WAG THE FINGER: In an almost unheard of rebuke of a sitting president by a Chief Justice, John Roberts reprimanded Donald Trump for saying that a federal judge who ruled against the administration in a deportation case should be impeached.

   “Impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” wrote Chief Justice Roberts without directly addressing the President.  Trump said the judge, James E. Boasberg, should be removed for trying to stop the removal of more than 200 suspcted Venezuelan gang members to a prison in El Salvador.

  The President wrote on his Truth Social account that, “This Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge, a troublemaker and agitator who was sadly appointed by Barack Hussein Obama, was not elected President – He didn’t WIN the popular VOTE (by a lot!).” 

  He went on, “This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!! WE DON’T WANT VICIOUS, VIOLENT, AND DEMENTED CRIMINALS, MANY OF THEM DERANGED MURDERERS, IN OUR COUNTRY.”

  In Trump’s mind, any judge who rules against him is woke, crooked, or deranged.

  The administration cited the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 as justification for the deportations. The act was written to empower the deportation of people from a country with which the US is at war. At least one flight filled with deportees left the US after Judge Boasberg told the administration to stop and the government lawyers have been less than forthcoming with the facts while claiming their actions are immune to judicial review.

  Lawyers for some of the deportees wrote in a filing that “If the president can designate any group as enemy aliens under the act, and that designation is unreviewable, then there is no limit on who can be sent to a Salvadoran prison, or any limit on how long they will remain there.”

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE:

  Unfavorable court rulings for Trump and his administration are to piling up.

— President Trump’s ban on transgender people serving in the military was overturned yesterday in a caustically-written decision by a federal judge in the District of Columbia. 

  Judge Ana Reyes wrote that, “The cruel irony is that thousands of transgender servicemembers have sacrificed—some risking their lives—to ensure for others the very equal protection rights the Military Ban seeks to deny them.”

  The services are believed to have about 4200 transgender members acting as anything from pilots to Green Berets but President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth say they are unfit for service. Judge But Reyes demolished the Defense Department’s claims about the military risks and healthcare costs of having transgender people in the services.

  Reyes  concluded that among many flaws, the transgender ban amounts to illegal discrimination on the basis of sex. She wrote; “The Military Ban is soaked in animus and dripping with pretext. Its language is unabashedly demeaning, its policy stigmatizes transgender persons as inherently unfit, and its conclusions bear no relation to fact.”

  And she wrote, “In the self-evident truth that ‘all people are created equal,’ all means all. Nothing more. And certainly nothing less.” 

 — A federal judge in Maryland ruled that Elon Musk’s  dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development likely violated the Constitution “in multiple ways” and was done outside the authority of Congress to dissolve an agency it created. USAID distributed food and healthcare  to poor and unstable countries. The ruling pointed out that Musk has no official position in the government.

— President Trump signed a memorandum directing the secretary of state to remove all diversity, equity and inclusion policies from the Foreign Service. 

HUNTED: The Trump administration’s roundup of illegal immigrants involves large-scale sweeps but also individually-targeted arrests.  A woman in Denver who became a symbol of immigrant resistance during Trump’s first term was arrested at work Monday.

  Jeanette Vizguerra, 53, was taken by immigration agents while on break at a Target store near Denver

  Vizguerra came to the US from Mexico in 1997 and gained national attention during the first Trump administration when she took refuge with her children for three years in a church basement. When agents caught up with her they are reported to have said, “We finally got you.”

THE WAR ROOM: As the result of a 2 ½ hour phone call with President Trump, Russia’s Vladimir Putin agreed to a limited cease-fire in which he would stop attacks on energy infrastructure as long as Ukraine does the same. Putin did not agree to the 30-day cease fire offered by Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, meaning that the attacks on Ukrainian cities, ports, troops and civilians may continue.

  Russia launched at least 40 drones strikes on Ukraine yesterday.

  Putin also demanded a complete halt to outside military and intelligence support for Ukraine, which would leave the country vulnerable to any betrayal of a peace deal. 

GETTING WARMER: Last year was the warmest on record and Earth’s 10 hottest years have been the last 10, according to a report from the World Meteorological Organization. It was the first year to be more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above the preindustrial era.

THE SPIN RACK: Health Secretary F. Kennedy Jr. said on Fox News said that maybe the bird flu should be allowed to run through chicken stocks to identify surviving birds that might be immune. — Forever 21, the shopping mall fashion chain, declared bankruptcy a second time and is closing all of its stores.

BELOW THE FOLD: Astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore finally returned to Earth yesterday after an 8-day journey to the International Space Station that turned into 286. 

  The Washington Post bravely reported that the space capsule carrying four returning astronauts from the Space Station landed in the Gulf of Mexico, contrary to Donald Trump’s declaration that it’s now the Gulf of America.

  ABC News, which already surrendered in one lawsuit Trump brought against the news network, said the landing was “off the coast of Florida.”

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