US President Donald Trump’s administration is suspending the processing of immigrant visas for applicants from 75 countries, as Washington steps up its immigration crackdown.
 
A US State Department spokesperson confirmed the pause on Wednesday in a post on X. The suspension will take effect from January 21 and will apply to immigrant visa applicants from parts of Latin America, South Asia, the Balkans, Africa, the Middle East and the Caribbean.

It only applies to immigration visas, not tourist visas.

The countries are listed. Among them are bunch of the doodoo hole countries you might expect. Unstable and dangerous nations, countries with problems from extremist Muslim groups.

But then there are a bunch of countries that leave me scratching my head.
Thailand
Fiji
The Bahamas
Jamaica
Mongolia
Morocco,
etc.


On a side note I know an American citizen who applied to bring his wife from Egypt. Took 2 years to process the application and she made it here recently. Glad he was able to get her in time before the pause.

A video came out recently with a number of 6 congressmen and women who were former military members reminding US soldiers that they have a duty to disobey illegal orders. They never specified any specific order or hinted any specific order.


Trump responded by posting that this was seditious behavior by traitors, that the words cannot be allowed to stand, and that sedition is punishable by death. He reshared other posts calling for the death of the hanging of these people.


My thoughts:
I have often pushed back against claims by the left that the president is a dangerous authoritarian by arguing that yes he is flexing the power of his position but painting him as a dangerous dictator is hyperbole. These statements by Trump make it hard to maintain that position anymore. Suggesting a political opponent be killed for not only speech clearly protected by the 1st amendment but a statement that is completely in line with existing military rules is wandering into tyrannical government territory and that is not something any president of the USA should even flirt with or joke about.

If Trump continues down this path, the next bullet flying at his head is going to be justifiable (the first one wasn't).

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/justice-department-ends-baseless-probe-into-trump-border-czar-tom-homan-over-alleged-50k-bribe-in-cava-restaurant-bag/ar-AA1N5pKu?ocid=BingNewsSerp

This looks pretty damning to Homan and the administration. Have to see where this goes, there are calls for a congressional investigation, I am very curious to see what else comes out about this.

"The Justice Department has shut down its probe into allegations Trump border czar Tom Homan accepted a Cava restaurant bag containing a $50,000 cash bribe last year. The alleged payment to Homan was made as part of a sting by undercover FBI agents during the Biden administration in September, with the G-men presenting themselves as businessmen seeking border security contracts with the federal government...

Once the new Trump administration was in place, the DOJ closed down the investigation, citing doubts about whether prosecutors could prove Homan promised specific actions in exchange for the cash, and the fact that he was not a federal employee at the time."

City employee is on paid leave for 5 years while his case involving the fraudulent taking of $12,000 in gas is investigated. Over $300,000 in salary was earned during this.

https://www.civilbeat.org/2025/09/honolulu-county-employee-fired-after-nearly-5-years-of-paid-leave/

Good job Civil Beat.

Trump's crypto coin is one of the bigger ethical and legal issues of his presidency but seems to get less attention than smaller stories.

There are the usual pump and dump/scam concerns with any new crypto. Whether Trump wanted to fleece his supporters or whether he really was interested in a legitimate coin I do not know. Trump was previously against crypto but the Trump coin gave him a wealth, on paper, of $56 billion at the high point. The trades alone have already made profits of millions of dollars. For context, the price per coin was $74 at its high one day after its launch and is currently valued at $11.27.

The $Trump coin was issued 3 days before he was inaugurated as president. The coin was released on the market and hours later Trump made a public announcement. 20% of the coins were released onto the market (200 million coins). The legal and ethical concerns come into play in the semi-anonymous nature of crypto currencies. One can circumvent laws regulating political donations by purchasing coins compared to a political donation. One can also influence/bribe Trump through a purchase of his coins. Similar to how Hunter Biden made lots of money selling his paintings to rich people wanting the ear of Joe Biden, Trump could sell coins to any person who wanted something in return. Crypto would make it even harder to prove than quid-pro-quo paintings since crypto payments are hard to track and identify the purchaser.

Trump held a dinner for the top $Trump coin owners and the White House declined to identify the attendees. I am not saying Trump has done anything illegal at this point but in terms of transparency of our leaders, this presents serious concerns for anyone seeking to make sure power isn't being abused.

https://thehill.com/homenews/ap/ap-business/ap-trumps-meme-coin-business-racks-up-fees-as-buyers-jump-at-the-chance-for-access-to-the-president-2/

US citizen arrested under suspicion of entering Florida while being an unauthorized alien. When he saw the judge the next morning the judge inspected the birth certificate and social security card and considered them to be authentic. She found no probable cause for the charge but he still ordered the man detained because ICE had an immigration detainer which is a request to hold someone so DHS can take a migrant into custody. He was later released

https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/17/us/lopez-gomez-citizen-detained-ice-florida/index.html

I looked for body camera footage but haven't found any yet. He was held less than 48 hours. Not great but better than those times they deported US citizens

A poll to see where people stand on Trump's recent tariffs.
I will add my thoughts in a post a little later.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/03/trump-administration-accidentally-texted-me-its-war-plans/682151/
Journalist Jeffrey Goldberg was added to a government chat thread by Mike Waltz. In that thread Pete Hegseth allegedly shared detailed war plans about Houthi strikes. Hegseth has since denied sending any messages about war plans. The White House National Security Council reported that the messages appeared to be authentic.

The obvious issue is that such sensitive material was released to someone it shouldn't be but the bigger issue is why such information was being shared across a 3rd party texting app. The irony is that Hegseth slammed Hillary Clinton for her unaccountable home server and he is now sharing sensitive materials via a private app. Transparency for thee but not for me it seems.

Trump said in a speech that Zelinsky started the war with Russia.
"“You’ve been there for three years. You should have ended it ... You should have never started it. You could have made a deal.”"

Then he cited an unknown poll saying Zelinsky's approval was at 4% despite a recent poll having his approval at 57%.

https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-russia-trump-war-zelenskyy-putin-7fe8c0c80b4e93e3bc079c621a44e8bb

https://nypost.com/2024/12/22/us-news/trump-threatens-to-demand-ownership-of-panama-canal-in-full-if-rip-off-of-us-doesnt-stop/

Trump tweeted that he felt Panama was ripping off the USA with fees to use the Panama Canal and floated the idea of demanding its return.

I can never tell if Trump is just too dumb to approach issues in a professional manner or if he is quite smart and he enjoys watching chaos he creates....