#judge jon tigar

[minnesotafollower]

Biden Administration’s New Restrictions on U.S. Asylum Law Being Challenged in Federal Courts 

This year has seen many developments regarding the Biden Administration’s attempts to cope with the large numbers of migrants illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. Here is a review of some of those developments. Biden’s New Asylum Regulation[1] On February 21, the Biden Administration announced a proposed rule that would  require rapid deportation of an immigrant at the U.S. border who had…

[beardedmrbean]

The California woman suing Subway for claiming its tuna products contain ingredients other than tuna wants to end her lawsuit because she is pregnant, prompting Subway to demand her lawyers be sanctioned for bringing a frivolous case.

Nilima Amin said her "severe" morning sickness and "debilitating" conditions as she prepares for a third child have left her "unable to proceed with the obligations as plaintiff," and require her to focus on her health and family.

Amin wants to dismiss the case in San Francisco federal court without prejudice, which would let her sue again when she feels better.

In a May 4 filing, Subway said Amin's excuse flunked the "straight-face" test, and her lawyers likely realized it would not "simply pay the windfall settlement that they hoped to get by constructing a high-profile shakedown."

Subway also said the "media frenzy" from the lawsuit caused severe harm, and faulted Amin's "ever-changing" theories to debunk its claim that its tuna sandwiches, salads and wraps contained "100% tuna."

The chain wants Amin's proposed class action dismissed, and her seven lawyers to pay at least $618,000 of its legal bills.

Amin's lawyers did not immediately respond on Monday to requests for comment.

The plaintiff claimed to have ordered Subway tuna products more than 100 times before suing in January 2021.

She accused Subway of using other fish species, chicken, pork and cattle in its tuna products, or no tuna at all.

Last July, U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar in San Francisco let Amin's case continue but rejected her claim that "reasonable consumers" would expect only tuna and nothing else, calling it a "fact of life" that ingredients such as mayonnaise were okay.

Subway has nearly 37,000 restaurants in more than 100 countries.

The case is Amin v Subway Restaurants Inc et al, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 21-00498.

[h1p3rn0v4]

Microsoft, GitHub y OpenAI habían pedido al juez que desestimara la demanda en enero, pero esa solicitud fue denegada. Sin embargo, el juez ha sostenido la mayoría de sus mociones a lo largo del tiempo, reduciendo el número de reclamaciones que quedaron en pie de 22 a dos .

[maryturck]

Immigration News: August 4, 2023

On July 25, U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar overturned the Biden administration asylum ban, which restricted asylum applications by anyone crossing the border without authorization and limited authorization to applicants using the glitchy CBP One app.  On August 3, The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 ruling, said that the Biden administration asylum bar will remain in effect while the…

[uinterview]

U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar blocked a rule that allows immigration authorities to deny asylum to migrants who arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border without applying online or seeking protection in another country first. Follow @uinterview for the latest exclusive celebrity videos & news!

[newsakd]

[ad_1] Here is a look at immigration-related news from around the U.S. this week. Questions? Tips? Comments? Email ImmigrationUnit@voanews.com. Federal Judge Blocks Biden’s Asylum Policy; What Now? A federal judge has blocked the Biden administration's asylum rule for migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. In his Tuesday ruling, U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar in Oakland, California, deemed the rules unlawful, saying they imposed conditions on asylum-seekers that Congress hadn't intended. The ruling is temporarily on hold to give the government time to appeal. VOA's Aline Barros reports. US on Track to Issue Most Student Visas Since 2016 U.S. State Department officials and a recent report by ApplyBoard, a Canadian international student recruitment platform, indicate the United States is set to issue the most student visas in a year since fiscal 2016. The tally of visas issued in fiscal 2023 has passed 392,000 to date. In fiscal 2016, 471,728 F1 visas were issued. VOA's Aline Barros reports. Biden Administration Sues Texas Over Floating Barrier Meant to Stop Migrants The Justice Department on Monday sued Texas Governor Greg Abbott over a newly installed floating barrier on the Rio Grande that is the Republican's latest tactic to try to stop migrants from crossing into the U.S. from Mexico. The Associated Press reports. Afghan Relocation Flights Paused, Activists Call for Resumption Relocation flights from Afghanistan carrying Special Immigrant Visa applicants to U.S. immigration processing centers in Qatar and other countries have been suspended for more than one month, and it's unclear when they will resume. VOA'S Akmal Dawi reports. Around the world College in Kenya Helps Refugees Learn Languages Many refugees living in Nairobi speak neither English nor Swahili, the two most common tongues in Kenya. This language barrier poses a challenge as they try to integrate into society. VOA's Hubbah Abdi reports. WFP Halves Food Assistance for Refugees in Malawi The World Food Program in Malawi says a funding shortfall has forced it to cut by one-half food rations for more than 50,000 people at the country's only refugee camp. The food cuts come at a time when refugees at the Dzaleka camp are complaining of inadequate food assistance, a situation that has forced some of the refugees to voluntarily return home. Lameck Masina reports for VOA. Activists Want Egypt to Ease Entry for Refugees from Sudan Conflict With Sudan’s conflict now at the 100-day mark, advocacy groups are calling on Sudan’s neighbor Egypt to ease entry requirements for refugees, saying displaced Sudanese face a dire situation. Meanwhile, the U.N. International Children’s Emergency Fund said Monday that it has received credible reports that at least 435 Sudanese children have been killed and at least 2,025 have been injured in the past 100 days. VOA’s Nike Ching reports. Italian Conference May Stanch Migrant Flow to Europe With African Aid Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni called Sunday for new, more equal relationships between Europe and migrants’ countries of origin and transit as she convened a summit of about 20 nations, EU officials and international organizations aimed at stanching flows of illegal migration. The Associated Press reports. In Brief — The U.S. Department of Homeland Security released data from January to June pertaining to parole processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans. [ad_2] Source link

[shahananasrin-blog]

[ad_1] The Biden Administration was dealt a blow on Tuesday when a federal judge blocked a new rule that allowed immigration authorities to deny asylum to migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border if they did not first apply online or seeking protection in a country they passed through.U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar of the Northern District of California delayed his ruling from taking effect for 14 days to give the administration time to appeal. United States border, El Paso, TX (Kelly Laco/Fox News Digital)CLICK TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPThe rule was set in place after the expiration of the coronavirus-based restrictions known as Title 42 in May.This is a developing story; check back for updates. [ad_2]

[dragoni]

Chuck Grassley’s comeback line is defending why America should be ruled by Oligarchs #KochBrothers  #SheldonAdelson  #MercerFamily #WaltonFamily ... #SacklerFamily makers of #OxyContin profiting from the #OpioidCrisis

The Greed Over People party loves SuperPac’s; rich anonymous donors contributing unlimited amounts of money to their campaigns. Republicans winning. Democracy losing. #DarkMoney

In his 2010 State of the Union address, then-President Obama criticized the Supreme Court's ruling on campaign advertising.

"With all due deference to separation of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our elections," Obama said.

"I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people, and I’d urge Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps correct some of these problems,", President Obama

Fewer than 400 families were responsible for almost half the money raised in the 2016 presidential campaign.

Save Democracy: End Citizens United. A Corporation is not a Person.

[sarcasticcynic]

Under the federal Immigration and Nationality Act:

“Any alien who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States (whether or not at a designated port of arrival...), irrespective of such alien’s status, may apply for asylum...” (8 U.S.C. § 1158(a)(11).)

Trump--who maintains his belief that he is above the law--issued a proclamation on November 9 purporting to deny asylum to anyone arriving in the United States by crossing the southern border “not at a designated port of arrival.” Unsurprisingly, the proclamation promptly went straight into federal court; equally unsurprisingly, Trump lost:

“Whatever the scope of the President’s authority, he may not rewrite the immigration laws to impose a condition that Congress has expressly forbidden.”

Trump tried to get around the federal law by arguing that his proclamation still technically allowed aliens to “apply” for asylum, as the law mandates, and merely guaranteed that those applications would always be denied. The court flatly rejected this absurd argument, and found Trump’s proclamation unconstitutional on its face.

Trump responded as he inevitably does to his innumerable unfavorable judicial decisions: by vowing to appeal, and denouncing the supposedly “activist” judge (who, like all federal judges, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate):

“This was an Obama judge, and I’ll tell you what, it’s not going to happen like this anymore. ... it’s a disgrace, we’re going to put in a major complaint.”

And then Chief Justice John Roberts--a Republican-appointed conservative--issued a Thanksgiving message that, while not mentioning Trump by name, clearly rebuked Trump’s unfounded criticism of the judiciary:

“We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges. What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them. That independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.”

[politiciandirect]

White House Slams Local Judges' Claimed Right to Issue National Rulings

White House Slams Local Judges’ Claimed Right to Issue National Rulings

President Donald Trump’s White House is denouncing the federal courts’ willingness to let local judges shut down government policies nationwide at the request of far-left groups.

“The tyranny of a dysfunctional system that permits plaintiffs to forum shop in order to find a single district [federal] judge who will purport to dictate immigration policy to the entire Nation … must come to an end,”…

[mellowfestbanana]

America's new year resolution: Impeach Trump and remove him from office quickly - Robert Reich

America’s new year resolution: Impeach Trump and remove him from office quickly – Robert Reich

ROBERT REICH, RAWSTORY|AIWA! NO!| After President Donald Trump’s first bizarre year, his apologists told us he was growing into the job and that in his second year he’d be more restrained and respectful of democratic institutions.

Wrong! He is worse.

Trump ‘must be removed from office’ with GOP help ‘as quickly as possible’: Robert Reich

Exhibit one: the “Wall.” After torpedoing…

[robertreich]

America’s New Year’s Resolution: Remove Trump

After his first bizarre year, his apologists told us he was growing into the job and that in his second year he’d be more restrained and respectful of democratic institutions.

Wrong. He’s been worse.

Exhibit one: the “Wall.” After torpedoing Mitch McConnell’s temporary spending deal to avert a shutdown, he’s holding hostage over 800,000 government employees (“mostly Democrats,” he calls them, disparagingly) while subjecting the rest of America to untoward dangers.

On-site inspections at power plants have been halted. Hazardous waste cleanup efforts at Superfund sites are on hold. Reviews of toxic substances and pesticides have been stopped. Justice Department cases are in limbo.

Meanwhile, now working without pay are thousands of air traffic controllers and aviation and railroad safety inspectors, nearly 54,000 Customs and Border Protection agents, 42,000 Coast Guard employees, 53,000 TSA agents, 17,000 correctional officers, 14,000 FBI agents, 4,000 Drug Enforcement Administration agents, and some 5,000 firefighters with the U.S. Forest Service.

Having run the Department of Labor during the 1995 and 1996 shutdowns, I’m confident most of these public servants will continue to report for duty because they care about the missions they’re upholding. But going without pay will strain their family budgets to the point that some will not be able to.

Shame on him for jeopardizing America this way in order to fund his wall – which is nothing but a trumped-up solution to a trumped-up problem designed only to fuel his base.

In his second year he’s also done even more damage to the nation’s judicial-criminal system than he did before.

At least twice in the past month he’s reportedly raged against his acting attorney general for allowing federal prosecutors to reference him in the crimes his former bagman Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to committing.

This is potentially the most direct obstruction of justice yet. He’s now pressuring an official whom he hand-picked and whose entire future depends on him, to take actions that would impair the independence of federal prosecutors.

Last month he blasted Judge Jon Tigar as an “Obama judge” after Tigar blocked the Administration’s limits on asylum eligibility to ports of entry, a decision summarily upheld by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and sustained by the Supreme Court.

Chief Justice Roberts issued a rare rebuke. “We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges,” he wrote, adding that an “independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.”

Which prompted his rejoinder: “Sorry Chief Justice John Roberts, but you do indeed have ‘Obama judges,’” followed by his baseless and incendiary claim that “they have a much different point of view than the people who are charged with the safety of our country,” and their “rulings are making our country unsafe! Very dangerous and unwise!”

In his second year he’s displayed even less commitment to keeping the military nonpartisan than he did initially. 

During last month’s teleconference with U.S. troops and coast guard members he continued his rampage against the judiciary, calling the ninth circuit “a big thorn in our side” and “a disgrace.”

Then he turned last week’s surprise visit to American troops in Iraq and Germany into a political rally – praising troops wearing red “Make America Great Again” caps, signing a “Trump 2020” patch, and accusing Representative Nancy Pelosi and other leading Democrats of being weak on border security.

Some Americans are becoming so accustomed to these antics that they no longer see them for what they are -- escalating attacks on America’s core democratic institutions.

Where would we be if a president could simply shut down the government when he doesn’t get his way? If he could stop federal prosecutions he doesn’t like and order those he wants? If he could whip up public anger against court decisions he disapproves of? If he could mobilize the military to support him, against Congress and the judiciary?

We would no longer live in a democracy. Like his increasing attacks on critics in the press, these are all aspects of his growing authoritarianism. We normalize them at our peril.  

Our institutions remain strong, but I’m not sure they can endure two more years of this. He must be removed from office through impeachment, or his own decision to resign in the face of impeachment, as did Richard Nixon.

Republican members of Congress must join with Democrats to get this task done as quickly as possible. Nothing is more urgent. It must be, in effect, America’s New Year’s resolution.  

[bountyofbeads]

Supreme Court Lets Trump Bar Asylum Seekers as Legal Fight Continues https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/11/us/politics/supreme-court-trump-asylum.html

Democrats need to be more FOCUSED, BOLD and CONCERNED about the COURTS. Trump is installing right-wing ideologues that will have influence on the courts for decades.

Supreme Court Says Trump Can Bar Asylum Seekers While Legal Fight Continues

By Adam Liptak | Published September 11, 2019 | New York Times | Posted September 12, 2019 9:48 AM ET |

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed the Trump administration to bar most Central American migrants from seeking asylum in the United States, while the legal fight plays out in the courts.

The Supreme Court, in a brief, unsigned order, said the administration may enforce new rules that generally forbid asylum applications from migrants who have traveled through another country on their way to the United States without being denied asylum in that country.

The court’s order was a major victory for the administration, allowing it to enforce a policy that will achieve one of its central goals: effectively barring most migration across the nation’s southwestern border by Hondurans, Salvadorans, Guatemalans and others. Mexican migrants, who need not travel through another country to reach the United States, are not affected by the new policy.

It was the second time in recent months that the Supreme Court has allowed a major Trump administration immigration initiative to go forward. In July, the court allowed the administration to begin using $2.5 billion in Pentagon money for the construction of a barrier along the Mexican border. Last year, the court  upheld President Trump’s ban on travel from several predominantly Muslim countries.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, dissented, saying the court’s action will “upend longstanding practices regarding refugees who seek shelter from persecution.”

The rules reversed longstanding asylum policies that allowed people to seek haven no matter how they got to the United States. A federal appeals court had largely blocked the policy.

Lee Gelernt, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents the challengers in the new case, stressed that the Supreme Court’s action was provisional. “This is just a temporary step,” he said, “and we’re hopeful we’ll prevail at the end of the day. The lives of thousands of families are at stake.”

The case will almost certainly return to the Supreme Court, but that will take many months.

Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, the acting director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, pledged on Wednesday night to “commence implementing the asylum rule ASAP.”

“While congress continues to do nothing,” he wrote on Twitter, “@realDonaldTrump’s administration uses every tool in the toolbox to try and solve the crisis at our southern border.”

In a Supreme Court brief in the case, the solicitor general, Noel J. Francisco, said the new policy was needed to address “an unprecedented surge in the number of aliens who enter the country unlawfully across the southern border and, if apprehended, claim asylum and remain in the country while their claims are adjudicated.”

Under the policy, which was announced July 15, only immigrants who have been denied asylum in another country or who have been victims of “severe” human trafficking are permitted to apply in the United States. “The rule thus screens out asylum seekers who declined to request protection at the first opportunity,” Mr. Francisco wrote.

Under the rules, Hondurans and Salvadorans must seek and be denied asylum in Guatemala or Mexico before they can apply in the United States. Guatemalans must seek and be denied asylum in Mexico.

Migrants from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala have made up the vast majority of asylum seekers who have tried to enter the United States in record numbers this year. The Border Patrol has arrested 419,831 migrant family members from those three countries at the southwestern border so far this fiscal year, compared with just 4,312 Mexican family members.

The administration made the unilateral move after months of pushing Guatemala and Mexico to commit to going along with the plan. Mr. Trump went as far as to threaten both countries with tariffs unless they did more to halt the migration.

The administration struck such a deal with Guatemala in July that would force the country to absorb Central American migrants. But Guatemala’s Constitutional Court has ruled that it needs further approval, and the countries are still working on a plan to carry it out the deal.

The Mexican government has pushed back against the so-called safe-third-country agreement, which would force it to absorb asylum seekers from Guatemala.

Instead, Mexico deployed thousands of security personnel to its southern border and agreed to collaborate with the United States on a program that returns migrants to Mexico to wait out their cases.

Two federal trial judges had issued conflicting rulings on whether the new plan was lawful.

In July, Judge Timothy J. Kelly of the Federal District Court in Washington, who was appointed by Mr. Trump, refused to stop the administration’s rules.

That same day, Judge Jon S. Tigar of the Federal District Court in San Francisco, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, blocked them, saying they were put in place without following the required legal procedures.

In her dissent, Justice Sotomayor said Judge Tigar’s ruling “warrants respect.”

“The rule the government promulgated,” she wrote, “topples decades of settled asylum practices and affects some of the most vulnerable people in the Western Hemisphere — without affording the public a chance to weigh in.”

The two other members of the court’s liberal wing, Justices Stephen G. Breyer and Elena Kagan, had dissented in earlier cases on Trump administration immigration policies. They did not note dissents from Wednesday’s order.

Judge Tigar ordered the administration to continue accepting applications from all otherwise eligible migrants, even if they had not sought asylum elsewhere on their journey north.

Judge Tigar said his ruling applied across the nation. Such nationwide injunctions have been the subject of much criticism, but the Supreme Court has never issued a definitive ruling on whether and when they are proper.

In August, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, narrowed the geographic scope of Judge Tigar’s more recent ruling while it considered the administration’s appeal, saying it should apply only in the territorial jurisdiction of the Ninth Circuit, which includes two border states, California and Arizona. (Two other border states, Texas and New Mexico, are in the jurisdictions of other federal appeals courts.)

On Monday, however, Judge Tigar again imposed a nationwide injunction, saying he had been presented with additional evidence justifying one. “Anything but a nationwide injunction,” he wrote, “will create major administrability issues.” On Tuesday, the Ninth Circuit temporarily blocked the new injunction and ordered the two sides to submit briefs on whether it should issue a stay.

In an emergency application to the Supreme Court last month seeking a stay of Judge Tigar’s initial ruling while the case moved forward, Mr. Francisco argued that the administration was entitled to skip ordinary notice and comment requirements for new regulations because foreign affairs were at issue and because a delay after the announcement of the procedures “may prompt an additional surge of asylum seekers.”

In any event, Mr. Francisco wrote, the Ninth Circuit’s narrower injunction, covering only the states in its jurisdiction, was still too broad. At most, he wrote, the injunction should cover only clients of the four groups challenging the new policy — East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, Al Otro Lado, Innovation Law Lab and Central American Resource Center in Los Angeles.

In response, the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents the groups along with the Center for Constitutional Rights and the Southern Poverty Law Center, said the administration was trying to rewrite a federal immigration law enacted in 1980. There was no reason, the A.C.L.U. said, to alter “the 40-year-long status quo while this case is heard on an expedited basis in the court of appeals.”

“The current ban would eliminate virtually all asylum at the southern border, even at ports of entry, for everyone except Mexicans (who do not need to transit through a third country to reach the United States),” the A.C.L.U.’s brief said. “The court should not permit such a tectonic change to U.S. asylum law.”

Zolan Kanno-Youngs contributed reporting.

[vagabondretired]

A trio of recent rulings we noticed over the last week that came down on the side of truth and justice. Fire the confetti cannon, bailiff…

Ruling 1: New York Supreme Court Judge Saliann Scarpulla says a civil lawsuit against the Trump crime syndicate's sham charitable "foundation" can proceed, and believe me she's not "scarpullin' your leg" ha ha ha! The crooks---Donald, Don, Jr., Eric and Ivanka---could face millions in penalties and be forced to stay the hell away from any New York non-profit.

Ruling #2: U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves threw a wrench into Mississippi's new state law banning most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy by ruling that it "unequivocally" infringes upon a woman's 14th Amendment due process rights. Judge Reeves wasn't fooled for a second by what this is all about: "The state chose to pass a law it knew was unconstitutional to endorse a decades long campaign, fueled by national interest groups, to ask the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade," Reeves wrote, but not before calling the legislature's phony concern over women's health "pure gaslighting."

Ruling #3: This is an interesting one in light of the weekend border shutdown (and tear-gassing of women and children inside Mexico) at Tijuana: U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar blocked Trump's immigration goons from denying asylum to migrants who illegally cross into the U.S.The order is in effect for at least another three weeks, when it may become permanent. Money quote: “Whatever the scope of the President’s authority, he may not rewrite the immigration laws to impose a condition that Congress has expressly forbidden.”

[science-criticaltheory]

Robert Reich: Trump Has to Go in 2019 by Robert Reich

Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich. (HarvardEthics / Flickr)

After President Donald Trump’s first bizarre year, his apologists told us he was growing into the job and that in his second year he’d be more restrained and respectful of democratic institutions.

Wrong. He’s been worse.

Exhibit one: the “Wall.” After torpedoing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s temporary spending deal to avert a shutdown, he’s holding hostage over 800,000 government employees (“mostly Democrats,” he calls them, disparagingly) while subjecting the rest of America to untoward dangers.

On-site inspections at power plants have been halted. Hazardous waste cleanup efforts at Superfund sites are on hold. Reviews of toxic substances and pesticides have been stopped. Justice Department cases are in limbo.

Meanwhile, now working without pay are thousands of air traffic controllers and aviation and railroad safety inspectors, nearly 54,000 Customs and Border Protection agents, 42,000 Coast Guard employees, 53,000 TSA agents, 17,000 correctional officers, 14,000 FBI agents, 4,000 Drug Enforcement Administration agents, and some 5,000 firefighters with the U.S. Forest Service.

Having run the Department of Labor during the 1995 and 1996 shutdowns, I’m confident most of these public servants will continue to report for duty because they care about the missions they’re upholding. But going without pay will strain their family budgets to the point that some will not be able to.

Shame on him for jeopardizing America this way in order to fund his wall—which is nothing but a trumped-up solution to a trumped-up problem designed only to fuel his base.

In his second year, he’s also done even more damage to the nation’s judicial-criminal system than he did before.

At least twice in the past month, he’s reportedly raged against his acting attorney general for allowing federal prosecutors to reference him in the crimes his former bagman Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to committing.

This is potentially the most direct obstruction of justice yet. He’s now pressuring an official whom he hand-picked and whose entire future depends on him, to take actions that would impair the independence of federal prosecutors.

Last month he blasted Judge Jon Tigar as an “Obama judge” after Tigar blocked the administration’s limits on asylum eligibility to ports of entry, a decision summarily upheld by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and sustained by the Supreme Court.

Chief Justice John Roberts issued a rare rebuke. “We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges,” he wrote, adding that an “independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.”

Which prompted his rejoinder: “Sorry Chief Justice John Roberts, but you do indeed have ‘Obama judges,’” followed by his baseless and incendiary claim that “they have a much different point of view than the people who are charged with the safety of our country,” and their “rulings are making our country unsafe! Very dangerous and unwise!”

In his second year, he’s displayed even less commitment to keeping the military nonpartisan than he did initially.

During last month’s teleconference with U.S. troops and Coast Guard members, he continued his rampage against the judiciary, calling the Ninth Circuit “a big thorn in our side” and “a disgrace.”

Then he turned last week’s surprise visit to American troops in Iraq and Germany into a political rally—praising troops wearing red “Make America Great Again” caps, signing a “Trump 2020” patch, and accusing Rep. Nancy Pelosi and other leading Democrats of being weak on border security.

Some Americans are becoming so accustomed to these antics that they no longer see them for what they are—escalating attacks on America’s core democratic institutions.

Where would we be if a president could simply shut down the government when he doesn’t get his way? If he could stop federal prosecutions he doesn’t like and order those he wants? If he could whip up public anger against court decisions he disapproves of? If he could mobilize the military to support him, against Congress and the judiciary?

We would no longer live in a democracy. Like Trump’s increasing attacks on critics in the press, these are all aspects of his growing authoritarianism. We normalize them at our peril.

Our institutions remain strong, but I’m not sure they can endure two more years of this. He must be removed from office through impeachment, or his own decision to resign in the face of impeachment, as did Richard Nixon.

Republican members of Congress must join with Democrats to get this task done as quickly as possible. Nothing is more urgent. It must be, in effect, America’s New Year’s resolution.