Donald Trump

Huffington Post - President Donald Trump is engaged in an all-out assault on speech rights aimed at forcing every sector of society to adopt his administration’s viewpoint or risk discrimination, punishment, and, in some cases, jail, revocation of rights and deportation.

This is the most concerted assault on free speech rights since “the McCarthy Era,” said David Cole, the former legal director of the ACLU and a law professor at Georgetown University Law Center.

“Here, too, you have a government targeting for retribution and for punishment [to] those with whom it disagrees ― and doing so across the board,” Cole said.

These attacks have largely come through a series of executive orders aimed at eliminating from American life Diversity, Equity and Inclusion; transgender people; support for undocumented immigrants; opposition to Israeli government policies; and, of course, anyone Trump perceives as his enemy. Still others have seen their speech rights assailed by the Trump administration for refusing to abide by an executive order purporting to rename the Gulf of Mexico. Numerous lawsuits have been filed to challenge nearly every one of these orders.

How far the administration is willing to go to assail the First Amendment became clear on Saturday evening when Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested, detained and moved to deport Mahmoud Khalil without a warrant for his involvement in the anti-Gaza War protest movement on Columbia University’s campus in 2024. Khalil is a Palestinian citizen and U.S. green card holder, which confers legal rights that foreign visa holders lack.

CNBC -The outgoing prime minister of Greenland blasted talk Thursday by President Donald Trump that the potential annexation of the massive Arctic island by the United States would happen.“The U.S. president has once again aired the thought of annexing us,” Prime Minister Mute Egede wrote in a Facebook post.

“Don’t keep treating us with disrespect. Enough is enough,” Egede wrote.

The prime minister wrote that he plans to convene a meeting of the chairmen of all Greenland’s political parties “as soon as possible” to address Trump’s comments.

“Because this time we need to tighten our rejection of Trump,” Egede wrote.

The Facebook post came hours after Trump yet again discussed the idea of the U.S. taking over Greenland, which is currently a territory of Denmark.

A reporter asked Trump, “What is your vision for the potential annexation of Greenland.”

“I think it’ll happen,” Trump replied during a meeting in the White House with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.

Trump said the U.S. needs the island “for international security.”

The president then turned to Rutte and said “we’ll be talking to you” about the issue.

“It’s really an appropriate question,” the president added.

 NPR -  President Trump is expected to visit the Justice Department today, where he will deliver a speech outlining his vision for the department. His visit comes as his administration has spent the last several weeks demoting attorneys who worked on cases related to Jan. 6 and firing officials who investigated the president...Historically, presidents have kept their distance from the DOJ, NPR's justice correspondent Ryan Lucas says. That's because for decades there's been a norm, respected by both Republican and Democratic administrations, that the department is independent and free from political interference.