Saturday Report 5/10/25 — Is the Trump administration “looking into” suspending habeas corpus for you & me the same way they did for Kilmar Garcia?

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— Stephen Miller says the Trump administration is “looking into” being able to suspend habeas corpus for you and me the same way they did to Kilmar Garcia. They want to be able to kick in our doors and arrest us and throw us in jail for as long as they want without any specific charge, without a warrant, without our having access to an attorney, and without access to a judge or jury where we can challenge their charges against us. Habeas Corpus — Latin for “produce the body,” meaning government can’t arrest or imprison a person without their day in court — is the oldest part of the collection of rights the Framers of our Constitution built into that document. It says: “The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.” Habeas corpus rights go back to King John being forced to sign the Magna Carta at Runnymede in 1215; they’ve been part of Anglo-Saxon law for almost a millennia. But now Trump, Miller, et al are claiming — falsely — that the Maduro Venezuelan government has sent an armed gang into America to seize our country and kill our citizens, and that that fantasy constitutes an “invasion” that triggers their ability to suspend habeas corpus so they can begin to deport “homegrowns,” including American citizens who’ve pissed Trump off. It’s a lie that’s already been struck down by one federal judge, who pointed out that there is no invasion and thus they don’t have the right or ability to suspend habeas corpus like Lincoln did during the Civil War or FDR did to imprison Japanese citizens during WWII. These guys have no respect for our constitutional rights, even though Trump’s oath of office (and theirs) requires them to protect and defend the Constitution: this behavior justifies Trump’s third impeachment.

— Bernie Sanders says Republicans in Congress want to help Trump make more billions off his crypto grift. The Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act establishes a regulatory framework for stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency that includes the new Trump stablecoin that, it was revealed last week, will be used by Abu Dhabi to finance a $2 billion Trump development in that country. Sanders was blunt, saying the bill “threatens the stability of our financial system” and “makes it easier for President Trump and his family to continue to engage in corrupt dealmaking enabled through their cryptocurrency, to the great benefit of themselves and their tech oligarch backers.” Sanders and Senator Warren introduced legislation that would outlaw a president from issuing his own currency, but Republicans vow to prevent a vote on it. Trump has apparently made about a billion dollars a month since he was sworn in and rolled out his own digital coins and currency: Giving a family of professional grifters the ability to issue their own currency is a scam that’s an entire level more absurd and obscene than what we’ve historically seen in corrupt oligarchies and banana republics throughout history.

— Justice Sonia Sotomayor says lawyers should stand up and fight for our legal system and our rights rather than roll over for the Trump administration. While she didn’t mention Trump specifically, her message was clear. In a Thursday speech, she said, “Our job is to stand up for people who can’t do it themselves. And our job is to be the champion of lost causes. But right now, we can’t lose the battles we are facing. And we need trained and passionate and committed lawyers to fight this fight.” Hopefully, at least two of the Republican appointees on the Court agree with her and we’ll begin to see the Trump administration restrained in their unconstitutional attacks on our rights and people within the United States.

— Trump’s new attack on the law could mean billions for Elon. The Digital Equity Act allocated over $2 billion to subsidize high-speed broadband for people living in areas where there’s no such internet access (mostly rural America) and for people who simply can’t afford access (mostly in the poor parts of cities). While the vast majority of its beneficiaries will be white people living on farms and in remote areas, the law has the word “Equity” in it, which triggered Trump and his racist followers. Trump went there immediately on his Nazi-infested social media platform, writing: “No more woke handouts based on race! The Digital Equity Program is a RACIST and ILLEGAL $2.5 BILLION DOLLAR giveaway. I am ending this IMMEDIATELY, and saving Taxpayers BILLIONS OF DOLLARS!” In all probability, the main result of Trump’s actions will be that the Act’s money will be redirected away from traditional broadband providers and phone companies and given, instead, to Musk’s Starlink. As the Free Press’ CEO Craig Aaron noted: “The Trump administration is spiking plans states spent years developing to help their own residents, in favor of trying to redirect billions into Elon Musk’s pockets via his Starlink satellite internet service. It’s the sort of government graft, seizing resources from the public and awarding them to Trump loyalists, that has come to typify this White House.” Racist grifting is their way; it’s pretty much all they know. And we pay the price.

— Ever since Trump fired hundreds of FAA workers who maintain radar and communications systems, those systems have begun to fail in Newark. Somehow, the mainstream media usually forgets to include this little tidbit in their reporting on the control tower crisis, but the GOP cuts to the FAA’s staff appear to be having a real and immediate consequence. Trump, of course, is trying to blame it all on Biden and Buttigieg, but they had nothing to do with the damage Trump and Musk are doing to our government. If a foreign government or dictator had demanded that Trump and Musk kneecap America so we can’t effectively stand up to defend other democracies around the world, they couldn’t have done better, from decapitating the leadership of our military to gutting our economy to destroying our soft power around the world (USAID) to breakup up our historic strategic alliances with other nations. This is the greatest crime against our republic since the fascist Confederacy attacked us, leading to the death of around 700,000 Americans.

— Refugees are shut out of America. Except for white South Africans. The State Department announced this week that they’re chartering a plane to bring white South African “refugees” to the United States. As the BBC noted: “South Africa criticised Trump’s executive order opening the US up to the resettlement of white Afrikaners, saying in a statement that ‘it is ironic’ the US is open to accepting a group ‘that remains amongst the most economically privileged’ while denying vulnerable people from other parts of the world asylum.” There’s been a conspicuous lack of white “illegal immigrants” being arrested in America, despite them representing an estimated one to two million of the total estimated 10 million undocumented people in the US. And now we’re importing white people. That, along with their war on DEI and Black or female federal employees and senior military, tells you everything you need to know about the deep racism that’s animating this clearly white supremacist administration.

— France and Sweden tell Trump to stuff his racism. US embassies in Paris and Stockholm have demanded that local governments make sure that any local contractors who are hired to maintain embassy facilities in those cities don’t have DEI-style policies of hiring minorities. Stockholm’s vice-mayor called the request “bizarre,” and the French were blunt, saying: “US interference in French companies’ inclusion policies is unacceptable, just like its unjustified tariff threats. France and Europe will defend their companies, their consumers, but also their values.” The rest of the world is frankly horrified by the racism and rejection of democratic principles that animate this administration, and every American should be, too.