Executive Disorder: White House Weekly #8

this based on something called the Alien Enemies Act. The way it's able to use the Alien Enemies Act is that it has designated these gangs as foreign terrorist organizations rather than as like international crime organizations, and it's usually Alien Enemies Act to expedite their removal. We spoke about the Alien Enemies Act in a podcast that I made last November with Robin Sophe about parts of the lord that Trump administration might use for its mass deportation agenda.

They're now using this one, and very briefly, it's a two hundred and twenty six year old piece of legislation that hasn't been used since World War Two, when it was used to justifying tournament camps, which were a bad thing. These people aren't being deported back to Venezuela, right, The US doesn't have relations with the Moduro regime, although it has to port people back to Venezuela on an airline that was previously sanctioned, which could now land in the

US for the express purpose of deportations, which is great. Instead, they're being sent to Al Salvador, sent there with no trial or hearing or seemingly right to appeal. When they get to El Salvador, they've been parade in front of video cameras. Very degrading treatment. Right. Their hair is being shaved,

sort of being walked with their heads forced down. They're being filmed on their knees while all their hair and facial hair is removed, and then they're being sent to second If you're not familiar with this, it was the subject of State Department Human Rights reports very recently and now we are sending people there. It's a mega prison in El Salvador. It roughly translates terrorism confinement or terrorism

detention center. I guess it's been very recently built by Bukel, who's the president of El Salvador, and it's part of his Supermanodoro like Iron Fist. Super Iron Fist would be the way you were translated. I guess. It is routinely criticized by human rights organizations for the disgusting conditions of people are kept in right, the United States government intended to send three hundred people there and in return it paid six million dollars to El Salvador for the cost

of their detention. At the time that I wrote this, two hundred and thirty eight people who were accused of being part of trend our Work was sent there, and then twenty three who accused of being part of MS thirty. They were removed on flights the Trump administrations, claiming they were removed before a district court judge in DC blocked the removals. But there are a series of timelines that you can see online, some of which will be linked in the source of this episode would suggest that they

were in the air when he blocked their removals. Nonetheless, the judge very explicitly said, I'm quoting here. Any plane containing these folks that is going to take off or is in the air needs to be returned to the United States. This is something that you need to make

sure is complied with immediately. This did not happen. The planes continued traveling to Olsalvadoid, stopped in Honduras, and then these people were paraded before the cameras, right, and they're now presumably being detained in this prison, which doesn't mean basic sender of human rights. The government has given various reasons for ignoring this ruling from the judge. Press Sexuary Caroline leave It claimed that there was quote no lawful

basis for it. Obviously, that the process here is, if you don't believe then judicial ruling is correct, you stop doing the thing and appeal it. You don't just keep doing the thing and say like, oh, well, I don't believe you. It's not true. Obviously, this only matters in

so far as the judge can enforce his decision. They also claimed in court that the verbal order that the judge gave is not the same as a written one, and they claim that because the flights were ever international waters, this was a foreign policy matter, and that the judge could intervene in a foreign policy matter. That's a power of this reserve to the executive.

Also horrifying is the fact that if you actually look up the common lawal citation, the next words after King's special favor is in a time of war.

specifically the president decides that they have rights. Is unbelievably hideous. It is pure, pure state of exception, total fascism. Shit, it's fucking horrifying.

it is this diocelic god underneath. It was supposed to be I guess similar like a play on the logo of Al Madrid. But they've used this to claim that its evidence he's a member of a gang. Gangs like tender Agua don't have like gang signed tattoos, right, Yeah, they're smarter than that, Like they've seen what's happened to gangs like MS thirteen, because who do Like Madras, Central American gangs have have had these things like as part of their tradition for a while, and they've been used

heavily by law enforcement. I remember Christmas Eve twenty twenty three. I was in the desert with my friends and a large number of my joints Across that day, I remember meeting a Venezuela man who was like covered in tattoos. They head to toe, very heavy tattooed. And that dude spent the entire day building a shelter for someone else's sick kid and then slept by himself in the freezing

cold outside. And like, I don't know, I've been thinking about that guy a lot because under this ruling, right, like just his appearance of having tattoos would have him classified as a terrorist. And like when thousands of Americans living within an hour of that place did nothing, and that little girl who was sick had nowhere to sleep, Like this guy took it upon himself to help, even when he himself was in a difficult place. And it

just really makes me kind of sick. I think that this is where we're at now.

in this country. And it's a damning indictment of like what particularly liberals in the left failed to stop because this was this was a train that we could see coming for a while, like the propaganda campaign against these folks, yeah, and a necessary ingredient, and the Republicans getting their way on this was democratic politicians and you know, to be entirely fair, quite a few prominent thought leaders on the left absolutely folding and not just not just failing to

like counterpoint this stuff, but like diving in on it because they they either had prejudice of their own or they saw it as like an opportunity. But like, you know, the whole nativist deal is is just disgusting. Yeah, yeah, I don't know what else to say. I can't just keep yelling about it.

But like, yes, when we could detain people, including little chill outside and we could leave them there in the snow, and like little babies could be shivering, and I could be giving away my own coat almost every day I was out there because I was worried someone's baby was going to die of hypothermia, we kind of conceded that these people didn't have rights, right and the Democratic Party let that happen, and people on the left let that happen.

And that is a stepping stone on the pathway to where we're at now.

but like they're not unrelated. You know, this kind of unitary executive theory is a through line through the last several administrations, and if anyone had pushed back prior to this point, Trump wouldn't be able to do a lot of what he's doing.

is something he particularly cares about. Trump clearly does want a ceasefire because he wants to be able to take credit for it, and Zelensky also clearly once a ceasefire. But there's been some kind of some pretty significant like

hold ups. One of them has been around Ukrainian minerals, and you know, in February, you had the administration talking a lot about how the US was going to gain control of Ukraine's minerals in order to pay us back for our support of their war effort, and Zelensky drew a very firm line, as he often does, like no, I'm not going to You're not just going to get all of this, all of our country's minerals. And I should note here that like this is a fairly significant

issue in global terms. It's estimated that Ukraine has about five percent of the planet's critical raw materials, including massive reserves of graphite. They're somewhere in like the top five countries in terms of proven graphite reserves, which among other things, is a critical ingredient for batteries in electric vehicles. They supply about seven percent of Europe's titanium. They're home to

a third of European lithium deposits. This is not an exhaustive list, that's just kind of, you know, to start

things off. And initially, when there was this kind of pushback from Zelenski saying like no, you're not just going to get all that, putin came in and was like, well, hey, you know, we've occupied a bunch of Ukrainian land that has raw minerals on it, will give those to you, right, And so this went back and forth, and eventually Zolensky and Trump's people put together like a deal that they were supposed to sign earlier this month that was like

at actual like bilateral agreement on the use of Ukrainian minerals. And essentially what it would have done is the deal did call for Ukraine to use its mineral resources to repay the United States to the tune of about half a trillion dollars, but not in a manner like where they were just handing us their minerals. Essentially, Ukraine would contribute fifty percent of revenues earned from the future monetizationation

of government owned mineral resources and other natural resources. But these were critically revenues earned from those resources like future modernization, right, So new mines, new oil and gas plants not included in this were like current reserves like actively being exploited for profit. So kind of the key to this is that, like mining is not something that you can turn around

on a dime. Generally, once you have actually proven you know that you have sort of the reserves in an area it takes about twenty years to actually get like mines up and running, and you know, this is an extremely expensive process. So one of the reasons why Ukraine considered this a good deal for them is that we're essentially putting a lot of those revenues in the hands of the US. But it was revenues from minerals that Ukraine was not currently exploiting and that the US would

help and provide funding to exploit. It was not just paying back the US. It was something that would allow the rebuilding of the Ukrainian economy post war. There were some issues with this, including the fact that mining is an extremely energy intensive task in Ukraine is in the middle of an energy crisis at the minute. But among other things, it would have brought the US in and given them a financial stake and continued peace in the region,

which was seen as positive. That all blew up at a White House meeting a couple of weeks ago, where, if you remember, JD. Vance and Trump basically had a little wwees SmackDown with Zelensky. It was a pretty ugly meeting, and after that kind of talk of the bilateral mineral

deal faded significantly. Now, what's interesting is that just today it's come out that Zelensky and Trump have had further conversations and there's a new deal apparently on the table, or at least the White House claimed that there was a new deal on the table. Both the White House and Zelensky's office said that it was a very positive,

productive meeting. There's some evidence that Zelensky, after that big blow up, has been kind of doing the thing you've got to do with Trump, which is like massage him and say nice things to him so that he'll like you more, and that Trump has gotten kind of frustrated with the fact that Russia clearly has not been overly

motivated to move towards the ceasefire. But then, in the middle of this meeting that everyone seems to agree went really well, the White House comes out and says, and we're working on an agreement where the US will control all of Ukraine's nuclear reactors, and Ukraine came out and said, no, we're not. Absolutely we did not say that that was a deal. So I don't know what's actually going to

happen here. Ukraine is a massive like nuclear energy state, in fact, the only European country that competes with them or that is like on the same level as they are in Europe in terms of nuclear industry is France, they've got four nuclear power plants with fifteen reactors in total. Now obviously like the Zapharizia plant is still under Russian control, which is a significant chunk. It's like six of the fifteen reactors in the country, and Ukraine is in the

process of building more. They've actively added capacity since the end of the Soviet Union, and so one of the promises for sort of future Ukrainian economic stability is that they will be able to export nuclear energy to the rest of Europe, which is also going through an energy crisis. So it's unclear what's going to happen. There's definitely evidence again that Zelensky has kind of figured out how to

massage Trump a little bit. There's a quote from an article in The Conversation that I found very interesting here. While Trump still leans towards putin, his relationship with Zelensky seems to have improved. Ukrainian president appears to have learned that Trump doesn't have a long memory and that flattery goes a long way with the US president. Trump meanwhile, is no longer calling Zelenski a dictator, and yet there is no mention of halting US military aid or intelligence

to Ukraine. There's the opposite, in fact, as the US has said it will assist in finding more patriot missile defense systems after Zelenski mentioned they were sorely needed. By giving Trump credit for the ceasefire initiative, Zelensky is putting the ball in Russia's court, and his apparent receptiveness to Trump's idea about the US taking over Ukraine's nuclear power plants will appeal to Trump's transactional instincts in addition to

offering Trump business deals. And I don't fully know what the conversation is saying here because Ukraine or Zelenski's office has stated like we're not considering handing the US control.

I think this may be something like what happened with the energy deal, where essentially what they talked about was the US having a financial interest in the rebuilding an expansion of the Ukrainian nuclear power grid, which would be an extension of existing programs because Ukraine's nuclear power grid is already very reliant on a US nuclear energy company, Westinghouse, that provides both the raw fuel for nuclear reactors to Ukraine and also provides a lot of like actual technology

for different kind of systems in the reactors. So I kind of think that what's happening here is that basically it was floated like, well, we can extend and expand this deal, so the US will have a financial interest in this potentially very large Ukrainian industry, and then Trump and his people kind of took that and said to everyone else, Yeah, the US is going to be in charge of Ukraine's nuclear power. That's my best guess for what happened here.

is calling this Liberation Day. On April second, he is planning to impose reciprocal tariffs on every single country on Earth.

US matches it. So the way the Trump administration thinks about tariffs is deeply weird. So they're including things like value added taxes on goods in countries.

It looks like the plan right now when this is also just to change because again this is Trump administration, and who the fuck knows what they're gonna be saying or doing in two weeks. But what we know right now is it looks like they're going to separate every country on Earth into three tiers of tariffs. So it's going to be like a low tier, a mid tier, and a high tier, and it's unclear exactly what levels

they're going to be. These are going to be on top of all of the additional tariffs that they've already imposed. So say, for example, trying gets put into high tier one, they put like a fifty percent tariff on it. That means a terifra it is going to be seventy percent because there's already twenty percent tariffs on their business. Insider seem to think twenty percent is like the low one. I don't know about that. I think they're going to

be pretty high. We have no idea. And again, so what's happening here is Trump is declaring this Liberation Day because he has convinced himself. I think I finally understand what's going on in his brain, which is that he has convinced himself that like, if you have a trade deficit with a country, that means the country's robbing you.

anything like in our lifetimes.

won't completely destroy their economy. Fuck if I know why they think that, but who knows. Yeah, but that's the fact. That's effectively the tariff news we have Right now, we have again April second, quote unquote Liberation Day, the day that this all goes into effect. I bet they wanted to do April first and realize that they couldn't.

like it. The Second Amendment is a fundamental right under the Constitution, and it's bad to say that this class of people forever lose a fundamental right because they're involuntarily institutionalized.

That's bad. And likewise, even if you hate the US military's role in US imperialism, which fine enough, the right to serve in an integrated military has been a major underpinning of most of the civil rights movements, like a foundational depending of most civil rights movements in this country's history, going back to the Civil War, you know, Black civil rights,

including LGBTQ rights, and including women's rights. Right, It's like it is significant, and so the fact that the GOP is attempting to peel this back and essentially reverse integration of the military is bad for two reasons. One, it represents, as you've said, creating separate classes of people and peeling fundamental what are considered under the law in this country, fundamental rights away from groups of people. And it's also just dangerous for them to remake the military into an

all white organization, right, like all white male organization. There's a reason why that's also dangerous to you. So, yeah, I think people should care about this, even if they're you know, leftists.

trans people serve at a higher rate. Then it says people that may not be the case for very much longer. By it like that has been the case, and they have rights to use however they want. They don't just have rights to use how you will II or anyone else would like them to use well.

people who are not considered equal before the law. We just spent this entire fucking like first part of this episode talking about what happens when people are considered to have no protections under the law, which at the state can just fucking black bag you and send you to a gulag.

And people are now going to lose that.

military service, and are eligible for VA healthcare. So basically they will not be emitting like new patients to receive gender affirming healthcare.

like what like that's not what they mean? Like you have to understand, like the dog whistles that they're using.

probably not great. It's probably isn't a good thing. Like, for instance, if you already have VIA healthcare, you're not in the military anymore, and now you decide that you would like to receive gender affirming healthcare, now you can't at least through the VA.

Schmid told her immigration agents pressured him to give up his green card. She said he was placed on a mat in a bright room with other people at the airport with little food or water, suffered sleep deprivation, and was denied access to his medication for anxiety and depression. He hardly got anything to drink, and then he wasn't feeling very well and he collapsed, said a senior, which is his mom. He was transported by ambulance to mass General Hospital. He didn't know it at the time, but

he also had the flu unquote. Now, Schmid has since been transferred to multiple ice facilities. He had a misdemeanor charge for marijuana possession in California back in twenty fifteen, but that charge was dismissed the following year due to

changes in state law. But I think that this incident may have flagged Schmidt on the customs and border protections like database and Hillary Beckham, CBP's Assistant Commissioner for Public Affairs, gave a short statement reading, quote, when an individual is found with drug related charges and tries to re enter the country, officers will take proper action unquote. But essentially they like tortured, black bagged this person who's had a green card for like almost two decades for a dismissed

marijuana charge like ten years ago. This is like you know, like a very white man like Fabian Schmidt. Yeah, like this is this is super freaky stuff.

of Hassan Nashraala. Upon a return to the United States, she was detained at the Boston Airport, had her H one B visa revoked, and was deported on a plane to France on Friday, March fourteenth, before she could attend her in person hearing that following Monday. According to court documents, her deportation was prompted by deleted pictures on her phone of like Shia Muslim figures like Neshraala and the Ayatola,

another very very frightening incident. In those documents, it's unclear how Customs and Border Protection was viewing deleted photos on her phone or like like like like open of her phone right because like if you recently deleted a photo, it is still contained in your recently deleted folder, assuming you have like an iPhone or equivalent. But it's unknown how they got into her phone, if she like let them look through it, or if they used one of like a many like.

immediately deported him. This is a guy who was visiting the US, like I think they go to a conference and the border patrol is arguing that anti Trump texts are considered terrorism, which is great, or the text that they found are like could be like the anti Trump ness of it can be considered terroristic, so that's bad.

There was yet another case, which is a slightly different one, which is Buttercon Surrey, who is a postoc at Georgetown who was detained and sent to an immigration facility, who's here teaching. He's a postdoc at Georgetown on a student visa who has been sent to an immigration facility based on basically a right wing panic about his wife, his wife's father being Hamas. And because of this, he's been

black bagged in a way very similar to Mak mckhalil. Yeah, now Georgetown is backing him on this, but this is you know this, this this is another one of these fucking blackpaggings that they're just doing now with someone who is here on a student visa who has committed no crime, who Georgetown was like, has committed no crime. And again also even if he've committed a crime, this is fucking horseship.

But yeah, all of these things are just continuing to ramp up, and they're getting Boulder and Boulder.

me as we returned from dinner. By now, the footage of that night has been made public. Before I knew it was happening, agents handcuffed and forced me into an unmarked car. At that moment, my only concern was for Newer's safety. I had no idea if she would be taken too, since the agents had threatened to arrest her for not leaving my side. DHS would not tell me anything for hours. I did not know the cause of my arrest or if I was facing immediate deportation. At

twenty six Federal Plaza. I slept on the cold floor in the early morning hours. Agents transported me to another facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey. There, I slept on the ground and was refused a blanket despite my request. My arrest was a direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza, which resumed in

full force Monday night. With January ceasefire now broken, parents in Gaza are once again cradling two small shrouds, and families are forced to waste starvation and displacement against bombs. Is moral imperative to persist in the struggle for their complete freedom. And again I really recommend reading the whole thing. It's it's very good.

Shane Burley. This tweet that was reposted by the head of this anti semitism task force claimed that quote Trump has the ability to revoke someone's Jew card.

The president is supposed to get control of all discipline and can expel and suspend students, and they want to crack down student groups they want and this is also

a tie into the other thing. They want the IHR definition of anti semitism and like specifically, the Trump's like letter to them specifically says like classifying anti Zionism as anti Semitism, And they want to put the Middle East, South Asian, and African studies departments in academic receivership, which means stripping away power from the faculty and giving it to someone outside these Yeah, Columbia is about to give

into these demands. It seems like they want to try to find another word other than academic receivership, but they're just going to fucking do it. So and Trump have legal authority to do this, No, obviously not, But you know, does he have the moral authority? There's no, obviously not like this guy is.

like Columbia trying to take the deal. We're coming out The University of Pennsylvania is good about to lose one hundred and seventy five million dollars of funding for allowing Leah Thomas, a trans swimmer, to swim for their college. So this is just going to be a giant sort of battering ram that Trump is going to use to just basically obliterate the education system and like impose whatever unhinged right wing thing that he wants to impose.