It could be anyone

So indeed, let’s imagine.

That some how, some way, the Trump Administration decides one day they are dirt sick of reading my weekly trashing of their poor excuse for government, come to my home, kick down my door, blindfold and handcuff me, and all under the phony pretense of my being some kind of crime lord or menace to society.

And take me away…to GOD knows where!

No, this isn’t me being flippant about what’s happening right this minute to hundreds, if not thousands of other people in our country as you read this. 

True, some have proven to be folks who are here illegally, for years in some cases. They’ve started families and established businesses. Became pillars of their communities. So their only crime is being here illegally. But we’re supposed to have a legal system in this country to deal with those situations. It’s called “due process,” where the facts of cases are presented before an appropriate court of law, and a legal determination is made before jackbooted ICE agents haul your behind off somewhere.

Like I said, we’re supposed to have a legal process, but what happens when your president of the United States - who, by the way, has committed and been convicted of far more crimes than any illegal immigrant - literally ignores the orders of the courts, even the U.S. Supreme Court, and the ice queens he has for secretary of Homeland Security and attorney general back him up with relish?

You have what we have now.

I've been watching with great interest the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man the Trump Administration at first lied about when it said an administrative error was responsible for him being grabbed by ICE agents and flown to a prison in El Salvador.

By now you know the story. When the Trump Administration got caught lying through its teeth about how Mr. Garcia was disgustingly snatched from his family (which includes a five-year-old child with autism) without warning, they changed their dumber-than-nails story to falsely allege that Garcia was some sort of violent criminal. Never convicted, mind you, but still a criminal.

These folks dug up everything they could about the man to muddy him up, including the false accusation that he was a member of the dangerous MS-13 gang. Amazingly issued a phonier-than-fraudulent doctored photograph of his hand with “MS-13” engraved on it. 

Even the ultra conservative Trump U.S. Supreme Court wasn’t buying it, and ordered the administration to “facilitate” Mr. Garcia’s return to the United States. But then Trump’s buzzards came up with some beeswax that Garcia can’t be brought back because he is now in the custody of El Salvador, so they have no jurisdiction.

But make no mistake, the American taxpayer - you and I - are paying for Mr. Garcia to be held prisoner in a foreign land without the benefit of his proper day in court.

To his credit, Maryland Democratic U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen had heard enough, hopped on a plane, and eventually met with Mr. Garcia where he was being held in El Salvador. Sen. Van Holland went to get the truth, and advocate for his constituent’s release back to the United States. 

When Sen. Van Hollen came back without Garcia, he made the following perfectly clear during an interview with CNN, “If we deny the constitutional rights of this one man, it threatens the constitutional rights of everybody in America.”

Truer words never spoken by the fine gentleman from the great state of Maryland.

Meanwhile Trump’s buzzards are beating their collective chests, claiming that Garcia will never see the United States again.

Make no mistake, Trump’s administration has already made it known that if they can also get away with rounding up American citizens accused of crimes, and ship them off to foreign countries before any of them have so much as an Apple Watch moment in a court of law as the U.S. Constitution demands, they’ll do that too.

“We also have homegrown criminals that push people into subways that hit elderly ladies on the back of the head with a baseball bat when they’re not looking, that are absolute monsters,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office while the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, was visiting.

Bukele has been Trump’s willing accomplice in abrogating the rights of people accused of crimes being grabbed and shipped to his country without so much as a Miranda Christmas card.

Please don’t misinterpret what I’m saying here, but those who are accused of committing crimes in this country, no matter how much we deplore their alleged actions, are still entitled to due process under the law. 

That goes for citizens and non-citizens.

You see, the Constitution of the United States is a funny thing. If covers everybody within its borders. So you don’t have to be an American citizen to be entitled to its protections.

Only after you’ve been dutifully and legally convicted of a crime and sentenced, do you lose some of those protections, but you have to be prosecuted and convicted first. That’s what the rule of law calls for around here.

So this business of even thinking about grabbing folks who may or may not be American citizens, or may or may not be accused of serious crimes, is a poor rhetorical fig leaf for the fact that King Trump is trying to jump-start his authoritarian regime on the backs of those he declares to be his society’s undesirables.

Now of course we want violent criminals in our country caught and off the streets so that decent citizens can live in peace and safety. I’m all for that.

But when the accused are just arbitrary grabbed off the street or from their homes, shoved onto planes, and shipped off to foreign lands where they no longer  have any rights, that’s a problem. In fact, how long are they supposed to stay there? Is there any kind of rehabilitation for them? Do they become slaves in that foreign country? Do they forever lose contact with their families and communities?

Do they die there?

These are the questions our Republican-led Congress should be asking, but won’t, because those clowns are so frightened of King Trump and the power they’ve given him, he can get away with anything.

Again, this sets up scenarios where Trump decides he can start rounding up “homegrown” American citizens he doesn’t like, and ship them off, never to be heard from again.

None of this should surprise anyone. Just this week, we saw King Trump issue more of his silly executive orders, basically rolling back civil rights protections and other freedoms we’ve always taken for granted.

But back to Mr. Garcia for a moment.

One of those Trump Administration buzzards I referred to earlier, White House Senior Director for Counterterrorism Sebastian Gorka, is reported as telling Newsmax that anyone advocating for due process for Kilmar Abrego Garcia could be viewed as “aiding and abetting a terrorist” and be federally charged.

So by exercising one’s First Amendment rights by calling for the rule of law and due process for Mr. Garcia, I and others might be charged with aiding and abetting a terrorist. 

Did I get that outrageous nonsense right?

And what does King Trump have to say about all of this?

 "We are going to have a very dangerous country if we are not allowed to do what we are entitled to do," he says, adding that it would take 200 years to remove undesirables if we went through the courts.

Man has a point. It's taking at least that long to ultimately get rid of him!

Many of us remember how New York real estate tycoon Donald Trump took a full page ad out in The NY Times back in 1989, calling for the execution of the Central Park Five, five young men of color who were falsely accused and railroaded by the NY City Police Dept. for the brutal rape and beating of a young white woman in Central Park, long before any of them ever had a trial.

Now known as the Exonerated Five, because DNA evidence eventually proved that none of them had anything to do with the crime, the whole shameful episode proved then that Trump has no regard for the rule of law or due process, except when his maniacal behind is in trouble. So we already know what to expect from him as president when it comes to ignoring the rights of the accused.

Trump has never apologized for his racist actions in the Central Park Five case, and he will NEVER apologize for what he’s doing now, and about to do when he goes further in the near future.

That’s why I say, one day, it could be me. It could be you.

It could be anyone whose constitutional rights are violated next, all because this administration may decide it wants to get rid of you.

This is the America we live in, folks! Enjoy your freedom while you can.