Lone Candle
Champion of Truth
Man who worked with Trump in his first term explains that Trump is not qualified to be president. He isn’t interested in policy, he doesn’t read his briefings, he’s vulnerable to being manipulated by praise, and he’s not concerned about the world but just about himself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBIRPVUkWBA
“At the end of the day, protectionism is rooted in fear and pessimism: fear that we’ll be outcompeted, and pessimism about the idea that a growing, dynamic economy can make us all better off. Libertarians are fond of making just such claims—so fond that Cass coined a term to mock us for it. Instead of tussling over the size of different constituencies’ relative shares of the fixed economic pie, the libertarian view is that our goal should be to grow the pie so everyone’s share is bigger. Cass calls this “economic piety,” and he rejects it. For him, the goal is not to grow the economy; it’s to direct the economy for the benefit of deserving constituencies such as blue-collar workers.
This is pure zero-sum thinking. It cements in place a mindset where one group’s gains necessarily come at some other group’s expense. To libertarians, technological innovation is a boon because it makes the whole economy more productive and everyone richer in the long run. But some people usually are hurt in the short run—think of the proverbial buggy-whip salesmen when automobiles come along. Protectionists are inclined to be suspicious of the tech sector and sympathetic toward policies that would tamp down economic dynamism in the name of protecting the would-be losers. The result, inevitably, is stagnation.”
https://reason.com/2025/03/01/trumps-dramatic-crossroads/
The Bond Market Rules Everything
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVk5Xpd9cvg
“Legally, the answer is complicated and untested. No Fed chair has ever been removed by a President.
The Federal Reserve Act allows for the dismissal of Board members, including the chair, “for cause.” But that has historically been interpreted as misconduct or incapacity, not policy disagreements. “The court would typically not see disagreements over interest rates settings as ‘for-cause,’” Binder says.”
…
“Still, the Trump Administration appears to be laying the groundwork for a potential confrontation. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently told Bloomberg that he expects to begin interviewing possible replacements for Powell in the fall.”
…
“At the heart of that debate is a nearly century-old legal precedent: Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, a 1935 Supreme Court ruling that limited the President’s ability to remove leaders of independent agencies without cause. The ruling has long shielded Fed chairs from political dismissal, but could soon be tested by a conservative Supreme Court.”
…
“Trump has blamed Powell for failing to act aggressively enough to support economic growth, saying the Fed chair is “playing politics” by keeping interest rates steady. But central bankers—and many economists—argue the opposite: that an independent Fed is essential to managing inflation and stewarding the economy, and that caving to political demands could damage the economy and global trust in U.S. institutions.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-fire-jerome-powell-213123735.html
“Family and friends of a Venezuelan migrant living in Texas say officials sent him to an El Salvador mega-prison because he had an autism awareness tattoo.
Neri Jose Alvarado Borges was one of the hundreds of men deported by immigration authorities on March 15 to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, one of the most dangerous prisons in the world, his friends and family told NBC Dallas Fort Worth on Monday.
Borges has a tattoo that features a rainbow-colored ribbon composed of puzzle pieces, a symbol for autism awareness, along with the name of Borges’s autistic brother, according to the local outlet.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/asylum-seeker-sent-salvadoran-mega-155450440.html
“A US-born man initially charged with being an “unauthorized alien” in Florida has been released after spending the night in jail on a 48-hour hold requested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement amid the Trump administration’s broad deportation crackdown.
Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez, 20, was arrested by Florida Highway Patrol on Wednesday when the car he was riding in was pulled over for a traffic stop, said his attorney, Mutaqee Akbar. The American citizen – born in Grady County, Georgia, where he lives in the city of Cairo – was crossing into Florida for his work in construction in Tallahassee, about 45 minutes from home.
The new Florida law that Lopez-Gomez was arrested under – designed to discourage undocumented immigrants from entering the state and touted by its Republican leaders – had been temporarily blocked by a judge, according to news reports and a spokesperson for the immigrant rights coalition working with Lopez-Gomez’s family.
A state judge later found no probable cause for the charge of crossing into Florida illegally, but she said didn’t have jurisdiction to release Lopez-Gomez because of the ICE hold, court records show.
It was not immediately clear why Lopez-Gomez may have been the subject of an immigration detainer, with which ICE asks law enforcement agencies to notify it “before releasing a removable alien” and to “hold the alien for up to 48 hours” to give its umbrella agency, the Department of Homeland Security, time to take the migrant into custody.
While “no US citizen is a proper subject of a detainer, … many US citizens have been the mistaken subject of ICE detainers and even prolonged detention and removal, despite their assertion of citizenship,” according to the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, a non-profit working on such issues since 1979.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/american-citizen-detained-under-ice-013141935.html
“At the heart of the Trump administration’s position is a naked assertion of unchecked power. Once the federal government has deported someone to the hellish prison in El Salvador, the Trump administration asserts, there is nothing that anyone—especially not a federal judge—can do about it. What is worse, by the administration’s own admission, it does not matter whether the deportee was lawfully removed in the first place or not. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor has accurately observed, “the Government’s argument…implies that it could deport and incarcerate any person, including U.S. citizens, without legal consequence, so long as it does so before a court can intervene.” The word for what Sotomayor is describing is despotism.”
https://reason.com/2025/04/15/stephen-miller-egregiously-misrepresented-a-supreme-court-order-while-trump-nodded-along/
“Ten-year legal U.S. resident and Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi showed up at an immigration center in Vermont on Monday for what he thought was his naturalization appointment. Instead, ICE agents swooped in and “refused to provide any information as to where he was being taken or what would happen to him,” according to a statement by Vermont lawmakers.”
…
“Mahdawi co-founded the Palestinian student union at Columbia, and Mahdawi was president of the Columbia University Buddhist Association for two years, according to the court filings. While Khalil is soft-spoken in public, Mahdawi comes off as the hothead of the duo. He has been frank about his struggles between feelings of vengeance and forgiveness.
“Radicalism is not Justice, and will not make Justice,” he wrote on Instagram in November 2024. “Justice is balanced, Justice is compassionate, Justice is empathetic, and Justice is transformative.”
…
“Mahdawi hasn’t been accused of any crime, according to a habeas corpus petition filed by his lawyers. Vermont District Court Judge William Sessions issued a temporary restraining order preventing ICE from removing Mahdawi from Vermont.”
https://reason.com/2025/04/15/ice-arrests-palestinian-immigrant-at-his-citizenship-test/
“Trump openly signed executive orders—in full view of the press—directing the Department of Justice to criminally investigate two people who publicly disagreed with him. He has also issued numerous orders targeting law firms for representing clients he does not favor, constituting clear shakedown attempts.
If there is anything to be said for the current administration, at least Trump is practicing his corruption out in the open.”
https://reason.com/2025/04/14/trump-flagrantly-targets-political-opponents-in-executive-orders/
“President Donald Trump stood before a joint session of Congress less than six weeks ago and vowed to do something that has not been done in nearly a quarter century: balance the federal budget.
New numbers from the Treasury and recent developments in Congress suggest that’s not going to happen. Indeed, all indications are pointing in the opposite direction.
The federal government borrowed $1.3 trillion during the first six months of the current fiscal year, the Treasury Department reported last week. That’s the second-highest six-month total in history, bested only by the record set in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
https://reason.com/2025/04/14/feds-borrowed-1-3-trillion-in-the-first-6-months-of-this-fiscal-year/