The Political Thread

[Barry Poppins]

We have white smoke at the Sistine Chapel

 

[Barry Poppins]

I won't be surprised if it's Parolin

 

[Chris]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/05/08/ed-martin-nomination-trump-prosecutor/

President Donald Trump said Thursday that he will replace interim U.S. attorney Ed Martin, his embattled nominee to serve as the top prosecutor for D.C., after 15 tumultuous weeks in office marked by his threats to investigate Trump’s perceived political adversaries and firings and demotions of career prosecutors who investigated the president and the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.

Martin, 55, an ardent Trump loyalist whom the president named to a 120-day interim post on Inauguration Day, can serve until May 20.

Addressing reporters, Trump praised Martin and expressed disappointment at the Senate’s refusal to advance his nomination.

 

[Chris]

https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/08/politics/fema-administrator-acting-fired-cameron-hamilton

The acting administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency has been fired one day after he broke with fellow members of the administration when he told lawmakers he does not support dismantling the agency, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson confirmed to CNN.

Cameron Hamilton, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, was escorted out of FEMA’s headquarters on Thursday, according to multiple sources familiar with the situation.

“It’s at the discretion of (Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem) to have the personnel she prefers,” DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told CNN, confirming that DHS official David Richardson will take over for Hamilton effective immediately. McLaughlin declined to explain why Hamilton was removed from the post.

 

[Barry Poppins]

 

[Samoa Looch]

 

[Chris]

https://www.npr.org/2025/05/09/nx-s1-5391815/first-afrikaners-granted-refugee-status-due-to-arrive-in-u-s

The U.S. government has officially granted 54 Afrikaans South Africans, white descendants of mainly Dutch colonizers, refugee status and they are expected to land in the U.S. on Monday May 12, three sources with knowledge of the matter have told NPR. The sources did not want to be named because they work for the U.S. government and fear for their careers.

U.S. authorities on Thursday were trying to arrange a charter flight that would bring the South Africans to Dulles Airport near Washington, D.C., on Monday morning, but it's not clear if they will be allowed to land there. If that is not possible then they will be sent on commercial flights, according to the sources.

NPR has also seen an email confirming the plan, and that the new arrivals will then be sent on to their final destinations in various states across the country.

 

[Comrade Khan]

"refugees" Elon's butt buddies more like

 

[Samoa Looch]

Online porn creators talked about it for months and months and of course they were ignored as much as all the other people who warned about it.

 

[Samoa Looch]

Mexico sues Google over changing Gulf of Mexico’s name for US users

President Claudia Sheinbaum says lawsuit has been filed after US lawmakers voted on name change

www.theguardian.com

Mexico has sued Google for changing the Gulf of Mexico’s name to “Gulf of America” for Google Maps users in the United States, Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s president, said on Friday.

“The lawsuit has already been filed,” Sheinbaum said at her morning news conference, without saying where and when it was submitted.

On Thursday, Republicans in the House of Representatives approved legislation to codify Donald Trump’s policy of renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America”.

The measure was sponsored by rightwing Georgia lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene and passed nearly along party lines, with all Democrats opposed and almost every Republican, with the exception of vulnerable Nebraska representative Don Bacon, voting in favor.

The bill would make the name change official for federal agencies, but it’s unlikely to attract the Democratic support needed to pass the Senate. Even if it did, other countries have no obligation to use the new name.

Sheinbaum had warned Google, which is part of tech giant Alphabet, in February that she was considering legal action unless the company reversed its decision.

Her government argues that Trump’s executive order on the subject only applies to the part of the continental shelf belonging to the United States.

“All we want is for the decree issued by the US government to be complied with,” Sheinbaum said.

“The US government only calls the portion of the US continental shelf the Gulf of America, not the entire gulf, because it wouldn’t have the authority to name the entire gulf,” she added.

In response to Trump, Sheinbaum has cheekily suggested calling the United States “América Mexicana” – Mexican America, pointing to a map dating back to before 1848, when one-third of her country was seized by the United States.

The neighboring countries are in talks to defuse tensions over Trump’s global trade war, which has included a series of tariff announcements targeting Mexico.

 

[Chris]

Judge orders Tufts student detained by ICE to be released on bail

Rumeysa Ozturk was taken into custody on March 25 after her student visa was revoked by the Trump administration.

www.cbsnews.com

A federal judge on Friday ordered Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts doctoral candidate, to be immediately released from immigration custody on bail as she pursues a challenge to her detention by immigration authorities after the Trump administration revoked her student visa.

U.S. District Judge William Sessions, who is presiding over the case, said at the conclusion of Friday's bail hearing that Ozturk raised "very substantial" and "very significant" claims that her First Amendment and due process rights were violated when she was taken into custody following the revocation of her student visa in March.

"Her continued detention cannot stand," he said.

Ozturk is currently being held at an immigration facility in Basile, Louisiana, where she was transferred after she was taken into custody in Massachusetts in March. But the court said she can now return to her home in Somerville, Massachusetts, with no travel restrictions. The bail hearing in her challenge to her confinement came after a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that the Trump administration had until May 14 to comply with a district court's order to transfer Ozturk to immigration custody in Vermont.

 

[Samoa Looch]

Sooo, apparently

 

[Barry Poppins]

Sooo, apparently

NEWARK!?

 

[Samoa Looch]