Lotus and Gavel

Great work, Jon.

Please be paranoid. The need for it in this historical moment is well established. We thank you for it.

The willingness of courts and the media to defer to the accuracy of whatever law enforcement says has to end in the Trump era if we have any chance of resisting the slide into full blown authoritarianism.

In short, Bowe is about whether the judiciary will keep its own hands on the levers of justice or allow Congress to weld them shut. This case sits right on the frontier between democratic accountability and authoritarian legalism. Oral arguments take place tomorrow, October 14th. We'll be listening.

The legal doctrine in Bowe might seem narrow, but the principle radiates outward. If the courts cannot reopen cases when the law changes or new evidence emerges, the state's errors (or abuses) become permanent, one of the defining features of authoritarian systems.

If Bowe is wrongly decided, a federal appellate panel could make an unreviewable mistake that bars a possibly innocent person from ever being heard again. The judiciary would be ceding part of its oversight role. Judicial passivity would be further normalized, a feature of authoritarian legalism.

Habeas corpus is one of the oldest protections of individual liberty against arbitrary detention. It means that no one, not even the government, can imprison someone indefinitely without allowing a court to review the legality of that imprisonment. Authoritarians despise it and want to weaken it.

Tomorrow, SCOTUS hears oral arguments for Bowe v. United States. The case asks whether federal courts, including the Supreme Court itself, can hear certain repeat post-conviction challenges by federal prisoners, or whether Congress has shut the door entirely after the first try.

From @scotusblog.com: federal district judges, traditionally a very reserved gang, did not hold back their views on SCOTUS's use of the Shadow Docket. SCOTUS is using it to usher in sweeping changes to American governance, handing Trump win after win with no written opinion to guide lower courts.

With respect, I think that's a far too simplistic way of looking at it. Start with the fact that this Court is enthusiastically limiting itself and the rest of the federal judiciary to act as a check on executive authority, and knows they are doing it. It gets darker from there.

My response was "absolute bullshit" but funny to see we had such a similar response. It's bullshit and she knows it's bullshit, which is pretty dark shit.

They have done all they can do, which is is to testify via dissents with all the rhetorical fury they can muster. But I'll never fully forgive them for not dissenting when the Court held Trump wasn't prohibited from running again by the 14th Amendment's "insurrection clause."

SCOTUS is completely on board with severely limiting the judiciary's role in checking and balancing the executive branch. SCOTUS isn't plugging leaks in the dam, it's pulling out the bricks of the dam a big chunk at a time, all while whistling Yankee Doodle Dandy and shrugging when asked why.

They stopped pretending the Constitution's actual language matters long ago.

Absolute bullshit, and she knows it. So why lie? Why pretend like the Supreme Court has no idea how to craft an opinion explicitly limited in scope? Answer: because it is replacing democracy with authoritarianism via decisions that cannot be explained any other way.

This is extremely courageous civil disobedience at a time when they are looking to drop the legal hammer and make an example of anyone engaging in it. Whoever this man is, he is a hero of the highest order.

A defining reason for our descent into full blown authoritarianism will be the lower courts doing their job only to be kneecapped by appellate courts over and over again. I see little reason for hope that the judicial system will ultimately play any role at all if democracy prevails.

We see this now in the form of deportation quotas. Trump demands a certain number of deportations per day. Justice, compassion, etc. are irrelevant. Wear masks. Kidnap brown people at gunpoint. Fly them off to foreign concentration camps. Whatever it takes to fulfill the bureaucratic quota.

My favorite part of this other than Stephanopoulos cutting him off and dismissing him like an insufferable child is Vance saying "you're talking with the Vice President of the United States...." Prime example of someone demanding respect instead of earning it.

Vance v. ABC News for $10 billion incoming. You pay the bully once, it only emboldens him to keep coming back for more, and that includes copycat bullies like Vance. The most astounding aspect of Trump 2.0 is how many institutions have quickly paid up, defiling themselves for all of history.

The truth is he is not dumb. It cannot be blamed on ignorance. It's all performance based and calculated toward self-interest. You can call him an evil narcissist, a Machiavellian, a fascist. But you cannot accurately call him dumb.

In summary:

* Renault represents corrupt bureaucracy.
* Strasser embodies law as whatever power decrees.
* Rick embodies the recovery of justice through moral conscience.

Renault tossing his Vichy bottle in the trash is a tiny moral revolution, the first spark of law as conscience, not coercion.

5. Casablanca is highly relevant in 2025.

The rule of law is again under stress globally. Casablanca suggests the defense of justice often starts not in institutions but in individuals who act on conscience when law has gone astray. When law serves tyranny, disobedience becomes fidelity to justice.

4. The letters of transit symbolize the perversion of justice under authoritarianism.

The letters reduce freedom to the whims of power. Rick's use of them to free Laszlo and Ilsa reclaims the concept of "right" from the machinery of power. Moral, not legal, order is restored. Justice as conscience.

3. What is "justice" in a lawless world?

When formal justice collapses, moral justice must come from individuals. Rick's transformation is the story of justice rediscovered without institutions. Arendt would call it the reclaiming of moral responsibility in the face of "the banality of evil."

2. Casablanca is a laboratory for authoritarianism.

The Nazis exert control not only by force but by bureaucratic procedures. Freedom depends on paperwork and the favor of petty officials. As Hannah Arendt observed, authoritarian systems reduce human beings to administrative problems.

Casablanca (1942) - what does it tell us about law, justice, and authoritarianism?

1. Law in Casablanca is not justice.

Vichy law governs. Renault enforces it selectively, as a tool of self-interest and survival. What do people owe to laws when those laws no longer serve moral ends?

"plenary authority" which is what he said right before freezing up on camera for a bizarre amount of time (last week). They are trying to creep up as close to full blown authoritarianism as possible before making the final big leap for it. Soon.

I can only read this in Stephen Miller's voice. I can only see this in Stephen Miller's face. Disturbing. Very disturbing.

9(!) taxpayer-funded attorneys working on this filing for us taxpayers and they somehow manage to file it like this. Hell of a ship AG Bondi is running over there at DOJ.