As David Kurtz writes at TPM, we’ve crossed the Rubicon. Trump is now openly defying judge’s orders.
The major news of the weekend was the rapid-fire series of events following President Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act that culminated with the White House chortling over its defiance of a federal court order blocking deportations under the act and ordering outbound flights to return to the United States.
The Trump administration’s immediate deportation to El Salvador of Venezuelan nationals claimed to be part of the Tren de Aragua criminal gang is its own saga, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio taunting the federal court, El Salvador’s president releasing grim videos of dehumanizing treatment of the detainees, and the White House trumpeting how it ignored a federal judge to create a fait accompli.
Today already a federal judge has scheduled a hearing for 4 pm this afternoon to give the Trump Administration a chance to explain itself. At Axios, Marc Caputo writes How the White House ignored a judge’s order to turn back deportation flights.
The Trump administration says it ignored a Saturday court order to turn around two planeloads of alleged Venezuelan gang members because the flights were over international waters and therefore the ruling didn’t apply, two senior officials tell Axios. …
… The White House welcomes that fight. “This is headed to the Supreme Court. And we’re going to win,” a senior White House official told Axios.
A second administration official said Trump was not defying the judge whose ruling came too late for the planes to change course: “Very important that people understand we are not actively defying court orders.”
State of play: Trump’s advisers contend U.S. District Judge James Boasberg overstepped his authority by issuing an order that blocked the president from deporting about 250 alleged Tren de Aragua gang members under the Alien Enemies Act of 1789.
The war-time law gives the executive extreme immense power to deport noncitizens without a judicial hearing. But it has been little-used, particularly in peacetime.
“It’s the showdown that was always going to happen between the two branches of government,” a senior White House official said. “And it seemed that this was pretty clean. You have Venezuelan gang members … These are bad guys, as the president would say.”
Since Trump kind of skipped the due process thing, we are supposed to take his word that all the deported people were Venezuelan gang members and not just random migrants rounded up to put on a show. I understand Trump has been frantic to ramp up the number of people deported, since so far he hasn’t managed to deport people any faster than other administrations. In any event, the judge has blocked Trump from deporting anybody under the Alien Enemies Act.
And while the White House may be officially declaring that it didn’t intend to defy the judge, Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan pretty much says otherwise.
We are going to make this country safe again … I’m proud to be a part of this administration. We are not stopping. I don’t care what the judges think. I don’t care what the Left thinks. We’re coming,” he added.
Asked what was coming next in the administration’s deportation efforts, Homan said: “Another flight. Another flight every day.”
Although I don’t know if there have been flights per the Alien Enemies Act today. But a Republican House member from Texas has declared he is filing articles of impeachment against the judge.
The War on Social Security. Musk put the Lost Boys to work to find actual dead people receiving Social Security so he can justify killing it, I take it they thought they’d found one. Except he’s not dead yet. This is from the Seattle Times:
Johnson’s strange trip through the netherworld began in February, when a letter from his bank arrived addressed to his wife, Pam.
“We recently received notification of LEONARD A. JOHNSON’s passing,” it began. “We offer our sincerest condolences …”
At first she figured it was a scam — her husband, after all, was sitting right there. But then the bank got to the point.
“We know this is a difficult time, and we’re here to help,” the bank wrote. “We received a request from Social Security Administration to return benefits paid to LEONARD A. JOHNSON’s account after their passing.”
“There’s nothing you need to do — we’ve deducted the funds from LEONARD A. JOHNSON’s account.”
Uh oh. It itemized how $5,201 had been stricken from their bank account, on the grounds that Ned wasn’t justified to get those benefits — because he was dead. That was for payments he’d received in December and January.
Ned found that his February Social Security check hadn’t been paid, and he’s yet to receive his March check, either. His Medicare insurance had been canceled. He also learned that when you die, your credit score gets marked as “deceased, do not issue credit,” which makes it tough to get a loan.
“The good news is I don’t think it can go any lower than that,” he said cheerfully.
He called the bank first, and they said an electronic notification had been triggered on Feb. 18 that he had died back in November. But I’m on the phone with you right now, he told them. Also, what did I die of? Take it up with Social Security, they said.
Naturally, dealing with the local Social Security office was a nightmare because of layoffs. He’s lucky it hadn’t closed yet. As of the posting of the news story Johnson had gotten his $5,201 back, but his missing back payments for February and March are still missing. And it doesn’t say if his Medicare benefits have restarted.
But, yeah,, 80 years without a missed Social Security payment, I understand, until Elon Musk got hold of it.
See also Judd Legum at Popular Information, Memo details Trump plan to sabotage the Social Security Administration. The Plan seems to be to make it much more difficult to apply for benefits. This is what Musk calls “efficiency.”
At the Department of Justice, acknowledgment of the heroism and important contributions of military personnel who are not White men are being erased from websites and other public records. Axios reports that “Articles about the renowned Native American Code Talkers have disappeared from some military websites, with several broken URLs now labeled ‘DEI.'”
And at the Guardian, see Black Medal of Honor recipient removed from US Department of Defense website.
The US defense department webpage celebrating an army general who served in the Vietnam war and was awarded the country’s highest military decoration has been removed and the letters “DEI” added to the site’s address.
On Saturday, US army Maj Gen Charles Calvin Rogers’s Medal of Honor webpage led to a “404” error message. The URL was also changed, with the word “medal” changed to “deimedal”.
Rogers was wounded three times while leading the defense of a base. But heroism only counts when White men do it, I guess.
One more: Trump has declared all of Biden’s pardons to be void. Let’s see if he can make that stick.
I want to thank everybody who made yesterday’s fundraiser such a success. This really helps. Of course, additional donations via GoFundMe or using the donate button at the top of the right-hand column on the home page are still welcome. But I won’t ask again. For now.
