Guess We’re Nearing The ‘Suspend Habeas Corpus’ and ‘Arrest Members Of Congress’ Stages Of Fascism Now

Can’t say they didn’t warn us.

Yep, that’s where we are. A mayor arrested on Friday, on Saturday an administration spokesblonde rrr-grring that members of Congress could get arrested soon for protesting, and Deputy Chief of Staff/spokescreep Stephen Miller announcing that the administration is looking at suspending habeas corpus because impudent courts won’t let President Chunkymilk disappear people with no due process.

What a weekend!

Let’s get the clip of that nasty little creep’s throbbing skull veins out of the way:

“The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended at a time of invasion. So I would say that's an action we're actively looking at.”

And an action they are already trying to do, faster than courts can stop them.

Habeas corpus means anybody arrested by the government can challenge their detention; the government can’t just disappear people on the streets without some kind of a hearing about it. And the Supreme Court just reaffirmed that applies to immigrants, too. But guess that right is just a “privilege” now!

Oh boy, is there a WHOLE LOT wrong with this, in more ways than we can count, but here are a few:

Suspending habeas corpus could never only mean immigrants, because if you’re disappearing people with no ability to challenge their detention, how would you even know who was an immigrant or not?

Seven of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were immigrants themselves, this is most definitely not what the founding fathers of a nation of immigrants had in mind.

Only Congress has the power to do such a thing, and Congress has not declared war on any country. And, what invasion? Trump was just crowing BORDER SECURITY ACHIEVED a couple of weeks ago.

And, habeas can’t be suspended for any old war or invasion, only in “Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” If this was a REAL SUPERDUPER EMERGENCY and not just a shameless power grab, then they would have run to Congress asking for permission on day one, instead of waiting to see if courts would agree with them or not, and then threatening to cut out the courts if they didn’t. And if this war never officially started, then when would it end? Because if habeas can be suspended for as long as there are possibly any undocumented immigrants are in the country anywhere, then that would be never.

Sounds like you already know it’s not legal, broski, which is why courts have been handing the administration L’s on their attempts to no-due-process-disappear people left and right.

Let’s watch Democratic Senator Chris Murphy explain to dead-eyed Kristi Noem still more of the ways that DHS is breaking the law right now.

It’s also hard to make the argument that everybody’s in some kind of imminent danger from some invasion when the majority of ICE detainees have NO record, not even a traffic ticket. And studies show immigrants commit fewer crimes than native-born citizens do, and immigrants have been shown to make cities safer. Inconvenient truths, so the DOJ has been caught actively deleting pages of such studies.

And hey, if invading immigrants made the country a shithole, why are we not a shithole yet? Poppy is sure we’ll be shittified real soon!

I can think of one criminal assaulting our greatness! He’s not an immigrant, but his first and third wives are!

But King Trump decree-law is the only law, and he’s taking us back to the good old days before the Magna Carta.

You’d think the government-overreach types would be all literally up at arms at the government hoping to disappear people to Libya. But Republican Senator John Barrasso, for one, would love to vote for this!

Muppetfaced ghoul.

All of this habeas talk is back to the forefront because on Friday, Newark, New Jersey, mayor Ras Baraka was arrested for trespassing outside a new Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Newark called Delaney Hall, run by the private prison company GEO Group. As mayor, Baraka has the right and responsibility to ensure buildings are in compliance with New Jersey law. And it’s not! The GEO Group has not filed any construction permits, or a certificate that it is complying with occupancy laws, and has not allowed any building inspections.

Also, in 2021, a new state law was passed prohibiting New Jersey from renewing or signing detention contracts with ICE. A federal district judge struck down part of the ban in 2023, but the state AG is appealing that ruling, on the basis of the 10th Amendment prohibiting the federal government from commandeering the state’s resources. Still, and regardless of how that issue ultimately plays out, the building and its owners are obliged to comply with building and occupancy laws.

So Friday, Mayor Baraka, along with Democratic Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman, Robert Menendez Jr. and LaMonica McIver, protested at the facility, where the mayor had a right to be, and yet he was arrested and charged with trespassing.

Now DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin is threatening to arrest the representatives, too, lying that there is body camera footage of them shoving people. We can tell this is a lie because her lips are moving, and also because every single person there was recording everything except for the ICE agents, who were ordered in February to turn their body cameras OFF because of some insane fantasy that they could somehow be remotely rigged to explode, a thing that has never happened in the history of the world.

Private prison property is the property of the private prison, but also federal property, depending on which is most convenient at the time, we guess.

Hey, is any of this helping with THE GROCERIES?

[Washington Post archive link]

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