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Authored by Hamza Zaman via RealClearDefense,

China’s Two Sessions, conducted from March 5 to 11, highlighted China’s aim to enhance its global economic footprint. President Donald Trump also unveiled his ‘America First Investment Policy’ two weeks earlier to manifest his economic designs and counter ‘Made in China 2025’ policy endorsed in the Two Sessions. This competition between the two opposing policies is expected to catalyze the ongoing trade war between the U.S. and China, resulting in major implications for the global economy including the possibility of global recession.

In the Two sessions, China pledged to enhance its growth rate by expanding the advanced technological sector. As part of the ‘Made in China 2025’ strategy, China plans to become a global leader in smart manufacturing by focusing on advanced high-end technologies including biomanufacturing, quantum technology, Artificial Intelligence and 6G technology. The launch of DeepSeek underlines China’s advancements in the high-end technological sector. AliBaba’s announcement of USD 53 billion investment in cloud computing and artificial intelligence infrastructure in China also manifests its growing footprint in the supply chain of high-end technologies.

As an anticipatory and preemptive action against the Two Sessions’ resolutions, President Trump announced ‘America First Investment Policy’ on February 21 – merely two weeks before the Two Sessions. It stated multiple strategies aimed at enhancing foreign investment in the U.S., especially from allied countries. It also suggested new and expanded restrictions on the American outbound investment in China in high-end technologies, including semiconductors, AI, quantum, biotechnology and aerospace. This highlights the Trump administration’s resolve to counter the growing Chinese clout in advanced technologies.

However, this ambitious policy of President Trump is riddled with paradoxes, including the financial interests of American tech giants. Despite denunciation of the U.S. outbound investment in China, Elon Musk, President Trump’s closest ally in the election campaign and senior advisor to the President on government efficiency, is among the leading investors in China. This reveals the duality in President Trump’s approach, who is fixated on curtailing outbound investment in China while his closest aides continue being the biggest investors in the country. The ‘Gold Card’ Visa Program, President Trump’s attempt at increasing inbound investment, is also being predicted to elevate America’s housing prices. This implies that the focus of President Trump’s ‘America First Investment Policy’ is to compel investors into the U.S. by degrading the business environment in other states through exorbitant tariffs.

The competition between ‘America First Investment Policy’ and ‘Made in China 2025’ is anticipated to greatly impact the economies of the U.S. and China while influencing the global economic milieu. Speculations of another recession are looming in the American financial sector as tariffs and protectionist policies like ‘America First Investment Policy’ aggravate uncertainties among the investors and the masses. The Two Sessions aimed to attract foreign investors, especially in smart manufacturing. The Trump administration, however, might respond with even higher tariffs on Chinese smart manufacturing, compelling China to impose retaliatory tariffs on the U.S..

The recent enforcement of tariffs on Canadian and European steel and aluminum imports can be considered an attempt to redirect investment to the U.S.. The reciprocal European tariffs, however, will intensify America’s trade war with its allies. In this scenario, ‘America First Investment Policy’ appears merely an extension of the broader tariff strategy of President Trump. The policy aims to attract foreign investment from allies, but based on tariffs’ coercion. The investors might feel compelled to redirect their investment to the U.S. to fend off the repercussions of American tariffs. The retaliatory tariffs on the U.S. will additionally impair investors’ interests, who would face insecurity due to ever-increasing turbulence by the states’ economic policies.

The contest between these opposing policies will also exacerbate the race for dominance in smart manufacturing. The contours of both policies emphasize advanced high-end technologies. This showdown between these policies will lead to technological decoupling and attempts to outpace the other by advancing the integration of advanced technologies into production processes and supply chain.

The U.S.-China competition over rare earth metals will also intensify as a result of these competing policies. Rare Earth Metals are essential to advanced manufacturing and defense industries. In the wake of China’s ban on export of several REMs to the U.S. citing their dual-use applications in both civilian and military technologies, the Trump administration is pondering over new sources of REMs. This REMs hunt is noticeably influencing the Trump administration’s foreign policy, including the pressure on Greenland, compelling tactics against Ukraine and growing affinity for Russia, especially after Russia showed willingness for REMs export to the U.S..

The competition between these policies of the U.S. and China is adding to protectionist sentiments, which is plummeting investors’ confidence. The speculations of recession are gaining strength in the U.S., and it may turn into a global recession resulting in grave consequences for the global financial system. In the age of globalization where states’ economies are deeply interconnected, the enforcement of such policies hampers the potential of shared growth and mutual prosperity.

Hamza Zaman is an assistant research associate at the Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI), Islamabad.

Starlink satellite internet by Elon Musk’s company SpaceX has been deemed critical for the Ukrainian war effort. Experts believe that as of now, there is no satellite internet service that can replace Starlink for this function. However, more so-called satellite constellations, typically consisting of low Earth orbit satellites that can provide fast, stable and low-latency internet, are being launched. Musk vowed earlier in March that he would never disable Starlink in Ukraine.

Earlier this year, Starlink also made the news due to regulatory woes in South Africa, Musk’s country of birth. Reportedly, South Africa’s wide-ranging affirmative action laws have been a hurdle for the company gaining an operating license there. 

However, as Statista’s Katharina Buchholz shows in the infographic below, as of March 2025, Starlink had launched official local service in 18 African countries and indicated on its website that it was looking to add more on the continent. However, African Starlink launches have been pushed back in the past. 

 

You will find more infographics at Statista

While some governments around the world might have reservations about Starlink as the resource cannot be as easily controlled and potentially shut off as regular broadband or cellular internet, others have voiced concerns about illegal actors like militias or drug smugglers using it.

In a recent victory for the service, Starlink gained a license in Chad in November, while it had not exactly been welcomed by countries like Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Namibia, Senegal or Cote D’Ivoire. 

Some countries have, however, also made a turnaround on the company, for example Mali and Zimbabwe. 

Meanwhile, the service seems to be moving towards implementation in countries like Jordan, Papua New Guinea, Suriname, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, the latter country’s new government explicitly speaking out against internet shutdowns.

Listed as pending regulatory approval on Starlink’s website were the countries Saudi Arabia, India, Pakistan, United Arab Emirates, Thailand, Turkey and Vietnam. 

For one country that tightly controls its internet, China, Starlink did not list an intention to launch service. 

The same was true for Russia, Belarus, Syria, Afghanistan, Iran and North Korea.

Authored by Michael Weiser via RealClearEducation,

Anyone who has lived in this decade can tell you that the United States of America has had some hard days. During another bitter election season, there were many dispiriting moments. Civil dialogue about the many issues we face was all but absent.

Especially troubling was a November 4th Wall Street Journal report that civics teachers not only steered clear of the election but also avoided discussing any current political issue in their classrooms.

Political campaigns and issues of national importance, however, are crucial opportunities for teachers to engage students in the democratic process. Teachers should invite them to learn the essential practices of civil discourse, such as understanding all sides of an issue and showing an openness to new ideas and ways of thinking. They can help students look to our history and core documents for insight. All of this serves as a path for students to become thoughtful citizens.

Yes, some teachers have taken it upon themselves to impart their personal politics. But many more teachers understand their critical role and simply lack the confidence to lead their students in political discussions. Civics teachers are generally provided with limited educational resources and content-based training while dealing with a highly volatile political climate and a culture that disregards what we as Americans hold in common.

We need to work together to find solutions to this crisis of knowledge and this crisis of confidence. We need to support civics teachers in every way we can so they can, in turn, help students become young citizens and take responsibility for self-government.

For 20 years, the Jack Miller Center has been working to fill this gap by supporting scholars devoted to teaching America’s founding principles and history. Our programs also aim to empower K-12 civics and history teachers with a deep understanding of core primary source texts, great debates, and key moments in our history. We work with the top professors in our network of 1,200 university scholars to provide rigorous professional development programs and innovative classroom application models that give teachers the knowledge and confidence they need.

Across the country, we have found partners in the private and public sectors who are on all sides of the political spectrum yet share our reverence for the American political tradition. We have witnessed, for example, a rising desire to incorporate civics into college and university curricula, expressed through the development of new civics and liberal arts-focused programs at Stanford, Purdue, and Johns Hopkins, to name a few. 

Additionally, after decades of underfunding, a number of state legislatures are now stepping up to provide support for interdisciplinary departments at public universities. These institutions are being staffed by leading political scientists, historians, economists, and humanities scholars like Professor Jed Adkins, who heads the School of Life and Leadership at the University of North Carolina.

Another benefit of this civics renaissance is providing advanced civics education for teachers. Arizona State University and Utah Valley University have introduced innovative graduate programs for civics, history, and other social studies teachers to advance their knowledge of the subjects they teach. 

UVU’s Center for Constitutional Studies is a particularly excellent example of the nonpartisan and academically rigorous kind of civics that’s flowering in higher education. Its Constitutional Literacy Institute has offered teachers thousands of hours of professional development. UVU is partnering with the university’s School of Education on a Master of Arts in Constitutional Government, Civics, and Law that will serve as an important credential. Utah Valley University and other similar institutes across the country can empower genuine civic revival by connecting top scholars with K-12 teachers.

The beating heart of American civics education will always be at the K-12 level. We need to redouble our efforts to teach students about all of America’s history, the good and the bad. Civics education is not about indoctrinating children into one ideology or another but is instead an invitation to learn more about America’s story – and for students to see themselves in it.

It was Frederick Douglass who called the Constitution a “glorious liberty document.” In that same speech, he went on to say that “every citizen has a personal interest in understanding thoroughly” the meaning of that charter. As a man born in slavery who had to fight even to learn to read, Douglass understood full well the importance of education in a republic. Civic ignorance leads to division, decline, and ultimately oppression. Republics only thrive when the whole citizenry understands the principles on which they are founded.

The occasion of America’s 250th birthday presents an opportunity for this civic education renewal. During the Bicentennial in 1976, Americans of all stripes were hungry for history – biographies became bestsellers, and reenactors honored the memory of our Revolution. We believe the same spirit can take hold in 2026. Let’s make the most of it.

Tucker Carlson has just released a wide-ranging new interview with Trump’s Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, who has also been deeply involved in efforts for the peaceful settlement of the Ukraine war.

Witkoff has been active in the Saudi hosted talks between the US and Russia, as well as between the US and Ukraine, with more rounds of talks set for Monday. Perhaps the most interesting part of the interview came when Witkoff addressed the key, central issue to achieving the end of the war.

The US top envoy described the question of the fate of the annexed territories in Ukraine’s east as “an elephant in the room” that “no one wants to talk about.”

“They’re Russian-speaking. There have been referendums where the overwhelming majority of the people have indicated that they want to be under Russian rule,” Witkoff told Carlson.

Witkoff admitted that militarily and politically, Moscow now exercises full control over the bulk of these territories, as Ukraine forces continue to be steadily retreating from their remaining holdouts in Donetsk.

Putin had first described in February 2022 that the people of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions are “our citizens forever” – and soon after a series of referendums resulted in their absorption into the Russian Federation.

Witkoff in the interview actually struggled to identify or say the names of the territories, which he numbered at five – noting that Crimea remains hotly disputed as well.

“When that gets settled… this has always been the issue” – Witkoff continued, describing that this is the question likely to finally resolve the war. He asked, “Will the world acknowledge that those are Russian territories?”

But that’s when he noted that there are serious domestic issued in Ukraine which would make such a significant territorial concession very difficult. “Can Zelensky survive politically if he acknowledges this?” Witkoff questioned.

Watch the clip below:

It’s clear from this that the only difference between Steve Witkoff’s and Vladmir Putin’s views on the war in Ukraine is that Putin actually knows the names of all the five Ukrainian regions he wants to keep. pic.twitter.com/3f6hGyzVvo

— Yaroslav Trofimov (@yarotrof) March 22, 2025

Trump officials, behind closed doors at least, have probably fully admitted that Ukraine is never getting these territories back. There have been reports that the White House is recently pressuring Kiev to be open to territorial concessions.

Zelensky has of course remained resistant to this, but how long can he hold out?

* * *

Watch the full Tucker interview below…

Steve Witkoff has no background in diplomacy but has turned out to be the most effective American diplomat in a generation. Here’s how he’s trying to resolve the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine.

(0:00) What Witkoff Has Learned as Trump’s Global Negotiator
(4:10) Negotiating With… pic.twitter.com/7AUh4gvwke

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) March 21, 2025

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Virginia-based Nestlé USA is recalling multiple frozen food items over concerns about foreign material contamination after a potential choking incident, the company said in a March 18 recall notice published by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The company said it is investigating the source of a wood-like material that contaminated the products and has taken steps to address the issue. Nestlé is working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the FDA on the recall.

“Nestlé USA is initiating a voluntary recall of a limited quantity of Lean Cuisine and STOUFFER’S frozen meals due to the potential presence of wood-like material,” the company stated. “We are taking this action after consumers contacted Nestlé USA about this issue, including one potential choking incident to date.”

The company said the recall is isolated to a limited quantity of batches of “Lean Cuisine Butternut Squash Ravioli, Lean Cuisine Spinach Artichoke Ravioli, Lean Cuisine Lemon Garlic Shrimp Stir Fry, and STOUFFER’S Party Size Chicken Lasagna” produced between August 2024 and March 2025.

“We are confident that this is an isolated issue, and we have taken action to address it,” Nestlé said. “The quality, safety and integrity of our products remain our number one priority. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this action represents to both our consumers and retail customers.”

Products were distributed to major retailers across the United States and have best-before dates ranging from September 2025 to April 2026.

People who suspect they have affected products are asked to check the 10-digit batch codes listed in the recall notice against the code on the side of the packaging to identify them.

“Consumers who have purchased these products should not prepare or consume the product and should return it to the retailer where it was purchased for a replacement or a full refund,” the company stated in the notice.

Nestlé said customers with questions about the recall can contact the company at (800) 681-1676 Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. EST.

The Epoch Times reached out to Nestlé USA for further comment but did not receive a response by publication time.

In August 2023, Nestlé pulled chocolate chip cookie dough bars from the market due to the “potential presence of wood fragments.”

At the time, the company received complaints from consumers about the issue. While no injuries were reported, Nestlé initiated the recall out of caution.

The FDA has previously said that parts of manufacturing equipment used in the food industry, such as moving wire mesh belts, portion control equipment, and injection needles, could end up breaking down during operations, eventually mixing with food items.

Let’s clarify one important issue up front:  Progressives do not believe in democracy.  They use the term frequently as a Pavlovian bell to whip useful idiot activists into a frothing frenzy, but there is no measure by which they have proven they care about Democracy or even know what it is.  And since this is the case, we have to ask – What do they really mean when they use the word?

If we consider the traditional definition of “majority rule”, then this is clearly not what leftists support.  That is to say, they only support majority rule when they represent the majority.  In the case of the 2024 election Donald Trump won both the Electoral College and the popular vote, which means he does in fact represent the majority.  Yet, Democrats and their ilk continue to accuse him of being a “threat to democracy”, and they have openly and actively refused to accept the will of the people.

Therefore, one can only conclude that leftists want something other than democracy.  And, given their track record over the last four years in which they attempted mass online censorship and a global authoritarian coup using pandemic hysteria as a weapon, there is little doubt who the true autocrats really are.  

The hypocrisy is overwhelming when these same people accuse conservatives of authoritarianism.

Such is the case in light of a newly released annual report on the global state of democracy published by a “global watchdog” called the Varieties of Democracy project, or V-Dem.  Headed by Staffan Lindberg of Sweden’s University of Gothenburg, the group boasts that it is one of the largest social science data collection projects on democracy in the world.  V-Dem’s report covers the state of democracy around the world up until the end of 2024.  However, Lindberg provided special notes on Donald Trump, claiming that the President could lead America to lose its democracy status by 2026.

“If it continues like this, the United States will not score as a democracy when we release [next year’s] data…If it continues like this, democracy [there] will not last another six months.” 

Lindberg says Trump is doing many of the same things as Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey, Viktor Orbán in Hungary and Narendra Modi in India — only faster.

“It’s the pace…He’s trying to do in a few months what it took them eight to 10 years to achieve.… It’s very dire.”

Canada’s state funded CBC (the CBS receives almost 70% of its funding from the Canadian government) was quick to jump on the V-Dem bandwagon in a rambling and mostly biased expose on the report and its implications for the Trump Administration.  

“The latest report still ranks the U.S. as a “Liberal Democracy,” the highest of five tiers, one higher than Canada, which is classified as an “Electoral Democracy.” 

The report adds an important caveat: this year’s version does not include events in 2025, meaning it does not cover the start of Donald Trump’s latest presidential term.  But it refers to ongoing events in the U.S. as unprecedented, mentioning Trump pardoning 1,500 criminals who supported him; firing independent agency watchdogs without process; purging apolitical police and military brass; ignoring laws; and his unilaterally deleting federal programs, and even a whole organization, created by U.S. Congress.”

V-Dem warns that the US may fall from the graces of their democracy list into the frightful category to “electoral autocracy”.  Meaning, people are still basically free to do all the things one does in a democracy, but the threat of retribution or retaliation is present.  In other words, it’s a lot like life in the US under the Biden Administration. 

It’s hard to see how Trump’s audits of the federal government and his cuts to government waste and NGO fraud are a “threat to democracy” unless you view democracy as progressive authoritarian boondoggle.  Biden pardoned his criminal son and most of his family retroactively back to 2014 under suspicious circumstances, with some insiders claiming that Biden’s unelected wife and son were running the White House behind the scenes while Biden was turning into a vegetable.

We don’t hear the leftists complaining about that act of autocracy.  Trump pardoning people who were politically railroaded and thrown in prison for up to 20 years for protesting is nothing in comparison.  

It’s also incredibly disingenuous to label the military brass under Biden as “apolitical” when they were entirely political and devout proponents of DEI. 

Finally, Trump’s federal cuts are exactly what he campaigned on and what the American people voted for him to do.  Democrats want to call the will of the people “autocracy”, but this only holds weight with low intelligence legacy journalists that simply don’t want to accept that they are in the minority.  

It should be mentioned that the V-Dem Project gets it’s funding from a variety of interesting sources, including The World Bank, George Soros’ Open Society Foundation, and, yes, you guessed it – USAID.

So, it’s not surprising that Trump’s cuts to agencies that money launder for leftist institutions have triggered V-Dem into a hostile response.  Trump is threatening their money train.  The new Administration is catching so much flak because they’re directly over the target.   

Authored by Arjun Singh via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The “autopen” is in vogue. On March 17, President Donald Trump announced in a late-night social media post that he would ignore several pardons issued by his predecessor, President Joe Biden, because they were allegedly signed by autopen.

An autopen is a machine that reproduces handwriting. In the case of elected officials, who are expected to sign thousands of official documents on a regular basis, autopens are often used to reproduce their signatures in lieu of them signing each paper by their own hand.

The use of autopens has raised constitutional questions for some after Trump’s accusations of autopen use by Biden. They say that autopen use casts doubt on whether Biden knew the documents were being signed at all, thus implicating their validity.

“I worked in [the White House] for several presidents,” wrote K.T. MacFarland, a former deputy national security adviser during Trump’s first administration, on social platform X. “If Biden himself granted these pardons, there will be paper trail. If not, the guy running autopen machine usurped presidential authority.”

In a Jan. 20 statement that announced the pardons that were later challenged by his successor, Biden stated: “I am exercising my authority under the Constitution to pardon General Mark A. Milley, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the Members of Congress and staff who served on the Select Committee, and the U.S. Capitol and D.C. Metropolitan police officers who testified before the Select Committee.”

The Epoch Times is unable to independently verify whether the pardons were signed by autopen or not.

The Biden Presidential Library at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) denied The Epoch Times’ Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for Biden administration records about autopen use, citing a statute that prevents their release for five years after a president leaves office.

The former president, who has not yet established a post-presidential office, is not reachable.

Courts have opined that presidential pardons need not be written, and may be granted orally.

On whether writing is required as part of the president’s exercise of the clemency power, “The answer is undoubtedly no,” ruled the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in 2024. “The plain language of the Constitution imposes no such limit.”

The Law of Autopens

Aside from the question of Biden’s foreknowledge, the constitutionality of autopen use by a president for official acts has never been determined by a federal court.

Article I, Section 7 of the U.S. Constitution requires that any bill passed by Congress must be signed by the president in order to become law, using the language “If he approve he shall sign it.”

The Constitution specifies no method for affixing the president’s signature. On the issuance of pardons, the Constitution is less specific—in Article II, Section 2, it states that the president “shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment,” with no mention of signature.

For nearly 20 years, the Executive Branch has held that autopen use is constitutional.

In 2005, during President George W. Bush’s administration, the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel issued an opinion that the president may sign a bill, within the constitutional definition, by use of an autopen or even directing that his signature be copied by another person.

“The President need not personally perform the physical act of affixing his signature to a bill he approves … Rather, the President may sign a bill within the meaning of Article I, Section 7 by directing a subordinate to affix the President’s signature to such a bill, for example by autopen,” wrote the office in the caption of its opinion.

The Office of Legal Counsel’s opinion is supported by contemporary legal scholars.

“Presidents are allowed to use the autopen and courts will not presume a dead-hand conspiracy,” wrote Jonathan Turley, a conservative legal scholar and professor at the George Washington University Law School, on social media.

“Many of these were high-profile pardons, including for his own son, that Biden acknowledged publicly … For all of these reasons, this dog will not hunt.”

The Use of Autopens

Machines to copy signatures, such as autopens, have long been used by U.S. presidents. President Thomas Jefferson, during his term from 1801 to 1809, extensively used a “polygraph” machine to copy and sign letters, though it required action by his own hand to work. Modern use of the autopen in government began in 1942, when a machine developed by Robert M. De Shazo, Jr. was acquired by the Secretary of the Navy to duplicate his signature, according to the National Parks Service.

In 1968, President Lyndon Johnson permitted an autopen device he used to be photographed by the National Enquirer, which then ran a story “The Robot That Sits in for the President.” Johnson’s decision confirmed the existence and use of the device, which had primarily been used by presidents and other senior officials to sign correspondence and some documents.

Autopen use, even in these circumstances, has been controversial. In 2004, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld faced public criticism for using an autopen to sign condolence letters to families of soldiers killed during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In response, Rumsfeld vowed that “in the future I [will] sign each letter.”

The first use of an autopen to sign a bill into law was on May 26, 2011, by President Barack Obama, who ordered its use to sign an extension of the PATRIOT Act’s surveillance provisions into law. Obama was on a trip to France for a G8 Summit at the time and could not have returned to sign the law before the surveillance provisions expired that day, which would have affected national security. At the time, the White House cited the opinion of the Office of Legal Counsel during the Bush administration as a persuasive authority on the matter.

Obama used an autopen a second time in 2011, while at an Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Indonesia, to approve appropriations bills that would fund government agencies. He last used it, for a third time, in 2013, to sign the American Taxpayer Relief Act while on vacation in Hawaii.

Biden, during his presidential term, used an autopen at least once. He signed the Airport and Airway Extension Act into law while visiting San Francisco. The bill averted an expiration of authority for the Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees air traffic control and airline safety, by granting a one-week extension.

Trump, for his part, is not known to have signed any legislation or executive actions by autopen.

“It has been our policy for every legally operational/binding document that President Trump signs to contain his hand signature,” wrote a White House official in a statement to The Epoch Times.

In response to a question on March 17 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, Trump said he has used autopens “only for very unimportant papers.”

“I‘ll sign them whenever I can, but when I can’t, we’ll use an autopen,” he said.

Another day, another incident where a Tesla owner is being harassed…

This time, a Tesla driver in Lynnwood, Wash. says she was harassed and cut off by another motorist in a frightening, unprovoked road incident. 

On her way to a doctor’s appointment, Leigh was honked at near a red light, then cut off by a white SUV that stopped in the road. The other driver got out and began yelling at her, which she described as threatening and harassing, according to MyNorthwest.

The driver said: “He gets out and walks straight up to my door window. So I cracked my window and I said, ‘What? What is the problem? He goes, ‘You need to sell your car. This is a Nazi car. You’re driving it, you need to sell your car.’”

“Being in Seattle, climate’s important, our footprint’s important. This seemed like the right move for our very busy family. We drive a lot, and it saves us on gas. Now it feels like a huge risk; it’s scary,” she added.

Tesla owners have faced rising attacks and harassment since Elon Musk took over the Department of Government Efficiency under the Trump administration.

The MyNorthwest article says that the Justice Department is now prosecuting cases, including suspects who hurled Molotov cocktails at Tesla vehicles in Oregon and Colorado, and one who set fire to charging stations in South Carolina after scrawling anti-Trump messages.

Internationally, four Teslas were torched in Berlin. Locally, six Teslas in Lynnwood were vandalized with swastikas and slurs, and a Tesla was set ablaze in Seattle’s Capitol Hill.

Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

President Donald Trump on Thursday urged the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene after federal judges issued preliminary injunctions blocking the enforcement of his orders to federal agencies.

In a post on the social media platform Truth Social, Trump called on Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to put a stop to nationwide injunctions that blocked his policies, saying they have caused the country “very serious trouble.”

“It is our goal to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, and such a high aspiration can never be done if Radical and Highly Partisan Judges are allowed to stand in the way of JUSTICE,” Trump stated. “STOP NATIONWIDE INJUNCTIONS NOW, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.”

The Trump administration is facing a barrage of more than 100 lawsuits challenging the president’s executive orders on the federal government and agencies. Some federal judges have issued nationwide injunctions in response to those legal challenges, blocking Trump’s orders including one that seeks to bar transgender-identifying people from military service.

Trump condemned those injunctions as unlawful and criticized what he called radical-left judges, alleging that they “do not care, even a little bit, about the repercussions from their very dangerous and incorrect decisions and rulings.”

“These Judges want to assume the Powers of the Presidency, without having to attain 80 Million Votes. They want all of the advantages with none of the risks,” the president stated.

Trump said that as a president, he should be able to “act quickly and decisively” in matters such as deporting “murderers, drug lords, rapists, and other such type criminals back to their homeland, or to other locations that will allow our country to be safe.”

He was referencing a case concerning his administration’s effort to deport Venezuelan immigrants suspected of being members of the Tren de Aragua criminal gang, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization.

That effort was blocked by U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who ruled against Trump’s proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act and ordered the return of deportation flights already en route to El Salvador.

The White House said on March 16 that deportation flights did not conflict with a judge’s order that blocked such actions because the ruling was issued after the flights had already left U.S. territory.

The Epoch Times has reached out to the Supreme Court for comment but did not hear back by publication time.

Trump has called for the impeachment of Boasberg—who also serves as chief judge of the U.S. Alien Terrorist Removal Court—after the judge blocked his proclamation. Roberts rejected that call.

“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts stated on March 18. “The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”

Trump signed the proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act on March 15. It stated that many members of the Tren de Aragua gang have “unlawfully infiltrated the United States and are conducting irregular warfare and undertaking hostile actions” against the country.

Following the deportation flights, Boasberg issued a new order on March 20 demanding that Justice Department officials explain why their failure to return the deported immigrants to the United States did not violate his previous order.

The White House said on Wednesday that its mass deportations will continue as the Justice Department contests Boasberg’s order.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) announced a plan on March 20 to introduce legislation that will curtail district court judges’ ability to block Trump’s policies nationwide.

“District Court judges have issued record numbers of national injunctions against the Trump administration—a dramatic abuse of judicial authority,” Hawley wrote on the X platform. “I will introduce legislation to stop this abuse for good.”

The senator did not provide further details about the legislation he intends to introduce.

Jacob Burg, Samantha Flom, and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Authored by Dave Carter via PJ Media,

Question: What’s the difference between a federal district judge and God?

Answer: God doesn’t think he’s a federal district judge. 

Or as Winston Churchill once said, “There, but for the grace of God, goes God.” Imagine the sheer hubris and limitless ego needed for an unelected jurist to don a black robe and assume the power of commandeering the national security apparatus and tell an aircraft full of dangerous foreign terrorists to turn around and return back to America to terrorize. Did Commissar Boasberg get his black robe from Hogwarts? 

Of course, there are a few problems with this, the first being purely logistical. If His Royal Awesomeness Commissar Boasberg is taking over the Venezuelan operation, that leaves the remaining 676 Commissars to split the remaining 194 countries into various principalities to accommodate their imperial administration. 

However, I did see that another federal district commissar is assuming operational oversight of the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) to prevent it from ending a $20 million grant program begun by former President Biden even as another federal district liege has assumed control of military readiness by blocking President Trump’s ban on transexuals serving in the military. Still another federal district overlord says that Trump’s dismantling of the corrupt money-laundering machine known as the US Agency for International Development (USAID) is likely unconstitutional. History buffs will recall that the USAID clause is written in the Constitution next to the right to stick a fork in a baby’s head, which itself adjacent to the divine right of federal judges to appropriate the President’s Article II powers. 

The logistical challenge of what to do with 677 otherwise idle Federal District Commissars having been solved by dispersing them, like the witch’s flying monkeys, throughout the Executive Branch, leaves only one remaining problem. No one elected these judges. They are not answerable to the American people, whom they hold in less esteem than foreigners with a knack for assaulting and murdering the innocent. As Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller wrote: 

Currently, district court judges have assumed the mantle of Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, Secretary of Homeland Security and Commander-in-Chief. Each day, they change foreign policy, economic staffing and national security policies of the Administration. The day the nation arises to see what the craziest unelected local federal judge has decided the policies of the government of the United States shall be. It is madness. It is lunacy. It is the gravest assault on democracy. It must and will end.

In his book, “The Devil’s Dictionary,” Ambrose Bierce defines law as “Compatible with the will of a judge having jurisdiction,” and he defines a lawyer as “One who is skilled in circumvention of the law.” That last little bit was conclusively demonstrated to me a few days ago when a lawyer acquaintance of mine wrote on social media that “[I]n 1798 Congress enacted the Alien Enemies Act, which specifically provides that when war is declared, the President can remove and treat as hostile all foreign enemy agents on U.S. soil over the age of 14. The statute expressly requires war to be declared (which is a power of Congress)…” 

His point is that absent a declaration of war, President Trump cannot summarily remove Venezuelan gang members without each individual having their day in court where a judge will adjudicate whether or not they are members of the Tren de Aragua gang. But the wording of the Alien Enemies Act states: 

…Whenever there shall be a declared war between the United States and any foreign government, or any invasion or predatory incursion shall be perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States, by any foreign nation or government, and the President of the United States shall make public proclamation of the event, all natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects of the hostile nation or government, being males of the age of fourteen years and upwards, who shall be in the United States, and not actually naturalized, shall be liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured and removed, as alien enemies. 

Seems that the lawyer left something out of his narrative on the requirements for deportation, i.e. “…a declared war between the United States and any foreign government, OR any invasion or predatory incursion…” Ambrose Bierce is correct yet again. 

In his deportation proclamation on deporting Tren de Aragua (TdA) members, President Trump stipulates that “TdA has engaged in and continues to engage in mass illegal migration to the United States to further its objectives of harming United States citizens, undermining public safety, and supporting the Maduro regime’s destabilizing democratic nations in the Americas, including the United States.” 

As the brief exchange with the lawyer continued, he wrote, “We used to believe that it was better for 100 guilty men to go free than for one innocent man to be imprisoned without trial.” Of course, when the number of guilty parties goes from 100 to many millions, we run into another logistical problem, a problem made possible by the studied inaction of jurists at every level who turned a blind eye to millions of unvetted illegal aliens flooding the country in contravention of standing federal law within the last four years alone. 

The marauding band of savages who beat, stripped, and repeatedly raped Jocelyn Nungary before throwing her body off a bridge didn’t evince so much as a sigh from His Royal Awesomeness Commissar Boasberg or any of the others who are retreating to their fainting couches over a President doing precisely what he was elected to do. They will wax inconsolable over the thought that one of these bloodthirsty savages might not be Mirandized before being spirited out of the country while leaving you to the tender mercies of yet more savages. 

These petty black-robed tyrants are doing nothing less than trying to supersede the will of the American people and bog down the President we elected in the judicial quicksand of what Chief Justice Roberts called “the regular appellate process.” That is judge-speak for “Your republic may well die waiting on us to fix the mess we’ve created.”