Donald Trump thread v2.0

[Bobref]

Let me make it clear: I don’t care about any of this. I was just answering a legal question.

[Muda69]

[swordfish]

1 hour ago, Bobref said:

Let me make it clear: I don’t care about any of this. I was just answering a legal question.

Duly noted.....Was there a question asked?  Muda and I were just kinda opining.......

[Bobref]

2 hours ago, swordfish said:

Duly noted.....Was there a question asked?  Muda and I were just kinda opining.......

Muda said that using the military “should be illegal.” I was supplying information responsive to the question implicit in his “opining.”

[temptation]

4 hours ago, Muda69 said:

Spot on.

I’ll just leave this here…

Obama deported 3.2 million people during his first term.

Trump 2.0 million.

Carry on.

[swordfish]

Rep Gaetz will not be down for breakfast.......Will he return to congress or just go away?

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/11/21/matt-gaetz-withdraws-consideration-attorney-general/76480095007/

WASHINGTON – Former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., withdrew his nomination to be President-elect Donald Trump's attorney general over continuing allegations of sexual misconduct.

"It is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance Transition," Gaetz wrote on Thursday in a post on X, formerly Twitter. "There is no time to waste on a needlessly protracted Washington scuffle, thus I'll be withdrawing my name from consideration to serve as Attorney General."

The GOP will control the U.S. Senate 53-47 next year, but it became apparent there were not enough Republicans willing to support Trump's controversial nominee.

Gaetz said he had "excellent meetings" with senators Wednesday and said the "momentum was strong" for his candidacy.

But Gaetz's controversial bid to lead the Department of Justice was marked by allegations of sex with a minor and drug use.

Asked about Gaetz's withdrawal, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell declined to speak up for Trump's choice: "I think that was appropriate," he said.

It's unclear whether Gaetz, who was reelected, will retake his spot in the House in January when his next term was set to begin.

 

[swordfish]

It would appear that President Elect Trump may be more of a Libertarian than a Republican......

SF is enjoying seeing the left and even some of the establishment republicans squirm as Trump's picks for top positions are taking shape.  I especially like his pick of Kash Patel to head the FBI.  It is obvious the DOJ has been weaponized on many fronts - none more obvious than the last 7 1/2 years against Trump.  This needs to end and impartiality needs to be restored.  

Anyone the press and the left tends to hate the most seems to get my attention.

[temptation]

2 hours ago, swordfish said:

It would appear that President Elect Trump may be more of a Libertarian than a Republican......

SF is enjoying seeing the left and even some of the establishment republicans squirm as Trump's picks for top positions are taking shape.  I especially like his pick of Kash Patel to head the FBI.  It is obvious the DOJ has been weaponized on many fronts - none more obvious than the last 7 1/2 years against Trump.  This needs to end and impartiality needs to be restored.  

Anyone the press and the left tends to hate the most seems to get my attention.

Yep.

Also, Scott Jennings is a national treasure.

Watching this guy dismantle CNN “journalists” has been appointment viewing TV.

[swordfish]

If this is indeed true - Liberals everywhere are surely lamenting........

https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/11/politics/trump-time-magazine-person-of-the-year/index.html

CNN — 

Donald Trump once publicly speculated that Time would never name him the news magazine’s “Person of the Year.”

Now, the honor will be bestowed on him twice.

Time will name Trump as this year’s choice on Thursday, recognizing the president-elect as the individual or group deemed to have wielded the greatest influence on global affairs “for good or for ill.” To celebrate the unveiling of the magazine cover, Trump will ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange, a source familiar with the matter told CNN. Trump sat for a wide-ranging interview with the magazine last month.

Time declined to comment.

Trump’s 2024 selection mirrors his first recognition in 2016, when Time named him Person of the Year after his unexpected rise to the presidency. This time, the unveiling caps a remarkable comeback and a resurgence that has the potential to upend modern American politics.

Despite the magazine’s dwindling circulation, Time’s Person of the Year remains an annual cultural touchstone and the distinction has become an obsession of sorts for Trump throughout the years.

[temptation]

5 hours ago, swordfish said:

If this is indeed true - Liberals everywhere are surely lamenting........

https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/11/politics/trump-time-magazine-person-of-the-year/index.html

CNN — 

Donald Trump once publicly speculated that Time would never name him the news magazine’s “Person of the Year.”

Now, the honor will be bestowed on him twice.

Time will name Trump as this year’s choice on Thursday, recognizing the president-elect as the individual or group deemed to have wielded the greatest influence on global affairs “for good or for ill.” To celebrate the unveiling of the magazine cover, Trump will ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange, a source familiar with the matter told CNN. Trump sat for a wide-ranging interview with the magazine last month.

Time declined to comment.

Trump’s 2024 selection mirrors his first recognition in 2016, when Time named him Person of the Year after his unexpected rise to the presidency. This time, the unveiling caps a remarkable comeback and a resurgence that has the potential to upend modern American politics.

Despite the magazine’s dwindling circulation, Time’s Person of the Year remains an annual cultural touchstone and the distinction has become an obsession of sorts for Trump throughout the years.

From Hitler to this in just over 5 weeks.

Sounds like a Disney movie.

[swordfish]

It's official.  

https://time.com/7200212/person-of-the-year-2024-donald-trump/

 

[Muda69]

[swordfish]

After the NY AG ran on "getting Trump", the DA bragged about the way they they convoluted laws well past the statute of limitations, and conspired to create a felony out of a misdemeanor by utilizing the most liberal judge they could find in NYC - Finally the defense can actually begin the appeal of this travesty......a conviction which WILL be overturned......

https://nypost.com/2025/01/10/us-news/donald-trump-gets-no-penalty-in-hush-money-case/

A Manhattan judge sentenced Donald Trump to no penalty Friday on his conviction for concealing a “hush money” payoff that hid a sex scandal from voters — making the president-elect the first person convicted of a felony to assume the White House.

Justice Juan Merchan — who oversaw a trial in which jurors heard evidence that Trump paid off porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal to keep them quiet about alleged trysts — sentenced the Queens native to an “unconditional discharge.”

“Sir, I wish you Godspeed as you assume a second term in office,” Merchan said.

The decision means the president-elect will not face any jail time, probation, or fines.

The sentencing, which Trump, 78, attended remotely on video — appearing on screen from Florida in front of two American flags — crystallizes the soon-to-be 47th commander-in-chief’s historic distinction of being the only US president ever to be convicted of felony criminal charges.

However, it also allows him to finally appeal the guilty verdict he claims stemmed from a political “witch hunt.”

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg — who has gloated about becoming the first prosecutor to put an American president on trial — attended the hearing, sitting in the second row.

Ahead of the sentencing, Trump blasted the case as an “injustice” and reiterated his claims it was all a “witch hunt.”

“This is a case that should have never been brought, it’s an injustice, of justice,” he railed.

[swordfish]

Judge is playing CYOA.

https://nypost.com/2025/01/10/opinion/judge-merchan-tries-to-defend-himself-after-trump-sentencing-but-he-and-bragg-are-responsible-for-this-monster/

On Friday, the sentencing of President-elect Donald Trump saw one of the most impassioned defense arguments given at such a hearing in years … from the judge himself.

Acting Justice Juan Merchan admitted that the case was “unique and remarkable” but insisted that “once the courtroom doors were closed, the trial itself was no more special, unique, and extraordinary than the other 32 cases in this courthouse.”

If so, that is a damning indictment of the entire New York court system. Merchan allowed a dead misdemeanor to be resuscitated by allowing Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to effectively prosecute declined federal offenses.

He allowed a jury to convict Trump without any agreement, let alone unanimity, on what actually occurred in the case.

Merchan ruled that the jury did not have to agree on why Trump committed an alleged offense in describing settlement costs as legal costs.

Neither the defendant nor the public will ever know what the jury ultimately found in its verdict.

I once described this case as a legal Frankenstein: “It is the ultimate gravedigger charge, where Bragg unearthed a case from 2016 and, through a series of novel steps, is seeking to bring it back to life … Bragg is combining parts from both state and federal codes.”

Even liberal legal experts have denounced the case and Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) recently called it total “bulls–t.”

Now, Merchan seemed quick to assure this Frankenstein case was just like any other creature of the court. It did not matter that it was stitched together from dead cases and zapped into life through lawfare.

Merchan knows that there is a fair chance this monstrosity will finally die on appeal, and he was making the case for his own conduct.

The verdict, however, is likely to last far longer than the Trump verdict. It is a judgment against not just Merchan but the New York legal system, which allowed itself to be weaponized against political opponents.

Trump can now appeal the case as a whole. Prior appeals in the New York court system were unsuccessful, and hopes are low that the system will redeem itself.

However, Trump can eventually escape the vortex of the New York court system in search of jurists willing to see beyond the rage and bring reason to this case.

Merchan’s monster will now go on the road and work its way back to the Supreme Court. Outside of New York, this freak attraction will likely be viewed as less thrilling than chilling.

Lawfare is that monster. It threatens us all, even those who hate Trump and his supporters. Once released, it spreads panic among the public, which can no longer rely on the guarantees of blind and fair justice.

That includes businesses that view this case and the equally absurd civil case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James as creating a dangerous and even lawless environment. Many are saying “There but for the grace of God go I” in a system that allows for selective prosecution.

Many will be blamed as the creators of this monster but few will escape that blame, including Merchan himself.

[swordfish]

When thoughtfully explained, suddenly President-Elect Trump's benign "Greenland" and "Panama Canal" comments (answering precisely aimed questions) begin to make sense doesn't it......

The US isn't going to "annex Canada", "take Greenland from Denmark by force" or "take over the Panama Canal" but our President needs to be wary of potential threats and this happens to be Trump's way of letting them know we're watching and ready to move when needed......

Why do you think Hamas seems to be suddenly coming to terms with Israel one week before inauguration?  Maybe the "Hell to pay" warning is having it's intended result......

https://nypost.com/2025/01/12/opinion/trumps-greenland-push-about-growing-china-threat/

It’s about China, stupid.

President-elect Trump’s answer to an ‘I gotcha’ question is capturing all of the headlines – his refusal to rule out military force in the Panama Canal – but many in the media are missing its intended messaging.

Trump and his incoming national security team are putting Chinese President Xi Jinping on notice.

They are essentially telling him and the rest of the world – we see what Beijing is aiming to economically and militarily achieve in the Western hemisphere.

Canada, Greenland, the Panama Canal and even the Drake Passage at the End of the World are all interconnected. China is their common denominator.

This isn’t about U.S. military conquests of old. Rather, it is solely about telling Xi “hands off!” It is the 21^st century version of the Monroe Doctrine – and it is coming at a time when China is increasingly asserting itself on the global stage.

Beijing is working to strangle economically and militarily U.S. maritime and naval sea routes by controlling key choke points and naval transit routes. 

Trump’s second term was always going to be more China centric. Xi’s rapidly expanding People’s Liberation Army will be a principal driving factor when his administration rewrites the National Security Strategy as mandated by the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986.

As is his custom, Trump is arguing the case against Beijing in largely economic terms. However, the impetus for his argument is primarily driven by China and its dual track approach to building a global military projection force.

The key word is “dual.” China’s $1 trillion and growing Belt and Road Initiative is economic in construct. However, it is also an alarming modern-day Trojan Horse that is building the infrastructure that will house an increasingly potent global Chinese military presence.

We have seen evidence of this in play. China’s economic investment in Africa led to the opening in 2018 of its first overseas military base in Djibouti and only several miles away from Camp Lemonnier – the U.S. base in the Horn of Africa.

Initially this was about Beijing gaining access to raw materials and then securing sea routes back to mainland China by securing deep water seaports, building artificial islands and deploying military forces to secure them.

Now it is also about Xi threatening vital Western trade routes in the Gulf of Aden and the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait.

Artful or not, Trump’s warnings about the Panama Canal are timely. China is aspiring to economically control the canal. The Landbridge Group, a Chinese company, alongside “Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison Holdings, now operate ports at both ends of the canal.”

Greenland may appear to most Americans to be an isolated concern; yet the Danish territory will play an increasingly vital role in U.S. national security in the decades ahead.

Global warming is opening up the 3,500-mile Northern Sea Route that extends from the Bering Sea separating Alaska and Siberia to the Barents and Kara Seas north of Murmansk, Russia. 

Aside from NORAD, the U.S. is presently ill-prepared to defend against any Russian and Chinese militarization of the Arctic. By example, the U.S. Navy only has two icebreakers to cover the competing Northwest Passage in Canada.

Currently, the threat is largely Russian. But, in 2018, China declared itself a “Near Arctic State” and launched the “Polar Silk Road” – an Arctic version of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative in partnership with Moscow.

Left unspoken for now by Trump, China’s other ambition lies at the tip of South America in Chile. Retired U.S. Army Gen. Laura Richardson, the former commander of SOUTHCOM, warned Congress in March 2023, that Beijing is attempting to “secure the rights to build dual-use maritime installations near the southern port city of Ushuaia.”

If that happens, China could militarily dominate the Strait of Magellan, Drake Passage and Antarctica in the not-so-distant future. It would also mean that Beijing could strategically check or to block at will U.S. maritime and naval transiting of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. 

We only need to consider Taipei and Manila to know that Xi is willing to play that card. The PLA frequently encircles Taiwan by sea and air to practice cutting its sea trade routes and the PLA Navy routinely harasses Filipino shipping. 

China is challenging us on our own turf. Do we have the determined resolve as a nation to confront them?

 

[swordfish]

On 1/13/2025 at 2:05 PM, swordfish said:

Why do you think Hamas seems to be suddenly coming to terms with Israel one week before inauguration?  Maybe the "Hell to pay" warning is having it's intended result......

Welp - I guess so......

[swordfish]

The official portrait of 47......Looks a little ticked.....

https://nypost.com/2025/01/16/us-news/trump-vance-official-portraits-released-ahead-of-inauguration-day/

[swordfish]

In other words - "Get the F out of DC".

https://nypost.com/2025/01/19/us-news/trump-to-suspend-security-clearances-of-51-former-cia-contractors-who-falsely-implied-hunter-biden-laptop-was-russian-fake/

Trump to suspend security clearances of 51 intelligence officials who falsely implied Hunter Biden laptop was Russian fake

President-elect Donald Trump, on Day 1, plans to suspend security clearances of the 51 intelligence officials who claimed reporting tied to Hunter Biden’s laptop had “the classic earmarks” of Russian disinformation ahead of the 2020 election, according to a report.

Trump will repeal the clearances of the so-called “Spies Who Lie” as part of a flurry of executive orders he’s expected to sign on his first day back in the Oval Office, Fox News reported, citing a senior administration official familiar with the matter.

 

[swordfish]

Well, guess what - This is what happens if you are the Commandant of the USCG and you don't follow direct orders from the CIC (Commander in Chief) when ordered to aid in border control (The USCG is under the DHS) YOU GET FIRED and replaced by someone that follows orders. That is how the US military works BTW. The acting Commandant is now mobilizing.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-administration-fires-coast-guard-commandant-linda-fagan/

https://maritime-executive.com/article/uscg-surges-assets-to-border-protection-following-trump-s-orders

 

[Muda69]

Trump Is Flat-Out Lying About the 60 Minutes Interview With Harris

https://reason.com/2025/02/06/trump-is-flat-out-lying-about-the-60-minutes-interview-with-harris/

Quote

CBS has finally released the full transcript of the interview with Kamala Harris that 60 Minutes aired on October 7, which provoked a lawsuit that Donald Trump filed against the network a few weeks later. The same interview is also the focus of an investigation by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which has the power to nix a pending merger between Paramount, the network's owner, and Skydance Media by declining to approve the transfer of broadcast licenses.

After the interview aired, Trump, then the Republican presidential nominee facing off against Harris in the 2024 election, described it as "Election Interference," an "UNPRECEDENTED SCANDAL," and "a giant Fake News Scam" that was "totally illegal." By editing the interview to make Harris "look better," he said, CBS had committed an offense so egregious that the FCC should "TAKE AWAY THE CBS LICENSE" (by which he presumably meant the broadcast licenses held by CBS-owned stations). The transcript confirms what you may have suspected: Trump's characterization of the interview is completely bonkers. It is Trump, not CBS, who is perpetrating "a giant Fake News Scam."

It was already clear that the editing of the interview did not constitute consumer fraud, as Trump alleges in his lawsuit, or "broadcast news distortion"—the claim that the FCC is considering. But the transcript also makes it clear, beyond any serious dispute, that CBS did not commit any journalistic sins when it presented an edited version of Harris' response to a question about Israel.

The transcript validates the network's argument that it was engaging in standard journalistic practice by using a more "succinct" segment of Harris' response to the Israel question than the one that was featured in a preview on Face the Nation the day before. And it shows that Trump has not only absurdly exaggerated what happened (as is his wont); he has flagrantly misrepresented the nature of the editing and continues to do so.

"CBS and 60 Minutes defrauded the public by doing something which has never, to this extent, been seen before," Trump averred on X today. "They 100% removed Kamala's horrible election changing answers to questions, and replaced them with completely different, and far better, answers, taken from another part of the interview. This was Election changing 'stuff,' Election Interference and, quite simply, Election Fraud at a level never seen before. CBS should lose its license, and the cheaters at 60 Minutes should all be thrown out, and this disreputable 'NEWS' show should be immediately terminated….This will go down as the biggest Broadcasting SCANDAL in History!!!"

The idea that making Harris seem a bit more cogent (or less "CRAZY" and "DUMB," as Trump put it in October) could have been "election changing" was always silly, all the more so in light of Trump's victory, which was by no means close in the Electoral College. But Trump is simply lying when he says 60 Minutes "replaced" Harris' answer with a "completely different" answer "taken from another part of the interview."

When correspondent Bill Whitaker suggested that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was "not listening" to the Biden administration's concerns about the war in Gaza and had "rebuffed just about all of your administration's entreaties," here is how Harris responded:

Well, Bill, the work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by, or a result of many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region. And we're not going to stop doing that. We are not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.

The Face the Nation promo used the first sentence, while the interview as aired on 60 Minutes used the last sentence. In other words, the latter show's producers were telling the truth when they said they had used the "same question" and the "same answer" but "a different portion of the response."

Harris did not come across as especially forthright, articulate, or intelligent in either version, although the one that 60 Minutes showed was a little more concise. This is what Trump thinks (or claims to think) amounted to "a giant Fake News Scam" and "the biggest Broadcasting SCANDAL in History."

After Trump sued CBS, the network insisted that "the interview was not doctored" and noted that 60 Minutes "did not hide any part of Vice President Kamala Harris's answer to the question at issue." After all, Trump was aware of this supposed "SCANDAL" only because CBS aired both parts of her response. The full transcript removes any doubt about who is telling the truth in this case and who is just making shit up.

Trump's lawsuit claims that CBS "cross[ed] the line from the exercise of judgment in reporting to deceitful, deceptive manipulation of news." Even if that were true, it would not qualify as consumer fraud under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, as the lawsuit asserts, for reasons I explained in detail last week. Trump did not suffer any cognizable damages under that statute, let alone damages amounting to "at least" $10 billion, as he risibly claims.

In fact, however, CBS did not engage in "deceitful, deceptive manipulation of news," which means it cannot possibly be guilty of broadcast news distortion, which requires "evidence showing that the broadcast news report was deliberately intended to mislead viewers or listeners." When the FCC rejected that claim last month, Jessica Rosenworcel, its Biden-appointed chairwoman, rightly said "the FCC should not be the President's speech police" or "journalism's censor-in-chief." But her Trump-appointed replacement, Brendan Carr, whose avowed dedication to freedom of speech and freedom of the press is curiously selective, revived the complaint and has indicated that it will figure in the FCC's review of the deal between Paramount and Skydance.

Carr's interest in reconsidering the frivolous complaint against CBS in this context is a chilling illustration of how executive power can be abused in service of the president's personal vendettas. It helps explain why Paramount is keen to appease Trump by settling his laughable lawsuit, which CBS accurately described as "completely without merit."

The FCC complaint is equally groundless. As Nathan Simington, another Trump-appointed FCC commissioner, noted in October, "broadcast news distortion is an extraordinarily narrow complaint category." He added that "CBS could easily remove the predicate for any further discussion by releasing the transcript" of the Harris interview. Carr himself said something similar around the same time. "In my view," he told Glenn Beck, "the best way forward" would be to "release the transcript," which would mean "there's no reason to have this before the FCC."

Now that CBS has released the transcript, it should be obvious to Carr that 60 Minutes did nothing close to intentional misrepresentation or deliberate distortion of the news. But in truth, there was "no reason to have this before the FCC" at all. Based on the constitutionally dubious distinction between broadcast journalism and journalism in every other medium, the commission is second-guessing editorial judgments that are indisputably protected by the First Amendment, even when they are sloppy, mistaken, irresponsible, or unethical—none of which is true in this case.

The FCC is scrutinizing CBS at the behest of a vindictive president who reflexively alleges nonexistent torts, crimes, or regulatory violations based on news coverage he views as unfair to him. Trump's petty, wildly hyperbolic grievances do not deserve a respectful hearing from any rational person, let alone from a government agency with the power to punish news outlets for journalism that irks him.

Trump is the world's biggest narcissist,  bar none.

[Muda69]

Why They Really Hate Elon Musk: https://mises.org/mises-wire/why-they-really-hate-elon-musk

Quote

As Elon Musk continues to take over and wind down parts of the federal bureaucracy, establishment figures from across media and politics are growing increasingly resentful of the tech entrepreneur. If you read a national newspaper, turn on a major news channel, or tune into one of the establishment’s many late-night “satire” shows, you’re bound to see Musk getting mocked and criticized relentlessly.

He’s framed as a rich person using government to get even richer and as a political operative willing to skirt rules and norms to get what he wants. Many establishment types also like to remind their audience Musk is “unelected” at any chance they get—a not-so-subtle suggestion that the actions he’s taking in DC right now are illegitimate.

You’ll also hear Musk and his team criticized for conducting some of their work in secret. And then there’s, of course, the swipe that’s become popular in the wake of his gutting of USAID: that he is willing to hurt poor people to make himself better off.

Setting aside the many flaws and inaccuracies with these characterizations of Elon Musk, it’s worth noting that all of them apply even more accurately to the American political establishment itself.

To start, “rich people using the government to benefit themselves” has defined the American political system for more than a century. As Murray Rothbard laid out in great detail in his book The Progressive Era, the transition from the laissez-faire, hyper-limited government system of the mid-1800s was not driven by the bottom-up plea to protect workers and keep food clean that we were taught about in elementary school. It grew out of the recognition among the heads of industry that they could much more effectively protect their market share from smaller competitors and go on to expand it if they used the power of government for their own benefit. In other words, the key to staying on top switched from innovating to lobbying.

That started with railroad companies in the late 1800s but quickly grew to include industrial farmers, healthcare providers, and bankers in the early 1900s, followed by weapons companies, Wall Street firms, and many others in the second half of the century.

Today, virtually all the giant corporations that dominate these industries owe their positions to government policies set up in their favor—to the detriment of the American public.

The modern political establishment is defined by their willingness and ability to protect and expand this dynamic. It is laughable to hear them falsely criticize Musk for doing the same thing.

The same goes for his supposed violation of constitutional rules and norms. Many of the loudest establishment voices condemning this behavior were cheering just as loudly as the George Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama administrations launched dozens of undeclared wars, conducted warrantless surveillance, used torture, carried out extrajudicial assassinations on American citizens, and provided aid and comfort to Al Qaeda.

At the very least, these are explicit violations of Article 1, Section 8; Article 3, Section 3; and the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution, as well as Section 2340A of Title 18 of the United States Code.

And during the covid pandemic, the political establishment took the exact same kind of approach they’re now criticizing Musk for conducting. Federal and state governments rushed to close businesses, schools, and churches and prohibit people from attending public gatherings—all without even pretending to care about the constitutional rules and norms they’re now feigning concern about.

Next, the implication that what Musk is doing is illegitimate because he’s unelected is ridiculous. Not only was it made very clear to voters before the election that Musk would do this if Trump won, virtually the entire federal workforce that the establishment is trying to protect from Musk is unelected too. The millions of unelected officials who conduct the bulk of federal government operations were brought on and set to work without even a fraction of the transparency and publicity involved in Trump’s appointment of Elon Musk.

Speaking of transparency, it’s comical that a political class that classifies an estimated fifty million documents a year—ninety percent of which are “probably unnecessary” according to some establishment legal experts—is voicing disgust over Musk’s team’s occasional use of discretion.

Finally, it is appalling to hear the American political establishment criticize Elon Musk for his supposed willingness to hurt the poor and vulnerable to make himself better off. That is essentially all these people have done the entire time they’ve been in power. Over a century of government meddling in crucially important industries has made it harder for the poorest Americans to afford food, education, housing, healthcare services, and medications.

Federal policies have discouraged sensible financial decisions like saving while encouraging riskier investments with politically-connected firms—just as other policies drive Americans to adopt a tragically unhealthy diet to the benefit of well-connected food, healthcare, and drug companies.

And then, of course, there are the wars launched by the political establishment across the Middle East, North Africa, and now Eastern Europe. These wars have raked in trillions of dollars for weapons companies and other contractors. But they have also killed millions of people and destroyed tens of millions of lives across these regions.

Understanding who the political establishment really is and what they have done makes it clear that the principles they are pretending to have when denouncing Elon Musk are fake.

The establishment’s problem with Elon Musk is not that he’s willing to upend norms and test or break rules. They have shown an enthusiastic willingness to do so themselves.

The establishment’s problem with Elon Musk is, put simply, that he is threatening some of their power. And to them, that is unacceptable.

All true.

 

[Muda69]

Trump's pettiness and disdain for the 1st amendment (freedom of the press) knows no bounds:

https://reason.com/2025/02/12/trump-bans-ap-from-oval-office-for-not-saying-gulf-of-america/

Quote

This week, Donald Trump's presidential administration reportedly barred the Associated Press (A.P.) from the Oval Office for not adopting his preferred geographical nomenclature. Unfortunately, the childish squabble could carry major First Amendment implications.

Among dozens of executive actions issued on his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order declaring that the Gulf of Mexico would henceforth be known as the Gulf of America.

Not everybody adopted the change right away. According to its style guide, in an entry published three days into Trump's term, the Associated Press said it would "refer to [the Gulf of Mexico] by its original name while acknowledging the new name Trump has chosen. As a global news agency that disseminates news around the world, the AP must ensure that place names and geography are easily recognizable to all audiences."

This apparently did not sit well with Trump.

"Today we were informed by the White House that if AP did not align its editorial standards with President Donald Trump's executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, AP would be barred from accessing an event in the Oval Office," A.P. Executive Editor Julie Pace said in a February 11 statement. "This afternoon AP's reporter was blocked from attending an executive order signing."

"It is alarming that the Trump administration would punish AP for its independent journalism," Pace added. "Limiting our access to the Oval Office based on the content of AP's speech not only severely impedes the public's access to independent news, it plainly violates the First Amendment."

At a press conference the following day, CNN's Kaitlin Collins asked White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt whether the decision to bar the A.P. over the organization's style guide language was "retaliatory in nature" and set a "precedent that this White House will retaliate against reporters who don't use the language that you guys believe reporters should use."

"If we feel that there are lies being pushed by outlets in this room, we are going to hold those lies accountable," Leavitt replied, "and it is a fact that the body of water off the coast of Louisiana is called the Gulf of America, and I'm not sure why news outlets don't want to call it that, but that is what it is."

As Reason's Eric Boehm noted last month, simply decreeing that the Gulf of Mexico—which bore that name before the Pilgrims landed in what would become Massachusetts—will now be called by a different name does not make it a universally recognized fact. It may be the federal government's position that the name is different, but that has little to no bearing on what other countries call it—even though Leavitt said it was "very important" that news outlets adopt the new name "not just for people here at home, but also for the rest of the world."

The squabble is humorous for how sophomoric it is, with Trump punishing a news outlet for little more than hurting his feelings. "Woke White House bans AP from event over deadnaming the Gulf of Mexico," snarked one social media user.

But as Collins noted, it sets a dangerous precedent that the Trump administration will punish journalists who don't toe the party line.

"Punishing journalists for not adopting state-mandated terminology is an alarming attack on press freedom," the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) said in a statement after the news broke. "That's viewpoint discrimination, and it's unconstitutional. President Trump has the authority to change how the U.S. government refers to the Gulf. But he cannot punish a news organization for using another term."

"In the relationship between the press and the Office of the President, coverage and standards are entirely in the purview of individual organizations," echoed Eugene Daniels, president of the White House Correspondents Association. "The White House cannot dictate how news organizations report the news, nor should it penalize working journalists because it is unhappy with their editors' decisions."

"The level of pettiness displayed by the White House is so incredible that it almost hides the gravity of the situation," added Clayton Weimers, executive director of Reporters Without Borders. "A sitting president is punishing a major news outlet for its constitutionally protected choice of words."

This is not the first time Trump tried to bar reporters from the White House over a petty squabble: In November 2018, during his first term, Trump revoked the press credentials of CNN's Jim Acosta after a heated exchange at a press conference, when Acosta repeatedly pressed Trump on his use of the term invasion to describe an influx of Central American migrants approaching the U.S.–Mexico border.

Acosta was later denied access to the White House, and Trump said he would consider revoking other reporters' access, as well: "You have to treat the White House with respect. You have to treat the presidency with respect."

CNN sued, and Judge Timothy J. Kelly of the District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in its favor, ordering Acosta's access to be reinstated. Kelly noted that while presidents do have the right to decide which outlets can cover the White House, it cannot revoke access without sufficient due process.

In August 2019, the White House suspended Playboy correspondent Brian Karem's credentials for 30 days after he got into a heated argument with right-wing radio host Sebastian Gorka in the White House Rose Garden. Karem similarly sued, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the White House's action violated Karem's right to due process.

 

[Muda69]

Trump’s Revival of Lincoln’s “Colonization” Plan : https://mises.org/mises-wire/trumps-revival-lincolns-colonization-plan

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Now that the US and Israeli military has bombed almost all of Gaza into a smoldering ruin and killed tens or hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, President Trump has proposed getting Jordan and Egypt to house the remaining Palestinians. He has threatened to withdraw US taxpayer “aid” to these countries if they do not accept his proposal. This is essentially a revival of Lincoln’s lifelong dream of deporting or “colonizing” all of the black people out of the United States.

Roy Basler, the editor of The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, wrote that as of 1857 Lincoln had no policy regarding slavery “except the colonization idea which he inherited from Henry Clay.” When he was asked what was to happen to the slaves should they ever be freed he said, “Send them to Liberia, to their own native land.” As president Lincoln held a White House meeting with free black men and implored them to lead by example and resettle in Africa. They wisely declined his offer. He did develop plans to send every last black person to Africa, Haiti, Central America, anywhere but in the US. As Phil Magness and Sebastian Page documented in their book, Colonization after Emancipation, Lincoln and his administration were hard at work until his dying day counting how many ships it would take to deport or “colonize,” as they said, all the black people. 

Henry Clay was Lincoln’s professed political idol and role model. In his 1852 eulogy to Clay Lincoln praised him as a founding member of the American Colonization Society and said that “colonization” was one of his “most cherished objects.” Lincoln approvingly quoted Clay in the eulogy as having said that “there is a moral fitness in the idea of returning to Africa her children.” It would be “a signal blessing to that most unfortunate portion of the globe,” he said. 

Lincoln himself said that sending all the black people to Africa would be “the ultimate redemption of the African race” and that every year “had added strength to the hope of its [deportation] realization. May indeed it be realized!” In his December 1, 1862 message to Congress Lincoln reiterated that “I cannot make it better known that it already is, that I strongly favor colonization.” 

One major benefit of “colonization,” Lincoln said was that “their places [i.e., jobs] be . . . filled up by free white laborers.” At the time, only adult white males or “free white laborers” had the right to vote. Lincoln was the manager of the Illinois Colonization Society before becoming president, and the Society got the Illinois legislature to allocate tax funds for the purpose of deporting the small number of free blacks out of the state. As president Lincoln appointed Senator Samuel Pomeroy to supervise “resettlement effort.” Pomeroy recommended deporting black people to a new Central American colony that would be named “Lincolnia.” The Lincoln administration paid a businessman named Bernard Kock to establish a colony in Haiti but Kock turned out to be a crook and an embezzler so nothing came of it. All of this caused the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison to declare that Lincoln “had not a drop of anti-slavery blood in his veins” and called him “The President of African Colonization.” 

Of course the Lincoln Cult has dozens of excuses for Lincoln’s Ku Klux Klanish attitude towards black people. They claimed for generations that Lincoln somehow gave up on the idea in 1863 but the book Colonization after Emancipation proved that to be untrue. The well known Civil War historian Gabor Boritt wrote in his edited book, The Lincoln Enigma, that Lincoln’s colonization proposals were “noble.” He concocts numerous rationales and excuses, which after all is what makes one a “Lincoln Scholar.” The most entertaining excuse is his statement that Lincoln’s lifelong advocacy of colonization is “how honest people lie.” A perfect example of what makes one a “Lincoln Scholar.”

President Trump’s proposal to colonize Palestinians in Jordan or Egypt is hardly different from Lincoln’s colonization fetish. Both men treat a group of people as lepers who should be eradicated from society and who should be denied property rights in their own country no matter how many generations their family has lived there. Lincoln’s rationale was the subtitle of Lerone Bennett, Jr.’s book Forced into Glory: “Abraham Lincoln’s White Dream.” (Bennett was the long time editor of Ebony magazine and an author of several books). As for Trump, his rationale seems to be payback for the $100 million campaign donation from Miriam Adelson and the prospect of participating in the Mother of All Real Estate Developments in the Middle East. 

Both are/were fundamentally evil men.

 

[Muda69]

Trump Tries To Carve Out a First Amendment Exception for 'Fake News': https://reason.com/2025/02/24/trump-tries-to-carve-out-a-first-amendment-exception-for-fake-news/?itm_source=parsely-api

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"Fake News is an UNPARDONABLE SIN!" President Donald Trump declares in a Truth Social rant inspired by the cancellation of Joy Reid's MSNBC show. "This whole corrupt operation is nothing more than an illegal arm of the Democrat Party. They should be forced to pay vast sums of money for the damage they've done to our Country."

Trump's claim that journalism he does not like is "illegal" and constitutes a tort justifying massive civil damages should be familiar by now. He has made such claims not only in social media posts but also in actual lawsuits against news organizations. As the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) explains in a motion filed last Friday, these chilling attempts to convert Trump's complaints about press coverage into causes of action are legally baseless and blatantly unconstitutional.

Last October, Trump sued CBS in Texas, claiming that its editing of a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris constituted consumer fraud that had caused him "at least" $10 billion in damages. In December, he filed a similar lawsuit against The Des Moines Register and pollster Ann Selzer in Iowa, claiming a voter survey that erroneously predicted a Harris victory in that state likewise amounted to consumer fraud.

FIRE, which represents Selzer in the latter case, notes that the Supreme Court has recognized several narrowly defined exceptions to the First Amendment, including "obscenity, child pornography, defamation, fraud, incitement, fighting words, and speech integral to criminal activity." Trump is trying to carve out an additional exception for "fake news," which would have a paralyzing impact on journalists, since they would be exposed to daunting legal expenses and potentially ruinous civil liability whenever their reporting was arguably misleading or inaccurate.

"In the United States," FIRE Chief Counsel Robert Corn-Revere notes in a motion to dismiss Trump's claims against Selzer, "there is no such thing as a claim for 'fraudulent news.' No court in any jurisdiction has ever held such a cause of action might be valid, and few plaintiffs have ever attempted to bring such outlandish claims." While the "fake news" label "may play well for some on the campaign trail," Corn-Revere writes, it "has no place in America's constitutional jurisprudence." Trump's lawsuit, he says, is "a transparent attempt to punish news coverage and analysis of a political campaign, speech that not only is presumptively protected but 'occupies the highest rung of the hierarchy of First Amendment values.'"

The object of Trump's ire is a poll that Selzer conducted for the Register shortly before the 2024 presidential election. Unlike other polls and Selzer's previous surveys, all of which found that Trump was ahead in Iowa, this one gave Harris a three-point lead. That poll, which the Register published on the Saturday before the election, turned out to be off by more than a little: Trump won Iowa by a 13-point margin.

"It's called suppression," Trump said at a rally in Pennsylvania the day after the Register reported Selzer's results. "And it actually should be illegal."

In fact, according to Trump, it was illegal. In a complaint he filed in the Iowa District Court for Polk County on December 16, Trump averred that Selzer's poll violated that state's Consumer Fraud Act, which prohibits deceptive practices "in connection with the advertisement, sale, or lease of consumer merchandise." At the defendants' request, the case was transferred to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa. In an amended complaint on January 31, Trump added common law claims of fraudulent and negligent misrepresentation.

That complaint was joined by two additional plaintiffs: Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R–Iowa) and former state Sen. Bradley Zaun (R–Urbandale). Miller-Meeks' beef was similar to Trump's: Although Selzer's poll gave Miller-Meeks' opponent a 16-point lead, she ultimately won reelection by two-tenths of a point. Zaun's grievance was more mysterious, since Selzer had not polled his race, which he lost by four points. The complaint nevertheless claims the poll "impacted" his campaign. It also notes that he "read the election coverage at issue in this action," which it says deceived him as a voter and Trump campaign contributor.

None of these plaintiffs suffered any cognizable damages under the Iowa Consumer Fraud Act (ICFA). "Plaintiffs have no claim under the ICFA against Selzer because they do not allege that they purchased or leased anything from Selzer," Corn-Revere writes. "The ICFA is a consumer fraud statute designed to protect Iowa consumers deceived into buying or leasing a product. It provides a cause of action for victims of 'deception' and 'fraud' 'in connection with the advertisement, sale, or lease of consumer merchandise.' And it allows consumers to recover damages if they suffer an 'ascertainable loss of money or property as the result' of that deception or fraud. Plaintiffs allege no 'fraud' or 'deception' to induce them into a transaction with Selzer, nor do they allege any 'ascertainable loss of money or property.'"

Trump et al.'s common law claims are invalid for similar reasons. "Fraudulent misrepresentation" refers to "a situation where a defendant lies to induce a plaintiff into a transaction to the plaintiff's detriment," Corn-Revere notes. Yet "Selzer made no actionable representation 'to the Plaintiffs,'" and Trump et al. "have not alleged the Iowa Poll was 'material' to an inducement directed to Plaintiffs by Selzer." They "similarly do not allege Selzer intended to induce them into a transaction."

A claim of "negligent misrepresentation" likewise requires that the plaintiff suffered damages because, in completing a transaction, he "reasonably relied" on information that the defendant "knew or reasonably should have known" was false. It also requires that "the defendant intended to supply information to the plaintiff or knew that the recipient intended to supply it to the plaintiff." Even if we assume Selzer knew or should have known her poll results were off, none of the other criteria is met.

As with the ICFA claim, Trump et al. could not have relied on false information in completing a transaction with Selzer because there was no transaction. And while the plaintiffs argue that they "justifiably relied" on the poll results, they also describe it as an "outlier" that defied "common sense, electoral history, [and] all other public polls." They claim Selzer had a history of underestimating Republican support, and they say "any responsible pollster or journalist with experience in Iowa politics would recognize" the poll's "clear inaccuracy." Trump et al. are "so desperate to spike the football regarding Selzer's polling inaccuracies," Corn-Revere says, that they "aggressively concede the element of reliance."

In any case, Selzer did not intend to "supply the information" to Trump et al., and she had no special "duty of care" to them. "If a newspaper prints incorrect information, if a scientist publishes careless statements in a treatise, or if an oil company prints an inaccurate road map, they cannot be 'liable' to those of the general public who read their works absent some special relationship between [the] writer and reader," the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit observed in a 1971 decision that Corn-Revere quotes. While "accuracy in news reporting is certainly a desideratum," a federal judge in New Jersey noted seven years later, "imposing a high duty of care on those in the business of news dissemination and making that duty run to a wide range of readers or TV viewers would have a chilling effect which is unacceptable under our Constitution."

Trump et al. also "fail to allege recoverable damages," the FIRE motion says. As candidates, Trump and Miller-Meeks claim, they had to "expend extensive time and resources," including "direct federal campaign expenditures," to "counteract the harms" caused by Selzer's poll. "But they filed this lawsuit in their personal capacities, and the Supreme Court has made clear that a campaign is 'a legal entity distinct from the candidate,'" Corn-Revere writes. "Mr. Trump and Ms. Miller-Meeks allege no cognizable harm to them as individuals from the Iowa Poll, so they have not [pled] the element of damages."

Zaun's damage claims "are even more implausible (if that is possible)," the motion says. "Mr. Zaun does not explain what those damages are, nor does he explain how he could have suffered financial damage from a poll that did not mention him or poll his race. Even if he had offered some explanation, there's no causation for damages consisting of losing elections."

In short, Trump et al. "try to shoehorn their claims" into an existing category of constitutionally unprotected speech by "calling the Iowa Poll 'fake' and asserting actionable 'fraud' occurred," Corn-Revere writes. He quotes "the famous words of Inigo Montoya" in The Princess Bride: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." The plaintiffs' "allegations about polls and news stories they dislike," Corn-Revere says, "have nothing to do with fraud."

Trump et al. "also sprinkle the complaint with loose talk of 'election interference,'" the motion notes. They "wield the terms 'election interference' and 'fraud' like an alchemist's incantation, hoping to transform their political dross into legal gold. But no amount of vacuous repetition can convert their expansive concept of 'fake news' to the very limited and specific legal concept of fraud. The Supreme Court has made clear that slapping the 'fraud' label on a claim cannot satisfy the specific showing required or extinguish the First Amendment."

Given the flagrant frivolousness of these claims, you might wonder, why is Trump pressing them? As he explains it, he is determined to "straighten out the press" one way or another. "I shouldn't really be the one to do it," he told reporters in December. "It should have been the Justice Department or somebody else. But I have to do it [because] our press is very corrupt."

As Trump sees it, the U.S. Department of Justice should be policing the press to make sure it is telling the truth. While any such program would be clearly unconstitutional, Trump thinks he can achieve similar results by filing his own lawsuits.

He's not wrong. Trump's consumer fraud complaint against CBS, which the network accurately described as "completely without merit," is at least as ridiculous as his consumer fraud complaint against Selzer and the Register. Maybe more ridiculous, since it does not involve any actual journalistic failure: The gravamen of Trump's grievance is that 60 Minutes edited its interview with Harris to make her response to a question about Israel seem slightly more cogent. Yet Paramount, which owns CBS, reportedly is keen to appease Trump by settling that laughable lawsuit because the company worries that the phony controversy over the interview could jeopardize its pending merger with Skydance Media.

When you are president of the United States, it turns out, you can intimidate major news outlets simply by suing them, no matter how absurd your legal arguments are. Trump was always rich enough to bankroll lawsuits that imposed costs on people whose speech offended him even when they had not said anything that remotely resembled a tort. Now that his wealth is complemented by the vast powers of the executive branch, he has even less reason to worry that his litigation makes no sense.

 

Congress needs to reign this madman in.

 

[Muda69]

Mahmoud Khalil, the Great Rorschach Test

https://reason.com/2025/03/11/mahmoud-khalil-the-great-rorschach-test/

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On Saturday evening, federal immigration authorities arrested Columbia University protester/graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder from a refugee camp in Syria (whose family is Palestinian) who technically has Algerian citizenship. (Reason's Matthew Petti actually interviewed Khalil several months ago and has more on his story.)

Khalil has an American wife who is eight months pregnant. It's not clear which specific laws he stands accused of breaking, and immigration authorities were initially confused as to whether he was on a student visa or a green card; as a lawful permanent resident, he has greater due process rights. More on this here, from Reason's Jack Nicastro.

He has been sent to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Louisiana, where he is being detained. "The Trump administration's detention of Mahmoud Khalil—a green card holder studying in this country legally—is targeted, retaliatory, and an extreme attack on his First Amendment rights," the New York Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Donna Lieberman declared in a statement. "Ripping a student from their home, challenging their immigration status, and detaining them solely based on political viewpoint will chill student speech and advocacy across campus. Political speech should never be a basis of punishment, or lead to deportation."

The Trump administration, for its part, calls Khalil a "threat to the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States."

"The allegation here is not that he was breaking the law," an official tells The Free Press. "He was mobilizing support for Hamas and spreading antisemitism in a way that is contrary to the foreign policy of the U.S." The Department of Homeland Security says Khalil "led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization," which is…extremely vague. Whether they have more remains to be seen.

"This is the first arrest of many to come," wrote President Donald Trump on Truth Social. "We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it.…If you support terrorism, including the slaughtering of innocent men, women, and children, your presence is contrary to our national and foreign policy interests, and you are not welcome here."

I for one would probably not choose to spend my time engaged in pro-Palestine protests/sit-ins/marches/blockades if I were imminently expecting a child. And if I were on a green card, I would maybe exert some extra effort to make clear how much I like my new country vs. actively antagonizing it via supporting a raping, murdering terrorist group that not only committed the atrocities of October 7 but has since 2007 denied residents of the Gaza Strip a functioning place to live, choosing to instead invest resources in building tunnels and rockets, not water desalination plants.

Still, unlike Hamas, the U.S. government tends to allow its vocal critics to build good lives here. I think this is a fundamentally good part of the American project: We provide ideological latitude to all kinds of people, allowing even those with very stupid and odious beliefs to take part in the discourse. ("I despise Khalil. Free him."—credit to Scott Greenfield—probably comes closest to my perspective.) But also, the administration may be within its rights to deport Khalil depending on what he stands accused of and what they can prove he has done. So far, they have not been terribly successful at proving they have grounds to do so: On Monday, a Manhattan federal judge reviewed a motion filed by Khalil's lawyers challenging the legal basis of his detention and ordered the government not to deport the man. ("That's how it works here, or at least how it's supposed to work here," Greenfield adds, outlining roughly the same thing on his blog.)

There's an interesting, more philosophical question raised by the Mahmoud Khalil case: Should people who have come here on visas, who are still awaiting full citizenship, be treated as guests, having their commitment to the American project weighed and judged? It strikes me as intellectually reasonable to want to engage in some amount of gatekeeping when you decide who ought to be granted the great gift of American citizenship; when a guest here indicates they don't value the same things we seek in our newcomers, does that present a problem? Khalil feels like a Rorschach, where people with the same underlying principles look at him and feel a very different moral intuition as to how we ought to greet such behavior. What type of immigrant do we seek? These questions strike me as fundamental, but totally lost in the political ferment surrounding immigration.

Good questions.  And does Mr. Trump's statement of "If you support terrorism, including the slaughtering of innocent men, women, and children, your presence is contrary to our national and foreign policy interests, and you are not welcome here."  also pertain to American citizens, those were born and raised here?  This is indeed a Rorschach test, and one that could open a nasty Pandora's box.