Members phkrause Posted April 5 Author Members Posted April 5 Judge orders White House ballroom construction to halt in a ruling that leaves Trump seething A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the Trump administration to suspend construction of a $400 million ballroom it demolished the East Wing of the White House to make space for, barring work from proceeding without congressional approval. Read more. Why this matters: The ruling was the first major rebuke of Trump’s sweeping efforts to overhaul the White House. But it wasn’t immediately clear what it would mean for a sprawling project in which crews have long since torn down the East Wing, radically transforming the look and feel of the historic grounds. U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington granted a preservationist group’s request for a preliminary injunction that temporarily halts Trump’s White House ballroom project. He concluded that the National Trust for Historic Preservation is likely to succeed on the merits of its claims. “The President of the United States is the steward of the White House for future generations of First Families. He is not, however, the owner!” wrote Leon, who was nominated to the bench by Republican President George W. Bush. The White House quickly filed a notice to appeal while Trump fumed at the ruling. “We built many things at the White House over the years. They don’t get congressional approval,” he told reporters in the Oval Office a short time later. RELATED COVERAGE ➤ WATCH: Golden toilet installed on the National Mall, a satire of Trump’s renovations Trump mostly cheered while attending opening night of ‘Chicago’ at the Kennedy Center Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted April 5 Author Members Posted April 5 Iran war The White House says President Trump has an "important update" on the war with Iran and will address the nation tonight at 9 p.m. ET. Trump has said he foresees a conclusion to the war within two to three weeks and has emphasized that a deal could potentially be reached sooner. Iran, however, is prepared for "at least six months" of war, the country's foreign minister said in an interview Tuesday. The minister also said Tehran is not in direct negotiations with Washington, pushing back on Trump's claims that the US is in "serious discussions" with a "new, and more reasonable regime" in Iran. Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted April 5 Author Members Posted April 5 Trump Threatens Jaw-Dropping Revenge Against Allies Who Humiliated Him The president’s explosive comments came ahead of an address to the nation. Donald Trump has floated the possibility of pulling the U.S. out of NATO as countries in the military alliance refuse to join in the Iran war. Speaking to the British newspaper The Telegraph, the 79-year-old president accused NATO of being a “paper tiger” for not helping the U.S. in the Middle East conflict or reopening the Strait of Hormuz and said U.S. membership will not just be “reconsidered” but is “beyond reconsideration.” “I was never swayed by NATO. I always knew they were a paper tiger, and [Vladimir] Putin knows that too, by the way,” Trump said. Tensions between Trump and the rest of NATO escalated this week after Italy refused to allow American bombers to use the country’s military base en route to the Middle East. France has blocked Israeli planes from flying weapons through its airspace, while Spain said it would close its airspace to American aircraft involved in military operations and would not allow the U.S. to use its military bases for the war. Speaking to The Telegraph, Trump said he believes that NATO helping the U.S. in conflicts should be “automatic,” even though NATO is intended to be a defensive alliance and therefore has no real need to assist Trump with his war in Iran. “We’ve been there automatically, including Ukraine. Ukraine wasn’t our problem,” Trump said. “It was a test, and we were there for them, and we would always have been there for them. They weren’t there for us.” Speaking to Fox News on Tuesday night, Secretary of State Marco Rubio also suggested that the U.S. will need to “re-examine” its position with NATO when the Iran war ends, as several countries refuse to help Trump in the Middle East conflict. “Unfortunately, we are going to have to re-examine whether or not this alliance that has served this country well for a while is still serving that purpose, or if it has now become a one-way street where America is simply in a position to defend Europe, but when we need the help of our allies, they’re going to deny us basing rights and overflight,” Rubio told Fox News’ Sean Hannity. “I think these are very legitimate questions that we need to be asking.” NATO has firmly stated it has no intention of getting dragged into the war in Iran since it broke out on Feb. 28. Trump also lashed out at top U.S. allies such as the U.K. and France on Tuesday for not helping end the Strait of Hormuz crisis he is responsible for starting. In an unhinged Truth Social post, the 79-year-old president suggested countries affected by the oil crisis stemming from the closure of the shipping route should “build up some delayed courage, go to the Strait, and just TAKE IT.” “You’ll have to start learning how to fight for yourself. The U.S.A. won’t be there to help you anymore, just like you weren’t there for us. Iran has been, essentially, decimated. The hard part is done. Go get your own oil!” Trump added. The Daily Beast has contacted NATO for comment. https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-threatens-jaw-dropping-revenge-against-nato-allies-who-humiliated-him/? Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted April 5 Author Members Posted April 5 MAGA-Coded CBS Boss Plans to ‘Blow Up’ Number 1 Show The Trump-friendly news chief has a hit show in her sights. Trump-friendly CBS News editor Bari Weiss had to be held back from overhauling the network’s most prestigious news show while it was still on air. Weiss, 42, the network’s anti-woke editor-in-chief, has already personally intervened in pulling an episode of flagship current affairs show 60 Minutes just hours before it was due to air. A new report has revealed that Weiss had to be talked out of reshaping 60 Minutes while it was still screening. However, Status claims that Weiss is now poised to strike once the program, which first aired in 1968, takes a mid-season break in May. “No one knows what to expect,” one staffer told Status about the internal mood in the 60 Minutes office about the possible changes. On Tuesday, CBS crowed in a press release that 60 Minutes is “the #1 primetime program for the week,” across all the networks, engaging an average of 10.3 million viewers last Sunday. Status claimed Weiss was held back from her plan to immediately rework the program by CBS News president Tom Cibrowski, and other senior network leaders, who advised her against immediately re-purposing 60 Minutes and to wait until the May break. The changes Weiss is keen to introduce are unclear; one source said the MAGA-coded boss plans to “blow it up as soon as the season is over.” The Daily Beast has contacted CBS for comment. Under Weiss’ guidance, CBS Evening News has continued to flop, falling back below 4 million viewers last week, according to Nielsen figures cited by Reliable Sources. ABC data shows that the network’s World News Tonight enjoyed its “largest total viewer advantage” over CBS in decades. To add to Weiss’s misery, 60 Minutes has already seen one of its most high-profile hosts quit. CNN star Anderson Cooper, who has been a 60 Minutes correspondent for nearly 20 years, announced he would be departing the CBS show earlier this year. Cooper had reportedly been “uncomfortable” with the “rightward direction” of CBS under Weiss and billionaire David Ellison, CEO of CBS’s parent company, Paramount. In January, a 60 Minutes piece on the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador was delayed for weeks because Weiss demanded it include “critical context” and input from the Trump administration. The changes at CBS have caused uproar within the news organization, with journalist Sharyn Alfonsi claiming Weiss had spiked the story three hours before it ran. “We go from an investigative powerhouse to a stenographer for the state,” Alfonsi wrote at the time. The former president of CBS News has also addressed Weiss. Wendy McMahon resigned as CEO and president of CBS News and Stations last May after its parent company made concessions to President Donald Trump. When asked directly by Marie Claire magazine about Weiss being given control of the network, McMahon spoke at length, without using her name, of the dangers of institutional collapse, a lack of “newsgathering commitments,” and how opinion journalism relies on actual reporting. Weiss’ career has been solely as an opinion journalist, suggesting the words were directed at her. “What we can’t have is institutions collapse and, as a result, have newsgathering commitments—to international coverage, to local coverage, to investigative journalism—go away,“ she said. “So much of what we see in the opinion space is built off the reporting of institutions. So what happens when that reporting is not there?" https://www.thedailybeast.com/cbs-maga-coded-boss-bari-weiss-plans-to-tear-up-beloved-show/? Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted April 5 Author Members Posted April 5 Desperate Trump Launches Sinister Election Power Grab The president told reporters he believes his new order is legally “foolproof” ahead of the midterm elections. President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at giving him more control over federal elections ahead of the upcoming midterms.The 79-year-old president’s growing unpopularity—his net approval rating is now at a new low of -20—as well as Democratic wins in deep-red seats suggest November’s elections could be a bloodbath for the Republican Party. This has prompted alarm within party ranks, prompting a flurry of GOP retirements from the House of Representatives. Trump, meanwhile, has zeroed in on mail-in voting as an outlet for his grievances, describing it as “mail-in cheating” and announcing his intent to “lead a movement” to abolish the process entirely. The president’s crusade against mail-in voting comes despite the revelation that he and wife Melania and their 20-year-old son Barron all voted by mail in a special election last week for the Florida House seat that covers his Mar-a-Lago resort. In a personal humiliation for Trump, the seat was won by a Democrat despite Trump carrying the district by 11 points in 2024. On Tuesday, the president took steps to formalize his campaign against mail-in voting with an executive order that aims to create lists of verified voters and ask the U.S. Postal Service to only provide mail-in ballots to those individuals. The lists will be collated by the Department of Homeland Security from federal citizenship and naturalization records, as well as Social Security records and other federal databases. DHS would then send the lists to the states to verify their voter rolls. Trump told reporters that he believes the order is legally “foolproof,” but it is likely to be legally challenged as unconstitutional. “I think this will help a lot with elections,” Trump said on Tuesday. “We’d like to have voter ID. We’d like to have proof of citizenship, and that’ll be another subject for another time. We’re working on that. You would think it’d be easy.” Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee President Heather Williams said in response to the order, “Trump’s latest attack on mail-in voting should alarm everyone who believes in free and fair elections.” This is a blatant attempt by the President to undermine states’ control over election administration for his own benefit – which is a direct attack on the Constitution and our democracy,” she said. Williams went on to call the “unprecedented” order an example of “voter suppression” that “marks a desperate move by Trump to steal the next election.” “This will be blocked by the federal courts before the ink is dry,” David Becker, founder of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research, told NBC News. A previous executive order that sought to withhold election funding from states that refused to alter voter registration forms to Trump’s specifications was blocked in September. U.S. District Judge John Chun ruled that the order was an attempt to exert unconstitutional pressure even though the president does not have the power to control how states run their elections. The president has been busy championing his SAVE America Act, a rebranded version of last year’s Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, which requires extensive proof of citizenship and strict voter ID requirements while requiring states to hand their electoral rolls over to DHS. “American citizens—and only American citizens—should decide American elections," the SAVE America Act website states.Trump has continued to pressure Republicans in Congress to ensure that the act is passed. As a result of Democratic opposition and the legislative filibuster, it is currently stalled in the Senate. https://www.thedailybeast.com/desperate-trump-launches-sinister-election-power-grab/? Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted April 5 Author Members Posted April 5 Humiliated Trump Watches Own Justices Tear His Citizenship Case Apart Conservative justices poked holes in the Trump administration’s argument as the president looked on. Even some of the conservative justices on the Supreme Court expressed deep skepticism in the Trump administration’s argument for upending birthright citizenship in the U.S. As the justices took turns launching a series of brutal questions at Solicitor General D. John Sauer after he made the government’s argument on Wednesday, President Donald Trump was sitting in the courtroom watching. He was the first sitting president ever to attend oral arguments before the Supreme Court, but it did not stop even the justices he appointed from tearing into the administration’s case. Trump ended up storming out and never made it through the full arguments. Chief Justice John Roberts, along with Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, asked probing questions that suggested they were not buying Sauer’s argument to dramatically restrict birthright citizenship. Roberts used “quirky” while expressing his skepticism, while Barrett said she was “puzzled” as the government argued its case. “You obviously put a lot of weight on ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof,’ but the examples you give to support that strike me as very quirky,” Roberts pointed out. “Children of ambassadors, children of enemies during a hostile invasion, children on warships, and then you expand it to the whole class of illegal aliens here in the country. I’m not quite sure how you can get to that big group from such tiny and sort of idiosyncratic examples.” Later in the arguments, when Sauer argued that the interpretation of the 14th Amendment now could not be approved by its framers, Roberts had a quick response. “We’re in a new world now… where eight billion people are one plane ride away from having a child who’s a U.S. citizen,” Sauer argued. “Well, it’s a new world. It’s the same Constitution,” Roberts responded. Gorsuch, a Trump appointee, noted how a person’s domicile, or residence, was a linchpin in the administration’s case. “Now I’m looking at 1868, you’re telling me is what I should look at in the test for domicile, and the stuff you have about unlawfully present, it’s like Roman law resources you’re going to,” Gorsuch observed. He went on to observe that “Congress could continually restrict who may lawfully be president more and more, and you’d say that would be incorporated into it even though you’re telling us to apply the original meaning in 1868.” Gorsuch also made it a point that residency was absent from the debates over the 14th Amendment and Civil Rights Act after the Civil War and called it “striking.” Barrett poked holes in the administration’s argument by raising questions about how the arguments would apply to a series of different cases from slaves brought over illegally but intended to leave as well modern human trafficking. “You say that the purpose of the 14th Amendment was to put all slaves on equal footing, newly freed slaves on equal footing, and so they would be citizens, but that’s not textual, so how do you get there?” she asked Sauer. She also asked how the argument would apply to the children of illegally trafficked people in an exchange over who was considered to be in the U.S. lawfully. The president signed an executive order on his first day back in office that strictly limited birthright citizenship to the children of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents. The move was immediately challenged in court, but the Supreme Court’s decision could dramatically change how babies born in the U.S. are granted citizenship. If the Supreme Court upholds the president’s order, the ACLU estimates it would strip some 250,000 babies of their U.S. citizenship and some 4.8 million people over the next two decades. At the root of the case is the 14th Amendment, which states, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” But the Trump administration argued that the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment was meant to grant citizenship to freed slaves and their children after the Civil War. The ACLU, which was arguing the case on behalf of children born in the U.S., slammed the Trump administration for trying to overturn a century of Supreme Court precedent and the U.S. Constitution. While the justices appeared deeply skeptical at times, they also posed a series of tough questions for Cecillia Wang as she argued against Trump’s executive order for the ACLU. The Supreme Court will deliver its opinion in the case at the end of the term in late June or early July. https://www.thedailybeast.com/humiliated-trump-watches-own-justices-tear-his-citizenship-case-apart/? ps:So who's next? Those of us that are naturalized citizens????? Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted April 5 Author Members Posted April 5 Secret Chaos at Bondi’s DOJ Over Trump’s $10B Suit Exposed Justice Department officials are at a total loss on how to respond to the president’s unprecedented decision to effectively sue himself. The Justice Department has no idea how to handle President Donald Trump’s bizarre decision to sue his own administration for the handsome sum of $10 billion, a new report alleges. Trump filed a lawsuit against the IRS in January, accusing the service of failing to prevent a former contractor from leaking his tax returns in 2020—despite the IRS being under Trump’s control as president at the time. Trump is now threatening to put his own officials, including his former defense attorney, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, in a position to approve a taxpayer-funded settlement worth more than 150,000 times the average American’s salary for him. DOJ and White House insiders tell The New York Times, which previously published findings from the leaked documents, that Trump’s unprecedented move has sparked a frenzied behind-the-scenes debate over how to handle his complaint ahead of the April 19 legal deadline. Some officials reportedly note clear flaws in Trump’s case and that it would not hold up in court, according to the Times. Others argue there is no feasible way to appoint a government lawyer to contest his claims without a significant conflict of interest, given that the president has signed an executive order requiring federal attorneys to abide by his interpretation of the law. Trump’s lawyers served the IRS with papers in the suit on Feb. 18, starting a countdown of 60 days for a government response. Justice Department officials are reportedly weighing delaying proceedings until after he leaves office in January 2029. This would depend on Trump not pushing ahead with yet another unprecedented move, like running for a Constitution-busting third term in the White House. Even if Trump decided to openly defy the law of the land, his tanking approval rating—dragged down by war with Iran and spiking gas prices, which now exceed an average of $4 a gallon—suggests he would not bode well in a fourth presidential election. Another option might be to request that the Florida judge in the case, a Barack Obama appointee, find another way to address the inherent conflict of interest in having Trump officials defend a case against Trump’s lawyers, perhaps by appointing an independent team as a stand-in for the DOJ. Trump, for his part, has previously claimed he plans “to give 100 percent to charity” in the event the court finds in his favor. The president has funneled other settlement money—including the $16 million settlement he won from Paramount/CBS and $15 million from ABC News—to fund his presidential library, which he says will most likely be a commercial hotel. Charles Duffy, a former attorney with the DOJ’s tax division, nevertheless told the Times: “It’s outrageous that the head of the executive would shake down an agency like this.” The Daily Beast has contacted the Justice Department and the White House. https://www.thedailybeast.com/secret-chaos-exposed-at-attorney-general-pam-bondis-doj-over-trumps-10b-suit/? Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted April 5 Author Members Posted April 5 Trump Humiliated as He Arrives for SCOTUS Showdown Protestors were not pleased with the president as he arrived at the Supreme Court for oral arguments. A protester flipped off President Donald Trump on his way into the Supreme Court. The White House pool reporter said one protestor “saluted us with the double bird.” The high court is hearing oral arguments on Wednesday on Trump’s attempt to end the constitutional guarantee to brighright citizenship, and Trump has taken the unprecedented move of attending the oral arguments before the Supreme Court. Trump, wearing his signature red tie, was ushered into the court and “seated in the front row of the public section on a red-cushioned bench,” the New York Times reported. If the Trump administration prevails in its effort to do away with birthright citizenship, it would upend the 14th Amendment, which automatically grants citizenship to nearly every individual born on U.S. soil, regardless of their parents’ citizenship or immigration status. In a winding rant on Tuesday night, Trump claimed the 14th Amendment is “not about Chinese billionaires who are billionaires from other countries who all of a sudden have 75 children or 59 children in one case, or 10 children, becoming American citizens.” “This was about slaves,” he declared. Throughout Wednesday’s oral arguments, justices across the ideological spectrum have already been casting doubt about the government’s arguments on the matter. Chief Justice John Roberts called the government’s argument “quirky,” and Trump-appointed Justice Amy Coney Barrett said she was “puzzled.” The president has additionally been accused of trying to intimidate the Supreme Court’s nine justices, three of whom he appointed, by attending the arguments. One protestor outside the Supreme Court told the Times that he thought the move was a “kind of a strong-arming tactic,” meant to “intimidate them with his presence.” “And, kind of a statement of: ‘make a decision while I’m here, looking you dead in your eye — and don’t make the wrong decision,’" the protestor said. Just last month, he called Justices Neil Gorsuch and Barrett, both of whom he nominated to the high court during his first term, “an embarrassment to their families” after they slapped down the way in which he was implementing his signature economic policy: tariffs. https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-humiliated-as-he-arrives-for-scotus-birthright-citizenship-showdown/? Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted April 5 Author Members Posted April 5 Trans-Atlantic rift widens as Trump lashes out at NATO allies over Mideast war Trump says he’s strongly considering pulling the United States out of NATO, ratcheting up his criticism of European allies and exposing a wider rift in the trans-Atlantic alliance — this time over the Iran war. While Trump’s talk of a possible NATO pullout dates back years, the comments to The Telegraph newspaper in the U.K., published Wednesday, were among the clearest and most disparaging yet. Read more. RELATED COVERAGE ➤ Live updates: Trump claims Iran wants a ceasefire, Iran calls remarks ‘false and baseless’ Attacks persist on Iran and across the Mideast as Trump threatens escalation Stocks rally worldwide as oil prices ease on hopes for a possible end to the Iran war Lebanese displaced by war fill Beirut’s streets, upending city life Trump isn’t immune from civil claims his Jan. 6 rally speech incited riot, judge says Judge rules that HUD effort to change criteria for homeless funding is unlawful Military suicides fell in 2024 but long-term rate for active duty troops still rising, Pentagon says North Carolina’s electoral future may hinge on rural Black voters who feel ignored by Democrats A messy California governor’s race raises Democratic fears of potential loss Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted April 5 Author Members Posted April 5 US lifts sanctions on Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. on Wednesday lifted sanctions on Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez, according to an Office of Foreign Assets Control entry on the Treasury Department website. https://apnews.com/article/venezuela-delcy-rodriguez-sanctions-maduro-d819e64fcdefa132c5b06c3ce0a81f88? Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted April 5 Author Members Posted April 5 Leaders in Hiding (Stefani Reynolds / Bloomberg / Getty) View in browser For a brief moment last week, Congress started to do something productive. The Senate, after weeks of bickering and fruitless negotiations, unanimously approved legislation to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security, taking a small but meaningful step toward resolving one of the many crises that have sprung up like targets in a game of whack-a-mole during President Trump’s second term. All that stood between tens of thousands of federal employees and their paychecks was a similar vote in the House. But House Republicans would not agree. Instead of considering the DHS bill, Speaker Mike Johnson denounced the bipartisan compromise and then sent the entire chamber home for a two-week Easter recess. The move all but guaranteed that the government’s third-largest department would remain unfunded indefinitely as the nation wages war against Iran. Meanwhile, as lawmakers enjoy time with their families—or jet off on vacations and taxpayer-financed junkets overseas—millions of Americans are struggling with a spike in gas prices caused by the war. “It’s a failure of everyone,” Representative David Schweikert, a Republican who represents a politically divided district in Arizona, told us. Public anger is rising rapidly. The president’s approval ratings—which were already anemic—have sunk to new lows, and Republicans are facing the prospect of an electoral wipeout in this fall’s midterm elections. The GOP’s hold on the House majority has appeared precarious for months, but now its more comfortable advantage in the Senate may be in jeopardy too. Even TMZ is channeling the national discontent: The website known for trailing celebrities has begun hounding members of Congress, encouraging its readers to send in photos and video of lawmakers fleeing Washington, D.C., and living it up while the public servants responsible for protecting the homeland go unpaid. Back in their districts, members of Congress—particularly swing-seat Republicans—seem to be in hiding. Hardly any are holding town halls or other well-publicized events that could put them face-to-face with frustrated voters. We contacted the offices of more than a dozen House Republicans in tight reelection races this year. Only Schweikert responded. No one else would agree to interviews about what they were hearing from constituents, nor would they disclose the events they were holding to solicit public feedback. (One of those members, Representative Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin, was spotted by TMZ on a trip to Scotland with several colleagues.) A spokesperson for Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa, a Republican who won her last campaign by just 799 votes, referred us to a Facebook post in which Miller-Meeks called for Congress to return to the Capitol and “resolve this impasse.” “Our office does not share the congresswoman’s schedule,” the spokesperson said, “but she will be busy and has several exciting events planned in the case that Congress remains out of session.” Trump did alleviate one pain point for the public last week by declaring that he would go around Congress to pay TSA agents, a move that reduced the snaking lines at airport-security checkpoints across the country. Wait times had stretched to hours as missed paychecks thinned the ranks of on-duty TSA agents, causing staffing shortages. Yet the president’s unilateral action, though welcomed by lawmakers and air travelers alike, addressed only the most visible part of a crisis that has dragged on for weeks. Thousands of DHS employees, including members of the Coast Guard and FEMA, and administrative staff, have worked without pay for more than a month—and that’s after they missed paychecks during the larger 43-day government shutdown last fall. (Because most DHS employees are deemed “essential,” relatively few of them have been furloughed, and therefore most have had to report for duty during the funding lapse.) In Congress, the dispute over DHS funding has centered on ICE and Trump’s mass-deportation campaign. After federal agents fatally shot two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis earlier this year, Democrats said they would not agree to fully fund DHS without reforms to the way that ICE operates. They’ve demanded that ICE agents wear body cameras and not masks, and have asked for requirements that agents seek judicial warrants before entering private homes in search of undocumented immigrants. The two parties appeared to be making progress toward an agreement early last week before Trump scuttled the talks by insisting that Republicans tie any DHS-funding deal to passage of the unrelated SAVE America Act, an elections bill that Democrats staunchly oppose. Trump briefly considered a rarely used move to force Congress back into session, but on Wednesday he urged Republicans to ensure long-term DHS funding without Democratic votes. Such a process would circumvent the Senate filibuster, but it could take weeks or even months to enact. In response, Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune issued a statement agreeing to the president’s demand and saying that Congress would act “in the coming days” to end the shutdown. Schweikert’s House district in and around Scottsdale, Arizona, is one of the wealthiest and most highly educated in the nation. But its voters are livid at Congress. In interviews this week outside grocery stores, gas stations, and at the airport, many told us they were scrimping on food—cutting back on pricier meats and fruits—and others said they had changed their driving habits because of gas prices that are nearing $5 a gallon in some locations. Retirees, and those close to retirement, told us they are anxiously riding the volatility of financial markets amid the war. Erica Squires and her sister Christina made trade-offs as they shopped for Easter goodies for their niece and nephew at Walmart. Grass filler, which they typically use to stuff Easter baskets, had just about doubled in price, they said, and basket prices were up too. They skipped both and opted to surprise the kids with a prefilled mermaid-themed gift for $15.97 and a lawn-mower bubble toy: “It was actually cheaper than making a basket,” Christina said. The Squireses also are intentional about buying gas. They opted to fill up at the Walmart in Scottsdale, where they paid about $4.20 a gallon—less than in other parts of town. And rather than driving solo to visit their sister in a far-flung Phoenix suburb, they are now carpooling. Erica gave up shopping at a natural-grocery store because of rising prices. While they are hustling to make ends meet, the sisters told us, they don’t see Congress doing anything to make their lives better. If anything, they said, lawmakers are making it worse. Asked how they felt about Congress at this moment, Erica—a freelance digital marketer who voted for Trump in 2016 (and the libertarian Chase Oliver in 2024)—dryly replied, “Aren’t they not doing their job right now? They’re on vacation while we’re over here driving five miles to get cheaper gas.” Others we encountered felt the same way. One young Democrat who works as a health-care administrator said his girlfriend’s luxury car has been sitting at home for the past month because it needs premium gas, which is almost $6 a gallon. He blames Congress: “It’s ridiculous.” A middle-aged woman whose truck sported a Don’t tread on me sticker matter-of-factly summed up her feelings about the country’s lawmakers: “Everything is terrible.” At Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, officials had set up a donation site for unpaid TSA employees at its Compassion Corner, where people and businesses could donate items including nonperishable food, diapers, and gift cards of $20 or less for groceries and gas. The airport collected more than 3,700 gift cards and 1,800 food and household items, an airport spokesperson told us. The collection could open back up if a long-term funding measure for TSA does not pass. The security lines had dissipated yesterday, a day after TSA employees began receiving back pay. Passenger frustration had not. Layton Martin, a Republican from Phoenix who was flying to Salt Lake City, told us that members of Congress were playing with the livelihoods of government employees for their own political benefit. “They’re having, like, an ego party,” the 28-year-old fitness trainer said. “It seems very childish.” Martin’s rent is up $300 compared with last year, he said; his cost to fly to Salt Lake was double the normal price, and his friends can’t find jobs. Schweikert, the Republican who represents Scottsdale in Congress, seemed just as frustrated. He told us that he views the DHS shutdown as a symptom of a larger unwillingness by Congress to tackle the nation’s structural problems. (He frequently warns that the Medicare trust fund could be insolvent in fewer than seven years, for example.) “I’m in a 50–50 district and I keep introducing bills to try to stabilize the debt, and I can’t even get a co-sponsor,” Schweikert told us. His constituents, he said, complain that their wages haven’t kept up with inflation, so they are poorer today than they were five years ago and are stressed about rising housing costs and making car payments. Schweikert said he would have been happy to stay in Washington over the Easter break if it had looked as though a funding deal was possible, but the votes weren’t there. He placed blame on everyone—“Republicans, Democrats, leadership”—who refused to sit down and keep negotiating. “One side is using their rage at DHS to raise money and the other side—my side—is often terrified to actually have detailed, mathematically honest conversations about population and immigration.” Schweikert insisted that he is still working during the break, attending both community and political events. He’s not campaigning for reelection, however. Instead, he’s making a bid for governor. When he announced his candidacy for governor last fall, the eight-term lawmaker deemed Congress “unsavable.” Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted April 5 Author Members Posted April 5 Trump spurns record requirement President Trump's Justice Department has concluded that a federal law requiring presidential records to be turned over to the government is unconstitutional, a senior White House official tells Axios' Alex Isenstadt. Why it matters: It's an indication Trump will be reluctant to give all of his official records to the National Archives at the end of his term, as presidents have done for nearly half a century under the Presidential Records Act of 1978. The law, passed in the post-Watergate era as a hedge against government corruption, states that every official record regarding a president's decisions or policies belongs to the U.S. government, not the president. The White House hasn't been destroying documents, the official said. Trump has instructed White House employees to preserve their records for "historical value, the administrative record of policy decisions and actions, litigation needs, and to explain past actions and guide future ones." Trump has had several run-ins with the Presidential Records Act. During his first term, he tore up some documents that had to be taped together by staff. The 37-count indictment Trump faced for allegedly mishandling classified documents included images of boxes of records that were stored in a bathroom at his Mar-a-Lago estate. What's next: Any move by Trump to retain classified documents when he leaves office in 2029 is likely to draw legal challenges, particularly if Democrats control either the House or Senate. Liberation Day's legacy Data: Yale Budget Lab. Chart: Erin Davis/Axios Visuals One year after "Liberation Day," the global economy is still reckoning with the fallout of a trade policy that has since been diluted. Why it matters: President Trump's tariff wall has been torn down by the Supreme Court, watered down by exemptions and scaled back under trade agreements, Axios' Courtenay Brown reports. Even so, the past year of policy changes turned the global trading system upside down in ways that appear irreversible. The intrigue: The Trump administration has enacted more than 50 different trade policy changes, a historic whipsaw illustrated by a new daily tariff tracker launched by the Budget Lab at Yale. White House spokesperson Kush Desai said in a statement that Trump has "powerfully used tariffs to lower our goods trade deficit, renegotiate trade deals, secure trillions in manufacturing investments and lower drug prices." Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted April 5 Author Members Posted April 5 Takeaways from Trump’s address: No end date for Iran war and few details on strategy ahead President Donald Trump sought Wednesday to explain his rationale for the war against Iran at a pivotal moment at home and abroad, but he offered few new details. Read more. Why this matters: Notably missing from Trump’s primetime address was his oft-repeated assertion that negotiations with Iran were underway. He softened his insults against NATO allies and did not indicate he was preparing to send in ground troops, particularly to retrieve Iran’s enriched uranium. But he gave no definitive end date for the conflict. He maintained that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, calling such a prospect “an intolerable threat,” and said the country was building a vast arsenal of ballistic missiles that were a threat to America’s homeland. While he said Iran’s ballistic missile capacity was greatly reduced, he didn’t explain how the operation had headed off Iran’s nuclear ambitions. He and his administration had previously insisted that the U.S. and Israel “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program in strikes last summer. RELATED COVERAGE ➤ Read the complete speech transcript FACT FOCUS: False claims Trump made as he addressed the nation about Iran As gas prices rise during the war, some states are still hesitant to cut fuel taxes Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted April 5 Author Members Posted April 5 Immigrants seeking asylum are ordered to countries they’ve never been to, but end up stuck in limbo Some immigrants find themselves in immigration limbo, unable to argue their asylum claims in court and unsure if they’ll be shackled and put on a deportation flight to a country they’ve never seen. Read more. Why this matters: More than 13,000 immigrants were living legally in the U.S., waiting for rulings on asylum claims, when they suddenly faced so-called third-country deportation orders, destined for countries where most had no ties, according to the nonprofit group Mobile Pathways, which pushes for transparency in immigration proceedings. Yet few have been deported, even as the White House pushes for ever more immigrant expulsions. Some are in detention, though it’s unclear how many. All have lost permission to work legally, a right most had while pursuing their asylum claims, compounding the worry and dread that has rippled through immigrant communities. “This administration’s goal is to instill fear into people. That’s the primary thing,” said Cassandra Charles, a senior staff attorney with the National Immigration Law Center, which has been fighting the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda. The fear of being deported to an unknown country could, advocates believe, drive migrants to abandon their immigration cases and decide to return to their home countries. “DHS is using every lawful tool available to address the backlog and abuse of the asylum system,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement, which was attributed only to a spokesperson. There are roughly 2 million backlogged asylum cases in the immigration system. RELATED COVERAGE ➤ Death of a refugee left at a Buffalo doughnut shop by Border Patrol is ruled a homicide Whispers in the Supreme Court as Trump takes front-row seat for birthright citizenship oral arguments Republican plan to fund Homeland Security could get first test vote on Thursday DHS boss rescinds restrictive $100,000 approval process, giving hope to FEMA relief efforts Democrats sue to block Trump’s executive order targeting mail ballots Diabetes advocates cross their fingers as a bipartisan bill revives efforts to lower insulin costs US lifts sanctions on Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez Trump ally testifies in trial over secret Venezuela lobbying effort CDC pauses dozens of types of lab testing during evaluation and in wake of downsizing Texas judge rejects push to let churches make political endorsements Georgia’s Brad Raffensperger showcases Ponzi scheme fight as he runs for governor Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted April 5 Author Members Posted April 5 Moment Humiliated Trump Fled SCOTUS Captured for History The president’s hasty exit has been immortalized. A sketch artist captured the historic moment a humiliated Donald Trump fled the Supreme Court. Trump, 79, became the first sitting president to observe oral arguments on Wednesday as his administration attempted to defend his executive order to seek to restrict birthright citizenship. He seeks to overrule the constitutional and statutory protections that grant automatic citizenship to nearly all children born in the United States. The administration is using the limitation of birthright citizenship as a way to rein in illegal immigration, one of Trump’s obsessions. But Trump suddenly left the hearing after getting an up-close view of justices—including conservatives he personally appointed—expressing skepticism toward the administration’s constitutional arguments. A court sketch captured the president’s hasty exit for posterity. In the sketch, American Civil Liberties Union legal director Cecillia Wang can be seen beginning to make arguments on behalf of the opposing counsel while Trump is rushing for the exit.Trump had been at the Supreme Court for 90 minutes, sitting silently with his hands in his lap. While there were no cameras or videos in the country’s highest court, reports from inside the room said Trump was spotted with his eyes closed. “He closed his eyes for brief times during the session, but looked alert and focused throughout his time in the courtroom,” Fox News said. Trump’s motorcade was sighted by the Daily Beast leaving the Supreme Court at about 11.25 am. Less than an hour later, Trump broke his uncharacteristic silence with a short but sour Truth Social post. “We are the only Country in the World STUPID enough to allow “Birthright” Citizenship!" he posted after returning to the White House. However, more than 30 countries automatically grant citizenship to children born within their borders with no conditions. The birthright citizenship case is challenging Trump’s executive order that aims to deny automatic U.S. citizenship to children who are born in the United States if their parents are in the country illegally or are on temporary visas. The case is titled Trump v. Barbara, with the central argument being that the 14th Amendment has long been used to grant citizenship to almost everyone who has been born on U.S. soil, barring exceptions including the children of foreign diplomats. Trump signed his order in January last year, and it has been blocked by multiple lower courts, so has never been put into action. On Wednesday, one of the skeptical voices in court was Trump appointee Amy Coney Barrett, who pressed Trump’s lawyer, Solicitor General John Sauer, on the historical understanding of the 14th Amendment, which had been adopted in 1868 after the Civil War. “You say the purpose of the 14th Amendment was to put all newly freed slaves on equal footing and so they would be citizens,” she said. “But that’s not textual. So how do you get there?” Sauer told conservative Chief Justice John Roberts that “we’re in a new world where 8 billion people are one plane ride away from having a child who’s a U.S citizen.” Roberts told Sauer, “It’s a new world. It’s the same Constitution.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/moment-humiliated-donald-trump-fled-scotus-birthright-hearing-captured-for-history/? Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted April 5 Author Members Posted April 5 This Is the Scary True Reason Why Trump Unleashed His Torrent of Lies We’ve been here before. We’ve heard this baloney already. Why do we have to listen to it again? If you comb the stockyards of Chicago and search all the cattlelands of America’s great prairies, if you go from the hillsides on which attentive Japanese farmers cultivate Wagyu beef to the ranches of Argentina’s famed gauchos, you will find less bulls--t than uttered by President Donald J. Trump in 18 minutes and 39 seconds on Wednesday night. The U.S. president, looking addled and unsure of himself, unleashed a torrent of lies, untruths, misrepresentations, deceptions, and distilled nuggets of crapola so vast that it may well live up to the most Trumpian of descriptive phrases: “Nobody has ever seen anything like it before.” Compounding the fact that he managed to speak for almost 20 minutes without uttering nearly a single truth was the equally mind-numbing reality that, despite the White House having advertised his national TV appearance as a major address on the Iran war, nothing newsworthy crossed his thin, ever-so-lightly glossed lips. His address was not so much a speech as it was a greatest hits compilation from his Truth Social account since the beginning of the current war in Iran, known to those who know as Operation Epic Fiasco. If you’ve been following his posts, the whole embarrassing performance was like an episode of déjà vu filtered through a post-traumatic stress flashback. We’ve been here before. We’ve heard this baloney already. Why do we have to listen to it again? My guess is, with the war going as badly as it is, with virtually every ostensible major rationale for the war floated by the administration since its inception being unfulfilled, and with the president not having addressed the public directly to explain why we are involved in this madness, some White House communications genius said, “Mr. President, we need your magic.” The problem is this empty husk of a president has no magic left anymore. The problem is we have no strategy for this war. The problem is they had nothing constructive to say. But this is the Trump administration, so they said it anyway. The speech was not just rife with lies. It was also so profoundly incoherent that I defy anyone to have made sense of it without periodically hitting themselves in the head with a mallet. (I tried this and the best parts were when the hammer blows made my ears ring and for a brief moment I could no longer hear the gusher of effluvium emanating from America’s First Maw.) Take, for example, his regular return to his alleged concerns about Iran’s nuclear program. (I say “alleged” because earlier today he indicated he didn’t care what happened to the nearly 1,000 pounds of enriched nuclear materials they possess.) Early on, he said he would never let Iran have nuclear weapons. Then he said that is why he pulled out of the nuclear deal we had with Iran, struck by the Obama administration—even though that’s what kept them from having a nuclear weapon. But Trump said it would have guaranteed them having a nuclear weapon. And he said Obama gave them cash. In any event, once he pulled out of the deal, somehow they got very close to having a weapon again. So we attacked them and obliterated their weapons. But then they were weeks away from having a weapon again. So then we launched this war. So now they don’t have such a weapon. But, oh, by the way, Trump lifted sanctions on them so they made much, much, much more money than Obama did. But the program is gone. But if it’s not, and they start moving around their fissile material, then we’re really going to get mad and attack. “Iran, we’re counting to 3. If you don’t put your nuclear weapons away by the time we get to 3, you’re going to be in big trouble. 1…2… I’m not kidding Iran!... 2…” But other elements of the address were just as nuts: claiming that we had taken over Venezuela, claiming Trump was responsible for America becoming energy-independent (it had nothing to do with him), repeating over and over again that Iran was “decimated” (I do not think that word means what he thinks it means), and telling our allies that we don’t need the oil or gas through the Strait of Hormuz so they should go get it for themselves. One other especially nutty bit was when he said, à la his comments long ago about COVID, that the Strait would ultimately open up “naturally” and oil would flow again to the world. Naturally. Just like that. So don’t worry about all the miscalculations and destruction associated with this war that has sent world energy markets and our allies into a frenzy of concern. Countries just open up for Trump that way, you know. Because he’s a star. Of course, when a president spews sewage on national television, there has to be a reason for it if you’re willing to dive down deep into the sludge to find it. And the reason for this speech is that the opposite of everything Trump was saying was true and it is bad news and he wants to hide it. Our attacks on their leaders have left in place leaders who are even more hardline than those who existed before. While we have devastated their navy and air force, they still possess a very large army, a global network of proxies, and large enough stockpiles of munitions to threaten their neighbors for years to come and to render global energy markets—and, by extension, the entire global economy—a big mess for years. The fissile material is still there, too. The nuclear scientists are still there. We can’t impose our will without putting boots on the ground, which would be risky at best. And if it were anything like other such forays into the region during the past few decades, it would likely be unsuccessful. Rather than making the region or the world safer, we have done the opposite. We have alienated our allies and Trump continues to threaten the NATO alliance because they wouldn’t go along with his harebrained scheme. And most of our major rivals are happy as clams. (The current cover of The Economist, referring to the war, shows a picture of Xi Jinping with the headline, “Never interrupt your enemy when he’s making a mistake.”) Had Trump given a more honest speech, while it might have had the same braggadocious tone, the meaning would have been very different. That’s because, were the ugly truth to have been told, Trump would have to admit that by having strengthened Iran’s hardliners while actively undermining NATO, by having pushed up the price of oil, by having removed sanctions on Russia and Iran to “ensure oil flows more freely,” and by having, at the same time, depleted precious U.S. military resources, he has achieved a big triumph. For Russia. And that’s one topic that always brings out the liar in Donald J. Trump. https://www.thedailybeast.com/this-is-the-scary-true-reason-why-donald-trump-unleashed-his-torrent-of-lies/? Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted April 5 Author Members Posted April 5 Trump’s War Address Proves He Hasn’t Got a Clue What He’s Doing The president is losing the PR war to Tehran. Donald Trump had the opportunity to end the Iran War on Wednesday night. He could have declared victory, and we would almost have believed him. The killing would have stopped, and he could have gone back to talking about solving wars rather than starting them. The world—and the markets—would have breathed a sigh of relief, and Trump’s MAGA base could have patched up the rift over the war that is ripping it apart. But the president’s ego wouldn’t let him walk away. And neither will Iran. Trump is so desperate for the public’s approval that he sincerely believed that by going on television to make his claim for war 32 days too late, he would turn his plummeting poll ratings around. By making his case for war, he would help people understand why he was right. Instead, he revealed how wrong he was to put the United States into a war it couldn’t really win. And he strengthened the bargaining position of America’s enemies. It was a 19-minute admission that he didn’t have a clue what he was doing. One moment, he was talking about how he could bomb Iran’s electric and gas plants, but had spared them so far because he wanted to leave them some hope of survival (and perhaps not defy the Geneva Convention). Then he bragged about sending his enemy “back to the Stone Ages where they belong.” The war is effectively over, he continued, but the bombings would escalate over the next few weeks. With every point he made, he revealed how little thought he’d given to the consequences of his strike on Iran. Does anyone really believe the Strait of Hormuz will go back to normal once the missiles have stopped, if, indeed, they ever do? Or that gas prices will drop back down? The two factors are inextricably linked. Oil prices were down when he started speaking and were back up by the time he finished. Trump may be right when he claims that America’s military might is winning. But he is losing the PR war. Despite having its leadership decimated in the early days of the conflict, Tehran is in a much better position than it could have anticipated. Contrary to Trump’s claims, it is still firing missiles at America’s allies in the Middle East, and it has the all-important bargaining chip of the Strait of Hormuz. And now it’s new leadership, no less fundamentalist than the last and hell-bent on revenge, smells Trump’s desperation. They could see it in the barrage of confusing and contradictory Truth Social posts he has spewed in recent days, a blatant attempt to manipulate the markets. They could sense it in the almost pathetic pleas for the Iranians to agree to a 15-point deal that was never going to fly. He was so desperate to find a way out. But bombing as bargaining power isn’t enough, whatever Pete Hegseth is telling you. The only explanation for Trump’s lack of forward planning is that he thought it was going to be another Venezuela, with the regime collapsing in hours or days. How else can you explain why he neither warned his allies nor asked for their help BEFORE going to war; he made no pre-emptive attempt to secure the Strait of Hormuz, and appears to have no exit plan. Trump thought the Iranians would throw their hands up in surrender before he returned to the White House from his makeshift Situation Room at Mar-a-Lago, where he launched his war with a Truth Social post. But Iran will fight to the bitter end. Trump won’t be able to tie this one up in a bow. The president tried to make the point that past wars like WWI, WWII, Korea, and Iraq lasted years, while his assault on Iran had lasted a little over a month. But it’s not over yet. And Trump showed a primetime audience of millions around the world that he doesn’t have a clue what he is going to do about it. https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-war-address-proves-he-hasnt-got-a-clue-what-hes-doing/? Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted April 5 Author Members Posted April 5 Trump Rages Against SCOTUS After Justices Humiliate Him to His Face The president is up bright and early to vent his anger after the disastrous hearing. Donald Trump has fired off a fuming early morning retort to the Supreme Court after the nation’s top judges tore apart one of his administration’s flagship policies. “Kangaroo Court!!!” the president posted on Truth Social just after 7 a.m. Thursday. Trump, 79, became the first sitting president to observe oral arguments at the Supreme Court on Wednesday as his administration attempted to defend his executive order to seek to restrict birthright citizenship. While there were no cameras or videos in the country’s highest court, reports from inside the room said Trump was spotted with his eyes closed. But after less than 90 minutes of watching several of his own handpicked justices pick his arguments apart, the president abruptly left. Daily Beast reporters witnessed the president’s motorcade leaving the Supreme Court to head down Independence Avenue at around 11.25 a.m. White House lawyers have sought to challenge the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment, which deems U.S. citizens to be “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”It aims to deny automatic U.S. citizenship to children born in the United States if their parents are in the country illegally or on temporary visas. Trump signed his order in January last year, and multiple lower courts have blocked it, so it has never been put into action. A definitive ruling on the case is due sometime in early summer, and legal experts broadly expect justices to find against the administration. If so, it would represent the second humiliating SCOTUS defeat for the president so far this year, after the nation’s top judges shut down huge portions of his flagship tariff policy earlier in February. “We’re the only Country in the World Stupid enough to allow ‘Birthright’ Citizenship!” the president posted to Truth Social shortly after returning to the White House on Wednesday. More than 30 countries around the world, including Canada, Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina, automatically grant citizenship to children born on their soil. He later followed up with a self-soothing, rambling 488-word rant on topics ranging from his love of law enforcement and his own funding measures to Joe Biden-era border policies and an imagined Democratic conspiracy to “DEFUND” police forces across the country. The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment on this story. https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-rages-against-scotus-after-justices-humiliate-him-to-his-face/? Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted April 5 Author Members Posted April 5 Trump says he’ll sign order to resume pay for Homeland Security. His move bypasses Congress WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Thursday he will soon sign an order to pay all Department of Homeland Security employees who have gone without paychecks during the record-long partial government shutdown that has reached 48 days. https://apnews.com/article/senate-funding-homeland-security-shutdown-4a3e4a3e77bd33213b98888e79a81f51? ps:Now he wants to look like the good guy! So why blowup the deal that was already made????? Trump says he’ll sign an order to resume pay for Homeland Security. His move bypasses Congress Trump said Thursday he will soon sign an order to pay all DHS employees who have gone without paychecks during the record-long partial government shutdown that has reached 48 days. Despite that unilateral move announced in a social media post, the funding lapse for some DHS needs is likely to stretch into next week as the House contemplates passing a Senate plan it had previously rejected to fund the bulk of the agency, though not its immigration enforcement operations. Read more. RELATED COVERAGE ➤ First group of 12 deportees from the US arrives in Uganda, lawyers say A judge rules against a Pennsylvania man’s deportation whose ‘80s murder conviction was dismissed Colorado court orders resentencing for former county clerk in election fraud scheme Trump’s White House ballroom is expected to get approved days after judge’s ruling halting work Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted April 6 Author Members Posted April 6 Pam Bondi, a Trump loyalist who oversaw Justice Department upheaval, is out as his attorney general WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Thursday that Pam Bondi is out as his attorney general, ending the contentious tenure of a loyalist who upended the Justice Department’s culture of independence from the White House, oversaw large-scale firings of career employees and moved aggressively to investigate the Republican president’s perceived enemies. https://apnews.com/article/trump-bondi-zeldin-justice-department-4b1bf39326d2d2c3fd41cadff91dd75b? ps:Another one bites the dust! He puts these people in positions to do his biding than when they've done whatever it is that he needed he throws them under the bus!! What a piece of work!!! Trump’s White House ballroom gets final approval days after a judge ordered a halt to construction WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom won final approval from a key agency on Thursday, despite a federal judge recently ordering a halt to construction unless Congress allows what would be the biggest structural change to the American landmark in more than 70 years. https://apnews.com/article/trump-ballroom-white-house-commission-vote-judge-dd72eed062fd385380d8b8ce90511cd1? 🧑⚖️ The Trump administration is appealing a federal judge's order temporarily blocking the Pentagon's ban on Anthropic, Axios' Ashley Gold reports. Go deeper. Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted April 6 Author Members Posted April 6 Dire Straits View in browser Throughout his first term, Donald Trump serially fired and replaced members of his Cabinet as they displeased him. In his second, he seemed to be trying to break this pattern—keeping top aides even after their missteps and humiliations that would have sunk careers in any other administration. But now the president is back to his old ways. Last month, he fired Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Today, he announced the departure of Attorney General Pam Bondi. Trump’s Truth Social post about Bondi is warm, despite his habit of insulting ex-employees: “We love Pam,” he wrote. But reportedly, the president had become frustrated with what he perceived as Bondi’s failures to use the Justice Department to go after his enemies, and with her clumsy handling of the ongoing fallout from the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. Unfortunately for Trump, these are not issues that can be fixed by appointing a new attorney general. Whoever holds the position next will be confronted with exactly the same problem: Trump is asking his attorney general to do the impossible. Measured against Trump’s eclectic slate of early Cabinet nominees, Bondi seemed—on paper—like one of the more qualified choices. She was a vocal Trump supporter and had served on his legal team during his first impeachment trial, but she also had a legitimate track record as a lawyer and had worked for eight years as Florida’s attorney general. “Lawyers who have worked with her report that she is serious,” The Washington Post’s editorial board wrote, declaring her nomination “acceptable.” During her confirmation hearing, she reassured Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat, that she would not “politicize” the office of attorney general or “target people simply because of their political affiliation.” This commitment to apolitical justice did not last long. On February 5, Bondi’s first day in office, she signed a lengthy list of memos reversing Biden-era policies and establishing a “Weaponization Working Group” to investigate Special Counsel Jack Smith and other lawyers who brought legal cases against Trump. Many Justice Department lawyers, though, were most concerned by a memo that seemed to erode DOJ’s independence from presidential meddling. Traditionally, DOJ attorneys could decline to work on cases if they had serious moral or legal qualms. Bondi announced that this would no longer be the case. The practice, she wrote, “deprives the President of the benefit of his lawyers.” At the time, I spoke with multiple current and former Justice Department attorneys who expressed alarm over Bondi’s phrasing. Some lawyers who later quit pointed to that memo as a turning point. DOJ lawyers have traditionally understood themselves as representing the United States—not the president. Bondi proved dedicated to the task of turning an independent Justice Department into a machine for supporting Trump’s interests. Under her leadership, DOJ dropped the corruption case against New York Mayor Eric Adams, in what appeared to be a play to put pressure on Adams to cooperate with Trump’s immigration agenda. When asked by Sean Hannity whether she would fire prosecutors who worked on Smith’s investigation, Bondi promised, “We’re going to root them out.” During congressional hearings, she spent her time expressing her love for Trump, refusing to answer questions, and attacking Democratic members of Congress with apparently scripted insults. Bondi shaped the Justice Department in other, stranger ways. The gift shop at DOJ’s Washington, D.C., headquarters began selling water bottles branded with Bondi’s name, current and former DOJ lawyers, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation, told me. No one knew of any previous attorney general who had peddled their own merchandise. A well-known dog lover, Bondi also created a new category of the prestigious Attorney General’s Awards—typically given to top-performing DOJ employees—for K9s. She presented awards to the canines Lady and Diggs, employed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. Despite Bondi’s best efforts, she was never able to provide everything Trump wanted. The Epstein scandal, in particular, proved difficult for Bondi to navigate. Her role at the head of DOJ put her in the awkward position of sating the many Trump fans eager for the release of the Epstein files, while also keeping the president’s name out of the spotlight. She made an early misstep in claiming, apparently without any basis, that Epstein’s “client list” was “on my desk right now to review,” and then releasing to MAGA influencers binders with Epstein-related material that turned out to contain little new information. After Congress passed bipartisan legislation requiring DOJ to publicly release records on Epstein, people on the left and right alike blamed Bondi for the department’s struggles to carry out this task. At a congressional hearing in February, when Representative Pramila Jayapal, a Democrat, asked Bondi to turn and address a group of Epstein’s victims, Bondi refused to look at them. This made for bad press—a cardinal sin, in Trump’s view. Perhaps even worse, Bondi failed, in Trump’s eyes, to do enough to destroy his political enemies. With Bondi at the top, DOJ has dropped cases against Trump’s allies and brought bogus criminal cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. But those abusive prosecutions foundered. Judges threw out Comey’s and James’s cases (though DOJ is appealing), and the other cases sputtered out for a lack of evidence. According to The New York Times, Trump grew to feel that Bondi “has not moved aggressively enough to prosecute his political enemies.” Bondi’s inability to placate Trump was not for a lack of trying. She didn’t move aggressively enough, because she couldn’t. The politicized prosecutions that Trump wanted her to bring simply could not get through a legal system that, for all of its flaws, turns out to be capable of checking at least some of the worst abuses of a malicious executive branch. Trump has announced that Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, his former personal lawyer, will take Bondi’s job while he searches for a more permanent replacement. Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, is reportedly a top candidate. But neither Blanche nor Zeldin nor anyone else will be capable of escaping the trap into which Bondi fell. Bondi was boxed in by the restrictions of the legal system and the demands of online influencers, including those of the biggest influencer of all—her boss. She is just one example of how the administration now finds itself caught between the constraints of reality and the fevered promises of MAGA conspiracists. Shortly after Trump announced Bondi’s departure, Fox News reported that she had already headed off to Florida, her home state. She leaves behind a Justice Department with a shattered reputation, weakened by the departure of thousands of attorneys who left under her watch. Bondi was not uniquely skilled at destruction, just a willing cog in Trump’s machine. Eventually, the machine ground her up, too. Related: Jonathan Chait: Pam Bondi couldn’t possibly succeed. What happened to Pam Bondi? Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted April 6 Author Members Posted April 6 NATO's Trump-induced coma Photo illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios. Photo: Jeff Swensen/Getty Images NATO is a promise, and now it's broken, write Axios' Dave Lawler and Zachary Basu. The alliance was built on the premise that an attack on one member is an attack on all. President Trump has made that conditional: If you won't help me in my war, I might not show up for yours. Trump and his team have fumed at NATO allies for denying the U.S. logistical help or access to their airspace or military bases to carry out attacks against Iran. He called them "cowards" for refusing to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Why it matters: NATO's mutual-defense framework doesn't apply to the Iran war, far from the alliance's territory. But these days could be the death knell for the most powerful and consequential alliance of the past eight decades. Flashback: This all comes months after Trump threatened to seize Greenland, a territory of ally Denmark, and imposed tariffs on any other allies who stood in his way. That was one of several increasingly existential crises for NATO that have erupted, then died down, over Trump's two terms. Friction point: Taken together, Greenland — and now Iran — have forced European leaders to confront the need for a security architecture that could stand without the American pillar. Even if they stick to their newly robust spending commitments, it'd take several years to be able to "defend and thereby deter Russia," and perhaps a decade to fully replace the U.S., says Ivo Daalder, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO. "The big question is: Let's say there is an actual armed attack on NATO. Would there be a political decision [by Trump] to come to the aid of that ally?" Daalder wonders. Trump has given ample reason to suspect the answer might be no. For the allies who share a border with an expansionist Russia, that's a very worrying prospect. Zoom in: The Iran war is shaping up as a strategic windfall for Moscow, boosting oil revenues and diverting Western attention. Russian officials and state media are openly reveling in Trump's attacks on the alliance, casting them as validation of Europe's weakness and self-sabotage. What to watch: While Trump is once again dangling a NATO departure, a 2023 law states that no president can withdraw without Congress. But courts could well side with Trump if he decided to test it, Daalder says. Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted April 6 Author Members Posted April 6 🏛️ Ballroom gets green light Renderings of the new White House East Wing and Ballroom. Photo: Jon Elswick/AP President Trump's ballroom project won design approval yesterday, even though an ongoing legal case has halted construction on the site, reports Axios D.C.'s Cuneyt Dil. Why it matters: The National Capital Planning Commission's sign-off won't restart construction, but it clears a final procedural hurdle for Trump's fast-tracked, $400 million plans for transforming the White House. Ballroom construction at the White House on Wednesday. Photo: Allison Robbert/AP State of play: The commission, stacked with Trump loyalists, approved the project after a barrage of criticisms — including 9,000 pages of public comments that delayed the vote by a month. NCPC chair Will Scharf, the White House staff secretary, said that he believes the ballroom in time will be "every bit as much of a national treasure" as the rest of the White House. ⚖️ What we're watching: Earlier this week, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon said Trump is not the "owner" of the White House, and that construction "must stop until Congress authorizes its completion." With the NCPC green light, the Trump administration might have a stronger case in court as it seeks to overturn the work stoppage. Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted April 6 Author Members Posted April 6 Panicked Trump, 79, Fires Off Unhinged Threat in Late-Night Meltdown The president is becoming increasingly frantic as he sinks deeper into a crisis of his own making. Donald Trump has threatened to drastically escalate the war on Iran by destroying the country’s bridges and electric power plants, despite warnings that such attacks could be seen as war crimes.The 79-year-old president posted the unhinged threat to the Middle Eastern country in a late-night Truth Social message amid mounting concerns that he has no real plan to end a deeply unpopular conflict that has already caused a global energy crisis. “Our Military, the greatest and most powerful (by far!) anywhere in the World, hasn’t even started destroying what’s left in Iran,” Trump wrote. “Bridges next, then Electric Power Plants! New Regime leadership knows what has to be done, and it has to be done FAST!” Trump had already warned in another Thursday Truth Social post that Iran must make a deal “BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE, AND THERE IS NOTHING LEFT OF WHAT STILL COULD BECOME A GREAT COUNTRY!” The president made the threat while sharing a video of U.S. airstrikes targeting a bridge connecting Tehran and Karaj. “The biggest bridge in Iran comes tumbling down, never to be used again,” Trump added. “Much more to follow!” Trump’s threats came as dozens of international law experts signed an open letter raising concerns that U.S. strikes on Iran—including attacks on civilian infrastructure for no clear military purpose—could amount to war crimes. The letter cites comments Trump made last month suggesting the U.S. might attack Iran “just for fun.” It also points to remarks from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claiming the U.S. does not fight with “stupid rules of engagement” and Trump’s comment in January that “I don’t need international law.” Trump has frequently issued deranged threats toward Iran as part of a flailing pressure campaign to force Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow shipping passage through which one-fifth of the world’s oil supply passes. This has included threatening the “obliteration” of Iran’s energy infrastructure while giving seemingly arbitrary deadlines for the country to meet the president’s demands. Last month, Trump said he would once again hold off attacking Iran’s energy infrastructure while issuing a new 10-day deadline for Tehran to reopen the Strait, set to expire after April 6. During a low-energy primetime address to the nation on Wednesday, Trump delivered vague updates about the conflict, which has now dragged on for more than a month, again suggesting the war would end within a few weeks without explaining how that would actually be achieved. Trump also warned that the U.S. plans to attack Iran “extremely hard over the next two to three weeks” in order to bring the country of 90 million people “back to the Stone Ages, where they belong.” The war on Iran is becoming increasingly damaging for the president politically, which could have devastating knock-on effects for Republicans in November’s midterm elections. The conflict—and Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz—has sent oil prices soaring well above $100 a barrel and caused gas prices to soar across the U.S. A CNN/SSRS poll released this week found that just 31 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, the lowest rating in either of his terms, as tens of millions of Americans already struggling with a cost-of-living crisis face further financial hardships due to the war.The Daily Beast has contacted the White House and the Pentagon for comment. https://www.thedailybeast.com/panicked-donald-trump-79-fires-off-unhinged-threat-in-late-night-meltdown/? Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted April 6 Author Members Posted April 6 Trump’s Brutal Four-Word Firing Message to Pam Bondi Exposed Trump then rejected her request to stay on a few more months. Donald Trump brutally ended Pam Bondi’s career as his attorney general while they rode in his limousine to the Supreme Court on Wednesday. “I think it’s time,” Trump told Bondi, The Wall Street Journal reported. He had in fact decided to fire her earlier in the week, but waited to do it in the back of the Beast, turning what is seen as an honor given to a chosen few—a one-on-one in his limousine—into a humiliation ritual. Bondi, 60, was forced to enter the Supreme Court knowing her time was up. The Journal reported that the two had discussed her leaving since January. Even after she was fired in the limousine, she begged to stay, sources told the paper. But she did not even get the sort of made-up job given to Kristi Noem when she was removed as Homeland Security Secretary. Bondi now enters history as having the shortest tenure of a Senate-confirmed attorney general since 1975, when Gerald Ford forced out Richard Nixon’s final appointee, Richard Saxbe. Trump, it has been reported, was displeased with Bondi’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files and the lack of progress on prosecutions of his perceived political enemies, like former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Bondi, according to the report, said to others that some of Trump’s demands weren’t possible and were “outside of things she could do.” Whether Bondi was talking about actions she could not legally do is unclear. The Department of Justice, where Bondi will stay through the month, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast, nor did the White House. Bondi has yet to describe the specifics of what’s next for her. In a social media post, she said she was “thrilled” about her to-be-revealed private sector work. “Over the next month I will be working tirelessly to transition the office of Attorney General to the amazing Todd Blanche before moving to an important private sector role I am thrilled about, and where I will continue fighting for President Trump and this Administration,” she wrote on X. During that time, Bondi is expected to return to Washington to testify about the Epstein files before the House Oversight Committee, which subpoenaed her. Bondi “will not escape accountability and remains legally obligated to appear before our Committee under oath,” ranking member Robert Garcia said Thursday. “She must answer for her mishandling of the Epstein files and the special treatment she has given Ghislaine Maxwell.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trumps-brutal-four-word-firing-message-to-pam-bondi-exposed/? Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
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