The Second Term of Donald J. Trump as President of the United States of America

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Yes, but:
El Salvador is considered by some to be a dictatorship.
Even if we accept the absurdity so charmingly framed in #501, how do we explain a dictator that can't remove a captive from his own prison?

It would be a conspicuous compound absurdity if not for the fact that it's nonsense. It's the Trump administration trying to circumvent the United States Constitution.
Reportedly SCOTUS' ruling was 9:0.

ARTICLE2. SECTION 1. 7
Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:-
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm)that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

ARTICLE2. SECTION 3.
He shall ... take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed ...
 
Donnie has insisted that his oath does not require him to uphold the Constitution but only to "preserve, protect, and defend" it which he insists is a different matter.
 
"Donnie has insisted that his oath does not require him to uphold the Constitution but only to "preserve, protect, and defend" it which he insists is a different matter." #503

“You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.” Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY)

"Donnie has insisted that his oath does not require him to uphold the Constitution but only to "preserve, protect, and defend" it which he insists is a different matter." #503

That might seem to address though not excuse the error/s resulting in Kilmar Abrego Garcia's deportation to El Salvador.
It does not excuse Trump ignoring SCOTUS' ruling to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the U.S.

Worth noting, Kilmar Abrego Garcia deportation was in violation of a judicial order in the first place.
 
It does not excuse Trump ignoring SCOTUS' ruling to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the U.S.

Worth noting, Kilmar Abrego Garcia deportation was in violation of a judicial order in the first place.
The Supremes have already given Donnie carte blanche to violate any law he wants. No repercussions.

Besides, regardless of what the courts rule who is going to enforce it?
 
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Oregon's Bay Area

noosdeStrpl81uhi65l8566u756fuf18t3lhfmf7c0fl1mmu9thmh9m68970 ·

“Mistakes Were Made”: How Trump’s America Became Russia’s Favorite Mediator

It’s Palm Sunday in Sumy. Families are gathering. Church bells ring. A mother and daughter, Maryna and Lyudmyla, rush to the scene of an explosion to help the wounded. Minutes later, a second missile rips through the air and takes their lives. They are mourned in chestnut-colored coffins, surrounded by sobbing neighbors and bloodied children who survived only because they were sitting five feet to the left.

And what does the President of the United States say in response?

"I was told it was a mistake."

A mistake, says Donald Trump, as if Russia’s years-long campaign of civilian massacres were a paperwork error at the DMV. As if Sumy were the result of a bad batch of coordinates or a dropped airpod mid-launch. As if dropping cluster munitions on Palm Sunday is just a little oopsie, like forgetting to bring deviled eggs to the ceasefire.
It wasn't a mistake, it was a doctrine. From the bombing of the Kramatorsk train station filled with children, to the airstrike on a funeral in Hroza that obliterated nearly a fifth of the village, Russia’s war has been defined by the intentional, repeated, and systematic targeting of civilians. Playgrounds. Train stations. Apartment blocks. Malls. Medical centers. Maternity wards.

And now, as the body count rises, Washington is sending… a hotel magnate?

Yes, Trump’s “special envoy” to peace negotiations is none other than Steve Witkoff, a man best known for luxury real estate deals, not diplomacy. He met personally with Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg, emerging from the Kremlin’s embrace with a twinkle in his eye and a pitch that could’ve been cribbed from a sales brochure: “We see real opportunities for commercial cooperation.”

Call it the Mariupol Marriott Strategy.

According to Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s living, breathing MAGA press release, Witkoff’s meeting with Putin was “productive.” Russia, she insisted, might finally consider ending its war if we sweeten the deal with economic partnerships. Because nothing says “we hear your pain, Ukraine” like underwriting the reconstruction of the very country that bombed you into the Stone Age.

When asked about details, Leavitt chose the time-honored tradition of pre-authoritarian doublespeak: “I don’t want to get ahead of negotiations.” Translation? The details are either too horrifying to say out loud, or so incoherent they’re still being workshopped on Truth Social.

Meanwhile, in case anyone mistook Trump’s soft spot for Russia as an accidental policy quirk, here comes the kicker: he’s also defending Russia’s military behavior in public. Again.

This time, writing off a city-leveling, bus-incinerating, child-killing missile attack as something one might expect after a long day and too much vodka. A “mistake.”

Let’s pause to appreciate just how far we’ve fallen from moral clarity.

Sweden summoned the Russian ambassador and demanded accountability. Their Foreign Minister called Russia’s actions what they are: war crimes, not peace overtures. But in Washington, we’ve got Trump blaming bureaucrats and praising Putin’s supposed restraint, while Karoline Leavitt reads from the Kremlin playbook in a peppy press briefing outfit.
And as if the alignment weren’t grotesque enough, take a look at what’s happening inside Russia to those brave enough to do what American journalists still have the right to do, tell the truth.

Four journalists, Antonina Kravtsova, Konstantin Gabov, Sergei Karelin, and Artem Kriger, were just sentenced to five and a half years in a Russian penal colony for reporting on the late Alexei Navalny. Their trial was secret. The evidence? Nonexistent. Their crime? Filming a dying dissident in court, taking photos, uploading them, existing.

You’d think this would inspire a White House press secretary to defend the principle of press freedom. But not Leavitt. She’s too busy trying to ban reporters for including pronouns in their email signatures.

The convergence is undeniable. Russia jails journalists. Trump threatens to strip licenses from media outlets. Russia brands critics “extremists.” Trump floats charges of treason for former officials and journalists alike. Russia bombs civilian buses. Trump shrugs. Russia wants “peace.” Trump offers partnerships. Russia silences reporters. Trump discredits them.

And in the background? Elon Musk’s platform gleefully broadcasting Russian propaganda, U.S. disinformation, and DRL-certified drone war porn, sometimes quite literally filmed from Moscow high-rises.

Now we are burying the Marynas and Lyudmyla’s of the world while Karoline Leavitt plays White House Barbie and Steve Witkoff negotiates away Ukrainian sovereignty like it’s a time-share in Sochi. It leaves us with a president who defends the indefensible and a press corps that may soon need body armor and a burner phone just to survive a White House press conference.

We’ve seen this movie before. The autocrat strikes. The strongman shrugs. The world wavers. And the coffins multiply. What comes next depends on whether we still have the capacity to say, this is wrong. Just wrong.

Because if we lose the ability to name evil, even when it's standing in front of a burning bus with cluster bomb fragments embedded in a child’s skull, then we are no longer just complicit. We are collaborators.

Photo AI generated (obviously!)
 
The quote from Vance at the end says it all

Heather Cox Richardson

opoestdrSn7hi8h5gt8cu88imlc4t1uif0a568h9i9mtic0682301ifh2c1f ·

April 16, 2025 (Wednesday)

In El Salvador today, authorities denied Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) a meeting or a phone call with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man the Trump regime sent by “administrative error” to the terrorist prison CECOT. Abrego Garcia is Van Hollen’s constituent, and the senator promised his family to try to get him released. That Salvadoran officials cannot or will not produce him raises concerns about his well-being.

Senator Van Hollen had hoped to meet with El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, but met instead with Vice President Félix Ulloa. Ulloa at first told Van Hollen there had not been enough time to arrange a meeting with Abrego Garcia, but when the senator offered to come back next week, Ulloa allowed as how a meeting might not be possible at all.

Van Hollen reported that when he asked Ulloa why El Salvador was continuing to imprison Abrego Garcia when it had no evidence that he was a gang member, Ulloa answered that the Trump administration is paying El Salvador to hold him.

Evidently, President Donald Trump thinks what he is doing to Abrego Garcia and the optics of CECOT play well to his base. Jordain Carney and Nicholas Wu of Politico reported today that the White House has “heavily encouraged” Republican lawmakers to lean into the idea of Abrego Garcia—who has no criminal record—as an example of the dangerous criminals they insist Democrats want to bring to the U.S. Yesterday, out of the blue and with absolutely no evidence, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed that

Abrego Garcia engaged in human trafficking.

At least a dozen Republicans have followed the president’s lead. Congressional reporter Craig Caplan reported that yesterday, House Ways and Means committee chair Jason Smith (R-MO) led a delegation of Republican House members to tour CECOT. The delegation included representatives Ron Estes (KS), Kevin Hern (OK), Mike Kennedy (UT), Carol Miller (WV), Riley Moore (WV), and Claudia Tenney (NY). At least some of the representatives had photographs taken of them in CECOT, standing in front of the caged men.

The delegation also met with U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador William Duncan, who posted on social media that “[t]he delegation is visiting the country to strengthen bilateral ties and discuss initiatives that promote economic development and mutual cooperation.”

Two days ago, Bukele posted a picture of himself and Trump with their arms around each other with the comment: “Friends.” Ron Filipkowski of MeidasNews wrote: “We traded Europe for a guy that builds concentration camps for profit.”

Trump is likely pushing his narrative about criminal undocumented immigrants—although Bloomberg has reported that 90% of the men he has sent to El Salvador have no criminal record—in part because that rendition is stirring up opposition. In addition to popular protests, judges are pushing back.

Today, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg issued an opinion saying that the administration’s “hurried removal” of the men to El Salvador after Boasberg had issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) prohibiting them from doing so, demonstrated “a wilful disregard for its Order, sufficient for the Court to conclude that probable cause exists to find the Government in criminal contempt.”

“The Constitution does not tolerate willful disobedience of judicial orders—especially by officials of a coordinate branch who have sworn an oath to uphold it,” Boasberg wrote.

Quoting Chief Justice John Marshall, who laid down the foundations of much of America law, Boasberg wrote: “To permit such officials to freely ‘annul the judgments of the courts of the United States’ would not just ‘destroy the rights acquired under those judgments’; it would make ‘a solemn mockery’ of ‘the constitution itself.’”

If the government decides not to try to repair its contempt, Boasberg says the court will use declarations, hearings, or depositions to identify the individuals responsible for making the judgment to ignore the court. Then he will ask the government to prosecute the contempt, but if—as is likely—it refuses, Boasberg says he will appoint a private prosecutor to move the case along. As legal analyst Joyce White Vance puts it: “These cases are about making sure that, American citizen or not, criminal or not, peoples’ right to have the day in court that the Constitution guarantees them is honored. That’s all. But it’s everything.”

Trump is also likely playing to his base because Americans are terribly concerned about what’s happening to the economy on his watch.

Stocks fell again today after Trump’s administration said it would put limits on chip sales to China and after Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell told the Economic Club of Chicago that Trump’s tariffs will have “significantly larger than anticipated…economic effects, which will include higher inflation and slower growth.” The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 700 points or 1.73%, the S&P 500 fell 2.24%, and the Nasdaq Composite fell 3.07%.

Danielle Kaye of the New York Times reports on a recent Bank of America survey that shows global investors have dumped a record amount of U.S. stocks in the past two months.

Trump insists that the U.S. has been bringing in $2 billion a day in tariffs, some of which he claims comes from his new levies, but, in fact, Lori Ann LaRocco of CNBC reported today that U.S. Customs and Border Protection says the U.S. is taking in only $250 million a day.

CONTINUED
 
PART 2

Leila Fadel of NPR reports that China used to buy more than half the U.S. crop of soybeans and now soybean farmers are gravely concerned they’re going to lose that market. At the same time, we are heading in the prime months for the U.S. tourism industry, and Bloomberg reports that a worst-case scenario by the Goldman Sachs Group Inc. estimates that the U.S. could lose almost $90 billion as foreign tourists stay away from the U.S. and boycott American products.

So Trump is hitting his MAGA themes hard.

Today he escalated his attacks on Maine governor Janet Mills. Trump has demanded that Mills prohibit transgender girls in the public schools from participating in girls’ sports.

Mills, who was Maine’s attorney general before she became governor, maintains she is bound by the 2021 state law that explicitly protects against discrimination on the basis of gender identity. As Jeremy Roebuck and Joanna Slater of the Washington Post note, Mills has said that law is “worthy of debate” but that Trump cannot change it by decree.

On February 21, Trump threatened to withhold federal education funding for Maine unless Mills promised to comply with his ban. When she reiterated that “I’m complying with state and federal laws,” and that “We’re going to follow the law,” he warned: “You’d better comply because otherwise you’re not getting any federal funding.” Mills answered: “See you in court.”

Since then, the administration has attacked the state, opening investigations, cutting and then restoring Social Security Administration contracts, and taunting Mills on social media. On Friday the Department of Education said it would pull all federal funding for education in Maine unless the state agreed to ban the state’s two transgender girls from playing on girls sports teams. Today the Justice Department sued Maine’s Department of Education, and Attorney General Pam Bondi threatened to pull past funding retroactively.

Mills said the administration is trying “to pressure the State of Maine to ignore the Constitution and abandon the rule of law.” “For nearly two months, Maine has endured recriminations from the Federal government that have targeted hungry school kids, hardworking fishermen, senior citizens, new parents, and countless Maine people,” Mills said.

“We have been subject to politically motivated investigations that opened and closed without discussion, leaving little doubt that their outcomes were predetermined. Let today serve as warning to all states: Maine might be among the first to draw the ire of the Federal government in this way, but we will not be the last.”

Trump is also keeping his attack on Harvard in the news. Yesterday, after Harvard defied the regime’s attempt to take over the school, Trump posted “Perhaps Harvard should lose its Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting ‘Sickness?’ Remember, Tax Exempt Status is totally contingent on acting in the PUBLIC INTEREST!”

Today, Evan Perez, Alayna Treene, and Marshall Cohen of CNN reported that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is planning to take away Harvard University’s tax-exempt status. Law professor Sam Brunson noted that this is illegal. “In 1998,” he wrote, “Congress explicitly provided that the President could not, directly or indirectly, request that the IRS start or end an audit or other investigation of a taxpayer.” Brunson also noted that the move was “dumb.” “Unless Trump has super-secret information, Harvard hasn't done anything to violate its tax-exempt status.” Brunson added: “there's not a single competent attorney left in the Administration.”

The Wall Street Journal editorial board helpfully noted that the Supreme Court “has repeatedly held that the government may not use federal benefits or funds to coerce parties to surrender their constitutional rights. This is what the Administration is doing” with its demands on Harvard.

Sarah Longwell of The Bulwark reposted a clip of then-senator J.D. Vance (R-OH) on the Fox News Channel when a right-wing group falsely alleged the IRS was targeting them. "This is about whether we have functional constitutional government in this country,” Vance told host Laura Ingraham. “If the IRS can go after you because of what you think or what you believe or what you do, we'd no longer live in a free country.“
 
Climate
Trump administration issues order to stop construction on New York offshore wind project
By JENNIFER McDERMOTT / Updated 6:01 PM GMT-5, April 16, 2025

The Trump administration issued an order Wednesday to stop construction on a major offshore wind project to power more than 500,000 New York homes, the latest in a series of moves targeting the industry.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum directed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to halt construction on Empire Wind, a fully-permitted project. He said it needs further review because it appears the Biden administration rushed the approval. ...
Trump has been hostile to renewable energy, particularly offshore wind.

Does President Trump outright disbelieve anthropogenic global warming? Or either way, does Trump simply not care? The severe consequences when manifest will be after Trump's natural demise, and therefore of no concern to Trump?

There may be beneficiaries of wind-turbine commercial electric power. BUT !
It seems Trump favors the beneficiaries of "drill baby drill". The human race be damned?
 
How much of this is because he doesn't believe in global warming (or at least his followers don't), how much is a general "stick it to the libtards", and how much is just an attempt to erase everything Biden did?
'
 
How much of this is because he doesn't believe in global warming (or at least his followers don't), how much is a general "stick it to the libtards", and how much is just an attempt to erase everything Biden did? #510
@CV.us "Like" only allows one emoji. Let's try two:

(y) & :mad:

S2 gets a - yes indeed -
Trump gets an all expenses paid weekend in a porta-potty basement.
 
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Occupy Democrats

rstonodpSeum2u8imfll38g3atgm7tmm2tlc7i331u015975l85mgfi4t700 ·

https://www.facebook.com/#
BREAKING: A top nutrition researcher at the National Institutes of Health bravely retires in protest because his work was censored under Trump's Health Secretary RFK Jr.

We're losing our best scientific minds thanks to this anti-science MAGA hack...

"Unfortunately, recent events have made me question whether NIH continues to be a place where I can freely conduct unbiased science," Kevin Hall, the researcher in question, wrote on X, announcing the end of 21 years at his "dream job".

"Specifically, I experienced censorship in the reporting of our research because of agency concerns that it did not appear to fully support preconceived narratives of my agency’s leadership about ultra-processed food addiction," he continued.

Hall has spent over two decades examining food environments as well as chronic diseases. He's one of the leading researchers on ultra-processed foods and was responsible for helping to prove that they can cause people to overeat.

Under RFK Jr., he discovered that research that didn't match the boss's preferred narratives was quashed. In one instance of censorship, he was barred from speaking to reporters about a study that appeared to contradict Kennedy's claim that ultra-processed foods like chicken nuggets and hots dogs are as addictive as drugs.

"We experienced what amounts to censorship and controlling of the reporting of our science,” Dr. Hall told The New York Times, sharing concerns that future studies could be tampered with.

"That would make me hate my job every day," he added.

In another disturbing incident, NIH officials told him that he had to either remove his name from or amend a scientific review of ultra-processed foods that he co-write.

The officials drew issue with the mention of "health equity," which describes the fact that some people don't have access to healthy food. Under Trump and RFK Jr., such language is viewed as unacceptable "DEI." Hall was ultimately obligated to remove his name from the review.

Weeks ago, Hall wrote to agency leaders about his growing concerns and never received a response.

"Without any reassurance there wouldn’t be continued censorship or meddling in our research, I felt compelled to accept early retirement to preserve health insurance for my family," Hall wrote on X. "(Resigning later in protest of any future meddling or censorship would result in losing that benefit.) Due to very tight deadlines to make this decision, I don’t yet have plans for my future career."

"The NIH has been a wonderful place because it allows scientists to take risks, form unique collaborations, and do studies difficult to conduct elsewhere," he went on.

"I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished and I’m fortunate to have had such wonderful colleagues and scientific collaborators. I hope to someday return to government service and lead a research program that will continue to provide gold-standard science to make Americans healthy," Hall concluded.

This is a colossal loss for research and the broader American public. By the time this second Trump term is over, we'll have lost all of our greatest minds and moved firmly into a new Dark Age.

"It’s a sad day when one of the most prominent nutrition researchers at N.I.H. feels forced to leave a job that he loves in an area that he’s having major public impact," Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, Director of the Food Is Medicine Institute at Tufts University, told the Times.
 

How the Trump administration is attacking scientific research in the US #514

Think it through.
Trump wants to MAGA, make America grate again.
We don't need no steenkin' science for that! Get rid of all that sciencey stuff. Nobody understands it anyways (except scientists, and they're all lib-tards).

What we have to do to make America grate again is just back things up to the way they were when Trump liked it.

I can't wait to buy me a Nash Rambler !
NashRamblerQuestionmark.JPG
 
White supremacy is one misplaced vote away in the upcoming elections. In Canada since 1947, birthright citizenship means that anyone born on Canadian soil, regardless of their parents' citizenship or immigration status, is automatically granted Canadian citizenship. Think of the harm PP’s CON Policy to eliminate it could do to someone who’s lived in Canada all their life! From the CPC Party’s Policy Declaration” amended at the National Convention, 2023. “167. Birthright Citizenship. We encourage the government to enact legislation which will fully eliminate birthright citizenship in Canada unless one of the parents of the child born in Canada is a Canadian citizen or permanent resident of Canada.” Why? Look to the South for this shameful story!

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=980020787641325&id=100069002386137
May be an image of 1 person, studying and text that says 'GEORGIARECORDER.COM CORD U.S. U.S.-born born man from Georgia held for ICE under Florida's new anti-immigration law Georgia Recorder i'

White Rose Resistance

Sodtnrpeosm0iu045a71f377am7i71h5am1t6t8g0574c0011hg74ttfiu81 ·
This is what fascism looks like.

A 20-year-old U.S. citizen—born in Georgia, armed with a birth certificate and Social Security card—is sitting in a Florida jail because Ron DeSantis’ new anti-immigrant law is so extreme, it can’t even tell a citizen from a “suspect.”

Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez wasn’t driving. He wasn’t committing any crime. He was simply a passenger in a car. But that was enough for Florida police to arrest him as an “unauthorized alien”—even after a judge admitted there was zero probable cause. Why is he still being held? Because ICE wants a piece of him.

This isn’t about immigration enforcement. It’s about white nationalist state power being used to target Brown Americans—citizens or not. And it's a warning sign for what's coming if the Trump-DeSantis brand of fascism expands nationwide.

Florida is a test lab. The rest of the country could be next.

Read this, share this, and don’t stay silent.
 
"A 20-year-old U.S. citizen—born in Georgia, armed with a birth certificate and Social Security card—is sitting in a Florida jail because Ron DeSantis’ new anti-immigrant law is so extreme, it can’t even tell a citizen from a “suspect.”" #516
There may be more than one possible explanation. The most plausible, most likely explanation, Trump is so profoundly ignorant, he perceives the greatness of the U.S. to have prevailed for centuries not because of these fundamental legal / human rights standards, but despite them.
In that case, ignoring or removing them could be perceived as improvement.

"Autistic kids will never pay taxes ... " borrowerin #517
Not until adulthood perhaps.
RF, isn't it called "the autism spectrum"? IIRC I met an attorney at law that was autistic.
 
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