Trump Knows How to Deal With Putin and Leftists Do Not

posted by Jeff Davidson at Townhall 

As a wise sage once said, "It's déjà vu all over again." Leftist are whipping themselves into a frenzy, erroneously proclaiming that Russia, and Vladimir Putin in particular, continue to have something on Donald Trump by which they are controlling him.

“Bolshoi” as they say in Russia.

Trump Has Mastered the Art

Trump has no qualms about strongly dealing with Putin in the quest to achieve a lasting peace between Russia and Ukraine. What Trump understands, and well more than half of the U.S. populace does not, is that Putin won’t agree to a peace agreement if he is made to appear weak. So, Trump publicly cites his respect for Putin and provides some cover for him. Meanwhile, Trump maintains a position of strength and resolve.

Which is more important to the world? Is it making Putin look villainous or achieving peace? Eight years ago, in handling Putin, Trump characteristically took bold action, which Leftists continue to not know or not to acknowledge if they do know.

While the libstream media continues its non-stop, massive lies about Donald Trump being 'soft' on Russia, a brief trip down memory lane makes it abundantly clear that Trump knows what he’s doing and that no U.S. president in recent history has been any tougher on Russia.

Reviewing the Record

Starting in the spring of 2017, what did President Trump do to influence and otherwise contain Russian aggression? Here are but a handful of examples:

* Trump imposed sanctions on Russian companies and Russian entities, blocking at least $3 billion worth of deals from going into Russian coffers.

* He placed harsh economic restrictions on a group of Russian oligarchs, which effectively put more pressure on Putin. The Russian leader has illegally amassed enormous wealth – exceeding $25 billion – in the last several decades. Still, he can't hold all that wealth in his name, so he appoints oligarch cronies as his trustees. Putting his oligarchs on sanctions hurt Putin significantly.

* Trump levied financial sanctions and travel restrictions on 50-plus individuals accused of human rights abuses and corruption under both the Magnitsky Act and the Global Magnitsky Act.

* Trump criticized NATO allies, then and now, for not spending enough on defense. NATO allies consequently took steps to pay more, and NATO appears stronger than before, which is decidedly not the outcome Putin wanted.

* Trump authorized the expulsion of 60 Russian diplomats from the U.S. in the wake of a nerve agent attack on British soil, allegedly at the hands of the Kremlin.

* He approved the export of lethal weapons, including American-made Javelin antitank missiles, to help Ukraine shore up its eastern defenses against separatists backed by Moscow. In contrast, Obama did next to nothing, while Biden’s handlers threw multi-billions of dollars Ukraine’s way with no end game.

* Trump unleashed forces that killed more than 200 Russian soldiers in Syria.

* He facilitated U.S. sales of more coal to Ukraine while weakening Russia's hold on oil exports.

* He ramped up our military to pressure the Russian Federation, and he strengthened alliances and military cooperation with the Baltic States that share borders with Russia.

* He offered to host a permanent contingent of U.S. troops in Poland, as Germany and Italy have long done, to help secure Poland’s 180-mile-long border with Russia.

* He explored with Ukraine’s president in 2017, Petro Poroshenko, the enhancement of cooperation in security and defense sectors and the importance of keeping tight sanctions on Russia – to Putin, a most unwelcome development.

* Trump also pressured Germany over its status as the largest buyer of Russian natural gas, and as a huge buyer of Russia coal and mineral oil.

* He sanctioned four Russian entities and seven individuals in response to a 2018 attempt to interfere in U.S. midterm elections, including Russian financier Yevgeniy Prigozhin, a wealthy Putin loyalist.

* He suspended U.S. obligations under the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty because Russia was not complying with it.

A Tough Act to Follow

In all, even the liberal Brookings Institute acknowledged that Trump enactedmore than 50 sanctions or policy actions on Russia, many being severe, starting from Trump’s fourth month in office to the end of his first term.

Predictably, the Left prefers that you remain ignorant about these actions and, in 2025 is dispensing the same bulltwang that they did in 2017.

X22, And we Know, and more- March 16

 

Judicial Overreach and the Separation of Powers: Why Judges Cannot Run the Executive Branch

posted by George Landrith at Townhall 

The United States Constitution is built on a system of separation of powers, ensuring that each branch of government—the legislative, executive, and judicial—operates within its own clearly defined sphere of authority. Article II of the Constitution explicitly vests executive power in the president, granting him the sole authority to run the executive branch, hire and fire federal employees, and manage the implementation of federal policy. 

However, in recent years, judicial overreach has increasingly threatened this fundamental structure. Activist judges have repeatedly interfered with executive decisions, particularly regarding federal employment and budgetary matters, effectively attempting to seize control of the executive branch. This kind of judicial activism is not only unconstitutional but also dangerous to the very principles of self-governance and democratic accountability.

The Executive Power Belongs to the President Alone

Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution states: “The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” This is not an ambiguous statement—it makes clear that executive authority belongs to the President, not to Congress, not to the courts, and not to unelected federal bureaucrats.

Among the responsibilities that come with executive power is the authority to hire and fire federal employees. The president, as the head of the executive branch, is responsible for ensuring that federal employees serve the interests of the American people effectively and efficiently. If an administration determines that certain employees are unnecessary, redundant, or incompetent, it is well within the president’s constitutional authority to dismiss them. No federal employee has a constitutional right to a government job. Employment in the federal government is not a protected right, and courts have no legitimate authority to override the president’s decisions on workforce management.

Despite this clear constitutional framework, we have seen repeated attempts by liberal judges to interfere with the executive branch’s authority by blocking efforts to reduce the federal workforce, demanding that terminated employees be rehired, or even forcing the president to spend taxpayer money on wasteful programs that he deems unnecessary. Such rulings are blatant violations of the separation of powers and represent an unacceptable intrusion into executive functions.

Judicial Overreach: Courts Acting as Legislators and Executives

The role of the judiciary is to interpret laws and rule on matters of constitutionality—not to govern. When courts attempt to dictate how the executive branch should function, they undermine the very structure of our constitutional republic. Some recent examples of judicial overreach include:

• Blocking the Dismissal of Federal Employees: Courts have issued rulings that prevent the president from reducing the size of the federal workforce, despite the fact that hiring and firing decisions fall exclusively under the president’s executive authority.
• Forcing the Executive to Fund Programs: Courts have ruled that the president must allocate taxpayer dollars to programs created by unelected bureaucrats, even when the president deems these programs inefficient or wasteful.
• Mandating Policy Implementation: Judges have attempted to compel Presidents to enforce policies from prior administrations, essentially stripping the executive branch of its discretion to set policy priorities.

These judicial actions represent an erosion of executive authority and a dangerous precedent where courts assume powers they were never meant to have.

The Proper Role of the Courts

The judiciary exists to interpret laws and ensure they comply with the Constitution. If the executive branch were to violate the constitutional rights of individuals—for example, by attempting to silence political opponents or outlaw religious institutions—then courts would have a clear role in declaring such actions unconstitutional. However, personnel decisions within the executive branch do not fall into this category. There is no constitutional right to a government job, nor is there a constitutional requirement that the executive branch continue to fund every program established by previous administrations.

The Founders of this nation designed a system of government that deliberately separated powers to prevent any one branch from becoming too powerful. The judiciary was given the responsibility of checking unconstitutional actions, not of micromanaging the executive branch. Courts that attempt to dictate hiring, firing, and spending decisions are operating far outside their constitutional mandate.

Why Judicial Overreach is Dangerous

When judges take it upon themselves to run the executive branch, they create a serious threat to democratic governance. Unlike elected officials, federal judges do not answer to the voters. If the president makes poor decisions regarding hiring and firing, or if he mismanages the budget, he can be held accountable by the electorate in the next election. However, if unelected judges make these decisions instead, the American people have no recourse to challenge their rulings.

Judicial overreach also weakens the executive branch’s ability to function effectively. A president who cannot remove ineffective or insubordinate employees is handicapped in his ability to implement policy. If the courts dictate how the executive branch must allocate its resources, then the executive’s ability to set policy priorities is effectively nullified. This is not how the government was designed to function.

Restoring Constitutional Balance

The Constitution is clear: the president alone holds executive power. While the judiciary plays a crucial role in ensuring that government actions adhere to constitutional principles, it has no authority to run the executive branch or interfere with its operations. The increasing trend of judicial overreach—particularly in matters of federal employment and spending—represents a serious threat to the constitutional separation of powers.

If the United States is to remain a nation governed by laws and democratic accountability, courts must stay within their proper constitutional role. The president, as the head of the executive branch, must be free to make decisions regarding the workforce and budget without judicial interference. The American people must recognize the dangers of judicial overreach and demand that courts respect the constitutional boundaries that ensure the proper functioning of our government. Only by restoring this balance can we protect the integrity of our democratic system and ensure that power remains where the Constitution intended.

JD Vance Makes Surprising Comments About Elon Musk's DOGE Work - Nuanced -

 In a candid moment following a tense Cabinet meeting, Vice President J.D. Vance admitted that Elon Musk has made "mistakes" regarding the federal layoffs within the federal government. Vance acknowledged that while Musk's bold moves have disrupted and exposed the wasteful spending and fraud in Washington, some of his decisions during the mass layoffs could have been handled differently.

On Friday, during an interview with NBC News, Vance acknowledged that Musk may have gotten ahead of himself when carrying out mass layoffs of federal employees. However, Vance said that the firings were necessary. 

“Elon himself has said that sometimes you do something, you make a mistake, and then you undo the mistake. I’m accepting of mistakes,” Vance said. “I also think you have to quickly correct those mistakes. But I’m also very aware of the fact that there are a lot of good people who work in the government — a lot of people who are doing a very good job. And we want to try to preserve as much of what works in government as possible while eliminating what doesn’t work.” 

Musk, leading President Donald Trump’s efforts to shrink the federal government’s spending expenditures, has defended the massive cuts, saying that many federal employees were paid to do little to no work. 

The Tesla CEO also recently referred to certain federal workers as "fraudsters," questioning their ability to perform their duties effectively. 

When asked about his comments, Vance said that he believes “some people clearly are collecting a check and not doing a job. Now, how many people is that? I don’t know, in a three million-strong federal workforce, whether it’s a few thousand or much larger than that.” 

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/saraharnold/2025/03/16/vance-makes-surprising-comments-about-elon-musks-doge-work-n2653884

Are the Democrats Destroying Themselves?

posted by Mark Lewis at Townhall 

It takes strength to be President of the United States, to stand up and defend America against wrong and evil.  Joe Biden was not such a man, and the United States suffered for four years under this weak, pusillanimous Leftist coward.  Donald Trump won’t be able to get all he wants done, of course.  The Deep State will fight him all the way but they are currently doing a good job of putting nails into their own coffin.  

The Democrats can never win on the basis of sound, reasoned arguments, so they have to find other ways to try to build the decadent, totalitarian state they want.  Since they are murdering countless possible future Democratic Party voters by abortion, they must import voters. So, they will fight to keep the illegals in the country.

President Trump, thankfully, has the backbone and love for America to do some necessary things.  Joe Biden, and no Democrat, does.  We can hope now for four good years.

The government must have money to operate and provide the services that need providing.  Thus, Americans pay taxes for the services they receive (that’s ALL they should pay taxes for.  Why should I pay for somebody else to murder their baby or to study transgender mice?)  So, I suppose, the IRS, or some such collection agency, is necessary.  I suppose.  I can’t find the IRS in the Constitution.

Remember that Joe Biden wanted to ADD 87,000 new IRS agents to tyrannize Americans. That’s because the Democrats want as much of your money as they can get their hands on.  More money means more power, and power is the ONLY thing the Democrats and Deep State care about. It’s the entire raison d’etre of the Left, and they will torture, imprison, or murder anybody who opposes them, as they have proven conclusively in the governments they’ve run in the last 100 years. Mr. Trump’s immediate freeze on hiring IRS agents was a good START.  Now, Mr. Trump needs to severely slice the government’s budget, let the American people keep and invest more of their money, and thus reduce the number of IRS agents required. That’s the direction he needs to head in.  He has been going there, and I hope he will continue.   He’s had a great beginning.

He's got a massive battle on his hands, of course because the Democrats and the Deep State—which includes countless Republicans as well—will oppose him ceaselessly.  One thing Trump does have on his side is the incredible debauchery, callousness, hatred, and downright stupidity of the current Democratic Party members.  Their response to the 13-year-old cancer survivor Mr. Trump brought forth at the SOTU address was unbelievable.  Well, it WOULD have been unbelievable for any decent human being.  But the Democrats aren’t decent.  Every single day, the Democratic Party leadership and many of their “grassroots” members give overwhelmingly conclusive evidence of just how depraved, evil, and inhuman they are.  How people could sink to such lows of hatred and degeneration is going to take psychologists a long time to figure out.

I found this jewel recently on “X’ as further evidence of the kind of people the Left is producing now.  The post had two pictures:  one on the left showing a middle-aged man with a greying beard and bright ORANGE hair on top of his head.  The right-hand picture displayed his message, and I quote it exactly, only covering the filthy language he used:  “He’ll [Trump] be dead soon.  No worries. lil bro we get it, you s*ck Putin’s d*ck too.  Have you ever done anything to contribute to society?  No?  We figured.  B**ch I’ve don’t more in a 13 years span of my life, than you will ever do.  You’re moms even told me what a b**ch you are.  Dear cholesterol:  DO YOUR JOB!! (emphasis his).”

That is, folks, exact.  Every word has been faithfully reproduced from his message.  Now, I realize that not every liberal is this uneducated and stupid, and unfortunately, there are quite a few “conservatives” whose IQs don’t exceed their shoe size, either.  I occasionally make a mistake in an “X” post, though I do have some excuse:  total blindness in one eye and macular degeneration in the other.  Small print is a beast to me.  But I’ve never written anything so crude, crass, unintelligent, and hateful.  I didn’t like Joe Biden, but I never wished death on him.  I wanted him to repent.

But the Left is slowly losing any grip they had on reality and decency—which never was much to begin with.  When they were in power, they were still mean, evil, cruel, and nasty, but at least they could occasionally disguise phony civility because they were winning.  They are losing politically, and their true colors are showing through.  I have seen several posts on “X” advocating violence and death for Mr. Trump and his supporters.  The random nutcase is to be expected, but the Left has a whole army of them now.  And, frankly, it’s a little frightening.  People full of hate and who have no conscience are liable to do anything.

We must double down in our attempts to educate Americans about what is true, right, honorable, and decent. Sometimes, we have to get out a 2x4, but we don’t want to sink to the depths of the depravity the Left is in.  We MUST show ourselves a better people than Leftists, and we MUST tell the American people, constantly, what we are doing and why we are doing it.  We have truth reason and human civility, which are powerful weapons.  

Keep hammering on the evil of the Left and the positive virtues of American Judeo-Christian republicanism.  It's a war, nothing short of it, and it’s no time for R&R.

Conrad Black: We must throw Carney out of office at first chance

 I recently received the following series of rhetorical exhortations from a friend who, like many Canadians, is unable to discuss President Donald Trump rationally. 

He wrote: “Imagine America deporting an academic from Columbia University for criticizing Israel. Imagine a President who repeats every morning that he is at war with Canada with the intent to achieve Anschluss. Imagine an American population that stands meekly by as its president acts as a dictator, internally and globally, no check, no balance, no accountability. Compare the quality of leadership in America with that of Russia and China these days.”

The accusation against the individual in question is that his espousal of the virtues of Hamas, his violation of his attested purpose of being in the United States, (he is a graduate and has nothing else to do with Columbia now), and some of his incitements in what appears to be a constant occupation of haranguing antisemitic malcontents, is a violation of the terms of his admission and entitles the U.S. government to remove him. The matter will be determined by the courts.

President Trump has never stated that he is at war with Canada and the invocation of Hitler’s seizure of Austria in the Anschluss of 1938, (which unfortunately was welcomed by most Austrians), is a defamatory and scurrilous outrage. It is perhaps the most imaginative adaptation of the entire Democratic Party 2024 campaign playbook of comparing Trump to Hitler, for which the Democrats were properly rewarded with a bone-crushing defeat. Anyone who imagines that there are any conceivable circumstances in which the United States would resort to military force against Canada is in desperate need of profound psychiatric counselling.

 Given the collapsed state of our public health-care system, (which the transitioning leaders of the federal Liberal party constantly tell us is indicative of our moral and practical superiority over the United States), it is hard to imagine that my febrile friend will find the medical attention he badly needs.

Donald Trump has been the subject of the greatest perversions of the Constitution of the United States and particularly the Fourth and Fifth Amendments of the Bill of Rights of any president in the history of that country. He has not in any respect exceeded the constitutional powers of the presidency. A number of his initiatives have been legally challenged and are working their way through the appeal process. The clause: “no check, no balance, no accountability” is a perfectly accurate description of the clangorous nonsense about Trump that this country has swallowed.

Trump wants to adjust tariffs with this and other countries. His reference to the 51st state is designed to be annoying, but was caused by our failure to pay for our own defence for the past 30 years, our steady trade surplus (which Trump exaggerates but Justin Trudeau did not know enough to dispute), and because Trudeau suggested Canada would collapse if U.S. tariffs were raised.

Of course it won’t and if necessary we will show Trump that. But can we please have the maturity not to compare him with Hitler? We’re talking about tariffs, not world war and millions of innocent victims of death camps.

It is hard to imagine that any rational adult Canadian believes that Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping are more capable and successful leaders than Trump. Putin unleashed an aggressive war, which has caused the displacement of more than 10 million people and probably at least 1.25 million casualties, most of them his own countrymen and most of those combat deaths.

When some of the mercenaries that he has engaged defected from the front lines and marched on Moscow, they were greeted with enthusiasm by the Russian people. Putin routinely murders his domestic political opponents. Russia is suffering from acute economic hardship, chronic alcoholism, a steadily shrinking population, and its only geostrategic relevance to the world is the possibility of it becoming a basket of natural resources for the delectation of China.

 In defiance of all historic Russian nationalist logic, Putin is throwing his country into a desperate embrace with China. He has been reduced to dependence on the antediluvian tyrannies of Iran and North Korea and whatever happens, his war in Ukraine has been a disaster — Russia’s worst military fiasco since the Russo Japanese War (1905). He has conspicuously failed to subdue a vastly smaller and more vulnerable country that Russia had ruled for 300 years.

Chinese President Xi is now presiding over a country that is economically stagnant, debt-ridden and precarious. Where 10 years ago it was impossible to set foot out of doors without some passer-by telling you that China was about to surpass the United States as the world’s greatest economy, there is no suggestion of that now. The Chinese minister of defence, a number of prominent Chinese Communist Party grandees and financial magnates have abruptly disappeared over the last few years. China has alienated all of its neighbours and caused India, Vietnam, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and Indonesia to group together with Australia, New Zealand, and the United States in an informal revival of the Cold War containment strategy that was so successful opposite the Soviet Union.

Because there is such widespread ignorance of Asian history in the West it is assumed that ancient China has a sophisticated foreign policy, but under Xi, exactly the reverse is true. The famous Belt and Road Initiative, which the Sinophilic cheering section was touting as the wave of the future, has not created any prosperity for those who have participated in it and has squandered immense sums of money that the Chinese government does not have.

The fact that Mark Carney has suggested the Chinese yuan could serve as a world reserve currency merely indicates the intellectual bankruptcy of the incoming prime minister, rather than any justified commendation of the totalitarian dictatorship of the so-called People’s Republic, which remains a largely command economy, is the world’s most authoritarian despotism and claims it can find anyone in the vast population in ten minutes because of its ubiquitous monitoring apparatus.

Can we please come to our senses and assure that the coming election is about the failure of the Trudeau government and the authoritarian socialist and irrational environmental opinions of Mark Carney? Donald Trump is a foreign leader and we will deal with him from a position of strength, provided we have a serious government.

Conrad Black: We must throw Carney out of office at first chance

🎭 𝐖𝟑𝐏 𝓓𝓐𝓘𝓛𝓨 𝓗𝓾𝓶𝓸𝓻, 𝓜𝓾𝓼𝓲𝓬, 𝓐𝓻𝓽, 𝓞𝓟𝓔𝓝 𝓣𝓗𝓡𝓔𝓐𝓓

 

Welcome to 

The 𝐖𝟑𝐏 𝓓𝓐𝓘𝓛𝓨 𝓗𝓾𝓶𝓸𝓻, 𝓜𝓾𝓼𝓲𝓬, 𝓐𝓻𝓽, 𝓞𝓟𝓔𝓝 𝓣𝓗𝓡𝓔𝓐𝓓 

Here’s a place to share cartoons, jokes, music, art, nature, 

man-made wonders, and whatever else you can think of. 

No politics or divisive posts on this thread. 

This feature will appear every day at 1pm mountain time. 

7 Trump Orders Congress Should Codify To Keep Wokeness Out Of The Military

The Trump administration’s bold executive actions will not be permanent unless Congress codifies them in law.

Elaine Donnelly reporting for The Federalist

We are witnessing in our military a major paradigm shift toward common sense and away from wokeism — defined as progressivism taken to extremes and imposed with coercion, even if it hurts the institution. 

Commander-in-Chief Donald Trump has issued a series of executive orders addressing three overarching goals: Meritocracy and non-discrimination instead of “equity” for favored groups, common sense definitions of “sex” and respect for sex differences, and elimination of divisive critical race theory (CRT) programs.      

This won’t be easy because the weeds of wokeism are deeply rooted in the Defense Department, and they did not spring up overnight. Pentagon ideologues have been cultivating them for years. 

In 2011, the Military Leadership Diversity Commission issued a 162-page report titled From Representation to Inclusion: Diversity Leadership for the 21st-Century Military. MLDC recommendations shifted the military’s cultural priorities away from meritocracy and nondiscrimination toward “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) as paramount goals. 

Previously, the armed forces assigned priority to individual merit, performance, and the needs of the military. The MLDC altered that paradigm by rejecting “color-blind” policies and admitting that “fair treatment” was “not about treating everyone the same.” 

Accordingly, Defense Department officials replaced equal opportunity with outcome-based preferences favoring some demographic groups over others. Before long, the DoD’s favorite meme, “Diversity is a strategic imperative,” justified the full range of progressive social changes that are now called “wokism in the military.” 

Meritocracy “Yes” - DEI “No”

Under President Joe Biden, diversity-crats ruled the Pentagon. On January 20, however, President Trump signed an executive order Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing.

As CMR reported here, Trump’s EO called for termination of all discriminatory programs, including the Biden administration’s vast DEI bureaucracy, chief diversity officer (CDO) positions, universal Equity Action Plans, and illegal diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) programs … “under whatever name they appear.”

Another EO, Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity (Jan. 21), affirmed the policy of the United States to “protect the civil rights of all Americans and to promote individual initiative, excellence, and hard work.” 

This order cited the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and the University of N. Carolina (2023). It also revoked President Lyndon Johnson’s 1965 executive order that inadvertently created today’s system of racial categorization, which the Supreme Court described as “imprecise,” “overbroad,” “arbitrary,” “undefined,” “incoherent,” and based on “irrational stereotypes.”  

Reinforcing Trump’s EO Restoring America’s Fighting Force (Jan. 27), Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s Jan. 29 memorandum stated: “The DoD will strive to provide merit-based, color-blind, equal opportunities to Service members but will not guarantee or strive for equal outcomes.” 

Gender Identity and Common Sense

A key executive order titled Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government (Jan. 20) restored sound policy with an honest endorsement of science:“‘Sex’ shall refer to an individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female. ‘Sex’ is not a synonym for and does not include the concept of ‘gender identity.’”

The truth-telling EO continued: “Efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex fundamentally attack women by depriving them of their dignity, safety, and well-being. … [Therefore,] it is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.”  

Referring to “legal and other socially coercive means to permit men to self-identify as women and gain access to intimate single-sex spaces and activities designed for women, from women’s domestic abuse shelters to women’s workplace showers,” Trump affirmed, “This is wrong.”  

Under Biden-era transgender policies, military women were forced to accept in their private living areas men who changed their “gender marker” in the Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System (DEERS). Secretary Hegseth’s Feb. 7 memorandum and “Additional Guidance” (Feb. 26) changed that: “All military records will reflect the Service member’s sex,” and “Access to intimate spaces will be determined by Service members’ or applicants for military service’s sex.”

Gender Dysphoria and Eligibility to Serve

The EO titled Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness (Jan. 27) directed the secretary of defense to restore gender dysphoria to the list of psychological conditions that make a person ineligible for military service due to “excessive time lost from duty for necessary treatment or hospitalization.”

Under the Jan. 27 order, defense dollars will no longer provide expensive subsidies for lifelong hormones or surgeries that attempt to change sex, and the DoD will end mandatory use of “invented” “pronouns that inaccurately reflect an individual’s sex.”

Another order, Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation (Jan. 28), confronted “the radical and false claim that adults can change a child’s sex through a series of irreversible medical interventions. This dangerous trend will be a stain on our Nation’s history, and it must end.”  

Consistent with these common sense orders, the Jan. 31 news release Identity Months Dead at DoD (Jan. 31) prohibited “pride” events, including sexualized drag performances before military children and paid time off and travel to participate in such events. 

Sound Priorities, Not Critical Race Theory (CRT)

President Trump’s order titled Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling (Jan. 29) eliminated funding for CRT indoctrination in K-12 schools, meaning teachings that “members of one race, color, sex, or national origin are morally or inherently superior … [or] an individual, by virtue of the individual’s race, color, sex, or national origin, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.” 

The order also prohibited military school CRT programs teaching that the United States “is fundamentally racist, sexist, or otherwise discriminatory.”

What Should Happen Next

The Trump administration’s bold executive actions will not be permanent unless Congress codifies them in law. In doing so, Congress should affirm four main principles: merit as the exclusive basis for personnel actions, a prohibition of non-merit factors such as racial or gender preferences, clear definitions for all key terms, and narrow exceptions to permit mission-specific operational requirements.   

Three more principles should guide congressional action to eliminate wokeism in the military: Defund DEI and CRT in all DoD agencies, deter “re-branding” by defining divisive DEI practices, and repeal previous legislation authorizing DEI personal and operations.

A statute incorporating these elements would be a durable way to support our military by affirming meritocracy, ending discrimination, and restoring common sense programs that strengthen military readiness and morale.

Federal Judge Orders Planeloads of Deported Venezuelan Gang Members To Return to America

 It remains unclear Sunday whether the Trump administration complied with the judge’s ruling, with the president of El Salvador — the planes’ intended destination — and Secretary Rubio both stating that the deportation operations had already concluded.

A federal judge has barred the Trump administration from carrying out deportations under a sweeping 18th century law that the president invoked hours earlier to speed removal of Venezuelan gang members from the United States.

U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg said he needed to issue his order immediately because the government already was flying migrants it claimed were newly deportable under President Trump’s proclamation to be incarcerated in El Salvador and Honduras. El Salvador already agreed this week to take up to 300 migrants designated as gang members.

“I do not believe I can wait any longer and am required to act,” Mr. Boasberg said during a Saturday evening hearing in a lawsuit brought by the ACLU and Democracy Forward. “A brief delay in their removal does not cause the government any harm,” he added, noting they remain in government custody but ordering that any planes in the air be turned around.

The ruling came hours after Mr. Trump claimed the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua was invading the United States and invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a wartime authority that allows the president broader leeway on policy and executive action to speed up mass deportations.

The act has only ever been used three times before, all during wars. Its most recent application was during World War II, when it was used to incarcerate Germans and Italians as well as for the mass internment of Japanese-American civilians.

In a proclamation released just over an hour before Mr. Boasberg’s hearing, Mr. Trump contended that Tren de Aragua was effectively at war with the United States.

“Over the years, Venezuelan national and local authorities have ceded ever-greater control over their territories to transnational criminal organizations, including TdA,” Mr. Trump said. “The result is a hybrid criminal state that is perpetrating an invasion of and predatory incursion into the United States, and which poses a substantial danger to the United States.”

The order could let the administration deport any migrant it identifies as a member of the gang without going through regular immigration proceedings, and also could remove other protections under criminal law for people the government targeted.

In a statement Saturday night, Attorney General Bondi slammed Mr. Boasberg’s stay on deportations. “This order disregards well-established authority regarding President Trump’s power, and it puts the public and law enforcement at risk,” Ms. Bondi said.

Ms. Bondi’s Justice Department immediately filed an emergency motion with the Washington, D.C. Circuit Court seeking a stay on Judge Boasberg’s ruling pending an appeal by the administration. Furious MAGA supporters in Congress also pledged to file articles of impeachment against the judge in the coming week.

It remained unclear Sunday morning whether the Trump administration complied with the judge’s ruling and indeed turned the planes around. The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, posted images on social media of planes on the tarmac at San Salvador, stating “today, the first 238 members of the Venezuelan criminal organization, Tren de Aragua, arrived in our country.”

America’s Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, also suggested in a post on X that the deportation operations were already concluded. “We have sent 2 dangerous top MS-13 leaders plus 21 of its most wanted back to face justice in El Salvador,” he said. “Also, as promised by @POTUS, we sent over 250 alien enemy members of Tren de Aragua which El Salvador has agreed to hold in their very good jails at a fair price that will also save our taxpayer dollars.”

The Tren de Aragua gang originated in a prison in the South American country and accompanied an exodus of millions of Venezuelans. Mr. Trump and his allies have turned the gang into the face of the alleged threat posed by immigrants living in the United States and formally designated it a “foreign terrorist organization” last month.

Authorities in several countries have reported arrests of Tren de Aragua members, even as Venezuela’s government claims to have eliminated the criminal organization.

The government said Mr. Trump actually signed the proclamation on Friday night. Immigration lawyers noticed the federal government suddenly moving to deport Venezuelans who they would not otherwise have the legal right to expel from the country, and scrambled to file lawsuits to block what they believed was a pending proclamation.

Mr. Boasberg issued an initial order at 9:20 a.m. Saturday blocking the Trump administration from deporting five Venezuelans named as plaintiffs in the ACLU suit who were being detained by the government and believed they were about to be deported. The Trump administration appealed that order, contending that halting a presidential act before it has been announced would cripple the executive branch.

If the order were allowed to stand, “district courts would have license to enjoin virtually any urgent national-security action just upon receipt of a complaint,” the Justice Department wrote in its appeal.

Mr. Boasberg then scheduled the afternoon hearing on whether to expand his order to all people who could be targeted under Trump’s declaration.

Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign contended that the president had broad latitude to identify threats to the country and act under the 1798 law. He noted the U.S. Supreme Court allowed President Truman to continue to hold a German citizen in 1948, three years after World War II ended, under the measure.

“This would cut very deeply into the prerogatives of the president,” Mr. Ensign said of an injunction.

But Lee Gelernt of the ACLU contended that Mr. Trump didn’t have the authority to use the law against a criminal gang rather than a recognized state. Mr. Boasberg said precedent on that question seemed tricky but that the ACLU had a reasonable chance of success on those arguments, and so the order was merited.

Mr. Boasberg halted deportations for those in custody for up to 14 days, and scheduled a Friday hearing in the case.

The flurry of litigation shows the significance of Mr. Trump’s declaration, the latest step by the administration to expand presidential power. Ensign argued that, as part of its reaction to the September 11, 2001 attack, Congress had given the president power to delegate “transnational” organizations threats on the level of recognized states. And Mr. Gelernt warned that the Trump administration could simply issue a new proclamation to use the Alien Enemies Act against another migrant gang, like MS-13, which has long been one of Trump’s favorite targets.

https://www.nysun.com/article/federal-judge-orders-planeload-of-deported-venezuelan-gang-members-to-return-to-america