Members phkrause Posted January 15 Author Members Posted January 15 ? Scoop: Trump's surprising phone pal President Trump has a surprising phone pal: He and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani have texted back and forth recently, Axios' Holly Otterbein and Alex Isenstadt write. Why it matters: The back-channeling between the democratic socialist mayor and Trump — who once derided Mamdani as a "communist" — indicates their private communications have been more extensive than previously thought. The texting started soon after Trump and Mamdani exchanged numbers during their Oval Office lovefest in November, the sources told Axios. Keep reading. Quote phkrause Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted January 15 Author Members Posted January 15 Trump’s latest moves could create new risks for GOP in midterm elections It’s only two weeks into the new year, and President Donald Trump has already claimed control of Venezuela, escalated threats to seize Greenland and flooded American streets with masked immigration agents. And that’s not even counting an unprecedented criminal investigation at the Federal Reserve. Read more. Why this matters: Voters across the nation will have their next chance to weigh in on Trump’s leadership at the ballot box this November, when Republicans hope to retain control of Congress for the last two years of his presidency. Recent Trump decisions carry tremendous risks, from the possibility of an overseas quagmire to undermining the country’s financial system, but Trump seems undeterred by the potential blowback. “Right now I’m feeling pretty good,” Trump said Tuesday in Detroit. Republican leaders have overwhelmingly rallied behind Trump throughout his turbulent second term. But new cracks began to appear this week. Going after Fed Chair Jerome Powell appeared to be a step too far for some conservatives. RELATED COVERAGE ➤ Trump visits Ford plant and defends his tariffs, hoping to counter jitters about the economy Democrats will spend millions to shift voter registration strategy ahead of the midterm elections Vance to meet Danish and Greenlandic officials in Washington as locals say Greenland is not for sale Justice Department sees no basis for civil rights probe in Minnesota ICE shooting, official says Minneapolis duo details their ICE detention, including pressure to rat on protest organizers China’s trade surplus surges 20% to a record $1.2 trillion, even with Trump’s tariffs Louisiana seeks California doctor’s extradition over abortion pills Smithsonian responds to White House pressure by handing over more plans on its exhibits Georgia lawmakers move to strike Savannah ban on guns in unlocked cars A suspect in the vandalism of JD Vance’s Ohio home must stay in jail until trial Proposed billionaires’ tax in California rattles Silicon Valley, entangles Gov. Newsom Demonstrator injured after federal agent fired projectile from close range during California protest Ex-Navy SEAL convicted of planning to fire explosives at police during San Diego ‘No Kings’ rally Maui braces for possible end to FEMA rental assistance and more housing strain for fire survivors Prosecutors want 20-year sentence for ex-South Carolina lawmaker for sharing child sex abuse videos Ex-Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith will testify publicly about his Trump investigations House passes bill codifying Trump order to rinse away showerhead regulations Quote phkrause Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted January 15 Author Members Posted January 15 Plane used in boat strike off Venezuela was painted to look like a civilian aircraft, AP sources say The plane used by the U.S. military to strike a boat accused of smuggling drugs off the coast of Venezuela last fall was painted to look like a civilian aircraft, a move that appears to be at odds with the Pentagon’s manual on the laws of war. Read more. Why this matters: U.S. military guidelines on the laws of war prohibit troops from pretending to be civilians while engaging in combat. The practice is legally known as “perfidy.” The Defense Department manual specifically notes that “feigning civilian status and then attacking” is an example of the practice. Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson said in a statement that “the U.S. military utilizes a wide array of standard and nonstandard aircraft depending on mission requirements.” Wilson said each aircraft goes through a “rigorous procurement process to ensure compliance with domestic law, department policies and regulations, and applicable international standards, including the law of armed conflict.” RELATED COVERAGE ➤ Multiple Americans detained in Venezuela have been released, Trump administration says Senate readies vote on Venezuela war powers as Trump pressures GOP defectors Quote phkrause Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted January 15 Author Members Posted January 15 Major Trump Ally Humiliated After Secret Testimony Released Hidden grand jury testimony has been released, exposing what several senior Republicans really think about the president. Several Republicans, including South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, have been busted casting doubt on President Donald Trump’s claims of fraud in the 2020 election. A new report from The New York Times uncovered grand jury testimony from several senior Republican members in which they criticize the president and reveal the lengths he would go to believe the election was indeed stolen. The testimony was taken in 2022 and released after an order was lifted by Judge Scott McAfee of Fulton County Superior Court, who ruled over the Georgia case. The transcripts, obtained by the Times and taken from the Georgia election interference case, reveal that several vocal Trump supporters, including Graham, considered his claims of fraud to be baseless. In his testimony, Graham described the president’s claims as “unnerving.” He also told the grand jurors, “I have told him more times than we can count that he fell short,” and “If you told him Martians came and stole votes, he’d be inclined to believe it.” Denying Trump’s claims of election fraud in Arizona, Graham instead suggested that his failure to secure the state was the result of his attacks on longtime Arizona Senator John McCain. Trump, who never served in the military and dodged the Vietnam draft, famously called McCain, a Vietnam veteran who spent six years as a prisoner of war, a “loser,” adding, “He’s not a war hero... he’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured.” “The McCain effect in Arizona was real,” Graham said in his testimony. “And when you look through the suburbs in the states in question, you sort of had a common pattern where President Trump ran behind other Republicans. I was trying to convey that to him.” “I’m sorry he lost,” Graham added. “But he lost it.” In September 2023, Graham released a statement following the release of the grand jury report that recommended he be criminally indicted for his role in attempting to overturn the election. He said that, as then-chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he “had questions” about Georgia’s mail-in ballot process, but ultimately voted to certify the election results from every state. Graham has emerged as one of the president’s most vocal supporters in the Senate, even going so far as to make bizarre jokes about Trump’s stated desire to run for a third term despite a constitutional bar. Trump even embarrassed Graham during a media appearance earlier this month after the senator called Trump’s re-election to the White House “the biggest comeback ever.” “You think so, really? I didn‘t feel it was a comeback, actually,” Trump replied, prompting Graham to scramble to change the topic. Just days later, Graham dubbed Trump “the greatest president of all time” in an interview with Fox News. In a statement to the Daily Beast, Graham said of the Times report, “It should be abundantly clear that all of these weaponized investigations against President Trump had one goal: destroy him and his friends no matter the cost. I never suggested, then or now, that President Trump broke the law.” “Never forget, Fani Willis’ politically driven hit job in Atlanta was willing to indict me simply for being a friend to President Trump. As to that process against me, if I were them, I’d lawyer up,“ the statement continued. “My views about why I certified the 2020 election are not breaking news. I made it clear, then and now, that President Trump sincerely believed the election was stolen. We had our differences on this point. I would consider myself, then and now, one of his strongest supporters. In my view, President Trump is shaping up to be the GOAT of U.S. presidents.” Other Republicans also provided testimony casting doubt on the president’s fraud claims, including Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who called Trump’s attempts to get Georgian lawmakers to intervene a “fruitless exercise,” and former Georgia House Speaker David Ralston, who described Trump’s plan to enlist fake electors in swing states like Georgia “the craziest thing I’ve heard.” Chris Carr, Georgia’s state attorney general, who is running for governor, revealed in his testimony that Trump had called him to ask him to stop lobbying other state attorneys against joining the lawsuit brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. The suit asked the Supreme Court to stop four swing states—Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Wisconsin—from casting their votes for Biden. Paxton told the president that he felt the lawsuit was “legally, factually and constitutionally wrong” but that he was not lobbying other attorneys general. He added that he told Trump of his claims of election fraud, “We’re just not seeing the things that you are seeing.” The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment. A spokeswoman for Mr. Carr said in a statement provided to the New York Times that he “believes the criminal case against President Trump should never have been brought.” Gov. Kemp did not immediately respond to a request for comment. https://www.thedailybeast.com/major-trump-ally-humiliated-after-secret-testimony-released/? Quote phkrause Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted January 15 Author Members Posted January 15 Stephen Miller’s Dark Message to ICE Agents Immediately Backfires The deputy White House chief of staff’s ignorance about the law was on full display. Legal experts smacked down Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller’s ominous message to ICE agents that they enjoy “federal immunity” and argued that he might have just opened himself up to impeachment proceedings. During an appearance Tuesday on The Will Cain Show on Fox News, Miller directly addressed immigration enforcement agents in a breathless rant that was shared by the Department of Homeland Security’s official X account. “You have immunity to perform your duties, and no one—no city official, no state official, no illegal alien, no leftist agitator or domestic insurrectionist—can prevent you from fulfilling your legal obligations and duties,” Miller said. “The Department of Justice has made clear that if officials cross that line into obstruction, into criminal conspiracy against the United States or against ICE officers, then they will face justice.” The message came as ICE faced widespread condemnation and possible legal action over the killing of Minnesota mother Renee Nicole Good, 37, who was shot in the face by an ICE agent while trying to drive away from the scene of a protest. Miller and other members of President Donald Trump’s administration have falsely claimed that Jonathan Ross, the 43-year-old agent who shot Good, enjoys immunity from prosecution because he was a federal agent “doing his job.” In fact, the Supreme Court has held that the president enjoys absolute immunity from criminal persecution for all “official acts” but has not extended that same protection to other federal officials. “There is no blanket ‘immunity’ for criminal behavior. States can and should hold federal officers accountable,” public defender Eli Northrup wrote in response to Miller’s message, which DHS described as a “REMINDER.” “He’s not a lawyer,” Northrup added. Luis Alejo, an attorney and elected official in Monterey County, California, responded with a warning for the ICE agents addressed by Miller: “Don’t ever listen to legal advice from a non-lawyer!!” And over on the social media platform Bluesky, Marquette Law School Prof. Kali Murray agreed that ICE agents should not be taking legal advice from Miller. “Your now weekly reminder that Stephen Miller did not go to law school and has no idea what he is talking about at all,” Murray wrote in a thread. She also argued that if DHS is citing Miller, that could make him subject to impeachment. “I have been circumspect on a Miller impeachment because he has not gone through Senate confirmation,” she wrote. “This, however, appears to be a direct order to ICE agents.” If Miller is exercising direct control of an agency’s actions, there’s an argument to be made that he’s acting as a principal “civil officer” and therefore impeachable regardless of whether he was confirmed, Murray explained in her thread. The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House and DHS for comment. Trump and other senior officials, including Vice President JD Vance and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, have desperately sought to portray Good as a “domestic terrorist” who attempted to run over Ross with her vehicle, despite video from the scene that showed her tires were facing away from the immigration agents when she was shot. The administration has been accused of a cover-up with regards to the killing after the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division refused to investigate the killing. The division’s criminal section usually investigates fatal shootings by law enforcement officers and specializes in determining whether deadly force was justified. That refusal led to an exodus of the section’s leadership this week, according to reports from CBS News and MS NOW. The Trump administration has also tried to prevent the state of Minnesota, which has jurisdiction over potential murder cases, from investigating Good’s killing, which is being probed by the FBI. https://www.thedailybeast.com/stephen-millers-dark-message-to-ice-agents-immediately-backfires/? Quote phkrause Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted January 15 Author Members Posted January 15 ICE Prosecutor Unmasked as Racist Troll Is Back at Work James Rodden had previously been pulled from federal immigration court schedules. A prosecutor for ICE who was revealed last year to be behind a white supremacist X account has returned to his job in a Texas immigration court. The Texas Observer identified James “Jim” Joseph Rodden as being the owner of an account known as @GlomarResponder on X, in an investigation last February. Rodden, then 44, was employed as an assistant chief counsel and working as a prosecutor for ICE in Dallas Immigration Court at the time of the report. In response to the Observer’s reporting, Rodden was pulled from federal immigration court schedules, and three members of Congress sent letters to ICE and the Department of Homeland Security demanding an investigation be opened. The ICE Office of Professional Responsibility said at the time that it “understands the seriousness of the allegations and will ensure the allegations are addressed appropriately, fairly, and expeditiously” but has not provided any information since. Responding to a tip-off, the Observer attended Dallas Immigration Court on Tuesday and discovered Rodden sitting at the prosecutors’ desk, seemingly back at work. The Daily Beast has contacted the Department of Homeland Security and ICE for comment. Rodden regularly posted racist and anti-immigrant sentiments to his X account, which has since been locked but which still has over 15,000 followers. Examples of his posts include, ““America is a White nation founded by Whites” and “All blacks are foreign to my people, dumb f---.” Rodden openly identified as a fascist on the account and asserted that freedom of association was abolished by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. “’Migrants’ are all criminals,” he wrote in August 2024. “Nobody is proposing feeding migrants into tree shredders. Yet.” Rodden also shared information about ICE raids and arrest warrants on the account, which suggested it was operated by someone within the agency. The Observer was able to confirm his identity by comparing information shared on the account with federal court records and other public records, information from data broker sites, open-source investigation tools, other social media profiles, and interviews, and courtroom hearings. Observer reports also observed Rodden scrolling through X in the courtroom, and saw him begin to draft a post for an account with the same profile photo as GlomarResponder. A minute later, a new post appeared on GlomarResponder’s account. The decision to welcome a known white supremacist back to work comes at a tense time for the agency, which is facing huge public hostility, particularly in the wake of the shooting death of 37-year-old mom-of-three Renee Nicole Good at the hands of ICE officer Jonathan Ross in Minneapolis. A poll published on Tuesday found that 46 percent of Americans support abolishing the 22-year-old agency entirely—a significant increase from the 19 percent who supported its abolition in September 2024. In addition, the personal information of some 4,500 ICE and Border Patrol employees was published online as part of the ICE List, an initiative designed to make it easier for Americans to hold ICE employees accountable. The website’s founder, Dominic Skinner, told the Daily Beast, “It is a sign that people aren’t happy within the U.S. government, clearly. The shooting [of Good] was the last straw for many people.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/ice-prosecutor-james-joseph-rodden-revealed-as-racist-troll-is-back-at-work/? Quote phkrause Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted January 15 Author Members Posted January 15 Danish official says there’s a ‘fundamental disagreement’ with Trump over Greenland WASHINGTON (AP) — A top Danish official said Wednesday that a “fundamental disagreement” over Greenland remains with President Donald Trump after holding highly anticipated White House talks with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. https://apnews.com/article/greenland-united-states-denmark-trump-vance-rubio-meeting-cc278af4f3daf725029101966ba03568? 47 ways Trump has made life less affordable in the last year In the first year of his second term, President Trump has actively made life less affordable for working people. Affordability has two sides—prices and pay. While public debate fixates on rising costs, the administration’s most serious harm has come from its policies that hold down wages and weaken workers’ bargaining power. The 47th president has pursued an agenda that undercuts incomes for all but the wealthiest households, slows job growth, and invites employer exploitation and abuse—including unprecedented attacks on federal workers’ collective bargaining rights that make him the biggest union buster in U.S. history. His policies have systematically stripped workers of leverage in the labor market, driving down pay and making it harder for working families to afford the basics. https://www.epi.org/publication/47-ways-trump-has-made-life-less-affordable-in-his-first-year/? Did Trump really fix NAFTA? Trump replaced NAFTA with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement in 2020. But his USMCA has so far failed to make trade work for North American workers. https://www.epi.org/publication/did-trump-really-fix-nafta-what-usmca-failed-to-do-and-how-to-put-workers-first-in-north-american-trade/? Quote phkrause Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted January 15 Author Members Posted January 15 Keystone Kash Raids Home of Reporter Investigating Trump Administration The shock move is a new low in Trump’s crackdown on the media. Keystone Kash Patel’s FBI searched the home of a Washington Post reporter who has been digging into the Trump administration on Wednesday. Washington, D.C., native Hannah Natanson, described as the Post’s “federal government whisperer,” was in her Alexandria, Virginia, home at the time of the raid. During the search, the 29-year-old’s devices were checked, and FBI agents seized a phone, a Garmin watch, two laptops, her personal computer, and one belonging to the Jeff Bezos-owned newspaper. The Washington Post reported that the sweep of the Harvard graduate’s house and the seizure of her devices followed the paper’s investigation into “a government contractor accused of illegally retaining classified government materials.” Natanson was reportedly told she was not the focus of the investigation. Attorney General Pam Bondi confirmed the raid took place in an X post not long after news broke in the media. She said the move was prompted by the Defense Department and executed by the Department of Justice and the FBI. Bondi said Natanson “was obtaining and reporting classified and illegally leaked information from a Pentagon contractor.” The statement continued: “The leaker is currently behind bars. I am proud to work alongside Secretary Hegseth on this effort. The Trump Administration will not tolerate illegal leaks of classified information that, when reported, pose a grave risk to our Nation’s national security and the brave men and women who are serving our country.” Patel added in a separate post: “This morning the @FBI and partners executed a search warrant of an individual at the Washington Post who was found to allegedly be obtaining and reporting classified, sensitive military information from a government contractor - endangering our warfighters and compromising America’s national security. The alleged leaker was arrested this week and is in custody. As this is an ongoing investigation, we will have no further comment." According to an FBI affidavit, the warrant said law enforcement was investigating Aurelio Perez-Lugones, a Maryland-based systems administrator with a top secret security clearance, who is accused of improperly accessing classified intelligence reports and removing them from secure facilities, with documents later found in his lunchbox and basement. Patel’s tenure as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been marked by high-profile gaffes. Patel, whom the Daily Beast has nicknamed “Keystone Kash” for his bungling performance, was criticized for rushing to social media to tout his agency’s work on tracking down a person of interest in the Charlie Kirk shooting prematurely. After the shooting, Patel reportedly refused to get off a plane without an FBI raid jacket and ended up wearing one nabbed from a female officer. He reportedly decorated it with patches from other agents. A scathing 115-page report compiled by a national alliance of retired and active-duty FBI special agents and analysts declared that Patel is “in over his head” and leading a “chronically under-performing” agency paralyzed by fear and plummeting morale. Trump has a particular vendetta against the Post. Before he was elected in 2024, he warned the paper “ought to clean up their act.” However, in March last year, Trump effusively praised billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ makeover of the paper after its coverage became kinder to him. “A guy like Bezos, I’ve gotten to know him, and I think he’s trying to do a real job,” Trump said. “Jeff Bezos is trying to do a real job with The Washington Post, and that wasn’t happening before.” The praise came just weeks after Bezos, who attended the president’s inauguration last January and whose company donated $1 million to his inaugural fund, satisfied the new administration by announcing that the Post‘s opinion section would focus on “free markets and personal liberties,” two traditional conservative values that the mogul claimed were “underserved in the current market of ideas and news opinion.” In October 2024, just weeks before the presidential election, Bezos had killed the Post’s planned endorsement of Kamala Harris. The newspaper has continued its critical coverage of the Trump administration, however. Natanson’s biography on the Post site says that she covers “Trump’s reshaping of the federal government and its effects.” Natanson wrote a tell-all first-person piece about the rigors of her work on Christmas Eve. She said her fiancé appealed to her to stop fielding late-night calls and texts from federal workers “who wanted to tell me how President Donald Trump was rewriting their workplace policies, firing their colleagues or transforming their agency’s missions.” “You’ve got to stop,” he said, according to Natanson. “Stop answering them.” The Daily Beast contacted the FBI and Natanson for comment. The FBI referred the Beast to Patel’s X post. https://www.thedailybeast.com/reporter-investigating-trump-administration-raided-by-fbi/? ps:Of course they did!! Quote phkrause Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted January 15 Author Members Posted January 15 Massive ICE Goon ID Leak Halted by Cyber Attack From Russia ICE List says website was hit just as it prepared to publish names of federal immigration staff leaked by an alleged whistleblower. A website dedicated to naming ICE and Border Patrol employees is coming under a “prolonged and sophisticated” cyber attack after the Daily Beast revealed it planned to make public 4,500 names of federal immigration staff. The founder of ICE List said the website was overwhelmed by malicious web traffic originating in Russia after the Beast reported that a huge cache of personal IDs had been leaked to the site by an alleged Department of Homeland Security whistleblower. The Direct Denial of Service (DDOS) assault, which began on Tuesday evening and is still ongoing at the time of publication, saw a huge number of IPs simultaneously access the website of ICE List, a self-styled “accountability initiative.”This has successfully overloaded the ICE List’s servers and is preventing people from accessing the site. The timing coincided with ICE List founder Dominick Skinner telling the Daily Beast he would make public the first tranche of names in the dataset, which was leaked following the shooting by an ICE agent of mom Renee Nicole Good. While Skinner told the Beast that it was only possible to “speculate” about who might have directed the attack, he revealed that a large amount of traffic on Wednesday had come from Russia, likely from a bot farm hosted there. “The IPs would be run through proxies before hitting our servers, meaning it’s just impossible to track the source,” he said, adding, “An attack lasting this long is sophisticated, though.” Despite having DDOS protections in place, such attacks are very difficult to prevent, Skinner admitted, saying: “It has happened before, and it will happen again, no doubt.” He confirmed his team was in the process of moving servers to get it back online.“The attacker doesn’t want others to access the site,” he added. “But it just makes us more determined, because it is clear some people out there do not want the names of ICE and Border Patrol agents made public. Given their behavior lately, and how they are increasingly viewed negatively by the public, that’s no surprise.”Skinner told the Beast that a DHS whistleblower allegedly handed ICE List a dataset covering roughly 4,500 immigration personnel—about 1,800 “on-the-ground” agents and around 150 supervisors—after the Jan. 7 killing of Good, 37, sparked outrage inside and outside government.The material ICE List received on Monday includes names, work email addresses, phone numbers, job titles and roles, and résumé-style background information such as previous employment, he said. Skinner argued the shooting of Good, an unarmed mother, was “the last straw” for some staffers. Before the dump, ICE List said it already held information on about 2,000 federal immigration employees—roughly 800 of them frontline or eligible to deputize—bringing the total cache to around 6,500. Skinner said he planned to publish “the majority” of verifiable names, while carving out exceptions for positions like childcare workers and nurses. https://www.thedailybeast.com/massive-ice-list-id-leak-halted-by-cyber-attack-from-russia/? Quote phkrause Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted January 15 Author Members Posted January 15 Furious Trump, 79, Rants About Dogsleds in Bizarre Morning Tantrum The president and his closest aides have repeatedly mused about taking the Arctic island by hook or by crook. President Trump has thrown an early morning tantrum, barking at NATO about dogsleds to try to justify his obsession with taking Greenland for the U.S. In a Truth Social double-tap early on Wednesday morning, Trump re-launched his favorite dig at Denmark, saying it is ill-equipped to deal with phantom Russian and Chinese probes. “NATO: Tell Denmark to get them out of here, NOW! Two dogsleds won’t do it! Only the USA can!!!” he said. “Danish intel warned last year about Russian and Chinese military goals toward Greenland and Arctic,” he added, sharing a link to conservative outlet Just The News. It followed an initial post around two hours earlier, saying that America needs the Danish island “for the purpose of National Security.” “It is vital for the Golden Dome that we are building. NATO should be leading the way for us to get it,” Trump, 79, added in his pre-dawn post. The Golden Dome is a missile defense system inspired by Israel’s Iron Dome. Congress last year approved nearly $25 billion for the Golden Dome under Trump’s signature One Big Beautiful Bill Act, but the president has since returned to lawmakers seeking additional funding. The project remains in the early stages. Trump, in his first Truth Social post on the topic that morning, shared his fears that another global power would take Greenland if the U.S. does not. “IF WE DON’T, RUSSIA OR CHINA WILL, AND THAT IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN! Militarily, without the vast power of the United States, much of which I built during my first term, and am now bringing to a new and even higher level, NATO would not be an effective force or deterrent - Not even close!” he ranted. “They know that, and so do I. NATO becomes far more formidable and effective with Greenland in the hands of the UNITED STATES. Anything less than that is unacceptable. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DJT.” It’s not the first time Trump has derided Denmark’s national defense apparatus, mocking the country on Sunday as he noodled around the idea of giving Greenlanders lump sum payments. “I haven’t done that, but Greenland should make the deal because Greenland does not want to see Russia or China take over,” Trump said. “They don’t go there. It’s very far away from Greenland. And Greenland basically their defense is two dogsleds. Do you know that? You know what their defense is? Two dogsleds.” Trump’s claims about looming hostile ships and Greenland only having “two dogsleds” were debunked by a fact check from the Associated Press on Tuesday. “There are no Russian and Chinese ships all over the place around Greenland,” research director for Arctic and ocean politics at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute in Oslo, Norway, Andreas Østhagen, said. “Russia and/or China has no capacity to occupy Greenland or to take control over Greenland.” As for the dogsleds, AP reports, “The Sirius Dog Sled Patrol, an elite Danish naval unit that conducts long-range reconnaissance and enforces Danish sovereignty in the Arctic wilderness, is stationed in Greenland. It’s a key part of the Danish military infrastructure in the inhospitable Arctic terrain, experts say.” University of Southern California’s Steven Lamy, an international relations professor and Arctic security expert, told the agency, “transportation of the area is either by sea or by air. There are no highways. You can’t basically get in a car or a Bradley vehicle or tank or anything and go up there. So they have dog sleds.” Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio will hold talks Wednesday with the foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland about the acquisition of the Arctic island. It comes after Trump dismissed comments from Greenland’s democratically elected leader, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, that his country wants to remain part of Denmark. “Well, that’s their problem,” Trump said on Tuesday. “I disagree with him. I don’t know who he is, don’t know anything about him—but that’s going to be a big problem for him.” However, Trump’s aggressive comments are only pushing Greenlanders further away, according to Politico. “People here are getting more and more concerned because Trump’s statements keep getting worse. It’s tearing on us,” said Avaaraq S. Olsen, the mayor of Nuuk, Greenland’s largest city. Politico also reported that European officials are trying to cook up a way to make Trump think he’s won. “E.U. leaders are scrambling to come up with a deal on Greenland’s future that would allow Donald Trump to claim victory without destroying the alliance that underpins European security,” the title reports. Plans could include using NATO to bolster Arctic security, or giving the U.S. concessions on mineral extraction, it added. On Tuesday, Senators introduced a bipartisan bill designed to prevent the American military from occupying NATO territories, according to the FT. The bill is led by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski. She is one of several Republicans to speak out about Trump’s naked desire to take Greenland by any means. Murkowski will hold talks on Wednesday with Danish Ambassador Jesper Møller Sørensen. Later this week, she will join a bipartisan group of senators traveling to Denmark. https://www.thedailybeast.com/furious-trump-79-rants-about-dogsleds-in-bizarre-morning-tantrum/? ps:What a administration! They want to invade Greenland????? What is there problem? Quote phkrause Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted January 16 Author Members Posted January 16 FBI searches home of Washington Post reporter in classified documents probe, newspaper says FBI agents searched a Washington Post reporter’s home on Wednesday as part of a leak investigation involving a Pentagon contractor accused of sharing classified information, the Justice Department said. Hannah Natanson, who has been covering President Donald Trump’s transformation of the federal government, had a phone and a Garmin watch seized in the search of her Virginia home, the Post reported. Read more. RELATED COVERAGE ➤ Sen. Slotkin is being investigated by the Trump administration for Democrats’ video to troops Some personnel at key US base in Qatar advised to evacuate as Iran official brings up earlier attack Supreme Court revives GOP congressman's challenge to late-arriving mail ballot law DeSantis picks new Florida Supreme Court justice who is his sixth appointee to 7-member court Trump envoy says Gaza is entering second phase of ceasefire plan Live updates: Greenland and Denmark officials meet at White House Officials from Greenland and Denmark met in Washington on Wednesday with top White House officials as President Donald Trump moved to ratchet up the pressure by suggesting that NATO should help the United States acquire the world’s largest island and saying anything less than it being under American control is unacceptable. Read more. RELATED COVERAGE ➤ Most Americans say Trump has 'gone too far' with military intervention abroad, AP-NORC poll finds As Trump's envoy, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry says he wants to meet Greenlanders and not diplomats Photos of Greenland as Trump says US needs island for Arctic security US to suspend immigrant visa processing from 75 countries over public assistance concerns The State Department said Wednesday it will suspend the processing of immigrant visas for citizens of 75 countries, including Afghanistan, Iran, Russia and Somalia, whose nationals the Trump administration has deemed likely to require public assistance while living in the United States. Read more. RELATED COVERAGE ➤ Trump threatens to halt federal money next month not only to sanctuary cities but also their states No immediate court decision on a request to stop the immigration crackdown in Minnesota Oglala Sioux Tribe says three tribal members arrested in Minneapolis are in ICE detention Quote phkrause Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted January 16 Author Members Posted January 16 ? The U.S. is evacuating some troops from Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar and several other bases in the region ahead of a potential military conflict with Iran over the protests there, two sources with knowledge tell Axios' Barak Ravid. Go deeper. ? The FBI searched the home and devices of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson, who covers the Trump administration's reshaping of the federal government. Attorney General Pam Bondi said the search was done at the Pentagon's request as part of a leak probe. Executive Editor Matt Murray told the newsroom: "According to the government warrant, the raid was in connection with an investigation into a government contractor accused of illegally retaining classified government materials. We are told Hannah, and The Post, are not a target." More from Axios' Sara Fischer. ?? Danish leaders have a "fundamental disagreement" with the Trump administration over Greenland, Foreign Minster Lars Løkke Rasmussen said after his White House meeting today. Denmark and its allies are beefing up their military presence on the island amid President Trump's demands to control it. Trump, on Truth Social today: "NATO becomes far more formidable and effective with Greenland in the hands of the UNITED STATES." Get the latest. Quote phkrause Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted January 16 Author Members Posted January 16 Drilling Into Bedrock (Bettmann / Getty) View in browser The most notable, and perhaps most effective, ad of the 2024 presidential campaign featured footage of the Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, voicing her support for gender-affirming treatment for inmates in federal prisons. “Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you,” the narrator concluded. The spot was a crisp, 30-second encapsulation of one of the key Republican talking points of the cycle: that “wokeness” was sweeping the nation and upending established ways of life, and that Donald Trump would fight against it. Trump has since made clear that he wasn’t interested in just reining in what some people saw as excesses. He was interested in a wholesale rollback of bedrock civil-rights protections. During his recent interview with The New York Times, the president harshly criticized the legislation of the 1960s, which included the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (which bans employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin) and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (which bans racial discrimination in voting). “White people were very badly treated where they did extremely well, and they were not invited to go into a university or a college. So I would say, in that way, I think it was unfair in certain cases,” he said. “It accomplished some very wonderful things, but it also hurt a lot of people—people that deserve to go to a college or deserve to get a job were unable to get a job.” Trump went on to say that the laws caused “reverse discrimination.” This idea that white Americans are suffering from widespread bias is a core belief of the revanchist right. In a Pew Research Center poll last year, 62 percent of white Republicans said that white people face some or a lot of discrimination. It’s not a mainstream view, though. Overall, fewer than 40 percent of Americans believe that white people face some or a lot of discrimination; roughly three-quarters say the same about Black and Hispanic people, and two-thirds about Asian people. The idea that early-2020s “wokeness” went too far is more mainstream. Trump’s anti-woke campaigning appealed not only to the MAGA base but also to independents and even some voters who viewed themselves as left of center but felt that Democrats had overreached. The word woke was a useful tool because it had no clear definition—in one infamous moment in 2023, the author of a conservative book about “woke ideology” struggled to offer a simple explanation for what it was. This meant that people could interpret Trump’s rhetoric however they wanted—perhaps they were just looking for permission to not have to worry about anyone’s preferred pronouns. This anti-wokeness language helped Trump win back independents who had abandoned him in 2020, even as observers, including my colleague Adam Serwer, warned that this vagueness was a Trojan horse for attacking more popular equal-rights protections. After taking office, Trump did move to push back on DEI initiatives (in the federal government and in private universities) and transgender-athlete participation in sports; a veteran FBI employee claims that he was fired for displaying a Pride flag. But Trump has also gone much further than that, working to undermine structures that were in place long before DEI or woke became familiar terms. This broader project is one that keen observers of the plans laid out in Project 2025 would have known to expect—but that many voters may not have intended and may not endorse. In April, Trump issued an executive order that throws out the theory of disparate impact, an approach that allows policies to be assessed not just on whether their intent is to discriminate but also on whether their effect is discriminatory. Disparate impact has been a core tool for civil-rights enforcement for decades. The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has been hollowed out (and has continued to bleed talent even this week) and has been reoriented around chimerical right-wing causes such as claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election. Last month, the chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission posted on X to solicit complaints: “Are you a white male who has experienced discrimination at work based on your race or sex? You may have a claim to recover money under federal civil rights laws.” The administration is even trying to erode the foundational post–Civil War constitutional amendments. Meanwhile, the conservative wing of the Supreme Court, strengthened by three Trump-appointed justices, appears poised to demolish yet another pillar of the Voting Rights Act when it rules in Louisiana v. Callais. The case could allow states to eliminate majority-minority congressional districts, which some conservatives have argued is another instance of reverse discrimination against white Americans. Alongside these policy moves to undermine civil-rights protections, the administration has also resorted to old-fashioned racist rhetoric. The Department of Homeland Security has consistently published winking nods to core racist texts in its advertising materials, including the white-nationalist screed Which Way Western Man? My colleague David Frum reported earlier this week on a DHS post that alludes to a song popular on the far right. Quoting the song, the post read, “We’ll have our home again.” The administration makes no pretenses about its demonization of immigrants; Vice President J. D. Vance admitted last year that he was happy to make up lies about migrants in Ohio. But Trump’s new frankness about the most basic civil-rights laws shows another way in which he hopes to restore MAGA’s sense of home: His administration is going to reclaim the pride of white people who believe that their country has left them behind, no matter who gets treated badly in the process. Related: Adam Serwer: Conservatives want the antebellum Constitution back. David Frum: Why Vance committed so hard to the Minneapolis shooter Quote phkrause Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted January 16 Author Members Posted January 16 ? Trump's mass deportation trouble Photo illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Photos: Getty Images Support for President Trump's immigration crackdown is unraveling quickly and reviving Democratic opposition on an issue that helped decide the last election, Axios' Brittany Gibson writes. Why it matters: Border chaos under former President Biden helped return Trump to power. Now, it's chaos from ICE and other Trump immigration enforcers that's turning off the public, one viral video at a time. Just weeks after Trump was sworn in, ICE had a +16 positive favorability rating, according to a YouGov/Economist poll. Majorities now disapprove of ICE raids and how the agency is handling its job. Americans are now statistically split on whether to abolish ICE altogether, according to one poll. If that anger carries into the midterms, a Democratic House majority could cut off ICE funding, subpoena DHS and even impeach Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Keep reading. Quote phkrause Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted January 16 Author Members Posted January 16 Venezuela war powers resolution fails in Senate as 2 Republicans bow to Trump pressure Senate Republicans voted to dismiss a war powers resolution Wednesday that would have limited President Donald Trump’s ability to conduct further attacks on Venezuela after two GOP senators reversed course on supporting the legislation. Read more. Why this matters: The legislation represented both a test of GOP loyalty to the president and a marker for how much leeway the Republican-controlled Senate is willing to give Trump to use the military abroad. Republican angst over his recent foreign policy moves — especially threats of using military force to seize Greenland from a NATO ally — is still running high in Congress. Trump put intense pressure on five Republican senators who joined with Democrats to advance the resolution last week and ultimately prevailed in heading off passage of the legislation. Two of the Republicans — Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Todd Young of Indiana — flipped under the pressure. Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine stuck to their support for the legislation. RELATED COVERAGE ➤ Trump set to meet Venezuelan opposition leader after cozying up to Maduro’s successor European troops arrive in Greenland as talks with US highlight ‘disagreement’ over island’s future Renaming the Department of Defense the ‘Department of War’ could cost up to $125 million In his own words: Stephen Miller’s arguments for White House actions in US cities and abroad US apologizes for mistake in deporting Massachusetts college student, but defends her removal Demonstrator injured after federal agent fired projectile from close range during California protest A man shot by Border Patrol during an Oregon immigration stop pleads not guilty to assault on agent Federal judges allow California to use new US House map ahead of 2026 election Maryland Democratic Gov. Wes Moore pushes the case for redrawing the state’s congressional map Press freedom advocates worry that raid on Washington Post journalist’s home will chill reporting 22 candidates enter Georgia race to succeed Marjorie Taylor Greene in Congress Official says law Trump is using to seek legal fees in Georgia election case likely unconstitutional Newsom says he is blocking Louisiana’s push to extradite doctor accused of mailing abortion pills New DHS rule aims to shorten visa wait times abroad for religious workers serving US congregations Colorado appeals panel skeptical of sentencing for former county clerk who breached election systems Trump’s freeze of an offshore wind project faces scrutiny from a judge he appointed Trump administration restores federal funding for family planning after ACLU lawsuit Trump signs a law returning whole milk to school lunches Quote phkrause Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted January 16 Author Members Posted January 16 Top Trump Goon Gives Bonkers Response to ICE Shooting Pressure is mounting on the White House and the communications director has come up with a wild new scapegoat. Senior Trump aide Steven Cheung responded to a Wednesday night shooting in Minneapolis with a hateful X post aimed at Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. The White House communications director picked up on an allegation that a federal agent had been struck with a snow shovel to post a picture of Walz with a shovel in his hand as he broke ground on a manufacturing plant in the state. “Thugs assault a law enforcement officer with a shovel after a traffic stop in Minneapolis of an illegal alien RELEASED BY BIDEN,” Cheung wrote. “Perhaps they took some inspiration from Loser Tim Walz continually going after officers day in and day out.” A week after the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross in Minneapolis, a federal agent shot a Venezuelan immigrant in the leg after a traffic stop in the city on Wednesday night. DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said that the suspect was attempting to evade arrest, fled the scene in his vehicle, and crashed into a parked car before fleeing on foot, and that the officers involved in the traffic stop were left “fearing for their life.” A DHS statement said that an agent caught up with the suspect on foot but the man “began to resist and violently assault the officer.” It went on: “While the subject and law enforcement were in a struggle on the ground, two subjects came out of a nearby apartment and also attacked the law enforcement officer with a snow shovel and broom handle. “As the officer was being ambushed and attacked by the two individuals, the original subject got loose and began striking the officer with a shovel or broom stick. “Fearing for his life and safety as he was being ambushed by three individuals, the officer fired a defensive shot to defend his life. The initial subject was hit in the leg. The three then ran off and barricaded themselves in the apartment block. “The attacked officer and subject are both in the hospital. Both attackers are in custody,” DHS said. The incident came after days of protests, both in Minneapolis and around the country, which saw thousands of Americans take to the streets to protest Good’s killing. President Donald Trump has yet to comment on the shooting, only sharing a post earlier in the evening insulting Minneapolis. The official White House-affiliated account @RapidResponse47 did share the statement from DHS on X, however, adding, “Just so we’re all clear: these criminals in Minnesota have been embolden by @GovTimWalz and @MayorFrey to evade arrest and attack law enforcement officers. This is a result of their sick, unhinged rhetoric.” The Daily Beast has contacted the White House and Gov. Tim Walz’s office for comment. The Trump administration has targeted Walz, who was Kamala Harris’ running mate in the 2024 election, for several months, with the 79-year-old president making generous use of offensive slurs when describing the 61-year-old governor. In a late-night Truth Social post shared on Thanksgiving, the president called Walz “seriously ret---ed.” He doubled down again a month later when the official @RapidResponse47 account reshared the post in response to one of Walz’s own social media posts, blurring the entire message except for the offending sentence. In a December press conference, Walz revealed that since the president’s post on Thanksgiving, people had been driving by his home and shouting the slur at him. ”And I’ll tell you what, in my time on this, I’ve never seen this before: people driving by my house and using the r-word in front of people. This is shameful, and I have yet to see a Republican elected official say, ‘You’re right, that’s shameful. He should not say it.‘” Walz’s daughter Hope also discussed the impact the president’s post had on her family, disclosing in a since-deleted TikTok video that the post had “unleashed a f---ing s--tstorm” for her family. https://www.thedailybeast.com/top-white-house-aide-gives-bonkers-response-to-ice-shooting/? Quote phkrause Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted January 16 Author Members Posted January 16 Trump Is Coming for You. The Press Is Just Standing in the Way James Madison saw it all coming... James Madison stood about a foot shorter and was, probably, some 150 lbs lighter than our current chief executive. And “Lil’ Jimmy,” as he assuredly would have been known in our times, understood something that his presidential descendant does not grasp today: the reason we have a First Amendment which carves out specific protections for the press is because, in Madison’s own words, a government that does not allow provide public information about its works is a “prologue to a farce or a tragedy.” Under the leadership of bug-eyed podcaster Kash Patel, the FBI this morning raided the home of The Washington Post’s reporter Hannah Natanson. They did so as part of an investigation into Aurelio Perez-Lugones, a now-arrested federal subcontractor accused of leaking classified intelligence reports. The Fibbies seized Natanson’s laptops, phone, and a Garmin smartwatch. The search itself was illegal. No need to take my word for it. The 1980 Privacy Protection Act (PPA) clearly states that it is unlawful for “a government officer or employee, in connection with the investigation or prosecution of a criminal offense, to search for or seize any work product materials possessed by a person reasonably believed to have a purpose to disseminate to the public a newspaper, book, broadcast, or other similar form of public communication”—except in very specific cases which this raid does not appear to meet. So that’s bad. The PPA came in response to concerns from news publications and civil rights organizations after a previous ruling, Zurcher v. Stanford Daily, found that government agencies could issue a search warrant against newsrooms, even if those in the newsroom subject to the warrant were not accused of any crime. It was crafted to protect the press from governmental overreach. Unfortunately, governmental overreach is our soup of the day. Even more unfortunate, it will be our soup of the day for the foreseeable future. Madison, known as the “Father of the Constitution,” wrote in 1820 that, “Equal laws protecting equal rights are found as they ought to be presumed, the best guarantee of loyalty & love of country.” While his brain may not have been as big and beautiful as our current president’s, the point he makes holds true: one’s love of country must exist in direct proportion to one’s country’s love of him. When the nation behaves capriciously towards its citizenry, the citizenry will, eventually, rebel. It is the role of the press to observe both sides and to report on their actions. In the case of the Post’s Natanson, that means covering, as she does, “Trump’s reshaping of the federal government and its effects.” Whether Perez-Lugones leaked to her, or what he leaked, is unclear at the moment, but it doesn’t matter: a reporter receiving classified material from a whistleblower is not illegal. And, in fact, the FBI informed Natanson that she is not suspected of criminal activity. Which means, by a clear reading of the PPA, the FBI done gone and broken the darn law. I’m sure Pam Bondi will get right on that. Meanwhile, the Post’s owner, that tight-shirt-wearing billionaire formerly married to the philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, has yet to weigh in on behalf of his staff. When Nixon’s DOJ came down hard on the paper’s Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein during their Watergate coverage, its then-owner, Katharine Graham, refused to yield, even going so far as to defy a subpoena for the reporters’ notes. Bezos’s courage does not seem quite so apparent. Perhaps he does not wish to jeopardize the billions in rocketship contracts one of his other companies has procured from the Trump administration. Having already overhauled the Post’s opinion coverage—and its editorial priorities more broadly—to curry favor with the administration, he does not seem inclined to risk even a single dollar for the sake of our pesky First Amendment. Many have asked, “What’s the point of hoarding billions upon billions of dollars only to shirk from wielding the awesome power those billions afford you?” The answer is as stark as it is obvious: cowardice costs nothing. Except everything. The nation is well-accustomed to a certain amount of animosity between the powerful and those who report on their activities. Never before, though, has a president waged such a consistent and sustained attack on the press, beginning with his rebranding of the famous French Revolutionary phrase: “ennemi du peuple.” Stalin used the phrase to describe, among others, the press. So did Lenin. So did Mao. Again, not good. A reporter’s home getting raided does not rise to the same level of outrage as, say, a mom getting shot three times in the face, but the principle at stake is the same: the right of the people to speak. Even when such speech is odious to the government. Even when such speech is, in the words of the president while attempting to justify the murder of Renee Nicole Good, “disrespectful.” Maybe a good rule of thumb for assessing a government’s actions is to ask whether they increase or decrease its people’s ability to speak freely? In the case of Good, the question answers itself. In the case of Natanson, the answer is the same. When the government attempts to silence its critics—and this is precisely what the government is trying to do in both cases—it violates all of us. Madison, our fourth president, not only drafted the Bill of Rights, but he also understood their import in a way that seems to elude our forty-seventh. In fact, he predicted just such a man in Federalist No. 10, writing that, “Men of factious tempers, of local prejudices, or of sinister designs, may, by intrigue, by corruption, or by other means, first obtain the suffrages, and then betray the interests, of the people.” Our interests have been betrayed. Our rights trampled. Our lives sacrificed. To what end? Maybe you don’t care about a single reporter at a single, failing newspaper. But you should. The farce is upon us. The tragedy is underway. https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-is-coming-for-you-the-press-is-just-standing-in-the-way/? Quote phkrause Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted January 16 Author Members Posted January 16 GOP Rebel Gives Crazy Reason Why He Caved on Anti-Trump Bill The Republican was previously slammed by Trump, who said he should “never be elected” again. Sen. Josh Hawley has revealed why he changed his vote on a controversial war powers resolution bill after threats and personal insults from Donald Trump. The Missouri senator was one of five rogue Republicans who voted alongside Democrats last week for a bill designed to prevent Trump ordering further attacks on Venezuela without prior approval from Congress. On Wednesday, however, Hawley and fellow Republican Todd Young of Indiana dramatically flipped to kill the bill. A furious Trump had ranted at the five GOP senators—including Hawley and Young—who voted against him when the bill was first introduced, blasting them for their “stupidity.” “Republicans should be ashamed of the Senators that just voted with Democrats in attempting to take away our Powers to fight and defend the United States of America,” the 79-year-old said on Truth Social last week before saying the five “should never be elected to office again.” Trump declared the vote against him violated the Constitution and “greatly hampers” U.S. defense and national security. Speaking on The Will Cain Show on Fox News on Wednesday, Hawley defended his U-turn, saying he had since found out there were no U.S. troops remaining in Venezuela after they captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro during a raid on Jan. 3. The late-night raid happened without Congress being informed in advance—although Trump said he had been discussing his plans with major U.S. oil companies. “For me, this has always been about ground troops,” said Hawley, who was once considered one of the most MAGA of Republican senators, but now regularly sides with Democrats. “Ground troops into Venezuela, occupying Venezuela. That’s not something that I think I would want to do.” Hawley said he spoke to Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and the Department of Justice before changing his vote. He added, “I thank the administration for all of their outreach, and what the secretary of state said to me very clearly is, ‘We’re not doing that. We don’t have ground troops in Venezuela. This is not another Iraq. We’re not gonna occupy Venezuela’. And you know what? That’s good enough for me.” Despite also being called out by name by Trump, three GOP senators—Rand Paul of Kentucky, Susan Collins of Maine, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska—continued to vote alongside Democrats on Wednesday. Young also flipped his vote, and stuck to the same MAGA playbook as Hawley after being assured by Rubio that no U.S. ground troops remain in Venezuela. The Indiana senator said he supported Trump’s decision to bring Maduro to justice, but that he was “deeply skeptical” about sending U.S. troops to “stabilize Venezuela. “I strongly believe any commitment of U.S. forces in Venezuela must be subject to debate and authorization in Congress,” Young posted in a statement on X. “I’ve also received a commitment that if President Trump were to determine American forces are needed in major military operations in Venezuela, the Administration will come to Congress in advance to ask for an authorization of force.” He added that Rubio will testify in a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the U.S. military action in Venezuela later this month. Speaking ahead of the vote, Paul said it was “an absurdity” to believe that Trump had not already conducted actions of war in Venezuela. “If we don’t know it’s a war until after all the people die... wouldn’t it then be a little late?” he said. https://www.thedailybeast.com/gop-rebel-josh-hawley-gives-crazy-reason-why-he-caved-on-anti-trump-bill/? Quote phkrause Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted January 16 Author Members Posted January 16 How Desperate Trump Could Kill Democracy: Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin warns that a loss on tariffs at the Supreme Court wouldn’t stop the president. Donald Trump could easily wriggle his way around an unfavorable Supreme Court ruling on his precious tariffs, causing dangerous consequences for the country, one legal analyst warns. Author and New York Times op-ed contributor Jeffrey Toobin told The Daily Beast Podcast that the president would simply tweak any policy the high court deems unconstitutional, plow ahead with that, and dare the legal system to catch up—if it even has the means to.“The Supreme Court in our country doesn’t have any individual enforcement powers. They don’t have an army. They don’t have a police force that can do anything except protect their members,” Toobin told host Joanna Coles, referencing how President Andrew Jackson is said to have challenged Chief Justice John Marshall in 1832 to enforce a pro-Native American ruling he disagreed with. Rather, the court relies “on the understanding in the other branches of government that they...have the last word,” Toobin, 65, explained. But this administration is unlike any other. “I think Donald Trump is not going to directly defy the court, but this administration has figured out ways to get around court rulings, and in a way that I don’t think it’s for certain. I don’t think it’s entirely clear how he would react to an adverse decision. But we’ll see,” he said. Toobin reasoned that if the conservative majority court were to side against him, Trump would do the bare minimum to proceed with his tariffs. “What he would do is he would say ‘I understand the Supreme Court has said these tariffs are unconstitutional, but I’m going to make some changes and these new tariffs will be different enough’, and [Trump will] then force litigation on those sets of tariffs,” he said. “There are ways to play with the wording and play with the response so that you don’t seem like you are in direct defiance of the courts, even if you really are.” The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast.During oral arguments in November, justices—including some Trump appointees—seemed to question Trump’s justification for the global tariffs: a 1977 law that applied to national emergencies. Trump-nominated Justice Neil Gorsuch, for instance, mused on a “one-way ratchet toward the gradual but continual accretion of power in the executive branch and away from the people’s elected representatives.” Since then, Trump, 79, has amped up pressure on the court to let his controversial economic policy slide. If the highly anticipated decision goes the other way, the U.S. would be “SCREWED,” he fumed in a Monday Truth Social post. The Supreme Court is also weighing another key Trump action that could spur a furious response from the White House; the jurists are expected to rule on Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship, which is guaranteed in the Fourteenth Amendment. https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-desperate-trump-could-kill-democracy-legal-analyst-jeffrey-toobin/? Quote phkrause Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted January 16 Author Members Posted January 16 Trump threatens to use the Insurrection Act to end protests in Minneapolis MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened to invoke an 1807 law and deploy troops to quell persistent protests against the federal officers sent to Minneapolis to enforce his administration’s massive immigration crackdown. https://apnews.com/article/immigration-crackdown-minnesota-shootings-renee-good-a0c368079c106b599245996fded8c1b9? Court ruling jeopardizes freedom for pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil A federal appeals panel on Thursday reversed a lower court decision that released former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil from an immigration jail, bringing the government one step closer to detaining and ultimately deporting the Palestinian activist. https://apnews.com/article/mahmoud-khalil-protester-immigration-appeals-court-deportation-2b6d321d5157632412a82fba14eb3bd4? Quote phkrause Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted January 16 Author Members Posted January 16 Trump is meeting with Venezuelan opposition leader after cozying up to Maduro’s successor Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado was at the White House on Thursday discussing her country’s future with President Donald Trump even after he publicly dismissed her credibility to take over after an audacious U.S. military raid captured then-President Nicolás Maduro. Read more. RELATED COVERAGE ➤ Venezuela’s new leader faces competing pressures from the US and a government loyal to Maduro US seizes sixth sanctioned tanker it says has ties to Venezuela in Trump's effort to control its oil Bodies of 32 Cuban officers killed during US strike on Venezuela repatriated as US threat lingers ?? President Trump is delaying a decision on striking Iran as the White House consults internally and with allies about the timing for such an operation and whether it would meaningfully destabilize the regime. More from Axios' Barak Ravid. Quote phkrause Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted January 16 Author Members Posted January 16 Trump's new threat as Minneapolis reels President Trump's threat today to deploy federal troops to Minneapolis comes as the city is already in turmoil, reports Nick Halter of Axios Twin Cities. ? The unprecedented ICE surge has the hallmarks of an occupation in some neighborhoods. Masked and heavily armed agents drive around in large SUVs, tussle with protesters and observers, and enter people's cars and houses to make arrests. Trump wrote on Truth Social today: "If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don't obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT, which many Presidents have done before me, and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great State." ?️ A few hours later, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) made a "direct appeal" to Trump to "turn the temperature down." To Minnesotans, Walz said: "I know this is scary. We can — we must — speak out loudly, urgently, but also peacefully. We cannot fan the flames of chaos. That's what he wants." Tensions rose yesterday after a confrontation in North Minneapolis, where Homeland Security officials said a federal agent shot a man following an attack with a snow shovel and broom. That followed last week's killing of Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother shot in her vehicle by an ICE officer. ? Being there: Minneapolis' Lake Street corridor has been an epicenter of ICE activity. ? The area's Midtown Global Market is usually a buzzy hub for immigrant-owned businesses — but several vendors have closed shop. ? Longtime vendor Manny's Tortas is suffering a 40% decline in business, owner Manny González tells Axios, adding that he won't last another month. ? School districts with big Latino populations are reporting a sharp drop in attendance as families fear leaving the house. ? Minneapolis and St. Paul schools are offering remote learning in response. ? Observers trail immigration agents around the Twin Cities, standing watch near immigrant businesses and alerting potential ICE targets with whistles and car horns. ? These observers, now part of a massive network, have recorded agents repeatedly kneeing a detainee in the face and dragging a woman from her car as she said she was trying to get to a doctor's appointment, among other clips that have gone viral. ❄️ What's next: Subzero Arctic air headed to the Twin Cities this weekend could quell some of the tension — at least temporarily. Go deeper ... Quote phkrause Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted January 17 Author Members Posted January 17 Venezuela’s Machado says she presented her Nobel Peace Prize to Trump during their meeting WASHINGTON (AP) — Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado said she presented her Nobel Peace Prize medal to President Donald Trump at the White House on Thursday even as he has questioned her credibility to take over her country after the U.S. ousted then-President Nicolás Maduro. https://apnews.com/article/trump-machado-venezuela-maduro-nobel-peace-prize-ed23992bccabf128b7e849259d3c29a8? ps:And I'm pretty sure he didn't except it, because he's not that vain????? Quote phkrause Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted January 17 Author Members Posted January 17 Threat Inflation View in browser Today, Donald Trump announced that he is considering using the Insurrection Act to send the U.S. military to Minneapolis if state officials do not quell anti-ICE protests there. Deploying federal troops on American soil against the objections of state and local officials is an extreme measure––and seems likelier to inflame than to extinguish unrest there, given that needlessly provocative actions by ICE officers helped create conditions on the ground. Yet the president seems eager to suppress the actions of people he calls “professional agitators and insurrectionists.” For months, members of his administration have laid the rhetorical groundwork for a martial crackdown. Insurrections are rare in U.S. history, but according to White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, we’ve had lots of them just since 2024. In his telling, the perpetrators of recent insurrections against the United States include Joe Biden; the Colorado Supreme Court; U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani; U.S. District Judge Jennifer Thurston; Democrats; protesters in Los Angeles; protesters in Paramount, California; protesters in Compton, California; the city of Los Angeles; U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong; various “radical communist judges”; the Chicago Police Department; a crowd that the Chicago police didn’t stop; an Oregon judge; and “Democrat lawmakers.” (Miller has never called the MAGA movement’s storming of the Capitol an insurrection.) The rhetorical abuse of insurrection is part of a larger pattern. The president and his allies constantly engage in what we might call threat inflation, giving Americans the impression that they face catastrophe on all sides and that the government therefore must respond maximally. In the administration’s telling, drugs enter America via not smugglers, but “narco-terrorists.” Immigrants never sneak into America; they “invade.” And anti-ICE protesters are “domestic terrorists” and “insurrectionists.” These designations rarely match the reality on the ground. Instead, they stoke fear beyond what reality justifies. A particularly extreme example occurred just last month: Trump issued an executive order that declared fentanyl “a weapon of mass destruction,” a dubious turn in the history of that term. The phrase weapons of mass destruction was coined by Archbishop Cosmo Gordon Lang after the 1937 bombing of Guernica to anticipate the massively damaging aerial bombings of future conflicts. “Who can think without horror of what another widespread war would mean,” he wrote, “waged as it would be with all the new weapons of mass destruction?” The term grew only more apt with the advent of the atom bomb, and has been used in recent decades to refer to existential threats to cities or even nations. It had not typically been used to refer to any of the voluntarily ingested substances that kill lots of Americans, such as alcohol, cigarettes, and cocaine—until the Trump administration sought to justify the extrajudicial killing of drug smugglers and perhaps to prepare the public to accept military escalation against various drug cartels. Nor does the logic of the new use stand up to scrutiny. If the CIA discovered a plot to smuggle a weapon of mass destruction, as that term is understood by most Americans, into the Port of Long Beach, no president would hesitate to shut down the whole West Coast supply chain and search every container until the nerve agent, biological weapon, dirty bomb, or nuclear device was found. Yet if a kilogram of fentanyl, theoretically enough for 500,000 overdoses, were in a container ship, the U.S. government would not shut down a major port to find it. Tens of thousands of pounds of fentanyl are smuggled into the U.S. every year. Clear thinking requires us to distinguish between the existential emergency posed by weapons of mass murder and substances that cause many deaths accumulated slowly over time, as more and more people use them. And the Trump administration would most likely reject applying its own logic consistently. For example, if a news organization waited for fentanyl shipments to arrive in a bunch of U.S. cities and then led a prime-time broadcast with the storyline Trump and his national-security team failed to stop WMD attacks on at least 20 American cities last month, the White House would rightly argue that the outlet was misleading and manipulating its viewers. The American public is similarly misled each time Trump or members of his team erroneously assert that the country confronts a superlative threat. Terrorism is another word the administration likes to throw around—a particularly ironic threat to exaggerate, in that the intention is to stoke more public fear to achieve political goals. After the ICE officer Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Good in Minneapolis, Americans spent days watching and arguing about videos of the incident. Reasonable people disagreed about how to apportion blame. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem could have waited for an investigation before commenting; if she chose to speak, she could simply have argued that the woman who was killed gave the officer in front of her car reason to fear for his life. Instead, she not only presumed to know the motive of the woman who was killed; she also attributed to her the most malign motive possible. “What happened in Minneapolis was an act of domestic terrorism,” Noem declared. Vice President Vance has bizarrely called the incident “classic terrorism.” The absurdity of Vance’s designation is most evident if, as David French suggested in the The New York Times recently, you compare videos from Minneapolis with actual terrorist attacks. “Many of us have seen footage, for example, of the horrific ramming attack in Nice, France, in 2016 that killed 86 people—or of the domestic terror attack in Charlottesville, Va., the following year, where a white supremacist drove directly into a crowd of ‘Unite the Right’ counterprotesters, killing a woman, Heather D. Heyer, and injuring dozens of others,” French wrote. “In both cases, the murderous intentions of the men driving the vehicles—deploying them as weapons—were unmistakable.” Trump does not lack the capacity for understatement. In February 2020, at the beginning of a pandemic that would kill more than 1 million Americans, he said, “One day—it’s like a miracle—it will disappear. And from our shores, we—you know, it could get worse before it gets better. It could maybe go away. We’ll see what happens. Nobody really knows.” That’s how Trump talks when he wants the country to keep its cool. Confronted with far less deadly threats in his second term, Trump and his allies inflate them daily. They do so to push policies that overreact to the country’s challenges rather than carefully calibrated responses. In the process, their rhetoric fuels the polarization that makes political violence and civic instability more likely. There is less to fear from reality than from the administration’s fearmongering itself. Related: Donald Trump wants you to forget this happened. Jonathan Chait: Trump has odd views on domestic terrorism. Quote phkrause Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted January 17 Author Members Posted January 17 Trump's immigration erosion Photo illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Photos: Getty Images President Trump's team recently reviewed private GOP polling that showed support for his immigration policies falling. The results, reflected in public surveys, bolstered internal concern about the administration's confrontational enforcement tactics, Axios' Alex Isenstadt and Marc Caputo report. Now, as the chaotic scenes from Minnesota play out around the clock on TV and social media, Axios has learned that some Trump advisers quietly are talking about "recalibrating" the White House's approach — though it's unclear what changes Trump would embrace, if any. Why it matters: The worries in part of Trump's brain trust are the first signs of internal second-guessing his controversial ICE enforcement tactics. ? The private polling suggested a rupturing of the coalition of independent, moderate and minority voters who were key parts of Trump's victory in 2024. Such voters will play a big role in determining whether Republicans keep their slim House majority in November's midterms. Federal law enforcement officers try to disperse demonstrators at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building outside Minneapolis yesterday. Photo: Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images Some advisers are playing to the president's occasional misgivings about the optics of some ICE tactics. A top Trump adviser told Axios: "I wouldn't say he's concerned about the policy. He wants deportations. He wants mass deportations. What he doesn't want is what people are seeing. He doesn't like the way it looks. It looks bad. So he's expressed some discomfort at that ... There's the right way to do this. And this doesn't look like the right way." ? By the numbers: The internal GOP polling that alarmed some Trump insiders was completed at the end of December, days before an ICE agent fatally shot Renee Good in Minneapolis. 60% of independent voters and 58% of undecided voters said Trump was "too focused" on deporting illegal immigrants, the poll viewed by Trump's team found. Data: AP-NORC. Chart: Axios Visuals ?️ ICE's tactics are drawing pushback from some prominent Trump supporters. Joe Rogan, who endorsed Trump on the eve of the 2024 election, complained on his show this week about "militarized groups of people roaming the streets, just showing up with masks on, snatching people up." "Are we really going to be the Gestapo?" he asked. "'Where's your papers?' Is that what we've come to?" ? Reality check: Publicly, Trump and the White House continue to back an aggressive approach on immigration. In a Truth Social post yesterday, Trump threatened to invoke the rarely used Insurrection Act to deploy the U.S. military or federalize the National Guard in Minnesota, "and quickly put an end to the travesty." White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem are architects of the current effort, and they have Trump's support. Some Trump allies believe Noem, a former South Dakota governor, is preparing to run for president in 2028 as an immigration hardliner. ? What's next: A close White House ally said the administration needs to go beyond pro-Trump outlets such as Fox News to promote positive aspects of Trump's immigration agenda. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Axios: "President Trump continues to be viewed as a strong leader who keeps the American people safe. A big reason for that is his law and order agenda and handling of immigration/border security — which remains among his best polling issues with voters." Go deeper. Quote phkrause Read Isaiah 10:1-13
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