Originally published at: 5 Points On Boasberg’s Big Alien Enemies Act Ruling - TPM – Talking Points Memo
After being mostly scuttled by the Supreme Court, the original Alien Enemies Act case has re-entered the conversation. While the high court took most of the Alien Enemies Act challenges out of the hands of U.S. District Judge James Boasberg of D.C. and distributed them to the individual judicial districts where Venezuelan nationals are being…
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The constructive custody ruling is terrible. We’re paying El Salvador to detain them. Thus endeth the inquiry. That the agent might refuse the instructions of the principal does not mean the agent is not still an agent.
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The technicality of the habeas corpus issue is particularly idiotic. If the federal government were holding the people that would be illegal and they would be unable to do so.
But because some 3rd party is doing so - at the behest of the U.S. government, of course - somehow that makes it AOK.
In fact, everyone knows that if the U.S. government really wanted those people back in the U.S., they would all be rounded up and on a flight back first thing tomorrow morning.
But because the federal government can pretend they can do nothing, the courts must also pretend they can do nothing, and the result is nothing.
My only hope is that Boasberg is edging around to some kind of a resolution to that impass.
A great start would be to simply throw U.S. officials who flagrantly disregard constitutional protections in the slammer and leave them there until constitutional protections are restored.
That will never happen of course, but it points up the disparity: People on the one side of this dispute are thrown into supermax type prison confinement, probably for life, with no recourse, whereas those on the other side are subject to sternly worded legal briefs, which they can simply disregard with no consequences and appeal interminably.
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In a way , the judiciary is the cleanup team for messes other branches of government have created. It can be pretty demeaning and thankless work. And now add the collective forgetting of first principles— the far right can’t govern. Indeed, they rarely even make much of an effort when they do get in power. Just flailing and obfuscating. Case in point.
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All of which serves as good reminder that the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals placed an administrative stay on the contempt of court inquiry more than six weeks ago. It’s been fully briefed since April 28. And still no ruling from the appeals court. Meanwhile, several other courts have begun incipient contempt of court proceedings against the administration in other Alien Enemies Act cases and adjacent “facilitate” cases.
But there is an explanation for the delay in ruling on Boasberg’s inquiry into the government’s contempt: Gregory Katsas and Neomi Rao are on the panel.
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The Roberts Court isn’t going to get involved in foreign policy by ordering the administration to make demands on El Salvador
We can only conclude that President Trump is very weak.
Hell, Reagan had the balls to invade Grenada. Maybe that was due to his military experience, which Donald lacks.
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Ronnie Raygun had ZERO military experience in WwII outside of Hollywood.
He told about how moved he was when he helped liberate a concentration death camp. In reality, he never left California during the war
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Would that be Ronnie Raygun’s actual military experience (which was limited to some reserve duties in a cavalry unit and as public relations officer during WW2, producing and acting in training films) or his imagined military experience (in which he liberated all of the infamous Nazi concentration camps)?
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Don’t look at me to defend Reagan …lol
It’s my understanding he completed Basic Combat Training, followed the chain of command. Oh, and was on the side of the U.S.
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