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Our Feelings are more important than any Law, says the current Administration [1]
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Date: 2025-04-01
That’s the word out of the White House, if you take White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, at her word, responding to reporter Andrew Fine, The Independent, apparently holding copies of DHS documents in front of Ms Leavitt proving that her words were baseless. Yet, they were being used to justify violating 5A rights of legal immigrants — some with specific court orders — protecting them from deportation to notorious mass prisons in foreign countries. No notification, no ability to challenge. Just picked up off the street and loaded onto an airplane, in the name of the American people and their Government.So, how does the White House expect the People, in who’s name they’re purportedly doing this activity, to deal with sending innocent people into notorious foreign prisons? The MAGA GOP have developed a line that is supposed to stop us in our tracks, when they’re taken to task on this lawless behavior:
Karoline Leavitt: [responding to Andrew Fine, The Independent] “That’s not true, according DHS and the agents — have you talked the agents? The agents that have been putting their lives on the line to detain these foreign terrorists (emphasis, Leavitt) who have who have been terrorizing our communities? TDA [Trent de Aragua gang] is a vicious gang that has taken the lives of American women; and our agents on the front lines take, uh, deporting these people with the utmost seriousness, and there is a litany of criteria that they use to ensure that these individuals qualify as foreign terrorists — [Andrew Fine interrupting] But these documents show… — [Leavitt talks over him] and, and, to ensure these individuals qualify for deportation. And the president, the president, made it incredibly clear to the American public that there would be a mass deportation campaign of — not just foreign terrorists — but also illegal criminal aliens who have been wreaking havoc, and shame on you and shame on the mainstream media for trying to cover for these individuals who have — [Fine attempts to interject, Leavitt continues] this is a vicious gang, this is a vicious gang, Andrew, who have taken the lives of American women.”
Leavitt actually continues, spluttering further about reporters daring to ‘question our valiant agents, following DHS criteria...’ despite the evidence in paper form being waved in front of her face. Then there’s Senator Cruz, once again caught at an airport layover...
Ted Cruz: “You [TheBulwark reporter, Andrew Egger] wanna be a shill for violent gang members — listen I’ve talked to too many families and children that have been raped and murdered by these animals that...you [TheBulwark reporters] oughta be ashamed of yourselves.”
Nevermind how one can ‘speak’ to the murdered, Ted… Here’s our intrepid Vice President, fresh from being bum-rushed out of Greenland with his wife, Usha...
JD Vance: [to political strategist and podcaster, Jon Favreau, via tweet] “My further comment is that’s gross to get fired up about gang members getting deported while ignoring citizens they victimize.”
By refusing to acknowledge that the lack of due process in packing hundreds of men onto airplanes, to ship them off into foreign prisons without an opportunity to challenge their seizure, is a full-on violation of anyone’s rights under the Fifth Amendment — and when questioned about it, using American victims to change the subject toward moralizing about how we’re supposed to feel about the American victims and the agents tracking these gangs, instead of the violation of bedrock constitutional protections, is — by it’s deliberate neglect to address it — an admission of lawlessness. A lawlessness that this administration presumes we all have to accept.
But we don’t have to accept this.
We don’t have to accept their narrative. No election was ever held in this nation that presumed a winning campaign platform to be equivalent to making the Constitution optional...even if the candidate said it.
And appealing to our emotions isn’t a substitute for due process under the Law.
(Note: all the above quotes are verbatim transcribed from this podcast)
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As a reminder, here’s the relevant text of the 5th 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.”
It should be noted here that ‘person’ doesn’t just apply to American citizens, it applies to any human being on American soil. There’s literally centuries of case law affirming that principal, no matter what kind of ‘mandate’ DJT insists he’s operating from. If he wants to demonstrate lawlessness in the pursuit of his campaign commitments, then he declares his illegitimacy as a steward of the Constitution. And as an illegitimate steward of the Constitution, he deserves no respect, and no trust, in his tenure as the Executive officer of the Constitution.
We're supposed to accept criminal activity, in the name of the American people, so victimized America can feel better having been avenged, even as it creates new victims. Thankfully, the Vatican has a response for this sort of convenient, Old Testament style thinking.
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