Ray Hartmann

Bounty hunters are in line to become the next tool of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement under a procurement document reviewed by the Intercept, the website reported Friday.

"Under the plan, bounty hunters may receive 'monetary bonuses' depending on how successfully they track down their targets — and how many immigrants they then report to ICE," the report said. "According to the document, which solicits information from interested contractors for a potentially forthcoming contract opportunity, companies hired by ICE will be given bundles of information on 10,000 immigrants at a time to locate, with further assignments provided in 'increments of 10,000 up to 1,000,000.'"

ICE is seeking a high-tech, low-civil liberties operation.

"Contractors will surveil their target to confirm the accuracy of their home address, including 'time-stamped photographs of the location,' before reporting back to ICE. The vendor should prioritize the alien’s residence,” the document notes, “but failing that will attempt to verify place of employment.

"The plan entails not just on-the-ground monitoring, but the use of digital surveillance."

Additionally, "ICE will be given bundles of information on 10,000 immigrants at a time to locate, with further assignments provided in increments of 10,000 up to 1,000,000.”

On Bluesky, poster Russ commented, "ICE to hire bounty hunters to hunt migrants for cash. Texas hunts women for cash. The US government hunts people for cash. They aren't keeping people out. They are trapping us in."

The Chicago Sun-Times has threatened to sue the Department of Homeland Security for using its photos without permission on DHS's social media feeds.

"The Chicago Sun-Times is demanding the Department of Homeland Security remove its photos from government social media pages under threat of legal action after the paper says DHS repeatedly used its photos in posts," the newspaper posted Friday on X.

Sun-Times attorneys sent a letter Thursday night to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and the agency's acting general counsel listing three of the newspaper's photos it claimed were used without permission on its social media posts, Mediaite reported.

“These usages are blatant infringements” of the Sun-Times’ intellectual property rights, Steven Mandell, attorney for the Sun-Times wrote. He threatened to file a lawsuit for infringement if the agency did not remove the photos immediately from its social media accounts.

"Mazzara emphasized the Sun-Times' view that it was 'imperative' as a media organization that it 'maintains its independence in order to fairly report on government agencies,' and found DHS’ use of its photos 'particularly egregious' because it implied an endorsement of DHS’ activities, specifically its immigration enforcement actions," Mediaite reported.

According to Mazzara, the statutory damages for this type of infringement could be “up to $150,000 per violation,” the Sun-Times reported.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was flatly rejected by a New York state judge Friday in his first-of-a-kind effort to override another state's healthcare shield laws, The New York Times reported.

Paxton had sought "to compel a New York court to enforce an order by a Texas judge in a case filed last year against a New York doctor accused of prescribing abortion pills to a patient in Texas," the Times reported. "The order levied a $113,000 penalty on the physician, Dr. Margaret Carpenter, and barred her from continuing to send abortion medication to Texas."

Paxton was rebuffed earlier this year by Taylor Bruck, the acting county clerk of Ulster County, New York, who refused to accept Paxton’s legal filing, citing the shield law.

"It's designed to protect health care providers who prescribe abortion pills by telemedicine and send them to patients in states with abortion bans," the Times reported.

Ulster County Judge David Gandin dismissed Paxton's lawsuit. He wrote that because “the medical services Dr. Carpenter rendered are legal in New York State,” her conduct “falls squarely within the definition of ‘legally protected health activity’” under the shield law. “In fact, her activities were the precise type of conduct” the shield law “was designed to protect."

The Times noted that some 20 states have adopted some form of shield laws under which "authorities are prevented from obeying subpoenas, extradition requests and other legal actions that other states take against abortion providers. The laws are a stark departure from typical interstate practices of cooperating in legal matters."

"New York and seven other states have particularly comprehensive shield laws, which explicitly protect providers who prescribe abortion pills by telemedicine and send them to patients in states with abortion bans."

The case raises constitutional issues that experts believe will be addressed in future appeals, the report stated.

More than 100 federal judges have handed down more than 200 rulings against the Trump administration’s effort "to systematically detain immigrants facing possible deportation," according to an analysis by Politico.

That effort against immigrants has "appeared to violate their rights or was just flatly illegal," the report said. "The onslaught of legal rejections has come in hundreds of individual cases, typically filed on an emergency basis after ICE’s targets are arrested at courthouses or check-ins with immigration officers."

Politico reported that an overwhelming swath of judges has rejected the Trump DOJ's core contention that “President Trump and Secretary Noem are now enforcing this law as it was actually written to keep America safe." It cited the sweeping range of judges who had rejected that premise.

"According to Politico’s analysis, the bulk of rulings against the Trump administration’s position has come from judges appointed by Democratic Presidents Joe Biden (50), Obama (31) and Clinton (6). But the decisions have been resoundingly adopted across political lines. Judges appointed by Republican presidents — Trump (12), George W. Bush (12), George H.W. Bush (1) and Reagan (2) — have reached the same conclusions.

"Only two judges, meanwhile, have adopted the administration’s position: one appointed by Obama and another by Trump."

Previous administrations considered only those arriving at the border or seeking permission to enter as “applicants for admission," the report stated. Now, ICE is trying to broaden that definition to "applicants for admission" already living in the United States — no matter how long they've lived here — and subject them to “mandatory detention."

"Despite the overwhelming consensus in the detention cases, the administration is pinning its hopes on appellate courts to reverse the tide. The Justice Department, in recent days, has begun appealing many of the adverse decisions," the report concludes.

CBS anchor Norah O’Donnell will interview Donald Trump this afternoon in Florida — his first with the network since its parent company, Paramount, paid $16 million to settle a lawsuit from Trump stemming from the 2024 presidential campaign, Semafor reported today.

"It will mark the president’s first time sitting down with the network since the lawsuit over the editing of an interview with Vice President Kamala Harris during the 2024 election," the report said. "Despite serious legal doubts about whether Trump’s argument would succeed in court, Paramount opted instead to pay Trump $16 million to settle."

Critics widely criticized that deal as extortion and "the lawsuit roiled CBS News, contributing to significant personnel changes," Raw Story reported. Executive producer Bill Owens resigned in April, saying he "would not be allowed" to make independent journalistic decisions.

Semafor weighed in that "CBS News is learning that several million dollars go a long way to healing a relationship with President Donald Trump."

"In recent months, the Trump administration’s pressure has altered editorial policies at the network. CBS agreed earlier this year to release full transcripts of future 60 Minutes presidential interviews. And following criticism from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s team over an interview on the network’s Sunday show, Face The Nation, CBS News announced that in the future it would only air unedited interviews on the program.

"Trump has returned the favor by publicly nodding in the network’s direction," Semafor noted, pointing to Trump's recent praise for Paramount's owners. 'Larry Ellison is great, and his son, David, is great. They’re friends of mine. They’re big supporters of mine. And they’ll do the right thing,'” Trump said.

“And it’s got great potential. CBS has great potential."

President Donald Trump appeared at a tele-rally Thursday to support "the entire Virginia Republican ticket," in next Tuesday's much-watched general election, Fox News reported Friday. But there was a big asterisk.

It seems that Trump has never gotten around to endorsing the woman at the top of the ticket, state Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, the GOP nominee facing off for governor against former Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger. A Roanoke College poll reported Thursday that Spanberger holds a commanding 51-to-41 advantage on the eve of the election — the same margin an Emerson College found earlier in October.

Earle-Sears is vying to replace term-limited Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who shared the spotlight with Trump at the tele-rally.

"Both Youngkin and Trump expressed hope that Earle-Sears could replicate that formula against the favored Democrat, Spanberger," Fox News reported. "But Trump has declined to officially endorse Earle-Sears during this cycle."

Fox News noted, "Republicans often face a delicate balancing act — energizing their base and attracting independents without galvanizing staunchly anti-Trump voters in Virginia’s most densely populated areas."

No explanation was provided by the Trump campaign for why it has withheld the "complete and total endorsement" so many other Republicans receive from him — especially those he rallies for. As Raw Story reported, Trump spoke in Norfolk on Oct. 5 and "made zero comments" about Earle-Sears — and didn't mention her name — instead praising the U.S. Navy at the speech.

There is some history between the two, as AP News reported in March:

"Earle-Sears had not cozied up to Trump in recent years. In 2020, she co-chaired a group called Black Americans to Re-elect President Trump. But after the 2022 midterms, she said Trump was a liability and suggested it was time for the party to move on. In her 2023 memoir, Earle-Sears commended Trump’s policies during his first term, but she said, “For the good of the nation, I do not think he should run again in 2024.”

Several staff members of the Heritage Foundation took to X today to protest their own boss's defense of a recent softball interview by Tucker Carlson with avowed neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes.

Kevin Roberts, president of the foundation, has sparked widespread criticism for standing with Carlson while droves of conservatives attacked his controversial video.

"After Carlson released his friendly interview of white nationalist Fuentes, there were calls for Heritage, which has made a show of allying itself with Carlson, to disavow the former Fox News host," Mediaite reported. "Instead, Roberts released a video defending both Carlson and Fuentes."

Roberts described Carlson as a "close friend of the Heritage Foundation" and called out his critics as "bad actors," adding that "the venomous coalition attacking him are sowing division. Their attempt to cancel him will fail."

It did not fail to garner astonishing public rebukes of Roberts' statement from his own employees.

"NAZIS ARE BAD" proclaimed Preston Brashers, Heritage tax policy research fellow, below a meme.

Brashers's post was retweeted by fellow Heritage staffers Richard Stern, Jason Bedrick, Jay Greene, and John Peluso, Mediate reported.

Stern, director of Heritage’s economic policy institute and federal budget center, added that it was “Evidently, a truth that is never more than one generation away from being forgotten.”

Bedrick also retweeted a post from The Babylon Bee’s Joel Berry, submitting that “The Pagan Right’s call for ‘unity’ is the call of a murderer demanding his victim stop struggling,” Mediate reported.

Since the Mediate piece was posted, Brashers has continued his storm of posts, noting:

"There are some who just don't know what Fuentes is all about - including people who watched Tucker's 2 hour pattycake session with him. This is a small sampling of the cesspool. The problem isn't so much that Tucker did the interview but how he did it."

The conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board pulled no punches Friday in castigating President Donald Trump for pardoning "crypto kingpin Changpeng Zhao, who happens to be a Trump family business partner."

The editorial invoked the nation's Founders, suggesting that when it came to making presidential pardons absolute, "Hamilton and Madison might be having second thoughts as they watch President Trump dole out pardons as a form of political legal tender."

Ridiculing Trump for claiming that "a lot of people say that (Zhao) wasn't guilty of anything," the Journal noted:

"One of those people wasn’t Mr. Zhao, unless he was lying when he pleaded guilty in 2023 to violating anti-money laundering laws by not implementing safeguards on Binance, the crypto exchange he founded. The plea agreement he struck with the Justice Department says he turned a blind eye as terrorists, cyber-criminals and foreign adversaries used Binance to embezzle and dodge sanctions."

The Journal didn't spare Trump when it came to his motives.

"Could those lobbying for the Zhao pardon be members of his family and inner circle? Mr. Zhao, who served four months in prison, has since supported the crypto venture World Liberty Financial (WLF), in which a Trump family business entity holds a large stake. WLF was co-founded by Zach Witkoff, the son of Mr. Trump’s special diplomatic envoy. On May 1, Zach Witkoff and the President’s son Eric said Binance had accepted a $2 billion investment from an Abu Dhabi state-backed fund; the investment was made using WLF’s new stablecoin USD1."

And the board added a devastating parting shot.

"Readers can decide if they think the pardon had nothing to do with the investment, but it sure looks like a conflict of interest. A reasonable person would look at this and easily conclude that presidential leniency can be bought."

Donald Trump took to Truth Social late Thursday to rant "ALL TRADE NEGOTIATIONS WITH CANADA ARE HEREBY TERMINATED” — an angry response to a Canadian ad showing President Ronald Reagan criticizing tariffs.

But if Trump intended to instill fear throughout Canada, his staff might want to keep the Toronto Star off his reading list. The Star reported Friday that the all-caps drew anything but a panicked response.

"The most surprising national reaction to U.S. President Donald Trump’s angry 'termination' of Canada-U.S. trade talks? A near collective shrug that rippled across the country following the initial shock at Trump’s late night social media post that torched Canada — specifically Ontario — for a provincial ad campaign against U.S. tariffs.

"The indifferent response made itself felt across markets, affected industries, the prime minister’s office and premiers. It was as if the crazy of Trump’s on-again off-again threats is baked into the nation’s consciousness."

And there was this: "Prime Minister Mark Carney reacted calmly to Trump’s late-night blow-up, saying it underlines how Canada must diversify its trading partners and be ready to restart negotiations 'when the Americans are ready.'"

Carney has departed on a nine-day trip to Malaysia, Singapore and Korea. And while he emphasized that Canada remains committed to trade negotiations with the U.S, he added: “What we can control absolutely is how we build here at home."

“We certainly can control new partnerships, particularly with Asian giants, and that is the purpose of this trip," he said.

The purge of top U.S. military officials reached a new plateau this week with the nomination of Lt. Gen. Christopher LaNeve to replace Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James Mingus, according to reporting today at Politico.

The choice of LaNeve sent a message, according to the report.

"[Defense Secretary Pete] Hegseth’s latest move — to place his senior military aide in a top Army post — represents one of his most assertive steps yet in determining who shapes the future of the Pentagon. President Donald Trump this week nominated Lt. Gen. Christopher LaNeve to replace Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James Mingus, even before the four-star general’s departure was announced, turning a service that has remained largely immune from leadership purges into the epicenter of them."

Politico noted that, "the effort differs from Hegseth’s other high-profile dismissals in that he has chosen the replacement, aiming to substitute a widely respected leader not even two years into his job with a lesser experienced candidate who would need a promotion to take on the role.

"Hegseth wants his guy in,” a defense official said. “Who he replaces doesn’t matter.”

Politico noted that Hegseht's potential replacement "ricocheted through the Pentagon," and "hit especially hard in the Army."

The removal of Mingus is just the latest in a whirlwind of moves that support the notion that purges are underway on Hegseth's watch.

"The nomination and replacement come less than a week after Adm. Alvin Holsey, the Navy admiral who is overseeing military operations against alleged drug boats off Venezuela, announced a surprise, early retirement in December," wrote Defense News.

"About a month ago, Gen. Thomas Bussiere, head of the Air Force’s Global Strike Command, also suddenly announced his retirement, citing 'personal and family reasons.' That came a little over a month after the head of the Air Force, Gen. David Alvin, also announced a surprise early retirement.

"Those retirements come after a spate of unexplained firings in August that included Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse, then the head of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency; Vice Adm. Nancy Lacore, chief of the Navy Reserve; and Rear Adm. Milton Sands, a Navy SEAL officer who oversaw Naval Special Warfare Command.

"In April, Hegseth also abruptly fired Air Force Gen. Tim Haugh, who was leading the National Security Agency and an admiral who held a top NATO post."

Unaccompanied immigrant teenagers are being slapped with $5,000 fines from the federal government as a way to pressure them to return to their home countries, according to reporting Friday at The Intercept.

“It’s really about creating fear,” attorney Ana Raquel Devereaux said. “There’s no way that a child in this situation would be able to pay this, and the penalties are so severe.”

That fear is stoked by notices demanding full payment and listing "an array of potential consequences for failure to pay, including collection litigation and negative impacts on their immigration cases. Fines that aren’t paid in full will accrue interest, the notices say," according to The Intercept.

"They’re trying to pressure and coerce these young people into taking voluntary departure,” Shah said. “These are the stressors you’re putting very young kids under," said Meena Shah, managing director of the Legal Services Center at The Door, a New York City-based nonprofit that serves young people. Shah said roughly 10 teenagers in New York, ages 14 to 17, received the fine in mid-October.

The Intercept added: "Other fees created by the new law include $100 to apply for asylum, plus $100 every year the application is pending; $550 for asylum-seekers to apply for a work permit; and $5,000 for anyone ordered removed in absentia and then arrested by ICE. Lack of clarity over exactly how and when to pay the $100 fees recently sparked panic among asylum-seekers in New York and a flood of misinformation and potential scams, New York Focus recently reported."

President Donald Trump's favorability with Hispanics has nosedived by 19 percentage points over the past 10 months, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center poll results released Friday, The Hill reported.

A whopping 73 percent of Hispanic voters disapprove of the way Trump is handling his job — compared to just 27 percent who approve, the poll found. The Hill noted that "the results come as the Hispanic population has been targeted by some immigration enforcement officials for stops."

But the poll found dissatisfaction beyond immigration issues, as the Hill reported:

"Some said their discontent was tied to the lack of affordability nationwide: 65 percent of Hispanic voters said they are stressed about the cost of groceries, while 61 percent were stressed about housing costs, and 52 percent were concerned about the cost of health care.

“He was kind of relying on essentially the nostalgia of, ‘Hey, remember, before COVID? Things weren’t as expensive,’” Alejandro Ochoa, a Republican who said he voted for Trump last year, told the AP. “But now it’s like, OK, you’re in office. I’m still getting done dirty at the grocery store. I’m still spending an insane amount of money. I’m trying to cut corners where I can, but that bill is still insanely expensive.”

The poll results are especially notable since it was an uptick of Hispanic support that many attributed to Trump's victory last November in the presidential election — especially as it contrasted with 2020 results.

"The starkest increase may have been the 14-percentage-point swing in Trump's share of Hispanic voters, according to an exit poll conducted by Edison Research. Some 46% of self-identified Hispanic voters picked Trump, up from 32% in the 2020 election when Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden," Reuters reported after the election.

President Donald Trump's ramped-up hostilities with Venezuela drew a stern warning Friday from an unlikely source — the staunchly conservative National Review.

"It would be a colossal mistake for the president to glide listlessly into a war in South America for which he sought no public support or congressional buy-in," Noah Rothman, senior writer for the magazine, admonished Trump. "There is no legal basis for such an operation in the absence of an attack on U.S. assets or personnel.

"Despite the claims from Trump administration figures that it is executing strikes on terrorists, it is hard to imagine even a tendentious reading of either of the post-9/11 Authorizations for Use of Military Force that would find in them legal justification for treating either Venezuelan gangs or the regime’s agents as though they were al-Qaeda militants."

Trump intensified the assault against Venezuela today with the Pentagon reportedly deploying an aircraft carrier to the Caribbean in a significant escalation.

The National Review warning contrasted with the silence of Capitol Hill Republicans, who previously had resisted Trump's military impulses.

"GOP lawmakers who for years warned that Congress risked abandoning its constitutional right to decide whether the United States enters an armed conflict have now mostly gone silent as Trump directs unprecedented military action in Latin America," the Washington Post reported Friday. "Their deference has allowed the administration to escalate what many legal experts say is a campaign of extrajudicial killings."

“There never was a majority of us,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said of fellow Republicans who, in past administrations, were more willing to guard Congress’s authority, “but there were more.” In a brief interview at the Capitol, he suggested “one conclusion might be that they’re against emergencies when there’s a Democrat president but for emergencies when there’s a Republican president.”

Critics raged Friday after Justice Department officials moved to rush the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Liberia — seven months after his case gained widespread condemnation when he was wrongfully deported to his native El Salvador in violation of an immigration judge's order.

This time, Justice Department lawyers told a federal judge that the government wants Abrego Garcia deported to the African nation by Oct. 31 — over his strong objections — and that rushed timing was flagged by critics as no accident.

Journalist Adam Klasfeld wrote on X: "Feds want to send Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Liberia by Oct. 31. That's days before Abrego wanted to get Todd Blanche on the hot seat for vindictive prosecution hearings scheduled for Nov. 4-5."

Others called out the DOJ for continuing its crusade against Abrego Garcia.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow for the American Immigration Counci, wrote on X: "After trying to bribe Kilmar Abrego Garcia into pleading guilty by telling him they’d send him to Costa Rica if he did and to Africa if he didn’t, the Trump admin is now refusing to acknowledge that he agreed to be deported to Costa Rica — but won’t plead guilty."

Tyler McBrien, managing editor of Lawfare, posted on X: "One of the reasons the Trump administration is now trying to remove Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Liberia is 'its national language is English,' a fact that the president seemingly learned for the first time about three months ago."

And Greg Sargent, staff writer at the New Republic, posted this on X: "Sick: Trump admin now wants to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Liberia. From his lawyer: "Unless Liberia guarantees that it will not redeport Mr. Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, then sending him to Liberia is no less unlawful than sending him directly to El Salvador a second time."