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jd vance
Pope Calls Trump's Mass Deportation Plan 'Major Crisis'
The pontiff also rejected Vice President JD Vance's attempt to use a Catholic tenet to serve the administration's anti-migrant agenda.
Feb 11, 2025
Pope Francis on Tuesday reaffirmed his condemnation of U.S. President Donald Trump's anti-migrant agenda and explicitly rebuked what critics have called Vice President JD Vance's misinterpretation of Catholic theology in an attempt to justify the Republican administration's mass deportation plan.
In a letter to U.S. bishops, the pontiff wrote: "I have followed closely the major crisis that is taking place in the United States with the initiation of a program of mass deportations. The rightly formed conscience cannot fail to make a critical judgment and express its disagreement with any measure that tacitly or explicitly identifies the illegal status of some migrants with criminality.
What is built on the basis of force, and not on the truth about the equal dignity of every human being, begins badly and will end badly.
The Pope acknowledged "the right of a nation to defend itself and keep communities safe from those who have committed violent or serious crimes while in the country or prior to arrival," but also asserted that "the act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious deterioration of the environment, damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness."
The Pope continued:
This is not a minor issue: An authentic rule of law is verified precisely in the dignified treatment that all people deserve, especially the poorest and most marginalized. The true common good is promoted when society and government, with creativity and strict respect for the rights of all—as I have affirmed on numerous occasions—welcomes, protects, promotes, and integrates the most fragile, unprotected, and vulnerable. This does not impede the development of a policy that regulates orderly and legal migration. However, this development cannot come about through the privilege of some and the sacrifice of others. What is built on the basis of force, and not on the truth about the equal dignity of every human being, begins badly and will end badly.
While not explicitly naming him, the Pope's letter refutes remarks by Vance, who last month invoked the medieval Catholic concept of ordo amoris—which posits a ranking of affection with the deity figures God and Jesus at the highest level, followed by self, family, friends, and others—to show that Christians should love citizens more than migrants.
"Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups," the missive states. "In other words: The human person is not a mere individual, relatively expansive, with some philanthropic feelings! The human person is a subject with dignity who, through the constitutive relationship with all, especially with the poorest, can gradually mature in his identity and vocation."
"The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the Good Samaritan... that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception," the pontiff said.
Imagine you're just some 30-something guy who converts to one of the world's major religions and in less than a decade its spiritual leader is rebuking you in front of the entire world That's how big a loser JD Vance is apnews.com/article/pope...
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— Will Bunch ( @willbunch.bsky.social) February 11, 2025 at 8:21 AM
"I exhort all the faithful of the Catholic Church, and all men and women of goodwill, not to give in to narratives that discriminate against and cause unnecessary suffering to our migrant and refugee brothers and sisters," the Pope added. "With charity and clarity we are all called to live in solidarity and fraternity, to build bridges that bring us ever closer together, to avoid walls of ignominy, and to learn to give our lives as Jesus Christ gave his for the salvation of all."
Pope Francis is a longtime champion of migrant rights. The 88-year-old Argentinian criticized Trump's so-called "zero-tolerance" immigration policies, including family separation and construction of a wall along portions of the Mexican border, during the Republican's first term in office.
"Builders of walls, be they made of razor wire or bricks, will end up becoming prisoners of the walls they build," the Pope said in 2019.
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Constitutional Crisis Intensifies as Lawless Trump Ignores Federal Court Orders
"We are in the midst of a constitutional crisis right now," said one legal expert. "We never have seen anything like this."
Feb 11, 2025
The Trump administration's defiance of court orders that threaten to hamper the president and unelected billionaire Elon Musk's assault on federal agencies and basic rights has legal experts and other observers warning of a perilous new phase in the United States' rolling constitutional crisis.
On Monday, the Revolving Door Project (RDP) launched an effort to track the Trump administration's refusal to comply with orders from the federal judiciary and detail the impact that obstinance is having across the country.
The watchdog group pointed to several specific examples, including the Environmental Protection Agency's refusal to "disperse already-awarded grants funded by the Inflation Reduction Act, in apparent defiance of" federal judges' orders against the Trump administration's sweeping funding freeze.
"NOTHING is more important than civil society pressuring judges to have a spine in the face of Musk and Trump's intransigence," Jeff Hauser, RDP's executive director, wrote on social media late Monday. "Judicial orders must be enforced!"
Journalists Judd Legum and Noel Sims highlighted another example on Tuesday, noting that the administration is "prohibiting National Institutes of Health (NIH) staff from issuing virtually all grant funding" despite two federal court injunctions against the freeze.
David Super, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, told Legum and Sims that the Trump administration is "in contempt of court," calling the continued freeze on NIH grants "completely unlawful."
"The administration cannot choose which law it will follow or ignore. These are not partisan or political issues. These are rule of law and process issues. We cannot afford to remain silent."
Super is among a growing number of legal experts sounding the alarm about the nation's descent into a full-blown constitutional emergency.
"We are in the midst of a constitutional crisis right now," Erwin Chemerinsky, a constitutional law expert and dean of the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, toldThe New York Times late last week. "There have been so many unconstitutional and illegal actions in the first 18 days of the Trump presidency. We never have seen anything like this."
"Systematic unconstitutional and illegal acts create a constitutional crisis," Chemerinsky added.
Both President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance have levied criticism at the federal judiciary in recent days as it has put up roadblocks that have hindered the new administration's ability to lawlessly impose its will.
"Certain activists and highly political judges want us to slow down, or stop," Trump wrote in a social media post early Tuesday, just days after Musk floated allowing "elected bodies" to terminate "the worst 1% of appointed judges."
Federal courts have proven a significant obstacle to the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency( DOGE), whose efforts to take over critical systems and seize highly sensitive data have sparked high-stakes legal battles.
In a statement on Monday, American Bar Association (ABA) president William Bay noted that "in the last 21 days, more than a dozen lawsuits have been filed alleging that the administration's actions violate the rule of law and are contrary to the Constitution or laws of the United States."
"The administration cannot choose which law it will follow or ignore," said Bay. "These are not partisan or political issues. These are rule of law and process issues. We cannot afford to remain silent. We must stand up for the values we hold dear. The ABA will do its part and act to protect the rule of law."
"We urge every attorney to join us and insist that our government, a government of the people, follow the law," he added. "It is part of the oath we took when we became lawyers. Whatever your political party or your views, change must be made in the right way. Americans expect no less."
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Trump, Vance, and Musk Have Ushered Us Into Madison’s ‘Very Definition of Tyranny’
American democracy and government—after 240 years—is finally on the verge of collapsing and being replaced by something very much like Vladimir Putin’s Russia or Viktor Orbán’s Hungary.
Feb 10, 2025
So, U.S. Vice President JD Vance is now saying that he and President Donald Trump don’t have to obey federal judges, tweeting, “judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.” This is how autocrats run things; it’s an extraordinarily dangerous moment.
It was Tuesday, July 17, 1787, and the men writing the Constitution had convened in Philadelphia to debate the separation of powers between the Congress, the presidency, and the courts. They drew their inspiration for that day from French philosopher Charles de Montesquieu, whose 1748 book The Spirit of the Laws had taken the New World and the Framers of the Constitution by storm.
In it, Montesquieu pointed out the absolute necessity of having three relatively coequal branches of government, each with separate authorities, to prevent any one branch from seizing too much power and ending a nation’s democracy. In The Spirit of Laws, he laid it out unambiguously:
When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty… Again, there is no liberty, if the judiciary power be not separated from the legislative and executive.
As the topic of the separation of powers was being debated at the Constitutional Convention that day 29 years after Montesquieu’s book had been published, “Father of the Constitution” James Madison rose to address the delegates:
If it be essential to the preservation of liberty that the legislative, executive, and judiciary powers be separate, it is essential to a maintenance of the separation, that they should be independent of each other...
In like manner, a dependence of the executive [president] on the legislature would render it the executor as well as the maker of laws; and then, according to the observation of Montesquieu, tyrannical laws may be made that they may be executed in a tyrannical manner.
He [Montesquieu] conceived it to be absolutely necessary to a well-constituted-republic, that the two first should be kept distinct and independent of each other… for guarding against a dangerous union of the legislative and executive departments.
If the president were ever to dictate all terms to the Congress, which then became a compliant rubber stamp regardless of how excessive or even illegal the president’s actions became, that, Madison said, “may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”
We’re there now.
In simplified form, the system Madison and his compatriots came up with that summer gave the power to create and fund government agencies (including the federal court system) to Congress (Article I), the first among equals.
The responsibility of the president was to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed” (Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution); in other words, to manage the institutions of government envisioned, authorized, and funded by Congress.
And the role of the Article III Courts was to make sure neither overstepped their authority, and independently arbitrate disputes between them. Their decisions must be final for the system to work.
This is more correctly defined as a war against America and our system of government than mere politics.
However, as a result of a 44-year-long effort by morbidly rich American oligarchs to corrupt our government to their own gain (the so-called Reagan Revolution, President George W. Bush, Trump, 1,500 radio stations, three television networks, multiple newspapers and other publications, over 200 television stations, hundreds of billions spent to purchase and then elect politicians), all of this American democracy and government—after 240 years—is finally on the verge of collapsing and being replaced by something very much like Vladimir Putin’s Russia or Viktor Orbán’s Hungary.
The GOP-controlled Congress has, in both houses, become a pathetic rubber stamp for whatever billionaires, Trump, Elon Musk, and industries like fossil fuels, crypto and tech, and banks want.
The president is nakedly breaking laws and daring both Congress and the courts to do anything about it.
And now JD Vance claims Trump can do whatever he wants and ignore the courts. (Only federal marshals can enforce federal court orders, but they work for Attorney-General Pam Bondi and Donald Trump.)
That is the very definition of a constitutional crisis.
And Republicans on the Supreme Court facilitated the entire corrupt deal by legalizing political bribery in 2010 with their billionaire-funded Citizens United decision.
As a result, every Republican and most Democrats are terrified of Elon Musk or some other billionaire destroying them in the next primary election. The result has been legislative gridlock, a paralysis of the legislative branch.
Going a step farther, Trump has authorized a drug-abusing, Putin-conversing, government-contracting billionaire—his single largest donor who probably was responsible for him becoming president—to access the private information of every American citizen and corporation, dismantle entire agencies created and funded by Congress, and stop multiple investigations into his own business practices.
This is more correctly defined as a war against America and our system of government than mere politics.
A war that must be absolutely delighting America’s enemies, particularly Russia’s Putin and China’s Xi Jinping. Especially now that Musk is calling for the shutdown of the Voice of America that both Putin and Xi hate as much as they both hated USAID.
But it even goes beyond that. Trump and Musk are rapidly moving America—with their attacks on the press, voting, and truth itself—toward the kind of authoritarian police state that several of the men Trump appears to love have established.
Further defying the Constitution, Trump has empowered the richest man in the world to attack and possibly destroy multiple federal agencies that were, just coincidentally of course, investigating his businesses:
- The Federal Aviation Administration’s administrator had launched an investigation into SpaceX after a spectacular rocket explosion; he’s now been fired.
- The Department of Justice was looking into possible violations of securities and other laws by Musk and Tesla; it’s probably safe to assume that investigation won’t go any farther.
- The USAID inspector general was investigating how Musk's SpaceX Starlink satellite terminals, purchased with USAID funds, were used in Ukraine’s war to defend itself from Russia.
- The Department of Defense’s inspector general opened a review in 2024 into alleged repeated failures by Musk and SpaceX to properly disclose their contact with foreign leaders; he’s now fired.
- The U.S. Department of Agriculture inspector general's office was investigating alleged animal abuse at Neuralink, Musk’s brain implant company; he’s been fired.
- The National Transportation Safety Board, overseen by the Department of Transportation, had several open probes into Tesla regarding its remote and self-driving vehicles; odds are they’ll be dropped if they haven’t been already.
- The Environmental Protection Agency had settled multiple lawsuits with Tesla in recent years over Clean Air Act and hazardous waste law violations; now that the EPA is being gutted there probably won’t be any more.
- The National Labor Relations Board, overseen by the Department of Labor, had 17 open investigations against Tesla and SpaceX for alleged unfair labor practices, safety violations, and discriminatory work practices that are probably now moot.
- The Federal Communications Commission was carrying out investigations and had issued court orders related to Musk’s businesses.
- The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was overseeing some of Musk’s companies and had a consent decree in place.
- Additionally, the Air Force and the Pentagon’s Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security launched reviews in November 2024 regarding Musk and SpaceX’s compliance with federal reporting requirements.
Musk’s $277 million investment to get Trump elected—legalized by five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court—has, so far, paid off well.
Welcome to Madison’s “very definition of tyranny.”
Now that Republicans control Congress and have surrendered their authority to Trump, the last bulwark against the president converting himself into the sort of monarch we fought the Revolutionary War against is the Supreme Court, which will probably begin weighing in over the next few weeks.
And, in the face of this, the vice president is arguing that he and the president should feel free to ignore court orders.
This attack on our republic represents the most dangerous moment America has experienced since the Civil War.
Neither the Supreme Court nor Congress are entirely capable of ignoring public opinion: It’s vital we all reach out to our elected officials (particularly Republicans) to demand they reclaim their rightful role in our republic and speak out against this illegal, unconstitutional power grab.
It’s also crucial to make our opinions known in every way and every venue possible.
If America is to retain any fidelity whatsoever to our Constitution that was written and survived more than two centuries’ investment of blood and treasure, it’s time to raise absolute holy hell.
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