TV News LIES

A federal judge on Wednesday vacated an immigration court ruling giving the Trump administration broad powers to detain migrants, forcing them to give bond hearings and then possibly release thousands in custody.

The ruling from U.S. District Court Judge Sunshine Sykes excoriated the Trump administration’s claims that it is targeting the worst of the worst for deportation.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are at times relying on shaky legal ground to detain migrants, wrote Sykes, an appointee of former President Biden, and migrants are therefore entitled to a bond hearing to determine whether they may pursue their immigration case outside of ICE detention.

“‘Worst of the worst’ is an inaccurate description of most of those affected by DHS and ICE’s operations. Perhaps in utilizing this extreme language DHS seeks to justify the magnitude and scope of its operations against non-criminal noncitizens. Maybe that phrase merely mirrors the severity and ill-natured conduct by the Government. Even though these press releases might contain an inkling of truth, they ignore a greater, more dire reality,” she wrote.

More...

A government watchdog group is suing the FBI to force the release of a tape that reportedly shows border czar Tom Homan allegedly accepting a $50,000 bribe.

MSNOW reported in September that before President Trump won the election, Homan had been approached by an undercover FBI agent following a tip that he was taking kickbacks in exchange for helping companies secure lucrative government contracts should Trump be elected.

The act was reportedly caught on tape, showing Homan accepting the cash in a Cava bag. Homan in September said he “did nothing criminal” but did not deny taking a $50,000 cash payment. 

Democracy Defenders Fund is suing after the FBI rebuffed their efforts to secure the tape and other files related to the investigation into Homan

“These documents contain vital information that the American public needs to have in order to assess both Mr. Homan’s potentially corrupt actions as well as the Department of Justice and FBI’s potentially politically motivated decision to drop the investigation into Mr. Homan, one of the Trump Administration’s appointees,” the group wrote in its suit.

More...

Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, is leaving the agency, the department confirmed on Tuesday.

McLaughlin has become the public face and voice defending the Trump administration's mass deportation policy and immigration tactics over the past year.

"McLaughlin started planning to leave in December but pushed back her departure amid the aftermath of the shootings of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal immigration officers, according to the people briefed on her exit," DHS said in a statement to NPR.

POLITICO first reported her departure. It is not clear where she is going next. McLaughlin in a statement said Lauren Bis, currently her deputy, will replace her as assistant secretary for public affairs, while Katie Zacharia will become deputy assistant secretary.

More...

Conservation and historical organizations sued the Trump administration on Tuesday over National Park Service policies that the groups say erase history and science from America’s national parks.

A lawsuit filed in Boston says orders by Donald Trump and interior secretary Doug Burgum have forced park service staff to remove or censor exhibits that share factually accurate and relevant US history and scientific knowledge, including about slavery and climate change.

Separately, LGBTQ+ rights advocates and historic preservationists sued the park service on Tuesday for removing a rainbow Pride flag from the Stonewall national monument, the New York site that commemorates a foundational moment in the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement.

The changes at exhibits came in response to a Trump executive order “restoring truth and sanity to American history” at the nation’s museums, parks and landmarks. It directed the interior department to ensure those sites do not display elements that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.” Burgum later directed removal of “improper partisan ideology” from museums, monuments, landmarks and other public exhibits under federal control.

More...

A special education teacher was killed in a car crash in Savannah, Ga., on Monday morning that involved Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The Department of Homeland Security said Linda Davis, 52, died after Oscar Vasquez-Lopez, a 38-year-old man from Guatemala who ICE was trying to arrest, “fled the scene, making a reckless U-turn and running a red light, colliding into a civilian vehicle.”

Although the collision occurred near Herman W. Hesse K-8 School, students were not present as Monday was a federal holiday, the school said.

The Chatham County Police Department said Vasquez-Lopez was in custody and had been charged with reckless driving, driving without a valid license, failure to obey a traffic control device and homicide by vehicle -1st degree.

More...

Minnesota law enforcement authorities have said the FBI is refusing to share any evidence on its investigation into the death of Alex Pretti, the man killed by federal immigration authorities in late January.

Pretti was shot on 24 January by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials in Minneapolis during the Trump administration’s surge of immigration enforcement operations in the city. His killing came just two weeks after an immigration official shot and killed Renee Good and 10 days after the shooting of Julio C Sosa-Celis.

On Monday, Minnesota’s bureau of criminal apprehension (BCA), a state-level criminal investigative law enforcement agency, said the FBI had formally notified it that it would not share any information or evidence related to Pretti’s shooting.

The Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, has demanded an “impartial” investigation into the shootings in Minneapolis.

“Trump’s left hand cannot investigate his right hand,” he said on Monday in response to the FBI’s refusal to share evidence. “The families of the deceased deserve better.”

More

A growing number of Olympic athletes competing for the U.S. in this month’s Winter Games are expressing discomfort with representing the country under President Trump’s administration, sparking intense pushback from the president’s supporters and Trump himself. 

Trump attacked U.S. athlete Hunter Hess directly after Hess said he was conflicted about competing for Team USA given the country’s political climate.

“It brings up mixed emotions to represent the U.S. right now. I think it’s a little hard,” Hess, a freestyle skier, told reporters during a recent press conference. “There’s obviously a lot going on that I’m not the biggest fan of, and I think a lot of people aren’t. Just because I’m wearing the flag doesn’t mean I represent everything that’s going on in the U.S.” 

The president in a Truth Social post hours later called Hess a “real loser” and said it is “very hard to root for someone like this” when watching the games.

Hess’s comments came days after Amber Glenn, an American figure skater, decried the administration’s policies toward people in the LGBTQ community.

More...

Last week, we learned of the decision of the Texas A&M University board of regents to end women’s and gender studies programs as well as the teaching of “divisive concepts” such as race. A&M was not the first university to do this. Florida’s New College made the move in 2023. Other red state legislatures have passed similar requirements and their public universities (in North Carolina, Ohio and Kansas) have followed suit.

The move to cancel gender studies is explicitly justified as a way to comply with Donald Trump’s executive order of last year titled Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government. That document makes “the biological reality of sex” a matter not of science but of law.

Until this week’s latest dump of the Epstein files by Trump’s justice department, I hadn’t seen the connection between the two. But now it’s as clear as day. The abolition of gender studies is a way of further guaranteeing impunity to the elite men whose contempt for and exploitation of women and girls apparently knew no bounds, whether they actually slept with the women on offer or simply shared Epstein’s fantasies in order to gain influence or funding.

More...