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Justice Department lawyers on Wednesday defended their decision to end a criminal case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, facing tough questions from a judge about their rationale for the controversial move.

Judge Dale Ho did not immediately rule on the motion to dismiss the charges, saying: "I'm not going to shoot from the hip right here on the bench."

Last week, Emil Bove, a top official at the department and one of President Donald Trump's former personal attorneys, instructed federal prosecutors in Manhattan to drop the corruption case.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/25804020

https://nitter.net/WhiteHouse/status/1892295984928993698#m

*Nitter mirror. Don't link directly to that shit stain of a site

All the effort Kyiv had expended in wooing the White House, combining flattery with bribery and a share of Ukraine’s mineral wealth, imploded in minutes when Volodymyr Zelenskyy broke the fundamental rule of the new global reality: he told the truth about Donald Trump.

All America’s allies, the great majority of Republican leaders who have bowed to him, and a good number of his own cabinet, know full well that Trump is trapped in a disinformation bubble, but Zelenskyy said it out loud at a press conference on Wednesday.

In this new world where the foreign policy of the most powerful country on Earth has been rapidly reorganised around the fragile ego of a sullen and resentful old man, you might as well launch missiles at America’s eastern seaboard as utter a few words of rebuke.

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He has pulled protective details from former colleagues facing death threats from Iran. He has revoked or threatened to revoke the security clearances of President Biden, members of his administration and dozens of others. His administration has taken steps to target members of the media seen as unfriendly, taken the hatchet to entire agencies perceived as too liberal and fired or investigated government workers deemed disloyal.

. . .

Mr. Trump’s targeting of those he sees as disloyal is more intense and far-reaching than any that preceded it in American history, says Nicole Hemmer, an associate professor of history at Vanderbilt University who studies the presidency. Other presidents, such as John Adams, have attacked the press. Some, such as Andrew Jackson, have investigated previous administrations, claiming they were rooting out corruption. Richard M. Nixon’s penchant for going after his enemies cost him the White House.

But Mr. Trump’s efforts have extended beyond high-profile individuals and stretched down into the lower ranks of government and media.

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Gallup surveyed 1,001 adults last month, and published the results on Monday (February 10).

Although a slight fall from previous years, more than half the respondents (58 per cent) still said they openly support trans women and men serving in the military.

The most support came from Democrat voters, with 84 per cent backing the idea, while only 23 per cent of Republicans felt the same way, a fall from 43 per cent in 2019. Among Independents, backing fell from 78 per cent to 62 per cent during the same period.

While it is true that the EU provides more financial support than the US, the US provides most of the military aid that helped the country withstand and slow down the Russian advance. The EU is powerful as an economic block, but they don’t have a unified army, they depend on American weaponry (with the exception of France), and I don’t see much political will to keep arming Ukraine if the US pulls out completely or if the Trump administration pauses sanctions.

It seems to me that Trump simply cannot get over Zelensky not ‘helping’ him to find something nefarious about Biden’s son during his first administration and now POTUS is first provoking him and then, when Zelensky send a diplomatically worded answer, POTUS overreacts and insults, like he got the excuse he was looking for. So vindictive and victim blaming.

This is not the America I was taught about.

I’ve never seen a country destroy it’s credibility with allies so fast in such a short notice. Putin is sure having a good time watching all this.

I’ve heard most US senators are pro Ukraine, but I don’t see any of them confronting Trump. GOP belongs to MAGA now.

Unless democrats win the midterms in 2026 he’s going to have 4 years of trifecta. I don’t see how Ukraine can survive 4 more years of onslaught only with European help and no boots on the ground.

Does Ukraine have any chance?

It was when British archaeologist Dr Piers Litherland saw that the ceiling of the burial chamber was painted blue with yellow stars that he realised he had just discovered the first tomb of an Egyptian pharaoh to be found in more than a century.

Litherland had been exploring the Valley of the Kings in Egypt for more than a decade when he discovered a staircase that led to the tomb, now known to have belonged to Thutmose II, who reigned from 1493 to 1479BC.

It took months to clear flood debris from the descending corridor and during this time, he and his team assumed the tomb belonged to a royal wife.

But as soon as he saw the ceiling of the burial chamber had been decorated with scenes from the Amduat, a religious text reserved for kings, he knew he had made what has since been hailed as the most significant discovery since Tutankhamun.

Pup is @zerothesupercollie on instagram

A Missouri man has died weeks before his sentencing for shooting a 16-year-old boy who accidentally went to the wrong address.

Andrew Lester, 86, pleaded guilty last week to second-degree assault after opening fire on Ralph Yarl in Kansas City on 13 April 2023.

Lester was scheduled for sentencing on 7 March and was facing seven years in prison. In a statement, the Yarl family expressed frustration that "justice was never truly served".

Ralph Yarl rang Lester's doorbell while going to pick up his younger brothers. Prosecutors said Lester shot the teen without speaking to him. The boy survived and has since graduated from high school.

It's almost like a worm ate his brain

The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth has ordered senior leaders at the Pentagon and throughout the US military to develop plans for cutting 8% from the defense budget in each of the next five years, according to a memo obtained by the Washington Post.

Hegseth ordered the proposed cuts to be drawn up by 24 February, according to the memo, which includes a list of 17 categories that the Trump administration wants exempted. Among them: operations at the southern US border, modernization of nuclear weapons and missile defense and acquisition of one-way attack drones and other munitions. If adopted in full, the proposed cuts would include tens of billions of dollars in each of the next five years.

According to the Post, the memo calls for continued “support agency” funding for several major regional headquarters, including Indo-Pacific command, northern command and space command. Notably absent from that list is European command, which has had a leading role in executing US strategy during the war in Ukraine; central command, which oversees operations in the Middle East; and Africa command, which manages the several thousand troops the Pentagon has spread across that continent.

Summary

Two senior staffers, Charlie Hills and Tré Easton, are leaving Sen. John Fetterman’s office amid his shift toward a more Trump-friendly stance.

Their departures follow other high-profile resignations, including his chief of staff last year.

Fetterman has evolved from a Bernie Sanders supporter to a vocal pro-Israel Democrat and critic of his party’s anti-Trump approach.

He has backed some Trump policies and nominees but opposed others. Despite this shift, he remains a reliable Democratic vote.

Fear of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids began to spread the day after President Donald Trump was inaugurated for the second time. Posts on social media and Reddit claimed that ICE had already been spotted in the Dallas neighborhood of Oak Cliff, where Latino immigrants began to settle in large numbers in the 1970s and have profoundly shaped the culture of the vibrant community.

That same Tuesday morning, an X account with over 17,000 followers named GlomarResponder made an ominous post. “Yeah, I’m in a courthouse wating [sic] on warrants,” GlomarResponder wrote. “Turns out there’s a lot of bitch work to be done to make mass deportations happen.” One day prior, GlomarResponder had posted that he “Can confirm all of those,” regarding a list of cities where ICE was expected to begin deportation operations the next day. “May have a betting pool to see who can guess which one I’m at on any particular day, based on the news,” GlomarResponder wrote.

These were but the latest posts that GlomarResponder has made over the years that suggest the operator of the account is an ICE employee. GlomarResponder has also routinely expressed blatantly racist and anti-immigrant views. Through an extensive review of GlomarResponder’s X posts, publicly available documents, and other social media profiles and posts, the Texas Observer has identified the operator of GlomarResponder

The actions were part of a national day of action in dozens of states organized by unions representing government employees.

Weeee

Summary

An investigation by the Texas Observer identified ICE Assistant Chief Counsel James Rodden as the operator of "GlomarResponder," a white supremacist X account.

The account, active since 2012, has posted racist, xenophobic, and pro-fascist content, including support for mass deportations and anti-immigrant violence.

Rodden's identity was confirmed through biographical details, court records, and social media activity. ICE has not confirmed his employment but is investigating.

Legal experts warn that his views compromise his ability to fairly represent the government in immigration proceedings. Rodden declined to comment.

I created [email protected] a few months ago and then started seeing contraversies around moderation policies and federation that just don't apply to the type of content on dull mens club so I decided to make an instance solely to host that community.

[email protected]

I'm not sure if this has happened yet, but I like the idea of having a neutral instance that users can still visit regardless of what happens. There's no user signups, only admin/moderator accounts. Users have to use an account from a federated instance.

https://sh.itjust.works/c/avgeeks

[email protected]

https://sh.itjust.works/c/avgeeks

[email protected]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/25806106

Summary

An investigation by the Texas Observer identified ICE Assistant Chief Counsel James Rodden as the operator of "GlomarResponder," a white supremacist X account.

The account, active since 2012, has posted racist, xenophobic, and pro-fascist content, including support for mass deportations and anti-immigrant violence.

Rodden's identity was confirmed through biographical details, court records, and social media activity. ICE has not confirmed his employment but is investigating.

Legal experts warn that his views compromise his ability to fairly represent the government in immigration proceedings. Rodden declined to comment.