A
new national survey from the Annenberg Public Policy Center reveals
that while public trust in key institutions like the Supreme Court and
Congress is fading, Americans across party lines overwhelmingly support
the Constitution’s system of checks and balances that limits
presidential authority.
Yet
support for judicial oversight of the presidency is surging. “People
want the president to listen to the Supreme Court and they think that
our system of government requires the president to do so,” notes APPC
research analyst Shawn Patterson Jr., in a statement.
This
skepticism extends beyond the judiciary. While medical scientists
(73%), the military (72%), and scientists (71%) maintain high levels of
public trust, government institutions rank near the bottom. The
President (40%), elected officials (36%), and Congress (32%) all score
poorly, with only business leaders (30%) faring worse.
Most
Americans (60%) believe the country is “seriously off on the wrong
track” and expect the economy to worsen over the next year (54%).
The vast majority of Americans believe the president should not act without limits:
66% say presidents should not ignore court rulings—even if they disagree.
67% oppose appointing judges without Senate approval.
60% reject bypassing Congress to enact policies.
Even among Republicans, only a minority support such powers:
It's a shame that we don't have a Court that reflects the people and the law. Alito and Thomas guarantee that.
I
wonder if it ever hits Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts that he
could be presiding over the last Supreme Court? They have ceded way
too much power to Chump. They need to start standing up for the
institutions -- that's the judiciary and the legislative. The executive
branch's power grab needs to be stopped and rebuked.
Only
15 percent of young people believe the United States is headed in the
right direction under President Donald Trump, according to a Harvard
Youth Poll released Wednesday, which also found that just under a third
of young people approve of his job performance. Trump made inroads with
young voters when he defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in the
November presidential election, but the Harvard poll suggests that
relatively few appear satisfied with his time in office thus far. Trump
plans to sign unspecified executive orders in the Oval Office on
Wednesday afternoon.
“The
most predictable guessing game in Washington, D.C., in the first three
months of Donald Trump's second presidency has focused on not if he will
spark a Constitutional crisis, but when,” according to USA Today
columnist Chris Brennan.
The writer claimed
Democrats have been leading the way in questioning the president, and
GOP members, who he believes are “repulsed” by his “penchant for
trampling the U.S. Constitution,” are now following.
Brennan
believes Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is one of those
conservatives who is beginning to question Trump, and the judge has
offered a “warning” in his latest ruling.
If
so, call it a democracy miracle. If so, Alito, I will be among the
first to hail you for that action, common sense and love for our
country. However, judging by this report,
Alito, you don't really seem to have changed at all. He's raging
against gay people again. Alito and others don't want gay people to
exist.
It's not fair, they feel, if a school book has gay people in the book.
My brother is gay.
Was
it fair to him that he wasn't represented in books as a child? NO. As
far as I'm concerned, these same people are trying to erase those of us
who are Black.
Gay
people exist. They should be in school books. If you're prissy little
brat can't handle that, you and your priss pot have more problems than
anyone can ever help you with.
Wednesday, April 23, 2025. Chump continues to drop in the polls,
Walmart and Target and Home Depot warn him higher prices likely in two
weeks and/or empty shelves if he doesn't change course, he continues his
attempt to fire the chair of the Federal Reserve while refusing to fire
Pete Hegseth, his refusal to take action with regards to a security
risk is a dereliction of duty which is an impeachable crime, and much
more.
According
to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Tuesday, 42 percent of voters
approve of Trump’s performance in office, down from 43 percent three
weeks earlier, and from 47 percent shortly after January’s inauguration.
The
poll results, Reuters said in its analysis, “suggest many Americans are
uncomfortable with his moves to punish universities he sees as too
liberal and to install himself as the board chair of the Kennedy
Center.”
Several weeks of bad
polling for U.S. President Donald Trump led to a new poll featuring
what, in that poll, is the lowest approval rating of Trump’s second
presidency.
Heath Brown, an associate professor of public policy at City University of New York, told Newsweek:
"The president's signature policy in his first 100 days—introduction of
large new tariffs—is unpopular with many Americans, including nearly
half of Republicans who think it will harm the U.S. economy in the near
term. It then is not surprising that the president's popularity has
dipped to the low levels shown in recent polls."
Yesterday
Home Depot CEO Ted Decker, Target CEO Brian Cornell and Walmart CEO
Doug McMillon went to the White House and met with Chump to explain the
uncertainties that Chump is creating in the markets and that, in two
weeks, if Chump continues down this road, you're going to see an
increase in prices and you're going to see empty shelves in the stores.
CNBC notes, "For retailers, tariffs are the latest threat to an already challenging
economic landscape, where consumers are looking for low prices after
years of high inflation."
Didn't
have to be this way but Chump only knows The Politics of Destruction
and the crazy fool took a hammer to our economy and pulverized it. At THE NEW REPUBLIC, Alex Shephard explains:
Sometime in the next year, the United States will almost certainly slide
into a recession, if not something altogether worse. Last week, Federal
Reserve Chair Jerome Powell warned
that “there isn’t a modern experience of how to think about” the
current economic situation: an unprecedented trade war, anemic growth,
rising unemployment, and ballooning inflation—a recipe for potentially
catastrophic stagnation. On Tuesday, The Wall Journal found that, nearly two weeks after President Trump had paused much of his trade war, the stock market was still on pace for the worst April since 1932.
And what might Trump’s answer be to this economic havoc? To fire Powell. His attacks on the Fed chair have been growing
over the past week—on Monday, he wrote on Truth Social that “there can
be a SLOWING of the economy unless Mr. Too Late, a major loser, lowers
interest rates, NOW”—and National Economic Council Director Kevin
Hassett has confirmed
that Trump is considering firing him. Should Trump do so, it may not be
as catastrophic as his tariffs. But it nevertheless shows that Trump
has learned nothing from his disastrous trade war, and that he is
determined to enact maximum economic destruction on America.
If and when a recession comes, it will have a clear author: Trump, who has embarked on a path that can only be described as economic suicide.
Despite being warned of the economic consequences, he slapped
gargantuan tariffs on the entire world—minus North Korea and Russia, of
all places—based on the quixotic belief that these would enrich the
U.S., bringing about a prosperous age in which American workers labor in
factories, producing pretty much everything. It’s a simply delusional
vision, and one that would take decades to see through.
When Trump backed down on the trade war on April 10, pausing tariffs on most of the world except China, markets breathed a sigh of relief.
There was a hope that he had learned his lesson and would ultimately
return to the laissez-faire economic management that defined most of his
first term. That was a ridiculous conclusion to draw then, and it’s
even more absurd now that Trump might fire Powell—the very possibility
of which has sent the markets spiraling further.
It is tempting to shrug off Trump’s desire to fire Powell. Trump
has been complaining, with increasing regularity and viciousness, about
the performance of the Fed chair more or less since he appointed him in
late 2017. Trump despises the administrative state generally, but it’s
easy to understand why he detests the Federal Reserve in particular:
It wields vast power—its decisions to raise or lower interest rates
move global markets in the short term and shape the economy in the long
term—with more or less total independence. Trump wants that power, like
he wants all power, for himself.
Last night on THE 11TH HOUR WITH STEPHANIE RUHLE, they discussed the economy, tariffs, China and more.
Lawrence O'Donnell noted last night that Chump backed down from China.
"Economic policy dementia" is what Lawrence labeled Chump's so-called "plan" and he's exactly right.
Chump has no legal power to fire Powell. Nils Pratley (GUARDIAN) notes, that "the
first effect of firing Powell should be obvious. Financial markets
would tank, possibly to the extent of making the current upset over
tariffs look like a mild tantrum. You do not mess with central bank
independence lightly – especially not in today’s circumstances. If loose
monetary policy were thrown into an already unstable inflationary and
tariff mix, the dollar would fall further, the flight from US assets
would accelerate and long-term borrowing costs for the US would
increase." Despite the harm it's doing to the economy, Chump continues to attack Fed Chairman Jerome Powell. Theron Mohamed (BUSINESS INSIDER) reports on some reactions:
Removing
Powell before his term ends in May 2026 "could call into question the
ability of the central bank to set interest rates without political
interference, and hence the outlook for price stability," Mark Haefele,
the chief investment officer of global wealth management at UBS, said in
a Tuesday note.
Haefele and his team said
markets are "likely to be sensitive" to any signs that the White House
intends to expel Powell or "replace him with a more 'malleable'
candidate" once his term ends.
Ousting Powell and
installing a more compliant Fed chief would undermine the central bank's
vital independence, Liz Ann Sonders, the chief investment strategist at
Charles Schwab, said on "Market on Close" on the Schwab Network on
Monday.
In that scenario, "any move by the
Fed to preemptively start easing policy aggressively" that doesn't fit
its mandate "might not have the intended effect of boosting growth or
boosting confidence," Sonders said.
It could even push long-term bond yields higher, "defeating the purpose of a lot of this," she cautioned.
Chump's
stupidity and erratic behavior is creating this panic and this
impending recession. It's effecting big businesses and small
businesses. Senator Patty Murray's office issued the following
yesterday:
Seattle, WA— Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray
(D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, met with
small business owners in Seattle’s University District to hear how
Trump’s chaotic trade war is impacting them. Trump is currently taxing
goods from every country—including close allies like Canada—at a minimum
10 percent tariff rate across-the-board. He has also significantly
escalated his trade war with China, with 145 percent tariffs on Chinese
goods—meaning higher prices
and serious pain for families and small businesses across Washington
state and the country. Even with his 90-day “pause” on reciprocal
tariffs, Trump’s new tariffs are still the highest tariff rates in
decades, and are estimated to cost American families more than $4,000 each year—the largest tax increase since 1968.
“These small businesses are at the heart of the U District
community, and it was important to hear from them about how Trump’s
tariffs and his pointless trade war are affecting their bottom
lines—it’s something I’m hearing about everywhere I go across Washington
state,” said Senator Murray. “Trump’s ham-fisted trade
war is threatening livelihoods here in Washington state—small
businesses are worrying about whether they can keep their doors open
without laying people off, families that are already scrambling to pay
the bills are worried about rising costs at the grocery store, and our
farmers are deeply concerned about retaliatory tariffs from other
nations in response to Trump’s tariffs. Trump’s tariffs are an enormous
new tax on hardworking Americans and businesses. I will continue to
share the stories and raise the voices of the people in Washington state
who are being affected by Trump’s thoughtless trade war. There
is no good reason for us to be picking fights with our trading partners
and close allies like Canada—it’s time for Republicans in Congress to
stand up and vote with us to end this chaos.”
Washington state has one of the most trade-dependent economies of any state in the country, with 40 percent of
jobs tied to international commerce. Washington state is the top U.S.
producer of apples, blueberries, hops, pears, spearmint oil, and sweet
cherries—all of which risk losing vital export markets due to
retaliatory tariffs from key trading partners including Canada.
Additionally, more than 12,000 small and medium-sized companies in
Washington state export goods and will struggle to absorb the impact of
retaliatory tariffs. Canada is Washington’s largest trading partner,
accounting for nearly $20 billion in imports and $10 billion in exports.
China is the world’s second-largest economy and Washington state
exported over $12 billion in goods to China last year—making China Washington state’s top export partner—and imported $11.2 billion in
goods, the most in imports from any country aside from Canada. Trump’s
tariffs during his first term were extremely costly for Washington
state—for example, India imposed a 20 percent retaliatory tariff on U.S.
apples, causing Washington apple shipments to India to fall by 99
percent and growers to lose hundreds of millions of dollars in exports.
Senator Murray has been a vocal opponent of Trump’s chaotic trade war and has been lifting up
the voices of people in Washington state harmed by this
administration’s approach to trade and calling on Republicans to end
Trump’s trade war—which Congress has the power to do—and take back
Congress’ Constitutionally-granted power to impose tariffs. Earlier this
month, Senator Murray brought together leaders across Washington state
who highlighted
how Trump’s ongoing trade war is already a devastating hit to
Washington state’s economy, businesses, and our agriculture sector.
Senator Murray also took to the Senate floor
to lay out how Trump’s chaotic trade war is seriously threatening our
economy, American businesses, families’ retirement savings, and so much
else. Last week, Senator Murray joined her colleagues in pressing
U.S. Trade Representative Ambassador Jamieson Greer on how the Trump
administration’s tariffs are affecting farmers across the country. Last
week, Senator Murray also held a roundtable discussion in Tacoma with local businesses and ports, toured local businesses in downtown Vancouver, and held a roundtable discussion in Vancouver
with local businesses and ports, to highlight how Trump’s chaotic trade
war and senseless tariffs are harming the overall economy in Washington
state.
###
Drunken and insane Chump
denied yesterday, on camera, that he was attempting to force Powell out
as Feed Chair -- this despite Chump's earlier public statements on
camera as well as his many late night/early morning social media posts.
While Chump angles to oust Powell -- again, he does not have the legal
authority to do so, he refuses to fire someone that he actually can fire
and should fire: Pete Hegseth.
Reports
trickling out of the Pentagon have painted a picture of disorder and
infighting under the leadership of the former Fox News host and National
Guard officer, who was an eyebrow-raising pick for the country's top
defense official in November. Hegseth was heavily criticized by
Democrats and a handful of Republicans for what opponents termed a lack
of experience and expertise.
The
White House has started searching for Hegseth's replacement as Defense
Secretary, NPR reported on Monday, citing an anonymous official not
authorized to speak publicly.
White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, called the report "total FAKE NEWS."
Defense
Secretary Pete Hegseth, might be in a whirlwind of controversy, but his
biggest problems are coming from “inside the house,” according to a
Column from Salon.
“Unfortunately, it does
appear that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth,%2010%20second(s)) is not
living up to what the president and the entire Republican Party
apparently believed was his vast potential based upon his 'central
casting' good looks and white supremacist tattoos,” Heather Digby Parton
wrote..
She
added, “[Hegseth] appears to be obsessed with his Fox News culture war
issues, particularly DEI, and spends an awful lot of time worrying about
things like physical fitness rather than the big picture.”
The
biggest problem Digby Parton has, however, is “that he's so
ridiculously underqualified for the real job of running the Pentagon
that the whole place is starting to come apart — and it's happening at
the hands of Hegseth's own closest allies who are apparently at each
other's throats.”
Heather?
Good looks? He's got boobs. Bitch tits is what weight lifters used to
call it. He's got nasty hands -- he brags he hasn't washed those
filthy in years. He's got boils on his forehead and cheeks. He's got a
deviated septum and a nose with something weird going on between the
brows and a bottom half that can't figure out what angle it's wanting to
jut out on. But worst of all is the stringy, greasy hair with its 80s
RAVE PERM bumps. There are things I can go along with but saying
Hegseth has good looks? Only if you're grading on the FOX Steve Doocy
scale. Sorry, can't join you walking off that cliff.
UPI reminds, "Defense
Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday blamed media and former 'disgruntled'
employees for reports that he shared military war plans via a second
Signal group chat involving his wife and brother, but did not deny the
accusations." Is he that stupid or does he just hope the rest of us
are? This is news. It's news because it happened, it's news because of
what he did. And he wants to blame the media and disgruntled
employees? This is a manchild who has never learned to take
accountability for his own actions. No wonder his mother's embarrassed
by him.
Courtney Kube (NBC NEWS) reports on Hegseth in the video below and also in text:
Minutes before U.S. fighter jets took off to begin
strikes against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen last month, Army
Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, who leads U.S. Central Command, used a secure
U.S. government system to send detailed information about the operation
to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
The
material Kurilla sent included details about when U.S. fighters would
take off and when they would hit their targets — details that could, if
they fell into the wrong hands, put the pilots of those fighters in
grave danger. But he was doing exactly what he was supposed to:
providing Hegseth, his superior, with information he needed to know and
using a system specifically designed to safely transmit sensitive and
classified information.
But then Hegseth used
his personal phone to send some of the same information Kurilla had
given him to at least two group text chats on the Signal messaging app,
three U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the exchanges told NBC
News.
The sequence of events, which has not
previously been reported, could raise new questions about Hegseth’s
handling of the information, which he and the government have denied was
classified. In all, according to the two sources, less than 10 minutes
elapsed between Kurilla’s giving Hegseth the information and Hegseth’s
sending it to the two group chats, one of which included other
Cabinet-level officials and their designees — and, inadvertently, the
editor of The Atlantic magazine. One of them was composed of Hegseth’s
wife, brother and attorney and some of his aides.
Three days ago, Kube, Gordon Lubold and Raquel Coronell Uribe (NBC NEWS) had reported,
"Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth used his personal phone to send
information about U.S. military operations in Yemen to a 13-person
Signal group chat, including his wife and his brother, two sources with
knowledge of the matter confirmed to NBC News. He did so after an aide
had warned him to be careful not to share sensitive information on an
unsecure communications system before the Yemen operation, the sources
said."
Repeating from
earlier this week, Pete Hegseth is the title character in THE CW show
GOSSIP GIRL. He was told not to do it but he did. He gets the
information and immediately feels the need to share with his wife and
brother and who knows who else. Did he sign out of the chat with, "XOXO
Gossip Girl"?
Retired
U.S. Navy Admiral James Stavridis slammed Defense Secretary Pete
Hegseth on Monday for his reported use of Signal to share highly
sensitive military plans with Trump officials as well as family members
and his attorney.
“There is absolutely no
reason on the planet earth he should be doing that and he knows it,”
said the former NATO Supreme Allied Commander of Hegseth’s use of the
third-party messaging app in an interview with CNN’s Boris Sanchez.
“He’s
a former major in the U.S. Army, he was trained throughout his time as a
junior officer to protect and guard the nation’s secrets. He’s got to
know that he has failed to do that.”
Hegseth —
who shared details of upcoming attacks in Yemen in a Signal chat with
senior Trump officials (and a journalist) — is reportedly close to being
replaced in his post after The New York Times reported Sunday that he
shared nearly identical details in a separate chat with his wife,
brother and lawyer.
Stavridis argued that
“Signalgate 2.0,” compared to the first chat involving high-ranking
officials only to be “leaked inadvertently” to a member of the press,
now involves “unclassified individuals who lack the need to know any of
this.”
“So it’s gone from outrageous to truly egregious and it’s conduct that, frankly, is indefensible,” Stavridis said.
Like the old joke says, "Telephone, Telegram, Tell-a-Hegseth."
According to a U.S. official not authorized to speak publicly, after
CENTCOM commander General Erik Kurilla sent Hegseth details over secure
communications about impending military operations on March 15th,
Hegseth shared that information, verbatim, with two separate chat groups
on Signal. One was made up of top Trump administration officials
— and inadvertently included journalist Jeffrey Goldberg. But the other
chat group included people with no clear reason for receiving the
sensitive information.
"The last time he was wrongly using an
insecure communications device, and he mistakenly thought he was
speaking only to security clearance holders," said Kevin Carroll, who
served 30 years in the Army, then in the CIA and then the Department of
Homeland Security in the first Trump administration. Security breaches
like what happened in the Signal group chat are called "spillage" by the
military, but this is more, says Carroll.
"Here he's knowingly
using an insecure communication device and he's knowingly giving
classified information to people who are not security clearance holders
so it's really more than a spill," Carroll said. "It really gets more to
the sort of willfulness that is typically prosecuted by the Department
of Justice."
Repeating,
Chump has no authority to fire the Fed Chair but he's trying to. He
has the ability to fire the Secretary of Defense but he refuses to do
so.
Hegseth's actions cannot be defended or excused.
Grasp that.
Now
grasp the reality that the dereliction of duty right now is on the part
of Donald Chump who refuses to fire Hegseth. Two big security breaches
that we know of -- that we know of -- and Chump does nothing.
He
refuses to protect this country. He refuses to fire this idiot who
keeps going on non-secure devices in non-secure apps sharing classified
information -- and with people who shouldn't be hearing it -- true of
both group chats we know of. The second one that just emerged? Yes,
it's obvious that his wife and brother and attorney did not have the
clearance for him to share security secrets. But that's also true of
the first chat where Jeffery Goldberg was included.
This
is impacting what other countries feel comfortable sharing with us. It
also put the lives of those carrying out the Yemen mission -- a mission
he ordered -- at risk.
And Chump won't fire Hegseth.
That's dereliction of duty. He can be removed from office on a charge like that.
Critics
of Trump point out that the president sang a different tune when he
called for America’s first Black Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin,
appointed by President Joe Biden in 2021, to resign after he failed to
disclose that he had undergone a surgical operation to treat his
prostate cancer. Trump and several Republicans at the time said that
Austin’s actions were similarly a threat to the nation’s national
defense. Trump said Austin “should be fired immediately for improper
professional conduct and dereliction of duty.”
“Trump
promised to bring the most qualified to the helm of the American
military — instead, he’s appointed a rudderless degenerate to replace a
four-star general whom he called a ‘DEI hire.’ It’d be funny if it
wasn’t so damned scary,” said Markus Batchelor, political director at
People For the American Way.
Batchelor told
theGrio, “Less than 100 days in office, and the dangerous incompetence
of Pete Hegseth is blatantly clear to everyone but Donald Trump. Former
friends in the White House, the Pentagon, and on the Hill are ready to
throw him out while the president plays bodyguard to his Fox News
friend.”
U.S. Rep. Sydney
Kamlager-Dove, D-Calif., who sits on the House Foreign Affairs
Committee, told theGrio, “Secretary Lloyd Austin, a four-star general,
and Pete Hegseth, an incompetent and unqualified Fox News host, are not
the same.”
“It is appalling but not surprising
that the same Republicans who called for Secretary Austin to resign
after a medical procedure are dismissing Pete Hegseth’s repeated
national security failures,” said Kamlager-Dove. She added, “Republicans
prioritize mediocrity over competency, and it shows. For the safety of
the nearly 350 million people who call the U.S. home, Pete Hegseth must
be fired—immediately.”
The
planet, which scientists have tagged as BD+05 4868 Ab, is located so
close to the sun that it completes a full orbit every 30.5 hours,
according to MIT News.
As a result, it’s likely covered in magma, causing the planet to
evaporate and shed the equivalent of one Mount Everest’s worth of
surface materials during every orbit.
The astronomers estimate the planet may disintegrate fully within the next 1 to 2 million years.
BD+05 4868 Ab -- without the "Ab," BD+05 4868 is a star long known of. From WIKIPEDIA:
BD+05 4868 is a binary star consisting of a K-dwarf and an M-dwarf. It is notable for a planetary companion around the primary star. This planet, named BD+05 4868Ab, orbits the star so close that it has begun to disintegrate, creating a large comet-like tail which can be seen in transits.[1]
BD+05 4868 was first cataloged in the Bonner Durchmusterung[4] and in 1961 the star was identified as a proper motion star by Giclas et al.[5] In 1984 its spectrum was observed for the first time, identifying it as a K5: type star.[6] The star was first identified as a binary from Gaia data. The common proper motion and parallax indicate that the pair is physically bound. The binary was also detected with the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope (LCOGT) 2 m Faulkes Telescope North and with Keck NIRC2.[1]
Scientists have discovered a planet that is literally falling apart
as it orbits its star. Located about 140 light-years from Earth in the
Pegasus constellation , this doomed world named BD+05 4868 Ab whips
around its star once every 30.5 hours — so close that its surface is
being scorched into magma and vaporizing into space.
With each orbit, BD+05 4868 Ab leaves a blazing trail of molten rock behind it like a comet made of lava, offering a rare glimpse of an exoplanet
in the final stages of its destruction. What's even more astonishing:
with every blistering 30-hour orbit — which heats the planet to close to
3,000 degrees Fahrenheit (1,600 degrees Celsius) — the planet sheds as
much mass of molten rock as an entire Mount Everest.
"The
extent of the tail is gargantuan, stretching up to 9 million kilometers
long, or roughly half of the planet's entire orbit," said Marc Hon, a
postdoc in MIT's Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research in a
statement.
This planet is dying, breaking down and this is going to take millions of years. Michael Irving adds:
The unfortunate planet lies about 140 light-years away, orbiting its
host star every 30.5 hours. That brings it about 20 times closer to the
star than Mercury orbits the Sun – and cuddling up that close could prove to be a lethal mistake.
BD+05 4868 Ab may have started out with more than double its current
mass, which seems to be less than half that of Mercury, and it's getting
smaller all the time. The researchers estimate that it ejects a Mount
Everest's-worth of material into space with every orbit, and at that
rate it will completely dissolve within 1 or 2 million years.
"This is a very tiny object, with very weak gravity, so it easily
loses a lot of mass, which then further weakens its gravity, so it loses
even more mass," says Avi Shporer, astronomer on the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission.
"It's a runaway process, and it's only getting worse and worse for the planet."
Tuesday, April 22, 2025. Pope Francis, the People's Pope, has passed
away and we recall his trip to Iraq, Hegseth hit the fan and splattered
all around as the world watches to see if Chump will clean up the mess;
however, he seems to busy working to destroy the economy -- both the
American economy and the world's economy.
As Trina noted yesterday, "Pope Francis has passed."
He was the people's Pope. He used his time to shine the spotlight on
those in need -- those often overlooked or forgotten.
That's him in March 2021, in Najaf, meeting with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani..
"Historic." Francis was the first pope to
visit Iraq. The closest a pope has previously come? In 1999, Pope John
Paul II had planned to visit Iraq but had to postpone it. Pope Francis
arrived yesterday and Australia's ABC noted he declared, "May the clash of arms be silenced . . . may there be an end to acts of violence and extremism." Robin Gomes (VATICAN NEWS) noted a victim of violence, Yazidi Nadia Murad, the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize
winner, signed "an open letter by several international NGOs and
Iraq’s civil society groups, welcoming the current visit of Pope Francis
to her native Iraq. The letter, signed by 34 organizations, calls for
adequate protection
for the minority communities of Iraq, which are being threatened by
terrorist groups and also by unjust laws."
It
was historic in so many ways. The last leader outside the Middle East
to travel to Iraq? Donald Trump. As president in 2018, the day after
Christmas, he snuck in on a surprise visit where he visited safe bases
-- safe US bases -- and then quickly fled the country.
Pope Francis did a three day visit. Pope Francis did an announced visit. From the December 7, 2020 snapshot:
The big Iraq news today? It's the Pope. CNN notes, "Pope Francis will travel to Iraq in March 2021, the Vatican press office announced on Monday." THE GUARDIAN adds,
"The Vatican spokesman, Matteo Bruni, said the pontiff, who turns 84
next
week, would visit the capital, Baghdad, and Ur, a city linked to the
Old Testament figure of Abraham, as well as Erbil, Mosul and Qaraqosh in
the Nineveh plains, from 5-8 March. It will be his first trip in more
than a year after all his overseas visits were cancelled because of the
coronavirus pandemic." Francis became the Pope (and became Francis)
March 13, 2013. He was born, in Argentina, Jorge Mario Bergoglio and
took the name Francis in honor of Saint Francis of Assisi. Prior to the
pandemic outbreak, the Pope had visited many countries including Cuba,
Israel, the United States, Bosnia, Ireland and the United Arab
Emirates. The visit to Iraq would be the Pope's first international
visit in 15 months. Devin Watkins (VATICAN NEWS) explains:
The Pope’s visit will come as the realization of a dream of his
predecessor, Pope St. John Paul II. The Polish Pope had planned to
travel to Iraq at the end of 1999. That trip never came to be because
after lengthly negotiations, Saddam Hussein postponed it.
According to Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako, the Patriarch of Babylon of
the Chaldeans, Pope Francis will receive an enthusiastic welcome to
Iraq.
He told SIR news agency a year ago that “everyone in Iraq, Christians
and Muslims, esteem him[Pope Francis] for his simplicity and nearness.
His words touch everyone’s hearts because they are those of a shepherd.
He is a man who brings peace.”
President Barham Saleh had officially invited Pope
Francis to visit Iraq in July 2019, hoping it would help the country
“heal” after years of strife.
About 100,000 Christians are left in Iraq following sectarian warfare
after the 2003 invasion led by the United States and ISIL’s (ISIS)
sweep through one-third of the country in 2014.
Maybe
the American press was worried about security? While the rest of the
world's press covered it as the historic visit that it was, the American
press hemmed and hawwed when not outright ignoring the visit. We
covered every day of the visit. Friday, March 5, 2021; Saturday, March 6, 2021; and Sunday March 7, 2021. On the last day of the visit we included this press critique:
The western press clearly was not up to the job -- a
reality made clear by one western outlet after another -- especially in
the US -- carping and and fretting while ignoring the true intent of the
visit. Once Pope Francis landed in Iraq, western outlets didn't get
much better as Martin Chulov (GUARDIAN) made clear, "The pope concluded his two-day trip to Iraq
with two highly symbolic stops in areas [. . .]" Huh? Do they no
longer teach basic math in the United Kingdom? Pope Francis landed in
Iraq on Friday (one day), he continued his visit Saturday (two days) and
he concluded his trip on Sunday (three days). Martin Chulov reduces a
three day visit to Iraq to a "two-day trip." And it's not just his
stupidity but the editors at THE GUARDIAN as well. By contrast, VATICAN
NEWS gets it right even in a headline "Highlights of Pope Francis' third day in Iraq."
The lack of care with basic facts taken by THE GUARDIAN is as telling as
any lengthy report that they could have filed (but didn't). THE GUARDIAN can get that it was a three day trip in a photo caption, at least.
Despite
an underlaying xenophoia to the western coverage ahead of the visit,
Pope Francis made it through Iraq without any attempt being made on his
life. The Iraqi people more than lived up to the spirit of the
pontiff's visit. And the United Nation's News Center explains, "Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO),
and Noura Al Kaabi, Minister of Culture and Youth of the United Arab
Emirates, welcomed the historic papal visit to Al Tahera Church, one of
the sites of the UNESCO-led Revive the Spirit of Mosul initiative."
The Popes visit, as Philip Pullella and Michael Gregory (REUTERS) note, was about healing and peace. He had already defined himself ahead of the trip as "a pilgrim of peace."Alex Arger (THE DENVER CHANNEL) reports
that Pope Francis spoke of the importance of hope and of it being "more
powerful than hatred and peace more powerful than war." Francesco Bongarra (ARAB NEWS) quotes
Pope Francis declaring in his remarks at the Syriac Catholic al-Tahira
Church in Qaraqosh today, "Even amid the ravages of terrorism and war,
we can see, with the eyes
of faith, the triumph of life over death." SCRIPPS MEDIA notes "he called for unity and forgiveness for Muslim extremists, as he visited several churches destroyed by ISIS." Nicole Winfield and Samya Kullab (AP) observe, "Bells rang out in the town of Qaraqosh as the pope arrived. Speaking to a
packed Church of the Immaculate Conception, Francis said “forgiveness”
is a key word for Christians."
If you
need another example of the bias and disinterest in the Pope from the
American media, please note that Francis became Pope on March 13, 2013.
For twelve years he was the Pope. So US broadcast outlets must have
been all over him, right?
Wrong.
Norah O'Donnell interviewed the Pope in April of last year.
Norah was the first, the last and the only American broadcast journalist to interview Pope Francis.
His
visit to Iraq came at a turbulent time for that country -- COVID,
violence, protests, a rising rate of suicide. And to the Pope that was
all the more reason to visit. But the Pope visited and was warmly
received. At the end of the visit, Iraq's President Barham Salih Tweeted:
, our honoured guest who visited Baghdad, Najaf, Ur, Erbil, Nineva. His message of peace, human solidarity with #Iraq inspires us to persevere toward a better future for the people of Iraq and the wider region.
As that trip more than demonstrated he was the People's Pope and the Iraqi people greeted him warmly.
Pope Francis has passed but he will be remembered for putting people first, for being a defender of those in need.
He
might hold the title of Secretary of Defense but no one could accuse
him of attempting to defend anything these days other than his tattered
reputation.
Pete Hegseth was never qualified to serve as Secretary of Defense. The rumors of assault, the rumors of too many drunk nights and days -- and drunk on the clock at FOX "NEWS."
It was so bad that to be confirmed he had to promise he wouldn't drink
booze at all. But his actions of late just lead everyone to wonder, "Is
he drunk?" Confronted with rumors of assault at his confirmation
hearing, Hegseth whined "I'm not perfect."
And he's certainly made that clear as he's half-assed the job DoD
Secretary for months now. SignalGate may be the death of him
politically. Matt Richards (OK) notes, "Sources
noted to CNN Hegseth 'has grown increasingly concerned' about the
inspector general looking into his usage of Signal and that Caldwell,
Selnick and Carroll expect they will be interviewed as the controversial
situation is looked into." That's Chief of Staff to the Deputy
Secretary of Defense Colin Carroll, Deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick
and Hegseth advisor Dan Caldwell -- all three were fired this month.
Aaron Parnas (MTN) reports, "In
a dramatic development on Capitol Hill, Rep. Don Bacon, a prominent
Republican and former Air Force general, has become the first GOP
lawmaker to publicly call for the removal of Pete Hegseth, President
Donald Trump's nominee for Defense Secretary. According to Politico,
Bacon voiced his concerns about Hegseth’s qualifications and management
of the Pentagon on Monday, marking a notable shift in GOP sentiment
toward one of the most contentious figures in the Trump administration."
Bacon reached the rank of Brigadier General while serving in the Air
Force (1985 through 2014) and he is an Iraq War veteran. He's quoted
stating, "I had concerns from the get-go because Pete Hegseth didn’t have a lot of experience."
Pete Hegseth barely received enough votes to win confirmation
as Donald Trump's defense secretary. Three Republicans even bucked
their own party's president to oppose him. One of them, Sen. Lisa
Murkowski (R-Alaska), cited "accusations of financial mismanagement and
problems with the workplace culture he fostered." Another, Sen. Mitch
McConnell (R-Ky.), said Hegseth had "failed to demonstrate" that he
could manage "nearly 3 million military and civilian personnel, an
annual budget of nearly $1 trillion."
It
hasn't taken long for Hegseth to prove them - along with every Senate
Democrat and the countless others who warned about him taking over the
Pentagon - right.
The New York Times reported on Sunday that Hegseth shared attack plans in a second unsecured Signal group chat, following the revelation last month
that he shared the plans to attack Houthi militants in Yemen in a
Signal chat group that included a journalist. The second chat included
Hegseth's wife, brother, and personal lawyer, underscoring the former
Fox News host's recklessness with highly sensitive information.
The
news came after a tumultuous week in the Pentagon that saw Hegseth fire
three senior officials - ostensibly because of an internal
investigation into leaking, although the officials seemed confused about
what happened. "We still have not been told what exactly we were
investigated for, if there is still an active investigation, or if there
was even a real investigation of ‘leaks' to begin with," they wrote in a joint statement Friday night, adding that, although the experience was "unconscionable," they will continue to support Trump's plans for the Pentagon.
John Ullyot, who resigned as a spokesperson for the Pentagon last week, put a button on the turmoil in an op-ed for Politico
on Sunday. "It's been a month of total chaos at the Pentagon," the
piece began. "From leaks of sensitive operational plans to mass firings,
the dysfunction is now a major distraction for the president - who
deserves better from his senior leadership."
Josh Fiallo (DAILY BEAST) notes, "Hegseth,
44, was one of President Donald Trump’s most controversial cabinet
appointments due to his lack of Pentagon experience, strong remarks
against women in the military, and an alleged history of alcoholism."
At what point does Chump say enough is enough and fire Hegseth?
In
a recent interview on Meet the Press, financier Ray Dalio, warned of
"something worse than a recession" if current financial, economic, and
trade issues are not "handled well." Later in the interview, he warned
that if current problems worsen, we could experience a "world order in
which there is great conflict." I agree on both counts—with the caveat
that this might be an understatement. Others have issued similar
warnings.
For me,
Dalio's comments triggered troubling thoughts on how the world would
handle a future financial crisis. During my long career on the
international stage—as economic advisor to Henry Kissinger in the
National Security Council in the 1970s, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs
(international) in the 1980s and 1990s, and then Undersecretary of State
in charge of U.S. geo-economic relations in the early part of this
century—I was at the epicenter of a number of such crises and of
negotiations to help resolve them. The key to success in such efforts
was not just the financial skills of the major players but also their
willingness to engage in trustful collaboration.
That
ingredient does not exist today. Never have I seen the world so deeply
riddled with mistrust on so many economic and political issues. And that
mistrust can be the Achilles’ heel of any future negotiation in the
event of a new financial crisis—unless we recognize it and figure out
how to overcome it before a crisis hits.
Those
in high-level positions and around the world must consider how they
would manage a new crisis—which is a growing risk with so many countries
facing slowing growth, growing debt, inflationary pressures, tariff
wars, and currency volatility—and operating under fraught and
confrontational political circumstances.
This will be an enormous challenge, and failure will affect all Americans and nearly every person on this planet.
During
the last crisis, there was impressive, trustful cooperation between the
U.S. and China. But with the intensifying trade war and various other
confrontations between the two, attaining that again is likely to be far
more problematic—if not impossible.
And
tariff-related frictions between the U.S. and its key allies—among the
world's largest market economies—have undermined and in some cases
virtually destroyed the mutual trust that has been so critical in
resolving issues in the past. Intense trade disputes will make
cooperation among them to deal with a new financial crisis far more
difficult.
Chump
is wrecking the economy both here and abroad. He is putting the people
of the planet at risk with his idiotic and uniformed actions.
Yesterday, Stan Choe (AP) reported,
"U.S. stocks are tumbling Monday as worries about President Donald
Trump’s trade war and his criticism of the Federal Reserve cause
investors to pull further from the United States. The S&P 500 was
2.8% lower in another wipeout, and the index at the center of many
401(k) accounts is more than 16% below its record set two months ago." Prabhjote Gill noted, "The
Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) tumbled more than 650 points in
Monday morning trade after President Donald Trump ramped up pressure on
Fed Chair Jerome Powell, warning the economy could stall without
immediate rate cuts." Yes, Chump continues to go after Powell
despite the fact that most economic experts say that getting rid of
Powell would be illegal and would also be the thing that really
destroyed faith in the US economy among investors. Matthew Chapman (RAW STORY) reminds, "Powell,
who was ironically first appointed to the post by Trump himself, has
repeatedly warned that Trump's tariffs are set to increase prices, and
has resisted pressure from Trump to try to offset the market contraction
induced by his own trade policies with interest rate cuts — which has
only enraged Trump further."
Speculation
about the legality of firing Powell has focused, in part, on concerns
about a pending Supreme Court case that challenges a precedent
prohibiting presidents from firing certain federal officials for
political motives. Still, some former Fed and government officials see a
different calculation at work.
“Trump does always want someone else to be the scapegoat,” said Former Federal Reserve vice chair Alan Blinder.
Jared
Bernstein, chief White House economist under President Joe Biden, wrote
in an essay Friday that “it’s entirely possible Trump’s setting up
Powell not to be replaced but to stick around as the fall guy
should…rising recession probabilities—purely a function of Trump’s
actions—prove correct.”
Should
Chump try to scapegoat Powell for his own failures, I think the
economic press will come out with knives to carve Chump up like he's
never been sliced before. The economy is his.
As Stephanie Ruhle pointed out last night on THE 11TH HOUR WITH
STEPHANIE RUHLE (MSNBC), there are people who don't even know the name
of the person who represents them in the House of Representatives.
Those people especially are not going to know who "J Powell" is. But
they know who the president is. They know his name. The economy is his.
Chump owns this economic nightmare because he's set tariffs when he lacks the Constitutional power to do so. Ankush Khardori (POLITICO) explains:
The
question is whether the courts -- including perhaps the Supreme Court
itself -- will agree, or whether they will blink in the face of the
economic and diplomatic turmoil that Trump has unleashed. In fact, Trump
may have unintentionally created his best legal argument by upending
the global economy: that the courts should be wary of interfering in the
president’s handling of international affairs given the complexity and
high stakes of the trade war now playing out.
Lawyers challenging the administration’s use of the IEEPA to impose tariffs say they are optimistic about their chances.
“This
is an enormous usurpation of legislative power by the executive and an
abuse of emergency powers,” Ilya Somin, a libertarian law professor at
George Mason University and one of the attorneys working on the Liberty
Justice Center’s case, told me.
Consider
tariffs. Constitutionally, Congress — not the president — has the power
to regulate trade, but Trump seized this power by declaring trade
deficits to be a “national emergency,” thus enacting tariffs via
executive order, sidestepping Congress.
All
of the self-generated disorder has caused Trump’s approval rating to
decline significantly since the inauguration, a gift for Democrats.
Despite still struggling to overcome their own poor ratings, they are being assisted by the chaos Trump is causing.
Having begun his second term with 51 percent approval versus 44 percent disapproval, those numbers have now reversed.
One-half
(50 percent) of Americans now disapprove of his job performance,
compared to 47 percent who approve — a net 10-point decline in less than
100 days, per RealClearPolitics polling aggregator.
He
may try to blame the economic collapse on Powell but the reality is
that he has acted erratically at best and crazed at worst and the
American people -- the entire planet -- has seen this unfold in real
time. These are his actions and these are his choices. And as they
took place, there was enormous pushback and he chose to ignore it. He
not only owns this mess, he created it.
Craig
Fuller, the CEO of FreightWaves, a freight-focused organization that
analyzes the freight and logistics market, has regretted
"enthusiastically" supporting President Donald Trump's victory in the
2024 election, warning that the administration's policies are likely to
"wipe out supply chains and small businesses within 100 days."
"I
did not vote for a neutron bomb to wipe out supply chains and small
businesses 100 days in," he wrote on the social platform X on Sunday.
"I
thought I was voting for pro-business policies and small, targeted, and
incremental tariffs that would encourage the production of strategic
industries to return to the Americas," Fuller said, adding that this is
what happened under Trump's previous term.
Last month,
investment adviser Steve Rattner, who served as a counselor in the
Treasury Department under former President Barack Obama, said many
businessmen who supported Trump may come to have buyer's remorse in the
months ahead.
We'll wind down with this from Senator Elizabeth Warren's office:
Over 45 lawmakers sound alarms about possible illicit payments, influence-peddling, insider trading
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren
(D-Mass.), Ranking Member of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban
Affairs Committee, along with Representatives Linda Sánchez (D-Calif.),
Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade, and
Judy Chu (D-Calif.), led a group of 44 Congressional Democrats in
writing to Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, Secretary of
Commerce Howard Lutnick, and U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Jamieson
Greer with concerns over the potential for corruption in the
implementation of the administration’s tariff policy.
The Trump administration’s tariffs rollout is rife with opportunities
to unduly influence President Trump and other administration officials.
The chaotic nature of the tariffs, including announcing them and
pausing them shortly after they went into effect, provides ample
opportunity for private sector corporations or sovereign nationals to
corruptly seek exemptions.
“Corporations and sovereign nations facing existentially high stakes,
and knowing tariffs are controlled by a small circle in the White
House, can petition officials not to apply tariffs to them after the
90-day pause, to grant them exemptions, to decrease tariffs, or to
impose tariffs on competitors — and can quietly offer something in
return,” wrote the lawmakers.
President Trump’s record on tariffs in his first term illustrates his
willingness to give preference to donors and allies while punishing
enemies. Politically loyal companies that donated to Republican
candidates, as well as companies with financial or political ties to
President Trump, were more likely to
be granted tariff exemptions after President Trump imposed them in his
first administration. After auditing the Trump Administration’s tariff
exclusion practices in 2018 and 2019, the Commerce Department’s Office
of Inspector General found evidence of “off-record communications” and an “appearance of improper influence in decisionmaking for tariff exclusion requests.”
“We fear the Administration is once again turning its tariffs policy
into an underground market of exemptions in exchange for financial and
political favors,” said the lawmakers.
Trump’s ad-hoc process has started to bear fruit for special
interests. Last week, the White House exempted smartphones and certain
other high-end electronics from tariffs targeting China. Within hours,
Big Tech stock prices soared — particularly the value of Apple, which
makes the vast majority of its iPhones in China. Apple CEO Tim Cook donated to President Trump’s inauguration and cultivated a strong relationship with him in recent months, as he did during Trump’s first term to win tariff exemptions.
The on-and-off nature of President Trump’s tariffs also opens the
door to rampant insider trading. Administration officials — and their
families and friends — with early knowledge of changes in tariff policy
can buy positions they expect will rise and sell those that will fall.
On April 9, 2025, minutes before the administration announced a pause on
most tariffs, the trading market began to skyrocket —
suggesting that insiders acted on non-public information about the
coming pause. President Trump then posted on social media “THIS IS A
GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!,” still before any official announcement, causing
stocks to further spike.
Members of Congress, including Senator Warren,
have asked the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and ethics
officials to investigate whether any securities laws were violated with
this announcement.
At the same time, the top ethics watchdog who can hold the
administration accountable appears poorly positioned to tackle
tariff-related corruption. In late March 2025, USTR Ambassador Greer was
named Acting Director of the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) and now
serves in both roles simultaneously. Therefore, a top tariff policy
official is responsible for ensuring that tariff policy decisions are
made free of financial conflicts.
“This dual appointment raises blatant conflicts that risk undermining
OGE’s ability to independently monitor trade officials’ conduct and
recommend investigations into misconduct when necessary,” concluded the lawmakers.
The lawmakers asked the officials to provide clarity on the Trump
administration’s exemption policy, if any official exemption request
processes exist, where exemptions will be reported, whether an appeals
process exists, the administration’s plans to ensure tariff exemptions
are not corrupted, and more, by April 29, 2025.
Senators Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) joined in signing the letter.
The following Representatives joined in signing the letter: Gabe Amo
(D-R.I.), Becca Balint (D-Vt.), Julia Brownley (D-Calif.), Salud
Carbajal (D-Calif.), Greg Casar (D-T.X.), Danny Davis (D-Ill.), Diana
DeGette (D-Colo.), Maxine Dexter (D-Ore.), Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas),
Dwight Evans (D-Pa.), Cleo Fields (D-La.), Bill Foster (D-Ill.), Robert
Garcia (D-Calif.), Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.), Al Green (D-Texas), Steven
Horsford (D-Nev.), Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.),
Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.), Timothy Kennedy (D-N.Y.), John Larson
(D-Conn.), Summer Lee, (D-Pa.), Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), LaMonica McIver
(D-N.J.), Gwen Moore (D-Wis.), Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), Jerry Nadler
(D-N.Y.), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), Ayanna
Pressley (D-Mass.), Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), Andrea Salinas (D-Ore.), Jan
Schakowsky (D-Ill.), Terri Sewell (D-Ala.), Brad Sherman (D-Calif.),
Lateefah Simon (D-Calif.), Mark Takano (D-Calif.), Shri Thanedar
(D-Mich.), Dina Titus (D-Nev.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Nydia Velázquez
(D-NY), and Maxine Waters (D-Calif.).
