Tag: donald trump

Trump FDA to Present Data Linking COVID Jabs to Child Deaths at Upcoming CDC Meeting

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will present data linking COVID-19 vaccines to the deaths of dozens of children.

According to several media reports, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) will meet Thursday and Friday to review and recommend several vaccines, including this fall’s updated Covid shots.

The FDA is basing its claim on data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), a public database run jointly by the FDA and CDC.

The reports come after FDA Commissioner Marty Makary told CNN last week that the agency is investigating reports of healthy children dying after receiving Covid vaccines.

“We’ve been looking into the VAERS database of self-reports that there have been children that have died from the Covid vaccine,” Makary said.

“We’re going to release a report in the coming few weeks and we’re going to let people know. We’re doing an intense investigation.”

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The Roots Of Trump’s Continued Wars On Terror Trace Back To 9/11

The U.S. military recently launched a plainly illegal strike on a small civilian Venezuelan boat that President Trump claims was a successful hit on “narcoterrorists.” Vice President JD Vance responded to allegations that the strike was a war crime by saying, “I don’t give a shit what you call it,” insisting this was the “highest and best use of the military.”

This is only the latest troubling development in the Trump administration’s attempt to repurpose “War on Terror” mechanisms to use the military against cartels and to expedite his much vaunted mass deportation campaign, which he says is necessary because of an “invasion” at the border.

Unfortunately, more than two decades of widely-accepted, bipartisan laws and norms first laid the groundwork for this to occur.

After 9/11, the Bush administration created the Specially Designated Global Terrorists list, and Congress expanded the pre-existing Foreign Terrorist Organization list. These lists allow the executive branch, at its sole discretion, to add and remove individuals and groups to standing lists of “terrorists,” a term that is defined broadly.

The Trump administration has exercised this authority to formally designate transnational cartels as “terrorists” due in part to their role in the flow of people and drugs across the southern border into the United States. They have leveraged this designation to justify a range of actions, including deploying troops to Los Angeles and deporting immigrants to a brutal Salvadorean prison without due process.

Another post-9/11 legal invention that paved the way to what the Trump administration is doing today was the USA PATRIOT Act’s updates to immigration law that allowed deportation of not just those involved in actual violent acts of terrorism, but also those loosely associated with designated “terrorist groups,” even if those associations were peaceful and law-abiding or involuntary and a result of duress. People who have previously been excluded from the United States by these provisions include Iraqi interpreters for U.S. troops, victims of forced labor by violent armed groups in El Salvador, and even Nelson Mandela. These provisions mean that not just alleged members of cartels, but also cartel victims could be denied entry into the United States or deported if already here.

These same post-9/11 immigration law amendments also allow for revoking or denying immigration benefits to foreign nationals who “endorse or espouse” “terrorist activity,” defined broadly. The Trump administration has already revoked the visas of several immigrant students and scholars solely for their nonviolent activities criticizing the U.S.-Israel genocide in Gaza, as part of what they call a “zero-tolerance” policy for terrorism. The administration has primarily leaned on an older and more obscure provision of immigration law to carry out these attacks on immigrants’ free speech rights. But if current efforts are blocked by courts, or they wish to go further, post-9/11 immigration law may give them the tools to justify doing so.

The original decision to treat the 9/11 attacks not as crime but as warfare, and to launch a literal “war on terror” in response, remains the primary post-9/11 legal innovation on which so many abuses are made possible. Under this global war paradigm, the Obama administration carried out ruthless drone killings, including one that targeted a U.S. citizen, and justified the strikes with a mish-mash of legal standards that applied rules of war outside of actual war zones, and expansively interpreted what constitutes an “imminent threat” and resulting “self-defense” powers.

Every post-9/11 president has claimed wide authority to use military force so long as it serves a vague “national interest.” We can see echoes of this in the Trump administration’s insistence that the small Venezuelan boat blown up by the U.S. military posed an “immediate threat to the United States,” that the strike complied with the laws of war, and was “in defense of vital U.S. national interests.”

Commentators are entirely correct to denounce these assertions of legal authority. But policymakers have spent more than two decades accepting a war paradigm against whomever presidents determine to be “terrorist,” making it politically and legally all the more difficult to push back against what the Trump administration is doing now.

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Taking the Constitution Seriously

Last week, the President of the United States did not take the Constitution seriously. He ordered the murders of 11 people who were riding in a speedboat in the Caribbean Sea around 1,300 miles from the U.S.

Afterward he said he did so because he believed that they were members of a “narco-terrorist gang” and were delivering illegal drugs to America. He also did so, he said, as a “message” to other drug dealers who should fear a similar fate.

The boat had no ability to reach the U.S. According to the former head of drug interdiction for the Department of Justice, this so-called boat gang is not known for trafficking in illegal drugs. The crimes that the president said these folks committed did not occur in the U.S., and if they had, do not permit the imposition of the death penalty.

He offered no evidence to support his claims and didn’t even suggest that the riders in the boat posed a threat to the American military personnel who killed them. He couldn’t say if anyone in the boat was an American.

When he was asked for the legal authority for these killings, President Donald Trump replied that these folks were waging war on the U.S., and, because he is the president of the United States, he can do as he wishes to them.

These are constitutionally ignorant, morally repugnant, profoundly erroneous responses from a person who has taken an oath to uphold the Constitution.

Here is the backstory.

When British monarchs wanted to dispose of inconvenient adversaries, they often accused them of vague crimes because they were able to define the crime however they saw fit. St. Thomas More, Henry VIII’s former Lord Chancellor, was executed for his silence. The monarch’s target was given a quick trial and then often a slow and excruciating public death – to send a message.

Mindful of the tyrannical impulses of monarchs and familiar with British history, even personally aware of folks in the colonies charged with crimes in London — where they had never been — and transported there for prosecution, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, the Founding Fathers most responsible for crystallizing the American ethos of natural rights and due process, crafted founding documents that articulated condemnations and prohibitions of tyranny and tyrannical behavior here.

Thus, Jefferson’s words in the Declaration of Independence characterize human rights as the gift of the Creator, which cannot be taken away by executive decree or legislative enactment – ut only by a jury verdict.

And Madison’s words in the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment declare that “no person shall be… deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” The use of the word “person” makes it obvious that due process applies to all human beings.

Due process requires a fair jury trial, with counsel and the opportunity for confrontation of witnesses and evidence produced by the government. It also requires proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty to a neutral jury, not to the accuser. And it requires conviction prior to the imposition of a legislatively prescribed penalty.

This was novel and radical in 1791, when the Bill of Rights was ratified, but it is neither novel nor radical today. Today, due process is the foundation of American law. It is what lawyers call black-letter law: Those in government are expected to know it and understand it and abide by it.

Until now.

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Ryan Routh, DOJ Offer Opening Arguments in Trump Assassination Attempt Trial

The trial of Ryan Wesley Routh, who is charged with the Sept. 15, 2024, attempted assassination of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, has begun in Florida amid growing concerns about politically motivated violence in the United States.

Routh, who is representing himself, and Assistant U.S. Attorney John Shipley offered opening arguments on Sept. 11 before hearing from a Secret Service agent, who testified that he confronted Routh at Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida, in September 2024, just weeks before the presidential election.

Shipley’s opening argument laid out his findings regarding Routh’s preparations for the alleged assassination attempt, including allegedly traveling to Florida, using various aliases, using encrypted communications, and purchasing a firearm. The case, he said, is not about whether the jury likes Trump or not but whether an attempt was made on Trump’s life.

“[Routh] wanted to make sure the people of this country could not reelect [Trump],” he said.

Opening arguments began nearly a year after the incident on Sept. 15, 2024, and just a day after the assassination of conservative commentator and Trump ally Charlie Kirk. It followed a lengthy pretrial period in which Routh decided to represent himself and submitted bizarre court documents, such as one requesting to subpoena Trump and suggesting a golf match with the president that would end with either Routh dying or becoming president himself. Jury selection took place earlier in the week.

On Sept. 11, Routh, wearing a gray blazer, white shirt, and tie, could be seen smiling often in the relatively small courtroom. According to his indictment, among other things, he has been charged with an attempted assassination of a presidential candidate and faces years in prison. In 2024, he pleaded not guilty.

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Trump administration threatens crackdown on foreigners who ‘make light’ of Charlie Kirk assassination

On X, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau stated that the U.S. will respond to foreign nationals within its borders who express support for or downplay the assassination of Charlie Kirk on social media. 

Specifically, ‘praising, rationalizing, or making light of’ Kirk’s assassination on social media.’

‘In light of yesterday’s horrific assassination of a leading political figure, I want to underscore that foreigners who glorify violence and hatred are not welcome visitors to our country,’ Landau wrote on X. 

Landau added, ‘I have been disgusted to see some on social media praising, rationalizing, or making light of the event, and have directed our consular officials to undertake appropriate action. Please feel free to bring such comments by foreigners to my attention so that the @StateDept can protect the American people.’ 

Landau responded to a comment asking how people could flag these individuals. He responded saying he will direct consular officials to monitor the comments to his post. 

Landau didn’t specify which groups fall under the term ‘foreigners,’ nor did he detail what form the response might take—such as visa denials or deportation.

Other activists and outspoken conservative commentators commented on the X post, showing receipts of people calling for their own assassinations, expressing fear.

In light of Kirk’s traumatic death, Vice President JD Vance will visit Salt Lake City, Utah, to offer condolences to the family of Charlie Kirk. The Second Lady will reportedly also join him on this trip. 

This marks a change from his original plan to travel to New York City to commemorate the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, according to an administration official familiar with his schedule. 

Some public officials and leaders are also cancelling their events, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., who was supposed to have an event in North Carolina this weekend. 

The president also honoring Kirk this morning, bestowing the Presidential Medal of Freedom to the owner of Turning-Point USA, speaking at the Pentagon. The day for the award ceremony has not been announced yet. 

At the event, the president, sounding choked-up and solemn, said he is still shocked by the horror of his assassination, all the while highlighting his influence on the conservative political landscape.

The President has ordered all American flags to be lowered to half-staff until Sunday evening at 6pm EST in honor of Kirk.

The conservative commentator, 31, was hit by a single bullet while speaking to a crowd at the public university in Orem at lunchtime on Wednesday after speaking for about 20 minutes.

The father-of-two, known for his fierce MAGA views and combative debates with college kids across the country, collapsed immediately after being hit in the neck by a single shot from about 200 yards.

Kirk was answering a question about mass shootings seconds before he was struck. He was rushed to hospital in a critical condition, but was declared dead two-and-half hours later.

The killer is still on the loose with a major manhunt by the FBI and Utah police underway.

Speaker Mike Johnson held a moment of silence for Kirk on the chamber floor as questions circulated about whether the father of two was alive. 

Daily Mail reached out to the State Department on this story. 

A State Department Spokesperson tells Daily Mail, ‘This Administration does not believe that the United States should grant visas to persons whose presences in our country does not align with U.S. national security interests.’ 

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By bombing Doha, Israel once again undermined America’s credibility and standing

President Donald Trump told reporters outside a Washington restaurant this evening that he is deeply displeased with Israel’s bombardment of Qatar, a close U.S. partner in the Persian Gulf that, at Washington’s request, has hosted Hamas’s political leadership since 2012.

“I am not thrilled about it. I am not thrilled about the whole situation,” Trump said, denying that Israel had given him advance notice. “I was very unhappy about it, very unhappy about every aspect of it,” he continued. “We’ve got to get the hostages back. But I was very unhappy with the way that went down.”

Trump may indeed be upset, but the Israeli Prime Minister is casting him in the same light as Biden: issuing indignant statements over Israeli actions that blatantly undermine U.S. interests, actions that almost certainly could not have occurred without Washington’s tacit consent, while offering no hint that Israel will face consequences for allegedly defying the United States.

To make matters worse, Qatar’s foreign minister revealed that Washington’s so-called warning came not before the Israeli strike, but only after Doha was already under fire.

“The attack happened at 3:46,” Sheikh Mohammed bin Jassim Al Thani said. “The first call we had from an American official was at 3:56 — which is 10 minutes after the attack.”

Whether Washington knew of Israel’s war plans, colluded in them, or whether Trump is truthful in claiming ignorance, the outcome is the same: Israel has dealt a severe blow to American credibility.

What value does an American security umbrella—or even the hosting of a U.S. base—hold if the United States either conspires in an attack against you, or proves unwilling or unable to prevent one?

That is the question now confronting every U.S. partner in the Persian Gulf, all of whom have staked their survival on American protection. Given how Washington has stripped away every meaningful constraint on Israel since October 7, 2023, their leaders should have known this day was inevitable.

Personally, I do not believe the United States should extend security guarantees—implicit or explicit—to any state in the Middle East. The region is no longer vital to U.S. interests, and America is already dangerously overextended. Existing commitments should be reassessed and, where necessary, rolled back. But this must be done deliberately and on Washington’s terms—not sabotaged by Israel—because the point of the exercise goal is to strengthen the credibility of America’s essential commitments, not to erode U.S. credibility across the board.

Adding insult to injury, Israel has undercut not only the credibility of America’s security guarantees but also its diplomatic standing. This marks the second time this year that Israel has exploited the cover of U.S.-led diplomacy to launch unlawful military action—the first being its strike on Iran in the midst of nuclear talks in June.

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Trump Calls His Drone Strike on an Alleged Drug Boat ‘Self-Defense.’ It Looks More Like Murder.

Last week, President Donald Trump ordered a drone strike that sank a speedboat in the Caribbean Sea, killing all 11 people on board. Trump described the targets as members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua who were “at sea in International waters transporting illegal narcotics, heading to the United States.” Although the men could have been intercepted and arrested, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters, the president decided their summary execution was appropriate as a deterrent to drug trafficking.

On Wednesday, The New York Times, citing unnamed “American officials familiar with the matter,” reported that the boat “appeared to have turned around before the attack started because the people onboard had apparently spotted a military aircraft stalking it.” That detail further complicates the already dubious legal and moral rationales for this unprecedented use of the U.S. military to kill criminal suspects.

The attack “crossed a fundamental line the Department of Defense has been resolutely committed to upholding for many decades—namely, that (except in rare and extreme circumstances not present here) the military must not use lethal force against civilians, even if they are alleged, or even known, to be violating the law,” Georgetown law professor Marty Lederman notes in a Just Security essay. Lederman adds that the September 2 drone strike “appears to have violated” the executive order prohibiting assassination and arguably qualifies as murder under federal law and the Uniform Code of Criminal Justice.

New York University law professor Ryan Goodman, a former Defense Department lawyer, agrees. “It’s difficult to imagine how any lawyers inside the Pentagon could have arrived at a conclusion that this was legal,” he told the Times last week, “rather than the very definition of murder under international law rules that the Defense Department has long accepted.”

As Trump told it, the attack was justified because Tren de Aragua is “a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, operating under the control of [Venezuelan President] Nicolas Maduro, responsible for mass murder, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, and acts of violence and terror across the United States and Western Hemisphere.” He said the strike was meant to “serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America.”

Drug cartels have “wrought devastating consequences on American communities for decades, causing the deaths of tens of thousands of United States citizens each year and threatening our national security and foreign policy interests both at home and abroad,” Trump said in a September 4 letter to Congress. “We have now reached a critical point where we must meet this threat to our citizens and our most vital national interests with United States military force in self-defense.”

U.S. forces therefore “struck a vessel” that “was assessed to be affiliated with a designated terrorist organization and to be engaged in illicit drug trafficking activities,” Trump explained. “I directed these actions consistent with my responsibility to protect Americans and United States interests abroad and in furtherance of United States national security and foreign policy interests, pursuant to my constitutional authority as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive to conduct United States foreign relations.”

Trump says the men whose deaths he ordered were “assessed” to be affiliated with Tren de Aragua. They also were “assessed” to be engaged in drug trafficking. Without knowing the basis for those assessments, we cannot say how accurate they were. Last week, Trump joked about the potential for deadly errors: “I think anybody that saw that is going to say, ‘I’ll take a pass.’ I don’t even know about fishermen. They may say, ‘I’m not getting on the boat. I’m not going to take a chance.'” Conveniently for Trump, summary execution avoids any need to present evidence, let alone meet the requirements of due process.

“Killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military,” Vice President J.D. Vance declared in an X post on Saturday. When a commenter observed that “killing the citizens of another nation who are civilians without any due process is called a war crime,” Vance replied, “I don’t give a shit what you call it.”

That was too much for Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.). “Did he ever read To Kill a Mockingbird?” Paul wondered. “Did he ever wonder what might happen if the accused were immediately executed without trial or representation? What a despicable and thoughtless sentiment it is to glorify killing someone without a trial.”

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Trump cracks down on drug ads on TV, social media that he says mislead people

President Trump went after pharmaceutical companies Tuesday by accusing them of intentionally concealing dangerous side effects when marketing their drugs on TV and social media.

He sent roughly 100 cease and desist letters and thousands of warning letters to companies about their advertising.

He also granted broad authority to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary to rein in the companies and their social media influencers.

Among the measures pharmaceutical companies can take are increasing the amount of information about risks associated with the medicine in advertisements and actions to “ensure truthful and non-misleading information in direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertisements

The president hardened the government’s stance against Big Pharma with a proclamation he signed Tuesday in the Oval Office. He did not add new enforcement action but ordered the government to more stringently ramp up enforcement of existing regulations covering drug commercials.

“Our goal is to ensure that patients have proper information about drugs that have potential harms,” a senior administration official said. “I think people are seeing ads sometimes not even realizing that they’re pharmaceutical ads.”

The White House declined to say which companies or influencers would receive the letters, but the official referenced a weight loss drug commercial that ran during the Super Bowl and drew the ire of senators on both sides of the aisle.

Hims & Hers, a telehealth company, faced scrutiny from Sens. Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, and Roger Marshall, Kansas Republican, for an ad promoting the active ingredient in the weight loss drug Ozempic, but not the drug itself. The two senators said the TV ad “risks misleading patients by omitting any safety or side effect information.”

Under Federal Trade Commission guidelines, Hims & Hers did not have to provide side effect information because it did not advertise a specific drug or medication. Instead, it urged consumers to consult with a doctor, which was consistent with FTC regulations.

Drug advertising aimed at consumers has exploded since the FDA relaxed its policies in 1997. The loosening of restrictions allowed pharmaceutical companies to boast of health claims while disclosing only a drug’s “most important” health risks. Before the policy change, drug companies had to disclose a lengthy list of possible side effects or avoid identifying the purpose of the drug in the first place.

However, enforcement of those guidelines has slacked in recent years. The FDA typically sends roughly 100 letters yearly, taking drug companies to task for their advertising. However, in 2023, the FDA sent only one such letter and did not send any last year, according to the White House.

“There are also regulations that speak very clearly that an ad must present a fair balance of information … but despite these regulations, enforcement has been increasingly lax over recent years [compared with] in the past when ads were far less frequent,” the official said.

Prescription drug ads account for hundreds of billions of dollars in advertising dollars spent each year. Through this summer, prescription drug brands accounted for 24.4% of ad minutes across evening news programs on NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox News, MSNBC and CNN, according to data from iSpot, which tracks television advertising.

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Trump Calls for Quick Trial and DEATH for “ANIMAL” who Murdered Irina Zarutzka – “There Can be No Other Option!”

President Trump made a Truth Social post on Wednesday morning, calling for the death penalty for Decarlos Brown Jr., a black man who murdered murdered 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska in what was likely a hate crime. 

The Trump Administration is seeking either life in prison or death for the deranged murderer after federally charging him federally for the murder.

“There can be no other option,” but death, Trump said this morning.

Trump also addressed the senseless murder from the Oval Office on Tuesday, vowing to make America safe again and calling out radical left judges, politicians, and activists for promoting the “depraved criminal element of violent repeat offenders.”

“We have to respond with force and strength. We have to be vicious, just like they are. It’s the only thing they understand,” the President said.

WATCH:

Trump: For far too long, Americans have been forced to put up with Democrat run cities that set loose savage, bloodthirsty criminals to prey on innocent people, really, very, very innocent people. In every place they control, radical left judges, politicians, and activists, they’ve adopted a policy of catch and release for thugs and killers. In Charlotte, North Carolina, we saw the results of these policies when a 23-year-old woman, who came here from Ukraine met her bloody end on a public train. And here’s a picture of it. This is the picture of it. And this is a picture of the woman, a beautiful young girl that never had problems in life, with a magnificent future in this country.

And now she’s dead. She was slaughtered by a deranged monster who was roaming free after 14 prior arrests. We cannot allow a depraved criminal element of violent repeat offenders to continue spreading destruction and death throughout our country. We have to respond with force and strength. We have to be vicious, just like they are. It’s the only thing they understand. 24 of the top 25 most dangerous cities in America are run by Democrat mayors. 50 people were murdered in Chicago in recent weeks, with hundreds being shot. And it’s time to stop this madness. The people of our country need to insist on protection, safety, law, and order.

We have proven that it can be done because we did it right here in DC, District of Columbia. The capital of America was a blood thirsty, horrible, dangerous place, one of the worst, and now it’s a crime free city, and we’re going to keep it that way. It can be done. It can happen fast. All we want is— please, Mr. President, we need help. Chicago needs help. Other cities need help. We’ll do what has to be done, because we’re going to make America safe again, and that includes our big cities. We’re going to make those cities, safe. Thank you.

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Tokenization: Trump Administration Moves To Create Digital ID To Facilitate Digital Dollar And Tokenized Assets In Loss Of Financial Freedom

Following the creation of a digital dollar framework in July, the Trump administration is now creating the tools needed to facilitate those digital dollars, also referred to as stablecoins and tokenized asset deposits, as it seeks to create a nationally approved digital ID system for the U.S. that can safely store Americans’ tokenized ‘money’ and digital assets.

Digital ID is tantamount, according to globalist institutions. In 2023, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) published1 a framework for member nations to pattern their digital ID around. According to their blog post2, the plans are “an integral part of Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),” adding, “SDG Target 16.9, which aims to “provide legal identity for all, including birth registration,” underscores the widespread significance of civil registration in societies globally.”

This framework builds off a report that was published by the UN in May of that year, called “Our Common Agenda,”3 that discussed “the vision for the future,” which involves linking digital IDs to banking. The UN says the implementation of digital IDs will also help to fulfil the broader goal of SDG1, No Poverty.

“Digital IDs linked with bank or mobile money accounts can improve the delivery of social protection coverage and serve to better reach eligible beneficiaries. Digital technologies may help to reduce leakage, errors and costs in the design of social protection programmes.”

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