This week's Joseph Welch and Neville Chamberlain Award Winners - Robert Reich
Friends,
The weeks Joseph Welch Award for courage in the face of American tyranny goes to two senators whose actions epitomize Joseph Welch when he stood up to Senator Joe McCarthy in 1954.
The first is Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen, who traveled to El Salvador to seek answers about the detention and safety of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident whom the Trump regime abducted and sent to El Salvadors notorious CECOT prison, admittedly in error due to a 2019 court order prohibiting his deportation yet refuses to do anything about. The Trump regime alleged Garcia was affiliated with the MS-13 gang an accusation his attorneys and his family firmly deny. It is still just an allegation; there has been no arrest, no evidence, and no legal findings.
Yesterday, Van Hollen accused the Trump administration of outright defying the Supreme Courts order to facilitate the return of Garcia.They are flouting the courts as we speak, he charged. Facilitating his return means something more than doing nothing, and they are doing nothing.
The second Joseph Welch Award goes to Senator Lisa Murkowski, the Alaska Republican who has often broken with the Republican Party to criticize Trump. She was the first Republican senator to announce she would vote against some of Trumps Cabinet nominees, the only one to criticize his berating Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and the only one to criticize the chaos that Elon Musk and his U.S. DOGE Service are causing.
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/this-weeks-joseph-welch-and-neville