May 12, 2025.

The biggest news over the weekend was silence, the silence of Republicans.

They refused to disavow the White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller's statement

that the administration is looking at

suspending the writ of habeas corpus, that is, essentially declaring martial law. They've also

stayed quiet after the administration announced it was planning to accept a gift of a $400 million

luxury Boeing 747-8 plane from the Katari royal family. President Donald J. Trump

would use the plane as Air Force won during the rest of his presidency and take it with him when he

leaves office. This is in keeping with the refusal of 53 Republican senators to answer questions from Rolling Stones

Ryan Bort after NBC's Kristen Welker asked Trump, don't you need to uphold the Constitution of the

United States as president? And he answered, I don't know. Only Senator Rand Paul, a Republican

of Kentucky, went on the record, posting on social media,

following the Constitution is not a suggestion. It's a guiding force for all of us who work

on behalf of the American people. Do you agree? It seems as if Republicans who are not on board

the Magotrain are hoping the courts or reality will stop Trump's authoritarian overreach.

As Steve Lattuck noted on Friday in One First, there is near universal consensus that only Congress can suspend habeas corpus and that unilateral suspensions by the president are, per se,

unconstitutional. In addition, Miller's insistence that it would be appropriate to suspend the writ of

habeas corpus because the United States is under attack, a position Trump echoed yesterday when he posted,

our country has been invaded by 21 million

illegal aliens, many of whom are murderers and criminals of the highest order, has failed

repeatedly in court. Reality will trip up Trump's plan to take possession of the Katari gift.

As David Kurtz noted this morning in Talking Points memo,

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