Dear Progressive Reader,

Robert Reich took the unusual move this past week of putting out a second edition of his weekly Substack newsletter. “Sorry to intrude on your inboxes for a second time today, but it’s necessary,” Reich wrote. He was referring to the moves by the Trump Administration to both ignore and vilify the order of a federal judge requesting a temporary halt to the use of a 1798 law for the extrajudicial deportation of alleged gang members to prisons in a foreign nation. “I don’t care what the judges think,” Tom Homan, President Donald Trump’s “border czar” had announced. But, as Reich notes, “In our system, judges don’t just ‘think.’ They have the final say, unless their rulings are appealed to the Supreme Court, in which case the high court’s majority has the final final say.”

The term “Constitutional crisis” has been very much in the news of late. No one seems to be able to say exactly what the phrase implies or when we will know we are in one. NPR’s Ron Elving perhaps offered the best definition this morning when he said, “the phrase refers to a conflict between Constitutional powers that has no clear resolution in the Constitution itself.” But the Constitution is actually pretty clear about the role of the judicial branch, noting, “The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution.” Trump seemed to view things differently when he said in a social media post on Friday, “These Judges want to assume the Powers of the Presidency, without having to attain 80 Million Votes.”

If an elected official refuses to comply with a court ruling, the Brennan Center points out, several options are available—a court can fine the official, it can issue even more strict orders, or it can use the United States Marshalls Service (a division of the Department of Justice) to enforce the order. In the late 1950s, President Eisenhower sent federal troops to enforce the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on school desegregation when Southern governors failed to comply. But these last two options have certainly never been used against a sitting President.

As the pundits continue to debate the use of the term “crisis,” it seems we are rapidly advancing into unknown territory. March 5, 1933, was the last democratic election held in Germany before the end of World War II, and on March 23 (ninety-two years ago tomorrow), Adolf Hitler promised a German parliament (in a hall lined with brown-shirted bullies), “The government will make use of these powers only insofar as they are essential for carrying out vitally necessary measures.” Trump seemed to echo this statement in January when he told reporters in the Oval Office, while signing an Executive Order declaring an energy emergency: “You know what that allows you to do? That means you can do whatever you have to do to get out of that problem. And we do have that kind of an emergency.”

This week on our website, S. Baum chronicles the case of detained former Columbia University student and Green Card holder Mahmoud Khalil; and Michelle Chen looks back at the long dark history of the use of deportation, or threat of deportation, to quash First Amendment protected speech. Plus, Ed Rampell reviews a new book on the policing of speech in Hollywood during the Cold War; and Robert McCoy examines the recent changes made to the “opinion” page of The Washington Post by billionaire owner Jeff Bezos. Also, John Gibler reports from Virginia on efforts to prepare and protect immigrants in anticipation of raids by ICE; Eleanor Bader speaks with author Soyoung Park about her new book on the education rights of students with disabilities; physician Brooke Redmond pens an op-ed on “Trump’s recent executive orders targeting medical research and other national and global health initiatives [that] imperil all children, regardless of their medical needs;” Mara Kronenfeld, executive director of UNRWA USA National Committee, opines on the need to continue (or increase) funding for Palestinian refugees; and Rashon Venable writes from inside a New York State prison on the importance of funding prison education programs.

Last month, on February 4, the U.S. Mint issued the most recent in its series of commemorative quarters. As the National Museum of African American History and Culture currently describes on its website, “Ida B. Wells was a pioneering investigative journalist, suffragist, civil rights activist, and a founding member of the NAACP. She used her powerful voice to speak out against lynching and other forms of violence against Black individuals, bravely exposing the truth at a time when doing so was perilous.” The February 4 release date is also notable in U.S. civil rights history as it marked the 112th anniversary of the birth of activist Rosa Parks whom the National Women’s History Museum quotes as saying, “People always say that I didn’t give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn’t true. I was not tired physically . . . the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.” These are the stories of our collective, progressive history that must be chronicled, honored, and preserved, even as the Trump Administration moves to delete all references to Black, LGBTQ+, Native American people from its websites, along with the stories of women and people with disabilities. These histories are an essential component of who we are as Americans, in all of our diversity. They cannot be erased.

Please keep reading, and we will keep bringing you important articles on these and other issues of our time.

Sincerely,

Norman Stockwell
Publisher

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