Politics & Stuff

[Vesper 29,492]

[Fulham Broadway 17,120]

US President Donald Trump's administration has exempted smartphones and computers from reciprocal tariffs, including the 125% levies imposed on Chinese imports. And orange spray tan...

iPhone prices and other electronic goods in the US would have gone up three times if the costs of the tariffs had been passed on to consumers.

😆

If he was on the pitch the crowd would be singing ''You dont know what youre doing''

[Vesper 29,492]

IHOTFM-Man to the rescue - Tom Tomorrow

 

[Vesper 29,492]

Trump literally wants these 2 men arrested for criticizing him

https://www.yahoo.com/news/opinion-trump-literally-wants-2-163000975.html

By presidential edict, President Trump has singled out for criminal prosecution two people who worked in his first administration and spoke out publicly against him.

The first is Chris Krebs, chief of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency from 2018 until Trump fired him on Nov. 17, 2020. Krebs publicly contradicted Trump’s false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. Trump has branded Krebs “a significant bad-faith actor” who poses grave “risks” to the American public.

The second is Miles Taylor, a former Department of Homeland Security employee who publicly criticized Trump in an anonymous book and various media appearances. According to Trump, Taylor, like Krebs poses “risks” to the U.S. and is also a “bad-faith actor” (though not a “significant” bad-faith actor like Krebs) who “stoked dissension” with his public commentary.

In a separate set of orders, Trump directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to open criminal investigations of Krebs and Taylor. Such investigations are selective and nonsensical.

Once upon a time, we had a Justice Department that acted independently of the president when it came to particular cases. Not any more.

Notably absent from Trump’s orders is any plausible theory that either individual committed a federal crime. After all, it is no federal crime to be a “bad-faith actor” or “significant bad-faith actor,” or to “stoke dissension” or even to be a “wise guy,” the words Trump chose to vilify Krebs from the Oval Office. Krebs also stung Trump as a key witness for the Jan. 6 select committee, describing how he worked to secure the 2020 election, rebut conspiracy theories and shore up voters’ confidence in the results.

When the legal fixer and Trump mentor Roy Cohn complained that my old boss, the legendary prosecutor Robert M. Morgenthau, was pursuing a vendetta against him, Morgenthau retorted, “A man is not immune from prosecution just because a United States attorney happens not to like him.”

What Morgenthau meant was that just because a prosecutor doesn’t like drug dealers or mob bosses or corrupt public officials, he prosecutes them anyway — not because he dislikes them, but because he believes they are guilty of criminal conduct.

Selective prosecution is a cancer on the justice system. When Robert Jackson (later a Supreme Court justice) was attorney general, he denounced selective prosecutions in a famous 1940 speech to U.S. attorneys at the Justice Department.

“What every prosecutor is practically required to do is to select the cases for prosecution and to select those in which the offense is the most flagrant, the public harm the greatest, and the proof the most certain,” Jackson wrote. “If the prosecutor is obliged to choose his cases, it follows that he can choose his defendants … It is in this realm — in which the prosecutor picks some person whom he dislikes or desires to embarrass or selects some group of unpopular persons and then looks for an offense, that the greatest danger of abuse of prosecuting power lies. It is here that law enforcement becomes personal, and the real crime becomes that of being unpopular with the predominant or governing group, being attached to the wrong political views.”

Using selective prosecution as a defense rarely succeeds because prosecutors typically don’t take an ad in the newspaper explaining the personal or political animus behind a particular case. But here such an ad would be unnecessary. The telltale evidence, signed by the president on White House letterhead, speaks for itself, and is such that a judge could hardly ignore it. After a mass purge against big law firms, universities and media outlets calculated to throttle criticism, Trump now wants to prosecute individual private citizens for the dissenting views they expressed.

So, the Krebs and Taylor cases sail over to Trump’s avenging angel Bondi — without a scintilla of evidence on which to believe a crime might have been committed. Bondi is in the tank for Trump. They go back a long way in Florida where, as attorney general, she declined to sue him over his Trump University fraud. Even former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), at one point selected for Bondi’s job before withdrawing, might have hesitated to weaponize the Justice Department as an instrument of political vindictiveness against two renegade public officials. But Bondi seems unlikely ever to question the orders of her leader.

The old saw is that a grand jury is such a rubber stamp for the prosecutor that he or she can convince one to indict a ham sandwich. If Bondi can get a grand jury to indict Krebs or Taylor, the defendants would undoubtedly have a good motion to dismiss the cases for selective prosecution based on Trump’s own bloviating, a dead giveaway of his personal and political motives for ordering Bondi to investigate his political enemies.

Trump’s modus operandi is to threaten his opponents with lawsuits and criminal prosecutions, and until now his bark has been worse than his bite. But this time, he may mean it. And Bondi is unlikely to fob him off. She may have taken an oath to support the Constitution, but she has made clear her belief that what is good for Trump is good for the Constitution.

Selective prosecutions are destructive of the rule of law. Recall the words of Martin Niemöller, the Lutheran pastor in Nazi Germany, whose “First they came …” quote echoes through the decades.

Who will speak for Krebs or Taylor? Will anyone take their case pro bono? Certainly not Big Law. They have only the courage of their retainers. Meanwhile, if you lament what we can do to save our democracy, the rhetorical question may not be so inapt.

Edited April 15 by Vesper

[KEVINAA 113]

Hi all just to add self awareness all here just in case the martial law is activated by Donald Trump on Sunday 20 April. Adolf Htlr birthday.

Be prepared just in case.

@Vesper have you seen and watched any videos on this.

Emil cosman video.

Trump to declare Martial Law on April 20? He certainly can. Will he? Use Insurrection Act of 1807?

 

 

On twitter x and YouTube - search these terms [ martial law April 20 Trump.]

Edited Wednesday at 16:25 by KEVINAA

[Vesper 29,492]

a big win.....................

UK Supreme Court rules ‘woman’ means biological female

Judgment is a victory for gender-critical feminist campaigners — and a blow for transgender rights activists.

https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-supreme-court-rules-woman-means-biological-female-trans-gender-recognition/

 

LONDON — Britain’s highest court ruled Wednesday that the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex.

“The unanimous decision of this court is that the terms woman and sex in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex,” Patrick Hodge, deputy president of the Supreme Court, said as he delivered his judgment on Wednesday.

It will be seen as a landmark victory for gender-critical feminist campaigners who have long argued biological sex is immutable, and a blow for transgender rights activists. The ruling could have far-reaching implications for the provision of single-sex spaces and other gender-specific public services across Scotland, England and Wales.

The long-running legal challenge was brought by the For Women Scotland campaign group — who argue sex is biological, binary and can’t be changed — against the Scottish government.

The case dates back to 2018 when the Scottish administration, led by then-First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, passed legislation to establish gender quotas to get more women serving on public boards.

It was eventually amended to count trans women with gender recognition certificates, confirming their female gender, as women for the purposes of the legislation.

Scottish courts ruled, and then upheld in the Scottish government’s favor, that sex is “not limited to biological or birth sex,” and must include those in possession of a gender recognition certificate (GRC).

But that was challenged in London’s Supreme Court by campaigners. And, in its ruling Wednesday, the country’s highest court said the meaning of the terms “sex,” “man” and “woman” in the U.K.’s Equality Act must refer to “biological sex” — with any other interpretation deemed “incoherent and impracticable.”

The summary of the court ruling read: “Therefore, a person with a Gender Recognition Certificate in the female gender does not come within the definition of a ‘woman’ under the Equality Act 2010 and the statutory guidance issued by the Scottish ministers is incorrect.”

Trans rights campaigners had warned that if the court deemed a Gender Recognition Certificate insufficient to change one’s sex in the eyes of the Equality Act, then transgender people would lose protections they have against discrimination. 

Hodge stressed that the ruling should not be seen as the triumph of one group over another, and pointed out that the Equality Act still gives protection to transgender people “not only against discrimination through the protected characteristic of gender reassignment, but also against direct discrimination, indirect discrimination and harassment in substance in their acquired gender.”

‘Clarity and confidence’

The U.K government said the ruling had brought “clarity and confidence” for women and service providers such as hospitals, refuges, and sports clubs.

“Single-sex spaces are protected in law and will always be protected by this government,” a spokesperson said in a statement following the ruling. 

Scottish First Minister John Swinney — who has largely steered clear of gender issues since taking the reins of the ruling Scottish National Party last year — meanwhile said his administration “accepts today’s Supreme Court judgement.”

“The ruling gives clarity between two relevant pieces of legislation passed at Westminster,” he said. “We will now engage on the implications of the ruling. Protecting the rights of all will underpin our actions.”

But Vic Valentine, manager of advocacy charity Scottish Trans warned the decision “undercuts the central purpose of the Gender Recognition Act.”

They added: “We note that the court took interventions from a number of organizations that have campaigned to restrict trans people’s rights, but refused to hear from a single trans person, in a case that is all about trans people.

“We think their judgment reflects the fact that trans people’s voices were totally missing.”

[Vesper 29,492]

38 minutes ago, KEVINAA said:

Hi all just to add self awareness all here just in case the martial law is activated by Donald Trump on Sunday 20 April. Adolf Htlr birthday.

Be prepared just in case.

@Vesper have you seen and watched any videos on this.

Emil cosman video.

Trump to declare Martial Law on April 20? He certainly can. Will he? Use Insurrection Act of 1807?

 

 

On twitter x and YouTube - search these terms [ martial law April 20 Trump.]

 

Rumor claims Trump will declare martial law on April 20. Here's what we know

https://www.yahoo.com/news/rumor-claims-trump-declare-martial-230800902.html

• Online users shared a rumor claiming U.S. President Donald Trump would invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 on April 20, 2025, followed by him declaring martial law. The Insurrection Act grants U.S. presidents the power to deploy the military into states for civilian law enforcement.

• To share the rumor, users copied and pasted the text from the first (archived) in a series of articles written by a Medium.com blogger only identified by the handle of Aletheisthenes.

• The rumor partly pertained to a Trump executive order issued on Jan. 20 declaring a national emergency at the southern U.S. border. Part of that order requested Trump to receive a joint report from the secretaries of defense and homeland security "within 90 days" — or by April 20 — advising "whether to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807." The order did not explicitly mention the words "martial law."

• While Aletheisthenes, the author of the series of articles, featured at length a wealth of data about Trump's past actions, as well as information about the Insurrection Act of 1807 and martial law, this rumor existed more as a prediction than a provable claim.

• The Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security and the White House did not yet respond to emailed requests for comment.

In April 2025, online users shared a rumor claiming U.S. President Donald Trump would invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 and then declare martial law — a declaration of rule enforced by military authorities. According to numerous posts, this sequences of events would begin on or just after April 20, the same day as Easter Sunday.

For example, one Facebook user posted, in part, "He's setting us up for Martial Law....just in case y'all were wondering how he plans on dealing with the backlash he's receiving. April 20." Another user sharing the rumor, also noting former German dictator Adolf Hitler's birthday as April 20, wrote, in part, "Upcoming MAGA special events... April 20. Trump declares martial law in The United States of America."

The mentions of April 20 pertained to a Jan. 20 executive order declaring a national emergency at the southern U.S. border. One part of the order said that the secretaries of defense and homeland security would issue a joint report "within 90 days," meaning by April 20. It further stated that the report would include guidance about "whether to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807." The order did not explicitly mention the words "martial law."

As of this writing on April 11, this rumor existed more as a prediction than a provable claim. Searches of the websites for the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security and the White House yielded no announcements, statements or demonstrable evidence that might help to shed light on the unproven matter.

Those entities did not yet respond to emailed requests for comment.

Breaking down the martial law rumor

Users on Bluesky, Facebook, Reddit and other social platforms shared the rumor either in their own words or as a lengthy block of copied-and-pasted text. That text originated from a March 21 article (archived) reported on the publishing platform Medium.com. The author did not self-identify in any other way other than by the handle Aletheisthenes.

(Angela Woodward/Facebook)

Aletheisthenes' article — the first in a series (archived) of stories titled, "The Coup Playbook: How They Quietly Kill the Constitution and Democracy in the Coming Weeks and Months" — began with, "On April 20, 2025, the United States may initiate its final steps into authoritarian rule."

In the article, Aletheisthenes predicted several supposed chronological steps following the invocation of the act and martial law, including "expanded martial law" following violent false flag operations at otherwise peaceful protests, arrests of journalists and politicians, military takeovers of major U.S. cities, press censorship, closed borders and postponed elections. The author ended the article, "If we don't act before April 20, then by April 23, it will already be too late."

Subsequent articles in the series featured Aletheisthenes discussing many other matters related to the predictions, including for example advising (archived) readers to prepare for the worst by buying survival supplies, water and food, and to "beat the rush," "go fast" and "go now." In another article, the author asked (archived) readers to use artificial-intelligence (AI) platforms to "check my math."

Interviewing Aletheisthenes

By email, the author who made the predictions answered several questions regarding the primary claim examined for this story — one positing Trump would invoke the Insurrection Act and then declare martial law. The author also was presented with a legal article that seemed to contradict the blog posts.

That article (archived) by Joseph Nunn, counsel for the Brennan Center for Justice, states the Insurrection Act does not authorize martial law.

"The term 'martial law' has no established definition, but it is generally understood as a power that allows the military to take over the role of civilian government in an emergency," Nunn wrote on the matter in 2022. "By contrast, the Insurrection Act generally permits the military to assist civilian authorities (whether state or federal), not take their place. Under current law, the president has no authority to declare martial law."

When presented with Nunn's article, Aletheisthenes said, in part, that "Trump has a history of testing what he can and can't do." The blogger also added, "Trump is on record on wanting to declare martial law several times during his [first] administration," and that his "guardrails" from his first administration "are gone."

A search for information about Trump previously considering declaring martial law located a Dec. 19, 2020, article from The New York Times. The reporting said Trump discussed the idea of declaring martial law to "rerun" the election he had just lost, during an Oval Office meeting occurring on Dec. 18. Trump tweeted (archived) in response, "Martial law = Fake News. Just more knowingly bad reporting!" Trump also previously threatened in June 2020 to send federal forces to quell protests and violence following the death of George Floyd, a matter involving invoking the Insurrection Act.

Aletheisthenes also answered a question about changing the word "will" to "may" in the headline of the first article. The headline originally read, "On April 20th, 2025, the United States will Cross the Point of No Return." The blogger answered, in part, "I decided to tone it down," citing a person who called the blogger "a malicious propagandist giving paranoid nutjobs nightmare fuel."

When asked about whether Aletheisthenes purchased survival supplies — the advice the blogger gave to readers in Part Four (archived) of the series of articles — Aletheisthenes answered, "Yes. I've never been a prepper before. But I did something different: I'm in a better financial position than many, and I actually ordered 6 months of survival rations and a pretty serious water filter. I figure we'll be feeding the neighbors.

"My intentions are good, at least in my own mind. Actually, I don't think I've ever done anything more important in my life, trying to get the word out and save our Constitution ... although it may already be too late. But at least if things go bad I know I tried. And maybe in some way I've gotten more people talking about it. And maybe by talking about it... it'll stop it from happening. And I just look like a crazy man. Which ... I can live with."

A representative for Nunn, counsel with the Brennan Center for Justice, did not yet reply to an emailed request for further comment.

Insurrection Act of 1807

The Library of Congress hosts the original text of the Insurrection Act of 1807 on Page 443 (archived) of legislation pertaining to the Ninth Congress. As of 2025, the act exists in its amended form in Title 10 of the U.S. Code. (The Trump-issued executive order from Jan. 20 specifically featured the words "Insurrection Act of 1807," rather than generally referencing the matter as the "Insurrection Act.")

The original text from 1807 read as follows:

Chap. XXXIX. — An Act authorizing the employment of the land and naval forces of the United States, in cases of insurrections.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That in all cases of insurrection, or obstruction to the laws, either of the United States, or of any individual state or territory, where it is lawful for the President of the United States to call forth the militia for the purpose of suppressing such insurrection, or of causing the laws to be duly executed, it shall be lawful for him to employ, for the same purposes, such part of the land or naval force of the United States, as shall be judged necessary, having first observed all the prerequisites of the law in that respect.

Approved, March 3, 1807

President Thomas Jefferson, in office from 1801 through 1809, introduced the act in response to fears that his former vice president, Aaron Burr, might incite a rebellion or insurrection after Jefferson replaced him for Jefferson's second term in the White House.

Nunn reported for the Brennan Center that "the Insurrection Act was last invoked in 1992, when the governor of California requested military aid from President George H.W. Bush in response to civil unrest in Los Angeles that followed the acquittal of four white police officers charged with beating Black motorist Rodney King." The Brennan Center published a list of the many other times U.S. presidents invoked the Insurrection Act.

Sources:

"10 USC Ch. 13: INSURRECTION." U.S. Code, https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title10/subtitleA/part1/chapter13&edition=prelim.

"Aaron Burr." Thomas Jefferson Foundation, https://www.monticello.org/research-education/thomas-jefferson-encyclopedia/aaron-burr/.

"Acts of the Ninth Congress." Library of Congress, https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/llsl//llsl-c9/llsl-c9.pdf.

Archive.today. https://archive.is/.

"Declaring A National Emergency At The Southern Border Of The United States." The White House, 20 Jan. 2025, https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/declaring-a-national-emergency-at-the-southern-border-of-the-united-states/.

"Definition of FALSE FLAG." Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/false+flag.

Haberman, Maggie, and Zolan Kanno-Youngs. "Trump Weighed Naming Election Conspiracy Theorist as Special Counsel." The New York Times, 19 Dec. 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/19/us/politics/trump-sidney-powell-voter-fraud.html.

Hauser, Christine. "What Is the Insurrection Act of 1807, the Law Behind Trump's Threat to States?" The New York Times, 2 June 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/article/insurrection-act.html.

Nunn, Joseph. "Guide to Invocations of the Insurrection Act | Brennan Center for Justice." Brennan Center for Justice, 21 Apr. 2022, https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/guide-invocations-insurrection-act.

---. "Martial Law in the United States: Its Meaning, Its History, and Why the President Can't Declare It." Brennan Center for Justice, 20 Aug. 2020, https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/martial-law-united-states-its-meaning-its-history-and-why-president-cant.

---. "The Insurrection Act Explained." Brennan Center for Justice, 25 Apr. 2022, https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/insurrection-act-explained.

"Martial Law | Definition & Facts." Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/topic/martial-law.

The Conversation. "Can the President Really Order the Military to Occupy US Cities and States?" Snopes, 3 June 2020, https://www.snopes.com//news/2020/06/03/can-the-president-really-order-the-military-to-occupy-us-cities-and-states/.

Vladeck, Steve. "Under the Insurrection Act of 1807, Here's What a U.S. President Can and Cannot Do." The Washington Post, 19 June 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/06/19/under-insurrection-act-1807-heres-what-us-president-can-cannot-do/.

Edited Wednesday at 17:03 by Vesper

[Vesper 29,492]

 

Supreme Court ruling is a victory for truth over faddish radicalism

Sanity has been restored in the trans debate with the unanimous decision that the description ‘woman’ should be based on biological sex

https://www.thetimes.com/comment/the-times-view/article/supreme-court-ruling-is-a-victory-for-truth-over-faddish-radicalism-7ghjf80qz

After years of argument, ideological extremism and an outbreak of collective insanity across the public sector and in corporate boardrooms, the Supreme Court has finally proclaimed that a woman is an adult human female, and references to “sex” and “women” in the Equality Act refer to biological sex and biological women. The judgment, which the loudest and most unpleasant voices in this long-running campaign of misinformation against British feminists insisted would never come, was unanimous. All five justices agreed what millions of people know instinctively to be true: that biological sex, not the expression of a subjective gender identity, is the only meaningful qualification to womanhood.

Such an elementary truth should never have been contested before the highest court. That it was — in a bitter dispute between the self-styled progressives of Scotland’s nationalist government and the women who dared to defy them — is testament to a political and cultural establishment that lost touch with reality. It was always absurd that the SNP, much of the Labour Party, prominent Conservatives and countless public bodies and universities insisted that men were able to simply speak themselves into female-only spaces, some of which women fought for years to establish.

Redress and an end to the fear of persecution is finally coming for women who wish to protect their right to play sports against one another, and support victims of rape or male violence. Or in the case of lesbian groups specifically mentioned by the Supreme Court, gather together safe from discrimination. Until now these women were at risk of legal action by trans-identifying men citing the Equality Act, which the Scottish government insisted should treat the “sex” of a biological woman and a biological man armed with a gender recognition certificate as the same thing. That can never be the case, and women who lost their livelihoods and reputations in pointing out this scientific certainty should not have suffered for saying so.

Women like Kathleen Stock, the academic hounded out of Sussex University, or Maya Forstater, sacked from a think tank for her gender-critical views, were failed by political cowardice. Trans people are a tiny minority in Britain but, like all minorities, they have the right to be treated with respect and compassion, and to live peacefully, free from discrimination. Indeed, gender reassignment is itself a protected characteristic under the Equality Act. Their cause was hijacked by those who sought to erode the rights of women by equating gender expression with the immutable facts of nature. Politicians, always susceptible to faddish radicalism, were willing dupes.

So it came to pass that in 2021 Sir Keir Starmer, now prime minister, rebuked the then Labour MP Rosie Duffield for daring to say that only a woman could have a cervix. David Lammy, now foreign secretary, accused feminists challenging trans extremism of being “dinosaurs”. And Nicola Sturgeon’s political career was hastened to its end by her defence of the presence of a male rapist in a women’s prison. Thankfully, Sir Keir has abandoned these absurdities. His health secretary, Wes Streeting, has also apologised for telling women to “get over” their objections. Not before time.

Hopefully, the ruling will bring an end to this bizarre culture war. Now is not the time for triumphalism or gloating but consensus around two truths: that trans people have the right to live their lives in dignity and that women’s rights are sacrosanct also. To that end ministers must now amend the Gender Recognition Act of 2004 which only perpetuates the misconception that a piece of paper can alter the facts of life. Public institutions and universities must now be held to account if they ignore the law. Women should never have had to fight this battle in defence of scientific truth. But at least it is now won. Sanity is restored.

[Vesper 29,492]

Authorities Detain and Execute Non-Citizen

Local carpenter put to death.

https://charlotteclymer.substack.com/p/authorities-detain-and-execute-non

JUDEA — Today, local authorities executed a non-citizen just outside the walls of Jerusalem on the vague charge of treason against Caesar.

Jesus of Nazareth, 33, was publicly detained last night by law enforcement, although it’s unclear if a reason for the arrest was given at the time. Police were reportedly tipped off to the man’s location by a friend in exchange for a cash reward.

The accused had entered through Jerusalem’s Eastern Gate this past Sunday on a donkey, accompanied by friends and admirers, many of whom referred to him as “Rabbi,” although his profession was carpentry, which may suggest he lied about his clerical qualifications.

Although Jesus of Nazareth technically had legal status to reside in Judea, he lacked protections from arbitrary punishments by the government.

Because he was raised in a working class, Jewish family in Galilee, he was not accorded the privileged legal protections of Roman citizens, and thus, he was not entitled to due process after his arrest, nor was he exempt from capital punishment after being declared guilty of treason by Gov. Pontius Pilate, despite a lack of evidence to support the charge.

The carpenter was publicly tortured by law enforcement for hours before being led through the city streets, past large crowds of bystanders, under the heavy weight of a wooden crucifix to a local site on a hill called Golgotha. There, he was nailed by the hands and feet to the crucifix and left to die by authorities.

The woodworker had been growing in popularity throughout the region, attracting throngs of crowds who came to hear him speak on a variety of hot button issues, from insisting on grace regarding immigration to condemning exorbitant wealth.

He initially attracted widespread attention in the area, in part, for offering free and comprehensive health care to the sick and openly defying the practice of stoning those accused of religious impropriety.

At least one government source suggested that Gov. Pilate had significant doubts as to the guilt of Jesus of Nazareth. The source claims the governor privately concluded no crime had been committed but feared what may happen to himself if he took the side of a non-citizen unpopular with those in power.

Despite being criticized in some quarters for the execution, Gov. Pilate publicly rejected claims that the man was falsely charged and denied any injustice for his role in the matter.

“I am innocent of this man’s blood.”

It remains unclear what—if anything—his followers intend to do in the wake of his death. According to some sources, he will be interred in a nearby tomb, which is to be permanently sealed.

[Vesper 29,492]

Marco Rubio sends a harsh message to those considering a U.S. visit

Ideally, the secretary of state would make clear to the world that the United States is eager to welcome visitors. He’s doing the opposite.

 

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/marco-rubio-sends-harsh-message-considering-us-visit-rcna201740

That Donald Trump is unpopular on the international stage is relevant in a variety of ways, but during his first term, the world’s woeful attitudes toward the Republican had little effect on international travelers and their willingness to visit the United States.

In his second term, as the president imposes destabilizing trade tariffs on countries around the world, it’s a very different story. In fact, as MSNBC’s Chris Hayes put it, the White House has effectively launched a “war on tourism.”

An Axios report added that international tourism to the U.S. is “falling fast,” and the jobs associated with the industry “are being threatened.” Looking solely at German tourists, the number of visitors dropped 28% in March 2025 as compared to March 2024. That coincided with a CBC report that noted, “The number of cross-border travelers going from Canada to the U.S. dropped by nearly 900,000 in March compared to the same month last year ... easily one of the worst year-over-year drops recorded outside of the COVID-19 health crisis.”

A report in Fortune noted that a Goldman Sachs analysis estimated that in a worst-case scenario, “the hit this year from reduced travel and boycotts could total 0.3% of gross domestic product, which would amount to almost $90 billion.”

Ideally, Secretary of State Marco Rubio would make clear to the world that the U.S. is open for business and eager to welcome visitors. Instead, Trump’s chief diplomat authored a piece for Fox News that was unmistakably hostile toward would-be tourists.

A welcome mat it was not.

For what it’s worth, Rubio is from Florida, and as a Florida native, I’m comfortable reminding the secretary of state that tourism represents a significant chunk of that state’s economy. Indeed, just last year, according to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration, Florida’s tourism industry hit a new high in 2024.

If state officials were expecting to set a new record in 2025, they probably ought to start lowering their expectations. 

[Vesper 29,492]

Border Patrol agents board train and question Amtrak passengers in Havre, Montana about citizenship

https://www.havredailynews.com/story/2025/04/17/local/ice-questions-amtrak-passengers-in-havre-about-citizenship/547792.html

A judge and attorney from North Dakota said Thursday that he was one of possibly all the passengers on an Amtrak Empire Builder train questioned by federal officers about their citizenship Sunday while the train was stopped in Havre.

The person interviewed by Havre Weekly Chronicle said ICE officers were the ones who questioned him.

A spokesperson for ICE said the activity was not related to that agency, and referred questions to Customs and Border Protection.

ICE representative Alethea Smock repeated that today.

“Confirming again, this was not an ICE activity, and your story was incorrect; many other sites have picked up on it and are saying ICE is boarding trains, this is generally a CBP activity.”

Jason Givens, U.S. Border Patrol public affairs specialist, confirmed this morning that it was Border Patrol agents who boarded the train Sunday in Havre.

Smock said it is possible people saw partially obscured “POLICE” labels on the clothing of the people on the train and though the labels said “ICE.”

Givens gave background on the agents boarding the train:

“U.S. Border Patrol agents conduct enforcement actions at transportation hubs away from the immediate border as part of the defense-in-depth strategy of disrupting human smuggling activities at transportation sites that are used to further illegal trafficking into the interior of the United States. These operations serve as a vital component to our overall border security efforts.

“Enforcement actions away from the border are within the jurisdiction of the Border Patrol and performed in direct support of immediate border enforcement efforts and as a means of preventing smuggling and criminal organizations from exploiting existing transportation hubs to travel to the interior of the United States.”

Baer said Thursday he was getting off Amtrak’s Empire Builder Sunday to stretch his legs during its stop in Havre when the two law enforcement officers — he said he saw ICE on their clothing —  in paramilitary gear, stopped and questioned train passengers, including himself, about whether they were U.S. citizens.

“It was intimidating,” Baer said.

He said he told them he was — he first asked if they were joking, he said, and they repeated the question — and when he said he was they went on to the next passenger.

Baer, a longtime attorney and district court judge for the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arika Tribe, said another official in uniform appeared to be supervising the operation but did not enter the train.

Baer said he only saw the officers question himself and others near him, but they were on the train nearly the entire time it was at the station, so, although he does not know for sure, it is his presumption that the officers went through the entire train and asked all passengers about their U.S. citizenship status.

He said they didn’t ask for documentation of his citizenship and moved on once he said he was a citizen.

“They took my word for it,” Baer said. “I presume if my skin was a little darker I might have had to come up with some documentation, but that’s only my own guess.”

This is not the first time issues of citizenship have arisen in Havre in Department of Homeland Security actions.

Two women — both U.S. citizens who had been living in Havre for several years — were detained and questioned by a U.S. Border Patrol agent when he heard them speaking Spanish in a Havre convenience store.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection in 2020 reached an out-of-court settlement with the women — who said they moved away from Havre because of the backlash they received for filing a lawsuit — on their lawsuit alleging their Fourth and Fifth amendment rights had been violated.

The details of the settlement were not revealed.

A release from ACLU about the settlement said its investigations found a history or abusive seizures and investigations with agents targeting Latino people.

"One such incident led to a published Ninth Circuit opinion holding that CBP agents illegally detained a group of men in Havre in 2006,” the 2020 ACLU release said.

This week, a federal judge dismissed criminal charges against two men arrested arrested by Border Patrol agents in Shelby in March, men the Border Patrol said were part of an international gang. Montana Free Press reports that attorneys argued that people charged with illegal entry on the southern border can’t be prosecuted months later in a different state. The judge ruled that Montana was not the proper venue for the offense.

Montana Free Press also reports defense attorneys said they’ve seen no evidence that the men were affiliated with gangs.

The Trump administration has used alleged membership with gangs as the reason to deport people to El Salvador with little or no due process, including one man the administration has admitted was sent to a prison in El Salvador by mistake.

In the issue Sunday on Amtrak, Baer’s colleague, judge and attorney Judith Roberts, put up a Facebook post about Baer’s story Wednesday. She said Thursday morning that, so far, it had 20,000 shares.

She added that she has never posted anything related to politics.

“It just shows how concerned people are becoming over these turn of events,” Roberts said, “and I’m personally very concerned that the civil rights, the constitutional rights, of of individuals are being trampled upon, and so I felt compelled to speak out, even though I do not speak out politically, and I don’t believe my post was political.”

Baer said he has long connections with immigration issues — his grandfather was a U.S. Border Patrol special agent — and he respects that job.

“That our borders are being protected is important. Like I said, my grandfather, that was his full-time job till the day he died,” Baer said.

“I have full respect for that and the need for that, but we also have judicial officers to stand between the judgment of the (law enforcement) officers involved and the actual rights of the individuals being appended,” he added

“It’s the constitutional safeguards that we want,” Baer said.

He said he has been riding the train for decades and he has never seen federal officers come on the train to ask if people are citizens.

He said a conductor on the train Sunday told him that in the conductor’s 40 years, he has never seen anything like it.

Roberts said Baer’s story is very concerning.

“It really is a very serious issue,” she said. “I never thought that I would see what I have seen occur in our country today, and as a member of the judicial branch, I’m highly concerned with what I see.”

 

Edited Friday at 23:41 by Vesper

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UK Crisis - Joe Blogs

 

In this video I talk about the refuse collection strike in Birmingham, the UK's second largest city, which started on 11th March 2025. The strike has resulted in over 22,000 tons of garbage building up across the city. Residents have reported sightings of 'rats the size of cats' and it is estimated that the clean up costs are now over £200 million. Birmingham City Council that is in charge of refuse collection declared itself Bankrupt in September 2023 and this latest situation is only going to make the financial situation worse. 

Chapters:

0:00 Intro
2:08 TOP 10 CITIES
2:33 BIRMINGHAM
4:21 REFUSE COLLECTION
5:59 WRCO
8:24 STRIKE
10:59 SUMMARY & CONCLUSION

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The ADL reversed its support for Trump’s student deportations. You should too.

https://forward.com/opinion/710017/adl-trump-student-deportations-jonathan-greenblatt/

Jonathan Greenblatt, the leader of the Anti-Defamation League, has walked back his organization’s previous support for President Donald Trump’s Trump campaign to detain and deport pro-Palestinian activists — thank God.

“No one should minimize the hateful, violent acts committed against Jewish students,” he wrote in an April 3 essay in eJewishPhilanthropy. “But if we sacrifice our constitutional freedoms in the pursuit of security, we undermine the very foundation of the diverse, pluralistic society we seek to defend.”

Now that the largest and most influential Jewish civil rights organization has reconsidered its unjustifiable initial support for the detentions, it’s time for others who may also have been seduced into believing such draconian measures are “good for the Jews” to speak out against them.

Because they are definitely not good for the Jews.

Look, I get why Greenblatt and the ADL were initially enthusiastic. After a year of campus protests that sometimes led to physical harassment of Jewish students, vandalized university property and prevented Jewish and other students from attending class, I can imagine finding it satisfying to see actual perpetrators held accountable.

And so the ADL did.“We appreciate the Trump Administration’s broad, bold set of efforts to counter campus antisemitism,” ADL posted to its X account on Mar. 9, after ICE agents took Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil into custody, “and this action further illustrates that resolve by holding alleged perpetrators responsible for their actions.”

That post went on to throw in one sentence calling for due process. But as Greenblatt now acknowledges, the organization should have known better.

“We were glad to see the administration taking action,” he said in an interview this week with Jewish Insider. “But the pattern of behavior since then has raised concerns that would be easy to address by being transparent about the charges.”

Khalil has not been charged with any crimes; nor have any of the students or other university staff so far arrested, detained and deported as part of the Trump administration’s push. The administration’s approach, in this as in deportations of alleged gang members, has been to imprison first and ask questions later, going after anyone whose opinions somebody somewhere found objectionable — all under the guise of protecting the Jews.

So far at least 10 people have been detained, according to a Forward tracker.

I, like many liberal-leaning Jews, found it difficult to understand how the ADL and other Jewish organizations and leaders could have failed to immediately see the slippery Constitutional slope Khalil’s arrest put us on — and where it would inevitably lead.

Even worse is the fact that reporters have found that two Jewish groups, Canary Mission and Betar, have targeted pro-Palestinian activists for arrest and fed their names to authorities. These are shadowy groups — the ADL labeled Betar “extremist” — that represent a rightwing fringe of American Jewry.

It takes only the barest acquaintance with Jewish history to understand that when free speech and civil liberties erode for any group, Jews inevitably become a target.

In this case, we are doubly endangered — by government actions attacking free speech, and also by groups blaming the Jews as a whole for instigating these attacks.

Good on the ADL for eventually recognizing that, and being able to admit they made a mistake. Greenblatt said his awakening came after the detention of Tufts graduate student Rumeysa Ozturk, whom masked ICE agents swooped down on and disappeared as she left her home in Somerville, Mass. last week. Her crime? The 30-year-old Turkish national co-authored an op-ed in Tufts’ student newspaper calling for the university to divest from Israel.

“You cannot arrest people or eject people from the country because they are bigoted or racist,” he told Jewish Insider. “That’s not a crime. That has never been an offense.”

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told the Associated Press that Ozturk’s visa was terminated last week, after the agency found that she engaged in activities in support of Hamas. Of course the agency provided no evidence. Her friends said she did not organize protests, and Tufts confirmed that her op-ed did not violate school policies.

“We can hold perpetrators of unlawful antisemitism accountable while maintaining a commitment to the Constitution,” wrote Greenblatt in eJewishPhilanthropy. “We can protect the civil liberties of Jewish students even as we preserve the civil liberties of those who protest, harass or attack them because they are innocent until proven guilty.”

Of course, starting with Khalil’s arrest there was good reason to oppose the administration’s shotgun approach to antisemitism. Threatening to cut off all federal funding to a university — including critical medical research, and grants to Jewish students and professors — doesn’t help Jews. Eviscerating the offices at the Department of Education, including those that investigate campus antisemitism, doesn’t help Jews. What these measures help are people who want to undermine liberal education, elite institutions, and government bureaucracies. Which, you know, might just be the point.

Our job is not to be suckered into supporting it.

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Totally unhinged.

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terrifying

'governance by algorithm'

Palantir: The New Deep State

A former Palantir employee is sounding the alarm. The tech company, founded by Peter Thiel, claims they can revolutionize government systems with their AI-powered software. They’ve been hired by the Department of Defense, the FBI, ICE, and even Wendy’s. Now DOGE will likely hire Palantir as well.

We talked to a former Palantir employee, dug into decades of research and listened to hours of Palantir CEO Alex Karp's own words to carefully unwrap the layers of Palantir’s carefully cultivated sales pitch — and how they capitalize on fear and unrest to make money. 

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JD Vance video that was deleted from (X) formerly twitter