There is nowhere in the Felon's administration where the rule of law takes precedence over power.
With the full support of the six Christian Nationalists on the Supreme Court and GOP Congressional members the Felon is making the United States an authoritarian theocracy, with the Felon as its leader and the American oligarchs running the Country (Putin's Russia).
My question is, what happens when the clear majority who reject an illegally acting administration have had enough of this shit? We are not a people willing to put our bodies on the line any longer. What are we willing to do?
A series of trials mirroring that which took place at Nuremberg should be repeated. The lot of them should be brought up on charges, and the excuse of 'only following orders' must work no better now than it did then.
We can only hope the judge who will be ruling in this case doesn’t allow what the AG is doing. If they don’t comply with the judge’s order then there should be consequences to being insubordinate to the law and the court.
For a change. Yes. These "lawyers" never get sanctioned, Rudy Giuliani being the lone exception, and that one only because he somehow fell out of Trump's graces, despite doing every fckng thing he was commanded to do.
The writing says it well. It's all about exerting power to gain and maintain control. The first thing to do is make up a problem that doesn't exist, then call it an 'emergency' and finally take overreaching assumed authority to "fix" the problem. Taking over a city's law enforcement in violation of the rule of law will fix nothing and the consequences will have a bad end. The only actual emergency is Trump himself and his deranged ranting.
And let it be noted that AG Levi served under a solidly Republican President who had spent his career in Congress, rising to Minority Leader: Gerald Ford.
Thank you for these highly timely, insightful and valuable insights!
Bondi's own order highlights that it is illegal and unconstitutional. The federal law at issue expressly imposes restrictions on the purposes for which it can be invoked. It may be used only to remedy "special conditions of an emergency nature" that "require the use of the Metropolitan Police force for Federal purposes." It cannot be used for routine enforcement of regular immigration laws.
It's also important to highlight that Bondi and Trump aren't merely violating the rule of law, they're violating our Constitution. It would be helpful to state the rule of law as stated in Article VI of our Constitution. "This Constitution, and" federal "Laws" that were "made in Pursuance" of our Constitution "and all Treaties" are "the supreme Law of the Land; and [all] Judges" are "bound thereby," and all state and federal legislators "and all executive and judicial Officers" are "bound" to "support this Constitution."
James Madison in Federalist No. 51 emphasized that various powers were woven into our Constitution (aka "federalism" and "separation of powers") not to serve public servants, but to ensure that all our public servants actually do serve the public:
In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people [e.g., in elections] is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions. This policy of [ensuring] opposite and rival interests [by constitutional] distributions of power [has a profoundly important purpose:] the constant aim is to divide and arrange the several offices in such a manner as that each may be a check on the other that the private interest of every [public servant] may be a sentinel over the public rights. . . . .
In the compound republic of America, the power surrendered by the people is first divided between two distinct governments [national and state], and then the portion allotted to each subdivided among distinct and separate departments [legislative, executive and judicial]. Hence a double security arises to the rights of the people. The different governments will control each other, at the same time that each will be controlled by itself.
It's interesting to see how thoroughly proven is the presumption that Pam Bondi works for Trump, not for the American people. Well, she's also a performing seal for the pundits at Fox who are guiding her each and every day,
Unethical, illegal, lying Bondi is operating on the Federal level exactly as she did in on the state level. That is why 70 of her colleagues have repeatedly attempted to get her disbarred. I see her as a very desperate woman: aging fast (she is pushing 60), has burned her bridges in her own state, knows she was DT's 2nd choice for AG, and also knows, I'm sure, that she will lose her license to practice if she returns to FL, as the state bar there will have to decide on the resolution before them, placed by her colleagues x 3: disbar her for ethical violations. I certainly don't know the bitch, nor would I want to, but I also would think that absolute power is pretty important to her, and she will slavishly do anything for DT to keep her Federal position, and flex her "muscles". The idea that the DC's police chief has to report to someone from the DEA is incredibly ridiculous, and she knows it. She also knows that she will never have this type of power if/when she returns to FL to attempt to practice there. In that state, it appears that she is up for a serious reckoning into her vast errors and illegalities. She may be riding high now, but boy, will she fall far when the times comes, and it will. I wish her Godspeed into Hell.
Very timely and appropriate use of Justice Brandeis's quote! But it's well worth quoting more of his words from that opinion:
"Decency, security and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy."
It's also worth noting that the warning by Justice Brandeis made its way into the majority opinion about another famous warning. In Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 479-80 (1966) (for which the "Miranda warnings" are named), the SCOTUS majority quoted Justice Brandeis to warn again (with my alteration):
“Crime is contagious. [When] the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.”
I suspect that our Founders realized that there is no magic in the Constitution, and that in the absence of people of intelligence and goodwill, the (flawed) brilliance of the document is little more than empty words on a nearly 250 year old piece of parchment.
There is nowhere in the Felon's administration where the rule of law takes precedence over power.
With the full support of the six Christian Nationalists on the Supreme Court and GOP Congressional members the Felon is making the United States an authoritarian theocracy, with the Felon as its leader and the American oligarchs running the Country (Putin's Russia).
My question is, what happens when the clear majority who reject an illegally acting administration have had enough of this shit? We are not a people willing to put our bodies on the line any longer. What are we willing to do?
A series of trials mirroring that which took place at Nuremberg should be repeated. The lot of them should be brought up on charges, and the excuse of 'only following orders' must work no better now than it did then.
We can only hope the judge who will be ruling in this case doesn’t allow what the AG is doing. If they don’t comply with the judge’s order then there should be consequences to being insubordinate to the law and the court.
For a change. Yes. These "lawyers" never get sanctioned, Rudy Giuliani being the lone exception, and that one only because he somehow fell out of Trump's graces, despite doing every fckng thing he was commanded to do.
And then you must hope that such a case does not end up on the desk of "judge" bove the third of his kind or "judge" cannon the loose.
The writing says it well. It's all about exerting power to gain and maintain control. The first thing to do is make up a problem that doesn't exist, then call it an 'emergency' and finally take overreaching assumed authority to "fix" the problem. Taking over a city's law enforcement in violation of the rule of law will fix nothing and the consequences will have a bad end. The only actual emergency is Trump himself and his deranged ranting.
Thank you for the words of former AG Levi. It helps, a lot.
And let it be noted that AG Levi served under a solidly Republican President who had spent his career in Congress, rising to Minority Leader: Gerald Ford.
Thank you for these highly timely, insightful and valuable insights!
Bondi's own order highlights that it is illegal and unconstitutional. The federal law at issue expressly imposes restrictions on the purposes for which it can be invoked. It may be used only to remedy "special conditions of an emergency nature" that "require the use of the Metropolitan Police force for Federal purposes." It cannot be used for routine enforcement of regular immigration laws.
It's also important to highlight that Bondi and Trump aren't merely violating the rule of law, they're violating our Constitution. It would be helpful to state the rule of law as stated in Article VI of our Constitution. "This Constitution, and" federal "Laws" that were "made in Pursuance" of our Constitution "and all Treaties" are "the supreme Law of the Land; and [all] Judges" are "bound thereby," and all state and federal legislators "and all executive and judicial Officers" are "bound" to "support this Constitution."
James Madison in Federalist No. 51 emphasized that various powers were woven into our Constitution (aka "federalism" and "separation of powers") not to serve public servants, but to ensure that all our public servants actually do serve the public:
In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people [e.g., in elections] is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions. This policy of [ensuring] opposite and rival interests [by constitutional] distributions of power [has a profoundly important purpose:] the constant aim is to divide and arrange the several offices in such a manner as that each may be a check on the other that the private interest of every [public servant] may be a sentinel over the public rights. . . . .
In the compound republic of America, the power surrendered by the people is first divided between two distinct governments [national and state], and then the portion allotted to each subdivided among distinct and separate departments [legislative, executive and judicial]. Hence a double security arises to the rights of the people. The different governments will control each other, at the same time that each will be controlled by itself.
It's interesting to see how thoroughly proven is the presumption that Pam Bondi works for Trump, not for the American people. Well, she's also a performing seal for the pundits at Fox who are guiding her each and every day,
Unethical, illegal, lying Bondi is operating on the Federal level exactly as she did in on the state level. That is why 70 of her colleagues have repeatedly attempted to get her disbarred. I see her as a very desperate woman: aging fast (she is pushing 60), has burned her bridges in her own state, knows she was DT's 2nd choice for AG, and also knows, I'm sure, that she will lose her license to practice if she returns to FL, as the state bar there will have to decide on the resolution before them, placed by her colleagues x 3: disbar her for ethical violations. I certainly don't know the bitch, nor would I want to, but I also would think that absolute power is pretty important to her, and she will slavishly do anything for DT to keep her Federal position, and flex her "muscles". The idea that the DC's police chief has to report to someone from the DEA is incredibly ridiculous, and she knows it. She also knows that she will never have this type of power if/when she returns to FL to attempt to practice there. In that state, it appears that she is up for a serious reckoning into her vast errors and illegalities. She may be riding high now, but boy, will she fall far when the times comes, and it will. I wish her Godspeed into Hell.
Very timely and appropriate use of Justice Brandeis's quote! But it's well worth quoting more of his words from that opinion:
"Decency, security and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy."
It's also worth noting that the warning by Justice Brandeis made its way into the majority opinion about another famous warning. In Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 479-80 (1966) (for which the "Miranda warnings" are named), the SCOTUS majority quoted Justice Brandeis to warn again (with my alteration):
“Crime is contagious. [When] the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.”
I suspect that our Founders realized that there is no magic in the Constitution, and that in the absence of people of intelligence and goodwill, the (flawed) brilliance of the document is little more than empty words on a nearly 250 year old piece of parchment.
It becomes more and more clear that this Bondi person got her "law degree" by finding it in a box of cereals she just bought.