For so long, too long, our male leaders regularly practiced governmental idiocy, political mendacity, and your basic lying and thievery. They lied about their mistakes and made promises they knew they would never keep. Over the recent years, more and more evidence of their corruption and proof of the favors they accepted and doled out seeped up to the surface for us ordinary folks to see. This prompted the political pros who profited from the continuing need for advice, consultation, and, of course, spin to add the need to respond to damaging revelations to their playbook. So, too, the journalists charged with “objectively” explaining what had happened needed a way to put it into perspective for us. And so the saying was born: “It’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up.”
Which, when you think about it, was fundamentally a declaration of surrender: We were never going to stop them from committing their crimes, just maybe from covering them up. A permission slip to be as stupid and crooked as you need to be. Because, of course, we expect you to betray us and to make a mess of our world. But at least we are hoping you respect us enough not to pretend that you don’t know that what you are doing is not only immoral, it is illegal. And please don’t pretend you care about us. That, it seems, is asking too much of them.
Now I will admit, when it came to identifying those most likely to cheat, steal, and lie about it all, my inclination was to look first for the old white guy with decades of Senate service and several safety deposit boxes filled with campaign contributions. Or if not him, how about that young, shark-like, dark-haired white guy who either went to an Ivy League school or lied on his resume that he did or claimed he had been a Marine. Sadly, he used too much hair product and most often had a young blond wife for photo ops. His ambition had clearly gotten the better of him, and whatever patience he might have possessed a decade ago had left the building. He was no longer willing to wait his turn. Matt Gaetz-like, he desired the dough and needed the spotlight and yearned for the power. Not surprisingly, he had decided the time had come to throw those old guys to the curb.
But, my bad, I just wasn’t looking at the women.
In the interest of owning up to my mistakes, and belatedly handing out credit to those who deserve it, I say hats off to Donald John Trump, Mr. Make America Great Again, Again (MAGAA). He knows better than the rest of us that ignorance and even occasional thievery shouldn’t be disqualifying, So, yes, I am expecting any day now his executive order establishing the Office of Equal Opportunity Stupidity (OEOS). It is guaranteed to be an unprecedented act of political bravery and audacious transformation.
I am willing to bet that the OEOS public relations campaign will be led by the same folks who created and flooded the airwaves with those criminal caravans filled to the brim with the very worst dregs of brown-skinned depravity. How many Americans couldn’t help but see them in their nightmares, relentlessly pushing through a thousand Mexican miles, increasingly desperate to take over our border towns? Or lost sleep obsessed with those diabolical Haitian migrants dining on their neighbors’ cats? Are they clever or what? They probably won the election for him. And I certainly won’t be surprised if their hip new OEOS website doesn’t take advantage of what so many of us learned from Forrest Gump: “Stupid is as stupid does.” All with a Forrest Trump, MAGAA twist: “Stupidity by and for us all.”
So, yes, it s impossible to deny that one of the very great things Donald Trump’s second go-around as president has done is to empower those MAGAA women (mostly those he finds attractive) to be as stupid as the stupid men with whom he has surrounded himself. And it is increasingly clear that guys like Stephen Miller, J.D. Vance, Pete Hegseth, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are no slouches when it comes to stupid. I mean who really needs a bird flu vaccine when you have stopped counting cases and have curtailed medical research. But bless their hearts, these women are as willing as the men to lie about immigrants and deport them without due process and without hesitation. Women, thanks to Donald Trump, now flush with the power to bring a world of hurt to millions of innocents. So it is hard not to imagine that this determination to usher in a new world of equal opportunity stupidity will be remembered far longer than Trump’s efforts to prevent a handful of trans women from playing volleyball.
Now, there are many Truskmumpian women to point to, but how about we start with the ever-stylish Kristi Noem, our new head of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Secretary Noem is quite possibly the most photogenic head we have ever had protecting the homeland. As DHS proclaims above, she is dressed to defend. While below, as the photo shows, she clearly knows what time it is. Having courageously brought along her $60,000 gold Rolex Cosmograph Daytona, Noem unapologetically stands before the San Salvadoran Terrorism Confinement Center, the hellhole to which she has deported migrants, in violation of a court order.
While there, Noem delivered a stern message to other migrants in America and to those who still dream of journeying to the shining city on the hill. According to VINnews:
Noem, who also wore the watch during a meeting with Colombia’s foreign minister, warned undocumented migrants that criminal activity in the U.S. could land them in similar prisons. ‘If you do not leave, we will hunt you down, arrest you, and you could end up in this El Salvadoran prison,’ she declared.
She knows what she is talking about. Because “Hunt you down, arrest you, and you could end up in this El Salvadoran prison” is what she has already done to many migrants. Because of which, she is a party to a class action complaint and petition for writ of habeas corpus in a case first brought to the United States District Court in Washington, D.C., by a group of migrants held in an ICE detention center in Texas. They were about to be deported by Noem and DHS under Donald Trump’s proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798:
The suit alleges the following:
Plaintiff-Petitioner J.G.G., a Venezuelan national who is detained at El Valle Detention Center in Texas and who, upon information and belief, is at imminent risk of removal under the expected Proclamation. J.G.G. is seeking asylum, withholding of removal, and CAT protection because he fears being killed, arbitrarily imprisoned, beaten and tortured by Venezuelan police since they have done so previously to him. During an interview with ICE, he was detained because the officer erroneously suspected that J.G.G. was a Tren de Aragua member on account of his tattoos. J.G.G. is a professional tattoo artist, and his two tattoos, a rose and skull on his leg, which cover a monkey tattoo that he no longer liked, and an eye with a clock inside it, which a fellow tattoo artist applied as practice—neither are associated with Tren de Aragua. While he was awaiting a hearing on the merits of his applications for protection in Adelanto, California, J.G.G. was awakened at 2:00 am on March 6, 2025, and he was told that he was being released and that he had to sign documents that were available only in English to receive his property. J.G.G. then signed documents under false pretense. Instead of being released, J.G.G. was abruptly and without explanation transferred to El Valle Detention Center in Texas. While in El Valle, he was awakened at 3:00 am on March 14, 2025, and told without explanation that he was going to be transferred elsewhere. He was not transferred because the plane had malfunctioned. J.G.G. fears that he will be removed under the Proclamation because he has tattoos, despite not being involved whatsoever with Tren de Aragua and despite his ongoing asylum proceedings.
[Emphasis added.]
Counsel for the plaintiffs argue that the Alien Enemies Act has not been properly applied here:
The AEA does not authorize the removal of noncitizens from the United States absent a ‘declared war’ or a ‘perpetrated, attempted, or threatened’ ‘invasion or predatory incursion’ into the United States by a ‘foreign nation or government.’ See 50 U.S.C. § 21. The expected Proclamation on its face mandates Plaintiffs’ removal under the AEA where those preconditions have not been met.
On March 15, 2025, Judge James Boasberg issued two orders. The first stated: “1) Plaintiffs’ 3 Motion for TRO is GRANTED; 2) Defendants shall not remove any of the individual Plaintiffs from the United States for 14 days absent further Order of the Court.” The second granted a class consisting of “All noncitizens in U.S. custody who are subject to the March 15, 2025, Presidential Proclamation entitled ‘Invocation of the Alien Enemies Act Regarding the Invasion of The United States by Tren De Aragua’ and its implementation” is provisionally certified; 2) The Government is ENJOINED from removing members of such class (not otherwise subject to removal) pursuant to the Proclamation for 14 days or until further Order of the Court …”
Despite Judge Boasberg’s rulings, he wrote the next day in his Memorandum Opinion that the government nevertheless deported some of the plaintiffs:
The government appealed Boasberg’s decisions to the Supreme Court, and as The New York Times reports:
The Supreme Court ruled on Monday night that the Trump administration could continue to deport Venezuelan migrants using a wartime powers act for now, overturning a lower court that had put a temporary stop to the deportations. The decision marks a victory for the Trump administration, although the ruling did not address the constitutionality of using the Alien Enemies Act to send the migrants to a prison in El Salvador.
In addition:
All nine justices agreed that the Venezuelan migrants detained in the United States must receive advance notice and the opportunity to challenge their deportation before they could be removed. The justices ordered that the Venezuelan migrants must be told that they were subject to removal under the Alien Enemies Act ‘within a reasonable time’ for them to challenge their removal before they are deported. That finding could impose significant new restrictions on how the Trump administration might attempt to use the act in the future.
In response to the decision on jurisdiction, the plaintiffs immediately refiled their case in Texas. But Kristi Noem either mistook or mischaracterized a partial victory as a total vindication. The Washington Post writes:
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem celebrated the Supreme Court’s ruling in a social media post Monday evening. ‘President Trump was proven RIGHT once again! SCOTUS confirms our Commander-in-Chief Donald J. Trump has the power to stop the invasion of our country by terrorists using war time powers. LEAVE NOW or we will arrest you, lock you up and deport you,’ she wrote.
Noem posted the following on Facebook:
Today was a bad day to be a terrorist in the United States of America. Today the Supreme Court reaffirmed that President Trump was correct in using his authority using the Aliens Enemy Act to deport terrorists out of this country. Thank you President Trump for your leadership in making America safe again.
Noem misplaced this part of the decision:
Although judicial review under the AEA is limited, we have held that an individual subject to detention and removal under that statute is entitled to ‘judicial review’ as to ‘questions of interpretation and constitutionality’ of the Act as well as whether he or she ‘is in fact an alien enemy fourteen years of age or older.’ Ludecke, 335 U. S., at 163−164, 172, n. 17.
And this:
The Government expressly agrees that ‘TdA members subject to removal under the Alien Enemies Act get judicial review.’ Reply in Support of Application To Vacate 1. ‘It is well established that the Fifth Amendment entitles aliens to due process of law’ in the context of removal proceedings. Reno v. Flores, 507 U. S. 292, 306 (1993). So, the detainees are entitled to notice and opportunity to be heard ‘appropriate to the nature of the case.’ Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U. S. 306, 313 (1950). More specifically, in this context, AEA detainees must receive notice after the date of this order that they are subject to removal under the Act. The notice must be afforded within a reasonable time and in such a manner as will allow them to actually seek habeas relief in the proper venue before such removal occurs … today’s order and per curiam confirm that the detainees subject to removal orders under the AEA are entitled to notice and an opportunity to challenge their removal. The only question is which court will resolve that challenge. For the reasons set forth, we hold that venue lies in the district of confinement.
[Emphasis added.]
So there is another case that made it to the Supreme Court. Judge Paula Xinis, presiding in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, writes in her Memorandum Opinion in Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, et al., v. Kristi Noem:
…. On March 12, 2025, while driving home from work with his young son in the car, Abrego Garcia was stopped by ICE agents … The officers had no warrant for his arrest and no lawful basis to take him into custody; they told him only that his ‘status had changed.’ … He was first transported to an ICE facility in Baltimore, Maryland … Next, ICE agents shuttled him to detention facilities in Louisiana and La Villa, Texas… He was allowed a handful of calls to his wife. He said that he was told he would see a judge soon … But that never happened.
Three days later, on March 15, 2025, without any notice, legal process, or hearing, ICE forcibly transported Abrego Garcia to the Terrorism Confinement Center (‘CECOT’) in El Salvador, a notorious supermax prison known for widespread human rights violations.
[Emphasis added.]
And, most importantly, Judge Xinis notes:
The ‘evidence’ against Abrego Garcia consisted of nothing more than his Chicago Bulls hat and hoodie, and a vague, uncorroborated allegation from a confidential informant claiming he belonged to MS-13’s ‘Western’ clique in New York — a place he has never lived. ECF No. 31.
All of which prompted Judge Xinis to order the United States government and Kristi Noem to return Abrego Garcia from El Salvador to the United States:
The government first fired Erez Reuveni, the Department of Justice lawyer who told the truth when Judge Xinis asked if it was true that Abrego Garcia had a valid court order preventing removal and if it was then true he should never have been arrested by ICE. If it was true that he should never have been deported back to the place, El Salvador, where he was in danger of being killed. Then, Noem immediately appealed Judge Xinis’ decision to the Fourth Circuit. Noem emphasized that Abrego Garcia was a member of MS-13 when he lived in El Salvador and was a member living in the United States. Noem then insisted that because Garcia was now back in his home country of El Salvador, he was clearly beyond the reach of the United States government.
Most of all, Noem couldn’t resist attacking Judge Xinis’ decision:
Equal opportunity stupidity. Yes, Garcia was residing in a Salvadoran prison, but Kristi Noem had sent him there because the U.S. and El Salvador made a secret deal. Just Security reports:
In a declaration submitted to federal court, a longtime State Department official (and former senior lawyer within the Department) refers in passing to an ‘arrangement’ between the United States and El Salvador … Some of the terms of the arrangement, reported by the Associated Press, CNN, the New York Times, and the Washington Post include:
-
-
- El Salvador would receive up to 300 members of Tren de Aragua (or at least those the U.S. government alleged to belong to Tren de Aragua)
- The United States would pay El Salvador to imprison the rendered individuals, around $20,000 per detainee (proposed terms; not necessarily finalized)
- El Salvador would imprison the individuals for a year ‘or until a determination concerning their long-term disposition is …
-
[Emphasis added.]
Just Security notes:
The transfer of migrants from the United States to El Salvador and their subsequent imprisonment in CECOT has raised a host of domestic and international law problems. They include the invocation of the Alien Enemies Act (which a Trump-appointed judge in the Southern District of Texas recently found was indeed improperly invoked with respect to purported actions of Tren de Aragua), the absence of due process for those rendered, the constitutional prohibition on punishment without charge or trial, possible violation of U.S. non-refoulment obligations given the risk of abuse—including torture—at their destination, arbitrary detention, the reach of habeas corpus abroad and constructive custody, and enforced disappearance.
The New York Times add their take:
The Times writes:
As they addressed reporters inside the Oval Office in mid-April, President Trump and his Salvadoran counterpart appeared to be operating in lock step. The United States had just deported more than 200 migrants to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador, and President Nayib Bukele said his country was eager to take more. He scoffed at a question from a reporter about whether he would release one of the men who a federal judge said had been mistakenly deported …
As part of the agreement with the Trump administration, Mr. Bukele had agreed to house only what he called ‘convicted criminals’ in the prison. However, many of the Venezuelan men labeled gang members and terrorists by the U.S. government had not been tried in court.
Mr. Bukele wanted assurances from the United States that each of those locked up in the prison was members of Tren de Aragua, the transnational gang with roots in Venezuela, according to people familiar with the situation and documents obtained by The New York Times …
For months, aides to Mr. Trump had worked to engineer a new system to deport immigrants rapidly to Central and South America, with little to no oversight from the courts. The strategy hinged on using an 18th-century wartime law and treating the migrants like citizens of a country at war with the United States. But the application of the rarely used Alien Enemies Act appeared to be haphazard, pulling in migrants whose relatives insisted they were not gang members. Government officials hurried to assemble documents detailing who was sent to the prison and justify the deportations in court. The process was so messy that eight women were among those flown to be incarcerated in the Salvadoran prison, an all-male facility, and had to be swiftly returned.
Friends and families of the men locked up in El Salvador are now struggling to extract information about their fate. The White House is in a standoff with the federal courts over how it has applied the Alien Enemies Act, with the Supreme Court expected to weigh in soon, a potentially significant test of Mr. Trump’s attempts to expand his executive power …
Once more the United States Supreme Court was ruling on what Kristi Noem had done for her boss. In fact, her name was right there. And as she had before Judge Xinis, she lost before the Supreme Court:
The Supreme Court acknowledges Abrego Garcia was the subject of a court-mandated withholding order that forbade his being sent back to El Salvador. Which made the actions taken by Secretary Kristi Noem and her DHS “illegal.” Chief Justice John Roberts then adds:
The Court sent the case back to Judge Xinis to clarify her order to “effectuate” Abrego Garcia’s return given the powers reserved to the president. But they reaffirmed her order that DHS Secretary Noem “‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.” And the Court affirmed her demand that the government inform the Court what “steps it has taken and the prospect of future steps” to accomplish Abrego Garcia’s return.
It is a testament to equal opportunity stupidity that Kristi Noem either didn’t really understand what the Supreme Court was asking or chose to blatantly disregard their order. If Noem facilitated his return, she would once again facilitate his deportation:
“Stupidly,” wink-wink, Noem told CBS News:
the Trump administration is focused on ‘going after the worst of the worst and doing it the right way,’ … The Trump administration has sent hundreds of migrants accused of belonging to Venezuelan and Salvadoran gangs to the Salvadoran mega-prison, citing the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a law that allows deportations when the U.S. is facing an invasion. Documents reviewed by CBS News show many of them had no criminal records. Several judges have pushed back on the deportations, and the Supreme Court ruled earlier this month any migrants who are removed under the Alien Enemies Act must get a chance to ask courts to review their cases …
One area where the government has admitted an error is in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who was sent to a prison in El Salvador — the country he’d left more than a decade ago. An immigration judge previously ruled it was unsafe for him to return there. His family denies the government’s assertion that he is a member of a gang, and the Supreme Court said the administration needs to facilitate his return and handle the case properly.
When asked what she had done to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return, she said she is following the president’s direction along with that of ‘his legal scholars and attorneys.’
‘[Abrego Garcia] is not under our control. He is an El Salvador citizen. He is home there in his country. If he were to be brought back to the United States of America, we would immediately deport him again,’ Noem said.
[Emphasis added.]
I, for one, unabashedly admire her unwavering commitment to be as stupid as her male counterparts. A woman with less moxie might have studied up on some of the key issues facing her efforts to deport as many migrants as possible without complying with court orders—and the Supreme Court’s recent request—to respect and provide due process. But Noem marched into congressional oversight hearings with her stupid flag flying.
As The Washington Post reports:
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem appeared not to know what a key constitutional principle was Tuesday when being questioned about her department’s mass deportations of migrants at a Senate hearing … Noem says the constitutional provision that allows people to legally challenge their detention by the government is actually a tool the Trump administration can use in its broader crackdown at the U.S.-Mexico border. She called habeas corpus ‘a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country and suspend their rights.’
Here is a transcript of her responses to questions posed by Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire:
Senator Maggie Hassan (NH): The White House Deputy Chief of Staff recently said that the Trump Administration is actively looking at suspending habeas corpus. Last week you were asked about this and I want to clarify your position because it’s obviously important to get this right. So Secretary Noem, what is habeas corpus?
Kristi Noem: Well habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the President … has to be able to remove people from this country .. and suspend their right to—
Senator Hassan: No, let me stop you ma’am, habeas corpus—excuse me, that’s incorrect—
Kristi Noem: President Lincoln used it—
Senator Hassan: Excuse me … Habeas corpus is the legal principle that requires that the government provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people. If not for that protection the government could simply arrest people, including American citizens and hold them indefinitely for no reason. Habeas corpus is the foundational right that separates free societies like America from police states, like North Korea.
I am quite sure Noem won’t spoil things by reading what the Constitution actually says, but you ought to take a glance at it before it, too, vanishes like government support for diversity, equity, and inclusion.
As you can see, there is great incentive to hallucinate that the very different, very personal decisions of those who travel great distances to secure a better life for themselves and their children is really one vast invasion and war on America. And clearly, in this case, when you are defying the courts and ignoring the Constitution, it really helps to be stupid. Luckily, in Truskmumpia, there is Equal Opportunity Stupidity.
