House Republicans have come up with yet another plan to kick brown people out of the country. On Thursday, Representative Ryan Zinke introduced a bill that would revoke the visas and refugee status of a number of Palestinians.
The Safeguarding Americans From Extremism Act would require the Department of Homeland Security to refrain from issuing visas or granting refugee, asylum, or temporary protected status to anyone holding a passport issued by the Palestinian Authority. It would also revoke visas and refugee or asylum status for anyone who was granted it on or after October 1.
The bill also directly orders Immigration and Customs Enforcement to remove those who lose their lawful status in the country under the new criteria.
“This is the most anti-Hamas immigration legislation I have seen and it’s well deserved,” Zinke said in a statement that conflated all Palestinians with Hamas.
As justification for this racist immigration overhaul, Zinke in a press release quoted articles from as far back as 2019 that have nothing to do with Palestinians or even threats to America, as well as articles from conservative outlets The Daily Mail and Fox News.
The radical bill is co-sponsored by far-right members of Congress like Marjorie Taylor Greene, who this week led a failed attempt to censure the only Palestinian American member of Congress. Other co-sponsors include Republican Representatives Andy Biggs, Aaron Bean, Andy Harris, Scott DesJarlais, Clay Higgins, Ronny Jackson, Barry Moore, Ralph Norman, and Bill Posey.
For the last month, Republicans have been using Israel’s war on Gaza to try to deport people. Donald Trump has promised to revive the cruel Muslim ban, and to expel anyone who supports Hamas. Other 2024 candidates and members of Congress have promised similar deportations. But this is the first bill that could make that grave threat a reality.
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New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron has had enough, apparently.
The gag order silencing Donald Trump in the $250 million bank fraud trial is now extended to Trump’s entire legal team, according to a judge’s order issued Friday.
In his written order, Engoron banned Trump’s attorneys from commenting on his courtroom staff.
“Since the commencement of this bench trial, my chambers have been inundated with hundreds of harassing and threatening phone calls, voicemails, emails, letters and packages. The First Amendment right of defendants and their attorneys to comment on my staff is far and away outweighed by the need to protect them from threats and physical harm,” Engoron wrote in the supplemental gag order, noting that he has an “unfettered right” to consult with his staff throughout the trial.
Violating the new order would come with “serious sanctions,” he warned.
The expansion comes mere hours after Trump attorney Christopher Kise threatened to have the case declared a mistrial over note passing between the judge and his top legal aide—an eyebrow-raising threat that came after Eric Trump effectively admitted to lying in his deposition.
Courtroom tensions have been strained since the very beginning of the trial, when Trump spread a false rumor online that Engoron’s principal law clerk, Allison Greenfield, was dating Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. Trump also shared Greenfield’s Instagram details on TruthSocial, effectively ushering a scourge of far-right sympathizers onto her social media accounts. Since then, he has fussed that the judge’s clerk is “partisan” and “biased.”
So far, Trump has violated his gag order twice to the tune of a collective $15,000 in fines. Engoron has already ruled that Trump and his sons committed fraud and has stripped the Trump Organization of its business certificates.
Trump attorney Christopher Kise hasn’t given up on the possibility of having the former president’s New York bank fraud trial thrown out.
Kise’s new strategy seems to be threatening to have the case declared a mistrial over complaints—mostly stemming from Trump—that New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron’s law clerk is biased, reported Forbes.
At the end of the trial day on Thursday, Kise raised objections to note passing between the judge and his legal aide, whom Trump’s attorneys have referred to as a “secretary,” implying that she was “co-judging” the trial. That was enough to set off Engoron, who pounded on his bench while threatening to expand the gag order against the former president to his entire legal team in light of the remarks.
“Sometimes I think there may be a bit of misogyny in the fact that you keep referring to my female principal law clerk,” Engoron thundered. “If there is any further reference to anyone on my staff—and I don’t have a big staff, I have about three people—I will consider expanding the gag order to include the attorneys including yourself.”
Kise outright dismissed the allegation on the basis that he’s “happily married” with a 17-year-old daughter.
Come Friday morning, however, Kise was back to reiterating his explosive remarks.
“The entire country, if not the world, is watching this proceeding,” Kise said, according to The Daily Beast. “And the U.S. heretofore has been a model for integrity and impartiality in the judicial system, since its founding. Nothing in here should create any appearance that the adherence to those principles has wavered … Yes, as a judge you’re entitled to receive [assistance], but from someone who has potentially demonstrable bias … and the manner in which that has taken place, we at least have to make a record.”
The renewed effort comes a day after Eric Trump stumbled in the family’s fraud trial, admitting that he knew of the Trump Organization’s statement of financial condition as far back as 2013, directly contradicting his deposition.
Courtroom tensions have been strained since the very beginning of the trial, when Trump spread a false rumor online that Engoron’s principal law clerk, Allison Greenfield, was dating Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. Trump also shared Greenfield’s Instagram details on TruthSocial, effectively ushering a scourge of far-right sympathizers onto her social media accounts. Since then, he has fussed that the judge’s clerk is “partisan” and “biased.”
So far, Trump has violated his gag order twice to the tune of a collective $15,000 in fines. Engoron has already ruled that Trump and his sons committed fraud and has stripped the Trump Organization of its business certificates.
Senator Tommy Tuberville’s ongoing blockade of military promotions has united his fellow Republicans around two facts: His actions are wrong, and he might not be all that smart.
Tuberville has blocked nearly 400 military promotions in protest against the Defense Department policy of reimbursing travel costs for service members who have to travel out of state for an abortion. The Pentagon has repeatedly warned that the block harms military readiness, but Tuberville refuses to budge.
In fact, earlier this year, the Alabama Republican argued that the real source of damage to military readiness is the department refusing to allow white nationalists to serve. Tuberville still seems to struggle to accept that white nationalists are, by definition, racist.
But his own words shouldn’t be taken as a sign that Tuberville is racist, multiple Alabama Republicans told Rolling Stone in a report published Friday. Instead, it should be interpreted as a sign that Tuberville is a blockhead.
“I do not believe that Tommy Tuberville is a racist at all,” one of them said, speaking anonymously. “I really believe that maybe he doesn’t have an understanding of the English language.”
An Alabama Republican lobbyist, also speaking anonymously, separately praised Tuberville’s political skills as “very underestimated.”
“It’s his policy skills where the jury is still out,” the lobbyist told Rolling Stone.
Tuberville’s stunt has dragged on so long that other Republican senators have turned on him. They pleaded with him to approve individual promotion nominations Thursday night, taking to the floor t
