hedda_foil
hedda_foil's JournalTNR: Bessent Says Oil Prices Will Drop "if Something Happens" in Venezuela
https://newrepublic.com/post/203517/trump-ukraine-peace-deal-russian-language-snip-
On Thursday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that oil prices could go down “if something happens down in Venezuela.”
“I am very confident about job growth and the momentum that we’ve got for next year,” Bessent told Laura Ingraham on Fox News. “Capital expenditure is always followed by job growth. The peace deals—we are seeing a peace dividend from that. And I think there’s a very good chance that if something happens with Russia, Ukraine, if something happens down in Venezuela, that we could really see oil prices go down even more.”
The remark from a top Trump official appears to suggest that the administration is planning for “something” to happen in Venezuela. Trump has cast the country as a major drug-trafficking hub to justify his strikes of drug boats in the surrounding waters, and seems to have regime change—potentially through military intervention—as his ultimate goal.
“U.S. military action could trigger a crisis on the same order as happened in Iraq after the U.S. regime change effort there,” Caracas-based International Crisis Group senior analyst Phil Gunson told The New Republic. “If the U.S. does decapitate the government, the multiple armed actors could bring about a degree of anarchy. None of these different groups have any incentive to just lay down their arms. There have been several decades of accumulated resentments on various sides, and it’s not fanciful to imagine that there could be lynchings. There could be bombings or selective assassinations.”
- end -
Trump has the Epstein files.* What else is he hiding?
My addition to the great suggestion at * https://democraticunderground.com/100220553457
Republicans Are Cutting Medicare. Not Only Medicaid, Medicare
https://prospect.org/politics/2025-07-03-republicans-cutting-medicare-not-only-medicaid/Because of a statutory requirement to automatically impose budget cuts when legislation increases the deficit, the Big Beautiful Bill would require automatic sequestration cuts across the board, something that has been confirmed by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) but has been largely absent from the debate over the bill. Medicare is one of the programs that will face the axe, and the damage sums to $490 billion over the next ten years, starting in the next fiscal year that begins in October. While many of the safety-net cuts in the bill are delayed to help Republicans with their re-election campaigns, the Medicare cuts must begin next year.
The Statutory Pay-As-You-Go (PAYGO) Act of 2010 requires the Office of Management and Budget to keep scorecards that track the cumulative effects of legislation on the budget deficit, based on estimates from the CBO. The Senate version of the Big Beautiful Bill adds roughly $3.3 trillion in debt over the next ten years. That will have to be made up through automatic sequestration cuts.
--snip--
Therefore, OMB would be required to issue an order reducing spending by $330 billion by January 2026. Many accounts are exempted from sequestration, including Social Security and several programs affecting low-income Americans. But Medicare is not.
There is a limitation on Medicare cuts of 4 percent of the program. In fiscal year 2026, that would come out to $45 billion. These cuts would increase with the growth of the program, hitting $75 billion by 2034 according to CBO. The total ten-year cuts would equal $490 billion.
--more--
Op-Ed: In the Future, China Will Be Dominant. The U.S. Will Be Irrelevant.
What do you guys think about this NYT op-ed. To me, it's frighteningly likely. Talk me down?
Mr. Chan is a researcher at Princeton University who focuses on Chinese industrial policy.
阅读简体中文版閱讀繁體中文版
For years, theorists have posited the onset of a “Chinese century”: a world in which China finally harnesses its vast economic and technological potential to surpass the United States and reorient global power around a pole that runs through Beijing.
That century may already have dawned, and when historians look back they may very well pinpoint the early months of President Trump’s second term as the watershed moment when China pulled away and left the United States behind.
It doesn’t matter that Washington and Beijing have reached an inconclusive and temporary truce in Mr. Trump’s trade war. The U.S. president immediately claimed it as a win, but that only underlines the fundamental problem for the Trump administration and America: a shortsighted focus on inconsequential skirmishes as the larger war with China is being decisively lost.
Mr. Trump is taking a wrecking ball to the pillars of American power and innovation. His tariffs are endangering U.S. companies’ access to global markets and supply chains. He is slashing public research funding and gutting our universities, pushing talented researchers to consider leaving for other countries. He wants to roll back programs for technologies like clean energy and semiconductor manufacturing and is wiping out American soft power in large swaths of the globe.
--much more--
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/19/opinion/china-us-trade-tariffs.html
Watch this, please!!! Dark gothic maga: How Tech Billionaires plan to destroy America
This video lays out exactly what Musk, Theil, Andreeson, Vance. et al are after. I seldom post videos, much less recommend them, but this unravels their plans brilliantly! Not just that, but Trump is supporting it. Please watch it.
Musk Is Likely to Get a West Wing Office for His Cost-Cutting Project
Source: New York Times
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, is likely to be given office space in the West Wing, putting him close to President Trump as Mr. Musk steers a project that aims to cut as much as $2 trillion in government spending, two people with knowledge of the planning said on Monday.
Mr. Musk had been expected to be situated in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which is in the White House complex but not in the West Wing proper. But he has for many days been asking about his level of access, signaling a desire for proximity to Mr. Trump, according to the people.
Mr. Trump had wanted Mr. Musk to have the space, one of the people said. Mr. Musk has been given a badge for the White House complex and was said to be working there on Monday. He has filled out paperwork to be brought onboard for the role and already has a government email address.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/20/us/politics/elon-musk-office-west-wing.html
Trump Sued Over Musk Cost-Cutting Effort by US Government Worker Union
Source: Bloomberg
--snip--
The lawsuit from the American Federation of Government Employees and government watchdog groups Public Citizen and State Democracy Defenders Fund was one of three cases filed as Trump was being sworn in on Monday challenging the “Department of Government Efficiency,” or DOGE. The AFGE case claims that the initiative violates a 1972 US law requiring checks on conflicts of interest, ideological balance and transparency for groups with a direct line to the White House.
The federal employees union wrote in its case that the Federal Advisory Committee Act features “guardrails” to stop groups “from turning into vehicles for advancing private interests in the federal decision-making process and secretly influencing federal officials’ exercise of policymaking discretion.”
The cases mark the beginning of an expected barrage of legal action against Trump’s agenda, which includes efforts to shrink the size and reach of federal agencies.
Two other cases were also filed in federal court in Washington. One was filed by Democracy Forward and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington on behalf of groups representing teachers, veterans and public health and car safety advocates. The third case was brought by the law firm National Security Counselors.
Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-20/trump-sued-over-musk-doge-effort-by-us-government-worker-union?utm_medium=email&utm_source=author_alert&utm_term=250120&utm_campaign=author_22946324&leadSource=uverify%20wall&embedded-checkout=true
Trump to withdraw from Paris climate agreement
Source: Reuters
WASHINGTON, Jan 20 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump will withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, according to a White House document released on Monday.
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/trump-withdraw-paris-climate-agreement-2025-01-20/
(No further details)
Trump executive order will attempt to end birthright citizenship
Source: Washington Post
The U.S. government will no longer recognize the citizenship of children born in the United States to immigrants who lack legal status, one of 10 immigration-related executive orders President-elect Donald Trump plans to sign Monday, an incoming administration official told reporters.
The incoming official did not provide details on how the administration planned to implement a change that scholars say would be illegal. Trump’s order would reinterpret the words “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” in the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which grants citizenship to all people born on U.S. soil, and redefine the phrase to exclude babies born to parents illegally in the country.
Trump will issue other executive orders that will ramp up deportations, restart border wall construction and send U.S. troops to patrol the 2,000-mile boundary with Mexico, said the incoming official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the incoming administration for a call with reporters.
After Trump is inaugurated, he plans to declare a national emergency at the southern border. Trump will then issue orders to restart the “Remain in Mexico” policy of his first term, designate drug cartels and gangs as foreign terrorist organizations and suspend refugee resettlement in the United States for at least four months, officials said, reading a list of Inauguration Day actions and orders.
--more--
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2025/01/20/trump-immigration-executive-orders/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=bluesky
Profile Information
Gender: FemaleCurrent location: Naperville IL
Member since: 2001
Number of posts: 16,899