Alternet: Trump doesn’t just think of himself as the president | Opinion

The American Revolution was a result of the tyranny experienced by colonists under the British monarchy. Many Americans had fled from Europe where they had been persecuted under the rule of powerful monarchs. The government produced by the revolution was designed to ensure no such tyranny could be reproduced in the newly formed United States.

The framers of the constitution created a checks-and-balances system of government to ensure that no single branch of the federal government (executive, judicial or legislative) could dominate the others. Each branch has powers to curtail or empower the others.

However, some Americans are concerned about a return of absolute rule due to the steps taken by Donald Trump’s second administration. This has sparked around 100 “no kings” protests all over the US, organised to coincide with Trump’s birthday on June 15.

No kings!

https://www.alternet.org/trump-doesn-t-think-of-himself-as-the-president

New York Times: Trump Taps Palantir to Compile Data on Americans

The Trump administration has expanded Palantir’s work with the government, spreading the company’s technology — which could easily merge data on Americans — throughout agencies.

In March, President Trump signed an executive order calling for the federal government to share data across agencies, raising questions over whether he might compile a master list of personal information on Americans that could give him untold surveillance power.

Mr. Trump has not publicly talked about the effort since. But behind the scenes, officials have quietly put technological building blocks into place to enable his plan. In particular, they have turned to one company: Palantir, the data analysis and technology firm.

The Trump administration has expanded Palantir’s work across the federal government in recent months. The company has received more than $113 million in federal government spending since Mr. Trump took office, according to public records, including additional funds from existing contracts as well as new contracts with the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon. (This does not include a $795 million contract that the Department of Defense awarded the company last week, which has not been spent.)

Representatives of Palantir are also speaking to at least two other agencies — the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service — about buying its technology, according to six government officials and Palantir employees with knowledge of the discussions.

The push has put a key Palantir product called Foundry into at least four federal agencies, including D.H.S. and the Health and Human Services Department. Widely adopting Foundry, which organizes and analyzes data, paves the way for Mr. Trump to easily merge information from different agencies, the government officials said.

Be very afraid! If you value your privacy, an all-knowing, all-seeing government database is the last thing you want.

https://archive.is/4DyVk#selection-659.0-689.326

Jerusalem Post: Qatar insists Trump admin initiated free plane transfer to US

Trump allegedly told reporters in the Oval Office: “[I] got a beautiful big magnificent free airplane for the United States Air Force. Very proud of that.”

Qatar insists that a memorandum of understanding between Washington and Doha specifies that the Trump administration initiated the aircraft transfer and that Qatar is not responsible for any future transfers of the plane’s ownership, The Washington Post revealed on Thursday.

President Trump wants the aircraft for the US Air Force, and he allegedly told reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday: “[I] got a beautiful big magnificent free airplane for the United States Air Force. Very proud of that.”

https://www.jpost.com/international/article-855921

Daily Beast: Trump Admin Deports 2-Year-Old Girl Who Is American Citizen

Manu’s parents were undocumented, but she was born in the United States.

A 2-year-old American girl has been left stateless after the Trump administration deported her alongside her family.

Emanuelly Borges Santos, known to her family as Manu, was born in a Florida hospital in 2022. She has an American passport and a Social Security card. Nevertheless, Manu and her parents, who are both undocumented, were packed onto a plane with 94 others and shipped to Brazil in February, according to a report from The Washington Post.

When they arrived, Brazilian officials were shocked to find the American toddler among the deportees.

“We’d never seen another case like this,” federal police officer Alexsandra Oliveira Medeiros Reis told the Post.

Manu is currently living in Brazil on a tourist visa as the government tries to resolve the bureaucratic predicament of the girl’s citizenship. In the meantime, she’s living with no right to healthcare or schooling in Brazil. Her visa is set to expire within weeks.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-admin-deports-2-year-old-girl-who-is-american-citizen

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

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.

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

Independent: Trump fury over US court bid to block tariffs – as experts warn uncertainty could hit economy

A ruling by three US judges has been described as ‘good news’ for countries negotiating trade deals with Trump but brought warnings of uncertainty and confusion

A cloud hangs over the global economy, experts have warned, after a bombshell court ruling blocked Donald Trump’s tariffs, creating more “confusion and uncertainty”.

Financial markets reacted positively to the unanimous ruling by three judges, but the decision enraged the White House, with the US president’s official spokesperson, Stephen Miller, calling it another “judge coup”.

The White House has appealed the decision, but it means all of the president’s “Liberation Day” tariffs now face a protracted legal process that could overshadow trade talks and delay the implementation of existing deals, including with Britain.

The Trump administration has won a temporary reprieve through the appeal, which means the tariffs will be reinstated while the case makes its way through the courts.

https://www.the-independent.com/news/uk/politics/trump-tariffs-court-ruling-uk-us-trade-deal-b2760194.html

USA Today: Trump temporarily backs down on Harvard student ban as judge sides with college

A Boston federal judge said at a hearing May 29 that she planned to issue a preliminary injunction that blocks the Department of Homeland Security from revoking Harvard’s ability to enroll foreign exchange students.

The comments from U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs came as the Trump administration attempted to walk back its May 22 directive that immediately revoked Harvard’s participation in a federal exchange student program.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/05/29/harvard-protection-foreign-student-enrollment-trump-ban/83917871007

2paragraphs: Donald Trump, Karoline [Bimbo #1] Leavitt Sued by Deaf Association, “This Practice Abruptly Ended”

The National Association of Deaf (NAD) filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump, White House Chief of Staff Susan Wiles, and White House Press Secretary Karoline [Bimbo #1] Leavitt.

The non-profit organization, which was established in 1880 and fights for the civil rights of 48 million deaf and hard of hearing people in the U.S. — including hundreds of thousands whose primary language is American Sign Language (ASL) — seeks a court order to restore American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters to White House events and briefings.

According to the lawsuit: “The White House inexplicably stopped using ASL interpreters for any of its public press briefings or similar events. Consequently, Defendants are now denying hundreds of thousands of deaf Americans meaningful access to the White House’s real-time communications on various issues of national and international import.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/donald-trump-karoline-leavitt-sued-by-deaf-association-this-practice-abruptly-ended/ar-AA1FJmDo

CBS News: Trump admin. shakes up ICE leadership amid frustration with deportation levels, sources say

ICE leadership has faced intense pressure from the White House to increase arrests of migrants who are living in the U.S. illegally or under one of several temporary immigration programs the Trump administration is seeking to dismantle.

Stephen Miller, the White House’s deputy chief of staff, said Wednesday on Fox News that the administration is pushing ICE to carry out “a minimum” of 3,000 arrests per day — a target that would amount to an unprecedented expansion of immigration enforcement.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-administration-shakes-up-ice-leadership-over-deportation-levels

Salon: Stephen [“Goebbels”] Miller’s deportation machine is failing — and he’s furious

In reality, which still holds some influence in our aggressively-online world, there are about 11 million undocumented people in the U.S., total. And despite all-caps propaganda to the contrary, they as a class “have substantially lower crime rates than native-born citizens,” according to a 2020 study; they even commit fewer crimes, on average, than fully legal immigrants — those who came here “the right way.”

“Relative to undocumented immigrants, U.S.-born citizens are over 2 times more likely to be arrested for violent crimes, 2.5 times more likely to be arrested for drug crimes, and over 4 times more likely to be arrested for property crimes,” according to the research, published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

That’s why Stephen [“Goebbels”] Miller is so mad: an administration that wants nothing more than to parade millions of brown bodies onto military aircraft and out of the country — a MAGA team that promised its voters nothing less than “mass deportations now” — is having a tough time actually finding the hardened criminals the last folks supposedly let in. In April, the Trump administration deported more than 17,200 people; that’s up 29% from a year but it’s far below the pace necessary to meet the stated goal of one million deportees a year (and per NBC News, more than half of those now in ICE detention have no criminal record whatsoever).

https://www.salon.com/2025/05/29/stephen-millers-deportation-machine-is-failing–and-hes-furious