These fucking guys

I had just updated "It's the lying" with a Steve Vladeck piece outlining why the mafia government was lying when it claimed there was nothing they could do about the illegal kidnapping and rendition of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador. 

And then the five MAGA justices on the United States Supreme Court did THIS: 

"We grant the application and vacate the TROs." 

Translation: The government can continue invoking the Alien Enemies Act and resume deporting whoever it wants--as long as the kidnap victims get a day in court first and that court is in the jurisdiction of the U.S. prison where they are being held and they can find a lawyer while they are locked up. 

What about the prisoners in El Salvador? What about Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia who was sent there by mistake? What about the 237 other Venezuelans, 75% of whom have no criminal record but who were renditioned (more mistakes?) to a torture prison in El Salvador in defiance of an order from Chief Judge James Boasburg of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia?

The majority doesn't have much to offer on those questions. They dodge the issue of whether or not this mafia government is acting legally re: the Alien Enemies Act ("But we do not reach those arguments.") and they pretend everything's just routine, as if the government hasn't just spent three weeks thwarting the judicial process and ignoring court orders. And though there haven't been further midnight planes reported (but how can we know for sure?), people continue to be kidnapped and disappeared to U.S. "facilities." Nevertheless, the majority reduces the crisis to a matter of procedure, of proper venue.

However, the dissent from Justice Sotomayor does not, and it is definitely worth reading, as is the separate, additional dissent from Justice Jackson. These dissents reflect what we are all really living through. They are compelling, sane responses to the ridiculous and corrupt and deliberately obtuse majority whose only objective seems to be to protect Donald Trump and advance his authoritarian agenda. 

I'm going to stop there, except to quote from Justice Sotomayor's opinion (emphasis mine):

What if the Government later determines that it sent one of these detainees to CECOT in error? Or a court eventually decides that the President lacked authority under the Alien Enemies Act to declare that Tren de Aragua is perpetrating or attempting an “invasion” against the territory of the United States? The Government takes the position that, even when it makes a mistake, it cannot retrieve individuals from the Salvadoran prisons to which it has sent them. See Defendant’s Memorandum of Law in Opposition in Abrego Garcia v. Noem, No. 25–cv–951 (D Md., Mar. 31, 2025), ECF Doc. 11, at 7–9. The implication of the Government’s position is that not only noncitizens but also United States citizens could be taken off the streets, forced onto planes, and confined to foreign prisons with no opportunity for redress if judicial review is denied unlawfully before removal. History is no stranger to such lawless regimes, but this Nation’s system of laws is designed to prevent, not enable, their rise.

It is only a matter of time before the leader of a march or the writer of a substack, before a journalist or a member of the House of Representatives, is arrested and detained. If we're lucky, we'll read about it:

"Plaintiffs allege that, on [insert date], [insert name] was stopped by ICE officers, who informed him that his citizenship status had changed. He was detained, questioned, and transferred to a detention center in an undisclosed location."

Sorry I went on so long. Please don't let that stop you from reading these two excellent sources for analysis of the opinion:

One First
140. "The Disturbing Myopia of Trump v. J.G.G." by Steve Vladeck

Mark Joseph Stern's "The Supreme Court’s New 5–4 Bailout for Trump Couldn’t Be More Ominous" in Slate.