Politics Random, Random

[ti-amie]

Trump Confirms Plans to Use the Military to Assist in Mass Deportations
Mr. Trump’s top immigration policy adviser has discussed using military assets to build detention centers and support civilian immigration agents.

By Charlie Savage and Michael Gold
Published Nov. 18, 2024
Updated Nov. 20, 2024

President-elect Donald J. Trump confirmed on Monday that he intended to declare a national emergency and use the U.S. military in some form to assist in his plans for mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.

On his social media platform, Truth Social, Mr. Trump responded overnight to a post made earlier this month by Tom Fitton, who runs the conservative group Judicial Watch, and who wrote that Mr. Trump’s administration would “declare a national emergency and will use military assets” to address illegal immigration “through a mass deportation program.”

At around 4 a.m., Mr. Trump reposted Mr. Fitton’s post with the comment, “TRUE!!!”

Congress has granted presidents broad power to declare national emergencies at their discretion, unlocking standby powers that include redirecting funds lawmakers had appropriated for other purposes. During his first term, for example, Mr. Trump invoked this power to spend more on a border wall than Congress had been willing to authorize.

In interviews with The New York Times during the Republican primary campaign, described in an article published in November 2023, Mr. Trump’s top immigration policy adviser, Stephen Miller, said that military funds would be used to build “vast holding facilities that would function as staging centers” for immigrants as their cases progressed and they waited to be flown to other countries.

The Homeland Security Department would run the facilities, he said.

One major impediment to the vast deportation operation that the Trump team has promised in his second term is that Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, lacks the space to hold a significantly larger number of detainees than it currently does.

That has sometimes led to allowing asylum seekers into the country while they await court dates with immigration judges, a practice critics deride as “catch and release.”

The Trump team believes that such camps could enable the government to accelerate deportations of undocumented people who fight their expulsion from the country. The idea is that more people would voluntarily accept removal instead of pursuing a long-shot effort to remain in the country if they had to stay locked up in the interim.

Asked about the proposal, Sabrina Singh, a spokeswoman for the Pentagon, declined to comment, calling it “a hypothetical.” In general, she added, such a plan would typically undergo “a rigorous process” before being enacted, but she declined to elaborate.

Immigrant advocates assailed the move, raising alarms about the potential fallout.

“President-elect Trump’s dystopian fantasies should send a chill down everyone’s spine, whether immigrant or native-born,” said Karen Tumlin, the director of the Justice Action Center, an immigrant advocacy organization. “Not only is what he is describing in all likelihood illegal, this move would be the exact opposite of the legacy of service in which my family members were proud to participate.”

Robyn Barnard, the senior director of refugee advocacy at Human Rights First, asserted that the consequences would be far-ranging. “Families will be torn apart, businesses left without vital employees, and our country will be left to pick up the pieces for years to come,” she added.

Congressional Democrats responded with a similar level of incredulity, asserting that such a move was all but certain to violate federal laws preventing the use of the military on American soil.

“We’re pursuing whatever we can do to make clear that the Insurrection Act should not permit that use of the military,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, referring to the 1807 law that grants presidents emergency power to use troops on domestic soil to restore order when they decide a situation warrants it. Under that law, “if there is no threat to public order of a fundamental, far-reaching kind, it would be illegal,” he added.

Republicans, however, suggested that Mr. Trump’s proposal might not be a radical departure from the status quo.

“Obviously they’re not law enforcement, but I have to see what their process is,” said Senator James Lankford, Republican of Oklahoma, who served as the lead Republican negotiator on a bipartisan immigration deal that failed to pass the Senate after Mr. Trump urged the G.O.P. to reject it. “If the National Guard is providing transportation, they do that a lot already.”

Hard-right members of Congress and staunch supporters of Mr. Trump have expressed broad support for his proposal for mass deportations. Senator Tommy Tuberville, Republican of Alabama, chimed in on social media on Monday to back using the military for such an effort, saying Mr. Trump was “100% correct.”

Mr. Miller has also talked about invoking a public health emergency power to curtail hearing asylum claims, as the Trump administration did during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Mr. Trump’s declaration of a national emergency at the southern border amid a surge in asylum seekers and his reprogramming of military funds toward his border wall in 2019 was a face-saving way out of a spending standoff with Congress that had led to a government shutdown. It led to legal challenges that had not been definitively resolved before President Biden took over and halted further construction on the border wall.

Mr. Trump’s team said it had developed a multifaceted plan to significantly increase the number of deportations, which it thought could be accomplished without new legislation from Congress, although it anticipated legal challenges.

Other elements of the team’s plan include bolstering the ranks of ICE officers with law enforcement officials who would be temporarily reassigned from other agencies, and with state National Guardsmen and federal troops activated to enforce the law on domestic soil under the Insurrection Act.

The team also plans to expand a form of due-process-free expulsions known as expedited removal, which is currently used near the border for recent arrivals, to people living across the interior of the country who cannot prove they have been in the United States for more than two years.

And the team plans to stop issuing citizenship-affirming documents, like passports and Social Security cards, to infants born on domestic soil to undocumented migrant parents in a bid to end birthright citizenship.

Mr. Trump has already signaled his intent to follow through on his promises with personnel announcements. He named Mr. Miller as a deputy chief of staff in his administration with influence over domestic policy. And Mr. Trump said he would make Thomas Homan, who ran ICE for the first year and a half of the Trump administration and was an early proponent of separating families to deter migrants, his administration’s “border czar.”

Mr. Homan told The New York Times in 2023 that he had met with Mr. Trump shortly after the now president-elect announced that he would seek office again. During that meeting, Mr. Homan said, he “agreed to come back” in a second term and would “help to organize and run the largest deportation operation this country’s ever seen.”

Reporting was contributed by Hamed Aleaziz, Eric Schmitt, Minho Kim and Karoun Demirjian.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/18/us/p ... ation.html

[ti-amie]

[ponchi101]

I am sorry. The dems are starting to do the same thing as the GOP. Trying to manipulate data to fit their narrative.
Most people thought Harris would win the popular vote. I did. And then, she scored 68 MM votes, meaning she lost 13 million voters that did show up for Uncle Joe.
She lost against a convicted criminal. Her rallies were huge, every cool person in the USA supported her. she is way more than qualified to hold the job.
And, again, she lost to a convicted criminal.

That is what the Dems should be looking at. Not the semantics of the election.

[Owendonovan]

Doesn't matter if he won by 1 vote, he still won. America wants a leader who threatens others. America is also a very racist, misogynistic, lgbtq phobic country. The majority has spoken about their disdain of anyone other than a white person being able to pick first. I don't see it changing.

[ashkor87]

Doesn't matter if he won by 1 vote, he still won. America wants a leader who threatens others. America is also a very racist, misogynistic, lgbtq phobic country. The majority has spoken about their disdain of anyone other than a white person being able to pick first. I don't see it changing.

The sad thing is, it wasn't always so...I think 9/11 changed Americans more fundamentally than we realise..

[skatingfan]

The sad thing is, it wasn't always so...I think 9/11 changed Americans more fundamentally than we realise..

I firmly believe that Americans suffer from a collective PTSD from that event that is not being addressed.

[ti-amie]

[Owendonovan]

Well, I suppose they'll just have to pull themselves up by the bootstraps, eh?

[ti-amie]

MAGAts are upset about this. They can refuse to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple but if they get the same treatment...

Go to AITAH
r/AITAH
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5 hr. ago
We_Arent_Fam_MAGA

AITAH For canceling six figure plumbing job because MAGA
I recently canceled a six figure plumbing job because the plumber I was looking at hiring flew the Trump flag in his truck after the election. I have a large plumbing job I'm trying to do for a cannabis farm. It requires a ton of work to be done but especially running plumbing for the plants, feed room, ect ect.
I have had 6-7 meetings with the guy going over the project in detail. Dosing systems in particular are complicated and require significant planning to get right.
Unfortunately after seeing his support for Trump I decided doing business together wouldn't work. As a veteran anyone who voted for Trumo is spitting in my face and betrays everything I stand for. It's not a matter of political disagreements, it's values and morals. I do my best in life not to be a rank hypocrite and so as soon as I saw that he was a Trump cultists, I told him it wouldn't work. He was of course extremely angry and threatened to sue. I told him he was more than welcome to file suit and that no contract had been signed. I also told him I would file a counter suit to recover legal fees for filling a frivolous suit. Meanwhile I've also found out several of his workers are, in fact, undocumented. I wish I could say I was surprised but MAGA and functional intelligence are not things you find together, ever. AITAH, sure, I'm willing to bet tons of MAGA sycophants will say, I am, but frankly I couldn't care less. I do everything possible to make sure my time and money doesn't go towards supporting facism/facists.

Their money, their choice no?

[ti-amie]

Trump Disavowed Project 2025 During the Campaign. Not Anymore.
President-elect Donald J. Trump has filled his administration with people who have ties to the right-wing manifesto.

By Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Erica L. Green
The reporters cover the White House and the presidential transition.

Nov. 29, 2024
Updated 3:57 p.m. ET

During the campaign, President-elect Donald J. Trump swore he had “nothing to do with” a right-wing policy blueprint known as Project 2025 that would overhaul the federal government, even though many of those involved in developing the plans were his allies.

Mr. Trump even described many of the policy goals as “absolutely ridiculous.” And during his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, he said he was “not going to read it.”

Now, as he plans his agenda for his return to the White House, Mr. Trump has recruited at least a half dozen architects and supporters of the plan to oversee key issues, including the federal budget, intelligence gathering and his promised plans for mass deportations.

The shift, his critics say, is not exactly a surprise. Mr. Trump disavowed the 900-page manifesto when polls showed it was extremely unpopular with voters. Now that he has won a second term, they say, he appears to be brushing those concerns aside.

“President-elect Trump has dropped all pretense and is charging ahead hand in hand with the right-wing industry players shaping an agenda he denied for the whole campaign,” said Tony Carrk, the executive director of Accountable.US, a watchdog group that has been tracking Mr. Trump’s cabinet picks with ties to the project.

Mr. Trump’s cabinet picks and other appointments have reaffirmed the fears of many Democrats and government watchdogs who say Mr. Trump will use Project 2025 as a road map to expand his executive power, replace civil servants with political loyalists and gut government agencies like the Department of Education.

Mr. Trump has picked Russell T. Vought, one of the authors of Project 2025, to lead the powerful Office of Management and Budget. In choosing Mr. Vought, Mr. Trump will have someone who views the position as far more expansive than just overseeing the budget.

Mr. Vought wrote in Project 2025 that the person picked for the job should view themselves as an “approximation of the president’s mind,” while establishing a reputation of the keeper of “commander’s intent.”

In the report, Mr. Vought wrote that the incoming administration should overhaul executive branch institutions, such as the National Security Council and National Economic Council to align with Mr. Trump’s agenda, while abolishing White House offices for domestic climate policy and gender policy.

Earlier this year, Mr. Trump tried to distance himself from his former staffers like Mr. Vought, who also served as budget chief during his first term. Democrats were ramping up attacks that tied Mr. Trump to Project 2025 as voters grew unsettled by its promises to amass power in the executive branch.

“I have no idea who is behind it,” Mr. Trump said on social media in July, despite his ties to former staffers like Mr. Vought.

In a statement this week, Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for the Trump campaign, argued Mr. Trump “never had anything to do” with Project 2025.

“All of President Trump’s cabinet nominees and appointments are wholeheartedly committed to President Trump’s agenda, not the agenda of outside groups,” Ms. Leavitt said.

Mr. Trump has also tapped Stephen Miller to be his deputy chief of staff for policy and Thomas Homan to be a “border czar,” positions that do not require Senate confirmation. Mr. Homan is listed as a contributor to Project 2025. The legal organization Mr. Miller founded during Mr. Trump’s time out of office, America First Legal, was listed at one point as an adviser group to Project 2025.

Both officials will be responsible for elements of Mr. Trump’s goals of establishing detention camps and carrying out mass deportations. The Project 2025 blueprint also recommends rescinding restrictions that prevented immigration agents from carrying out arrests in schools and churches.

Mr. Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, wrote a chapter in Project 2025 that called for reining in “Big Tech,” eliminating immunity protections for social media companies and imposing transparency rules on companies like Google, Facebook and YouTube.

“It is hard to imagine another industry in which a greater gap exists between power and accountability,” he wrote.

Other contributors to Project 2025 include Pete Hoekstra, Mr. Trump’s former ambassador to the Netherlands and his current pick to be ambassador to Canada, as well as John Ratcliffe, Mr. Trump’s pick to lead the C.I.A.

A former director of national intelligence, Mr. Ratcliffe was cited repeatedly in the document, including in a chapter on the intelligence community written by Dustin Carmack. Mr. Carmack was Mr. Ratcliffe’s chief of staff when he served as Mr. Trump’s director of National Intelligence in his first administration.

Mr. Carmack made the case in Project 2025 for empowering the director of national intelligence, as the leader of the intelligence community. He also said the leader needed to “address the widely promoted ‘woke’ culture that has spread throughout the federal government with identity politics and ‘social justice’ advocacy replacing such traditional American values as patriotism, colorblindness, and even workplace competence.”

Alex Floyd, the rapid response director of the Democratic National Committee said that “after months of lies to the American people, Donald Trump is taking off the mask.”

“He’s plotting a Project 2025 Cabinet to enact his dangerous vision starting on day one,” Mr. Floyd said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/29/us/p ... -2025.html

[ti-amie]

Someone did this

[ti-amie]

So those in the back can hear...

[ponchi101]

No. It also isn't that.
Yes, people don't understand tariffs. But claiming they are a tax is not true, because if you don't buy that product, you don't pay it.

[ti-amie]

This is the complement to the import map that was previously posted and shows exports on a state by state basis.

[ti-amie]

I hope this commenter is right because...

FreddyQuimbysChowdah
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48m ago
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He wrote a children’s book about how King Trump was persecuted by the left. Check it out!

https://a.co/d/fjOFmSl