt, trans in sports, voting fraud, etc.

If someone decided tomorrow that jaywalking was ruining the country, in six months half the country would be agreeing with it — and the other half reacting against it.

What’s funny about all this immigration talk is that everyone assumes there’s a problem. There isn’t. — Mikie

There's a problem with illegal immigration. It's immoral to turn a blind eye to people entering illegally so we can use them like helots. We have ten million people living in the shadows, terrified to go to the cops, just begging to be exploited by criminals and business.

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So make it easier to come. Then people wouldn’t be “illegal.”

I agree. Legal immigrant quotas should be massively increased.

You don’t reform the constitution while a despotic populist is in power. We learnt that in the U.K. with Boris Johnson.
In his attempts to strong arm the EU over Brexit, he prorogued parliament and sent a government representative to lie to the Queen. The intention was to shut out parliament while he acted under executive powers. Fortunately the Supreme Court was able to stop him.

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What's going on here?

1. Trump tariffs China and ups them to 34%
2. China doesn't do anything
3. Trump hikes tariffs to 84%
4. China responds with matching tariffs
5. Trump hikes to 145%
6. China responds with matching tariffs
7. Trump says he wants Xi to call him
8. China doesn't do anything
9. Trump says he's ready to "make a deal"
10. China doesn't do anything
11. Trump rolls back tariffs

Doesn't Trump have anything better to do?
On the other hand, maybe he should leave everything else alone.

There's something vaguely eerie about these parallels ...

Furthermore, I expect the [country's] legal profession to understand that the nation is not here for them but that they are here for the nation, that is, the world, which includes [our country], must not decline in order that formal law may live, but [our country] must live irrespective of the contradictions of formal justice. From now on, I shall intervene in these cases and remove from office those judges who evidently do not understand the demand of the hour. — source

... unless I'm just seeing faces in the clouds. I'll go back to watching Disney now.

Make no mistake: Ms. Ozturk’s case (Tufts PhD student snatched off the street by ICE in March and incarcerated since) is not an isolated one. This administration has already overseen a wave of unconstitutional actions: raids without warrants, prolonged detentions without hearings and retaliatory deportations. Each case chips away at the rule of law. Each one makes it easier for the next to go unnoticed. And each one brings us closer to the authoritarianism we once believed could never take root on American soil. — NYTimes

This is mostly the handiwork of Stephen Miller, Trump’s Secretary for Xenophobia.

And let's see if we get the drone war against the Mexican Cartels or US strikes on Iran. All what you wanted so much when voting for Trump.

“Israel had planned to strike Iranian nuclear sites as soon as next month but was waved off by President Trump in recent weeks in favor of negotiating a deal with Tehran to limit its nuclear program, according to administration officials and others briefed on the discussions.

Mr. Trump made his decision after months of internal debate over whether to pursue diplomacy or support Israel in seeking to set back Iran’s ability to build a bomb, at a time when Iran has been weakened militarily and economically.

The debate highlighted fault lines between historically hawkish American cabinet officials and other aides more skeptical that a military assault on Iran could destroy the country’s nuclear ambitions and avoid a larger war. It resulted in a rough consensus, for now, against military action, with Iran signaling a willingness to negotiate.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/16/us/politics/trump-israel-iran-nuclear.html

And meanwhile, we can see up to 2 million people on our TV, if we are lucky enough to have access to an impartial news channel, starve to death (in Gaza) before our eyes. Care of Donald Trump.
So much winning.