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The Courts Are Striking Down Trump’s Illegal Orders; What Will the Supreme Court Do?

By dianeravitch
September 8, 2025 //
2

Jay Kuo writes a delightful blog called The Status Kuo. He is a lawyer with a sense of humor, and he writes clearly for the public, not for other lawyers.

This post is important because Kuo shows that the courts are blocking Trump’s overreach and cautions us not to assume that the Supreme Court will act as Trump’s echo chamber.

He writes:

Trump’s losses in the federal courts continue to pile up, and this week saw a number of critical rulings go against him. Judges from D.C. to Texas to California rejected the Trump regime’s illegal overreach on tariffs, deportations, military law enforcement and even his invocation of the Alien Enemies Act.

Let’s do a legal lightning round to summarize these rulings, any one of which frankly is important enough to have warranted its own stand alone analysis. Today I’ll cover

  1. A major ruling from the Federal Circuit invalidating most of Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs;
  2. A long weekend emergency ruling stopping planeloads of unaccompanied children from being deported to Guatemala;
  3. Trump’s big loss after a bench trial in California over his unlawful use of federal troops in that state; and
  4. The Fifth Circuit smackdown of Trump’s invocation of the “Alien Enemies Act” to justify summary deportation of alleged gang members.

Make no mistake: These are big losses that carry major implications for Trump’s plans to isolate the U.S., impose a police state, and conduct mass detentions and deportations.

And if you’re now thinking to yourself, “What does it matter, the Supreme Court will reverse these?” or “Great, but Trump will just disobey the orders,” I want to hit pause and do a reality check. As I’ll explain toward the end of this piece, these arguments, while common and understandable, simply don’t match the facts on the ground….

At this point, Kuo discusses each of the above decisions. You should subscribe to read these analyses.

But these rulings don’t matter! SCOTUS will overrule! Trump will defy!

There’s an understandable tendency to hear about a big court victory for the good guys but then cynically dismiss it, claiming either that the Supreme Court will overturn it, or that the Trump White House will simply ignore the courts’s orders.

I want to encourage readers to not fall into this trap. True, the Supreme Court has intervened in a few cases to lift a few injunctions imposed by lower courts, and that admittedly has been awful to see. But it hasn’t ruled substantively on much of anything yet. 

And that has allowed court victories by the good guys to produce some real progress.

For example, the Blue State Attorneys General group has been successful at using lawsuits to claw back huge sums impounded by the White House. This has occurred even while the red states, which failed to challenge the illegal withholdings, were left starved of funds. 

In his newsletter today, Robert Hubbell pointed to a chart with data from KFF Health News illustrating how successful lawsuits have spared the blue states from a great deal of the blow to public health infrastructure funding:

This helps show that the Supreme Court hasn’t been able to stop every lawsuit from succeeding. Indeed, many if not most have achieved their goals.

It’s also common to believe that the government is simply refusing to comply with every single court order. This misconception perhaps arose because so much attention was on a pair of lawsuits involving deportations, where the Justice Department and Homeland Security pretty much gave the finger to the courts.

But those are the only instances I’m aware of where court orders have been defied outright. And there are now major consequences for those involved with the plan to show open contempt. Judge Boasberg is now weighing bar disciplinary referrals for the lawyers involved.

In other cases, it is also true that the government has dragged its feet, delayed, deflected, misdirected and sought immediate appellate review of preliminary injunctions. But that is not the same as open defiance. And the courts have gotten much better at holding the government’s feet to the fire, as we just saw with Judge Sooknanan’s order followed by a demand for a series of status updates, all to keep the government on the straight and narrow.

The Department of Justice wants the American public to assume that none of the orders granted by federal judges are being heeded. They want us to believe that they, and not the judiciary, are in control. But this is simply not the case. As we saw this weekend, the Justice Department doesn’t have the appetite for another round of contempt proceedings, and it is even turning planes around when ordered to do so.

Zooming out a bit, we can understand why. The Justice Department is in disarray and demoralized, it has in some instances squandered the crucial “presumption of regularity” that is normally afforded to government functions, and the Trump regime is now losing the lion’s share of the most consequential lower court cases. 

Sure, the Supreme Court may eventually weigh in with a set of terrible decisions. But that won’t stop, and hasn’t stopped, resourceful civil rights lawyers from finding new and novel ways to attack the White House’s policies and orders. For example, when SCOTUS found that litigants could not obtain nationwide injunctions against White House directives, plaintiffs adjusted quickly, moving for class certification so that the nationwide part got built into the definition of the class.

And who knows? Maybe even this SCOTUS majority will draw the line somewhere—perhaps by protecting the bright line independence of the Federal Reserve or by telling Trump he can’t order federal troops anywhere he wants for whatever mission he wants. 

Until then, every win in the lower courts chips away at the MAGA fascist golem, and maybe with enough blows, we can take the entire monstrosity down.

Categories Accountability, Justice, Trump

Justice Department Pursues Personal Data on Trans Individuals

By dianeravitch
August 25, 2025 //
2

Forget the economy. Forget inflation. Forget the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. What really animates the sick and sorry Trump administration is medical care for transgender youth. Now, there is an issue that involves the peace and prosperity of the nation–NOT!

My view: it’s none of my business. Issues like abortion and trans rights should be decided among patients, families, and doctors. Not by politicians. Not by me.

The Justice Department is harassing providers of care for young people who are transgender and demanding their personal data.

The Washington Post reported:

The Justice Department is demanding that hospitals turn over a wide range of sensitive information related to medical care for young transgender patients, including billing documents, communication with drug manufacturers and data such as patient dates of birth, Social Security numbers and addresses, according to a copy of a subpoena made public in a court filing this week.

The June subpoena to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia requests emails, Zoom recordings, “every writing or record of whatever type” doctors have made, voicemails and text messages on encrypted platforms dating to January 2020 — before hormone therapy, puberty blockers and gender transition surgery had been banned anywhere in the United States.

About half of states have since passed laws prohibiting all or most gender treatment of minors. The Supreme Court ruled in June that a Tennessee ban did not violate the Constitution.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said last month that the Justice Department had issued more than 20 subpoenas seeking to hold “medical professionals and organizations that mutilated children in the service of a warped ideology” accountable. It is highly unusual for the nation’s chief law enforcement officer to announce such legal activity. Bondi did not identify who received the subpoenas, what information the government sought or what potential law violations it is investigating.

According to seven people familiar with the subpoenas, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they feared retribution, the subpoenas targeted care for patients younger than 19 and went to providers in states that still allow gender care for minors, as well as states where it has been banned. The subpoena, as well as public statements by Bondi’s chief of staff, indicate the federal government is attempting to build cases against medical providers that allege they may have violated civil and criminal statutes while providing care that was legal in their states.

Jacob T. Elberg, a former federal prosecutor specializing in health care fraud, said Bondi’s statement suggests the government “is using its investigative powers to target medical providers based on a disagreement about medical treatment rather than violations of the law.”

Elberg, now a law professor at the Center for Health & Pharmaceutical Law at Seton Hall University, said that the subpoena itself is not wildly broad for a health-care-fraud case. But he noted that under a federal privacy law, the Justice Department must show that any information it demands on patient identities is relevant to a legitimate law enforcement probe.

Categories Bigotry, Evil, Extremism, Gender, Health, Justice, Science, Trump

Mississippi: Federal Judge Enjoins State Ban on DEI

By dianeravitch
August 22, 2025 //
7

I am reposting this news because the earlier version did not have a link. I added additional information about the decision and the Judge.

This decision blocks all efforts to ban diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in the state of Mississippi. If ever there was a state that needs DEI to heal from the burden of a racist history, it’s Mississippi.

The Mississippi Free Press reported that Federal District Judge Henry Wingate blocked the implementation of the state’s ban on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in public schools.

Mississippi’s ban on diversity, equity and inclusion programs in public schools remains blocked after a federal judge granted the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction in an Aug. 18 decision.

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi also denied the defendants’ requests to dismiss the case, calling the defendants’ points “moot.”

“This Court generally agrees with Plaintiffs’ view of the challenged portions of (House Bill 1193).

It is unconstitutionally vague, fails to treat speech in a viewpoint-neutral manner, and carries with it serious risks of terrible consequences with respect to the chilling of expression and academic freedom,” U.S. District Court Judge Henry Wingate wrote in the Court’s decision.

The law, which the Mississippi Legislature approved and Gov. Tate Reeves signed in April, prohibits Mississippi public schools and institutions of higher learning from teaching, creating or promoting diversity, equity and inclusion programs. The Republican-backed law also bans schools from requiring diversity statements or training during hiring, admission and employment processes in educational institutions.

Public institutions are also not allowed to teach or “endorse divisive concepts or concepts promoting transgender ideology, gender-neutral pronouns, deconstruction of heteronormativity, gender theory (or) sexual privilege,” the law says.

H.B. 1193 would prohibit public schools from requiring diversity statements or training in hiring, admission and employment processes at educational institutions.

Preliminary injunctions are dependent upon four qualities: “a substantial likelihood of success on the merits; the irreparable injury to the movants if the injunction is denied; whether the threatened injury outweighs any damage that the injunction might cause the defendant; and the public interest.”

Wingate Highlights Threat to Academic Freedom

Judge Wingate also granted the plaintiffs’ request to add class action claims to the lawsuit, meaning the injunction will apply to teachers, professors and students across the state. The plaintiffs’ lawyers sought the addition after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June limited the ability of federal judges to grant sweeping injunctions.

Judge Wingate was born in Jackson, Mississippi. He graduated from Grinnell College in Iowa and received his law degree from Yale Law School. He was appointed as a federal district judge by President Ronald Reagan.

Justice Henry Wingate
Categories Academic Freedom, Bigotry, Curriculum, Democracy, Equity, Ethics, Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Learn, Freedom to Read, Gender, History, Justice, Mississippi

Justice Department Employees Dismissed Without Reason, Creating Climate of Fear

By dianeravitch
July 18, 2025 //
1

Perry Stein of The Washington Post wrote about the arbitrary dismissals at the Justice Department, as Attorney General Pam Bondi clears out anyone suspected of disloyalty to Trump’s agenda.

Republicans complained in the past that Biden was “weaponizing” and “politicizing” the Justice Department. That was not true. But it’s happening now, and Republicans don’t care. Lawyers who worked on prosecution of January 6 insurrectionists are being terminated, as are those who worked on investigations of Trump. If Trump and Bondi succeed, only Trump loyalists will still have a job in the Justice Department. James Comey’s daughter, who was a prosecutor of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, was fired from

Her job in the New York office of the Justice Department.

Stein writes:

The Trump administration is firing and pushing out employees across the Justice Department and FBI, often with no explanation or warning, creating rampant speculation and fear within the workforce over who might be terminated next, according to multiple people with knowledge of the removals who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid retribution.

Some people are simply fired, delivered a notice signed by Attorney General Pam Bondi that cites the broad powers afforded to the president in the U.S. Constitution. Others, particularly at the FBI, are told they can leave or be demoted or terminated.

The removals appear more individually targeted, and are happening in smaller numbers, than the high-profile ousters of senior Justice Department and FBI officials in the early months of President Donald Trump’s second term, when he returned to the White House vowing to clean house at the federal law enforcement agency that had brought two criminal cases against him. They are unrelated to the mass reductions-in-force and reorganizations that Trump has launched at many other federal agencies, which the Supreme Court has said may move forward for now.

Multiple people familiar with the Justice Department said scores of experienced staffers are opting to voluntarily leave the government to avoid being fired at random or asked to do things that would potentially violate their legal ethics. Their departures are worsening staff shortages in major divisions and U.S. attorney offices and have created an opening for the Trump administration to further shape the Justice Department workforce, allowing officials to fill career staff vacancies with attorneys who align ideologically with the president.

“Many, many lawyers have resigned on their own power because they saw the writing on the wall,” said Max Stier, chief executive of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit organization that pushes for a strong federal workforce. “They understood if they didn’t leave on their own volition they would be subject to firing — or if they stayed they felt they couldn’t uphold their oath in a way that was consistent with their integrity.”

The lack of explanation for the firings has fueled rumors, multiple people familiar with the situation said.

One Justice Department lawyer was suspected of being fired because he used “he/him” pronouns in his email signature. People interviewed say they believe another attorney was ousted because of a message he put on social media. Others told to leave may not mesh with or may be disliked by Trump’s political appointees, the people said. And some are suspected of speaking to the media without authorization.

“Notice of Removal from Federal Service,” the subject line in the email from Bondi to one employee read. It continued: “Pursuant to Article II of the United States Constitution and the laws of the United States, you are removed from federal service effective immediately.”

Categories Corruption, Elections, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Justice, Trump

Heather Cox Richardson: In the Trump Administration, Cruelty Is the Point

By dianeravitch
July 17, 2025 //
7

Heather Cox Richardson sums up recent chaos in the Trump administration and recognizes that its business as usual. Most egregious is the deference paid to Trump by the reactionary majority on the Supreme Court and the frightened Republicans in Congress. The members of Congress are afraid that Trump will endorse their opponent in the next Republican primary. The Justices have lifetime tenure; they have no excuse for rubber-stamping unconstitutional actions.

Richardson writes:

Without any explanation, the right-wing majority on the Supreme Court yesterday granted a stay on a lower court’s order that the Trump administration could not gut the Department of Education while the issue is in the courts. The majority thus throws the weight of the Supreme Court behind the ability of the Trump administration to get rid of departments established by Congress—a power the Supreme Court denied when President Richard M. Nixon tried it in 1973.

This is a major expansion of presidential power, permitting the president to disregard laws Congress has passed, despite the Constitution’s clear assignment of lawmaking power to Congress alone.

President Donald J. Trump has vowed to eliminate the Department of Education because he claims it pushes “woke” ideology on America’s schoolchildren and that its employees “hate our children.” Running for office, he promised to “return” education to the states. In fact, the Education Department has never set curriculum; it disburses funds for high-poverty schools and educating students with disabilities. It’s also in charge of prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race and sex in schools that get federal funding.

Trump’s secretary of education, professional wrestling promoter Linda McMahon, supports Trump’s plan to dismantle the department. In March the department announced it would lay off 1,378 employees—about half the department. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia sued to stop the layoffs, and Massachusetts federal judge Myong Joun ordered the department to reinstate the fired workers. The Supreme Court has now put that order on hold, permitting the layoffs to go forward.

Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan concurred in a dissent written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, noting that Trump has claimed power to destroy the congressionally established department “by executive fiat” and chastising the right-wing majority for enabling him. “When the Executive publicly announces its intent to break the law, and then executes on that promise, it is the Judiciary’s duty to check that lawlessness, not expedite it,” they say.

“The President must take care that the laws are faithfully executed, not set out to dismantle them. That basic rule undergirds our Constitution’s separation of powers. Yet today, the majority rewards clear defiance of that core principle with emergency relief.”

Another Trump power grab is before Congress today as the Senate considers what are called “rescissions.” These are a request from the White House for Congress to approve $9.4 billion in cuts it has made in spending that Congress approved. By law, the president cannot decide not to spend money Congress has appropriated, although officials in the Trump administration did so as soon as they took office. Passing this rescission package would put Congress’s stamp of approval on those cuts, even though they change what Congress originally agreed to.

Those cuts include ending federal support for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helps to fund National Public Radio (NPR), the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), and local stations. The Trump administration says NPR and PBS “fuel…partisanship and left-wing propaganda.”

Congress must approve the request by Friday, or the monies will be spent as the laws originally established. The House has already passed the package, but senators are unhappy that the White House has not actually specified what will be cut. Senators will be talking to the director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought—a key architect of Project 2025—today in a closed-door session in hopes of getting more information.

In June, Vought told CNN that this package is just “the first of many rescissions bills” and that if Congress won’t pass them, the administration will hold back funds under what’s called “impoundment,” although Congress explicitly outlawed that process in the 1974 Impoundment Control Act.

“We still are lacking the level of detail that is needed to make the right decisions,” Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said. “It’s extremely unusual for any senator to not be able to get that kind of detailed information.”

Andrew Goudsward of Reuters reported yesterday that nearly two thirds of the lawyers in the unit of the Department of Justice whose job was to defend Trump administration policies have quit. “Many of these people came to work at Federal Programs to defend aspects of our constitutional system,” one lawyer who left the unit told Goudsward. “How could they participate in the project of tearing it down?”

As the Supreme Court strengthens the office of the presidency without explaining the constitutional basis for its decisions, who is actually running the government is a very real question.

A week ago, Jason Zengerle of the New York Times suggested that the real power in the Oval Office is deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller, who is driving the administration’s focus on attacking immigrants. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem defers to Miller, a Trump advisor told Zengerle. Attorney General Pam Bondi is focused on appearing on the Fox News Channel and so has essentially given Miller control over the Department of Justice. White House chief of staff Susie Wiles is “producing a reality TV show every day” and doesn’t care about policy.

On the same day Zengerle was writing about domestic policy decisions, Tom Nichols of The Atlantic was making a similar observation about international policy. He notes that Trump has only a fleeting interest in foreign policy, abandoning issues he thinks are losing ones for others to handle. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth keeps talking about “lethality” and trans people but doesn’t seem to know policy at all. Secretary of State Marco Rubio—who is also the national security advisor—appears to have little power in the White House.

Apparently, Nichols writes, American defense policy is in the hands of Elbridge Colby, the undersecretary of defense for policy, who made the decision to withhold weapons from Ukraine and who ordered a review of the U.S. defense pact with the United Kingdom and Australia in an attempt to put pressure on Australia to spend more on defense.

“In this administration,” Nichols writes, “the principals are either incompetent or detached from most of the policy making, and so decisions are being made at lower levels without much guidance from above.” This is a common system in authoritarian regimes, Nichols notes, “where the top levels of government tackle the one or two big things the leader wants done and everything else tumbles down to other functionaries, who can then drive certain issues according to their own preferences (which seems to be what Colby is doing), or who will do just enough to stay under the boss’s radar and out of trouble (which seems to be what most other Trump appointees are doing). In such a system, no one is really in charge except Trump—which means that on most days, and regarding many issues, no one is in charge.”

Either that chaos or deliberate evil is behind the Trump administration’s recent order to burn nearly 500 metric tons of emergency high-nutrition biscuits that could feed about 1.5 million children for a week. As Hana Kiros reported in The Atlantic, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) spent about $800,000 on the food during the Biden administration for distribution to children in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It was in storage in the United Arab Emirates when the Trump administration gutted USAID. Still, Secretary of State Marco Rubio assured the House Appropriations Committee that the food would get to the children before it spoiled.

But the order to burn the biscuits had already been sent out because, the State Department said, providing food to Afghanistan might benefit terrorists (there was no stated reason for destroying food destined for Pakistan, or suggestion that the food could go to another country). Now the food has passed its safe use date and cannot even be repurposed as animal feed. Destroying it will cost the U.S. taxpayers $130,000.

What the administration does appear to be focused on is regaining control of the political narrative that has slipped away from it. Today, after news broke that inflation is creeping back up as Trump’s tariffs take effect, Trump posted on social media alleging that Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA), who managed one of the impeachment cases against Trump, had committed mortgage fraud and must be brought to justice.

But so far, nothing appears to be working to distract MAGA from the Epstein files. As David Gilbert of Wired noted today, MAGA supporters were angry over a number of things already. Former Fox News Channel host Tucker Carlson hated the bombing of Iran; others hated Trump’s accepting a luxury plane from Qatar. Podcaster Ben Shapiro objected to Trump’s tariffs, and podcaster Joe Rogan has turned against Trump over the targeting of migrants who have not been even accused of crimes. Billionaire Elon Musk turned against Trump over the debt incurred under the new budget reconciliation law Trump called the One Big, Beautiful Bill.

The Epstein files appear to be one bridge too many for MAGA to cross. The administration tried to stop discussion of Epstein, and for a while the effort seemed to catch: by noon yesterday, the Fox News Channel had mentioned Epstein zero times but had mentioned former president Joe Biden 46 times. Today all but one Republican House member voted against a Democratic measure to require the release of the Epstein files. But Chicago journalist Marc Jacob noticed this afternoon that while the Fox News website didn’t mention Epstein in its top 100 stories today, “[t]he top 3 stories on the New York Times website, the top 2 stories on the Washington Post site and the top story on the CNN site are about Jeffrey Epstein.”

And then, this afternoon, Dhruv Mehrotra of Wired noted that the video from a camera near Epstein’s prison cell that the Department of Justice released as “raw” footage had approximately 2 minutes and 53 seconds cut out of it.

Journalist Garrett M. Graff, a former editor of Politico, commented: “Okay, I am not generally a conspiracist, but c’mon DOJ, you are making it really hard to believe that you’re releasing the real full evidence on Epstein….”

Categories Accountability, Corruption, Cruelty, Democracy, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Failure, Justice, Trump

John Merrow: It’s Not Enough to Oppose Trump. What Are We For?

By dianeravitch
June 30, 2025 //
12

John Merrow was the education correspondent for PBS for many years. Now, in retirement, he continues to write and help us think through the existential moments in which we live.

He writes:

More than five million demonstrators in about 2000 communities stepped forward to declare their opposition to Donald Trump, on June 14th. “No Kings Day” was also Trump’s 79th birthday, Flag Day, and the anniversary of the creation of the American army.

So now we know what many of us are against, but the central question remains unanswered: What do we stand FOR? What do we believe in?

Just as FDR called for Four Freedoms, the Democratic party needs to articulate its First Principles.  I suggest three: “The Public Good,” “Individual Rights,” and “Rebuilding America after Trump.” 

 THE PUBLIC GOOD: Democrats must take our nation’s motto, E pluribus unum, seriously, and they must vigorously support the common good.  That means supporting public libraries, public parks, public schools, public transportation, public health, public safety, public broadcasting, and public spaces–almost anything that has the word ‘public’ in it.

INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: Because the fundamental rights that are guaranteed in our Constitution are often subject to interpretation, debate, and even violent disagreement, Democrats must be clear.  Free speech, freedom of worship, habeas corpus, and other fundamental rights are not up for debate, and nor is a woman’s right to control her own body.  

Health care is a right, and Democrats must make that a reality.  

Conflict is inevitable–think vaccination requirements–and Democrats should come down on the side of the public good.  

Because Americans have a right to safety, Democrats should endorse strong gun control measures that ban assault weapons that have only one purpose–mass killing. 

REBUILDING AMERICA AFTER TRUMP:  The Trump regime was and continues to be a disaster for a majority of Americans and for our standing across the world, but it’s not enough to condemn his greed and narcissism, even if he goes to prison.  Let’s first acknowledge that Trump tapped into serious resentment among millions of Americans, which further divided our already divided country.  

The challenge is to work to bring us together, to make ‘one out of many’ in the always elusive ‘more perfect union.’  The essential first step is to abandon the ‘identity politics’ that Democrats have practiced for too long.  Instead, Democrats must adopt policies that bring us together, beginning with mandatory National Service: 

National Service: Bring back the draft for young men and women to require two years of (paid) National Service, followed by two years of tuition or training credits at an accredited institution.  One may serve in the military, Americorps, the Peace Corps, or other helping organizations.  One may teach or work in distressed communities, or rebuild our national parks, or serve in other approved capacities.  JFK famously said “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”  Let’s ask BOTH questions.  

Additionally: 1) Urge states to beef up civic education in public schools, teaching real history, asking tough questions.  At the same time, federal education policies should encourage Community schools, because research proves that schools that welcome families are more successful across many measures.

2) Rebuild Our Aging Infrastructure: This is urgent, and it will also create jobs.

3) Adopt fiscal and monetary policies to address our burgeoning national debt. This should include higher taxes on the wealthy, emulating Dwight Eisenhower. 

4) Adopt sensible and realistic immigration policies that welcome newcomers who arrive legally but close our borders to illegal immigration.

5) Rebuilding America also means rebuilding our alliances around the world.  Democrats should support NATO and Ukraine, and rejoin efforts to combat climate change. 

Categories Academic Freedom, Creativity, Democracy, Elections, Environment, Equity, Ethics, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press, Funding, Guns, Hope, Joy, Justice

The American Bar Association Sues Trump for Intimidating Law Firms

By dianeravitch
June 23, 2025 //
5

The American Bar Association has filed a lawsuit to stop the Trump administration’s policy of intimidating lawyers and law firms. The article was written by Mimi Rocah, former District Attorney, former prosecutor, and currently law professor. It was posted at Cafe, a blog for legal issues.

She wrote:

Last week, the American Bar Association (“ABA”) filed what can fairly be described as  a bombshell lawsuit in federal court in Washington, D.C. The suit asks the court to declare unconstitutional and stop the Trump administration’s “ongoing unlawful policy of intimidation against lawyers and law firms.” The ABA, a non-partisan non-profit organization founded in 1878, is the nation’s largest voluntary association of legal professionals. It is represented in this case by powerhouse law firm Sussman Godfrey (one of the firms targeted by an executive orderearlier this year). This isn’t just any lawsuit. The complaint names the Office of the President and—in light of the Trump administration’s proclivity to dodge the “who’s responsible” question—every high level government department, along with every cabinet official (the caption goes on for eight pages). The normally staid organization has found its voice on this issue over the past few months, issuing several statements and launching a rule of law initiative, and it does not mince words in this lawsuit, stating, “Today,…the American legal profession faces a challenge that is different from all that has come before. It is unprecedented and uniquely dangerous to the rule of law.”

The complaint explains the administration’s strategy to essentially weaken the legal profession that it sees as a threat to its agenda: “Since taking office earlier this year, President Trump has used the vast powers of the Executive Branch to coerce lawyers and law firms to abandon clients, causes, and policy positions the President does not like.” It has done so “through a series of materially identical executive orders designed to severely damage particular law firms and intimidate other firms and lawyers…; a series of similar ‘deals’ or ‘settlements’ between the Administration and certain law firms in order to avoid such Orders or have them rescinded; other related executive orders, letters, and memoranda. . . and public statements by the President and his Administration publicizing the objectives of the Law Firm Intimidation Policy.” The “attacks on law firms…are thus not isolated events, but one component of a broader, deliberate policy designed to intimidate and coerce law firms and lawyers to refrain from challenging the President or his Administration in court, or from even speaking publicly in support of policies or causes that the President does not like.” Finally, the ABA explains that despite four different district court judges finding the orders blatantly unconstitutional and illegal, the administration’s strategy is ongoing. It cites reporting as recent as June 1st indicating Trump and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller’s interest in keeping threats of more “executive orders on the table because they think it dissuades the best lawyers from representing critics of the administration.” 

Why is the “Law Firm Intimidation Policy” (as dubbed in the lawsuit) so insidious? In a nutshell, it “is uniquely destructive because of the critical role that its targets—lawyers—fulfill in our constitutional system. Without skilled lawyers to bring and argue cases—and to do so by advancing the interests of their clients without fear of reprisal from the government—the judiciary cannot function as a meaningful check on executive overreach.” Even worse, the ABA documents the administration’s strategy having the desired impact. “Even as federal judges have ruled over and over that the Law Firm Orders are plainly unconstitutional, law firms that once proudly contributed thousands of hours of pro bono work to a host of causes—including causes championed by the ABA—have withdrawn from such work because it is disfavored by the Administration, particularly work that would require law firms to litigate against the federal government.” Many law firms are laying low, and “organizations (including the ABA) that have historically relied heavily on top law firms to bring pro bono cases—particularly against the federal government to challenge unlawful executive action—face serious and sometimes existential crises, as those same law firms are declining to represent these organizations.” The complaint cites examples of such instances from particular law firms and, chillingly, does so anonymously in ways reminiscent of a prosecutor’s charging documents against mob families out of real fear of retaliation. As the complaint states, “This threat has a deliberately powerful chilling effect. Already, many firms are declining to take on cases that challenge the administration’s policies. That’s not a side effect of the crackdown. It was the purpose all along.”

The federal judiciary, especially at the district court level, has been the sand in the gears to this administration’s unlawful orders and unconstitutional agenda, which has cast aside due process and the First Amendment in ways never seen before. In May alone, the White House lost 96 percent of its cases before federal district courts, with appointees of both Democrat and Republican presidents curbing the excesses of the Trump regime. As one expert explained, that the “rulings are coming from a stunningly broad array of jurists and many aren’t even being challenged on appeal” is an indication of both the continued need for these legal challenges and also the flimsy legal ground on which the administration stands. But courts cannot adjudicate cases that aren’t brought—and that requires lawyers willing to challenge a retributive and vengeful administration. Our legal system, and the rights of so many individuals and perhaps even our democracy, depend on it. If lawyers are afraid of what will happen to them if they stand up and oppose the government, then the whole system collapses. As the ABA emphasizes in its lawsuit, the judiciary needs to be strong and independent referees, but it needs lawyers willing to play the field.

We will see how this important lawsuit plays out. The case is assigned to Judge Amir Hatem Mahdy Ali who has already drawn the ire of Trump loyalists for daring to rule against the executive order cutting funding for foreign assistance programs administered by the U.S. Agency for International Development. Inevitably, this will likely end up before the Supreme Court. Chief Justice Roberts has talked a good game about judicial independence. Hopefully he and the other justices recognize that such an ideal cannot exist without lawyers able to act free from coercive intimidation by the full force of the presidency. 

Stay Informed, 

Mimi
 

CAFE Contributor Mimi Rocah is the former District Attorney for Westchester County, and previously served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney and Division Chief for the Southern District of New York. She is currently an adjunct professor at Fordham School of Law.

Categories Accountability, Democracy, Ethics, Justice, Resistance, Trump

Governor Gavin Newsom: Do Not Give In to a Lawless President

By dianeravitch
June 11, 2025 //
16

Governor Gavin Newsom spoke to the situation in Los Angeles, which Trump is using as a target in his campaign to distract the public from his incompetence. In his hateful way, Trump always refers to Governor Newsom as “Newscum.”

Governor Newsom said, as transcribed by The New York Times:

Gov. Gavin Newsom of California delivered a speech on Tuesday, titled “Democracy at a Crossroads.” The following is a transcript of his remarks as broadcast online and on television channels:

I want to say a few words about the events of the last few days.

This past weekend, federal agents conducted large-scale workplace raids in and around Los Angeles. Those raids continue as I speak.

California is no stranger to immigration enforcement. But instead of focusing on undocumented immigrants with serious criminal records and people with final deportation orders, a strategy both parties have long supported, this administration is pushing mass deportations, indiscriminately targeting hardworking immigrant families, regardless of their roots or risk.

What’s happening right now is very different than anything we’ve seen before. On Saturday morning, when federal agents jumped out of an unmarked van near a Home Depot parking lot, they began grabbing people. A deliberate targeting of a heavily Latino suburb. A similar scene also played out when a clothing company was raided downtown.

In other actions, a U.S. citizen, nine months pregnant, was arrested; a 4-year-old girl, taken; families separated; friends, quite literally, disappearing.

In response, everyday Angelinos came out to exercise their Constitutional right to free speech and assembly, to protest their government’s actions. In turn, the State of California and the City and County of Los Angeles sent our police officers to help keep the peace and, with some exceptions, they were successful.

Like many states, California is no stranger to this sort of unrest. We manage it regularly, and with our own law enforcement. But this, again, was different.

What then ensued was the use of tear gas, flash-bang grenades, rubber bullets, federal agents detaining people and undermining their due process rights.

Donald Trump, without consulting California law enforcement leaders, commandeered 2,000 of our state’s National Guard members to deploy on our streets, illegally and for no reason.

This brazen abuse of power by a sitting president inflamed a combustible situation, putting our people, our officers and even our National Guard at risk.

That’s when the downward spiral began. He doubled down on his dangerous National Guard deployment by fanning the flames even harder. And the president, he did it on purpose. As the news spread throughout L.A., anxiety for family and friends ramped up. Protests started again.

By night, several dozen lawbreakers became violent and destructive. They vandalized property. They tried to assault police officers. Many of you have seen video clips of cars burning on cable news.

If you incite violence — I want to be clear about this — if you incite violence or destroy our communities, you are going to be held to account. That kind of criminal behavior will not be tolerated. Full stop.

Already, more than 220 people have been arrested. And we’re reviewing tapes to build additional cases and people will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Again, thanks to our law enforcement officers and the majority of Angelenos who protested peacefully, this situation was winding down and was concentrated in just a few square blocks downtown.

But that, that’s not what Donald Trump wanted. He again chose escalation, he chose more force. He chose theatrics over public safety. He federalized another 2,000 Guard members.

He deployed more than 700 active U.S. Marines. These are men and women trained in foreign combat, not domestic law enforcement. We honor their service. We honor their bravery. But we do not want our streets militarized by our own armed forces. Not in L.A. Not in California. Not anywhere.

We’re seeing unmarked cars, unmarked cars in school parking lots. Kids afraid of attending their own graduation. Trump is pulling a military dragnet all across Los Angeles, well beyond his stated intent to just go after violent and serious criminals. His agents are arresting dishwashers, gardeners, day laborers and seamstresses.

That’s just weakness, weakness masquerading as strength. Donald Trump’s government isn’t protecting our communities. They are traumatizing our communities. And that seems to be the entire point.

California will keep fighting. We’ll keep fighting on behalf of our people, all of our people, including in the courts.

Yesterday, we filed a legal challenge to President Trump’s reckless deployment of American troops to a major American city. Today, we sought an emergency court order to stop the use of the American military to engage in law enforcement activities across Los Angeles.

If some of us can be snatched off the streets without a warrant, based only on suspicion or skin color, then none of us are safe. Authoritarian regimes begin by targeting people who are least able to defend themselves. But they do not stop there.

Trump and his loyalists, they thrive on division because it allows them to take more power and exert even more control.

And by the way, Trump, he’s not opposed to lawlessness and violence as long as it serves him. What more evidence do we need than January 6th.

I ask everyone: Take time, reflect on this perilous moment. A president who wants to be bound by no law or constitution, perpetuating a unified assault on American traditions.

This is a president who, in just over 140 days, has fired government watchdogs that could hold him accountable, accountable for corruption and fraud. He’s declared a war, a war on culture, on history, on science, on knowledge itself. Databases quite literally are vanishing.

He’s delegitimizing news organizations and he’s assaulting the First Amendment. And the threat of defunding them. At threat, he’s dictating what universities themselves can teach. He’s targeting law firms and the judicial branch that are the foundations of an orderly and civil society. He’s calling for a sitting governor to be arrested for no other reason than to, in his own words, “for getting elected.”

And we all know, this Saturday, he’s ordering our American heroes, the United States military, and forcing them to put on a vulgar display to celebrate his birthday, just as other failed dictators have done in the past.

Look, this isn’t just about protests here in Los Angeles. When Donald Trump sought blanket authority to commandeer the National Guard. he made that order apply to every state in this nation.

This is about all of us. This is about you. California may be first, but it clearly will not end here. Other states are next.

Democracy is next.

Democracy is under assault right before our eyes, this moment we have feared has arrived. He’s taking a wrecking ball, a wrecking ball to our founding fathers’ historic project: three coequal branches of independent government.

There are no longer any checks and balances. Congress is nowhere to be found. Speaker Johnson has completely abdicated that responsibility.

The rule of law has increasingly been given way to the rule of Don.

The founding fathers didn’t live and die to see this kind of moment. It’s time for all of us to stand up. Justice Brandeis, he said it best. In a democracy, the most important office — with all due respect, Mr. President — is not the presidency, and it’s certainly not governor. The most important office is office of citizen.

At this moment, at this moment, we all need to stand up and be held to account, a higher level of accountability. If you exercise your First Amendment rights, please, please do it peacefully.

I know many of you are feeling deep anxiety, stress, and fear. But I want you to know that you are the antidote to that fear and that anxiety. What Donald Trump wants most is your fealty, your silence, to be complicit in this moment.

Do not give into him.

Categories Bigotry, California, Corruption, Cruelty, Democracy, Disruption, Ethics, Extremism, Fascism, Immigration, Justice, Trump

Thomas Edsall: What Scholars Say About Trump’s Reign of Error and Chaos

By dianeravitch
May 29, 2025 //
12

Thomas Edsall writes a regular feature for The New York Times. In this stunning article, he recounts the views of numerous scholars about what Trump has done since his Inauguration.

This is a gift article, meaning you can open the link and finish reading the article, which is usually behind a paywall.

Edsall writes:

One thing stands out amid all the chaos, corruption and disorder: the wanton destructiveness of the Trump presidency.

The targets of President Trump’s assaults include the law, higher education, medical research, ethical standards, America’s foreign alliances, free speech, the civil service, religion, the media and much more.

J. Michael Luttig, a former federal appeals court judge appointed by President George H.W. Bush, succinctly described his own view of the Trump presidency, writing by email that there had never

been a U.S. president who I consider even to have been destructive, let alone a president who has intentionally and deliberately set out to destroy literally every institution in America, up to and including American democracy and the rule of law. I even believe he is destroying the American presidency, though I would not say that is intentional and deliberate.

Some of the damage Trump has inflicted can be repaired by future administrations, but repairing relations with American allies, the restoration of lost government expertise and a return to productive research may take years, even with a new and determined president and Congress.

Let’s look at just one target of the administration’s vendetta, medical research. Trump’s attacks include cancellation of thousands of grants, cuts in the share of grants going to universities and hospitals and proposed cuts of 40 percent or more in the budgets of the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Science Foundation.

“This is going to completely kneecap biomedical research in this country,” Jennifer Zeitzer, the deputy executive director at the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, told Science magazine. Georges Benjamin, the executive director of the American Public Health Association, warned that cuts will “totally destroy the nation’s public health infrastructure.”

I asked scholars of the presidency to evaluate the scope of Trump’s wreckage. “The gutting of expertise and experience going on right now under the blatantly false pretext of eliminating fraud and waste,” Sean Wilentz, a professor of history at Princeton, wrote by email, “is catastrophic and may never be completely repaired.”

I asked Wilentz whether Trump was unique in terms of his destructiveness or if there were presidential precedents. Wilentz replied:

There is no precedent, not even close, unless you consider Jefferson Davis an American president. Even to raise the question, with all due respect, is to minimize the crisis we’re in and the scope of Trump et al.’s. intentions.

Another question: Was Trump re-elected to promote an agenda of wreaking havoc, or is he pursuing an elitist right-wing program created by conservative ideologues who saw in Trump’s election the opportunity to pursue their goals?

Wilentz’s reply:

Trump’s closest allies intended chaos wrought by destruction which helps advance the elite reactionary programs. Chaos allows Trump to expand his governing by emergency powers, which could well include the imposition of martial law, if he so chose.

I asked Andrew Rudalevige, a political scientist at Bowdoin, how permanent the mayhem Trump has inflicted may prove to be. “Not to be flip,” Rudalevige replied by email, “but for children abroad denied food or lifesaving medicine because of arbitrary aid cuts, the answer is already distressingly permanent.”

From a broader perspective, Rudalevige wrote:

The damage caused to governmental expertise and simple competence could be long lasting. Firing probationary workers en masse may reduce the government employment head count, slightly, but it also purged those most likely to bring the freshest view and most up-to-date skills to government service, while souring them on that service. And norms of nonpoliticization in government service have taken a huge hit.

I sent the question I posed to Wilentz to other scholars of the presidency. It produced a wide variety of answers. Here is Rudalevige’s:

The comp that comes to mind is Andrew Johnson. It’s hardly guaranteed that Reconstruction after the Civil War would have succeeded even under Lincoln’s leadership. But Johnson took action after action designed to prevent racial reconciliation and economic opportunity, from vetoing key legislation to refusing to prevent mob violence against Blacks to pardoning former members of the Confederacy hierarchy. He affirmatively made government work worse and to prevent it from treating its citizens equally.

Another question: How much is Trump’s second-term agenda the invention of conservative elites, and how much is it a response to the demands of Trump’s MAGA supporters?

“Trump is not at all an unwitting victim,” Rudalevige wrote, “but those around him with wider and more systemic goals have more authority and are better organized in pursuit of those goals than they were in the first term.”

In this context, Rudalevige continued, the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025

was not just a campaign manifesto but a bulwark against the inconsistency and individualism its authors thought had undermined the effectiveness of Trump’s first term. It was an insurance policy to secure the administrative state for conservative thought and yoke it to a cause beyond Trump or even Trumpism.

The alliance with Trump was a marriage of convenience — and the Trump legacy when it comes to staffing the White House and executive branch is a somewhat ironic one, as an unwitting vehicle for an agenda that goes far beyond the personalization of the presidency.

In the past, when presidential power has expanded, Rudalevige argued,

it has been in response to crisis: the Civil War, World War I, the Depression and World War II, 9/11. But no similar objective crisis faced us. So one had to be declared — via proclamations of “invasion” and the like — or even created. In the ensuing crisis more power may be delegated by Congress. But the analogue is something like an arsonist who rushes to put out the fire he started.

One widely shared view among those I queried is that Trump has severely damaged America’s relations with traditional allies everywhere.

Mara Rudman, a professor at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, wrote in an email:

The most lasting impact of this term will be felt in the damage done to the reputation of the United States as a safe harbor where the rule of law is king and where the Constitution is as sacred a national document as any country has developed.

Through his utter disregard for the law, Trump has shown both how precious and how fragile are the rules that undergird our institutions, our economic and national security and the foundation for our democracy.

To finish this excellent article, please open the link.

Categories Democracy, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press, Freedom to Learn, Freedom to Read, Health, Justice, Science, Technology, Trump

Heather Cox Richardson: Courts Are Our Guardrail–For Now

By dianeravitch
May 28, 2025 //
11

Heather Cox Richardson is a national treasure. she is also an exemplar of the value of studying history as a guide to today’s events and their meaning.

She writes:

Political scientist Adam Bonica noted last Friday that Trump and the administration suffered a 96% loss rate in federal courts in the month of May. Those losses were nonpartisan: 72.2% of Republican-appointed judges and 80.4% of Democratic-appointed judges ruled against the administration.

The administration sustained more losses today.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ruled that 14 states can proceed with their lawsuit against billionaire Elon Musk and the “Department of Government Efficiency.” The administration had tried to dismiss the case, but Chutkan ruled the states had adequately supported their argument that “Musk and DOGE’s conduct is ‘unauthorized by any law.’” “The Constitution does not permit the Executive to commandeer the entire appointments power by unilaterally creating a federal agency…and insulating its principal officer from the Constitution as an ‘advisor’ in name only,” she wrote.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon struck down Trump’s March 27 executive order targeting the law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, more commonly known as WilmerHale. This law firm angered Trump by employing Robert Mueller, the Republican-appointed special counsel who oversaw an investigation of the ties between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russian operatives.

Leon, who was appointed to the bench by President George W. Bush, made his anger obvious. “[T]he First Amendment prohibits government officials from retaliating against individuals for engaging in protected speech,” Leon noted. “WilmerHale alleges that ‘[t]he Order blatantly defies this bedrock principle of constitutional law.’” Leon wrote: “I agree!” He went on to strike down the order as unconstitutional.

Today NPR and three Colorado public radio stations sued the Trump administration over Trump’s executive order that seeks to impound congressionally appropriated funds for NPR and PBS. The executive order said the public media stations do not present “a fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens.” NPR’s David Folkenflik reported White House spokesperson Harrison Fields’s statement today that public media supports “a particular party on the taxpayers’ dime,” and that Trump and his allies have called it “left-wing propaganda.”

The lawsuit calls Trump’s executive order and attempt to withhold funding Congress has already approved “textbook retaliation.” “[W]e are not choosing to do this out of politics,” NPR chief executive officer Katherine Maher told NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly. “We are choosing to do this as a matter of necessity and principle. All of our rights that we enjoy in this democracy flow from the First Amendment: freedom of speech, association, freedom of the press. When we see those rights infringed upon, we have an obligation to challenge them.”

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis today denied the administration’s motion for a 30-day extension of the deadline for it to answer the complaint in the lawsuit over the rendition of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man sent to El Salvador through what the administration said was “administrative error.”

Despite five hearings on the case, the administration’s lawyers didn’t indicate they needed any more time, but today—the day their answer was due—they suddenly asked for 30 more days. Xinis wrote that they “expended no effort in demonstrating good cause. They vaguely complain, in two sentences, to expending ‘significant resources’ engaging in expedited discovery. But these self-described burdens are of their own making. The Court ordered expedited discovery because of [the administration’s] refusal to follow the orders of this court as affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and the United States Supreme Court.”

Trump is well known for using procedural delays to stop the courts from administering justice, and it is notable that administration lawyers have generally not been arguing that they will win cases on the merits. Instead, they are making procedural arguments.

Meanwhile, stringing things out means making time for situations to change on the ground, reducing the effect of court decisions. Brian Barrett of Wired reported today that while Musk claims to have stepped back from the Department of Government Efficiency, his lieutenants are still spread throughout the government, mining Americans’ data. Meanwhile, Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought will push to make DOGE cuts to government permanent in a dramatic reworking of the nation’s social contract. “Removing DOGE at this point would be like trying to remove a drop of food coloring from a glass of water,” Barrett writes.

Political scientist Bonica notes that there is a script for rising authoritarians. When the courts rule against the leader, the leader and his loyalists attack judges as biased and dangerous, just as Trump and his cronies have been doing.

The leader also works to delegitimize the judicial system, and that, too, we are seeing as Trump reverses the concepts of not guilty and guilty. On the one hand, the administration is fighting to get rid of the constitutional right of all persons to due process, rendering people who have not been charged with crimes to prisons in third countries. On the other, Trump and his loyalists at the Department of Justice are pardoning individuals who have been convicted of crimes.

On Monday, Trump issued a presidential pardon to former Culpeper County, Virginia, sheriff Scott Jenkins, a longtime Trump supporter whom a jury convicted of conspiracy, mail and wire fraud, and seven counts of bribery. Jared Gans of The Hill explained that Jenkins accepted more than $70,000 in bribes to appoint auxiliary deputy sheriffs, “giving them badges and credentials despite them not being trained or vetted and not offering services to the sheriff’s office.” Jenkins had announced he would “deputize thousands of our law-abiding citizens to protect their constitutional right to own firearms,” if the legislature passed “further unnecessary gun restrictions.” Jenkins was sentenced to ten years in prison.

Although Jenkins was found guilty by a jury of his peers, just as the U.S. justice system calls for, Trump insisted that Jenkins and his wife and their family “have been dragged through HELL by a Corrupt and Weaponized Biden D[epartment] O[f] J[ustice].” Jenkins, Trump wrote on social media, “is a wonderful person, who was persecuted by the Radical Left ‘monsters,’ and ‘left for dead.’ This is why I, as President of the United States, see fit to end his unfair sentence, and grant Sheriff Jenkins a FULL and Unconditional Pardon. He will NOT be going to jail tomorrow, but instead will have a wonderful and productive life.”

Today Trump gave a presidential pardon to Paul Walczak, a former nursing home executive who pleaded guilty to tax crimes in 2024. The pardon arrived after Walczak’s mother donated at least $1 million to Trump. The pardon spares Walczak from 18 months in prison and $4.4 million in restitution. Also today, Trump announced plans to pardon reality TV stars Julie and Todd Chrisley, who were sentenced to 7 and 12 years in prison for conspiracy to defraud banks of $36 million and tax evasion. Their daughter spoke at the 2024 Republican National Convention.

Bonica notes that delegitimizing the judicial system creates a permission structure for threats against judges. That, too, we are seeing.

Bonica goes on to illustrate how this pattern of authoritarian attacks on the judiciary looks the same across nations. In 2009, following a ruling that he was not immune from prosecution for fraud, tax evasion, and bribery, Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi railed about “communist prosecutors and communist judges.” In 2016, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Türkiye rejected the authority of his country’s highest court and purged more than 4,000 judges. Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe pushed judges to stop protests, and the judiciary collapsed. In the Philippines in 2018, Rodrigo Duterte called the chief justice defending judicial independence an “enemy,” and she was removed. In Brazil in 2021, Jair Bolsonaro threatened violence against the judges who were investigating him for corruption.

But, Bonica notes, something different happened in Israel in 2023. When Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition tried to destroy judicial independence, people from all parts of society took to the streets. A broad, nonpartisan group came together to defend democracy and resist authoritarianism.

“Every authoritarian who successfully destroyed judicial independence did so because civil society failed to unite in time,” Bonica writes. “The key difference? Whether people mobilized.”

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Categories Corruption, Cruelty, Democracy, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Justice, Trump
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