Today in Politics, Bulletin 127. 5/9/25

… Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested today by the Trump Regime after a confrontation outside the Delaney Hall ICE detention center. Baraka was reportedly engaged in a peaceful protest and attempting to assert local jurisdiction over an ICE operation he claims violates city law.

… According to eyewitness accounts and footage online, Baraka was speaking with members of Congress who were present for a scheduled visit when ICE agents blocked his access. Tensions rose. Shoving ensued, then Baraka was placed in handcuffs by federal agents.

… Rep. Robert Menendez Jr, who was there: “It was an act of intimidation. They feel no weight of the law and no restraint on what they should be doing. And that was shown in broad daylight today when they not just arrested the Mayor of Newark but when they put their hands on two members of congress standing behind me. How is this acceptable!? To anyone in this country!? How is this acceptable!?”

… NJ US Attorney Alina Habba issued a statement: “The Mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, committed trespass and ignored multiple warnings from Homeland Security Investigations to remove himself. He has willingly chosen to disregard the law. That will not stand in this state. He has been taken into custody. NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW.”

… Stephen Miller says the Trump admin is “actively looking at” suspending the writ of habeas corpus, which is only allowed under the Constitution when the US has been invaded or during an insurrection. That would not allow people to challenge their incarceration in court if they are arrested and detained. It is essentially declaring martial law. Miller said “it depends on whether the courts do the right thing or not.”

… Kash Patel is over a week late submitting the FBI budget to Congress as required by law. NBC reported that he doesn’t seem very interested in doing much work: “For decades, the head of the FBI has attended a daily 8:30 AM ‘director’s brief,’ where he is presented the most important intelligence and law enforcement info gleaned from thousands of agents and analysts across the country. Unlike his recent predecessors, Patel is receiving the brief two days a week.”

… “Officials who worked on the morning director’s briefings were told that the schedule was changed because Patel sometimes failed to arrive on time. Two current FBI officials said Patel sometimes seemed uninterested in the material and his intelligence briefers are struggling to craft a briefing that captures his attention.”

… “Patel has drawn attention for regularly appearing with celebrities at pro sporting events around the country. Since taking office, Patel appears to have made 3 flights on FBI planes to Nashville, where his girlfriend, a country singer, lives; 2 flights to Las Vegas, where he has a home; and one flight to NY, where he attended a pro hockey game.”

… Judge William Sessions ordered Tufts Univ student from Turkey Rümeysa Öztürk to be released from ICE custody after Marco Rubio stripped her of her visa and ordered her deported for co-authoring an op-ed in her student newspaper calling on the Tufts president to support a student vote to divest from Israeli companies.

… AllRiseNews reported the judge’s decision from the courtroom: “There is no evidence here as to the motivation absent the consideration of the op-ed. These are very substantial claims of First Amendment and due process violations. This is a woman who is just totally committed to her academic career in a caring and compassionate way. There is no evidence that she has engaged in violence or advocated violence. Her continued detention chills the speech of the millions and millions of people who are not citizens. The court finds her continued detention cannot stand and orders the govt to release Ms. Ozturk from custody immediately."

… According to the CBO, the federal government spent $2.4 trillion from Jan-Apr 2025, which is up $166 billion from the same time period last year. So much for Elon Musk’s big DOGE cuts dramatically reducing govt spending.

… Reporter to Karoline Leavitt today: “The admin appears to have started dismantling the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Does the admin not believe that it's important to keep unsafe toys and cribs off the market?” LEAVITT: “It's a federal agency within the executive branch. Who's the head of the executive branch? The president. He has the right to fire people within the executive branch.”

… Guardian: “Large institutional investors have massively increased their holdings of Trump Media in recent months, with many enlarging their positions by 100s of millions of dollars. The revelations raise further questions about big business’s desire to curry favor with Trump via the enterprises he has maintained or commenced. Critics say that the investments do not reflect any obvious improvement in the business prospects of the company, which lost more than $400m in 2024.”

… Tony Carrk, Exec director of Accountable.us: “Donald Trump’s refusal to divest from his publicly traded company has predictably prompted huge investments from wealthy special interests that could use a favor from the president. Institutional Wall Street investors and even a foreign company with business before the admin have effectively offered a form of tribute by bulk purchasing shares in DJT.”

… Carrk: “Considering Trump Media has been hemorrhaging hundreds of millions of dollars in losses, there’s little doubt these hedge fund managers are hoping for a different kind of return on their investment. The President might as well put up a ‘bribe me’ sign on the White House – it’s corruption out in broad daylight.”

… Leavitt was asked about Trump’s crypto scam and other business enterprises where he is making billions off the presidency: "I think it's frankly ridiculous that anyone in this room would even suggest that President Trump is doing anything for his own benefit. He left a life of luxury and a life of running a very successful real estate empire for public service. This is a president who has actually lost money for being president."

… Nobody in American history has made more money off running for president and being present than Trump. He was leveraged to the hilt coming off multiple bankruptcies when NBC bailed him out with The Apprentice. He was bailed out before that by Deutsche Bank. He parlayed the illusion of a successful businessman that NBC created into the presidency. Since then, his net worth has increased exponentially and his most profitable enterprise by far is politics.

… As Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was meeting with his counterpart in Geneva to open up the first dialogue of trade talks since Trump imposed a 145% tariff, Trump posted that he would be fine with reducing it to 80% before China has even made any concessions: “Tariff on China seems right! Up to Scott B.”

… Congress is supposed to set tariffs. They abdicated that responsibility to Trump. Now Trump is apparently giving it to Bessent. But what he’s really doing right now is setting Bessent up as the fall guy if/when this whole thing goes sideways.

… MarketWatch: “It takes 30-50 days for container ships from Asia to reach the US’s West Coast ports. Barring new, faster shipping options or a stunning retreat by US President Trump on China tariffs, the consumer retail economy, which constitutes 70% of GDP, will be damaged. Demand for container space from China on the ships transiting the Pacific Ocean currently is running 60% to 65% below what it normally would be at this time.”

… “China and the US are scheduled to conduct trade talks this weekend in Geneva. But China knows that it does not need to do more than agree to meet to discuss the future of US-China trade relations. Sending negotiators to Geneva costs nothing beyond airfare and hotel bills. For China, the US is not the only country that matters.”

… “China could add pain to Scott Bessent’s job by dumping its cache of US Treasury debt on the bond market, driving the US dollar lower and short-term rates higher, and further weakening the US stock and bond markets. China might also find it useful to join a coalition of countries suffering under American economic bullying and redirect trade and manufacturing capacity elsewhere in the world.”

… Of course, when we got a copy of the new US/UK “trade deal”, it was dramatically oversold by Trump. Here is the language about our agricultural exports: "The UK and the US plan to work constructively in an effort to enhance agricultural market access. Further, both countries positively support future discussions to strengthen bilateral agricultural trade. "

… Economist Justin Wolfers: “The $10 billion in promised purchases Trump claimed from Boeing? It's literally not in the agreement. Nowhere in the text. We are currently on track for tariffs to (roughly) land at 10% on most countries, and 60% on China - pretty much what Trump said during the campaign. If so, the upheaval and paralyzing uncertainty of the past 4 months will have been nothing but pointlessly destructive theater.”

… Bloomberg: “European leaders meeting in Brussels today had a message for Donald Trump: There will be no side deals or shortcuts on trade negotiations. The EU’s strategy is to speak with one voice as the US president uses the threat of steep tariff hikes to try to persuade countries, like Switzerland, to sign bilateral trade deals that would be advantageous to America.”

… New AP/NORC poll: Trump Job Approve - 41%, Disapprove - 57%

… Trump’s handling of the economy: Approve - 36%, Disapprove - 63%

… After Trump was forced to drop the nomination of DC US Attorney nominee Ed Martin, he announced that Martin will now be in charge of reviewing pardon requests at DOJ: “Ed will make sure we finally investigate the Weaponization of our Government under the Biden Regime, and provide much needed Justice for its victims.”

… Martin is going to be hearing soon from former Rep. George Santos, who went on Piers Morgan’s podcast to beg Trump for a pardon as his turn-in date looms: “I'm in the process of filling an application for a pardon. I'll take a commutation, clemency- whatever the president is willing to give me. I would appreciate if the president would consider it. I'm not a hardened criminal who deserves to be in prison for 7 years."

… Ana Navarro to CNN on Fox host Jeanine Pirro’s nomination to replace Ed Martin as US Attorney: “I’m surprised that she wants this job. This is a job where she's going to make a pittance in comparison to what she's been making at Fox. She's not going to be able to have three martini lunches.”

… Pirro is now the 23rd Fox employee that Trump has appointed so far to his admin. He appointed 20 Fox employees during his first term.

No bulletin tomorrow because I’m off Saturdays, so I will see you with the Weekend Bulletin on Sunday night. We were supposed to go to a spring flower festival in northeastern MA tomorrow but it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen because of weather. We’ve had 4 months of ice and snow and 2 months of clouds and rain. But they say Sunday should be nice!

If you missed yesterday’s Bulletin, link is here.

… Mother Jones on Trump’s Surgeon General nominee Casey Means: “She has claimed that ‘the universe’ speaks to her and that people can ‘manifest’ what they want by writing it down. ‘Perhaps the body is simply the material ‘radio receiver’ through which we can ‘tune in’ to the divine,’ she wrote in an October 2024 newsletter. “We will get instructions (through human inspiration and reason) for what we need to do to raise the vibration of humanity and create a sustainable future. The future of medicine will be about light. I don’t exactly know how yet.”

… More Means: “Humans are out of alignment with the Earth and depleting its life force. And human bodies are now exhibiting signs of blocking the flow of energy