Center Square: Administration responds to ‘promotion’ of anti-ICE app

An app called ICEBlock designed to help people avoid U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents is now available for download for free in the Apple app store.

The Trump administration said the app is dangerous for federal agents enforcing federal laws.

CNN posted a video interview with the app’s designer, Joshua Aaron, a “musician and developer,” according to the network, Monday morning.

“When I saw what was happening in this country, I wanted to do something to fight back,” Aaron said.

Just like popular navigation apps rely on users’ real-time reports of car accidents or construction and then alert other users taking those routes, ICEBlock relies on users to report sightings of ICE agents and then reflects those sightings on a map. Users can be notified of all of the reported sightings within a five-mile radius.

The app contains a disclaimer that it does not “collect, store or process any personal data about you.”

“One of the core principles in the design of this app is 100% anonymity for our user base,” Aaron told CNN Tech Reporter Clare Duffy. “There is no sign-up process. There is no user data collected. There is no user data even captured by our app.”

Aaron told Duffy that there were already 20,000 users by the time of the interview.

And of course the dumbest woman in America, White House press secretary Karoline “Bimbo #1” Leavitt, is whining:

“I’ll have to go back and watch the clip myself, but surely it sounds like this would be an incitement of further violence against our ICE officers,” Leavitt said. “As you know… there’s been a 500% increase in violence against ICE agents, law enforcement officers across the country who are just simply trying to do their jobs and remove public safety threats from our communities.”

And Faux News can’t pass up an opportunity to make a false accusation against its competitor:

Fox News and others suggested that CNN was promoting the app in its coverage.

“It’s unacceptable that a major network would promote such an app that is encouraging violence against law enforcement officers who are trying to keep our country safe,” Leavitt added.

And the Head Goon himself is getting bent out of shape:

Border Czar Tom Homan appeared on Fox Across America, a national live syndicated radio talk show, later Monday afternoon to speak on the issue. Homan echoed Leavitt’s comments and said it would enable “bad guys” to escape apprehension. He also said he has enlisted the help of the Department of Justice to respond.

“It also puts ICE in an extremely dangerous position because… there’s going to be one guy that’s going to happen soon that’s laying in wait, who’s going to, you know, wait for ICE to show up and attack them. So this is a dangerous, dangerous situation,” Homan told the host. “I’ve sent that information over to DOJ. I asked them to take whatever legal action they can take to take because this is an unprecedented attack, even by a media outlet, on the safety and security of those who are trying to force laws on this country.”

At the end of the day, the First Amendment will prevail!

https://www.thecentersquare.com/national/article_ae793d5f-a990-4867-831f-1fc4d64df1ee.html

Fox News: Trump blasts Powell, says any replacement would be better for refinancing $9T debt

Former president vows to appoint someone who will slash interest rates to help refinance $9T in national debt

President Donald Trump said he would welcome anyone but Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell to lower interest rates as the U.S. is faced with having to refinance about $9 trillion in debt.

Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” host Maria Bartiromo sat down with Trump for an interview that aired Sunday, when she asked the president how he was going to deal with the $9 trillion in debt that is due this year.

Trump said he was going to refinance the $9 trillion as short-term debt because “we have a stupid person” at the Federal Reserve.

The president explained his desire for the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates so the U.S. does not have to pay for 10 years of debt at a higher rate.

Our root problem is that we have an extremely stupid child in the White House.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/trump-blasts-powell-says-any-replacement-would-better-refinancing-9t-debt

Newsweek: Families face $2,150 bill from Trump’s immigration policies—Study

Families could see their annual expenses rise by $2,150 due to President Donald Trump‘s hardline deportation policies, according to a new report by FWD.us.

The additional costs stem from stricter rules, including work permit cancellations, mass deportations, and reduced legal immigration, which are expected to drive up prices for everyday goods and services nationwide.

https://www.newsweek.com/prices-rising-trump-immigration-policies-2091532

Daily Beast: Trump Sends Dollar Plunging With Plan to Turn Federal Reserve MAGA

The president is looking for a new Fed chair who is “unstintingly loyal.”

The U.S. dollar plunged Thursday to a three-year low after word got out that President Donald Trump is plotting to announce a MAGA-friendly Federal Reserve chair as early as this summer.

Peeved at Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s refusal to slash interest rates, Trump has unleashed blistering attacks against the banker, calling him the “WORST” and a “dummy” who is “costing America $Billions.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-sends-dollar-plunging-with-plan-to-turn-federal-reserve-maga

Irish Star: Donald Trump sparks Juneteenth fears with furious four-word comment

As the US celebrates Juneteenth, commemorating the end of slavery, Donald Trump said there are “too many non-working holidays.”

In a shocking post on Truth Social, Trump wrote on Thursday evening: “Too many non-working holidays in America. It is costing our Country $BILLIONS OF DOLLARS to keep all of these businesses closed. The workers don’t want it either! Soon we’ll end up having a holiday for every once working day of the year. It must change if we are going to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

Interestingly, Trump honored Juneteenth in each of his first four years as president, even before it became a federal holiday. He even claimed once to have made it “very famous.” The news comes amid a spike in dementia fears for the president, after a strange bulge was spotted in his pants.

https://www.irishstar.com/news/us-news/donald-trump-sparks-juneteenth-fears-35423267

Raw Story: ‘Rubber-stamping’ Supreme Court just shot itself in the foot: analyst

Legal experts are claiming that the U.S. Supreme Court may come to regret its emergency “shadow docket” decision allowing President Donald Trump to fire members of two federal boards — a move that was considered illegal.

Without hearing the merits of the case, the court issued its ruling Thursday that permitted Trump to fire a member of the National Labor Relations Board and a member of the Merit Systems Protection Board, an agency that ensures federal employment decisions are not influenced by politics.

In a preview of Slate’s “Amicus” podcast, legal journalist Mark Joseph Stern exclaimed, “He illegally fired people, and the Supreme Court just rubber-stamped it!”

Stern explained that the 6-3 ruling along conservative and liberal lines will empower Trump “to disregard the law in areas where the Supreme Court doesn’t want him to. And eventually, when the Supreme Court tells him he can’t do something, he might just say: You’ve already given me so much power that I’m going to choose not to respect yours any further.”

“So, magically, this decision does not apply to Jerome Powell, who gets to remain chair of the Fed.”

https://www.rawstory.com/scotus-decisions

Telegraph: Trump’s attempt to upend the global order has already been defeated

America has emerged from the trade war as an international laughing stock

Characterised by screeching handbrake turns, made-up policy on the hoof and mixed-messaging on steroids, it’s been another week of chaos in Washington.

If anyone knows what on Earth it is that the US is trying to achieve on trade, and much else besides, then I’d like to hear from them, because having come to the US capital in the hope of garnering some insights, I’m none the wiser.

What’s now increasingly obvious, however, is that Trump is in ragged retreat; he’s compromising all over the shop, such that if the plan was to upend the established global order, one can almost definitely say that, beyond the rhetoric, it is already over.

Rank lack of professionalism and organisation has defined the endeavour all along, and now it’s coming apart at the seams. Sensing an administration on the run, no one is any longer hurrying to do a trade deal with the US. From Britain to Canada and beyond, getting the right deal rather than a quick one has become the new mantra.

Trump has in the meantime made himself – and the US – into an international laughing stock, never mind the damage that policy uncertainty is inflicting on the global economy. You’d be forgiven for thinking that chaos is itself the policy goal.

Repeatedly forced to row back on its demands and aspirations, the White House has been left looking back-footed and ridiculous.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/04/26/trumps-attempt-to-upend-the-global-order-defeated

Raw Story: ‘An affront to our great Indian population’: Trump rages as school ordered to swap mascots

President Donald Trump on Monday weighed in on what he called a “very important issue” creating waves in a small Long Island community after the Massapequa School Board asked the MAGA leader to help them keep their district’s Native American logo.

“I agree with the people in Massapequa, Long Island, who are fighting furiously to keep the Massapequa Chiefs logo on their Teams and School,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. “Forcing them to change the name, after all of these years, is ridiculous and, in actuality, an affront to our great Indian population.”

Let the Indians speak up for themselves, if they think the Massapequa Chiefs logo is such a great honor. Apparently they don’t, nor do they need a meddlesome wannabe dictator speaking on their behalf.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/an-affront-to-our-great-indian-population-trump-rages-as-school-ordered-to-swap-mascots/ar-AA1DlurY

The Telegraph: If you think it’s alarming now, just wait for Trump to wreck the bond market

The White House’s push for for expanded presidential power threatens US economic stability

Donald Trump is systematically purging every US government institution, a pattern familiar to anybody who has studied the caudillo regimes of Latin America, or the playbook of today’s Putin-Orbán-Erdoğan prototypes.

It is a racing certainty that he will soon do the same to the Federal Reserve, forcing the central bank to cut interest rates into the teeth of rising inflation, with epic consequences for the world’s dollarised financial system and for €39 trillion (£33 trillion) of offshore dollar debt contracts and swaps.

Late last week he fired the head of the National Security Agency and its top officials at the behest of Laura Loomer, a fringe conspiracy theorist, who whispered into Trump’s ear that they were disloyal to the Maga movement.

He has already fired the heads of the FBI’s intelligence division, its counterterrorism division and criminal investigations division, as well as the heads of the Washington and New York offices.

He has fired the top brass of the US military, starting with a preemptive strike on the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. An earlier chairman – General Mark Milley – refused to ratify Trump’s attempted coup d’etat on Jan 6 2021.

“We don’t take an oath to a king, or to a tyrant or dictator, and we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator. We take an oath to the constitution,” said Milley in his parting shot.

But Trump also fired the three judge advocates general, who are legally independent by Congressional statute and have the authority to decide which military orders should be disobeyed – such as Trump’s order to “just shoot” American protesters, on American soil, during the Black Lives Matter saga.

That obstacle will not recur. Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary, said the three judges had been sacked to stop them posing any “roadblocks to orders given by the commander-in-chief”.

You can go through the list, agency by agency, extending to the universities and private law firms, and even to the muzzled editorials of some of America’s once great newspapers: the purge is Bolshevik in ambition.

Does anybody in their right mind think that Trump will spare the Fed’s Jerome Powell as the two men gear up for an almighty clash over US monetary policy? “CUT INTEREST RATES, JEROME, AND STOP PLAYING POLITICS!” bellowed Trump in capital letters on Truth Social on Friday.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/04/08/trump-sell-off-is-bad-wait-until-wreck-us-bond-market