Tag: donald trump

Big Beautiful Bill Will Massively Expand The Digital Biometric Surveillance State

Bill allocates billions for digital tracking systems nationwide, mostly under the guise of ‘border security.’ All major state and federal highways will be monitored 24/7 in real time.

The Senate version of H.R. 1, otherwise known as the One Big Beautiful Bill, reflects an aggressive expansion of AI-driven federal biometric surveillance infrastructure under the Trump administration’s second term.

The website Biometric Update, which reports on all things digital and biometric, posted an article on June 30 that points out how President Trump’s BBB will expand the digital surveillance state exponentially and place the U.S. on an irreversible course toward a biometric slave state that tracks the movement of everyone, everywhere.

According to the article, the 940-page bill does much more than allocate dollars; it would codify a vision of the national security state where biometric surveillance, artificial intelligence, and immigration enforcement converge at unprecedented scale.

The bill passed the Senate on Tuesday, July 1, after earlier passing the House and now returns to the House for reconciliation. Trump has said he’d like it on his desk by July 4.

According to Biometric Update:

“Passed out of the House along party lines earlier this year, the Senate version now reflects the Trump administration’s deepening focus on internal surveillance and deportation infrastructure. Although a final vote is pending in the Senate and will need to be passed by the House, what’s already in the legislative text that likely will remain intact is deeply consequential for civil liberties, biometric privacy, and immigration governance.”

It goes on:

“At its core, H.R.1 dedicates over $175 billion in immigration-related funding for fiscal year 2025 alone, which is by far the largest such allocation in U.S. history and represents a dramatic technology buildout. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would receive nearly $30 billion in funding through 2029, earmarked not only for personnel and deportation operations, but also for digital modernization efforts that lean heavily on AI and biometric surveillance. More than $5.2 billion within ICE’s share is dedicated to infrastructure modernization, including $2.5 billion specifically for artificial intelligence systems, biometric data collection platforms, and digital case tracking.”

DHS officials familiar with the bill’s intent say the funds are aimed at expanding ICE’s access to mobile biometric tools, integrating facial recognition into field operations, automating risk scoring for individuals in deportation proceedings, and accelerating case processing through AI-driven platforms.

This massive digital surveillance buildout is being done under the guise of immigration enforcement and border security. But that’s a ruse. A psyop.

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Joe Biden Complains Trump is Undoing His Incredible Accomplishments: ‘I Worked So Damn Hard’

Joe Biden is complaining that his so-called accomplishments are being undone by President Trump.

According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, Biden gave a more than hour-long speech in San Diego on Wednesday to thousands of human-resources professionals gathered by the HR trade group SHRM.

“We strengthened NATO in a significant way,” he said. “I’m getting calls—I’m not going to go into it, I can’t—from a number of European leaders asking me to get engaged.”

“I’m not, but I’m giving advice,” he added.

The 82-year-old added that he was voicing his concerns because he “really cared about what I was doing.”

“Many of the things I worked so damn hard, that I thought I changed in the country, are changing so rapidly,” he complained.

Biden did not mention Trump by name, although such remarks give an insight into how he is feeling about his legacy being undone.

Such criticism of Trump’s handling of defense spending was criticized by the White House.

“Thanks to President Trump, NATO allies have made a historic 5% defense spending pledge, Iran’s nuclear capabilities are obliterated, and our country’s standing on the world stage is restored,” said White House spokesperson Anna Kelly.

The former president, who came to power through an election that was tainted by widespreaed fraud and irregularities, has mostly remained quiet since departing the White House back in January.

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The First Amendment Protects CNN’s Reporting on ICEBlock and Iran

President Donald Trump has routinely taken umbrage with journalists exercising their freedom of expression to report on the news, which the First Amendment absolutely protects. CNN is the president’s latest target.

At a Tuesday press conference, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said that her agency was “working with the Department of Justice” to see if the administration could prosecute CNN for its reporting on an app that alerts users about federal immigration enforcement activity in their area. Noem said CNN “is actively encouraging people to avoid law enforcement.” Trump immediately followed Noem’s comments by saying, “We’ll maybe prosecute them also for having given false reports on the attack in Iran.”

CNN published a story on Monday covering software developer Joshua Aaron’s ICEBlock app, which lets “users alert people nearby to sightings of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in their area.” CNN reports that the app, released in April, has amassed over 20,000 users. The app, which is only available on the App Store (Aaron is concerned about the mandatory data collection on Android devices), allows users to specify where they’ve spotted Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity and alerts other users within a 5-mile radius via push notification. The function of the app is not dissimilar from Waze and Google Maps, which help drivers avoid encounters with police officers monitoring highways and roads for traffic violations.

The First Amendment protects ICEBlock, just as it does Waze and Google Maps. Even if it didn’t, it still would protect CNN’s coverage of it. Aaron Terr, director of public advocacy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), tells Reason that prosecuting CNN for reporting on ICEBlock “would be like prosecuting a news outlet for reporting on Virginia drivers illegally using radar detectors to avoid speeding tickets.” Moreover, the First Amendment protects the development and use of the ICEBlock app itself because “putting out general information that someone, somewhere might use to evade law enforcement” is not aiding and abetting but “just providing others true information,” says Terr.

(CNN doesn’t provide users the link to download ICEBlock from the App Store, which is also protected speech.)

Trump’s threats against CNN for its coverage of early U.S. intelligence assessments regarding the strikes against Iran’s nuclear sites are similarly unfounded. Trump’s personal attorney, Alejandro Brito, alleged that CNN’s and The New York Times’ June 24 coverage of the strikes was false and defamatory, reports CNN. At the Tuesday press conference, Trump again insinuated that CNN defamed the pilots who carried out the operation. Establishing a defamation claim against CNN for its reporting on the efficacy of the American strikes against Iran would be hard, if not impossible.

To defame somebody, you must identify a person—the identities of the pilots are secret; publish information about them—CNN published information of public interest, but not about anybody in particular; the meaning of the publication must be defamatory—even if the pilots failed to completely destroy the sites, that would not be an indictment of their characters; the statement must be false—the extent of the damage to Iran’s nuclear sites remains nonspecific; the statement must be an objectively verifiable statement of fact—it is unclear how anybody could prove CNN’s statements as false, especially at the time of reporting (Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said himself that “the impact of those bombs is buried under a mountain of rubble in Iran”); and the statement must be damaging and cause injury, which CNN’s reporting did not. All of these elements must be met to establish defamation. CNN’s Iran reporting does not satisfy a single one.

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Iranian Hackers Say They Have 100GB Of Trump Emails

Hackers claiming ties to Iran say they possess 100GB of emails from President Donald Trump’s inner circle and may soon leak or sell the trove, after previously distributing a batch to the media before the 2024 U.S. election.

In online conversations with Reuters on Sunday and Monday, the hackers—who use the pseudonym “Robert”—claimed to possess about 100 gigabytes of emails from the accounts of “White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Trump lawyer Lindsey Halligan, Trump adviser Roger Stone and porn star-turned-Trump antagonist Stormy Daniels.”

Robert mentioned the potential of selling the material but did not provide further details about their plans or the content of the emails.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi described the breach as “an unconscionable cyber-attack.”

The White House and FBI responded with a statement from FBI Director Kash Patel, who said:

“Anyone associated with any kind of breach of national security will be fully investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) posted on X that “This so-called cyber ‘attack’ is nothing more than digital propaganda, and the targets are no coincidence. This is a calculated smear campaign meant to damage President Trump and discredit honorable public servants who serve our country with distinction”

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Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill Could Kill Professional Gambling

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act that narrowly passed the Senate on Tuesday contains an amendment altering gambling tax rules, making it harder for winners to reap profits.

A section of the Senate‘s 940-page version of the bill limits the amount gamblers are able to deduct from their winnings to 90 percent of losses.

This means that if a gambler wins $100,000 in a tax year while also losing $100,000, they would be required to pay $10,000 in tax despite breaking even, rather than zero tax paid under current regulations.

If the amendment makes its way into the House version of the bill and is signed into law, it would reduce the ability of gamblers to turn a profit. It could also push professional gamblers to unregulated operators outside the U.S., according to American professional poker player Phil Galfond.

This could have a downstream impact on the entire industry, which brought in nearly $115 billion in revenue last year, according to the American Gaming Association.

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What Means ‘Winning’?

At one level, Iran plainly “won.” Trump had wanted to be regaled with a reality-TV style, splendid “Victory.” Sunday’s attack on the three nuclear sites indeed was loudly proclaimed by Trump and Hegseth as such – having “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme, they claimed. “Destroyed it completely,” they insist.

Only … it didn’t: The strike caused superficial surface damage, perhaps. And seemingly was co-ordinated in advance with Iran via intermediaries to be a “once and done” affair. This is a habitual Trump pattern (advance co-ordination). It was the mode in Syria, Yemen and even with Trump’s assassination of Qasem Soleimani – all intended to give Trump a quick media “victory.”

The so-called “ceasefire” that rapidly followed the US strikes – albeit not without some hiccoughs – was a hastily assembled “cessation of hostilities” (and no ceasefire – as no terms were agreed). It was a “stop-gap.” What this means is that the negotiating impasse between Iran and Witkoff remains unresolved.

The Supreme Leader has forcefully laid down Iran’s position: “No surrender”; Enrichment proceeds; and the US should quit the region and keep its nose out of Iranian affairs.

So, on the positive side of cost-benefit analysis, Iran likely has enough centrifuges and 450 kg of highly enriched uranium – and nobody (except Iran) now knows where the stash is hidden. Iran will resume processing. A second plus for Iran is that the IAEA and its Director-General Grossi have been so egregiously subversive of Iranian sovereignty that the Agency most likely will be expelled from Iran. The Agency failed in its basic responsibility to safeguard sites at which enriched uranium was present.

The US and European intelligence services thus will lose their “eyes” on the ground – as well as forego the IAEA’s Artificial Intelligence data collection (on which Israel’s identification of targets likely was heavily dependent).

On the cost side, militarily, Iran of course suffered physical damage, but retains its missile potency. The US-Israeli narrative of Iranian skies as “open wide” to Israeli aircraft is yet another deception contrived to support the “winning narrative”:

As Simplicius notes: “There remains not a single shred of proof that Israeli (or American, for that matter) planes ever significantly overflew Iran at any time. Claims of “total air superiority” have no grounds. [Footage] up until the final day shows Israel continued relying on their heavy UCAVs [large surveillance and strike drone aircraft] to strike Iranian ground targets.”

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Trump Rolls Over for a New War

It is generally believed that American voters elected Donald Trump president at least in part due to their embracing his lies that he was a peacemaker who would not involve the United States in the pointless wars that have proliferated since 9/11. Trump’s predecessor the hapless Genocide Joe Biden had entangled the US deep in a conflict involving nuclear armed Russia and had also armed, funded and politically protected war criminal Israel in its openly declared objective to eliminate the Palestinians. Neither conflict could be justified based on actual American interests. So Trump looked like a better bet than a witless giggler like Kamala Harris, though voters would have benefited from looking at the Trump record during his first term in office where he was little more than Israel’s mouthpiece after being heavily bribed during his campaign by Nevada casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. Trump and his ambassador in Israel David Friedman endorsed the oppression of the Palestinians on the West Bank and in Gaza and also illegally approved moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem. Trump also allowed Israel to annex part of the Syrian Golan Heights and ordered the assassination of Qassim Soleimani, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and regarded as a major enemy by Israel, killing the man when he was in Baghdad Iraq for peace talks. Trump, like his successor Joe Biden, never said “no” to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Be that as it may, the past five months have demonstrated that searching for an honest man (or woman) in Washington would require Diogenes and his lamp, with little hope of coming up with someone who was not alternately a bad joke, an incompetent, or a screaming psychopath. The last several weeks illustrate just how bad things are, though the real fear must be that they can actually get worse if Trump joins Israel when it ignores the current ceasefire and attacks Iran once again. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump will no doubt have to construct a new big lie to explain their belligerency as it is now clear that Iran had no nuclear weapons program.

Even given the horrors being perpetrated by the United States as a bosom buddy ally of Israel, one is nevertheless particularly taken by the malapropisms and the verbal slurs and even threats of physical abuse increasingly being hurled about by the buffoon who pretends to be the president of the United States. Trump, pretending to negotiate with Iran, also saw fit to threaten to “eliminate” the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, if Iran did not submit to unconditional surrender. He claimed to know the “secret location” where Ali Khamenei was hiding but “won’t kill him for now.” Trump also called out Representative Thomas Massie, one of the most principled men in Congress, on social media, calling him a “LOSER” after Massie posted a social media post criticizing the president for unconstitutionally bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities on Saturday night without a declaration of war. Worse still, Trump also engaged in screaming fits focused on two women journalists who questioned his claim that he had “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program, demanding that CNN’s White House correspondent “Natasha Bertrand should be FIRED from CNN! I watched her for three days doing Fake News. She should be IMMEDIATELY reprimanded, and then thrown out like a dog.”

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Trump’s DOJ Just Started Stripping US Citizenship – Here’s Who They are Targeting

The Justice Department is beginning to strip naturalized Americans charged with crimes of their citizenship.

This is part of the Trump administration’s efforts to crack down on criminal migrants. The Justice Department issued a memo on June 11 that details a list of priorities — especially concerning denaturalization.

The memo instructs federal attorneys to “prioritize and maximally pursue denaturalization proceedings in all cases permitted by law and supported by the evidence.” The purpose is to remove individuals who obtained US citizenship through fraud or misrepresentation. This especially applies to those who “committed felonies that were not disclosed during the naturalization process” or “engaged in various forms of financial fraud against the United States.”

“The Department of Justice may institute civil proceedings to revoke a person’s United States citizenship if an individual either ‘illegally procured’ naturalization or procured naturalization by ‘concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation.’”

The ten categories of priority targets are individuals connected with national security threats, such as terrorism, espionage, or those who illegally export sensitive technology. Other targets include war criminals, those affiliated with gangs, violent criminals, and human traffickers. 

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Great News: Trump’s EPA Ending Animal Testing Nightmare and Will Be Putting Retired Lab Animals Up for Adoption

Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has not just committed to phasing out cruel and outdated animal testing, but it has now also approved a program for putting the retired laboratory animals up for adoption, following months of discussion with the non-profit White Coat Waste.

The adoption plan was unearthed in internal EPA documents by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) and confirmed to White Coat Waste, the taxpayer watchdog that’s been relentless in exposing and dismantling government-funded animal torture.

Peer said in a press release, “There are approximately 20,000 animals in EPA labs, including rabbits, mice, and rats, which are primarily used to gauge the safety of environmental pollutants. The adoption program, which is debuting at EPA’s Research Triangle complex in North Carolina, is now offering zebrafish and rats for private adoption.”

Anthony Bellotti, President and Founder of White Coat Waste, celebrated the news in a statement:

“Reinstating the EPA’s animal testing phase-out and its lab animal retirement policy has been a top priority for White Coat Waste since day one of the new Trump Administration. We applaud President Trump and EPA Administrator Zeldin for keeping their promise to taxpayers and pet owners.

White Coat Waste worked with the first Trump Administration to eliminate tests on dogs, rabbits, and all other mammals by 2035 and to retire animal testing survivors.  When the Biden Administration secretly revoked the 2035 deadline and killed rabbits slated for retirement, we blew the whistle—not the legacy animal groups who stayed silent while the killing resumed behind closed doors.

White Coat Waste led the only bipartisan campaign that united Congressional Republicans and Democrats to pass legislation directing the EPA to restore its phase-out timeline and retirement plans. From the beginning of the Trump Administration to today, White Coat Waste has been leading the campaign to cut EPA’s wasteful spending and to retire EPA’s lab survivors. We’re proud of our hard-fought win—and we won’t stop until the last animal is out.”

The decision to end animal testing builds on a push initiated under President Donald Trump’s first term, but squashed by the Biden administration.

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A Big Beautiful Bill for the Military-Industrial Complex

The US Senate worked through the weekend on the “Big Beautiful Bill.” The goal was to pass it quickly to ensure the House will then pass it and send it to President Trump’s desk before the July 4th holiday.

However, disagreements among Republican Senators over reductions in spending on programs including Medicaid and food stamps as well as language in the bill eliminating “clean energy” tax credits were preventing Senate Republican leadership from getting enough votes to pass the bill.

Also, some Republicans disagree with other Republicans in both the House and Senate on increasing the state and local tax (SALT) deduction. Many conservatives see this income tax deduction as encouraging states to maintain high taxes to fund big governments.

One item in the BBB that few Republicans are objecting to is the bill’s increase in military spending. The House version of the BBB added 150 billion dollars to the Pentagon’s already bloated budget. The Senate bill gave the military-industrial complex 156 billion dollars.

Increasing military spending contradicts President Trump’s promise to stop wasting money on endless wars that have nothing to do with ensuring the security of the American people.

Some of the BBB’s military spending will be used to put troops on the border. I support strengthening border security. However, I do not support using the military for domestic law enforcement, which includes enforcing immigration laws. Soldiers are trained to view people as potential enemies, not as innocent civilians to be protected. Introducing this mindset into domestic law enforcement will lead to abuses of liberty.

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