Thursday roundup and… it’s not all bad ;)
TAT readers,
On my typical writing day, I spend a few hours perusing the news, waiting for a story to pique my interests to write about. Today, it wasn’t a single story but like the last Republican administration, also with Trump at the helm, the chaos, lack of a functioning congress, and the very worst of national security decisions and far more, occasionally must be addressed collectively. Today, I will briefly discuss a handful of stories in such a manner. I do this for a few reasons but most prominent, is the knowledge that no threat exists in a vacuum. We must see the entire threat picture at once, not in pieces.
More often than not, it is their combination that grows those interwoven threats into a full-fledged monster threat. Disrupting that combination, is the key to a more stable, secure and predictable environment. This week there has been significant disruption for the administration, hence today’s title that indicates that this week’s news, “isn’t all bad.” We’ll see what happens tomorrow as that this administration likes to shock us on Friday afternoons and early evenings. Still, let’s hold on to these small better offerings when we get the chance.
Now, let’s look at the, “good, the bad and the ugly.”
There were two big surprises in this morning’s news, that will affect everyone;
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of International Trade decision that makes Trump’s bizarre, wide-reaching tariff wars, illegal. Now, Trump is enraged at this courageous court.
As I wrote this second point, I received a “breaking news update” saying that a Federal Appeals court, will allow Trump and the GOP to continue their tariff nonsense, at least temporarily. This takes a little bit of joy out of my headline proclaiming that, “it’s not all bad.”
In addition to these two significant announcements, the first quarter’s national economy numbers are out and analyzed. This wasn’t good news, but not horrific either… yet. Our economy shrunk for the first time in three years during the first quarter, and thank goodness it was only .02 percent, which is actually better than expected. The only thing that helped this loss to be better than expected, was the rush to import goods after Trump caved in on tariffs and before he will arbitrarily raised them again. This is why the tariff legal cases such as addressed above, matter so greatly. Random, vengeful, cruel and sadistic tariff wars have hurt not just our economy badly, but most of the globe’s as well.
What do those tariffs mean to you and I… nothing good. Most consumer prices are already higher than they were when the GOP falsely claimed that we had “inflation” under President Biden’s administration. Yes, maybe initially as the Biden administration dug us all out of the COVID hole that the Trump administration had not only dug, but then pushed all of us into, via their criminally negligent mishandling of the COVID crisis. This is only my lay opinion regarding the criminality but my lay opinion is not uninformed. As the embedded link above shows, a former Federal Prosecutor believes that both Trump and Jared Kushner share criminal roles in the early handling of the pandemic. As the pandemic began to lift, the pandemic excuses that big business used to keep prices elevated, were not inflation at all, but price-gouging.
Background essays on inflation vs. price-gouging
Another factor that every American should consider, is that our GDP/ Gross Domestic Product is projected to only grow 1.8 percent this year. Over time the GDP varies and even occasionally drastically, such as its downslide during the beginning stages of the pandemic. Still, the last year I can find solid global data on, says that we grew at 2.9 percent in 2023. Yes, it is critical that we measure ourselves against the world and for the simple reason, is that most commerce in the modern era, is global. Much of what we consume, comes from overseas.
With the US having the largest global economy, we can unilaterally make some big waves in global commerce, even to an extent that it drives recessions and depressions. In fact, several of the driving factors of the global Great Depression that lasted from 1929 through the beginning of WW II, were in fact of US origination. Something called the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, greatly exacerbated the severity of that soul-draining decade as well as contributing to beginning of WW II. Smoot-Hawley was an overly aggressive, Republican Tariff policy, that made the US more isolationist and incapable of supporting our own economy in any responsible manner.
Isolationism in terms of commerce, means fewer markets for US manufactured goods and services, while making the influx of less expensive products from overseas, prohibitive. This is the path that this administration is on with this administration’s tariff wars. Yes, tariffs are a tax on consumers.
For example, without global commerce, every nation involved, loses jobs, income and stability. The US is no different and global forecasters are deeply concerned, that the US is too unstable economically. There are basically, three primary entities that rate our national credit and less than two weeks ago, the last of the three downgraded our credit. This will have an impact on all of us over time. Prices increase simply because that the cost of borrowing money, increases. This means that products and service businesses rely on borrowing for a variety of business reasons. If they pay more, we pay more.
As for Musk’s departure, I’m quite certain that he’s not completely out of the government manipulation business quite yet, but he’s licking his wounds and looking for sympathy that his feelings are hurt, and mostly, because SpaceX and Tesla, are suffering badly. Musk’s DOGE efforts have been as dishonest as his cost-savings claims. Musk and DOGE both, have several lawsuits pending against them for a variety of efforts performed by DOGE, such as illegally accessing the data of all American citizens with a digital government footprint.
Then there are the reports from whistleblowers confirming that attempts to share some of our personal data with Russia occurred during some DOGE operations. In my line of work, data is king. As influence goes, it is data that allowed Brad Parscale, Cambridge Analytica and Russia to operate successfully during our 2016 election and elect this administration in the first place.
His fully uninformed, chainsaw approach has done so much damage to our government, that it will take years to repair. It’s not that we don’t need to downsize, but like any long term strategy for efficiency, a strategy must be thought out, informed by expertise and executed in a manner that does as little harm as possible to individuals and communities. It has been all too common with DOGE, for employees to show up for work, only to tell them they’d been fired randomly, just to make an artificial quota dreamed up out of thin air.
The bottom line here is that Musk’s daily absence from the White House, is definitely an upside to this week. The damage that he and his tech-brats have done will take decades to assess. Should the tech-brats actions be found illegal, there must be accountability. I’m not crazy enough to believe that this Republican administration will do the job, but these youngsters need what my grandfather would have said, “they need a trip to the woodshed.” Musk’s efforts, at the direction of the buffoonish, bumbling, billionaire, boys club of this GOP administration, are in most cases, illegal.
At the moment, the courts are holding the fort but they need our support. They need to know just how much the honest public appreciates their courage. Their courage is the equivalent opposite to the cowardice of the law firms that cut deals with the White House. Those firms are now doing nearly a billion dollars worth of pro bono work for this criminal administration.
Some additional good news comes first in the form of a typically Republican tactic regarding law schools, the ABA/ American Bar Association, Judges and pro bono legal organizations, etc. They ignore, accuse and deny. Considering the massive amount of legal obstacles to this criminal administration, anyone with legal integrity is a threat to them. Today, AG Pam Bondi notified the ABA that they would no longer have access to judicial nominees. Traditionally, court nominees come to their confirmation hearings with a rating from the ABA. This will no longer occur. The last Trump administration saw more than three times the number of “unqualified” nominees than any other administration.
So, if you are wondering why that this is good news, it is because this is an indicator of the administration, “circling the wagons” around the law and they are absurdly outnumbered by both the quantity and quality of lawyers.
One other bit of decent news, although pursuing it legally won’t occur until this administration is history, is the insider trading allegations resulting from Trump’s off and on again, tariff announcements. True to form, ProPublica, just last week authored a damning report regarding potential insider trading. Again, efforts to bring the endless parade of illegality to light is essential to putting an end to our current Mafioso-styled administration. We may never get accountability from these criminals during this administration but as they say about Karma… “it can be a bit$$. .
The last tidbit of news on criminality of the administration, is also a bit of good news. CREW, another brilliant watchdog organization with a similar mission to ProPublica has sunk their teeth into Trump’s new Qatari “Air Force One.” They won’t let go either.
"President Trump’s acceptance of a $400 million luxury jet plane from the Qatari royal family for use as Air Force One has raised ethics concerns from watchdogs like CREW and rebukes from members of Congress across the political spectrum. Despite constitutional questions and obvious pitfalls with the plan, Attorney General Pam Bondi reportedly signed a memo endorsing the gift’s legality. CREW has requested records from the Department of Justice including the memo, communications regarding the drafting of the memo and any ethics guidance Attorney General Bondi received concerning her past work as a foreign agent of the government of Qatar. Congress has established a statutory system governing acceptance of gifts like the Qatari jet, which does not appear to have been followed in this instance. The gift may also violate the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause which prohibits a president from accepting any gift from a foreign state without the consent of Congress. Whether the memo signed by Bondi addresses these issues, and other ethics, corruption and security concerns, is crucial for the public to know, given the enormity of this gift. Bondi should have recused herself from the Qatari jet matter, to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest given her recent work serving as a lobbyist on behalf of Qatar and failure to disclose this conflict on her Senate Judiciary Questionnaire prior to her confirmation as attorney general. The public deserves a fuller picture of the DOJ’s analysis of the Qatar jet gift, as well as whether Bondi received ethics guidance related to her participation in this matter and what that guidance may have been." - CREW requests DOJ memo on Qatar jet gift and Bondi ethics guidance - CREW - May 27th, 2025
As that this essay is already far too long, I wish to offer a tidbit from one my favorite historical, American icons, Associate Justice Louis Brandeis, 1856 - 1941, our first Jewish Supreme Court Justice, who was and still is highly respected. From 1913 through 1914, Justice Brandeis wrote a series of essays in Harper’s Weekly Magazine, called "Other People’s Money” but opened his essay with the quote below. The quote, is quite a nice fit for this essay because he was writing about transparency in government, financial institutions, markets, etc. He viewed transparency as essential to integrity and maintaining banks, markets and other financial institutions, in a manner that was safe for the public to patronize.
CREW, ProPublica and countless brilliant investigative reporters honor this tradition of transparency. In fact, our founders found a free press essential to a well and ethically functioning republic. Tragically, most newsrooms these days all belong to a couple of handfuls of investors, Board Members with special interests and the essential revenue driven requirements of those individuals. Outside of a few independent reporters and only a couple of mainstream news entities most have like the the law firms mentioned earlier, caved to the administration’s threats and treat it with “kid gloves.” What’s the point of our First Amendment if our press is free, but unwilling? I’m with Justice Brandeis, transparency that highlights the cowardice of the media, oligarchs and government is essential to restoring our republic.
As for a roundup, this essay has only scratched the surface and I didn’t even get to the countless items abroad, that are serious national security issues. I thought today would be a good opportunity to shed some light on the economic issues that disadvantage every, non-oligarchical American citizen or legal resident. Yes, the good may be less apparent to some, but when assessing a threat, these small indicators eventually grow into a full picture of just how grotesquely Trump, his henchmen cabinet and party are destroying what last weekend’s heroes gave all for. I am just now beginning to see a bit of light at the end of the tunnel. Hey, it’s the size of a candle but still… its a light.
With this tiny bit of optimism, I leave you to your weekend and wish you as much happiness and joy you can find during these dangerously troubling times.
Cheers,
Paul