The bombast is fact-checked before a half-listening public, while the proclamations, at least the first of them, are dispatched as clearly unconstitutional by a Republican-appointed federal judge.
“They put it before a certain judge in Seattle, I guess, right?” the new president, same as the old president, said Thursday.
It wasn’t actually the same Seattle judge.
For example, Margaret Channon is in federal prison until 2027 for torching some Seattle police cars downtown.
He got 40 months, and is currently in a federal prison in Oregon.
The reason it feels like we’ve been here before is that we have.
A brazen new president swoops in, making royal declarations and yelling bombast. The proclamations, at least the first one, are declared blatantly unconstitutional by a Republican-appointed federal judge, while the bombast is fact-checked in front of a half-listening public.
At Seattle.
Like the previous president, the new one stated on Thursday, “I assume they took it to a certain judge in Seattle.”. It’s not surprising that judge exists. “.”.
Even he is experiencing déjà vu, or possibly double vision. In reality, it wasn’t the same judge from Seattle.
A George W. Judge stopped a nationwide attempt by then-President Donald Trump to bar a large number of Muslims from visiting this country in 2017. Bush’s appointee, U. S. . James Robart, a district judge from Seattle.
The judge who stopped the attempt by then-President Donald Trump to revoke the right of birth citizenship by executive order was a Ronald Reagan appointee, U.S. S. Seattle District Judge John Coughenour.
It’s a little confusing, though, because both judges are known for being staunch defenders of the rule of law, something Trump doesn’t seem to care about at all.
Earlier this week, Coughenour told Trump’s lawyers, “This is a flagrantly wrong order.”. To be honest, I find it hard to comprehend how a lawyer could unquestionably declare that this is a constitutional order. I simply can’t comprehend it. “.”.
At that last part, I had déjà vu. Has it not been ten years of mind-blowing, surreal moments after one another?
He was far from calm when he saw a president attempting to unilaterally amend the Constitution to expel entire groups of people from the nation.
He questioned Trump’s signing of the order, asking, “Where were the lawyers when this decision was being made?”.
Marketing.
“There are other periods in world history where well-meaning people can ask, ‘Where were the judges and lawyers?'”.
That certainly sounds like a reference to the way the Germans gave in and established a dictatorship before World War II. Even though the Trump administration is just one week old, he is bringing that up.
Trump also mentioned Seattle in a different context. He used it as part of a fabrication to support his decision to pardon over 1,500 Capitol rioters who had committed a crime on January 6, 2021.
He said that during the Black Lives Matter demonstrations in Portland and Seattle, no one was charged. Therefore, what justifies the incarceration of any January 6ers?
Following his signing of the clemency, he asked, “What happened in Seattle where they took over a big portion of the city?”. Nothing happened to anyone in Portland, where the city was burned down every day and people perished. “”.
Trump and the right have said this so many times that it has taken on the characteristics of its own alternate reality. It isn’t true at all.
Both federal and state courts received more than 60 lawsuits against the protesters in Seattle. Several Black Lives Matter demonstrators from the summer of 2020 are still behind bars, while Trump was releasing J6ers who used flagpoles to beat police officers.
Margaret Channon, for instance, is incarcerated in federal prison until 2027 for setting fire to a few downtown Seattle police cars. Jacob Greenberg, 23, is incarcerated at Coyote Ridge prison near the Tri-Cities for smashing an officer with a bat and throwing Molotov cocktails at the East Precinct. Devinare Parker received a two-year sentence for bringing a homemade gun to a protest, but refusing to use it, and is currently still under federal supervision at a halfway house.
For example, Justin Moore. He was apprehended in 2020 at a protest in Seattle with a dozen homemade Molotov cocktails, which he never lit. He is incarcerated in a federal prison in Oregon after receiving a 40-month sentence.
These individuals should not be pardoned, and they will not be. With Joe Biden protecting his family and Trump now using clemency to erase the taint of his previous presidency, the pardon process is reprehensible. In addition to demonstrating a complete lack of regard for the legal system, Trump’s case is founded on a Big Lie—that he somehow won the 2020 election. (He didn’t. ).
In 2024, voters did elect Trump again, and I firmly believe in democracy. He repeatedly emphasizes that voters chose him and that he even won the popular vote because he promised the public in advance that he would free the J6ers. He thus has the opportunity to do it. He is free to lie about it if he so chooses. Democracy isn’t perfect.
However, democracy is not limited to voting. The victor is not a king as a consequence. The press may criticize, lawyers may object, and opposition politicians may oppose. Judgment is still up for judges.
The humiliating bowing and scraping of the Big Tech leaders on Inauguration Day is a result of this. It was “like walking into Teddy Roosevelt’s lodge and seeing the mounted heads of all the big game he shot,” according to former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon, to see Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and over a trillion dollars’ worth of tech titans sycophantically lined up in the front row. “”.
Oh no. Trump’s first corrupt term claimed many lives, including Bannon, who recently was released from prison. He even claims that you are as dignified as a taxidermy mount.
However, this explains why the recent events in Seattle are so monumental. Someone objected. The absurd Trumpian idea that any president could unilaterally redefine what it means to be an American or that the 14th Amendment could be changed with a single stroke of a pen was contested by newly appointed state attorney general Nick Brown. A judge subsequently appropriately criticized it for the blatantly obvious royal overreach.
Who can predict the future? Nobody should be surprised if the U.S. A. In the end, the Supreme Court becomes tangled and sides with Trump.
You don’t have to, though. Like the avaricious tech oligarchs, you don’t have to bow down or compromise. As if an echo from eight years ago, that is the major news coming out of Seattle once more. Opposition is not pointless.
There is a threat to democracy. However, it has not yet been completely destroyed.