“President Donald Trump’s administration has thrown the NNSA into chaos, threatening hard-won staffing progress amid a trillion-dollar nuclear weapons upgrade. Desperately needed nuclear experts are wary of joining thanks to chaotic job cuts by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, experts say.
The disruption of NNSA’s chronically understaffed safety workforce is “a recipe for disaster,” said Joyce Connery, former head of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.”
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“Nuclear weapons workers don’t grow on trees, nor do the federal experts who oversee them. Many of the jobs require advanced degrees, and new hires often need years of on-the-job training. Security clearance requirements limit the most sensitive jobs to U.S. citizens.”
“Former Vice President Mike Pence said it’s a “bad idea” for President Donald Trump to receive a luxury jet from Qatar, arguing that accepting the gift could be unconstitutional and jeopardize national security.
“There are profound issues – the potential for intelligence gathering, the need to ensure the president of the United States is safe and secure as he travels around the world,” Pence told NBC’s “Meet the Press” in an interview released on May 16.
Accepting the plane “is inconsistent with our security, with our intelligence needs,” he added. “My hope is the president reconsiders it.””
Trump repeatedly acts corruptly, and our institutions are not working properly to stop it.
The Congress should investigate and possibly impeach for such corruption, but the Speaker of the House dismisses it as false claims while saying that what the Biden crime family did was worse, even though those allegations are misleading bullshit.
“Donald Trump doesn’t think Americans deserve stuff. The right number of pencils for a family? Five. The right number of dolls for a little girl? Two, maybe three. His comments in recent interviews bear a striking similarity to those of left-wing Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.), who in 2015 famously bemoaned that consumers have too many deodorant options.
How did Trump—who campaigned on a promise of reducing inflation—become so eager to have Americans pay more for everyday commodities? While Trump may have made overtures to reducing prices, he’s long supported the kinds of economic interventions most likely to lead to inflation. And if you believe that protectionism is the path to prosperity for everyday Americans, your definition of prosperity starts to change pretty quickly.”
“In 2023, the most recent year for which full data are available, the average U.S. tariff on British goods was 3.3 percent.
That means this “deal” charges American consumers a 10 percent baseline tax on goods that were previously taxed at 3.3 percent. That’s not a win for free trade or lower prices.”
“Thousands of unharvested tomatoes are being plowed over in South Florida in a sign of what is to come under President Donald Trump’s tariffs—or tariff threats—and immigration policies. Reporting by Miami’s local Fox affiliate, WVSN, revealed that farmers are cutting their losses and letting crops go to waste due to increased picking and packing costs.
“You can’t even afford to pick them right now,” Heather Moehling, president of Miami-Dade County Farm Bureau, told WVSN. “Between the cost of labor and the inputs that goes in, it’s more cost-effective for farmers to just plow them right now.””
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“Even though the tariffs on Mexican imports never took effect for goods compliant with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, including U.S. tomatoes, the threat of tariffs alone was enough to disrupt the U.S. market, DiMare told WVSN.”
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“While Trump is touting his recent deals with the United Kingdom and China as examples of how his trade policies are working, the Florida tomato industry serves as a real-world reminder that unpredictable policies can have far-reaching and unintended consequences on Americans’ livelihoods. On some level, Trump knows this and has admitted that Americans will have to make do with less, despite being voted in to bring down the cost of living. The president’s attempts at centralized planning will continue to drive prices up, and Americans will be the ones paying the price.”
“If enacted across the board, Trump’s order would mean pharmaceutical companies must sell drugs to Americans at the lowest prices they were offering anybody else in the world.”
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“Americans do pay significantly more for prescription drugs than people in other developed nations, but the reasons for that are more complicated than Trump suggests.
“There are many good reasons why we should pay more for earlier access to new medications than our trading partners,” wrote Darius Lakdawalla and Dana Goldman of the University of Southern California’s Schaeffer Institute for Public Policy & Government Service. “As the world’s largest market for pharmaceuticals, America finds itself in the unique position of accruing the lion’s share of the benefits from new medicines. We often recoup these additional costs in the form of longer and healthier lives.””
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“”facing a choice between deep cuts in their U.S. pricing or the loss of weakly profitable overseas markets,” the companies may simply exit foreign markets altogether, “leaving U.S. consumers with the same prices, pharmaceutical manufacturers with lower profits, and future generations with less innovation.””
“the deal is a tidy illustration of how President Donald Trump has conducted his global trade war. With China, Trump hiked tariffs to astronomical levels while promising those taxes (which are paid by Americans) would unleash prosperity and create jobs. Then, the White House celebrated the agreement that reduced those tariffs as “the art of the deal.” They are literally doing the meme.
But the “deal” means that imports from China will be subjected to significantly higher tariffs than when Trump took office. Those tariffs will continue to be a serious economic burden for American businesses and consumers, and the threat of even higher tariffs remains—because the “deal” only pauses those tariffs for 90 days, and because Trump’s mercurial nature means no one can really be sure what is coming next.”
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“the remaining 30 percent tariff, which is stacked on top of preexisting tariffs from Trump’s first term, “will still make for an expensive back to school and holiday season for most Americans,” Lamar said in a statement. “If freight rates spike due to the tariff-induced shipping disruptions—which will take months to unwind—we could see costs and prices creep up even further.””
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“both America and China are still worse off than they were a few months ago. Trump has used constitutionally dubious economic powers to raise and then lower tariffs, creating huge costs and even greater uncertainty.
Rather than praising the president for backing down from an insane position, as the White House believes Americans should do, the proper response to Trump’s latest tariff maneuvers is the same as it has always been: Congress must take away his tariff powers.”
“A majority of people surveyed had an overall negative perception of the U.S., marking a steep decline from last year. America’s reputation took a particularly massive hit in EU countries — perhaps unsurprisingly, as U.S. President Donald Trump has called the bloc “horrible,” “pathetic” and “formed to screw the United States.””
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“Meanwhile, China kept improving its global standing, overtaking the U.S. for the first time and recording mostly positive perceptions in all regions except Europe.”
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“Trump’s reputation is in line with that of his country. The survey showed he’s less popular worldwide than his Russian and Chinese counterparts, Putin and Xi Jinping.”
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“Israel emerged as the country with the worst global reputation of those included in the poll, especially in the Middle East and South Asia. Israel is unpopular even in European countries that have historically been its allies, such as Germany, signaling growing discomfort with its government’s conduct in Gaza and the West Bank.”