DONALD TRUMP

The Guardian - One of Donald Trump’s new executive orders, which claims there are only two genders, quietly incorporates tenets of fetal personhood – the legal doctrine, pushed by the anti-abortion movement, that life begins at conception and that embryos and fetuses therefore deserve full legal rights and protections.

“‘Female’ means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell,” reads the order, which was issued just hours after Trump took office on Monday. “‘Male’ means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell.”

The words “at conception” have set off alarm bells among abortion rights supporters. If fully enacted, fetal personhood would have sweeping repercussions for all US law; not only would it outlaw abortion nationwide, but it could even lead governments to treat abortion as murder and treat people who undergo the procedure as murderers.

Huffington Post - President Donald Trump suggested Wednesday that states should “take care of their own problems” rather than rely on the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help them recover after natural disasters.

Trump spoke to Fox News host Sean Hannity on Wednesday in a wide-ranging interview following his inauguration and slate of executive actions to reshape the federal government. The president spoke about the wildfires in Los Angeles that have destroyed thousands of homes, saying the devastation and calls for federal support demonstrated issues with FEMA while musing about unspecified changes to the agency.

 Trump’s D.E.I. Order Creates ‘Fear and Confusion’ Among Corporate Leaders

Washington Post - President Donald Trump threatened to withhold federal aid from California as it works to recover from devastating wildfires, recycling several baseless claims and attacks against California’s Democratic leaders during his first sit-down interview since his inauguration.“I don’t think we should give California anything until they let water flow down,” he told Sean Hannity during a Fox News interview that aired Wednesday night.

Trump was repeating a false claim he has repeatedly made that California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and other public officials have refused to allow water from the northern part of the state to flow down into the Los Angeles area.

NOTUS - In an unprecedented move experts say could present a major national security risk, Donald Trump is handing out temporary top secret security clearances to White House staff without any of the usual background checks. Senators on the Senate Intelligence Committee told NOTUS they haven’t seen the list of who or how many people are getting the security clearances, and Republicans are shrugging their shoulders about the potential dangers.

 

AP News - A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order redefining birthright citizenship, calling it “blatantly unconstitutional” during the first hearing in a multi-state effort challenging the order.

U.S. District Judge John Coughenour repeatedly interrupted a Justice Department lawyer to ask how he could consider the order constitutional. When the attorney, Brett Shumate, said he’d like a chance to explain it in a full briefing, Coughenour told him the hearing was his chance. The temporary restraining order sought by Arizona, Illinois, Oregon and Washington was the first to get a hearing before a judge and applies nationally.

The case is one of five lawsuits being brought by 22 states and a number of immigrants rights groups across the country. The suits include personal testimonies from attorneys general who are U.S. citizens by birthright, and names pregnant women who are afraid their children won’t become U.S. citizens.

Republicans against Trump -Trump suggests that it was OK for his supporters to beat police officers on Jan. 6 because they were “protesting the vote. You should be allowed to protest”

Trump kills 1965 anti-segregation order

AP News -  Saudi Arabia’s crown prince said Thursday the kingdom wants to invest $600 billion in the United States over the next four years, comments that came after President Donald Trump earlier put a price tag on returning to the kingdom as his first foreign trip. 

Ten ways to resist Trump II

The Lever - On his first day back in office, President Donald Trump signed a blizzard of executive orders on everything from the environment to immigration — and nearly two thirds of them came straight from Project 2025, the sweeping corporate-backed policy blueprint that Trump lambasted during his 2024 presidential campaign. 

Of the 26 formal executive orders Trump signed on Monday, 16 mirrored at least in part proposals from the Heritage Foundation’s 900-page Project 2025 to reshape the federal government, according to an analysis by The Lever. That includes orders that withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Accords, end Biden’s electric vehicle mandates, and increase oil and gas drilling in Alaska — all proposals that first appeared in Project 2025 months earlier.

Political Wire - “President Trump is threatening to use his powers to adjourn Congress so he can make recess appointments for at least some of his top Cabinet nominees and their deputies, enabling them to begin running the largest federal departments,” CBS News reports.

Slate -  At a time when many commentators think that the death penalty is waning in the United States, President Donald Trump issued an ambitious executive order on his first day in office laying out his vision for the use of capital punishment in this country. It describes capital punishment as “an essential tool for deterring and punishing those who would commit the most heinous crimes and acts of lethal violence against American citizens.”

NY Times -  Mr. Trump’s decision to intervene in even the most violent cases sends an unmistakable message about his plans for power these next four years: He intends — even more so than in his first term — to test the outer limits of what he can get away with.“These people have been destroyed,” Mr. Trump said of the Jan. 6 rioters, after issuing the pardons, sitting behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office for the first time as the 47th president. “What they’ve done to these people is outrageous.”

Mr. Trump’s advisers and lawyers had spent months debating how far he should go in granting clemency to people prosecuted in connection with the Capitol riot. The White House counsel, David Warrington, presented Mr. Trump with options, some more expansive than others, according to two people briefed on the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive internal discussions...

The way Mr. Trump sees it, he didn’t only defeat the Democrats in the 2024 campaign; he also vanquished the remnants of Republican opposition, the mainstream media and a justice system that he saw as a force weaponized against him. He has occasionally claimed that the only retribution he wants in office is “success” for the country; but it’s clear from what he has said and done in his first 24 hours on the job that he also wants payback.