This is a good news/bad news kind of a proposition. The good news is that lo and behold, finally the Supreme Court did something to pump the brakes on Donald Trump’s abuse of power against migrants and POCs in this country after a simply unbelievable week where Trump ignored a 9-0 SCOTUS ruling to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia. It all came down to a pissing contest over the meaning of the word “facilitate” and that battle is still going on. And that leads us to the bad news, which is that the backlash to basic court rulings is becoming increasingly more vitriolic and un American. It is getting frightening to behold, in fact.
Donald Trump is the last thing before we get a dictator. I wonder if he knows this. Not a left wing dictator either.
The Right will demand a dictator if Trump is not allowed to implement the will of the voters. And they will get one.
A terrible place to be as a country.
— Jesse Kelly (@JesseKellyDC) April 19, 2025
The Supreme Court on Saturday hit pause on the Trump administration’s use of an 18th-century wartime law to deport Venezuelan migrants to a prison in El Salvador.
In a 7-2 emergency order just after midnight, the justices temporarily blocked deportations under the Alien Enemies Act, which Trump invoked last month, citing the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua as evidence of an “invasion.”
The ACLU filed an urgent appeal Friday, warning that another wave of deportation flights was imminent.
That “old Chinese adage” is more (and less) than that: it’s an ironic curse. It’s akin to wishing that you live through awful times and hate every minute of it. But it may not be very old nor very Chinese. Evidence suggests that it was coined by Austin Chamberlain, brother of the infamous Neville Chamberlain, he who waved a worthless piece of paper bearing Hitler’s signature and proclaimed “peace in our time” just before the Second World War. Austin’s interesting times were the mid-1930s, when Nazi Germany was re-arming with obvious intentions to seek military revenge for its defeat in WW1. Our times are different but definitely interesting, and just as scary, thanks to a psychopath in Moscow and a sociopath in Washington.
You are right, it is not an ancient Chinese saying, but its origins can be traced back almost forty years earlier, to Sir Austin’s father Joseph Chamberlain, who said In a speech in Parliament in 1898 :
“ I think that you will all agree that we are living in most interesting times. (Hear, hear.) I never remember myself a time in which our history was so full, in which day by day brought us new objects of interest, and, let me say also, new objects for anxiety. (Hear, hear.) “
Trump’s ability to stonewall SCOTUS has its limits. If the Court rules against him on an issue affecting many powerful actors and entities, such as the the “emergency” (ha ha) Tariffs, the importers will not have to pay tariffs, no matter what Trump says. If US Customs refuses to release the goods without payments of tariffs, that is clearly unconstitutional and bang, you have a class action lawsuit guaranteed win, because the Court has already ruled on it. It’s also contempt the Supreme Cort. This won’t end well for Trump or for MAGA.
Trump is seriously messing with too many powerful actors . . . American universities (and their alumni), state governments, Wall Street, the Supreme Court, NATO . . . there are lots of “other shoes” to drop.
OR????? They are his foot soliders, as is the DOJ, FBI, Senate, House, and 78 million people who are nazi supporters. Maybe it will be death by a thousand cuts…maybe. The most powerful arms of our government are in his control, along with armies of state lawmakers, judges, etc. As Lady Gaga sings…we’re FAR from the shallows now. As Louie the Captain in Casablanca told Lazlo…it will take a miracle to get you out of Casablanca. Unfortunately, the Germans have outlawed miracles. Free Speech and the right to assembly are gone…this reminds me of my innocence but being sent to prison as a political prisoner. Fascists only use rules to THEIR ENDS.
It really doesn’t matter what SCOTUS rules. Without a means of enforcing their rulings, it’s meaningless words. Normally a federal.court would use federal.marshals to enforce its will,but Bleached Bondi is an ass-kisser and she won’t let the marshals do their job.
If the marshals revolt– unlikely because like most LEOs they probably love Trump– it’s an interesting scenario. U.S. marshals descend on the White House, the homes of Bondi and the head of ICE and the Secretary of Homeland Security in the wee hours of the morning. At the White House, there might be a shoot-out between Secret Service, the marshals, and the service members assigned to the White House.
I think I just came up with the idea for the next Gerard Butler movie, “Fatass Has Fallen.”