Excuse me, where are the lawyers?

[smirkymonkey]

Trump and company are breaking the laws of this nation left and right. Why are there no lawsuits being brought against him and his henchmen? Where is the accountability? Are people really that afraid of him? He could be sued on so many fronts, yet nobody is doing anything. Why not?

[raging moderate]

1. Wait.

No doubt lawsuits are being written, at this very moment.

[brush]

8. Yes. Two judges, most recently yesterday in Seattle have rescinded the travel ban because of suits

[TreasonousBastard]

2. It's not easy to sue a President, and it's only been two weeks...

but some suits have started, and there will be more.

A problem with lawsuits is that we don't always win, and if we lose we're really stuck with it.

[pangaia]

3. There are.

Not that it will do any good.

Did "laws" stop Stalin, Mussolini, et al. ?

[jberryhill]

4. Are you serious?

You think the courts shut down the travel ban to visa holders on their own initiative?

[smirkymonkey]

9. I don't know, I'm not a lawyer.

But who else would shut it down if not members of the legal profession - judges and lawyers? There has to be a way to stop this bullshit.

[jberryhill]

16. Okay, well in answer to your question "where are the lawyers"....

They are at airports. Working for detainees.





http://cdn.newsday.com/polopoly_fs/1.13038988.1485886288!/httpImage/image.jpeg_gen/derivatives/landscape_1280/image.jpeg

[smirkymonkey]

18. That's good, I'm glad and I applaud them.

However this is not the only situation I was referring to, but at least something is being done about this. His conflicts of interest are another huge concern in addition to his other assaults against the constitution.

[jberryhill]

19. Your ignorance does not translate into absence of action on other subjects

[jberryhill]

25. That's an odd comment

"Ignorance" is lack of knowledge about a subject.

There is quite a large number of lawyers who are doing quite a large number of things to counter moves by the incoming administration.

You do not know of them, and make no effort to know of them, but you start off with "Where are the lawyers?".

I go through the effort to point out that quite a number of lawyers' work resulted in the various court rulings shutting down the unlawful visa revocations, and even do the work to find pictures of the massive effort undertaken by lawyers in airports all over the countries, copy the URLs and post the pictures here for your edification.

Your response is, in so many words, "what about unspecified other stuff I think they should be doing."

Which activities, about which you are demonstrably ignorant, would you like to know about in particular?

https://www.google.com/search?q=lawyers+fighting+trump&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

Climate change?

http://www.americanlawyer.com/top-stories/id=1202777799866/Lawyers-Spar-Over-Rex-Tillerson-Depo-in-Climate-Change-Suit?mcode=1202615518654&curindex=3&slreturn=20170104163526

Planned Parenthood?

https://www.texastribune.org/2017/01/17/medicaid-removal-could-be-devastating-planned-pare/

His conflicts of interest?

http://wamc.org/post/us-ethics-chief-unlikely-gadfly-trump

It takes moments to find lawyers who are opposing various pieces of Trump's agenda. It is effort you are unwilling to expend, but which I have provided for you on request... and you call me names for it. Okay.

You started out with: "yet nobody is doing anything. Why not?"

The problem is not that "nobody is doing anything", but that you are not informed and are critical of others seeking to inform you.

[jmg257]

5. Don't you watch the news? 50+ and counting...

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trump-named-more-50-lawsuits-inauguration-n716191

President Donald Trump has been named in more than 50 lawsuits since taking the oath of office, a staggering number compared to the first days of past administrations.

Since being sworn in Jan. 20, Trump has been named in 52 federal cases in 17 different states, according to the Administrative Office of the United States Courts. Comparatively, Barack Obama was named in three and George W. Bush and Bill Clinton were each named in four cases between Jan. 20 and Feb. 1.

[smirkymonkey]

10. Actually, I don't watch the news, but thank you for the information.

Good to know!

[jmg257]

13. No worries - they've been lighting him up! Last night was huge!!! nt

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

27. Maybe you should.

[ginnyinWI]

33. yes, please watch or read the news.

Democracy is not for the faint of heart!

I am actually more encouraged, the more I read and see about what is going on. My brother in law got all depressed after the election and actually canceled his NYT subscription and just tuned out. And when I saw him a week ago, he was all down and discouraged, stuck on November 9, 2016! That is no way to be.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/berlinschoolofcreativeleadership/2017/02/01/10-journalism-brands-where-you-will-find-real-facts-rather-than-alternative-facts/2/#7c12dfac7c0f

[Maeve]

6. More than 50 lawsuits have been filed

http://www.npr.org/2017/02/02/513045408/after-2-weeks-in-office-trump-faces-more-than-50-lawsuits

And you may have missed all those ACLU lawyers at the airports the other week...

[smirkymonkey]

11. I am just hoping they can get something done.

I am just so frustrated by what seems to be a lack of power against Trump's outrageous and hateful actions.

[Maeve]

14. He can move faster than the courts

But take courage in the old adage (attributed to Sun Tze) "The wheels of justice turn slow, but grind fine."
tRump is going to get crushed.

[smirkymonkey]

15. I really hope so. We can't take much more of his carnage.

Great quote!

[malaise]

32. +1,000

This won't end well for Groper Don the Con

[no_hypocrisy]

7. Remember that Trump and the WH don't control the federal courts (yet).

Lawsuits must be initiated now to have any impact.

[smirkymonkey]

12. Remember they erased the judicial branch off the WH website.

I am wondering if they are trying to make them entirely impotent when it comes to the actions of the executive branch.

[no_hypocrisy]

24. The courts still can be a threat to the WH by judicial precedence.

Trump can't fire the judges.

[MineralMan]

17. Uh, have you seen no news?

The suits are being being brought. The lawyers are on the job. Judges are ruling against the Trump administration. Read a newspaper or watch a news hour on one of the major network news stations.

[Ligyron]

20. Donate every spare cent you have to the ACLU and become a member.

They lead the defence on our shrinking liberties.

We can win this thing and turn it all around in the next five years but it will take all our resources to do so.

The GOPers are going to overeach and drive many middle of the roaders to our side.

[diva77]

31. Donate to NRDC too -- lawyers & scientists

https://www.nrdc.org/

Here's what their Litigation page says about them:

In 1970, NRDC became America’s first litigation-focused nonprofit dedicated to making dirty industries clean up their pollution. Since then, our attorneys have been at the forefront of protecting our nation’s air, land, water, and wildlife. In 2006, we established a specialized team of litigating attorneys to bolster our trial expertise and target opportunities where courtroom pressure can have the biggest impact. These areas include environmental justice, air and water pollution, public health, and marine mammal protection. The litigation team now includes lawyers and paralegals in New York City, Washington D.C., San Francisco, and Chicago.

We take on powerful companies—from giant oil corporations to mining conglomerates—when they contaminate the air or dump toxic waste. And we help to assure justice to people living next door to dangerous pollution. We develop novel cases and train new generations of lawyers in all aspects of litigation. In the spirit of transparency, we protect and expand public access to the courts and government records. And we collaborate closely with policy experts and scientists to determine how litigation can assist broader advocacy campaigns, such as removing antibiotics from livestock feed or preventing oil drilling in the Arctic Ocean.

Their areas of work include:
Climate Change
Communities
Energy
Food

Health
Oceans
Water
The Wild

[Madam45for2923]

21. There's also an emoluments lawsuit in which Trump would have to disclose Taxes Taxes taxes!

We’re the lawyers suing President Trump: his business dealings violate the Constitution
He receives “emoluments” from foreign officials.
Updated by Erwin Chemerinsky, Zephyr Teachout, and Laurence Tribe Jan 31, 2017, 8:30am EST

http://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/1/31/14446106/trump-business-corruption-emoluments

This is one of the lawyers in the emoluments lawsuit:

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[smirkymonkey]

23. Thank you!

I appreciate it!

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

26. Haven't you been paying any attention at all?

Lawyers are doing the heavy lifting right now. The federal court order lifting the immigration ban happened because of lawyers. The judge is also a lawyer. If it weren't for lawyers working for the Attorney Generals' offices in Washington and Minnesota and lawyers from the ACLU and a bunch of lawyers working pro bono to oppose these EOs and a lot of other shit Trump has been up to, we'd have no defense against him at all. People like to hate lawyers, but not when they need them, and we need them now. Trump's executive branch is a menace; Congress won't do anything, so that leaves only the judicial branch and the judges and the hundreds of lawyers who have been trying to prevent Trump from becoming a dictator.

[msanthrope]

28. Busy. What with showing up on Election Day to protect voters, going to airports to represent

detainees, etc.....it's been a busy couple months.

[Gothmog]

30. I had 200+ poll watchers out on election day

Harris County turned fully blue despite the tea party's efforts to suppress the vote. For the first time in 36 years, Harris County has a Democrat serving as District Attorney

[Gothmog]

29. The Lawyers Showed Up

the ACLU and the Volunteer Lawyer groups have been very busy http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2017/01/lawyers_take_on_donald_trump_s_muslim_ban.html

For weeks, we have been wondering about the lawyers. What suits would they file? Would they have standing? Could they have any impact? Saturday, the lawyers showed up. Bigly. And happily, for America, the courts are still independent, and largely allergic to “alternative facts.” This is a country where the law matters and the Constitution endures. And it’s also a country in which hordes of lawyers just showed up at airports to defend detained travelers ensnared under Donald Trump’s lawless and unconstitutional Muslim ban.

In San Francisco, the massive crowd at the airport chanted “let the lawyers in.” At JFK in New York, lawyers hunched on the floor over their laptops, filing emergency habeas motions. In Philadelphia and Chicago and at Washington Dulles, the crowds asked for nothing more than this: Let the lawyers speak to their clients.

And in Brooklyn, U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly, an Obama appointee, in an emergency hearing, stayed a big chunk of the executive order on the theory that forcing the detainees at the airports to return to their countries of birth would cause them grievous harm. The ACLU challenged the Trump administration’s broad and chaotic ban on Saturday morning, and by Saturday night, Donnelly had ruled that no immigrants with visas should be trapped in airports just because they happened to be traveling on the day Steve Bannon was writing executive orders.

The ACLU filed its habeas corpus petition on behalf of Hameed Khalid Darweesh and Haider Sameer Abdulkhaleq Alshawi, both of whom were denied entry to the U.S. at JFK Airport. Donnelly issued a nationwide stay, barring the federal government from deporting any lawful immigrants who had arrived after the ban was issued or those en route. Within an hour, a second stay was issued in Virginia by Judge Leonie Brinkema, who blocked the removal of any green card holders who were being detained at Dulles Airport. Brinkema further ruled that those detained under the Trump ban were to be granted access to lawyers. (As of this writing, those held at Dulles Airport still have not been allowed access to lawyers.)

I was at a lunch for the head of the Texas ACLU on Thursday and they have been very busy. Other lawyer groups are standing up. You got to realize that many of trump's bogus EO do not have any legal effect and so you can sue on them yet.