update - USSC strikes down CO's conversion therapy ban 8 - 1

Trump warned Greenland dispute threatens crucial US defence agreements


nald Trump’s hostile approach to Greenland threatens to undermine the largely unfettered access the United States has with the Danish territory, America’s leading expert on the issue has warned.

Barack Obama’s former assistant secretary of state Frank Rose was the last U.S. official to negotiate a defence deal with Denmark and the Greenland Home Rule administration and spoke exclusively to The Independent about the international dispute threatening to break NATO.

“Like many things with the president, I don't disagree with what he's trying to do,” he said. “I disagree with the means he's trying to get there.”

Rose described Greenland as “critical” to U.S. defence and in 2003/2004 was responsible for negotiating the agreement for satellite defence on the island as part of the early warning system for attacks on America.

He noted that thanks to another treaty in 1951 the U.S. can “do whatever it wants” militarily on Greenland with the consent of the Danish government “and they were never going to say no”.

But he warned that with President Trump’s bellicose language of forcibly taking Greenland from Denmark, that the consent needed might not be forthcoming if the U.S. wants to put 10,000 troops on the island again - the number it had there until the end of the Cold War.

On Friday, Trump reiterated his intentions to take to take the territory one way or another and showed no sign of backing down.

“We’re going to do something on Greenland whether they like it or not,” he told reporters. “We're not going to have Russia or China as a neighbor. I would like to make a deal, the easy way. But if we don't do it the easy way, we're going to do it the hard way.

“I’m a big fan of Denmark, they’ve been very nice to me. But the fact they had a boat land there 500 years ago doesn’t mean they own the land. I’m sure we had lots of boats go there also.”

The issue has has shocked NATO allies with U.K. prime minister Sir Keir Starmer speaking twice to the president about it in a bid to persuade him to back off his demands.



Frank Rose negotiated a deal with Denmark for the U.S. on Greenland (Frank Rose)
When it was put to Rose that Denmark and Greenland are not going to be cooperative because of the international backlash to Trump’s threats, he replied: “That's quite possible.”

He went on: “I've worked with Danes for 25 years of my career. They are wonderful allies. They have shed blood for the United States in Afghanistan. These people are good allies.


“You know, you really don't want to upset your friends for no reason. Sometimes you need to upset your friends. Okay, that's just, that's life. This is not one of those situations where we need to upset our friends to get what we need.

“I say this, as someone who's actually negotiated with the Danes and the Greenland Home Rule government back in 2003/ 2004 to enhance the security of the United States, I understand how important Greenland is.”

As a a junior staffer at the Pentagon working on missile defense, he was responsible for working with the Danish government and the Greenland Home Rule government to allow them to upgrade the radar as part of the homeland missile defense mission.


He said the radar “is really critical with regards to our ability to protect the East Coast of the United States from long range missile threats from North Korea and potentially Iran.”

It is also critical to track missiles in space or ones fired over the poles by Russia or China.


The United States occupied Greenland during the Second World War after Denmark fell to Nazi Germany and then the treaty of 1951 meant that they could station whatever military they wanted afterwards.

“So Trump absolutely right about the strategic importance of Greenland, but fundamentally, under the 1951 Defense of Greenland Treaty, we basically have wide latitude to deploy additional troops as needed,” Rose said.

“We have all the legal rights necessary to do what we need to do. This is Donald Trump. He gets many of these, the fundamental issues right, but it's how he goes about it. And I wish somebody on the National Security Council or the State Department was telling him that we can do whatever we need to do there.”

On Wednesday, a masked federal immigration officer killed Renée Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother and poet, shooting her at point-blank range in her car.


The incident, which has made headlines across the nation, is far from the first time immigration officers have shot someone in recent months. Good is one of at least nine people across the country who have been shot by immigration agents since September, the New York Times reports. There is something every case has in common: Everyone was in a vehicle at the time of the shooting.

“For decades now, officers have been trained that they can avoid being run over if they just don’t position themselves in a vehicle’s path of travel. “

Click to expand...

The pattern raises serious concerns. For decades, cops have been trained not to shoot at moving vehicles. New York City’s police department banned firing at unarmed drivers in 1972. After it did so, police shootings plummeted in the city. All of the country’s largest 25 cities generally prohibit firing at vehicles as well, a Times investigation found in 2021.


Instead of shooting, law enforcement officers are taught to do something much safer for everybody involved: Get out of the way. But the federal agents enforcing President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign seem not to be following this rule, and are taking a far more dangerous path.

To better understand how cops are supposed to decide whether to use force against drivers, I spoke on Wednesday evening with Seth Stoughton, a former Florida police officer who is now a professor of law and criminal justice at the University of South Carolina. He is nationally recognized on the use of force by law enforcement and testified for the prosecution in the case against Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer convicted of murdering George Floyd.


The interview has been edited for length and clarity.


What do law enforcement experts generally advise when it comes to potentially shooting at the driver of a moving vehicle?


I’m going to give you three different parts to answer that question. First, we need to keep in mind the legal rules that justify shooting at all. Under a 1985 case called Tennessee v. Garner, officers can use deadly force when the subject is reasonably perceived as presenting an imminent threat of death or great bodily harm. So, at a very big picture level, we have to answer the question of: Did the officer reasonably perceive an imminent threat of death or great bodily harm? If the answer is no, there shouldn’t be a shooting.


That leads to some sub-questions in the context of shooting at moving vehicles. The first combination of two of those is: Did the vehicle present an imminent threat of death or great bodily harm? And, if so, why? For decades now, officers have been trained that they can avoid being run over if they just don’t position themselves in a vehicle’s path of travel. There are tactical manuals and articles that are very clear that describe stepping in front of or behind a vehicle as a very poor tactic—one that’s contrary to common sense. An officer cannot physically stop the vehicle from moving so there’s really no tactical benefit to stepping in front of the vehicle, but there’s a lot of tactical risk because it can hit you.

Maybe the officer didn’t have a choice. Maybe the vehicle turned towards them, or something like that. The next question we ask is whether the officer could have addressed the threat presented by that vehicle without shooting at the vehicle. That’s because shooting at a moving vehicle is not a reliably effective way of actually stopping that vehicle. If you imagine a vehicle driving toward you, shooting the driver is not going to cause that vehicle to stop. One, you might not actually incapacitate the driver. But even if you do, you’ve just gone from having a guided missile to having an unguided missile.


So, we have another layer of police training and guidance that says, don’t shoot at moving vehicles when the vehicle itself is the only weapon involved unless there is no other way to potentially address that threat. If you can move out of the way, it is better to move out of the way.


Could you narrate from your perspective what appears to be happening in the videos that have come out so far of the shooting on Wednesday in Minneapolis?


There’s at least one video that I’ve seen, but I don’t feel like I know enough about this one incident. I can tell you more broadly that I’ve seen a number of videos of ICE or CBP engaged in these operations that are not consistent with the traffic stop tactics that policing has developed in a pretty standardized way over the last 40 or 50 years. What a number of the recent videos have shown is unsafe and tactically unsound vehicle approaches. Vehicle extractions that are putting officers into dangerous positions that sound tactics could avoid.


There have been a number of cases where federal immigration agents seem to be very close to the front of the cars whose occupants they end up shooting—fatally or not. What could that show in terms of the training these agents are receiving?


Before Wednesday, one of the last ICE or CBP shooting videos that I saw was a federal car that drove in front of and cut off the car they were trying to stop. And then officers got out of their car. What that means is there’s at least one officer who is inevitably now in the subject vehicle’s path of travel.


Beyond that, as you see videos of officers approaching vehicles from in front of the car—or you see them moving around the car in front of the car—all of that puts officers in the potential position of being hit by a car.


If they used a different tactical approach, that risk just wouldn’t exist at all.


What impact have the restrictions on shooting at moving vehicles had in terms of saving lives and reducing uses of force?


The highest priority in policing is preserving the sanctity of human life. That obviously includes officers’ lives, but it’s also community members’ lives, and that includes criminal suspects. When officers put themselves into harm’s way, they often do so in a professionally appropriate way because doing so is necessary to help preserve the lives of community members. Think of an active shooter situation.


In other circumstances, it’s not professionally appropriate for officers to rush in and put themselves in harm’s way because there is a safer and more effective way of getting the mission done. If an officer is not threatened by a vehicle, then they don’t have to shoot the driver of that vehicle. Good tactics are not just about preserving officer safety. Good tactics are about preserving everyone’s safety.


This is so established in policing. I can send you articles in Police magazine, which is a popular media magazine for cops. In fact, here, hang on.


This is a 2006 article in Police called “Stay Out of the Way.” It’s talking about vehicle shootings involving police officers between 2001 and 2006: “There have been more than 17 officers injured and at least two officers killed as a result of incidents involving motor vehicles being used as weapons by suspects…Many of these incidents were the result of poor police tactics and training. For example, many of the officers involved in these incidents positioned themselves in the path of a motor vehicle in the early stages of an incident, apparently in an attempt to ‘control’ the suspect or prevent the suspect from leaving the scene. If you take nothing else away from this article, then remember this: Your flesh, bone, and muscle are no match against the mass and momentum of a car or truck.”

Nobel Institute says Venezuelan leader Machado can't give Peace Prize to Trump


WASHINGTON (AP) — The organization that oversees the Nobel Peace Prize is throwing cold water on talk of Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado giving her recent award to President Donald Trump.

Once the Nobel Peace Prize is announced, it can’t be revoked, transferred or shared with others, the Norwegian Nobel Institute said in a short statement on Friday.


“The decision is final and stands for all time,” it said.

The statement comes after Machado said she’d like to give or share the prize with Trump, who oversaw the successful U.S. operation to capture authoritarian Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro. He is facing drug trafficking charges in New York.

“I certainly would love to be able to personally tell him that we believe — the Venezuelan people, because this is a prize of the Venezuelan people — certainly want to, to give it to him and share it with him,” Machado told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Monday. “What he has done is historic. It’s a huge step towards a democratic transition.”

Machado dedicated the prize to Trump, along with the people of Venezuela, shortly after it was announced. Trump has coveted and has openly campaigned for winning the Nobel Prize himself since his return to office.


When it comes to governing Venezuela after Maduro's capture, though, Trump has so far backed someone else: acting President Delcy Rodríguez, who served as vice president under Maduro.

He’s called Machado a “very nice woman” but said she doesn’t currently have the support within Venezuela to govern. He told Hannity on Thursday that Machado plans to visit next week and referred to a potential Peace Prize offering as a “great honor.”

A representative for Machado did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

The Associated Press

A federal judge has frozen a Trump administration plan to strip more than 10,000 immigrants of their legal status next week.
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani issued a temporary restraining order Saturday that extends the “family reunification parole” status of immigrants who were set to see it expire on Wednesday as part of the administration’s broad crackdown on immigration.

Talwani, an Obama appointee based in Boston, said immigration officials failed to properly notify those who might lose their legal authorization to remain in the United States, despite a requirement that they receive direct notification. Publishing the decision on Dec. 15 in the Federal Register — a government database — did not satisfy the requirement, Talwani ruled.


The Trump administration said it planned to provide the required “written notice” to affected immigrants through online accounts, but the judge said some immigrants with “parole” status got electronic notice weeks after the announcement last month, while others claim to have never been notified.

“Nothing in the record before the court suggests that most, let alone all, parolees do in fact have such accounts or when notice via such accounts was provided to the parolees,” Talwani wrote in her five-page order Saturday.

The revocation of family reunification parole comes amid a broader mass deportation campaign that has included the elimination of temporary protected status for hundreds of thousands of immigrants who have fled countries facing economic strife, war and natural disasters. It also comes amid broader legal pushback against the administration’s abrupt efforts to effect mass deportations, which judges have routinely said has failed to provide adequate due process.

When the Trump administration ordered an end to the family reunification parole programs last month, it said about 15,000 people currently have such status. Not all would be immediately impacted by the cancellation since it does not cover those who had pending applications for a different immigration status when the termination was announced.

Immigrant rights advocates said they expected 10,000 to 12,000 immigrants would lose legal status this week without action by the court.



Spokespeople for the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

One of the lawyers who brought the suit Talwani acted on Saturday, Karen Tumlin of the Justice Action Center, said the judge’s decision comes as “a huge sigh of relief” for families.

“While we aren’t in the clear, this immediate pause on de-legalizing individuals who came here with Family Reunification Parole means that people will not be forced to separate from their loved ones next week,” Tumlin said. “We are talking about people who have done everything the U.S. government has asked of them and who, in many cases, are mere weeks or months from finally receiving their green cards. It’s cruel and completely unnecessary for the Trump administration to try to yank the rug out from under them.”

Last April, Talwani halted the Trump administration’s plan to end “parole” status, including work permits, for about 500,000 immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

However, in May, the Supreme Court granted an emergency request from the Trump administration to lift her order. The court’s majority did not explain its rationale, but two of its liberal members dissented.

Trump allies pour cold water on his insurance demands


Before meeting with health insurance executives to pressure them into lowering prices,Trump administration allies are acknowledging the president will likely achieve minimal results.
According to Politico reporter Cheyenne Haslett, the president has announced plans to "strong arm" the insurance industry to assist in addressing the affordability crisis that has plagued his administration.


In late December, Trump stated, "I'm going to call a meeting of the insurance companies. I'm going to see if they get their price down, to put it very bluntly."
Trump allies in Congress and at conservative think tanks expect the president will encounter significant obstacles to achieving his goals.


The strategy of pressuring insurers—whom Trump has characterized as "fat cats"—reflects mounting pressure to address voter concerns about rising healthcare costs. However, Senator Rick Scott (R-FL), who praised Trump as a "pretty good deal guy," acknowledged substantial resistance will likely emerge.

Scott, former CEO of hospital chain HCA Healthcare, explained the fundamental constraint: "Insurance companies are dependent on what hospitals charge. I used to run the largest hospital company so I can tell you, insurance can't charge a whole bunch less if the hospitals charge more."



Ed Haislmaier, a health policy research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, agreed with this assessment. "The answer is, could they shave some off it? Possibly. Is it going to be a significant reduction? No. It's not going to be a significant reduction until there is a way that [insurers] are paying the providers less."

Bharat Ramamurti, formerly of the National Economic Council, expressed skepticism about meaningful outcomes.

"Maybe [insurers] come up with some way for the president to save face, you know, throw him a bone that's a little bit of cost savings, or maybe it's very temporary, or maybe there's some kind of small concession that they make, but it's not a way of addressing the underlying problem, which is that there is sort of structural forces that are pushing up the cost of health insurance," he predicted.
You can read more here.

New evidence blows apart Trump's Christmas night attack claims: report


Donald Trump's Christmas night boast about military strikes against ISIS in Nigeria was undermined by a Washington Post report revealing significant operational failures.

On Christmas night, Trump posted on Truth Social: "Tonight, at my direction as Commander in Chief, the United States launched a powerful and deadly strike against ISIS Terrorist Scum in Northwest Nigeria, who have been targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians, at levels not seen for many years, and even Centuries! The Department of War executed numerous perfect strikes, as only the United States is capable of doing."

Saturday's Post report contradicted the president's characterization. Of 16 Tomahawk missiles launched, four failed to detonate. The unexploded warheads were recovered from random locations, including an onion field and a forest.

The Post noted uncertainty about the cause of the failures: "It is unclear why the four Tomahawks didn't detonate. Experts suggested a few possibilities, including mechanical failures or a decision by commanders to crash them because conditions at the target sites may have changed."

More than three weeks after the strikes, questions persist about the overall effectiveness of the operation.


Nigerian and Western analysts assessed the operation's impact skeptically. "Given the location, it was unlikely that the strikes hit high-level members of the Islamic State, who are most active in the northeast of the country," the report stated.


A U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) official acknowledged the mission's limited effectiveness, admitting the assault was "likely not very effective and did not remove any camps or capabilities."

You can read more here

Smithsonian scrubs negative info about Trump from caption of presidential portrait: report


Donald Trump's official presidential portrait has been altered by the Smithsonian so that it no longer includes information about the impeachments in his first term, despite the fact that Bill Clinton's portrait caption still describes his impeachment, according to reporting.


The Washington Post broke the story on Saturday, writing that, "A Trump official previously complained about a caption beside his National Portrait Gallery photo mentioning his impeachments and the U.S. Capitol insurrection."


"The National Portrait Gallery removed a swath of text that mentioned President Donald Trump’s two impeachments and the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection as it swapped out a prominent photo of him this week," the outlet reported.

The Smithsonian reportedly switched out the photo itself, which the new one showing "Trump staring intensely, with his fists on the Resolute Desk."


According to the Post's report:

"It replaced a photo by Washington Post photojournalist Matt McClain, which showed Trump with his hands folded in front of him, and was accompanied by a longer caption recounting Trump’s first term and his reelection. 'Impeached twice, on charges of abuse of power and incitement of insurrection after supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, he was acquitted by the Senate in both trials,' it read, in part."


The Post notes that a Trump official had complained about the caption, which mirrored the one for Clinton but is now completely different.

"The placard has been replaced with one whose caption is so short that the outline of the old sign was visible on the wall beneath it, simply noting Trump’s years in office," the outlet reported. "It now contrasts with portraits of other former presidents, including Joe Biden, Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, which all hang alongside wall text highlighting events during their time in office. Clinton’s notes his impeachment."

Read the piece here.

http://instagr.am/p/DTY37b2D7lA/
Legal commentator Liz Oyer reveals that the DoJ's special investigations unit - which investigates police killings - has refused to investigate the Renee Good murder at the behest of its new head, former Trump personal attorney Harmeet Dhillon.

In fact, Dhillon has blocked ANY investigation of ICE misconduct whatsoever since the beginning of this administration.

Dems force GOP to abandon DHS funding for upcoming debate after ICE shooting


Republicans in Congress moved to strike funding for the Department of Homeland Security from this week's budget debates after an immigration agent shot and killed a 37-year-old mother in Minneapolis, according to a new report.

CNN's Sarah Harris reported the move on Sunday, saying it happened after "dozens" of Democrats "balked" at supporting an omnibus funding package for the agency. CNN previously reported that the progressive wing of the Democratic Party was leading the charge to rein in President Donald Trump's immigration enforcement arm.



The move sets up another potential showdown ahead of the government's January 30 funding deadline.

Last year, Republicans engineered the longest government shutdown in American history by refusing to negotiate with Democrats over expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies. The House of Representatives recently passed a bill to extend those subsidies for three years, according to reports.

http://instagr.am/p/DTWmGh8jatQ/
Murderer ICE agent Jonathan Ross moved to an unknown location to insulate him from the Press and potential vigilantes.