Francis

Francis had many real and undoubted virtues. His love for the poor and marginalized was not a show, likewise his humility. Yet I can't help but recall Winston Churchill's damning assessment of Clement Attlee; "a humble man, with much to be humble about." 

The  hallmark of his pontificate was the elevation of religious indifference, and by extension indifference to Divine Revelation itself, to a degree that made the proclamation of anything as objectively true, a punishable offense. I honestly have more respect for Calvin and Luther who at least stood for something. At the end of the day Francis was a heretic. Who, in the course of twelve years did incalculable damage to his own church, and by example to much of Christendom. Out of charity, I shall refrain from further comment on his legacy until after the funeral. 

Hungary takes another step towards dictatorship

Just last week, Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party adopted a bill that would allow the government to temporarily strip dual citizens — specifically those who are also nationals of non-EU or non-European Economic Area countries — of their Hungarian passports, should they be deemed to have acted “in the interest of foreign powers” and “undermined the sovereignty of Hungary.” 

The ambitions of this bill are clear as day. This is not about national security; it’s about silencing dissent. It’s about targeting civil society, journalists and activists — both within Hungary and the diaspora — who refuse to fall in line with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

I’ve already been the subject of many such attacks. My name and my organization, Action for Democracy, have been fixtures of the Hungarian government’s propaganda machine for years.

The government has commissioned illegal surveillance, covertly recording videos and taking photographs of me and my family in front of our apartment in New York. It has published unfounded allegations in pro-government newspapers. It has launched misogynistic attacks against my wife. And it has instructed the Hungarian intelligence agencies, as well as the Orwellian “Sovereignty Protection Authority” — a body modeled on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s repressive state machinery — to investigate my organization on the grounds of “national security.”

Read the rest here.

The Face-Plant President

Harold Macmillan, the midcentury British prime minister, supposedly said that what statesmen feared most were “events, dear boy, events.” Misfortunes happen: a natural disaster, a terrorist attack, a foreign crisis. Political leaders are judged by how adroitly or incompetently they handle the unexpected.

Luckily, the Trump administration hasn’t yet had such misfortunes. Its only misfortune — and therefore everyone else’s — is itself.

So much has been obvious again this week, thanks to two stories that are, at their core, the same. First, there was the revelation that Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, had shared sensitive details of the military strike on Yemen with his wife, brother and personal lawyer on yet another Signal group chat. That was followed by an essay in Politico from a former close aide to Hegseth, John Ullyot, describing a “full-blown meltdown at the Pentagon” — a meltdown that included the firing of three of the department’s top officials. Donald Trump Jr. responded by saying Ullyot is “officially exiled from our movement.”

Then there was a market rout and a dollar plunge, thanks to President Trump’s unseemly and unhinged attacks on Jerome Powell, the Fed chairman. Powell’s sin was to have the audacity to describe the probable effects of the president’s tariffs: namely, that they’ll cause prices to go up and growth to slow down. This sent Trump into a rage, complete with White House threats to examine whether Powell can be fired — a potential assault on central bank independence worthy of the worst economic days of Argentina.

Both cases are about adult supervision: the absence of it in the first instance, the presence of it in the other and the president’s strong preference for the former. Why? Probably for the same reason that tin-pot dictators elevate incompetent toadies to top security posts: They are more dependent and less of a threat. The last thing Trump wants at the Pentagon is another Jim Mattis, secure enough in himself to be willing to resign on principle.

The same goes for other departments of government.

An adult secretary of state would never have allowed his department to be gutted in its first weeks by an unofficial official (Elon Musk) from a so-called department (DOGE) by unaccountable teenage employees with nicknames like Big Balls. But Marco Rubio has a moniker with a very different meaning, Little Marco. He’ll do as he’s told right until he’s fired, probably (like one of his predecessors, Rex Tillerson) via a social media post.

Read the rest here.

Kyrie Eleison

1936-2025

Paschal Services 2025

Christ is risen!

 

A (rare) Victory for Legal Sanity

LONDON — Britain’s highest court ruled Wednesday that the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex.

Trump Orders DOJ Investigation of Critics

President Donald Trump is targeting two former first-term appointees over their criticism of his actions, stripping their security clearances and opening federal probes of their tenures.

The directives that Trump signed on Wednesday order the Justice Department to scrutinize Chris Krebs, who ran Trump’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and former senior Department of Homeland Security official Miles Taylor.

The two critics are the latest to be swept up in Trump’s expansive retribution campaign, where he’s sought to use federal powers in unprecedented ways to punish political opponents, law firms, universities and others that he believes have wronged him.

A president ordering investigations of specific individuals whom he considers to be his political enemies is a remarkable breach of the traditional wall of separation between the White House and the Justice Department. Under that norm of separation, criminal investigations are supposed to be insulated from political pressure, but Trump has repeatedly scorned the notion of DOJ independence. Making Wednesday’s action even more remarkable, and perhaps unprecedented, is that Trump used the formal power of executive orders to effectively brand two individuals as subjects of criminal investigations.

Read the rest here.

Bret Stephens: There’s Nothing Real About Trump’s ‘Real America’

Even by the ugly standards of this administration, the case of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia stands out.

A Salvadoran migrant and metal worker in Maryland with no criminal record other than traffic violations and illegal entry into the country, he was arrested by immigration authorities in March and deported to one of the notorious prisons of his homeland, in contravention of a U.S. immigration judge’s order. The government acknowledged the “administrative error” — an Orwellian euphemism for a Kafkaesque nightmare — but petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a federal judge’s order requiring his return on Monday. The same day, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked the lower court’s order so it can have time to consider the case.

Abrego Garcia was an unimportant person when he was deported — except, of course, to his wife and son and two stepchildren. He is the subject of an accusation that he belonged to the MS-13 gang — but there is only flimsy evidence and no proof. The entire edifice of American justice is built on the conviction that there is no guilt without proof beyond reasonable doubt — and that there is no unimportant person, at least not in the eyes of the law.

I’ve been thinking about this case as an emblem of everything that makes Donald Trump’s presidency so vile and destructive, even when I’ve bent over backward to give him the benefit of the doubt, and even when I’ve agreed with him on this or that point of policy. I have, to borrow a line from Peggy Noonan, a “certain idea of America.” He ain’t it.

What is that “certain idea”? It has to do with a type of democratic nobility, something most of us can recognize the moment we see it. It’s Sojourner Truth asking the suffragists at the 1851 Woman’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio, “Ain’t I a woman?” It’s Lou Gehrig, stricken with A.L.S. in his 30s, calling himself “the luckiest man on the face of the earth.”

...This is what feels so wholly absent today. Those of us who count as coastal elites are expected to be deferential to the “real America” that elected this administration — one that’s supposedly more in tune with the country’s spirit than the Martha’s Vineyard set. Fine, please educate us.

But I struggle to understand what’s real in JD Vance’s shape-shifting political beliefs or Trump’s meme coins. I fail to see what’s American in denying due process to someone like Abrego Garcia, or in repeatedly threatening our neighbors and allies with treaty cancellations and possible conquest, or in cavalierly mulling an unconstitutional third term, or in profiting from political office, or in arbitrarily sacking senior military officers and national security officials because a conspiracy theorist deems them to be disloyal. I don’t grasp the connection between Making America Great Again while tanking that symbol of American greatness known as Wall Street — all in the name of an economically illiterate and diplomatically ruinous obsession with tariffs and trade deficits.

Read the rest here.

Angels for Sale

America needs to nail 95 theses to the megachurch door.

Last month, Paula White, one of President Trump’s most faithful and powerful evangelical supporters and a senior adviser to his new White House Faith Office, began offering “seven supernatural blessings” for the Easter season.

If you “honor God” during the period of Passover and Easter, “God will assign an angel to you, he’ll be an enemy to your enemies, he’ll give you prosperity, he’ll take sickness away from you, he will give you long life, he’ll bring increase in inheritance, and he’ll bring a special year of blessing.”

The suggested price for these extraordinary gifts is an offering to Paula White Ministries of $1,000 or more, and if health, wealth and an angel weren’t enough, White’s ministry will also give you a gorgeous Waterford crystal cross.

If you think White is alone in her cynical, heretical grift, then let me introduce you to Lorenzo Sewell, another of Trump’s Christian favorites. He’s a Detroit-area pastor who delivered a benediction at Trump’s second inauguration in January.

On the afternoon of Jan. 20, hours after he prayed in the Capitol Rotunda, Sewell posted on X, “The crypto community was kind enough to send me $Lorenzo, so I have permanently locked my tokens into a Liquidity Pool, so that I will never sell on the community but rather just earn fees as our token continues to flourish!”

“Amazing day, all the glory to God,” he added.

Read the rest here.

Reality Check: RFK Jr is a nut, promoting fringe conspiracy theories and medical quackery

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine crusader, is not qualified to have any power at the agency that’s supposed to protect the health of Americans, said research analysts at Cantor Fitzgerald, which was formerly headed by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

Cantor’s note came as Peter Marks, the head of the Food and Drug Administration’s biologics division, resigned in protest of Kennedy’s skepticism of vaccines. Kennedy has already taken steps that public health experts say could deter routine immunizations in the U.S.

“We call on the administration to re-evaluate RFK Jr’s role at HHS. Pushing out one of the most trusted leaders of the FDA to promote an anti-science agenda is a step too far for us,” analysts Josh Schimmer and Eric Schmidt wrote in an unusual note to clients Tuesday. “HHS cannot be led by an anti-vax, conspiracy theorist with inadequate training.”

Kennedy has downplayed the importance of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine and promoted unproven treatments to counter a measles outbreak. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is also carrying out a study into long-debunked links between vaccines and autism, led by a researcher with a history of spreading misinformation about shots.

Read the rest here.

EU Prepares Retaliation for Trump Tariffs

...“We will approach these negotiations from a position of strength,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a speech to the European Parliament on Tuesday, the eve of Trump’s big tariff announcement.

“Europe holds a lot of cards. From trade to technology, to the size of our market. But this strength is also built on our readiness to take firm countermeasures. All instruments are on the table.”

In targeting U.S. services, Brussels could be thinking of bulge-bracket banks like J.P. Morgan or Bank of America, or tech players like Elon Musk’s social network X, search giant Google, or Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer.

“We are certainly not excluding a bigger response, a better response and an even more creative response through services, through [intellectual property rights],” a senior European Union official told reporters in mid-March.

The EU is a net exporter of automobiles, pharmaceuticals and food to the U.S. But it’s a net importer of services — and that gives it more leverage in a trade dispute. (Taking goods and services together, transatlantic trade is actually broadly in balance. The EU enjoys an overall surplus of just $50 billion, or about 3 percent of the $1.7 trillion in annual transatlantic commerce.)

“America’s tech giants, financial industry, and pharma companies have deep roots in Europe. Push too far, and Brussels could tighten the screws: digital levies on Silicon Valley, regulatory clamps on Wall Street, or taxes on U.S. pharma exports,” said Tobias Gehrke, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. 

“America may wield the bigger stick, but Europe has plenty of sharp stones to throw.”

Read the rest here.

Various for 3/31

Trump is about to impose one of the largest tax hikes in history

Germans are getting nervous about their gold

Germany wants to sanction Hungary's authoritarian regime

Trump, again, hints at force to seize Greenland

Lessons for America in Russia's disastrous war

Trump says there are "methods" to serve a third term   (He's right. The constitution could be amended. Or he could simply ignore it.)

Amidst trade wars, rising concern over inflation, and the inability of the US Government to deal with the debt; gold shatters records.

On the rule of law

The MAGA movement is attacking the American judiciary. The evidence is everywhere.

Let’s begin with President Trump. On his Truth Social account, in post after post he has ranted against the judges who’ve ruled against his policies. He has said that judges who rule against him should be impeached. He’s called them “lunatics,” and on Sunday he posted an article by the far-right outlet Gateway Pundit that made the case that federal judges were guilty of “sedition and treason.”

It’s tempting to ignore Trump’s rants as examples of an undisciplined man merely venting, but if there is one thing we know from the opening months of his second term, it’s that his powerful supporters are taking all of Trump’s words very seriously indeed.

On Tuesday, for example, Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House, floated the idea of enacting legislation that would eliminate judicial districts or defund the courts in response to rulings against the Trump administration.

“We do have the authority over the federal courts, as you know. We can eliminate an entire district court. We have power of funding over the courts and all these other things,” he said. “But desperate times call for desperate measures, and Congress is going to act.”

So this is when Congress rises from its slumber? To make sure that Trump is protected from prompt judicial review? This is a telling indication that the Republican Congress exists only to please Trump.

Elon Musk, Trump’s virtual co-president, has called the rulings against the Trump administration a “judicial coup,” has demanded the impeachment of federal judges, and has said the Trump administration should fight against “activist” members of the judiciary.

The list goes on. Stephen Miller posted on social media last week, “Under what theory of the constitution does a single marxist judge in San Francisco have the same executive power as the Commander-in-Chief elected by the whole nation to lead the executive branch?” He called the rulings against Trump “naked judicial tyranny.”

In February, JD Vance posted, “If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal. If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that’s also illegal. Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.”

And lest we think this is all just words, Republican lawmakers have now filed articles of impeachment against several federal judges in response to their rulings.

Trumpists are having a temper tantrum, but it’s a mistake to treat their arguments against the federal judiciary as merely a fit. The second Trump term is substantially different from Trump’s first term in a key respect — the people around him have developed actual legal theories and policy ideas to buttress, direct and channel Trump’s impulses.

And these legal theories and policy ideas make Trump’s second term far more dangerous to the Constitution than his first.

In a nutshell, here’s the Trumpist argument: As Miller put it in a press briefing last month, “The whole will of democracy is imbued into the elected president.” He is the only elected official who represents the whole of the American people, and he embodies the people’s general will. Every member of the House has his or her small, defined constituency. Every member of the Senate is confined to representing a single state. The president, by contrast, is elected by the whole of America.

As a result, Miller argued, he is the best expression of American popular will, and Article II of the Constitution, which vests “the executive power” in the president, gives the president the power to hire staff to “impose that democratic will onto the government.”

Under this theory, the president even has the power to issue definitive legal interpretations that control executive branch functions. As he said in an executive order in February, “The President and the Attorney General, subject to the President’s supervision and control, shall provide authoritative interpretations of law for the executive branch.”

Read the rest here.

Various for 3/26

GOP considers eliminating courts that defy Trump

Trump floats possibility of compensation for Jan. 6 rioters (This would be for the rioters, not the people they hurt.)

Trump admin considers killing big energy projects in Dem states

DOGE says it needs to know the government's most sensitive data, but can't say why

Trump’s Canadian Collateral Damage

Pope Francis’ doctors considered stopping treatment to ‘let him go’

Democrats flip a deep red state senate seat in Pennsylvania

EU says 'unconditional withdrawal' of Russia from Ukraine is a precondition to amend sanctions

Trump has blown up the world order 

Noah Rothman: America is now in the business of extortion

Russia sentences Ukrainian POWs for "Terrorism" 

New German Government to Toughen Immigration Policy

The Ukrainian teens who took on Putin's gulag archipelago

Various...

‘Amateur hour’: Washington aghast at Trump administration’s war plan group chat

America’s rich scramble to open Swiss bank accounts over Trump fears

Trump says countries that purchase oil from Venezuela will pay 25% tariff on any trade with U.S.

Americans Are Buying an Escape Plan

That Portrait (I'm  not seeing the big deal. I saw it and it looks pretty good to me.)

US could default on debt as soon as July

Erdoğan seizes geopolitical moment to snuff out democratic opposition

Tesla Sales in Europe Crater

On Foreign Affairs

The ‘Free World’ Is Gone and There’s No Turning Back

Canada, May I Introduce You to Ukraine?

Trump’s Lust for Canada Echoes Putin’s Lust for Ukraine

Trump’s expansionism threatens the rules-based order in place since second world war

The strong will do what they will, and the weak will suffer what they must (reposted)

Pope Francis to return to the Vatican

Pope Francis to be discharged from hospital tomorrow but needs two months of rest, say doctors

Worth a read...

Facing a suddenly hostile US; Europe turns to Germany and Berlin steps up...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/21/europe-germany-leadership-vote-spending-defence   

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/21/world/europe/germany-us-ally-relationship-military.html?unlocked_article_code=1.5k4.xjNZ.QvZ7je-pFlJW&smid=url-share

https://www.politico.eu/article/germanys-friedrich-merz-radical-spending-election-berlin-green-energy-fund/

Meanwhile Russia continues its campaign of disruption...

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-europe-hybrid-campaign-d61887dd3ec6151adf354c5bd3e6273e

Moscow and Beijing rejoice at the imminent demise of Radio Free Europe and VOA...

https://www.politico.eu/article/moscow-beijing-rejoice-europe-voa-radio-free-china-disinformation/

Four conservative columnists discuss Trump's enduring popularity on the right...

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/21/opinion/trump-administration-polling.html?unlocked_article_code=1.5k4.fw_S._UmbInlTdDWd&smid=url-share

On the huge run-up in gold...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2025/03/20/golds-3000-surge-why-the-fed-faces-an-existential-crisis/

https://www.kitco.com/news/article/2025-03-20/gold-rally-should-be-flashing-yellow-washington-international-investors

(I agree in part, but also think there is more to the story. Gold has always marched to the beat of its own drum. Geopolitical and US specific political tensions, and the out of control US debt are all contributing. Also there has been a voracious demand for gold coming from other parts of the world, notably China.)

Europe sees opportunity in Trump’s economic chaos...

https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-can-attract-those-who-seek-alternatives-to-the-u-s-dollar-lagarde-says/

The weird world of anti-vaxxers...

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/anti-vaccine-influencers-weaponized-measles-death-texas-rcna196900

Tesla owners are trading in their EVs at record levels...

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/20/tesla-owners-are-trading-in-their-evs-at-record-levels-edmunds-says.html

How Republicans Learned to Love High Prices...

https://www.cato.org/commentary/how-republicans-learned-love-high-prices

95 Years Ago

The Tariff Act of 1930 (codified at 19 U.S.C. ch. 4), commonly known as the Smoot–Hawley Tariff or Hawley–Smoot Tariff, was a law that implemented protectionist trade policies in the United States. Sponsored by Senator Reed Smoot and Representative Willis C. Hawley, it was signed by President Herbert Hoover on June 17, 1930. The act raised U.S. tariffs on more than 20,000 imported goods.

Excluding duty-free imports, when enacted, the tariffs under the act were the second highest in United States history, exceeded by only the Tariff of 1828.[3] The act prompted retaliatory tariffs by many other countries.

The act and tariffs imposed by U.S.'s trading partners in retaliation were major factors in the reduction of American exports and imports by 67% during the Great Depression.

Economists and economic historians have agreed that the passage of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff worsened the effects of the Great Depression.

Read the rest here.

Sunday of Orthodoxy

Great Compline with Canon of Repentance, Clean Thursday

Hours, Typica, Presanctified Liturgy, for Clean Wednesday

Memory Eternal

My aunt Catherine (Cathy), reposed last night following a battle with cancer. Excepting my mother who still lives, she was the last member of the family from that generation. May her memory be eternal.

Midnight Office and Matins, 1st hour for Clean Tuesday

Great Compline with Canon of Repentance for Clean Monday

Forgiveness Sunday

On the eve of the Great Fast, I ask forgiveness for anything I may have done or said, especially on this blog, that may have been a source of injury or offense. The last year has been a trying one on many different levels. The last several months have been especially so. Strong opinions have been expressed, which have at times sparked vigorous discussions. I think this is a good time to step back and disengage from the affairs of the world, at least briefly. Absent something extremely urgent there will be no blogging this week on any topic unrelated to the Fast. 

Ooops

Citigroup mistakenly credited a customer’s account with $81 trillion last year when it meant to send just $280.

The payment, which took place last April, was missed by two employees but caught 90 minutes after it was posted, the Financial Times first reported Friday. It was reversed several hours later and reported to the Federal Reserve and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency as a “near miss.”

Read the rest here.

A Day of American Infamy

In August 1941, about four months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Franklin Roosevelt met with Winston Churchill aboard warships in Newfoundland’s Placentia Bay and agreed to the Atlantic Charter, a joint declaration by the world’s leading democratic powers on “common principles” for a postwar world.

Among its key points: “no aggrandizement, territorial or other”; “sovereign rights and self-government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them”; “freedom from fear and want”; freedom of the seas; “access, on equal terms, to the trade and to the raw materials of the world which are needed for their economic prosperity.”

The charter, and the alliance that came of it, is a high point of American statesmanship. On Friday in the Oval Office, the world witnessed the opposite. Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s embattled democratic leader, came to Washington prepared to sign away anything he could offer President Trump except his nation’s freedom, security and common sense. For that, he was rewarded with a lecture on manners from the most mendacious vulgarian and ungracious host ever to inhabit the White House.

If Roosevelt had told Churchill to sue for peace on any terms with Adolf Hitler and to fork over Britain’s coal reserves to the United States in exchange for no American security guarantees, it might have approximated what Trump did to Zelensky. Whatever one might say about how Zelensky played his cards poorly — either by failing to behave with the degree of all-fours sycophancy that Trump demands or to maintain his composure in the face of JD Vance’s disingenuous provocations — this was a day of American infamy. 

[Emphasis mine A/O]

Where do we go from here?

If there’s one silver lining to this fiasco, it’s that Zelensky did not sign the agreement on Ukrainian minerals that was forced on him this month by Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary who’s the Tom Hagen character in this protection-racket administration. The United States is entitled to some kind of reward for helping Ukraine defend itself — and Ukraine’s destruction of much of Russia’s military might should top the list, followed by the innovation Ukraine demonstrated in pioneering revolutionary forms of low-cost drone warfare, which the Pentagon will be keen to emulate.

Read the rest here.

(Link fixed.)

Quote of the day...

My fellow Americans, we are in completely uncharted waters, led by a president, who — well, I cannot believe he is a Russian agent, but he sure plays one on TV.​ -Thomas Friedman

Source

First kill all the lawyers

After President Trump lost the 2020 election, his allies thought about what to do differently if he returned to power. One lesson from his first term, they decided, was that government lawyers, even very conservative Republican political appointees, had frequently raised legal objections to ideas he or his White House advisers put forward.

If they got another shot, they said in campaign-era interviews, they would install much more permissive gatekeepers. Now, a month into a term that has been defined by Mr. Trump’s radical challenges to the basic structure of government, his administration is moving aggressively to curb a critical internal check: independent legal thinking.

His appointees have swiftly cleared the Justice Department’s top ranks of career lawyers, even as Mr. Trump stocked leading posts with his own defense attorneys. His aides sidelined the department’s Office of Legal Counsel, bypassing its traditional role of vetting draft executive orders and giving it no acting chief. Last week, Attorney General Pam Bondi added to the purge by firing the top lawyer at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

This subjugation of lawyers has now extended to the Pentagon. Late last Friday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired the top judge advocates general for the military. As three-star uniformed lawyers, they give independent and nonpolitical advice about the international laws of war and domestic legal constraints Congress has imposed on the armed forces.

Read the rest here.

In Trump’s Washington, a Moscow-Like Chill Takes Hold

She asked too many questions that the president didn’t like. She reported too much about criticism of his administration. And so, before long, Yelena Tregubova was pushed out of the Kremlin press pool that covered President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

In the scheme of things, it was a small moment, all but forgotten nearly 25 years later. But it was also a telling one. Mr. Putin did not care for challenges. The rest of the press pool got the message and eventually became what the Kremlin wanted it to be: a collection of compliant reporters who knew to toe the line or else they would pay a price.

The decision by President Trump’s team to handpick which news organizations can participate in the White House press pool that questions him in the Oval Office or travels with him on Air Force One is a step in a direction that no modern American president of either party has ever taken. The White House said it was a privilege, not a right, to have such access, and that it wanted to open space for “new media” outlets, including those that just so happen to support Mr. Trump.

But after the White House’s decision to bar the venerable Associated Press as punishment for its coverage, the message is clear: Any journalist can be expelled from the pool at any time for any reason. There are worse penalties, as Ms. Tregubova would later discover, but in Moscow, at least, her eviction was an early step down a very slippery slope.

The United States is not Russia by any means, and any comparisons risk going too far. Russia barely had any history with democracy then, while American institutions have endured for nearly 250 years. But for those of us who reported there a quarter century ago, Mr. Trump’s Washington is bringing back memories of Mr. Putin’s Moscow in the early days.

The news media is being pressured. Lawmakers have been tamed. Career officials deemed disloyal are being fired. Prosecutors named by a president who promised “retribution” are targeting perceived adversaries and dropping cases against allies or others who do his bidding. Billionaire tycoons who once considered themselves masters of the universe are prostrating themselves before him.

Judges who temporarily block administration decisions that they believe may be illegal are being threatened with impeachment. The uniformed military, which resisted being used as a political instrument in Mr. Trump’s first term, has now been purged of its highest-ranking officers and lawyers. And a president who calls himself “the king,” ostensibly in jest, is teasing that he may try to stay in power beyond the limits of the Constitution.

Some versions of this are not new, of course. Other presidents have taken actions that looked heavy-handed or put pressure on opponents. No president in my experience at the White House, which goes back to 1996, particularly liked news coverage of him, and certainly there have been times when journalists were penalized for their reporting.

After an article on whether Vice President Dick Cheney might be dropped from the re-election ticket in 2004, The New York Times found it no longer had a seat on Air Force Two. President Barack Obama’s team tried to exclude Fox News from a briefing offered to other networks, only to back down when the rest of the press corps stood up for Fox.

But those relatively contained disputes were nothing like what is happening now. The White House takeover of the pool — a rotating group of about 13 correspondents, photographers and technicians given close access to the president so they can report back to their colleagues — upends the way the president has been covered for generations.

The alarm has been felt by media outlets across the spectrum. Just as the other networks backed Fox against the Obama administration, Fox has backed The Associated Press against the Trump White House and its senior White House correspondent criticized the pool takeover. The precedent being set now, certainly, could be used by a future Democratic administration against media that it disfavored.

Read the rest here. 

Crypto is near bear market territory

Crypto is flirting with, or potentially has crossed into bear market territory. A bear market is usually defined as a market index or asset class dropping by 20% from its nominal high trading value. Usually this is based on the price at the close of trading days. However most crypto currencies trade 24/7 so that complicates things a bit. That said, the by far largest crypto currency is Bitcoin  which reached a nominal high just north of $103k per unit in the aftermath of Donald Trump's re-election. During intraday trading today it fell to ~$82.2k which would meet the technical definition for a bear market. As of this comment, it is currently trading at just over $83k.  

Economists are sounding the alarm

Donald Trump’s assault on the US federal government and the world’s interlinked manufacturing system have together reached an economic tipping point.

“It seems almost unavoidable that we are headed for a deep, deep recession,” said Jesse Rothstein, Berkeley professor and former chief economist at the US labour department.

Once the pace of job losses crosses a critical line, the multiplier effects can snowball suddenly.

Prof Rothstein said monthly non-farm payrolls – the barometer of US economic health watched closely by markets – could turn viciously negative by late spring, contracting at rates surpassed only during the worst months of Covid and the Lehman crisis in 2008.

“I think we’re going to see historically large drops. Losses of 400,000 a month are not implausible because people are getting nervous out there.

“It is not just the federal employees being fired: it’s all the other people worried they could be next, so they are cutting back too,” he told The Telegraph.

Torsten Slok, of Apollo Global, said layoffs could approach 1m after factoring in the likely chain reaction through contractors. “We are starting to worry about the downside risks to the economy and markets,” he said.

Mr Slok said it is a mystery as to why credit spreads and equities are still so well-behaved when the US Economic Policy Uncertainty Index was now higher than at any time during the great recession.

Read the rest here.

Hello Utah...

"This is RFK Jr, the Secretary of Health calling. I wanted to talk to you about something important..."

RIP: Clint Hill

An American hero. He spent much of his life consumed by guilt (unfairly) for not being a split second faster.

Trump has switched sides

The US formally voted against a UN resolution labeling Russia as an aggressor state and demanding their withdrawal from Ukraine. All while demanding roughly half of Ukraine's GDP and natural resources in exchange for what one administration official described as "implied security guarantees." Trump's track record does not suggest much respect for the word "implied."  

Never in my life did I think I would live to see a US president, of either political party, reduce himself and this country to being the shoe-shine boy for a KGB dictator bent on restoring the Soviet Empire by force and terror. Ronald Reagan must be spinning in his grave.

Attention NATO; the United States of America has left the building. 

Boston in 1903

Sunday of the Last Judgement (Meatfare)

Pope Francis' Condition Worsens

ROME — Pope Francis was in critical condition Saturday after he suffered a long asthmatic respiratory crisis that required high flows of oxygen, the Vatican said.

The 88-year-old Francis, who has been hospitalized for a week with a complex lung infection, also received blood transfusions after tests showed a condition associated with anemia, the Vatican said in a late update.

“The Holy Father continues to be alert and spent the day in an armchair although in more pain than yesterday. At the moment the prognosis is reserved,” the statement said.

Earlier, doctors said that Francis was battling a pneumonia and a complex respiratory infection that doctors say remains touch-and-go and will keep him hospitalized for at least another week.

The Vatican carried on with its Holy Year celebrations without the pope on Saturday.

In a brief earlier update on Saturday, Francis slept well overnight.

But doctors have warned that the main threat facing Francis would be the onset of sepsis, a serious infection of the blood that can occur as a complication of pneumonia. As of Friday, there was no evidence of any sepsis, and Francis was responding to the various drugs he is taking, the pope’s medical team said in their first in-depth update on the pope’s condition.

“He is not out of danger,” said his personal physician, Dr. Luigi Carbone. “So like all fragile patients I say they are always on the golden scale: In other words, it takes very little to become unbalanced.”

Francis, who has chronic lung disease, was admitted to Gemelli hospital on Feb. 14 after a weeklong bout of bronchitis worsened.

Doctors first diagnosed the complex viral, bacterial and fungal respiratory tract infection and then the onset of pneumonia in both lungs. They prescribed “absolute rest” and a combination of cortisone and antibiotics, along with supplemental oxygen when he needs it.

Read the rest here

Crime & Punishment

Pope Francis, sensing he is close to death, moves to protect his legacy (Updates as they come in)

...Even if Francis survives his latest illness, observers see this as a likely turning point as Francis shifts focus from making headway on reform to locking it in. “He may not die now but of course he eventually will,” said one Vatican official. “We all die — and he’s an 88-year-old man with lung problems.”

Read the rest here.

Update: The Vatican reports that the Pope has double pneumonia. This is in addition to his previously diagnosed polymicrobial infection. Given his age and history of health problems, I think this must now be regarded as a serious medical situation. 

Update II: Via Rorate a report that RAI (Italy's public broadcasting giant) has placed it's Vatican broadcast service under alert for a potential major news announcement. 

Update III: Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has visited the Pope and says he is alert and in good spirits.

Update IV: The Vatican reported on Wednesday evening a "slight improvement" in the Pope's condition.

Moving Fast, Breaking Things, and the Oath of Office

In a remark that might seem to sum up Congress’s current approach to its oversight role, Sen. Thom Tillis (R‑NC) acknowledged the other day that the Trump administration’s opening moves to cut spending and do away with agencies without congressional approval were in some cases not lawful, but said, “Nobody should bellyache about that.” In particular, he said, “That runs afoul of the Constitution in the strictest sense. But it’s not uncommon for presidents to flex a little bit on where they can spend and where they can stop spending.” (I briefly summarized the ongoing lawbreaking spree in this space on Monday, and further likely illegalities have come to light since then.)

One group of thinkers who were given to bellyache when officials acted in unconstitutional ways were the framers of the Constitution, who had in recent memory the “long train of abuses and usurpations” committed in the name of the British crown. To guard against a repeat, they provided in Article II, Section 1, that the president take the following oath: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” In Article VI, along with declaring that the Constitution “shall be the supreme law of the land,” they provided that Sen. Tillis, along with all his legislative colleagues, “be bound by oath or affirmation to support this Constitution.” 

A lot of good that seems to have done. 

Read the rest here.

Trump Wants Ukraine as a US Colony

Donald Trump’s demand for a $500bn (£400bn) “payback” from Ukraine goes far beyond US control over the country’s critical minerals. It covers everything from ports and infrastructure to oil and gas, and the larger resource base of the country.

The terms of the contract that landed at Volodymyr Zelensky’s office a week ago amount to the US economic colonisation of Ukraine, in legal perpetuity. It implies a burden of reparations that cannot possibly be achieved. The document has caused consternation and panic in Kyiv.

The Telegraph has obtained a draft of the pre-decisional contract, marked “Privileged & Confidential’ and dated Feb 7 2025. It states that the US and Ukraine should form a joint investment fund to ensure that “hostile parties to the conflict do not benefit from the reconstruction of Ukraine”.

The agreement covers the “economic value associated with resources of Ukraine”, including “mineral resources, oil and gas resources, ports, other infrastructure (as agreed)”, leaving it unclear what else might be encompassed. “This agreement shall be governed by New York law, without regard to conflict of laws principles,” it states.

The US will take 50pc of recurring revenues received by Ukraine from extraction of resources, and 50pc of the financial value of “all new licences issued to third parties” for the future monetisation of resources. There will be “a lien on such revenues” in favour of the US. “That clause means ‘pay us first, and then feed your children’,” said one source close to the negotiations.

It states that “for all future licences, the US will have a right of first refusal for the purchase of exportable minerals”. Washington will have sovereign immunity and acquire near total control over most of Ukraine’s commodity and resource economy. The fund “shall have the exclusive right to establish the method, selection criteria, terms, and conditions” of all future licences and projects. And so forth, in this vein. It seems to have been written by private lawyers, not the US departments of state or commerce.

Read the rest here.

I think we now what Trump's "peace plan" is. It is the partitioning of Ukraine between Russia and the US. Reminds me of the Hitler-Stalin Pact in 1939.

Sunday of the Prodigal Son

In a rare coincidence Pascha (Easter) falls on the same day this year, April 20th, for both Orthodox and Western Christians. It will not happen again until 2034. Today also marks the beginning of "meatfare" week.

Quote of the day...

“He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.” 

 -Widely attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte and just posted by President Donald Trump on his social media account.

‘Canada First’ Conservatives primed for Trump fight

OTTAWA — Canada’s Conservative leader used a rally in Ottawa on Saturday to deliver a message to Donald Trump. “Let me be clear: We will never be the 51st state,” said Pierre Poilievre, warning that he is prepared to defend Canadians against the president at all costs.

“We will bear any burden and pay any price to protect the sovereignty and independence of our country,” he said.

The populist leader had been long favored to win Canada’s next federal election, which could come as soon as spring. But the race has been complicated by the arrival of Trump and by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to step down as soon as his Liberal Party chooses a new leader next month.

Poilievre, who has appealed to Canadians by tackling complex issues with pithy slogans, used a Flag Day rally to reset his campaign in response to tariff threats that have scrambled the political landscape.

Trump has pledged to slap Canada with 25 percent tariffs in response to a growing list of grievances. It started with complaints about what Canadian leaders say are small amounts of fentanyl and illegal migration entering the U.S. from Canada, but has since expanded to include banking, and the trade deficit.

“We are slow to anger and quick to forgive. But never confuse our kindness for weakness,” Poilievre said about Canada. “We are mild-mannered and made of steel.”

Poilievre had focused his “change” campaign on overturning Trudeau’s carbon policy. However since the start of Trump’s trade war a new ballot box question has emerged: Which Canadian leader will best defend their interests against the U.S.?

At his “Canada First” rally, Poilievre tackled the question head-on, laying out his vision for the country should he become prime minister, while leaning heavily on Canadian symbols and its history. He promised to “end cancel culture,” restore national monuments and make it a criminal offense to deface them, to expand Canada’s military and to update the citizenship oath with more patriotic language.

“Sometimes it does take a threat to remind us what we have, what we could lose and what we could become,” Poilievre said, pointing to an upsurge in patriotism.

The Conservative leader said Trump has two options: Work with Canada, or lose it as a friend.

As he defined the choices, Poilievre spoke directly to Americans, saying their “energy-hungry future” can not exist without Canada or its oil, gas and critical minerals. He argued that America’s defense is dependent on Canada’s North.

“Carry out the unprovoked attack on our economy and your consumers will pay more and your workers will make less,” Poilievre said. “Gas prices will skyrocket. You will turn a loyal friend into a resentful neighbor, forced to match tariff with tariff and to seek friends elsewhere. Both our economies will weaken, leaving less money for defense and security and our enemies will grow stronger.”

Read the rest here.

When you manage to p*** off Canada, you know you have accomplished something. And oh my but they are not happy. Canadians are boycotting American goods, cancelling vacations to the US and booing our national anthem at sporting events. Since the Second World War the Unites States has managed to accumulate a staggering amount of good will globally. I'm not sure what their objective is, but the current administration with it's bullying behavior and rhetoric seems intent on pouring gasoline all over that and tossing a match. 

More Admirals than Ships?

Pope Francis Hospitalized

Pope Francis, who was admitted to a hospital in Rome for bronchitis, is in “fair” condition with a “respiratory tract infection,” the Vatican said Friday in what is the latest in a string of ailments that have raised concerns about the 88-year-old pontiff’s health.

Earlier on Friday, the Vatican said Pope Francis was admitted to Agostino Gemelli Polyclinic in Rome. He was there “for some necessary diagnostic tests and to continue in a hospital setting treatment for bronchitis that is still ongoing,” the Vatican said. They later confirmed he was in the facility, and that he had canceled his meetings for the next three days.

Francis has made a number of visits to the hospital in recent years, and received abdominal surgery in 2023. He has been struggling with bronchitis in recent weeks and has asked aides to read speeches and addresses.

Read the rest here.

The Principled Resignation

Take notes please. This is how it's done.

What we have here is a Justice Department using its prosecutorial powers and discretion as an instrument of political extortion. The DOJ should be sanctioned. The Attorney General, and all those involved in this affront to the rule of law, should be disbarred for official misconduct and corruption. As much as I think Mayor Adams was very probably guilty as sin, the judge should dismiss all charges against him with prejudice to prevent any further abuse of power by the DOJ in that direction. Whether or not these orders originated in the White House is unclear. Unfortunately, with this Congress no investigation is likely to be undertaken. 

Trump Names His Price

American support for Ukraine has a price tag: $500B worth of mineral riches, said U.S. President Donald Trump. In the second part of an interview with Fox News that aired late Monday, the Republican said the U.S. should get a slice of Ukraine’s vast natural resources as compensation for the hundreds of billions it has spent on helping Kyiv resist Russia's full-scale invasion. “I told them [Ukraine] that I want the equivalent like $500B worth of rare earth. And they've essentially agreed to do that so at least we don’t feel stupid,” Trump said.

Read the rest here.

I love my country, though there are a few aspects of America's distant past that do not exactly fill me with pride. I expect that is broadly true everywhere. And of course, we all have the routine differences in political matters. But until quite recently, and conceding the exception of legalized abortion on demand, I have never felt outright shame for my country for anything it has done in my lifetime. This is a new, and altogether unwelcome sensation. 

Breaking: Trump to Order DOJ to Cease Enforcement of Federal Bribery Law

President Donald Trump is set Monday to sign an executive order directing the Department of Justice to pause enforcing a nearly half-century-old law that prohibits American companies and foreign firms from bribing officials of foreign governments to obtain or retain business.

The Authoritarian Checklist

What are the Core Attributes of Authoritarianism?

• Rejecting established democratic rules and norms.
• Denying the legitimacy of opponents.
• Tolerating or encouraging political violence.
• Curtailing the civil liberties of opponents.
• Breaking down social cohesion to divide and rule a society.

What are the Top 11 Elements of the Authoritarian Playbook?

• Divide and rule: Foment mistrust and fear in the population.
• Spread lies and conspiracy theories: Undermine the public’s belief in truth.
• Destroy checks and balances: Use legal or pseudo-legal rationales to gut institutions, weaken opposition, and/or declare national emergencies to seize unconstitutional powers.
• Demonize opponents: Undermine the public’s trust in those actors and institutions that hold the state accountable. Intimidate or suppress news/media outlets that fail to demonstrate sufficient loyalty to the regime.
• Undermine civil and political rights for the unaligned: Actively suppress free speech, the right to assembly and protest and the rights of minority groups.
• Blame minorities, immigrants, and “outsiders” for a country’s problems: Exploit national humiliation while promising to restore national glory.
• Reward loyalists and punish defectors: Make in-group members fearful to voice dissension.
• Encourage or condone violence to advance political goals: Dehumanize opposition and/or out-groups to justify violence against them.
• Organize mass rallies to keep supporters mobilized against made-up threats: Use fearmongering and hate speech to consolidate in-group identity and solidarity.
• Make people feel like they are powerless to change things: Solutions will only come from the top. 
• Place fanatical loyalists in charge of the armed forces, law enforcement and all other aspects of state security. Their loyalty is to the regime/leader, not the rule of law or the constitution.

At this point, I believe the Trump Administration meets most, but not quite all of the above criteria.

Trump, Vance Question Authority of the Courts

WASHINGTON (AP) — Top Trump administration officials are openly questioning the judiciary’s authority to serve as a check on executive power as the new president’s sweeping agenda faces growing pushback from the courts.

Over the past 24 hours, officials ranging from billionaire Elon Musk to Vice President JD Vance have not only criticized a federal judge’s decision early Saturday that blocks Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from accessing Treasury Department records, but have also attacked the legitimacy of judicial oversight, a fundamental pillar of American democracy, which is based on the separation of powers.

“If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal. If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that’s also illegal. Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power,” Vance wrote on X on Sunday morning.

That post came hours after Musk said overnight that the judge who ruled against him should be impeached.

“A corrupt judge protecting corruption. He needs to be impeached NOW!” said Musk, who has been tasked by President Donald Trump with rooting out waste across the federal government.

Read the rest here.

The constitutional crisis is accelerating, almost by the minute.

We Are in a Constitutional Crisis

In his first term, President Trump seemed to relish ripping through the norms and standards of self-restraint that his predecessors had respected. Three weeks into his second term, hand-wringing about norms seems quaint.

Other presidents have occasionally ignored or claimed a right to bypass particular statutes. But Mr. Trump has opened the throttle on defying legal limits.

“We are well past euphemism about ‘pushing the limits,’ ‘stretching the envelope’ and the like,” said Peter M. Shane, who is a legal scholar in residence at New York University and the author of a casebook on separation-of-powers law. The array of legal constraints Mr. Trump has violated, Mr. Shane added, amounts to “programmatic sabotage and rampant lawlessness.”

Mr. Trump has effectively nullified laws, such as by ordering the Justice Department to refrain from enforcing a ban on the wildly popular app TikTok and by blocking migrants from invoking a statute allowing them to request asylum. He moved to effectively shutter a federal agency Congress created and tried to freeze congressionally approved spending, including most foreign aid. He summarily fired prosecutors, inspectors general and board members of independent agencies in defiance of legal rules against arbitrary removal.

More than two dozen lawsuits have been filed so far challenging moves by the Trump administration, though many overlap: At least nine, for example, concern his bid to change the constitutional understanding that babies born on U.S. soil to undocumented parents are citizens.

Courts have temporarily blocked that edict, along with his blanket freeze on disbursing $3 trillion in domestic grants from money Congress appropriated. And a federal judge has temporarily blocked the transfer of a transgender federal inmate to a male prison, pausing a move in line with one of Mr. Trump’s executive orders.

But those obstacles so far have been rare in Mr. Trump’s blitzkrieg, which has raised the question of whether, in his return to office, he and his advisers feel constrained by the rule of law.

This week, Mr. Trump moved to effectively dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development and fold its functions into the State Department, making Secretary of State Marco Rubio its acting director. He had already crippled U.S.A.I.D. by imposing a “temporary” freeze on disbursing foreign aid that Congress appropriated, which as time passes is increasingly at odds with the Impoundment Control Act of 1974.

Since the first Congress, it has been the legislative branch — not the president — that decides how to structure the executive branch, creating departments and agencies, giving them functions and providing them with funds to carry out those missions. And Congress has enacted laws that say U.S.A.I.D. is to exist as an “independent establishment,” not as part of any executive department.

No matter. On Monday, Mr. Trump was asked whether he needed an act of Congress to do away with the agency. He dismissed that suggestion and insulted the officials who work there.

“I don’t think so, not when it comes to fraud,” Mr. Trump said. “If there’s fraud — these people are lunatics — and if — if it comes to fraud, you wouldn’t have an act of Congress. And I’m not sure that you would anyway.”

Rumors abound that Mr. Trump is weighing executive actions to at least partly dismantle the Education Department, another component of the government that Congress has mandated exist by law.

Mr. Trump and his appointees have also been firing people in naked defiance of statutes Congress enacted to protect against the arbitrary removal of certain officials, like civil servants or board members at independent agencies.

For example, Mr. Trump shut down three agencies by ousting Democratic members before their terms had ended. That effectively hobbled the agencies, the National Labor Relations Board, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, because they were left with too few officials to have a quorum to act.

Congress created those agencies to be independent of the White House, and all three have been understood to have forms of protections limiting the president’s ability to remove their leaders without a good cause, like misconduct, although only the labor board statute says that. Regardless, Mr. Trump flouted the limit.

Read the rest here.

Bret Stephens: Is This the End of Pax Americana?

Back in the 1990s, it was fashionable to complain about what Hubert Vedrine, then the French foreign minister, called American hyperpuissance, or “hyperpower.” The left-leaning diplomat believed the “question at the center of the world’s current powers” was the United States’ “domination of attitudes, concepts, language and modes of life.” What was needed, he argued, was a “balanced multipolarism,” which might counteract American “unilateralism,” “unipolarism” and “uniformity.”

With President Trump, Vedrine has finally gotten his wish, though probably not in the way he would have imagined, much less liked.

It isn’t exactly easy to make sense of the Trump administration’s foreign policy after its first bombastic weeks in office. Does it have a governing concept, beyond a taste for drama and the assertion, based on scant evidence, that this or that neighbor or ally has treated us “very unfairly”?

In an intriguing guest essay in The Times this week, Rutgers University historian Jennifer Mittelstadt made the case that Trump was a “sovereigntist,” a tradition she dated to 1919 and the Republican rejection, led by Henry Cabot Lodge, of U.S. membership in the League of Nations. Sovereigntists, she noted, also looked askance at U.S. membership in NATO, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act and especially the Carter administration’s decision to relinquish the Panama Canal.

That seems about right. Sovereigntism means a country doing what it wants to do within only the limits of what it can do. It means the end of self-restraint within a framework of mutual restraint. It means an indifference to the behavior of other states, however cruel or dangerous, so long as it doesn’t impinge on us. It means a reversion to the notorious claim, uttered (according to Thucydides) by the Athenians before their sacking of the neutral city of Melos, that “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”

Read the rest here.

Own Goal

The proprietor of the Gedling Inn recently offered a free pint (beer) for every goal scored by local favorite Nottingham Forest soccer club during the game with Brighton. Soccer (the Brits call it football) is not typically a high scoring game. Alas, this turned into a very generous act when the match turned into an unusual 7-0 blow out for the Reds. Apparently, a very good time was had by all. The total cost to the establishment was estimated at near ₤1,500. But the owner, a Mrs. Webster, was a good sport declaring how thrilled she was that the team was doing well. 

Source

Because no one should have to face capitalism alone

Trump Launches Trade War with China, Mexico & Canada (JP Morgan Chase Stockpiles Gold)

President Donald Trump has signed tariffs on goods coming into the U.S. from Canada, Mexico and China, the White House said Saturday, raising the risk of a trade war with America’s closest trading partners and threatening to drive up prices on everything from cars to avocados.

It is unclear when the tariffs will take effect.

Canadian energy products would have a lower tariff rate of 10%.

Trump said he was imposing the tariffs because he claimed the countries were allowing fentanyl to come into the U.S. More than 107,000 people died from drug overdose in 2023, with nearly 70% of those deaths from opioids, including fentanyl. Trump also said the tariffs were in response to a trade deficit between the U.S. and the three countries because the U.S. imports more from them than it exports.

Economists across the political spectrum expect tariffs to increase what consumers pay for a range of goods, including vehicles, electronics, produce and lumber. Tariffs are paid by companies importing goods into the U.S., similar to a tax.

Read the rest here

Meanwhile, JP Morgan Chase is airlifting $4 billion in gold bullion to its New York vaults.

Richard Williamson Has Died

The schismatic former SSPX Catholic bishop (and antisemite/Holocaust denier) was 84. 

Kyrie eleison. 

Even Progressives are Starting to Worry About the Debt

The 119th Congress began, as it so often has in recent years, with calls from Republican politicians for wrestling down the national debt, which is near a record level relative to the size of the economy.

But this time, the G.O.P. had company: Progressive economists and budget wonks, who have often dismissed finger-wagging about debt levels as a pretext for slashing spending on programs for the poor, are starting to ring alarm bells as well.

What’s changed? In large part, long-term interest rates look unlikely to recede as quickly as had been hoped, forcing the federal government to make larger interest payments. And the Trump administration has promised to extend and expand its 2017 tax cuts, which will cost trillions if not matched by spending reductions.

“I find it easier to stay calm about this threat when I think the interest rate is low and steady, and I think in the past year or so that steadiness has been dented,” said Jared Bernstein, who led the Council of Economic Advisers in the Biden administration. “If one party refuses to raise revenues, and the Democrats go along more than is fiscally healthy, that’s also a big part of the problem.”

To be clear, conservative warnings on the debt have generally been met with little action over the past two decades. A paper by two political scientists and an economist recently concluded that after at least trying to constrain borrowing in the 1980s and 1990s, Republicans have “given up the pretense” of meaningful deficit reduction. Democrats and Republicans alike tend to express more concerns about fiscal responsibility when their party is out of power.

Read the rest here.

Bret Stephens- D.E.I. Will Not Be Missed

In December 2015 the Obama administration decided to allow women to serve in all combat roles. “There will be no exceptions,” Ashton Carter, then the secretary of defense, announced. Women would be accepted as “Army Rangers and Green Berets, Navy SEALs, Marine Corps infantry,” among other demanding roles previously open only to men.

As for physical standards, those would not change: “There must be no quotas or perception thereof,” Carter said.

In some ways, the policy has produced inspiring results. More than 140 women have completed the Army’s elite Ranger School, and a few have passed the Marines’ Infantry Officer Course (though none, as yet, have become SEALs). Women serve with distinction in other combat roles, including as fighter pilots and tank commanders.

In other ways, however, the policy has realized the worst fears of its early critics. Though it has elevated women who meet the same physical standards as their male counterparts, it has also led to an erosion of standards. From the initial laudable goal — equality of opportunity for all, regardless of gender — the military has been sliding toward something else: equality in outcomes. That is what today is usually meant by the word “equity,” at least in the context of diversity, equity and inclusion, or D.E.I.

Take the Army’s efforts to create gender-neutral fitness requirements, known as the Army Combat Fitness Test. The test, developed over a decade, was designed to be rigorous, requiring soldiers of either sex to meet physical standards appropriate to the roles they might perform — with the toughest requirements for jobs like artillery soldiers, which require a lot of muscle.

But that caused a problem: Women were failing the test at noticeably higher rates, according to a RAND study. Among active-duty enlisted soldiers, the fitness test had a pass rate of 92 percent among men but only 52 percent among women. (Female officers did better, with a pass rate of 72 percent.) Democratic senators, including New York’s Kirsten Gillibrand, were also putting pressure on the Army to delay implementation of the test, arguing, as The Washington Post reported in 2020, that it “could undermine the goal of creating a diverse force.”

The Biden administration yielded to this complaint.

Read the rest here.

Joe Biden Inducted into Freemasonry

Via Rorate comes this report that the 46th President of the United States (nominally a Catholic) has been inducted into Freemasonry. It is worth noting that this was done by a Prince Hall Lodge, a historically African-American branch of the Craft founded at a time when blacks were generally barred from mainstream Masonry (AF&AM) here in the United States.

Scandalous

Anglican prelate Ian Ernest & Metropolitan Polycarp of the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, together with a sitting Pope Francis, administer a "joint" blessing at the ecumenical vespers in the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside The Walls (1 of 4 main Basilicas in Rome). 

Anyone conscious of the historic divisions that erected the schism between the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholics, and Anglicans, will understand the extreme significance of this. 

Does it breed indifferentism? Of course, it does. How could it not? You have 3 men who are presented as Apostolically capable of issuing a blessing upon the congregation, despite the fact that each leads a community of Christians that would mutually understand each other to be in either heresy, schism, or both. 

Read the rest here. 

HT Blog reader John L.

I have my differences with the Old Calendarists (self styled "True Orthodox). But they are not wrong when they point out the degree to which many of the local churches have swallowed the ecumenical Kool-Aid. This should be both shocking and scandalous. Sadly, my guess is that it will get a collective yawn from most of the Orthodox world. 

New Martyrs of Russia