Tag: Donald Trump

Jimmy Kimmel & the FCC: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

Posted on by Lone Candle

Using government power to force some critical voices off the air is how other democracies have turned to dictatorship.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohPToBog_-g

Senate Democrats raise concerns over Pentagon plan to use military lawyers as immigration judges

Posted on by Lone Candle

“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth approved sending up to 600 military lawyers to the Justice Department to serve as temporary immigration judges. It is part of the steps the Trump administration has taken to use the military in broader ways than previously seen, particularly in its immigration crackdown, including sending the National Guard into American cities and deploying active duty troops to the U.S.-Mexico border.

“These military officers would serve under the command and control of the Attorney General and would execute administrative determinations at the direction of the Attorney General,” according to the letter signed by 12 Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee. It added that “these actions are inherently law enforcement actions that may not be performed by members of the armed forces.””

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/senate-democrats-raise-concerns-over-171333714.html

Trump’s border czar who promised to bring “hell” to Boston, caught taking $50K in cash from undercover FBI agents, media reports say

Posted on by Lone Candle

“Tom Homan, President Donald Trump’s border czar who promised to bring “hell” to Boston, was recorded accepting $50,000 in cash during a September 2024 meeting with undercover FBI agents posing as business executives seeking government contracts, according to multiple media outlets.

The cash was held in a bag from the food chain Cava, the New York Times reported, citing sources who were familiar with the case and spoke on the condition of anonymity. The Homan investigation arose from a long-running counterintelligence probe that was not targeting Homan.

According to MSNBC, which first reported the story, Homan told the undercover agents he could help them get government contracts.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/trump-border-czar-promised-bring-163906390.html

Maurene Comey, prosecutor who handled Jeffrey Epstein case, sues over firing

Posted on by Lone Candle

““In truth, there is no legitimate explanation. Rather, Defendants fired Ms. Comey solely or substantially because her father is former FBI Director James B. Comey, or because of her perceived political affiliation and beliefs, or both,” according to the lawsuit.

Spokespeople for the Justice Department and the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment.

Comey’s termination came as the Trump administration sought to fend off outrage from the president’s MAGA base over its handling of files regarding Epstein, the late convicted sex offender, and Maxwell, his longtime associate who was convicted of sex trafficking. Comey’s challenge to her firing once again raises uncomfortable questions for the administration about why it eliminated one of the last remaining people at the Justice Department who had intimate knowledge about those cases.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/15/maurene-comey-firing-lawsuit-00564029

Judge says she can’t help deportees Trump admin sent to Ghana, despite torture fears

Posted on by Lone Candle

“Lawyers for the men say that as soon as they reached Ghana, they were informed that they would be quickly transferred to their home countries, even though they had won protection from U.S. immigration courts from being returned to their homes for fear of persecution or torture.

…

“For over three decades, through five presidential administrations, this country has adhered to its obligations to treat refugees humanely and to comply with the Constitutional requirement of due process, which is afforded to all persons present in this country, regardless of their citizenship status. In recent months, the government has embarked upon a series of deportations which signal a drastic change of course,” Chutkan wrote.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/15/ghana-deportations-trump-administration-ruling-00565188

Opinion | Texas vs. Chicago: Why Trump’s Next National Guard Gambit Is So Dangerous

Posted on by Lone Candle

“Using military personnel for domestic law enforcement is dangerous and fraught, and any political leader who does it should be held strictly accountable for the consequences. Given the absence of any real need for militarized law enforcement in Chicago, it would be a grave abuse of power for the president to send any troops there on a law-enforcement pretext — as it was when he mobilized the National Guard for law enforcement in Washington, D.C. But for more than one reason, that mobilization in D.C. is easier to defend constitutionally than sending the Texas National Guard to Chicago would be. Justifiably or not, constitutional law treats all of D.C. as an exception to the McCulloch principle: The people of D.C. are, as a general matter, subject to a lawmaking authority — Congress — that they play no part in electing. (That’s why some D.C. license plates bear the protest slogan, “Taxation Without Representation.”) But regardless of whether that exception is justified in D.C., it has absolutely no application in Illinois. Like Nebraskans and Pennsylvanians and Kansans, Illinoisians are constitutionally entitled to be constituents of whatever body governs them.

Any military force is likely to behave with less restraint toward a population to which its leaders are not responsible than toward a population to which its leaders must answer democratically. If the Texas National Guard behaves poorly in Chicago, the locals have no electoral mechanism for holding Texas authorities to account. The governor of Texas never appears on any ballot in Illinois. He has nothing to fear, politically, from the people his National Guard will police. Surely a militarization at the hands of a non-responsible power is no less tyrannical, and no more constitutional, than a tax imposed by one.”

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/09/09/chicago-protest-trump-national-guard-dangerous-00552873

‘Kiss the ring’: Silicon Valley CEOs struggle to respond to Trump’s involvement in their businesses

Posted on by Lone Candle

“Interviews with more than a dozen technology executives over the past week revealed that the Trump administration’s announcements of government stakes in companies such as Intel have had a chilling effect, with executives now filtering many decisions through the prism of how the White House might respond.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/16/silicon-valley-ceo-trump-business-00564524

America’s Newest Terror Group

Posted on by Lone Candle

The Kirk shooter so far seems to have no connections to anti-facist groups. “right wing” violence kills far more people than “left wing”. Of course, most left wing people and most right wing people have nothing to do with any of this violence.

Designating drug gangs and then domestic organizations as “terrorist” organizations could lead to persecuting political opponents not because they are somehow funding, or a part of, a terrorist organization, but because they are political opponents.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuftWWI3uM4