The Official "Damned Trump" Thread: Phase II

[The Grand Nudger]

Last year, the Trump administration attacked boats coming from South America under the rationale that it would reduce fentanyl deaths, even though they weren't interdicting common fentanyl supply pathways.  Now they're dropping funding for fentanyl test strips which it is known will increase fentanyl deaths.

If you stop testing, you wont have any cases.

[awty]

Last year, the Trump administration attacked boats coming from South America under the rationale that it would reduce fentanyl deaths, even though they weren't interdicting common fentanyl supply pathways.  Now they're dropping funding for fentanyl test strips which it is known will increase fentanyl deaths.

If you stop testing, you wont have any cases.

Smacks of "leave that boat with COVID patients in International waters".  That way they aren't American cases of the China Flu.  And get them some bleach and shine a light up their butts for good measure.

[Angrboda]

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

The irony is overwhelming.

Boru

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Trump’s Next War

I recall himclaiming that he ended a war in the DRC, even though he didn’t seem completely clear about who was fighting whom. However…

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) plans to set up a paramilitary unit to secure the country’s large mining sites.

The General Inspectorate of Mines (IGM), which oversees the country’s abundant deposits of critical minerals, announced the creation of “the mining guard” on Monday. The unit will be backed by investments from the United States and United Arab Emirates as Washington and its ally seek to lock in access to the minerals and the DRC struggles with rebel groups for control in the country’s troubled east.

Boru

[Angrboda]

Trump administration is increasingly ignoring US courts, new analysis shows

When a federal judge shot down a Trump administration policy of holding immigrants without bond last December, it seemed like a serious blow to the US president’s mass deportation effort.

Instead, a top justice department official insisted the ruling wasn’t binding, and the administration continued denying detainees around the country a chance for release.

By February, the district court judge in question, Sunshine Sykes, was fed up. Sykes accused the Trump administration of terrorizing immigrants and recklessly violating the law in its efforts to deport millions of people. She also said she regarded it as seeking “to erode any semblance of separation of powers”, adding that it could “only do so in a world where the constitution does not exist”.

Hardly isolated, the case illustrates a broader pattern by the US government’s executive branch, in Donald Trump’s second term, of defiance of decisions by the lower courts that are part of the judicial branch, with the tone set early by Trump and JD Vance, his vice-president. The US constitution’s creation of the three branches of government, with the legislative branch being the third, was intended to ensure checks and balances so that no branch had too much power.

The repeated refusal of Trump officials to follow court orders has been highlighted most notably in individual immigration cases.

But a review of hundreds of pages of court records by the Associated Press also shows an extraordinary record of violations in lawsuits over policy changes and other moves.

In the first 15 months since Trump returned to the White House, district court judges ruled the administration was violating an order in at least 31 lawsuits over a wide range of issues, including mass layoffs, deportations, spending cuts and immigration practices, the AP’s review found. That’s about one out of every eight lawsuits in which courts have at least temporarily blocked the administration’s actions.

---

The Trump administration violations in the 31 lawsuits are in addition to more than 250 instances of noncompliance that judges, some appointed by Democratic presidents, some by Republicans, have recently highlighted in individual immigration petitions – from failing to return property to keeping immigrants locked up past court-ordered release dates.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

^Time to start issuing contempt citations and arrest warrants. Past time, actually.

Boru

[Jackalope]

Last year, the Trump administration attacked boats coming from South America under the rationale that it would reduce fentanyl deaths, even though they weren't interdicting common fentanyl supply pathways.  Now they're dropping funding for fentanyl test strips which it is known will increase fentanyl deaths.

But what if we stopped counting them? That would work, right?

[Jackalope]

He's almost self-aware. Almost.

[Jackalope]

^Time to start issuing contempt citations and arrest warrants. Past time, actually.

Boru

Well past. What we're more likely to see in my estimation is a demonstration of exactly how captured the judiciary is at the highest levels.