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Trump White House Mocks Abrego Garcia—and Provides ‘More Evidence of Contempt’ of Court

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Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) meets with Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia (L) at an undisclosed location on April 17, 2025 in San Salvador, El Salvador. 
(Photo: Sen. Chris Van Hollen’s Office via Getty Images)

“Whoever thought this was cute at the time may be less giddy when this becomes evidence of intent to disobey a court order,” said one legal expert of a social media post from the White House.

The White House’s public response on Friday to an image of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland father who the Trump administration sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador last month, was to mock the migrant and the U.S. senator who successfully urged Salvadoran President Nayim Bukele to allow a visit with him—and critics said officials may come to regret that decision.

“I suspect this is going to show up in a variety of court pleadings,” said former U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance, who is now a law professor. “Whoever thought this was cute at the time may be less giddy when this becomes evidence of intent to disobey a court order.”

White Vance was among those who responded to a social media post from the White House’s official account on the platform X, in which it displayed the New York Times cover story featuring an image of Abrego Garcia and Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) at their meeting on Thursday.

The story headline read, “Senator Meets With Wrongly Deported Maryland Man in El Salvador”—but the White House crossed out the word “wrongly,” replaced “Maryland Man” with “MS-13 Illegal Alien,” and scrawled, “who’s never coming back” on the article about the father and sheet metal worker.

The digital graffiti was shared with the White House’s 1.6 million followers even though, as software engineer and writer Lakshya Jain said, “the White House admitted in court that they deported the wrong guy.”

Journalist David Leavitt added that the White House had given a federal court “more evidence of contempt,” two days after Chief Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. warned that there was “probable cause… to find the government in criminal contempt”—punishable by fines or prison time.

Boasberg ordered the administration last month to turn around two planes that were carrying migrants to El Salvador to be imprisoned at Bukele’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) under a $6 million deal. The White House disobeyed the order.

The administration has also flouted the U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling last week that found the White House must facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return to the United States. Officials have admitted he was sent to El Salvador due to an “administrative error.” Although officials including Vice President JD Vance have called him a “convicted” gang member and Bukele repeatedly called him a “terrorist” in the White House earlier this week, Abrego Garcia has not been convicted of any crimes. He was also protected by a 2019 court order which found he had a credible fear of persecution if he were deported to El Salvador.

Washington Post senior political reporter Aaron Blake said that by saying Abrego Garcia is “never coming back,” the White House was “basically taunting” the Supreme Court.

Attorney Aaron Regunberg added that White House officials were “explicitly declaring they will violate a unanimous Supreme Court order,” and reminded Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) of his earlier remarks that such defiance from President Donald Trump would trigger “extraordinary action.”

“So… where the fuck are you?” asked Regunberg Schumer.

At a press conference following his return to the U.S., flanked by Abrego Garcia’s wife, Van Hollen—who was widely praised this week for taking concrete action to advocate for his constituent—on Friday accused the Trump administration of “lying about this case from the beginning.”

“They’ve been trying to change the subject from the beginning,” said Van Hollen. “As I’ve said, and the courts have said—from the Supreme Court to the 4th Circuit, to the District Court—what this is about is adhering to the Constitution, to the right of due process. And that’s why we say: ‘Bring Kilmar home,’ so he can be afforded his rights under the Constitution. That’s what this is about.”

Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
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Image of the original Fascists Mussolini and Hitler
Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.

Continue ReadingTrump White House Mocks Abrego Garcia—and Provides ‘More Evidence of Contempt’ of Court

Sanders Says World Just Witnessed New ‘Step Forward in Trump’s Move Toward Authoritarianism’

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Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

U.S. President Donald Trump participates in a bilateral meeting with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele in the Oval Office of the White House on April 14, 2025. (Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

Sen. Bernie Sanders said that a Maryland resident whom the Trump administration wrongly deported “must not be allowed to rot in an El Salvadorian jail based on lies and defiance of our Constitution.”

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders warned late Monday that President Donald Trump’s open refusal to comply with court orders requiring him to bring home a Maryland resident his administration wrongly deported represents “just another step forward” in his “move toward authoritarianism.”

“Just a few weeks ago, the Trump administration admitted that the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a father of three who has been in the country more than decade, was an ‘administrative error,'” Sanders (I-Vt.) said in a statement following the U.S. president’s chummy meeting with far-right Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele at the White House.

“The U.S. Supreme Court—in a 9-0 decision backed by every Trump-appointed justice—ruled that the administration must bring Abrego Garcia back to the United States,” Sanders continued. “Now, in open defiance of the Supreme Court and without any evidence, the White House claims that Abrego Garcia is a ‘terrorist,’ who was ‘sent to the right place.’ This is a blatant LIE.”

During Monday’s meeting, Bukele showed a willingness to help Trump evade domestic court mandates, echoing the U.S. administration’s false narrative that Abrego Garcia is a “terrorist” and declining to release him from a notorious El Salvador mega-prison—insisting, like his American counterpart, that he lacks the power to do so.

The Trump administration proceeded to quote Bukele’s claim that he cannot “smuggle a terrorist into the United States” in a court filing.

Silky Shah, executive director of Detention Watch Network, said the Trump-Bukele meeting “should alarm everyone.”

“Trump is taking monumental yet calculated steps to expand the scope of who can be subjected to arrest, incarceration, and deportation, and normalize the abduction and removal of people to another country without due process,” said Shah. “The Trump and Bukele partnership to outsource incarceration to El Salvador is setting a dangerous precedent of total disdain for basic human rights—not only for migrants, but for everyone in the United States, including residents and citizens, and especially Black and brown people who are disproportionately targeted by the U.S.’s unjust criminal legal system.”

During Bukele’s visit to the White House, livestream audio captured Trump telling El Salvador’s president that “he needs to build about five more places” and that “homegrown” U.S. prisoners “are next.”

Working Families Party national director Maurice Mitchell said Monday that Trump’s remarks were “some of the most chilling words uttered in the Oval Office.”

“He’s pulling straight from the authoritarian playbook—and isn’t hiding it,” said Mitchell. “We condemn his comments in the strongest possible terms and demand the immediate release of wrongly imprisoned Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia.”

Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
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Image of the original Fascists Mussolini and Hitler

Continue ReadingSanders Says World Just Witnessed New ‘Step Forward in Trump’s Move Toward Authoritarianism’

Memo to Washington Insiders: Stop Pretending That Trump Is Normal!

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Original article by Martin Burns republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

U.S. President Donald Trump participates in a bilateral meeting with El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele in the Oval Office of the WHite House in Washington, D.C. on April 14, 2025. (Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

Refusals to comply with Supreme Court decisions equal a constitutional crisis.

I was at an event last week where a prominent GOP pollster who often appears on CNN was discussing the details of U.S. President Donald Trump’s political profile as we approach the 100-day mark of his administration. The back and forth was interesting to me and my fellow political nerds. However, during the presentation, my inner voice sounded like Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders: “This is not normal.”

Unfortunately, far too many political insiders are acting as if Trump is a normal if a little eccentric president. They think that they can negotiate with him on issues and influence his staff to move him in their direction. No matter what Trump does, they see it as just a negotiating tactic.

April 14, 2025 should go down in American history as the day when Trump’s steps in the direction of authoritarianism made it clear to all that this is not a normal presidency. After Monday’s events, there can be no more debate about what Trump is and where he is taking America.

Let’s break down what happened. In a meeting with President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador, President Trump openly defied a 9-0 Supreme Court decision that said that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident wrongly deported to El Salvador, must be returned to the United States. As The New York Times put it:

The meeting in the Oval Office on Monday was a blunt example of Mr. Trump’s defiance of the courts. The president and his top White House officials said the decision over Mr. Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old father of three, would have to be made by [El Salvador President] Mr. Bukele.

If this was not enough, President Trump went on to outline plans for sending American citizens convicted of crimes to El Salvador. More from The New York Times:

President Trump just said he was open to sending American citizens convicted of violent crimes to President Bukele’s prison in El Salvador. Trump had a similar response when Bukele first offered to jail convicted American criminals in February.

“I’m all for it,” Trump said, adding that his attorney general was studying whether the idea was legally feasible. “If it’s a homegrown criminal, I have no problem, no,” he said, adding: “I’m talking about violent people. I’m talking about really bad people.”

Another sign that we are in a constitutional crisis happened just outside the Oval Office on Monday. President Trump had barred The Associated Press from covering certain White House events because they had refused to use his preferred nomenclature for what the White House refers to as the “Gulf of America.” Last week, a federal judge ordered the White House to restore AP access to White House events. The federal judge who ruled in this case was Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee. In his decision, McFadden wrote that:

No, the Court simply holds that under the First Amendment, if the Government opens its doors to some journalists—be it to the Oval Office, the East Room, or elsewhere—it cannot then shut those doors to other journalists because of their viewpoints… The Constitution requires no less.

On Monday, the White House blocked the AP reporter from attending the Oval Office press conference with President Trump and Bukele. Again, Trump failed to obey a court order.

Now, barring a reporter from the Oval Office may not seem to be a big deal. However, it is the government telling the media what it can report on. Plus, the courts ruled directly in the AP’s favor. The lines are clearly drawn here.

President Trump in the Oval Office on Monday openly defied decisions of the judicial branch. One was a 9-0 ruling of the Supreme Court and the other ruling was by a federal judge he appointed. As a nation, we are clearly in a constitutional crisis. This is not something theoretical or something that might happen sometime in the future. The crisis is at hand. The fabric of the American republic is being torn in two.

What we need is bold opposition from Democratic leaders in the House and Senate. If the current leadership is unwillingly to respond, they need to step aside. The first action that each of us can take to protect the American experiment is to stop pretending that Trump is a normal president.

Original article by Martin Burns republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
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Image of the original Fascists Mussolini and Hitler
Continue ReadingMemo to Washington Insiders: Stop Pretending That Trump Is Normal!

In Spite of Court Order, Trump White House Keeps ‘Contemptuous’ Ban on AP

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Original article by Jon Queally republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

US President Donald Trump speaks after signing an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House on April 9, 2025.
 9Photo by Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty Images)

“Is it a constitutional crisis yet?” asked one journalist.

Despite a federal court ruling last week, journalists with the Associated Press were blocked from reporting on several White House events on Monday, leading to fresh accusations that President Donald Trump is openly violating court orders as well as core constitutional protections, in this case freedom of speech and the press.

“Our journalists were blocked from the Oval Office today,” said Lauren Easton, an AP spokesperson, following a press event with Trump and El Salvador President Nayib Bukele. “We expect the White House to restore AP’s participation in the pool as of today, as provided in the injunction order.”

A pair of AP photographers were later allowed to attend an event on the South Lawn, but a print journalist was barred from entry.

According to the AP:

Last week’s federal court decision forbidding the Trump administration from punishing the AP for refusing to rename the Gulf of Mexico was to take effect Monday. The administration is appealing the decision and arguing with the news outlet over whether it needs to change anything until those appeals are exhausted.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. circuit set a Thursday hearing on Trump’s request that any changes be delayed while case is reviewed. The AP is fighting for more access as soon as possible.

“Is it a constitutional crisis yet?” asked Missouri-based journalist Steve Lambson in response to the latest developments.

“More contemptuous behavior by this administration,” added attorney Bernadette Foley. “What will the courts do about it? What will GOP do?”

In the federal court ruling last week, the presiding judge wrote that access to presidential events “must be reasonable and not viewpoint-based,” though the White House has been clear the decision was a punitive response to editorial decisions by AP with which it disagreed.

“While the AP does not have a constitutional right to enter the Oval Office,” the judge said, “it does have a right to not be excluded because of its viewpoint. … All the AP wants, and all it gets, is a level playing field.”

Original article by Jon Queally republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
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The original Fascists Mussolini and Hitler

Continue ReadingIn Spite of Court Order, Trump White House Keeps ‘Contemptuous’ Ban on AP

Tesla Sales Plummet in Germany Amid Musk’s Support for AfD

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Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

“Elon Musk is a Fascist—Stop Tesla” is written on a poster at a protest against the tech mogul in Berlin on January 27, 2025. (Photo: Annette Riedl/picture alliance via Getty Images)

“Nobody wants to be associated with it,” said one researcher in the automotive industry.

“Limiting yourself to AfD supporters as customers comes at a cost it seems,” said one Germany-based political scientist on Wednesday, referring to the far-right political party Alternative for Germany, as Tesla sales were shown to have plummeted in the country last month amid CEO Elon Musk’s show of support for the party.

In January, the company’s electric vehicle (EV) sales were down 59% in the Germany, the only European country where Tesla’s cars are manufactured.

EV makers saw sales fall in Germany over the past year as the country ended a subsidy program—but other companies in the sector experienced have experienced at least a partial rebound in sales, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

German buyers purchased electric cars from domestic and Chinese companies, which saw a 54% increase in sales last month.

The Daily Beast reported Thursday that Germans who already own Musk’s EVs have been overwhelming at least one business owner with orders for a bumper sticker that reads, “I bought this before Elon went crazy.”

Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer, director of the Center Automotive Research Institute in Germany, told AFP that Tesla’s plunging sales numbers were almost certainly tied to Musk’s support for AfD, which has been classified as a suspected extremist group by the country’s domestic intelligence agency and multiple courts.

“Tesla and Musk are almost inextricably linked.”

Comments like those Musk made at a rally for AfD last month, where he said “there is too much focus on past guilt” in Germany over Nazism and the Holocaust, have been “extremely damaging,” said Dudenhoeffer.

“Nobody wants to be associated with it,” he said. “Tesla and Musk are almost inextricably linked.”

Earlier in January, Musk stood in front of the U.S. presidential seal on stage at an inaugural event for President Donald Trump and displayed what appeared to be the Sieg Heil salute that was used as a greeting among Nazis. The gesture has been outlawed in Germany since the end of World War II.

Nonpolitical factors, like the impending arrival of the Model Y Tesla, could be at play. But Schmidt Automotive Research wrote in a report that German customers “may well be reacting to Musk’s comments.”

Some segments of the German public expressed disgust with Musk before the EV sales numbers were released this week, with activists projecting an image of the CEO’s salute and the word “Heil” on the outside of a Tesla factory near Berlin after Trump’s inauguration.

In recent days, protests have cropped up across the U.S. as Musk, through his advisory body to the Trump administration, the Department of Government Efficiency, has attempted a takeover of numerous federal agencies and their data on millions of Americans, including a payment system at the Department of Treasury, the Office of Personnel Management, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Department of Education, and the National Institutes of Health.

Signs displayed at demonstrations on Wednesday took aim at the Tesla CEO as much as President Donald Trump, with some reading, “Arrest Elon Musk” and “De-MusKKK the U.S.”

Some have started directing their outrage at Tesla, as German activists have. On Tuesday, Tesla campus recruiters arrived at Michigan State University to talk to potential future employees, only to be greeted by protesters carrying signs that read, “Don’t be a Musk-Rat!!” and “SUPPORT STUDENTS NOT FASCISTS!!”

Journalist Robinson Meyer mused this week on the social media platform Bluesky that protests at Tesla dealerships across the U.S. could soon follow as Musk continues his efforts to dismantle federal agencies.

Other users shared images of small public actions at a dealership in Burbank, California and elsewhere, as well as graffiti that was recently scrawled on the outside of the company’s office in Seattle, saying, “Nazi Scum.”

Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.

Continue ReadingTesla Sales Plummet in Germany Amid Musk’s Support for AfD