[guest post by Dana]

I really hope that Trump is aware of this because it is clearly not the behavior of a leader who is ready for a ceasefire, let alone ending the war:

President Vladimir Putin has called up 160,000 men aged 18-30, Russia’s highest number of conscripts since 2011, as the country moves to expand the size of its military.

The spring call-up for a year’s nap military service came several months after Putin said Russia should increase the overall size of its military to almost 2.39 million and its number of active servicemen to 1.5 million.

That is a rise of 180,000 over the coming three years.

—Dana

[guest post by Dana]

Heads definitely not rolling, no formal investigation, no one fired, case closed, per White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt:

“As the president has made it very clear, Mike Waltz continues to be an important part of his national security team, and this case has been closed here at the White House, as far as we are concerned. There have been steps made to ensure that something like that can obviously never happen again, and we’re moving forward; and the president and Mike Waltz, and his entire national security team, have been working together very well if you look at how much safer the United States of America is because of the leadership of this team.”

Now we know how seriously this White House takes an egregious breach of security where American troops could have been put at risk.

—Dana

[guest post by Dana]

Exactly why can’t he be brought home?:

The Trump administration conceded in a court filing Monday that it mistakenly deported a Maryland father to El Salvador “because of an administrative error” and argued it could not return him because he’s now in Salvadoran custody.

Background:

The filing stems from a lawsuit over the removal of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who in 2019 was granted protected status by an immigration judge, prohibiting the federal government from sending him to El Salvador.

The filing, first reported by The Atlantic, appears to mark the first time the administration has admitted an error related to its recent deportation flights to El Salvador, which are now at the center of a fraught legal battle.

“On March 15, although ICE was aware of his protection from removal to El Salvador, Abrego Garcia was removed to El Salvador because of an administrative error,” the Trump administration filing states.

Here is some added context from the court filings, which still doesn’t change the fact that an individual with protected status was deported back to the very country he was legally protected from being sent to:

The man is an illegal migrant from El Salvador. In 2019, ICE presented sufficient evidence that he was a member of the MS-13 gang for an immigration judge to deny him bond and order his removal.

However, he then filed an asylum claim and obtained a withholding of removal order under the convention against torture. Essentially, he argued that despite his being here illegally and likely being a gang member based on the previous finding, he could be tortured if sent back to El Salvador. Such an order could still allow the government to deport him, but not to his home country, at least not without first contesting the order.

He has been using that order since 2019 to avoid deportation.

Some government attorneys have reportedly been shocked by what happened to Albrego Garcia. There is a separate procedure to follow in the courts if the government wants to deport an individual with protected status.

Government attorneys said that the deportation was an “oversight,” but one done in “good faith.” So I guess that makes it okay. /sarc.

This is a horrible consequence of the administration rushing through these deportations without any oversight necessary accountability.

—Dana