Tag: donald trump

Trump Is Right To Push Back Against Judicial Supremacy

Did President Trump ignore an order from U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg in Washington, D.C., to halt the deportation of hundreds of alleged terrorists and gang members this weekend? No.

Would it have been constitutional if he had? Yes.

For too long, we have accepted without question the fallacious notion that the federal judiciary has the exclusive power of constitutional interpretation, and that the states and the other branches of the federal government are bound to accept whatever the courts decide. This myth of “judicial supremacy” has thrown the constitutional system devised by our Founders out of balance, and it needs to be rejected.

The current case, which concerns whether a federal judge can prevent the removal of foreigners whom the Executive Branch has determined are part of a terrorist organization, is the perfect opportunity to reassert the Founders’ view of the power of constitutional interpretation — a view that was shared, and acted upon, by presidents Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln. It now seems the Trump administration is reviving this long-lost view, and it’s about time.

Here’s what happened. Over the weekend, the Department of Homeland Security deported scores of alleged members of the violent Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, which the Trump administration designated a terrorist organization in January. On Saturday, Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) and declared an “invasion” by members of Tren de Aragua, ordering their immediate removal in accordance with the AEA. They were arrested, along with other alleged gang members in the country illegally, and flown to El Salvador, where El Salvador President Nayib Bukele has agreed to imprison them on behalf of the United States.

Judge Boasberg, a virulently anti-Trump judge with a long history of questionable judicial activism, acting on a request from the ACLU and the Marc Elias-led lawfare firm Democracy Forward, issued a temporary restraining order in hopes of stopping the deportations. There was no hearing, just a blunt command from Boasberg to halt these deportations for two weeks and prepare for a hearing — as if Executive Branch policy, even on sensitive matters of national security, can simply be dictated by an inferior court judge.

Unfortunately for Boasberg and the ACLU, two of the deportation flights had already taken off and were outside U.S. territory by the time the judge’s written order was issued on Saturday evening. (A third flight departed later that night but it carried foreign nationals that were deported on grounds other than Trump’s designation of Tren de Aragua as a terrorist organization, so Boasberg’s order was irrelevant.) 

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AmeriCorps Is Being Used to Indoctrinate Participants With DEI In Violation Of Trump’s Executive Order

In his Republican National Convention acceptance speech, former President Ronald Reagan called for a restoration of the “American spirit of voluntary service, of cooperation, of private and community initiative; a spirit that flows like a deep and mighty river through the history of our nation.”

As many as 200,000 individuals each year answer this noble call to participate in America’s national service program, AmeriCorps, serving as members and volunteers across its various community service offshoots, only to be put through training modules that poison the very spirit of our nation.

Training programs to enter AmeriCorps have been explicitly teaching participants diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) concepts that indoctrinate them into having an anti-American worldview; one that believes that the systems and institutions of our country were designed in such a way to benefit some and disadvantage others.

AmeriCorps partners such as Public Allies teach their corps members that it’s insufficient to be “not racist” or “against racism,” they must become “anti-racist,” which means they must actively work during their service years and after to tear down the systems and institutions of America that they’re told hold racism and all the other “isms” in place so they can build new ones that are more “equitable.” This is in direct violation of President Donald Trump’s recent executive order “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing,” in which he declared that all DEI activities like this in the federal government should be terminated and their funding pulled.

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The Israeli-American Trump mega-donor behind speech crackdowns

The Trump administration’s effort to deport a Columbia University graduate student, Mahmoud Khalil, in retaliation for Khalil’s role in campus protests opposing Israel’s war in Gaza, showed the lengths the White House is prepared to go to police speech about Israel.

The administration’s unprecedented decision to seek the deportation of a U.S. permanent resident without bringing any criminal charges has an overlooked ally, however: the largest financier of Trump’s three presidential campaigns, Israeli-American billionaire Miriam Adelson.

Adelson’s support for the administration’s campaign to stifle criticism of Israel on college campuses isn’t a new focus but her alignment with the levers of state powers to implement her vision are unprecedented. In fact, tax documents reveal that she is directly overseeing a social media campaign targeting Khalil and Columbia University.

In 2015, Adelson, alongside her husband Sheldon, who died in 2021, funded the newly formed Maccabee Task Force (MTF) with $2.28 million, according to IRS filings from the couple’s foundation. MTF claims to “combat the disturbing spread of Antisemitism on college campuses” but in practice spends much of its efforts attacking the boycott, divest and sanctions campaign against Israel, which MTF characterizes as “an Antisemitic movement that crosses the line from legitimate criticism of Israel into the dangerous demonization of Israel and its supporters.”

The Adelsons’ support for the group has ballooned since 2015, totalling nearly $70 million in funds flowing from the couple’s family foundation to MTF between 2016 and 2023.

At the same time, the couple served as the largest donors to Trump’s presidential campaigns and to the Republican Party, sending approximately $600 million in reported political contributions to support Trump’s three presidential campaigns as well as other Republican congressional and gubernatorial races since 2015.

Trump’s decision to target Khalil wades into murky waters. His attempt to deport a U.S. permanent resident for protesting Israel’s war in Gaza is polarizing and raises questions about why the president is so determined to protect the largest recipient of U.S. foreign assistance — a recipient of U.S. tax dollars proven exempt from Trump’s blitz against foreign aid — from criticism on college campuses. But one doesn’t have to look far to see he has an ally in this fight.

While Maccabee Task Force’s website makes no mention of Miriam Adelson, the group’s most recent IRS filing reveals she is far more than just its major funder. The Israeli-American billionaire is also MTF’s president. And under her leadership the group — with its sizable social media presence, particularly on Facebook where it has over 317,000 followers — came out swinging against Khalil and Columbia University with vitriolic and profane attacks.

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Trump Pulls $175 Million in Federal Funding from UPenn After They Defied His Order on Transgenders in Women’s Sports

President Trump has suspended $175 million in federal funding from the University of Pennsylvania after they defied his order on transgenders in women’s sports.

The prestigious Ivy League university is currently in violation of Title IX, which prohibits the sending of federal funding to universities or organizations that allow biological men to compete against women.

The news was first reported by Fox Business:

A senior administration official told FOX Business that the administration has paused $175 million in federal funding.

This did not account for UPenn’s total federal funding, which the university previously reported last year was around $1 billion.

The pause is not a direct result of the investigation into UPenn, which the Department of Education announced a day after the president signed the “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” executive order on Feb. 5.

UPenn made headlines in 2022 after placing Lia Thomas, a biological male identifying as a transgender woman, on the women’s swim team.

Thomas went on to win a national title in the women’s 500-yard freestyle, edging out female competitors over whom she had a clear biological advantage.

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Trump Should Resist Another America-Last War in the Middle East

In his inaugural address, President Donald Trump made clear that he wants history to remember him as a “peacemaker and a unifier.” In his telling, “we will measure our success not only by the battles we win but also by the wars that we end—and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into.”

That goal is in jeopardy. Forces inside and outside his administration are trying to drag the president into more wars in the Middle East. One possibility would be an expansion of the low-level war his predecessor Joe Biden lost to the Houthis in Yemen. Another, more consequential possibility would be a full-blown war with Iran. Both wars would be losers that would damage both the country and Trump’s legacy.

Start with Yemen. In that small, impoverished country, the Houthi movement has been attacking shipping in the Red Sea since Israel attacked Gaza after the Hamas terror attack on October 7, 2023. 

The economic damage from the disruption to Red Sea shipping has been consequential, but survivable. A glance at a map makes clear who pays the cost of the disruption, however: Asia-Europe trade. Because of easy U.S. access to both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans—big, beautiful oceans, as the president might say—trade with either continent mostly doesn’t rely on the Middle East.

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White House Greenlit New Israeli Strikes On Gaza, Breaking Of Ceasefire

Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry has said Tuesday that over 400 people were killed overnight and into the morning by Israeli airstrikes following the collapse of the fragile two-month ceasefire.

Local officials say the death toll is expected to climb higher through the day as many are still buried under the rubble. The humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders desribed, “We woke up, at around 2am local time, to 20 minutes of airstrikes and heavy artillery, just like the past 15 months of war.”

The statement further said, “We are appalled and outraged by these new unacceptable massacres of civilians.” But Israel has blamed Hamas for the truce’s collapse, also as dozens of Israeli captives (including bodies of the deceased) still remain in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed that “Israel will act against Hamas with increasing military force.” He blasted group’s “repeated refusal” to release more hostages.

Israel’s military claimed overnight that Hamas’ highest-ranking security official, Mahmoud Abu Wafah, was killed in the strikes. Bombs pummeled the territory every “five, six seconds” according to a Unicef official.

The Trump administration gave the greenlight for the fresh wave of Israeli attacks. “The Trump administration and the White House were consulted by the Israelis on their attacks in Gaza tonight,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a Monday night Fox News interview, just as the bombs were flying. And meanwhile, this somewhat strangely timed headline on Tuesday has hit:

The US reportedly agreed to an Egyptian proposal to rebuild Gaza without Hamas, with a local price tag of $50bn.

Hamas has blamed Israel for what it says was the unilateral overturning of the ceasefire agreement. Trump has for weeks been warning that all “hell” could be visited upon Hamas if it didn’t immediately return all of the remaining hostages.

Leavitt acknowledged this in her commentary to Fox: “As President Trump has made it clear – Hamas, the Houthis, Iran, all those who seek to terrorize not just Israel, but also the United States of America, will see a price to pay. All hell will break loose,” she said.

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Trump’s promise to release JFK files sets off all-night scramble by DOJ’s National Security Division

The Justice Department’s National Security Division has been in a scramble trying to meet President Donald Trump’s promise on Monday to release declassified information from the JFK assassination investigation today.

Trump, during a visit Monday to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, announced the government would be releasing all the files on Kennedy’s assassination on Tuesday afternoon.

Less than half an hour after that announcement, the Justice Department’s office that handles foreign surveillance requests and other intelligence-related operations began to shift resources to focus on the task, sources said.

In an email just before 5 p.m. ET Monday, a senior official within DOJ’s Office of Intelligence said that even though the FBI had already conducted “an initial declassification review” of the documents, “all” of the attorneys in the operations section now had to provide “a second set of eyes” to help with this “urgent NSD-wide project.”

Eventually, however, it was other National Security Division attorneys who ended up having to help, sources said.

Attorneys from across the division were up throughout the night, into the early morning hours, each reading through as many as hundreds of pages of documents, sources said. Only prosecutors with an impending arrest or other imminent work did not have to help, sources said.

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How Tariffs Will Lower The Cost Of Living

Critics of President Trump’s trade policy – tariffs, tariffs, and more tariffs – cry that tariffs will cause inflation and make Americans poor. This is false.

Although there will be a brief period where the market adjusts to the new normal, tariffs will not cause inflation. In fact, tariffs will lower the cost of living in the long run.

Perhaps the more interesting question to ask is: inflation of what? Consumer goods? Why are these critics not concerned about the inflation of assets like houses or investments that are caused by economic globalism and the trade deficit?  Why are the Democrats and Neocons so preoccupied with keeping the cost of disposable products low, when people cannot afford their rent or mortgages?

Contrary to popular belief, tariffs did not raise the cost of goods during President Trump’s first term, and they are not likely to do so the second time around. 

There are a few reasons for this.

First, a tariff is a tax imposed on imports. For example, a 25% tariff on steel would increase the price of steel coming from Canada or South Korea. However, that same tariff would not apply to steel that was made in America. In this way, tariffs are a completely avoidable tax. If you do not want to pay tariffs, buy American. Simple.

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As Trump moves to scrap key climate finding, emails show Obama EPA used it to push ‘progressive’ fix

As the Trump administration nears a decision on whether to reverse the landmark regulatory declaration that launched the “Green New Deal” movement, the legality and political motivations of the Obama-era environmental regulators are getting a fresh, hard look.

Emails reviewed by Just the News show that Environmental Protection Agency regulators who helped craft the 2009 “endangerment finding” — which declared greenhouse gases could be regulated because they risked public health — were preparing to impose the regulatory powers of the endangerment finding even before the science was wrapped up.

The emails also show there was an open discussion inside the Obama EPA about trying to score a win for liberals in what was supposed to be a scientific process. “You are at the forefront of progressive national policy on one of the critical issues of our time. Do you realize that?” Georgetown law professor Lisa Heinzerling wrote then-EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson on Feb. 27, 2009. “You’re a good boss. I do realize that. I pinch myself all the time.”

A day earlier, Heinzerling estimated that the finding would be finalized in August or September 2009, but that imposing regulations like new car emission standards could occur ahead of the science being wrapped up.

Experts told Just the News such communications — which mostly have been relegated to insiders and trade publications — could provide a powerful messaging tool if Trump EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin decides to reverse the endangerment finding.

And there’s also a trove of emails yet to be released but itemized on a log of documents the Obama administration insisted on hiding from the public by declaring them “privileged.” “I believe the privilege logs support that the [Obama] administration came in determined to do what they then went through the public motions of producing,” Chris Horner, an environment and energy policy attorney, told Just the News.  

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Trump says JFK files will be released Tuesday without redactions

President Donald Trump announced on Monday at the Kennedy Center that the files regarding former President John F. Kennedy’s assassination will be released on Tuesday without redactions.

“We are tomorrow announcing and giving all of the Kennedy files,” Trump said. “So people have been waiting for decades for this, and I’ve instructed my people that are responsible, lots of different people, put together by Tulsi Gabbard, and that’s going to be released tomorrow.”

The release will happen Tuesday afternoon, The Daily Wire reported.

“We have a tremendous amount of paper. You’ve got a lot of reading. I don’t believe we’re going to redact anything. I said, just don’t redact. You can’t redact,” Trump added. “But we’re going to be releasing the JFK files, and that would be tomorrow.”

“It’s approximately 80,000 pages,” he said. “So it’s a lot of stuff, and you’ll make your own determination.”

Trump said that the documents will be released without summaries so the public and media could drawn their own conclusions.

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