Lone Candle
Champion of Truth
“all sanctions imposed on Israeli settlers involved in violent attacks against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and against organizations involved in the building of illegal West Bank outposts have been lifted and all frozen assets released.”
https://www.axios.com/2025/01/24/trump-lifts-sanctions-israeli-settlers-west-bank
“President Trump will reinstate a policy cutting off U.S. global health funding to international organizations that provide legal abortion information, referrals or services”
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“The gag rule has negatively affected global health care systems beyond family planning, according to a 2019 review of existing research on the policy.”
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“Only a handful of studies actually examined the rule’s impact on abortion rates, and those three papers concluded that the policy does not decrease abortion rates, per the scope review.”
https://www.axios.com/2025/01/25/trump-reinstates-mexico-city-policy-abortion
“Less than 1% of immigrants deported last fiscal year were kicked out of the U.S. for crimes other than immigration violations.”
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“To deport millions of “criminals,” Trump would have to consider all undocumented immigrants as criminals. But being in the U.S. illegally is a civil violation, not a criminal one.”
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“Those millions would have to include agricultural, construction and service workers, students and others who are unauthorized to be in the U.S. but have no criminal backgrounds, according to legal specialists and an Axios review of federal immigration data.”
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“”There are not millions of people with criminal records to deport,” Nicole Hallett, director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago, tells Axios.”
https://www.axios.com/2025/01/27/undocumented-immigrants-crime-deportations-trump
“An increase in tariffs of 10 percent on all imports would reduce America’s gross domestic product (GDP) by about 0.3 percent, while 60 percent tariffs on all imports from China would knock GDP down by another 0.3 percent, the CBO projects.
Meanwhile, the tariffs would “make consumer goods and capital goods more expensive, thereby reducing the purchasing power of U.S. consumers and businesses,” the CBO found. The productivity of American businesses would decline due to “limiting competition from imports and causing resources to be used less efficiently than they otherwise would have been used.”
The higher tariffs would lower the budget deficit by about $2.7 trillion over the next 10 years, the CBO also estimated. In other words, American consumers would be paying $2.7 trillion more in federal taxes over the next 10 years if Trump’s tariff plans are implemented”
https://reason.com/2024/12/23/trumps-tariffs-will-shrink-the-economy-and-reduce-investment-cbo-says/
“President Donald Trump moved forward Saturday with his plans for tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, ending a guessing game about how aggressively he would move to penalize America’s three largest trading partners.
The tariffs — as Trump has promised since after his election win — will be 25% duties on Canada and Mexico and 10% on China over issues of fentanyl and illegal migration.”
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“tariffs on crucial energy imports from Canada will be lower, with 10% duties on those products. The carveout was an acknowledgment of US and Canadian energy interdependence.
Trump said the drug and migration issues constituted a national emergency and moved forward on the duties using authority in the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).”
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“”Tariffs are simply taxes,” wrote Sen. Rand Paul, who is a vocal Trump advocate on other fronts. “Taxing trade will mean less trade and higher prices.”
The Canadian Chamber of Commerce added its own blistering statement that called Trump’s move “profoundly disturbing” and added that it “will have immediate and direct consequences on Canadian and American livelihoods.””
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/new-trump-tariffs-on-mexico-canada-and-china-set-to-start-tuesday-221835200.html
Trump says he opened California’s water. Local officials say he nearly flooded them.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-administration-orders-alarming-water-001200240.html
Kash Patel isn’t qualified to be Director of the FBI, but he is a Trump loyalist. Trump already fired one Director for the purpose of protecting himself and his allies from a legitimate investigation. Will Patel be focused on good police work, or abusing the powers of the FBI to serve Trump?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnBpWjz9Y8M
“A study this month by Warwick McKibbin and Marcus Noland of the Peterson Institute for International Economics concluded that the 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico and 10% tariffs on China “would damage all the economies involved, including the U.S.’’“
For Mexico,’’ the study said, “a 25% tariff would be catastrophic. Moreover, the economic decline caused by the tariff could increase the incentives for Mexican immigrants to cross the border illegally into the U.S. — directly contradicting another Trump administration priority.’’
Cutler, now vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute, said the extent of the economic damage will depend on how long the tariffs are in effect.
If it’s just a few days, “that’s one thing. If they are in place for weeks onto months, we’re going to see supply chain disruptions, higher costs for U.S. manufacturers, leading to higher prices for U.S. consumers,’’ she said. “It could have macroeconomic impacts. It could affect the stock market. Then internationally it could lead to more tension with our trading partners and make it harder for us to work with
them.””https://www.yahoo.com/news/white-house-says-trump-tariffs-184354384.html
Coercion may work against smaller countries on issues that don’t hurt them too much, but that doesn’t mean it will work against stronger countries. Trump’s first term trade war with China was a failure.
https://www.axios.com/2025/01/28/trump-foreign-policy-deportations
Why this Nixon-inspired law says Trump can’t freeze federal funding
https://www.axios.com/2025/01/29/trump-federal-funding-freeze-nixon-law