Labor Groups Rally for Kilmar Abrego García - The Friday AM Quickie 5/2/25
Here's a question for the conspiracy theorists out there: if Alex Jones, Joe Rogan, and Glenn Greenwald aren't state media, then why do they appear to have government protection? Anyhoo. Whitney's back on Monday. - Corey
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THE BIG NEWS
Trump-Appointed Judge Calls Basis for Deportations Illegal
In his first term, Donald Trump nominated Fernando Rodriguez Jr. to a lifetime appointment as a federal judge in the Southern District of Texas. Yesterday, Judge Rodriguez, who formerly worked with an evangelical Christian mission to fight human trafficking in Latin America, dealt a blow to Trump's own depraved, state-backed human trafficking scheme: the mass deportation of Venezuelan migrants to a torture prison in El Salvador.
Trump's lawyers have justified the administration's signature crime against humanity under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act. Rodriguez ruled that the antiquated, rarely used law governs actual military invasions by foreign powers, and can't be invoked when there is no real invasion just because Trump "uttered certain magic words." The ruling only applies to migrants held by the feds in southern Texas and certainly doesn't prevent all unjustified deportations, but it is another significant courtroom defeat for Trump's campaign against human rights, due process, and the rule of law. "While this decision may not be binding on other federal courts, it is extremely detailed, well reasoned, well grounded in the law and hopefully other federal courts will consider it precedent," Elora Mukherjee, director of Columbia Law School’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, tells the Washington Post.
Also yesterday, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, the wife of wrongly deported Maryland man Kilmar Abrego García, spoke to a large crowd gathered outside the White House for a May Day protest. "I stand before you today with my head held high, demanding justice for my husband," she said, as the crowd chanted "Bring him home!" Abrego García, a sheet metal worker, is a member of the SMART Local 100 union. Labor unions including SMART, the AFL-CIO, and the Teamsters, yesterday submitted a joint letter to the Salvadoran embassy demanding Abrego García's return in line with the recent Supreme Court ruling and demanding justice for "all other workers who have been detained or deported without appropriate legal procedures." The letter calls Trump's attacks on immigrant workers "a tool to sow fear and division and to distract from the corporate takeover of our democratic and economic systems." On point!
MORE STORIES TO WATCH
Feds Pushed to Investigate Student Protesters for 'Terrorism'
The New York Times reports that Donald Trump's political appointees to the Justice Department are pulling out all the stops in their campaign to persecute student protesters for Palestinian rights. Career prosecutors and investigators in the DOJ's Civil Rights Division have responded with "anger and alarm" to unconstitutional demands by Trump lackeys including Emil Bove III and Todd Blanche to draw up "lists" of protesters that could be cross-referenced with immigration databases to deport anyone on a visa. The free speech crackdown included seeking search warrants on Instagram accounts to determine who has interacted with social media organizing campaigns – in particular a group called Columbia University Apartheid Divest. Pace University law professor Bennett Gershman tells the Times that Bove "did something that prosecutors are absolutely forbidden to do — use the law enforcement powers of the government to try to intimidate these individuals or destroy their rights" and profoundly contrary to the principles of justice. That's MAGA for you!
'Loomered': Laura Claims Another National Security Scalp
Donald Trump's unofficial national security adviser, Laura Loomer, yesterday took credit for the removal of the official White House National Security Adviser, Mike Waltz, who played a big role in the Signal messaging SNAFU, and who has been demoted to the administration's nominee for ambassador to the United Nations. Loomer was among other things perturbed by Waltz's choice of a "Chinese" deputy, Alex Wong. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was the one who actually posted classified information to Waltz's Signal messaging group, gets to keep his job (for now). The musical chairs shuffle leaves Secretary of State Marco Rubio as the official interim National Security Adviser, his fourth simultaneous position in Trump's cabinet. It's like a well-oiled machine, this White House.
QUICKEST QUICKIES
- Justice Department Ends Louisiana School Desegregation Order, Calling Civil Rights a 'Historical Wrong' Meanwhile, the Education Department began cutting $1 billion in mental health grants intended to help students cope with mass shootings. via the Associated Press and the Washington Post.
- RFK Jr.'s Health Department Pushes Conversion Therapy for Trans Youth in Anonymous 400-Page Propaganda Report "Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy, praised the report in the White House briefing room on Thursday, comparing the idea of being transgender to a 'cancerous communist woke culture' that is 'destroying the country.'" via HuffPost and the Advocate.
- 'This Helps No One': US Forest Service Officials Force Dozens of Homeless Campers Out of Woods Near Bend, Oregon "'The fact that they are doing this with such vigor shortly after they announced that the forests would be opened up for logging I don’t think is a coincidence,' said Jesse Rabinowitz, a spokesperson for the National Homelessness Law Center." via the AP, the Oregonian, and the New York Times.
- Starbucks Workers United Holds the Line on Wages Worker delegates rejected management's latest offer of 2 percent annual raises and say $96-million-a-year CEO Brian Niccol is an obstacle to constructive bargaining. via the Los Angeles Times.
SOME NUMBER
$550 million
That's how much cryptocurrency Trump's family company, World Liberty Financial, has sold worldwide, according to the New York Times. The company presses potential business partners to buy large amounts of its crypto coins up front, then transfers to 75 percent of the revenue to a family-controlled entity, "which could be converted into cash." Trump's son Eric runs the family crypto business with Zach Witkoff, the son of White House Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff; Eric and Zach yesterday announced a $2 billion crypto deal with Abu Dhabi at the Token2049 conference in Dubai.
ON THE SHOW TODAY
5/2: Happy Friday! Today's guest is Mehdi Hasan, founder of Zeteo.
DON'T MISS MR CLIPS
Venture Capitalist Claims Only Job AI Can't Do Is Venture Capitalism
Funny how that works.
Trump's Baseless '60 Minutes' Lawsuit Could Pay Off Thanks to Paramount's Deal
Is this Scott Pelley's Howard Beale moment?
PARTING WORDS
"Humans share those same environments. So if they're not healthy enough for birds, they're unlikely to be healthy enough for people, too."
-- Cornell University ecologist Amanda Rodewald, speaking to the Washington Post about a new study she co-authored showing that 75 percent of the bird species in North America are in decline, "the latest sign of a slow-moving extinction crisis that threatens entire ecosystems."
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