Calling for disagreeing judges to be impeached

For my Sunday movie I though I’d take a chance on Cutie Pie. It is a Thailand Boys Love series. The main lads are Lian, son of a rich family and already well established as someone important in the family business, and Kuea, who is learning auto repair in engineering school and plays drums as Kirin. Yeah, a bit mismatched. I lasted two segments, one of 20 minutes the other 16, about half of episode 1. I think the segments posted on YouTube are what comes between the commercials. The main problem I have with the story is that Kuea can’t stand up for himself. He can’t tell Lian who he really is and swallows every slight Lian might accidentally dish out. I also feel like I came into the middle of a story, though this is marked as episode 1. Kuea thinks they are well into a relationship and Lian doesn’t agree. Was their “engagement” only a childhood friendship thing? I don’t know and I’m not interested enough to find out. I thought the series would be about them falling in love, though love could develop from a childhood “engagement” friendship to the love Kuea thinks it is. The actors mostly speak Thai, of course, and one must read the subtitles quickly. I took a chance on it because I read the Boys Love article on Daily Kos on all that is wrong with the movie Brokeback Mountain, including how Hollywood sex scenes tend to be aggressive rather than tender and had Cutie Pie as an example of a tender scene. I didn’t watch that excerpt, thinking I would watch the whole series. So I found it again and watched. It’s the first segment of episode 8. Yeah, the lads are both ready to declare their love and the scene is quite tender. And we see no skin below the belt. Now that I’ve seen how it ends I’ve saved myself about six and a half hours of viewing from the start to here and three and a half hours from here to the end of the series. I finished the book Ask a Historian, 50 Surprising Answers to Things You Always Wanted to Know by Greg Jenner. First of all, I dispute the last part of that title. I didn’t always want to know these things, mostly because I hadn’t encountered the question to be considered. I also wasn’t curious about what women did before feminine products were invented. Jenner is indeed a historian and has worked on shows produced by the BBC (yes, he’s British) and has served as a historical consultant on movies. As the pandemic hit the promotional tour for a previous book was canceled. He was going to use those appearances to ask his audience to ask him anything. But without the tour he had to ask online. This book was his pandemic project. He discusses curry, explaining us that a great deal of what we know about Indian food is actually a British interpretation of Indian food. He tells us about many of the extremely rich people through history and all of them are quite nasty people (yes, Musk was mentioned). He ponders when “history” began. He reviews beauty treatments that were quite harmful. In a question about favorite historical what-ifs he explains why he doesn’t like the topic, which is quite similar to why I don’t like alternate history stories. He uncovers why Italy has that name rather than something like Romania. And he finishes off with the question, “Which people from history would you hire for an Ocean’s Eleven-style heist?" He proposes the getaway driver would be Diocles, a Roman charioteer who entered 4,257 races and won 1,462 of them in a sport when most drivers are crushed to death long before they get anywhere near that many races. All fifty of the answers are fun, entertaining, and enlightening, a delightful combination. Even for things I didn’t always want to know I’m glad I read the answers. An Associated Press article posted on Kos reported that the nasty guy transferred hundreds of immigrants to a notorious prison in El Salvador. While the planes were in the air US District Judge James Boasberg issued an order blocking the deportations. Boasberg verbally ordered the planes to turn around, but since that part wasn’t written it was ignored. As for the rest of the order the nasty guy will appeal it. The nasty guy claimed his justification for the deportations was the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. But it is to be used in the time of war and no war was declared. Even so the nasty guy is claiming immigrants are an “invasion” – a war term. As for these deportees, there were no judicial review of the deportations. The nasty guy claimed they were very bad men. But there was no proof they were guilty of any crime. There was no chance of defense. Alas, once they were in El Salvador there was nothing US courts could do. Boasberg has since banned all deportations for up to 14 days, giving time to hear the nasty guy’s justifications. Deportees will remain in federal custody in that time. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted an article on Rolling Stone:

On Friday, hours after Trump said it “should be illegal” to criticize judges, the Trump administration flew several planes with hundreds of Venezuelan migrants to deport them, apparently without due process, to a mega prison in El Salvador — despite a federal judge ordering them not to do so, and to turn around any planes en route if necessary. Trump officials ignored the judge’s order before trying to get him removed from the case. They refused to answer any of the judge’s questions on Monday, while asserting that his court had no jurisdiction once the planes were over international waters. By Monday evening, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was on Fox News arguing that judges cannot be allowed to “determine the way in which the president handles foreign relations.” Attorney General Pam Bondi accused the judge of “attempting to meddle in national security and foreign affairs,” adding: “This one federal judge thinks he can control foreign policy for the entire country, and he cannot.” Bondi confirmed the administration “absolutely” could keep deporting Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador using the same justification.

And from an article on Politico:

Trump’s call to remove U.S. District Judge James Boasberg — the chief judge of the federal district court in Washington, D.C. — is the first time since taking office for his second term that he’s asked Congress to seek a judge’s removal, joining increasingly pointed calls by his top donor and adviser Elon Musk and a segment of his MAGA base. Trump also suggested that “many” of the judges who have ruled against him in other cases should be impeached as well. It’s a significant incursion on the judiciary that comes as Trump has asserted unprecedented unilateral power over federal spending — despite Congress’ constitutional power of the purse — and sweeping authority to remove executive branch officials that previous presidents believed were protected by law. Although the call represents a significant escalation, any impeachment effort is all but certain to be doomed in Congress, where narrow Republican majorities would lack the votes to remove a judge along party lines. Congress has been loath to entertain impeachment efforts for judges based purely on rulings they disagree with and has typically invoked the extraordinary procedures in cases of clear corruption or misconduct.

That got me wondering. If the nasty guy’s calls to impeach judges because they thwart his efforts somehow get before the Supreme Court will those justices want to give the nasty guy all the powers he asks for or are they going to want to preserve their own power. If the nasty guy can impeach lower court judges he can certainly impeach them. Lisa Needham of Kos discusses the nasty guy’s strategy. If he wants to fire all the Inspectors General he could provide evidence of wrongdoing to Congress and go through the waiting period. He didn’t. He fired heads of independent agencies, even though the law says they can be fired only for cause.

The failure to justify these removals isn’t sloppiness. It isn’t that Trump doesn’t understand the law. Instead, he doesn’t believe in the underlying principle that Congress has the authority to create independent agencies. Providing an explanation consistent with the law would be acknowledging that authority. So Trump’s approach of explicitly refusing to give that explanation is a declaration that he has no intention of following the law or recognizing Congress’s authority.

He could have asked Congress to eliminate the CFPB – there are enough Republicans in Congress who also want it gone that such a request likely would have given him what he wanted. Same with USAID and the Department of Education.

Going that route, however, would require Trump to acknowledge that Congress, not the president, has the sole authority to shutter agencies. Instead, Trump appears to be intentionally exceeding his authority, showing that he can usurp Congress’ role whenever he wants. ... For Trump, he’s the only law that matters, and he wants to make sure we all know it.

Leila Fadel of NPR talked to reporter Franco Ordoñez about those deportation flights to El Salvador. Ordoñez spoke to Justin Levitt, a law professor at Loyola Marymount University, who said of the nasty guy’s administration:

So what I see them doing so far is playing footsie with the notion of defying a court order rather than actually defying a court order. They're getting cute. They're getting up to the line.

Ordoñez concluded:

I mean, this is a case that should not be looked at in a vacuum. The question at hand is not whether or not these people are dangerous and should be in the country but the process of their removal. Is it legal? And specifically, did the administration knowingly ignore this order? This is just another example, though, of how the White House is working to stretch its powers. And we have seen this with the legislative branch, and we're now seeing it in the judicial branch.

A Martínez of NPR spoke to Michael Waldman, a constitutional lawyer and the president of the Brennan Center for Justice. Waldman discussed what a court can do when its orders are ignored.

Judges do have options. They can hold any litigant, including government officials, in contempt. That is something where it can be civil contempt with fines and other things like that. It could even be criminal contempt, where sometimes people go to prison. If a - if someone refuses to cooperate, there are tools. One of the complications here is the U.S. Marshals, who actually enforce some of this stuff, work for the Justice Department. But the law says they have to follow the rulings of judges. And in fact, sometimes judges appoint private lawyers to prosecute cases if they can't get the government itself to do it. Judges have some tools, but ultimately what will be the main tool is the recognition by this president and all presidents that the Constitution requires us to all follow the rule of law. Public opinion and the demands of history ultimately will be the most important and most effective remedy here.

March for Our Lives was started by the student survivors of the Parkland school shooting. They’re now a decent political force with several wins over the years. They are, of course, horrified at the efforts by the nasty guy to overturn some of their gains. I’m on their mailing list and thought their plan for 2025 is pretty good. Here’s my summary. What we want: + Reasonable limits to access to guns and violence intervention programs. This focus is on the states. + To Fight voter suppression and elect gun safety champions leading to reforming democracy. + Gun violence is a part of addressing inequality and reimagining public safety. What fuels gun violence: + Gun glorification. + Political apathy and corruption that destroys democracy. + Armed supremacy. + Poverty. + The national mental health crisis. What we’re fighting for: + Curtailing gun access through background checks, safe storage, and banning ghost guns. + Democracy that works for the people because a true democracy would have enacted gun safely legislation by now. + Addressing social and economic inequality, reimagining public safety, and eliminating state-sanctioned violence. Bishtoons posted a cartoon drawn by Dr. Seuss more than 80 years ago. It shows a carnival barker saying, “And on this platform, folks, those most perplexing of people... the Lads with the Siamese Beard! Unrelated by blood, they are joined in a manner that mystifies the mightiest minds in the land!” On the stage are two men whose beards are joined. One is in formal wear and is labeled “America First.” The other has a vest with a big swastika.