NewsFlash

Well, at least I'm not alone. 

https://www.reuters.com/pictures/47-signs-spotted-anti-trumpmusk-protests-2025-03-21/

"What the Venezuelans Deported to El Salvador Experienced

On the night of Saturday, March 15, three planes touched down in El Salvador, carrying 261 men deported from the United States. A few dozen were Salvadoran, but most of the men were Venezuelans the Trump Administration had designated as gang members and deported, with little or no due process. I was there to document their arrival. ...

...The intake began with slaps. One young man sobbed when a guard pushed him to the floor. He said, “I’m not a gang member. I’m gay. I’m a barber.” I believed him. But maybe it’s only because he didn’t look like what I had expected—he wasn’t a tattooed monster. The men were pulled from the buses so fast the guards couldn’t keep pace. Chained at their ankles and wrists, they stumbled and fell, some guards falling to the ground with them. With each fall came a kick, a slap, a shove. The guards grabbed necks and pushed bodies into the sides of the buses as they forced the detainees forward. There was no blood, but the violence had rhythm, like a theater of fear.  Inside the intake room, a sea of trustees descended on the men with electric shavers, stripping heads of hair with haste. The guy who claimed to be a barber began to whimper, folding his hands in prayer as his hair fell. He was slapped. The man asked for his mother, then buried his face in his chained hands and cried as he was slapped again....

After being shaved, the detainees were stripped naked. More of them began to whimper; the hard faces I saw on the plane had evaporated. It was like looking at men who passed through a time machine. In two hours, they aged 10 years. Their nice clothes were not gathered or catalogued but simply thrust into black garbage bags to be thrown out with their hair. They entered their cold cells, 80 men per cell, with steel planks for bunks, no mats, no sheets, no pillow. No television. No books. No talking. No phone calls and no visitors. For these Venezuelans, it was not just a prison they had arrived at. It was exile to another world, a place so cold and far from home they may as well have been sent into space, nameless and forgotten. Holding my camera, it was as if I watched them become ghosts."

FROM https://time.com/7269604/el-salvador-photos-venezuelan-detainees/

  

Judge keeps block on Trump gang deportations, says they face 'torture, beatings' in El Salvador

An appeals court is set to weigh President Trump's use of the Alien Enemies Act.

The Venezuelan migrants removed by the Trump administration to El Salvador last week deserved to have a court hearing before their deportations to determine whether they belonged to the Tren de Aragua gang, a federal judge ruled Monday morning. In a ruling denying the Trump Administration's request to dissolve his order blocking the deportations, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg wrote that Trump's "unprecedented use" of the Alien Enemies Act does not remove the government's responsibility to ensure the men removed could contest their designation as alleged gang members.

Trump last week invoked the Alien Enemies Act -- a wartime authority used to deport noncitizens with little-to-no due process -- by arguing that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is a "hybrid criminal state" that is invading the United States. Boasberg temporarily blocked the president's use of the law to deport more than 200 alleged gang members to El Salvador, calling the removals "awfully frightening" and "incredibly troublesome." An official with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement subsequently acknowledged in a sworn declaration that "many" of the noncitizens deported last week under the Alien Enemies Act did not have criminal records in the United States....

..."The Court need not resolve the thorny question of whether the judiciary has the authority to assess this claim in the first place. That is because Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on another equally fundamental theory: before they may be deported, they are entitled to individualized hearings to determine whether the Act applies to them at all," Judge Boasberg wrote in his ruling Monday, adding the men were likely to win their case. Judge Boasberg acknowledged that the use of the Alien Enemies Act "implicates a host of complicated legal issues" but sidestepped the larger question of whether the law was properly invoked, instead focusing on the due process deserved by the men. He added that the men have been irreparably harmed by their removal to an El Salvadoran prison where they face "torture, beatings, and even death."...

"Federal courts are equipped to adjudicate that question when individuals threatened with detention and removal challenge their designation as such. Because the named Plaintiffs dispute that they are members of Tren de Aragua, they may not be deported until a court has been able to decide the merits of their challenge," he wrote. Judge Boasberg also cast doubt on the Trump administration's allegation that the decision risks national security, noting that the men would still be detained within the United States if they had not been deported....

...[Judge] Boasberg's ruling comes as a federal appeals court prepares to hear arguments Monday over the Trump administration's use of the Alien Enemies Act for last week's deportations. If the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals overturns Boasberg's blocking of the president's use of the centuries-old wartime law, the Trump administration could exercise the authority to deport any suspected migrant gang member with little-to-no due process...The three-person panel hearing today's arguments includes two judges nominated by Republican presidents, including one nominated by Trump himself. The D.C. Circuit is the last stop before the Trump administration could take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, where Trump nominated three judges during his last term, solidifying the court's conservative majority.

MORE - https://abcnews.go.com/US/appeals-court-hear-arguments-deportation-alleged-venezuelan-gang/story?id=120094673

ADDENDUM

 

A federal appeals court in a 2-1 decision Wednesday refused to lift U.S. District Judge James Boasberg’s order blocking the Trump administration from swiftly deporting migrants under the Alien Enemies Act.  The Justice Department had urged the three-judge panel on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to immediately block Boasberg’s order, casting it as an intrusion on the president’s executive authority over national security. The case has attracted significant attention after the administration leveraged the rarely used law to quickly deport hundreds of migrants officials claim are Venezuelan gang members to a notorious El Salvador prison. The Alien Enemies Act can only be invoked amid a declared war or an “invasion” by a foreign nation. The law has been leveraged just three previous times, all during wars, but Trump contends he can use it because the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is effectively invading the United States.

“The theme that rings true is that an invasion is a military affair, not one of migration,” U.S. Circuit Judge Karen Henderson, an appointee of President George H.W. Bush, pushed back in her solo opinion....The Trump administration could now seek emergency review from the Supreme Court, but the case is meanwhile progressing in Boasberg’s court.

MORE - https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5215883-appeals-court-boasberg-alien-enemies-act/


The appeals judges ruled that Trump was mistaken in thinking that courts couldn’t review his actions for national security or foreign affairs. “At bottom, the government errs by supposing ‘that every case or controversy which touches foreign relations lies beyond judicial cognizance.’” the judges ruled.

FROM https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/03/26/appeals-court-upholds-block-trump-deportations/82677699007/

SEE ALSO  - https://www.yahoo.com/news/appeals-court-rejects-trump-attempt-201759288.html

 

Judge temporarily blocks defunding of Radio Free Europe

A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from shutting down Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. U.S. Judge Royce Lamberth issued a temporary restraining order Tuesday afternoon that blocked the dismantling of the organization, finding the Trump administration’s attempt to defund the group was “unsupported by any facts or reasoning” and likely violated federal law. “The leadership of [United States Agency for Global Media] cannot, with one sentence of reasoning offering virtually no explanation, force RFE/RL to shut down—even if the President has told them to do so,” wrote Judge Lamberth, a Reagan appointee.

Earlier this month, Trump signed an executive order directing multiple agencies including the US Agency for Global Media – which oversees Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty – to reduce to cut their functions to the minimum required by law. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty sued last week to block the Trump administration from terminating its federal funding.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/live-updates/trump-second-term?id=120087352&entryId=120145942

President Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday that will require proof of U.S. citizenship on election forms, in an aggressive push to catch and combat voter fraud, which is exceedingly rare but constantly cited by Mr. Trump as a reason he lost the 2020 election. The order calls for the Election Assistance Commission to require people to show government-issued proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in federal elections, and directs state or local officials to record and verify the information. It also seeks to require states to count ballots by Election Day.

...Like many of Mr. Trump’s orders, this one is likely to face legal challenges for executive overreach. Rick Hasen, a political science professor and director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law, said that Mr. Trump had no authority to dictate how states ran their elections, such as requiring them to count their ballots by Election Day.

MORE - https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/25/us/politics/trump-elections-executive-order.html?smid=url-share

SEE ALSO - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-elections-executive-order-citizenship/


[How the heck would this work for overseas ballots? You would have to go to the Embassy or something to prove your citizenship?]

photo by AP

A Tufts University PhD student on a visa was arrested by immigration authorities outside of Boston on Tuesday night, according to the school and the student's lawyer. The student, Rumeysa Ozturk, is a Turkish national, according to her lawyer, Mahsa Khanbabai. "Rumeysa Ozturk is a Turkish national who was maintaining valid F-1 status as a PhD student at Tufts University," Khanbabai said in a statement. "Rumeysa was heading to meet with friends to break her Ramadan fast on the evening of March 25th when she was detained near her home in Somerville, MA by DHS agents. We are unaware of her whereabouts and have not been able to contact her."  "No charges have been filed against Rumeysa to date that we are aware of. I filed a habeas petition requesting that she not be moved out of the District of MA which was granted by Judge [Indira] Talwani last night," according to her lawyer. ABC News has reached out to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Ozturk is listed in the ICE database as "in custody."
 
FROM  https://abcnews.go.com/US/tufts-phd-student-visa-arrested-immigration-authorities/story?id=120176245


The Trump administration has detained a Tufts University graduate student exactly one year after she coauthored a plea for "the equal dignity and humanity of all people," including Palestinians. Rumeysa Ozturk, a native of Turkey, was "ambushed" late Tuesday outside her apartment, according to a statement that her attorney provided to The Boston Globe. Neighbors had seen agents in unmarked cars monitoring her apartment for two days prior to the arrest, the outlet reported. Her arrest comes after the pro-Israel group Canary Mission flagged Ozturk for having "engaged in anti-Israel activism in March 2024."  That activism, according to the group, consisted entirely of co-authoring an op-ed in The Tufts Daily, a student newspaper, in which she and three other graduate students called on the school to "acknowledge the Palestinian genocide" and divest from companies with ties to Israel, as called for in resolutions passed by the student Senate.

FROM https://www.salon.com/2025/03/26/dhs-detains-grad-student-advocated-for-palestine-and-the-humanity-of-all-people/

SEE ALSO - https://whdh.com/news/video-released-of-tufts-university-student-detained-by-ice-agents/


ADDENDUM:     Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell said Wednesday that her office is “closely monitoring” the situation around the arrest of Tufts University graduate student Rumeysa Ozturk.  Ozturk, a Turkish national and Fulbright Scholar who is pursuing her PhD in the university’s Child Study and Human Development department, was detained by federal authorities near her home in Somerville on Tuesday evening, a moment that was captured on video.  “The footage of Rumeysa Ozturk’s arrest — a student here legally — is disturbing,” Campbell said in her statement. “Based on what we know, it is alarming that the federal administration chose to ambush and detain her, apparently targeting a law-abiding individual because of her political views. This isn’t public safety, it’s intimidation that will, and should, be closely scrutinized in court. My office is closely monitoring this matter as it develops.”

As of Wednesday evening, ICE records listed Ozturk as being held in the South Louisiana Correctional Center in Basile, Louisiana.

SEIU Massachusetts State Council President Dave Foley denounced the detention of Ozturk, a member of SEIU Local 509, in a statement, saying her arrest is part of a “despicable effort to stifle speech by immigrants who express views that Donald Trump and his surrogates simply don’t like.” “Free speech and the right to protest are the very foundation upon which the labor movement was built,” Foley said. “Using detention and the threat of deportation as tactics to target activists is an attempt to deter us from advocating for a better world. It is intended to send a clear and chilling message that anyone who challenges injustice will be met with retribution. When a student, worker, or any member of our community is punished for exercising their rights, we all suffer, and standing up against these tactics is critical to the strength and integrity of any social movement.

MORE HERE https://www.boston.com/news/politics/2025/03/26/ag-campbell-says-shes-monitoring-situation-after-tufts-grad-student-arrested-by-ice/   

SEE ALSO - https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/26/us/ice-tufts-student-detained-rumeysa-ozturk.html

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/federal-immigration-authorities-detain-international-tufts-graduate-st-rcna198158

The Department of Health and Human Services has abruptly canceled more than $12 billion in federal grants to states that were being used for tracking infectious diseases, mental health services, addiction treatment and other urgent health issues. The cuts are likely to further hamstring state health departments, which are already underfunded and struggling with competing demands from chronic diseases, resurgent infections like syphilis and emerging threats like bird flu. State health departments began receiving notices on Monday evening that the funds, which were allocated during the Covid-19 pandemic, were being terminated, effective immediately. “No additional activities can be conducted, and no additional costs may be incurred, as it relates to these funds,” the notices said.

For some, the effect was immediate.  In Lubbock, Texas, public health officials have received orders to stop work supported by three grants that helped fund the response to the widening measles outbreak there, according to Katherine Wells, the city’s director of public health.  On Tuesday, some state health departments were preparing to lay off dozens of epidemiologists and data scientists. Others, including Texas, Maine and Rhode Island, were still scrambling to understand the impact of the cuts before taking any action.

In interviews, state health officials predicted that thousands of health department employees and contract workers could lose their jobs nationwide.  Some predicted the loss of as much as 90 percent of staff from some infectious disease teams. “The reality is that, when we take funding away from public health systems, the systems just do not have the capacity, because they’re chronically underfunded over the decades,” said Dr. Umair Shah, who served as Washington State’s health secretary until January....

...The abruptness of the decision left “no opportunities to transition people into other means, no opportunities even for a state government to say, ‘In our next budget cycle, we’re going to add X number of positions,’” said one official with close knowledge of the impact, who asked not to be named because they feared retaliation from the Trump administration.  “There’s millions of dollars that have been spent that essentially, the projects will never be able to be finished,” the official said. “This is just like throwing money out the window; it’s a total waste.”

FROM - https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/26/health/trump-state-health-grants-cuts.html




We are so screwed. 


ADDENDUM - [Lubbock, TX]  Newborns exposed to measles in Texas hospital. Infants barely three days old are receiving antibody injections to help protect against the virus. Nearly 300 cases have been reported in the outbreak.  On Wednesday, a woman gave birth in a Lubbock, Texas, hospital in the middle of a deadly and fast-growing measles outbreak. Doctors didn’t realize until the young mother had been admitted and in labor that she was infected with the measles. By that time, other new moms, newborns and their families at University Medical Center Children’s Hospital in Lubbock had unknowingly been exposed to the virus, considered one of the most contagious in the world. Hospital staff are scrambling with damage control efforts — implementing emergency masking policies and giving babies as young as three days old injections of immunoglobulin, an antibody that helps their fragile immune system fight off infections.

FROM https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/texas-measles-outbreak-hospital-newborn-babies-exposed-rcna196519

 

A federal judge Tuesday temporarily stopped federal agents from detaining 21-year-old Yunseo Chung, a US permanent resident and Columbia University junior, following her participation in pro-Palestinian protests. Chung sued the Trump administration Monday to stop removal proceedings. The lawsuit is also looking to stop the “pattern and practice of targeting individuals associated with protests for Palestinian rights for immigration enforcement,” saying it is retaliation for protected political speech.

During an emergency hearing, US District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald said the “most sensible” thing was to enter a temporary restraining order while attorneys litigate the case. “No trips to Louisiana here,” she quipped, an apparent reference to others being held in Jena, Louisiana, including Mahmoud Khalil and Badar Khan Suri. The judge took issue with the government detaining Chung, saying there was no indication that weapons were used during protest activities, and that the judge’s review of affidavits show no indication she was a foreign threat. “Nothing in the record indicates she is a danger,” the judge said. The next hearing will be on May 20.

Chung has lived in the US since her family moved from South Korea when she was 7, according to the lawsuit. During her time at Columbia University, she has made it onto the dean’s list every semester since enrolling and has maintained a 3.99 GPA, the lawsuit says. She has been involved in the Columbia Undergraduate Law Review and pursued internships in the legal field, it says. In a statement to CNN, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said Chung “is being sought for removal proceedings under the immigration laws.” “Yunseo Chung has engaged in concerning conduct, including when she was arrested by NYPD during a pro-Hamas protest at Barnard College,” the spokesperson said. “Chung will have an opportunity to present her case before an immigration judge.”

Chung’s attorneys argue their client is one in a line of noncitizens, including Khalil and Ranjani Srinivasan, being punished by the Trump administration for speaking out in support of Palestinian rights. “She’s a college junior doing what generations of students before her have done, which is speak up and protest, and for that, the Trump administration is seeking to detain her and deport her,” said attorney Ramzi Kassem outside court Tuesday, adding that his client has done nothing criminal.

FROM https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/24/us/yunseo-chung-columbia-lawsuit-trump-ice/index.html?iid=cnn_buildContentRecirc_end_recirc

Many of those arrested as part of ICE’s recent “enhanced operation” in Greater Boston were “collateral arrests,” President Donald Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan said Tuesday. He threatened that sanctuary cities can expect those additional detentions alongside targeted arrests going forward.

Federal agents say they arrested at least 370 people in and around Boston between March 18 and 23. Homan has boasted the operation was his follow-through on a promise to “bring hell” to Boston, targeting the city for its so-called sanctuary policies.  According to WCVB, Homan was asked Tuesday outside the White House about concerns that people without any criminal history were detained as part of the recent arrests in Massachusetts.  Trump border czar Tom Homan confirms that an unspecified number of 'collaterals' were arrested during the recent immigration operation in Boston. Homan said municipalities can decrease the number of what he called “collateral arrests” by cooperating with federal authorities....

In a statement, ICE said 205 of those arrested as part of the operation in Massachusetts had “significant criminal convictions or charges” and the agency blamed local jurisdictions for refusing to honor detainer requests, saying it forced officers to make “at-large arrests.”  The agency did not detail the reasoning for arresting the remaining 165 people.

Detainer requests, which ICE lodges with local police when it becomes aware a person being detained is eligible for deportation, are not mandatory for police departments to follow. In Massachusetts, a 2017 Supreme Judicial Court ruling dictated that state officials cannot detain people solely based on ICE detainer requests.

... Governor Maura Healey said in a statement Tuesday that her office had not been given any documentation related to the recent arrests and said she offered to meet with Homan. “We haven’t been provided any information,” Healey said. “He was apparently on the ground here last week but, I extended myself earlier, I said I’d be happy to meet with him, he didn’t take me up on that.” On Monday, Healey reiterated the message that Massachusetts is not a “sanctuary state.” “Here are the facts. Massachusetts is not a sanctuary state, and Massachusetts law enforcement regularly partners with federal agencies and federal law enforcement to keep people safe,” Healey said. “In fact, just two weeks ago, the Massachusetts State Police were brought to the White House and recognized by President Trump and Attorney General Bondi for our partnership in arresting two dozen members of a violent gang and fentanyl trafficking ring in Lawrence.”

....Gladys Vega, president of La Colaborativa in Chelsea, told WCVB that the recent federal operation in the Greater Boston area targeted all immigrants, including those with updated documents and no criminal history. “It’s creating panic, it’s creating a situation where the fear is taking over, and people are not showing up to doctor’s appointments, they’re not showing up to school, they’re not going in huge numbers to the church,” she said.


MORE https://www.boston.com/news/politics/2025/03/25/after-ice-operation-in-mass-trump-border-czar-says-sanctuary-cities-will-keep-seeing-collateral-arrests/

[To Gladys: dear, very sadly that may be the objective.]

The Crimson White, UA’s student newspaper, reported that Alireza Doroudi, a mechanical engineering student, was detained by ICE at 5 a.m. on March 25 in his home. The newspaper reported that Doroudi entered the country in January 2023, and was notified a few months later that his F-1 student visa was revoked. Doroudi contacted UA’s International Student and Scholar Services, who told him the notification “was not unusual or problematic and that he could remain in the U.S. as long as he maintained his student status.” Someone with the name Alireza Doroudi is listed as “in ICE custody,” according to the agency’s website. The detention facility isn’t listed.

FROM - https://www.al.com/news/2025/03/iranian-doctoral-student-at-alabama-university-detained-by-ice.html

SEE ALSO - https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/26/us/ice-detains-doctoral-student-university-alabama.html


[COMMENT - If someone at UA's ISSS told him that he could stay in-country with an invalid F1, he was badly misinformed.  If he was in the process of appealing the revoking of the visa, that's possibly different, but there is no mention of that being the case.  If your visa is revoked, you have 15 days to scram out of here. Something does not add up here. If he was an overstayer in mid-2023, they should have deported him by early 2024 at the latest. He's Iranian, not the favorite nationality of the week, so I doubt he'd be skating through unknown. There's some missing pieces to this story.]

Rather than reporting on each student as they are snatched off the street by ICE agents in plain clothes driving unmarked cars, without warning, and officers not truthfully identifying themselves, I'll leave it at:

If a student's visa is suspended, the regulations say they have up to 15 days to leave the country.  Doing a "secret police" and grabbing university students off the streets, denying their rights to legal counsel, and throwing them in a concentration camp is intolerable. Today it's those kids. Tomorrow it could be anyone. The same goes for anyone who is "disappeared" by ICE. 

I have absolutely no problem with rounding up actual criminals, who should then be given their legal counsel and hearing (and a chance to prove that ICE is mistaken), and then deported if proper grounds exist. I don't want any flavor (home-grown or imported) of gangbangers hanging around my streets. But ICE needs to be damned certain they've got the right people arrested.

And I'm not real keen on the USA paying foreign governments to keep anyone we send to them in hell-hole prisons. Send the deportees back to their countries of origin, fine. De-facto torture camps, no bueno.    If their own countries won't take them, we already have that new business model of private prisons, right? And county jails bidding to get a piece of the business. But again, the authorities need to follow due process and be 100% sure before locking anyone up. Not basing actions on someone happening to be of a certain nationality and having a tattoo. (Apparently any tattoo at all is being used as justification, from what I read in the media. SEE ALSO - https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/03/trump-el-salvador-venezulea-deportation-prison-cecot-bukele/)


[Addendum - 30 March. I heard a quote today from an ICE rep who said they had disappeared maybe 300 people since Trump came into office.  There was also chatter online that someone is manually ending students'  "status" in SEVIS, the system by which universities/schools are supposed to be verifying that the students are complying with the requirements of their visas and are so "in status" as students. From that source it wasn't the schools who were doing that.  Being out-of-status would through you on the watch list, I would think, for deportation. But it's already gone well beyond that.]

CNN  —  The US Department of Health and Human Services announced Thursday it is cutting 10,000 full-time employees across health agencies, the department told CNN. This comes on top of 10,000 employees who’ve left voluntarily, amounting to shrinking by about a quarter of the workforce.

The cuts were first reported by The Wall Street Journal. Local and state health departments said they were caught off guard by an abrupt end to federal grants that started during the Covid-19 pandemic — a move that introduced "uncertainty and chaos," one state said. In its announcement, HHS said it will consolidate from 28 to 15 divisions, including a new Administration for a Healthy America, and will reduce regional offices from 10 to five. The workforce reduction will save $1.8 billion per year, the agency said.

HHS’ new priority will be to end “America’s epidemic of chronic illness by focusing on safe, wholesome food, clean water, and the elimination of environmental toxins,” the agency said. “We aren’t just reducing bureaucratic sprawl. We are realigning the organization with its core mission and our new priorities in reversing the chronic disease epidemic,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a statement. “This Department will do more – a lot more – at a lower cost to the taxpayer.”

HHS said Thursday that cuts will include:

    3,500 full-time employees at the US Food and Drug Administration, not affecting drug, medical device or food reviewers or inspectors
    2,400 employees at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
    1,200 employees at the National Institutes of Health by centralizing procurement, human resources and communications
    300 employees at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

FROM - https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/27/health/hhs-rfk-job-cuts/index.html



[“This Department will do more – a lot more – at a lower cost to the taxpayer.”   I seriously doubt it. He's cutting more staff at Medicare and Medicaid, which are already seriously short-staffed. They were already making a silk purse from a sow's ear.]

And again, we are so screwed.   

LONDON -- President Donald Trump said the U.S. will "go as far as we have to go" to get control of Greenland, ahead of a planned visit to the Arctic island by Vice President JD Vance that has prompted criticism from Greenland and Denmark. Vance, second lady Usha Vance and Energy Secretary Chris Wright will lead the U.S. delegation to visit the Pituffik military space base in the northwest of the island, having scaled back plans for a broader and longer visit. The American group was originally planning to visit the Greenlandic capital, Nuuk, and a dog sled race. Trump showed no indication of softening his ambition to take control of the island, which is an autonomous territory but part of the Kingdom of Denmark. "We need Greenland for national security and international security," Trump said, taking reporters' questions in the Oval Office.

https://abcnews.go.com/International/trump-us-control-greenland/story?id=120208823


[Lebensraum.] Security my hind leg! It's for the mineral rights. https://www.mining.com/web/factbox-greenlands-rich-but-largely-untapped-mineral-resources/

The Federal Communications Commission is investigating Disney for its diversity, equity and inclusion policies, the regulator’s chairman said. “While Disney started as an iconic American company, it recently went all in on DEI,” FCC head Brendan Carr said Friday in a post on X. A Disney spokesman said it is reviewing the FCC’s letter. “We look forward to engaging with the commission to answer its questions,” the spokesman said.  President Trump has made battling diversity programs a pillar of his administration, signing executive orders to end policies and killing DEI-related jobs in the federal government. In a departure from the administration’s bigger push to cut back regulation, Carr has promised to use the FCC’s enforcement powers to combat diversity initiatives in the private sector—such as scuttling mergers of companies with programs it doesn’t approve of.

https://www.wsj.com/business/media/fcc-investigates-disney-for-dei-practices-chair-says-0b8389c1?st=2dsJup


Trump warned automakers not to raise prices after his tariffs and be happy how ‘great’ they are

President Donald Trump warned top automakers not to raise their prices in response to his 25 percent tariffs on imports that were announced this week, according to reports. The president hosted a call with automaker CEOs in early March and touted the tariffs would be “great,” the Wall Street Journal reported. Auto industry experts have warned that the tariffs risk American consumers having to pay “thousands” of dollars more for vehicles.CEOs Mary Barra of General Motors, John Elkann of Stellantis, and Ford’s Jim Farley were on the call, the New York Times reported earlier this month. “Trump said they should be grateful for his elimination of what he called former President Joe Biden’s electric-vehicle mandate,” the Journal said of the call. The president also “made a lengthy pitch” about how U.S. automakers would benefit from the hefty tariffs, two people on the call told the outlet. Trump said he was “bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. and was better for their industry than previous presidents,” they added.

https://www.aol.com/news/trump-warned-automakers-not-raise-142822116.html


[So, Fantasyland (literally) and fantasyland.  Disney? Really? Moana, Aladin, Pleakley, Mike Wozowski & Bambi the wrong ethnicities?  Could it just be remotely possible that they are "shaking down" Disney? Hmmmm. There couldn't be a track record of doing that in this administration, could there? I guess nobody bothered to tell The Dear Leader, but the market drives the price of cars. They cost the dealer more, that cost is passed along - or the dealer goes out of business. I've already gotten paper mail from several local dealers both wanting to buy my used car at a good price (it's not on the market) because demand is so high, and warning of higher prices coming down the pipe on cars "in days". Which, logically, shouldn't be until the new models arrive, not applicable for stock currently on the lot - unless they're gouging. But would a car dealer ever be dishonest?     That also goes hand-in-hand with the Orange One, when ya think of it.]

Dr. Peter Marks, the Food and Drug Administration's top vaccine official, was forced to resign Friday, multiple people familiar with the matter told CBS News. An official with the Department of Health and Human Services delivered an ultimatum to Marks on behalf of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: either resign or be fired from his position as director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, sources said. "It has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the Secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies," Marks wrote of Kennedy in his letter to acting FDA commissioner Sara Brenner. Marks said his resignation would be effective April 5. [Marks was instrumental in carrying out “Operation Warp Speed” — the federal government’s Covid-19 vaccine program.]

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fda-top-vaccine-official-peter-marks-forced-out-decries-rfk-jr-misinformation-and-lies/


On Thursday, the president signed an executive order to stop or slow down collective bargaining with agencies that have national security responsibilities, claiming that unions have stood in the way of their management. It affects a broad swath of agencies across the federal government, including some that do not have direct national security duties. The departments of defense, homeland security, state, energy, treasury and health and human services are listed in the order.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/shawn-fain-uaw-face-the-nation/



More of the same, across the board. Too many to keep up with, really. Flavors of the day -

https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/28/health/vaccine-research-safety-nih-funding/index.html

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/federal-funding-cuts-ripple-through-heart-trump-country-2025-03-29/

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/israeli-officials-signal-texts-exposed-intelligence-sources-say/

https://www.reuters.com/world/us-warns-french-companies-they-must-comply-with-trumps-diversity-ban-2025-03-29/

https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/28/politics/video/anderson-cooper-trump-targets-smithsonian-ideology-executive-order-ac360-digvid

https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/27/politics/vances-greenland-trip-trump/index.html

https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-judge-halts-deportation-turkish-student-tufts-2025-03-29/

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/hegseth-brought-his-wife-to-sensitive-meetings-with-foreign-military-officials-c16db0ea?mod=hp_lead_pos1