Anti-Anti-Nazi Barbarian Hordes are Knocking Down the Gates

[admin]

Newsom RESPONDS to PRESS FREAKOUT over his Trump-style Tweets
MeidasTouch
Aug 16, 2025



Transcript

You've been asked questions by members
of corporate news. Why are you writing
these social media messages in all caps?
And why are you so aggressively mocking
Donald Trump and his administration? I
call them the regime. Why are you doing
that? Does this give you the moral
authority? How could you do that? And
I'm like, why are you asking this to
Governor N? What have you where have you
been? What what do you make of that?
What an admission. Where have they been
not asking Donald Trump this at every
press conference? He talks to people as
if we're all a bunch of idiots. He talks
down to us, talks past to us, talks like
we're third graders, like we're fools.
Where have they been asking the question
of Donald Trump? All caps. Thank you for
your attention in this manner, DJT. So,
we we tried to raise a little awareness
around that. Tried to to sort of take
what he's doing and push it back in his
direction. Now, everyone's so offended,
so unbecoming, governor of your
position, but not the president of the
United States that calls people
nicknames. This is serious serious
moment. It requires serious people,
requires serious journalism. But look,
you know this, they're scared to death
because he'll cancel them. He'll stop
some merger. There's so many things we
don't even know that are happening
behind the scenes. Everything that
happened with Paramont, everything that
happened with 60 Minutes, what's
happening with these law firms, what's
happening Harvard University, boy, shame
on them. If they sell their soul,
they'll be selling out higher education.
They'll be selling out freedom of
intellectual freedom and speech. They'll
be selling out their own institution,
other institutions. We're going to put
it all out on the line. It's time for
all of us to stand on the line. It's not
about drawing lines. It's about holding
the line for our democracy. And it's
about protecting our freedoms. It's not
about no longer taking for granted what
we've enjoyed for 249 damn years. It's
all at risk.

[admin]

Trump CAUGHT ON CAMERA as Plan IMPLODES IN PUBLIC
MeidasTouch
Aug 17, 2025 The MeidasTouch Podcast

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on Donald Trump’s disastrous plans being exposed by brilliant citizen journalists and the public at large who are standing up against Trump and his thugs.



Transcript

It has all been caught on camera. It's
documented. We have the receipts. This
may be the most important video I've
ever done on the Midas Touch Network.
I'm going to ask for a favor from you.
Watch this entire video. What you are
going to see is Donald Trump's Gustapo,
his militarized ICE forces, his border
patrol agents, his DEA officials, and
other unidentified
federal militarized people. Don't even
identify who they're with wearing their
masks, attacking people in the United
States from coast to coast, from
Washington DC to San Diego and
everywhere in between. And things are
ratcheting up. It's all been caught on
tape. Migrants being attacked, citizens
being attacked, citizen whistleblowers
who record what ISC is doing, being
targeted and attacked. We have it all on
camera. We have DEA agents praising the
Proud Boys on camera, basically calling
them good people. I'm going to show you
that. I'm going to show you ICE agents
and other federal agents who are
unidentified
attacking a uh delivery worker on a
moped, throwing him to the ground in a
area in Washington DC called Logan
Circle right outside a popular
restaurant called Bluestone Lane. And
when people start asking these ICE
agents, who are you? Who are you with?
The agents, if they're even ICE, were
saying, "Shut up. We don't have to tell
you." And then the people were saying,
"You're ruining our city." And then
Trump's military force. You'll hear them
say this. They're going to say, you'll
hear them in their own words, "The
liberals did this. The liberals
destroyed the city. We're just going
after the liberals." Or words uh to that
effect right now. I'm going to show you
um ICE agents attacking a Tik Tocker who
runs an account that exposes what ICE is
doing. They throw her to the ground. Her
name is Tatiana Martinez. I'm going to
want you to watch what's taking place
here. I'm going to show you ICE
blindsiding and tackling peaceful
protesters from behind, including a US
veteran who fought in Afghanistan. And
I'm going to ask you, do not cover your
eyes. We need to watch this. Take a deep
breath with what I'm about to show you.
And I need you to share this video with
as many people as you can. I'm going to
show you videos of ICE agents and other
unidentified federal troops arresting a
father waiting to pick up his kid at an
elementary school. I'm going to show you
ICE agents grabbing a high school
student, walking his dog, leaving the
dog behind in traffic. I'm going to show
you all of this right now. So, let's
start with this. And I want to give
credit where credit is due. Marissa
Kabas, she runs a Substack um called the
Handbasket. And um she received this
footage from a DC citizen. And let me
show you how she describes what went
down. A delivery worker was tased,
punched, and kicked by multiple federal
agents in the middle of the street
outside a popular brunch spot in
Northwest DC on Saturday morning. A
video shared with the Hand Basket shows.
While customers sitting outside at Logan
Circle Cafe munched on avocado smash and
matcha pancakes, two and then an
additional four masked agents beat the
[ __ ] out of the man in broad daylight.
This is America. During the agents
violent attack on a delivery worker
Saturday morning in DC, bystanders
repeatedly demanded the agents share
their badge number. One of them, his
face fully obscured, said, "Do I have to
answer to you?" It was a moment as
brazen as it was astonishing. We've long
known federal agencies operating under
Trump consider themselves above or
outside the law. But to hear it stated
so confidently, so plainly that the
federal government does not have to
answer to the people who pay their
salaries was jarring. You guys are
ruining this country. You know that,
right? One bystander said to the agents
at one point during the incident. An
agent clad in rainbowace masks replied,
"Liberals already ruined it." This is
what Trump's military force is out there
saying. Attacking migrants, citizens,
people because they're going after the
liberals is what they're saying. So,
let's show you this video right here. I
want you to watch it. Let's play it.
[ __ ]
Yo, [ __ ] you.
[ __ ] you.
What was he doing?
[ __ ] you.
[ __ ] you. All right, dude.
Hey, pull freak off. Pull freak off.
[ __ ] this.
Yo. Hey yo, stop. Back the [ __ ] up.
Yo, get the [ __ ] out of this city. Back
the [ __ ] out of
Get out. Get out of the city, bro. Get
out of our city. Choke yourself out.
We're right here, man.
Turn it.
Why are you guys here?
Answer the questions, bro. Why are you
guys here?
Do you even have identification on you?
Who are you guys?
What do you do, you guys?
Yo, can we see some guys?
Who are you guys? Can we
Oh, are you guys a cop? Then shut the
[ __ ] up. Are you Who are you? Yo, why
you got to wear the mask, man? Take your
mask off and show me some badge. Huh?
Yo, it's so easy to be behind a mask.
Yo, let's see. Let's see some badge. Yo,
let's see some badge work,
boys. Let's see some badge work.
Do I have to answer to you?
You got to answer to somebody.
So, wait. So, you guys are just masked
up.
You're just masked up.
Who are you?
Who are you guys?
I don't care, my guy.
You don't care what agency.
You don't care,
bro. What agency you guys with?
Are you guys working for the US
government or not?
Back the [ __ ] up.
Can I see some badge work? Back up.
Sir, can I see some bad?
Is the camera on?
Is your
guys are ruining this contract? You know
that, right?
Clear already ruined it.
Oh, there we go. Okay.
Can we see some badge work, guys?
Already ruined it.
No number, no ID, no name.
This seems This is a democratic process.
This looks like it. Can we see some
badge work?
We already ruined the country.
Hey J man, can we see some badge work
before you go?
Tell it on yourself. You know that,
right?
Can we see some badge numbers?
Hey, sorry the blades, bro.
Get the front plate.
There is no front plate.
Oh, wait.
Oh, so you guys, is this legal?
Hey, man. Can we see some badge work?
Yeah. Can we get your badge number? Here
you go, my guy. Oh, you are. Okay.
Are you guys with me?
I told you that was going to be very
hard to watch now. Here, a DEA agent
you'll see in DC on camera saying that
the Proud Boys are great people who love
America. Watch this.
Thought the Proud Boys meet up with next
weekend. Are you guys just a little
early? Just hanging out before you know.
Proud. They're great guys.
Oh, they're great guys.
Yeah.
Oh, perfect. Federal agent. Proud Boys
are great guys.
They love the United States.
They love the United States.
This is perfect.
I can't.
Here you'll see Tatiana Martinez who is
an advocate for migrants. She is someone
who's very vocal on Tik Tok opposing the
Gustapo tactics of ICE agents. She runs
a large anti-ICE Tik Tok account. And
you will see right here the agents
caught on a live stream targeting her in
a violent arrest. Agents drag her out of
a Tesla throw her on the ground where
she lays unresponsive. Then she's rushed
by an ambulance to the hospital. She is
well known to the ICE community as an
activist who films raids in Los Angeles,
California. It seems she has been
targeted for an especially brutal arrest
to make an example out of her. Here,
play this clip.
Who are you?
[Music]
[Music]
[Applause]
Now, here's additional raw footage of
that arrest. You'll hear her scream,
"Somebody call 911." Unfortunately,
Donald Trump has taken control over all
law enforcement at this point and has
turned them into a personal military
force against the American people. These
are scenes you see in fascist nations
here. Play this clip right here.
Somebody call 911.
Do something for me. Let me call you
back. If you have any resources on
911,
In this next video, I'm going to show
you ICE blindside tackles a peaceful
protester from behind. This is in
Portland, Oregon. And you'll see um this
individual turned out to be a US veteran
who fought in Afghanistan. Agents slam
this veteran to the ground, pin him down
with their body weight engulfed in tear
gas. Then these less lethal bullets were
shot directly at a person's head from
the roof, said witnesses trying to help
the man. Quote, "He's a veteran of this
country. He's done more for this country
than any of you." Here, play this clip.
Back up. Back up. Back up.
Back up.
[ __ ] Back up.
That's [ __ ] Expect the [ __ ]
force.
Back up.
No, we are. This is our
[ __ ]
He does not need to be tackled like
that.
He is a veteran. A veteran of this
country.
What the [ __ ] is wrong with this guy?
Seriously,
he's a veteran of this country.
[ __ ]
[ __ ]
a bunch of [ __ ] He's a veterary.
He's not for this any of you.
You fashionist.
Next. Here is the video of ICE arresting
a father waiting to pick up his kid at
elementary school. School staff had to
sort out arrangements for the student
left behind. They're very little. To not
get picked up by your parents. They're
very little. To not get picked up by
your parents is very traumatizing.
There's a reason why they wear masks.
They know it's wrong to do. Here it is
in Linda Vista Elementary School right
by San Diego. Let's play it.
They tell me the man was sitting in this
red car waiting to pick up his kid from
the school when three Immigration and
Customs Enforcement agents approached
him. A witness named Michelle shared
this video. It shows two agents reaching
in through the driver's side window and
grabbing the man's wrists before opening
his door and removing him from the car.
I was scared. Yeah, I was scared and my
mom was like, "Get inside. They're going
to take you." I'm like, "No, I need to
tell the people that the ice is here and
be careful."
Michelle told me about her experience,
but did not want to appear on camera
because she was afraid of getting in
trouble. She says she has a child at
Linda Vista Elementary who felt
intimidated by the ICE agents.
Even my kids, they knocked the door and
they're scared. They're like, "Ma, check
the window first."
Another parent at the school got
emotional when she heard what happened.
You shouldn't have to be scared to bring
your kid to school because of all this
nonsense.
Ice agents took the man away in an
unmarked vehicle. San Diego Unified
School District had to contact his wife
to pick up their kid. Superintendent Dr.
Fabiola Bagula told ABC10 News she did
not approve of federal immigration
enforcement so close to the school.
Especially in the school, they're 3
years old to 11 years old. They're very
little. Um, so to not get picked up by a
parent is very traumatizing.
This is the second time ICE has been
near schools in San Diego County in the
last 2 weeks. Last week, ICE agents
detained a mother while she was dropping
her children off near Camarena
Elementary. These incidents both
happened outside school property. School
leaders emphasizing that federal agents
are not allowed onto campus without a
warrant signed by a judge. Pearl
Shaheen, ABC 10 News.
Next, I'll show you how ICE grabs a high
school student who is out walking his
dog, leaving the dog behind in traffic.
Agents then start to joke, "Thanks to
him, we get to drink this weekend, that
he just made us $2500
because we put a bounty on his head."
First tied the dog to a tree, then they
cut the collar off and let him run loose
in heavy traffic on Seulva Boulevard and
the dog nearly died. Here, play this
clip.
Recently, a high school student was
detained while walking his dog. Kimberly
Chang live in Rita with that part of the
story. Jim.
Hi. And some Valley residents are trying
to raise money to help that young man
who they say would have been a senior
here at Rita High when school starts
this week, but is now in ICE custody.
They've started a GoFundMe page, which
we're working to verify, but so far it's
raised more than $17,000.
Neighbors are stepping up to help a
young man detained by federal agents. A
GoFundMe page identified him as Benjamin
Marcelo Guerrero Cruz, a rising senior
at Rita Charter High School. A community
member who organized the fundraiser to
help with legal services and other
expenses, says the 18-year-old was taken
into custody by federal agents as he
walked his dog in his neighborhood in
the Vanise area. This Sherman Oaks
resident posted to Instagram Friday that
she witnessed the raid and said she
later made contact with his mother. The
mom calls me a few hours later
hysterically crying, um, heartbroken,
um, distraught, devastated. She is
scared to leave her house. She is afraid
for her own life. Uh, she's a single
mom. A senior official with Department
of Homeland Security released a
statement in response saying in part,
"Benjamin Guerrero Cruz, an illegal
alien from Chile, overstayed his visa by
more than 2 years, abusing the visa
waiver program under which he entered
the United States and went on to say he
will remain in ICE custody pending
removal.
Get away. Get away."
Now, I have here a another angle right
here of that arrest in Logan Circle. um
on around 14th and R in DC where they
attack that worker on the moped. Just so
you can see for yourself here, play this
clip.
Yo. Hey yo, stop
this city.
Get out of our city.
yourself out
right here.
Turn
right there.
The next video I want to show you what
took place this weekend in Danbury,
Connecticut. ICE has escalated its
attacks on the community, targeting
people outside of the courthouse, in the
streets, following them and tearing them
away from their families. By the way,
everybody follow at Danburyes for
immigrants. It's a great account,
Danburyes form immigrants. Each day
throughout the week, you'll see 10 to 20
ICE vehicles and dozens of agents, and
you'll see them abducting people from
the streets. Watch what happens here.
Play this clip.
out of here.
Look how many of you look how many of
you are here.
All of you.
What's your name? What's your number?
Could I have your name and dad's number?
Officer, could I have your name and
dad's number? Officer,
could you have
Could I have your name and dad's number,
officer?
Now, here you'll see a traffic stop at
14th and W in DC. In the evening hours,
you'll see what the news is not
covering, but we cover here at the Midas
Touch Network. People protesting these
uh Trump Gustapo militarized officers.
Play this clip. Get off our street. Get
off our street. Get off our street. Get
off our street. Get off our street.
Now, I'm sure you're also aware of
California Governor Gavin Newsome's
press conference that he held on
Thursday where he announced that if
Texas rigs their maps and unlawfully
gerrymanders that Gavin Newsome is
prepared to introduce a ballot
initiative, which he's pushing forward.
He's already announced the new maps in
California that will cancel the maps in
Texas. And so California Governor Gavin
Newsome held this event in downtown Los
Angeles area by the Japanese Museum,
which was also the original site where
uh internment camps uh imprisoned uh
unlawfully Japanese American citizens
during World War II. Um Trump sent his
militarized ICE agents, border patrol
agents, Gustapo uh to threaten the
people who were uh attending Gavin
Newsome's event. And you'll see how they
just show up in military fatigues,
harass people, arrest people. Again,
this is right out of a fascist dystopia.
Play this clip.
Hey, what's going on here? Hey, now
we're here.
Los Angeles a sacred place since we have
politicians we do that ourselves here
today as you can see
now here's what Governor Nuome said
about those ICE agents who are out there
attacking people and harassing people
I'll show you right here here play this
clip
and it's a point of pride
because we're all in this together
where are we at democracy center
and Right outside at this exact moment
are dozens and dozens of ICE agents.
Donald Trump.
You think it's coincidental?
Donald Trump and his minions Tom Hman.
Tough guy.
Coley decided, coincidentally or not,
that this was a location to advance ICE
arrest. indiscriminate
perhaps. We'll find out later.
Was certainly indiscriminate when a
15-year-old disabled boy had a gun put
to his head in Los Angeles trying to go
to school just a few days ago.
[Applause]
And here's what the mayor of Los
Angeles, Karen Bass, had to say about
it. Here, I'll show you this clip. Let's
play it.
Not believe that this just happened to
be a coincidence.
There is no way this was a coincidence.
This was widely publicized that the
governor and many of our other elected
officials were having a press conference
here to talk about redistricting and
they decided they were going to come and
thumb their nose in front of the
governor's face. Why would you do that?
That is unbelievably disrespectful. It's
a provocative act. They're talking about
disorder in Los Angeles and they are the
source of the disorder in Los Angeles
right now. This is just completely
unacceptable. This is a administration.
This is a customs and border patrol that
has gone a muk. This absolutely has to
stop. There was no danger here. There
was no need to detain anyone here. And
there was certainly no need to have a
provocative act right here where the
governor is having a press conference.
Now, finally, let me just show you this
short clip so we can bring this all
together. Let me show you what's
happening in Bgrade, Serbia right now,
where the Putinbacked regime is
attacking the pro-democracy forces in
that city. And you'll see the their
president Vuch big Putin guy um
attacking the college protesters and the
peaceful protesters on the street. And
you'll see what what Trump is doing is
turning our streets and making it look
like basically what you see here. What
happens when a Putinbacked regime comes
into power and puts its military on the
streets? Watch this.
[Music]
So, I told you all you can turn away. I
told you this was an important video.
Now, I need you to share this video with
as many people as you can. right now
when this video shuts off obviously
subscribe obviously subscribe to
midasplus.com obviously um become a
member of our YouTube channel obviously
but send this video to like if you do a
hundred people a thousand people or one
person whoever you know say Ben from
Midas Touch wanted me to send this to
you because it was so important that you
see what's happening in America that's
not being covered really in much of the
news So, let them know. Thank you for
watching.

[admin]

Trump's Corruption Is OUT OF CONTROL
The Young Turks
Aug 17, 2025 #TheYoungTurks #BreakingNews #TYT

Trump's "loyalty list" of companies revealed. Jordan Uhl, John Iadarola and Cenk Uygur discuss on The Young Turks.



Transcript

According to new reporting, the Trump
White House has quietly put together a
corporate loyalty scorecard that ranks
over 550 companies and trade
associations based on how passionately
they supported his big billionaire tax
cut bill. Uh, and in this uh, loyalty
scorecard, you get rated on a variety of
different things. That includes social
media posts, press releases, video
testimonials, ads, attendance at White
House events, maybe you go to the
ballroom, uh, other engagement related
to the mega bill. And I love that it
includes things like social media uh,
posts. It's kind of like, you know, the
social capital thing that they always
rail against in China, except he's just
got it for corporate America. This goes
right over all their heads. They don't
mind. Anyway, uh the organization's
support then gets ranked as strong,
moderate, or low. And I know you're
dying to find out which corporations
were the most differential to Donald
Trump and his bill. That includes Uber,
Door Dash, United, Delta, AT&T, Cisco,
Airlines for America, Trade
Organization, and the Steel
Manufacturers Association as well. And
to give you an example of it, there's a
lot of these, but AT&T at one point
announced, quote, "Plans to more quickly
build fiber infrastructure thanks to
pro-investment policies in the one big
beautiful bill act passed by Congress."
Although uh bear in mind because
apparently Starlink is making a big play
for that pot of money, to move away from
fiber, which is what it was originally
set up for when it was passed under
Biden. He's just continuing it in this
bill, and instead, no, no fiber, can't
do that. go for the satellite internet.
And of course, the CEO of Starlink
bought Donald Trump in the last election
for a quarter billion dollars. So AT&T's
loyalty, as it so often does with Donald
Trump, might not actually end up paying
off. And uh now that it's been revealed,
the Trump White House is just openly
admitting that this is a thing that they
did. One official said, "It helps us see
who really goes out and helps versus
those who just come in and pay lip
service." And apparently, if you're not
ranked high on this, don't worry. you
won't necessarily get invested by
investigated by Pam Bondi just yet. You
still have a chance to raise your score.
So, for instance, if you now boost your
public advocacy uh around other
administrative priorities, maybe
anti-dei stuff or something like that,
then maybe you can crawl up those
rankings. And so, yeah, they're doing
it. They call it a dynamic scorecard,
and that's the thing they're working
with right now.
Yeah. So, look, uh, Trump's a blunt
instrument, so he'll just say it. And
that's so unusual for politicians.
Oh, yeah. I got a list of all the
corporations who kiss my ass and bribe
me. If you haven't bribed me enough,
then I'm not going to work with you.
Okay. And all right. Well, whatever else
that lacks, it doesn't lack clarity,
right? So, but do you know the Clintons
also had a list? And the press would
talk about it all the time. They'd
mention it in paragraph A17 or whatever,
right? and you be like, "Huh,
interesting." Um um and I always felt
like it's kind of like a weird way to
like, "Oh, by the way, Clinton's have an
enemies list and if you get on it,
you're screwed forever in Washington,
but if they like you, you'll get a lot
of goodies." And they just move on like
it's totally normal. Not framed as like
big headline corruption, right? Because
corruption for so long in Washington,
including today, is perfectly normal,
right? So, but for Trump, he gets a
slightly different standard. partly
because he's so brazen about it. He's
just like, "Yeah, these are the people
bribing me. I like bribes. Who doesn't
like bribes?" Right? Whereas the
Clintons were like, "Oh, no." They were
far more sophisticated. No, these are
not bribes. And the enemy's list is not
people who didn't pay us bribes when we
demanded it. No, no, no, no. This is
just, you know, political uh normal hard
ball politics. Normal hard ball
politics. No problem at all. I don't see
any corporate donors. And that's our
mainstream press all the time. So, does
that mean, okay, then we should let
Trump uh slide on this? No. The exact
opposite, guys. He told you he was going
to be a populist. Look, again,
Democrats, independents, you understand
this, right? For but for the portion of
independents that voted for Trump and
for the lighter portion of MAGA. He told
you he was going to be a populist like
the radical right, they're never going
to they're they got blinders on and so
you can't reach them. But that's okay.
They're they're not a big percentage of
the country. A lot of the Trump voters
are now beginning to see with their own
eyes. He said he was going to uh bring
down inflation. Now inflation is going
up. What the hell? Right? He said we're
going to have peace in Russia and in
Gaza on day one. What the hell? He said
he was going to release Epstein files.
What the hell? He said he was going to
be America first. Now it's Israel first,
America 28th. What the hell? Right? So
they're beginning to see all this. So
now when they see this brazing
corruption from the guy who was
pretending to be a populist and drain
the swamp,
they're like, "So it's not America
first. It's AT&T and Cisco and Door Dash
and whoever the hell bribed you first
and us maybe at the end." Exactly, guys.
it in him being blunt, it's ironically a
more sophisticated strategy accidentally
because people since he would just say
things, right, and he had no consultants
that he would listen to and he's out of
control, it gave the air of authenticity
to a guy who's a pathological liar,
right? So, but now he has abused that
air of authenticity so much that even
his own voters are beginning to see, oh,
there ain't nothing authentic or
populist about this. He's the same old
greasy politician who takes the donor
money and does exactly what the donors
want. To which I say, of course, that's
what we told you. I mean, just looking
at this list, it it's interesting
because Uber, Door Dash, United, Delta,
Airlines for America, these are all
people who were subject to the Consumer
Financial Protection Bureau's crackdowns
on uh junk fees, the way they have
exploited workers. You know, I'm sure
United and Delta and Airlines for
America are celebrating having a very
lax anti-UN administration now, despite
uh Sean O'Brien's best efforts. I mean,
this is just there. They'll do whatever
because now it's, hey, do whatever you
want. Charge them fees. Go ahead, hide
the fees. Take advantage of these work
these gig employee workers. Of course,
they'll do that. They're totally selling
it. They don't care. And it's kind of
comical how it's just so brazen with how
they're shaking down all these
companies. Yeah. Oh yeah. Celebrate what
we're doing. Promote us. Buy into our
culture war nonsense to distract people
from what's actually happening. But as
we've talked about throughout this hour,
I think there is some segment of the
Republican base that is waking up to it.
And it's impossible to explain away.
We've seen it on a couple different
issues from inflation now to this the
corporate control and capture of our
government is out out in the open. And
there's one other thing that I think is
kind of funny but disheartening at the
same time and that is how the right so
the part of the right that hasn't
recognized what's happening to watch
them go from oh government overreach
Biden shouldn't be involved in the
markets. We got to protect the free
market at all costs. And the way the
nanny state has influenced our personal
decisions can't be tolerated. This is an
encroachment on our rights, our liberty.
Michelle Obama telling us to eat
healthier is a violation of my
sovereignty to Yeah. The president just
shaking down the biggest Fortune 500
companies. That
nothing to see here. That's fine.
Yeah. It's sort of like so much that's
confusing to me where like we had
things, we had systems, some of which
sometimes accidentally or intentionally
actually like benefited you, but now
he's come up with like a worse version
of it that only benefits him. Like we we
used to in theory regulate corporations,
that's all gone. We don't do that
anymore. But he's going to regulate
their social media activity just to to
benefit himself. uh we had like work
visas and then like he deported a bunch
of people and they said well I'm going
to come up with a plan just so that like
the people working on farms could come
back in with a special work visa and
sometimes it convinces MAGA but
sometimes not like sometimes like you
said they see through it like they were
sold that he was going to be anti-war
and he already bombed Iran and he's
participating in an ethnic cleansing
maybe sending in US troops they're
they're pulling up they're they're
drawing up war uh plans for Mexico right
now so they don't buy some that and then
you see weird things where it's like
Donald Trump has to be personally
involved in this where like you probably
saw the announcement recently where he's
like he wants a stake in Nvidia for
their foreign sales. He wants to no like
he wants a cut of what they sell and he
wants a stake in Intel which a guy like
me who's interested in communism I like
seizing a portion of the means of
production so I'm into that when Trump
does it I guess but like getting a cut
of what Nvidia sells we used to have a
corporate tax to do that. Why did you
get rid of the corporate tax and now you
want to get a portion of their profits?
We already had that system. It's because
he wants credit for it and he wants
direct control over it. It's why
recently it was revealed and like the
the prime minister of Vietnam's not even
hiding it that he used the threat of
higher tariffs to get uh faster approval
for his Vietnamese golf course. They're
just admitting that he did that.
Jesus Christ.
Uh they threw villagers off their land.
They're bulldozing it. They gave them
rice and $12 a square meter just so he
could get his golf course. It was just
revealed this week he called up the
finance minister of Norway to talk about
tariffs and said, "Oh, by the way, I
want the Nobel Peace Prize." He's
clearly using the threat of higher
tariffs to get the Nobel Peace Prize
rather than, you know, like getting
peace. And so all of this just feels
like such a cheap crappy version of like
a TV mobster where all of it's for his
own benefit. Everything is weirdly
turned into a a worse version of what it
was. And and I'm just I'm waiting to see
how much of it is actually convincing to
his cultists. Yeah. Last thing is that I
I'm I'm seeing the silver lining, which
is look, I said right after the election
that I'd rather be in the populous woods
than an establishment prison. And in the
establishment prison, you couldn't talk
about corruption, Democrats or
Republicans. Like everyone in me in
media would shut you down and they'd
call you a conspiracy theorist. You
think that these politicians are working
for their donors?
Ridiculous. You think millions of
dollars affects politicians
conspiratorial, right? I look I you you
think like really did that happen like
hundreds of times to me, right? Like I
had reporters laugh at me saying like
you think politicians are affected by
millions of dollars. I'm like you think
they're not? You think they're not?
Right. So we were persona non grata for
saying the most obvious things in the
world. And now in the populous woods,
now that there's a prison break, now
that mainstream media is screwed, no one
believes them anymore. What's happening
is Trump getting caught just like the
Democrats got caught. Like if a lot of
the Democrats were like, "No, no, no,
no. The establishment is okay. It likes
the Democrats. Let's just stay in the
prison. It's nice and comfortable,
right?" No. Like you couldn't stay there
anyway. It was all of this propaganda
was never going to work. And that they
the establishment Democrats, you think
they helped you? They didn't help you
anyway. And that's why people got so
mad. So, they got caught. The Democrats
got caught. Now Trump is going to get
caught. Look, I said almost a year ago
that Trump's voters were going to turn
on him on the issue of Israel. When I
said that a year ago, that was
considered absolutely nuts, right? And
now just go on X and say something about
Trump and Israel and then see what MAGA
does. Okay? And the independent voters
especially, right? They're like, "What
the hell, man? We thought we were
getting America first. And they're so
mad that whenever Trump goes out there,
oh, Israel, we have to serve Israel,
right? So, he got caught on that. He got
caught on the Epstein files. And he's
going to get caught on this. So, I'll
make the prediction now. By the time he
leaves office, a huge percentage of his
voters are going to realize how corrupt
Donald Trump is and how he's been
corrupt all along. And they're going to
be furious at him. Because when Trump
voters get mad, they don't get a little
mad, they get a lot mad, right? And he
thought they thought he was one of them
and that he was gonna lead them out of
this mess that they perceive to be in.
And they're right about being in a mess,
right? And they're right that the
powerful are not serving us. When they
realize he is part of the elites and
that he's always wanted to be their
buddies and now he gets to be the mob
boss you're talking about, John, and
dole out favors and get favors. He's the
kingpin of the elites now. They're gonna
hate that. And we're in the populous
woods now. And he's gonna get caught.
Hear me now. Quote me later. Although
that never happens. Hear me now. Yell at
me now and forget about it later.
Never.
Every time you ring the bell below, an
angel gets his swings. Totally not true.
But it does keep you updated on our live
shows.

[admin]

“They Kidnapped Me”: L.A. Immigrant Rights Activist Recounts Violent Arrest by Masked Federal Agents
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
August 19, 2025
https://www.democracynow.org/2025/8/19/union_del_barrio



Amanda Trebach, a member of the immigrant rights’ group Unión del Barrio and an ICU nurse, was monitoring ICE operations in the Los Angeles area when she was targeted and arrested herself. Video of the scene shows masked agents in plainclothes forcing her to the ground and briefly kneeling on her head. “They took me into an unmarked vehicle. They did not read me my rights. They didn’t tell me where I was going,” says Trebach, who was detained overnight before being released without charges the following evening after an outpouring of community support. She recounts her experience and explains why she will continue to fight for her immigrant neighbors in the face of the ongoing danger to her community.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.

We go now to Los Angeles, California, where grassroots organizers are challenging some of the most intense federal shows of force in immigration enforcement crackdowns of Trump’s second term. Earlier this month, the community activist, ICU nurse Amanda Trebach was violently arrested while documenting the operations of ICE agents. She’s a member of the group Unión del Barrio. At the time of her arrest, Amanda was participating in a peace patrol outside Terminal Island, a Coast Guard base used by ICE and Customs and Border Protection as a hub for operations in California. Dozens of volunteers have routinely stationed themselves outside Terminal Island to monitor the movement of the federal vehicles streaming in and out of the staging area. Terminal Island was once a thriving Japanese American fishing village that was demolished during World War II, with its residents forcibly sent to internment camps.

Footage of Amanda Trebach’s arrest shows two plainclothes, masked agents pinning her against the pavement as they kneel on her back and head to handcuff her. One of the agents, yes, seen putting his knee on Trebach’s head for a brief moment as a person recording yells, “Get off her head!”

EYEWITNESS 1: Filming you.

EYEWITNESS 2: Get off her head!

AMANDA TREBACH: Get off me!

EYEWITNESS 2: Get off! Your knee is on her [bleep] head!

AMANDA TREBACH: Get off me!

EYEWITNESS 2: Get it off!

AMANDA TREBACH: Get off me!

ICE AGENT 1: Get back. Get back. Get back.

EYEWITNESS 2: Get off her head!

AMANDA TREBACH: Get off me!

ICE AGENT 1: Get back. Get back.

ICE AGENT 2: You better get back.

AMANDA TREBACH: Get off me!

ICE AGENT 1: Get back. Get back.

EYEWITNESS 1: This is public property, sir. This is public property.

EYEWITNESS 2: Streaming live, this is ICE beating her up. They’ve got a knee on her head.

ICE AGENT 1: Scoot back.

EYEWITNESS 2: I am where I need to be: 10 feet. So…

ICE AGENT 2: Can you guys get her in the van?

AMANDA TREBACH: Sir?

EYEWITNESS 2: You OK?

AMANDA TREBACH: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: Amanda Trebach is a U.S. citizen. She was forced into an unmarked black van by at least half a dozen unidentified agents. Her release from federal custody came amidst pressure from activists, community protests and the National Nurses United union. Amanda Trebach is joining us now.

Welcome to Democracy Now!, Amanda. I’m glad you’re out. We spoke to your colleague, Ron Gochez, to describe what happened to you —

AMANDA TREBACH: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: — before you were speaking. Can you explain exactly —

AMANDA TREBACH: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: — why you were there, what you were intending to do as a peace patrol, warning people about the ICE agents, and what they did to you?

AMANDA TREBACH: Yes. Thank you so much for having me on this morning, Amy. I really appreciate the opportunity.

So, myself and other — many other people and groups have been at Terminal Island, which, as you had mentioned, is near the Port of L.A., in San Pedro, near Long Beach, California. We’ve been there legally monitoring the activity of ICE on and — comings and goings off the island, and alerting the community — specifically, the Harbor Area Peace Patrols has been wonderful — and alerting the community not only of the vehicles to look out for, and so they can feel safer, but also what areas are safe in and around the neighborhood, where ICE is not, so people can go to the park, they can go to the grocery store, and feel as though they’re not going to be taken and kidnapped.

So, what we’ve also been doing is we’ve seen these vehicles at Terminal Island, almost every single one of them, out in the L.A. area. It’s small and large raids across the area. We can directly connect them back to Terminal Island and living in our communities, staying in our communities in Long Beach. So, we’re also connecting license plates. These vehicles are either — they have license plates that are not connected to these vehicles. We have indications and photo evidence that the license plates are being changed, as well. And some don’t even have license plates. So, you know, that is something that we’re doing, but also just making sure the community is aware of what is happening, what to look out for, so they can feel a little bit safer, as well.

AMY GOODMAN: So, explain what happened to you. And this wasn’t the first attempt of ICE to arrest you.

AMANDA TREBACH: No. So, we are on public property when we’re there. It’s actually by the Japanese memorial on the civilian side of Terminal Island. So, at one point, I was going on to the island to park, to peacefully monitor and document. I was pulling in to park, and I was blocked in by ICE agents. And actually, I backed up to try to park, and they jumped out of their vehicle. They were masked, and they had their large guns. They pulled them on me. They illegally tried to open my door. Thank goodness it was locked. I did not allow them in. I said, “No.” I backed up, and they then tried to block me in again. And finally, I pulled into the parking spot, and they sped off.

AMY GOODMAN: So, tell us then about — and we’re watching it right now, the video of you being taken, on — what was it? August 8th?

AMANDA TREBACH: Yes, yes. So, we were out on Terminal Island, just like any other day, monitoring to be able to alert the community of vehicles to look out for. And we had, you know, our sign saying this — “Terminal Island is not safe. San Pedro is not safe with ICE agents here.”

And for some reason, they came out in a large convoy that morning, and they, I guess — their tactics have been changing. They’ve been frustrated. The community, you know, is aware, L.A. is aware, what they were doing is illegal. They are kidnapping us. And I say “kidnappers” because they’re not federal agents, many of them. Some of them are not federal agents. They’re vigilantes. We don’t know who they are. They’re masked. They’re not telling us who they are.

So, they came out in a convoy. They jumped out of the vehicle. As you could see, they pinned me to the ground, and they handcuffed me. They took me into an unmarked vehicle. They did not read me my rights. They didn’t tell me where I was going. They shut the vehicle. They drove me to the other side of the noncivilian side of Terminal Island. And basically, they kidnapped me. I didn’t know what was going on. I was there for four hours.

AMY GOODMAN: What about their —

AMANDA TREBACH: All of their kidnapper cars had been —

AMY GOODMAN: — their knee on your head?

AMANDA TREBACH: Yeah, yeah, their knee was on my head. My face was on the concrete. My head was hurting the night that I was in — they took me to the detention center. It was hurting very bad, my shoulder, actually, and my hip, because they pinned me down so hard to the ground. And then, you know, they were very rough with me, violent with me, when they got me into the — after they closed the door of the truck and took me to the other side of Terminal Island.

And I had to wait there for hours and hours without knowing what was happening. Finally, a woman who said she was from Homeland Security, she came. And at that point in time, they had put me in another unmarked vehicle with two masked people, I guess, that were drivers of some sort. And this entire time, the port police, the Port Authority was aware. They saw what was going on. No one tried to assist me. No one tried to help. They see the guns being drawn on me. So, then —

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about where you were held, in this last minute, where you were held, the federal facility, the conditions you witnessed there?

AMANDA TREBACH: Sure, sure. So, the water was not good. I was not given any toiletries to speak of. I was told I would have to purchase a cup, you know. And thank goodness, I was — the community came around — the Unión del Barrio, Community Self-Defense Coalition, All Power Free Clinic. You know, we’re not stepping down. That’s why I was freed as a political prisoner, because of the community coming together.

And we know these tactics are escalating. ICE kidnappers are escalating. They’re not following the temporary restraining order that has been carried out by the judge. They’re coming after us. They’re escalating their tactics.

AMY GOODMAN: And the impact, overall —

AMANDA TREBACH: But we’re here. We’re not — we’re growing.

AMY GOODMAN: The impact, overall, Amanda, on the community, and especially the targeted community, undocumented immigrants?

AMANDA TREBACH: Yes

AMY GOODMAN: But it goes much broader than that, because anyone who they suspect of being undocumented, many being arrested, being deported.

AMANDA TREBACH: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: And why you, as a nurse, decided this is your role, this is your job right now?

AMANDA TREBACH: Sure. Well, as a nurse in South Central L.A., I see that — my patients tell me that they are not coming to the hospital. They’re scared. So there’s implications that are broad and far-reaching. People are sicker. They’re coming in, and they’re dying, because they did not want to come to the hospital. They’re coming to areas — the ICE kidnappers are coming to areas that are supposed to be safe for us. We want to take care of our patients. And now people are sicker. They’re not coming in. Our census has been down. Even the hospital has indicated that this is the case.

And yeah, so, that’s — as a nurse, it’s a solidarity, right? They’re coming after people, but the way that we’re going to win — and we’re organizing community patrols and fighting back — is through solidarity for all people. And it’s my duty, and I’m very honored to be here with Unión del Barrio and other organizations to organize. And like I said, we’re growing. We encourage people to join the Community Self-Defense Coalition and other organizations —

AMY GOODMAN: Amanda, we’re going to have to leave it there.

AMANDA TREBACH: — because we’re here.

AMY GOODMAN: Amanda Trebach is an ICU nurse, a member of Unión del Barrio. She was detained by ICE for a day, violently detained. I’m Amy Goodman. This is Democracy Now!

[admin]

The umpire who picked a side: John Roberts and the death of rule of law in America. The chief justice of the US has painted himself as a modern institutionalist over the past 20 years. Experts say he’s emboldening Trump’s drive toward authoritarianism
by Ed Pilkington
Thu 21 Aug 2025 08.00 EDT
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng- ... reme-court


Illustration: Guardian Design/Tom Williams/Getty Images

On 4 March, Donald Trump delivered his epic 100-minute speech to Congress, the longest such presidential address in US history. Having finished speaking, in time-honored fashion, he walked down the line of supreme court justices, gladhanding each in turn before coming to a stop before the chief justice, John Roberts.

“Thank you again, thank you again,” Trump said, taking Roberts’s hand into both his own and shaking it vigorously. Then, as he began to step away, the president tapped Roberts on the arm in a gesture of buddy-buddy intimacy, and said: “Won’t forget.”

Supreme court watchers have wondered why Trump thanked the chief justice so effusively. Was it because the Roberts court had, exactly a year earlier, allowed Trump to stay on the electoral ballot even though he had inspired a violent mob attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021?

Could it have been that Roberts had written the ruling that immunised Trump from criminal prosecution for that January 6 insurrection and for any other criminal misdeed he might commit while in the White House?

Or was it, as Trump later claimed, more innocent than that: a simple thank you to Roberts for having administered the oath of office at Trump’s second inauguration?

Whatever the truth, time has moved on since that friendly encounter five months ago. Were the president to bump into the chief justice today, one might expect an even more extravagant display of gratitude.

In the past 10 weeks America has witnessed an extraordinary outpouring of decisions from its highest court that should make Trump very happy indeed. The six rightwing justices who control the court – three of them given their lifetime seats by Trump himself – have effectively greenlighted the president’s explosive and law-busting agenda.

The supermajority has granted Trump 18 straight victories in the administration’s requests for emergency relief. Steve Vladeck, a leading supreme court scholar at Georgetown University Law Center, has tracked the decisions in his Substack, One First, noting that the rulings have been handed down largely in the legal darkness.


Donald Trump gestures John Roberts after he was sworn in during inauguration ceremonies in the rotunda of the US Capitol on 20 January in Washington DC. Photograph: Guardian Design/Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

They have been piped through the court’s so-called “shadow docket”, where important affairs of state are decided at speed and with little or no debate or deliberation. By Vladeck’s count, seven of the orders have been issued without any explanation, leaving the American people clueless as to the justices’ thinking.

Yet the emergency rulings, though temporary in nature, could have seismic consequences. For as long as they hold they have the potential to cause untold suffering to millions of people targeted by Trump.

That includes countless federal employees who can now be fired at whim after decades of loyal public service; transgender people purged from the military; more than 1 million individuals from Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba and other countries who are being stripped of their status to remain in the US; immigrants singled out for deportation to war-torn third countries where their lives are in danger.

Legally, the consequences are also profound. Several of Trump’s actions given temporary go-ahead are of dubious legality, violating congressional or international laws and running roughshod over fundamental tenets of the US constitution.

By conceding to Trump’s wishes, the justices have for now approved what Vladeck has called “a truly unprecedented amount of lawlessness by the executive branch”.

Never before has [the supreme court] entertained such challenges from the president, and never before has it decided them so flippantly

-- J Michael Luttig

The liberal-leaning justice Sonia Sotomayor has sounded a similar alarm in a series of increasingly despairing dissenting opinions. Her conservative peers on the court, she has written, are “rewarding lawlessness”, and undermining the bedrock principle that America is a “government of laws, not of men”.

All of this has put Roberts, 70, in a strange and uncomfortable position. Just as he should be celebrating the completion of his 20th year at the pinnacle of the US judiciary, he is being accused of betraying the very legal edifice he is supposed to protect.

Prominent jurists have held Roberts responsible for emboldening Trump’s drive towards an authoritarian presidency. J Michael Luttig, who served on a federal appeals court for 15 years, put the criticism starkly.

“The chief justice is presiding over the end of the rule of law in America,” Luttig told the Guardian.

In Luttig’s view, the court under Roberts is “acquiescing in and accommodating the president’s lawlessness. And it is doing so without briefing, without argument, without deliberation – and without even a single word of explanation of its decisions.”

For Luttig, this is more than just the 6-3 supermajority of the court expressing its conservatism. This is a fundamental distortion of the American legal system.

“The supreme court was never intended to function like this. Never before has it entertained such challenges from the president, and never before has it decided them so flippantly.”

When it comes to assessing the chief justice’s record, Luttig has special standing. He was himself a one-time contender for a supreme court seat, and has known Roberts as a friend since they worked together in their 20s in the Reagan administration. Roberts asked Luttig to be a groomsman at his wedding in 1996.

“I have had four decades of knowing and respecting him,” Luttig said.

Having had a ringside seat for so many years, Luttig has no doubts about how the chief justice is conducting himself in the current fraught moment.

“John Roberts knows exactly what he is doing,” the judge said, “and he knows exactly the message he is sending to America.”

Luttig’s characterisation of Roberts as a disciplined individual with absolute self-awareness chimes with the chief justice’s reputation as someone who cares deeply about public image. His attention to detail is legendary: he is known to rehearse his questions and fine-tune his jokes before oral arguments.

He speaks so smoothly – and disguises his inner convictions so thoroughly – that he has been able to straddle political and personal divides. As one lawyer who has presented before Roberts at the supreme court put it: “There is no person I would rather deliver my eulogy, even if I knew that he hated me.”

The roots of Roberts’s controlled conservatism lie in Buffalo, New York, where he was born on 27 January 1955, and in north-west Indiana where his family moved when he was 10. He was brought up in a devout Catholic well-to-do family enjoying the benefits of the post-war boom.

His parents came from Johnstown, now a struggling hollowed-out town in western Pennsylvania but then one of the world’s great steel-producing centers. His father, John Glover “Jack” Roberts Sr rose to be a manager of a steel plant and moved the family to Long Beach, Indiana, a heavily segregated white enclave on Lake Michigan.

He has consistently shown hostility towards civil rights, trade unions and environmental protections, approaching the law with the rigidity of a rightwing ideologue

-- Lisa Graves

As a teenager, Roberts imbibed a fusion of Catholic morality and a powerful work ethic. He went on to attend an elite Catholic boarding school, La Lumiere, that had been recently founded by local businessmen.

“I have always wanted to stay ahead of the crowd,” he wrote in an application letter to the school at age 13. “I’m sure that by attending and doing my best at La Lumiere I will assure myself of a fine future.”

Harvard and its law school followed. He remarked in 2006 that the culture shock of being an Indiana boy surrounded by liberal students protesting against the Vietnam war helped cement his conservatism.

“I didn’t view myself as conservative until I went there and kind of reacted against the orthodoxy,” he said.

Joan Biskupic, who wrote a 2019 biography of Roberts, describes him as having emerged from Harvard with a “flawless veneer” and an eye for appearances. In The Chief, she writes: “He has always shown a keen interest in how he is portrayed in the media. Even as a young lawyer in the Reagan administration, he demonstrated an awareness of the importance of messaging.”

The message for which Roberts is most famous was deployed during his Senate confirmation hearings for the role of chief justice in 2005. In a speech dripping with faux humility, he presented himself as the impartial arbiter of the law.

“Judges are like umpires,” he said. “Umpires don’t make the rules, they apply them … Nobody ever went to a ball game to see the umpire.”

Over the past 20 years he has honed that umpire character, modelling himself as a modern institutionalist. He has kept his personal convictions largely hidden, shrouding himself and his leanings in mystery; as Biskupic puts it, he is “his own enigma”.

Meanwhile, the court he leads has marched – through Trump’s three nominations of Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett – in an ever more rightward direction. Over time, the gulf has steadily widened between Roberts’s media representation as a moderate conservative and the increasingly extreme actions of his court.

“Supreme court reporting has been generous to Roberts, and has reinforced the idea that what is happening in his court is a sort of normalcy, when it is not normal at all,” said Lisa Graves, the former chief counsel for nominations for the Senate judiciary committee and founder of True North Research, a watchdog investigating rightwing groups that undermine democracy.

Graves has reappraised the chief justice’s 20-year record and come up with a very different narrative than that of Umpire Roberts. Her conclusions are laid out in her forthcoming book, Without Precedent, which will be published next month.

In it, she argues that Roberts is anything but the modest judge he claims to be. Rather, he has used his power as chief justice to promote a rightwing agenda from the moment George W Bush placed him in the court’s central seat in 2005.


President George W Bush walks with federal appeals court judge John Roberts on 19 July 2005, on his way to announce Roberts as his first nominee for the supreme court. Photograph: Guardian Design/Charles Dharapak/AP

“He has consistently shown hostility towards civil rights, trade unions and environmental protections, approaching the law with the rigidity of a rightwing ideologue. That was true from the time when as a young man he chose to clerk for the most regressive supreme court justice, William Rehnquist, and it remains true today,” Graves said.

Roberts cut his legal teeth not in the wood-panelled setting of a federal court, but in the executive branch as an eager young pup in the Reagan administration. He began in 1981 working for Ken Starr, then chief of staff to the US attorney general (and later Bill Clinton’s bete noire), before joining the White House counsel’s office where he became friends with Luttig.

Those early days of Ronald Reagan’s first term bear comparison with Trump’s second. Both presidents wielded a strong media presence, both were vitriolically dismissive of liberals whom they blamed for destroying America, both were committed to radical tax and spending cuts and slashing what they regarded as the bloated federal government.

Roberts adopted Reagan’s mission with zeal. “I felt he was speaking directly to me,” he once recalled about listening to the newly ensconced president’s 1981 inaugural speech.

Within the Reagan administration, Roberts began to formulate rightwing passions that have endured through his years on the top court. They included hostility towards civil rights and voting protections for racial minorities, and skepticism of racially based affirmative action.


President Ronald Reagan greets a young Roberts in the Oval Office while Roberts was serving as an associate White House counsel on 6 January 1983. Photograph: Guardian Design/National Archives and Records Administration

At the justice department he wrote a series of spiky legal memos in which he let down his mild-mannered guard. Out came a stream of aggressive and combative missives designed to boost Reagan’s power and stature.

The memos make for a chilling read in the context of today. Roberts lambasts fellow government officials whom he accused of standing in the way of the Reagan agenda – an echo of Trump and Doge’s war on the “deep state” civil service. He railed against affirmative action programs seeking to redress the balance for women and Black people – a view that was made manifest in 2023 when his court put an end to affirmative action in universities.

The future head of the US judiciary went so far in his memos as to berate federal judges for what he called “unwarranted interference” in executive branch affairs. Fast forward four decades, and we now see the Roberts court repeatedly overturning the rulings of lower court judges who have resisted Trump’s lawless actions.

Just how far federal courts should go in reining in presidents is a perennial question that has divided jurists and politicians for years. What disturbs some supreme court watchers about the present moment is the context in which this wrangling is happening: with Trump so brazenly challenging the rule of law, is now the time for the top court to be clipping the wings of federal judges struggling to hold him back?

As Graves points out, Roberts’s approach to lower court judges would be more understandable if it were consistently applied – or to put it another way, if he actually did behave like a neutral umpire free of political motives. “When a Democrat was in the White House, the chief justice went out of his way to block student loan debt relief, which was a modest effort by the Biden administration that in no way compares to the extreme actions that Roberts is now greenlighting for Trump.”

Roberts’s early musings on the importance of a strong executive in the White House, so evident in those Reagan memos, run as a theme through his jurisprudence. It culminated with him authoring Trump v US.

That was last year’s shattering ruling that gave Trump absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for his official presidential acts.

The chief justice justified this extraordinary decision to shield the president from basic accountability by invoking the desire of the framers – the men who drafted the US constitution – for a “vigorous” and “energetic” executive.

He conveniently overlooked the framers’ other core executive requirements: “responsibility”, and an obligation to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed”.

Trump has repeatedly ignored that duty over the past six months. He has disregarded congressional laws, such as the 1974 Impoundment Control Act which limits the president’s power to withhold funds approved by Congress from federal agencies.

He has also violated constitutional laws such as birthright citizenship – a right that is written in plain, unambiguous English into the 14th amendment.

Graves believes that Roberts’s immunity ruling has had devastating consequences. “It paved the way for Trump’s return. It sent a signal to some sections of the American people that not only did Trump do no wrong, he could do no wrong – that if he returned to power, he would be above the law.”

When Trump did return to the White House on 20 January, Roberts was widely seen as the last great hope for constitutional government. The chief justice would draw a line in the sand that Trump, thirsting for supremacy, would not be allowed to cross.

Initially there were signs that such hopes might be founded. At 1am on 19 April – in the early hours of a Saturday morning – the supreme court issued an order that could be deemed to draw precisely such a line in the sand.

It barred the Trump administration from deporting undocumented Venezuelans summarily to a notorious prison in El Salvador. The Roberts court had struck a blow for due process and, yes, the rule of law.

The rosy glow of that pre-dawn intervention did not last for long. Since then the supreme court has used the shadow docket to grant Trump virtually his every wish, trampling over the separation of powers in the process.

The most recent emergency order from 23 July allowed Trump to fire without cause three Democratic members of the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission. The decision was a direct affront to Congress, which had created the agency and only permitted the president to fire its commissioners on grounds of neglect of duty, or malfeasance.

Just days earlier, the justices cleared the way for Trump to eviscerate the federal education department even though, as Sotomayor pointed out in one of her withering dissents, only Congress has the power to do so. And a week before that they gave the green light to the mass firing of thousands of federal workers, delivering a potential death knell to the US government as we know it.

When district court orders are ignored, and the supreme court turns a blind eye, then the rule of law has already been sacrificed

-- Amrit Singh

The court’s most egregious shadow docket rulings relate to cases in which Trump has not only violated the law, he has done so in open defiance of federal judges. On 23 June and 3 July the justices released two emergency orders which had the combined effect of allowing the Trump administration to deport people to third countries such as South Sudan, a nation devastated by civil war and with a shaky human rights record.

Federal judges in lower courts had expressly forbidden the deportations, ordering that the individuals had to be given a chance to prove they faced torture in those destinations. Under the international Convention against Torture, to which the US is a signatory, it is prohibited to expel people to places where they might be subjected to such illegal treatment.

The Trump administration ignored the court rulings, deporting the individuals regardless.

Roberts’s willingness to preside over a court that sides with Trump over the judiciary itself, even in cases involving brazen defiance of federal judges, has profoundly shocked the legal world.

“The supreme court is the ultimate guardian of the rule of law, and it appears to have abdicated that role,” said Amrit Singh, director of the Rule of Law Lab at New York University. “The court has clearly indicated that it is willing to tolerate the Trump administration’s violation of federal court orders.”

Singh’s charitable interpretation is that Roberts was trying to “appease the Trump administration to avoid direct confrontation”. Were that the case, she said, the chief justice was pursuing an “extremely dangerous strategy”.

“He is letting the Trump administration get away with it. When district court orders are ignored, and the supreme court turns a blind eye, then the rule of law has already been sacrificed.”

Some supreme court watchers have cautioned against assuming that the justices’ emergency rulings are their final word. Bob Bauer, Barack Obama’s White House counsel who co-chaired Joe Biden’s presidential commission on the supreme court, has pointed out that the court has yet to rule on several of Trump’s biggest provocations.

They include birthright citizenship, and the use of the Alien Enemies Act under which third-country deportations are being carried out. “There is yet no final resolution of these issues,” Bauer has written in his Substack, Executive Functions.

It is true that, if and when those issues are fully addressed by the supreme court, Roberts could surprise us once again. He could dust off his old umpire’s uniform, revisit his carefully crafted posture as a moderate institutionalist, and confound us all – Trump included – with nuanced rulings.

But for his longtime friend Luttig, that is besides the point. The price of what Roberts is doing here and now, in the legal darkness of the shadow docket, is just too high.

“The supreme court has pulled the rug out from under the lower federal courts, and it has done so deliberately and knowingly,” Luttig said. “The chief justice has no higher obligation than to protect the federal judiciary from attacks by this president, and in my view he has utterly failed.”

This article was amended on 21 August 2025 to correct that John Roberts administered an oath of office to Donald Trump; he did not take the oath as previously stated.

[admin]

Trump's Fraud Penalty Gets Tossed
The Young Turks
Premiered 21 hours ago 12 products

President Trump's half-billion-dollar fine for years of engaging in fraud was tossed by a New York appeals court. Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur discuss on The Young Turks.



Transcript

Appeals court throws out Trump's penalty
A New York appeals court has thrown out
a massive civil fraud penalty against
President Trump, a total that exceeded
half a billion dollars. They're calling
that penalty excessive.
This uh ruling by the appeals court is
monumental. It was also very unusual in
that it took them nearly a year to reach
this decision. This is a huge win for
Donald Trump anyway you cut it. And this
is a stinging rebuke to the attorney
general, Leticia James.
Well, President Donald Trump is saving a
pretty penny thanks to a New York
appeals court uh essentially deciding to
throw out the massive $515 million
penalty against him in that civil fraud
case. Now, um, in that case, in case you
have forgotten about it, uh, which was
brought by Leticia James, the judge
found that Trump had engaged in fraud by
essentially exaggerating his wealth for
decades. And by exaggerating his wealth,
he had committed fraud in order to get
uh, better terms for both um, loans and
for insurance. Now, after being found
liable, Judge Arthur Enor Engoran uh
ordered him last year to pay $355
million in penalties. With interest, the
sum has topped $515 million.
Additionally, penalties levied on some
other Trump Organization executives,
including Trump's sons, Eric and Donald
Jr., bring the total to $527
million with interest. So Trump was able
to actually hold off on the collection
of that money during the appeals process
uh and while posting $175 million bond.
Now fast forward to today and here's uh
ABC's Aaron Kurski explaining the
panel's ruling.
The judges are not in agreement here,
but it appears they have found that
after a threemonth trial, the judge,
Explanation of panel's ruling
this was a bench trial, the judge Arthur
and Goran correctly found that Trump,
his eldest sons, and his business uh
perpetrated a decade's worth of business
fraud by hyping the value of Trump's
assets to include his apartment in Trump
Tower. They said it was triple its
actual square footage. The value of Mara
Lago, his private uh Florida Golf Club.
They valued it thinking it was an
unrestricted waterfront property in Palm
Beach when there are heavy restrictions
on on its development. But they said the
penalty that Enoran imposed for all of
this fraud uh of $464
million
violated the the ETH amendment. It was
excessive. And so they've thrown out the
monetary judgment uh and and it may be
left to New York's highest court to
determine what the ultimate penalty, if
any, should be.
So we're going to get to some of the
disagreement among the judges through
this appeals process. Uh but just to
give you a few more details, essentially
in this prevailing opinion, they
maintained uh the fraud judgment against
Trump. The judges wrote that while the
injective rel injective relief ordered
by the court is wellcraftrafted to curb
defendants business culture, the court's
disgorgement order, which directs the
that defendants pay nearly half a
billion dollars to the state of New York
is an excessive fine that violates the
eth amendment of the United States
Constitution. Jenk, as uh someone who
has a fancy law degree from Columbia
University, um number one, what does
discorgement mean? And number two, what
are your thoughts on this decision?
Well, I do as a fancy pants person. I
will explain. All right. So, uh what
basically what they're saying is they
brought down the penalty to zero. But,
uh Donald Trump, Eric Trump, Donald
Trump Jr. can't serve as executives for
a couple of years, whatever the hell
that means. Cuz they cheat on that
anyway. They just tell the guy who who
is the figureheaded Trump organization,
do this, do that. What are they what are
you going to do? Sue them? bring them to
trial. No. So this means So guys, the
part that makes sense to me in the
ruling is it was always a very big
number. It was a giant number. So if
they said, "Hey, that's excessive." I
get it. Okay. Um but now the number is
zero.
What?
All or nothing, baby.
Okay. That that doesn't make any sense
because they're saying he is guilty.
He's definitely guilty, right? But then
how could the number be zero? So, okay.
So, that's just perplexing. Uh, so look,
when you look at the actual case itself,
we discussed this obviously as the case
was happening, but um, number one, uh,
if stuff like this is around the edges,
you know, oh, he
valued his property at 15% more than he
should have. But, you know, that's
debatable because if you look at it this
way or you look at it that way, nobody's
going to trial over that, right? let
alone getting convicted, let alone 300
and some odd million in the beginning,
500 million by the end. Right? But
Trump, of course, as always, is
extraordinary. So, as you heard
partially there in that video, sometimes
he'd say three times the amount of a
property
because he's thinking, "Who cares? I've
been lying my whole life on all of these
forms. I'm going to keep on lying and
I'm going to treat everybody as a
sucker." Now, if you say, "Well, yeah,
but he eventually paid those loans back,
which is actually near miraculous
because he almost never does." Okay, but
he did in this case, and no one sued him
civily, etc., uh, so there was no harm.
That's not true because if you have
higher leverage and neg and and
collateral, um, your interest r going to
be lower. So, you're going to save
millions of dollars from that deal that
otherwise should have gone to a
creditor, right? So, there's definitely
harm involved. Uh, and so since he was
Two-tiered justice system
so flagrant about it, if you don't
punish him, what you're doing is you're
sending a message to everyone else.
Yeah. Cheat all you want. It doesn't
matter.
That's definitely the message. And um,
you should.
Yeah. Except be careful. Be careful,
guys.
Unless you're an ordinary American
citizen, just a normie, don't do it
because
Don't do it. They'll crush you.
They will re terror on you. Okay.
Prosecutors will come for you. appeals
courts will give you the middle finger
if they even consider your appeal. Um,
we live in a two-tier justice system. I
don't know what else to say. Of of
course, of course. Let me just give you
one statement from Peter Molton. Hold
on. One of the appeals judges who argued
this. While harm certainly occurred, it
was not the cataclysmic harm that can
justify a nearly half billion dollar
award to the state. Okay, fair enough.
So, what is the liability?
Zero zero dollars.
What's the justification for that? So, I
don't know. I like
right now our government our country is
being looted by the richest people in
the world. Okay. Just high high.
It's just I don't know. I I the robbery
never ends. There is no justice. I don't
know what else I can comment on in this
story. I'm not surprised at all at all
by this.
So, you know, so from time to time I'll
say, "Hey, you know, Trump voters are
actually not wrong about X, Y, or Z."
And in this case, the the fine was
excessive, right? But the one thing
they're massively wrong about for sure,
I can name many other things, too, but
uh is this idea that the exception is
being made to target Donald Trump. No,
the exception is being made to shield
and protect Donald Trump. Because what
that's why I was jumping into what Anna
was saying, don't do this. Even if
you're a normie, don't even come close
to doing this. Uh but even if you're
wealthy, uh the very last thing you want
to do is try to cheat the banks in
America because the banks have
disproportionate power. You want to get
arrested, there's a one surefire way.
Lie even 1% half 0.01% to Goldman Sachs.
Oh, you're a goner. They don't care. You
know, you could be I've seen them put
away super rich people. I've seen them
put away uh Goldman Sachs workers,
former board members, etc. Anyone that
touches Goldman Sachs, even like a
little scratch, and you go to prison for
a long, long time. Okay. The one
exception to ripping off banks in
America is the Trump exception. He Trump
is even allowed to rip off the banks,
which is amazing.
It's not just Trump. Maybe in regard to
committing the level of fraud that Trump
was found guilty of committing, right?
maybe in that case. But in terms of
engaging in behavior that would
typically get an ordinary American, you
know, imprisoned, prosecuted as harshly
as possible, imprisoned, heavy fines.
That same behavior uh is carried out by
people in our political class, in the
elite class, and they get away with it.
I mean, the prime example of course is
insider trading, which happens inside
Congress on a regular basis with
impunity. So, we just have to accept the
fact that we don't live in the type of
country that we learned about in our
history books in public schools. Okay?
We don't live in a country that believes
in justice. We don't live in a country
that actually believes in equality. Uh
we are not governed by the people. We
are governed by the corporate elite and
by Israel. Let's keep it real. Uh that's
the reality of our country. And so my
question to the American people,
regardless of how you identify, which
tribe you think you belong to, left or
right, do you want to take your country
back? Do you want to live in the country
that we learned about in our history
books? Because that's what I want. I am
sick of the powerful looting this
country. I am sick of ordinary people,
okay? uh dealing with a government
that's more interested in reigning
terror on them if they step out of line
a little bit and want answers to some
pretty important questions about why we
engage in the foreign policy we engage
in why it is that the wealthiest people
pay a far smaller percentage of their
income if you want to call capital gains
income uh to taxes compared to ordinary
hardworking Americans who have to rely
on a wage in order to feed their
families that's the country we live in
people think oh Anna's red pill I'm not
redpilled. I'm blackpilled. Blackpilled
means I look at both parties. I look at
our political system and I look at how
Americans get shafted day in and day
out. And unless people are serious about
changing it, everything else we talk
about is a waste of time. That's how I
feel.
Uh get money out of politics, fight
corruption. We'll have the link down
below. Last thing I'll say is just to be
clear, look, the rich get away with
almost everything, but you have to
grease the politicians. Um, so don't
like when they do the insider trading on
Congress, that doesn't cost the banks
anything. That doesn't cost the market
anything. In fact, it adds to the
market. What it does is it cost the
average guy that's investing without
that information. So, you wind up at a
massive disadvantage. So, anything that
disadvantages the average guy, the
people in power love and will protect
because they're the ones that are taking
advantage of you, right? So, you just
can't cross Goldman Sachs and the big
banks. Now, for the first time, asterisk
unless you're Donald Trump. Same thing
with you can't lose money running a
casino. Had to put an asterisk on that
one, too. Unless you're Donald Trump,
right? So, be careful. The regular the
rules that apply to the super wealthy
and connected do not apply to you. They
will come down on you like a ton of
bricks if you break any of these rules.
Every time you ring the bell below, an
angel gets his wings. Totally not true,
but it does keep you updated on our live
shows.

[admin]

Former Trump lawyer Alina Habba's appointment as U.S. attorney for New Jersey was 'unlawful,' judge rules. The federal judge found that Habba "unlawfully held the role" of the state's top prosecutor for more than a month.
by Dareh Gregorian and Chloe Atkins
NBCs News
Aug. 21, 2025, 2:10 PM MDT / Updated Aug. 21, 2025, 8:41 PM MDT
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justic ... rcna226417

[x]
Alina Habba outside the White House on March 24.Samuel Corum / Bloomberg via Getty Images file

A federal judge found Thursday that acting U.S. Attorney Alina Habba's appointment was "unlawful" and that her actions since July as the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey may be declared void.

"The Executive branch has perpetuated Alina Habba’s appointment to act as the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey through a novel series of legal and personnel moves," U.S. District Judge Matthew W. Brann wrote in a 77-page ruling.

"Faced with the question of whether Ms. Habba is lawfully performing the functions and duties of the office of the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey, I conclude that she is not," Brann added.

Because Habba, a former Trump lawyer, is "not currently qualified to exercise the functions and duties of the office in an acting capacity, she must be disqualified from participating in any ongoing cases," he wrote.

Habba criticized the ruling Thursday evening in an interview on Fox News, bashing both Senate Democrats, whom she accused of delaying her confirmation, and "rogue judges" whom she accused of "trying to be political."

"I am the pick of the president. I am the pick of Pam Bondi, our attorney general, and I will serve this country like I have for the last several years in any capacity," Habba said.

Brann said his order is on hold pending appellate proceedings, meaning it will not take immediate effect to allow the Trump administration time to appeal the decision.

In his ruling, Brann cited numerous issues with how Habba was appointed. President Donald Trump initially named her interim U.S. attorney on March 24, replacing another person who had been named interim U.S. attorney three weeks earlier.

Habba was sworn in on March 28, but interim appointments are capped at 120 days. Trump nominated her to be the permanent U.S. attorney on June 30, but the "Senate did not act," Brann noted.

On July 22, judges of the U.S. District Court of New Jersey invoked their statutory power to appoint a new U.S. attorney — Habba's deputy.

"Trump Administration officials were not pleased with that appointment," Brann noted, and "conceived a multi-step maneuver" to keep Habba on the job.

Attorney General Pam Bondi fired Habba's successor and appointed Habba as "Special Attorney to the Attorney General" and then named her to the opened deputy spot, which allowed her to become acting U.S. attorney.

Brann found the moves were improper and a way to sidestep the Senate's role in the process. He also found that Habba hadn't legally been appointed deputy and that her appointment as interim U.S. attorney expired earlier than the government maintains it did.

“We will immediately appeal,” Bondi said on X. She wrote that Habba “is doing incredible work in New Jersey — and we will protect her position from activist judicial attacks.”

The challenge to Habba's appointment came from two criminal defendants, and the judge found she was disqualified from having any involvement with their cases.

Abbe Lowell and Gerald Krovatin, the attorneys for one of the men, said in a statement that Habba's "appointment ignored the rules that give legitimacy to the U.S. Attorney’s office. We appreciate the thoroughness of the court’s opinion, and its decision underscores that this Administration cannot circumvent the congressionally mandated process for confirming U.S. Attorney appointments.”

The New Jersey U.S. attorney's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Brann, a Republican who was nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama, is chief judge for the Middle District of Pennsylvania and was specially designated to hear the case.

The ruling comes on a day when Habba scored a huge legal victory dating to her time representing Trump — an appeals court dismissed the New York attorney general's $500 million fraud judgment against Trump.

Habba, who'd been one of the attorneys on the case, posted about the ruling on X earlier in the day, calling the fraud action against him "politically motivated" and "legally baseless."

"President Trump won — and justice won with him," she wrote.

Dareh Gregorian is a politics reporter for NBC News. Chloe Atkins reports for the NBC News National Security and Law Unit, based in New York.

[admin]

FBI Targets Yet Another Former Trump Official Because He Made Trump Mad. This isn’t about John Bolton. It’s about everyone else who Trump wants the government to destroy because his feelings got hurt
by Asawin Suebsaeng
Rolling Stone
August 22, 2025
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/p ... 235413872/

[x]
President Donald Trump (left). John Bolton (right). (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images; Mario Cantu/Cal Sport Media/AP Images)

On Friday, the FBI executed a search of the Maryland home of Donald Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton, who left his first administration on bitter terms, only to become one of Trump’s more prominent Republican foes.

Some sources are claiming the raid is part of a “national security investigation in search of classified records” (though details and justifications are so far not being presented) and Trump’s MAGA-loyalist FBI Director Kash Patel is celebrating the move on social media.

It is unclear what the feds did, or didn’t, find. Lawfare’s Ben Wittes, who was on the scene of the FBI raid, tells Rolling Stone: “I didn’t see them leaving with stuff,” but that “I was pushed back and didn’t have a direct view.” Wittes adds he did not see Bolton himself this morning.

The [email protected]

Lawfare’s Ben Wittes was the first person on the scene of the John Bolton raid. This is what he saw: http://www.thebulwark.com/p/fbi-action...


BREAKING: FBI Raids John Bolton’s Home (w/ Ben Wittes)
The Bulwark
Aug 22, 2025 Bulwark Takes

Tim Miller and Ben Wittes on the FBI’s early morning search of former National Security Advisor John Bolton’s home in Bethesda, Maryland.

Transcript

Hey everybody, Tim Miller from the Bulwark
here. Um, we have some breaking
news. Uh, former Trump National Security
Advisor turned Trump critic John
Bolton's home was raided uh this morning
by the FBI uh before uh 7:00 a.m.
Eastern time. Um, I hopped on a live
stream with Law Affairs Ben Wittis um
who uh was first on the scene uh
reporting this. Uh he had video from uh
the street outside Bolton's house which
has been shut down had information
confirmed uh by the local police that it
was an FBI raid um about half hour or so
after uh Whittis and and we at the
Bullark reported on this raid uh the FBI
confirmed to the New York Post their
propaganda rag of choice uh that this
was in fact um a raid on John Bolton's
home and that it was related to what did
they say a national security probe they
called it. Um I think that at this point
we have uh reporting from other national
security reporters who have confirmed
this is related to the classified
documents uh case back in 2020. Uh if
you don't remember there was Trump
administration was pissed that John
Bolton was writing a book critiquing
Trump. Um there's some push back that he
had not had some of the material in that
book approved um through the the normal
channel. that you go through to get
sensitive information approved before
you can publish it in a book. Um,
there's an open investigation to him at
the time. Um, this uh raid appears to be
at least tangentially related to that.
Maybe there's some related classified
documents issues. We don't know for uh
this had to be approved by a judge. I
think it's important to to note. So,
they presented at least some evidence to
a judge that that uh that judge felt
merited a search. Um, so that's where we
are right now. I want to play for you um
this live stream uh that we're doing
over on Substack. Shout out to Ben
Whittis um who, you know, initiated that
that live stream. Um he uh writes for
Lawfair and his Substack is Dog Shirt
Daily. So go ahead and check that out.
Um so stick around. Here's me and Ben
with us live this morning. Um well, Ben
Witt us at least is outside of John
Bolton's house. I'm here in my studio
and uh we will be back soon uh with more
on this matter.
I am here on Fernwood Road in Bethesda,
Maryland. Um where uh uh I believe uh
the FBI is conducting a
uh executing a search warrant. Uh I'm
not sure exactly what is happening, but
I believe there is a search going on at
the home of John Bolton.
Uh the street, as you'll see, is sealed
off uh by the Montgomery County Police
who have informed me that they are here
in support of FBI activity. Um, the FBI
activity appears to be uh directly in
front of the house that I believe to be
owned by, uh, John Bolton, the former
national security adviser.
Um, uh, this is consistent with the
FBI's,
uh, normal practice of doing executing
search warrants, uh, early in the
morning. Um uh so
um
uh let me give you everything I know
about this action. Um number one, of
course, uh John Bolton was the national
security adviser during the first Trump
administration for a period of uh I
don't know 17 18 months. It was
tumultuous.
And as you will recall, after um uh his
uh departure, he wrote a scathing book
um about uh Trump and has been a fierce
Trump critic ever since. The book uh and
I'm doing this from memory, so if some
of the details are wrong, please forgive
me. The book was submitted to
pre-publication review. Um but it was uh
submitted to pre-publication review
um only after
uh um
uh only a uh and then publication review
dragged on forever and Bolton felt um
that there was uh he was trying they
were trying to silence him uh and stifle
criticism. I believe it had to go
through prepub twice. Once it was
cleared and then the second time uh
there was supposed classified material
uh found uh in it. He went ahead and
published anyway and the administration
uh launched a criminal investigation.
Um, that criminal investigation
uh ended,
as far as I can tell, when the Biden
administration came in. Um and
uh according to a very cursory survey,
the statute of limitations for any
charges related to that book which would
have been was published in 2020
would be expiring very soon. So here is
my very loose hypothesis as to what is
going on here. Um, and I can't get any
closer than this. As you can see, I'm
standing at the police line. There is no
other press here. Um uh and um so here
is what I what I think is happening
which is that among the national
security officials who um
uh
Trump really has a be in his bonnet to
get. Most of them, as I have explained
in my columns, have uh really zero
criminal exposure. And it really takes
an act of paranoid fantasy to think
you're going to indict John Brennan or
you. So, you can see there a guy in an
FBI jacket up there. I can't zoom in any
further. Um but we this is definitely an
FBI operation, not these cars would not
withstanding a Montgomery County police
operation. Um and so uh we've got at
least three FBI vehicles there as well
as there may be more. Um
um so among the
among the um uh
officials who have uh I mean both Bolton
is really the only one I think with any
significant exposure. Um he's got a you
know he did actually publish something
after defying pre-pub review and um uh
um and he did um uh and you know the
government has contended
whether correctly or tendentiously that
there is classified material in there.
Uh the statute of limitations is about
to run. I think they have nothing as
best as I've been able to discern on
anybody else. And so you have a sudden
situation where they very much want
scalps and uh and a senior official
scalp is uh really the gold standard.
And so um
uh you know Mr. Bolton is
uh a highly attractive figure. Uh and by
the way um uh doing it by search warrant
is theatrical. It's impossible for me to
imagine that um you couldn't get
anything you wanted from John Bolton
with a subpoena. But then if you do
that, you don't get uh a scene like
this.
Um and so an early morning thing that
the press will call a raid. Um and
without um and you know um assuming that
this is a court authorized lawfully
executed search warrant um uh and not
you know a a raid. Um, you know, that's
a, um,
uh, that said, uh, doing it this way
allows, uh, a lot of pictures. Um, so we
are joined now by, uh, Tyler McBryan,
our managing editor, uh, at Lawfair. Um,
and, um, uh, um, Tyler, can you hear me?
Okay.
Sure can. Can you hear me?
Yep, I hear you just fine. Um
uh I don't know how much there is to do
here other than what we've already done,
which is to alert people that this is
happening. Um maybe to alert some of the
rest of the press. Um uh and
um I have sent some pictures of this uh
what's going on to
uh uh friends at a media organization
that will identify itself if it so
chooses and in a manner in which it
chooses. Uh but for those who are just
joining us, um uh the FBI appears to be
conducting
uh a search warrant. I assume it is not
an arrest, but uh there is FBI activity
at a house that I believe to be John
Bolton's house uh in Bethesda.
Um, and this is a um
uh
um
uh I assume it is related to the
investigation of Bolton's book um and
the classified information investigation
uh that took place and I had thought was
closed although maybe it was reopened or
maybe it was never closed. I know of no
other reason why the FBI would be uh
executing a search warrant at John
Bolton's house.
Um but uh if they are going to move on
this and actually charge him, they have
a very limited window of time in which
to do it. So what else can I tell you,
Tyler?
Um what else are you seeing? How many uh
law enforcement officials are there?
So, there are at least four Montgomery
County police vehicles, but before I
started live streaming, uh the MOCO
officers told me they were here in
support of the FBI. I have seen two or
three cars I assume to be FBI and I have
seen one car that I and I've seen one p
some personnel at least one person
wearing an FBI jacket. So this is
definitely an FBI operation. Um I have
visual confirmation of that and I have
uh confirmation of that from the
Montgomery County Police.
So, uh, what happens now? What do you
imagine is taking place inside the house
and and, uh, where do you see this
going?
Well, so I I mean,
uh,
first of all, a search warrant is a long
affair, and I am not going to stay to
live stream the whole thing. Um, uh,
message to the rest of the press. Uh,
I'm going to be here for about another
10 or 15 minutes and then I'm going to
go home and do dog shirt TV at 8:00 as
normally scheduled. Um, and um, so, you
know, if you want to follow this thing,
CNN,
New York Times, uh, you know, get your
asses out to the corner of Bradley
Boulevard and Fernwood. Um, I would feel
better about leaving if somebody else
were here. Honestly, there's um but
what's going to happen is so a a search
warrant is often an all day affair. So
what they have done is they've sealed
off both ends of the street. Uh they
will have already, I'm sure, pounded on
the door uh uh and announced their
presence. Um, and they will, um, I
assume that Bolton is calling his lawyer
as we speak or has already done so. I
wouldn't be surprised if his lawyer, who
I assume is uh, Chuck Cooper, will show
up at some time in the uh, uh, near
future. Um uh and then they will go
through the house um looking for the
things they have specified in the
warrant. Um I don't know if that's
classified material that they're or
allegedly classified material that
they're seeking to recover or if it's
something else. Um you know, I don't
know what the purported basis for the
warrant is. Um and okay, so here is
another unmarked
um car that is clearly
uh uh you know a a vehicle, a law
enforcement vehicle of some kind. I
assume this is an FBI vehicle. Um and
so you know they have a list of things
that they're looking for and um they are
under the terms of the warrant assuming
everything was done properly entitled to
go through the uh house and find uh the
material that they're uh uh looking for.
Um the
um
uh
um
so you know that's they will be here as
long as they can and of course they have
to itemize everything that they seize um
and present a list of it to uh Mr.
Bolton
and Ben, can you remind us if uh if
we'll see that list of items, if this uh
warrant will be unsealed and and if so,
if it's possible, how long that that
typically takes?
Well, it you know, they always
eventually get unsealed. I I if
something is charged, you know, if
something's not charged, then it gets a
little bit muddier. But generally
speaking, if you do um uh if you do a um
uh
um if you you know when you do a warrant
like this, you're going to get a um
in a high-profile case, unless there's
some significant national security
reason, you're going to eventually see
it unsealed. Um, you know, um, look, I
don't know what they are purporting to
recover, what what they're looking for,
and I don't know what the basis of the
search warrant is, right? Is it Hello,
Tim Miller.
Hello, Ben Witt. How are things in
Bethesda this morning?
Well, it's a lovely morning in Bethesda.
Um, I've had pleasant interactions with
uh these two Montgomery County police
officers
uh who um uh came to check on me earlier
and another one uh down the block uh a
plane close officer um and they informed
me that they're here in support of the
FBI which is uh they did not confirm but
they did not uh uh uh object to my
characterization of it as um conducting
a search warrant at uh the home of John
Bolton. Uh they certainly didn't
contradict that. And when they asked me
what lawfair was and I told them our
interest in this, which is we're a
national security publication, John
Bolton was a was the national security
adviser. We were very interested in his
book and we followed the investigation
of his book. Uh, I was told, "Wow, you
seem to know a lot about this case.
Might you be of assistance to the
investigation?"
Um, and um, and they seem to be a little
bit puzzled as to why I was here or how
I uh, how I knew to be here, which I'm
certainly not.
Maybe they're recruiting you. There's a
big ICE recruitment effort right now.
Yeah, exactly.
Potentially there's an FBI recruitment
effort as Well, I have had no contact
with the bureau, only with uh Montgomery
County uh police officers who I want to
say were totally professional. I saw
them under weird circumstances, which is
that I was sitting outside John Bolton's
house. Um and they thought I was
trespassing and asked me to move. And
they asked me what I was doing there and
I said, "I'm expecting police action."
And a little while later they turned out
um they turned out realized I was not a
crazy person stalking.
Well, I don't know about that.
You might be both a crazy person in
there for good reason. So So is the
entire block there?
The entire street is sealed off from uh
so this uh runs from Bradley Boulevard
down to uh a street called Green Tree
down there. And I assume they have
sealed it off at both ends.
Um and and what's the extent? I mean,
right now we can just kind of see the
Montgomery County police like what is
Yeah. So there is there are three
probably more at least uh black vehicles
up there that are FBI. And I did see one
person get out wearing a FBI jacket. It
was not Cash Patel. Um uh and um yeah.
So, I mean, honestly, this is going to
sound like a weird thing to say, but um
my main concern right now is for John.
um yeah
whom I don't know well but I and have
uh deep political differences with but I
uh think is um you know I can't imagine
under what circumstances
uh an FBI
uh early morning uh raid on his house
rather than say a uh you know a subpoena
is the appropriate way to get documents
from him.
Yeah.
Not enough press. Have any any news
bands showed up yet?
Uh there are no press here and um I am
still the only one and I will not be
here for much longer because I have dog
shirt TV at 8:00.
That man or beast.
Can dog shirt can dog shirt TV not be um
not be streamed from Bethesda? Well,
don't TV um requires uh you know, we
have a guest today and um and so, you
know, I think like you know, I'm happy
to get up at 4 in the morning to be out
here, but I'm not going to stay here all
day. So,
yeah. Um,
and it's worth noting that they um, you
know, that that I think one of Trump's
first actions when he went in to office
was to uh, you know, get rid of uh, John
Bolton's um, clearance and then
eventually stripped security from John
Bolton alto together. He had he had
federal protection because the Iranian
plot against him. So, you know, and this
this is not a this is not this is not
coming from nowhere. He was also in Cash
Patel's book. on his list on the members
of the executive branch deep state.
Um so
you can now see I don't know if anybody
can see this but I can see it. Um there
are a number of law enforcement
personnel there some of whom are wearing
FBI jackets uh on the other side of that
black car. um if I had a problem.
Kind of hard to see.
Um yeah, I'm I'm not sure if it's
visible, but it's it's definitely there.
Um
Ben Witt's eyes better than the iPhone
camera. That's
Well, the iPhone camera is zoomed out
and I don't think I can zoom it in. Um
yeah, it doesn't uh it doesn't zoom
really. So, um, look, I mean, my
assumption is
that this is an effort to beat the
clock. This was a loose end from the
previous Trump administration and this
is an effort to beat the clock on um,
uh, on
um, you know, on a fast running statute.
Hey, Ben. We actually do uh they've uh
they've leaked this news to their
preferred outlet, the New York Post. Um
so, let's see. New York Post has this.
FBI agents raided John Bolton's DC area
home Friday morning in a quote
high-profile national security probe.
The Post can exclusively reveal, I
guess, the Post is not monitoring the
dog shirt daily Substack live stream,
but there you go. Um they they describe
it this way. Federal agents busted into
Bolton's house at 7 a.m. investigation
ordered by the FBI.
Um, and they've got pictures of Bolton
leaving the house here. The New York
Post does. So, I guess they were along
for the ride along.
Yeah, they may have gotten a ride along.
I wasn't offered a ride along. Um uh but
if uh if anybody uh you know um uh is
asking like you know how did the New
York Post find out about this? Um uh you
know the answer is um
you know loose lips uh sink ships but
they also uh do a world of good for
publicity and right-wing media and uh we
know which is the um which is the uh
preferred
uh you know which is the higher priority
for these people. Um,
uh, I don't know that there's much else
for me to tell you guys from here. Um,
it's I don't think the view is going to
change very much. Um, uh, I can try to
walk around to where I may be able to
get a different view of it, but I'm not
sure. Let me let me see if I can do
that. Um,
uh, I'm I'm not optimistic about getting
a frontal view of the house. Um,
yeah, we have a tweet we have a tweet
from, uh, Cash Patel. Uh, no one is
above the law. All caps, no one. FBI
agents on a mission.
Yeah. Well, um I would like to point out
that it is not the normal practice of
the FBI to announce uh uh search warrant
executions midstream by tweet. Um and um
uh that is an absolutely outrageous
thing for Cash Patel to do. We are now
uh getting a few uh other people here
with us. Um
uh but I think I am gonna sign off
pretty soon because
my job is done which is was to make sure
that this news became available
through somebody more responsible than
the New York Post uh faster.
Um I agree. Thanks so much for your work
up there, Ben. Um, and everybody else,
we'll probably pop on the bull work with
some folks here in um, I don't know,
maybe in a half an hour or so um, with
additional stuff. And you can watch Ben
on Dog Shirt Daily. We'll be talking to
you'all soon.

Whatever Bolton, a Bush-era Iraq War propagandist and regime-change enthusiast who later joined the first Trump White House as a top aide, does or doesn’t have in his house is almost irrelevant to what’s going on here: An openly lawless administration and Republican Party that pretends to hate the “Deep State” is merely expanding it, repurposing it to punish Trump’s personal nemeses. Republicans, of course, worked to shield Trump from any accountability in his post-presidency after Mar-a-Lago was raided by the feds because he wouldn’t stop hoarding classified documents.

But more importantly, Trump’s FBI has been going after Bolton for the same reason this administration launched, at the president’s explicit direction, a criminal investigation into a man whose only crime seems to be his refusal to help Trump steal an election. He pissed off Trump, so now he has to suffer. In the new authoritarian age of Trump, that is true for so many on the federal government’s ever-growing enemies list, and it doesn’t matter if you’re a famous warmonger or a powerless civilian.

It’s not about John Bolton; it is about everyone else.

Trump’s former national security adviser did not immediately respond to Rolling Stone’s request for comment Friday morning.

The president and his team have wanted to prosecute Bolton ever since Trump’s first term in the Oval Office, arguing that Bolton’s 2020 memoir criticizing Trump was grounds enough. Per CNN, sources say the search of Bolton’s house was related to an investigation into whether he shared classified information in that book.

According to sources with direct knowledge of the matter, Trump and his lieutenants this year have wanted to find a variety of ways to put the screws to Bolton and other high-profile foes — to make examples of them, whether or not criminal charges or a trial ever actually occur.

In January, one of Trump’s first acts as a reelected president was to revoke Bolton’s Secret Service detail, which President Joe Biden had extended, citing an alleged Iranian scheme to assassinate Bolton. (It’s worth noting that Iran’s government allegedly wants to murder Bolton specifically because of things President Trump had him do.)

“That’s terrible, I shouldn’t say that,” Trump would privately say, with a smirk on his face.

[admin]

Federal judge orders closure of Trump’s ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ immigration jail. Judge’s order finds jail, which has attracted waves of criticism, was causing severe harm to Florida Everglades
by Richard Luscombe in Miami
The Guardian
Thu 21 Aug 2025 22.06 EDT
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... dge-ruling

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.692544/gov.uscourts.flsd.692544.131.0_1.pdf
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA
CASE NO. 25-22896-CV-WILLIAMS

FRIENDS OF THE EVERGLADES, INC., et al.,
Plaintiffs,
v.
KRISTI NOEM, et al.,
Defendants.

OMNIBUS ORDER

... For the reasons set forth above, it is ORDERED AND ADJUDGED as follows:

1. For the purposes of Defendants becoming compliant with their obligations under
NEPA, the Court GRANTS IN PART AND DENIES IN PART Plaintiffs’ Motion for
a Preliminary Injunction (DE 5), as follows:

2. The Court ENTERS a Preliminary Injunction prohibiting the State and Federal
Defendants39 and their officers, agents, employees, attorneys, and any person
who is in active concert or participation with them from (1) installing any additional
industrial-style lighting (described by witnesses as “Sunbelt” lighting); or doing any
paving, filling, excavating, or fencing; or doing any other site expansion, including
placing or erecting any additional buildings, tents, dormitories, or other residential
or administrative facilities on the TNT site; and (2) bringing any additional persons
onto the TNT site who were not already being detained at the site at the time of
this Order going into effect. The Preliminary Injunction does not prohibit
modification or repairs to existing facilities, which are solely for the purpose of
increasing safety or mitigating environmental or other risks at the site.

3. The Preliminary Injunction shall include among those “who are in active concert or
participation with” the State or Federal Defendants or their officers, agents,
employees, or attorneys, and thus prohibited from conducting the activities
specified above, any contractors, subcontractors, or any other individuals or
entities authorized to conduct work on the TNT site or provide detainee
transportation or detention services. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 65(d)(2)(C) (including
“other persons who are in active concert or participation with” the parties or the
parties’ officers, agents, servants, employees, and attorneys among those bound
by any injunction).

39 Though state agencies are not subject to the APA, when “state and federal [actions]
are sufficiently interrelated,” the Court may enjoin state entities from acting in violation of
NEPA. Citizens for Smart Growth v. Sec’y of Dep’t of Transp., 669 F.3d 1203, 1210 (11th
Cir. 2012) (citation omitted) (exercising jurisdiction over the Florida Department of
Transportation Secretary in a NEPA case because the project in question featured FDOT
“working in tandem with federal agencies”).

4. No later than sixty (60) days from the date of this order, and once the population
attrition allows for safe implementation of this Order,40 the Defendants shall
remove 1) the temporary fencing installed by Defendants to allow Tribe members
access to the site consistent with the access they enjoyed before the erection of
the detention camp; 2) the Sunbelt lighting fixtures and any additional lighting
installed for the use of the property as a detention facility; and 3) all generators,
gas, sewage, and other waste and waste receptacles that were installed to support
this project.

5. Finally, Plaintiffs shall post a bond of $100. See BellSouth Telecomm., Inc. v.
MCImetro Access Transmission Servs., LLC, 425 F.3d 964, 971 (11th Cir. 2005)
(internal citations omitted) (“the amount of security required by the rule is a matter
within the discretion of the trial court”).

40 Based on Defendants’ representation that the site is currently being used as a
transportation spoke to other facilities, the Court is relying on programmatic attrition of the
camp’s population within the next sixty days. See C.M. v. Noem, 25-cv-23182 (S.D. Fla.),
ECF 50-1 ¶¶ 10 (stating that the detention facility on the TNT site “provides short-term
housing while longer term housing or removal arrangements are secured for aliens”). This
attrition will allow Defendants time to remove the newly installed fencing, lighting, and
other fixtures and utilities apparatus in a safe, humane, and responsible manner. The
housing and detention dormitory facilities may remain and be maintained to prevent
deterioration or damage.

DONE AND ORDERED in Chambers in Miami, Florida, on this 21st day of August,
2025.

KATHLEEN M. WILLIAMS
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

A federal judge in Miami late on Thursday ordered the closure of the Trump administration’s notorious “Alligator Alcatraz” immigration jail within 60 days, and ruled that no more detainees were to be brought to the facility while it was being wound down.

The shock ruling by district court judge Kathleen Williams builds on a temporary restraining order she issued two weeks ago halting further construction work at the remote tented camp, which has attracted waves of criticism for harsh conditions, abuse of detainees and denial of due process as they await deportation.

In her 82-page order, published in the US district court’s southern district of Florida on Friday, Williams determined the facility was causing severe and irreparable damage to the fragile Florida Everglades.

She also noted that a plan to develop the site on which the jail was built into a huge tourist airport was rejected in the 1960s because of the harm it would have caused the the land and delicate ecosystem.

“Since that time, every Florida governor, every Florida senator, and countless local and national political figures, including presidents, have publicly pledged their unequivocal support for the restoration, conservation, and protection of the Everglades,” she wrote.

“This order does nothing more than uphold the basic requirements of legislation designed to fulfill those promises.”

No further construction at the site can take place, she ruled, and there must be no further increase in the number of detainees currently held there, estimated to be about 700. After the 60-day period, all construction materials, fencing, generators and fixtures that made the site a detention camp must be removed.

The ruling is a significant victory for a coalition of environmental groups and a native American tribe that sued the state of Florida and the federal government. Williams agreed that the hasty, eight-day construction of the jail at a disused airfield in late June damaged the sensitive wetlands of a national preserve and further imperiled federally protected species.

“This is a landmark victory for the Everglades and countless Americans who believe this imperiled wilderness should be protected, not exploited,” said Eve Samples, executive director of Friends of the Everglades, one of the groups that filed the lawsuit.

“It sends a clear message that environmental laws must be respected by leaders at the highest levels of our government, and there are consequences for ignoring them.”

The alliance plans to hold a press conference on Friday morning to discuss the ruling in detail.

Conversely, the ruling is a blow to the detention and deportation agenda of the Trump administration. The president touted the camp, which recently held as many as 1,400 detainees, as a jail for “some of the most vicious people on the planet”, although hundreds of those held there have no criminal record or active criminal proceedings against them.

There was no immediate reaction to Williams’s ruling from the Florida department of emergency management, which operates the jail on behalf of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (Ice), or from the Department of Homeland Security.

But lawyers for the state told Williams in court last week that they would appeal any adversarial ruling, the Miami Herald reported.

In addition, hundreds of detainees were moved from “Alligator Alcatraz” to other immigration facilities at the weekend in anticipation that Williams would order its closure, the outlet said.

Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Republican governor, announced earlier this month that the state will soon open a second immigration jail at a disused prison near Gainesville to increase capacity.

[admin]

Kilmar Ábrego García released from criminal custody after court order. Ábrego will return home to Maryland from Tennessee for first time after wrongful deportation to El Salvador
by Maya Yang
The Guardian
Fri 22 Aug 2025 15.28 EDT
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... ia-release


The Trump administration had faced immense pressure to return Kilmar Ábrego García home. Photograph: Abrego Garcia Family/Reuters

Kilmar Ábrego García has been freed on Friday from criminal custody in Tennessee so he can rejoin his family in Maryland while awaiting trial on human smuggling charges, after a court ordered his release.

Magistrate judge Barbara Holmes issued an order allowing the father of two to leave custody for the first time since his return to the US in June, following his wrongful deportation to El Salvador earlier this year.

In a statement following his release, Ábrego’s lawyer, Sean Hecker said: “Today, Kilmar Ábrego García is free. He is presently en route to his family in Maryland, after being unlawfully arrested and deported, and then imprisoned, all because of the government’s vindictive attack on a man who had the courage to fight back against the administration’s continuing assault on the rule of law. He is grateful that his access to American courts has provided meaningful due process.”

Ábrego entered the US without permission in about 2011 as a teenager after fleeing gang violence. He was subsequently afforded a federal protection order against deportation to El Salvador.

The 30-year-old was initially deported by federal immigration officials in March. Though the Trump administration admitted that Ábrego’s deportation was an “administrative error,” officials have repeatedly accused Ábrego of being affiliated with the MS-13 gang, a claim Ábrego and his family vehemently deny.

During his detention at El Salvador’s so-called Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), Ábrego was physically and psychologically tortured, according to court documents filed by his lawyers in July.

Following Ábrego’s wrongful deportation, the Trump administration faced widespread pressure to return him to the US, including from a supreme court order that directed federal officials to “facilitate” his return.

In June, the Trump administration returned Ábrego from El Salvador, only to charge him with crimes related to human smuggling, which his lawyers have rejected as “preposterous”. His criminal trial is expected to begin in January.

Before his deportation, Ábrego had lived in Maryland for more than a decade, working in construction while being married to an American wife.

In a court filing this week, his lawyers stated that they had hired a “private security firm that has experience providing court-approved pre-trial transportation and security services in criminal cases” to transport Ábrego from Tennessee to Maryland.