The
White House has launched a new initiative encouraging Americans to
report undocumented immigrants. The announcement includes a 24-hour
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) tip line, which some believe
has backfired amid ongoing protests of the Trump administration's
initiatives. The announcement led many users to call for the deportation
of Elon Musk due to his controversial role overseeing job cuts in the
Department of Government Efficiency.
Users
flooded the tip line and the online reporting form shared by the White
House, claiming to report Musk. A satirical post later suggested that
ICE had halted the hotline due to the overwhelming number of calls about
Musk, which has yet to be confirmed.
Unconfirmed. But it wouldn't it be great if it were true? It's a world wide hatred for Alien Musk. Graham Fraser (BBC) reports:
A
Tesla whistleblower who has fought Elon Musk and his company through
the courts for years has won the latest round of a long-running legal
battle.
Engineer Cristina Balan lost her job
after she raised a safety concern in 2014 about a design flaw which
could affect the cars' braking.
Her
defamation claim against the firm seemed to have run out of road when a
judge confirmed an arbitration decision dismissing her case - but a
panel of appeal judges in California has reversed this decision in her
favour.
She told BBC News she now wants to face Elon Musk and Tesla in open court.
She should push for a jury trial because I hate, you hate, we all hate Musk.
A
federal judge says he won't dismiss a lawsuit from labor unions seeking
to block Elon Musk's team from accessing systems at the Labor
Department.
The labor unions say that allowing
Musk's Department of Government Efficiency to access the systems
violates the federal Privacy Act because they contain medical and
financial records of millions of Americans. They also contend DOGE
doesn't have the legal authority to direct the actions of
congressionally created agencies like the Department of Labor.
Outside of Chump, he doesn't have a friend in sight. Read this from Brad Reed (Raw Story):
President
Donald Trump's determination to build a nationwide missile shield on
par with the Iron Dome in Israel may be about to become even more
controversial.
Reuters reports that Elon Musk's
SpaceX, along with software maker Palantir and drone builder Anduril,
have emerged as the "frontrunners" to build Trump's "Golden Dome"
missile shield that has been widely criticized by defense experts as a
costly and unnecessary proposal.
[. . .]
However,
the plan includes one highly unusual clause that could give Pentagon
officials pause: SpaceX is pitching its missile dome system as a
subscription service in which the government would pay for access to it,
which means that the United States would not actually own the
infrastructure being put in place.
Reuters
notes that "all three companies were founded by entrepreneurs who have
been major political supporters of Trump," including most prominently
Musk, who spent hundreds of billions of dollars to get the president
elected.
Critics have claimed that building
such a system would cost taxpayers trillions of dollars and have
questioned its necessity given that no foreign country has ever launched
missile attacks against the United States.
This is C.I.'s "The Snapshot:"
Thursday, April 16, 2025. Senator Chris Van Hollen goes to El Salvador,
David Hogg has a new advocacy plan, Chump continues to destroy the
economy, and much more.
Although GOP factions in the House and
Senate have squabbled over the contours of the bill, spending heavily on
immigration enforcement has bicameral support. The reconciliation bill
in the Senate would provide $175 billion over the next decade. A House
version proposes $90 billion.
Let's start this morning with THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW's interview last night with Senator Chris Van Hollen.
Kilmar
Abrego Garcia is in El Salvador still. This despite the fact that the
Supreme Court has ordered the White House to facilitate Kilmar's return
home to the United States. Kilmar is one of the senator's
constituents. He traveled yesterday to El Salvador and requested to
meet with Kilmar but was denied.
US Embassy
staff told Senator Van Hollen that they were not working in any way on
this issue, that no one in the administration had told them to. As the
senator explained to Rachel, "It's pretty clear that the Trump
administration has not lifted a finger to implement that court order."
The senator met with the vice president of El Salvador but he was not allowed to meet with Kilmar.
Rachel
had noted the GOP Congress members and Homeland Security Secretary
Kristi Noem had been able to get into the prison and do photo ops that
they then post and circulate to the media "and make social media
content" and she's right but what stood out to me when she was noting
these Abu Ghraib type photos were the faces.
Why are their faces exposed?
I'm
not talking about the MAGA trash. I'm talking about the prisoners.
And since Kristi is posing for them with an inane grin on her face -- in
what could be photographic evidence in an international trial for War
Crimes, these are apparently some of the 300 Venezuelans that Chump
tossed out of the country even when the courts had ordered that these
people could not be removed from the country, that they had a right to
due process.
So what's the excuse for MAGA trash like Kristi to be posting these people's faces online?
The senator was not allowed to even speak with Kilmar over the phone.
The
corrupt government of El Salvador denied him any access at all to his
constituent. He's not the first to be denied. The War Criminal in
charge of El Salvador also refused to allow the UN access in January of last year.
Let's pause for just a moment here. Yesterday's snapshot
noted Rachel Maddow's interview with a whistleblower Tuesday night.
And we noted that MSNBC hadn't posted it on YOUTUBE -- this despite all
the praise the segment received on BLUESKY and despite the importance of
the interview. An e-mail to the public account passed on that MSNBC
hadn't posted it but someone else has.
Daniel
Berulis risked a great deal to come forward and inform our Congress and
We The People about suspicious activity that DOGE has carried out and
how someone with a Russia IP address repeatedly tried to log on to a new
account just created by DOGE -- the person had the user name and the
password and, were it not for their IP address being in Russia -- they
would've gotten into the system. This is a major story. If you haven't
already caught Rachel's interview, please stream it now.
Klaus Marre (WHO WHAT WHERE) reports on Harvard University's refusal to scrape and bow before Chump:
In
a letter to the administration, the university’s attorneys note that
these demands not only violate the First Amendment but also require
“unsupported and disruptive remedies for alleged harms that the
government has not proven through mandatory processes established by
Congress and required by law.”
In addition, the letter also objects to the government’s coercive tactics.
“No
less objectionable is the condition, first made explicit in the letter
of March 31, 2025, that Harvard accede to these terms or risk the loss
of billions of dollars in federal funding critical to vital research and
innovation that has saved and improved lives and allowed Harvard to
play a central role in making our country’s scientific, medical, and
other research communities the standard-bearers for the world,” they
write.
Predictably, the administration almost immediately froze $2 billion in federal funds for Harvard.
But Trump didn’t stop there.
In
true mobster-like fashion, he also threatened the university with
revoking its tax-exempt status and taxing it as a “Political Entity if
it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist
inspired/supporting “Sickness.”
What does it mean? Who knows; but it is clearly a threat.
But
why are we telling you this? After all, it’s not exactly news when
Trump tries to blackmail or coerce someone to get what he wants.
That’s right, and this article isn’t actually about that.
Instead, it is about Trump not coercing someone… and that someone is El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele.
If
the US president had any interest in bringing Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the
man his administration illegally deported to El Salvador, back to the
US, then he could surely compel his counterpart to produce him.
Exactly.
And he could certainly do something as simple as stop payment on the $6
million US tax payers are having to fork over to El Salvador for the
300 people Chump sent there. On that money, Ariana Figueroa (BALTIMORE SUN) reports:
The
U.S. State Department is paying El Salvador $6 million to house
hundreds of immigrants deported from the United States in an immense and
brutal prison there, Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT.
But
a U.S. law bars the department’s financial support of “units of foreign
security forces” — which can include military and law enforcement staff
in prisons — facing credible allegations of gross human rights
violations. That has led those who wrote what’s known as the Leahy Law
and enforced it for years to question the legality of the $6 million
payment made as President Donald Trump carries out his campaign of mass
deportation.
The Trump administration on March
15 sent 261 men to CECOT, after invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798
to apply to Venezuelan nationals 14 and older who are suspected members
of the gang Tren de Aragua.
On March 30,
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said an additional 17 nationals from El
Salvador were sent to CECOT, again alleging gang ties. On Sunday, Rubio
said 10 more men were sent to the prison in El Salvador, and noted how
“the alliance between” the U.S. and El Salvador “has become an example
for security and prosperity in our hemisphere.”
Tim
Rieser, the main author of the Leahy Law while a longtime foreign
policy aide to former U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, said
the $6 million payment for those migrants’ incarceration for up to a
year is likely a violation of the law.
“Sending
migrants who have not been charged or convicted of any crime to the
maximum-security terrorism prison in El Salvador, where they have no
access to lawyers or their families, where they have no rights of due
process, and with no idea if they will ever be released, held in cruel
and shockingly degrading conditions, would certainly appear to violate
the Leahy Law,” Rieser told States Newsroom.
Let's note this from Amnesty International:
Against
the backdrop of President Nayib Bukele’s official visit to the White
House on 14 April, Amnesty International released a public statement
warning of the deepening human rights crisis in El Salvador and the
complicit stance now taken by the United States by partaking in
repressive practices that violate international law.
In
the light of the recent arbitrary expulsion of Venezuelan nationals
from the United States to CECOT, a Salvadoran mega prison, which has not
only worsened the human rights situation in El Salvador, but also sets
an alarming precedent of repressive cooperation between governments
leading to the enforced disappearance of 261 individuals, Ana Piquer,
Americas director at Amnesty International, said:
“El
Salvador is implementing a systematic state policy of massive and
arbitrary deprivation of liberty. After three years, more than 85,000
individuals remain behind bars without sufficient admissible evidence,
the victims of a judicial system now transformed into a tool for
collective punishment and widespread repression. Attempts to export this
policy to the situation of Venezuelan migrants and refugees in the
United States highlights the lack of protection and the risk that
hundreds of thousands of people now face of having their human rights
violated by not one, not two, but three different states.
“This
repressive cooperation has now led to the enforced disappearance of
more than 200 Venezuelan nationals arbitrarily deported to El Salvador’s
CECOT. This situation further entrenches the vulnerability of the
victims, who have been deliberately deprived of their right to a
defence, to due process and contact with their relatives and lawyers,
causing deep distress to both those detained and their families.
Cooperation between states must be centred on improving the living
conditions of the population, not on dismantling their human rights.”
Amnesty
International called on the Salvadoran and US authorities to bring an
immediate end to these actions, ensure full respect for human rights,
restore due process, guarantee the right to asylum and the principle of
non-refoulement, and effectively protect all detainees from torture,
incommunicado detention and enforced disappearance.
Piquer
concluded: “We remind the authorities in El Salvador and the United
States of America that the rights to freedom, a fair trial, asylum,
legal defence and protection against torture and enforced disappearance
are not privileges, but rather obligations that their governments must
uphold at all times. Security cannot be built on the ashes of justice,
nor can models that replace the violence of criminal organizations with
institutional violence be considered a success.“
Human Rights Watch covers El Salvador and the War Criminal leading the nation here and we'll note this from it:
Local and international human rights groups have documented mass arbitrary detention, torture, and, in some cases, sexual violence against women and girls in detention, and enforced disappearances. Authorities have not reported charging, indicting or convicting any police or military officers in connection with these abuses. In a September report, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), found “reports” of “widespread and systematic human rights violations” and urged authorities to “end the state of emergency.”
Many detainees have no apparent connections to gang-related violence. Arrests often appear to be based on the detainees’ appearance and anonymous complaints, rather than on evidence. Security forces routinely fail to present warrants or provide reasons for arrests. Many detentions appear to have been driven by a policy of “quotas” imposed by commanders of the National Civil Police.
Mass imprisonment has raised El Salvador’s prison population to an estimated 108,000 detainees, exceeding the prison capacity by 38,000, and worsening already poor prison conditions. An alarming 1.7 percent of the country’s population is now detained.
At least 261 detainees have died in prison during the state of emergency, Cristosal, a human rights group, reported in July. Attorney General Rodolfo Delgado said in June 2023 that 142 investigations into deaths in custody had been closed.
In January, El Salvador rejected a request for a visit by the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances.
Grasp
that Chump sent those 300 Venezuelans to a country where checks and
balances have been destroyed, where the War Criminal just won
re-election despite the law barring him from legally running, where
prison abuse is rampant and where the prisons are overcrowded.
Dirty MAGA freaks, you feeling good about Chump now? Still pretending to be Christians, though, right?
If
you missed it, Ava and I addressed the Chump supporters Christian
Nationalist 'movement' in "MEDIA: YOUR FRIENDS & NEIGHBORS and your non-friends too!" and we noted that the reason they're lying
about Jesus and empathy is because you can't be MAGA and have empathy.
So they lie and distort while pretending to be disciples of the
Christian faith. In other times, they perverted Christianity for
greed.
That's the thing
about Chump and his chumps, there is no compassion, there is only evil
and hate. That's what they run on. They are The Politics of
Destruction and they will destroy this country if they are not reigned
in and if they do not receive strong pushback.
The
recent raid by federal agents on two homes owned by a China-born
cybersecurity professor has shocked his community and struck fear
through fellow academics.
Xiaofeng Wang had
been questioned by his employers at Indiana University in December about
alleged undisclosed payments from China for a project that also
received U.S. federal research grants, and though he hasn't been charged
with any crimes, he was fired on the same day as the raids in an
apparent violation of the school's own policy, reported The Guardian.
[. . .]
Other Asian American academics fear that Trump is taking aim against them.
“[It]
brings chills to our spines," said Gang Chen, a professor at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “What is particularly troubling
in this case is that Indiana University fired him and his wife without
due process, presuming guilt instead of innocence."
Chen,
who has dual American and Chinese nationality, was charged by the DOJ
in January 2021, during the final weeks of Trump's first term, for
allegedly failing to disclose links to Chinese organizations on a grant
application for a federally funded project, but those charges were
dismissed a year later.
“The investigations on
Professor Wang and his firing creates huge fear among researchers of
Chinese descent, especially students and postdoctorates from China,"
Chen said. "It is clear that such events, together with legislation and
hostile rhetoric, are driving out talents. I learned that many Chinese
students and postdoctorates here are considering leaving the U.S.”
No
one is safe. And it's just getting worse. We have got to speak out,
we have got to push back. At THE ALANTIC, Nick Mirnoff notes in "We’re About to Find Out What Mass Deportation Really Looks Like:"
The
Trump administration is working hard to convince the public that its
mass-deportation campaign is fully under way. Over the past several
weeks, federal agents have seized foreign students off the streets,
raided worksites, and shipped detainees to a supermax prison in El
Salvador using wartime powers adopted under the John Adams
administration.
The tactics
have spread fear and created a showreel of social-media-ready highlights
for the White House. But they have not brought U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement much closer to delivering the “millions” of
deportations President Donald Trump has set as a goal.
“We
need more money,” Tom Homan, Trump’s “border czar,” told me in an
interview. “We won’t fail if we get the resources we need.”
Using
the budget-reconciliation process, Republican lawmakers are now
preparing to lavish ICE with a colossal funding increase—enough to pay
for the kind of social and demographic transformation of the United
States that immigration hard-liners have long fantasized about
achieving.
To put those sums in perspective, the entire annual budget of ICE is about $9 billion.
Didn't have to be this way.
But
you had the Rashida Tlaibs working overtime, posing as Democrats on
garbage like DEMOCRACY NOW!, and trashing Kamala Harris. There are
things every day that I could write about. Sometimes I don't because I
want to see first if anyone else does. Chump inferred in the only
debate with Kamala that she was a whore. And I waited and waited to see
who was going to step forward, what lefty media or MSM, and call it
out. None did.
It was
sexist and it was racist. But too many on the left were indulging in
their own sexism and racism to notice what Chump was doing.
'A
Black woman? Oh, that's not happening' -- that was the attitude. The
way that they savaged her -- I'm talking about people on the left,
Socialists and Gaza Freaks among others -- that had never been done to a
man before nor was it done to any woman -- not even Hillary in 2016.
But a Black woman, that was too much for them. That Black woman wasn't
going to do what she wanted, she wasn't go to do what she proposed, no,
she was going to do what they said or they would destroy her.
You need to grasp that.
This
was a visceral reaction for some people because they can't have a Black
woman in charge. They don't respect and they're not going to
recognize. The hatred spewed at her?
Look,
I supported John Kerry -- and I know John -- but, honestly, I supported
him in part because he was bland but electable. The Iraq War? John was all over the
map -- he supported it before he didn't ("I was for the Iraq War before
I was against it." -- did we tell him do this, do that, have this
speaker, have that or we're not voting for you!
No,
we didn't. And we had boots on the ground in Iraq. And Iraqis were
dying not because the US shipped some weapons but because the US
declared war on Iraq. When Barack ran he said troops home in ten months
but then he waffled on it. And everyone looked the other way --
including Tom Hayden -- we had a huge fight over that.
I can provide many other examples.
No male candidate for president on the Dem side has ever faced what Kamala had to face from the left. No one.
We did it to her, we didn't do it to any of the hims. As a country, we wouldn't presume to speak to a man that
way. Which, by the way, continues to this day as evidenced by the fact
that genocide isn't a charge CODESTINK and the others want to make
against Donald though they were happy to happy to make it against Kamala
who wasn't the president.
They would never treat a man the way they treated Kamala.
And
even now, when their panic should have subsided since they got what
they wanted (the scary Black woman's not in the Oval Office), they won't
acknowledge
that they held her to a different standard and treated her differently
because as a woman and as Black person, they didn't feel the need to
respect her and they damn well couldn't see her as the boss of this
country. It was just too much for them -- and, again, we're talking
about the left.
I've
pointed out Tim Walz's b.s. of trashing Kamala. John Edwards didn't do that to John Kerry.
No v.p. nominee has attacked the top of the ticket.
But fat ass Tim thought he could.
We're
all supposed to pretend that this break with convention has nothing to
do with the fact that Kamala's a woman and a woman of color?
The
left is not free of racism. You'll find lots of on the fringes.
That's how a Matt Taibbi or Aaron Mate, for example, is able to move
from the far left over to the right-wing.
You
couldn't see a Black woman in the ultimate position of power in the
US. Your racism was too great -- again, I'm talking about the left
right now.
So you put
Chump in the White House and now you want to pretend like you didn't and
you want to pretend like we didn't see your racism and sexism.
We saw. We witnessed. It's why so many Black women have chosen to sit out protests.
I do not blame them and there are so many days when I'm tempted to do the same.
Like
when a fat ass Tim Walz -- in all his fat Whiteness -- thinks he can
attack Kamala for the 'crime' of saying she told you so.
She did tell everyone so.
You
know who else did? Taraji P. Henson. She, more than anyone, put
Project 2025 on the minds of Americans. But she was attacked for it --
by the right? Yeah, but I'm talking about the left. Or are we all
supposed to ignore that Nina Turner -- who reads White -- attacked
Taraji for that.
Now I'm
not Taraji's biggest fan. She should have shut her damn mouth about
money ahead of the release of THE COLOR PURPLE. That was not going to
help her (and it didn't) and it wasn't going to help the film (it harmed
the film). Brenda Russell's work alone deserved a wider audience. And
most of us, most Black people in the entertainment field, are fully
aware of what happens when Black people are the leads in a big budget
film and it doesn't reach a certain mark. That film becomes an excuse
for the studios -- which really don't want to make films with a large
cast of Black people to begin with. So Taraji never should have
talked about that until, if she had to talk about it, after the film
left theaters.
So don't think I'm some huge Taraji-does-no-wrong person.
But her standing on that stage and talking Project 2025 was major and important and she deserved only applause for that.
She didn't get much of it from the left. Again, like Kamala, Taraji's a woman and she's Black.
I
don't know how much disrespect Tim Walz and others think we're going to
endure, Black women, before we just say "F**k you all" and turn on our
heels and walk?
I don't
need it, I don't want it. I'm not going to put up with it. Or with the
continued attacks on Kamala (make a point to read Betty's "Kamala for governor of California? Absolutely!" and grasp that even when the polling data is on Kamala's side, she's being attacked and told not to run for governor.)
It's
really funny how the left so often tries to use us as props and they
utter praise that they don't really mean. How many times has Socialist
Laura Flanders cited us and encouraged others to be like us? But there
was Laura ripping into Kamala Harris. I don't think we came up with the
phrase "Vote Like A Black Woman" but some on the left did. So it was
vote like a Black woman -- as a dictate -- up until a Black woman was
running.
'We can never get
over the scars and shame of slavery' -- insist some White leftists.
They'll tell us 'I support reparations.' Really? Because voting for a
qualified Black woman to be president -- especially when she's running
against a convicted felon who you know is a danger to the planet? -- to
me that's where you start with reparations -- putting the qualified
Black woman into the Oval Office.
Let's move over to the topic of Chump's disastrous economy. Lori Aratani (WASHINGTON POST) reports:
Boeing’s
787 Dreamliner jet is a multinational concoction, made of parts from
around the globe. Wings from Japan. Doors from France. Portions of the
fuselage are built in Italy before they are shipped to the United States
to be assembled by workers in South Carolina.
It’s
an arrangement made possible by a nearly 50-year-old trade agreement
that allowed Boeing and other players in the U.S. aerospace industry to
sell airplanes and buy parts from anywhere in the world, duty-free.
Now
President Donald Trump’s global tariffs threaten to disrupt this
interlocking supply chain. For the first time in nearly half a century,
Boeing will pay a levy to import those wings, doors and other
components. For now, there is a new 10 percent tax on most imports. But
that levy could rise depending on what the president decides during a
90-day reprieve he declared before stiffer tariffs land on most
countries.
While Trump has said his sweeping
protective tariffs will reduce the U.S. trade deficit, the levies on
Boeing’s parts supply line will tax a company that is America’s biggest
exporter of goods. About 80 percent of Boeing’s multimillion-dollar
planes are shipped to overseas customers.
“These
tariffs and trade restrictions have unleashed chaos in the global
aerospace and airline industry,” said Ken Quinn, a partner at Clyde
& Co and former general counsel at the Federal Aviation
Administration. “It’s only harmful and destructive.”
Need more examples of how Chump's tanking the US economy? Rob Wile (NBC NEWS) reports,
"Stocks sank Wednesday after computer chipmaker Nvidia announced it was
recording a $5.5 billion charge to comply with a new Trump
administration rule on tech-related exports. Shares of Nvidia fell more
than 5% soon after markets opened, causing the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell as
much as 1.7%. The S&P 500 declined as much 1%. The Dow Jones
Industrial Average fell as much as 0.4% or about 150 points." Jonathan J. Cooper (AP) notes,
"Trump was elected with a promise to improve the economy, lower taxes
and control inflation, addressing voters who said overwhelmingly that
the economy was the top issue facing the country. But for retirees like
[Susan] Hemphill, the Republican president's economic stewardship has
been defined by the roller coaster of the stock market and fears his
tariffs will lead to higher inflation." Rachel Siegel (WASHINGTON POST) reports:
President
Donald Trump’s tariffs are “highly likely” to spur a temporary rise in
inflation, Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome H. Powell said Wednesday,
cautioning that those effects could end up being longer-lasting —
prompting markets to slide and extend day-long losses.
Speaking
before the Economic Club of Chicago, Powell said more persistent risks
to inflation depend on how much tariffs end up affecting the economy and
how long it takes trade policy to pass through to prices. Investors
grew nervous throughout Powell’s remarks, especially because there is so
much uncertainty around how long the inflation could last, triggering a
market sell-off.
By market close, the Dow
Jones Industrial Average was down roughly 700 points, or 1.7 percent,
and the S&P 500 had fallen 2.2 percent. The tech-heavy Nasdaq
composite index, which has born the weight of the trade war in
particular, was down 3 percent. Chipmakers Nvidia and AMD said in
company filings that Trump’s recent executive orders would result in
major write-downs of the value of chips. Nvidia and AMD both saw their
share prices fall roughly 7 percent in trading.
At what point does even the most extreme of Chumps for Chump have to admit just what a destructive force Donald is? Will Travis Gettys (RAW STORY) report do it:
President
Donald Trump's social media company is marketing "America First"
accounts that would allow him to personally benefit from the tariffs
that have been roiling the stock market and lopping value off the
dollar.
Trump Media and Technology Group
(TMTG), the parent company of the social media platform Truth Social,
announced Tuesday that it was marketing a series of actively managed
investment accounts to allow investment in companies that benefit from
the president's agenda, and independent journalist Judd Legum reported
that his tariff policies could be used to manipulate the value of those
accounts.
"TMTG said the new
investment accounts would 'offer investors access to curated, thematic
investment strategies rooted in American values and priorities,'" Legum
wrote on his Popular Information newsletter. "Among the themes are 'Made
in America,' which presumably would focus on companies that would
benefit from tariffs on competitors who make goods abroad and import
them to the United States."
At what point is the corruption and destruction just too much?
We've been covering the way Chump's destroying tourism -- see Tuesday and Wednesday's snapshots -- and Lauren Peacock (IRISH STAR) reports:
The
United States economy is projected to lose $90 billion in revenue this
year given President Donald Trump's behavior and polices as president.
The
billions lost are expected to come from lost tourism and export
revenue, including the boycotting of American products, according to
Goldman Sachs. Bloomberg reports that many internationals are avoiding
taking a trip to the United States given Donald Trump's newest policies
as the 47th President of the United States.
Tourists
are worried about coming into the country due to potential problems at
the border given the Trump administration's strict crackdown on
immigration while others are simply boycotting America and it's product
to protest Donald Trump's newest tariffs, his treatment of international
allies, and more. It comes after Trump suffered a mental collapse after
a 'senile' moment last week and came up with a ludicrous way to make
himself look taller.
From Tuesday's snapshot:
Other
damage he's doing? The United States makes a lot of money from
foreigners traveling here for various events, conventions and sight
seeing journeys. Dallas, TX? A magnet for people around the world who
want to remember President John F. Kennedy. And a ton of people do
because President Kennedy was a monumental and historical figure --
unlike his nephew Tiny Balls Junior who is an embarrassment. Florida?
The incredible beaches. Key Largo, Key West. DISNEY WORLD, UNIVERSAL
STUDIOS FLORIDA THEME PARK, Daytona Beach, The Dahil Museum, etc, etc.
California? DISNEYLAND Park, the wineries, the film studios, the Golden
Gate Bridge, Golden Gate Park, Alcatraz Island, Pier 39, the beaches,
the San Diego Zoo, Catalina Island, Big Sur, Joshua Tree, Big Basin
Redwoods State Park,
Hollywood Walk of Fame, Santa Monica Pier, San Francisco Museum of
Modern Art, Mission San Juan Bautista . . . New York has the Statue of
Liberty, the Museum Of Modern Art, Central Park, Empire State Building,
Time Square, Grand Central Terminal . . . That's just a few things in a
few states. Most of the states have major tourist attractions. And
tourists from outside the US coming here accounts for a lot of money
each year.
Do you get how
much money that is? How many industries that impacts? You've got the
airline industry, you've got the car industry if the visitors rent a
car, you've got taxis and Ubers, you've got hotels and motels, you've
got eateries, you've got bars, many of the points of interest have fees
visitors have to pay, you've got the clothing industry since travelers
often purchase an outfit or two (or a t-shirt or two) in addition to
what they've packed, you've got shops -- souvenir and regular shops.
Or it did.
Do we grasp how much money Chump's running off?
In
2023, international travelers poured an estimated $213 billion --
billion -- into the US economy. That amounted to approximately $584
million a day.
And now
Chump's making us pariah around the world. See, sending people to a
gulag in El Salvador doesn't really argue for freedom and democracy.
And since Chump declares these deportations and imprisonments require no
trials, if you're in Paris, you really think Las Vegas or whatever is
worth seeing when, while you're visiting the US, you might accidentally
get caught up in one of Chump's dragnets and end up being taken not back
to France but a to prison -- one where the are no rules or guidelines
and people are tortured.
Chris Hayes covered the topic last night on his MSNBC show.
We've got one more issue we need to squeeze in. David Hogg. WBUR reports:
Democratic National Committee vice chair David Hogg says he wants to fund primary challenges against Democratic lawmakers who he feels are “asleep at the wheel” and not fighting President Trump hard enough.
“What we're looking for are people who are effective leaders to fight back against Donald Trump,” Hogg, the founder of Leaders We Deserve, said. “And I think good examples of what that looks like are like what our senator from Maryland is doing by going to El Salvador to say we need to do something about the fact that Donald Trump is disappearing people, members of families, for example, and taking them to El Salvador. And what we're trying to do right now is make sure that we rally our base and that we make sure that we have effective Democrats in our solid seats and we want to help win majorities as well in Congress, which is why we're not challenging people in more competitive races.”
Many people are in a panic and many people are thrilled.
David
might need to step down from his DNC post. I'm not saying he has to
but I'm saying he might need to consider that because this does come off
as a conflict.
I'm not saying not to pursue
his desired action. I see the need for it but it does seem in conflict
with DNC rules and guidelines.
Some are slamming him and saying he's too young and doesn't know this and doesn't know that.
They are right about one thing: He is young.
And we need young blood in the party. And we need to be open to fresh ideas.
He also needs to be open to sharing.
"Progressive."
You mean Socialists? You're not going to find a lot of support for
that after DSA rat-f**ked the Democratic Party in 2024. Their campaing
against Kamala will not be forgotten nor forgiven.
"Progressive." You damn well better define it.
Because
that's the only guidance you've provided. What is progressive? You
have to define it. Is it supporting Medicare For All, for example?
What is it?
We don't need an airy label that so many have hidden behind.
You're announcing you're doing this, then you need to explain exactly what this is.
And if this not about actual Democrats getting into office, you need to resign your post.
I'm
fine with him pursuing his advocacy and holding his post -- unless this
is a move that intendes to push Democrats out of office to replace them
with non-Democrats. If that's the case, he doesn't need to part of the
DNC.
I think he has every right to explore
this topic and to do his advocacy. And if it's not in opposition to the
Democratic Party, no problem he should be able to do both the advocacy
and hold DNC office.
I think a conversation
should have been started about this and not an announcement. It's too
late for that now, so we're left with it being out of order timeline
wise but we still need the conversation.
That includes how this could help the party -- and it could.
It also includes noting things like Joe Lieberman.
We
wanted him out. He was a War Hawk. We donated to Ned Lamont who
primaried Joe. Ned won the primary. Joe then ran in the general
election as an independent. And Joe remained in the Senate.
What are the aims of David's proposal?
What
do we think the cost of a heated primary that might leave somone David
objects to still on the ballot but deeply wounded ahead of the general
election?
There's a lot to talk about. The discussion needs to be had.
I
support David as long as this is about Democrats and not about
we-all-pretend-Socialist-Rashida-is-a-Democrat and we oust an actual
Democrat from office.
He's put this option on
the table. He needs to address it at length. He needs to comment and
others need to comment back to create a real and honest conversation.
Some
are already screaming for his head. I am not. I think this is a
needed conversation and I hope he goes into greater detail what he's
attempting.
The following sites updated:
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Aimee Lou Wood and WHITE LOTUS9 hours ago
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Zuckerberg is SUCKERberg9 hours ago
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Bernadette Peters9 hours ago
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An Alien Musk Left Lonely9 hours ago
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Summer Vegetable Saute in the Kitchen9 hours ago
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Musk is one sick f**k9 hours ago
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