✮✮✮ !Trump Dump! ✮✮✮

[demagogue]

Here's our data point on that.

Former Pentagon chief Esper says Trump asked about shooting protesters

Esper said he and other top officials were caught off guard by Trump's reaction to the unrest in the summer of 2020.

"The president was enraged," Esper recalled. "He thought that the protests made the country look weak, made us look weak and 'us' meant him. And he wanted to do something about it.

"We reached that point in the conversation where he looked frankly at [Joint Chiefs of Staff] Gen. [Mark] Milley and said, 'Can't you just shoot them, just shoot them in the legs or something?' ... It was a suggestion and a formal question. And we were just all taken aback at that moment as this issue just hung very heavily in the air."

The difference this time is, in 2020 we had this.

Esper said he stayed in the administration because he worried that if he left, the president would more easily implement some of his "dangerous ideas."

Now we only have yes-men, which is obvious because no one in their right mind would have supported a universal tariff with a 10% baseline the difference of the trade imbalance for any country over a 10% imbalance. The economic insanity of that is as unanimous an opinion among economists across the whole political spectrum as economist opinions get.

[Starker]

To all the Panicans*, have you even thanked DJ Vance once today?




* (a new party based on Weak and Stupid people, apparently)

[lowenz]

Be a loser to be a winner !

I love trumpian doublespeaking.

[heywood]

[Starker]

So, quite predictably, it turns out that the vast majority of the people deported to the El Salvadorian torture prison had no criminal records or accusations, and they were in the US completely legally:

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/stor...alvador-prison

Trump administration officials have cast the Venezuelan men being deported to a hellish El Salvadoran prison as “terrorists” and gang members. But a recent investigation by 60 Minutes revealed that the vast majority of those men have no known criminal records.

The news program got its hands on a government list of 238 men who were flown to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (or CECOT) last month without any due process, and despite a court order barring their immediate deportation. After identifying the names on the list, 60 Minutes found that 179 of the men—75% of the names on the list—had no known criminal record in the U.S. or abroad.
[...]

And of the people with criminal accusations, the vast majority had been accused of non-violent crimes like theft and trespassing. Only a handful were accused of more serious crimes such as assault and rape.

Also, some of the "vicious gang members" were included because of things such as posing with makeup brushes on their social media.

[...]
One of those men is a 31-year-old makeup artist named Andry Hernandez Romero, whose lawyer told 60 Minutes he was targeted in Venezuela for being gay and was going through the asylum process in the U.S. The Trump administration has insisted, without providing evidence, that Romero’s social media activity suggests he is part of the gang Tren de Agua.

But according to 60 Minutes, a decades’ worth of posts revealed mostly glamour shots of Romero posing with beauty queen crowns and makeup brushes. The report also cited a photographer who documented the moments Romero arrived at CECOT, where he was stripped naked, had his head shaved, and cried for his mother as he was slapped by guards.
[...]

And the one guy they admitted that they grabbed completely by mistake, a man who was living legally in the US with his wife and children, now they are saying they just don't want to do anything to get him back, that now suddenly the US is impotent when it comes to dealing with foreign governments.

[...]
But despite its best efforts to prevent its deportation decisions from being scrutinized, the administration's story is quickly unraveling. Already, it has admitted in court to the wrongful deportation of Kilmar Abrego García, a Maryland father who was sent to El Salvador, despite having legal protected status. The administration has called the move an “administrative error,” but has fought against correcting that error. On Monday, the administration appealed to the Supreme Court to block a lower court's order that García be returned to the U.S.
[...]

[demagogue]

Now that they've crossed that line, it's just one little step to US citizens getting detained in a black site/deported without any evidence of crime , as I was saying 6 months ago. Go ahead and call me/us delusional again for worrying about this. The speed with which this farce is happening, it won't be that long until the proof in the pudding.

(Quick google search later.)
Oh yeah...

4 hours ago.
White House floats deporting U.S. citizens. Justice Sotomayor just warned about that.

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt mentioned potentially deporting American citizens who are violent repeat offenders “if it’s legal.”April 8, 2025, 4:08 PM CDT

By Jordan Rubin

Responding to a question at Tuesday’s daily briefing, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt mentioned President Donald Trump’s “idea” to potentially deport “violent” and “heinous” U.S. citizens, adding a seemingly important caveat: “If it’s legal.”

It’s not.

But that doesn’t mean it can’t happen. Indeed, Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned just a day earlier of the possibility.

Dissenting from the Supreme Court’s decision to grant emergency relief to the government in a case about deportations, Sotomayor wrote that the implications of the Trump administration’s legal stance is that “not only noncitizens but also United States citizens could be taken off the streets, forced onto planes, and confined to foreign prisons with no opportunity for redress if judicial review is denied unlawfully before removal.”

The possibility also lurks in another appeal pending before the justices, in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was erroneously deported to El Salvador. Despite conceding an “administrative error” in sending him to that country, the government has resisted remedying the error. Supporting his return, constitutional scholars wrote to the high court that, if the government’s position were correct, then “the Executive Branch would possess a shuddering degree of power — power that the President could wield in extreme and extraordinary ways, including against American citizens that the President simply disfavors.”

Leavitt’s comments thus reinforce the importance of the court’s forthcoming decision in Abrego Garcia’s case, whose consequences could inform just how far this administration will go.

Not to mention...

Trump Administration Has Detained Citizens as Part of Mass Deportation Actions

A new report doesn’t include a definitive list, meaning there are likely many more examples of citizens being detained.

By Chris Walker, Truthout

Published April 7, 2025

President Donald Trump delivers remarks during a Make America Wealthy Again event in the Rose Garden of the White House on April 2, 2025.
Demetrius Freeman / The Washington Post via Getty Images

A new report highlights how at least seven U.S. citizens — but likely far more — have been detained, deported or otherwise targeted by the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign.

According to the report from The Washington Post, at least seven U.S. citizens across the country, including children, have been detained by the federal government’s anti-immigrant operations since Trump took office. In some instances, individuals were detained despite showing identification demonstrating their citizenship status.

“As immigration officials become more indiscriminate about who they’re targeting — all while they’re pressured to deport people faster and to avoid immigration court proceedings — it creates a situation in which the possibility of illegally detaining and deporting a U.S. citizen rises immensely, because citizenship is not something that we can spot on people’s foreheads,” said César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, a law professor at Ohio State University, speaking to The Post.

The publication documented numerous examples of citizens being targeted, including:

A man in Chicago who, after dining at a pizzeria following a day of submitting resumes to potential employers, was detained, handcuffed, and put into a van with other migrants, despite having his Social Security card on his person;
A family with mixed citizenship status detained at a Border Patrol checkpoint in South Texas, as they were rushing their 10-year-old daughter — a U.S. citizen — to the hospital, resulting in their being deported to Mexico, where they currently reside in hiding;
And a Virginia man who, while driving to his job with his coworkers, had his vehicle surrounded by armed immigration officials after they wrongly identified him as a migrant with a different name.

The U.S. government doesn’t release data on how often citizens are detained for being suspected of living in the country without legal status. The information obtained by The Post is based on media reports, research institutes and oversight agencies, suggesting that the number of citizens who have been targeted is likely far higher.

[Starker]

Just wait for how they react to the inevitable sustained protests... I don't think there's anybody in the current administration to argue back against suggestions such as shooting the protesters in the legs and quite a few eager to carry out such an order.

[Jason Moyer]

Oh look, a Republican tanked the economy again. That hasn't happened except every single time we've elected one since 1908.

[heywood]

Now that they've crossed that line, it's just one little step to US citizens getting detained in a black site/deported without any evidence of crime , as I was saying 6 months ago. Go ahead and call me/us delusional again for worrying about this. The speed with which this farce is happening, it won't be that long until the proof in the pudding.

(Quick google search later.)
Oh yeah...

Not to mention...

Trump already floated that idea before, right after striking a deal with Bukele to deport people to CECOT. If he stays in power, anyone disloyal is fair game, it's just a matter of priority. Folks who thought you were delusional will cheer it on.

[Starker]

The best people:

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/n...r-hotel-fight/

EXCLUSIVE — A Diplomatic Security Service shift supervisor assigned to Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s protective detail was arrested by Belgian police at a Brussels hotel last Monday after arguing with hotel staff and fighting with responding police officers. Later that week, Rubio stayed in the same place, Hotel Amigo, while attending NATO’s foreign ministers meeting.

[...]

Speaking on condition of anonymity, two sources with direct knowledge of the situation told the Washington Examiner that the agent in question was behaving erratically and became irate when hotel staff refused to reopen the bar beyond its normal hours. When staff, including the night manager, attempted to persuade the agent to return to his room, the agent became physically aggressive. Police were then called. The agent engaged in an altercation with numerous police officers, leading to his arrest. The agent was released from police custody later that day after intervention by the U.S. Embassy.
[...]

[Jason Moyer]

Trump signs order to 'make America's showers great again'

What a big win. This has really caused a lot of stress in my life as of late.

[Tomi]

Trump signs order to 'make America's showers great again'

Trump really is more hilarious than any parody site.

The US president is ordering the energy secretary to rescind a change introduced by Barack Obama that restricted multi-nozzle showers from discharging over 2.5 gallons of water per minute overall.

This served "a radical green agenda that made life worse for Americans", the White House said, as Trump criticised the "ridiculous" amount of time he says it takes to wet his hair in the shower.

I mean, that's pure comedy gold. That's like Hitler complaining about having to spend a ridiculous amount of time to wax his moustache.

[Nicker]

Ve haff vays off makink you Great Again!

[Starker]

The best people (at infighting):

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...s-gary-shapley

Donald Trump is replacing the acting commissioner of the US Internal Revenue Service after treasury secretary Scott Bessent reportedly complained to the president that the agency head had been appointed without his knowledge and under the instruction of Doge leader Elon Musk.

[...]

On social media, the conflict between Bessent and Musk was visible as Musk elevated a post from far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer in which she accuses Bessent of collaborating with a “pro-impeachment and pro-censorship Trump hater”, referring to the businessman John Hope Bryant. Musk agreed with Loomer, calling the collaboration “troubling”, on X, the platform he owns.

Amid the internal power struggles, the IRS has been reportedly planning to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status following pressure from the Trump administration, despite it being against the law for the president to direct the IRS to conduct an investigation or audit.

Something something about unelected bureaucrats.


In related news, Defence Secretary Kegseth is apparently the best at keeping it in the family, but the only problem is that "it" in this case pertains to classified military secrets:

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/def...ts-2025-04-20/

WASHINGTON, April 20 (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared details of a March attack on Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis in a message group that included his wife, brother and personal lawyer, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Sunday.

[...]

The latest revelation comes days after Dan Caldwell, one of Hegseth's leading advisers, was escorted from the Pentagon after being identified during an investigation into leaks at the Department of Defense.

Although Caldwell is not as well known as other senior Pentagon officials, he has played a critical role for Hegseth and was named as the Pentagon's point person by the Secretary in the first Signal chat.

"We are incredibly disappointed by the manner in which our service at the Department of Defense ended," Caldwell posted on X on Saturday. "Unnamed Pentagon officials have slandered our character with baseless attacks on our way out the door."

Following Caldwell's departure, less-senior officials Darin Selnick, who recently became Hegseth's deputy chief of staff, and Colin Carroll, who was chief of staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg, were put on administrative leave and fired on Friday.

Something something about her e-mails.

[demagogue]

The LegalEagle video on "But her Emails vs Signalgate" was such a good take on that, and it was even before we knew that it kept getting worse, although the writing on the wall when it happened is that they've been using criminally unsecure communications from the start and probably flubbing up all the time.



The other relevant data point is after one of the Doge bros created an account for themselves on the NLRB database, within minutes there were login attempts using the Doge bro's username and password from a Russian IP address, which were only stopped because of the unexpected IP address. But the fact that the attempt was made with correct information within minutes ... I mean, le coup, c'est moi, Elon.

[Nicker]

The rise of cruelty and the reemergence of fascism are directly related. Feeding people fear is the cornerstone of fascism and hatred is the first fruit.

Trump recently mused about shipping American citizens to foreign jails. Contracting out, so to speak.

[Starker]

They are called "homegrowns". Get with the lingo, bud.

Perhaps the people unjustly imprisoned in the US gulag system can at least take a modicum of solace from the Supreme Court opining that the administration is not allowed to do the things they keep doing, though.

[Nicker]

Donald J. KKK^nt strikes again.

MaTSA - Make Toddlers Starve Again!




.

[Starker]

Don't look up (human rights abuses):

https://www.npr.org/2025/04/18/nx-s1...ts-report-cuts

The Trump administration is substantially scaling back the State Department's annual reports on international human rights to remove longstanding critiques of abuses such as harsh prison conditions, government corruption and restrictions on participation in the political process, NPR has learned.

Despite decades of precedent, the reports, which are meant to inform congressional decisions on foreign aid allocations and security assistance, will no longer call governments out for such things as denying freedom of movement and peaceful assembly. They won't condemn retaining political prisoners without due process or restrictions on "free and fair elections."

Forcibly returning a refugee or asylum-seeker to a home country where they may face torture or persecution will no longer be highlighted, nor will serious harassment of human rights organizations.

[...]

The documents NPR reviewed confirm reporting by Politico that reports of violence and discrimination against LGBTQ+ people will be removed, along with all references to DEI.

Among other topics ordered to be struck from the reports:

Involuntary or coercive medical or psychological practices.
Arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy.
Serious restrictions to internet freedom.
Extensive gender-based violence.
Violence or threats of violence targeting people with disabilities.


[...]some deletions are more noteworthy than others. The Trump administration recently negotiated the transfer of immigrants from the U.S. into El Salvador's notorious prison system. In a draft of the forthcoming report on that country reviewed by NPR, the section on prison conditions is erased. The only remnants of those violations are reports on prison deaths that fall into the category of "extrajudicial killings" and a mention of abuse by prison guards in a legislatively mandated section on "Torture and Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment."

In the report on Hungary, a marked-up version of which was distributed as a model for how to apply the new directives, the section titled "Corruption in Government" is struck out. Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has been called an authoritarian, and previous reports have noted restrictions to civil liberties. President Trump has called him "a great man and a great leader in Europe."
[...]

[demagogue]

I already noticed the parallel with China's Ankang system last year. Under Project 2025, they want to create facilities to forcibly detain homeless, addicts, and mentally ill persons because it's a way you can indefinitely detain critics without due process (just call undue criticism or protest a "mental illness") that's completely outside the penal law system. I suppose they think that nobody is going to notice that form of arbitrary detention as quickly (it's true that it's not as reported on as much in China), or anyway it's easier to pull off on dumb people who think the extra services for homelessness, addiction, & mental illness will be great.

Anyway, it was already outlined in Project 2025 and in the leaked admin plans I posted here I think last December, and that's the reason why they'd rip out "involuntary or coercive medical or psychological practices" from their human rights reports.

Edit: Well you can go down the list...

They're gutting privacy scrutiny because they're taking information from your tax returns and the new social media registrations (to get a visa you have to notify your social media accounts), etc., to find, target, and prosecute critics, which is also where the internet freedom comes in. The 5 eyes program already requires phone companies to allow the gov't access to apps on your phone. Not without a warrant and not personal info currently, but no doubt they'll just start openly taking personal info off our phones through that system without cause like China does.

Disabilities is related to the above (addiction, mental illness), and disability and gender are DEI categories, which are verboten.

[Starker]

They have already trained their supporters to call criticism of the dear leader TDS, so...