Thursday, April 17, 2025

Due Process

 


As we are painfully seeing, Trump and his followers seem to find difficulty in understanding what tariffs and due process are.

While not trying to denigrate them, I’ll explain the latter for their edification . (And for Trump followers, denigrate means "to put down" and edification means "to be instructed.) 😉

For the more curious, open-minded, and clever type of Trump supporters:  

"Due process" is a Constitutional* guarantee that applies to all "persons", not just citizens. This includes illegal immigrants. The rule of law with due process is absent in fascist dictatorships and communist police states.

Only in a dictatorship can the criminal leader simply declare a person like Abrego Garcia a terrorist and gang member without showing evidence, (Due process) and then send him to a life sentence in a gulag. The Administration even admitted deporting him was a mistake. The unreliable police detective who accused Garcia of being a member of the gang MS-13 was suspended days later for leaking confidential information to a woman he was paying for sex. Not that Trump and his mob care.

And remember, without due process Trump can accuse anybody he doesn’t like of being, or doing, whatever he says he is, or did. It could be you or me next. Only the courts can stop him from this illegal autocratic behavior. 

Now Garcia will need to move to a sane country to be safe from TRUMP and his legions of thugs. Yes, he now needs asylum from the Trump Gang. 

KilmarAbrego Garcia is 29-year-old man from El Salvador who has been is married to a U.S. citizen and a father of three children. He was deported on March 15, 2025, from the United States in what the Trump administration called an "administrative error" and is currently in prison in El Salvador.

Garcia has never been convicted or charged with a crime and in 2019, a judge in Maryland granted him a "withholding of removal" status. That allowed him to legally work and live in the U.S. He was granted a work permit by the Department of Homeland Security and lived and worked in Maryland up until his deportation.

Now Trump is refusing to have Garcia released, even after the Supreme Court upheld an order to facilitate his return. This is also what a fascist dictator does. 

Even US citizens are being illegally detained.

American born Twenty-year-old Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez was detained in a Florida jail even after his mother presented his birth certificate in court. Another American citizen, Nicole Micheroni was ordered to leave the country within seven days.

See? No DUE PROCESS!

===

DUE PROCESS IN IMMIGRATION PROCEEDINGS

I. DUE PROCESS

A. Generally

“Immigration proceedings, although not subject to the full range of constitutional protections, must conform to the Fifth Amendment’s requirement of due process.” Salgado-Diaz v. Gonzales, 395 F.3d 1158, 1162 (9th Cir. 2005) (as amended); see also Grigoryan v. Barr, 959 F.3d 1233, 1240 (9th Cir. 2020); Gonzaga-Ortega v. Holder, 736 F.3d 795, 804 (9th Cir. 2013) (as amended); Vilchez v. Holder, 682 F.3d 1195, 1199 (9th Cir. 2012); United States v. Reyes Bonilla, 671 F.3d 1036, 1045 (9th Cir. 2012); Pangilinan v. Holder, 568 F.3d 708,709 (9th Cir. 2009).

“[O]ur immigration laws have long made a distinction between those aliens who have come to our shores seeking admission . . . and those who are within the United States after an entry.” Leng May Ma v. Barber, [357 U.S. 185, 187] (1958). Aliens “who have once passed through our gates, even illegally,” are afforded the full panoply of procedural due process protections, and “may be expelled only after proceedings conforming to traditional standards of fairness.” Shaughnessy v. United States ex rel. Mezei, [345 U.S. 206, 212] (1953)

===

OK. All in favor of the rule of law with due process, a show of hands, please.

Thank you. 

And now, all in favor of dictatorship, feel free to insult, denigrate, or ignore me and my facts. Chances are you didn't read this far anyway, amirite?

Notice what color the guy is, and what he's done, who gets a break.



~~~~~~

*Fifth Amendment

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

*Fourteenth Amendment, Section 1:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.


Saturday, April 12, 2025

Maher & Trump

 


Let's have a look at the recent meeting between Trump and Bill Maher that has become such a hot topic. I instinctively avoided watching Maher's HBO show, knowing what I know about both men. It would have spoiled a perfectly good evening.

But transcripts work just as well for this discussion. Maher's remarks are in quotation marks. Mine follow in parenthesis. 

 “He’s much more self-aware than he lets on in public. Look, I get it. It doesn’t matter who he is at a private dinner with a comedian. It matters who he is on the world stage. I’m just taking as a positive that this person exists, because everything I’ve ever not liked about him was, I swear to God, absent.”

(“Self-aware”? What does that mean? He never stops thinking about himself? What wasn’t absent was Trump's manipulation of celebrities to get more attention.)

“At least on this night with this guy, Bob, Kid Rock told me the night before, he said, ‘If you want to get a word in edgewise, you’re going to have to cut him off. He’ll just go on.’ Not at all. I’ve had so many conversations with prominent people who are much less connected.”

(Much less connected to reality, decency, or humanity? Please.) 

“People who don’t look you in the eye, people who don’t really listen because they just want to get to their next thing. People whose response to things you say just doesn’t track. Like what? None of that with him. And he mostly steered the conversation to, ‘What do you think about this’?”

(Ah, yes. So Maher was actually being interviewed on the Trump Show.)

“I know your mind is blown. So is mine.”

(Speak for yourself, Bill.)

“You can hate me for it, but I’m not a liar. Trump was gracious and measured. And why isn’t that in other settings, I don’t know, and I can’t answer and it’s not my place to answer. I’m just telling you what I saw, and I wasn’t high.”

(He was “gracious and measured” for reasons beyond Maher’s grasp.)

"I had supported him in the idea that Gaza could be Dubai."

(Yes, build those beachfront casinos. MAGA Lite Maher rarely, if ever, condemns Netanyahu’s brutality or Israeli demolition of Palestinian homes, and theft of their land.)

“I never felt like I had to walk on eggshells around him. And, honestly, I voted for Clinton and Obama, but I would never feel comfortable talking to them the way I was able to talk with Donald Trump. That’s just how it went down. Make of it what you will.”

(OK. This is what I make of it. Clinton and Obama are much smarter than Maher. He’s more relaxed with someone closer to his level of intelligence.)

“I feel it’s emblematic of why the Democrats are so unpopular these days", Maher concludes.

(Maher conveniently ignores the real factor. Fascists are better at propaganda because they have no moral boundaries or regard for truth. Far Right propaganda networks have been more successful in deluding Americans with lies than traditional corporate media has been with reaching them with facts. Trump’s criminal behavior and attempts to overturn the 2020 election were sidelined by corporate media’s paucity of reporting lower inflation, their obsession with Biden’s age, and the usual horse race normalization of the 2024 election.)

Tyrants don't become tyrants without an ability to charm and dupe the most gullible, egotistical, resentful, and angry people who’ve been indoctrinated by their propaganda. Maher has fallen for the charms of a criminal sociopath and doesn't know it.

One more point. Let’s not overlook the most obvious reason Maher jumped at the opportunity to meet Trump. He wants MAGA viewers to boost his falling ratings.



Friday, April 4, 2025

No Worries

 



Absolutely!* 

Such gross incompetence should be immediately punished! 

The Dow, April 4, 2025: – 1,679.39

The Dow, April 5, 2025: – 2,231.07

The Dow drops 3,910.46 in two days and Trump goes golfing. 

Nothing to see here. Forget 2012. The Black Guy was president in 2012. Now it's totally different. 

That was then. 

This is now.

Trump, April 4, 2025: “This is a great time to get rich, richer than ever before!!!”

No worries. It's time to CELEBRATE!

Our Tangerine Tyrant is a proven stable genius and is in complete control. If you don't believe him you're a commie who hates America.




*While this 2012 tweet may be fake, PolitiFact NotesSearching the Trump Twitter Archive, a database of Trump’s X posts, using keywords like "Dow" and "impeached" showed no such post, although it does not include deleted posts before September 2016.

So, even if it's fake, it sounds just like what he'd say.

On June 4, 2014. Trump did tweet, "Are you allowed to impeach a president for gross incompetence?"










Thursday, April 3, 2025

Trump Means Business

 

Trump means business with his tariffs! Tough measures are needed! No more Mr. Nice Guy and no more unfair deals with penguins.

 

"In the end, they're not coming after me. They're coming after you — and I'm just standing in their way."


Those penguins will NOT stop Trump from making America great again!