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Seventh Circuit Panel Allows Trump To Assault Chicago Residents

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On November 6 District Court Judge Sara Ellis issued a preliminary injunction barring the federal government from attacking Chicago residents engaged in lawful protests.  Judge Ellis also  certified a class for this litigation. It consists of

All persons who are or will in the future non-violently
demonstrate, protest, observe, document, or record at Department of Homeland Security immigration enforcement.

The defendants sought a stay pending appeal. On November 19, a panel consisting of Michael Brennan, Frank Easterbrook, and Michael Scudder complied, freeing Trump’s goons to attack us without restraint.

The facts of the case are well known. Masked thugs are caught on camera shoving protesters to the ground and zip-tying them, shooting people with pepper balls, teargassing kids, holding people for hours without charges, and much much more. The evidence is set out in a detailed and very long Opinion and Order entered by Judge Ellis on November 20.

The legal standards for issuance of a preliminary injunction are also well known, at least they used to be before John Roberts and the Fash Five held that Donald Trump cannot be held accountable for breaking the law or violating the Constitution in Trump v. US and then drastically slashed the power of the judiciary to restrain law-breakingl in Trump v. CASA.

The Seventh Circuit Rationale

The panel says that the defendants are likely to succeed on the merits.

A. The order is overbroad

1. The Injunction binds the named defendants, their lawyers and people acting in concert with the defendants. Too broad?

That’s simply absurd. Of course the order binds the defendants and those acting for or in concert with them. They were duly served. They engaged in motion practice, participated in discovery, and appeared at the hearing. They had a full opportunity to be heard. They were found to have violated the constitutional rights of the class members. Perhaps in the future, these three can explain exactly why defendants shouldn’t be enjoined from breaking the law.

2. The panel coplains that the Injunction requires “… the enjoined parties to submit for judicial review all current and future internal guidance, policies, and directives regarding efforts to implement the order….”

No it doesn’t. Here’s the relevant section:

6. It is further ORDERED that Defendants shall issue guidance to officers and agents to implement this Order. Defendants shall file with this Court such guidance and any directives, policies, or regulations implementing the guidance within 5 business days of issuance of the Order, with a continuing obligation to immediately file with this Court any subsequent changes or revisions to that guidance or implementing directives, policies, or regulations through the period of this Order.

This doesn’t call for judicial review. It prevents the defendants from hiding their non-compliance from the attorneys for the class members.

3. The order is too “prescriptive”. “For example, it enumerates and proscribes the use of scores of riot control weapons and other devices in a way that resembles a federal regulation.”

Apparently the panel didn’t realize the extent of the duplicity of the defendants and their lawyers who routinely claim innocence because an order is not precise. For example, the head of the Customs and Border Patrol, Greg Bovino, wrangled with Judge Ellis in open court about the number and location of identifying marks on the costumes of his agents.

Or perhaps the panel thinks one or more of the identified weapons is just fine. Here’s a short list of some of them from §1,c if the Injunction:

… kinetic impact projectiles (KIPs), Compressed Air Launchers (e.g., PLS and FN303), Oleoresin Capsicum (OC) Spray, CS gas, CN gas, or other chemical irritants, 40 mm Munitions Launchers, less-lethal shotguns, Less-Lethal Specialty Impact-Chemical Munitions (LLSI-CM), Controlled Noise and Light Distraction Devices (CNLDDs), Electronic Control Weapons (ECWs)

B. Standing

The panel says the class members have no reason to fear imminent future harm. They should just wait around and see if any federal agents beat them senseless or tear gas their eighborhood. The panel says they know from media accounts that Bovino and his goon squad are gone, so why worry? Perhaps they missed the media reports of violations of the Injunction by defendants within a week of issuance.

Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are accused of firing pepper balls at moving vehicles, deploying tear gas and flash bangs in Little Village [a heavily Hispanic neighborhood] and exposing a 1-year-old and her family to chemical munitions as they traveled to a local warehouse store {they shot chemical weapons through the window of the care with the child in the back seat.].

But sure, this insane suggestion is warranted.

C. Irreparable harm to defendants.

The panel quotes this obscene sentence from Trump v. CASA: “Any time that the Government is enjoined by a court from effectuating statutes enacted by representatives of its people, it suffers a form of irreparable injury.” Does this authorize Trump’s goons to violate people’s Constitutional rights as long as they claim to be enforcing a statute? Apparently these judges think if Trump claims to be enforcing the law, it’s a terrible harm to, I don’t know, maybe government agents,  if they can’t violate our constitutional rights.

D. But maybe they’ll issue their own order

The panel assures us that maybe some day they’ll read the record and think up their own order. They ignore the massive effort put in by Judge Ellis and her staff (special shout-out to her clerks and office staff for the clear and coherent opinions and orders, since the panel just dismissed all of their work.)

I know I speak for the toddlers and families in Little Village, Belmont-Cragin, Albany Park and the rest of my beautiful city when I say how grateful we are for their willingness to at least consider protecting us from chemical attack.

The Bigger Picture

Now Bovino and his goon squad have moved on to Charlotte, Raleigh-Durham, Chapel Hill, and other Democratic cities in North Carolina. They’re using the same tactics. One of the incidents in this story is a Kavanaugh Stop: “… an agent smashed in the window of a US citizen’s truck and the man, who is Hispanic, was temporarily detained.” This is a clear example of the indifference of the judiciary to individual Constitutional rights under the rules set by John Roberts and the other anti-democratic members of SCOTUS.

The only rights the SCOTUS majority will protect are those of the Imperial President.

 

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Update: I had a suspicion that the panel just typed up a couple of sentences from the defendant’s’ motion. Here’s a link to the 24 page motion and a very long appendix. The brief is signed by Brett Shumate and Yaakov Roth, among others, from DoJ. These guys think they are free to assault my neighbors with no restraints. The ugly tone of this motion is, to my perhaps prejudiced eye, mirrored by the ugly tone of the panel.

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No Kings Rally After Action Report

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I went to the No Kings Rally at the Daley Plaza in downtown Chicago today, with friends and family. The weather was pleasant, temperatures in the upper 60s and hazy, turning mostly sunny. My younger grandchild lasted nearly an hour, in large part because a kind person handed him a red, white, and blue pinwheel. Most of our party left at this point, except my daughter.

We couldn’t hear the speeches, the chanting was too loud. Eventually the crowd started marching. Apparently a large part went north several blocks to the Chicago River where they saluted the Trump Tower with shouts and hand signals. They eventually turned down Michigan Avenue.

We went with another enormous group headed south for several blocks before turning back towards the Lake and then north. At this point, I was slowing down, and my daughter saved me from myself. We walked to Michigan Avenue, where we saw the lead marchers moving south. So we ate lunch outdoors and watched for 40 minutes as the group moved south, chanting and whooping.

When we finished lunch they were going strong, so we went back to the march and did another eight blocks before it petered out. The Red Line was jammed to the doors. As we exited the station, a guy asked if the march was peaceful. It sure was. Huge and peaceful.

Shout-out to the police, who did a good job of coping with what I think was a much larger crowd than they or the organizers expected. Another shout-out to all the people inconvenienced by the enormous crowd, many whom honked and shouted their support, and not one of whom offered suggestions about my life choices.

Lots of great signs. One I liked: No Kings Only Prince with a photo of the musical genius. Another great thing, after we got back, we watched Trump morosely watching his wretched parade in wretched weather.

What did you see and do? Any memorable signs?

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Photo by Artemisia

 

 

 

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Cardinal Cody, Cardinal Bernardin, and Pope Leo XIV

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Pope Leo XIV

As a pastor, I and my clergy colleagues are shaped by a wide variety of forces, not the least of which is the situation in the world and the church at the time we attended seminary and were ordained for service in the church. As I look at all the news about the newly elected Pope Leo XIV, I can’t help but see how he was shaped by his early life in his tumultuous hometown of Chicago . . .

When the now-Pope Leo XIV was but Robert Prevost, a young Catholic boy, there were two major forces in his native Chicago. One was the legendary Richard J. Daley, the authoritarian Irish-Catholic mayor who ruled the city from the day Prevost was born until Daley’s death 21 years later. The other was Cardinal John Cody, the equally authoritarian ruler of the Archdiocese of Chicago from 1965 to 1982. When Cody was transferred from New Orleans to Chicago, stories were told that the local New Orleans priests sang the classic hymn Te Deum in celebration.

While the Second Vatican Council tried to push the Roman Catholic church into a more collegial mode of operation, Cody was among those who dug in their heels. It didn’t help matters that Cody was at the center of a double scandal – over a million dollars had disappeared from the church’s books, and his cousin/mistress/aunt’s step-daughter (the exact relationship varied depending on who you asked) Helen Dolan Wilson. She had followed him to his post in New Orleans, then to Chicago, receiving various small positions arranged by Cody and living in circumstances well beyond her seemingly meager financial resources. The Chicago Sun-Times published a blockbuster set of articles about Cody in late 1981, which included the revelation that the US attorney was investigating Cody and the Archdiocese. Cody fought it by delay and deflection, and succeeded insofar as he died the next year without having been formally indicted, and the investigation died with him.

Cody’s successor as Archbishop was Joseph Bernardin, who could not have been more unlike Cody. Where Cody was aloof, Bernardin was personable. Where Cody was autocratic, Bernardin was collegial. Where Cody pronounced, Bernardin discussed. Where Cody’s world was centered on the Catholic church, Bernardin was anxious to engage his ecumenical colleagues, as seen in 1989, when Lutherans and Roman Catholics in Chicago signed a groundbreaking covenant.

On May 13, 1989, the Metropolitan Chicago Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church and the Archdiocese of Chicago entered a historic covenant, the nation’s first such accord. The churches were brought together by their respective bishops at the time – Cardinal Joseph Bernardin and Bishop Sherman G. Hicks – to cooperate in ministry, to promote dialogue and collaboration on issues of faith and mutual concern, both theological and pastoral, and to deepen the unity existing between the two churches.

As a child, any Prevost family discussions about the church would have been filled with stories of Cardinal Cody. As a newly-ordained priest and member of the Augustinian order, Bernardin would have been equally prominent in family conversations. Even though Prevost would by this time have begun his ministry elsewhere, moving between Peru, Rome, and Chicago, it is hard to imagine that the epic contrast between Cody and Bernardin would not be part of his own self-understanding of what it means to be a priest.

Looking at the biography of the new pope posted by the Vatican News Service, it’s easy to see which model of ministry young Father Prevost chose to embody for himself. Four and a half years ago, Steven Millies, the head of the Bernardin Center, wrote an opinion piece in the National Catholic Reporter on the 25th anniversary of Bernardin’s death. Reading it today, it certainly appears to me that Bernardin was one to whom Prevost looked at with admiration:

In Bernardin, Catholics had a leader who anticipated the style and ministry of Pope Francis in his openness to dialogue and his efforts to engage the world in constructive conversations. But Bernardin’s final years also anticipated the sort of opposition Francis has faced, especially among American Catholics.

The seeds of our divisions, as Catholics and Americans, were being watered in 1996. As those seeds have blossomed and propagated in 2021, we can look back on Bernardin to understand what has happened and how things might be different.

Bernardin was the Roman Catholic archbishop of Chicago from 1982 until his death, but his importance stretched far beyond Chicago. No bishop in the U.S. could be associated more with the church’s efforts after Vatican II to engage and embrace the modern world as St. John XXIII had hoped when he called the council.

The title of Millies’ piece was “If we’d listened to Cardinal Bernardin, the Catholic Church would not be where it is today.” If the church at large had not listened to Bernardin, it is clear that the young boy, then young priest, and now Pope Leo listened to him.

And as the saying goes, a new pope may have to take the church as it is, but he doesn’t have to leave it that way — which may have been why Francis chose Prevost to head the Vatican office charged with recommending who should be named a bishop and which bishops should serve in which places. Francis had more than a few run-ins with bishops like Cody during his tenure (the name Raymond Burke comes quickly to mind), and had no desire to elevate folks who would follow Cody’s example. Francis chose Prevost to be the church’s servant in helping select its leadership for precisely this reason.

And when the cardinals in the conclave were looking for someone to lead the Roman Catholic church at its highest level, they appear to have confirmed Francis’ judgement. The church, they seemed to have said, needs more servant-leaders like Bernardin and Francis, and fewer autocrats like Cody and Burke.

As Francis might have put it, in Prevost, the cardinals selected a shepherd who smells like the sheep.

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Chicago Style Trash Talk

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Well, now that the little Le’Affaire du Patraeus thing is over (just kidding, Pete Hoekstra promises more to come!), we can now get back to the important stuff: Trash Talk. This edition is served up Chicago Style because no city has had a better week. The reelection effort for hometown guy Obama, run out of Chicago by Axelrod and Plouffe came up roses and Obama gave his acceptance speech there.

But, even bigger and badder are Da Bears. Man, they are on a roll that is not getting enough attention in the football universe. The Bears are 7-1 on the year and just demolished the Titans last week. Urlacher is solid as usual and Charles Tillman is the second coming of Revis Island in their D-backfield. Who knows, he may schiz out at any time, but Jay Cutler and the offense are really clicking. Matt Forte and Brandon Marshall are a big part of that. Together, it is a team that is just flat out scary right now.

Which is a good thing, because the other current league powerhouse, the Houston Texans are coming for a Sunday Night throwdown. This is far and away the game of the week, and it will tell us a lot about both teams as they start the second half of the regular schedule.

Some other random thoughts: Don’t look now, but with Thursday’s win over the hapless Jags, the Colts and Andrew Luck are 6-3. The Vikes and Kittehs game should be interesting; similar records, but moving in opposite directions as teams. The Lions are starting to settle in and the Vikes are unraveling slightly as of late after a surprising start. Cowboys at Iggles is another interesting game between two desperate teams, both of which Read more →

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