It’s been a few days since I’ve posted. With track and field season winding up, I’ve been busy officiating and coaching. But that’s all over, and I’m back behind the keyboard, with lots to say!!!
Bodyguards
It’s good to have bodyguards. They can alter the political situation. With a nod, a flick of the wrist, the guards can “whisk away” any annoying situation. Henry the II of England grew tired of his Archbishop, Thomas á Becket. He simply had to mutter, “Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?” Henry’s knights, his “bodyguards”, proceeded to murder the Archbishop.
It’s especially good if those guards, like Henry’s knights, operate under the “color” of authority. In other words, they have badges, Federal badges: FBI, DHS, ICE, CPB, US Marshal, Secret Service and the “mysterious” HSI. At least, that’s what the “badges” around Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had yesterday.
Noem didn’t get rid of a priest. Instead, her bodyguards “roughed up” a United States Senator, one of the one-hundred elected by the American people to serve in the legislature for six years. He was manhandled, bum-rushed out of the room, then driven to the floor and handcuffed. The senior Senator from California, Alex Padilla, was quite literally thrown out of a Noem press conference, and temporarily placed “in custody”.
What did the Senator do that was so wrong? He was “meddlesome”. He asked a question.
Press Conference
So, let’s set the scene. Secretary Noem held a press conference. That today is a “term of art”, it really isn’t the question/response that we normally would think of when we hear “press conference”. Noem wanted to “announce” to the press the number of “heinous” criminals that ICE arrested in their “shock and awe” immigrant roundups. She didn’t want to answer questions, she wanted to make her point: the immigrants rounded up at Home Depot, and the garment factory were “bad”.
And she added, that the she wanted to “free” Los Angeles from their duly elected government:
“We are not going away. We are staying here to liberate this city from the socialist and burdensome leadership that this Governor Newsom and this mayor placed on this country and what they have tried to insert into this city,”(NBC4).
Padilla was in the same building, awaiting a briefing on the Federal actions. Afterall, he is a United States Senator from California, and has an obligation to perform “oversight duties” for Federal acts in his state. And, he heard about the press “briefing”. So, he decided to go see what the Secretary had to say.
After listening for a bit, the Senator asked a question. And that’s when the bum-rush began.
Terror Campaign
At first response, Noem claimed that they didn’t realize it was the Senator. She said he was trying to “lunge towards the stage” in a room that didn’t have a stage. I’m certainly not impressed with the intelligence of the current regime at Homeland Security. But, I find it highly doubtful that they weren’t aware that the senior US Senator from California was in the room. In fact, I expect they were FULLY aware that Padilla was there. Even more, I am willing to bet that the decision to “remove” Padilla was made at a political level far above the Secretary.
Ultimately, I’m sure someone was on the phone to the White House, asking what they should do with Padilla. And those political “animals” in the West Wing, like Stephen Miller, decided to make him an example. It didn’t hurt that Padilla is not only a Democrat, but also a Hispanic man. He matched all of the qualifications for the Miller “terror campaign”.
As the Senator himself said afterwards, if they can do this to him, what can they do to the waiter or the cook or the gardener they arrest at Home Depot, or at their kid’s school, or when they come in for a Court hearing? If a United States Senator (heard clearly identifying himself) can be roughed up, what happens to an undocumented worker?
No Kings
We already know the answer to that. Not only might they be roughed up, held incommunicado; they might find themselves on a plane to a foreign land, incarcerated in a foreign prison; stripped, shaved, and shelved away for life. It’s not just a possibility, it’s happening now. And, just like with the Senator, there is no “due process”, no “rights”. President Trump wants to be “…rid of the meddlesome migrants”, regardless of the law or the Constitution. In fact, the quicker, the better, so that the Courts won’t be able to intervene.
Henry the II of England was a fighter. He consolidated rule over England and Wales and parts of France. He was unfettered by rules; he was the absolute sovereign over his domain. In fact, the first “crack” in the absolute rule of English sovereigns didn’t take place until the next generation, when Henry’s son John was on the throne and signed the Magna Carta, giving some power to the other English “lords”.
Donald Trump is not “Donald the First” of the United States. As the President, not the king, he is sworn to “faithfully execute the office of President, and preserve, protect and defend the Constitution…”. That’s different than getting rid of “meddlesome” critics. But it was what Trump wants: to liberate the United States from the ‘burdensome leadership’ that happens to disagree with him.
And what happens if you resist? Ask Alex Padilla.
