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Category: Law/Crime

Bodies wash ashore in Trinidad after U.S. strikes

Bodies wash ashore in Trinidad after U.S. strikes

The New York Times reports: The first body washed ashore on Trinidad’s northeastern coast soon after the United States carried out its first strike in September on a boat in the Caribbean. Villagers said the corpse had burn marks on its face and was missing limbs, as if it had been mangled by an explosion. The tides deposited another corpse on a nearby beach days later, drawing a wake of vultures. Its face was similarly unrecognizable, and its right leg…

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‘He’s not innocent’: GOP senator denounces Trump’s pardon of crypto billionaire CZ

‘He’s not innocent’: GOP senator denounces Trump’s pardon of crypto billionaire CZ

Politico reports: Republican Sen. Thom Tillis condemned President Donald Trump’s move to pardon cryptocurrency mogul Changpeng Zhao on Thursday, saying it sends “a bad signal.” “I don’t like it,” the retiring North Carolina Republican told reporters. “He was convicted. He’s not innocent.” His comments signal that some GOP lawmakers are uneasy with the move to pardon Zhao, who pleaded guilty in November 2023 to money laundering-related charges. Zhao, often known as CZ, founded the crypto exchange Binance, which federal prosecutors…

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The only check-and-balance that actually matters isn’t written in law

The only check-and-balance that actually matters isn’t written in law

Garrett Graff writes: The destruction this week of the East Wing of the White House has been uniquely shocking, a physical manifestation of what Donald Trump is doing to our presidency and our country — the excavators and heavy equipment demolishing a 120-year-old literal piece of American history feels in many ways a microcosm of so many Trump controversies. It came out of left field, with no real warning or public debate, no permissions asked or given, to serve Donald…

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Federal thugs head to San Francisco Bay Area to incite ‘backlash, chaos and violence.’ Don’t be baited

Federal thugs head to San Francisco Bay Area to incite ‘backlash, chaos and violence.’ Don’t be baited

San Francisco Chronicle reports: The Trump administration has dispatched more than 100 federal agents, including from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, to Coast Guard Base Alameda and they will begin to arrive Thursday, according to the U.S. Coast Guard and a source familiar with the operation. The surge of federal agents was seen as a likely precursor to President Donald Trump deploying National Guard troops to San Francisco. In other cities around the nation, the administration has increased immigration enforcement…

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Stephen Miller is directing Trump’s war on drug boats

Stephen Miller is directing Trump’s war on drug boats

Jonathan Blitzer writes: Late this summer, James Story, who served as U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela for three years of Donald Trump’s first term and for two of Joe Biden’s, felt that anything was possible in the relationship between Washington and Caracas. It had been six years since the U.S. closed its Embassy in Venezuela, to protest the rule of the Socialist authoritarian Nicolás Maduro. The issue of how to dislodge Maduro’s regime has been an American political conundrum for at…

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Fired Justice Department lawyer blows the whistle on abuses of power at the DOJ

Fired Justice Department lawyer blows the whistle on abuses of power at the DOJ

  60 Minutes reports: Erez Reuveni, a fired Department of Justice lawyer who’s now blowing the whistle, says he witnessed a disregard of due process and for the rule of law at the DOJ. Reuveni previously won commendations for his work and was so effective defending President Trump’s first-term immigration policy that he was promoted quickly in Mr. Trump’s second term. But he says he was put on leave and then fired after refusing to sign a brief in the…

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One target at a time: The logic that helped Israeli liberals commit genocide

One target at a time: The logic that helped Israeli liberals commit genocide

Yuval Abraham writes: A few months after October 7, I enrolled in an introductory course on genocide at the Open University of Israel. The lecturer began the first class by telling us — about 20 Jewish-Israeli students gathered on Zoom — that by the end of the semester we would understand exactly what genocide entails and be able to explain why Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza. In a nutshell, his argument was this: At most, Israel might be…

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From California to Chicago, the Border Patrol’s Gregory Bovino is seen making race-based arrests

From California to Chicago, the Border Patrol’s Gregory Bovino is seen making race-based arrests

Chicago Sun-Times reports: On the morning of Jan. 7, Jesús Ramírez and other day laborers huddled in a Home Depot parking lot in Bakersfield, California, hoping for work. Suddenly, they were surrounded by U.S. Homeland Security vehicles. One agent demanded Ramírez show his papers. When he pulled out his wallet, the agent “snatched” it and took his ID without asking questions, Ramírez said. “It was clear to me the agents did not know who I was,” Ramírez, 64, said in…

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Unfettered and unaccountable: How Trump is building a violent, shadowy federal police force

Unfettered and unaccountable: How Trump is building a violent, shadowy federal police force

By J. David McSwane and Hannah Allam This story was originally published by ProPublica When Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers stormed through Santa Ana, California, in June, panicked calls flooded into the city’s emergency response system. Recordings of those calls, obtained by ProPublica, captured some of the terror residents felt as they watched masked men ambush people and force them into unmarked cars. In some cases, the men wore plain clothes and refused to identify themselves. There was no way…

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Russ Vought, the king of the shutdown

Russ Vought, the king of the shutdown

Politico reports: In an administration full of disruptors, Russ Vought is a different beast. Vought, as head of the White House’s budget arm, has assembled one of the most powerful and exacting teams in Washington, all aimed at slashing the federal bureaucracy and ensuring what’s left bends to the administration’s will. He has increased the number of policy lieutenants typically operating at the Office of Management and Budget and supercharged their mandate to ensure White House priorities are pushed into…

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Judges have learned to mistrust the Trump DOJ

Judges have learned to mistrust the Trump DOJ

Politico’s West Wing Playbook reports: The Trump administration’s strained relationship with federal courts began as cracks in a windshield: refusing to identify the true head of DOGE; suggesting that a judge’s oral ruling in an emergency case wasn’t binding; dismissing the criminal case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams in an apparent quid pro quo over immigration policy. Nine months into President Donald Trump’s second term, however, those cracks have spread across the glass. Judges are routinely skeptical of…

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We found that over 170 U.S. citizens have been held by immigration agents. They’ve been kicked, dragged and detained for days

We found that over 170 U.S. citizens have been held by immigration agents. They’ve been kicked, dragged and detained for days

By Nicole Foy This story was originally published by ProPublica When the Supreme Court recently allowed immigration agents in the Los Angeles area to take race into consideration during sweeps, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said that citizens shouldn’t be concerned. “If the officers learn that the individual they stopped is a U.S. citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States,” Kavanaugh wrote, “they promptly let the individual go.” But that is far from the reality many citizens have experienced. Americans have…

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The GOP’s coordinated attack on the ‘No Kings’ rally is unhinged

The GOP’s coordinated attack on the ‘No Kings’ rally is unhinged

Michael Steele writes: In recent days, Republican leaders have warned darkly about the “No Kings” national protests scheduled for Saturday. Speaker Mike Johnson called it a “hate-America rally” that will ​​draw “the pro-Hamas wing” of the Democratic Party and “the antifa people.” House Republican Whip Tom Emmer claimed that “you’ll see the hate for America all over this thing when they show up” for the rally. Sen. Roger Marshall claimed protesters were being paid and suggested the National Guard might…

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Afraid of peaceful protests, Abbott sends National Guard to Austin for No Kings rally

Afraid of peaceful protests, Abbott sends National Guard to Austin for No Kings rally

Politico reports: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is deploying the state’s National Guard to Austin ahead of this weekend’s planned No Kings rally in the Texas capital, he announced Thursday, as top Republicans around the country vilify the protests as Antifa-linked and led by the radical flank of the Democratic Party. “Violence and destruction will never be tolerated in Texas,” Abbott said in a statement Thursday. “Today, I directed the Texas Department of Public Safety and Texas National Guard to deploy…

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Top U.S. media, including conservative outlets, reject new Pentagon press restrictions

Top U.S. media, including conservative outlets, reject new Pentagon press restrictions

  The Department of Defense has introduced a new press policy requiring the Pentagon to authorize any reporting on itself. Top TV news outlets have rejected the pledge; only the far-right outlet One America News has agreed to sign on. Dozens of reporters with the Pentagon Press Association turned in their government-issued press badges and left the building Wednesday rather than agree to the rules. “The Trump administration has made the suppression of speech that it doesn’t like a governing…

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Why Trump’s bombing of alleged drug boats is illegal

Why Trump’s bombing of alleged drug boats is illegal

Asha Rangappa writes: So far, the Trump administration has killed twenty-one people using military strikes in the Caribbean. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, President Trump has escalated his attempt to deploy the military in cities throughout the United States, on the heels of the Secretary of Defense informing his military brass that they are no longer going to be bound by “stupid rules of engagement.” And last week, Attorney General Pam Bondi assured Trump that the United States is “going…

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