I did some reviews on the Cass report because it was supported by so many anti-trans bigots. Turns out there were so many lies and errors in the report that it became clear the purpose was to discredit the clinic and get it shut down. The report was driven by anti-trans people and even Cass herself was well known to be anti-trans. But what is so irksome is the lies still get told and circulated repeatedly even when they are pointed out. The idea of social contagion was found to be entirely made up by people desperate to keep their child from transitioning. The idea came from a website set up for parents that had kids transitioning and they hated it. The Cass report used lies from that site as if they were medical facts saying that parents were not told and children were being rushed to transition, when even the parents admitted they had all the information in writing that they had to sign and the biggest complaint was how long it took to get seen by the clinic with many kids going through puberty before they got gender affirming care. The idea of large amounts of detransitioners is totally made up as real studies have found it is less than 2% and the regret levels are well below any other medical procedure. I wish haters and bigots would understand if they have to make up stuff and lie to prove their point then they have no point to make. They just hate the idea of people not accepting they are the gender / sex assigned at birth and don’t want to accept new medical data. Hugs
(Personally, at this stage of my life, I’m thinking of tattooing DNR on my forehead and chest. There is no need to rescusitate me now. But, over the years, I’ve watched little to no progress on women’s cardiac treatment; they’re treated as if they’re hysterical, and also by using research on men’s cardiac. Frequently, women’s heart attacks don’t present the way men’s do. Even though women bother to learn about this so they know when to get help, they aren’t able to be treated properly because of lack of knowledge, and, as reported below, disbelieving the women. Anyway, here is this.)
If you’ve been watching The Pitt Season 2, you may have caught one of the most medically important scenes on television this year. (Alert: small spoiler from last week’s episode coming!)
A woman arrives at the ER by ambulance, clutching her chest, complaining of pain. Her EKG comes back looking normal. Doctors are puzzled. Then her heart stops.
Dr. Robby, played by Noah Wyle, figures out what happened: the paramedics placed her EKG leads too low on her chest, and far too low to get an accurate reading, missing her heart attack. Later, he confronts the paramedics directly. They felt uncomfortable moving her breasts to place the leads correctly. He turns to his staff and asks: “Shall we put it to a vote? Ladies in the room—show of hands—death with modesty, or life with brief nudity?”
The vote from the women is clear: they want to live.
It’s a fictional scene (and in real life, public chastisement is certainly not the way to correct medical staff), but it highlights a very real problem we see every day.
Women are less likely to receive bystander CPR.
If someone collapsed at a restaurant, would you start CPR? It turns out that for many people, the answer depends on the sex of the person who collapsed: women are less likely than men to receive CPR from a bystander (a nonmedical professional who is nearby) in public, and they are less likely to receive defibrillation (shocks that can restart the heart).
A Duke University study of more than 309,000 cardiac arrests found that women who had a cardiac arrest in public were 14% less likely to receive bystander CPR than men. This is true around the world, too.
And women are less likely to survive. Chest compressions and shocks in those first few minutes are critical, and bystander CPR can double to triple the chance of survival.
Why are women less likely to receive CPR? The same reasons The Pitt depicted.
Researchers have asked the public why they think this happens, and the answers are striking:
Concerns about touching a woman’s chest to provide compressions.
Concerns about accusations of sexual assault.
Fear of causing injury to women, in part due to perceptions they are more frail.
Gender stereotypes that women are emotional or overreactive to symptoms.
Misperceptions that women are unlikely to experience true cardiac arrest.
While these fears may be common, actual cases of lawsuits against bystanders performing CPR are not—and Good Samaritan laws protect individuals genuinely trying to help in medical emergencies.
A 2020 review of CPR lawsuits in the U.S. found the vast majority of lawsuits were related to withholding CPR (not providing it). Lawsuits alleging harm from CPR were extremely rare (only 3 out of 170 cases), and all took place in medical facilities (not bystander CPR). The review found zero cases where a layperson was found liable for harm by providing CPR.
When should CPR be provided?
If someone is unresponsive and not breathing (or only gasping), start CPR. The basics are simple, and anyone can do it. Here’s a quick refresher:
Call 911 immediately (or have someone else call while you start CPR).
Push hard and fast in the center of the chest: press 2 inches deep to the beat of “Stayin’ Alive” (or any other song with a beat of 100-120 per minute). Let the chest return to its normal position between each compression.
Don’t stop until emergency services arrive. CPR is a WORKOUT. If you get tired (which is normal), try to switch out with someone.
Use an automated external defibrillator (AED) as soon as one is available. Follow the voice prompts, it walks you through where to place the pads and when a shock is needed.
Common questions and misconceptions about CPR
(Note: this is for the general public, if you are health care provider, different guidance will apply.)
Do I need to check a pulse?Nope! It turns out most people are pretty bad at this. Instead, if someone is not responsive and not breathing (or only gasping), assume their heart has stopped and start compressions.
Do I need to provide rescue breaths (mouth-to-mouth)?If it’s a teen or adult, for most cases the answer is no.Chest compressions alone (“hands only CPR”) can be just as effective. While rescue breaths are important in cases of drowning, suspected overdose, and for children, in most other situations chest compressions alone is enough!
Do I need to remove clothing to start chest compressions? Nope! The priority is starting compressions as soon as possible. If you find something they are wearing is getting in the way, then don’t hesitate to remove it, but otherwise you can do compressions on top of clothing.
Do I need to remove clothing to use the defibrillator (AED)?Yes—the pads for a defibrillator should be placed directly on the skin. Place them where the stickers show they should go, and reposition or remove any clothing that is in the way. (This may include a bra!) Metal in bras is not an issue for shocks—you can leave it on as long as it’s not in the way of the pads.
What if we’re in public and other people might feel awkward from exposure of a woman’s chest? Do it anyway.Remember, the alternative is letting the woman die. Other people’s potential opinions or discomfort should not be weighed as more important than a woman’s life.
What if they appear frail and I might injure them? Start compressions anyway. You can’t get more injured than dead—which is what a cardiac arrest is. Broken ribs are common in CPR (for both male and female patients), but people can heal from those. They can’t heal from a heart that stops beating and isn’t restarted.
If I haven’t taken a CPR course, should I still provide CPR? Yes! Any chest compressions—even imperfect ones—are far better than no compressions. If you’d like to take a course, find one at redcross.org or heart.org.
Bottom line
Women are less likely to receive CPR, less likely to be defibrillated, and less likely to survive cardiac arrest. The first few minutes after a cardiac arrest are the most critical, and CPR from someone like you significantly improves chance of survival. If someone isn’t responding and isn’t breathing, start chest compressions. Even if it’s a woman.
Love, KP
Thank you to Dr. Sarah Perman, emergency physician and cardiac arrest researcher, for reviewing this post!
Kristen Panthagani, MD, PhD, is completing a combined emergency medicine residency and research fellowship focusing on health literacy and communication. In her free time, she is a contributing writer for Your Local Epidemiologist and creator of the newsletters You Can Know Things and The Public Health Roundup. Views expressed belong to KP, not her employer.
Your Local Epidemiologist (YLE) is founded and operated by Dr. Katelyn Jetelina, MPH PhD—an epidemiologist, wife, and mom of two little girls. YLE reaches over 450,000 people in over 132 countries with one goal: “Translate” the ever-evolving public health science so that people will be well-equipped to make evidence-based decisions. This newsletter is free to everyone, thanks to the generous support of fellow YLE community members. (snip)
I was especially interested in the Justice Clarence Thomas comments, which I read, then became disinterested for reasons you’ll get if you read them. Lots of news of the day here.
A thin-skinned and prickly Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth went off on journalists in his press conference this morning, resorting to the classic “attack the messenger” defense to a unpopular war going poorly.
It’s not the first time Hegseth has succumbed to blaming a lack of patriotism among reporters for unfavorable headlines and critical reporting on a Middle East conflict ignited by the Trump administration. But today’s screed was striking for how it mixed the old worn-out reflexive questioning of the loyalty of reporters with biblical references that reflect Hegseth’s personal Christian nationalism:
“Sometimes it’s hard to figure out what side some of you are actually on,” Hegseth said. “It’s incredibly unpatriotic.”
In the decades since the Vietnam War, the Pentagon had haltingly moved away from the defensive crouch it often took in the face of criticism toward a more transparent and self-reflective public response to bad news. It was not always consistent and the backsliding was dramatic during periods of sustained setbacks, like in Iraq during the aughts, but the general trajectory was away from the kind of knee-jerk circle-the-wagons approach that Hegseth rolled out this morning.
Questioning the loyalty of journalists — or any regime critics — harkens to earlier dark eras of America history and to authoritarian regimes worldwide. But Hegseth’s diatribe came with a strong Christian twist, as he compared journalists to the Pharisees who rejected Jesus in the Bible:
“The Pharisees, the so-called and self-appointed elites of their time, they were there to witness, to write everything down, to record, but their hearts were hardened, even though they witnessed a literal miracle, it didn’t matter,” Hegseth said.
“They were only there to explain away the goodness in pursuit of their agenda. As the passage ends, the Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel against him, how to destroy him,” he continued.
“I sat there in church and I thought, our press are just like these Pharisees, not all of you, not all of you, but the legacy Trump-hating press, your politically motivated animus for President Trump nearly completely blinds you from the brilliance of our American warriors,” he added.
Hegseth — callow, reactive, driven by a warped theology of nationalism, and poorly grounded in history — personally represents a dramatic break from decades of training, education, and refining of a professional officers corps. In 15 months in office, Hegseth has done more to politicize the military than any secretary of defense in at least the last half century.
Third Boat Strike in Three Days
The accelerated pace of unlawful strikes against alleged drug-smuggling boats continued in the eastern Pacific, with the third such strike in the last three days. Three people were killed in the 51st strike of the U.S. campaign, bringing the death toll to at least 177 people.
What Trump Foreign Policy Looks Like
USA Today: Pentagon ramps up planning for possible military ops in Cuba
WSJ: Pentagon Approaches Automakers, Manufacturers to Boost Weapons Production
WaPo: Trump administration pushes nations to sign ‘trade over aid’ declaration
SCOTUS Watch
Justice Sonia Sotomayor apologized privately to Justice Brett Kavanaugh and followed up with a public apology released by the Supreme Court for remarks last week that, without naming him, attributed his defense of what have become known as “Kavanaugh stops” to his posh upbringing.
In a public appearance at Yale Law School, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson blasted the Roberts Court’s handling of its emergency docket.
In unusually pointed remarks carried live by CSPAN, Justice Clarence Thomas launched a broadside at progressivism.
Jan. 6 Never Ends
Trump lawyer and coup plotter John Eastman was officially disbarred in California after the state Supreme Court declined to take up his appeal.
Trump I White House chief of staff Mark Meadows is seeking reimbursement from the Trump DOJ of his legal fees incurred as a witness in both of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigations.
Must Read
Heather Cox Richardson draws a straight line from Lincoln’s assassination to Jan. 6 and the events of this week.
Do as We Say Not as We Do
NBC News: “Anti-abortion advocates met with Justice Department officials Wednesday, just hours after the Trump administration fired prosecutors it accused of coordinating too closely with abortion-rights advocacy groups during the Biden administration.”
Election-Year Islamophobia
When all else fails and their election prospects look dire, Republicans fall back on various forms of racist appeals to solidify their base and wrong-foot Democrats. This year, top Texas Republicans have landed on Islamophobia as the racist appeal of choice. TPM’s Josh Kovensky reports on the ground from Grapevine, Texas, where he talks to right-wing activists who are back again to warning about Sharia law and portraying Muslims as an external threat to “real” Americans.
Too often, gullible national media outlets treat these racist effusions like an organic upwelling of nativism, rather than a calculated election year strategy. TPM, I’m proud to say, has never been suckered in.
Thread of the Day
The Corruption: Bitcoin Jesus Edition
ProPublica offers a casebook study in the erosion of white-collar crime prosecutions under Trump II that includes the intervention of DOJ political appointees and the retention of a former Trump criminal defense attorney to outright kill one of the largest-ever cryptocurrency tax fraud cases.
Creepy Text of the Day
“Hearing u/r in town. Wishing you would let me know. I could have made some excuses to get out and show u around. Please keep this private.”—Richard Chavez, father of Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, in a text to a young female staff member working for his daughter
Hot tips? Juicy scuttlebutt? Keen insights? Let me know. For sensitive information, use the encrypted methods here. (snip)
Just one more pain and expense for migrants documented and undocumented face now under ICE. The goal is to make it so horrible that they will agree to self deport. Such hatred for another people simply due to skin color and language / accent is so foreign / alien to me that it seems like something out of reality. And who pays for these monitors? The immigrant who cannot afford it or the US tax payer. If the taxpayer meaning the government is paying for the costs is this just a way to enrich a private company on the taxpayers backs / dime. Yet all reports are that this is driven by Stephen Miller who is so shrill and over the top demanding that he put one commander in the hospital three times with his harassment and demands, and he is said to have driven ICE to attack protestors claiming that the public would be on the side of ICE if they could show that the protestors were dangerous thugs. Hugs
Agency uses devices, which are uncomfortable and interfere with employment, to push people to self-deport, advocates say
Critics say that ankle monitors impose psychological, economic and physical harms on the people required to wear them. Illustration: Guardian Design / Getty Images
For five years, an asylum-seeking woman attended routine check-ins with immigration authorities without issue. At her most recent appointment in October, she was unexpectedly ordered to strap on an ankle monitor, according to her attorney, Deepa Bijpuria.
Bijpuria, a supervising attorney in the immigration unit of Legal Aid DC, described the client as a single mom who fled her home country because of severe domestic violence, escaping while pregnant with her young daughter.
“[The order] was just such a shift after she’d been complying for years while waiting for her asylum application to be heard and decided,” she said.
Bijpuria said the working mom, who declined an interview and requested anonymity due to her vulnerable situation, lost at least one job after receiving the ankle monitor.
Bijpuria’s client is not the only immigrant to be blindsided by ankle monitor requirements. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) uses electronic monitoring through its Alternatives to Detention (ATD) program, which was formally implemented in 2004 to ensure that immigrants comply with legal obligations while their cases proceed without being placed in detention.
ATD compliance methods also include mobile apps and telephone check-ins. But Evan Benz, a senior attorney at the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, said there had been a “marked shift” towards utilizing ankle monitors following a June 2025 internal ICE memo directing officers to place the devices on anyone enrolled in the ATD program.
ICE is using smartwatches to track pregnant women, even during labor: ‘She was so afraid they would take her baby’
Read more
The number of people in the ATD program with ankle monitors nearly doubled in subsequent months, even as overall enrollment in the program remained stable. The total grew from about 24,000 at the time of the memo, a figure reported by the Washington Post, to roughly 42,000 last month, according to a February fiscal year 2026 ICE report.
The increase has not been evenly distributed across the country. The February ICE report revealed that enforcement varies by region, with the DC area having the highest number of people required to wear ankle monitors in the country.
“If you’re in the area of the Washington DC field office, which covers Virginia and the city of Washington DC, then you’re drastically more likely to be subjected to ankle monitoring,” Benz said. “But it’s not really clear exactly what the reason is for regional variation.”
In an email to the Guardian, an ICE spokesperson said that the ATD program used “individualized determinations” to tailor supervision levels on a case-by-case basis, allowing ICE to escalate or de-escalate oversight as needed. The spokesperson added that decisions were based on criminal history, compliance record and “any other relevant factors” when determining whether to keep someone in detention during ongoing proceedings.
Bijpuria said uneven enforcement highlighted the “arbitrary” nature of ankle monitor assignments, recalling many clients who were fitted with the devices despite having complied with their legal obligations. The cases, she said, raise questions about whether ensuring compliance is truly the goal behind the monitoring.
These concerns are reinforced by a 2021 study conducted by the Cardozo School of Law, which found that ankle monitors do not necessarily improve compliance and may even be counterproductive. The report found that 98% of immigrants released without electronic ankle monitors attended all court hearings and ICE check-ins, compared with 93% of those required to wear the devices.
Legal experts say uncertainty about the motives behind ankle monitor orders is exacerbated by limited transparency from federal authorities. ICE’s internal memo was never released publicly, prompting the Amica Center to file a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
Benz said ICE initially responded to the lawsuit by saying it would publish the memo on its website. The agency later said it could not do so at the time because of the ongoing Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown.
“We’ve seen that ICE is not an agency that cares very much about transparency in its dealings with immigrants, or really the public at large,” Benz said.
Julia Decker, policy director at the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota, said the lack of transparency reflected a strategy of “intentional chaos”, in which creating uncertainty and anxiety in immigrant communities was “part of the plan”.
Decker raised concerns that the use of ankle monitors and the broader ATD program could become another way to “force” immigrants into a mistake that would push them into detention.
“I think that it’s very, very likely that any program like this becomes a way to funnel you right back into the very system that it was supposed to be an alternative to,” she said. “Particularly with an administration like this one that has been very public with its statements about wanting to arrest and deport as many [people as possible].”
Benz echoed Decker’s concerns, calling the ATD program an “alternative form of detention” rather than a true alternative to detention.
“We’ve seen a number of cases where ICE has used the ankle monitor to track down someone at home,” he said. “Sometimes there has been a ruse of ‘Hey, can you come outside? We got an alert. There’s something wrong with your ankle monitor, and we just need to check it out.’ And then that person is actually detained by ICE.”
Immigrant trucker returns to war-torn Ukraine rather than risk ICE encounter: ‘I preferred going back home’
Read more
Beyond increasing the risk of detention, ankle monitors impose psychological, economic and physical harms on the people required to wear them, experts said.
“There are very onerous conditions of supervision, like curfews, home inspections and restrictions on where you can travel,” Benz said. “All of these combined can take a great toll on an individual on a psychological level. They don’t feel free. They feel as if they’re being watched, and they are also having their liberty, their freedom of movement, actually physically restrained.”
He noted that people wearing ankle monitors were more likely to lose their jobs, as the devices are often associated with the criminal legal system and can make those who wear them appear suspicious to employers.
Bijpuria emphasized the physical discomfort of ankle monitors. “Besides the psychological trauma, shame and disruption, it’s difficult to sleep.”
She added that the combination of deportation threats and the various harms of ankle monitors appeared designed to pressure people into self-deportation. Last year, the then DHS secretary, Kristi Noem, announced a nationwide, multimillion-dollar campaign that offered incentives for self-deportation, including up to $1,000 in financial assistance and free travel.
“We’ve seen people who’ve been detained or put on ankle monitoring who have options but, because of the conditions that they’re subjected to, ultimately decide to self-deport,” Bijpuria said. “You also have to remember there are private companies involved, and there is someone who’s making money from all this. They don’t have enough capacity for detaining everyone, so this is an alternative still getting you in that pipeline to ultimate removal.”
Amid the shifting landscape of immigration policies, a continuing DHS shutdown and leadership changes, Benz stressed the importance of submitting a written request to ICE for removal or avoidance of the device, supported by medical documentation demonstrating its negative impacts. Benz pointed to guides for attorneys representing clients in the ATD program and people navigating the process without legal representation.
“I think that [ankle monitoring and the ATD program] have flown under the radar in part because there are so many awful things that this agency is doing every day in terms of ripping people away from their families and their communities,” Benz said. “But the use of ankle monitors by ICE is a very harmful phenomenon.”
This is a doctor working in Gaza. He describes the conditions. The Israelis are sniping World Health doctors. Israelis are moving the “yellow line” that they are claiming is the new boundary line between Israel and Palestinians. They are slowly moving the line deeper ad deeper into Gaza. The Israeli snipers were shooting the young boys in different areas on different days, now they are using drones to fire on young children alone with horrific results. Remember from the last clip he was saying how Israel is blocking and destroying the medical supplies and equipment. Israel is deliberately shooting and killing children. They want the chaos it causes, they like the fear it promotes, and they like that no new generations of Palestinians are growing. The doctor spoke of other atrocities that Israel is inflicting daily on the Palestinians. Israel is a criminal nation doing a genocide, and much of our democratic leadership is deeply in the pockets of AIPAC. Notice that Hakeem Jeffries was also at the same event. People here have asked why I am so anti-democratic leadership; this is one of the reasons why. They are beholden to the big money donors and lobbies doing their bidding while ignoring the desires and will of the people they are supposed to represent, not rule over. Hugs
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has emphasized his commitment to maintaining pro-Israel sentiments within the Democratic Party. In recent statements, Schumer articulated that his role is to ensure that the left remains supportive of Israel, a position he conveyed during an interview with The New York Times. This assertion reflects a broader concern regarding the changing dynamics of the Democratic Party’s support for Israel and Jewish causes. Schumer’s comments have sparked discussions about the implications of this shift, particularly in light of the party’s historical alignment with pro-Israel policies. Opinion pieces have noted that Schumer views the preservation of American institutions as integral to protecting religious minorities, highlighting the intersection of Jewish identity and political advocacy. https://deepnewz.com/middle-east/chuck-schumer-emphasizes-role-keeping-left-pro-israel-says-job-to-keep-the-left-f0ff217c
“I have many jobs as [Senate] leader… and one is to fight for aid to Israel — all the aid that Israel needs,” Schumer said at a gathering of Jewish leaders and community members in New York on Sunday.
“I will continue to fight for it.,” Schumer continued. “We delivered more security assistance to Israel, our ally, than ever, ever before.”
According to Jacob Kornbluh, who provided footage of the remarks while reporting for The Forward, Schumer told the audience that his support for Jewish security funding will only continue growing under his leadership, calling it his “baby.” https://www.commondreams.org/news/schumer-israel-aid
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-New York) said on Sunday that one of his most important jobs as Senate minority leader is to “fight for aid to Israel,” as the Trump administration’s masked federal agents continue their deadly raids of the U.S. with little to no pushback from Democrats.
Dr. Tarek Loubani, a Canadian emergency room physician who has been volunteering in Palestine joins the program from Gaza for a harrowing interview. If you can, please support Dr. Loubani’s Glia Project, a medical solidarity organization that empowers low-resource communities to build sustainable, locally-drive healthcare projects.
WASHINGTON, DC – NOVEMBER 07: U.S. President Donald Trump (L) welcomes Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orban as he arrives at the White House on November 07, 2025 in Washington, DC. Trump and Orban are holding a bilateral lunch today and are expected to discuss trade and energy. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
It’s the Corruption, Stupid
In the aftermath of Viktor Orbán’s defeat in Hungary, a typically shallow conventional wisdom has already emerged that unless President Trump gets the economy turned around, Republicans are going to have hell to pay in the 2026 and 2028 elections.
The NYT quotes the right-wing commentator Rod Dreher, who decamped to Hungary to work for an Orbán-funded think tank, as explaining the election result thusly: “When all boats aren’t rising, everybody looks at who’s on the yacht. In terms of MAGA, populism is great, but if you can’t deliver on the economy, none of it is going to matter.”
That is abundantly true and yet terribly misleading because the economic mess we’re in is entirely of Trump’s own doing. He’s not the usual American president held hostage to the vagaries and cycles of an economy largely beyond his control.
In historic fashion, Trump has torpedoed key pillars of the global economy by launching unprecedented trade wars and an unjustified elective war in the Middle East that has bottled up world oil supplies to such an extent that it threatens a recession. At home, he has dramatically throttled back the economic engine of immigration, targeted America’s world leading universities, and decimated its vibrant scientific and biomedical research base.
Except for the racist assault on immigrants, all of these moves are not driven by ideological imperatives but by corrupt impulses. The economic damage Trump has done was crafted purposely to create opportunities for self-enrichment for him and his allies. It generates its own currency which can be used to perpetuate his political power. What he dispenses he can take away.
The family real estate business is undergoing the fastest overseas expansion since its founding a century ago, each deal potentially shaping everything from tariffs to military aid.
Led by Eric, and his brother, Donald Jr., the family business has expanded into cryptocurrencies with ventures that brought in billions of dollars but raised questions about whether some big investors received favorable treatment in return.
The brothers have also joined or invested in a number of companies that aim to do business with the government their father runs. Last month, they struck a deal giving them stakes worth millions in an armed drone maker seeking contracts with the Pentagon and with Gulf states under attack by Iran and dependent on the U.S. military led by their father.
It always sounds a bit earnest to deplore corruption, but one of the practical reasons for eschewing corruption is because at best it acts like an invisible tax on economic growth. At worst, it corrodes the economic engine to the point that it doesn’t properly function any longer. Before Trump, the United States was a world leader in combatting corporate and political corruption abroad for the unapologetically realpolitik reason that American companies could win on a level playing field. Under Trump II, the DOJ has explicitly stopped enforcing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and we’re now in a grubby race to the bottom.
Any notion that Trump can get the economy “back on track” or dampen the economic shockwaves he has unleashed ignores the substance of what he’s done. Not only are Trump’s second term attacks on economic growth hard to reverse, let alone quickly, they’re deeply wired into who he is and what he’s about.
The Economic Warning Signs
The Middle East conflict is causing oil scarcity and rising prices that are contributing to significant “demand destruction” which could lead to the steepest drop-off in demand for oil since the COVID slowdown, the International Energy Agency is forecasting in its latest outlook.
The International Monetary Fund warns that the Middle East conflict will slow economic growth, fuel inflation and raises the possibility of a global recession.
Latest on the Middle East Conflict …
Israeli and Lebanese officials gathered in D.C. for rare direct talks — the first in a decade — as the Netanyahu government has seized on the wider conflict to advance Israel’s position on the ground in Lebanon.
Bitter irony alert: Talks between Iran and Trump administration are complicated by “the risk that any agreement that emerges may resemble the 2015 nuclear accord” that Trump abrogated in his first term, the NYT reports.
House Republicans have again abdicated their oversight roles by pushing off until at least May testimony originally scheduled for next week from senior Pentagon officials on the war in Iran.
Latest on the Middle East Conflict …
Israeli and Lebanese officials gathered in D.C. for rare direct talks — the first in a decade — as the Netanyahu government has seized on the wider conflict to advance Israel’s position on the ground in Lebanon.
Bitter irony alert: Talks between Iran and Trump administration are complicated by “the risk that any agreement that emerges may resemble the 2015 nuclear accord” that Trump abrogated in his first term, the NYT reports.
House Republicans have again abdicated their oversight roles by pushing off until at least May testimony originally scheduled for next week from senior Pentagon officials on the war in Iran.
Lawless Boat Strike Death Toll: 170
The U.S. attacked an alleged drug-smuggling boat in the Eastern Pacific on Monday, bringing the campaign’s overall death toll to at least 170. In announcing the attack, the U.S. Southern Command introduced new Orwellian language: “Applying total systemic friction on the cartels.”
Meanwhile, the Trump administration is waging a pressure campaign against the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to squash a potential investigation into the boat strike campaign, The Intercept reports.
Must Read
TPM’s Josh Kovensky reports from Frisco, Texas, the country’s fastest growing city and a haven for South Asian immigrants, which far-right activists are seizing on as “proof” of the Great Replacement Theory.
Thread of the Day
Trump has cut legal immigration more than illegal immigration, as I predicted. While illegal entries have fallen, they continued a prior trend, falling more before he came back. Meanwhile, Trump has drastically cut legal entries, reversing the prior upward trend. http://www.cato.org/blog/trump-h…
Local authorities in St. Paul, Minnesota have launched a criminal investigation into the notorious ICE detention in January of Hmong American ChongLy “Scott” Thao. They’re investigating the warrantless raid on an American citizen’s home as a potential kidnapping, burglary, and false imprisonment.
American law is built on a simple rule: The government cannot get around legal limits by creating a new structure to do the same thing another way. The Posse Comitatus Act reflects that rule. It exists to prevent the federal government from using a large, armed force for general policing inside the U.S. But by tripling ICE’s size, giving it $75 billion in multi-year funding insulated from normal oversight, and deploying it far beyond immigration enforcement — from neighborhood operations to general airport security — the administration has achieved in practice what those restrictions were designed to prevent.
Swalwell and Gonzales Both Resign
In a rapid-fire combo of scandal-fueled resignations, Reps. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) and Tony Gonzales (R-TX) both announced last evening that they would resign their seats — though neither gave a date certain for their departures. Depending on the exact timing, the resignations should be a wash and not effect majority control of the House.
Two Big Wins
In the lawsuit over the removal of the Pride flag at the Stonewall National Monument, the Trump administration has reversed course and confirmed in a new filing that it will reinstate the flag and not remove it again.
The American Library Association and a union of cultural workers have reached a settlement in their lawsuit against the Trump administration that saves the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services, the NYT reports: “The Trump administration reaffirmed that it had reinstated all previously canceled grants, in keeping with a separate legal ruling last year, and reversed all staff reductions. It also promised not to take any further steps to reduce the agency.”
Good Read
Wired: Government Workers Say They’re Getting Inundated With Religion
Pope Making Everyone Look Dumb
The senior senator from Ohio:
Bernie Moreno on Trump’s comments about the Pope: “I was incensed to watch the Pope's comments. I think what the Pope is doing is a disgrace.”“It's a shame that the Pope has made the Catholic Church political. Thank God my mom’s not alive to watch that.”
Last year I posted about this, because of the consensus of attendees that they should prepare for war. Gee whiz they called that! A lot of people ignore this, because it’s all a buncha rich people who think they run the world. Well, it is a buncha rich people, and no doubt they do run some parts of the world, but all the wee little people all have free will, and they use it. Bilderberg prepares those with all the money for what appears will happen due to free will’s this, that, and the other thing. I don’t care who wore what, or even who was there, but the tiny things within the name-dropping matter; that tells us what they come away with as info for keeping their interests safe. So, in case I’m not the only one, here is this.
This year’s conference had plenty of newsworthy aspects, but it’s a mystery why the press fails to talk about it
The 72nd meeting of the Bilderberg group, the elite and secretive policy conference that is the longtime subject of endless conspiracy theories, was held at the weekend in Washington DC. A security cordon went up around the opulent Salamander hotel for the notoriously media-shy summit, which was packed as ever with prime ministers, military leaders, tech billionaires and the heads of giant investment companies.
Bilderberg, which since the 1950s has been the intellectual engine room of Nato, took place this year at a time of immense crisis and uncertainty for the alliance. In recent weeks, with Trump threatening at every turn to withdraw from the “paper tiger” of Nato, the “Trans-Atlantic Defence-Industrial Relationship” (as it’s called on the agenda) has reached a strained breaking point.
The head of Nato and Bilderberg regular Mark Rutte arrived at the conference fresh from a “very frank” conversation at the White House. But away from Trump’s bluster, and for all his rhetoric about abandoning Nato, there were no signs that the Americans are withdrawing from Bilderberg. Far from it – the Americans were there in force.
Wall Street titans, including the CEOs of KKR and Lazard, and the heads of huge corporations like Pfizer, met behind closed doors with a delegation of senior politicians close to the president. Big business lobbying in private is Bilderberg’s speciality, and this secretive mix of the private and public sectors fits perfectly with Trump’s brand of crony-capitalism.
Trump’s trusted secretary of the interior, Doug Burgum, was attending, alongside his favourite trade guru, Robert Lighthizer. They were joined by Trump’s economic ally Jason Smith, the chair of the influential House ways and means committee, and his secretary of the army, Dan Driscoll, known as Trump’s “drone guy”.
It was no surprise with the conflict in Iran dominating the global news cycle that this year’s conference had a wartime flavour: with the “Future of Warfare” on the agenda, and a participant list including the four-star admiral Samuel Paparo, head of the US Indo-Pacific Command. From the private sector there was a healthy contingent of military contractors and drone manufacturers, led by the Bilderberg insider Eric Schmidt, who’s the former head of Google and a keen evangelist for drone warfare.
Earlier this year, Schmidt told the FT that “future wars are going to be defined by unmanned weapons”, with “swarms of drones operated remotely and increasingly automated with AI targeting”. Thriving in this rich overlap between drones and AI are companies like Anduril Industries, whose co-founder and CEO, Brian Schimpf, is attending the Washington conference, alongside his collaborator in Trump’s “Golden Dome” project, Palantir’s CEO, Alex Karp.
Karp is close to fellow billionaire tech-bro Peter Thiel, whose name, remarkably, is absent from this year’s participant list. Thiel has been a member of the group’s steering committee since 2008, and it was unheard of for him to miss a Bilderberg. Thiel’s reach runs deep into the Trump administration, and his influence within Bilderberg has also been growing through the years. Through the American Friends of Bilderberg Inc, he largely funds the lavish Washington-based meetings, alongside fellow steering committee member and billionaire Schmidt.
Thiel operates in the powerful liminal area between big finance and big intelligence – most notably, he set up Palantir with the help of funding from the CIA. This shady intersection was the birthplace of Bilderberg, and is baked into its history: the group was set up by British and American intelligence, and there’s always a handful of spy chiefs at the conference. This year, three intelligence directors were present, including the head of MI6, Blaise Metreweli. It is a fascinating backstage world which Thiel will now miss along with the strategising, the talent spotting and the big ideological discussions on “China” and “the west”.
It was no small thing for the arch-networker Thiel to skip Bilderberg. After all, Bilderberg is all about the chance to stay three steps ahead with all that lovely, off-the-books access to policymakers such as breakfast with the president of Finland, tea with the head of the IMF, and cocktails with the King of Holland.
Quite why the press fails so spectacularly to talk about Bilderberg, such a major annual summit with so many senior politicians present, is an enduring mystery. This year’s conference had plenty of newsworthy aspects, not least the presence of Vivian Motzfeldt, the former Greenlandic foreign minister and ex-speaker of the Inatsisartut (Greenland’s parliament).
Motzfeldt was the first Greenlander to appear at Bilderberg, and her presence was a clear signal to the Trump administration that Greenland has powerful allies within the Trans-Atlantic partnership. Motzfeldt no doubt contributed to the session on “Arctic Security”, and might even have been moved to quote the final sentence of Trump’s recent anti-NATO vent: “REMEMBER GREENLAND, THAT BIG, POORLY RUN, PIECE OF ICE!!!”
But as there was no press oversight for this conference, it is something that we will probably never know.
Not before free public restrooms, but still. Maybe service organizations or churches can help out with space, etc. Anyway, enjoy simply reading about a nice thing.
The “wind phone” set up at New Vision Center for Spiritual Living in Phoenix.
Back in 2020, a woman named Amy Dawson lost her 25-year-old daughter, Emily.
In the midst of her grief, she discovered a monument in Japan, built by a man named Itaru Sasaki: a small white phone booth on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean, in the town of Otsuchi. Sasaki, who’d suffered a loss of his own several years earlier. He called it a “wind phone,” and the idea was simple: step into the booth, pick up the receiver and speak to those you can no longer reach on a regular phone.
Here in Phoenix, the idea connected with a member of the congregation at the New Vision Center for Spiritual Living, who told Rev. Karin Einhaus about it.
Critics say that ankle monitors impose psychological, economic and physical harms on the people required to wear them. Illustration: Guardian Design / Getty Images
Scottie's Playtime 