Trump 'NOT HAPPY' With Putin for Attack on Kyiv Amid Tense Ceasefire Negotiations

The president’s criticism is a shift from his usual blaming of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for the ongoing conflict.

President Donald Trump said he was “not happy” with Russian President Vladimir Putin, as his administration presses forward with its campaign to persuade Russia and Ukraine to accept a U.S. ceasefire proposal.

Trump condemned Putin for launching an attack on Kyiv early Thursday, which killed at least eight people, urging the foreign leader to agree to a peace deal to end the three-year conflict in Ukraine that his country started. The Trump administration recently put forward a ceasefire plan that would involve a “freeze” of most territorial lines, Vice President JD Vance said Wednesday, and reports of ceding to Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Ukrainian officials have previously dismissed calls to compromise on territorial integrity.

“I am not happy with the Russian strikes on KYIV,” Trump wrote in a post to Truth Social on Thursday. “Not necessary, and very bad timing. Vladimir, STOP! 5000 soldiers a week are dying. Lets get the Peace Deal DONE!”

‘Everybody is to blame’: Trump slams Biden, Zelenskyy and Putin for Ukraine war

Due Process and the Abrego Garcia Case

The Supreme Court ruled on the evening of April 10 that the Trump administration must comply with a lower court’s order to “facilitate” the release from custody of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, an immigrant who was deported without a hearing to a mega prison in El Salvador. The case underscores the issue of due process and what legal protections are afforded to noncitizens.

Here, we’ll explain what due process means, any limitations in its application to noncitizens, and the details of the Abrego Garcia case. In the process, we’ll fact-check some comments officials have made about the case.

VA Launches 'Anti-Christian Bias' Task Force, Asks Employees to Report Allegations

The Department of Veterans Affairs has established a task force to determine whether "anti-Christian bias" exists within the federal government's second-largest Cabinet department and is asking its employees to report alleged discrimination by other staff members.

The move follows an executive order issued Feb. 6 by President Donald Trump that created a government-wide task force that it claims will "end the anti-Christian weaponization of government." It was unclear what effects it would have on Christian or non-Christian employees at the VA.

The VA task force investigation is among the latest efforts by Trump and his administration to dramatically reshape the federal government. The administration is reducing the federal workforce by tens of thousands of employees, cutting public services, and purging programs, policies, and even library books they see as related to diversity -- mainly targeting minorities, women, and LGBTQ+ people.

At the Pentagon and across the military services, the efforts have led to the removal of materials related to the achievements of female and minority troops, although some have been restored following public outcry; book bans at military-run elementary and secondary schools and the Naval Academy; and restrictions on what soldiers can write about at a top enlisted school.

The administration says the dramatic changes are necessary to make the federal government more efficient and eliminate what it considers a "woke" political culture. The actions have triggered numerous lawsuits and public protests, including at Defense Department schools.

According to an email sent to VA employees on Tuesday from Secretary Doug Collins, the VA will create its own task force to "review the last administration's treatment of Christians" in support of the executive order.

Army Suspends Fort McCoy's First Female Commander Amid Trump Portrait Display Controversy

Col. Sheyla Baez Ramirez, the garrison commander of Fort McCoy in Wisconsin, was suspended following the circulation on social media of a photograph showing portraits of President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth turned to face a wall.

The incident, which sparked a wave of right-wing criticism, centered on the base's chain of command wall display—a common fixture in military buildings designed to show the hierarchy from local commanders to the president.

In an undated statement posted to Fort McCoy's website, the Army confirmed that Baez Ramirez, the first female garrison commander for the base, had been suspended by Maj. Gen. Joseph Ricciardi, commander of the 88th Readiness Division. The statement emphasized that the suspension was "not related to any misconduct," but did not provide further details, citing an ongoing review.

The timing of the decision, however, is noteworthy. The photo of the flipped portraits -- which quickly went viral after being shared by an official Pentagon account -- was posted just days before Baez Ramirez was relieved of her duties.

"Regarding the Ft. McCoy chain of command wall controversy ... we fixed it!" a Pentagon social media account stated April 14. It added that an investigation was underway to determine the circumstances behind the incident.

A statement from the Army Reserve issued the same day described the altered photos as "vandalism," although it's unclear what the service component meant, as there appeared to be no damage to the display.

Joint Chiefs Chairman Caine Decides Not to Keep Senior Enlisted Adviser, Breaking with Past Precedent

The military's top enlisted adviser -- a senior adviser to the Joint Chiefs chairman -- will be stepping down in the months to come, Pentagon officials told 'TELL IT LIKE IT IS' Defense News on Monday.

Marine Corps Sgt. Maj. Troy Black will depart the post and retire from military service after the newly confirmed Joint Chiefs chairman, Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, chose not to renew Black's posting for another two-year stretch, one official said.

However, that defense official stressed that, while Black would not be serving in the senior enlisted adviser to the chairman, or SEAC, role for as long as his predecessors, the move was not a firing and that Caine "has the greatest respect and admiration for SEAC Black."

Trump’s Power and Influence is Sustained by the Fears of the White Demographic

Paranoid about losing their majority status and the power it confers, white Americans keep backing Trump’s racist anti-immigrant policies.

GETTYSBURG — This is the most American of towns. It is where Robert E. Lee tried to destroy the nation, where Abraham Lincoln tried to heal it, and where William Faulkner revealed a century later that the country was still irretrievably racist and broken.

Even though much of its bloody Civil War past is hidden behind McDonald’s and Burger King and Dairy Queen and Walmart, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, today is still the symbolic capital of the endless American fight over the nation’s history.

Inevitably, that fight always comes down to race.  

And so that means that this is the town that best explains Donald Trump.

Once you understand that Trump’s rise is all about white fears and white power — the same motivations that triggered the Civil War — the Trump agenda begins to make sense.

Congress’s Biggest Financial Priority Is “Stablecoin.” What the Hell Is That?

Instead of tackling crashing markets, Congress is pushing a crypto sector that the Trump family is financially involved in.

The Trump administration’s trade war with the world has roiled the stock market and threatens to plunge the country into a recession while jacking up the price of basic supplies.

But instead of taking on the financial issues dominating the headlines, the House and Senate are racing to bring stablecoins — a cryptocurrency sector few Americans have even heard of — out from the shadows.

The $230 billion stablecoin industry could be the first to benefit from Donald Trump’s promise to make the U.S. the world’s “crypto capital of the planet.”

Industry advocates say the legislation will clear up uncertainty around the regulation of their cryptocurrencies, unleashing a new era of financial innovation. Critics of the bipartisan push warn that the legislation risks another financial crash while enriching Trump, whose family is launching a stablecoin of their own.

“Passing legislation gives them a first-mover advantage to profits that are to be gained. We saw that with the Trump meme coin, where a lot of people lost out but it didn’t matter because Trump’s platform was making fees,” said Mark Hays, of the group Americans for Financial Reform. “It just seems like a witches’ brew of problematic things that could lead to another crash.”

The Long History of Lawlessness, Irresponsible, Illegal Actions Taken by the U.S. In Its Dealings with Latin American Countries

By shipping immigrants to Nayib Bukele’s megaprison in El Salvador, Trump is using a far-right ally for his own ends.

It seems as if the entire, dishonorable history of U.S. lawlessness in Latin America is distilled in the saga of Kilmar Ábrego García: the man whose illegal deportation to El Salvador and imprisonment in the country’s Terrorism Confinement Center has sparked outrage in the U.S. among human rights advocates and the Trump administration’s opponents.

Some see Ábrego García’s arrival in El Salvador as marking a new, dark chapter in U.S. history, but Washington has long supported and harnessed lawlessness in Latin America to pursue its own aims.

Through the 1970s and 1980s, U.S.-backed anti-communist regimes “disappeared” hundreds of thousand Latin American citizens, engaging in a form of state terror traced back to Nazi Germany. El Salvador became infamous for such political “disappearances.” About 71,000 people, or between 1 and 2 percent of El Salvador’s population, were killed or disappeared.

A key aspect of the terror, back then, was the not-knowing. Friends and families of “los desaparecidos” exhausted themselves dealing with labyrinthine bureaucracies. Government officials shrugged off their questions, telling them their missing relatives probably went to Cuba or ran away with a lover.

Today, though, Trump, aided by Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, feels no need for such evasions. The fuck-you impunity on display during Bukele’s recent visit to the Oval Office — “Of course I’m not going to do it,” Bukele said, when asked if he would return Ábrego García — is a higher order of terror, one meant not to generate doubt but to instill helplessness.

About 2 percent of El Salvador’s population languish in Bukele’s gulags, with the country clocking the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world — a number comparable to about 7 million people in the United States.