Daily Mail: New FEMA head tells employees who try to block Trump’s agenda: ‘I will run right over you’

The new head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency has threatened to ‘run right over’ staff in his department who resist Donald Trump‘s agenda.

David Richardson took over as acting chief at FEMA after previous boss Cameron Hamilton was booted from the role a day after criticizing the president’s plans to abolish the department.

The incoming head, whose title is Senior Official Performing the Duties of FEMA Administrator, was caught on camera issuing the stark warning during a staff meeting on his first day.

‘Don’t get in my way,’ the former US marine told staffers, according to a recording of the speech obtained by CBS News. 

‘I don’t need the full title I just need the authority from the president,’ Richardson continued from behind a presidential-style podium.

‘Obfuscation, delay, undermining. If you’re one of those 20 percent of the people and you think those tactics and techniques are going to help you, they will not, because I will run right over you. I will achieve the president’s intent.

‘I, and I alone in FEMA, speak for FEMA,’ Richardson said. 

FEMA employees later described the speech to CBS as ‘unhinged’ and ‘terrifying’.

Just another Bully Boi from the Trump agency …

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14699677/FEMA-head-david-richardson-warning-staff-Trump-agenda.html

NJ.com: Report: Trump double-dealing is about to reach new heights — literally

Turns out, the most corrupt presidency in American history is about to soar to even greater double-dealing heights.

What do you give to a president who already has enriched himself and his family by an average of $1 billion per month since taking office?

What could a guy — the most powerful man on the planet, who is planning 20 branded real estate projects around the globe — possibly want?

ABC News reports that Donald Trump — who told American families they’d have to cut back on dolls and pencils while accepting financial hardship for the good of the nation and his tariff-fueled ego — is about to accept a gift-wrapped $400 million “flying palace.”

In what may be the most valuable gift ever extended to the United States from a foreign government, the Trump administration is preparing to accept a super luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from the royal family of Qatar— a gift that is to be available for use by President Donald Trump as the new Air Force One until shortly before he leaves office, at which time ownership of the plane will be transferred to the Trump presidential library foundation, sources familiar with the proposed arrangement told ABC News.

The gift is expected to be announced next week, when Trump visits Qatar on the first foreign trip of his second term, according to sources familiar with the plans.

Trump toured the plane, which is so opulently configured it is known as “a flying palace,” while it was parked at the West Palm Beach International Airport in February.

One of those 20 planned international real estate developments includes golf course and residential project in Qatar, according to Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington.

https://www.nj.com/politics/2025/05/report-trump-corruption-is-about-to-reach-new-heights-literally.html

2paragraphs: U.S. Senator Slams Kristi Noem [Bimbo #2]: “You Act As If Your Disagreement With The Law Gives You The Ability To Create Your Own Law”

Continuing to position himself as a major voice of congressional opposition to what he characterizes as the illegal overreach of the executive branch in the second Donald Trump administration, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) castigated Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, saying she had repeatedly broken the oath she swore when she agreed to serve a nation governed by the Constitution.

Murphy’s criticism was so stark that he prefaced it by asserting “I say this with seriousness and respect” — lest anyone think the Senator’s laundry list of accusations against Noem was mere political rhetoric rather than a for-the-record accounting.

“Your department is out of control,” Murphy said. “You are spending like you don’t have a budget…you are ignoring the immigration laws of this nation and implementing a brand new immigration system that you have invented, that has little relation to the statutes that you are required — that you are commanded — to follow, as spelled out in your oath of office.”

Accusing Noem of violating the rights of immigrants who reside in the U.S., Murphy said “your agency acts as if laws don’t matter, as if the election gave you some mandate to violate the constitution and the laws passed by this congress. It did not give you that mandate.”

Pitting the rule of law against the whims of fiat, Murphy said to Noem: “You act as if your disagreement with the law — or even the public’s disagreement with the law — is relevant and gives you the ability to create your own law. It does not give you that ability.”

https://2paragraphs.com/2025/05/u-s-senator-slams-kristi-noem-you-act-as-if-your-disagreement-with-the-law-gives-you-the-ability-to-create-your-own-law/

Guardian: US considers special status for Greenland amid Trump push for control

Officials float idea of compact of free association (Cofa), used by US to keep close ties with Pacific Island nations

US officials are discussing a plan to pull Greenland into America’s sphere of influence using a type of agreement that the United States has used to keep close ties with several Pacific Island nations, according to two US officials and another person familiar with the discussions.

Under the plan being considered, the Trump administration would propose to Greenland’s leaders that the island enter into a so-called compact of free association, or Cofa, with the United States.

While the precise details of Cofa agreements – which have only ever been extended to the small island nations of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Palau – vary depending on the signatory, the US government typically provides many essential services, from mail delivery to emergency management to military protection. In exchange, the US military operates freely in Cofa countries and trade with the US is largely duty-free.

Excuse me, King Donald, but the Greenlanders and Denmark have both made it clear that they want neither you nor J.D. Dunce, nor do they want the horses that you rode in on. To top it off, there’s not a single family in Nuuk that wants Dunce over for coffee. Not a one!

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/09/us-greenland-trump

Sacramento Bee: ‘Unprecedented’: Judge’s Anti-ICE Ruling Signals Major Shift

A federal judge in Texas has ruled against the deportation of Venezuelan immigrants Julio Cesar Sanchez Puentes and Luddis Norelia Sanchez Garcia. District Judge David Briones ordered their release from a Texas detention facility, finding that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) failed to provide a lawful basis for their continued detention. The court has found that the allegations against the couple relied on hearsay without personal knowledge from the declarants involved.

The couple entered the U.S. in 2022 in El Paso and were initially detained by immigration officials. After being paroled the next day, the family lived in Washington, DC, with their three children under temporary protected status. Their status was terminated due to an alleged association with the Tren de Aragua gang.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/unprecedented-judge-s-anti-ice-ruling-signals-major-shift/ss-AA1ElSjI

Independent: Trump team ordered to move Tufts student from Louisiana ICE jail after it couldn’t ‘take a position’ on her free speech

A New York-based federal appeals court has ordered Donald Trump’s administration to transfer Tufts University scholar Rumeysa Ozturk from an immigration detention center in Louisiana to Vermont.

The case of Ozturk, a Turkish international student and former Fulbright scholar working towards her doctorate in child development, is among several high-profile cases at the center of the Trump administration’s targeting of international students for their advocacy for Palestine during Israel’s war in Gaza.

In March, Ozturk’s visa was revoked and she was arrested and detained by plain-clothes federal agents outside her apartment in Massachusetts in what her lawyers argue is a retaliatory attempt to deport her over an op-ed she wrote in a student newspaper.

The government has one week to transfer her, according to Wednesday’s order, which arrived less than 24 hours after a hearing in which government attorneys failed to say whether they even agree with the administration’s position that her pro-Palestine speech is not constitutionally protected.

Appellate Judge Barrington Parker, who was appointed by George W. Bush, pressed Department of Justice attorney Drew Ensign on whether Ozturk’s statements — and statements from another international student who was arrested for support for Palestine — amount to protected speech.

“Your honor, we haven’t taken a position on that,” Ensign replied.

“Help my thinking. Take a position,” Parked fired back.

“I don’t have authority to take a position,” Ensign said.

She has been held behind bars for six weeks while her health deteriorates for writing an op-ed,” she told a three-judge appeals court panel Wednesday. “Detention is not the norm with respect to visa revocation, as we had here. The executive branch made a specific decision to detain Ms. Ozturk that was motivated by her speech.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/trump-team-ordered-to-move-tufts-student-from-louisiana-ice-jail-after-it-couldn-t-take-a-position-on-her-free-speech/ar-AA1Ellat

The Atlantic: Trump’s Inevitable Betrayal of His Supporters

On Sunday, Donald Trump went on TV and told Americans that their children should make do with less. “They don’t need to have 30 dolls; they can have three,” the president said on Meet the Press. “They don’t need to have 250 pencils; they can have five.” Critics were quick to point out the irony of America’s avatar of excess telling others to tighten their belt. But the problem with Trump’s remark goes beyond the optics. It’s that his argument for austerity contradicts his campaign commitments—and exposes the limits of his transactional approach to politics.

Throughout his 2024 run, the president promised Americans a return to the prosperity of his pre-COVID first term. “Starting on day one, we will end inflation and make America affordable again, to bring down the prices of all goods,” he told a Montana rally in August. “They’ll come down, and they’ll come down fast,” he declared days later in North Carolina. But at the same time, Trump also promised to impose steep tariffs on consumer goods—dubbing tariff one of “the most beautiful words I’ve ever heard”—even though the levies would effectively serve as a tax on everyday Americans.

These two pledges could not be reconciled, and once elected, Trump was forced to choose between them. The results have disillusioned many of those who voted for him. Trump’s approval on the economy has plunged since he announced his “Liberation Day.” A former strength has become a weakness. “If you look at his economic net approval rating in his first term, it was consistently above water,” the CNN analyst Harry Enten noted last month. “It was one of his best issues, and now it’s one of his worst issues.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/trump-s-inevitable-betrayal-of-his-supporters/ar-AA1EosZ3

Mediaite: Bill Gates Goes Nuclear on Elon Musk: ‘The World’s Richest Man Killing the World’s Poorest Children’

Microsoft founder Bill Gates didn’t mince words in his evaluation of Elon Musk’s role in government, fuming that “the world’s richest man” was “killing the world’s poorest children.”

Speaking with the The Financial Times, Gates expressed his disgust with Musk’s role in shuttering the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

“The picture of the world’s richest man killing the world’s poorest children is not a pretty one,” said Gates, who told the Times that he’d “love for him [Musk] to go in and meet the children that have now been infected with HIV because he cut” American aid that had been going to a hospital in Mozambique.

More here:

https://apnews.com/article/bill-gates-foundation-996819a2c13c58f0c7c658a58374f236

And here:

https://archive.is/rKUs0

Independent: Australian conservative opposition leader loses seat in ‘Trump factor’ backlash

The Australian opposition leader likened to Donald Trump for apeing his policies has lost his seat as the incumbent Labor government secures a landslide win.

Peter Dutton has suffered more than a 10 per cent swing against him to Labor rival Ali France, who has so far claimed nearly 59 per cent of the vote under Australia’s two-party preferred system, with election analysts projecting the conservative leader’s ousting.

King Donald’s coattails are toxic!

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/australian-conservative-opposition-leader-loses-seat-in-trump-factor-backlash/ar-AA1E6fl5

Daily Digest: White South Africans call Trump’s refugee status a ‘Godsend’

British newspaper The Guardian reports that almost two thirds of the white South African population are considering migrating, with quite a few eyeing towards the United States.

According to The Guardian, in a country with circa 7,000 murders a year, quite a few white South Africans were regarding Donald Trump’s offer a “godsend” in the face of their current reality.

King Donald is cancelling the refugee status of tens of thousands of legitimate Haitian and Venezuelan refugees while offering refugee status to the white supremacists who ran South Africa’s infamous apartheid system. Sieg, heil!

https://www.msn.com/en-ph/news/other/white-south-africans-call-trump-s-refugee-status-a-godsend/ss-AA1BLzAg