Tag: maryland
Irritated Senators Ask Clueless Director Patel: Where's The FBI Budget?

Irritated Senators Ask Clueless Director Patel: Where's The FBI Budget?

If you thought FBI Director Kash Patel had any competence whatsoever, think again.

Appearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday, Patel was unable to provide a timeline for when his department’s budget—which was required by law to be submitted more than a week ago—would finally be delivered to Congress.

Democratic Sens. Patty Murray of Washington and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland noted that the hearing was essentially pointless, since Patel failed to provide critical spending and budget documents.

“How do we, as Congress, do our budget and our work without that request and without the spend plan?” Murray said, calling Patel’s lack of preparedness “insufficient and deeply disturbing.”

Patel’s signature dunderheaded combativeness was on full display during a tense exchange with Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, who asked whether people deported under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 have the constitutional right to due process under the Fifth Amendment.

“It’s not for me to call the balls and strikes on it,” Patel responded.

“You haven't read the Constitution?” Merkley asked, citing the Supreme Court ruling in Reno v. Flores as part of the settled law on the matter.

“It concerns me that you're not familiar with the core concept of due process applying to all persons as written in black and white in the Constitution,” Merkley added.

After the hearing, Murray called out Patel’s incompetence and the threat it poses to the United States.

“Kash Patel, the conspiracy theorist that Republicans made FBI Director, came to a Senate hearing on the budget—with NO budget, NO timeline, and NO clue. It's downright incompetent, and it's making America less safe. We need serious leadership at the FBI,” she wrote on Bluesky.

No budget? Check! Equivocating statements about the Constitution? Check! Seems like Patel’s competence is perfectly in line with the rest of the Trump administration.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Karoline Leavitt

Trump White House Doxxed An American Family -- Forcing Them To Move

The Trump administration has not only sent Kilmar Abrego Garcia to a Salvadoran megaprison due to an "administrative error" and so far refused to comply with a U.S. Supreme Court order to facilitate his return to the United States, but also shared on social media the home address of his family in Maryland, forcing them to relocate.

The news that Abrego Garcia's wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, and her children were "moved to a safe house by supporters" after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt posted to X a 2021 order of protection petition that Vasquez Sura filed but soon abandoned was reported early Tuesday by The Washington Post.

"I don't feel safe when the government posts my address, the house where my family lives, for everyone to see, especially when this case has gone viral and people have all sorts of opinions," said Vasquez Sura. "So, this is definitely a bit terrifying. I'm scared for my kids."

A DHS spokesperson did not respond Monday to a request for a comment about not redacting the family's address, according to the newspaper's lengthy story about Vasquez Sura—who shares a 5-year-old nonverbal, autistic son with Abrego Garcia and has a 9-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter from a previous relationship that was abusive.

On Wednesday, The New Republicpublished a short article highlighting the safe house detail and noting that "the government has not commented on the decision to leave the family's address in the document it posted online," sparking a fresh wave of outrage over the Trump administration endangering the family.

"The Trump administration doxxed an American citizen, endangering her and her children," MSNBC contributor Rotimi Adeoye wrote on X Wednesday. "This is completely unacceptable and flat-out wrong."

Several others responded on the social media platform Bluesky.

"These fascists didn't stop at abducting Abrego Garcia, they've now doxxed his wife, forcing her into hiding," said Dean Preston, the leader of a renters' rights organization. "The Trump administration is terrorizing this family. Speak up, show up, resist."

Jonathan Cohn, political director for the group Progressive Mass, similarly declared, "The Trump administration is terrorizing this woman."

Katherine Hawkins, senior legal analyst for the Project On Government Oversight's Constitution Project, openly wondered "if publishing Abrego Garcia and his wife's home address violates federal or (particularly) Maryland laws."

"Definitely unconscionable and further demonstration of bad faith/intimidation," Hawkins added.

While Abrego Garcia's family seeks refuge in a U.S. safe house, he remains behind bars in his native El Salvador—despite the Supreme Court order from earlier this month and an immigration judge's 2019 decision that was supposed to prevent his deportation. Multiple congressional Democrats have flown to the country in recent days to support demands for his freedom.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Stephen Miller

Trump And Miller Brazenly Lie About Unanimous Supreme Court Order

Backing up the Trump administration, the President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, says he has no intention or ability to return an unlawfully removed Maryland legal resident, Kilmar Abrego García, to the United States. Abrego García was wrongly deported to a notorious maximum security “mega-prison” for terrorists in El Salvador.

“How can I return him to the United States?” President Bukele said to reporters on Monday, during a meeting with President Donald Trump and his top officials in the Oval Office, as reported by The Washington Post. “I smuggle him into the United States? Of course I’m not going to do it.”

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court in an apparent unanimous opinion ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” the return of Abrego García to the United States.

Minutes before President Bukele’s remarks, White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller, on-camera in the Oval Office, delivered what is being called an “outrageous misinterpretation” of the Supreme Court’s opinion, which was quickly condemned.

“I promise you, if he was your neighbor, you would move right away,” Miller, who was the architect of the first Trump administration’s child separation policy, told reporters.

“What was the ruling in the Supreme Court, Steve, was it nine to nothing?” President Trump interjected.

“Yes, it was a 9-0, in our favor,” Miller wrongly claimed. “against the district court ruling, saying that no district court has the power to compel the foreign policy function of the United States.”

“As Pam said,” Miller continued, referring to Attorney General Pam Bondi, “the ruling solely stated that if this individual—at El Salvador’s sole discretion—was sent back to our country, that we could deport him a second time.”

“No version of this legally ends up with him ever living here, because he is a citizen of El Salvador,” Miller claimed, before pointing reporters to Bukele.

“That is the president of El Salvador. Your questions about it per the court can only be directed to him,” said Miller.

Attorney Michael Kasdan responded to Miller’s remarks: “We have reached the point where the White House openly lies on television about what a unanimous Supreme Court ruling against them says. The stuff of dystopian novels.”

“This is a blatant lie. The Supreme Court ruled 9-0 AGAINST Trump,” wrote the progressive nonprofit People For the American Way.

“This is deeply Orwellian. The Court ruled against the Trump administration 9-0,” observed the MeidasTouch Network.

Conservative legal activist and political commentator Ed Whelan, who clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, weighed in.

“Outrageous misrepresentation of Supreme Court ruling,” Whelan declared, serving up a somewhat technical legal analysis. “The unanimous Court ruled that the district-court order ‘properly requires the Government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.’ Yes, the Court also stated that the “intended scope of the term ‘effectuate’ in the District Court’s order is, however, unclear, and may exceed the District Court’s authority,” and it told the district court to ‘clarify its directive, with due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.’ But: (1) ‘due regard’ doesn’t mean that the district court couldn’t give any teeth to ‘effectuate’; (2) in any event, the district court dropped ‘effectuate’ from its revised order, so this is all irrelevant. Duty to ‘facilitate’ continues.”

Commenting on the video, immigration attorney Allen Orr Jr. Esq. wrote: “When you tell yourself the story you want to believe even when it is fiction.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Alex Jones

Unhinged Theories Erupt On Far Right After Baltimore Bridge Collapse

At a press conference on Tuesday, March 26, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore told reporters that there was no sign of terrorism or foul play in the collapse of Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge — which had been struck by a freighter. According to Moore and the Biden White House, there was no indication that it was anything other than a tragic accident.

But that hasn't stopped far-right conspiracy theorists from claiming otherwise or looking for ways to blame the Biden Administration for the tragedy.Rolling Stone and The Daily Beastgathered some of the more extreme reactions in articles published that Tuesday.

Infowars host Alex Jones remarked, "Looks deliberate to me. A cyber-attack is probable. WW3 has already started."

On Newsmax, American Conservative Union president Matt Schlapp implied that "drug-addled" employees and "lockdowns" during the COVID-19 pandemic were somehow to blame for the bridge's collapse.

Schlapp told Newsmax, "All I would say is that if you talk to employers in America, they'll tell you that filling slots with employees who aren't drug-addled is a very huge problem; so, I'm making no specific charges here because we don't know. But you know, anybody who flies in America can see that you're constantly waiting on a tarmac somewhere for some crew to show up."

On X, formerly Twitter, anti-feminist Andrew Tate posted, "This ship was cyber-attacked. Lights go off and it deliberately steers towards the bridge supports. Foreign agents of the USA attack digital infrastructures. Nothing is safe. Black Swan event imminent.

Fox News' Maria Bartiromo, interviewing Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), tried to link Biden's border policy to the tragedy. And Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), on Newsmax, claimed that Biden's bipartisan infrastructure bill was to blame because it overemphasized "Green New Deal" spending.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

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