United States | News & Politics

Trump has put American automakers at a disadvantage with their British competitors, they complain

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka (D) on Friday reflected on being arrested outside of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility earlier in the day, arguing he was being targeted after visiting the New Jersey detention center with three Democratic members of Congress.

In the olden days of five months ago, the DOJ would announce an indictment when it happened, instead of first announcing their intention to send the FBI on a fishing expedition to find whatever evidence it can dredge up against specific targets.

Does it get any more selective-prosecution than this?

But for today’s authoritarians, the journey is the destination! If nothing else, they can squeal now that she’s “under investigation” in between all the racial slur words they like to use.

As you’ll recall, in 2022, James and her Office of the New York Attorney General busted Trump, Real Estate Guy, red-handed with mountains of evidence showing many years and a gazillion dollars worth of insurance and mortgage fraud, including balls-out moves like tripling the “square footage” of his own condo and fantasizing that it had an entire extra floor, and claiming his Florida roach motel was worth $18 million at tax time, but $739 million at loan time.

He and his fug sons were convicted of Liar Liar Pants on Fire, and he still owes the state of New York more than $500 million, and Uday and Qusay owe about $5 million each, and they were all barred from doing business in New York. Last March, the New York appellate division stayed those business bans and lowered his bond to $175 million, which he paid. In September his appeal was heard, and that decision is still sitting there pending.

But the fine is still on the books, and the interest is cha-chinging up by the day. So Trump is hoping he can do James like he did Fulton County DA Fani Willis: Find some way to discredit her and get her disqualified from his case, and make the whole thing go away on account of a Black lady was being deeply unfair to sweet innocent victim Donald Trump.

Trump and the family’s crypto-grift-ventures have made about $1 billion a month since he was inaugurated, doubling his net worth. So he could pay the money by selling some of his magic beans, but of course a Trump never pays his debts!

The mortgage-fraud accusation against James sounds like a paperwork error, if even that. In 2023, James helped her niece Shamice Thompson-Hairston with a down payment on a house in Norfolk, Virginia, and now US Housing Director William Pulte has alleged that he saw in “media reports” that James had claimed the house as her primary residence on mortgage documents, and he thinks she MAY have represented a dwelling she owns in Brooklyn as having four units instead of five, too. And also, Pulte heaves, Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby was convicted of misrepresentation on a mortgage document, so, therefore, ergo, QED, James probably did something wrong too; the “because they’re both Black lady prosecutors” is implied.

The complaint doesn’t say what media reports Pulte is referring to, but the page White Collar Fraud, run by Sam Antar, the former CFO of bankrupt electronics chain Crazy Eddie, dug around in James’s filings and credited itself with this “exclusive” in April, because James’s name appears on a land record sheet. Then Trump and Roger Stone picked up that report and ReTruthed and blah blahed about it.

According to James’s new lawyer Abbe Lowell, though, James specifically wrote the mortgage broker: “This property WILL NOT be my primary residence[.] It will be Shamice’s primary residence,” and the broker replied and acknowledged the “property will be occupied as a primary residence for Shamice” and noted that James’s declaration “is marked as a non-occupying co-borrower.” Not a very stealthy way for somebody to try to commit fraud! And days after Pulte wrote to Bondi, James’s office shared a partial copy of a loan application, where James was asked the question, “Will you occupy the property as your primary residence?” and checked the box that said “no.”

Doesn’t seem like this indicting could get very far, but who knows.

Abbe Lowell is her new lawyer, by the way, because James was previously represented by Paul Weiss, one of the law firms that struck a dirty deal to work for the administration for free. BOO.

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Lithium deposit valued at US$1.5 trillion discovered; promises to boost batteries, but worries local indigenous communities.

Another memo told military academies to ignore ‘race, ethnicity or sex’ in admissions, but athleticism can be considered

cross-posted from: https://rss.ponder.cat/post/178638

From BBC News via this RSS feed

More states join lawsuit against North Texas-based RealPage, accused of artificially inflating housing costs

Data from the White House Council of Economic Advisors released last year showed the use of RealPage's algorithm added about $132 to monthly rent in 2023.

Washington State joined with more than a dozen states, accusing landlords of colluding to inflate rents through price-fixing, Washington's Attorney General Nick Brown said last month.

White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said Friday that President Trump and his team are “actively looking at” suspending habeas corpus as part of the administration’s immigration crackdown.

“Well, the Constitution is clear — and that of course is the supreme law of the land — that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in a time of invasion,” Miller told reporters at the White House.

“So, it’s an option we’re actively looking at. Look, a lot of it depends on whether the courts do the right thing or not.”

A writ of habeas corpus compels authorities to produce an individual they are holding and to justify their confinement.

It’s been a key avenue migrants have used to challenge pending deportations under the Alien Enemies Act, a rarely-used 18th-century power Trump cited to deport Venezuelan nationals he’s accused of being gang members to a notorious megaprison in El Salvador.

It’s also been how recently detained students such as Rümeysa Öztürk and Mahmoud Khalil have challenged their detention.

The Constitution says habeas corpus may not be suspended “unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.”

The writ of habeas corpus has been suspended only four times, according to the National Constitution Center: During the Civil War, in parts of South Carolina overrun by the Ku Klux Klan during reconstruction, in two provinces in the Philippines in 1905, and in Hawaii after the bombing at Pearl Harbor.

Suspending habeas corpus, as a result, would be highly controversial. But the administration has already taken controversial steps as part of its deportation regime, such as triggering the 1789 Alien Enemies Act.

The Supreme Court directed migrants to challenge their Alien Enemies Act deportations through habeas corpus, and since then, judges in at least three cases have sided with migrants, determining the Trump administration was improperly using a law meant to address warfare and incursions.

It’s possible judges might have a similar interpretation of efforts to suspend habeas corpus, as challengers would also likely dispute whether the U.S. is currently experiencing rebellion or invasion.

Miller asserted that the Immigration and Nationality Act, passed in 1965, takes away the judicial branch’s jurisdiction over immigration cases and gives the president wide authority to end temporary protective status and other policies.

“The courts aren’t just at war with the executive branch, the courts are at war — these radical, rogue judges — with the legislative branch as well. So all of that will inform the choices the president ultimately makes.”

However, judges routinely weigh the legality of immigration policies, which are often brought by plaintiffs directly affected.

The Trump administration has for months clashed with federal judges as it seeks to aggressively implement its immigration agenda by deporting people, suspending refugee admissions and taking other steps to curb the flow of migrants into the U.S.

Administration officials on March 15 rebuffed an oral order from U.S. District Judge James Boasberg to turn around or halt flights of Venezuelan migrants headed to the Salvadoran prison — teeing up the legal battle that brought the Supreme Court’s ruling on how such cases must proceed.

A federal judge in Massachusetts on Wednesday blocked the Trump administration from deporting a group of migrants overseas, possibly to Libya and Saudi Arabia.

Another federal judge granted bail to Tufts University’s Öztürk on Friday, freeing her from federal immigration custody more than six weeks after the Trump administration revoked her visa and arrested her.

One Democratic aide mocked Miller for suggesting the lifting of a bedrock constitutional principal.

“Stephen Miller is not a lawyer but he plays a s‑‑‑ty one on TV. No one in their right mind would take his advice seriously, but sanity is in short supply in this administration,” the aide said.

Miller’s comments come amid a broader discussion over the due process protections afforded to migrants under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.

Like the suspension of habeas corpus, the Alien Enemies Act has also been used just a handful of times, activated three times prior and all during times of war. It was most recently used as the basis for Japanese internment.

Democrats and immigration advocates argue habeas petitions are the only way for migrants to gain any due process as they might otherwise be deported to a foreign facility where the Trump administration has argued in court they have no legal right or power to secure their return.

Many of the men deported or fearing such removal have denied having any gang ties and Democrats have argued they deserve a day in court to challenge such assertions.

“If Donald Trump can sweep noncitizens off the street and fly them to a torturer’s prison in El Salvador with no due process, he can do it to citizens too,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said last week. “Because if there is no due process, no fair hearing, you have no opportunity to object.”

https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/bail-hearing-tufts-student-rumeysa-ozturk-detained-in-louisiana/3708999/

These problems were not created because we don’t build things; rather, they are the outcomes of an economic system built on fabricated scarcity and the doctrine of maximizing profit, exploiting communities of color, and concentrating political and economic power.

It's our inability to share in abundance, our over consumption, and the belief that in order to have more abundance you need to hoard as much of it as possible that truly hurts our planet and our people.

archived (Wayback Machine)

Stable equatorial temperatures have never looked so good.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/29425270

David Steiner, a former CEO of the nation’s largest waste management company who currently serves on the FedEx board of directors, is poised to take over control of the U.S. Postal Service, becoming the nation’s 76th postmaster general.

The announcement of Steiner’s appointment, which heightened concerns from postal unions over possible efforts to privatize the USPS, was made Friday by Amber McReynolds, chairperson of the USPS’ Board of Governors, during a meeting of the independent group that oversees the service.

A Wisconsin man charged with crimes for a school shooting committed by his daughter is the latest U.S. parent taken to court for violence caused by a child

from #AssociatedPress #AP #APNews Updated 9:21 PM EDT, May 9, 2025

NEW YORK (AP) — #ColumbiaUniversity has suspended dozens of students and barred alums and others who participated in a pro-#Palestinian demonstration inside the school’s main library earlier this week, a school spokesperson said Friday.

The Ivy League institution in Manhattan placed more than 65 students on interim suspension and barred 33 others, including those from affiliated institutions such as Barnard College, from setting foot on campus.