Due process for illegally deported migrants! Cruelty is the Trump brand

Donald Trump’s Deportation Obsession
Right-wing ideologues have long fantasized about the prospect of mass self-deportation: the Trump Administration is attempting something far more radical. Now all Americans are at risk for deportation at Donald Trump's whim. 

Published in The New Yorker magazine, by Jonathan Blitzer

El Salvador Navib Bukele, president

In 2022, (three years ago), in El Salvador, after the MS-13 gang killed eighty-seven people in a span of seventy-two hours, the country's President Nayib Bukele called on his loyalists in the legislature to declare a “state of exception.” The government could arrest anyone it deemed suspicious, and those taken into custody lost their right to a legal defense. Since then, in a country of six million people, eighty-five thousand have been jailed, many without credible charges; according to the human-rights group Cristosal, three hundred and sixty-eight of them have died. The gangs have been decimated, but the “state of exception” remains in effect, something that has earned Bukele plaudits from the MAGA movement and, last week, an invitation to the White House.

The Trump Administration is now paying El Salvador six million dollars to hold deported immigrants—among them more than a hundred Venezuelans removed under the rarely invoked Alien Enemies Act of 1798—in a supermax prison that Bukele built for his crackdown. He has proudly advertised his services as “outsourcing.” He has also offered to house American citizens convicted of crimes, and Donald Trump appears to be considering it. “Sometimes they say that we imprisoned thousands,” Bukele told the President and members of his Cabinet in the Oval Office. “I like to say that we actually liberated millions.” “Who gave him that line?” Trump said. “Do you think I can use that?”

Right-wing ideologues have long fantasized about the prospect of mass self-deportation: the idea is that, if the government is sufficiently hostile to immigrants, they will feel that they have no choice but to leave the country. The Trump Administration is attempting something far more radical. In a campaign reminiscent of Bukele’s “state of exception,” it has moved to suspend the rule of law; this is as much an attack on immigrants as it is a fever dream of untrammelled power.

At the White House, Bukele and Trump flaunted their defiance of a unanimous ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Justices  instructed the Administration to “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man who has lived in Maryland for nearly fifteen years and was deported last month to Bukele’s prison, owing to what government lawyers admit was an “administrative error.” Trump’s initial response was to say that he was powerless to bring Abrego Garcia back. Before long, top officials started calling him an MS-13 gangster and a terrorist, even though he’s never been convicted of a crime. Stephen Miller, a White House deputy chief of staff, simply asserted that the Court had ruled in Trump’s favor and that “nobody was mistakenly deported anywhere.” 

On April 18, 2025, after Maryland’s Senator Chris Van Hollen travelled to El Salvador and met with Abrego Garcia, who had been transferred to another facility, El Salvadore's Bukele said, “Now that he’s been confirmed healthy, he gets the honor of staying in El Salvador’s custody.” 

But, the White House tagged Van Hollen on X, saying that Abrego Garcia is “NOT coming back.”

✸So what changed❓ Kilmar Abrego Garcia has been returned to the United States to face criminal charges CNN reports.

Migrants are human being who deserve due process rights provided by the Constitution❗

Donald Trump is not a popular leader as disapproval grows about how he mismanages the economy and immigration

Echo report published in Newsweek by Martha McHardy:

Donald Trump Finds His Approval Rating Sinking Once More

His approval rating on the economy is sinking,  meaning more people dissaprove, according to new polling. Pollster G. Elliott Morris' tracker shows that on the issue of the economy, Trump's approval rating is underwater by 15.75 points. That is down from -14.94 points on Monday.

When Morris' tracker first launched in January, Trump's approval rating on the economy was well above water, at +8.24 points.

On the issue of inflation, Trump's approval rating stands at -22.24 points. That is down from +1.99 points in January.
Why It Matters

While this downturn hasn't returned to the all-time low of -16.28 percent net approval recorded on May 8, the trend comes despite Trump's recent move to scale back the tariffs that saw his approval ratings plummet in April, amid economic anxiety.

That the numbers are falling again suggests voters remain unconvinced by the administration's course correction—and that concerns over rising prices, trade instability, and mixed signals from the White House continue to overshadow any efforts to reset the economic narrative.

What To Know: While Morris' tracker shows that Trump's approval rating on the economy is trending downward, pollster Nate Silver's tracker tells a somewhat different story.

Silver's tracker shows that in the past few days, Trump has been slightly trending upward on the economy, but still "under water", with his approval currently standing at -10 points, up from -11.3 points on June 1. Trump's approval is underwater on the economy, inflation and tariffs.

Nevertheless, similar to Morris' tracker, Silver's tracker shows that Trump's net approval rating on the economy has trended downwards dramatically since January, when it stood at +6 points.

The same trend occurs for Trump's net approval rating on inflation, which has trended upward in the past few days, from 19.7 on May 1 to 17.1 as of June 3, but has dropped from -6 points in January.

Individual polls show that Americans remain sharply divided over Trump's handling of the economy during his second term. While some surveys indicate modest approval, others reveal significant dissatisfaction—highlighting the ongoing polarization of public opinion on one of the administration's most critical issues.

Polling conducted between May 21 and June 2, 2025, indicates economic job approval ratings for Trump range from a low of 37 percent to a high of 47 percent, with disapproval rates consistently higher in most surveys.

The latest poll by AtlasIntel (May 21-27) shows Trump with just 42 percent approval on the economy and 54 percent disapproval, resulting in a net -12 percent rating. Similarly, RMG Research (May 28-29) recorded 44 percent approval and 55 percent disapproval, also yielding a net -11 percent score.

Other pollsters, like YouGov and John Zogby Strategies, reported a slightly narrower gap. Zogby's poll from May 28-29 showed a 46-50 percent split, or a net -4 percent, indicating a more divided sentiment among likely voters.

Only the Morning Consult poll a relatively neutral economic approval rating for the president, with 47 percent approving and 47 percent disapproving in its most recent surveys, conducted between May 30 and June 2. This suggests a degree of economic support stability, though not a clear advantage.

At the bottom end, the American Research Group poll (May 17-20) gave Trump just 37 percent approval compared to 60 percent disapproval, marking a net -23 percent—the steepest negative margin in the group.

Meanwhile, polls show that Trump continues to face strong headwinds on the issue of inflation, with net approval ratings on the topic deeply negative—despite attempts by his administration to scale back tariffs, having paused the majority of them.

Across national surveys conducted between May 1 and June 2, 2025, Trump's approval rating on inflation remains persistently low, ranging from just 31 percent to 44 percent. Disapproval consistently outpaces approval by double digits, with net ratings ranging from -7 percent (Harris/Harvard CAPS) to -32 percent (Verasight and Marquette Law School). In the most recent YouGov poll (May 30-June 2), just 39 percent approved of Trump's handling of inflation, while 54 percent disapproved—netting a -15 percent margin.

The latest data from Verasight and Marquette University underscore the depth of discontent: only 31 percent and 34 percent of respondents, respectively, approved of Trump's inflation policies, while roughly two-thirds disapproved. That puts Trump's net approval at -32 percent in both surveys, among the worst marks recorded in this cycle.

It comes after the pace of inflation slowed in April, the month that Trump introduced his tariffs, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) said last month. The annual inflation rate was 2.3 percent in April, down from an annual rate of 2.4 percent March.

Meanwhile, consumer confidence saw a surprising increase in May. The Conference Board reported a rise to 98, much higher than both the expected 87.1 and April's 86 reading. It was the biggest one-month jump in more than a year.

Nonetheless, polls still show that voters don't trust Trump on the economy. In the latest Fox News poll from April, 72 percent said they were "very" or "extremely" worried about the economy entering a recession this year.

Heroes on D-Day June 6 in 1944 included a brave Army chaplain Father Captain Ignatius Maternowski

Theresa Civantos Barber - published on 06/05/25

History echo published in Aleteia

Priest died on D-Day helping enemy soldiers, and now he may become a saint.

The only U.S. chaplain who died on D-Day may become a Roman Catholic saint. His cause for canonization was opened in 2019.

“What’s D-Day?” my daughter asked. My husband had just mentioned that June 6 would be the 81st anniversary of that unforgettable day.

Capt. Ignatius Maternowski*

I paused, trying to think how to explain it to her. Images flashed into my mind: The soldiers, many just teenagers, waiting on the landing craft, tense and nervous. Wading into that fierce sea, bogged down with gear as they fought their way through strong winds and rough surf. Dragging themselves onto the beaches, only to face barbed wire, machine gun fire, and landmines.

More than 4,000 young men died that day. How could I explain all that to my little girl? But those brave men deserve to be remembered, so I described as much as I could in an age-appropriate way.
The priest who died on D-Day

Each and every soul that died in that invasion should be remembered and honored. And indeed they are, every year, at the memorials in Normandy.

Paratroopers monument in Normancy at Sainte-Mère-Église

But one man’s story holds special significance for Catholics. Did you know that a Catholic priest who died on D-Day may become a saint?

The Conventual Franciscans, of whom Capt. Ignatius Maternowski was a member, have opened the cause for canonization for this military chaplain who died while trying to get medical aid for wounded soldiers — both Allied and Axis.

Capt. (and Friar) Ignatius Maternowski was 32 years old and a “tough as nails” paratrooper of the 82nd Airborne: “He wasn't afraid to correct troopers who took the Lord's name in vain and was known to tell those speaking ill of the Church or confession to ‘put on some boxing gloves.’”

As a chaplain, he didn't have to parachute behind enemy lines that night, but “he was determined to be there for the sake of the souls in his unit.”

On D-Day, Father Maternowski celebrated Mass, gave his soldiers general absolution and boarded a C-47 Skytrain with the rest of the more than 13,000 paratroopers and glider infantry. He landed in Normandy near Picauville.

Finding a glider that had crashed, he worked at helping the survivors, then realized there would be many, many more wounded in need of aid that day. With the help of a medic, he moved the wounded to a nearby cafe and grocery store in the town.

His makeshift aid station was soon overflowing with the dead and dying, so he decided the best hope for saving them was to reach out to the enemy. Unarmed already, he took off his helmet and walked down the battle-torn street “with only his chaplain's insignia, a red cross armband and his faith to protect him.”

He reached the German position and asked their ranking medical officer to come to the American aid station and create a combined aid station in a house, where both sides could be treated. Instead of seeing enemies, he saw human beings in dire need of help.

The officer came to see the aid station and then Maternowski escorted him back to his position. As he walked the dangerous street for the fourth time that day, a sniper shot him in the back and killed him. The Americans were unable to recover his body for several days, but at last laid him to rest at Utah Beach.

A lasting legacy:  Capt. Maternowski’s memory is strong in the town of Picauville, even though most are too young to remember the war. Local residents carefully care for and maintain a memorial at the site of his death.

Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA, cited Maternowski as a role model for military chaplains everywhere, saying: “Father Maternowski’s heroic sacrifice is an outstanding example of Christian love in practice, even in the face of great evil and adversity.”

Now that his cause for canonization is open, perhaps the Church will get our first “paratrooper saint.” And that’s something I can’t wait to tell my daughter.

*Father Maternowski was born in Holyoke, Massachusetts on March 28, 1912. After graduation from Mater Dolorosa Parochial School in 1927, he attended St. Francis High School in Athol Springs, NY, where he was a member of that school’s first graduating class in 1931. He entered the religious Order of the Franciscan Friars Conventual and professed his first vows as a friar in 1932. After pursuing further studies, he was ordained a priest by Bishop Thomas O’Leary of the Diocese of Springfield on July 3, 1938, in the chapel of Saint Hyacinth College and Seminary, Granby, Massachusetts. 

He began his ministry as a parish priest, and then, once his ability as a preacher was recognized, his superiors assigned him to preach parish missions and retreats.

After the outbreak of World War II, Fr. Ignatius responded to the need for service as a military chaplain, enlisting in the U.S. Army in 1942, and later volunteering to become a member of the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division.

In the predawn hours of June 6, 1944, Conventual Franciscan Father Ignatius Maternowski parachuted behind German lines near Guetteville, France, a small village in Normandy, with the men of the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division.

His company’s mission was to secure bridges to make the Allied invasion of Normandy faster and easier, but it was no simple task, especially after the paratroopers were scattered in the drop zone and came under fire.

By nightfall, Father Maternowski was dead, believed to be the only U.S. military chaplain killed in the invasion on D-Day. He was 32 years of age, in the 5th year of his priesthood. He is now buried in the Mater Dolorosa Cemetery, South Hadley, Hampshire County, Massachusetts, USA. His name is commemorated on memorials in Holyoke, MA; Athol Springs, NY; Arlington National Cemetery, VA; London, England, and Normandy, France.

In collaboration with the World War II Chaplains Memorial Foundation, the Franciscan Friars Conventual of the Our Lady of the Angels Province have begun promoting Fr. Ignatius Maternowski’s cause for canonization.

Donald Trump and the Republican administration created a racist based immigrataion policy

Trump Makes America’s Refugee Program a Tool of White Racial Grievance
Donald Trump's interest in the plight of (South African) Afrikaners seems to have begun with—what else?—segments on Fox News.
By Jonathan Blitzer.

Trump is surrounded entirely by enablers

The chaos of Donald Trump’s failed leadership often obscures its rank and evil consistency. Only a few hours into his second term, Trump signed an executive order suspending the admission of refugees to the United States, something that he’d tried to do his first time in office. Twelve thousand people who had been cleared to come were stranded, their flights cancelled. A hundred and eighteen thousand others had been approved but didn’t yet have plane tickets. Some, including Iraqis and Afghans who had been targeted in their home countries for helping the U.S. military, filed a lawsuit, alongside a group of resettlement organizations. Eventually, a federal appeals court instructed the Administration to admit anyone whose flight had been scheduled on or before January 20th; it has shown no sign that it will comply. In 2017, when Trump banned refugees from certain Muslim-majority countries, the legal challenges they filed took almost all his first term to sort out. Many of them were still waiting abroad to learn their fate when he returned to the White House this year.

In the meantime, according to the executive order, the U.S. will “admit only those refugees who can fully and appropriately assimilate into the United States.” Less than a month later, the Administration made clear who that might be. A February executive order, called “Addressing Egregious Actions of the Republic of South Africa,” blamed that nation’s government for perpetrating racism against white people. 

In May, fifty-nine Afrikaners were flown to the U.S. Stephen Miller, (IMO) the Donald Trump equivilent to Joesph Goebbels (Nazi politician 1897-1945), the Trumpzi 's top immigration adviser in both of his cruel administrations, hailed their case as “the textbook definition of why the refugee program was created.” They were, he said, the victims of “race-based persecution.” (Question❓:  Does Stephen Miller believe in "eugenics"❓  Inquiring minds want to know if Miller is evidence of reincarnation.  Is he the reincarnated Joseph Goebbels❓ Just askin'❗)

The U.S. Congress hasn’t passed legislation to reform the immigration system in thirty-five years, and one consequence has been a steady perversion of how lawmakers address the issue of who belongs here. Which people deserve our protection, in the form of asylum or refugee status, has become a kind of proxy fight, waged by successive Presidents operating on the margins of congressional inaction. The Refugee Act of 1980, which codified legal protections for those fleeing persecution, was supposed to be insulated from domestic identity politics. It had largely bipartisan support until Trump’s first term, when Miller and his allies went to work. In a series of technical moves, they rewrote government guidelines for identifying and processing refugees. Resettlement agencies were starved of resources, leading many to shut down. In the final year of that term, the government resettled some eleven thousand refugees, the lowest amount, by a wide margin, in the program’s history. Between 2023, and 2024, the Biden Administration resettled more than a hundred thousand. No one doubted that Trump would attempt to reverse such progress, yet he went further: his Administration has now turned the system into a tool of white racial grievance.

Trump’s interest in the plight of Afrikaners seems to have begun in 2018, with—what else❓🙄—segments on (Fake❗) Fox News. 

While interviewing an Afrikaner activist, Tucker Carlson focussed on a policy that permitted the South African government to redistribute land owned by white farmers. “Racism is what our élites say they dislike most,” Carlson later said. “ ‘Donald Trump is a racist,’ they say. But they pay no attention to this.” The policy, while inevitably controversial, was meant to correct for the nearly fifty years of brutal privations that Black South Africans endured under apartheid. Trump went on to claim, falsely, that the South African government was engaged in the “large scale killing” of white farmers, and he ordered the State Department to investigate. Top officials, as they did with many of Donald Trump's most fervid obsessions, appeared to slow-walk the inquiry.

This time, Trump took issue with a new law by which the government could expropriate white farmers’ unused property. 

In fact, South Africa brought a genocide case against Israel before the International Court of Justice, in 2023, is a separate point of contention. There are others. In February, Trump’s Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, refused to attend a G-20 summit in South Africa because the country supported what he summarized, on X, as “DEI and climate change.”

On May 21st, Trump staged a diplomatic mugging of the sort that’s become common in the Oval Office, assailing the South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa, with more false claims of a “genocide.” (The nation’s murder rate is high, but the available evidence suggests that white farmers make up a tiny fraction of the victims.) Aides played a propaganda video, and Trump held up a photograph of body bags which, according to Reuters, actually showed aid workers burying corpses in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 😳😦😡😢

This term, Trump is surrounded entirely by enablers. One of them was the South African-born billionaire Elon Musk, who has subscribed to conspiracy theories about antiwhite violence and spread them on social media. 

Musk also sought to operate Starlink, his satellite-internet company, in South Africa, but has balked at a law requiring foreign tech firms to sell a portion of their local subsidiaries to shareholders who are Black or historically disadvantaged.

Trump’s refugee gambit comes just as his Administration is eviscerating a range of other protections for immigrants. 

A decade after the passage of the Refugee Act, Congress created a designation called Temporary Protected Status, to allow foreigners in the U.S. to remain here, on a provisional basis, if they face security concerns—from political strife to environmental disaster—at home. Some nine hundred thousand people from seventeen nations currently have T.P.S. But Trump has begun revoking it, country by country, including for some eight thousand Afghans and as many as half a million Haitians. In May, the Supreme Court allowed the Administration to proceed with its plan to cancel T.P.S. for three hundred and fifty thousand Venezuelans. Days later, the Justices temporarily lifted a lower-court order that had blocked the President from ending humanitarian parole for another half a million migrants from Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba, and Nicaragua.

Last week, the State Department sent a formal notification to Congress with a long list of bureaucratic changes, including substantial job cuts and a new emphasis on promoting “western values.” (What the hell are "western values"❓) The bureau in charge of refugee resettlement will have a new section: the Office of Remigration. The thrust of its mission will be to “return illegal aliens to their country of origin.” “Remigration” is the preferred term of right-wing European populists, and it carries a host of white-nationalist associations. Trump had used the word only once before, in a social-media post during the 2024, campaign. It was a fringe concept then—but, not anymore. ♦

Published in the print edition of the June 9, 2025, issue, with the headline “Get Out.”

Would love to be the fly in the "ketchup on the White House wall" during Donald Trump's Elon Musk tantrum

Commentary | Ya' Think❓ Bromance: Bruised Musk brand is his (horrible❗) DOGE legacy

Opinion by Maureen Dowd published in the Santa Cruz Sentinel news: 

"Oh but it's sad when a love affair dies
But we have pretended enough
It's best that we both stop fooling ourselves", Evita.

Elon Musk came to Washington with a chain saw and left with a black eye.

Shrinking government is hard, particularly when you do it callously and carelessly — and apparently on hallucinogens.

As with Donald Trump’s tax tariffs, the Department of Government Efficiency has created more volatility than value.

A guy who went bankrupt six times doesn’t really care about spending. And Trump certainly didn’t want to see the headline, “Trump Cuts Social Security.”

He just wanted to get revenge on “the bureaucracy” by deputizing Musk to force out a lot of federal employees and give the impression that they were cutting all the waste.

It is sickening that the Justice Department is considering settling a wrongful-death lawsuit by giving $5 million to the family of Ashli Babbitt — who was shot on January 6, 2021, by a Capitol police officer, when she ignored his warnings and tried to climb through a smashed window into the Speaker’s Lobby in the Capitol.

If Babbitt was trying to help Trump claw back a “stolen” election by breaking into the Capitol, then breaking into the Capitol must be a good thing to do, and any police officer who tried to stop her and protect lawmakers cowering under desks must be in the wrong.

To abet Trump’s fake reality, the craven House Republicans refused to put up a plaque honoring the police officers and others who defended the Capitol that awful day.

I take it personally because my dad spent 20 years as a police inspector in Washington in charge of Senate security. He would run to the House whenever there was trouble. So if on Jan. 6 Mike Dowd had been preventing insurrectionists from assaulting lawmakers, he would now be, in Trump’s eyes, not a hero deserving of a plaque, but a blackguard who was thwarting “patriots,” as Trump calls the rioters he pardoned.

It is a disturbing bizarro world.  Trump was rewriting reality again Friday afternoon as one of the most flamboyant, destructive bromances in government history petered out in the Oval Office.

It had peaked last winter when Musk posted on social platform X, “I love @realDonaldTrump as much as a straight man can love another man,” and again when Trump tried to reciprocate by hawking Teslas in the White House driveway. Nevertleless, even these grand master salesmen couldn’t sell the spin that Elon had “delivered a colossal change.”

Musk has acknowledged recently that his dream of cutting $1 trillion had been a fantasy. He said changing Washington was “an uphill battle” and complained that Trump’s “big, beautiful” budget bill, which could add over $3 trillion in debt, undercut his DOGE attempts to save money.

As Trump said, Musk got a lot of “the slings and the arrows.” His approval rating cratered and violence has been directed toward Tesla, a brand once loved by liberals and in China, which is now tarnished.

Musk cut off a reporter who tried to ask about a Times article asserting that he was a habitual user of ketamine and a dabbler in ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms even after Trump had given him enormous control over the government.

That could explain the chain saw-wielding, the jumping up and down onstage, the manic baby-making and crusading for more spreading of sperm by smart people and the ominous Nazi-style salutes.

When a reporter asked Musk why he had a black eye, he joked about the viral video of Brigitte Macron shoving her husband’s face. Then he explained that while “horsing around” with his 5-year-old, X, he suggested the child punch him in the face, “and he did.”

The president and the Tony Stark prototype tried to convey the idea that they would remain tight, even though Musk would no longer be getting into angry altercations with Scott Bessent outside the Oval, sleeping on the floor of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building and hanging around Mar-a-Lago. (Trump wants the $100 million Musk has pledged for his political operation.)

Musk, wearing a black “DOGE” cap and black “Dogefather” T-shirt, looked around the Oval, which Trump has tarted up to look like a Vegas gift shop and gushed that it “finally has the majesty that it deserves, thanks to the president.”

Trump gave Musk a golden ceremonial White House key, the kind of thing small-town mayors give out, and proclaimed: “Elon’s really not leaving. He’s going to be back and forth, I think.” Trump said that the father of (at least) 14 would never desert DOGE completely because “It’s his baby.”

Musk brought the Silicon Valley mantra “Move fast and break things” to Washington.

But the main thing he broke was his own reputation.

Maureen Dowd is a New York Times columnist.

Pope Leo XIV demonstrates competent diplomatic leadership calling President Zelensky and Vladimir Putin to ask for peace

Pope Leo XIV spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a phone call Wednesday afternoon. Reported in the Catholic News Agency by Madalaine Elhabbal. 

Ukraine President Zelenskyy released this picture taken during his call with Pope Leo XIV

“The pope made an appeal for Russia to take a gesture that would favor peace, emphasizing the importance of dialogue to create positive contacts between the parties and seek solutions to the conflict,” Holy See Press Office Director Matteo Bruni said in a statement.

Bruni told members of the press that the Holy Father appealed to the Russian leader about the humanitarian situation in Ukraine and advocated for the facilitation of aid into affected areas.

The two leaders also discussed Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi’s efforts to facilitate prisoner exchanges.

“I carry in my heart the sufferings of the beloved Ukrainian people,” Pope Leo had said after singing the Regina Coeli prayer with approximately 100,000 people.

“May everything possible be done to reach an authentic, just, and lasting peace, as soon as possible,” the Holy Father continued.

At the time, Zelenskyy shared a photo on X *of him purportedly having a telephone call with Pope Leo. 

After expressing gratitude to the Holy Father “for his support for Ukraine and all our people,” Zelenskyy said he and the pope specifically discussed the plight of thousands of children deported by Russia.

“Ukraine counts on the Vatican’s assistance in bringing them home to their families,” he added.

Reiterating Ukraine’s commitment to work toward a “full and unconditional ceasefire” and the end of the war with Russia, Ukraine’s president said he also invited the Holy Father “to make an apostolic visit to Ukraine.”

The final Easter message delivered by Pope Francis the day before his death included a prayer for the embattled country: “May the risen Christ grant Ukraine, devastated by war, his Easter gift of peace and encourage all parties involved to pursue efforts aimed at achieving a just and lasting peace.”

Speaking with Putin, Pope Leo made reference to Patriarch Kirill, thanking him for the congratulations received at the beginning of his pontificate, and underlined how shared Christian values can be a light that helps to seek peace, defend life, and pursue genuine religious freedom,” Bruni added.

“Gratitude was expressed to the pontiff for his readiness to help settle the crisis, in particular the Vatican’s participation in resolving difficult humanitarian issues on a depoliticized basis,” the Kremlin said in a statement following the call, according to Reuters.

The Kremlin’s statement further said Putin stressed his belief to the Holy Father “that the Kyiv regime is banking on escalating the conflict and is carrying out sabotage against civilian infrastructure sites on Russian territory.”

Pope Leo XIV’s first call with Putin comes just over three weeks after his first call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on May 12. At the time, Bruni confirmed the two leaders had spoken after the pope expressed concern for Ukraine during his May 11, Sunday address.

*We also discussed the thousands of Ukrainian children deported by Russia. Ukraine counts on the Vatican’s assistance in bringing them home to their families. I informed the Pope about the agreement between Ukraine and our partners that, starting today, a full and unconditional ceasefire for at least 30 days must begin. I also reaffirmed Ukraine’s readiness for further negotiations in any format, including direct talks — a position we have repeatedly emphasised. Ukraine wants to end this war and is doing everything to achieve that. We now await similar steps from Russia.

Harvard University Strong! Commencement 2025

 Harvard’s commencement showcased a united university.

Harvard graduation 2025
Echo opinion published in the Seattle Times by Noah Feldman

A year can make a transformational difference in the life of an institution. That’s what has happened at Harvard, where students and faculty gave President Alan Garber a standing ovation at commencement Thursday — just a year after protests disrupted graduation ceremonies when hundreds of students walked out. 

A year ago, student speakers denounced the university’s administration and its trustees, who were sitting behind them. On Thursday, the speakers expressed pride in that same leadership for sticking to the university’s principles and standing up for free inquiry and free expression.

What happened in between? The answer is, at least partly, that Donald Trump happened. In the 16 months following Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Harvard was embroiled in internal conflicts over Gaza, Israel, Palestine and the boundaries of campus free speech. Then on April 11, 2024, the Trump administration sent the school a list of outrageous demands, threatening to end billions in federal research funding if it failed to comply. In response, the university made the only decision possible to protect its academic freedom and integrity: It sued and became the de facto leading institution in resisting executive overreach.

That action fundamentally changed the narrative about Harvard — from a university roiled in conflict to one united in its defense of the pursuit of truth.

I want to be clear: I am not an outside observer in this story. I’ve been a professor at the university for 17 years; I went to college at Harvard, and I was a postdoctoral fellow here. I love the university as much as it’s possible to love an institution not known for its warm, personal qualities.

More than that, I believe in the purpose of the university, captured in its motto, Veritas. The idea is not that there is a single path to truth, or that any one person or institution can ever say what the truth is. It is, rather, that the purpose of a university is to pursue the truth from every angle — without limitation, fear or assumption. The motto also means that the university should pursue the truth for as long as it takes — which is to say, forever.

An attack from outside always has a galvanizing effect — provided it doesn’t destroy the institution. The effect of Trump’s assault on Harvard has been to close the many gaps that exist within a university on questions of politics and priorities. Harvard students, faculty and staff have been given the gift of being challenged — and we have responded by explaining to ourselves as much as to the outside world why we all participate in the common enterprise of the university.

The answer that has emerged is that we are here to study, to learn, to teach and to improve people’s lives.

The internal disagreements haven’t disappeared, as they shouldn’t. Rather, everyone involved in those disagreements now understands that a functioning university is the necessary condition for even being able to express disagreement.

What’s more, internal disagreement is the necessary condition of a functioning university.

The other issue Harvard has had to confront internally is its privilege. So far, Trump has tended to target two groups; the most vulnerable, like undocumented immigrants, and the most privileged, such as elite universities and large law firms. The Trump Republican administration's sustained efforts to strip the university of funding and of its international students — not to mention the proposal in the House budget bill to tax its endowment at 21% — have reminded the university that the only moral justification for its privilege and its wealth is to strive for excellence in the pursuit of truth. Prestige and cultural power don’t automatically make you a great university. But having prestige and power means that Harvard has a fundamental duty to be the best that it possibly can be, and to create and discover knowledge that helps those who don’t enjoy the same privilege.

Harvard’s commencement gathers not only graduates but their families as well. Many of these family members have never attended a university. To see their joy at their children’s accomplishments and promise is to feel the promise of America itself. It’s common to see them trying on the graduate’s robe for pictures as if to say that the graduation isn’t just the accomplishment of the student but of each and every person in the lineage. I defy anyone with a heart to see this without tearing up. The image’s deeper meaning is that Harvard is — and will continue to be — a vehicle for taking some of the world’s most promising students and launching them into lives of productivity and contribution. If it took Donald Trump to remind us of what we’re here for, his attacks will have been worth it.

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of “To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People."

Donald Trump and the Republican administration are abducting innocent immigrants without cause

Innocent migrants are suffering! A reign of abduction terror continues. Remember Kilmar Abrego Garcia* and now Marcelo Gomes Da Silva, 18 year old Milford Massachusetts student. 

There is nothing patriotic about ‘Operation Patriot’.
Echo opinion letter published in the Boston Globe and reported in The Guardian:

Dear Globe Editor: For weeks we’ve been hearing of arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE: We will ‘keep coming back,’ ” Metro, June 3). This week, we learn they have given their operation a name: “Operation Patriot.”

Cute.  But, certainly, nothing is patriotic about ICE arresting an 18-year-old high school student on his way to volleyball practice (“A mother waits in anguish,” Page A1, June 3). 

There is nothing patriotic about grabbing immigrants lawfully appearing for their court hearings and disappearing them to detention facilities far away from their families. There is nothing patriotic about putting our neighbors in panic and fear that they or their children will be next.

Although the Trump Republican administration might claim that it’s going after criminals, but it’s really going after moms and dads and high school kids, and any immigrant it can easily arrest; immigrants following the law are its easiest targets.

The Trump Republican administration may say that it’s improving our public safety, but detaining people when they’re appearing for their court hearings undermines our justice system and makes us all less safe.

This lawlessness will continue until our other branches of government step up and take action to end this reign of terror.

From:  Jeannie Kain Kogler in Quincy Massachusetts

Reported in The Guardian: A Boston (Milford Mass) high school student who was detained by immigration agents on Saturday while he was on his way to volleyball practice must be kept in Massachusetts for at least 72 hours, a federal judge said on Monday.

Marcelo Gomes Da Silva, 18, entered the United States on a student visa, according to a lawsuit filed on his behalf after his arrest. While his student visa status has lapsed, he is eligible for and intends to apply for asylum.

US district judge Richard Stearns ordered the 72-hour stay on Monday to “provide a fair opportunity for the judge who will be randomly assigned to this case” to review merits and rule on any contested issues.

Nonetheless, the head of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Monday defended his agency’s actions, saying the teen in question was “in this country illegally and we’re not going to walk away from anybody”. Gomes’s attorney asked for his immediate release.

Attorney Miriam Conrad, in a filing on Sunday, said that Gomes “has no criminal history anywhere in the world” in asking for his release.

Sadly, Gomes was arrested on Saturday in Milford, Massachusetts, where he lives.

Ice’s acting director, Todd Lyons, and Patricia Hyde – who directs the agency’s enforcement and removal operations in Boston – acknowledged Gomes was not the target of the immigration investigation that led to his arrest and that authorities instead were seeking his father, who remains at large.

But the Milford high school student had been driving his father’s vehicle when he was arrested following a traffic stop, Lyons said. Lyons said that when authorities encounter someone in the country illegally, “we will take action on that”.

“We’re doing the job that Ice should have been doing all along,” he said. “We enforce all immigration laws.”

The state’s Democratic governor, Maura Healey, said she was “disturbed and outraged” by Gomes’s arrest. And hundreds rallied in Milford on Sunday to protest against Gomes’s detention.

A federal judge issued an emergency order on Sunday preventing authorities from transferring Gomes out of Massachusetts for at least 72 hours in response to his lawsuit arguing that he was unlawfully detained.

Reuters contributed to this report

*A Maryland man named Kilmar Abrego Garcia was mistakenly deported to El Salvador and is currently being held in a megaprison there. The Trump administration acknowledged the error, but El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele has stated he will not allow Garcia to return to the US. Garcia had been living in Maryland with his family for 13 years.

President Zelenskyy recognized as a military strategic leader who "showed his Trump cards"

Huffington Post (HuffPost) echo report by Ron Dicker: Following theUkraine's highly successful military attack inside Russia, the Fox News pundit taunts Trump about his now exposed stupid claim to Volodymyr Zelenskyy about the Ukrainians having "no cards".  #BritHume

In fact, prominent pundit for the conservative channel didn't forget what Trump said to the Ukrainian leader, and he zinged him for it.

Fox News’ Brit Hume scorched President Donald Trump on Monday for previously telling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that he had no cards to play against Russia.

Shannon Bream asked the conservative channel’s chief political analyst about the embarrassment and losses that Ukraine inflicted on Russia, whose unprovoked invasion began the war more than three years ago.

“It certainly does establish that this country, whose president was being told at the White House that he didn’t have any cards to play, that he apparently has quite a few cards to play, including this daring attack,” Hume said on “Special Report.”

Back in February, Trump attempted to browbeat Zelenskyy into giving mineral rights to the U.S. for more support. “You’re not in a good position,” Trump lectured at the time in a heated exchange. “You don’t have the cards. With us, you have cards. But without us, you don’t have any cards.” Zelenskyy left the White House an hour later.

Hume praised the operation for wiping out a reported “30% to 40% of Russia’s strategic bombing force.”

“That’s a major setback for Russia,” he continued. “It is an embarrassing intelligence failure and an embarrassing defense failure. And who knows what else the Ukrainians, who have proved pretty ingenious, may have up their sleeves.”

Donald Trump and the Republican administration have not given proof about why 238 innocemtn men are imprisoned in an El Salvadore gulag

Letters to the Editor | May 28, 2025

Philadelphia Inquirer readers write about protecting due process, enforcing contempt orders, and Donald Trump's double standard.

A Maryland man is locked up in El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison — and a senator says the US is paying to keep him there 😳⁠⁠Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who reportedly fled persecution from El Salvador, was deported in March under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, over alleged ties to the MS-13 gang, despite a Supreme Court order demanding his return.⁠⁠Senator Chris Van Hollen flew to El Salvador to advocate for Abrego Garcia’s release, calling the detention a violation of due process.

Due process:  Donald Trump’s excuse for (evil❗)mass deportations is to make the U.S. safe. The government says the 238 immigrants sent to a Salvadoran gulag prison are criminals. 

But, if that were true, why don’t we have proof❓ Why hasn’t the government released their names and their alleged crimes❓ Where are the victims❓ Without proof and no due process, these poor young men have been given a life sentence. Knowing Trump, if there were evidence, he would be sharing such info with all the media networks. What is really going on❓Are we deporting 50 people to get 50 bad actors? Is it 50 to get 25? Is it 50 to get one❓ 

Does U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have quotas it must meet❓ We know there are several innocent detainees in El Salvador whom Trump refuses to have released. How many immigrants have been disappeared❓ These are human beings.

From Hank Schrandt, in Newtown Pennsylvania

Americans are an immigrant nation and must welcome them as in "Give me your tired, your poor...."

Echo opinion letter published in the Austin Daily Herald in Austin, Minnesota:

In the past our country has welcomed immigrants. 

Most of them do have good reasons for being here; war in their country, famine or supporting a family. 

Trump and ICE throwing them out of the USA is totally different from what I feel our country should stand for! 

On the Statue of Liberty, the  says “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”* 

That’s the United States I know. Bishop Marriann Edgar Buddle says, “That towns that have a high level of undocumented immigrants have a lower crime rate.”

Thank you to the Brookside School and Albert Lea MN, for having classes for our immigrants.  

From Mary Emery  Albert Lea, city in Minnesota

*"The New Colossus" is a sonnet by American poet Emma Lazarus (1849–1887). She wrote the poem in 1883 to raise money for the construction of a pedestal for the Statue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World).  In 1903, the poem was cast onto a bronze plaque and mounted inside the pedestal's lower level.

Senate Republicans must save America from harm caused by the expensive ugly Trump tax bill

Save Us, Senators, From a Very Expensive Mistake

Medicaid will be cut in this terrible legislation but the rich will be given a tax cut.  This makes no sense! #ReverseRobinHood

Echo New York Times opinion by Robinson Meyer*

Every so often, Americans rely on the Senate to save us from the more ill-considered urges of the House of Representatives. 

That time has come again. House Republicans sent an abysmal reconciliation bill to the Senate that would wreak particular havoc on the country’s energy policy and undermine America’s industrial strength. But the Senate can (and must❗) fix it❗

The bill would gut the clean-energy tax credits established in the Inflation Reduction Act to fund tax cuts that would largely benefit high-earning households. The energy tax credits, which were passed under President Joe Biden in 2022, were meant to increase the country’s electricity supply, reinvigorate its battery and electric vehicle supply chains and cut its carbon pollution. They have helped drive a clean-energy manufacturing boom across the country.

Republicans are making a mistake by trying to repeal much of the Inflation Reduction Act, though I understand why they’ve been frustrated with Democrats’ sometimes contradictory energy policy. Too often, state and local progressives have called for climate action, but then fought off, shut down or lamented the energy sources — especially hydroelectricity and nuclear power — that until recently generated the bulk of America’s clean electricity.

But Republicans are now the ones pursuing a nonsensical energy strategy. The Inflation Reduction Act improved on decades of failed policy by going technology-neutral — its tax credits support any new power plant that doesn’t generate greenhouse gas emissions. That means technologies that Republicans like, including nuclear fission, geothermal power and even nuclear fusion, could benefit.

By unwinding these tax credits in such a ramshackle and disorganized way, Republicans would undermine many of their own goals. Senate Republicans can still salvage a sensible energy policy from the House’s mad dash.

First, they should preserve tax credits that support innovation and recognize the fact that the United States is currently seeding the next generation of world-leading energy technologies.

Take the new class of nuclear startups that are finally ready to deploy their first power plants. Or the entrepreneurs who have figured out how to use fracking equipmentto deliver cheap, zero-carbon electricity by drilling new geothermal wells. Fervo Energy, one of these geothermal startups, has shown that its drilling tiunes are falling, suggesting that its technology can rapidly take off in the same way that fracking, solar and batteries have. There’s even been recent encouraging news on the nuclear fusion front.

These and other clean-energy developments are the reason there’s the potential for a boom in U.S. electricity. For the first time in decades, American electricity demand is soaring, driven by electric vehicles, data centers and manufacturing.

Without a burst of new supply on the market, this demand will drive up power prices. Low electricity costs have long been a strength of American economic competitiveness that we are now at risk of losing.

Like with any new technology, these next-generation American nuclear and geothermal power plants will be hard to plan and hard to finance. That’s why the government should give them a leg up — much like it once helped the solar, wind and fracking industries — with tax incentives that support early projects. But the G.O.P. reconciliation bill would will make this impossible.

If the Senate follows the House and cuts off the clean-electricity tax credits, it will hurt these next-generation technologies most. Nuclear and geothermal developers in the first stages of building cannot rush their early projects to completion. Even if the Senate adopts the House’s provision to allow nuclear plants to use the tax credits until 2028, it will still not be enough — the procedural hurdles will prevent banks from financing nuclear plants. The Senate should give nuclear and geothermal developers the same long-term certainty it once extended to solar and wind developers.

Second, Republican senators should pay particular attention to the risk of a coming electricity and energy price shock. Today, natural gas provides about a third of America’s primary energy, and it is the country’s No. 1 source of electricity generation. But the country’s gas supply is about to come under more pressure. From 2024 to 2028, 10 new liquified natural gas terminals are expected to open across North America, which would roughly double the United States’ export capacity of the fuel. This would, in turn, increase demand for domestic natural gas supplies.

It’s possible that energy companies would respond to this higher demand by drilling for more gas. But if natural gas supply doesn’t rise as fast as demand, then U.S. natural gas prices will rise to something closer to their global average. Natural gas is three to five times more expensive in Europe than in the United States, so there’s a real chance that American consumers will get soaked.

A monster price shock could also hurt American manufacturers and hold back the artificial intelligence industry. This scenario would worsen if new renewable-energy or zero-carbon power plants — which had been planned under the assumption the tax credits would stay on the books — get canceled.

Finally, Republican senators should be careful not to pull the rug out from under electric vehicle factories that have set up shop in their states.  (Maine Writer IMO "Telsa" should not be the trademark associated with all electric vehicles.)

Over the past few months, Republicans have seemed dead set on ditching any policies that help support demand for E.V.s — whether they do so through subsidies, such as the $7,500 tax credit for personal E.V. buyers, or through regulations such as California’s 2035 E.V. rules. At the same time, they have mostly left the supply-side subsidies for E.V. and battery manufacturing in place, although they have still made them harder to access.

But Princeton University’s energy modeling shows that yanking away these supports would ultimately kill the economic case for the hundreds of new E.V. and battery factories under construction nationwide. That’s because the demand- and supply-side incentives are designed to work together. By killing the personal E.V. tax credit, lawmakers would also kill demand for the creation of a domestic critical mineral supply chain — even though reshoring mineral production is a Trump administration goal.

So far, batteries have been this century’s essential energy technology. They will be core to the most important industries of the future in information technology, transportation and warfare. Just look at how battery-powered drones have transformed the Ukraine war. American policymakers would be foolish to give up on the industry for essentially ideological reasons. There is plenty of room to improve America’s battery policy — we should ensure that next-generation batteries are developed and made here — but simply surrendering current technology is misguided.

Donald Trump understands the importance of cheap electricity. During his Inaugural Address, he bragged that the United States can flex its manufacturing muscles because energy is so much cheaper here than elsewhere. Now his policies risk making energy much more expensive while surrendering any leadership in energy technology whatsoever. It is time for senators to act responsibly — to set a long-term strategy for the country’s energy future. Senate Republicans understand that energy abundance is the essential input for the economy, national security and America’s well-being. Now they must act — and save us from the idiocy that would otherwise result.

Robinson Meyer is a contributing Opinion writer and the founding executive editor of Heatmap, a media company focused on clean energy and climate change.

Kudos to the The Economist for scooping this amazing reporting! Ukraine "handed Putin his ass" to coin Navy slang

Echo reporting June 1, 2025! In The Economist 

SHORTLY AFTER noon on June 1st, Russian social media began flashing, alerting the world to Ukraine’s most audacious operation on Russian territory to date. In Irkutsk province in eastern Siberia, some 4,000km from Ukraine, locals posted footage of small quadcopter drones emerging from lorries and flying toward a nearby airfield, home to some of Russia’s most important strategic bombers. 

“I work at a tire shop,” one wrote. “A truck pulled in, and drones flew out of it.” 

From an airbase near Murmansk, in Russia’s far north, came similar stories: “The driver’s running around...drones are flying from his truck toward the base.” Other alarmed posts soon followed from airbases in Ryazan and Ivanovo provinces, deep in central Russia.

Ukraine’s main security agency, the SBU, has since claimed responsibility for the operation, which it has codenamed “Spider Web”. It said at least 41 Russian aircraft were destroyed or damaged across four airfields, including rare and extremely expensive A-50 early-warning planes (Russia’s equivalent of the AWACS) and Tu-22M3 and Tu-95 strategic bombers. The agency also released footage in which its pugnacious chief, Vasily Maliuk, is heard commenting on the operation. “Russian strategic bombers,” he says in his recognisable growl, “all burning delightfully”.

The strike is one of the heaviest blows that Ukraine has landed on Russia in a war now well into its fourth year. Russia has relatively small numbers of strategic bombers—probably fewer than 90 operational Tu-22, Tu-95 and newer Tu-160s in total. The planes can carry nuclear weapons, but have been used to fire conventional cruise missiles against Ukrainian targets, as recently as last week. That has made them high-priority targets for Ukrainian military planners. Many of the aircraft are old and no longer produced—the last Tu-22M3s and Tu-95s were made more than 30 years ago—and their replacements, the Tu-160, are being manufactured at a glacial pace.

The fact that Ukraine was able to damage or destroy such a large number of Russia’s most advanced aircraft deep inside the country reflects the development of its deep-strike programme, as well as the remarkable extent to which Ukraine’s undercover operatives are now able to work inside Russia. Since the start of the Kremlin’s all-out invasion, Ukraine’s operations have expanded in range, ambition and sophistication. Western countries have provided some assistance to Ukraine’s deep-strike programme—on May 28th Germany promised to finance Ukrainian long-range drones—but much of the technology and mission planning is indigenous.

Today’s operation is likely to be ranked among the most important raiding actions in modern warfare. According to sources, the mission was 18 months in the making. Russia had been expecting attacks by larger fixed-wing drones at night and closer to the border with Ukraine. The Ukrainians reversed all three variables, launching small drones during the day, and doing so far from the front lines. Ukraine had launched drones from within Russia previously; the difference was the scale and combined nature of the operations.

Commentators close to the Ukrainian security services suggest that as many as 150 drones and 300 bombs had been smuggled into Russia for the operations. The quadcopters were apparently built into wooden cabins, loaded onto lorries and then released after the roofs of the cabins were remotely retracted. The drones used Russian mobile-telephone networks to relay their footage back to Ukraine, much of which was released by the gleeful Ukrainians. They also used elements of automated targeting, the accounts claim.

A Ukrainian intelligence source said it was unlikely that the drivers of the trucks knew what they were carrying. He compared this aspect of the operation to the 2022, attack on Kerch bridge, where a bomb concealed in a lorry destroyed part of the bridge linking Crimea with the mainland. “These kinds of operations are very complex, with key players necessarily kept in the dark,” he said. The source described the operation as a multi-stage chess move, with the Russians first encouraged to move more of their planes to particular bases by Ukrainian strikes on other ones. Three days before the attack, dozens of planes had moved to the Olenya airfield in Murmansk province, according to reports published at the time. It was precisely here that the most damage was done.

The operation casts a shadow over a new round of peace talks that is scheduled to start in Istanbul on June 2nd. Ukraine has been terrorised in recent months by Russia’s own massive strikes, sometimes involving hundreds of drones: one that took place overnight beginning on May 31st apparently involved a record 472 drones, the Ukrainian authorities say. Kyiv had been looking for ways to demonstrate to Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, that there is a cost to continuing the war. But the question is whether this operation has moved the dial, or simply raised the stakes. Chatter on Russian patriotic social-media networks has called for a severe response, likening the moment to Pearl Harbour, Japan’s attack on America’s Pacific Fleet in 1941. A senior Ukrainian official acknowledged that the operation carried risks of turning Western partners away from Ukraine. “The worry is that this is Sinop,” he said, referring to Russia’s strike on an Ottoman port in 1853 that ended up isolating the attacker on the world stage.

Western armed forces are watching closely. For many years they have concentrated their own aircraft at an ever smaller number of air bases, to save money, and have failed to invest in hardened hangars or shelters that could protect against drones and missiles. America’s own strategic bombers are visible in public satellite imagery, sitting in the open. “Imagine, on game-day,” writes Tom Shugart of CNAS, a think-tank in Washington, “containers at railyards, on Chinese-owned container ships in port or offshore, on trucks parked at random properties…spewing forth thousands of drones that sally forth and at least mission-kill the crown jewels of the [US Air Force].” That, he warns, would be “entirely feasible”. ■