American Politics

[Spidy]

I could not read all of it from the full endorsement because the "subscription required" pop-up kept appearing.

Yeah, I'm getting that a lot these days, as it's getting tougher to research and provide links with decent articles.

Anyways, couldn't get the ALL the info from your Newsweek link, so I used one that's actual from the paper's website pages: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opi...t-18670527.php

The are a multitude of excellent acknowledgements to President Joe Biden's accomplishments, w/r to his fine stewardship of the US economy & country, that is worth re-printing.

We endorse Joe Biden for President of the United States in the Democratic Primary (Opinion)
By The Editorial Board, Feb 19, 2024
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opi...t-18670527.php

The Houston Chronicles, then goes on to provide several examples of the President's accomplishments.

Unlike Trump's unfulfilled promised to bring back "coal" to rural American workers??? Houston Chronicles, highlights the Biden Infrastructure Bill targets projects in employment distressed counties around the country.

Anyone think Trump would have done the same for a "Dem distressed county", were Biden, won 78% of the vote?

Personally, I'm not yet sold on the "hydrogen solution", being more viable, than the ever growing battery technology space, in the long run...but I guess time will tell, for cleaner hydrogen and said applications, that will use hydrogen.

Well written and gives a fair but glowing account of President Biden's stewardship, well worthy of being the 14th Best President in History!

Yeah, I can't imagine any reputable and credible Real News print, cable / network media or internet source endorsing Trump over Biden for President of the United States of America this time around.

Good lord, based on what numbers, easily observable reality, historical and current data and results, demeanor, behavior or any other important factor?

I mean, what could they possibly cite as a decisive "positive" on Trump's side considering that as a Real News source they would have tracked all those factors throughout Biden's and Trump's entire public lives and can't pretend they didn't know that, on balance, Trump's were godawful for America while Biden's were clear net positives for America.

Yeah, on what earth, could they have come to any other conclusion and still call themselves journalists? I was just so surprised to see that it was a Texas based news source, I almost feel outta my chair.

[MarquisdeSade1]

"Man, are cult members of the MAGATea Party hopping mad about this:

Major Texas Newspaper Endorses Joe Biden.

https://www.newsweek.com/houston-chr...p-maga-1871423

By all means, do read on. LOL. ".

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/bi...21/id/1154385/

[MarquisdeSade1]

"Trumps G. O. P. Is a Confederacy of Fakers.

https://dnyuz.com/2024/02/21/trumps-...acy-of-fakers/

And there is so much more worth reading in that NYT article you might have missed. ".

Ross on the other hand is easily the smartest man in the bldg.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/21/o...raine-war.html

OPINION.

ROSS DOUTHAT.

What the Ukraine Aid Debate Is Really About.

Feb. 21,2024.

Under a gray sky, a group of soldiers with helmets and guns walk through a field.

Taiwanese military personnel conducting a drill in January. Credit. Ritchie be. Tongo / EPA, via Shutterstock.

Share full article.

1. 1 K.

Ross Douthat.

By Ross Douthat.

Opinion Columnist.

阅35835;31616;20307;20013;25991;29256;38321;35712;32321;39636;20013;25991;29256;.

Want the latest stories related to China, Russia and Taiwan? Sign up for the newsletter Your Places: Global Update, and we'll send them to your inbox.

Over the weekend Senator J. The. Vance of Ohio went to the Munich Security Conference to play an unpopular part — a spokesman, at a gathering of the Western foreign policy establishment, for the populist critique of American support for Ukraine's war effort.

If you were to pluck a key phrase from his comments, it would be "world of scarcity," which Vance used five times to describe the American strategic situation: stretched by our global commitments, unable to support Ukraine while simultaneously maintaining our position in the Middle East and preparing for a war in East Asia and therefore forced to husband our resources and expect our allies in Europe to counter Russia's armaments and ambitions.

In my Saturday column I wrote about the tensions in the hawkish case for USA Spending on Ukraine, the tendency for the argument to veer from boosterism ("We've got Putin on the ropes! To doomsaying ("Putin's getting stronger every day! While describing the same strategic landscape.

The case Vance pressed in Munich is more consistent, and its premises — not isolationist but Asia-first, more concerned about the Taiwan Strait than the Donbas — have supplied the common ground for Republican critics of our Ukraine policy since early in the war. But consistency is not the same as correctness, and it's worth looking for a moment at why this kind of argument makes Ukraine hawks so frustrated.

ADVERTISEMENT.

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT.

In part, there's a suspicion that some of the people making an Asia-first case don't fully believe it, that it's just a more respectable way of sloughing off American obligations and that if the conservative base or Donald Trump decided it wasn't worth fighting for Taiwan, many China-hawk Republicans would come up with some excuse to justify inaction.

But assuming good faith — and whatever the calculations of Republican politicians, many China hawks are entirely on the level — there's also the problem that this argument privileges hypothetical aggression over real aggression, a potential war over a current one, "contingencies in East Asia" (to quote Vance, again) over an actuality in Eastern Europe. We can't do everything to stop Vladimir Putin today because of something Beijing might conceivably do tomorrow is the fundamental claim, and you can see why people chafe at it.

Indeed, despite agreeing with the overall Asia-first assessment, I chafe at it myself — enough to think that the Biden administration made the right call backing Ukraine initially and that a sharp cutoff in aid would be a mistake even if we should be seeking an armistice.

But weighing contingencies against actuality is always part of what statesmen have to do. And the weighing that prioritizes Taiwan over Ukraine, danger in East Asia over actual war in Europe, depends on two presumptions that are worth making explicit and discussing.

The first is that China is serious not just about taking Taiwan but also about doing it soon. If you think China's military buildup and bellicosity are signaling potential annexation in some distant future, then there's no immediate trade-off between Europe and the Pacific. Instead, in that case it becomes reasonable to think that defeating Putin in the 2020's will give Beijing pause in the 2030's and that the long-term commitment to military production required to arm Ukraine for victory will also help deter China 10 years hence.

Editors' Picks.

How Bob Moore, of Bob's Red Mill, Got Grocery-Store Famous.

The Great Compression.

18 Years Old, Twitter — Now X — Behaves Like a Sullen Teen.

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT.

ADVERTISEMENT.

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT.

But suppose that the peril is much closer, that Beijing's awareness of its long-term challenges makes it more likely to gamble while America is tied down by other crises, internally divided and potentially headed for four years of limited presidential capacity under either party's nominee. In that case our potential strengths in 10 years are irrelevant, and the fact that we're currently building anti-tank and antiaircraft missiles only to burn through them, adding more than $7 in new spending on Ukraine for every $1 dollar in spending related to our Asian and Australian allies and tethering military and diplomatic attention to a trench war in Eastern Europe, means that we're basically inviting the Chinese to make their move, and soon.

Which in turn brings us to the second presumption: that Taiwan falling to its imperial neighbor would change the world for the worse on a greater scale than Ukraine ceding territory or even facing outright defeat.

Listen to 'Matter of Opinion'.

Get more analysis from Ross Douthat and other Opinion writers in this new podcast from New York Times Opinion.

Opinion.

Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen.

Are We All Authoritarians at Heart?

Dec. 1, 2023.

If you see the two countries as essentially equivalent, both American clients but not formal NATO-style allies, both democracies vulnerable to authoritarian great-power neighbors, then there's a stronger case for doing everything for Ukraine when it's immediately threatened, regardless of the consequences for Taiwan.

But they are not equivalent. The American commitment to Taiwan goes back almost 70 years, and for all that we've cultivated ambiguity since the Nixon era, the island is still understood to be under the American umbrella in a way that's never been true of Ukraine. Taiwan is also a mature democracy in a way that Ukraine is not, which means its conquest would represent a much more stark form of rollback for the liberal democratic world. And Taiwan's semiconductor industry makes it a much greater economic prize than Ukraine, more likely to hurl the world into recession if the industry is destroyed in a war or grant Beijing newfound power if it's simply absorbed into China's industrial infrastructure.

ADVERTISEMENT.

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT.

Just as important, China is not equivalent to Russia. The latter is a menace but one that — as Vance argues — should theoretically be containable and deterrable, even without American involvement, by a Europe whose G. The. P. Absolutely dwarfs Russia's.

By contrast, China's wealth and potential hard power dwarf all its Asian neighbors, and its conquest of Taiwan would enable a breakout for its naval strength, a much wider projection of authoritarian influence and a reshuffling of economic relationships in Asia and around the world.

For an in-depth argument about these kinds of consequences, I recommend "The Taiwan Catastrophe" by Andrew S. Erickson, Gabriel be. Collins and Matt Pottinger in Foreign Affairs. You don't have to be convinced by every piece of their analysis to grasp the potential stakes. If a Russian victory in Ukraine would feed authoritarian ambitions, a Chinese victory would supercharge them. If Ukraine's defeat would hurt American interests, Taiwan's fall would devastate them.

Which makes the first presumption the dispositive one. If you're seeking full victory in Ukraine, signing up for years of struggle in which Taiwan will be a secondary priority, your choice basically requires betting on China's aggressive intentions being a problem for much later — tomorrow's threat, not today's.

Unlike the Ukraine hawks, I would not take that bet. Unlike the doves, I would not simply cut off the Ukrainians. There is a plausible path between those options, in which aid keeps flowing while the United States pursues a settlement and pivot. But a great deal hangs on whether that narrow way can be traversed: not just for Ukraine or for Taiwan but also for the American imperium as we have known it, the world-bestriding power that we've taken for granted for too long.

[EihTooms]

I could not read all of it from the full endorsement because the "subscription required" pop-up kept appearing.

Yes, Yes, Yes! A Great Endorsement, A Great Houston Article... The are a multitude of excellent acknowledgements to President Joe Biden's accomplishments, w/r to his fine stewardship of the US economy & country, that is worth re-printing.

We endorse Joe Biden for President of the United States in the Democratic Primary (Opinion)
By The Editorial Board, Feb 19, 2024
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opi...t-18670527.php

The Houston Chronicles, then goes on to provide several examples of the President's accomplishments.

Unlike Trump's unfulfilled promised to bring back "coal" to rural American workers??? Houston Chronicles, highlights the Biden Infrastructure Bill targets projects in employment distressed counties around the country.

Anyone think Trump would have done the same for a "Dem distressed county", were Biden, won 78% of the vote?

Personally, I'm not yet sold on the "hydrogen solution", being more viable, than the ever growing battery technology space, in the long run...but I guess time will tell, for cleaner hydrogen and said applications, that will use hydrogen.

Well written and gives a fair but glowing account of President Biden's stewardship, well worthy of being the 14th Best President in History!

Yeah, I can't imagine any reputable and credible Real News print, cable / network media or internet source endorsing Trump over Biden for President of the United States of America this time around.

Good lord, based on what numbers, easily observable reality, historical and current data and results, demeanor, behavior or any other important factor?

I mean, what could they possibly cite as a decisive "positive" on Trump's side considering that as a Real News source they would have tracked all those factors throughout Biden's and Trump's entire public lives and can't pretend they didn't know that, on balance, Trump's were godawful for America while Biden's were clear net positives for America.

[Spidy]

Man, are cult members of the MAGATea Party hopping mad about this:

Major Texas Newspaper Endorses Joe Biden.

https://www.newsweek.com/houston-chr...p-maga-1871423

By all means, do read on. LOL.

This last quote from the Article, says it ALL, w/r to all you need to know about President Joe Biden vs. the other guy.

We are well aware of Bidens age, 81, (and Trumps, 77), as well as memory lapses that have prompted near-panic among many of the presidents fellow Democrats. Those of us who remember the energetic, garrulous, occasionally even eloquent Joe Biden of years past can see the difference a few years have made, even if he was always prone to gaffes. Accounts other than the report of Special Counsel Robert Hur suggest, however, that Biden remains focused, engaged and in command on the vital issues that occupy a president. Experience counts.

...Like Ronald Reagan, Lyndon Johnson and Franklin Roosevelt, Bidens deft management of his team has made him, arguably, the most productive president since LBJ in the early months of his administration.

He has, as they say, forgotten more than his presumed Republican rival will ever know. That's not saying much, and at the same time, it says it all.

President Joe Biden, is the 14th Best President in US History.

[Spidy]

Man, are cult members of the MAGATea Party hopping mad about this:

Major Texas Newspaper Endorses Joe Biden.

https://www.newsweek.com/houston-chr...p-maga-1871423

By all means, do read on. LOL.

The are a multitude of excellent acknowledgements to President Joe Biden's accomplishments, w/r to his fine stewardship of the US economy & country, that is worth re-printing.

We endorse Joe Biden for President of the United States in the Democratic Primary (Opinion)
By The Editorial Board, Feb 19, 2024
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opi...t-18670527.php

... Under the leadership of the oldest and arguably the most experienced president in American history, the team in the White House for the past three years has performed remarkably well, despite the rancor and divisiveness that have afflicted this nation for nearly a decade.

The accomplishments of an administration dedicated to governing, one that believes in the power of government to make life better for the American people, is a key reason we heartily endorse the reelection of President Joe Biden. The other reason, equally important, is to fend off the chaos, corruption and danger to the nation that would accompany the return of Donald Trump to the White House.

The Houston Chronicles, then goes on to provide several examples of the President's accomplishments.

... One of the clear advantages of a president as experienced as Biden is wisdom: in this case, the wisdom to get the heck out of the Fed's way as it masterfully applied the brakes to what could have been runaway inflation.

The economy has recovered from the perils of the pandemic and is now healthier than that of any other advanced nation. With unemployment approaching a 50-year low,... Inflation is trending downward, somehow, despite all dire prophecies of economists, without the bitter medicine of a recession or a period of high unemployment. Food prices are still high, and hard-working Americans are still wincing at grocery store receipts, but gas prices have fallen, as the U.S. produces more oil than any country in history, including Saudi Arabia. ... the administration is investing $7 billion in an ambitious solar-power project and is promoting other alternative energy projects, as well.

Infrastructure week became a punch line during the inept Trump administration, but the Biden administration in its first year managed to pass a bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that's expected to add an estimated 1.5 million jobs per year for the next 10 years.

Unlike Trump's unfulfilled promised to bring back "coal" to rural American workers??? Houston Chronicles, highlights the Biden Infrastructure Bill targets projects in employment distressed counties around the country.

One of the distressed areas to benefit is Wilbarger County, Texas, along the Red River northwest of Wichita Falls. A $4 billion private-sector venture is constructing a mega-scale green hydrogen plant that's expected to create 115 permanent jobs and more than 1,300 construction jobs in a county where population has declined almost every decade since 1940. Its worth noting that Wilbarger County in 2020 cast 21 percent of its votes for Biden, nearly 78 percent for Trump.

Anyone think Trump would have done the same for a "Dem distressed county", were Biden, won 78% of the vote?

Personally, I'm not yet sold on the "hydrogen solution", being more viable, than the ever growing battery technology space, in the long run...but I guess time will tell, for cleaner hydrogen and said applications, that will use hydrogen.

...the Affordable Care Act during this administration has made coverage more affordable and more accessible for millions of Americans...

The Biden White House also has given Medicare the power to directly negotiate with Big Pharma, thereby lowering drug prices and placing a $35-per-month cap on the cost of insulin for Medicare beneficiaries...

After decades of thoughts and prayers and little else in response to mass killings, the Biden White House managed to shepherd a bipartisan Safer Communities Act through a balky Congress...

Well written and gives a fair but glowing account of President Biden's stewardship, well worthy of being the 14th Best President in History!

[Xpartan]

Man, are cult members of the MAGATea Party hopping mad about this:

Major Texas Newspaper Endorses Joe Biden.

https://www.newsweek.com/houston-chr...p-maga-1871423

By all means, do read on. LOL.

"However, the board suggested the president has 'forgotten more than his presumed Republican rival will ever know. That's not saying much, and at the same time, it says it all. '.

[Xpartan]

That is because you have your head up your ass.

In 2016, IMO Hiliary lost the election because the head of the FBI, James Comey, said she was under investigation right before the election. That was how much respect Americans had for the FBI and DOJ. Now the leading presidential candidate has nearly 100 indictments against him and close to a hundred million Americans are pretty much saying they do not give a shit. Why has there been such a drastic change in their point of view? And you cannot figure it out?

I totally agree that Americans have become infinitely more cynical after 4 years of Trump. If it's OK to demand immunity for the President of the United States who committed multiple criminal offences, I'm not surprised at all that disciples of your Lord and Savior (hereinafter L&S) don't give a shit about him stealing classified documents. After all, that's just one crime of many he's been prosecuted for.

As for your 100 million Trumpists claim (out of the total number of 160 million voters), well, that's just old good Elvis, LOL.

[EihTooms]

Man, are cult members of the MAGATea Party hopping mad about this:

Major Texas Newspaper Endorses Joe Biden.

https://www.newsweek.com/houston-chr...p-maga-1871423

A number of Republican and MAGA figures have reacted angrily after The Houston Chronicle, one of the biggest newspapers in Texas, endorsed President Joe Biden.

The Houston Chronicle's editorial board said they would be backing Biden in the Democratic primary and for re-election so he can "make life better" for the American people as well as prevent the "chaos, corruption and danger to the nation" that would accompany his presumed 2024 Republican challenger Donald Trump returning to the White House.

By all means, do read on. LOL.

[EihTooms]

Trumps G.O.P. Is a Confederacy of Fakers.

https://dnyuz.com/2024/02/21/trumps-...acy-of-fakers/

We are watching two schools of U.S. foreign policy play out over Ukraine. One is the classic U.S. great-power approach, led by a president who grew up in the Cold War and built on a bedrock of American values and interests that have served us well since we entered World War II: We and our allies will negotiate with Putin, but only from a position of strength, not weakness. And our strength derives not just from our money and weapons but also from the fact that Biden has been able to assemble a Western coalition on Ukraine that that amplifies our and our allies strength tenfold.

Trump, by contrast, often behaves as if he learned his world affairs not at Wharton but by watching World Wrestling Entertainment. So much of what he does is purely performative; its about looking strong, about talking tough and about fake body slams, in which everyone is fooled except our rivals.

For example, Trump tore up the Iran nuclear deal in May 2018, claiming it was a giveaway by Barack Obama. But he did it with no diplomatic plan to secure a better deal and no strategic plan or allies to confront Iran if it exploited Trumps move by pushing ahead toward a nuclear bomb. So Iran, which, under Obama, was being kept about a year away from having enough fissile material to build a nuclear bomb, is now just a few weeks away. Thats what performative diplomacy gets you..

And there is so much more worth reading in that NYT article you might have missed.

[Elvis 2008]

I don't see the controversy.

That is because you have your head up your ass.

In 2016, IMO Hiliary lost the election because the head of the FBI, James Comey, said she was under investigation right before the election. That was how much respect Americans had for the FBI and DOJ. Now the leading presidential candidate has nearly 100 indictments against him and close to a hundred million Americans are pretty much saying they do not give a shit. Why has there been such a drastic change in their point of view? And you cannot figure it out?

As long as your head is up your ass, no one would expect YOUR POV to change.

[MarquisdeSade1]

"How many Americans died under Trump when fighting a stupid war? That would be none. That alone puts him ahead of a ton of presidents. Blaming covid on Trump is like blaming a president for people getting cancer. The surprising part to me in this day and age would be a bunch of deranged academics not putting Trump last.

With Biden, I would grade him and / A as he has not been mentally stable through most of his presidency. He won an election? BFD. What president did not?

Ended the pandemic? Well, there is 1. 1 million cases in the USA right now with Covid and people are still dying. What did he do to end it? Republican governors started opening up their states and Democratic ones started losing business and were forced to open too. More people died with Covid under Biden in 2021 than Trump in 2020. He didn't do shit with Covid outside of the pointless vax mandates and Covid swabs to re-enter the USA. Those acts were harmful, uncomfortable, unnecessary, and costly.

There are at least 400,000 Ukrainians dead now and probably more Russians in a war that Biden could have stopped and did not, and these historians consider that a success? That is a failure of epic proportions IMO.

And we pay the taxes to fix roads and bridges. WTF does Biden have to do with that? Are we supposed to be grateful he just did not put that money in his pocket?

A far more interesting question was who was the WOAT pondered at Zero Hedge? The comments were priceless, educational, and unlike this moronic poll, a bit of a surprise. https://www.zerohedge.com/political/who-woat-president.

Thing is anyone who puts Obama, Trump, or even Biden on the WOAT list bores the piss out of me. ".

https://twitter.com/TuckerCarlson/st...29993280205039 must see TV!

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/11/u...on-agenda.html

GIVE THE TIMES.

Account.

Donald J. Trump, wearing a suit and tie, claps during a campaign rally at night.

Donald Trump wants to reimpose a Covid 19-era policy of refusing asylum claims — this time basing that refusal on assertions that migrants carry other infectious diseases like tuberculosis. Credit. Doug Mills / The New York Times.

Sweeping Raids, Giant Camps and Mass Deportations: Inside Trump's 2025 Immigration Plans.

If he regains power, Donald Trump wants not only to revive some of the immigration policies criticized as draconian during his presidency, but expand and toughen them.

Donald Trump wants to reimpose a Covid 19-era policy of refusing asylum claims — this time basing that refusal on assertions that migrants carry other infectious diseases like tuberculosis. Credit. Doug Mills / The New York Times.

Share full article.

1. 9 K.

Charlie SavageMaggie HabermanJonathan Swan.

By Charlie Savage, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan.

Nov. 11,2023.

Leer en españolLeer en español.

Former President Donald J. Trump is planning an extreme expansion of his first-term crackdown on immigration if he returns to power in 2025 — including preparing to round up undocumented people already in the United States on a vast scale and detain them in sprawling camps while they wait to be expelled.

The plans would sharply restrict both legal and illegal immigration in a multitude of ways.

Mr. Trump wants to revive his first-term border policies, including banning entry by people from certain Muslim-majority nations and reimposing a Covid 19-era policy of refusing asylum claims — though this time he would base that refusal on assertions that migrants carry other infectious diseases like tuberculosis.

He plans to scour the country for unauthorized immigrants and deport people by the millions per year.

To help speed mass deportations, Mr. Trump is preparing an enormous expansion of a form of removal that does not require due process hearings. To help Immigration and Customs Enforcement carry out sweeping raids, he plans to reassign other federal agents and deputize local police officers and National Guard soldiers voluntarily contributed by Republican-run states.

ADVERTISEMENT.

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT.

To ease the strain on ICE detention facilities, Mr. Trump wants to build huge camps to detain people while their cases are processed and they await deportation flights. And to get around any refusal by Congress to appropriate the necessary funds, Mr. Trump would redirect money in the military budget, as he did in his first term to spend more on a border wall than Congress had authorized.

ImageA side view of Stephen Miller as he stands and gives a speech.

"Trump will unleash the vast arsenal of federal powers to implement the most spectacular migration crackdown," said Stephen Miller, Mr. Trump's former White House aide who was the chief architect of his border control efforts. Credit. Cooper Neill for The New York Times.

In a public reference to his plans, Mr. Trump told a crowd in Iowa in September: "Following the Eisenhower model, we will carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history. " The reference was to a 1954 campaign to round up and expel Mexican immigrants that was named for an ethnic slur — "Operation Wetback. ".

The constellation of Mr. Trump's 2025 plans amounts to an assault on immigration on a scale unseen in modern American history. Millions of undocumented immigrants would be barred from the country or uprooted from it years or even decades after settling here.

Such a scale of planned removals would raise logistical, financial and diplomatic challenges and would be vigorously challenged in court. But there is no mistaking the breadth and ambition of the shift Mr. Trump is eyeing.

In a second Trump presidency, the visas of foreign students who participated in anti-Israel or pro-Palestinian protests would be canceled. USA Consular officials abroad will be directed to expand ideological screening of visa applicants to block people the Trump administration considers to have undesirable attitudes. People who were granted temporary protected status because they are from certain countries deemed unsafe, allowing them to lawfully live and work in the United States, would have that status revoked.

Similarly, numerous people who have been allowed to live in the country temporarily for humanitarian reasons would also lose that status and be kicked out, including tens of thousands of the Afghans who were evacuated amid the 2021 Taliban takeover and allowed to enter the United States. Afghans holding special visas granted to people who helped USA Forces would be revetted to see if they really did.

And Mr. Trump would try to end birthright citizenship for babies born in the United States to undocumented parents — by proclaiming that policy to be the new position of the government and by ordering agencies to cease issuing citizenship-affirming documents like Social Security cards and passports to them. That policy's legal legitimacy, like nearly all of Mr. Trump's plans, would be virtually certain to end up before the Supreme Court.

In interviews with The New York Times, several Trump advisers gave the most expansive and detailed description yet of Mr. Trump's immigration agenda in a potential second term. In particular, Mr. Trump's campaign referred questions for this article to Stephen Miller, an architect of Mr. Trump's first-term immigration policies who remains close to him and is expected to serve in a senior role in a second administration.

All of the steps Trump advisers are preparing, Mr. Miller contended in a wide-ranging interview, rely on existing statutes; while the Trump team would likely seek a revamp of immigration laws, the plan was crafted to need no new substantive legislation. And while acknowledging that lawsuits would arise to challenge nearly every one of them, he portrayed the Trump team's daunting array of tactics as a "blitz" designed to overwhelm immigrant-rights lawyers.

Editors' Picks.

Leaving 'Mr. Mom' Behind.

Those $399 Gold Trump Sneakers Are About a Lot More Than Shoes.

Fashion Has Entered a New Era of Elegance.

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT.

ADVERTISEMENT.

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT.

"Any activists who doubt President Trump's resolve in the slightest are making a drastic error: Trump will unleash the vast arsenal of federal powers to implement the most spectacular migration crackdown," Mr. Miller said, adding, "The immigration legal activists won't know what's happening. ".

Todd Schulte, the president of FWD. Us, an immigration and criminal justice advocacy group that repeatedly fought the Trump administration, said the Trump team's plans relied on "xenophobic demagoguery" that appeals to his hardest-core political base.

"Americans should understand these policy proposals are an authoritarian, often illegal, agenda that would rip apart nearly every aspect of American life — tanking the economy, violating the basic civil rights of millions of immigrants and native-born Americans alike," Mr. Schulte said.

'Poisoning the Blood'.

Image.

Dozens of migrants sit and stand on a Manhattan sidewalk waiting to be processed.

Migrants gather outside the Roosevelt Hotel in Midtown Manhattan in August, waiting to be processed. Credit. Jeenah Moon for The New York Times.

Since Mr. Trump left office, the political environment on immigration has moved in his direction. He is also more capable now of exploiting that environment if he is re-elected than he was when he first won election as an outsider.

The ebbing of the Covid-19 pandemic and resumption of travel flows have helped stir a global migrant crisis, with millions of Venezuelans and Central Americans fleeing turmoil and Africans arriving in Latin American countries before continuing their journey north. Amid the record numbers of migrants at the southern border and beyond it in cities like New York and Chicago, voters are frustrated and even some Democrats are calling for tougher action against immigrants and pressuring the White House to better manage the crisis.

Mr. Trump and his advisers see the opening, and now know better how to seize it. The aides Mr. Trump relied upon in the chaotic early days of his first term were sometimes at odds and lacked experience in how to manipulate the levers of federal power. By the end of his first term, cabinet officials and lawyers who sought to restrain some of his actions — like his Homeland Security secretary and chief of staff, John F. Kelly — had been fired, and those who stuck with him had learned much.

In a second term, Mr. Trump plans to install a team that will not restrain him.

Since much of Mr. Trump's first-term immigration crackdown was tied up in the courts, the legal environment has tilted in his favor: His four years of judicial appointments left behind federal appellate courts and a Supreme Court that are far more conservative than the courts that heard challenges to his first-term policies.

The fight over Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals provides an illustration.

DACA is an Obama-era program that shields from deportation and grants work permits to people who were brought unlawfully to the United States as children. Mr. Trump tried to end it, but the Supreme Court blocked him on procedural grounds in June 2020.

Mr. Miller said Mr. Trump would try again to end DACA. And the 5-4 majority of the Supreme Court that blocked the last attempt no longer exists: A few months after the DACA ruling, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died and Mr. Trump replaced her with a sixth conservative, Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

Mr. Trump's rhetoric has more than kept up with his increasingly extreme agenda on immigration.

His stoking of fear and anger toward immigrants — pushing for a border wall and calling Mexicans rapists — fueled his 2016 takeover of the Republican Party. As president, he privately mused about developing a militarized border like Israel's, asked whether migrants crossing the border could be shot in the legs and wanted a proposed border wall topped with flesh-piercing spikes and painted black to burn migrants' skin.

As he has campaigned for the party's third straight presidential nomination, his anti-immigrant tone has only grown harsher. In a recent interview with a right-wing website, Mr. Trump claimed without evidence that foreign leaders were deliberately emptying their "insane asylums" to send the patients across America's southern border as migrants. He said migrants were "poisoning the blood of our country. " And at a rally on Wednesday in Florida, he compared them to the fictional serial killer and cannibal Hannibal Lecter, saying, "That's what's coming into our country right now. ".

Mr. Trump had similarly vowed to carry out mass deportations when running for office in 2016, but the government only managed several hundred thousand removals per year under his presidency, on par with other recent administrations. If they get another opportunity, Mr. Trump and his team are determined to achieve annual numbers in the millions.

Keeping People Out.

Image.

Migrants stand in a line on the side of a road, in the glow of a truck's headlights.

Migrants wait to be escorted by Border Patrol agents to a processing area in September. Mr. Trump's stoking of fear and anger toward immigrants fueled his 2016 takeover of the Republican Party. Credit. Mark Abramson for The New York Times.

Mr. Trump's immigration plan is to pick up where he left off and then go much farther. He would not only revive some of the policies that were criticized as draconian during his presidency, many of which the Biden White House ended, but also expand and toughen them.

One example centers on expanding first-term policies aimed at keeping people out of the country. Mr. Trump plans to suspend the nation's refugee program and once again categorically bar visitors from troubled countries, reinstating a version of his ban on travel from several mostly Muslim-majority countries, which President Biden called discriminatory and ended on his first day in office.

Mr. Trump would also use coercive diplomacy to induce other nations to help, including by making cooperation a condition of any other bilateral engagement, Mr. Miller said. For example, a second Trump administration would seek to re-establish an agreement with Mexico that asylum seekers remain there while their claims are processed. (It is not clear that Mexico would agree; a Mexican court has said that deal violated human rights.).

Mr. Trump would also push to revive "safe third country" agreements with several nations in Central America, and try to expand them to Africa, Asia and South America. Under such deals, countries agree to take would-be asylum seekers from specific other nations and let them apply for asylum there instead.

While such arrangements have traditionally only covered migrants who had previously passed through a third country, federal law does not require that limit and a second Trump administration would seek to make those deals without it, in part as a deterrent to migrants making what the Trump team views as illegitimate asylum claims.

At the same time, Mr. Miller said, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would invoke the public health emergency powers law known as Title 42 to again refuse to hear any asylum claims by people arriving at the southern border. The Trump administration had internally discussed that idea early in Mr. Trump's term, but some cabinet secretaries pushed back, arguing that there was no public health emergency that would legally justify it. The administration ultimately implemented it during the coronavirus pandemic.

Saying the idea has since gained acceptance in practice — Mr. Biden initially kept the policy — Mr. Miller said Mr. Trump would invoke Title 42, citing "severe strains of the flu, tuberculosis, scabies, other respiratory illnesses like are. S. V. And so on, or just a general issue of mass migration being a public health threat and conveying a variety of communicable diseases. ".

Mr. Trump and his aides have not yet said whether they would re-enact one of the most contentious deterrents to unauthorized immigration that he pursued as president: separating children from their parents, which led to trauma among migrants and difficulties in reuniting families. When pressed, Mr. Trump has repeatedly declined to rule out reviving the policy. After an outcry over the practice, Mr. Trump ended it in 2018 and a judge later blocked the government from putting it back into effect.

Mass Deportations.

Image.

A close-up, hip-level view of federal officers wearing their firearms in their holsters.

Federal immigration-enforcement officers gathered for an arrest operation in May in Pompano Beach, Fla. Credit. Saul Martinez for The New York Times.

Soon after Mr. Trump announced his 2024 campaign for president last November, he met with Tom Homan, who ran ICE for the first year and a half of the Trump administration and was an early proponent of separating families to deter migrants.

In an interview, Mr. Homan recalled that in that meeting, he "agreed to come back" in a second term and would "help to organize and run the largest deportation operation this country's ever seen. ".

Trump advisers' vision of abrupt mass deportations would be a recipe for social and economic turmoil, disrupting the housing market and major industries including agriculture and the service sector.

Mr. Miller cast such disruption in a favorable light.

"Mass deportation will be a labor-market disruption celebrated by American workers, who will now be offered higher wages with better benefits to fill these jobs," he said. "Americans will also celebrate the fact that our nation's laws are now being applied equally, and that one select group is no longer magically exempt. ".

One planned step to overcome the legal and logistical hurdles would be to significantly expand a form of fast-track deportations known as "expedited removal. " It denies undocumented immigrants the usual hearings and opportunity to file appeals, which can take months or years — especially when people are not in custody — and has led to a large backlog. A 1996 law says people can be subject to expedited removal for up to two years after arriving, but to date the executive branch has used it more cautiously, swiftly expelling people picked up near the border soon after crossing.

The Trump administration tried to expand the use of expedited removal, but a court blocked it and then the Biden team canceled the expansion. It remains unclear whether the Supreme Court will rule that it is constitutional to use the law against people who have been living for a significant period in the United States and express fear of persecution if sent home.

Mr. Trump has also said he would invoke an archaic law, the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, to expel suspected members of drug cartels and criminal gangs without due process. That law allows for summary deportation of people from countries with which the United States is at war, that have invaded the United States or that have engaged in "predatory incursions. ".

Image.

Tom Homan stands holding a microphone in his right hand, giving a speech.

Tom Homan, who ran ICE for the first year and a half of the Trump administration, said he told Mr. Trump he would "help to organize and run the largest deportation operation this country's ever seen. "Credit. Rebecca Noble for The New York Times.

The Supreme Court has upheld past uses of that law in wartime. But its text seems to require a link to the actions of a foreign government, so it is not clear whether the justices will allow a president to stretch it to encompass drug cartel activity.

More broadly, Mr. Miller said a new Trump administration would shift from the ICE practice of arresting specific people to carrying out workplace raids and other sweeps in public places aimed at arresting scores of unauthorized immigrants at once.

To make the process of finding and deporting undocumented immigrants already living inside the country "radically more quick and efficient," he said, the Trump team would bring in "the right kinds of attorneys and the right kinds of policy thinkers" willing to carry out such ideas.

And because of the magnitude of arrests and deportations being contemplated, they plan to build "vast holding facilities that would function as staging centers" for immigrants as their cases progress and they wait to be flown to other countries.

Mr. Miller said the new camps would likely be built "on open land in Texas near the border. ".

He said the military would construct them under the authority and control of the Department of Homeland Security. While he cautioned that there were no specific blueprints yet, he said the camps would look professional and similar to other facilities for migrants that have been built near the border.

Such camps could also enable the government to speed up the pace and volume of deportations of undocumented people who have lived in the United States for years and so are not subject to fast-track removal. If pursuing a long-shot effort to win permission to remain in the country would mean staying locked up in the interim, some may give up and voluntarily accept removal without going through the full process.

The use of these camps, Mr. Miller said, would likely be focused more on single adults because the government cannot indefinitely hold children under a longstanding court order known as the Flores settlement. So any families brought to the facilities would have to be moved in and out more quickly, he said.

The Trump administration tried to overturn the Flores settlement, but the Supreme Court did not resolve the matter before Mr. Trump's term ended. Mr. Miller said the Trump team would try again.

To increase the number of agents available for ICE sweeps, Mr. Miller said, officials from other federal law enforcement agencies would be temporarily reassigned, and state National Guard troops and local police officers, at least from willing Republican-led states, would be deputized for immigration control efforts.

While a law known as the Posse Comitatus Act generally forbids the use of the armed forces for law enforcement purposes, another law called the Insurrection Act creates an exception. Mr. Trump would invoke the Insurrection Act at the border, enabling the use of federal troops to apprehend migrants, Mr. Miller said.

"Bottom line," he said, "President Trump will do whatever it takes. ".

[CheckMate1]

What is dangerous about the hatred toward the court system is that if we do not have this system, what do we replace it with? Violence, survival of the fittest, who has more money wins, those with powers win?

Here's a simple idea:

When people (individuals / organizations / states) have disagreements they take their greivences to court. In court, a randomly selected Judge is the arbiter of facts, Jurors will determine which party wins based on which presentations is more convincing. Loser can appeal the decision to a higher court until it reaches its final destination, the Supreme Court. Everyone abides by the final decision.

Amazingly, we wrote this into our constitution because the system in England favored the rich, powerful, and connected.

Timeline: State of New York V Trump.

1. Trump was accused of Fraud and the plantiff is the citizen of New York (state). Prior to court trial, he made series of motions to dismiss, it was denied. He appealled and was denied.

2. Evidence Submission Process. NY supplied Trump with evidence to be presented at trial for Trump's defense.

3. Trump submitted motion for summary judgement. New York (Attorney General) submitted motion for summary judgement. NY wins all but 7 issues which go to trial for final determination.

4. Bench Trial (no Jurors); Trump team forgot to check the box for Jury Trial.

5. Both sides presented their evidence and witnesses with the burden of proof lies with the State of New York.

6. Judge determined that the state has satisfied the burden of proof and the State with wins the trial. Judgement of $350 million plus interest of $100 million (3 years at 9% Not operating a business in New York for 3 years; plus co-defendants also pay and have other stipulations on conducting business in NY.

Now Trump has 30 days to file an appeal, provided that he can find a bond agency to put up the cash in escrow, or Trump can put up the cash himself. If he wins appeal, he gets his money back.

https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/file...p-decision.pdf

I don't see the controversy. If you were a NY AG, wouldn't you want to prosecute a business and get the money back to your citizen, if you believe you can prove it in court?

[Spidy]

If he sells one pair to Elvis for $399,000,000, that ought to do it for at least one of his several Fraud liabilities.

Really EihTooms? Come now! Even I know Elvis 2008, isn't that gullible!!!

Elvis 2008, would never pay MORE THAN $4 billion! (...kkkk!). Naturally, they'd have to be a personally autographed pair by Trump (and Melania?)

LOL. He got booed at his grand sneakers launch:

Donald Trump Booed Onstage While Promoting New $399 Sneakers.
Feb. 18, 2024

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trum...elphia-1870965

Launching this new potential Trump Fraud just months before he and his cult followers are drooling over the idea that he will take Office in the White House again, can it be assumed he has no intention of divesting himself of the control or benefits of this new business venture and will instead use the sale of those ugly shoes as a Money Laundering mechanism for political bribes in exchange for him "serving" China, Saudi Arabia and other USA adversaries?

Like he did with his failed golf resorts and condos last time.

With all that booing...you think the MAGA cult is finally catching on to his grifts? Or was it that they didn't perhaps like the color of the sneakers....kkkk!

[Spidy]

This is excerpted from the New York Times. Oh, if only somebody here was a subscriber because he loves these NYT articles so much and he could post the original NYT report:

Poll of historians ranks Biden 14th-best president, Trump worst.
Feb 18, 2024

https://www.spokesman.com/stories/20...est-president/

Finishing 45th overall, Trump trails even the mid-19th-century failures who blundered the country into a civil war or botched its aftermath like James Buchanan, Franklin Pierce and Andrew Johnson.

Just love this post, as yet another prime example of how, everything Trump touches, literally turns to "shit", in one form or another.

Of course Dems and most Independents, already and without question, know "Trump is the WORST PRESIDENT in US history".

But having it published once again (especially since it's written by NYT), it serves as a reminder for Repubs, and should put this debate to bed once and for all.