FASCISM GOES MASK OFF, AND EVEN JAMES CARVILLE KNOWS THAT JAMES CARVILLE IS WRONG

The rule of law in America has been on life support for weeks, but it's dead now.

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said Monday that he does not plan to return a Maryland man whom the Trump administration mistakenly deported to his country....

“How can I return him to the United States?” Bukele said in an Oval Office meeting with President Donald Trump, responding to a reporter’s question. “I smuggle him into the United States? Of course I’m not going to do it. The question is preposterous. How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States?”

Please note that the Trump regime and Bukele are getting away with this in part because they continually assert that Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a gangster, a "terrorist," or, as the Department of Homeland Security puts it, a "terrorist gang member." (One of the corrosive things the regime has done to language is to conflate gang membership and terrorism, as if they're the same thing. The Trumpers do this only because they believe it doubles the fear factor in the reptile portion of their listeners' brains, not because they believe gang members are terrorists.)

Abrego Garcia has never been charged with a crime in America. An informant has claimed that he was attached to a branch of the MS-13 gang in New York, where he's never lived, but the claim has never had a full hearing in court, and it depends largely on the fact that Abrego Garcia wore Chicago Bulls clothing. Members of the Trump regime now say he's a terrifyingly evil person, but they previously asserted that his deportation was an "administrative error."

The Supreme Court and a lower court have ordered the Trump regime to take steps to get Abrego Garcia back, but after the administration insisted that the president had no leverage over the client state of El Salvador, Trump humiliated the courts by showing the world what BFFs he and El Salvador's president are.

Friends 🇺🇸🤝🏼🇸🇻 pic.twitter.com/tMJHMf7pT4

— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) April 14, 2025

Message: You know how I said I couldn't demand that Bukele return this prisoner? Fuck you -- I could! We're best buds! But I won't! What are you going to do about it?

And:

President Donald Trump on Monday suggested his administration could send U.S. citizens who commit violent crimes to El Salvador, telling Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele that the "homegrowns are next" and urging him to build more prisons to house them.

Trump brought up the idea ‒ which he's discussed previously ‒ to Bukele in the Oval Office before reporters entered the room for a bilateral meeting. The exchange was captured in a livestream video published on the X account of Bukele's office.

"Homegrown criminals are next," Trump said to Bukele. "I said homegrowns are next, the homegrowns. You've got to build about five more places."

Trump is no longer threatening to torch the Constitution. He's done it. The whole thing is ashes now.

We're left to speculate on what horror comes next:

Maybe the first citizen to be renditioned will be this guy:

An Albuquerque man was arrested on Monday in connection with the fire bombings of the Republican Party of New Mexico’s headquarters in March and a Tesla dealership in February, attacks that the federal authorities have designated as “domestic terrorism.”

The suspect, Jamison Wagner, 40, had parked his white Hyundai sedan at both locations before the arson attacks and then drove away, according to security and traffic camera images released by the Justice Department.

That would be the first step in criminalizing dissent. Or maybe they'll pick a peaceful protester -- perhaps someone who marched and chanted at a Tesla dealership but did nothing unlawful. That would be a quick way of saying that no regime opponent is safe.

I know -- I'm doom-spiraling, and that's bad. Some people are fighting back -- Maryland senator Chris Van Hollen plans to travel to El Salvador this week to seek Abrego Garcia's release. Stuart Stevens, the former Republican strategist, is proposing a way for Democrats in the states to push back:

"What do you do with criminals? You arrest them," Stevens said. "So this is criminal activity."

He then added, "And I think the state attorney generals in these states where this is occurring should treat it like what it is. It's kidnaping. It's human trafficking. They should file charges and arrest the people that are involved with this."

I hope this happens. Abrego Garcia was arrested in Maryland. Rumeysa Ozturk was arrested in Massachusetts. Mahmoud Khalil was arrested in New York. Mohsen Mahdawi was just arrested in Vermont. Will there be a time when blue states will criminalize arrests that lead to lawless detentions? Might states eventually try to block flights that take detainees out of their jurisdiction and into lawless red America, Guantanamo, or El Salvador?

I'm glad Van Hollen is taking a stand. I'm glad Stevens is speaking out. But there should be more than a few small acts of resistance. There should have been massive spontaneous demonstrations yesterday. There should be huge banner headlines in the press -- as I type this, yesterday's developments aren't even the lead story at the websites of The New York Times or The Washington Post.

*****

While Trump and Bukele were meeting, the Times was promoting a James Carville op-ed that was obsolete almost immediately after publication. Carville no longer believes that Democrats should do nothing to oppose Trump and the Republicans, but he argues in the op-ed that they should talk exclusively about the economy -- and it's all Democrats' fault that his earlier genius plan didn't work:

In February I wrote a piece calling on my party’s leaders to play dead, allowing the Republicans to punch themselves out and crumble beneath their own weight. But many Democrats indulged Mr. Trump’s lunacy or allowed themselves to become the story over the government funding and shutdown debate, while the president continued his campaign of chaos and distraction. Now, Democrats have an opportunity to allow the Republicans to edge closer to collapse as the party in full control of Washington — let’s please not become the story again and get in their way.

Carville goes on to recommend some reasonable steps for Democrats: Talk about persistently high prices and cratering 401(k)s, talk about the local economic impact of Trumponomics. The problem is, otherwise timid Democrats like Chuck Schumer have been talking about these things, and disapproval of Trump on the economy and inflation now exceeds approval by double digits. But Trump's overall approval rating is still only a couple of points lower than his disapproval rating. The economy clearly isn't the only issue on voters' minds.

But Carville's op-ed says that Democrats should pay no attention to other issues:

This can only be done if we avoid the distractions — whether it’s Mr. Trump’s third-term talk or Democratic infighting on social issues — and instead focus on the economic foundations that matter to Americans most.

However, within hours of the op-ed's publication, Carville was conceding that other issues matter.

Last night, he was interviewed by CNN's John Berman.



For the first several minutes of the interview, Carville rehashed the op-ed's arguments. Then Berman asked about the Bukele meeting -- and Carville admitted that it's not always the economy, stupid:

CARVILLE: So let me get this straight. This guy was here legally. There are a lot of people here that -- illegal that really contribute to our workforce, our productivity. He was doing nothing wrong. He was in a parking lot.

He had a child -- child's in the backseat. He was sent to El Salvador. The district court said he has to come back. The appeals court said he had to come back. The Supreme Court said he had to come back....

And so the administration said, we're just not going to bring him back.

Well, that is the very essence of a constitutional crisis.

No shit, James.

... this is -- this is not something that's a minor thing, where you just ignore a court order.

And this tinhorn coming in here in the White House and them refusing to pay attention to a legitimate order issued by American courts, this is not going to end well, unless somebody gets this guy back in this country where he belongs. And he's done nothing to be in a -- in a prison anywhere. And it's a -- it's a real shame.

But is it a "distraction," James? Should Democrats ignore it? Berman asks Carville about this as if it's just a matter of political posturing, and Carville, to his credit, says it's serious:

BERMAN: ... do you think the administration would rather have that fight than more focus on tariffs and wild swings in the markets?

CARVILLE: Well, you know, sometimes you got to -- you got to fight on two fronts. And you can fight on an economic front, but also this is such an egregious trespass of justice that you just can't say, well, we'll just repair to the higher ground and talk about egg prices and forget about this guy, well, I'm not for that.

I don't -- I think what's happened here is a -- is really offense against the nation. It's offense against the Constitution. It's offense against order. You just can't let this go.

I'm sorry, it might not be the most politically productive thing in the world, but sometimes you got to just get a backbone and take a stand.

Thank you, James. Thank you for admitting that it's wrong to ignore every non-economic aspect of this regime. Now I wish you'd go all the way and admit that your entire approach to this question is wrong and that Democrats need to treat this as a five-alarm fire for America as a free country.