Trump found a new law to justify old tariffs, forced labor abroad, it turns out, is a moral emergency only when it doesn't happen behind an American prison wall or in an American field.
This comprehensive essay underscores how manipulative and cynical Trump’s seditious operatives are in cherry-picking “legal” language to get around constraints on their free exercise of power.
As a lawyer, I can say without hesitation words in legal documents and legislation can mean anything if cited in bad faith for a particular agenda. The law has interpretive guidelines that provide some protection against absurd claims, but the legal process isn’t set up for the avalanche of absurdities this administration is orchestrating with intent.
The ACLU, Democracy Defenders (Norm Eisen), Mark Elias’s firm, and other legal groups challenging this administration in courts across America are heroes in the fight for justice and sanity.
What a mess he has made with the express agreement of the Republican Congress who seem in a trump trance unless like Cornyn, you are on your way out. This speaks so loudly for term limits of some kind and campaign financing. Without these. we appear to be doomed to continue making mistakes regardless of the party in charge. We are in the thick of being governed by a gerontocracy of men and women who will not live to see what they have wrought. They have not planted enough trees for the comforting shade of our younger inhabitants. So sad! :(
and as much as many of us hope that republican voters will get upset by his actions, this one will not faze them in the least. this sort of thing (rules are written for everyone else) is the hallmark of the republican party... represent themselves as helping the forgotten middle class all the while turning the country into a 2026 version of a medieval society... people still quote the trickle down theory... the ultra wealthy owning everything, and working the peasants until they drop. trump does not give a damn about forced labor in other countries.. just another excuse... like the excuse of imminent danger of a nuclear bomb in Iran despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary... sells well to his base. would love to see the list of companies that have spread some coin in his direction and quietly received exemptions from the tariffs... i know the list is long and unfair. meanwhile all the lower income and middle class voters think all this is just great with the belief that it somehow helps them. all the while their costs go up, their opportunities go down and trump does not give a damn. these people supply cheap labor for his industrial friends and unwavering votes for him and his party... they are fodder, they are simply another resource to be extracted, like gold or oil or sheep or cows... gold and oil are inanimate and so cannot think, sheep and cows i suspect know what is going on but are powerless to do anything... only people are this stupid. and years from now after everything comes tumbling down, they will blame it on Biden, blame it on the Chinese, blame it on Obama, some unnamed deep state group of people...never acknowledging that THEY were the source of the collapse... they cannot really even blame donald as they were the ones who voted for him not once, not twice, but three times...
Up here in British Columbia, temporary foreign workers are paid a minimum of USD13 per hour (and sometimes more), are given government-inspected housing for free, transportation to grocery stores, a flight from their home and a flight back, and maximum allowable hours per week. One man I know from Chiapas I was working with five years ago told me that he applied to work in Canada because working in the US, picking tomatoes, he was paid a US quarter for every 5 gallon plastic bucket of tomatoes he picked. That is absolutely back-breaking labour (I know; I did it when I was young), and nowhere near a liveable wage. Each pail is about 40 pounds. And he had to lug them to a tractor as well. To make even USD5 per hour, he'd have to pick and lug 20 per hour. Simply impossible. USD2.50 would be 10 per hour. It would still be brutal, but maybe you could manage that. It's not forced labour (which is an issue for most countries importing from, for example, China), but it sure is something that tariffs don't address.
This comprehensive essay underscores how manipulative and cynical Trump’s seditious operatives are in cherry-picking “legal” language to get around constraints on their free exercise of power.
As a lawyer, I can say without hesitation words in legal documents and legislation can mean anything if cited in bad faith for a particular agenda. The law has interpretive guidelines that provide some protection against absurd claims, but the legal process isn’t set up for the avalanche of absurdities this administration is orchestrating with intent.
The ACLU, Democracy Defenders (Norm Eisen), Mark Elias’s firm, and other legal groups challenging this administration in courts across America are heroes in the fight for justice and sanity.
What a mess he has made with the express agreement of the Republican Congress who seem in a trump trance unless like Cornyn, you are on your way out. This speaks so loudly for term limits of some kind and campaign financing. Without these. we appear to be doomed to continue making mistakes regardless of the party in charge. We are in the thick of being governed by a gerontocracy of men and women who will not live to see what they have wrought. They have not planted enough trees for the comforting shade of our younger inhabitants. So sad! :(
Exxon and others have high profits and higher stock prices these days. Do that math.
and as much as many of us hope that republican voters will get upset by his actions, this one will not faze them in the least. this sort of thing (rules are written for everyone else) is the hallmark of the republican party... represent themselves as helping the forgotten middle class all the while turning the country into a 2026 version of a medieval society... people still quote the trickle down theory... the ultra wealthy owning everything, and working the peasants until they drop. trump does not give a damn about forced labor in other countries.. just another excuse... like the excuse of imminent danger of a nuclear bomb in Iran despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary... sells well to his base. would love to see the list of companies that have spread some coin in his direction and quietly received exemptions from the tariffs... i know the list is long and unfair. meanwhile all the lower income and middle class voters think all this is just great with the belief that it somehow helps them. all the while their costs go up, their opportunities go down and trump does not give a damn. these people supply cheap labor for his industrial friends and unwavering votes for him and his party... they are fodder, they are simply another resource to be extracted, like gold or oil or sheep or cows... gold and oil are inanimate and so cannot think, sheep and cows i suspect know what is going on but are powerless to do anything... only people are this stupid. and years from now after everything comes tumbling down, they will blame it on Biden, blame it on the Chinese, blame it on Obama, some unnamed deep state group of people...never acknowledging that THEY were the source of the collapse... they cannot really even blame donald as they were the ones who voted for him not once, not twice, but three times...
Up here in British Columbia, temporary foreign workers are paid a minimum of USD13 per hour (and sometimes more), are given government-inspected housing for free, transportation to grocery stores, a flight from their home and a flight back, and maximum allowable hours per week. One man I know from Chiapas I was working with five years ago told me that he applied to work in Canada because working in the US, picking tomatoes, he was paid a US quarter for every 5 gallon plastic bucket of tomatoes he picked. That is absolutely back-breaking labour (I know; I did it when I was young), and nowhere near a liveable wage. Each pail is about 40 pounds. And he had to lug them to a tractor as well. To make even USD5 per hour, he'd have to pick and lug 20 per hour. Simply impossible. USD2.50 would be 10 per hour. It would still be brutal, but maybe you could manage that. It's not forced labour (which is an issue for most countries importing from, for example, China), but it sure is something that tariffs don't address.
Forced labour? You mean that performed by federal employees afraid of losing their jobs? And don't get me started on the prison population...
This is important. Also WAY too long!
Serious discussions are important to have at length. Too many people are losing the ability to just sit and read. 📖
That’s the AI talking