#prosecute stephen miller

[reality-detective]

Senior Advisor to President Donald Trump, Stephen Miller says “Everything in the world is gonna change on January 20th”

EVERYTHING ends for illegal migrants 👇

- There will be no benefits

- No entry

- No asylum

- They’ll be arrested and prosecuted

- Absolutely deported

I have no problem with the plan 🤔

[mariacallous]

At noon ET on Monday, the US presidency changed hands, and one of the largest governments in the world rearranged itself in service to the petulance and vulgarity of the nation’s new president.

At the Pentagon, a portrait of a general who Donald Trump had found insufficiently deferential to him in his first term was removed from a wall; photographs of the empty spot circulated on social media. Trump was set to sign a bevvy of executive orders, pledging to withdraw the US from the Paris climate agreement, to revoke policies promoting wind energy and electric cars, and to exert executive powers to speed up the construction of oil pipelines.

He was scheduled to revoke federal acknowledgement of transgender identity for the purposes of civil rights law, declaring in his inaugural address that “there are only two genders”. And Reproductiverights.gov, a federal web site aimed at helping women navigate abortion access, immediately went offline.

CBPOne, an app used by migrants to the US to manage their interactions with immigration officials, went dark when Trump was sworn in. An announcement posted on the programs website said that all existing appointments had been cancelled, leaving tens of thousands of people in the lurch. The press has reported that the new administration plans a series of high-profile raids in major cities this week, in search of immigrants to deport.

Latino businessowners in Chicago reported lost revenue as their clientele stayed home out of fear; a friend from college, a New York City public high school teacher, shared the instructions from her school administrators on how to protect her students in the event of an Ice raid. Meanwhile, Trump’s aides said he would issue an order ending birthright citizenship for the US-born children of immigrants, a move that would create a class of hundreds of thousands of un-Americans and move the concept of US citizenship from a legally protected status to something more akin to an inherited one.

It is not clear what authority, exactly, Trump has to do this; birthright citizenship, after all, is enshrined in the United States constitution. Like much of the inauguration’s declarations, the statements may be for show – grand pronouncements that will be muddled and eroded by the reality of policymaking, the grind of bureaucracy, the whittling-down of lawsuits.

Stephen Miller, the longtime Trump adviser and anti-immigrant crusader, has planned, according to the New York Times, a sort of shock-and-awe approach, hoping to issue as many executive orders and pursue as many maximalist policy changes as possible within the first days of the administration, hoping to terrify and exhaust the opposition. As is always the case with Trump, his statements are much grander than his actions. That doesn’t mean that his actions will not hurt people.

Trump returns to power with more loyal followers and more skittish, deferential and frightened enemies. The Republican party has been reshaped in his image, and so have the courts: just last summer, the US supreme court, including all three of Trump’s first-term nominees, voted to make him virtually immune from criminal prosecution for acts taken in office.

He has pledged to pardon all the convicted January 6 insurrectionists, and to halt prosecutions of those not yet convicted. And he is likely to use his authority over federal law enforcement to pursue civil and criminal proceedings against his enemies. On his way out the door, Joe Biden made a point of pre-emptively pardoning lawmakers who had investigated the January 6 attack, to protect them from Trump’s reprisals. The Democrats are weak, fractured, embittered and scared; the same consultants whose advice lost them the 2024 election are now telling them to defer to Trump, abandon resistance, and shift to the right. So far, many of them appear to be listening. The others are pointing fingers at one another.

Right now the money is on Trump, and the money is substantial. The three richest men in the world – Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg – all sat in the front row at Trump’s inauguration. (His cabinet members were in the second.) The men are there to court lucrative government contracts and discourage regulation of their businesses, but they also appear willing to commit themselves to Trump’s ideological project, especially with regards to gender, and to wield the massive communications platforms that they control to further his culture war agenda.

Bezos has intervened at the Washington Post to tilt the editorial slant in Trump’s favor; Zuckerberg has removed many sex, sexuality and gender protections from the content moderation policies of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads. Musk, meanwhile, is reportedly slated to be given an office in the West Wing, though he has no official government job. Speaking at a rally of Trump supporters held at an arena after the official inauguration ceremony, the billionaire effusively thanked the crowd in his mealy South African accent. Musk then jerked a flat hand from his chest into the air, in a gesture that resembled a Nazi salute.

There is something broken in the soul when such spectacles can no longer shock you. But I confess that they no longer shock me. America is ruled, now, by men who are extremely psychologically transparent: their resentment and greed, their desperate, seeking needfulness, their insecurity and rage at those who provoke it; these things seep off these men, like a stench. They are evil men, and pathetic ones: mentally small, morally ugly. They are relentlessly predictable.

Here is another prediction: these men will not succeed in all their schemes. They will not deport as many people as they say they will; he will not change the law as much as they pledge to; they will not, cannot, capture the institutions as completely, or bury dissent as successfully. They cannot do everything they aim to do. Because politics is not over; because our institutions are not all collapsed; and because the existing institutions are not the only methods of resistance and refusal.

The Trumpist movement that ascended to power on Monday is relying on a tired, defeated America, one too diminished to do anything but submit to their demands and schemes. But the American spirit is indefatigable: it loves freedom and equality, abhors tyranny, values minding your own business and hates, above all, to be told what to do. When Trump was last in office, Americans found, at the end, that they did not like it. They will not like it now, either, and that dislike, however tardy, will have political consequences.

[dostoyevsky-official]

A Year of Empty Threats and a “Smokescreen” Policy: How the State Department Let Israel Get Away With Horrors in Gaza

The October red line was the last one Biden laid down, but it wasn’t the first. His administration issued multiple threats, warnings and admonishments to Israel about its conduct after Oct. 7, 2023, when the Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked Israel, killed some 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages.

Government officials worry Biden’s record of empty threats have given the Israelis a sense of impunity.

[...] “Netanyahu’s conclusion was that Biden doesn’t have enough oomph to make him pay a price, so he was willing to ignore him,” said Ghaith al-Omari, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute who’s focused on U.S.-Israel relations and a former official with the Palestinian Authority who helped advise on prior peace talks. “Part of it is that Netanyahu learned there is no cost to saying ‘no’ to the current president.”

[...] Authorities in and outside government said the acquiescence to Israel as it prosecuted a brutal war will likely be regarded as one the most consequential foreign policy decisions of the Biden presidency. They say it undermines America’s ability to influence events in the Middle East while “destroying the entire edifice of international law that was put into place after WWII,” as Omer Bartov, a renowned Israeli-American scholar of genocide, put it.

[...] Time and again, Israel crossed the Biden administration’s red lines without changing course in a meaningful way, according to interviews with government officials and outside experts. Each time, the U.S. yielded and continued to send Israel’s military deadly weapons of war, approving more than $17.9 billion in military assistance since late 2023, by some estimates. The State Department recently told Congress about another $8 billion proposed deal to sell Israel munitions and artillery shells.

“It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the red lines have all just been a smokescreen,” said Stephen Walt, a professor of international affairs at Harvard Kennedy School and a preeminent authority on U.S. policy in the region. “The Biden administration decided to be all in and merely pretended that it was trying to do something about it.”

[...] Throughout the contentious year inside the State Department, senior leaders repeatedly disregarded their own experts. They cracked down on leaks by threatening criminal investigations and classifying material that was critical of Israel. Some of the agency’s top Middle East diplomats complained in private that they were sidelined by Biden’s National Security Council. The council also distributed a list of banned phrases, including any version of “State of Palestine” that didn’t have the word “future” first. Two human rights officials said they were prevented from pursuing evidence of abuses in Gaza and the West Bank.

[...] Grappling with the near-daily images of carnage in Gaza, many across the U.S. government have become disenchanted with the lofty ideas they thought they represented.

“This is the human rights atrocity of our time,” one senior diplomat told me. “I work for the department that’s responsible for this policy. I signed up for this. … I don’t deserve sympathy for it.”

“The State Department has a whole raft of highly paid, very good lawyers to explain, ‘Actually this is not illegal,’ when in fact it is,” said Ari Tolany, an arms trade authority and director at the Center for International Policy, a Washington-based think tank. “Rules for thee and not for me.”

[...] Several experts told me international law is effectively discretionary for some countries. “American policy ignores it when it’s inconvenient and adheres to it when it is convenient,” said Aaron Miller, a career State Department diplomat who worked for decades under both Democratic and Republican presidents as an adviser on Arab-Israeli negotiations. “The U.S. does not leverage or bring sustainable, credible, serious pressure to bear on any of its allies and partners,” he added, “not just Israel.”

[...] Immediately after the ICJ’s order about the Rafah invasion, officials in the State Department’s Middle East and communications divisions drafted a list of proposed public statements to acknowledge the importance of the court and express concern over civilians in the city. But Matthew Miller, the State Department spokesperson, nixed almost all of them. He told the officials in a May 24 email that those on the White House’s National Security Council “aren’t going to clear” any recognition of the ruling or criticism of Israel.

[...] Current and former diplomats told me that U.S. leaders are fundamentally unwilling to follow through on the Leahy law and cut off units from American-funded weapons. Instead, they have created multiple processes that give the appearance of accountability while simultaneously undermining any potential results, the experts said.

[...] On Nov. 14, more than a year after the war started, Human Rights Watch released a report and said that Israel’s forced displacement of Palestinians is widespread, systematic and intentional. It accused the Israelis of a crime against humanity, writing, “Israel’s actions appear to also meet the definition of ethnic cleansing.” (A former Israeli defense minister has also made that allegation.)

During a news briefing later that day, reporters pressed a State Department spokesperson, Vedant Patel, on the report’s findings.

Patel said the U.S. government disagrees and has not seen evidence of forced displacement in Gaza.

“That,” he said, “certainly would be a red line.”

[yesornopolls]

Let states monitor pregnancies and prosecute women who get abortions Give the president unchecked power over federal agencies Restore the president’s authority to bypass Congress Appoint a special prosecutor to ‘go after’ Biden Use the Justice Department to get revenge on all of his enemies Expand presidential immunity Purge the civil service Install thousands of loyalists throughout the federal government Fill his Cabinet with people like Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon Round up, detain, and deport millions of undocumented immigrants Deploy U.S troops for ‘war’ on southern border End birthright citizenship Reinterpret anti-racism protections to benefit white people Construct ‘Freedom Cities’ Put flying cars in Americans’ driveways

[justinspoliticalcorner]

John Knefel at MMFA:

President Donald Trump is following through on a policy put forward by Project 2025 that calls for federal law enforcement to investigate, and potentially criminally prosecute, local authorities who refuse to cooperate with his administration’s mass deportation plans. On his first day in office, Trump issued an executive order — and his Department of Justice released a subsequent memo — that put the Project 2025 proposal into practice. Project 2025 is a sprawling transition plan to provide policy and staffing recommendations for the new Trump administration. The effort, organized by The Heritage Foundation in collaboration with more than 100 conservative organizations, drew significant scrutiny during the 2024 election, prompting Trump and longtime adviser Stephen Miller to attempt to distance themselves from it. Since Trump’s win, however, he has stocked his administration with at least 16 contributors to Project 2025’s policybook, Mandate for Leadership, including Miller, who will serve as his deputy chief of staff for policy.

Mandate’s chapter on the Department of Justice is written by Gene Hamilton, who served as the vice president and general counsel of Miller’s America First Legal Foundation. In it, Hamilton — now White House senior counsel — argues that the DOJ should “initiate legal action against local officials—including District Attorneys—who deny American citizens the ‘equal protection of the laws’ by refusing to prosecute criminal offenses in their jurisdictions.” He elaborated that his proposal is “particularly” appropriate for “jurisdictions that refuse to enforce the law against criminals” due to “political considerations” like “immigration status.”  According to The Washington Post, America First Legal sent “nearly 250 letters” to local officials in late December similarly threatening that the upcoming Trump administration would “investigate and potentially prosecute state and local officials who don’t cooperate with mass deportation efforts.”

Two of the Trump administration’s new policy announcements largely mirror Hamilton’s language in Mandate. An executive order Trump issued on the first day of his second term targeted so-called “sanctuary jurisdictions” — cities or states that refuse to cooperate with at least some aspects of federal immigration enforcement — to ensure that they do not receive federal funding. The order then commanded the attorney general and secretary of homeland security to “evaluate and undertake any other lawful actions, criminal or civil, that they deem warranted based on any such jurisdiction’s practices that interfere with the enforcement of Federal law.” Trump’s EO is one of ten executive actions he took on his first day in office intended to radically limit both legal and unauthorized immigration.

Two days after Trump’s day one blitz, media outlets reported on a memo issued to the DOJ by acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove that referenced Trump’s executive order and expanded on it. “Federal law prohibits state and local actors from resisting, obstructing, and otherwise failing to comply with lawful immigration-related commands and requests,” the memo stated. It added that the DOJ “shall investigate incidents involving any such misconduct for potential prosecution,” threatening that the investigations could result in charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States.

Project 2025, the radical right-wing policy book by The Heritage Foundation, proposed targeting local officials who didn’t bow down to 47’s mass deportations lunacy. As expected, Tyrant-In-Chief Trump is following through on that satanic promise.

[saywhat-politics]

A Trump executive order and a Department of Justice memo instruct federal law enforcement to investigate local officials providing sanctuary for immigrants

Written by John Knefel

Published 01/27/25 9:56 AM EST

President Donald Trump is following through on a policy put forward by Project 2025 that calls for federal law enforcement to investigate, and potentially criminally prosecute, local authorities who refuse to cooperate with his administration’s mass deportation plans. On his first day in office, Trump issued an executive order — and his Department of Justice released a subsequent memo — that put the Project 2025 proposal into practice.

Project 2025 is a sprawling transition plan to provide policy and staffing recommendations for the new Trump administration. The effort, organized by The Heritage Foundation in collaboration with more than 100 conservative organizations, drew significant scrutiny during the 2024 election, prompting Trump and longtime adviser Stephen Miller to attempt to distance themselves from it. Since Trump’s win, however, he has stocked his administration with at least 16 contributors to Project 2025’s policybook, Mandate for Leadership, including Miller, who will serve as his deputy chief of staff for policy.

[misfitwashere]

Friends,

Many of you are still in shock about what happened a week ago today. Some of you don’t even want to read a newspaper or hear the news. 

I get it. 

A few of you are coping with the catastrophe by minimizing or denying it. Several friends assure me that a second Trump term won’t be much different from the first and that the checks and balances in our system will continue to constrain him. 

This is wishful and dangerous thinking. 

Trump and his Republican lapdogs will almost certainly win the House, which means that starting January 20, they will take full control of the federal government — both chambers of Congress as well as the presidency. 

The Republicans soon to be in control of Congress are more MAGA, less principled, and more intimidated by Trump than the Republicans who had control when Trump took office in 2017. There are no Liz Cheneys in the House, no Mitt Romneys in the Senate. Republican senators seeking to become the majority leader are already competing to please Trump, promising immediate confirmation of his appointments. 

The Republican Party as a whole has now been effectively purged of people willing to stand up to Trump. 

Trump already has effective control of the Supreme Court, a majority of whom have ruled that he (or any president) is presumptively immune from criminal liability for whatever he chooses to do.

This time, moreover, there won’t be people in the administration to stop him. Trump learned from his first term about the importance of surrounding himself with lackeys who will do whatever he wishes. 

His early picks (Susie Wiles as chief of staff, Stephen Miller as deputy chief of staff, Thomas Homan as border czar, Lee Zeldin as EPA administrator, Elise Stefanik as ambassador to the U.N., and Michael Walz as national security advisor) have only one thing in common and it’s not their expertise. It’s their unblinking loyalty to Trump. 

Don’t get me started about Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, who has turned his X platform into a swamp of Trump lies and propaganda, and now seems joined at the hip to Trump — appearing wherever Trump is. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a nut job. 

And unlike Trump’s first term, the president-elect is now backed by a network of dangerous extremists — including those who have been imprisoned for their part in the attack on the U.S. Capitol, whom Trump has suggested he’ll pardon. They will feel emboldened to carry out what they understand to be Trump’s wishes. 

Finally, also unlike before his first term, Trump has explicitly told us what he plans to do and already has people working on getting it done starting January 20: mass deportations, prosecution of his political enemies, the use of the military against U.S. citizens, the purging of the civil service across the government and substitution of Trump loyalists, and a promise to play politics with disasters. 

Project 2025, which was written by more than 140 people who served under Trump the first time around, including several of his former Cabinet secretaries, explicitly calls for “abortion surveillance” and the stripping from Americans of reproductive freedom (page 455). 

It also calls for jailing teachers and librarians over banned books (page 5), gutting of overtime pay rules (pages 587 and 592), and prioritizing “married men and women” over other types of families (page 489). 

To enforce these attacks on our rights, Project 2025 would use the Justice Department to prosecute district attorneys Trump disagrees with, invoke the Insurrection Act to shut down protests, and mobilize red-state national guard units against blue states that resist his authoritarian agenda.

In sum, my friends, we are facing a catastrophe far worse than what occurred in Trump’s first term of office. The meager guardrails that existed then will be gone.

We must not avert our eyes from this calamity, or minimize it, or throw up our hands in despair or retreat. 

We must prepare to fight it. 

But how? Let me ask you: If this were Germany in 1933, what actions would you take? How different will this be from Germany in 1933?

I put this question to some of you last Wednesday during my weekly Office Hours. Forty percent said your most important goal will be to protect those in harm’s way, and 34 percent said it will be to organize and mobilize politically. Of the remainder, 9 percent said it will be to resist with civil disobedience. (Others had additional or different ideas.)

Obviously, none of these alternatives is exclusive. We must consider all, and many others. 

Protecting the vulnerable and preserving our rights and liberties will require a great deal of hard work by people who believe in our Constitution, democracy, and the rule of law. The work includes: 

Monitoring Trump and his government — despite the disinformation, propaganda, and lies we’ll be receiving — and disseminating the truth.

Maintaining a watch over the people and institutions we value.

Being ready to sound the alarm in our communities and networks when those people and institutions are under assault. 

Organizing and mobilizing nonviolent resistance to such assaults. 

Using civil disobedience wherever possible. 

Litigating through state and federal courts where possible.

Speaking out against malicious lies like those that spread during the election by Elon Musk on his propaganda machine X and against vicious lies amplified on other MAGA mouthpieces. 

Using our economic muscle to boycott corporations that support Trump, Musk, and other centers of MAGA power. 

And much more. 

It will be up to us — the American people who still cherish democracy — to protect and preserve our system of self-government.

As difficult as it is to fully accept what we are up against, the first step is to acknowledge it. 

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Nick Anderson Editorial Cartoons Page

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

May 31, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JUN 01, 2024

Today felt as if there was a collective inward breath as people tried to figure out what yesterday’s jury verdict means for the upcoming 2024 election. The jury decided that former president Trump created fraudulent business records in order to illegally influence the 2016 election. As of yesterday, the presumptive Republican nominee for president of the United States of America is a convicted felon. 

Since the verdict, Trump and his supporters have worked very hard to spin the conviction as a good thing for his campaign, but those arguments sound like a desperate attempt to shape a narrative that is spinning out of their control. Newspapers all over the country bore the word “GUILTY” in their headlines today.

At stake for Trump is the Republican presidential nomination. Getting it would pave his way to the presidency, which offers him financial gain and the ability to short-circuit the federal prosecutions that observers say are even tighter cases than the state case in which a jury quickly and unanimously found him guilty yesterday. Not getting it leaves Trump and the MAGA supporters who helped him try to steal the 2020 presidential election at the mercy of the American justice system.  

After last night’s verdict, Trump went to the cameras and tried to establish that the nomination remains his, asserting that voters would vindicate him on November 5. But this morning, as he followed up last night’s comments, he did himself no favors. He billed the event as a “press conference,” but delivered what Michael Grynbaum of the New York Times described as “a rambling and misleading speech,” so full of grievance and unhinged that the networks except the Fox News Channel cut away from it as he attacked trial witnesses, called Judge Merchan “the devil,” and falsely accused President Joe Biden of pushing his prosecution. He took no questions from the press.

Today the Trump campaign told reporters it raised $34.8 million from small-dollar donors in the hours after the guilty verdict, but observers pointed out there was no reason to believe those numbers based on statements from Trump’s campaign. Meanwhile, Trump advisor Stephen Miller shouted on the Fox News Channel that every Republican secretary of state, state attorney general, donor, member of Congress must use their power “RIGHT NOW” to “beat these Communists!” 

The attempt of MAGA lawmakers to shape events in their favor seemed just as panicked. Representative Jim Banks (R-IN) posted on social media that “New York is a liberal sh*t hole,” and Jim Jordan (R-OH) today asked Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought the case against Trump, to testify before the House Judiciary’s Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government about “politically motivated prosecutions of…President Donald Trump.” Representative Dan Goldman (D-NY) noted that Trump is a private citizen and Congress has no jurisdiction over the case, but that Jordan is using his congressional authority illegally to defend Trump. 

MAGA senators were even more strident. Republican senator Mike Lee of Utah melted down on X last night over the verdict, and today he led nine other Republican senators in a revolt against the federal government. Lee, J. D. Vance of Ohio, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Eric Schmitt of Missouri, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Rick Scott of Florida, Roger Marshall of Kansas, Marco Rubio of Florida, Josh Hawley of Missouri, and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin issued a public letter saying they would no longer pass legislation, fund the government, or vote to confirm the administration’s appointees because, they said, “[t]he White House has made a mockery of the rule of law and fundamentally altered our politics in un-American ways. As a Senate Republican conference,” they said, although there were only 10 of them, “we are unwilling to aid and abet this White House in its project to tear this country apart.” 

It was an odd statement seemingly designed to use disinformation to convince voters to stick with them. Ten senators said they would not do the federal jobs they were elected to do because private citizen Trump was convicted in a state court by a jury of 12 people in New York, a jury that Trump’s lawyers had agreed to. The senators attacked the rule of law and the operation of the federal government in a demonstration of support for Trump. A number of the senators involved were key players in the attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election. 

Awkwardly, considering the day’s news, a video from 2016 circulated today in which Trump insisted that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who he falsely insisted had committed crimes even as he was the one actually committing them, “shouldn’t be allowed to run.” If she were to win, Trump then said, “it would create an unprecedented constitutional crisis. In that situation, we could very well have a sitting president under felony indictment and, ultimately, a criminal trial. It would grind government to a halt.” 

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo put it correctly: this is not an “outpouring of rage and anger,” so much as “an overwhelming effort to match and muffle the earthquake of what happened yesterday afternoon with enough noise and choreography to keep everyone in Trump’s campaign and on the margins of it in line and on side.”

Still, there is more behind the MAGA support for Trump than fearful political messaging. Trump has been hailed as a savior by his supporters because he promises to smash through the laws and norms of American democracy to put them into power. There, they can assert their will over the rest of us, achieving the social and religious control they cannot achieve through democratic means because they cannot win the popular vote in a free and fair election. With Trump’s conviction within the legal system, his supporters are more determined than ever to destroy the rules that block them from imposing their will on the rest of us. 

Today the Federalist Society, which is now aligned with Victor Orbán’s Hungary, flew an upside-down U.S. flag as a signal of national distress. Their actions were in keeping with Russian president Vladimir Putin’s statement that Trump is being persecuted “for political reasons” and that the cases show “the rottenness of the American political system, which cannot pretend to teach others about democracy.”

Ryan J. Reilly of NBC News reported today on a spike in violent rhetoric on social media targeting New York judge Juan Merchan, who oversaw Trump’s Manhattan election interference trial, and District Attorney Bragg. Users of a fringe internet message board also shared what they claimed were the addresses of jurors. “Dox the Jurors. Dox them now,” one user wrote. Another wrote, “1,000,000 men (armed) need to go to [W]ashington and hang everyone. That’s the only solution.”

This attack on our democracy was the central message of a crucially important story from yesterday that got buried under the news of Trump’s conviction. In The New Republic, Ken Silverstein reported on a private WhatsApp group started last December by military contractor Erik Prince—founder of Blackwater and brother of Trump’s secretary of education, Betsy DeVos—and including about 650 wealthy and well-connected “right-wing government officials, intelligence operatives, arms traffickers, and journalists,” including Representative Ryan Zinke (R-MT), who served as Trump’s secretary of the interior. 

Called “Off Leash,” the group discussed, as Silverstein wrote, “the shortcomings of democracy that invariably resulted from extending the franchise to ordinary citizens, who are easily manipulated by Marxists and populists,” collapsing Gaza into a “fiery hell pit,” wiping out Iran, how Africa was a “sh*thole of a continent,” and ways to dominate the globe. Mostly, though, they discussed the danger of letting everyone vote. “There is only one path forward,” Zinke wrote. “Elect Trump.” Another member answered, “It’s Trump or Revolution” “You mean Trump AND Revolution,” wrote another. 

And yet the frantic MAGA spin on the verdict reveals that there is another way to interpret it. Americans who had lost faith that the justice system could ever hold a powerful man accountable as Trump’s lawyers managed to put off his many indictments see the verdict as a welcome sign that the system still works. 

“The American principle that no one is above the law was reaffirmed,” Biden said today. “Donald Trump was given every opportunity to defend himself. It was a state case, not a federal case. And it was heard by a jury of 12 citizens, 12 Americans, 12 people like you. Like millions of Americans who served on juries, this jury is chosen the same way every jury in America is chosen. It was a process that Donald Trump's attorney was part of. The jury heard five weeks of evidence…. After careful deliberation, the jury reached a unanimous verdict. They found Donald Trump guilty on all 34 felony counts. Now he’ll be given the opportunity as he should to appeal that decision just like everyone else has that opportunity. That's how the American system of justice works. And it's reckless, it's dangerous, and it's irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged just because they don't like the verdict. Our justice system has endured for nearly 250 years and it literally is the cornerstone of America…. The justice system should be respected, and we should never allow anyone to tear it down. It’s as simple as that. That's America. That's who we are. And that's who we will always be, God willing.”

Today the publisher of Dinesh D’Souza’s book and film 2000 Mules, which alleged voter fraud in the 2020 election, said it was pulling both the book and film from distribution and issued an apology to a Georgia man who sued for defamation after 2000 Mules accused him of voting illegally.  

MAGA Republicans confidently predicted yesterday that the stock market would crash if the jury found Trump guilty. Today the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained almost 600 points.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[meret118]

However, he nonetheless makes the case at The Dispatch that former President Donald Trump's "utter moral corruption" is such a threat to the American republic that he must reluctantly hold his nose and back Biden.

The logic, he says, is that while he intensely dislikes many of Biden's policies, he believes that Biden will willingly leave office in 2028 -- and that he does not have the same confidence in Trump.

"The question isn’t 'Biden or Trump?' so much as it’s 'Should we continue with the constitutional order as we’ve known it or try something radically different?'" he contends. "I’ll guarantee here and now that if Trump becomes president again and remains in good health he’ll try to extend his term in office past 2029. I won’t guarantee that he’ll succeed, but the attempt will be made as surely as you’re reading this."

Whatever his misgivings with Biden, Catoggio argues that he will not deploy the military against his fellow Americans who protest against him and he won't stock the Department of Justice with fanatics who are hellbent on prosecuting as many members of the opposing party as they can."All of that is on the table if Trump is reelected, along with even darker insanity that you and I can’t imagine but Stephen Miller assuredly can," he writes.

. . .

"No one is 'investing' in Joe Biden by supporting him," he writes. "They’re investing in keeping a fascist out of power."

[darkmaga-returns]

10 shocking stories the media buried today.

The Vigilant Fox

Dec 04, 2024

10 – Dr. Peter Hotez warns of a series of potential pandemics “coming down the pike,” claiming it will all “come crashing down” on Trump “on January 21st.”

Is that a threat?

Meanwhile, a mysterious “flu-like disease” has claimed 179 lives and counting in Africa, leaving health officials scrambling for answers as they admit they “have no idea what it is,” The New York Post reports.

While on MSNBC, Hotez named every disease he could think of in less than 60 seconds, claiming all of them could pose a serious threat to public health under the new Trump administration, especially because of RFK Jr. and “anti-vaccine” activism.

This includes:

• Bird flu

• New coronavirus (SARS)

• Dengue

• Zika

• Oropouche virus

• Yellow fever

• Whooping cough

• Measles

• Polio

“We have some big picture stuff coming down the pike... All that’s going to come crashing down on January 21st on the Trump administration,” Hotez warned.

Video: https://x.com/Patri0tContr0l/status/1864341348200927446

(See 9 More Revealing Stories Below)

9 - Whoopi Goldberg freaks out on Charlamagne after he says Biden lied about pardoning Hunter.

CHARLAMAGNE: “He didn’t have to volunteer that lie to begin with.”

WHOOPI: “I’m gonna stop you there for a second.”

CHARLAMAGNE: “Uh oh.”

WHOOPI: “Only because you don’t know it was a lie. We don’t know why he changed his mind.”

CHARLAMAGNE: “You really think he just changed his mind over Thanksgiving weekend all of a sudden?”

WHOOPI: “No. I’m gonna tell you what I think. I think he changed because he got sick of watching everybody else get over… because at some point, you get to the place where you just go, so I’m just gonna follow the straight and narrow always ‘cause that’s what’s expected of Democrats.”

CHARLAMAGNE: “But that’s their fault! They’re the ones that go out there, and they stand on this moral high ground. They don’t have to do that.”

8 - The Jimmy Kimmel Show drops a surprisingly funny segment making fun of CA Governor Gavin Newsom.

And get this—Californians were so clueless that they actually believed they were talking to the real Gavin Newsom.

NEWSOM (Actor): “There’s 217 officially recognized gender choices that you have in California.”

CALIFORNIAN: “Wow! 217?”

NEWSOM: “Like, I have a macadamia nut allergy. Like, that might be how you identify.”

7 - CNN admits Kash Patel’s odds of being confirmed as FBI Director are “climbing ever higher.”

“The key number here is zero. That’s how many GOP senators have come out against him... Kash Patel’s [odds] to lead the FBI seems to be climbing ever higher.”

This news comes as the media melts down over Kash Patel's extensive list of Deep State enemies.

6 - Stephen Miller Issues a Stark Message to Illegals: EVERYTHING Changes on January 20

“It will be the end of the invasion. It will be the beginning of the liberation.”

1. “President Trump will issue a series of executive orders and actions that will suspend the entry of illegal aliens into this country.”

2. “There will be no benefits. There will be no entry. There will be no asylum. There will be no admission.”

3. “You may be prosecuted. You will certainly be arrested, and you will absolutely be deported.”

4. “Every presidential authority, including his absolute authority under Article 2 to defend the territorial sovereignty of the United States, will be used.”

5. “The entire world—Mexico, Northern Triangle, Central America, South America, Africa, Asia, the Middle East—will get this message: there is no unlawful route to enter the United States of America.”

While you’re here, don’t forget to subscribe to this page for more daily news roundups.Subscribe

#5 - CEO of UnitedHealthcare Killed in “Targeted Attack”

#4 - Police Threaten Man Investigating Mysterious Booms Heard in Idaho

#3 - Ukraine Accused of Training Terrorists in Syria

#2 - Mexico to Ban Toxic Genetically-Modified Corn From U.S.

Mexico recently released an 182-page scientific dossier on genetically modified corn and its effects on human health, the environment, and biodiversity, including the biocultural richness of native corn in Mexico.

The summary immediately cuts to the chase that there is “no scientific consensus on the safety of human or animal consumption and the releasing into the environment of GM crops.”

Prepared by Mexico’s National Council for Humanities, Science, and Technology (CONAHCYT), the summary adds, “What there is, however, is a corpus of scientific research that has shown that transgenesis is an imprecise technology with unexpected and undesired effect; in particular, it has demonstrated the risks and harms it entails.”

Read More: https://thehighwire.com/editorial/mexico-plans-to-modify-its-constitution-to-ban-toxic-us-genetically-modified-corn/

[maryturck]

Immigration News: January 16, 2025

In today’s immigration news: A policy of fear and terror; teachers get student questions on deportation; right-wing law firm with Stephen Miller connection threatens prosecution of government officials in sanctuary states; more.  The incoming Republican administration does not have the capacity to deport millions of undocumented immigrants. One of its strategies is to use wide publicity and…

[worlddnewssblogger]

'Sugar daddy' sex scandal case heading to trial

A Michigan woman, deemed the "head slave" of a Greenwich investor's online fantasy world, rejected a plea deal Tuesday in an extortion case and is planning to fight the charges.

Patricia Miller, 45, of Cassopolis, Mich., appeared in state Superior Court, where she told a judge she would not accept a plea agreement on felony charges that would have allowed her to avoid jail time.

Miller is charged with first-degree conspiracy to commit larceny, first-degree criminal attempt at larceny and second-degree larceny for allegedly using various Internet personas to blackmail DuPont heir and Riverside resident Stephen Dent.

Assistant State's Attorney David Applegate told Judge Richard Comerford the sides have been unable to reach an agreement to resolve the case Tuesday.

Comerford asked Miller if she understood that by not accepting the plea deal she could be facing nearly 50 years in jail if convicted.

"I take it you are not intending to avail yourself of the state's offer," Comerford said.

Miller said she understood her decision, and the case was put on the trial list.

After her hearing, Miller said she was taking the case to trial because she wanted justice and felt her side of the story had yet to be told.

"Basically, I am trying to clear my name," said Miller, who is married and has one daughter and two grandchildren. "I feel this is a selective prosecution. I think it's very unfair."

Dent, who viewed himself a "slave master," had a network of women he chatted with on the "sugar daddy" dating site SeekingArrangement.com. Miller is the fourth person charged by Greenwich police with attempting or successfully extorting the millionaire as a result of these online relationships.

The Michigan woman is described in police reports as the "harem mother" who would call Dent's "slaves" to make sure they were fulfilling their end of the arrangement, which entailed getting breast implants and sending the investor sexually explicit pictures and chats.

Miller said she felt her actions were not illegal and that she had nothing to do with an Ohio couple, Dawn and Christopher Jessop, who pleaded guilty in May to an extortion scheme that swindled Dent out of more than $100,000.

Miller's attorney, Mark Sherman, said while police feel Miller committed a crime, he disagrees because Miller and Dent had a consensual relationship in which money was being transferred voluntarily.

"It's never easy turning down a court offer that doesn't involve jail time," Sherman said. "However, Patricia does not want to be branded a felon for the rest of her life based on cyberchatting that may or may not have spun out of control."

Sherman said he will spend the next few months reviewing evidence on the case taken from Miller's computers and cell phones.

According to the warrant, Dent came to police on March 1, 2009, to report that two women were attempting to extort him. At that time Dent provided a sworn statement that said, "I had been having a cybersex relationship with two other women, known to me at the time as including Sara Laste and Meghan Allen." Dent went on to describe how these women -- in reality all Miller -- would send him text messages demanding money and threatening to come to Greenwich and expose him to all his co-workers.

After police looked into the claims, they found that Miller was allegedly behind all the personas and schemes. Three weeks later, on March 18, the Jessops were busted in Greenwich when they came to try and confront Dent face-to-face and ask for more money.

Miller was arrested soon after the Jessops' bust, on March 30, but she fought extradition from Michigan until June when she was formally charged in Stamford.

The Jessops' extortion case garnered national headlines after Greenwich Time exposed Dent's history of soliciting sex and previous extortion incidents outlined in police reports dating back three years.

In 2007, Dent was extorted by a Queens, N.Y., man, who threatened to release information about Dent's encounter with a woman and the sex acts they engaged in, which the man's attorney at the time called "vile" and "vulgar." A woman also extorted Dent for $9,000, but that incident was never reported to police.

Through those investigations, Dent admitted to spending up to $200,000 on sex at a local hotel in 2007. Police also released a standard form letter Dent would send out to various women offering monthly stipends for time at the hotel.

Dent has not been charged with a crime. Police said they declined to charge Dent in 2007 with patronizing a prostitute because they were going after the more serious crime of extortion and said it would have been difficult to prosecute him based only on statements.

Dent's attorney, Steven Frederick, of Stamford, did not return a call seeking comment on Tuesday's developments.

Sherman said when the case goes to trial, Dent will likely be called to testify.

[newsbooklive24]

'Sugar daddy' sex scandal case heading to trial

A Michigan woman, deemed the "head slave" of a Greenwich investor's online fantasy world, rejected a plea deal Tuesday in an extortion case and is planning to fight the charges.

Patricia Miller, 45, of Cassopolis, Mich., appeared in state Superior Court, where she told a judge she would not accept a plea agreement on felony charges that would have allowed her to avoid jail time.

Miller is charged with first-degree conspiracy to commit larceny, first-degree criminal attempt at larceny and second-degree larceny for allegedly using various Internet personas to blackmail DuPont heir and Riverside resident Stephen Dent.

Assistant State's Attorney David Applegate told Judge Richard Comerford the sides have been unable to reach an agreement to resolve the case Tuesday.

Comerford asked Miller if she understood that by not accepting the plea deal she could be facing nearly 50 years in jail if convicted.

"I take it you are not intending to avail yourself of the state's offer," Comerford said.

After her hearing, Miller said she was taking the case to trial because she wanted justice and felt her side of the story had yet to be told.

"Basically, I am trying to clear my name," said Miller, who is married and has one daughter and two grandchildren. "I feel this is a selective prosecution. I think it's very unfair."

Dent, who viewed himself a "slave master," had a network of women he chatted with on the "sugar daddy" dating site SeekingArrangement.com. Miller is the fourth person charged by Greenwich police with attempting or successfully extorting the millionaire as a result of these online relationships.

The Michigan woman is described in police reports as the "harem mother" who would call Dent's "slaves" to make sure they were fulfilling their end of the arrangement, which entailed getting breast implants and sending the investor sexually explicit pictures and chats.

[lawbyrhys]

Ari Melber FACT-CHECKS Stephen Miller LIVE

Everybody knows I love "The Beat with Ari Melber," but tonight's segment was so damn frustrating due to Stephen Miller's raging that I have to vent about it to my brilliant audience.

Let's break down the bullshit we bore witness to, and how well Melber handled said bullshit.

Tonight, I watched Trump-affiliate Stephen Miller yell at Ari Melber on the latter's own show, put loosely, about how it was election deniers' legal right to deny the results of the 2020 election. Imagine berating a bright legal mind like Ari Melber, calling the just prosecution of seditious insurrectionists a "clear cut case of government against innocent people," as if those people were innocent in any way. Especially those in power who pulled the strings around that time. He went on to berate the processes in place, saying that what the MAGA team urged Pence to do was somehow just and legal. He claimed that remanding votes to the six swing states and flipping the results would have been a perfectly normal, legal thing to do; electon fraud is a serious crime. As if Stephen Miller knows shit about the law, let alone the law at hand. He went on to scream about Republicans lawyers being prosecuted for their "Good, sound legal advice," as if that's true in any way. We all know why Trump's counsel always face the utmost in legal consequence; they are the legitimate definition of malpractice. It was aggravating, to say the least, and Miller's inability to speak in any variation of a calm tone was even more so—props to Melber for being the professional he is the entire interview. He's my favorite anchor.

More was said—well, screamed—but I digress.

The real kicker—one of them, at least—was when Melber questioned Miller on his own fucked way of thinking. Essentially, if what they wanted Congress and Pence to do in putting an alternate slate through and overturning the results was legal and just, then surely it'd be so if Harris were to do the same thing this time. Of course, Miller wasn't having any of it, going on to trip over every word through the remainder of the interview to somehow justify getting caught. It was a messy interview, but it had to be done.

It was beautiful to see Melber be so calm and assertive, though. He's a prime example of what I'm talking about when I give advice on arguing. He barely had to say a word besides pointing out the fallacies and thanking Miller for his time. Sometimes, all it takes to win an argument is to be the sane one, and Melber did an excellent job. That's not all he did, but that would have been enough. A stellar performance from him.

I also appreciate Ari Melber for platforming the ideas of the far-right to remind those of us who may have forgotten how legally and ethically unsound they are. I believe in each and every one of our rights to free speech and expression; even if what's expressed is objectively wrong.

You have to be willing to face the consequences for what you say and do, though, i.e. defamation suits, which Melber reminded Miller are a thing.

I really don't want this blog to be a partisan one since the law doesn't have a political leaning, and in no way would I ever prescribe it one. That being said, though, I can't just sit back and watch this breed of weirdos tear apart the law and act like that's totally normal. As long as they shit on what I swore to uphold, I'm going to do just that in every capacity—even on this blog.

Believe what you want, but believe in the law.

[wwarborday]

Project 2025 isn’t gonna throw you into a concentration camp day 1, but it does want to get rid of the entire department of education, make schooling a state issue, give free school vouchers to anyone who asks (essentially paying state money to send kids to religious and private school, rather than pay public teachers better), and uh. Ban? Free? Lunch? Programs?

The forward says that the Constitution’s “pursuit of happiness” should be interpreted as “pursuit of blessedness,” and, “an individual must be free to live as his creator ordained.”

You? Making no money and living paycheck to paycheck? They want you taxed at 30%. They want corporate taxes to be lowered to 18%. They want work requirements for people on SNAP/food stamps. Abortion will be officially declassified as healthcare, and federal insurance will not cover it.

There are, currently, tens of thousands of federal civil servants—post office workers, White House staff (staff, like cleaners, security, gardeners), EPA workers, NASA, Social Security—people who work in federal government, in what are, hypothetically, non-partisan positions. Current policy is to, uh, keep those people around through administrative changes, so that they can do their jobs.

Project 2025 would re-instate what Trump did in his first term, and class many of these jobs as “Schedule F” workers. (Biden eliminated this in his first term.) The administration would then, uh, fire those people, and rehire people who pass a “loyalty test,” because if government works too well, then we have socialism, and big business can’t thrive. Deporting illegal immigrants would become a top priority, but seeking fees from asylum seekers would become top priority, which the project calls “an opportunity for a significant influx of money.”

Jesus Christ.

Related to the above, but last month, June 2024, 2025 launched “Project Sovereignty 2025,” which aims to list 100 people who would oppose Trump. (Not project 2025, or a hypothetical candidate; Trump.) These names will apparently be listed publicly.

The DOJ would, I shit you not, “prosecute all state and local governments, institutions of higher education, corporations, and any other private employers” who participate in DEI or affirmative action programs, since those are anti-white racism.

Like—even if you take away the, yes, idea that trans people are inherently pornographic, this is a plan designed to, essentially, kill the government. The issue isn’t “big government,” the issue is fucking OSHA, and the EPA, and protections for queer people and POC, because what conservatives really want, is the ability to make as much money as possible, by exploiting as many people as they can.

“Trump hasn’t said he’s gonna do project 2025” yeah my bad man, it’s just made by people like Jeffrey Clark (from Trump’s DOJ), Stephen Miller (created immigration policy for Trump), and Russel Vought (policy director for the Republican National Committee).

If you want to scoff at the idea of the military being deployed against civilians on day one, sure, fine, kinda outlandish, but like. This is still, bad? This is still really bad? “The white liberals are scared of the bogeyman” is something I keep seeing, “oh, project 2025, it’s soooo scary,” dude! You should be fucking concerned about anyone wanting to dismantle public education and implement a loyalty test before you can work at the post office!

I find it consistently and endless frustrating, this condescending idea of, “Oh, okay, sure, just one more vote and we’ll defeat fascism…. Why do we still have to vote, then? Idiots .” My guy!! My man!! My dude!! I love having food and safety laws! Big fan of environmental laws that keep lead out of my water! I want OSHA to exist forever! I will kiss social security on the mouth! People wanna get rid of them forever!! I’d love that to not happen!! Gonna vote about it!! If these fuckers would stop trying to dismantle the current government so that they can work me to death, I wouldn’t have to keep asking people to vote!!

“The Democrats should be doing more and Biden sucks” yup!! Gonna vote anyway! Super quick and easy way to keep this from happening in a year! Gives me time to organize with others and create a more systemic solution!

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Robert Taft at The Guardian:

Republicans responded to Hunter Biden’s conviction on Tuesday of lying about his drug use to buy a gun by doubling down on conspiracy theories that many senior party figures have been using to try and damage his president father. Despite the fact that Joe Biden’s son could now face a hefty jail sentence, Donald Trump’s election campaign and its surrogates repeated unfounded attack lines that the conviction was part of a conspiracy to deflect attention from more serious crimes and represented the use of the Department of Justice (DoJ) as a political weapon.

Republicans have long sought to use Hunter Biden’s woes and business dealings as a political weapon against Biden, ignoring the fact that Trump himself is also now a convicted felon whose own business empire has been fined hundreds of millions of dollars for fraudulent practises.

That tactic continued in the wake of Hunter’s guilty verdict. “This trial has been nothing more than a distraction from the real crimes of the Biden Crime Family, which has raked in tens of millions of dollars from China, Russia and Ukraine,” the Trump campaign said in a statement. Matt Gaetz, the far-right congressman from Florida, was distinctly dismissive, posting on X: “The Hunter Biden gun conviction is kinda dumb tbh.” That was echoed by Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist and founder of Turning Point USA, who derided the conviction as a distraction from worse crimes he claimed have been committed by the president’s family. “Hunter Biden guilty. Yawn,” Kirk wrote. “The true crimes of the Biden Crime Family remain untouched. This is a fake trial trying to make the Justice system appear ‘balanced.’ Don’t fall for it.” Nancy Mace, a Republican congresswoman for South Carolina, implied that the verdict was a sham. “Timing is everything. The veil of fairness in the justice system under Potus,” she wrote.

Stephen Miller, one of Donald Trump’s closest advisers during his first presidency, went further still, posting: “[The] DoJ is running election interference for Joe Biden – that’s why DOJ did NOT charge Hunter with being an unregistered foreign agent (FARA) or any crime connected with foreign corruption. Why? Because all the evidence would lead back to JOE.” The negative drumbeat underscored how the prosecution – and now conviction – of Hunter Biden has undermined a Republican narrative that the justice department has been “weaponised” by Biden’s administration to pursue a vendetta against Trump, who was last month convicted of 34 counts of document falsification to conceal hush-money payments to an adult actor. Trump’s case was led by a New York state prosecutor, who does not work under the department’s jurisdiction, while Hunter Biden was prosecuted by the DoJ, which is part of his father’s administration.

Wah wah wah!!! Republicans whine about the 3 Hunter Biden guilty convictions (even after hoping and praying for him to be guilty) and play poutrage games in order to hurt his father Joe’s election chances.

See Also:

HuffPost: Republicans Complain About Hunter Biden Guilty Verdict

Daily Kos: Hunter Biden is convicted, but the GOP is still big mad

Public Notice: Hunter Biden's conviction destroys key MAGA conspiracy theory