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I say this as a firm conservative. The courts have so far been outstanding, despite all the inappropriate pressure. I have no doubt they will continue to be. I'

I say this as a firm conservative. The courts have so far been outstanding, despite all the inappropriate pressure. I have no doubt they will continue to be. I'm also quite impressed with conservative voters who are speaking out to their conservative representatives. Ultimately though, despite many many calls not to do so, Congress has goven the executive branch unheard of powers. Executive power needs to be reigned in tightly and then Congressional power needs to reigned in as well. We need to push for Federalism.

bix6 1y ago
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cyberlurker 1y ago
Could you share what the courts have done? What I’ve witnessed is cowardice to hold officials accountable or in contempt for unconstitutional acts.
- throwawaymaths 1y ago
  the scotus (and, notably, conservative lower federal judges) has ruled pretty firmly against trump on the abrego garcia case.
  - vel0city 1y ago
    I'm sure Abrego Garcia is comforted by hearing they wrote some words on some paper while he's illegally in a foreign prison.
  - ziddoap 1y ago
    Notably, those rulings have been ignored so far.
    - throwawaymaths 1y ago
      no doubt that is a problem.
      - int_19h 1y ago
        It's the problem. It doesn't matter what the courts say if the executive can disregard that. But this is exactly what they are trying to achieve with this whole "unitary executive" BS, and willing abettance from Republicans in Congress.
  - BanazirGalbasi 1y ago
    What action has been taken as a result of that ruling though? The Supreme Court might as well give the president a big thumbs down if nothing actually happens.
    - jimbokun 1y ago
      What independent military and police force does the Supreme Court command? Laws are useful fictions that evaporate when enough people stop believing in them.
  - hwillis 1y ago
    On the grounds that he should have been sent to literally any other country, totally inapplicable to any of the other cases without specific preexisting orders against ES specifically. And notably they have outlined exactly nothing except that the administration had better say how they plan to get him back- the SCOTUS response to the executive saying "we have no plan" was just to say again that they wanted to know the plan. The government is imprisoning people indefinitely (forever?) for unproven allegations and misdemeanors. They should be able to file habeas petitions for unlawful imprisonment. The courts are doing fuck all about it because the government is contracting to a foreign country to physically imprison them. That's crazy.
    - ta1243 1y ago
      > The government is imprisoning people indefinitely (forever?) for unproven allegations and misdemeanors. They should be able to file habeas petitions for unlawful imprisonment. The courts are doing fuck all about it because the government is contracting to a foreign country to physically imprison them. That's crazy. This doesn't sound too dissimilar from the Guantanamo bay situation, which Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden all kept going
      - archagon 1y ago
        Guantanamo was a legal morass on account of being under US jurisdiction: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/02/05/frankly-insane-trumps-plan-to-ship-migrants-to-guantanamo-could-quickly-collapse-00202374 https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/02/05/frankly-in... That’s the El Salvador “hack.”
      - Aloisius 1y ago
        Obama ordered the closure of Guantanamo on his second day in office. Congress passed a bill with overwhelmingly support that prevented it.
    - PleasureBot 1y ago
      The now famous photo of his hands with the "MS-13" tattoo, which is the evidence of his gang ties, was taken from CECOT. It would not surprise me in the slightest if he was forced to get that tattoo there. CECOT is widely known for torturing its prisoners, and their dictator is obviously doing anything he can to make Trump happy as he's being paid millions by Trump. This is just a conspiracy theory but it highlights the need for due process. Without it it is very easy for governments to fabricate whatever narrative they want.
  - wing-_-nuts 1y ago
    I'm reminded of andrew jackson's quote "[The supreme court] has made [their] decision, now let [them] enforce it..."
    - mrguyorama 1y ago
      IMO this is the primary reason Jackson is the reactionary, hateful, right's favorite president, including Trump himself. Go lookup the absolute horseshit video PragerU made about the battle of New Orleans.
ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
The funny thing is, that the GOP is not "conservative," in any way, whatsoever. They are extreme. The definition of "conservative" means "not-extreme." It is not just "not-liberal." It means being thoughtful, cautious, sticking with the mainstream, learning from the past, not discarding learned wisdom, etc. Things like anti-abortion, hate-brown-people, put-women-back-in-the-kitchen-or-the-bedroom etc. stuff is often described as "conservative," because so much old culture had it, but these days, they are no longer "mainstream" principles. I tend to be somewhat "centrist." Some of my own personal values could be construed as "conservative" (like personal Discipline and Integrity, insisting on writing very good-Quality code, or not spending money that I don't have), but I also have values that lean left (like an expansive worldview, not insisting on taking away the Agency of others, etc.). The wrecking ball that DOGE is running through our government, right now, is not "conservative," at all.
- santoshalper 1y ago
  You should disabuse yourself of the notion that concepts like personal discipline, contentiousness, and integrity are somehow "conservative" values. They are not in either sense of the word conservative. Certainly from a political standpoint, republicans (or their equivalent in other nations) have often used these concepts against women, minorities, and the mentally ill as a means of shirking their obligation to help their fellow human. In my observation, they never make much of an attempt to live up to them in their own lives. (e.g. YOU are a welfare queen, but I am an entrepreneur who needed to take a government bailout). On the other hand, if "conservative" means "old-fashioned" to you, then there is also no reason to believe that the people before us were morally superior to us today. My reading of history leads me to believe quite the opposite.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
    > My reading of history leads me to believe quite the opposite. Hey, if we wanted to go back to real old-fashioned (pre-columbian) American values, then we could have human sacrifice, multi-god-animistic-religion, slavery (the Europeans weren't the only ones to do that), etc.
vel0city 1y ago
The courts have so far been exceptionally weak. Hey, you're not allowed to send those people on the plane! The plane already left even though I told you not to send it? Well, you gotta get them back! You're not sending them back? I'll just keep telling you that you have to do it, that'll really show you! Oh, pretty please, would you return that man you illegally sent to that torture prison? No? Oh, ok, well would you at least just talk to me about it in daily reports? No? Oh, ok. I guess he'll just die there. Oh well.
- SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
  The courts have successfully enjoined a large number of actions, required the release of many people from domestic ICE custody, and ended the transfer of anyone new to El Salvador. As I'm always reminding people, the news is a highly optimized machine to deliver you the worst thing that happened today - if you're reading it as though it's a representative sample of everything that's happening, you're going to get a misleading perspective.
  - vel0city 1y ago
    So, is Abrego Garcia back in the US and actually having a real trial? What of the other 200+ people who were illegally taken? Still there despite many court orders to return them? The courts have asked for those people to be released from ICE custody, they haven't complied with a lot of those requests. The courts have asked for them to stop abducting people off the streets without cause but they continue doing it. Its not a misleading perspective when it's the actual facts and reality. You're acting like well he only send a few hundred people to a torture prison so far, no big deal I guess. He's only deporting some US citizens without due process. He's only arguing having court cases for some crimes is too cumbersome so we should ignore due process for those crimes. When will they end up charging you with a crime that's too cumbersome to prove in court and thus you no longer get due process? When your imprisonment gets publicized for how terrible it is, will you also be happy to have people shrug off that reporting as a "misleading perspective"? Every one of those things should be klaxons sounding in the streets. We'll see if there really aren't any more transfers to El Salvador.
pjc50 1y ago
> Congress has goven the executive branch unheard of powers. Executive power needs to be reigned in tightly and then Congressional power needs to reigned in as well. We need to push for Federalism. Sensible people will realize that separation of powers means nothing when the same party holds both powers. R House + R senate + R SCOTUS + R executive => unlimited executive power.
- ta1243 1y ago
  The problem with democratic elections to executive, house and senate is they all follow the "will of the people". In America there is a bit of a lag, but ultimately you still get to the two-wolf one-sheep tyranny of the masses. The only brake on this is the SCOTUS, but that only works when you actually have a scotus that is empowered to uphold the constitution.
DonHopkins 1y ago
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- gedy 1y ago
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  - DonHopkins 1y ago
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    - d4v3 1y ago
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  - wing-_-nuts 1y ago
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    - gedy 1y ago
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jimbokun 1y ago
"conservative voters who are speaking out to their conservative representatives." They could have done a bit better with their voting decisions, though.
eitally 1y ago
I would argue that Trump only exists as President because Congress has abdicated its lawmaking powers for the past twenty years (give or take). With a functional legislative branch it's not nearly as problematic to have an extremely liberal or conservative president, or textualist Supreme Court justices. We need a refresh of rules governing congress (age & term limits, better pay, disallowing equity trading, elimination of gerrymandering at the state level, and perhaps nationwide adoption of ranked choice voting, which would open the door to viable third parties & ruling by coalition).

bix6 1y ago

[flagged]

cyberlurker 1y ago

Could you share what the courts have done? What I’ve witnessed is cowardice to hold officials accountable or in contempt for unconstitutional acts.

throwawaymaths 1y ago
the scotus (and, notably, conservative lower federal judges) has ruled pretty firmly against trump on the abrego garcia case.
- vel0city 1y ago
  I'm sure Abrego Garcia is comforted by hearing they wrote some words on some paper while he's illegally in a foreign prison.
- ziddoap 1y ago
  Notably, those rulings have been ignored so far.
  - throwawaymaths 1y ago
    no doubt that is a problem.
    - int_19h 1y ago
      It's the problem. It doesn't matter what the courts say if the executive can disregard that. But this is exactly what they are trying to achieve with this whole "unitary executive" BS, and willing abettance from Republicans in Congress.
- BanazirGalbasi 1y ago
  What action has been taken as a result of that ruling though? The Supreme Court might as well give the president a big thumbs down if nothing actually happens.
  - jimbokun 1y ago
    What independent military and police force does the Supreme Court command? Laws are useful fictions that evaporate when enough people stop believing in them.
- hwillis 1y ago
  On the grounds that he should have been sent to literally any other country, totally inapplicable to any of the other cases without specific preexisting orders against ES specifically. And notably they have outlined exactly nothing except that the administration had better say how they plan to get him back- the SCOTUS response to the executive saying "we have no plan" was just to say again that they wanted to know the plan. The government is imprisoning people indefinitely (forever?) for unproven allegations and misdemeanors. They should be able to file habeas petitions for unlawful imprisonment. The courts are doing fuck all about it because the government is contracting to a foreign country to physically imprison them. That's crazy.
  - ta1243 1y ago
    > The government is imprisoning people indefinitely (forever?) for unproven allegations and misdemeanors. They should be able to file habeas petitions for unlawful imprisonment. The courts are doing fuck all about it because the government is contracting to a foreign country to physically imprison them. That's crazy. This doesn't sound too dissimilar from the Guantanamo bay situation, which Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden all kept going
    - archagon 1y ago
      Guantanamo was a legal morass on account of being under US jurisdiction: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/02/05/frankly-insane-trumps-plan-to-ship-migrants-to-guantanamo-could-quickly-collapse-00202374 https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/02/05/frankly-in... That’s the El Salvador “hack.”
    - Aloisius 1y ago
      Obama ordered the closure of Guantanamo on his second day in office. Congress passed a bill with overwhelmingly support that prevented it.
  - PleasureBot 1y ago
    The now famous photo of his hands with the "MS-13" tattoo, which is the evidence of his gang ties, was taken from CECOT. It would not surprise me in the slightest if he was forced to get that tattoo there. CECOT is widely known for torturing its prisoners, and their dictator is obviously doing anything he can to make Trump happy as he's being paid millions by Trump. This is just a conspiracy theory but it highlights the need for due process. Without it it is very easy for governments to fabricate whatever narrative they want.
- wing-_-nuts 1y ago
  I'm reminded of andrew jackson's quote "[The supreme court] has made [their] decision, now let [them] enforce it..."
  - mrguyorama 1y ago
    IMO this is the primary reason Jackson is the reactionary, hateful, right's favorite president, including Trump himself. Go lookup the absolute horseshit video PragerU made about the battle of New Orleans.

ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago

The funny thing is, that the GOP is not "conservative," in any way, whatsoever. They are extreme. The definition of "conservative" means "not-extreme." It is not just "not-liberal." It means being thoughtful, cautious, sticking with the mainstream, learning from the past, not discarding learned wisdom, etc. Things like anti-abortion, hate-brown-people, put-women-back-in-the-kitchen-or-the-bedroom etc. stuff is often described as "conservative," because so much old culture had it, but these days, they are no longer "mainstream" principles. I tend to be somewhat "centrist." Some of my own personal values could be construed as "conservative" (like personal Discipline and Integrity, insisting on writing very good-Quality code, or not spending money that I don't have), but I also have values that lean left (like an expansive worldview, not insisting on taking away the Agency of others, etc.). The wrecking ball that DOGE is running through our government, right now, is not "conservative," at all.

santoshalper 1y ago
You should disabuse yourself of the notion that concepts like personal discipline, contentiousness, and integrity are somehow "conservative" values. They are not in either sense of the word conservative. Certainly from a political standpoint, republicans (or their equivalent in other nations) have often used these concepts against women, minorities, and the mentally ill as a means of shirking their obligation to help their fellow human. In my observation, they never make much of an attempt to live up to them in their own lives. (e.g. YOU are a welfare queen, but I am an entrepreneur who needed to take a government bailout). On the other hand, if "conservative" means "old-fashioned" to you, then there is also no reason to believe that the people before us were morally superior to us today. My reading of history leads me to believe quite the opposite.
- ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
  > My reading of history leads me to believe quite the opposite. Hey, if we wanted to go back to real old-fashioned (pre-columbian) American values, then we could have human sacrifice, multi-god-animistic-religion, slavery (the Europeans weren't the only ones to do that), etc.

vel0city 1y ago

The courts have so far been exceptionally weak. Hey, you're not allowed to send those people on the plane! The plane already left even though I told you not to send it? Well, you gotta get them back! You're not sending them back? I'll just keep telling you that you have to do it, that'll really show you! Oh, pretty please, would you return that man you illegally sent to that torture prison? No? Oh, ok, well would you at least just talk to me about it in daily reports? No? Oh, ok. I guess he'll just die there. Oh well.

SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
The courts have successfully enjoined a large number of actions, required the release of many people from domestic ICE custody, and ended the transfer of anyone new to El Salvador. As I'm always reminding people, the news is a highly optimized machine to deliver you the worst thing that happened today - if you're reading it as though it's a representative sample of everything that's happening, you're going to get a misleading perspective.
- vel0city 1y ago
  So, is Abrego Garcia back in the US and actually having a real trial? What of the other 200+ people who were illegally taken? Still there despite many court orders to return them? The courts have asked for those people to be released from ICE custody, they haven't complied with a lot of those requests. The courts have asked for them to stop abducting people off the streets without cause but they continue doing it. Its not a misleading perspective when it's the actual facts and reality. You're acting like well he only send a few hundred people to a torture prison so far, no big deal I guess. He's only deporting some US citizens without due process. He's only arguing having court cases for some crimes is too cumbersome so we should ignore due process for those crimes. When will they end up charging you with a crime that's too cumbersome to prove in court and thus you no longer get due process? When your imprisonment gets publicized for how terrible it is, will you also be happy to have people shrug off that reporting as a "misleading perspective"? Every one of those things should be klaxons sounding in the streets. We'll see if there really aren't any more transfers to El Salvador.

pjc50 1y ago

> Congress has goven the executive branch unheard of powers. Executive power needs to be reigned in tightly and then Congressional power needs to reigned in as well. We need to push for Federalism. Sensible people will realize that separation of powers means nothing when the same party holds both powers. R House + R senate + R SCOTUS + R executive => unlimited executive power.

ta1243 1y ago
The problem with democratic elections to executive, house and senate is they all follow the "will of the people". In America there is a bit of a lag, but ultimately you still get to the two-wolf one-sheep tyranny of the masses. The only brake on this is the SCOTUS, but that only works when you actually have a scotus that is empowered to uphold the constitution.

DonHopkins 1y ago

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gedy 1y ago
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- DonHopkins 1y ago
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  - d4v3 1y ago
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- wing-_-nuts 1y ago
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  - gedy 1y ago
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jimbokun 1y ago

"conservative voters who are speaking out to their conservative representatives." They could have done a bit better with their voting decisions, though.

eitally 1y ago

I would argue that Trump only exists as President because Congress has abdicated its lawmaking powers for the past twenty years (give or take). With a functional legislative branch it's not nearly as problematic to have an extremely liberal or conservative president, or textualist Supreme Court justices. We need a refresh of rules governing congress (age & term limits, better pay, disallowing equity trading, elimination of gerrymandering at the state level, and perhaps nationwide adoption of ranked choice voting, which would open the door to viable third parties & ruling by coalition).