Members phkrause Posted Monday at 09:50 PM Author Members Posted Monday at 09:50 PM 📸 1,000 words Photo: Daniel Torok/The White House via X President Trump flies over Mount Rushmore aboard the new Air Force One on Friday. Chief White House photographer Daniel Torok tells the story behind the image: "In 2001, the iconic Air Force One was photographed flying over Mount Rushmore. Twenty-five years later, hanging out of a South Dakota Air National Guard Black Hawk with Isaac Apon, we photographed its successor — the new Air Force One (VC-25B) — flying once again over one of America's most iconic monuments." Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted Monday at 10:03 PM Author Members Posted Monday at 10:03 PM Trump's clean-energy toll Data: Cox Automotive. (Share of light-duty sales and does not include plug-in hybrid vehicles.) Chart: Ben Geman/Axios The GOP budget law President Trump signed a year ago has darkened the outlook for some clean-energy sources, but stopped far short of strangling low-carbon tech, Axios' Ben Geman writes. 🚘 EVs fell to 5.9% of new U.S. car sales in the second quarter of 2026, per Cox Automotive — about two points below a year earlier (charted above). 🪁 On wind, BloombergNEF's now projects 42% less power-generating capacity than it did before the law. It also pared back solar forecasts. 🏭 On manufacturing, the U.S. has seen billions of dollars in project cancellations spanning batteries, EVs and industrial decarbonization equipment, per joint tracking from MIT and Rhodium Group researchers. The other side: Rising power demand, including Big Tech's voracious energy needs for AI, is offsetting some of the headwinds the 2025 law created. Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted Monday at 10:54 PM Author Members Posted Monday at 10:54 PM Trump mixes patriotism with partisanship as he celebrates America’s 250th anniversary Speaking in Washington on Saturday, President Donald Trump honored veterans, including several from World War II and one of the first Black officers to lead a Special Forces team in combat in Vietnam. Yet Trump also leaned into partisan territory unusual for an Independence Day address, which presidents typically use as a moment to unify the country. Read more. Why this matters: Trump stumped again for the SAVE America Act, an elections bill that’s encountering challenges even from fellow Republicans in Congress. He highlighted his support for the Second Amendment and revived denunciations of communism, which are becoming an increasingly central part of Trump’s message ahead of the November midterms. The event organizers were largely aligned with the White House, supplanting a bipartisan organization that was launched by Congress a decade ago. RELATED COVERAGE ➤ Photos from 250th anniversary celebrations 150 people from 50 countries become US citizens at Mount Vernon on America’s 250th birthday Trump posts a doctored photo of the Obamas and Air Force One with graffiti spray-painted on plane Belgian diamond group that won tariff relief gifted Trump a lavishly encrusted ring Trump pardons former Abramoff partner, 9 people convicted of violating vehicle emissions controls Trump administration’s interpretation of slavery under George Washington can be reinstalled White House report brands Smithsonian leadership as radical activists who can’t be trusted Trump’s administration won’t seek new bids to repair the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted yesterday at 10:53 PM Author Members Posted yesterday at 10:53 PM Trump, 80, Humiliated With His Own Dance After U.S. World Cup Loss Players were spotted after winning the game with an eyebrow-raising move. Donald Trump has been personally trolled on U.S. soil by the team that ended America’s World Cup assault. The 80-year-old president personally intervened after Team USA superstar Folarin Balogun was handed a red card that ruled him out of Monday’s knockout game against Belgium, played in Seattle. After Trump contacted FIFA President Gianni Infantino, who invented a Peace Prize for Trump last year after he was snubbed by the Nobel committee, the suspension was dramatically overturned. It is the first time since 1962 that FIFA had overturned a suspension in the World Cup and led to accusations of political interference and corruption. However, despite Balogun being controversially cleared to play, the American team was soundly beaten, 4-1. Footage widely posted on X shows Belgium striker Romelu Lukaku leading his team to imitate Trump’s awkward dance style after he scored the final goal in the match. The players formed a circle on the sideline and pumped their fists in and out, while keeping their feet planted on the ground, in a brief victory dance to reference the U.S. president. Trump’s dance routine involves keeping the feet stationary while clenching the fist and swaying the hips side to side. He most frequently busts the move to the Village People’s “YMCA.”The Belgian soccer federation had expressed its fury at the “incomprehensible and unjustifiable” decision and the Red Devils’ social media team joined in the trolling with a post on X showing Lukaku celebrating his goal and the caption: “Overturn this.”# The president was also mocked by his estranged niece Mary after the World Cup loss, as the term “Trump curse” began trending on X. “The best US men’s team ever loses to Belgium,” Mary posted on X. “If they’d advanced, there would have been an asterisk next to their victory because of Donald’s interference.” She added, “He casts a shadow over everything. He can only win if he cheats, and he thinks that applies to everybody else.” She ended her post by imitating her uncle’s regular sign-off: “Sad.” Morning Joe co-host Jonathan Lemire wrote after the loss, “It’s as if Belgium had motivation to humiliate the U.S. tonight.” Progressive news outlet Meidas Touch also highlighted the “Trump curse.” “Sports fans are calling it the Trump curse,” the outlet claimed, before listing the connection between sporting events Trump attended where a team he either supported or predicted would win actually lost, from the Super Bowl to the NBA finals. Trump did not attend Monday’s game in Seattle, and was headed for a NATO summit in Turkey. Speaking after the game, U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino said the team did not approach the match as they had other games in the World Cup. He also admitted, “We were never in the game.” “Everyone saw from the beginning that we did not connect with the game. We were never in the game,” he said. “It was really tough from the beginning,” said Pochettino. “I congratulate Belgium. They were better than us. It wasn’t our day.” Trump is yet to comment on the U.S. loss. The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment. https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-80-humiliated-with-his-own-dance-after-us-world-cup-loss/? Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted yesterday at 10:57 PM Author Members Posted yesterday at 10:57 PM Trump, 80, Unravels Over New Obsession in 1AM Meltdown The president laid out what he believes is the “Number One Priority” for Congress in a social media tirade. Donald Trump went on a late-night rant demanding that Congress push through a third mammoth reconciliation bill alongside his stalled SAVE America Act. In a Truth Social post just before 1 a.m. ET, the 80-year-old president pushed for a so-called “Reconciliation 3.0” to provide a $350 billion cash injection for defense spending. Trump, who is traveling to Ankara, Turkey, for a NATO summit, also renewed his calls for lawmakers to pass his endorsed legislation requiring proof of citizenship for voter registration and largely banning mail-in ballots in elections, which does not have enough support in Congress. “The United States Military has never been stronger, or more powerful. No other Nation can do what we do (It’s not even close!). This year we set even more Historic Recruiting Records, months ahead of schedule. Morale has never been higher. Our Military’s unmatched POWER was on full display during our Celebration of 250 Years of American Independence and, like our Country, the WAR DEPARTMENT has never been ‘HOTTER,’” Trump wrote. Trump added that the country needs to “keep it that way” and urged the House and Senate to make passing Reconciliation 3.0 and the SAVE America Act the “Number One Priority” when Congress returns to session. “The SAVE AMERICA ACT, which everyone is asking for, paired with the full funding of our Great Department of War, can be passed very quickly, ensuring that the United States of America stays FREE for Generations to come,” Trump added. The proposed “Reconciliation 3.0,” which seeks $350 billion in new defense spending, is the third major funding package Trump has pursued during his second term. The first was his One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law by Trump in June 2025, followed by a $70 billion immigration and border security package. The president was only able to get the second funding package through Congress after Senate Republicans stripped plans to add an additional $1 billion for security related to the president’s White House ballroom vanity project. Leading Senate Republicans have previously expressed doubt that Congress will pass another major spending bill this term. During a June 9 hearing, Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins said it would be a “terrible risk” to pursue a third spending package. At the same hearing, Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, chair of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, also said it was “safe to conclude there will not be another reconciliation bill.” Those remarks came just days before McConnell was hospitalized after being found unconscious and requiring CPR at his Washington, D.C., home. Trump’s obsession with a third reconciliation bill comes as the president’s repeated attempts to get his SAVE America Act through Congress continue to fail. The bill, which aims to overhaul the election process, has raised concerns among critics that the president hopes to use the legislation as a pretext to meddle in November’s midterm elections, where Republicans are widely expected to suffer heavy defeats. https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-80-unravels-over-new-obsession-in-1am-meltdown/? Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted 23 hours ago Author Members Posted 23 hours ago Trump Trolled With Brutal Two-Word Message After World Cup Defeat The president’s explosive intervention in the tournament blew up in his face. Belgium hit Donald Trump with a brutal two-word jab after blasting Team USA out of the FIFA World Cup despite the president’s interference. “Overturn this,” the Belgian national team, known as the Red Devils, posted on their official X account after their 4-1 triumph Monday night knocked the U.S. out of the tournament. Trump had called FIFA President Gianni Infantino only days earlier to ask the soccer suck-up to review the red card from a match last week that had seen Team USA star striker Folarin Balogun slapped with a one-game ban. The presidents are close. Infantino awarded Trump FIFA’s inaugural Peace Prize last December—having invented it to curry favor with the president after his Nobel Peace Prize snub. Balogun received the red card during the tie against Bosnia and Herzegovina last Wednesday. He was sent off in the 64th minute after trampling Bosnian player Tarik Muharemovic’s ankle as the two chased a loose ball. The U.S. won 2-0. The White House spent the following day frantically speaking with lawyers, digging into the rules, and consulting the men’s national team before Trump placed the call. FIFA announced on Sunday that, for the first time since 1962, the red card would not result in a suspension, clearing Balogun to face Belgium. The president confirmed on Monday before the evening match that he’d intervened with Infantino, taking credit for the reversal while insisting he hadn’t dictated the outcome. “All I did was ask for a review—I didn’t say, ‘You have to do this,’” he told reporters. He admitted that prior to Balogun’s suspension, “I didn’t know what the hell a red card was.” That admission did not keep him from declaring the referee who made the decision was “a little bit suspect” and urging journalists, without elaborating, to “check his past.” He also thanked FIFA on Truth Social for “reversing a great injustice.” The backlash has proven fierce. UEFA, Europe’s governing soccer association, said FIFA had “crossed a red line” and called the decision “unprecedented, incomprehensible and unjustifiable.” The Royal Belgian Football Association sought an explanation for the “incomprehensible and unjustifiable” decision ahead of kick-off on Monday. FIFA decided to treat that request as a formal appeal, then declared it inadmissible because Belgium wasn’t the team playing the U.S. at the match in question. The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment on this story. https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-trolled-with-brutal-two-word-message-from-belgium-after-us-world-cup-defeat/? Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted 23 hours ago Author Members Posted 23 hours ago White House Lays Out Bonkers Examples for New Battle Trump goons turned to Mickey Mouse to make a point about “restoring truth and sanity.” The White House escalated its attacks against one of the country’s most storied museums in a bizarre series of posts about cartoon characters, musical instruments, and the Dixie Chicks. The White House Rapid Response account posted a thread accusing the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History of filling a family institution with what it called “sick, explicit content.” The thread was produced alongside a 162-page White House report, compiled by the Domestic Policy Council under former Trump speechwriter Vince Haley, accusing the museum of abandoning objective scholarship in favor of “extreme political activism.” It also objected to video clips of drag queens, images of nude women, the iconic 2003 Entertainment Weekly “Dixie Chicks Come Clean” cover, and a copy of Girl Germs, a feminist zine created by University of Oregon students in 1990. “A magazine promoting ‘female masturbation,’” the White House complained, referring to the cover, which features two females in a romantic tangle. The administration also took issue with the museum’s contextualization of American cultural icons. It objected to descriptions of Mickey Mouse as having ties to the “vestiges of longstanding traditions of blackface minstrelsy,” the ukulele as “a product of U.S. imperialism,” and Wild West shows as turning the “subjugation of Indigenous people into theater.” Cultural historians have long made similar arguments about all three. The founding of America also came in for complaint. The White House objected to Christopher Columbus being described as a “murderer,” “slaver,” and “thief,” the Pilgrims being called “colonizers,” and Thanksgiving being linked to a “National Day of Mourning.” Historians widely agree that Columbus participated in the enslavement of Indigenous people, the Pilgrims did establish an English colony, and many Indigenous activists have observed a National Day of Mourning on Thanksgiving since 1970. The White House also took aim at the Benjamin Franklin exhibit, complaining that 20 percent of the space was devoted to enslaved people and that visitors were asked whether Franklin conducted electric shock experiments on enslaved people, which it said was done “with zero evidence.” Franklin did own enslaved people earlier in his life before freeing them and becoming an abolitionist and president of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society. There is no credible historical evidence that he used enslaved people in his electrical experiments, though it is known that he experimented on people generally. The administration also objected to the museum celebrating Angela Davis, whom it described as “a Marxist who ran for VP as a Communist in 1980” and who “called for abolishing police and jails.” Davis was acquitted on all charges following a highly publicized 1972 trial connected to a 1970 courthouse attack. Supporters regard her as a major figure in the civil rights, Black liberation, and feminist movements. The White House also flagged other exhibits as objectionable: a “crotch harness,” a “trans nonbinary” person’s “chest binder,” and pages from a 6-year-old girl’s diary in which she prays “every night for my penis to grow.” “This sick material is sexualizing kids,” the White House wrote. The Smithsonian rejected the White House’s characterization, saying it has served the public through independent, nonpartisan scholarship for more than 180 years. Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch defended the museum’s role in helping Americans understand the “complexity and nuance” of the nation’s history. The report follows Trump’s executive order seeking to eliminate federal support for what he calls “divisive narratives” at the Smithsonian. The White House thread concluded by declaring the findings proof of “Radical Left ideological capture of the Smithsonian—which the Trump Administration is rightfully correcting.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/white-house-lays-out-bonkers-examples-for-new-battle/? ps:How pathetic this administration is, to think they can change history!!!!! Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted 23 hours ago Author Members Posted 23 hours ago Why Trump’s Jaw-Dropping World Cup Fix Is Only the Corruption Iceberg’s Tip Trump’s World Cup intervention is just one layer of a system that rewards power, money, and self-interest. It is tempting to think that just because Donald Trump is by far the most corrupt public official in the history of the United States, and his administration is unquestionably the most corrupt ever, that somehow the corruption problem in Washington begins and ends with them. That would be a huge mistake. I have lived in Washington for 33 years. My first job in D.C. was even before I moved here, when, for a couple of years during the Carter administration, I was the press secretary for a congressman. I came to D.C. an idealist. My idealism was fostered by the wholesale swallowing of jingoistic propaganda from my school years and from my immigrant father. The idealism was then, in turn, wrapped in a protective coating of naivete and further buffered by a remarkable degree of ignorance. So much for the East Coast cynicism of which I’ve always been so proud. But here’s the deal: After decades in Washington, it is crystal clear to me that what distinguishes the city and defines its culture more than any other trait, and now does so to a greater and greater degree yearly, is its corruption. Washington is, at its core, a machine in which power is recycled into money. Power is made into money, money is then translated into more power, which in turn becomes more money. It is the formula that keeps the ecosystem of Washington alive, and ensures that it serves fewer and fewer of us at the expense of more and more of us. But the corruption is about more than money. It is about placing the self-interests of the powerful ahead of judgment, ethics, morality, decency, and all the other qualities that we ought to expect in public servants. It is about placing serving self-interests ahead of public service. Much of the corruption is, however, invisible. Indeed, it has been institutionalized to such a degree that it is not just normalized, it’s mechanized, routinized, baked into the cake. Appropriations processes, the way officials are recruited for jobs, and even how think tanks operate, rationalizing the unthinkable in exchange for donations, are all part of these corrupt processes. In fact, baked in the cake is not a bad metaphor, as corruption in Washington is, as it turns out, perhaps a 700-layer cake ranging from straight-on grift of the free airplane type to hard-to-see chicanery of the crypto kind, to respectable forms of thievery like the budget process, to lobbying to think tanks, to the various forms of self-interested hobnobbery going on at Georgetown cocktail parties. What’s more, the very fact that the corruption is endemic‚ embedded in the culture and the processes of Washington, means that it functions as a kind of defense system. Everything is normalized by actually being normal. People are numb to it because it is part of the air they breathe and their daily rituals: corruption in who you know and chat with in the car pool line at your kids’ private school, corruption playing golf, corruption as S.O.P. in every moneymaking business in town, corruption as the way our campaign finance system works, corruption as the rationale behind who secrets are shared with, and who are left out in the cold because they can’t be trusted. You may think I am exaggerating. If anything, I’m understating the scope, depth, pervasiveness, and perniciousness of the problem. It just takes a quick scan of the headlines to reveal that virtually every story about Washington today contains a corrupt subtext. That may be obvious when our felon president—convicted of fraud, a pathological liar—gets on the horn with the head of one of the world’s most corrupt organizations, FIFA, to fiddle the rules around a red card in the World Cup. It’s pretty transparent in that case; more so if you remember FIFA head Gianni Infantino gave Trump the ridiculous FIFA Peace Prize. Or if you know the history of corruption inquiries into FIFA, or you remember that FIFA is a tenant, for no apparent reason, at Trump Tower in New York. It’s also obvious when Trump touts, publicly—as he did on Monday—all that he has done for the crypto business, even as revelations swirl about the billions he has made off of crypto, and the billions investors in his crypto ventures have lost, and all the crypto-friendly regulations he has passed. Trump is really the godfather of the crypto boom in the U.S. and I use the term primarily in the Mario Puzo sense. It’s a huge con and our president is rigging the rules, firing crypto investigators, doing all he can to cash in on the highly suspect form of finance. And we probably don’t know the half of it. What international and domestic side deals has the president struck in crypto? We’ll probably never know.You see corruption when Trump flies around on Grift Force One. When entities his family owns benefit from a UFC fight night on the South Lawn or off the 250th birthday celebration of America or from Pentagon or foreign contracts (like the recent Kazakh tungsten mine revelations). Trump family members getting a sweet deal on land for a resort in Albania? So corrupt that people turn out in the streets to protest. The fact that other members of his administration are also cashing in is a further illustration of the problem. But so too are what we learn about who is giving gifts to Supreme Court members or about the pervasiveness of insider trading from Congress to Trump (trading millions in the hours before he changes trade policy, for example). But, again, there are more layers to the corrupt culture of D.C. Trump barely works and spends many millions golfing on the public’s dime. He allocates funds for his pet D.C. projects outside of legal channels. But what about how the GOP is protecting members of Congress who make up its slim margin of control when they are clearly guilty of ethics violations or even crimes? Or when they, like New Jersey Rep. Tom Kean, just don’t show up for work for half a year? Or when you have a prominent Republican like Mitch McConnell whose staff feels no compulsion to let his constituents know whether, say, he is even still alive. Democrats can be guilty, too. They’ve got plenty of insider trading stories on their records. But they also have contributed to the culture of corruption by trying to cover up or downplay obvious, egregious ethical problems with candidates like Graham Platner, the Maine Senate wannabe whose candidacy is now circling the drain. Good people lent him their reputations and then, when it became clear he was abusing their trust, were slow to call him out because of how it might have reflected on them. And I’ll tell you, for me, another level of the corruption was found in this fairly innocuous social media post by the staid and respected Center for Strategic and International Studies. They published a report and a long social media thread assessing U.S. defense spending. The social media post began by saying: “At about 4.6% of GDP, the budget request of $1.5 trillion for FY 2027 marks a notable increase in defense spending. But a state of wartime footing also demands an ecosystem of competitive, innovative firms that can quickly field & sustain military systems in large quantities.” Pretty bland stuff. It then goes through a variety of points about what is needed to put the United States industrial base on a “wartime footing.” It talks about what might ensure we can produce the weapons we “need.” It then concludes by saying: “Defense spending is rising, munitions production agreements are being signed at historic scale, and novel public-private investment structures are taking shape, but the U.S. industrial base has a long way to go to achieve resilience.” Measured tones. Formal analytical language. But nowhere does it point out that we have no reason to have an industrial base on a “wartime footing,” that no other country in the world takes this approach, and that even in the long history of obscene U.S. defense budgets, this $1.5 trillion budget request is egregiously over-the-top insanely wasteful and unjustifiable—many multiples of every other country, multiples of all major powers added together. It does not note that such spending is crazy as deficits skyrocket or cuts are being made in social spending to provide more benefits to billionaires. It does not mention that what this budget is proposing is obscene, reckless and a threat to every American. No. It normalizes it. It whitewashes the administration’s bats–t crazy defense request and validates it. It even suggests, ludicrously, that the administration’s plans may not go far enough. That is corruption, too. It will cost Americans more than the stealing of even master criminals like the Trump Crime Family. It looks like a fact-based academic assessment, but it is paid for by corporate and personal donations from entities that benefit from its recommendations. (As often happens with think tank reports.) That includes Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, and General Atomics. The people who write the report are part of an information and career ecosystem in which they benefit from doing what has been done since Dwight Eisenhower first warned of the military industrial complex in 1961. Some of these forms of corruption are visible. Others come to light periodically, when there are scandals or people see laws are being rewritten to serve billionaires and corporations at the expense of the majority of Americans. We are inured to others and barely notice. Some are intentionally invisible but just as damaging to our national interests. Periodically, the corruption in D.C. grows so extreme that change is called for. Think of Teddy Roosevelt and the trustbusters at the end of the period of the robber barons. Or more recently, think of post-Watergate, post-Vietnam, when people were so eager for a big change they elected a president few had heard of before 1976. That was a Georgia farmer, Sunday school teacher, former naval officer, and governor who seemed like the perfect anti-Washingtonian, anti-Nixon. A man of faith and ethics. Jimmy Carter. My sense is that given the extremes of visible corruption today, we are reaching another such inflection point and that as a consequence, we will be seeking a next president who is seen as not part of the D.C.’s corrupted culture; someone who is rather distinguished by his or her character, ethics, and values in much the same way that Trump is known for his absence of all those things. We need someone to clean house. Not a charlatan fake “common man” who, upon examination, has all the sleazoid traits we despise about D.C. like Platner. But someone who appears capable of recognizing and calling out the problem, holding offenders accountable, and overseeing meaningful reforms. Whomever she or he is, the odds are that, like in 1976, we don’t know their name right now. But one thing is certain: it is ever more likely that they are another of the usual suspects, another creature inside the Beltway swamp that the slime monster who is our president has only made many quantum levels worse. https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-trumps-jaw-dropping-world-cup-fix-is-only-the-corruption-icebergs-tip/? Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted 1 hour ago Author Members Posted 1 hour ago Trump Hit With Devastating Poll as Republicans Lose Faith As the midterms loom, Republicans don’t need reminding that it’s the economy, stupid. Even more Republicans now think the economy is headed in the wrong direction. An affordability crisis is now in effect, according to 95 percent of Americans, as high gas and grocery prices hammer people’s wallets. The new Harris Poll revealed that just 27 percent of Republicans think the economy is traveling in a positive direction, down from 49 percent in February. In February, just 22 percent of Republicans thought the economy was getting worse, but that number has now shot up 16 points to 38 percent in the latest poll, conducted for The Guardian. Democrats have become further entrenched in their belief that the economy is not moving in the right direction, up to 71 percent from 62 percent in February. Independents, meanwhile, aligned far more closely with Democrats than Republicans, swinging 10 points since February up to 63 percent. The drop in confidence comes after President Donald Trump’s war with Iran, which had massive knock-on effects for the global economy. At the center of the catastrophe is the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran successfully closed. It tied up about one-fifth of the world’s oil supply, driving gas prices up toward $5 a gallon at the pump nationwide. It also led to fertilizer shortages, which have and are expected to continue to have knock-on effects for the cost of farming, and ultimately groceries. Meanwhile, 49 percent of Republicans said that the cost-of-living crisis will not be solved by the federal government. Overall, two-thirds of Americans felt the same way. Despite some positive economic signs, such as a strong stock market and a stable labor market, Americans in rural areas said it had become increasingly difficult to find work, the new study found. Some 41 percent of people in rural areas thought job opportunities were disappearing, compared with just 28 percent in urban areas. Meanwhile, the U.S. only added 57,000 jobs in June, half of the 115,000 forecast, according to the latest jobs report. The drop in confidence in the economy—often cited as the single most important factor in deciding elections—comes just months before the midterms. The GOP is clinging to narrow margins in both the House and the Senate, and most predictions suggest that the Democrats are likely to make gains. Republicans are beleaguered, too, by a historically unpopular president in Trump. The 80-year-old has sunk to astonishing lows in his approval ratings. CNN’s poll of polls pitched his mid-June approval at just 37 percent. In a statement to the Daily Beast, White House spokesperson Kush Desai said: “With oil and gas prices plummeting following President Trump’s [memorandum of understanding] with Iran, overall inflation is set to fall and real wages are set to rise.” “As trillions in investments continue pouring into American industry and the Administration’s broader agenda of tax cuts and deregulation continues taking effect, Americans can rest assured that the best is yet to come,” Desai added. https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-hit-with-devastating-poll-as-republicans-lose-faith/? ps:Even if his approval ratings are going down, it shouldn't bother the elections, the gerrymandering that has been unleashed will probably offset trumps bad approval ratings!! Besides he's not running!!! Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted 1 hour ago Author Members Posted 1 hour ago Trump Rips Female Ally He Thirsted After for Rejecting Him After lashing out at NATO and renewing his claim that the U.S. should control Greenland, the president took aim at Italy’s right-wing prime minister. Donald Trump has escalated his public spat with Italy’s prime minister, complaining she “just wasn’t there for us” as he sought to justify a bizarre post suggesting that she needed a restraining order. After landing in Turkey ahead of the NATO summit in Ankara, Trump continued to test the 77-year-old alliance with members—even renewing his claim that Greenland “should be controlled by the United States, not by Denmark.” He also hit out at NATO members more broadly, including Italy and its right-wing leader Giorgia Meloni. Weeks after claiming Meloni had “begged” him for a photo at the G7 summit in France last month, Trump on Sunday reposted a meme of Meloni looking up at him, as though she was eager for his attention. “Restraining Order Needed,” the caption said. Asked by reporters on Tuesday to explain the post, Trump insisted Meloni was “a nice person,” but their relationship took a turn after she refused to throw her country’s weight behind his war in Iran. “I didn’t put a heavy press on her, but she refused to get involved,” he lamented, sitting alongside Turkey president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. “So it soured my relationship with her a little bit. But I like her, I think she’s a nice person, actually. But I think she made a mistake… She just wasn’t there for us, and I wasn’t happy about that.” The swipe marks the latest twist in an increasingly strange relationship between two leaders who were once held up as ideological allies. Meloni, one of Europe’s most prominent right-wing leaders, has maintained cordial relations with Trump since his return to office. She visited the White House earlier this year, has praised his efforts to end the war in Ukraine, and has largely avoided publicly criticizing his administration. But Italy stopped well short of endorsing Trump’s decision to launch military strikes against Iran, instead pushing for diplomacy alongside other European allies rather than publicly backing the U.S. operation. Trump’s frustration spilled over after the G7 summit when he claimed that Meloni “begged” him to pose for a photo. Within minutes, Meloni took to her socials with a strong denial and a reminder to the president that “Italy and I do not beg.” Soon after, Italy’s foreign minister Antonio Tajani pulled out of a planned trip to Washington, raging that Trump had offended all of Italy. As revealed by The Daily Beast’s newsletter The Swamp, the diplomatic spat also left administration officials and global diplomats seething privately after a U.S.-Italy business and innovation forum scheduled for Miami collapsed in the wake of the feud. The June 22 event was set to be held at the prestigious Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio slated to headline alongside a roster of corporate heavyweights, government officials and diplomats from both countries. “The president couldn’t keep his mouth shut,” one exasperated source complained, summing up the mood inside parts of the administration. The latest post about Meloni came as he also took aim at America’s broader alliance with Europe. Discussing NATO, Trump questioned the value of allies who failed to support U.S. military action against Iran. “We’ve invested trillions of dollars in NATO, and I say that’s fine, but you’d think that they would be very willing to do something to help us, and they really didn’t,” he said. “We didn’t need any help at all, and in a way, I was testing people, I was testing to see whether or not they’d be there, because I’ve long said that we helped them, but I’m not sure that they’d be there for us,” he added. https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-rips-female-ally-he-thirsted-after-for-rejecting-him/? ps:What a pathetic little man!! Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
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