Blog Mirror: Fourth Rebuke in Eight Days: Pope Leo Intensifies Clash with Trump Over Migrants.

 

Fourth Rebuke in Eight Days: Pope Leo Intensifies Clash with Trump Over Migrants

In his latest rebuke of Trumpism, Pope Leo praises immigrants as “agents of hope” and tells Catholics their faith is tested by how they welcome the stranger.

25 Laramie County Deputies Sworn In For Immigration Enforcement The Laramie County Sheriff's Office on Wednesday had 25 deputies sworn in to help U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement with its enforcement. The deputies will work with federal authorities in enforcing immigration law, and detaining people who are in the country illegally. Steve Bohnel October 01, 2025

 

25 Laramie County Deputies Sworn In For Immigration Enforcement

The Laramie County Sheriff's Office on Wednesday had 25 deputies sworn in to help U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement with its enforcement. The deputies will work with federal authorities in enforcing immigration law, and detaining people who are in the country illegally.

Steve BohnelOctober 01, 2025

Blog Mirror: Froma Harrop: Trump Is right: Tech visas are raw deal for U.S. workers

 

Froma Harrop: Trump Is right: Tech visas are raw deal for U.S. workers

A look at the later lives of Wounded Knees' Twenty Medal of Honor recipients.

Wounded Knee, the Massacre, has been back in the news this past week due to wannabe "War" Secretary Hegseth determining that the review of the Medals of Honor awarded for action there is over, and the now long dead soldiers will keep their medals.  We posted on that here:

Lex Anteinternet: Today In Wyoming's History: Reviewing the Wounded ...: Today In Wyoming's History: Reviewing the Wounded Knee Medals of Honor. :  Reviewing the Wounded Knee Medals of Honor. Sgt. Toy receivin...

But, what happened to the Medal of Honor recipients from Wounded Knee?  

Most thinking people recall the incident with horror, inkling, frankly towards a genocidal view of the massacre, and not without good reason.  But at the time, the Army honored those who participated in the battle at an unprecedented rate.

What became of them?

Let's take a look.

• Sergeant William Austin, cavalry, directed fire at Indians in ravine at Wounded Knee

William Austin has the unusual distinction of having been born in Texas (Galveston) but having entered the service in New York City.

Austin left the Army in 1892 to enter the cotton business.  He served again in the Georgia National Guard during the Philippine Insurrection, and then returned to civilian life and ultimately had an automobile dealership.  He served again as a Reserve Quartermaster during World War One.  He was married three times.  His first marriage to an actress ended in divorce, and he outlived his second wife.

He lived in California in his later years and died in Palo Alto in 1929 at age 61 by which time he looked quite old by modern standards.  All in all, he had lead a pretty successful life.

• Private Mosheim Feaster, cavalry, extraordinary gallantry at Wounded Knee;

Feaster was a career soldier who served until 1914, having served at some point as a lieutenant..  He died in 1950 at age 82.

Oddly, for a very long serving soldier who was commissioned at some point, finding details on him is next to impossible.

Or perhaps it's not so odd.  His commission was probably a wartime one, and he was a career enlisted man otherwise.

He was born in Pennsylvania, and died in California.

• Private Mathew Hamilton, cavalry, bravery in action at Wounded Knee;

Hamilton was a Scottish immigrant and was 25 years old at the time of Wounded Knee.  He had not, like many Irish immigrants, immediately joined the Army upon arriving in the United States.  He also wouldn't make a career out of the Army, leaving it, as a Sergeant, in 1899, having served in the Spanish American War.  He took his discharge from the Army while in Cuba, and then went to work as a packer contracter to the Army in Cuba.

His ultimate fate is unknown.

• Private Joshua B. Hartzog, artillery, rescuing commanding officer who was wounded and carried him out of range of hostile guns at Wounded Knee;

Hartzog rose to the rank of sergeant but did not remain in the Army.  Following his time in the Army, he returned to his native Ohio and married in 1894.  He moved to Alabama with his wife thereafter, but his wife soon died.  He remarried in 1918, but divorced and remarried again in 1923.  He died in 1939.

• Private Marvin Hillock, cavalry, distinguished bravery at Wounded Knee;

Hillock was born in Michigan to an Irish American family (his father was a Canadian).  He left the Army soon after Wounded Knee and became a miner in Lead, South Dakota.  He contracted sort of a shotgun marriage soon thereafter but it did not last long, although that may have meant that his spouse died.  He married again, albeit unsuccessfully, and seems to have relocated to Ontario for a time and then disappeared.

• Sergeant Bernhard Jetter, cavalry, distinguished bravery at Wounded Knee for "killing an Indian who was in the act of killing a wounded man of B Troop."

Bernhard Jetter was born in the Kingdom of Württemberg and first joined the Army in 1883.  He left the Army in 1896 with a "special" discharge, probably indicating a service disability, and married for a second time in 1916.  Nothing is known of his first wife, other than that she had died.  He moved to Brooklyn and died at age 65.

• Sergeant George Loyd, cavalry, bravery, especially after having been severely wounded through the lung at Wounded Knee;

Loyd was Irish born and joined the Army in 1866, the year after the Civil War at which point there was a huge turnover in the Army.  He had been at the Battle of Little Big Horn.

He killed himself, while still a serving soldier, at Ft. Riley in 1892, at which time the 49 year old Loyd was regarded as an old soldier.

• Sergeant Albert McMillain, cavalry, while engaged with Indians concealed in a ravine, he assisted the men on the skirmish line, directed their fire, encouraged them by example, and used every effort to dislodge the enemy at Wounded Knee;

McMillian is very unusual in that he was a school teacher, the son of a U.S. Senator, and had attended Princeton prior to his enlistment in the U.S. Army.  He seems to have been what some would refer to as a soldier of fortune.  He was court-martialed for using vile language towards a woman in 1892, and left the Army at the end of his enlistment.  He moved to  St. Paul, Minnesota and entered the University of Minnesota where he earned a Bachelor of Law degree in 1894, that being a "law degree" before reformist elements in the law converted the basic degree to a doctorate.  He worked for West Publishing Company, the premier legal publisher even today, thereafter as an editor.  He suffered a nervous breakdown at that time and his fortunes declined thereafter.

McMillian was likely a sensitive man, and he's  a 19th and early 20th Century example of PTSD.  He likely couldn't overcome what he'd witnesses, and had been awarded a medal for, at Wounded Knee.  He served as a Red Cross driver in World War One.

After Wounded Knee he requested that he be reduced to the rank of Private.  His request was refused.

• Private Thomas Sullivan, cavalry, conspicuous bravery in action against Indians concealed in a ravine at Wounded Knee;

Sullivan was an Irish immigrant who moved to the US at age 28 and immediately entered the Army.  He made a career of the Army and retired as a First Sergeant after 23 years of service, which would indicate that he likely retired early due to medical reasons.  He served in the Spanish American WAr and the Philippine Insurrection.

Sullivan married after he left the service and took up various employments, including policemen.  His wife Ellen was also an Irish immigrant.  He died in 1940 at age 80.

• First Sergeant Jacob Trautman, cavalry, killed a hostile Indian at close quarters, and, although entitled to retirement from service, remained to close of the campaign at Wounded Knee;

Trautman was a German born Civil War veteran who retired from the Army in 1891.  He died in 1898 of a stroke at age 58 while living in Pennsylvania, which is where he had originally entered the service from, first serving in a Pennsylvania cavalry unit.

Information on Trautman is hard to find, but an interesting aspect of this is that his first and last name are most commonly associated with people of the Jewish faith.  That doesn't mean he was Jewish, but a person has to wonder.

• Sergeant James Ward, cavalry, continued to fight after being severely wounded at Wounded Knee;

Ward was a first generation American from an Irish family in Quincy, Massachusetts.  He was the second of seven children.  He left a bricklaying job to join the Arm in 1876 and had been first stationed at Ft. Laramie.  His last enlistment, the one he was on during Wounded Knee, was short, indicating that he was discharged for medical reasons.  He married after he left the service but his health continued to decline leading first to his paralysis, and then death in 1901.

• Corporal William Wilson, cavalry, bravery in Sioux Campaign, 1890;

Cpl Wilson is particularly unusual as he was black.  He was known as a marksman and for wearing a non regulation black leather coat and a broad brimmed hat.  He is the only black soldier to have won the Medal of Honor at Wounded Knee and the last black soldier to win it on American soil.

He deserted the Army in 1893, with  his rifle, after being detailed to a rifle match.  Desertion wasn't that big of deal at the time, and he returned to Maryland, where he married and had seven children.  He died in 1928 at the age of 58.

Desertion in the 19th Century Army was extremely common, although taking your firearms was regarded as bad form.

• Private Hermann Ziegner, cavalry, conspicuous bravery at Wounded Knee;

Ziegner was born to Hugo and Lena Ziegner in Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach and emigrated to the United States when he was 14 years old.  He enlisted in the Army in 1889. He left the Army after eight years of service and married, but served again in the Spanish American War where he was a sergeant and later the first sergeant of Company E, 71st New York Infantry. He went up San Juan Hill in the famous charge.  He died of service induced malaria in 1898 at age 34, his family being reduced to poverty as he suffered through it.

Whatever his service at Wounded Knee entailed, his service in Cuba was clear, and he, and his family, suffered for it.  Curiously, his tombstone notes only his service in the Indian Wars and his rank, at the time, of private.

• Musician John Clancy, artillery, twice voluntarily rescued wounded comrades under fire of the enemy.

Clancy is hard to find dentils on.  He was a New Yorker who joined the Army at aged 19 and he left the Army in 1894.  He died, oddly enough, at the home of the cavalry, Ft. Riley, in 1934 at age 64.

• Lieutenant Ernest Garlington, cavalry, distinguished gallantry;

Garlington was a West Point graduate who received accelerated advancement, at a time in which Army appointments were very much by regiment, due to the losses at Little Big Horn.  He served as inspector general in Cuba during the Spanish–American War and participated in the Battle of Santiago de Cuba, obtaining the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.  He was retired from the Army as a General in 1917 due to age.  He died in 1934 at age 81.

• First Lieutenant John Chowning Gresham, cavalry, voluntarily led a party into a ravine to dislodge Sioux Indians concealed therein. He was wounded during this action.

Gresham was a career soldier who retired as a Colonel in 1915, and then had a position in the California National Guard during World War One as a ROTC instructor.  He died in 1926 at age 74.

• Second Lieutenant Harry Hawthorne, artillery, distinguished conduct in battle with hostile Indians;

Hawthorne is perhaps the most eccentric of the Wounded Knee MoH winners as he was a Naval Academy graduate who after a brief hitch in the Navy, transferred to the Army.  He served in the Spanish American War and was the military attache to Japan from 1909 to 1911.  During World War One he served as the  Inspector General in the Panama Canal Zone and was awarded the Purple Heart (oddly) and a Silver Star. He retired as a Colonel in 1919 after World War One and died in 1948 at age 88.

• Private George Hobday, cavalry, conspicuous and gallant conduct in battle;

Hobday was an English immigrant who enlisted in the Army in 1868 and at the time of Wounded Knee was a very old soldier, being 48 years of age.  He died of pneumonia in 1891 while still a serving soldier.

• First Sergeant Frederick Toy, cavalry, bravery; 

Toy was a career soldier with an exemplary service record.  He served as an orderly to President Theodore Roosevelt and was recalled from retirement as a training officer during World War One.  He died in 1933 at age 67.

• Corporal Paul Weinert, artillery, taking the place of his commanding officer who had fallen severely wounded, he gallantly served his piece, after each fire advancing it to a better position

We know know that this fire may have resulted in many innocent deaths, including that of women and children.  Weinert probably knew that at the the time and stated upon being informed that he'd be awarded the Medal of Honor that he had expected to be court-martialed..

Weinert was a German from Frankfurt, he served two hitches in the Army, the second one during the  Spanish American War.  He died in 1919, at age 49.

So what can we draw from all of this?

Well, perhaps not much, but we can glean some interesting facts and make a few conclusions.

One thing is, and we'll start with the Weinert comment, at least some soldiers appreciated right at the time that the battle had turned into a massacre.  Weinert's comments showed that he appreciated that the "battle" had taken unnecessary lives and had descended into a massacre.  McMillain's request to be returned to the grade of private says something similar, as does his difficulties in life thereafter.

Not all of the soldiers, however, seem to have been bothered by what they experienced, which in spite of our modern assumptions to the contrary, if fairly common, and franky disturbing.  We'd like to think that we'd appreciate the horror of a thing right from the onset of it, but many people frankly don't.

The number of career soldiers who won the MoH is surprising. That is, it's surprising so many of them were career men.  Most soldiers in the Army have always been sort of passing through, but many of these troops were not and stayed in for as long as they could.

That might partially be because so many of these men were immigrants, eight out of the twenty, and several more were first generation Americans.  The Army had been a haven for immigrants, and in particular Irish and German immigrants.  These awards show that.

Some disappeared.  It'd be difficult for a Medal of Honor recipient to do that today, but as we've noted, the Medal of Honor was not as rare then, as it is now, being the only medal the U.S. awarded.

We'd like to think the men were haunted by their roles in what is now widely regarded as an atrocity.  But, most don't seem to have been.  The number who left the service and then returned for later wars suggests that they retained either a loyalty or some sense of fondness for military life, in spite of the horrors they'd participated in.  Only McMillain seems to have been the exception.

An embarrassing Trump at the UN.

His teleprompter didn't work, and the escalator at the UN building didn't work, but unfortunately, he spoke anyhow. 

What he had to say.

The Assembly will hear an address by His Excellency, Donald Trump, President of the United States of America. I request protocol to escort His Excellency and invite him to address the Assembly. 

US President Donald Trump (00:27):

Note, this is an error.  Trump is not the President as he is not qualified to be so, the office is empty. 

Yes, this is a radical, but legally correct, opinion.

Thank you very much, very much appreciated. And I don't mind making the speech without a teleprompter, because the teleprompter is not working. I feel very happy to be up here with you nevertheless, and that way you speak more from the heart. I can only say that whoever's operating this teleprompter is in big trouble. Hello, Madam First Lady. Thank you very much for being here. Madam President, Mr. Secretary General, First Lady of the United States, distinguished delegates, ambassadors, and world leaders. Six years have passed since I last stood in this grand hall and addressed a world that was prosperous and at peace in my first term. Since that day, the guns of war have shattered the peace I forged on two continents. An era of calm and stability gave way to one of the great crises of our time. And here the United States, four years of weakness, lawlessness, and radicalism under the last administration delivered our nation into a repeated set of disasters. One year ago, our country was in deep trouble, but today, just eight months into my administration, we are the hottest country anywhere in the world and there is no other country even close. America is blessed with the strongest economy, the strongest borders, the strongest military, the strongest friendships, and the strongest spirit of any nation on the face of the earth.

This is indeed, the golden age of America. We are rapidly reversing the economic calamity we inherited from the previous administration, including ruinous price increases and record-setting inflation, inflation like we've never had before. Under my leadership, energy costs are down, gasoline prices are down, grocery prices are down, mortgage rates are down, and inflation has been defeated. The only thing that's up is the stock market, which just hit a record high. In fact, it hit a record high 48 times in the last short period of time. Growth is surging. Manufacturing is booming. The stock market, as I said, is doing better than it's ever done. And all of you in this room benefit by that, almost everybody. And importantly, workers wages are rising at the fastest pace in more than 60 years, and that's what it's all about, isn't it? In four years of President Biden, we had less than $1 trillion of new investment into the United States.

This "golden age" thing is pure Trump crap, much like Trump's gilded White House trash.   Costs are not down, etc.  Trump probably frankly doesn't know this as he doesn't have the mental capacity left to realize it.

In just eight months since I took office, we have secured commitments and money already paid for $17 trillion. Think of it, four years, less than a trillion. Eight months, much more than $17 trillion is being invested in the United States, and it's now pouring in from all parts of the world. We've implemented the largest tax cuts in American history and the largest regulation cuts in American history, making this once and again, the best country on earth to do business. And many of the people in this room are investing in America, and it's turned out to be an awfully good investment during this eight month period. In my first term, I built the greatest economy in the history of the world. We had the best economy ever, history of the world, and I'm doing the same thing again, but this time it's actually much bigger and even better. The numbers far surpass my record-setting first term.

On our southern border, we have successfully repelled a colossal invasion. And for the last four months, and that's four months in a row, the number of illegal aliens admitted and entering our country has been zero. Hard to believe, because if you look back just a year ago, it was millions and millions of people pouring in from all over the world, from prisons, from mental institutions, drug dealers, all over the world they came, they just poured into our country with the ridiculous open-border policy of the Biden administration. Our message is very simple. If you come illegally into the United States, you're going to jail or you're going back to where you came from, or perhaps even further than that, you know what that means. 

I want thank the country of El Salvador for the successful and professional job they've done in receiving and jailing so many criminals that entered our country, and it was under the previous administration that the number became record-setting, and they're all being taken out. We have no choice, and other countries have no choice because other countries are in the exact same situation with immigration. It's destroying your country and you have to do something about it. On the world stage, America is respected again like it has never been respected before. You think about two years ago, three years ago, four years ago, or one year ago, we were a laughingstock all over the world. At the NATO summit in June, virtually all NATO members formally committed to increased defense spending at my request from 2% to 5% of GDP, making our alliance far stronger and more powerful than it was ever before. 

In May, I traveled to the Middle East to visit my friends and rebuild our partnerships in the Gulf, and those valued relationships with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE and other countries are now, I believe, closer than ever before. My administration has negotiated one historic trade deal after another, including with the United Kingdom, the European Union, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, and many, many others. Likewise, in a period of just seven months, I have ended seven unendable wars. They said they were unendable. You're never going to get them solved. Some were going for 31 years, two of them, 31, you think of it, 31 years. One was 36 years, one was 28 years. I ended seven wars. And in all cases, they were raging with countless thousands of people being killed. This includes Cambodia and Thailand, Kosovo and Serbia, the Congo and Rwanda, a vicious, violent war that was. Pakistan and India, Israel and Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia, and Armenia and Azerbaijan. 

It included all of them. No president or prime minister. And for that matter, no other country has ever done anything close to that, and I did it in just seven months. It's never happened before. There's never been anything like that. Very honored to have done it. It's too bad that I had to do these things instead of the United Nations doing them. And sadly, in all cases, the United Nations did not even try to help in any of them. I ended seven wars, dealt with the leaders of each and every one of these countries, and never even received a phone call from the United Nations offering to help in finalizing the deal. All I got from the United Nations was an escalator that on the way up stopped right in the middle. If the First Lady wasn't in great shape, she would've fallen. But she's in great shape. 

We're both in good shape, we both stood. And then a teleprompter that didn't work. These are the two things I got from the United Nations, a bad escalator and a bad teleprompter. Thank you very much. And by the way, it's working now. It just went on. Thank you. I think I should just do it the other way. It's easier. Thank you very much. I didn't think of it at the time because I was too busy working to save millions of lives, that is the saving and stopping of these wars, but later I realized that the United Nations wasn't there for us. They weren't there. I thought of it really after the fact, not during. Not during these negotiations, which were not easy. That being the case, what is the purpose of the United Nations? The UN is such tremendous potential. I've always said it. It has such tremendous, tremendous potential, but it's not even coming close to living up to that potential. For the most part, at least for now, all they seem to do is write a really strongly worded letter and then never follow that letter up. 

It's empty words and empty words don't solve war. The only thing that solves war and wars is action. Now, after ending all of these wars and also earlier negotiating the Abraham Accords, which is a very big thing for which our country received no credit, never receives credit. Everyone says that I should get the Nobel Peace Prize for each one of these achievements, but for me, the real prize will be the sons and daughters who live to grow up with the mothers and fathers because millions of people are no longer being killed in endless and un-glorious wars. What I care about is not winning prizes. It's saving lives. We saved millions and millions of lives with the seven wars, and we have others that we're working on and you know that. Many years ago, a very successful real estate developer in New York, known as Donald J. Trump, I bid on the renovation and rebuilding of this very United Nations complex.

Nobody seriously maintains that Trump should get the Nobel Prize for anything, but in his demented state, he can't help but claiming it. 

I remember it so well. I said at the time that I would do it for $500 million, rebuilding everything. It would be beautiful. I used to talk about, "I'm going to give you marble floors, they're going to give you terrazzo." The best of everything. "You're going to have mahogany walls, they're going to give you plastic." But they decided to go in another direction, which was much more expensive at the time, which actually produced a far inferior product. And I realized that they did not know what they were doing when it came to construction and that their building concepts were so wrong, and the product that they were proposing to build was so bad and so costly, it was going to cost them a fortune. And I said, "And wait until you see the overruns." Well, I turned out to be right. They had massive cost overruns and spent between two and $4 billion on the building and did not even get the marble floors that I promised them.

You walk on terrazzo. Do you notice that? As far as I'm concerned, frankly, looking at the building and getting stuck on the escalator, they still haven't finished the job. They still haven't finished. That was years ago. The project was so corrupt that Congress actually asked me to testify before them on the tremendous waste of money because it turned out that they had no idea what it was, but they knew it was anywhere between two and $4 billion as opposed to 500 million with a guarantee, but they had no idea. And I said, "It costs much more than $5 billion." Unfortunately, many things in the United Nations are happening just like that, but on an even much bigger scale, much, much bigger.

Very sad to see whether the UN can manage to play a productive role. I've come here today to offer the hand of American leadership and friendship to any nation in this assembly that is willing to join us in forging a safer, more prosperous world. And it's a world that we'll be much happier with. A dramatically better future is within our reach, but to get there, we must reject the failed approaches of the past and work together to confront some of the greatest threats in history. There is no more serious danger to our planet today than the most powerful and destructive weapons ever devised by man of which the United States, as you know, has many. Just as I did in my first term. I've made containing  threats a top priority, starting with a nation of Iran. My position is very simple, the world's number one sponsor of terror can never be allowed to possess the most dangerous weapon. That's why shortly after taking office, I sent the so-called Supreme Leader a letter making a generous offer. I extended a pledge of full cooperation in exchange for a suspension of Iran's nuclear program. The regime's answer was to continue their constant threats to their neighbors and US interests throughout the region and some great countries that are right nearby. Today, many of Iran's former military commanders, in fact, I can say almost all of them are no longer with us, they're dead. And three months ago in Operation Midnight Hammer seven American B-2 bombers dropped the 14 30,000 pound H-bombs on Iran's key nuclear facility totally obliterating everything. No other country on earth could have done what we did. No other country has the equipment to do what we did. We have the greatest weapons on earth. We hate to use them, but we did something that for 22 years people wanted to do.

With Iran's nuclear enrichment capacity demolished, I immediately brokered an end to the 12-day war, as it's called, between Israel and Iran, with both sides agreeing to fight no longer.

As everyone knows, I have also been deeply engaged in seeking a ceasefire in Gaza, we have to get that done, have to get it done. Unfortunately, Hamas has repeatedly rejected reasonable offers to make peace, and we can't forget October 7th, can we? Now, as if to encourage continued conflict, some of this body is seeking to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state. The rewards would be too great for Hamas terrorists for their atrocities. This would be a reward for these horrible atrocities, including October 7th, even while they refuse to release the hostages or accept a ceasefire instead of giving to Hamas and giving so much because they've taken so much, they have taken so much, this could have been solved so long ago, but instead of giving in to Hamas ransom demands, those who want peace should be united with one message, release the hostages now. Just release the hostages now. Thank you.

As we have got to come together, and we will come together, got to get it done, we have to stop the war in Gaza immediately. We have to stop it. We have to get it done. We have to negotiate, immediately, have to negotiate peace. We got to get the hostages back. We want all 20 back. We don't want two and four. As you know, I got, along with Steve Witkoff and others that helped us, Marco Rubio, we got most of them back. We were involved in all of them, but I always said, the last 20 are going to be the hardest, and that's exactly what happened. We have to get them back now. We don't want to get back two and then another two and then one, and then three and have this process. No, we want them all back.

And we want the actually 38 dead bodies back too. Those parents came to me and they want them back, and they want them back very quickly and very badly, as though they were alive. They want them. They want them every bit as much as if their son or daughter were alive.

I've also been working relentlessly stopping the killing in Ukraine. I thought that would be, of the seven wars that I stopped, I thought that would be the easiest because of my relationship with President Putin, which had always been a good one. I thought that was going to be the easiest one. But in war, you never know what's going to happen. There are always lots of surprises, both good and bad. Everyone thought Russia would win this war in three days, but it didn't work out that way. It was supposed to be just a quick little skirmish. It's not making Russia look good, it's making them look bad.

The seven wars is complete crap.  Trump has not stopped seven wars.   

No matter what happens from here on out, this was something that should have taken a matter of days, certainly less than a week, and they've been fighting for three and a half years and killing anywhere from 5 to 7,000, young soldiers, mostly, mostly soldiers on both sides, every single week from 5 to 7,000 dead young people. And some in cities, much smaller numbers where rockets are shot, where drones are dropped. This war would never have started if I were president. This was a war that should have never happened. It shows you what leadership is, what bad leadership can do to a country. Look what happened to the United States and look where we are right now in just a short period of time. The only question now is how many more lives will be needlessly lost on both sides.

China and India are the primary funders of the ongoing war by continuing to purchase Russian oil. But inexcusably, even NATO countries have not cut off much Russian energy and Russian energy products, which as you know, I found out about two weeks ago and I wasn't happy. Think of it, they're funding the war against themselves. Who the hell ever heard of that one? In the event that Russia is not ready to make a deal to end the war, then the United States is fully prepared to impose a very strong round of powerful tariffs, which would stop the bloodshed, I believe very quickly. But for those tariffs to be effective, European nations, all of you are gathered here right now, would have to join us in adopting the exact same measures. I mean, you're much closer to the city. We have an ocean in between, you're right there, and Europe has to step it up. They can't be doing what they're doing. They're buying oil and gas from Russia while they're fighting Russia.

It's embarrassing to them, and it was very embarrassing to them when I found out about it. I can tell you that. But they have to immediately cease all energy purchases from Russia. Otherwise, we're all wasting a lot of time. So I'm ready to discuss this. We're going to discuss it today with the European nations all gathered here. I'm sure they're thrilled to hear me speak about it, but that's the way it is. I like to speak my mind and speak the truth.

As we seek to reduce the threat of dangerous weapons today. I'm also calling on every nation to join us in ending the development of biological weapons once and for all, and biological is terrible and nuclear is even beyond, and we include nuclear in that. We want to have a cessation of the development of nuclear weapons. We know and I know and I get to view it all the time, "Sir, would you like to see?" And I look at weapons that are so powerful that we just can't ever use them. If we ever use them, the world literally might come to an end. There would be no United Nations to be talking about. There would be no nothing.

Just a few years ago, reckless experiments overseas gave us a devastating global pandemic, yet despite that worldwide catastrophe, many countries are continuing extremely risky research into bio-weapons and man-made pathogens. This is unbelievably dangerous. To prevent potential disasters I'm announcing today that my administration will lead a international effort to enforce biological weapons convention, which is going to be meeting with the top leaders of the world by pioneering an AI verification system that everyone can trust. Hopefully the UN can play a constructive role and it will also go, be one of the early projects under AI. Let's see how good it is because a lot of people saying it could be one of the great things ever, but it also can be dangerous, but it could be put to tremendous use and tremendous good, and this would be an example of that.

There remains very little evidence that COVID 19 was caused by a biological experimient. 

Not only is the UN not solving the problems it should, too often, it's actually creating new problems for us to solve. The best example is the number one political issue of our time, the crisis of uncontrolled migration. It's uncontrolled. Your countries are being ruined. The United Nations is funding an assault on Western countries and their borders. In 2024, the UN budgeted $372 million in cash assistance to support an estimated 624,000 migrants journeying into the United States. Think of that, the UN is supporting people that are illegally coming into the United States, and then we have to get them out. The UN also provided food, shelter, transportation, and debit cards to illegal aliens, can you believe that, on the way to infiltrate our southern border.

Millions of people came through that southern border. Just a year ago, millions and millions of people were pouring in, 25 million altogether over the four years of the incompetent Biden administration, and now we have it stopped. Totally stopped. In fact, they're not even coming anymore because they know they can't get through. But what took place is totally unacceptable. The UN is supposed to stop invasions, not create them and not finance them. In the United States, we reject the idea that mass numbers of people from foreign lands can be permitted to travel halfway around the world, trample our borders, violate our sovereignty, cause unmitigated crime, and deplete our social safety net.

We have reasserted that America belongs to the American people, and I encourage all countries to take their own stand in defense of their citizens as well. You have to do that because I see it. I'm not mentioning names. I see it and I can call every single one of them out. You're destroying your countries. They're being destroyed. Europe is in serious trouble. They've been invaded by a force of illegal aliens like nobody's ever seen before. Illegal aliens are pouring into Europe, and nobody's doing anything to change it, to get them out. It's not sustainable. And because they choose to be politically correct, they're doing just absolutely nothing about it.

And I have to say, I look at London where you have a terrible mayor, a terrible, terrible mayor and it's been so changed, so changed. Now they want to go to Sharia law, but you're in a different country, you can't do that. Both the immigration and their suicidal energy ideas will be the death of Western Europe if something is not done immediately. This cannot be sustained. What makes the world so beautiful is that each country is unique, but to stay this way, every sovereign nation must have the right to control their own borders. You have the right to control your borders, as we do now, and to limit the sheer numbers of migrants entering their countries and paid for by the people of that nation that were there and that built that particular nation at the time. They put their blood, sweat, tears, money into that country, and now they're being ruined.

Why is the person claiming the Oval Office dissing the Mayor of London? 

Proud nations must be allowed to protect their communities and prevent their societies from being overwhelmed by people they have never seen before with different customs, religions, with different everything. Where migrants have violated laws, lodged false asylum claims or claimed refugee status for illegitimate reasons, they should, in many cases, be immediately sent home. And while we will always have a big heart for places and people that are struggling and truly compassionate, answers will be given. We have to solve the problem and we have to solve it in their countries, not create new problems in our countries. And we are very helpful to a lot of countries that are just not able to send their people anymore. They used to send them to us in caravans of 25, 30,000 people each, these massive caravans of people pouring into our country, totally unchecked and unvetted, but not anymore.

According to the Council of Europe, in 2024, almost 50% of inmates in German prisons were foreign nationals or migrants. In Austria, the number was 53% of the people in prisons were from places that weren't from where they are now. In Greece, the number was 54%. And in Switzerland, beautiful Switzerland, 72% of the people in prisons are from outside of Switzerland. When your prisons are filled with so-called asylum seekers who repaid kindness, and that's what they did, they repaid kindness with crime, it's time to end the failed experiment of open borders. You have to end it now. I see it, I can tell you.

I'm really good at this stuff. Your countries are going to hell. In America, we've taken bold action to swiftly shut down uncontrolled migration. Once we started detaining and deporting everyone who crossed the border and removing illegal aliens from the United States, they simply stopped coming. They're not coming anymore. We're getting a lot of credit, but they're not coming anymore. This was a humanitarian act for all involved because on the trips up,

Thousands of people a week were dying. Women were being raped. Nobody's ever seen anything like it. Raped, horribly beaten, raped. On the trip up, the journey up, it was a long, it was a long walk. It was a long, arduous journey indeed, and it was also a historic victory against human trafficking throughout the region. What we did was a victory and we saved so many lives of people that wouldn't make the journey. That journey was loaded up with death. Loaded up with death. Dead bodies all along. All along the roads of jungles to get up. They go through jungles, they go through areas so hot, you couldn't breathe. They were dying of suffocation, areas so hot, that you couldn't breathe. Dead bodies all over. By them not coming, we're saving tremendous numbers of lives. My people have done a fantastic job in doing what they did, and the American public agrees with it.

I mean, I was very proud to see this morning. I have the highest poll numbers I've ever had. Part of it is because of what we've done on the border. I guess the other part is what we've done in the economy. Joe Biden's policies empowered murderous gangs, human smugglers, child traffickers, drug cartels, and prisoners. Prisoners from all over the world. The previous administration also lost nearly 300,000 children. Think of that. They lost more than 300,000 children, little children who were trafficked into the United States on the Biden watch, many of whom have been raped, exploited and abused and sold. Sold. Nobody talks about that. The fake news doesn't write about it with many others, young children who are missing or dead. And we found a lot of these children and we're sending it back and we've been sending it back to their parents. They said nobody knows who they are.

They said, "Where do you come from?" And they'll give us a country and we'll find out and we'll figure it out, or we'll bring them back to their homes. And the mother and father rushed to the door and their tears in their eyes. They can't believe that they're seeing their son or daughter, their little son or daughter again. We've done almost 30,000 of them so far. Any system that results in the mass trafficking of children is inherently evil, yet that is exactly what the globalist migration agenda has done, and it's what it's all about. In America, those days, as you know, are over. The Trump administration is working and we are continuing to work to track down the villains that are causing this problem. And also, as I said, to get back the 30,000 we've already returned.

Now, I think we're going to have another…. We're going to find a lot. You're not going to find all of them. More than 300,000. They're lost or they're dead. They're lost, or they're dead because of the animals that did this. To protect our citizens, I've also designated multiple savage drug cartels as forest. And you see this and you see it happening right before your eyes. Let's put it this way. People don't like taking big loads of drugs in boats anymore. There aren't too many boats that are traveling on the seas by Venezuela. They tend not to want to travel very quickly anymore. And we virtually stopped drugs coming into our country by sea. We call them the water drugs. They kill hundreds of thousands of people. I've also designated multiple savage drug cartels as forest… foreign terrorist organizations along with two bloodthirsty transnational gangs, probably the worst gangs anywhere in the world.

MS-13 and Tren de Aragua. Tren de Aragua is from Venezuela, by the way. Such organizations torture, maim, mutilate and murder with impunity. They're the enemies of all humanity. For this reason, we've recently begun using the supreme power of the United States military to destroy Venezuelan terrorists and trafficking networks led by Nicolas Maduro to every terrorist thug smuggling poisonous drugs into the United States of America. Please be warned that we will blow you out of existence. That's what we're doing. We have no choice. Can't let it happen. I believe we lost 300,000 people last year to drugs. 300,000. Fentanyl and other drugs. Each boat that we sink carries drugs that would kill more than 25,000 Americans. We will not let that happen. Energy is another area where the United States is now thriving like never before. We're getting rid of the falsely named renewables.

Also complete crap. The energy picture of the US has grown worse under Trump. 

By the way, they're a joke. They don't work. They're too expensive. They're not strong enough to fire up the plants that you need to make your country great. The wind doesn't blow. Those big windmills are so pathetic and so bad, so expensive to operate, and they have to be rebuilt all the time and they start to rust and rot. Most expensive energy ever conceived. And it's actually energy. You're supposed to make money with energy, not lose money. You lose money, the governments have to subsidize. You can't put them out without massive subsidies. And most of them are built in China, and I give China a lot of credit. They build them, but they're very few wind farms. So why is it that they build them and they send them all over the world, but they barely use them? You know what? They use coal, they use gas, they use almost anything, but they don't like wind, but they sure as hell like selling the windmills.

Actually, wind turbines are now very efficient. 

Europe on the other hand, is a long way to go with many countries being on the brink of destruction because of the green energy agenda. And I give a lot of credit to Germany. Germany was being led down a very sick path both on immigration by the way and on energy. They were going green and they were going bankrupt. And the new leadership, new leadership came in and they went back to where they were with fossil fuel and with nuclear, which is good, it's now safe and you can do it properly. But they went back to where they were and they opened up a lot of different plants, energy plants, energy-producing plants, and they're doing well. I give Germany a lot of credit for that. They've said, this is a disaster. What's happening? They were going all green. All green is all bankrupt. That's what it represents.

And it's not politically correct. I'll be very badly criticized for saying it, but I'm here to tell the truth. I don't care. It doesn't matter to me. I'm in New York City, I'm feeling a lot safer. Crime, we're getting crime down. And by the way, speaking of crime, Washington D.C., Washington D.C. was the crime capital of America. Now, it's a totally… After 12 days, it's a totally safe city. Everyone's going out to dinner, they're going out to restaurants. Your wife can walk down the middle of the street with or without you. Nothing's going to happen. My people have done a fantastic job. And yes, I called in the National Guard and the National Guard took care of business. And they weren't politically correct, but they took care of business. We got 1,700 career criminals out, brought them back to where they came from, the countries where they came from or put them in jails. Washington D.C. is now a totally safe city again and I welcome you to come. In fact, we'll have dinner together at a local restaurant and we'll be able to walk. We don't have to go by an armor-plated vehicle. We'll walk right over there from the White House. They've given up their powerful edge. A lot of the countries that we're talking about and oil and gas, such as essentially closing the Great North Sea oil. Oh, the North Sea. I know it so well. Aberdeen was the oil capital of Europe and this tremendous oil that hasn't been found in the North Sea. Tremendous oil. And I was with the Prime Minister I respected, like a lot. And I said, "You're sitting with the greatest asset." They essentially closed it by making it so highly taxed that no developer, no oil company can go there. They have tremendous oil left and more importantly, they have tremendous oil that hasn't even been found yet.

And what a tremendous asset for the United Kingdom. And I hope the prime minister's listening because I told it to him three days in a row. That's all he heard. North Sea oil, North Sea, because I want to see them do well. I want to stop seeing them ruining that beautiful Scottish and English countryside with windmills and massive solar panels that go seven miles by seven miles taken away farmland, but we're not letting this happen in America. In 1982, the executive director of the United Nations Environmental Program predicted that by the year 2000, climate change would cause a global catastrophe. He said that it will be irreversible as any nuclear holocaust would be. This is what they said at the United Nations. What happened? Here we are. Another UN official stated in 1989 that within a decade, entire nations could be wiped off the map by global warming. Not happening.

It used to be global cooling. If you look back years ago in the 1920s and the 1930s, they said, global cooling will kill the world. We have to do something. Then they said global warming will kill the world. But then it started getting cooler. So now they could just call it climate change because that way they can't miss climate change because if it goes higher or lower, whatever the hell happens, it's climate change. It's the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world, in my opinion. Climate change, no matter what happens, you're involved in that. No more global warming, no more global cooling. All of these predictions made by the United Nations and many others, often for bad reasons were wrong. They were made by stupid people that of course their country's fortunes and given those same countries, no chance for success. If you don't get away from this green scam, your country is going to fail.

Climate change is not a hoax, it's manmade, and unabated, it's going to wipe us out. 

And I'm really good at predicting things. They actually said during the campaign, they had a hat, the best-selling hat. Trump was right about everything. And I don't say that in a braggadocious way, but it's true. I've been right about everything. And I'm telling you that if you don't get away from the green energy scam, your country is going to fail. And if you don't stop people that you've never seen before, that you have nothing in common with, your country is going to fail. I'm the President of the United States, but I worry about Europe. I love Europe. I love the people of Europe, and I hate to see it being devastated by energy and immigration. This double-tailed monster destroys everything in its wake, and they cannot let that happen any longer. You're doing it because you want to be nice, you want to be politically correct and you're destroying your heritage.

They must take control strongly and immediately of the unmitigated immigration disaster and the fake energy catastrophe before it's too late. The carbon footprint is a hoax made up by people with evil intentions and they're heading down a path of total destruction. The carbon footprint, it was a big, big thing. A few years ago, I remember hearing about the carbon footprint and then President Obama would get into Air Force One, a massive Boeing 747 and not a new one, an old one with old engines that spew everything into the atmosphere. He talked about the carbon footprint, we must do… Then he'd get in and he'd fly from Washington to Hawaii to play a round of golf, and then he'd get back onto that big beautiful plane and he'd fly back and he'd talk about, again, global warming and the carbon footprint. It's a con job at extreme cost and expense.

Europe reduced its own carbon footprint by 37%. Think of that. Congratulations Europe. Great job. You cost yourself a lot of jobs, a lot of factories closed, but you reduced the carbon footprint by 37%. However, for all of that sacrifice and much more, it's been totally wiped out and then some by a global increase of 54%, much of it coming from China and other countries that are thriving around China, which now produces more CO2 than all the other developed nations in the world. So all of these countries are working so hard on the carbon footprint, which is nonsense by the way. It's nonsense. It's interesting. In the United States, we have still radicalized environmentalists and they want the factories to stop. Everything should stop. No more cows. We don't want cows anymore. I guess they want to kill all the cows. They want to do things that are just unbelievable and you have it too.

Again. Trump is advocating, essentially, wiping the species out. 

But we have a border, strong, and we have a shape, and that shape doesn't just go straight up. That shape is amorphous when it comes to the atmosphere. And if we had the most clean air, and I think we do, we have very clean air, we have the cleanest air we've had in many, many years. But the problem is that other countries like China, which has air that's a little bit rough, it blows. And no matter what you're doing down here, the air up here tends to get very dirty because it comes in from other countries where their air isn't so clean and the environmentalists refuse to acknowledge that. Same thing with garbage. In

In Asia, they dump much of their garbage right into the ocean. And over about a one-week and two-week journey, it flows right past Los Angeles. You've seen it, massive amounts of garbage. Almost too much to do anything about, flowing past Los Angeles, past San Francisco, and then somebody would get in trouble because he dropped a cigarette on the beach. The whole thing is crazy. The primary effect of these brutal green energy policies has not been to help the environment, but to redistribute manufacturing and industrial activity from developed countries that follow the insane rules that are put down, to polluting countries that break the rules and are making a fortune. They're making a fortune.

European electricity bills are now four to five times more expensive than those in China, and two to three times higher than the United States, and our bills are coming way down. You probably see that. Our gasoline prices are way down. We have an expression drill [foreign language 00:46:18]. Common to see one.

Entire societies must be rejected immediately, and it must be immediate. That's why in America, I withdrew from the fake Paris Climate Accord, where, by the way, America was paying so much more than every country. Others weren't paying. China didn't have to pay until 2030. Russia was given an old standard that was easy to meet, a 1990 standard. But for the United States, we're supposed to pay like a trillion dollars. And I said, "This is another scam." The fact is United States has been taken advantage of by the world for many, many years, but not any longer, as you probably noticed.

I unleashed massive energy production and signed historic executive orders to hunt for oil. But we don't have to do much hunting because we have the most oil of any nation, anywhere, oil and gas in the world. And if you add coal, we have the most of any nation in the world. Clean. I call it clean, beautiful coal. You can do things today with coal that you couldn't have done 10 years ago, 15 years. So I have a little standing order in the White House. Never use the word coal, only use the words clean, beautiful coal. Sounds much better, doesn't it? But we stand ready to provide any country with abundant, affordable energy supplies if you need them, when most of you do.

We're proudly exporting energy all over the world. We're now the largest exporter. In the United States, we want trade and robust commerce with all nations. Everybody. We want to help nations. We're going to help nations, but it must also be fair and reciprocal. The challenge with trade is much the same with climate. The countries that followed the rules, all their factories have been plundered. It's really sad to watch. They've been broken. They've been broken by countries that broke the rules.

That's why the United States is now applying tariffs to other countries. And much as these tariffs were, for many years, applied to us, uncontrollably applied to us, we've used tariffs as a defense mechanism under the Trump administration, including my first term, where hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs were taken in. And by the way, we had the lowest inflation and now we have very low inflation. The only thing different is that we have hundreds of billions of dollars flowing into our country. But this is how we will ensure that the system works for everyone and is sustainable into the future. We're also using tariffs to defend our sovereignty and security throughout the world, including against nations that have taken advantage of former U.S. administrations for decades, including the most corrupt, incompetent administration in history. The sleepy Joe Biden administration.

Brazil now faces major tariffs in response to its unprecedented efforts to interfere in the rights and freedoms of our American citizens and others with censorship, repression, weaponization, judicial corruption, and targeting of political critics in the United States. I have a little problem saying this because I must tell you, I was walking in and the leader of Brazil was walking out. We saw him and I saw him, he saw me and we embraced, and then I'm saying, can you believe I'm going to be saying this in just two minutes? But we actually agreed that we would meet next week. We didn't have much time to talk, like about 20 seconds. They were, in retrospect, I'm glad I waited because this thing didn't work out too well. But we did talk. We had a good talk and we agreed to meet next week, if that's of interest. But he seemed like a very nice man, actually. He liked me, I liked him. And I only do business with people I like.

I don't, when I don't like them, I don't like them. But we had, at least for about 39 seconds, we had excellent chemistry. It's a good sign. But also in the past, Brazil, can you believe this? Unfairly tariffed our nation. But now because of our tariffs, we are hitting them back and we're hitting them back very hard. As President, I will always defend our national sovereignty and the rights of American citizens. So I'm very sorry to say this, that Brazil is doing poorly and will continue to do poorly. They can only do well when they're working with us. Without us, they will fail just as others have failed. It's true.

Next year the United States will celebrate the 250th anniversary of our glorious independence, a testament to enduring power and American freedom and spirit. We will also be proudly hosting the 2026 FIFA World Cup, and shortly thereafter, the 2028 Olympics, which is going to be very exciting. I hope you all come. I hope that countless people from all over the globe will take part of these great, these will be great celebrations of liberty and human achievement, and that together, we all can rejoice in the miracles of history that began in July 4th, 1776 when we founded the Light to All Nations. And it's something really that an amazing thing came out of that date. It's called the United States of America. In honor of this momentous anniversary, I hope that all countries who find inspiration in our example will join us in renewing our commitment values, and those values, really, that we hold so dear together.

Let us defend free speech and free expression. Let us protect religious liberty, including for the most persecuted religion on the planet today. It's called Christianity. And let us safeguard our sovereignty and cherish qualities that have made each of our nations so special, incredible, and extraordinary.

In closing, just want to repeat that immigration and the high cost of so-called green renewable energy is destroying a large part of the free world and a large part of our planet. Countries that cherish freedom are fading fast because of their policies on these two subjects. You need strong borders and traditional energy sources if you are going to be great again. Whether you have come from north or south, east or west, near or far, every leader in this beautiful hall today represents a rich culture, a noble history, and a proud heritage that makes each nation majestic and unique, unlike anything else in human history or any other place on the face of the earth.

From London to Lima, from Rome to Athens, from Paris to Seoul, from Cairo to Tokyo, and Amsterdam to right here in New York City, we stand on the shoulders of the leaders and legends, generals and giants, heroes and titans who won and built our beloved nations, all of our nations, with their own courage, strength, spirit, and skill. Our ancestors climbed to mountains, conquered oceans, crossed deserts, and trekked over wide open plains. They charged into thunderous battles, plunged into grave dangers, and they were soldiers, and farmers, and workers, and warriors, and explorers, and patriots. They built towns into cities, tribes into kingdoms, ideas into industries, and small islands into mighty empires. You're a part of all of that. They were champions for their people who never gave up and who never ever gave in. Their values, defined our national identities. Their visions forged our magnificent destiny. Everybody in this room is a part of it in your own way.

Each of us inherits the deeds and the myths, the triumphs, the legacies of our own heroes and founders who so bravely showed us the way. Our ancestors gave everything for homelands, that they defended with pride, with sweat, with blood, with life, and with death. Now, the righteous task of protecting the nations that they built belongs to each and every one of us. So together, let us uphold our sacred duty to our people and to our citizens. Let us protect their borders, ensure their safety, preserve their cultures, treasures, and traditions, and fight, fight, fight for their precious dreams and their cherished freedoms, and in friendship and really, a beautiful vision.

Let us all work together to build a bright, beautiful planet, a planet that we all share, a planet of peace and a world that is richer, better, and more beautiful than ever before. That can happen. It will happen. It will happen, and I hope it can happen and start right now, right at this moment. We'll turn it around. We're going to make our countries better, safer, more beautiful. We're going to take care of our people. Thank you very much. It's been an honor. God bless the nations of the world. Thank you very much. Bye.

Thank you.

On behalf of the Assembly, I wish to thank the President of the United States.

Frankly, by this point, probably very few people on the international stage take Trump seriously, and why would  they?  Here we have a primary example of Trump rambling babble, much of it addressed at the disproven "climate change is a fib" theory that some cling to.

What an Anti American Idiot.

 

Oh, the irony.  Trump portrays himself as war loving buffoon Lt. Colonel Kilgore from Apocalypse Now, an anti war movie depicting the American military as inept and which itself is about a war that Trump's shin splints kept him out of, and which the US lost.

Heart of Darkness indeed.

Gordon to deploy Wyoming National Guard to support ICE in Trump’s mass deportation effort

Gordon to deploy Wyoming National Guard to support ICE in Trump’s mass deportation effort: Gov. Mark Gordon is among a reported 20 Republican governors who agreed to the president’s request to use guard members for immigration enforcement duties — maybe paperwork.

As a former Guardsman, I'd absolutely hate this if I was still one. 

Wyoming Highway Patrol chief describes limited rollout of ICE agreement. Advocate warns it could undermine public safety.

Wyoming Highway Patrol chief describes limited rollout of ICE agreement. Advocate warns it could undermine public safety.: State troopers will tighten the net for undocumented immigrants in five counties, though chief says the number of participating officers will start out small.

Court Watch

Chaos was the law of nature; Order was the dream of man. 

Henry Adams.

A glimpse into what's going on in the law, and the Court's.

April 21, 2025

1.  The U.S. Supreme Court had issued a temporary stay on deportations of Venezuelans to El Salvador under the Enemy Aliens Act, as it well should have.  There isn't a war going on.

The pause is so that it can take the question in chief.

On the same basic topic, a Federal judge has issued a finding of probable cause of criminal contempt for the administration's refusal to adhere to his order regarding such deportations.

2.  Wyoming Tribe's Law Firm One Of The Few Fighting Trump's Big-Law Orders

Trump's ongoing assault on the law includes assaulting law firms that have displeased him. Quite a few have caved in, but this one didn't.

3.  A federal judge ordered that Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk be transferred from a detention center in Louisiana to Vermont no later than at the start of next month.

4.  The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments on the Trump administration's plans to end birthright citizenship next month.  Trump, in one of his many stupid statement moments, said that this should be an easy win as birthright citizenship was tied to slavery, which is really ignorant.

5.  Wyoming Supreme Court mulls constitutionality of state’s abortion bans: Much like the case, Wednesday’s hearing largely focused on whether a section of the state’s constitution that protects individuals’ rights to make their own health care decisions prevents the state from banning abortion.

A frustrating thing for conservatives who would like to find a more middle of the road set of people to vote for, now that the Wyoming Republican Party is in a civil war between real conservatives and populists, is that the Democratic Party nationally and locally just can't wash it hands of blood.  

It puts voters in a horrible position.  Insane gerontocracy v. seas of blood.

Former Wyoming Supreme Court Justice Keith Kautz created some controversy when he joined some legislators in a prayer session associated with the oral arguments, stating as a prayer:

I especially pray for the justices on the Wyoming Supreme Court.  May they know that the true beginning of wisdom is to acknowledge you. Give each of them wisdom and courage in deciding the case coming next week. Let them see how much you love each human and the world you created.

I don't see a problem with that, but apparently some people did.  Justice Kautz noted that he asked, upon retiring, not to be assigned to any cases dealing with abortion because of his religion based opposition to it.  He apparently is a member of a Baptist group called "Converge". 

6.  A group of Wyoming lawyers wrote an open letter about recent legal developments.  It was directed at Wyoming's Congressional representation.

Condemn attacks on judiciary, Wyoming lawyers and judges urge delegation

The letter was met with a "pound sand" response from that representation which went on to say that Federal courts had too much jurisdiction, which they are seeking to limit.

That's wrong, and that's a mistake.

William Roper: “So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!”

Sir Thomas More: “Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?”

William Roper: “Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!”

Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!”

Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons: A Play in Two Acts

April 24, 2025

Trump has issued an order which takes on accrediting bodies, including the ABA.

REFORMING ACCREDITATION TO STRENGTHEN HIGHER EDUCATION

Executive Orders

April 23, 2025

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered:

Section 1.  Purpose.  A group of higher education accreditors are the gatekeepers that decide which colleges and universities American students can spend the more than $100 billion in Federal student loans and Pell Grants dispersed each year.  The accreditors’ job is to determine which institutions provide a quality education — and therefore merit accreditation.  Unfortunately, accreditors have not only failed in this responsibility to students, families, and American taxpayers, but they have also abused their enormous authority.

Accreditors routinely approve institutions that are low-quality by the most important measures.  The national six-year undergraduate graduation rate was an alarming 64 percent in 2020.  Further, many accredited institutions offer undergraduate and graduate programs with a negative return on investment — almost 25 percent of bachelor’s degrees and more than 40 percent of master’s degrees — which may leave students financially worse off and in enormous debt by charging them exorbitant sums for a degree with very modest earnings potential.

Notwithstanding this slide in graduation rates and graduates’ performance in the labor market, the spike in debt obligations in relation to expected earnings, and repayment rates on student loans, accreditors have remained improperly focused on compelling adoption of discriminatory ideology, rather than on student outcomes.  Some accreditors make the adoption of unlawfully discriminatory practices a formal standard of accreditation, and therefore a condition of accessing Federal aid, through “diversity, equity, and inclusion” or “DEI”-based standards of accreditation that require institutions to “share results on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the context of their mission by considering . . . demographics . . . and resource allocation.” Accreditors have also abused their governance standards to intrude on State and local authority.

The American Bar Association’s Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar (Council), which is the sole federally recognized accreditor for Juris Doctor programs, has required law schools to “demonstrate by concrete action a commitment to diversity and inclusion” including by “commit[ting] to having a student body [and faculty] that is diverse with respect to gender, race, and ethnicity.”  As the Attorney General has concluded and informed the Council, the discriminatory requirement blatantly violates the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, 600 U.S. 181 (2023).  Though the Council subsequently suspended its enforcement while it considers proposed revisions, this standard and similar unlawful mandates must be permanently eradicated.

The Liaison Committee on Medical Education, which is the only federally recognized body that accredits Doctor of Medicine degree programs, requires that an institution “engage[] in ongoing, systematic, and focused recruitment and retention activities, to achieve mission-appropriate diversity outcomes among its students.”  The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, which is the sole accreditor for both allopathic and osteopathic medical residency and fellowship programs, similarly “expect[s]” institutions to focus on implementing “policies and procedures related to recruitment and retention of individuals underrepresented in medicine,” including “racial and ethnic minority individuals.”  The standards for training tomorrow’s doctors should focus solely on providing the highest quality care, and certainly not on requiring unlawful discrimination.

American students and taxpayers deserve better, and my Administration will reform our dysfunctional accreditation system so that colleges and universities focus on delivering high-quality academic programs at a reasonable price.  Federal recognition will not be provided to accreditors engaging in unlawful discrimination in violation of Federal law.

Sec. 2.  Holding Accreditors Accountable for Unlawful Actions.  (a)  The Secretary of Education shall, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, hold accountable, including through denial, monitoring, suspension, or termination of accreditation recognition, accreditors who fail to meet the applicable recognition criteria or otherwise violate Federal law, including by requiring institutions seeking accreditation to engage in unlawful discrimination in accreditation-related activity under the guise of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” initiatives.

(b)  The Attorney General and the Secretary of Education shall, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, investigate and take appropriate action to terminate unlawful discrimination by American law schools that is advanced by the Council, including unlawful “diversity, equity, and inclusion” requirements under the guise of accreditation standards.  The Secretary of Education shall also assess whether to suspend or terminate the Council’s status as an accrediting agency under Federal law.

(c)  The Attorney General and the Secretary of Education, in consultation with the Secretary of Health and Human Services, shall investigate and take appropriate action to terminate unlawful discrimination by American medical schools or graduate medical education entities that is advanced by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education or the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education or other accreditors of graduate medical education, including unlawful “diversity, equity, and inclusion” requirements under the guise of accreditation standards.  The Secretary of Education shall also assess whether to suspend or terminate the Committee’s or the Accreditation Council’s status as an accrediting agency under Federal law or take other appropriate action to ensure lawful conduct by medical schools, graduate medical education programs, and other entities that receive Federal funding for medical education.

Sec. 3.  New Principles of Student-Oriented Accreditation.  (a)  To realign accreditation with high-quality, valuable education for students, the Secretary of Education shall, consistent with applicable law, take appropriate steps to ensure that:

(i)    accreditation requires higher education institutions to provide high-quality, high-value academic programs free from unlawful discrimination or other violations of Federal law;

(ii)   barriers are reduced that limit institutions from adopting practices that advance credential and degree completion and spur new models of education;

(iii)  accreditation requires that institutions support and appropriately prioritize intellectual diversity amongst faculty in order to advance academic freedom, intellectual inquiry, and student learning;

(iv)   accreditors are not using their role under Federal law to encourage or force institution to violate State laws, unless such State laws violate the Constitution or Federal law; and

(v)    accreditors are prohibited from engaging in practices that result in credential inflation that burdens students with additional unnecessary costs.

(b)  To advance the policies and objectives in subsection (a) of this section, the Secretary of Education shall:

(i)    resume recognizing new accreditors to increase competition and accountability in promoting high-quality, high-value academic programs focused on student outcomes;

(ii)   mandate that accreditors require member institutions to use data on program-level student outcomes to improve such outcomes, without reference to race, ethnicity, or sex;

(iii)  promptly provide to accreditors any noncompliance findings relating to member institutions issued after an investigation conducted by the Office of Civil Rights under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C. 2000d et seq.) or Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 (20 U.S.C. 1681 et seq.);

(iv)   launch an experimental site, pursuant to section 487A(b) of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 1094a(b)), to accelerate innovation and improve accountability by establishing new flexible and streamlined quality assurance pathways for higher education institutions that provide high-quality, high-value academic programs;

(v)    increase the consistency, efficiency, and effectiveness of the accreditor recognition review process, including through the use of technology;

(vi)   streamline the process for higher education institutions to change accreditors to ensure institutions are not forced to comply with standards that are antithetical to institutional values and mission; and

(vii)  update the Accreditation Handbook to ensure that the accreditor recognition and reauthorization process is transparent, efficient, and not unduly burdensome.

Sec. 4.  General Provisions.  (a)  Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

(i)   the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or

(ii)  the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(b)  This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(c)  This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

                              DONALD J. TRUMP

THE WHITE HOUSE,

April 26, 2025

The Trump administration really took a step towards Nazism with the arrest of Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan for supposedly interfering with immigration laws.

Wyoming’s crossover voting ban and closed primary elections are being challenged in a newly filed civil action.

This should be really interesting.

Virginia Giuffre, who accused Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein of sexual abuse, has died by suicide at age 41.  Prince Andrew's fall is directly tied to her, and there's no doubt that they met when she was just 17 years old, although he denied any improper conduct with her.

She was a married woman with three children, and had relocated to Australia. Apparently she and her husband had recently separated, and she had recently been in an automobile accident.

The topic of releasing the Epstein files has come up, but so far the Trump administration has failed to release them.  Trump, of course, knew Epstein.

April 29, 2025

Hageman, Barrasso Say Judges Who Shield Illegal Immigrants Should Be Arrested

President Donald Trump’s administration did not go too far in arresting judges for allegedly shielding illegal immigrants from federal agents, say members of Wyoming’s congressional delegation.

April 30, 2025

Judge: Rock Springs school didn’t violate parental rights in transgender pronoun case: School district officials, educators did not keep information from high schooler’s parents or violate mother’s religious rights, federal judge concludes.

May 2, 2025

A federal judge in Texas barred the Trump administration from deporting Venezuelans from South Texas under the Enemy Aliens Act.

May 3, 2025

I missed it, as I was busy, but Law Day, which is May 1, was rebranded by Trump as Loyalty Day.

The meanings aren't even remotely close.

A Federal Court blocked the Trump administration sanctions on a U.S. law firm.

May 16, 2025

A retired lawyer has sued Secretary of State Chuck Gray maintaining that as Gray spread lies about the January 6 insurrection, he supported the campaign of insurrectionist Donald Trump and therefore is disqualified from office under the 14th for being an insurrectionist himself.

That suit will go nowhere, it's really strained.

Trump is an insurrectionist and isn't qualified to hold office, and Gray did support him, but there was never an adjudication in Wyoming as to Trump's status and therefore Gray would have been entitled to argue in favor of him, even with wild fantasies that the election was stolen.

Moreover, the 14th Amendment in the end disallows an insurrectionist from being seated in office, which is why I take the position that Trump is not currently the President, but it also allows for the disqualification to be lifted by Congress.  I think, therefore, that it would have been valid to argue that Trump should be elected, as Congress could have lifted the disability.  It simply never came up.

Lawsuits like this amount to pointless tilting at windmills and frankly discredit those who oppose Trump by being goofy.  Gray has resorted to his usual speech decrying the "radical left". That speech has grown tiresome and I frankly doubt anyone listens to it anymore, but it is giving him something to complain about that fits in with his campaign's past themse, and it likely future one.

On other news, the Federal Court is allowing UW sorority sisters to amend their complaint against the man who has been admitted as a sister in their sorority.

A lot of people have heard that the Supreme Court heard arguments on birthright citizenship this week, but it didn't.  It heard a case on nationwide injunctions which involved birthright citizenship.  The court can, and probably will, issue its opinion without addressing the question of citizenship.

May 17, 2025

The US Supreme Court extended an injunction prohibiting the deportation of Venezuelans under the Enemy Alien Act, with their being two dissents.

June 10, 2025

Wyoming sorority sisters file new lawsuit, but drop transgender student from case

June 14, 2025

Wyoming Education Association files lawsuit to stop school voucher payments: Complaint argues that the state funding private education violates the Wyoming Constitution in two key ways.

US Civil Unrest

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer ruled the Trump's direct Guard deployment was illegal, violating the Tenth Amendment and exceeding Trump’s statutory authority.  An appeals court stayed enforcement of the order upon review.

June 30, 2025

Lots of big Supreme Court cases this past week, including one that held that nationwide injunctions in Federal Courts are normally improper.

On that has also received some notice is one that hold that forcing students to receive sexual indoctrination contrary to their faith violates the Establishment Clause.

Pam Bondi improperly fired two January 6 prosecutors.

July 1, 2025

Once again the legislature proves itself to be the gang that couldn't shoot straight.

Judge Green-Lights Off-Label Prescribing Of Abortion Drugs

Lawmakers may have had Ivermectin in mind when they passed a law to safeguard doctors who prescribe off-label. But a judge on Monday ruled that, at least for now, that protection must apply to abortion-inducing drug providers as well.

First the legislature proposes an amendment to the state constitution to protect personal medical choices, out of an absurd fear that Obamacare would cause there to be death panels, but it ends up wiping out their later legislation on abortion, and now they pass a moronic bill to protect prescribing ivermectin for humans but it ends up applying again, to abortion, this time chemical abortion.

Wyoming is really not being well served by the hard right in the legislature.

Some people need to be sent back to the truck stop sweet roll counter to which their talents and conspiracy theories are better suited.

July 2, 2025

A federal judge ruled that mass layoffs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services were likely unlawful and ordered the Trump administration to halt plans to downsize and reorganize the agency.

Trump toured a new immigration alligator swamp surrounded immigration concentration camp in Florida.

Chuck Gray got help from his hero:

Trump Administration Seeks To Defend Wyoming’s New Citizenship Voter Law

July 9, 2025

The Supreme Court ruled that mass layoffs of Federal employees started by DOGE can proceed.  Hundreds of thousands of Federal employees stand to lose their jobs.

Closer to home:

Gravel operator digs in with another lawsuit to open Casper Mountain: Prism Logistics has asked a judge to review the state's recent decision to deny several lease renewals.

July 11, 2025

A Federal Court granted class action status to a suit challenging Trump's clearly unconstitutional effort to  attack birth right citizenship and stayed enforcement, nationwide, of efforts to do just that,

This will head back to the Supreme Court where we'll learn in the court is a court, or simply a branch of the sitting monarchy.

July 27, 2025

The League of Women Voters is supporting the lawsuit against Chuck Gray on voting laws.

The US deported five immigrants the administration says were convicted of serious crimes to Eswatini, which you have never heard of.

Wild horses in Wyoming’s ‘checkerboard’ region get 6-week reprieve from whole-herd removals: With an appeals court ruling looming, federal officials indicate they won’t start rounding up horses where elimination is the end goal until Aug. 25.

Federal Court Halts Roundup Of Rare Wyoming Curly-Haired Mustangs

The CST had a long article on protests over Radiant Energy's plans to put in a compact nuclear reactor manufacturing facility north of Bar Nunn, and hence north of Casper. 

It's been really interesting in that the proposal has garnered very vocal opposition in Bar Nunn, while it has support of the governing bodies of Casper and Natrona County.    Nuclear power in general is not usually controversial in Wyoming, but disposal of nuclear wastes has always been, and this manufacturing proposal seems to be.

I'm not going to voice an overall opinion, but it's interesting that the extractive industries, which after all are dangerous, are hugely supported here, while "green energy" has not been, and now this is not.  A "not in my backyard" view is common for a lot of things, but this one seems to at least have an element of tradition to it, which has been very strong in how Wyomingites view the economy in general.  Things we've done traditionally, we seem to like. Things that are new, at least if they are large, we do not.

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out in regard to cryptocurrency, which Sen. Lummis is backing in a major way.  My strong suspicion is most Wyomingites don't care about cryptocurrency whatsoever, so it'll get her no political credits.  But will their be outright opposition in a state in which the Secretary of State insists we should be using paper ballots?

July 20, 2025

Trump's lawsuit against Bob Woodward was dismissed.

His lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal will be headed towards a similar fate.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit against U.S. Masters Swimming (USMS), alleging the organization engaged in "deceptive practices" by allowing transgender women to compete in women's events at a San Antonio meet this spring.

July 23, 2025

Federal court tosses lawsuit challenging Wyoming’s new voter registration law: The voting-rights group that filed the complaint failed to adequately state a claim, U.S. District Court Judge Scott Skavdahl ruled.

Judge Throws Out Challenge To New Wyoming Voter Registration Law, Gray Cheers

July 31, 2025

Grand jury convening to decide if wolf captor Cody Roberts should face felony charges: Seventeen months after the infamous incident in the Green River Bar, closed-door legal proceedings are underway in Sublette County to determine whether to charge the Daniel resident who tormented a wild wolf.

 Citing a lack of evidence, state asks Supreme Court to overturn school funding decision: “The suggestion that Wyoming is somehow shortchanging or harming students through inadequate funding is a premise detached from reality,” appeal reads.

Trump Nominates Cheyenne Legislator To Be U.S. Attorney For District Of Wyoming

August 3, 2025

The Trump Administration is investigating Trump Special Prosecutor Jack Smith.

This is flat out fascistic.  

The Department of Justice did really let the American people down in the Biden Administration, but by failing to prosecute Trump for sedition within a year of his insurrection.  That was inexcusable, and has help to give us the nightmare we are currently experiencing.