Slingshot News: ‘I Might Be Wrong’: When Trump Humiliated The Wife Of An Appointee By Insulting Her Marriage During A Swearing-In Ceremony
Reply
BBC: Judge overturns Trump administration funding cuts to Harvard
A US federal court has overturned billions in funding cuts by President Donald Trump’s administration to Harvard University.
Judge Allison Burroughs ruled the government violated the Ivy League college’s free speech rights when it revoked around $2bn (£1.5bn) in research grants.
The ruling is a major legal victory for Harvard, but the White House has vowed to appeal. When it froze funding in April, the Trump administration accused the college of antisemitism, “radical left” ideologies and racial bias.
Three other Ivy League universities, Columbia, Penn and Brown, struck deals with Trump to preserve funding that was at risk due to similar claims by the administration, rather than go to court.
Boston-based Judge Burroughs wrote in Wednesday’s ruling: “The Court vacates and sets aside the Freeze Orders and Termination Letters as violative of the First Amendment.”
She blocked the administration from stopping any more federal funding to the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based college and barred the government from withholding payment on existing grants.
The White House said they would immediately challenge the “egregious decision” and called the judge an “activist” who was appointed by former President Barack Obama and was never going to rule in their favour.
“Harvard does not have a constitutional right to taxpayer dollars and remains ineligible for grants in the future,” assistant press secretary Liz Huston said.
Alan Garber, president of the university, said in a statement on their website that “the ruling affirms Harvard’s First Amendment and procedural rights”.
“We will continue to assess the implications of the opinion, monitor further legal developments, and be mindful of the changing landscape in which we seek to fulfill our mission,” he added.
Judge Burroughs wrote in her 84-page decision that Harvard should have done more to deal with antisemitism, which she said had “plagued” the institution in recent years.
“Harvard was wrong to tolerate hateful behavior for as long as it did,” wrote the judge.
But she said that fighting antisemitism was not the Trump administration’s “true aim” in penalising the nation’s oldest and richest university.
She suggested the government had “used antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this country’s premier universities”.
Judge Burroughs has previously blocked Trump’s efforts to prevent Harvard from hosting international students.
The university sued the Trump administration over the funding freeze in April, while also pledging to fight antisemitism.
Harvard’s president said no government “should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue”.
Trump has also threatened to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status and take control of the university’s patents stemming from federally funded research.
The government has been discussing with Harvard a potential deal to unfreeze federal funding. Trump has said he wants the university to pay no less than $500m.
Slingshot News: ‘Could You Say Exactly What This Is?’: Trump Exposes Himself As A Mere Puppet, Has No Clue What He’s Reading During Executive Order Signing
‘Could You Say Exactly What This Is?’: Trump Exposes Himself As A Mere Puppet, Has No Clue What He’s Reading During Executive Order Signing
Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders last week in the Oval Office. Some of the executive orders included ending cashless bail and making it a crime to burn the American flag. A clueless Trump needed White House Staff Secretary Will Scharf to explain to him what executive orders he was signing.
Slingshot News: ‘You Can’t Even Answer Some Tough Questions’: Pete Hegseth Faces Public Shaming As He Gets Called Out On His Cowardice During Hearing
‘You Can’t Even Answer Some Tough Questions’: Pete Hegseth Faces Public Shaming As He Gets Called Out On His Cowardice During Hearing
In a recent hearing held by the House Armed Services Committee, Congressman Wesley Bell called out Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for setting a terrible example to the troops under him. Hegseth has repeatedly dodged questions and avoided accountability throughout the hearing, making him a bad role model despite the “warrior ethos” culture he likes to peddle.
MSNBC: New report shows how Trump’s DHS is mainstreaming white supremacy
The SPLC’s Hatewatch looked at how the Department of Homeland Security has ramped up its bigoted social media strategy in recent months.
Under President Donald Trump, the Department of Homeland Security’s social media channels are beginning to look like a white nationalist content mill, churning out bigoted, jingoistic schlock.
A recent report from Hatewatch, the extremism watchdog run by the Southern Poverty Law Center, shows how the agency and top Trump administration officials have ramped up their promotion of white nationalist or anti-immigrant social media posts since June, when the agency reposted anti-immigrant propaganda that originated from an avowedly racist social media account.
MSNBC has noted the agency’s propaganda in the past, including their use of cruel memes that vilify nonwhite immigrants and of American artworks to promote themes of ethnic cleansing.
The Hatewatch report takes a comprehensive look at these incidents since June, citing an apparent increase in racist propaganda as part of what the watchdog calls “an escalating trend in American immigration enforcement toward overt use of white nationalist and anti-immigrant myths to recruit personnel and justify departmental operations.”
The Department of Homeland Security didn’t immediately respond to MSNBC’s request for comment on Hatewatch’s claims. When asked last month by NBC’s Los Angeles affiliate about the campaign, the DHS called its digital strategy “bold and effective.”
Here’s one example Hatewatch flagged:
In one recruitment poster, published on Aug. 11, a white Uncle Sam caricature in the style of a Norman Rockwell painting stands at a crossroads of directional signs that include such phrases as “INVASION,” “CULTURAL DECLINE,” “HOMELAND” and “LAW & ORDER.” The poster includes the caption “Which way, American man?” — which appears to be a nod to the influential white nationalist text Which Way Western Man? by William Gayley Simpson. Published by an imprint associated with the neo-Nazi National Alliance, the book is a reflection and critique of society from Simpson’s travels. While critical of some aspects of society, it largely frames Western civilization as superior and veers into sexist and antisemitic commentary.
To some online observers, like author and conspiracy theory expert Mike Rothschild, this apparent nod to an unabashed bigot was hardly subtle
….
The report notes that multiple Trump administration figures in senior leadership roles have ties to racist organizations or have been known to espouse white nationalist themes. That includes border czar Tom Homan, who collaborated with anti-Muslim hate group The United West on his “Defend the Border” project, and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, whose white nationalist views first came under scrutiny during Trump’s first term.
The report also refers to multiple posts from DHS that promote the idea of forging friendships or strengthening familial bonds over the targeting of immigrants. And it notes that the agency’s social media strategy has been celebrated by known white supremacists like activist Jared Taylor, who called the posts a “remarkable change” during an episode of his podcast in August.
That’s certainly one way to describe the Department of Homeland Security’s embrace of racist propaganda to further the Trump administration’s draconian anti-immigrant agenda.
New report shows how Trump’s DHS is mainstreaming white supremacy
The SPLC’s Hatewatch looked at how the Department of Homeland Security has ramped up its bigoted social media strategy in recent months.
https://www.msnbc.com/top-stories/latest/homeland-security-social-media-white-supremacy-rcna228582
Slingshot News: ‘If Something Bad Happens, Just Blame AI’: Trump Makes Freudian Slip, Accidentally Exposes Himself During Oval Office Remarks
‘If Something Bad Happens, Just Blame AI’: Trump Makes Freudian Slip, Accidentally Exposes Himself During Oval Office Remarks
During his gaggle with the press in the Oval Office yesterday, Donald Trump addresed the controversial video clip of black plastic bags being thrown out of a window of the White House, dismissing it as AI-generated. Afterwards, Trump stated, “if something happens that’s really bad, maybe I’ll just have to blame AI.”
Haaretz.com: ICE Gains Access to Israeli Spyware Maker Paragon’s Tool
After the deal between Paragon and Homeland Security’s investigations unit was frozen, the first signs that Trump wants spyware emerged, sparking concerns amid a growing arsenal of digital tools
The contract between the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Israeli spyware company Paragon has been reactivated, in what some say is the first sign of a shift in the current administration’s policies towards offensive cyber.
Last year, a $2 million contract was signed between Paragon and ICE, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), for its Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) unit. However, it was frozen a month later amid the Biden administration’s policy to clamp down on the offensive cyber industry, which sells technologies that allow states access to encrypted smartphones and has been misused across the globe over the past decade.
That policy included pressuring Israel to rein in its spyware exports, and also sanctions on Israeli companies like NSO and Candiru, which are regulated by Israel, as well as harsher personal sanctions against the owners and executives of Intellexa, which operated outside Israel’s regulatory oversight.
The temporary suspension of the Paragon contract stemmed from concerns it could violate Biden’s 2023 executive order restricting the purchase of foreign spyware by U.S. agencies, if those had been used to undermine U.S. national security or had been implicated in misuse.
Its renewal, announced with little fanfare this Saturday on an official U.S. procurement data website, is seen by some as an early signal of a potential shift in the Trump administration’s policy toward the offensive cyber industry. The contract renewal was first published by Jack Poulson, an independent journalist, on his Substack.
Paragon, the procurement documents details, will provide a “proprietary solution” to ICE via the HSI, an investigative arm that combats illegal immigration, human and arms trafficking, international crime, cyber threats, and more. It was founded by former Unit 8200 commander Ehud Schneorson and former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and developed a spyware called Graphite.
It has been sold to intelligence and law enforcement agencies in Israel, Europe, the United States and Singapore. Infection with the spyware gives operators full access to a victim’s mobile phone, including files, photos, and contacts, as well as the ability to eavesdrop on calls and read encrypted messages. Earlier this year, Paragon was for the first time embroiled in a scandal regarding misuse of its tech in Italy, where the country’s intelligence service turned the spyware against activists and journalists.
Digital rights groups fear that Trump’s policies, coupled with the renewal of the Paragon contract, signal that the United States may roll back its efforts to regulate the spyware industry and could even emerge as a state that abuses these advanced tools.
According to U.S. media reports, the administration has budgeted $170 billion for enforcing Trump’s immigration policy, setting a daily target of 3,000 arrests for the authorities. To meet this goal, ICE is recruiting 10,000 agents, offering signing bonuses of $50,000.
Since returning to the White House, Trump has flooded the streets of Washington, Los Angeles, and other cities with immigration agents, ramping up arrests and deportations of undocumented migrants, as well as enforcing strict new policing measures.
“It is deeply concerning that the U.S. government and DHS are acquiring highly invasive spyware at a time of unprecedented crackdowns on students, protesters, and migrants,” said Donncha Ó Cearbhaill, head of Amnesty International’s Security Lab, which monitors technologies that violate human and civil rights. “Time and again, such tools have ultimately been found to be abused to target journalists and government critics.”
DHS-affiliated bodies have numerous ties to Israeli surveillance and intelligence companies: Cognyte provided various technologies to the Secret Service last year and this year reported a $20 million deal with a leading U.S. security organization; Cellebrite supplies law enforcement agencies, including ICE and the Secret Service, with phone-hacking technology for seized devices.
ICE also has access to intelligence technologies from companies like Palantir and Babel Street, Ó Cearbhaill explained. A Haaretz investigation last year revealed how Babel Street sells software that allows surveillance and tracking of individuals using advertising data collected online. According to him, the addition of Paragon’s spyware to the authorities’ surveillance toolkit increases the risk of unlawful and arbitrary arrests, investigations, visa revocations, and deportations, “in significant violation of numerous human rights.”
Late last year, Paragon was sold to the American private equity firm AE Industrial Partners, considered close to the U.S. defense establishment. The sale caused tension and criticism within Israel’s offensive cyber industry.
An investigation by Israeli television uncovered an intelligence community document that warned that the sale of Paragon posed a “potential danger” to national security, due to concerns about American influence over a “strategic sector” for Israel and the leakage of sensitive knowledge abroad. Similar concerns were exposed in 2022 when the American defense contractor L3Harris attempted to purchase NSO and relocate it to the United States.
Following the acquisition, Paragon’s U.S. branch joined REDLattice, a cyber-intelligence company also owned by the U.S. fund. Reporting on the contract renewal, journalist Poulson revealed the two firms’ deep ties to the U.S. intelligence community. According to Poulson’s substack, former CIA deputy director John “Finbar” Fleming was appointed head of Paragon’s U.S. branch.
Slingshot News: ‘Who Is Telling You To Do This?’: Sen. Angus King Confronts Racist Pete Hegseth On Renaming Army Bases To Honor Slavery During Hearing
‘Who Is Telling You To Do This?’: Sen. Angus King Confronts Racist Pete Hegseth On Renaming Army Bases To Honor Slavery During Hearing
During a recent hearing held by the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Angus King (I-ME) confronted Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on why he is renaming army bases after Confederate soldiers, traitors who rebelled against the Union to uphold slavery.
Knewz: ICE nabs woman in U.S. for nearly 3 decades in routine traffic stop
A Guatemala-born woman who has lived in the U.S. since age 9 was nearly deported by ICE after a routine traffic stop in Phoenix, despite three decades of residence and three U.S.-citizen children. Knewz.com has learned that a federal judge later blocked her fast-track removal and ordered her case to be shifted into standard deportation proceedings.
Routine traffic stop escalates to ICE detention
According to court documents, Mirta Amarilis Co Tupul, 38, was pulled over by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer while driving to work at a laundromat in a Latino neighborhood in Phoenix. Her lawyers argued that the stop violated her constitutional rights because officers lacked reasonable suspicion. Following the stop, Co Tupul was transferred first to the Florence Processing Center and then to the Eloy Detention Center, which is about 65 miles from Phoenix. Within days, her attorneys were informed that she had been placed in expedited removal proceedings and could be deported in as little as one to three weeks.
District court judge blocks expedited deportation
The detainee’s legal team submitted vaccination records, affidavits and other evidence to prove her nearly 30 years of continuous presence in the U.S. They also argued that expedited removal did not legally apply to her and that bypassing a court hearing violated her due process rights. Earlier this month, a U.S. district court judge granted an emergency request blocking her deportation. The government agreed in writing not to pursue expedited removal again and moved her into standard removal proceedings, where she will have the opportunity to make her case before an immigration judge.
Attorneys celebrate ruling
Eric Lee, one of Co Tupul’s attorneys, wrote on X, “Good news: Our demand that the court halt Trump from deporting Ms. Co Tupul without due process was just GRANTED by U.S. Dist. Ct. for District of Arizona!” However, acting ICE Director Todd Lyons defended enforcement actions more broadly on Fox News, saying, “I don’t think the American public as a whole realizes just exactly who ICE is going after every day.”
Co Tupul’s case raises concerns
The Donald Trump administration expanded expedited removal in January, allowing immigration officials to apply the process nationwide to undocumented people unable to prove two years of continuous residence. Originally, the procedure was designed for recent arrivals encountered near the border. In Co Tupul’s case, her lawyers said that a deportation officer told her that ICE had a “new policy” to apply expedited removal at an immigrant’s first contact with the agency, even if that person had lived in the U.S. for decades. Attorneys said that this interpretation goes far beyond what federal law permits. Co Tupul’s case underscores concerns from civil rights groups that long-term residents risk being deported without hearings when expedited removal is used aggressively. Advocates warn that immigrants without lawyers may be particularly vulnerable. Co Tupul currently remains in custody at the Eloy Detention Center while her case proceeds.
ICE nabs woman in U.S. for nearly 3 decades in routine traffic stop
A Guatemala-born woman who has lived in the U.S. since age 9 was nearly deported by ICE after a routine traffic stop in Phoenix.
https://knewz.com/ice-nabs-woman-in-us-for-nearly-three-decades-in-routine-traffic-stop
Newsweek: Donald Trump suffers big legal blow over migrant deportations
President Donald Trump was blocked by a federal appeals court from using an 18th-century wartime law, the Alien Enemies Act, to deport Venezuelan migrants his administration says belong to the criminal gang Tren de Aragua.
Newsweek contacted the White House for comment by email after office hours.
Why It Matters
Trump has, through executive order, invoked the Alien Enemies Act by arguing that there is an invasion of the U.S. by foreign criminal gangs that his administration has now designated as terrorist groups.
The court decision bars deportations from Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi.
What To Know
The 2-1 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit found that there was not an “invasion or predatory incursion” by a foreign power as required by the 1798 statute to justify its invocation in the case of this group of migrants.
The Alien Enemies Act is a wartime law passed in 1798 as part of the Alien and Sedition Acts under President John Adams. It grants the U.S. president the authority to detain, restrict or deport foreign nationals from a country that is at war with the United States.
Unlike other provisions in the Alien and Sedition Acts, which expired or were repealed, the Alien Enemies Act remains in effect today.
The act was only used three times before in U.S. history, all during declared wars: in the War of 1812 and the two World Wars.
On April 19, the Supreme Court instructed the Trump administration to pause the deportation of a number of Venezuelan men in custody using the 1798 law.
The Trump administration unsuccessfully argued that courts cannot second-guess the president’s determination that Tren de Aragua was connected to Venezuela’s government and represented a danger to the United States, meriting use of the act.
In the majority were U.S. Circuit Judges Leslie Southwick, a George W. Bush appointee, and Irma Carrillo Ramirez, a Joe Biden appointee. Andrew Oldham, a Trump appointee, dissented.
“A country encouraging its residents and citizens to enter this country illegally is not the modern-day equivalent of sending an armed, organized force to occupy, to disrupt, or to otherwise harm the United States,” the judges wrote.
In a lengthy dissent, Oldham complained his two colleagues were second-guessing Trump’s conduct of foreign affairs and national security, realms where courts usually give the president great deference.
What People Are Saying
Lee Gelernt, who argued the case for the American Civil Liberties Union, was quoted by the Associated Press as saying: “The Trump administration’s use of a wartime statute during peacetime to regulate immigration was rightly shut down by the court. This is a critically important decision reining in the administration’s view that it can simply declare an emergency without any oversight by the courts.”
What Happens Next
The case appears set to return to the Supreme Court in what is shaping up to be a decisive battle over Mr. Trump’s ability to use the Alien Enemies Act, the New York Times reported.
Donald Trump suffers big legal blow over migrant deportations
The Alien Enemies Act was only used three times before in U.S. history, all during declared wars—in the War of 1812 and the two World Wars.
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-legal-blow-deportation-migrants-alien-enemies-act-2123573