Trump 47

[Polds4OSU]

Trump Preparing to Invoke Wartime Powers Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to Speed Up Sluggish Deportations​

Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to give his administration sweeping wartime powers to expel immigrants without having to go through the court system, according to CNN.

Administration officials are in talks with several agencies to try to figure out how they can implement the law despite the U.S. not being at war.

The law explicitly applies in the case of “a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government.” Declaring a national emergency or designating a specific group—such as a gang or drug cartel—as a terrorist organization likely wouldn’t count, legal experts told CNN.

Trump has nevertheless declared the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang a foreign terrorist organization as a “first step” to invoking the Alien Enemies Act, a White House source told CNN.

Conservative legal advocates have argued the administration could get around the law’s restrictions by arguing that certain countries are basically “mafia states” where organized crime has taken over the government.

The president discussed the Alien Enemies Act on the campaign trail and reiterated his plans to use it during his inaugural address, and civil rights groups have already vowed to fight it.


“There is no military invasion or military predatory incursion being perpetrated by an actual foreign nation or government,” Katherine Yon Ebright of the Brennan Center at New York University told CNN in January. “And so, irrespective of how broadly or narrowly he would like to apply it, we would oppose any invocation as an abuse of a wartime authority.”

The Alien Enemies Act doesn’t distinguish between documented and undocumented immigrants. The last time it was invoked was during World War II, when 30,000 immigrants from Japan, Germany, and Italy were sent to internment camps, according to CNN.

(Japanese Americans with U.S. citizenship were interned separately under an executive order from President Franklin Roosevelt.)

As Trump’s deportation numbers flounder, his administration has repeatedly moved the goal posts on whom they plan to deport.


After initially vowing to focus on murderers and other convicted criminals, ICE is now trying to raid churches and has announced it will target unaccompanied children.

On Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security announced that undocumented immigrants must register and get fingerprinted within 30 days of entering the U.S., or else they could be fined or jailed for violating with federal law.

That checks with Trump’s Alien Enemies Act plan, which would allow him to suddenly classify thousands of law-abiding immigrants as “alien enemies.”

 

[TheMonkey]

Weapons of mass distraction. I like that.

Not sure if he originated it, but I stole it from Professor Scott Galloway.

 

[Polds4OSU]

Trump Plans Another additional 10% Tariff on Products From China​

WASHINGTON—The U.S. next week will impose an additional 10% tariff on imports from China over its role in the fentanyl trade, President Trump said.

The move, slated to take effect Tuesday, doubles up on the previous 10% additional tariff Trump placed on Chinese products earlier this month.


In a post Thursday on his Truth Social platform, Trump reinforced his threat to impose 25% tariffs on products from Canada and Mexico, saying the U.S. neighbors hadn’t done enough to curb drug smuggling to win another delay for those duties. The administration had postponed the Canada and Mexico tariffs for 30 days at the beginning of February to allow for negotiations.

“[T]he proposed TARIFFS scheduled to go into effect on MARCH FOURTH will, indeed, go into effect, as scheduled,” Trump said. “China will likewise be charged an additional 10% Tariff on that date.”

The announcement came a day after Trump appeared to hint that the Canada and Mexico tariffs could be delayed again, telling reporters that they were scheduled for April 2. But the White House backed off those comments, saying a decision hasn’t yet been made on whether to give another reprieve to the North American nations.

 

[Polds4OSU]

Donald Trump Jr. declares that QAnon has ‘probably been right about a lot of things’​

MSN

 

[Polds4OSU]

Democrat introducing resolution affirming 22nd Amendment support amid Trump third term talk​

Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) on Thursday introduced a resolution reaffirming the House’s support for the 22nd Amendment, which states that a person can be elected president no more than two times.

The resolution — which comes amid talk of a possible third term for President Trump — makes explicit that the 22nd Amendment applies to Trump, too.


“Resolved, That the House of Representatives (1) reaffirms that the Twenty-second Amendment applies to two terms in the aggregate as President of the United States; and (2) reaffirms that the Twenty-second Amendment prohibits President Trump from running for President for another term,” the resolution reads.

The resolution mentions several instances, from March 2018 through just last week, when Trump has hinted at the possibility of running for a third term in office.

“President Donald Trump’s repeated references to serving beyond his second term have unsurprisingly now become standard GOP orthodoxy,” Goldman said in a press release.

“The 22nd Amendment enshrines a fundamental principle of our democracy—no president can serve for more than two terms. Yet, one political party has prioritized blind loyalty to a wannabe dictator over its duty to uphold our constitution,” he continued.

Link

MSN

 

[Polds4OSU]

Spartz took a furious phone call from President Trump, whose screaming could be heard by the congresswoman’s colleagues across the Republican cloakroom.

How Trump Bullied MAGA Rep. Into Changing Her Vote on Budget Bill

Representative Victoria Spartz originally said she would vote against the reconciliation bill.

trib.al

 

[Stillwater Townie]

Trump Plans Another additional 10% Tariff on Products From China​

WASHINGTON—The U.S. next week will impose an additional 10% tariff on imports from China over its role in the fentanyl trade, President Trump said.

The move, slated to take effect Tuesday, doubles up on the previous 10% additional tariff Trump placed on Chinese products earlier this month.


In a post Thursday on his Truth Social platform, Trump reinforced his threat to impose 25% tariffs on products from Canada and Mexico, saying the U.S. neighbors hadn’t done enough to curb drug smuggling to win another delay for those duties. The administration had postponed the Canada and Mexico tariffs for 30 days at the beginning of February to allow for negotiations.

“[T]he proposed TARIFFS scheduled to go into effect on MARCH FOURTH will, indeed, go into effect, as scheduled,” Trump said. “China will likewise be charged an additional 10% Tariff on that date.”

The announcement came a day after Trump appeared to hint that the Canada and Mexico tariffs could be delayed again, telling reporters that they were scheduled for April 2. But the White House backed off those comments, saying a decision hasn’t yet been made on whether to give another reprieve to the North American nations.

But Fentanyl has proliferated so quickly because it’s cheaper to make than other drugs and can be mass-produced in a few hours, said Mark Woodward, a spokesperson for the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics. I assume he means Fentanyl can be mass-produced in a few hours in the USA. So, it doesn't need to come from China.

 

[Polds4OSU]

'This was not a close case': Judge slams Trump's position on birthright citizenship, saying all factors 'favor the plaintiffs lopsidedly'​

A federal judge in Massachusetts on Wednesday refused to lift a ruling preventing the Trump administration from preparing to implement or enforce the president’s executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship.

U.S. District Judge Leo T. Sorokin joined several other federal judges — appointed by presidents from both sides of the political aisle — who have issued nationwide preliminary injunctions on the controversial measure that would potentially upend more than a century of legal precedent.


In a brief three-page order, Sorokin declined to stay his injunction, reasoning that his analysis of the arguments presented on behalf of the plaintiffs — a coalition of Democratic states as well as Washington, D.C. — and those put forth by the Trump administration weighed heavily in favor of the plaintiffs.

“And, as the Court also made clear, this was not a close case,” the judge wrote. “The equitable scale did not tip ever so slightly in the plaintiffs’ direction; the four factors favor the plaintiffs lopsidedly. That was so in the preliminary-injunction analysis, where the plaintiffs bore a high burden of persuasion and decisively satisfied it. If the defendants could not succeed in that context, then they certainly cannot prevail now. On the present motion, the burden shifts to the defendants to establish entitlement to the extraordinary relief they seek, and they have endeavored to meet it primarily by repastinating the same facts and legal theories the Court has already considered and rejected.”


The administration additionally sought to have the court’s universal application of the injunction more narrowly tailored so that it only provided relief to individuals residing in the plaintiff states and members of the organizations who filed the lawsuit last month, but Sorokin declined.

The only new issue raised by the Trump administration in its motion to stay the injunction was the “scope of conduct enjoined” by the order, which also prohibits the government from taking “internal steps relating to” implementation of the measure. Calling the court’s order “overbroad,” the administration asked the Sorokin to limit the injunction to allow the government to begin taking “internal preparatory steps regarding the EO’s application and formulating relevant policies and guidance.”

Sorokin again rejected the request, saying that the government failed to “meaningfully develop” their position, dedicating only a single paragraph to it in the filing.


“For example, the defendants have not identified what ‘internal steps’ they wish to take, but are prevented from taking, by the plain terms of the injunction,” the order states. “Thus, the Court cannot evaluate whether such steps would or should be foreclosed and what harms may flow from their temporary prohibition. When asked at the preliminary injunction hearing about this issue, the defendants’ lawyer was ‘not able to answer questions about implementation.’ On this issue, then, the motion to stay is denied both for failure to specify what changes the defendants propose making to the injunction and because, as the plaintiffs point out, the Executive Order itself contemplates ‘implementation’ within a relatively brief, thirty-day period.”

The administration on Thursday filed a 22-page motion for a stay pending appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, hoping the higher court will be more receptive to its positions.


Trump signed the controversial executive order on his first day in office directing the secretary of state, attorney general, secretary of homeland security, and social security commissioner to cease recognizing citizenship for children whose parents are in the U.S. illegally or in the country on a legal but temporary basis.

The order was met with a flurry of lawsuits from individuals, organizations, and Democratic states, all of which asserted that the order was unconstitutional and contradicted more than 100 years of Supreme Court precedent.

The administration has repeatedly argued that widely-held views of the 14th Amendment granting jus soli (“right of the soil”) citizenship and a landmark 1898 Supreme Court case have been misinterpreted for over 100 years. In fact, the administration’s position is that Trump’s executive order merely enforces already existing law, specifically highlighting the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” contained in the Constitution, which the administration argues is akin to “allegiance” that is “direct,” and “unqualified by allegiance to any alien power.”


Sorokin previously repudiated the administration’s position when issuing the preliminary injunction two weeks ago.

“First, allegiance in the United States arises from the fact of birth,” he wrote in the order. “It does not depend on the status of a child’s parents, nor must it be exclusive, as the defendants contend. Applying the defendants’ view of allegiance would mean children of dual citizens and lawful permanent residents would not be birthright citizens — a result even the defendants do not support.”

The decision made Sorokin the fourth federal judge to issue a nationwide injunction against the birthright citizenship executive order. The other order came from judges in Maryland, New Hampshire, and Washington state.

 

[steross]

DOGE:

Who Is in DOGE? Tracking Its Staffers and Allies in the Federal Government

The Times identified 45 people within the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, a group formed by Elon Musk that in a short few weeks has radically upended federal agencies.

www.nytimes.com

 

[PF5]

Trump says he can't believe he would call Zelensky a 'dictator'​

'Did I say that?' - Trump asked about calling Zelensky a 'dictator'
The BBC's political editor Chris Mason points out that Trump previously referred to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a "dictator". Does he still believe that?

"Did I say that, I can't believe I would say that", Trump replies.

For context: Following criticism from Zelensky on the meeting held between the US and Russia last week, Trump described the Ukrainian leader as a "dictator" - echoing Russia's claims - in reference to the fact Kyiv has not held an election since 2019.

An election was scheduled for May 2024, but it was suspended because Ukraine has been under martial law since Russia began its full-scale invasion.

The Truth Social post from 19 February in which Trump called Zelensky a "dictator without elections"

 

[steross]

Trump says he can't believe he would call Zelensky a 'dictator'​

'Did I say that?' - Trump asked about calling Zelensky a 'dictator'
The BBC's political editor Chris Mason points out that Trump previously referred to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a "dictator". Does he still believe that?

"Did I say that, I can't believe I would say that", Trump replies.

For context: Following criticism from Zelensky on the meeting held between the US and Russia last week, Trump described the Ukrainian leader as a "dictator" - echoing Russia's claims - in reference to the fact Kyiv has not held an election since 2019.

An election was scheduled for May 2024, but it was suspended because Ukraine has been under martial law since Russia began its full-scale invasion.

The Truth Social post from 19 February in which Trump called Zelensky a "dictator without elections"

 

[milehighpoke]

Psh. One guy had handlers with their hands up his butt like a weekend at Bernies puppet. The other one is the most stable genius in the world, playing 9d chess.