One of the peculiar aspects of analyzing America's descent into overt fascism during the second Trump administration is the way frustration with liberal orthodoxy surrounding the effectiveness of "rules and norms" in curtailing governmental abuses of power, and the blatantly unlawful behavior the regime regularly engages in, have worked to tamp down criticism of all the awful things this administration does that are merely morally wrong, while still being entirely legal. Of course it is completely rational to ask why Trump's predecessors in government considered relying on tradition and "norms" to prevent abuses of executive branch power a viable plan in the first place, but that doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't criticize the regime for doing objectively fascist cracker bullshit to punish "enemies" of the white American Volk just because it's not strictly illegal. Take for example ICE's recent habit of occupying courtrooms with immigration agents, and coordinating with government lawyers to allow the detainment and expedited deportation of otherwise law-abiding migrants, effectively without due process.

https://theintercept.com/2025/05/21/ice-agents-courts-arrests-immigrants-deport/

ICE Agents Are Camped Outside Immigration Courts to Make Arrests

"Reports began circulating on social media on Tuesday that ICE had begun efforts to get cases dismissed that had been pending for less than two years so that the agency could immediately apprehend immigrants and force them into an expedited removal process — effectively side-stepping the typical immigration court process.

“They’re moving to end those cases so they can move forward with a more aggressive form of deportation without the requirement to see a judge or request asylum,” Mackler said. “They’re basically circumventing due process.”

Although it's not clearly explained in this article, what's going on here is that the Trump regime has revived a 2019 policy that allows them to fast track deportations for migrants who can't prove they've been in the United States for loner than two years. This has then been combined with an ICE guidance issued in January that allows agents to conduct operations near courthouses “discreetly,” and active complicity by government attorneys, to create a cruel but effective trap. Migrants, even potential asylum seekers, can show up in court for their immigration cases, watch the government dismiss the charges, and then be detained for expedited deportation by masked Gestapo goons lounging around in the courtroom hallways for that purpose. Or, they can choose to skip the hearing, which will allow for immediate ICE detention and an automatic deportation order. Either way, the Trump regime gets to deport migrants without anything even resembling due process. Furthermore, just in case you think I'm being uncharitable and this is all just an unhappy accident caused by the interaction of shortsighted policy decisions, recent reporting in The Guardian indicates that this police state bullshit is entirely intentional on the part of the US Government.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/22/ice-arrests-immigration-courts

Ice arrests at immigration courts across the US stirring panic: ‘It’s terrifying’

"Three US immigration officials told the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity that government attorneys were given the order to start dismissing cases when they showed up for work on Monday, and were aware that federal agents would then be able to arrest those individuals when they left the courtroom.

In the case of Serrano in Miami, the request for dismissal was delivered by a government attorney who spoke without identifying herself on the record, the Associated Press reported. She refused to provide her name to the AP and quickly exited the courtroom."

Unfortunately, as far as I know and as I alluded to at the top of this post, this "tactic" to help facilitate an obviously white nationalist mass deportation scheme is completely legal. In fact, as this very article notes the Biden regime was using a similar expedited deportation process to rapidly deport migrants who'd been in the United States for less than two weeks, so in a round about way this is yet another example of America's long embrace of foundationally racist, xenophobic, and nativist immigration policies paving the way for Trump, a would-be fascist dictator, to circumvent the law and US constitution to do white nationalist authoritarian repression. Of course Biden wasn't sending masked goon squads full of Proud Boys with an immigration badge to trap migrants actively *trying* to obey US immigration law, and therein lies the rub. Just because America's long embrace of fascism, white supremacy, and police state repression allows Trump to do something, doesn't mean we have to pretend that he should do that thing, or that it's perfectly fine when he does so. This is fascism, legal or otherwise.

#Fascism #Trump #ICE #DHS #Courts #Migrants #Immigration #USConsitution #Gestapo #CivilRights #DueProcess #Norms #WhiteNationalism #Nativism #PoliceState

Under the cover of darkness House Republicans slipped a provision into their budget bill that would, at least temporarily, allow Donald Trump to be the dictator of his wildest dreams.

https://www.ninaillingworth.com/2025/05/22/nina-bytes-reconciliation-and-a-us-enabling-act/

Nina-Bytes: Reconciliation and a US Enabling Act

"In the past I’ve written about the many ways we can observe the Trump administration trying to create a patchwork “Enabling Act” out of emergency powers, novel interpretations of decades-old legislation, and even the resurrection of rarely-invoked war powers to fight a wholly fictitious “invasion” by gangs. With the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in his pocket, the Swine Emperor might finally have the vehicle he needs to fully transform America into a fascist dictatorship. The plain truth here is that the Republican politicians who voted to ram this bill though Congress last night were already would-be thieves and murderers; this provision now makes them the willing architects of Trump’s Pork Reich."

#Fascism #Trump #Courts #PoliceState #GOP #ReconciliationBill #USConsitution #USPol #MikeJohnson #Dictatorship #EnablingAct #SCOTUS #Contempt #RepublicanParty

As I've pointed out repeatedly in this thread, there are literally so many things wrong with the GOP's homicidal class war reconciliation bill that it's hard to talk about them all, and observers are discovering new awful things about it all the time. For a pretty terrifying example of this phenomenon, we need look no further than the discovery of a hidden provision in the "Big Beautiful Bill" that will essentially unravel the US constitution, and grant Swine Emperor Trump the fascist dictatorship of his dreams.

I'm absolutely not being hyperbolic, and to prove the point I'd like to examine this late night blog post by former US Labor Secretary Robert Reich.

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-hidden-provision-in-the-big-ugly

The hidden provision in the Big Ugly Bill that makes Trump king

The key thing to understand here is that the hyper-targeted provision Reich is talking about effectively obliterates the only real power federal judges have over Trump, in relation to multiple high-profile lawsuits and court orders stopping the regime from doing illegal, unconstitutional, fascist bullshit as we speak. Things like abducting and attempting to deport foreign student anti-genocide protestors, or kidnapping migrants and trafficking them to a torture prison in El Salvador, for example.

"Not if the Big Ugly Bill is enacted with the following provision, now hidden in the bill:

“No court of the United States may use appropriated funds to enforce a contempt citation for failure to comply with an injunction or temporary restraining order if no security was given when the injunction or order was issued….”

"Translated: No federal court may enforce a contempt citation.

Obviously, courts need appropriated funds to do anything because Congress appropriates money to enable the courts to function. To require a security or bond to be given in civil proceedings seeking to stop alleged abuses by the federal government would effectively immunize such conduct from judicial review because those seeking such court orders generally don’t have the resources to post a bond.

Hence, with a stroke, the provision removes the judiciary’s capacity to hold officials in contempt."

Okay, I want to make sure everyone understands what we're talking about here. While the provision the fascist GOP has snuck into the reconciliation budget bill doesn't specifically empower Trump to rule as a dictator, in enables it in practice and we have a metric fuck-ton of evidence that Downmarket Mussolini will use it to do so. This is an administration that's already openly defying court orders, disingenuously interpreting decades-old legislation to grant the President unconstitutional powers, and publicly trying to dismantle judicial oversight of its again, illegal, fascist activities. Literally the only thing hemming the regime in right now, is that the de facto immunity granted to the President by a disastrous 6-3 fascist high SCOTUS decision last summer, doesn't extend to the rest of the regime. Trump's minions and lawyers can be held in contempt and prosecuted for ignoring or violating court orders; in fact that's currently a very real possibility in two separate and ongoing cases about the El Salvador migrant trafficking operation, which should tell you an awful lot about why House Republicans snuck this provision into the bill under the cover of darkness.

Unfortunately however, and as Reich notes, overpowering a couple of federal judges trying to stop the Trump regime from shredding the US Constitution isn't even rock bottom for this fascist bullshit. The effective elimination of contempt citations would not only render the entire US judiciary impotent and merely advisory, but it would also render the legislative branch (so, Congress and the Senate) unable to curtail, punish, or even investigate executive branch activities; since the President could simply ignore that too without courts being able to hold the regime in contempt. In other words, there would no longer any restraints on the Trump administration except those their consciences provided; and given that these are unhinged genocidal Christian Nationalists, I'm gonna avoid betting on the better angels of their nature. These folks are fascists, and now House Republicans would like to make Trump their dictator; there is no other way to interpret this provision.

"With this single provision, in other words, Trump will have crowned himself king. No Congress and no court could stop him. Even if a future Congress were to try to stop him, it could not do so without the power of the courts to enforce their hearings, investigations, subpoenas, and laws."

Folks, the people who voted to ram this bill though Congress last night are already would-be thieves and muderers; this provision now makes them the willing architects of Trump's Pork Reich. As I've said many times, the courts will not save us; we fight, or this nazi shit walks and heaven help us all.

#Fascism #Trump #Courts #PoliceState #GOP #ReconciliationBill #USConsitution #USPol

When I first saw headlines about this story, I genuinely thought the media was just taking the bait while yet another Trump regime official "played stupid" under questioning, but seeing is believing; as this short Majority Report segment demonstrations, DHS Secretary (and former Governor of South Dakota) absolutely does not know what the Writ of Habeas Corpus is and what, or even whose rights it protects. Facing down questions during a Senate oversight committee hearing, the DHS Secretary responded to the simple question of "what is habeas corpus" with "habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country, and suspend their right to" before being cut off by Senator (D-NH) Maggie Hassan, who provided the correct answer. The entire exchange, as well as Noem's responses to further questioning by Senator (D-NJ) Andy Kim have a bizarro-world quality to them that exposes Noem as a deeply unserious and untrustworthy person who absolutely should not be serving in the US government in any capacity whatsoever; I wouldn't trust this lady to run the Easter Egg Roll.

I would however like to note that the things Noem did say, or at least clearly had absorbed by repetition for propaganda purposes, were just as revealing as the things she didn't know and couldn't recite. Analyzing Noem's answers, it's very clear that she was making a propaganda argument to manufacture consent for suspending habeas corpus, and Donald Trump's presumed power to do so; even going so far as to push back against the clearly better informed and more legally knowledgeable Senators questioning her. Listening to the DHS Secretary, it's pretty easy to sketch a rough outline of Stephen Miller's plan to declare Trump can suspend habeas corpus without Congressional approval, under the presumption that said approval will be given retroactively because Abe Lincoln did so one time during the literal Civil War.

Of course none of the regime's arguments for this fascist bullshit are legally valid or make any sense at all. As we've discussed many times already here in this space, America is absolutely not being invaded, by narco-terrorist gangs or otherwise, and I think "we saw too many Mexican-looking people in our neighborhoods" doesn't represent an equivalent public safety "crisis" to that time Lincoln had to stop Confederate soldiers from pillaging Union territories when the South formally seceded and declared war on the US government. Despite this however, the Trump regime is currently working hard to make that argument and win the court of public opinion on this alarming subject for a reason; Kristi Noem might be an ignorant fool, but someone certainly fed her the talking points the administration wants to use to justify suspending habeas corpus, and that should concern us all

The Majority Report: Trump Team's Stunning Ignorance On Full Display During Noem's 'Habeas Corpus' Flop

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aZH2dQcwyQ

#Fascism #Trump #HabeasCorpus #TheMajorityReport #KristiNoem #DHS #Immigration #USPol #PoliceState #MassDeportations #USConsitution #USCivilWar #AbeLincoln #Propaganda #GOP #ManufacturingConsent #Video

Honestly my friends, I'm running out of new ways to say that the Trump administration are a bunch of lawless fascists whose maximalist views on power put them in direct opposition to a US constitution and American legal tradition that is on the whole, extremely friendly to the exercise of executive power. There appears to be no article of law, no regulation, no rule they won't violate in their objectively nazi quest to create a white ethnostate; at this point I half expect the Trump regime to try to find a workaround to the rarely-remembered Third Amendment so they can force every American family to quarter an ICE agent in their home.

If you think I'm being hyperbolic, keep in mind that I'm only going off the information the Trump regime writes down in its own internal memos. Take for example this Department of Justice guideline arguing that ICE has the legal authority to conduct warrantless home invasions in search of "suspected" Venezuelan gang members, because Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act as a kind of Uno-reverso card to every piece of civil rights legislation in US history.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/ice-warrantless-search

DOJ Memo Shows Trump Admin Ordered ICE to Conduct Warrantless Home Invasions

"Lee Gelernt, the ACLU's lead counsel in cases challenging use of the AEA, told USA Today: "The administration's unprecedented use of a wartime authority during peacetime was bad enough. Now we find out the Justice Department was authorizing officers to ignore the most bedrock principle of the Fourth Amendment by authorizing officers to enter homes without a judicial warrant."

Monique Sherman, an attorney at the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network, expressed alarm over the DOJ memo.

"The home under all constitutional law is the most sacred place where you have a right to privacy," Sherman told USA Today. "By this standard, spurious allegations of gang affiliation means the government can knock down your door."

As Georgetown University Law Center professor Steve Vladeck said, "There's no Alien Enemies Act exception to the Fourth Amendment."

As I've indicated elsewhere, I'm not a lawyer; but as someone who has spent many years studying fascism, authoritarianism, and police states, I'm pretty sure you don't issue a Department of Justice order like that unless you *intend* to use ICE to start going house to house in American communities; and once a fascist government has granted itself the power to do that, it really doesn't matter why they claim they're doing so anymore. This is quite literally the beginnings of the dystopian police state winger prepper reactionaries are always going on about, and in anything resembling a functioning democracy US Attorney General Pam Bondi would be arrested immediately for even signing it. As both the article and your middle school civics class note, absolutely none of this is legal no matter what ancient laws Trump tries to invoke and the DoJ is basically telling ICE to ignore the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution, "because we say so."

The question then remains, does the Trump regime even care if the fascist bullshit they're doing is legal? Even under a Calvinball winger interpretation of US law? Signals on that front are so far mixed; on one hand the regime continues arguing its nonsensical theories in court, but on the other hand they stand in violation of several court orders already and are for example, making no effort to bring Abrego Garcia home from a torture prison in El Salvador, despite a 9-0 SCOTUS ruling that they must do so.

On some level I imagine that ICE goons might ignore a DoJ order that tells them to violate the Constitution, but the reason Trump has always used ICE as his personal Gestapo gives me pause. The agency self-selects for nativists who don't mind authoritarian repression or violence, and Trump's vast power over immigration matters as president, means ICE is largely his to control - at least through a Department of Homeland Security the regime has stacked full of white nationalists and fascist freaks. In other words, I don't really know what happens if and when the Trump regime orders ICE to go for the full V for Vendetta experience; but it probably isn't good, and I'm not keen on finding out if Der Leader's private Gestapo cares about the Constitution at all.

I'm not a psychic, but it is increasingly becoming clear to me that the fascist Trump administration knows it cannot accomplish its goals without a loyal, empowered, and ideologically aligned force of police state thugs. The fact that they're casting about the margins of the US legal system to empower ICE to be that army of goons, tells you they have plans to use that power. For what? I don't know, but authoritarian police state powers to enter American homes to fight a made up war against "gangs," have far more potential uses to a fascist regime than just mass deportations.

#Trump #Fascism #Migrants #MassDeportations #ICE #DoJ #PamBondi #FourthAmendment #USConsitution #PoliceState

Like many folks who study how fascist governments operate, I've been quick to warn people that given the blatantly illegal methods by which the Trump regime has targeted migrants, foreign visitors to the United States, and student anti-genocide protestors legally in the country, it was only a matter of time before Downmarket Mussolini tried to expand those tactics to target dissidents born in the United States. After watching the US Attorney General call Tesla vandalism "domestic terrorism" yesterday, and reading Trump's unhinged social media rants about shipping folks caught vandalizing Tesla cars or dealerships to El Salvador, I think it's safe to say we're already here.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-tesla-el-salvador

'Delusional' Trump Threatens to Send Tesla Vandals to Prison for 20 Years... in El Salvador

"People that get caught sabotaging Teslas will stand a very good chance of going to jail for up to twenty years, and that includes the funders," Trump stated overnight, adding in all caps: "WE ARE LOOKING FOR YOU!!!"

Several hours later, Trump took up the issue again on his TruthSocial platform, saying: "I look forward to watching the sick terrorist thugs get 20-year jail sentences for what they are doing to Elon Musk and Tesla. Perhaps they could serve them in the prisons of El Salvador, which have become so recently famous for such lovely conditions!"

Civil rights attorney Sherrilyn Ifill said the threat, which follows on Trump's highly controversial deportation of alleged gang members to El Salvador last week, should not be taken lightly.

"Remember that this is where his discussions with El Salvador began," said Ifill in response to Trump's rantings on Friday. "The migrant detentions there are the dry run. He wants to ship U.S. prisoners to El Salvador. We cannot sleepwalk through this."

Well folks, smoke 'em if you got 'em because I'm pretty sure this bloviating nazi windbag is serious. Given the pattern we've been observing by which Trump's musing are treated as "objective" reality by his fascist minions, and how the regime then transforms that (un)reality into enforcement action regardless of the law, I don't think it's a good idea to wave this off as 'Trump being Trump." Just yesterday regime Attorney General Pam Bondi was publicly making the argument that what is, legally speaking, mere vandalism, is actually a "wave of domestic terrorism against Tesla properties," and that line was then parroted by a variety of regime-loyal mouthpieces in the larger discourse. This process of laying the ground work to transform fascist unreality into a presumed mandate to act is precisely the tactic we saw the Trump regime employ to justify kidnapping student anti-genocide protest leaders residing legally in the United States, render over 200 prisoners to a slave labor dungeon in El Salvador without due process, attempting to either seize control of, or destroy Columbia University, manufacture consent to annex Canada, and even attempt to shutter the US Department of Education. Furthermore, given the regime's continued insistence that invoking the word "terrorism" is a magic spell that allows them to ignore US law and our constitutionally-protected rights, you'd have to be some kind of rube to assume Bondi's media performance yesterday, and Trump's late night social media rant, aren't a coordinated effort to manufacture consent to escalate the regime's war on resistance to include American protestors and dissidents opposing the administration's fascist fuckery.

Of course it almost goes without saying that what Trump is proposing here, the rendition of American citizens to a slave labor prison in El Salvador for the high crime of vandalizing some cars, is highly illegal and a blatant violation of our legally-enshrined civil rights, but that hasn't really stopped the Trump administration from plowing ahead with its war on protest and resistance so far. Furthermore, decades and decades of bipartisan demonization of "criminals" and protestors, particularly those engaging in direct action, likely ensures that many Americans aren't going to notice this fascist repression, or care very much if they do. Naturally, the Trump regime is relying on that attitude prevailing in the larger public consciousness, which is why they're employing a boiling frog strategy of going after people they say are "gang members," "terrorists," "illegals," "antisemites," "troublemakers," and "criminals," first.

As I've noted in the past, whether or not the Trump administration is *successfully* able to get away with blatant violations of the law while enacting his fascist war on our civil rights is unknowable in the present, but the pre-existing pattern of regime behavior in the Trump 2.0 era makes it pretty clear that if Trump says it, he at least means to *try* and do it; which makes all of this an ominous warning for everyone.

#Trump #Fascism #Musk #Tesla #CivilRights #ElSalvador #PamBondi #Protests #ManufacturingConsent #Gulag #USConsitution

"...a covenant with death and an agreement with hell"

William Lloyd Garrison on the US Constitution (May 6, 1842 in the Liberator) ... quoted in How The Irish Became White

#usconsitution #death #hell #WhiteSupramacy