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#expandedpowers

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Is #Trump planning to declare #MartialLaw on April 20? The frightening claim, explored

Story by Charlotte Simmons, March 14, 2025

"First, the essentials. Martial law is the term for when civilian government and legal processes (such as mayoral jurisdiction and police officers, respectively) are overtaken by state military, so as to make demands on behalf of the nation’s leader, and then enforce those demands with their wealth of resources. Typically, martial law is invoked in dangerous situations, such as natural disasters or major #CivilUnrest.

"This is different from the United States’ #InsurrectionAct, wherein those civilian enterprises are not replaced by military personnel and resources, but supplemented by them. More importantly, the official nature of the Insurrection Act allows the #POTUS to deploy the military domestically during emergencies, as the #PosseComitatus Act of 1878 prohibits the use of the military against American civilians. In short, the Insurrection Act can waive the rules of the Posse Comitatus Act to create a sort of #MiniMartialLaw. Remember this.

"Recently, fears have been rising over whether or not the United States could enter martial law on April 20 under Donald Trump. But why then? What is it about April 20 that holds significance? When Trump first took office back on January 20, he signed an executive order declaring a state of emergency at the United States’ southern border, requiring the secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security to submit a report about what the 'situation' is at said border, together with recommended actions for 'resolving' said 'situation.' This report needed to be submitted within 90 days.

"When this order was signed, Trump also declared that 'A #NationalEmergency exists at the southern border of the United States…I hereby declare that this national emergency requires use of the Armed Forces…' This, directly references the potential execution of the Insurrection Act.

"The Secretary of Defense? #PeteHegseth. The Secretary of #HomelandSecurity? #KristiNoem. Two of Donald Trump’s most prominent yes-men. And guess how many days January 20 and April 20 are apart? Ninety.

"So, essentially, on April 20, there’s a not-insignificant chance that those two aforementioned Trump yes-men are going to tell Trump whether or not he should deploy the military in the southern United States so as to crack down on immigration. Except, as we saw with the case of #MahmoudKhalil — a recent #ColumbiaUniversity graduate who played a major role in that student body’s recent #ProPalestinain campus occupations — it doesn’t matter if you have a green card or if you haven’t committed any crimes; under this presidency, #ICE will illegally detain you if they think you’re troublesome to the vision of #TrumpsAmerica. They’re trying to deport Khalil for speaking out against #genocide as we speak. This is a direct, wholly #unconstitutional attack on #FreeSpeech.

"And here’s why that distinction between the Insurrection Act and martial law was so important earlier. On April 20, Trump will constitutionally — through the Insurrection Act — be allowed to deploy the military against #AmericanCivilians, and his government has already demonstrated that legal American civilians who have not committed any crimes are at risk for detention and deportation. It’s not technically martial law, but this #Trumpian cocktail is just as bad, if not worse.

"#Khalil’s detention — again, occurring in response to his speaking out against the #genocide of #Palestinian people — was made on the grounds of Trump’s executive order prohibiting #AntiSemitism. How long before more executive orders (none of them made in good faith, let’s be clear on that) just so happen to limit more ways of speaking, acting, and thinking? A scary thought, and a horrifyingly pertinent one."

msn.com/en-us/news/world/is-tr
#USPol #Authoritarianism #Fascism #Crackdown #CriminalizingDissent #NDAA #ExpandedPowers
#USPresidency #NationalEmergency #Terrorists #Activists #USPol #BorderEmergency #Gitmo #IllegalDetention #IndefiniteDetentionClause #IndefiniteDetention

www.msn.comMSN
Continued thread

#ACLU: President #Obama Signs #IndefiniteDetentionBill Into Law

December 31, 2011

WASHINGTON – "President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (#NDAA) into law today. The statute contains a sweeping worldwide indefinite detention provision. While President Obama issued a signing statement saying he had 'serious reservations' about the provisions, the statement only applies to how his administration would use the authorities granted by the NDAA, and would not affect how the law is interpreted by subsequent administrations. The White House had threatened to veto an earlier version of the NDAA, but reversed course shortly before Congress voted on the final bill.

"'President Obama's action today is a blight on his legacy because he will forever be known as the president who signed indefinite detention without charge or trial into law,' said Anthony D. Romero, ACLU executive director. 'The statute is particularly dangerous because it has no temporal or geographic limitations, and can be used by this and FUTURE PRESIDENTS to militarily #detain people captured far from any battlefield. The ACLU will fight worldwide detention authority wherever we can, be it in court, in Congress, or internationally.'

"Under the #BushAdministration, similar claims of worldwide detention authority were used to hold even a U.S. citizen detained on U.S. soil in military custody, and many in Congress now assert that the NDAA should be used in the same way again. The ACLU believes that any military detention of #AmericanCitizens or others within the United States is unconstitutional and illegal, including under the NDAA. In addition, the breadth of the NDAA’s detention authority violates international law because it is not limited to people captured in the context of an actual armed conflict as required by the laws of war.

"'We are incredibly disappointed that President Obama signed this new law even though his administration had already claimed overly broad detention authority in court,' said Romero. “Any hope that the Obama administration would roll back the constitutional excesses of George Bush in the #WarOnTerror was extinguished today. Thankfully, we have three branches of government, and the final word belongs to the Supreme Court, which has yet to rule on the scope of detention authority. But Congress and the president also have a role to play in cleaning up the mess they have created because no American citizen or anyone else should live in fear of this or any future president misusing the NDAA’s detention authority.'"

aclu.org/press-releases/presid

#NDAA #ExpandedPowers
#USPresidency #HR9495 #Terrorists #Activists #Trump

American Civil Liberties UnionPresident Obama Signs Indefinite Detention Bill Into Law | American Civil Liberties UnionFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE...
Continued thread

From 2019:

What the President Could Do If He Declares a #StateOfEmergency
From seizing control of the #internet to declaring #MartialLaw, President #Trump may legally do all kinds of extraordinary things.

by Elizabeth Goitein | January/February 2019

"It would be nice to think that America is protected from the worst excesses of Trump’s impulses by its democratic laws and institutions. After all, Trump can do only so much without bumping up against the limits set by the Constitution and Congress and enforced by the courts. Those who see Trump as a threat to democracy comfort themselves with the belief that these limits will hold him in check.
But will they? Unknown to most Americans, a parallel legal regime allows the president to sidestep many of the constraints that normally apply.

"The moment the president declares a 'national emergency' — a decision that is entirely within his discretion — more than 100 special provisions become available to him. While many of these tee up reasonable responses to genuine emergencies, some appear dangerously suited to a leader bent on amassing or retaining power. For instance, the president can, with the flick of his pen, activate laws allowing him to shut down many kinds of electronic communications inside the United States or freeze Americans’ bank accounts. Other powers are available even without a declaration of emergency, including laws that allow the president to #DeployTroops inside the country to subdue #DomesticUnrest.

"This edifice of extraordinary powers has historically rested on the assumption that the president will act in the country’s best interest when using them. With a handful of noteworthy exceptions, this assumption has held up. But what if a president, backed into a corner and facing electoral defeat or impeachment, were to declare an emergency for the sake of holding on to power? In that scenario, our laws and institutions might not save us from a presidential power grab. They might be what takes us down."

Read more:
archive.li/hyWR6#selection-174

#NDAA
#ExpandedPowers
#USPresidency
#NationalEmergency #Fascism #CharacteristicsOfFascism

So, back in 2016, I posted a cartoon on the bird shite site that involved Trump thanking Obama for all the sweeping powers he now had because Obama had instituted those powers thinking that there was no way the White House would fall into non-Democratic Party hands. I can dig up the articles (and the cartoon) to back up these claims -- and I probably will, considering Trump will again have all those expanded powers and then some... There is shit that can be put into place if a "National Emergency" is declared, and it's not pretty. But again, it was all under Obama's watch... (Though the groundwork was established before Obama.)