White House touts deportation of alleged gang members that court ordered returned to US

 https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/16/deport-support-venezuela-el-salvador-00232379

Justice Department lawyers submitted a vague two-page filing to Boasberg on Sunday afternoon that appeared to assert that planes carrying the deportees were outside the judge’s jurisdiction by the time he ordered them to turn back.

The DOJ submission also suggested Boasberg’s order wasn’t effective until it was noted in the court’s electronic docket at 7:26 p.m., even though the judge issued the order verbally about 45 minutes earlier and said it had to be “complied with immediately.”

Trump administration deports hundreds under sweeping wartime authority despite judge’s pause order

 https://edition.cnn.com/2025/03/16/politics/trump-administration-deportations-alien-enemies-act/index.html

In the latest dramatic showdown between the White House and the judiciary, a federal judge temporarily blocked the administration’s ability to use the centuries-old Alien Enemies Act on Saturday evening, and verbally ordered any planes in the air carrying some of those migrants to turn back to the US.

Leavitt’s assertion that there was no conflict between the administration’s actions and the judge’s “written order” appears carefully crafted to exclude the judge’s directive that planes be turned around — which he issued verbally from the bench.

Verbal orders hold the same legal weight as written directives, CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig told CNN’s Jessica Dean on “CNN Newsroom” Sunday. The big question, Honig explained, was where the planes were when the order was given.

Republicans Push to Make 'Trump Derangement Syndrome' a Mental Illness

 https://www.newsweek.com/minnesota-senate-republicans-trump-derangement-syndrome-mental-illness-2045600

Five Republican Minnesota state senators are set to introduce a bill tomorrow that would classify "Trump Derangement Syndrome" (TDS), which they define as an "acute onset of paranoia" regarding the presidencies of Donald Trump, as a mental illness, according to state documents.

Throughout his presidential campaigns, Trump and his top communication advisers—including current White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and communications director Steven Cheung—have repeatedly accused many critics of having a "severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome," as Cheung previously told Newsweek. The phrase has also been used by Republican politicians and talk show hosts, among others.

The bill seeking to classify TDS as a mental illness raises concerns about the politicization of mental health diagnoses, which could be used to misappropriate care, diminish other mental health concerns, and suppress dissent and political expression.

Why TRUMP Supporters Really Believe In Him? A Psychiatrist's Insight

'Simply not conceivable': Judge says Trump admin lied to court, engaged in 'illegal scheme' to fire 'broad swaths of the federal workforce'

 https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/simply-not-conceivable-judge-says-trump-admin-lied-to-court-engaged-in-illegal-scheme-to-fire-broad-swaths-of-the-federal-workforce/ar-AA1AWRpm?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=NMTS&cvid=c96bf5b9394f4064b084bcc613683303&ei=26

A federal judge in Maryland on Thursday evening ordered the Trump administration to rehire tens of thousands of recently terminated federal workers and issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting additional unlawful mass firings, becoming the second judge to issue such an order in the same day.

The sweeping 56-page ruling from Maryland-based U.S. District Judge James Bredar covers firings across 18 different agencies, including the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Department of Education, and Homeland Security. Bredar reasoned that the administration’s actions appeared to be an attempt to skirt statutory constraints regarding “reductions in force” (RIFs) by falsely claiming that each of the thousands of workers were fired for “performance or other individualized reason.”

“In this case, the government conducted massive layoffs, but it gave no advance notice,” the judge wrote. “It claims it wasn’t required to because, it says, it dismissed each one of these thousands of probationary employees for ‘performance’ or other individualized reasons. On the record before the Court, this isn’t true. There were no individualized assessments of employees. They were all just fired. Collectively. Accordingly, in the language of relevant laws, these big government layoffs were actually ‘Reductions in Force,’ or ‘RIFs.’ And, because these were ‘RIFs,’ they had to be preceded by notice to the states that would be impacted.”

Union rages after Elon Musk shares X post that ‘Hitler didn’t murder millions, public sector workers did’

 https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/union-rages-after-elon-musk-shares-x-post-that-hitler-didn-t-murder-millions-public-sector-workers-did/ar-AA1ATeRJ?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=NMTS&cvid=7aaf665912324e41aa803859289b566e&ei=14

Workers blasted DOGE hatchet man Elon Musk Thursday after he reposted a startling message on X declaring that “Hitler didn’t murder millions of people. Public sector employees did.”

Lee Saunders, union president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees of the AFL-CIO, fired off a furious response saying: “America’s public service workers — our nurses, teachers, firefighters, librarians — chose making our communities safe, healthy and strong over getting rich. They are not, as the world’s richest man implies, genocidal murderers.”

He added: “Elon Musk and the billionaires in this administration have no idea what real people go through every day. That’s why he’s so willing to take a chainsaw to people’s jobs, Medicaid, Social Security and Medicare.”

Russia Says Nyet to Trump’s Ukraine Cease-Fire

 https://www.wsj.com/opinion/russia-rejects-cease-fire-ukraine-donald-trump-vladimir-putin-yuri-ushakov-80ababc0?mod=hp_opin_pos_1

As his troops take more territory, Putin rejects what Kyiv accepted.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday that if Russia rejected the 30-day U.S.-brokered cease-fire that Ukraine had accepted, “we’ll unfortunately know what the impediment is to peace here.” We knew that before, but now we know even on Mr. Rubio’s terms, as the Kremlin on Thursday said nyet.

President Trump’s envoy, Steven Witkoff, is visiting Moscow, and the Kremlin welcomed him with the back of its hand. Yuri Ushakov, a close adviser to Vladimir Putin, told Russian television that a cease-fire would be “nothing other than a temporary breather for Ukrainian soldiers.” He added, “our goal is long-term peaceful resolution. . . . Steps that imitate peaceful actions are not needed.”

Tantrum over Trade War

‘Idiotic and dangerous’: Republicans running out of answers for Trump torching the economy

ICE Detains Canadian Woman and ‘Wraps Her in Chains’ for 24 Hours

 https://www.thedailybeast.com/ice-detains-canadian-woman-jasmine-mooney-and-wraps-her-in-chains-for-24-hours/

A Canadian woman was put in chains and detained by ICE in an “inhumane” facility after trying to get her new visa, it was revealed Wednesday.

Jasmine Mooney, 35, was working in Los Angeles for the health tonic beverage company she co-founded. But her visa was revoked while she was visiting home in Vancouver, British Columbia. She learned that she had lost legal status when she attempted to board a flight in Vancouver and was refused entry to the U.S. Vancouver has U.S. border agents stationed at the airport.

“They told me I was unprofessional because I didn’t have a proper letterhead on my paperwork,” Mooney told KGTV. She was told to to go to a U.S. consulate to apply for legal status to work in the country again.

Musk Boosts Claim That Hitler Wasn’t to Blame for Holocaust

 https://www.thedailybeast.com/musk-boosts-claim-that-hitler-wasnt-to-blame-for-holocaust/

Elon Musk has reposted a tweet suggesting that Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong were not responsible for murdering millions of people.

The post amplified by Musk to his 219.6 million followers blamed “public sector workers” for the atrocities carried out in the name of some of the most barbarous tyrants in modern history.

The MAGA millionaire shared a post on his X platform by an account with the username @TheAlice Smith that read: “Stalin, Mao and Hitler didn’t murder millions of people. Their public sector workers did.”

Federal judge rules Trump must reinstate many fired federal employees

 https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5193117-judge-trump-reinstate-fired-employees/

A federal judge ruled Thursday that the Trump administration must reinstate probationary government employees fired unlawfully at several agencies, lambasting the Justice Department at a hearing for a “sham” gambit that enabled a key official to avoid testifying in the case. 

U.S. District Judge William Alsup’s ruling broadens his previous order to now require the government to reinstate probationary employees fired on Feb. 13 and 14 at the Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior and Treasury departments. 

Kremlin Snubs Trump's Ukraine 'Mediator' Moments After He Lands in Moscow

 https://www.newsweek.com/moscow-kremlin-ukraine-steve-whitkoff-snub-2044089

The Kremlin has said it does not consider the United States envoy for the Middle East, who arrived in Moscow on Thursday, to be a mediator for the war in Ukraine.

Steve Witkoff landed in the Russian capital after flying in from Qatar, where he had been involved in indirect talks between Israel and Hamas.

President Donald Trump said U.S. representatives would go to Russia to discuss a proposed 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine agreed this week, which Washington hoped would get a positive response from Moscow.

However, Russian President Vladimir Putin's aide, Yuri Ushakov, told Russian media that Moscow did not consider Witkoff Washington's go-between for war discussions.

Democrat Erupts at Elon Musk During DOGE Hearing

 https://www.newsweek.com/social-security-elonmusk-john-larson-2044126

Democratic U.S. Representative John Larson slammed Elon Musk on Wednesday for skipping a House Ways and Means Committee hearing about DOGE, accusing him of attempting to privatize Social Security.

Elon Musk was notably absent from a House Ways and Means Committee hearing on Wednesday, where Democrats sought answers about Musk and DOGE's access to Americans' Social Security information and Treasury Department data during the group's cost-cutting reviews.

His absence sparked a fiery response from Democratic Representative John Larson, who angrily demanded, "Where is Elon Musk?" while gesturing toward the empty chairs.

Larson also argued that Musk's financial success does not exempt him from accountability before Congress, stating, "No one is above the law."