Tag Archives: California

Fox News: FBI Director Patel says he’s had to divert resources to investigate ‘copycats’ of Comey ’86 47′ post

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FBI officials told Fox News Digital the bureau needs to focus on public safety, ‘not cleaning up after political stunts’

FBI Director Kash Patel said he has been forced to divert agents to investigate “copycats” of potential threats to President Donald Trump as a result of former FBI Director James Comey’s “86 47” social media post. 

Bureau officials told Fox News Digital it needs to be focused on “public safety, not cleaning up after political stunts.”

No “cleanup” was needed. It’s not our problem that you’re a total f*ck*ng gullible fool utterly unqualified for your day job as FBI director.

FBI Director Patel says he’s had to divert resources to investigate ‘copycats’ of Comey ’86 47′ post
FBI Director Kash Patel said he has been forced to divert agents to investigate “copycats” of potential threats to President Donald Trump as a result of former FBI Director James Comey’s “86 47″ social media post.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fbi-director-patel-says-hes-had-divert-resources-investigate-copycats-comey-86-47-post

Latin Times: Venezuelans Deported To El Salvador Are Getting Cases Dismissed And Advocates Say It’s To ‘Complete Their Disappearance’

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At least 14 cases have reportedly taken place over the past weeks

Venezuelans deported to El Salvador are increasingly seeing their cases dismissed, a development advocates claim is a way to complete their “disappearance” from the U.S. legal system and further complicate their return from imprisonment in the Central American country.

NBC News reported that at least 14 asylum cases have been dismissed over the past weeks. “It seems the government’s intention in dismissing these cases across the country is to complete the disappearance of people to El Salvador, to end their legal proceedings, and to act as though they weren’t here seeking asylum in the first place,” Lindsay Toczylowski, executive director of Immigrant Defenders Law Center, told the outlet. She is representing Andry Hernandez Romero, who was involved in such a case before being sent to the CECOT mega-prison in El Salvador.

Venezuelans Deported To El Salvador Are Getting Cases Dismissed And Advocates Say It’s To ‘Complete Their Disappearance’
At least 14 migrants deported to El Salvador have seen their asylum cases dismissed in the U.S. Advocates say the goal is completing their “disappearance” of the country’s legal system

https://www.latintimes.com/venezuelans-deported-el-salvador-are-getting-cases-dismissed-advocates-say-its-complete-their-583953

Talking Points Memo: The ‘Invasion’ Invention: The Far Right’s Long Legal Battle to Make Immigrants the Enemy

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The Trump administration is using the claim that immigrants have “invaded” the country to justify possibly suspending habeas corpus, part of the constitutional right to due process. A faction of the far right has been building this case for years.

When top Trump adviser Stephen Miller threatened on May 9 that the administration is “actively looking at” suspending habeas corpus in response to an “invasion” from undocumented immigrants, he was operating on a fringe legal theory that a right-wing faction has been working to legitimize for more than a decade.

…

Hard-liners have referred to immigrants as “invaders” as long as the U.S. has had immigration. By 2022, invasion rhetoric, which had previously been relegated to white nationalist circles, had become such a staple of Republican campaign ads that most of the public agreed an invasion of the U.S. via the southern border was underway.

Now, however, the claim that the U.S. is under invasion has become the legal linchpin of President Donald Trump’s sweeping anti-immigrant campaign.

The claim is Trump’s central justification for invoking the Alien Enemies Act to deport roughly 140 Venezuelans to CECOT, the Salvadoran megaprison, without due process. (The administration cited different legal authority for the remaining deportees.) The Trump administration contends they are members of a gang, Tren de Aragua, that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is directing to infiltrate and operate in the United States. Lawyers and families of many of the deportees have presented evidence the prisoners are not even members of Tren de Aragua.

The contention is also the throughline of Trump’s day one executive order “Protecting the American People Against Invasion.” That document calls for the expansion of immigration removal proceedings without court hearings and for legal attacks against sanctuary jurisdictions, places that refuse to commit local resources to immigration enforcement.

So far, no court has bought the idea that the U.S. is truly under invasion….

And therein lies the problem: The Trump regime is off pursuing an unconstitutional tangent to solve a problem that is improperly framed as an “invasion”.

It’s a long well-researched article. Please click on the link below and read the entire article.

The ‘Invasion’ Invention: The Far Right’s Long Legal Battle to Make Immigrants the Enemy
This article first appeared at ProPublica, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign…

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/the-invasion-invention-the-far-rights-long-legal-battle-to-make-immigrants-the-enemy

Politico: Larry Summers Says Trump’s Latest Attack on Harvard Is a ‘Prescription for Failure’

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The former Harvard president says Trump’s effort to ban international students would damage not just Harvard but America.

In just the last 24 hours, the Trump administration announced it would effectively ban international students from attending Harvard University, Harvard sued, and a federal judge temporarily blocked the administration’s ban.

The whirlwind of attacks and counterattacks surrounding one of America’s preeminent educational institutions represented a significant escalation in the Trump administration’s war on Harvard. As the institution wrote in its lawsuit, “with the stroke of a pen, the government has sought to erase a quarter of Harvard’s student body.”

Harvard has been on the leading edge of the fight between the Trump administration and elite universities, and unlike some peer institutions, it has not backed down.

Former Harvard President Larry Summers has been a frequent critic of his old university, but he’s been an enthusiastic defender amid Trump’s latest attacks.

“Courage and capitulation are both contagious,” he said in an interview with POLITICO Magazine. “I am glad Harvard chose courage, because if Harvard, with all its good fortune, can’t resist authoritarian steps, who can?”

Summers argued the Trump administration’s legal case would find little merit in the courts, adding that the effort to rid Harvard of international students would only damage the United States in the long run.

“It’s hard to imagine a greater strategic gift to China than for the United States to sacrifice its role as a beacon to the world,” Summers said.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.…

Larry Summers Says Trump’s Latest Attack on Harvard Is a ‘Prescription for Failure’
The former Harvard president says Trump’s effort to ban international students would damage not just Harvard but America.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/05/23/trump-harvard-international-students-larry-summers-00367667

Rolling Stone: Trump’s FEMA Denies North Carolina’s Request for Hurricane Helene Aid

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The president repeatedly bashed the Biden administration’s response to the disaster

Late in the 2024 campaign cycle, parts of western North Carolina were devastated by Hurricane Helene. Donald Trump accused former President Joe Biden of abandoning the region and mishandling the response to the crisis. The disaster in North Carolina became the jumping point for a myriad of conspiracies and attacks by Republicans against the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FAMA). Trump vowed he would improve disaster responses as president. 

That was then.

This is now:

Now, four months into his administration North Carolina Governor Josh Stein, a Democrat, has become the latest lawmaker from a disaster-ravaged state who has been forced to beg the president to provide much-needed aid. 

On Friday, Stein published a video on social media informing the public that the Trump administration had denied the state’s request for FEMA to honor a Biden-era commitment to pay for 100 percent of debris removal costs. 

I guess King Donald changed his mind.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/fema-denies-north-carolina-request-hurricane-helene-aid-1235347521

Raw Story: Trump’s FEMA thumbs nose at state that backed him 3 times: ‘Gonna cost a lot’

Under President Donald Trump, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has turned down a request from a storm-ravaged state that narrowly voted for him three times.

Western North Carolina saw massive devastation last year from Hurricane Helene, which killed over 100 people and left the city of Asheville, along with a number of small communities in the Appalachian Mountains, struggling to pick up the pieces after flooding in areas that had hardly ever seen floods before. At the time, Trump supporters spread baseless conspiracy theories that the federal government was ignoring communities there, or only giving aid to Democratic areas, and Trump himself vowed to improve emergency management.

According to Rolling Stone, however, Trump’s administration is now denying an extension of a commitment to pay the full amount for a vital portion of the recovery process.

See above for the Rolling Stone article.

https://www.rawstory.com/fema-north-carolina

Raw Story: White House claim puts Trump ‘potentially outside the immunity shield’: attorney

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An attempt by White House press secretary Karoline [Bimbo #1] Leavitt to blow off ethical and legal concerns about Donald Trump’s crypto dinner on Thursday night might come back to haunt her boss.

Thursday afternoon [Bimbo #1] Leavitt lectured reporters in the Brady Briefing Room about the dinner which was to include foreign investors at a Donald Trump golf resort in Virginia, telling NBC’s Garrett Haake, “Well, as you know, Garrett, this question has been raised with the president. I have also addressed the dinner tonight. The president is attending it in his personal time. It is not a White House dinner, it’s not taking place here at the White House. But certainly I can raise that question and try to get you an answer for it.”

[Bimbo #1] Leavitt’s claim of “personal time” caught the ear of multiple Trump critics.

On X, The Bulwark’s Tim Miller pointed out, “President’s don’t get ‘personal time.’ There’s not like a magic suit you wear when you are doing official business and one where you are just Donald from Queens.”

Conservative lawyer and ardent Trump opponent George Conway took the next step and suggested, “Actually, it’s fine. If Trump is saying he’s doing something on his ‘personal time,’ then obviously that means he’s not acting within what the Supreme Court calls ‘the outer perimeter of his official responsibility,’ which, in turn, means he’s not immune from criminal prosecution.”

Oops! You probably shouldn’t run your mouth so much, Karoline [Bimbo #1] Leavitt, but I understand that’s all you do, and you do it so exceptionally well. 😀

White House claim puts Trump ‘potentially outside the immunity shield’: attorney

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-immunity-2672194246

Newsweek: Why do MAGA Republicans hate Europe?

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In May 1988, Republican President Ronald Reagan spoke from the Oval Office in an address not targeted at the American people, but the citizens of Western Europe. The president was planning a trip to meet with Soviet Union General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev and wanted to make his commitment to Europe clear.

Staring directly at the camera, Reagan said: “Shared [moral] standards and beliefs tie us to Europe today. They are the essence of the community of free nations to which we belong.”

Thirty years later, in July 2018, while sitting for an interview with CBS at his Turnberry golf resort in Scotland, Republican President Donald Trump was asked to name America’s top global foe. “Well, I think we have a lot of foes,” Trump said. “I think the European Union is a foe, what they do to us in trade. Now you wouldn’t think of the European Union, but they’re a foe.”

Why do MAGA Republicans hate Europe?
The Trump administration’s stance on Europe has grabbed headlines, but the Republican Party’s icy posture toward internationalism goes back decades.

https://www.newsweek.com/maga-republicans-donald-trump-jd-vance-europe-2071814

Fox News: ‘Flood the system’: US attorney unleashes new task force to crack down on blue state’s sanctuary policies

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New task force filing up to 50 warrants weekly to get more illegal immigrants into federal custody

United States Attorney for the District of California Bill Essayli is taking major action to crack down on “sanctuary” policies in the Golden State.

He’s launching “Operation Guardian Angel,” which is a task force, made up of assets from ICE, HSI, DEA, FBI, ATF, and Border Patrol, to begin scanning a criminal database every single day to identify arrested illegal aliens in local jurisdictions that DOJ can charge with felony illegal-reentry.

“They’ve made it almost impossible for ICE to do their job, issue detainers and get criminal illegal immigrants out of jails. So what we’re doing instead is we’re going to start issuing warrants,” he told Fox News.

Which is bullshit!

The Tenth Amendment says that the states can’t be forced to do the Fed’s work for them. If the Feds want to bust illegal immigrants in sanctuary cities, they’ll have to do their own leg work.

That still doesn’t be they’ll be welcomed with open arms on the streets. Good luck with that!

‘Flood the system’: US attorney unleashes new task force to crack down on blue state’s sanctuary policies
Operation Guardian Angel, led by Bill Essayli, aims to increase deportations of criminal illegal immigrants in California, challenging sanctuary policies with federal warrants.

USA Today: Thousands of federal employees are on a roller coaster of being fired, rehired

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‘Inefficency in the name of efficiency,’ according to one federal employee who was fired, rehired and may be fired again.

In recent months, tens of thousands of federal workers have been fired, rehired and threatened with firing again.

For now, they have a two-week reprieve, after a federal judge in California ordered the Trump administration not to carry out any additional firings for two weeks, but the administration has asked the Supreme Court to overturn that ruling.

But employees describe weeks of uncertainty, worry and doubt as their jobs are off, then on, then off again.

Thousands of federal employees are on a roller coaster of being fired, rehired
‘Inefficency in the name of efficiency,’ according to one federal employee who was fired, rehired and may be fired again.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/05/18/federal-employees-fired-rehired-await-court-decision/83600693007

New York Times: Energized by Kennedy, Texas ‘Mad Moms’ Are Chipping Away at Vaccine Mandates

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A measles outbreak in the state has not stopped “medical freedom” activists from pushing forward with their goal. They now have an influential ally in Washington: Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Rebecca Hardy and Michelle Evans helped found Texans for Vaccine Choice with a group of like-minded women in 2015, as measles was spreading in California. They defeated legislation tightening Texas school vaccine requirements, and helped oust the lawmaker who wrote it, earning a catchy nickname: “mad moms in minivans.”

Now, as a measles outbreak that began in West Texas spreads to other parts of the country, the “mad moms” have a slew of new allies. The 2024 elections ushered in a wave of freshman Republicans who back their goal of making all vaccinations voluntary. But no ally may be as influential as the one they gained in Washington: Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s most prominent vaccine skeptic.

Yes, concerned mothers who want only the “best” for your children, you should always seek medical guidance from the brainworm-infested roadkill-eating Health Secretary, who recently took his grandkids swimming in a sewage-infested creek that was off-limits to public swimming for obvious reasons.

Energized by RFK Jr., Texas ‘Mad Moms’ Are Chipping Away at Vaccine Mandates
A measles outbreak in the state has not stopped “medical freedom” activists from pushing forward with their goal. They now have an influential ally in Washington: Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.