Tag: donald trump

Trump Signs Executive Order Targeting ‘Anti-American Ideology’ At Smithsonian Museums

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order targeting “anti-American Ideology” in the Smithsonian Institution.

On Thursday, Trump signed the order aimed at removing “anti-American ideology” from the Smithsonian Institution and restoring monuments that were removed during the past five years.

The executive order, titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” directs Vice President JD Vance to remove “improper partisan ideology” from the Smithsonian, which the order claims has promoted the idea that American history is “inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed.”

“Over the past decade, Americans have witnessed a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth,” the order states.

“This revisionist movement seeks to undermine the remarkable achievements of the United States by casting its founding principles and historical milestones in a negative light.”

According to the Smithsonian Institution website, they were founded in 1846 as a public-private partnership.

The order states that one aspect of this “anti-American ideology” the administration plans to address is how the Biden Administration supported training by an organization that pushes for undermining “Western foundations” at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, where Park Rangers were told their racial identity should govern how they interpret history to tourists.

Another issue the order will address is the American Art Museum which currently features an exhibit that purports to show how “sculpture has been a powerful tool in promoting scientific racism” and claims that the United States has “used race to establish and maintain systems of power, privilege, and disenfranchisement.”

Several more facets of this “anti-American ideology” will be addressed, including the National Museum of African American History and Culture which has proclaimed that “hard work,” “individualism,” and “the nuclear family” are aspects of “White culture.”

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Trump Administration Using Spy Satellites To Monitor Southern Border

The Trump administration ordered two Pentagon intelligence agencies—the NGA and NRO—to use spy satellites to monitor the U.S.-Mexico border in a broader effort to curb illegal immigration and drug trafficking., according to Reuters.

The involvement of spy agencies and troop deployments highlights the growing militarization of the southern border, where Trump declared a national emergency.

Though the extent of satellite surveillance over U.S. territory remains unclear, the NGA confirmed forming a task force for the border mission, while the NRO said it was working with the Pentagon and intelligence community to secure the border.

The Reuters report says that their role stems from Trump’s executive orders targeting illegal crossings, trafficking, and the deportation of up to 14 million undocumented immigrants.

Trump, who made immigration central to his 2016 campaign, is now expanding the use of military tools—originally designed for foreign conflict—to the U.S.-Mexico border.

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Trump Answers “Very Easy” Question ‘What Is A Woman?’

President Trump was asked a question Friday that Democrats have struggled to provide a straight answer to in recent times, “what is a woman?”

“What is a woman and why is it important that we understand the difference between them and men?” a reporter asked during a press conference following the swearing in of White House counselor Alina Habba, who will serve as the interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey.

“Well it’s very easy to answer for me,” Trump responded, adding “because a woman is somebody that can have a baby under certain circumstances, she has equality, a woman is a person who is much smarter than a man I’ve always found, a woman is a person that doesn’t give a man even a chance at success.”

“And a woman who’s a person who in many cases has been treated very badly because I think that what happens with this crazy, this crazy issue of men being able to play in women’s sports is just ridiculous and very unfair to women and very demeaning to women,” the President added.

He continued, “And that’s gotta be about a 94 percent, I read today it was a 94 percent issue and I watched the other day, I watched a congressman, a Democrat congressman fighting for the fact that men should be allowed to compete essentially in women’s sports and I said ‘I hope they keep that going because they’ll never win another election.’”

“That’s a big deal. But women are basically incredible people, they do so much for our country and we love our women and we’re gonna take care of our women,” Trump urged, repeating comments that previously triggered shit-lib Karens into screeching that they don’t need taking care of.

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Europe Waves The White Flag: EU Prepares “Term Sheet Of Concessions” For Trump Trade War

In what may be the first clear confirmation Trump’s plan to realign the global trader system is working, moments ago Bloomberg reported that the European Union is identifying concessions it’s willing to make to Donald Trump’s administration to secure the partial removal of the US tariffs that have already started hitting the bloc’s exports and that are set to increase after April 2.  

According to Bloomberg, EU officials were told at meetings this week in Washington that there was no way to avoid new auto and so-called reciprocal tariffs that Trump is launching next week. Discussions also began on what the contours of a potential deal to reduce them should eventually look like.

That prompted the European Commission (which handles trade matters for the EU) to start working on a “term sheet” for a potential concession agreement, which would set out areas for negotiations on the punitive trade measures, including lowering its own duties, mutual investments with the US as well as easing certain regulations and standards.

In short, Europe – led these days by France’s Macron – did what Europe always does when led by the French: it surrendered.

The reciprocal tariffs which will be unveiled on April 2 are meant to strike out against what Trump considers to be unfair levies on US goods as well as non-tariff barriers, such as domestic regulations and how countries collect taxes, including the bloc’s value-added tax, digital taxes and regulations. The EU says its VAT is a fair, non-discriminatory tax that applies equally to domestic and imported goods (for more on the framework for Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, see this).

The news, which is actually rather bad for Europe as it confirms the continent will be unable to retaliate fully and instead will be on the receiving end of Trump’s trade war, sparked a brief rally in the Euro…

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Trump Says He Will Continue Bombing Yemen For A ‘Long Time’

President Trump on Wednesday claimed that the US’s daily airstrikes on Yemen have been “very successful” and vowed the bombing campaign would continue for a “long time.”

The US started bombing Yemen again on March 15 in response to the Houthis, officially known as Ansar Allah, announcing they would reimpose a blockade on Israeli shipping due to Israeli ceasefire violations in Gaza.

Since the Trump administration launched the bombing campaign, the Houthis have restarted attacks on US warships and resumed firing missiles at Israel, operations they ceased when the Gaza ceasefire went into effect on January 19. Despite this, President Trump claims the Houthis want “peace.”

“The Houthis are looking to do something. They want to know, ‘How do we stop? How do we stop? How can we have peace?’ The Houthis want peace because they’re getting the hell knocked out of them,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

“They want us to stop so badly… They’ve got to say, ‘No mas.’ But I can only say that the attacks every day, every night… have been very successful beyond our wildest expectations… We’re going to do it for a long time. We can keep it going for a long time,” the president said.

The Houthis’ message has been that they will meet “escalation with escalation” and that their attacks won’t stop unless there is a ceasefire in Gaza and an end to the Israeli blockade on aid and all other goods entering the Palestinian territory.

“The Yemeni Armed Forces affirm that the American aggression will only increase the Yemenis’ steadfastness and resilience, and that the confrontations over the last few days were only the beginning of what will be a gradual expansion of defensive operations in the coming days,” Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said on Thursday when announcing new attacks on US warships and on Israel.

Trump also claimed that the Houthis are being “hit harder than they have ever been.” But from 2015 to 2022, the Houthis faced a brutal US-backed Saudi-UAE war against them, which involved a heavy bombing campaign, a blockade, and a ground campaign. Trump supported the war during his first term in office and vetoed a War Powers Resolution passed by Congress that would have ended US involvement in the conflict.

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An In-Depth Look at President Trump’s Election Integrity Executive Order and It’s Massive Potential Impact

Earlier this week, President Donald Trump took a crucial step in fulfilling the promise to initiate reform in our elections.  In signing the Executive Order “PRESERVING AND PROTECTING THE INTEGRITY OF AMERICAN ELECTIONS,” he established a solid foundation to ensure free and fair elections for all eligible voters are restored for all eligible American voters.

“Election fraud…you’ve heard the term?” President Trump asked as he began signing the Executive Order.  “It will end it, hopefully.”

“This will go a long way toward ending it,” he continued.  “There are other steps that we will be taking in the coming weeks.  And we think we’ll be able to end up getting fair elections.”

However, President Trump acknowledged that some people think he shouldn’t be complaining because he “won in a landslide.”  That doesn’t seem to faze him as he demonstrates a clear understanding through the Order of what’s at stake and what needs to be done.

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Trump’s Rule by Fiat a Bipartisan Legacy

U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest defiance of the courts — this time refusing to follow an appellate judge’s order to halt migrant deportations — has triggered another round of liberal outrage. Critics are calling it an authoritarian move, a blatant assault on the rule of law, and a warning sign that American democracy is on its last legs.

But if this is the end of democracy, it’s been ending for a long time. And not just at Trump’s hands.

The central truth we keep missing — especially on the left — is that Trump is not an aberration. He’s a grotesque continuation. The playbook he uses was written by both parties over decades of eroding democratic norms, consolidating executive power, and circumventing meaningful checks on authority. Trump didn’t invent the impulse to rule by fiat; he just brings it out into the open.

If we want to stop the next Trump, or the next expansion of executive lawlessness, we can’t keep pretending he came out of nowhere.

Consider the legal justification Trump has floated for ignoring the courts: The United States is “at war.” Therefore, he claims, wartime powers apply — even domestically, even over immigration courts. To many, this sounds like a dystopian twist. But it’s eerily familiar. Because the same logic has been used, repeatedly, by both Republican and Democratic administrations since 9/11.

Congress Granted War Powers

After the attacks on the Twin Towers, Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), which gave the executive branch sweeping powers to pursue terrorism around the world. That one document has served as the legal scaffolding for 20-plus years of undeclared wars and covert operations in Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere.

No further congressional approval was needed. The public never had a say. The war powers clause of the Constitution became symbolic — if not obsolete.

Former President Barack Obama inherited that framework and expanded it. His administration developed the now-infamous drone kill list, justified targeted assassinations (including of U.S. citizens) and defended the government’s right to indefinitely detain terrorism suspects without trial.

Obama didn’t officially suspend habeas corpus, but in practice, he upheld a system that made the writ meaningless for hundreds of detainees held at Bagram and Guantánamo. The position of his Department of Justice was clear: The executive has the authority to detain and kill, beyond judicial oversight, because we are at war.

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Pam Bondi Aims To Revive a Moribund Legal Process for Restoring Gun Rights

Although President Donald Trump has been entrusted with control of the nation’s vast military might, including its nuclear weapons, he is not allowed to own a gun. He lost that right as a result of 34 state felony convictions involving falsification of business records. Whatever you think of the legally dubious case underlying those convictions, this situation makes no sense as a matter of public safety. It epitomizes the absurdly broad criteria that bar Americans from possessing firearms under federal law.

Attorney General Pam Bondi recently took an important step toward addressing the unjust, constitutionally dubious burdens imposed by that policy. An interim final rule that took effect last week aims to revive the moribund legal process for restoring the Second Amendment rights of “prohibited persons” who pose no threat to public safety. The rule rescinds the delegation of that process to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), which Congress has long prohibited from accepting applications for relief.

“For decades, law-abiding Americans who have had their gun rights unfairly restricted have been left in legal limbo—creating an unconstitutional de facto lifetime gun ban,” says Erich Pratt, senior vice president of Gun Owners of America. “This bureaucratic failure has denied thousands of individuals their lawful opportunity to restore their rights. The [Justice Department’s] decision to finally withdraw ATF’s authority in this matter is an encouraging sign that this administration is serious about protecting the Second Amendment for all Americans.” 

Under 18 USC 922(g), prohibited persons include anyone who has been convicted of a crime punishable by more than a year of incarceration, regardless of the sentence that was actually imposed, whether or not the offense involved violence, and no matter how long ago it happened. This is the provision that forced Trump to give up his guns, even though his offenses were nonviolent and did not result in any formal punishment. The law also prohibits gun possession by anyone who has ever been subjected to involuntary psychiatric treatment, even if he was never deemed a threat to others.

Anyone who defies these bans is committing a federal felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison. He could face additional penalties for lying on the federal form that must be completed to buy a gun from a federally licensed dealer, which can be construed as two distinct felonies under 18 USC 922(a)(6) and 18 USC 924 (a)(1)(A), and for “trafficking in firearms,” which Congress has counterintuitively defined to include prohibited persons who obtain guns. All told, a prohibited person who dares to exercise his Second Amendment rights could face combined maximum sentences of nearly half a century.

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Trump White House might flip the script on tax cuts for the rich

The Trump administration is discussing a surprising option to help fulfill his campaign-trail promises: Allowing the richest Americans’ tax rates to rise in return for cutting taxes on tips, a senior White House official tells Axios.

The big picture: Some White House officials believe letting income taxes on the very highest earners rise would buy breathing room on other priorities, and help blunt Democrats’ attacks as they seek to extend President Trump’s 2017 tax cuts.

  • Officials say all discussions are preliminary and nothing is set in stone.

By the numbers: Currently the top income tax rate is 37%, charged on income above $609,351 for an individual or $731,201 for a married couple.

  • If the 2017 law were allowed to expire, that would jump to the pre-2018 rate of 39.6%, and lower the threshold above which the top rate applies.
  • Around 1% of taxpayers are in that top bracket, though they pay a disproportionate share of income taxes.
  • Under the budget reconciliation rules that Republicans seek to use to extend the tax cuts, that would free up more revenue that could be used to fulfill some of Trump’s populist promises, such as eliminating taxes on tips.

Zoom out: It would aim to flip the script on Democrats, whose messaging focuses on Republicans potentially slashing Medicaid and enlarging the deficit in order to fund tax cuts for the super-rich.

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Trump White House Says Marijuana Decriminalization ‘Opened The Door To Disorder’ In Washington, D.C.

President Donald Trump’s White House says the move to decriminalize marijuana in Washington, D.C. is an example of a “failed” policy that “opened the door to disorder.”

In a fact sheet about an executive order that Trump signed on Friday—which is broadly aimed at beautifying the District and making it more safe—the White House listed several local policies in the nation’s capital that it takes issue with, including cannabis reform. That’s despite the president’s previously stated support for a states’ rights approach to marijuana laws.

“D.C.’s failed policies opened the door to disorder—and criminals noticed,” it says, citing “marijuana decriminalization,” as well as the District’s decision to end pre-trial detentions and enforcement practices around rioters, as examples of such policies.

The executive order itself doesn’t mention marijuana specifically. But it says the directive will involve “deploying a more robust Federal law enforcement presence and coordinating with local law enforcement to facilitate the deployment of a more robust local law enforcement presence as appropriate in areas in or about” D.C., and that includes addressing “drug possession, sale, and use.”

With respect to the fact sheet circulated by the White House, cannabis possession and personal cultivation is legalized in D.C. under a voter-approved ballot initiative, though commercial sales of non-medical marijuana remain illegal (a policy referred to by some as “decriminalization”).

Because of a long-standing congressional rider that’s been annually renewed since that vote, the District hasn’t been able to use local funds to implement a system of regulated recreational cannabis sales, so officials have taken steps to expand the city’s existing medical marijuana program as a workaround.

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