Jonathan Turley

The first 100 days of the Trump administration have been described in the same way on sites ranging from the ACLU to Vanity Fair: Chaos.

It seems like the Justice Department is battling everywhere on everything at the same time.

It is indeed chaos, but it is not necessarily as random or as reckless as it may seem to the naked eye.

I have been critical of a number of legal moves by the Trump administration, including policies that undermine free speech values. Yet there is a type of legal chaos theory behind all of these actions. In science, chaos theory suggests that, even in a system of seemingly random actions, there can be patterns and interconnections.

The hyperkinetic litigation around the country reflects two realities.

First, Democratic state governments and groups have a massive war chest to challenge any and every new policy of President Trump. In California, the Democrats actually pre-approved a litigation fund before the inauguration to do precisely that.

Second, and more importantly, Trump promised sweeping changes from immigration to transgender policies to education reforms.

If you know that you are going to be challenged, it is better to get into court as soon as possible to move critical cases through the legal system. What you need is finality. Even if you lose cases, you need to know what authority you have.

Immigration wins

This is an administration in a hurry. Trump learned in his first term that you need to move as fast and as far as possible in the first two years of a presidential term.

With the midterm elections looming, Trump knows that reforms may end and investigations and impeachments will begin if the Democrats retake the House in 2026.

Despite some losses, the Justice Department has succeeded generally in reaffirming its authority to seek the reduction of government and to root out waste. It has also made real progress in other areas.

Take the area of greatest success for the Trump administration: Immigration.

One thing that was clearly established in the first 100 days is that the entry of millions of unlawful immigrants was a choice made by the Biden administration and the Democrats. They could have stopped most of these entries at any time, but elected to leave the southern border effectively open for four years as millions poured over.

In a matter of weeks, Trump effectively closed the border. In February, there were just 8,326 southern border encounters, down from 189,913 in February 2024. Daily encounters this week declined 97% from Biden.

As many of us stated during the Biden administration, Democrats could have shut down the border, but clearly did not want to. Now with millions in the country, Democrats are calling for “pathways to citizenship” by arguing that there is no way to process so many illegals allowed in under Biden.

In the meantime, the public overwhelmingly favors deportations and elected Trump on his pledge to carry out such removals. Polling shows that 83% of Americans support deportations of immigrants with violent criminal records and roughly half support mass deportation of all undocumented persons.

A new CBS poll shows that, after the first 100 days, 56 percent approve of President Donald Trump’s “program to find and deport immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally.”

National injunctions

To carry out that policy, Trump is seeking to use new expedited systems. For the worst individuals, he has turned to the centuries-old Alien Enemies Act, a little-used act that presents a series of novel, unresolved questions.

Even with this smaller subset of detainees, individual hearings and appeals could make Biden’s decision to allow millions into the country a permanent reality. Many immigrants have been given initial court dates that extend beyond the Trump term.

Trump also pledged to reduce trade barriers for American exports and he is pushing existing laws to the breaking point on tariffs. He is right on the merits.

Even our closest allies impose unfair barriers to our goods and Trump sought to change the status quo with sweeping tariffs issued under his own authority.

Democrats have challenged that authority in various courts and, again, there are good-faith arguments that must be hashed out in court.

It is too early to tell how successful these cases will prove. However, a district court injunction (or even a dozen injunctions) a crisis does not make.

The Supreme Court is about to hear arguments on limiting the use of national injunctions and some of these district court decisions are highly challengeable on appeal.

There is no question that Trump is moving at a lightning speed and the Justice Department has to move at the same pace as the president.

There is also no question that it would better to slow down to avoid some of the unforced errors in the first 100 days.

However, Trump knows that time is of the essence. If he is going to realign the markets and make progress on issues like deportations, he has to put points on the board before the midterm elections. Ronald Reagan lost 26 seats in the House in his first midterm, Bill Clinton lost 54, and Barack Obama lost a breathtaking 63 seats.

The greatest problem for the Justice Department is that the White House and the political team appear to be largely dictating these moves. Political aides see these hills as worth dying on. Even if they lose in court, fighting to remove criminal aliens or to reduce certain foreign aid remains popular with voters.

Don’t alienate judges

The frenzy, however, can come at a cost. That includes alienating justices on the Supreme Court. The resistance to court orders and hyperbolic rhetoric seems to be wearing thin with members like Chief Justice John Roberts.

Trump will need these votes when they really count on big-ticket items like his inherent authority to act in areas ranging from markets to migrants.

Fights over Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia are burning time and effort. If he was simply returned as ordered by a court, Abrego Garcia could be promptly and correctly deported right back to El Salvador. He has no cognizable basis for remaining in the United States.

Richard Carlson, a Bay Area psychotherapist, famously wrote a book titled “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff … and it’s all Small Stuff.” Fights like Garcia are small stuff.

Of course, much of what presidents do is “big stuff” and you have two years to make those things happen. In a curious way, the Trump administration is fortunate to have many of these issues in court early to gain greater finality on the lines of authority. However, it needs to focus on the big stuff . . . and a short calendar.

Jonathan Turley is a law professor at George Washington University and the author of best-selling book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”

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Via https://jonathanturley.org/2025/04/30/the-first-100-days-the-method-behind-the-madness-in-court-challenges/

Madison Area Lyme Support Group

Recently, the WEF confirmed that Klaus Schwab has resigned as chair and that it has launched an investigation into the man and his wife Hilda due to allegations of misconduct using organization funds to buy a luxury mansion, private, in-room massages at hotels, and luxury holiday travel.

Schwab was the founder and 50-plus-year uncontested head honcho of the WEF which started as a $6K startup but morphed into a $390-million-a-year business  hell-bent on acquiring divine powers, hacking humans, using sound waves for mind control, ending free-will, infiltrating and destroying democratically controlled governments and infiltrating cabinets, depopulating the earth, recalibrating free speech, and most importantly, emulating their beloved China.  Source

The WEF peaked at the height of the COVID era with global narratives like ‘The Great Reset‘, ‘build back better,’ ‘sustainability,’ inclusivity, equity, and coherence using digital ID as the linchpin at the center of a global digital panopticon devised under the auspice of the UN’s global public-private partnership ‘regime.’” (Go here for a live webinar tonight on what Real ID means for your medical privacy)

Its annual DAVOS meeting has been a virtual requirement for hungry elites with dreams of taking over the world.

The WEF appears to have fallen from grace; however, due to being a fanatical political organization masquerading as a neutral entity demanding $3.5 trillion a year (60% of the annual U.S. federal budget) to ‘decarbonize’ the planet, to ‘reach net-zero and restore nature.’ Rather than admitting that “climate change” measures  have actually hurt the environment and people, or apologizing for tracking and censoring people, pushing wars and deadly mass “vaccinations” that were ineffective but have been linked with more adverse reactions and death than any vaccine in the history of VAERS, this out of touch group naively believes it can build trust out of thin air.

And now, Schwab’s replacement as been revealed:

Peter Brabeck-Letmathe WEF Interim Chairman

Letmathe, former CEO of Nestle the largest food and beverage empire on earth, has stated that water should not be a human right.  He appears to be a perfect WEF fit:

• Nestle is one of the largest users of water in the food and beverage industry and in 2023 withdrew 95.6 MN/m3 of water globally of which 37% was from water-stressed areas.  Half was used in their operations and half was dumped back into the environment. 
• They have also taken water from indigenous lands in Canada in areas where locals couldn’t even get clean drinking water.
• Nestle has been draining aquifers dry and then selling it back to consumers for profit in plastic bottles which damage the environment. (https://substack.com/home/post/p-162411666)

Neuralink faced $281 million in possible liability for allegedly making false statements about risks from its product, per the memo.

Additionally, the company could have been forced to pay $1.59 million in civil and criminal penalties for alleged violations of the Animal Welfare Act.

“The through line connecting many of Mr. Musk’s decisions appears to be self-enrichment and avoiding what he perceives as obstacles to advancing his interests,” reads the memo.

“The truth is that the breathtaking scope and scale of benefits Mr. Musk is gaining from his present position may never be known, and that is by design. The silence is strategic, and it is dangerous,” it says.

In the wake of the memo, the committee’s ranking member, Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, sent letters to the five Musk-led companies asking them to provide information on the federal investigations they faced prior to Trump’s inauguration.

CNBC has reached out to the companies for comment.

The letters also request a rundown of the steps each company has taken to keep Musk’s government work separate from those probes. Blumenthal asks the companies to respond by May 11.

The White House sharply rejected any suggestion that Musk has used his role in government for “personal or financial gain,” saying “any assertion otherwise is completely false and defamatory.”

Blumenthal “is clearly suffering from a debilitating and uncurable case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has wilted his brain,” White House communications director Steven Cheung said in an emailed statement.

[…]

Via https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/28/elon-musk-doge-trump-legal-liabilities-senate-democrats.html

Ansar Allah supporters chant slogans during an anti-U.S. and anti-Israel rally in Sanaa, Yemen, April 18, 2025. Osamah Abdulrahman

By Robert Inlakesh

Around 100 officers from the UAE-backed National Resistance Forces (NRF) in Yemen have defected to join Ansar Allah, delivering a major blow to U.S. and Gulf-backed efforts inside the country. The development comes amid threats of a U.S.-supported ground offensive and intensified American airstrikes against civilian targets.

On Sunday, approximately 100 officers from Yemen’s United Arab Emirates-backed forces defected to Ansar Allah in the capital, Sanaa. Although the defectors’ identities have not been publicly disclosed, initial reports suggest that much of the group’s high command was among them.

The defections mark a serious setback for the NRF, led by Brigadier General Tareq Saleh, who holds territory along Yemen’s northwestern coast near Taiz.

Tareq Saleh, the nephew of deposed Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, sits on the Emirati-Saudi backed Presidential Leadership Council, often referred to as Yemen’s internationally recognized government. His NRF forces are aligned with Saudi and U.S.-backed groups that control southern Yemen, headquartered in the port city of Aden.

Meanwhile, protests have erupted across southern Yemen, where residents are demanding the removal of the “pro-coalition government” over worsening economic conditions, collapsing basic services, and 20-hour rolling blackouts. In Aden, the demonstrations against the Saudi-Emirati coalition continue to grow, with citizens accusing local authorities of failing to implement emergency measures to stabilize energy supplies.

Despite backing from wealthy Gulf states and U.S. support, areas under the Presidential Leadership Council’s control suffer from higher poverty rates than the 70% of Yemenis living under Ansar Allah’s Sanaa-based government.

Shortly after U.S. strikes began on March 15, President Trump claimed that Ansar Allah had been “decimated,” while Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth asserted that the military campaign was “devastatingly effective.” Six weeks later, U.S. officials have quietly admitted that the strikes have had limited impact, raising concerns over cost effectiveness and ammunition depletion.

Despite Washington’s early rhetoric, the Yemeni Armed Forces continue to target U.S. aircraft carrier strike groups, fire missiles and drones at Israel, and enjoy mass displays of public support across Yemen.

In Washington, leading think tanks are now scrambling for alternatives. The Atlantic Council recently suggested that assassinating key leaders like Abdul Malik al-Houthi could collapse the Sanaa government. The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) argued that “only a ground operation can oust the Houthis.”

Around a week ago, reports emerged that an 80,000-strong Saudi-UAE backed force was preparing to cooperate with U.S. troops to seize Yemen’s strategic Red Sea port city of Hodeidah. However, the NRF defections could significantly complicate those plans.

Growing public discontent in southern Yemen could further jeopardize any ground operation. Massive weekly demonstrations show strong popular support for Ansar Allah’s blockade of the Red Sea and its missile attacks on Israel, actions that many in southern Yemen view as retaliation against U.S. intervention.

Instead of destroying Ansar Allah, Trump’s military escalation may be achieving the opposite: unifying a nation torn by nearly a decade of civil war.

Via https://www.mintpressnews.com/trump-yemen-officer-defections/289460/

Original Background Image Source.

by Brian Shilhavy
Editor, Health Impact News

Pepe Escobar, the Brazilian international journalist, recently returned from his visit to China where he spent time in Shanghai and Hong Kong, home to the two largest ports in China.

He was interviewed by Danny Haiphong, and I am including the interview here, which I listened to this past weekend.

Escobar states:

Trump managed to do what I would say (is) the impossible, to antagonize 1.4 billion Chinese, at the same time.

And there’s no turning back. So Trump cannot expect a phone call from China.

He explains how BRICS, which will meet this summer in Brazil, is now accelerating their plans to implement a new international payment system so countries can bypass the U.S. banking system and the U.S. dollar, as they begin to exclude the U.S. market due to these high tariffs.

Escobar mentions the analogy that President Trump is using for his tariffs, which is that the U.S. is a “store” and that any country who wants to buy U.S. goods in this “store” has to meet Trump’s pricing based on tariffs.

Escobar responds: “But what he doesn’t realize is that nobody wants to buy anything in this store anymore” as the BRICS nations begin to reshape their supply chains and exports.

Also covered in this interview is the amazing announcement from Russia that the Kursk region has now been 100% liberated, as Russia announces, for the first time in public, that they did so with the help of North Korean military forces.

He also explains how Iran is a huge part of BRICS plans for the future, and the implementation of the new Silk Road trade initiatives.

Watch the full interview:

[…]

Via https://vaccineimpact.com/2025/brics-nations-accelerate-efforts-to-establish-new-international-payment-system-to-fight-back-against-u-s-tariffs/

The Late John Judge on 9/11

Talking Stick TV (2002)

Film Review

I was fortunate to attend this talk on February 13, 2002, just five months after 9/11. This was the first we learned 9/11 was an inside job – when Judge informed us of the Air Force stand down order (not to intercept the 747 heading for the Pentagon).

Prior to his death in 2014, Judge chaired the JFK Assassination Review Board. The latter was an independent organization created under The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992. It was the Review Board’s responsibility to review the six million pages of classified documents the Act forced the Clinton administration to release. The law was a response to massive popular pressure following the release of Oliver Stone’s 1991 film JFK.

As Judge explains in the video, prior to 9/11 he was working with congress woman Cynthia McKinney to establish an expert panel to lobby for the release of 600,000-700,000 pages of classified documents related to the Martin Luther King assassination.*

Judge goes on to talk about Secretary of State Colin Powell informing Middle East counterparts in July 2001 about US plans to invade Afghanistan, owing to the refusal by the Taliban (which the US had installed to run Afghanistan) to agree to the proposed Unocal oil pipeline pipeline connecting the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf.

Judge also speaks about Al Qaeda not representing Islam, and how most terrorism is phony terrorism sponsored by Western powers to forward their own political agendas.

*The panel was cancelled after 9-11. By law these records are scheduled to be released in 2026.