The Smile: 03/22/2025

 

Happy Monday! Judges across the country are holding the line against Trump’s attacks on the judiciary, and public pressure is growing against Elon Musk’s grip on DOGE, with Tesla showroom protests now entering their fifth week. Meanwhile, a happy reunion in NYC gave us a smile: one woman found her beloved cat safe after a carjacking. 💛 Let’s dive into some more good news together! Judges stand firm as Trump ramps up attacks on judiciary MUST READ! SUPPORT JUDGES WHO ARE UPHOLDING THE LAW! WE NOW KNOW THAT THEY DEPORTED WOMEN, THEY NEVER CONDUCTED BACKGROUND CHECKS - MANY IF NOT MOST WERE NOT CRIMINALS! THE ALIEN ENEMIES ACT is ONLY FOR DECLARED WAR - it requires an ACT OF CONGRESS! WHERE'S THE WAR? IMMIGRANT LUNACY IN THEIR ZEALOTRY! Several federal judges expressed frustration this week with how President Donald Trump’s administration is pushing forward his sweeping agenda, as Trump and his allies got even more aggressive in their criticism of the judiciary. Trump called for the impeachment of a judge who temporarily halted deportations being carried out under the rarely used Alien Enemies Act, while also blasting the jurist on his Truth Social platform as a “grandstander” whose rulings are “inept.” The Trump administration currently has over 15 appeals pending, including from rulings this week reining in the power of Elon Musk’s Department of Governmental Efficiency. Here’s a look at the major legal developments of the past seven days: Judge and DOJ spar over deportations Lawyers for the Justice Department chided U.S. District Judge James Boasberg for pressing them for answers after they appeared to ignore his directive over the weekend that any flights carrying out deportations under the AEA should return to the U.S., accusing him of “[c]ontinuing to beat a dead horse solely for the sake of prying from the Government legally immaterial facts.” Backlash continues against Elon Musk’s role with DOGE as demonstrations at Tesla showrooms enter fifth week BIG THANK YOU TO ALL WHO ARE PROTESTING! excerpt:  DOGE has not slowed down in its sweeping efforts to dismantle or overhaul federal agencies. On Monday, the department attempted to shut down the United States Institute of Peace, an independent nonprofit agency, and CNN reported on March 13 that DOGE had proposed cutting 20% of the staff at the Internal Revenue Service by May 15. “There’s no walk of life that DOGE doesn’t touch,” Donovan told CNN. “That’s reflected in the diversity of people that come to these protests.” A demonstration that began at about 11 a.m. ET outside a Tesla showroom in Rockville, Maryland, drew a crowd of over 400 people — roughly the same attendance as last week but a sharp uptick since the start of the campaign, according to demonstrators who spoke to CNN. One of the demonstrators in Rockville was Karen Metchis, a 72-year-old former employee at the Environmental Protection Agency. Metchis told CNN the demonstration was much larger than the first one she attended in Rockville. She said it’s important for the public to see a movement, even if there is no immediate impact on Musk and President Donald Trump. “It lets the public know that they’re not alone in their feelings and hopefully it builds a mass movement where it’s just not tenable for (the Trump’s administration) to continue doing what they’re doing,” she said. NYC woman reunited with beloved cat after being carjacked on West Side Highway  THANK YOU GOOD SAMMARITAN Enmanuel Ortega! A New Yorker says she lost not just her Maserati, but also her beloved pet cat when she was carjacked Sunday. Thankfully, social media helped reunite the two. Victim was rear-ended before car was stolen Ronnette Riley, a Manhattan architect, was driving on the West Side Highway with her Sphynx cat, Eilee, in the vehicle when she was rear-ended by a Mercedes. Both drivers pulled off at 95th Street and got out of their vehicles to exchange information. "As I'm talking to him – this is all within two minutes – my car takes off," Riley said. "Then he jumped in the Mercedes and he took off, so the two cars took off in tandem. And I'm running down Riverside Drive." Police used an app on Riley's phone to track her car to the Whitestone Bridge, where the driver had crashed. An 18-year-old and a 20-year-old were taken into custody, but Eilee was nowhere in sight. "Then I was like, now what?" Riley said. "I was worried they might have thrown her out of the car." "This is not a regular cat in a regular situation" It turned out Eilee had been dumped alone in the cold. She was spotted hours later, shivering outside Pa Picar restaurant in Inwood. The restaurant's owner took her in and says he knew immediately she wasn't a stray. "Not often you see a cat with hairless and with a striped shirt on it. This is not a regular cat in a regular situation," owner Enmanuel Ortega said. Through the power of social media, Riley and her cat were reunited. Although Riley's luxury car is totaled, she says she has what's most important. "There was a feel-good part to this, right? It could've been, I could've lost all my stuff, my car and my cat," she said. Trump is about to learn an awkward lesson about his influence at the Kennedy Center EVERYTHING TRUMP TOUCHES IS DESTROYED! excerpt:  Don’t cry for him, America, but when it comes to his vision for the Kennedy Center, President Donald J. Trump appears to be dreaming impossible dreams. The president, who is also now the board chair for the Kennedy Center, convened a meeting of said board on Monday. In a recording of the meeting shared with The Washington Post, Trump and members said they’d like to see “Camelot,” “Cats,” “Fiddler on the Roof,” “Hello, Dolly!” and “The Phantom of the Opera” featured at the Kennedy Center. Speaking with reporters, Trump said, “We’re going to get some very good shows.”   There are a number of practical problems with this wish list, the first of which is that none of those musicals are touring in North America (although a tour of “Phantom” does launch in November). And if the Kennedy Center were to try to mount its own nonunion productions, it would run into a brick wall of standing labor contracts.  “We’re gonna fix that,” the president said upon learning that the Kennedy Center would have had to pay the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees in order to have board member Lee Greenwood sing at the meeting. “They wanted $30,000 to move a piano,” Trump claimed.  The used Tesla market is crumbling Senate Democrats Open Second DOGE Whistleblower Portal excerpt: Democrat Sen. Jeff Merkley has opened a whistleblower portal for government and non-government workers to report waste, fraud, and abuse. The move, first reported by Axios on Friday, comes amid the so-called Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) widespread cuts to federal agencies and congressionally authorized departments, which have spurred many legal challenges. Merkley is the ranking member of the Senate’s budget committee, whose chairman is Republican Lindsey Graham. In addition to the Senate, Republicans hold a majority in the House, so any investigations into DOGE and the Trump administration would require some GOP support, which is unlikely. Videos of Bernie Sanders and AOC Rally Crowd Sizes Take Off Online MUST WATCH! FIGHT THE OLIGARCHY TOUR IS DRAWING MASSIVE CROWDS - MORE THAN TRUMP EVER IMAGINED! Northern Minnesota boy is first American to receive groundbreaking treatment for muscular dystrophy SCIENCE & RESEARCH FUNDING MATTERS!  excerpt:  But when he was 7 months old, Colton Belluzzo was diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy — a rare condition that affects 1 in 5,000 children, mostly boys. It weakens muscles over time, and most people with DMD don't live past the age of 30.  "When it first started, no idea. You didn't even think about it as a possibility," said Dan Belluzzo, Colton's dad.  Last year, Colton Belluzzo got to the point where he had a hard time standing up. That's when his family learned that Dr. Peter Karachunski of M Health Fairview Masonic Children's Hospital had a groundbreaking treatment he wanted to try.  "Yes, we are optimistic. And it's first such treatment in his class," said Karachunski.  In December, doctors essentially placed a copy of the dystrophin gene into a virus, and then injected that virus into Colton Belluzzo's body.  "This spreads around and gets into the muscle cells," said Karachunski.  The virus isn't harmful, but the gene it's carrying is known to put the brakes on the progression of DMD.    The hope is that this therapy slows down Colton Belluzzo's disease, buying time for him to receive other treatments in the future. Tesla owners are ditching their cars as company’s woes pile up 'Incredibly troublesome': Judge grills DOJ over alleged gang member deportations PLEASE SUPPORT THE JUDGES WHO MAKE REASONABLE DECISIONS ABOUT TRUMP ILLEGAL DECISIONS! SOME OF THOSE DEPORTED WERE WOMEN! NONE OF THOSE HAD THEIR CRIMINAL HISTORIES CHECKED! NO WAR HAS BEEN DECLARED BY CONGRESS! excerpt:  President Donald Trump's use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport more than 200 alleged Venezuelan gang members is an "incredibly troublesome and problematic" application of the centuries-old wartime law, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg said during a court hearing Friday, in his strongest rebuke to date of the Trump administration's deportation actions. Trump last Saturday invoked the Alien Enemies Act -- a wartime authority used to deport noncitizens with little-to-no due process -- by arguing that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is a "hybrid criminal state" that is invading the U.S. "I agree the policy ramifications of this are incredibly troublesome and problematic and concerning, and I agree it's an unprecedented and expanded use of an act that has been used ... in the War of 1812, World War I and World War II, when there was no question there was a declaration of war and who the enemy was," Boasberg said at Friday's hearing. Today’s user-submitted photo was sent in by Erika F. who shared this adorable photo of her cat, Moe Moe: Thank you for reading, and we hope these articles shine a light on your day. In solidarity, Emily from The Smile