The White House @WhiteHouse
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Happy Valentine's Day ♥️
Roses are red
Violets are blue
Come here illegally
And we'll deport you!
4:44 PM · Feb 14, 2025
Alex Berenson @AlexBerenson
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…and Trump’s approval rating goes up another five points
The White House @WhiteHouse
Happy Valentine's Day ♥️
6:12 PM · Feb 14, 2025. //
Cynical Optimist
7 hours ago edited
Roses are red
Violets are blue
We won all seven swing states
And the popular vote too
The country's a red one
The country's not blue
Trump can hire old Elon
And send aliens home too
They're cutting the spending
Cutting down on fraud too
If you were a recipient
There's nothing you can do
There'll be no more pronouns
Child sex changes too
No more trans in the military
DEI is all through
Oh, I see it all the time….
Actually, Elon called me, he said, you know they're trying to drive us apart. I said absolutely. No, they said, “we have breaking news that Donald Trump has ceded control of the presidency to Elon Musk. President Musk will be attending a cabinet meeting at 8 o'clock.” [Musk cracks up in laughter at this point.]
And I say, it's just so obvious, they' so bad at it. I used to think they were good at it. They're actually bad at it because if they were good at it, I'd never be president. …I think nobody in history has ever gotten more bad publicity than me. I could do the greatest things. I get 98 percent bad publicity. //
Owen Gregorian
@OwenGregorian
·
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TV Hits Trump With 85% Negative News vs. 78% Positive Press for Harris | mrcNewsBusters
One week before Election Day, a new analysis from the Media Research Center finds that broadcast evening news coverage of the 2024 presidential race has been the most lopsided in history.… Show more
11:17 AM · Oct 29, 2024. //
anon-x8p1 Maximus Decimus Cassius
2 hours ago
He just did [ridiculed the press], with the greatest one-liner of all.
While the Democrats' stance on the matter is divorced from MAGA's—hardly news—what is notable is that it's also quite divorced from what was traditionally the Left's position on USAID.
Prolific mainstream and left-wing journals have reported on some of USAID's more nefarious dealings for many years, often posting critical coverage of the organization itself. Just a few weeks ago, an opinion article in American socialist magazine Jacobin kicked the organization while it's down as it became clear Trump aimed to gut it. Left-wing website The Grayzone published a similarly critical feature around the same time.
Though Democratic President John F. Kennedy established USAID in 1961 with humanitarian ambitions in mind, the organization has been distorted far beyond its intended use.
Over the years, USAID has indubitably used "humanitarianism" as a veil for regime change efforts in countries the U.S. sees political climates as unfavorable. //
Many suggest USAID also aided a regime change effort in Ukraine in 2004. This narrative came not from pro-Trump media, as one may expect it to—it was actually reported by The Guardian at the time. //
Onetime left-wing hero Matt Taibbi tore into USAID as far back as 1997 when he blamed it for making the world more hostile for American citizens because of its attempted manipulation of international politics. Furthermore, he suggested that on top of its shortsighted political engagements, it made life worse for those it intended to help. A February 3 tweet indicates he still feels largely the same about the organization. //
It's just another example of how Trump has so emphatically destroyed the traditional American political axis and recruited a cult of supporters so disillusioned with the federal government that they've gleefully adopted a traditionally left-wing viewpoint.
As for the Democrats, their marching in defense of a regime change tool that Trump's base is giddy to destroy is extraordinary, but unsurprising. The USAID saga is a further indictment that the party's messaging and actions have estranged portions of the Left—so much so that some of them are even in Trump's cabinet.
Rasmussen Reports has revealed that for the first time in two decades — two decades! — their Presidential Approval Roundup shows a majority of Americans believe the country is on the "right track."
Axios is confirming this sentiment in a focus group of swing voters that they surveyed. The focus group included 11 people who had voted for Biden in 2020 but switched to Trump in the 2024 election. Eight were independents, two were Republicans, and one was a Democrat.
Every Arizona swing voter in our latest Engagious/Sago focus groups said they approve of President Trump's actions since taking office — and most also support Elon Musk's efforts to slash government.
Vice President JD Vance appeared in Germany on Friday for the annual Munich Security Conference and didn't hold back against America's ostensible allies. In a blistering speech that drew groans from the crowd, Vance ripped European hypocrisy on democracy and freedom of expression, pleading with them to get their houses in order.
Greg Price @greg_price11
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JD Vance went to the Munich Security Conference and roasted the entire continent of Europe for being petty tyrants and criminalizing freedom of speech, including a British man arrested for praying at an abortion clinic.
2:02 PM · Feb 14, 2025. //
VANCE: I'm here today not just with an observation but with an offer. Just as the Biden administration seemed desperate to silence people for speaking their minds so the Trump administration will do precisely the opposite and I hope that we can work together on that. In Washington, there is a new sheriff in town, and under Donald Trump's leadership we may disagree with your views but we will fight to defend your right to offer it in the public square, agree or disagree.
Margot Cleveland
@ProfMJCleveland
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🚨🚨🚨Judge in ⬇️case denies stay pending appeal. Court's reasoning based on his huge walk back of what he really enjoined saying basically "oh, I've only ordered you to not do what you can't legally do." 1/. //
The pattern seems to be that judges respond immediately to requests for temporary restraining orders with overbroad language, then quietly walk the language back once the headlines pass.
The Trump administration celebrated the confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be Secretary of Health and Human Services by rolling out the creation of the Make America Healthy Again Commission.
Make America Healthy Again arose as a slogan after RFK Jr. joined the Trump campaign. While some of Kennedy's ideas about health could be classified as "exotic," he asked questions that no one else seemed interested in talking about. Like why, with our enormous national investment in biomedical research and health care, is our nation a crap hole of health outcomes, particularly from chronic diseases?
This is from the introduction to the executive order creating the MAHA Commission:
Under the Constitution, “the President is invested with certain important political powers, in the exercise of which he is to use his own discretion.” For his decisions, “he is accountable only to his country in his political character, and to his own conscience.” His choices cannot be questioned in court because “the subjects are political. They respect the nation, not individual rights, and being entrusted to the executive, the decision of the executive is conclusive.”
Who penned these outrageous words? Democrats and many pundits might answer Vice President J.D. Vance. Over the weekend, Vance provoked an onslaught of criticism for suggesting that federal district judges “aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.”
But the usual suspects would be wrong. The right answer is John Marshall, the greatest chief justice in Supreme Court history. And he did not squirrel this view away in a private journal. Instead, Marshall publicly explained that courts could not review presidential decisions on “political” subjects “entrusted to the executive” in a Supreme Court opinion.
He announced this principle not just in any case, but in Marbury v. Madison, the greatest opinion in Supreme Court history. The very same Marbury that concluded that federal judges should reject unconstitutional statutes, also recognized that courts could not intrude into the president’s exercise of his constitutional — dare we say “legitimate” — powers. Marshall’s opinion has given rise to the “political question doctrine,” which prohibits courts from reviewing decisions vested in the Constitution in the other branches, such as making war, prosecuting cases, and conducting impeachments. //
During the Vietnam War, Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman sued to stop the bombing of Cambodia (which President Richard Nixon had ordered). Holtzman obtained an injunction from a district court. The court of appeals promptly stayed the district court order. Holtzman petitioned Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, who oversaw that court of appeals, to vacate the stay. Marshall properly refused, writing “the proper response to an arguably illegal action [by Nixon] is not lawlessness by judges charged with interpreting and enforcing the laws.”. //
The question whether the president can fire heads of “independent” agencies such as multi-member commissions is still debated, but the clear trend of recent Supreme Court decisions indicates that the president can remove these officers if they refuse to carry out presidential orders. No doubt Trump’s recent removal of members of the National Labor Relations Board are intended to set up a case to settle this question at the Supreme Court. Our prediction is that Trump will win that dispute — decisively.
At the heart of this issue is the de minimis provision, which originates from Section 321 of the Tariff Act of 1930. This provision was initially designed to prevent the government from incurring excessive costs and hassles for small imports made by individuals in a single day, as long as the fair retail value of those imports did not exceed $1. Over the years, Congress has raised this threshold multiple times, and it currently stands at $800, making it the most generous de minimis exemption in the world. In contrast, Canada’s de minimis exemption is capped at only $15. //
A congressional report revealed that between fiscal year 2018 and 2021, more than two-thirds of de minimis imports came from China (including mainland and Hong Kong). In 2023 de minimis imports comprised an astonishing 1 billion parcels valued at approximately $54.5 billion, with around $18 billion in shipments originating from China.
The Select Committee on the CCP estimated that two Chinese companies accounted for more than 30 percent of the daily de minimis shipments in the U.S. These companies are Shein, a fast fashion online retailer based in Singapore that sources most of its products from China, and Temu, a China-based e-commerce marketplace offering a wide range of items from cosmetics to knock-off iPods. These companies ship their merchandise directly to American consumers at extremely low prices, utilizing small shipments that are exempted under de minimis provisions.
Engelmayer is the first judge ever to grant a temporary restraining order (TRO) against the president of the United States that also forbids a cabinet secretary from accessing his own records without giving these parties an opportunity to respond. He offered zero analysis of his constitutional authority to make such a radical ruling, the federal rule governing injunctions and temporary restraining orders, or why he is enabling fraud and grift by blocking access to records that show who got government money and for what. //
The situation is actually worse than that. Here’s the timeline of the court filings. All these initial documents were filed by New York Special Trial Counsel Colleen Faherty. //
1:04 a.m. — Faherty e-mailed four items — the complaint, the legal memorandum, her prior affirmation, and the order granting the TRO — to two government lawyers, only one of whom had been a recipient of her 7:32 p.m. email.
1:14 a.m. — The complaint was refiled with the deficiency corrected. Note that a properly filed complaint was not filed until more than a half-hour after Judge Engelmayer had already entered his order. //
The accelerated timeline is simply incredible, especially in view of the voluminous materials that any diligent judge would analyze to render a proper opinion. And I mean “incredible” in its literal sense of “not to be believed.”
The last documents filed in support of the request for a TRO were at 10:13 and 10:15 p.m. These included the legal memorandum with its citation to 54 court opinions. Did Engelmayer read these? Not a chance. Did he read any of them? If he did, you can’t tell it from his order, other than one citation from him to a single case that had no resemblance to the case before him. //
Even if Engelmayer had received and began to study these materials immediately after he had them all, he spent less than two-and-one-half hours reviewing and analyzing the materials presented to him before entering his order at 12:39 a.m.
That’s not even counting the time it would have taken Engelmeyer to write his order. If he took only a half-hour to do that, he spent less than two hours to peruse the voluminous record and then begin to write his order. He could not possibly have considered more than a small fraction of the cited cases and other authorities in that time. It raises the question of how much of this order was AI-generated.
Tim Carney
@TPCarney
·
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1) The ACLU believes there are four branches of the government.
2) It's favorite "branch" is the imaginary one that has zero democratic accountability.
Casey Mattox
@CaseyMattox_
ACLU: "Not only would such mass layoffs violate federal law, but this action would undermine the important and historic check that the career civil service has had on curbing abuses by the executive branch.". //
Judge O'Boyle ruled that [shocked face] none of the plaintiffs had standing to file suit to stop the buyout because they'd suffered no harm. Indeed, virtually every one of the court actions filed to stymie the Trump administration could be settled in five minutes if judges simply took the idea of "standing" seriously. The unions had claimed harm because they were being forced to spend time and money trying to stop the buyout, which could be devoted to other, unnamed, and probably criminal, union activities. Judge O'Boyle said the plaintiffs can't "spend their way into standing, neither can the plaintiffs in this case establish standing by choosing to divert resources towards “respond[ing] to tremendous uncertainty created by OPM’s actions” and away from other union priorities."
The bigger picture was the nature of the complaint itself.
Second, this Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction to consider the plaintiffs’ pleaded claims. While not binding on this Court, the decision in Am. Fed’n of Gov’t Emps., AFL-CIO v. Trump (“AFGE”) is instructive. 929 F.3d 748 (D.C. Cir. 2019). In that case, the court held that the plaintiff-unions’ claims fell within the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute’s (“FSL-MRS”) scheme and therefore the district court lacked jurisdiction to hear the case. Id. at 754.
This means the unions must exhaust appeals through the agency and then through the Federal Labor Relations Authority before heading to federal court.
Axios reported last week that groups such as MoveOn and Indivisible are harassing lawmakers with tens of thousands of phone calls demanding more from their leaders.
The left-leaning outlet revealed that over a dozen Democrat lawmakers had "received historically high call volumes," insisting they "do more" to stop Trump.
Hilariously, those congressmen and women have had to remind these groups that their hands are a bit tied because they got shelled in the elections and currently hold no majorities. They suggested the groups start calling Republicans instead.
"You are literally calling the wrong people," one House Democrat explained. //
Axios has followed up on that report by noting that the calls seem to have continued unabated. MoveOn and Indivisible are making the Democrat Party very ... divisible.
House Democrats had a closed-door meeting in which they lashed out at these liberal groups for siccing their unhinged masses on them and tying up the phone lines.
One source who attended the meeting indicated House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) is "very frustrated" with the progressive groups for taking their anger out on the party that best represents their interests.
Mrs. deWinter
6 hours ago
One thing that struck me reading Trump's statement here in this article is how much information President Trump gives the public about his phone call with Putin. The details, the ideas, the goals, the reasons, the strength. When Biden made calls, we barely knew about them, and there were no details given. The transparency of this new administration is so welcoming and a relief. We know who is in charge and we know what they are doing.
He traveled to Europe by way of a C-17 cargo plane with a command pod rather than in a Gulfstream executive jet. //
He traveled with his wife and child. This has become something of a standard image of all Trump Cabinet secretaries. Trump has had his grandchild at his desk. Sean Duffy's family is prominent in events. JD Vance's wife and kids travel with him. Musk's kid was at the press conference he held yesterday. The image of family as a central point in life rather than an adjunct to your job is striking when compared to previous administrations, including Trump 1.0. See my colleague Brandon Morse's post on the subject: Elon Musk Is Demonstrating the Best Pro-Life Strategy Right Now and It's Heartwarming to See – RedState. //
I'm old school on uniforms. I think the custom of wearing BDUs (utilities, fatigues, whatever you want to call the field uniform) all the time is horrendous. When I was a young officer, you weren't allowed to wear BDUs off-post. Period. You couldn't go to a fast food place or run an errand on the way home or at lunch wearing BDUs. In my view, if you can't break out the Class A uniform to welcome the SecDef and note the color guard is in dress uniform, then there is no possible occasion that calls for them. But, if you do wear BDUs to greet the SecDef, show him the respect of wearing a fresh set. Meeting the head of the Department of Defense in wrinkled BDUs is a calculated insult because I really don't believe this three-star or his aide are that stupid. //
This is just the tip of the iceberg. If you're willing to greet your boss in wrinkled clothes and allow him to be heckled by dependent wives, you can imagine what else is going on out of sight.
Stephen L. Miller @redsteeze
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Elon Musk answering more questions in the Oval Office than Joe Biden did in 4 years.
9:45 PM · Feb 11, 2025. //
Standing next to President Donald Trump, Musk lambasted the bureaucratic state, noting that it is antithetical to democracy to have unelected officials operating outside the authority of elected representatives. No doubt, he was referencing several recent court decisions that have sought to prevent Trump from being president despite his holding of the office. //
Rapid Response 47 @RapidResponse47
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ELON MUSK: "If the bureaucracy is in charge, then what meaning does democracy actually have? If the people cannot vote and have their will be decided by their elected representatives... then we don't live in a democracy... It's incredibly important that we fix that..."
9:31 PM · Feb 11, 2025. //
Well, we have this unelected fourth, unconstitutional branch of government, which is the bureaucracy, which has, in a lot of ways, currently more power than any elected representative. That's not something that people want, and does not match the will of the people. It's something we've got to fix. //
This is what Democrats refuse to accept, and for completely cynical reasons. You do not have a democracy if federal bureaucrats can simply override, either directly or through lawfare, any change to the status quo made by the President of the United States. If an agency has such total control that it can stop the executive branch from even changing the content of government websites, that is authoritarianism despite the faceless nature of federal employees. American voters voted for change by electing Donald Trump. They did not vote for federal judges to stop any and all reforms under absurd legal theories.
Democrats see the bureaucracy as a protection of their power structure. As long as it persists, they don't have to win elections. They can simply continue their reign of terror from the shadows, hiding behind millions of federal employees exercising immense control without any accountability. That's what Trump is seeking to stop, and it has Democrats screaming bloody murder. //
MUSK: You know there's crazy things like, we just finished the examination of Social Security, and we've got people in there that are 150 years old. Now, do you know anyone that is 150? I don't, okay. They should be in the Guinness Book of World Records. They're missing out. So, you know that's a case where I think they're probably dead, or they should be very famous. One of the two. //
The federal bureaucracy has been a gravy train for Democrat partisans for decades. Somehow, despite relatively normal salaries (though far too high in some cases), many of these people become fabulously wealthy. How did Samantha Power, who headed USAID during the Biden administration, see her wealth surge up to $30 million holding the position she did? These are questions that deserve answers. //
Brigitte Gabriel @ACTBrigitte
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Cuteness overload!
Elon Musk is talking about how he's going to cut the deficit in half and his son X is whispering to President Trump and picking his nose.
Little boys will be boys! It's nice to see beautiful young families back inside the White House!
0:22 / 0:22
9:41 PM · Feb 11, 2025. //
There's something wholesome and refreshing about children being normalized in public spaces again. Whether it's Musk or Vice President JD Vance, we are seeing a return of kids not being seen as a burden but as a blessing worth cherishing. Once again, it represents a stark contrast to the hateful resentment shown by the left, and Musk calmly answering questions while Democrats screech like banshees is why the latter keep losing.
Four DHS officials working for the sub-agency FEMA are being terminated after they violated one of President Donald Trump's executive orders. As RedState reported, a payment of $59 million was sent to luxury hotels in New York City to house illegal immigrants during the first week of February. That came after the White House ordered a stop to such spending, with the intention being to redirect the money to disaster relief for Americans.
JD Vance @JDVance
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If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal.
If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that's also illegal.
Judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power.
3:13 PM · Feb 9, 2025 //
Rapid Response 47 @RapidResponse47
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President Trump demolishes Fake News "reporter" @svdate on Air Force One:
POTUS: "I don't know even what you're talking about. Neither do you. Who are you with?"
@svdate: "HuffPost, sir."
POTUS: "No wonder. I thought they died."
11:08 PM · Feb 9, 2025. //
The president certainly has a way with reporters, doesn't he? Let's talk about the dishonest framing of Date's question, though.
Read what Vance wrote again. Did he ever "suggest" the administration would "enforce it themselves" regarding going around a Supreme Court ruling? Was the Supreme Court even mentioned at all? The answer to all those questions is no. Instead, what Vance did was state a plain fact, at least in his view of the law. Namely, that the judge is out of line in usurping the statutory authority of the executive branch to control the bureaucratic state.
No doubt, the remedy to those things will be an appeal, and when it reaches the Supreme Court, it will likely end up being a bloodbath for the bureaucracy. On that front, Democrats and the press should be careful what they wish for regarding waging these court battles. The only reason Roe v. Wade was overturned is because leftists picked a fight they weren't ready to win over a state law in Mississippi.
Do you know who did brag about ignoring the Supreme Court, though? That would be one Joseph Robinette Biden. //
MajorKong
7 hours ago
Vance has the benefit of being correct on the legal point as well. The relief is extra judicial. Not available to the court. Bondi needs to ask for sanctions against the judge at the next level. //
emptypockets
4 hours ago
So that's why HuffPo got a seat in the press briefing lineup. For their value as a chew toy.
During a Pennsylvania trip, Secret Service agents spotted a drone tracking Trump’s motorcade—they opened the moonroof and took it down with an electromagnetic gun.
Acting Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Russ Vought has frozen all new funding to that agency. In a memo to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, Vought, who was just confirmed as Office of Management and Budget Director, said, "This letter is to inform you that in the Third Quarter of Fiscal Year 2025, the Bureau is requesting $0."
Earlier, Vought had announced that he'd discovered the CFPB was sitting on a $711.6 million "reserve fund." //
The beauty of this move is that when Elizabeth Warren set up the CFPB, she attempted to insulate it from influence or management by either the Executive or Legislative branches. Contrary to other agencies that are managed by a group of directors who the president can remove, the CFPB had a single director who could only be removed for cause. The Supreme Court struck down that arrangement in 2020. She also had the CFPB draw funds directly from the Federal Reserve, bypassing the appropriation process. In the best "it isn't a tax" tradition of John Roberts's jurisprudence, that funding arrangement survived a Supreme Court challenge. This combination of events has led to a situation where one man, that would be Russ Vought, can do pretty much as he wishes because there is no Congressional oversight, and he can't be forced to spend money because there are no appropriations. //
This letter is to inform you that for the Third Quarter of Fiscal Year 2025, the Bureau is requesting $0.
During my review of the Bureau's finances, I have learned that the Bureau has a balance of $711,586,678.00 in the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection Fund. By law, I must take account of this sum when determining the amount "reasonably necessary" for the Bureau to fulfill its statutory authorities.
I have determined that no additional funds are necessary to carry out the authorities of the Bureau for Fiscal Year 2025. The Bureau's current funds are more than sufficient — and are, in fact, excessive — to carry out its authorities in a manner that is consistent with the public interest.