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They Ain't Stopping, So Who's Next? [1]

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Date: 2025-04-06

On Saturday millions of people gathered at various locations around the country for “Hands Off” protests against the administration of four-time indicted, twice-impeached, sexual assaulter, tax fraudster, insurrection inspirer, wannabe fascist dictator, convicted felon, Russian puppet, President Donald Trump.

That’s great. It really is. It’s an impressive show of how people are angry about what’s going on in Washington and their willingness to go out and make a statement. But the opinion here remains that it will change very little if anything at this point. That’s because the level of corruption in this administration and the Republican Party makes the standard forms of protest ineffective.

But here’s the good part: We know we truly have a vast army of anti-Trumpers out there. Now, if only we can find some strong, effective, and gutsy national leadership hopefully it can channel all that manpower into the kinds of civil disobedience and non-violent disruption that can put some real pressure on GOP lawmakers to do something about the almost daily assaults on our law and constitution that this president is committing with the support of his party.

One can only hope because right now Trump and his allies show no signs of stopping. They’re building one bad act on top of another, and we’re making a huge mistake if we think there’s some point at which they’ll stop on their own volition.

Think you can’t end up getting arrested? The Department of Justice has been transformed into a hotbed of corruption. Think your legal status or even your American citizenship will stop them from shipping you out of the country if they can lump you in with immigrants, both legal and undocumented? We see that’s not the case as the administration ramps up its deportation efforts.

Hyperbole? Let’s take one example – immigration and the right’s mass deportation wet dream. It was simple enough – albeit stupid, cruel and disgusting – to start: Round up the 12 million or so undocumented immigrants in this country and ship them back to where they came from.

Now, the administration has ramped up deportations using “both traditional and unusual methods,” the New York Times ominously reported.

The process has become a perverted and illegal enterprise, consistent with how this administration does business. And as long as they think they can get away with it, as long as they believe they’ll be unaccountable for their actions, as long as they stay drunk with the power that stems from their corruption, why in the world would they stop?

When you’re infused with racism and hate and think you’re accountable to no one, you arrest dozens of Venezuelan immigrants, claim they’re gang members but offer no tangible proof of that accusation or that they’ve committed any crimes here, deny them due process, and ship them off to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador that has had documented human rights abuses.

There they have their heads shaved, are stripped to the waist, and jammed into cells so stone cold, dead-on-the-inside, dog killer, Botox-infused, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, wearing a $50,000 watch, can pose in front of them for a threatening video.

How many innocent people were swept up in this irresponsible publicity stunt? We know at least one. Want to bet there aren’t more?

A federal judge has ruled that officials acted without “legal basis” when they arrested Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia and, with no due process, shipped him off to the Salvadoran prison. The judge gave the Trump administration until the end of Monday to return the Maryland man to the United States.

He was inadvertently deported to El Salvador last month despite a court order allowing him to stay in the country. The administration acknowledged his deportation was a mistake but made the bullshit claim that there was little they could do to get him back.

Amazingly, the Justice Department appealed the decision rather than do what it has to do to get an innocent man returned to where he belongs. Stunningly, the government argued that the judge’s order “commands defendants to do something they have no independent authority to do: make El Salvador release Abrego Garcia, and send him to America.”

They really do hate immigrants with a white-hot passion.

Here’s something you really need to know: Erez Reuveni, a DOJ lawyer, admitted to the judge that Abrego Garcia shouldn’t have been deported in the first place. He said he has been frustrated with the case from the beginning.

Reuveni asked the judge for 24 hours to persuade the government to begin the process of getting Abrego Garcia back. “Good clients (in this case the government) listen to their lawyers,” he said.

So, what did this “good client” do to its lawyer? It put him on indefinite leave for failing to “follow a directive from your superiors.”

I guess that directive was to lie.

The Times said Reuveni “is the latest career official to be suspended, demoted, transferred, or fired for refusing to comply with a directive from President Trump’s appointees to take actions they deem improper or unethical.”

“At my direction, every Department of Justice attorney is required to zealously advocate on behalf of the United States,” corrupt Trump puppet, Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote in a statement to the Times. “Any attorney who fails to abide by this direction will face consequences.”

I guess when she says “on behalf of the United States” she means Trump and not regular citizens.

So, do you really think you’re safe because you’re an American citizen, or you’re white, or you wear a red hat when you have the highest law enforcement officer in the country punishing government attorneys who tell the truth to right an injustice and get an unfairly incarcerated man out of prison?

You can read the Times story here.

If you want to get an idea how these people were treated after they got to the El Salvador, here’s a report with photos from the Time website.

***

When you feel unstoppable you do things like arrest Remeysa Ozturk, a Turkish PhD student at Tufts University, and terminate her valid F-1 visa, which allows international students to pursue full-time academic studies, and accuse her, without offering proof, of “engaging in activities in support of Hamas.”

Ozturk – a Fullbright scholar with a master’s degree from Columbia who’s been in this country since 2018 – is one of several foreign nationals affiliated with prestigious American universities to be arrested for alleged activities related to terrorist organizations, CNN reported.

Her main sin seems to be that in March 2024 she cowrote an op-ed in the school’s newspaper in which she criticized Tufts’ response to a student government group’s call for the university to divest from companies with ties to Israel because of the conflict in Gaza, among other demands. It’s really well done.

You can read the op-ed here.

Trump lapdog, phony Christian, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Ozturk’s alleged activities could have “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences and would compromise a compelling U.S. foreign policy interest,” according to a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson.

Hey Little Marco (remember his penis envy of Trump during the 2016 campaign) could you be a little vaguer, please. The guess here is it might make Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – a Jewish version of Trump -- look bad. Being a war criminal will do that to you.

Here’s the thing, in the United States you can have any opinion you want, and whatever it is it’s not enough to get you arrested if you haven’t broken any laws in the process.

Ozturk and the other students are easy targets because they’re immigrants. It’s too easy to lump them in with all the others being sweep up in this mass deportation bullshit.

***

When you’re loaded with heartless cruelty you revoke the legal status of more than 500,000 Latin American and Haitian migrants who are here under a Biden-era humanitarian-based sponsorship program. These folks from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela were told to self-deport or they’ll be arrested.

Remember when Trump and his pathetic ventriloquist dummy, Vice President JD Vance were lying over and over again during the 2024 campaign that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, were eating the dogs and cats of residents there?

This has nothing to do with them being criminals or doing anything wrong. They’re here legally. This is just a chance to get rid of another half-million non-white immigrants in one fell swoop.

***

Due process is a cornerstone of our legal system. Without it the government can arrest anyone it wants, accuse him of anything, and never have to prove its accusation. They can lock anyone up with no burden to show the court that their action is justified.

That’s what this administration is doing with immigrants right now. I’ve got a feeling that if they get away with that, they’ll have no hesitation in expanding it to include American citizens. With a corrupted DOJ why would you think otherwise?

A bully will push you as far as you let him. We’re seeing that right now with Trump. The Republican-controlled Congress hasn’t been compelled yet to protect our country from this monster. The courts so far have been the only stopgap, and it remains to be seen if they will hold or if the administration will simply do what it wants anyway.

Get ready folks. If this thing goes sideways the recent protests better be just the beginning.

And a very mild beginning, at that.

***

Thank you for reading my post. You can see my other writings on my blog: Musings of a Nobody. Please share and subscribe for free via email on its home page.

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