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Looks like this just set Iran back a few months.
When Iran does start testing nuclear bombs, it will be all on Trump. He left the JCPOA — not a perfect agreement, but better than nothing. And he replaced it with nothing.
Then when Iran was just about to come back and negotiate again, Trump bombed them.
So Iran literally has no reason to even pretend anymore. I guess we can revisit this thread later — after Iran tests their bomb.
As I said earlier, I hope I turn out to be wrong. But so far, by all accounts, the latest action did essentially nothing. The Trump admin gave the Iranians lots of signals that they were going to bomb and so Iran ran off with the important materials. Is that not accurate? That’s what I’m reading.
So Trump’s actions have essentially backfired. Not sure what the kudos are for.
NO MALARKEY
Regardless of whether I’m right or wrong about Iran ‘absconding’ away with the nuclear materials before they were bombed, it was just incompetent to give Iran two weeks. To me that points to Trump making an impulsive and dumb decision.
There were negotiations that were supposed to take place on the 15th or whatever the exact date was. I think Trump genuinely believed that was going to happen. Maybe I’m wrong. But I don’t believe this 4D chess theory going around that he and Netanyahu crafted some sort of deception campaign to catch the Iranians off guard. I think Netanyahu is wagging the dog, or whatever the phrase is. Because if Trump did know about the Israeli attack ahead of time but his administration didn’t get their shit together for two weeks until after it started, then that points to even more incompetence.
Netanyahu probably realized it was his last and best chance to attack Iran before a new deal — and took it. And Trump, who wanted a victory and likes to be the tough guy, saw some successes Israel was having and greenlit our involvement without really thinking it through.
I hope you’re right about the intelligence. I hope I’m wrong. I just think the sequence of events point to incompetence and lack of planning on our part.
I think we are half-assing this. Trump wants to have his cake and eat it too. Either we plan this properly, do this right, go in full scale. Or we stay the fuck out. Even while we were helping the Israeli’s defend themselves and giving them intelligence, we had some distance from this. We are now in it. You can’t be half-pregnant. Trump seems to think we can just bomb another country and then declare that we want peace. That’s not how this works. We need to shit or get off the pot. But we already shat. So Trump owns this.
As much as I dislike Trump and think he’s corrupt, unethical, and all the rest, now that we’re in this I do hope that someday he can claim that this was some sort of great success. But he is not the guy I would choose to lead America through something like this.
NO MALARKEY
Hey PL. Is there some prohibition about attaching images? I think the pattern of my disappearing comments seems to involve including an image each time it happens.
NO MALARKEY
hey Mick. Where did I say I wanted open borders? On the contrary, I have explicitly said the opposite. Please point to where I said any such thing or implied anything like that.
NO MALARKEY
Not exactly. President Bush did not formally suspend habeas corpus. That power lies with Congress under Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution. His administration implemented policies that effectively denied habeas rights to certain individuals (particularly foreign nationals detained in the context of the War on Terror).
Bush’s policies were challenged in court, so Congress passed a couple laws that attempted to limit or eliminate the ability of non-citizen detainees to file habeas corpus petitions, by processing them through military tribunals at Guantanamo with limited appeals.
But in 2008 the Supreme Court ruled that detainees at Guantanamo do have the constitutional right to file habeas corpus petitions in U.S. federal courts. The Court held that the relevant provisions of the laws passed by congress were unconstitutional since the conditions required for suspension hadn’t been met.
Lincoln did unilaterally suspend habeas corpus, but the chief justice at the time ruled it was unconstitutional. Congress later passed a retroactive law clarifying that it was ok for the duration of the Civil War. And the law eventually expired and is not in effect.
The conditions for suspending habeas corpus to this day remain as written in the Constitution, and any modern suspension would require **explicit** congressional action under that framework.
Grant did suspend habeas corpus. But unlike Lincoln’s unilateral suspension in 1861, Grant’s actions were explicitly authorized by Congress, using the powers granted under the Enforcement Acts during Reconstruction.
To be clear, suspension requires approval by Congress. It is written into the constitution and has been consistently upheld by the courts. But I suspect the Trump regime won’t let that ‘technicality’ or the rule of law get in their way. They will do it and then dare the Supreme Court to make them stop.
NO MALARKEY
On a related note, the Trump administration has been looking for an excuse to suspend habeas corpus. Their investigation started long before anything going on in Los Angeles.
Of course it’s entirely unjustified and something only Congress can do. But Trump won’t let that get in the way.
And it would be nice if the people in charge of detaining people actually had a clue what it is:
https://youtube.com/shorts/nVchUqnJ1oM?si=aKJGlfq0xmF6k-oi
NO MALARKEY
This indictment is not proof that Kilmar Abrego Garcia was rightly deported or that he was a criminal at the time of his removal. It is an allegation, not a conviction. This indictment notably came after Garcia had already been deported and after federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, had ruled that his deportation was unlawful and in violation of a standing court order.
The timing matters. Garcia was deported in March with no new hearing or evidence. At that point, he had legal protection in the form of a withholding of removal, and the government was explicitly prohibited from deporting him to El Salvador. Federal courts later affirmed that his rights were violated and that the government had no lawful basis to deport him. The Supreme Court upheld this unanimously. This indictment, filed after the fact, doesn’t retroactively legitimize his illegal deportation.
It’s also worth putting this in context. Garcia’s case became highly publicized, politically embarrassing (if it’s possible to shame anyone in the Trump admin), and legally consequential. The government now has an interest in rehabilitating its position by portraying him as a criminal after the fact. Even if the allegations are true — and there’s no verified information indicating they are — it wouldn’t excuse what had already happened: breach of due process and defiance of a lawful court order protecting him from removal.
The indictment will be judged on its own legal merits. But it doesn’t do anything to change the fact that Garcia was wrongfully deported and denied the protections the law affords him — affirmed by multiple courts.
Since you seem to be suggesting he was a criminal and therefore the unlawful deportation was justified, I’d be interested in hearing about your thoughts on the other people wrongly deported with no due process. I listed a number of them, like the gay hairdresser — Andry Romero. Perhaps you can explain how his disappearance into a gulag with no due process is morally and legally justified?
NO MALARKEY
And? What does that have to do with destroying our universities and fucking up people’s lives who came here to study? You do realize we are going to stop attracting the best and the brightest from around the world. Do you understand how short sighted and idiotic this is?
I’m not deep into the conservative echo-chamber. With that link to a Twitter video, you’re apparently implying something that requires some familiarity with that. All I can tell from this link is something about Harvard’s financial situation. What does that have to do with some of the most intelligent people who come here from around the world to study biochemistry, medicine, or any number of other important subjects that make the U.S. a leader in biotech, medicine, technology, and many other fields?
And how is this not fascistic?
NO MALARKEY
Hey Legend. I agree the use of the term “retarded” is a shortcut to a better discussion. Frankly, I don’t have time to address every moronic (is that a better term) thing being done by the Trump administration in detail. I’ll certainly try to get more specific soon.
In the meantime, I just wish you wouldn’t have a double standard here. Search this board for the terms “Demtard” and “Libtard” (plug those into the search box). You’ll find one guy regularly calling the entire liberal and Democratic side ‘retarded’. Have you or anyone ever admonished him or called him out, or just me?
NO MALARKEY
Thank you Mick and Hurlburt88. I know I’m not a model of “How to win friends and influence people” on this board sometimes, but I’m glad that people on whatever side can agree this is fucked up. I don’t see this as a left or right issue. We need to enforce our borders, but not at the cost of due process and sending people to these torture / death camps beyond our jurisdiction.
By the way, Mick, yes I am all for deportations when warranted. I am not some kind of “open borders” guy. I never have been. As David Frum accurately mused in 2019, “If Liberals Won’t Enforce Borders, Fascists Will“.
At the risk of sounding paranoid, Trump is now talking about sending US citizens to these death camps: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/homegrowns-trump-doubles-sending-convicted-us-citizens-foreign/story?id=120802863
I said homegrowns are next, the homegrowns. You gotta build about five more places.
“Bukele was heard responding “alright” and others in the room laughed.
“It’s not big enough,” Trump added.
If you think this is just an ad hoc “joke” or one-off statement, it’s not. The Trump administration floated this idea about a week ago, as well: https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house/deadline-legal-blog/trump-leavitt-deporting-us-citizens-el-salvador-sotomayor-rcna200299
Here’s to hoping these US citizens at least get due process — and are not just rounded up because they are allegedly “bad people”. But Trump is refusing to follow the 9 – 0 ruling by the Supreme Court, so who knows. The rule of law seems to be optional now.
NO MALARKEY
Although none of you seem to care about due process and human rights (though I give GR credit for mild hesitation), at least the conservative Supreme Court seems to have some residual sense and ruled unanimously in favor of one of these kidnapping victims:
US top court instructs Trump to return man wrongly deported to El Salvador
We’ll see what happens with the other cases. I don’t think this case really addresses due process per se, and may just be a narrow victory.
As a side note to anyone that actually cares (I hope you do), a CBS News investigation showed that 75% of the 238 Venezuelan migrants deported had no known criminal history in the U.S. or abroad . Similarly, a Bloomberg review indicated that about 90% lacked U.S. criminal records. They were apparently identified by a guy who had been fired from his law enforcement job for lying. But got a job with I.C.E. And these victims were sent to this deathcamp on his “expert” opinion.
More to come, I’m sure, in one of the most despicable chapters of US history.
Am I really the only person who cares about this? Because now would be a great time to speak up if you think this is actually an insane thing for the US government to be doing. Are some of those guys bad? Yeah, probably. But we don’t deport people to death camps without a modicum of due process. I don’t understand how that is a controversial opinion by the educated people on this board. I’d love to hear from someone here who has second thoughts about this. It would restore a bit of my faith in the humanity here.
NO MALARKEY
