thestuckylibrary:

fenrislorsrai:

broadlybrazen:

this is what so many of you sound like. the notion that you’re somehow wrong to immediately stop illegal shit through courts, because No Reason But Seems Bad, is the kind of exhausting unanswerable stupidity that’s going to make the next 4 years very fucking long.

anyway, a quick summary:

• “what are Dems doing to stop his illegal orders?!” Stopping them in court because they’re blatantly illegal. (Biden’s dead EOs took more time to kill even with hostile courts, because they involved competent legal arguments. This current shit is both terrible and terribly incompetent.)
• “what are Dems doing to stop his technically legal but fucking insane decisions?!” Roasting him, informing the public, starting fights. (No, they cannot stop it if something actually is within his power. And yes, this also happened with Biden: for example, he still cancelled billions in student debt through other procedural means after his EO died. This tactic was obviously more limited in scope but it still got a LOT done, MAGA pitched ten thousand tantrums, it was a whole thing. Power mattered then; power matters now. Power always fucking matters.)

I’ll give an example of a specific response. Did not come out the same day as The Nonsense, but if you want to do something enforceable, robust, and that answers most of the “but what about…?” questions, you generally don’t turn it around in a few hours.

Here’s specific guidance from the democratic governor of Connecticut (Ned Lamont) through the Department of Education to K-12 schools of “what do I do about ICE showing up?”

I’m just gonna copy paste a big chunk because, hey, you should steal this for your school or workplace!

Guidance to K-12 Public Schools Pertaining to Immigration Activities

* Request and record immigration agents’ identification, including their name, badge or ID number, telephone number and business card.
* Designate a school official(s) as the point person for requests and visits by agents.
* Direct immigration agents who request access to records, information, non-public areas of a school, or a member of the school community to the designated school official.
* Ask an agent if they have a judicial warrant to support their request and, if so, to produce such warrant.
* Review any warrant or other materials produced carefully to determine what it authorizes the agent to do and who issued it. Note that immigration agents may have “administrative
warrants” or orders that are not court orders issued by a United States district judge or magistrate and may not authorize agents to access materials or enter areas where access is restricted to the public.
* Consult with district legal counsel or guidance provided by legal counsel on how to proceed depending on:
– the nature of a request;
– whether a warrant is produced;
– the details of a warrant;
– the judicial or administrative nature of any such warrant;
– whether an immigration agent claims exigent circumstances; – and any other considerations identified by legal counsel.
* Maintain a calm and cooperative manner to avoid: 1) escalating the situation; 2) increasing anxiety among the staff and students; or 3) being perceived as obstructing or interfering with any lawful activities.
* Record details regarding the visit, any access the agents gained to information, records, areas, or individuals, whether that access was granted and, if so, who granted such access.

The rest of the document is largely about what specific laws apply and addressing student and family concerns about rumors and social media postings. It suggests adding additional mental health staff as well as “we will follow up with more specific guidance soon”.

Is this a BORING response? Yes. But that is largely what government should be. Boring. We’re experiencing *exciting* government and it sucks!!!! So a boring, measured response with detailed directions of how you engage with this nonsense so as to NOT panic students and shield this from this as much as you can, that is a proper response.

Boring responses don’t make the news, but they’re often the ones that are actually DURABLE. Its all cool politician showing up and grandstanding briefly, but giving the secretary at the school all the tool to go “that’s sure nice, but you have the wrong form… go away” is a lot more effective. Because its gonna be a long haul

Also if you want Democrats to have more power than vote for them.