Tag: donald trump

Trump signs order to ease commercial spaceflight regulations

US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday that he claimed would ease regulations that govern commercial rocket launches.

The order directs the US transportation secretary to eliminate or expedite environmental reviews for launch licenses given by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

“Inefficient permitting processes discourage investment and innovation, limiting the ability of US companies to lead in global space markets,” the executive order reads.

It also calls for the cancellation of “outdated, redundant or overly restrictive rules for launch and reentry vehicles,” according to a statement released by the White House.

Could the move benefit Elon Musk?

Trump’s latest executive order also states that “inefficient” permitting processes “discourage investment and innovation,” which in turn limits US companies’ ability to lead in global space markets.

The move could benefit private space companies such as SpaceX, the company owned by former Trump advisor Elon Musk, despite the two falling out publicly in recent months.

The company — which dominates the global private space launches market — plans missions to the Moon and Mars using its Starship rockets, which saw a series of setbackslastly in June as a routine test ended up in an explosion.

Environment groups slam executive order

Environmental groups have criticized Trump’s moves to deregulate commercial spaceflight.

“This reckless order puts people and wildlife at risk from private companies launching giant rockets that often explode and wreak devastation on surrounding areas,” Jared Margolis of the US-based nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity said in a statement.

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Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics at BLS

President Trump has appointed E.J. Antoni, an economist from the Heritage Foundation, to head up the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
This is an extremely challenging job because the traditional approach — not going back months, but decades — has always been terribly partisan. It is, almost by definition, based more on a ton of subjective opinions than on any actual objective facts.

The press — even the allegedly business-minded publications, which ought to know better — is slamming President Trump for firing the last BLS chief, claiming that she was fired only “because last month’s numbers weren’t to his liking.”

It’s a lie.

In fact, the BLS has been producing objectively bad reports for decades, routinely exaggerating the good news during Democrat administrations and exaggerating the bad news during Republican administrations. They’re always quietly adjusting the numbers weeks or months after the fact — and it’s funny, isn’t it, how the adjustments always seem to favor the Democrats and hurt the GOP?

E.J. Antoni is a great numbers guy. To the extent that this job can be done well, in a nation this huge and an economy this diverse, he’ll be fine.

But, just as we have learned to expect more creativity from this administration in areas of foreign policy and bureaucratic oversight, let’s hope too for more creativity in this statistics-gathering role.

The really important challenge is going to be in establishing rational expectations in defining the real meaning of these statistics.

When the BLS reports on job growth and unemployment changes, to be really helpful they need to provide more precise definitions so that we can better interpret the information.

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MSNBC’s Scarborough: Dems Secretly Support Trump’s Federal Police Takeover

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough said Tuesday that numerous Democrats have privately expressed support for President Donald Trump’s decision to assume federal control of the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C.

Speaking on “Morning Joe,” Scarborough said he has heard from “so many” Democrats in recent days who believe the federal government should have intervened in the city’s policing long ago.

“This is a fascinating story because so many people have been calling me over the past couple of days, going, you know, like Washington, should have gotten involved years ago. This place is dangerous, it’s a mess, it’s a wreck and whatever,” Scarborough said.

“And then they’ll go on Twitter and go ‘this is the worst outrage of all time.’ Which I understand, it’s like people need to express their concerns about Donald Trump going too far.”

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Mexico, under pressure from Trump, transfers 26 more cartel members to US

Mexico sent more than two dozen suspected cartel members to the U.S. on Tuesday, amid rising pressure from President Donald Trump on Mexico to dismantle the country’s powerful drug organizations.

Authorities shipped 26 prisoners wanted in the U.S. for ties to drug-trafficking groups, Mexico’s attorney general’s office and security ministry said in a joint statement.

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Mexico said the U.S. Department of Justice had requested their extradition and that it would not seek the death penalty for the accused cartel members.

The transfer is the second of its kind this year. In February, Mexican authorities sent 29 alleged cartel leaders to the U.S., sparking a debate about the political and legal grounds for such a move.

That Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum permitted yet another large-scale extradition of Mexican nationals underscores the balancing act she faces as she seeks to appease Trump while also avoiding unilateral U.S. military action in Mexico.

In a statement, the U.S. Embassy said among those extradited were key figures in the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and the Sinaloa Cartel, which are Mexico’s two dominant organized crime groups.

“This transfer is yet another example of what is possible when two governments unite against violence and impunity,” U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ronald Johnson said in a statement. “These fugitives will now face justice in American courts, and the citizens of both our nations will be safer.”

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DC lawmakers try to reclaim control of MPD, National Guard after Trump invokes Home Rule

D.C. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton and U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen announced plans to reintroduce legislation granting the District of Columbia full control over its National Guard and Metropolitan Police Department.

This move comes in response to President Donald Trump’s recent decision to assume control of D.C.’s police department and deploy the National Guard without consulting local officials.

The proposed District of Columbia Police Home Rule Act would repeal the president’s authority to federalize the Metropolitan Police Department, while the District of Columbia National Guard Home Rule Act would designate the D.C. mayor as Commander-in-Chief of the National Guard, aligning with the powers held by state governors.

“President Trump’s unprecedented federalization of the D.C. Police today and his activation of the D.C. National Guard without D.C.’s consent underscore the necessity of D.C. statehood,” said Congresswoman Norton.

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Trump DOJ Asks Supreme Court To Uphold Ban On Marijuana Users Owning Guns

Amid a series of legal challenges, the Trump administration is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to take up a case on the federal government’s ban on users of marijuana and other illegal drugs from owning firearms and uphold the prohibition, saying it is consistent with the 2nd Amendment.

To that end, the DOJ solicitor general is urging SCOTUS to hear one of five relevant cases to resolve conflicting lower court decisions on gun rights for cannabis consumers.

With the multiple competing legal cases resulting in differing rulings in federal appeals courts across the country, DOJ last week requested that SCOTUS review one in particular that it described as “archetypal” of the issue related to federal code 922(g)(3), which precludes users of unlawful drugs from having guns or ammo.

The case “presents an important Second Amendment issue that affects hundreds of prosecutions every year: whether the government may disarm individuals who habitually use unlawful drugs but are not necessarily under the influence while possessing a firearm,” U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer, an appointee of President Donald Trump, said.

The solicitor general reiterated his position that, despite recent appeals court decisions calling into question the constitutionality of the firearms ban for people who use cannabis—even in compliance with state law—the restriction is nevertheless lawful.

Some lower courts have said the government’s blanket ban on gun and ammunition possession infringes on the Second Amendment—at least as applied to certain individual cases—because there’s no historical justification for such a broad restriction on an entire category of people.

But over recent years, various federal district and appeals courts have take differing approaches to the issue. As DOJ argued in its latest filing in the case, “the question presented is the subject of a multi-sided and growing circuit conflict.”

“The petition for a writ of certiorari [filed by Sauer in June] identified three sides of that conflict: The Seventh Circuit has upheld Section 922(g)(3); the Eighth Circuit has held it violates the Second Amendment unless the government can make a case-by-case showing justifying the drug user’s disarmament; and the Fifth Circuit has held that it generally violates the Second Amendment unless the drug user was intoxicated while possessing the firearm.”

“Since then, the conflict has deepened,” it said, referring to several other cases on the issue that are pending before the high court. And DOJ wants SCOTUS to focus on one case in particular to resolve what it called a “four-way circuit conflict”: U.S. v. Hemani.

One reason DOJ could be focused on the justices taking up Hemani in particular is that the defendant in that case is not only a cannabis user but also a user of cocaine who’s sold drugs in the past, according to court findings, which could make him less sympathetic in the eyes of the court. Defendants in the other cases were merely found in possession of both a firearm and marijuana.

Lawyers for the defendant in Hemani argued in a brief last month that the high court should decline the case.

But in its reply brief submitted to SCOTUS this week, the Justice Department said that “this case is the best vehicle available.”

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President Trump Deploys 120 FBI Agents to Washington DC Streets to Combat Violent Crime and Carjackings

President Donald Trump has authorized the deployment of 120 FBI agents to the streets of DC to help local law enforcement fight crime.

The move to utilize the FBI for street crime comes amid Trump’s promise to make DC “one of the safest cities in America.”

This unprecedented step comes amid escalating concerns over public safety in the city, where residents and visitors alike have faced heightened threats under previous administrations’ lax policies.

The agents, primarily from the Washington Field Office, will be reassigned from counterintelligence and public corruption divisions to overnight patrol shifts with DC police officers, according to a report from The Washington Post.

This deployment is part of a broader federal initiative, with reports indicating that nearly 450 federal officers from agencies including the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Marshals Service, and the Park Police have been mobilized across the district.

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Trump moves to shut down NASA missions that measure carbon dioxide and plant health

The Trump administration is moving to shut down two NASA missions that monitor a potent greenhouse gas and plant health, potentially shutting off an important source of data for scientists, policymakers and farmers.

President Donald Trump’s budget request for fiscal year 2026 includes no money for the Orbiting Carbon Observatories, which can precisely show where carbon dioxide is being emitted and absorbed and how well crops are growing.

NASA said in an emailed statement Wednesday that the missions were “beyond their prime mission” and being terminated “to align with the President’s agenda and budget priorities.”

But the missions — a free-flying satellite launched in 2014 and an instrument attached to the International Space Station in 2019 that include technology used in the Hubble Space Telescope — still are more sensitive and accurate than any other systems in the world, operating or planned, and a “national asset” that should be saved, said David Crisp, a retired NASA scientist who led their development.

They helped scientists discover, for example, that the Amazon rain forest emits more carbon dioxide than it absorbs, while boreal forests in Canada, Russia and places where permafrost is melting absorb more than they emit, Crisp said.

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Trump Torches ‘Disgusting Degenerate’ Nancy Pelosi and Her Shady Husband for Insider Trading

President Donald Trump unleashed a scorching takedown of “disgusting degenerate” Nancy Pelosi and her “interesting” husband Paul on Truth Social on Saturday evening.

In a post that’s already going viral, Trump pointed to the Pelosis outperforming every hedge fund genius on Wall Street in 2024.

“Crooked Nancy Pelosi, and her very ‘interesting’ husband, beat every Hedge Fund in 2024,” Trump’s post began. “In other words, these two very average ‘minds’ beat ALL of the Super Geniuses on Wall Street, thousands of them.”

Trump did not hold back, accusing the former House Speaker of abusing “inside information.”

“It’s all INSIDE iNFORMATION!” Trump wrote. “Is anybody looking into this??? She is a disgusting degenerate, who Impeached me twice, on NO GROUNDS, and LOST! How are you feeling now, Nancy???”

Paul Pelosi, a venture capitalist, achieved notable returns in his investment portfolio in 2024, reportedly exceeding 54%, which outperformed many professional hedge funds. This, of course, has raised questions and concerns about whether access to non-public information from his wife’s position in Congress played a role.

Recent trades include selling $24 million in Apple shares and $5 million in Nvidia in January 2025, followed by purchasing shares in Tempus AI, which rose nearly 50% shortly after. Another example is the sale of over $500,000 in Visa shares weeks before a Department of Justice antitrust lawsuit against the company was announced.

Nancy Pelosi’s net worth is estimated at over $240 million, with investments in companies like Alphabet, Amazon, and Palo Alto Networks.

Last month, the former Speaker exploded on CNN’s Jake Tapper when he pressed her about the insider trading allegations.

“Ridiculous!” she snapped, accusing Trump of “projecting” while conveniently ignoring her family’s suspiciously perfect timing. She went on to demand that she was there to discuss the 60th anniversary of Medicaid.

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Chaotic NYC ‘Safe’ Injection-Sites Put On Notice By Trump

Democrats fully own the crime and chaos plaguing major cities, after decades of failed progressive experiments that have only backfired spectacularly, transforming some parts of America’s largest metropolitan areas into lawless, crime-ridden no-go zones. 

There’s an urgent need for course correction and to restore law and order in major cities run by rogue Democratic leaders whose failed social justice policies (influenced by leftist billionaires and their NGOs), like defunding the police and “safe” injection sites, have only fueled more crime, chaos, and disorder on the streets. 

President Trump’s “Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets” executive order, issued late last month, has put these taxpayer-funded safe injection sites on notice.

Safe injection sites, such as those run by nonprofit OnPoint NYC in East Harlem and Washington Heights, supervise illegal drug use under the guise of harm reduction.

A clear legal precedent was set in 2019 under President Trump’s first term via the Department of Justice that successfully blocked a proposed safe injection site in Philadelphia under the Controlled Substances Act. The Third Circuit upheld the decision, and the Supreme Court let it stand. That ruling could now be used against NYC’s injection sites if the Manhattan U.S. Attorney chooses to follow Philadelphia’s lead. 

Trump’s new order calls on the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to ensure that none of its “discretionary grants” indirectly fund such sites, which have been causing significant problems at the local level.

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