Steve Rattner: The job market is clearly getting rough right now
Steve Rattner: The job market is clearly getting rough right now
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs0TTfacwCY
Tag: trump
The Constitution Does Not Allow the President To Unilaterally Blow Suspected Drug Smugglers to Smithereens
“Somewhere off the coast of Venezuela, a speedboat with 11 people on board is blown to smithereens. Vice President J.D. Vance announces that “killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military.”
When challenged that killing citizens without due process is a war crime, the vice president responded that he “didn’t give a shit.”
…
But over 20,000 people are murdered in the U.S. each year, and yet somehow we find a way to a dispassionate dispensation of justice that includes legal representation for the accused and jury trial.
Why? Because sometimes the accused is actually not guilty.
As passions subside, a civilized people should ask: To be clear, the people bombed to smithereens were guilty, right?
…
The administration has maintained that the people blown to smithereens were members of Tren de Aragua and therefore narcoterrorists.
Certainly, then, if we know they belong to a particular gang, then someone must surely have known their names before they were blown to smithereens?
At the very least, the government should explain how the gang came to be labelled as terrorists. U.S. law defines a terrorist as someone who uses “premeditated, politically motivated violence…against non-combatants.” Since the U.S. policy is now to blow people to smithereens if they are suspected of being in a terrorist gang, then maybe someone could take the time to explain the evidence of their terrorism?
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Few independent legal scholars argue the strikes are legal. Even John Yoo—a former deputy assistant attorney general under President George W. Bush, who infamously authored the Bush administration’s legal justification for “enhanced interrogation techniques”—has criticized the Trump administration’s justification for the strikes, saying: “There has to be a line between crime and war. We can’t just consider anything that harms the country to be a matter for the military. Because that could potentially include every crime.””
https://reason.com/2025/10/08/the-constitution-does-not-allow-the-president-to-unilaterally-blow-suspected-drug-smugglers-to-smithereens/?nab=1
Trump’s Labor Department Admits That Trump’s Immigration Crackdown Is Causing a Shortage of Farm Workers
“The Trump administration’s immigration crackdown is making it harder for American farms to find seasonal workers and putting the nation’s food supply chain at risk.”
https://reason.com/2025/10/08/trumps-labor-department-admits-that-trumps-immigration-crackdown-is-causing-a-labor-shortage/?nab=1
The Border Czar and a Bag of $50,000
Trump Border Czar appears to have accepted a 50k bag of cash as a straight up corrupt bribe. The Trump administration either denies or pleads ignorance. On immigration, this man says he’s simply enforcing the law, but when it comes to enforcing corruption against him, the Trump administration doesn’t care. Trump officials inherited this investigation, and chose to drop it. Trump isn’t draining a swamp, he is growing it. His official had accepted a 50k bag of shady influence cash and not only do they drop the investigation, they pretend like it doesn’t matter. They don’t actually care about corruption!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxMjce6kSJY
Global Shock!
Trump sanctioned a Chinese port for accepting Iranian oil. China put a tax on U.S. ships.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qri0lqnvmAY&t=628s
Trump’s Troops Return to a City That Moved On: Dispatch From Portland
“Five years after the city’s fiery 2020 protests, Portland is mostly calm. That hasn’t stopped Trump from reviving old battles, fueled by false memories and made-for-TV outrage.
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there have been rocks and sticks thrown at ICE agents and the shining of lasers into officers’ eyes. According to recent reporting in The Oregonian, there have been 29 arrests during ICE protests this year, 18 of them in June. Still, most nights see a few dozen protesters at most. Comparing this to the 2,000-plus nightly protesters in 2020 is not just apples to oranges; it’s apples to an apple-flavored sugar crystal on an Apple Jack.
This clearly doesn’t matter to Trump, who has shown little to no interest in what’s actually happening, instead relying on historical memory of the city’s fiery days to animate the proposition that “war-ravaged” Portland must be made to heel.”
https://reason.com/2025/10/06/trumps-troops-return-to-a-city-that-moved-on-dispatch-from-portland/?nab=1
After All Those DOGE Cuts, Federal Spending Still Increased by $300 Billion
“President Donald Trump returned to the White House with a promise to slash spending by trillions of dollars and balance the federal budget.
But, as the first fiscal year of his second term came to a close, progress had not been made on either of those goals.
Despite the high-profile efforts of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the 2025 federal fiscal year ended with the federal government having spent more money than it did in the previous fiscal year, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported
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The CBO’s end-of-year report helpfully spells out which parts of the federal budget saw the biggest year-over-year spending increases. Overwhelmingly, and unsurprisingly, the biggest increases were for the so-called entitlement programs: Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. For those three programs, spending increased by a combined $245 billion.
Other big spending increases were recorded by the Pentagon ($38 billion) and the Department of Veterans Affairs ($41 billion), where the increase was driven by the rising cost of health care facilities. Interest payments on the national debt rose by $80 billion compared to the previous fiscal year’s totals.
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the CBO’s report serves to underline the same fiscal reality that plagued the DOGE project: Cutting silly government contracts and foreign aid might be a worthwhile effort, but that won’t make a dent in the budget deficit. Any serious effort at fiscal reform has to focus on the areas of the budget that are growing year over year—which, realistically, means looking at entitlement programs.
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There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical that anything will change in the next three years. For one, Trump’s track record after nearly five years as president does not suggest he cares very much about actually cutting spending. The coming years will also bring greater headwinds to any attempts at reducing the deficit. That’s due in part to the expected increases in entitlement spending, as well as the fiscal effects of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which extended and expanded the 2017 tax cuts in ways that will likely add to the deficit.”
https://reason.com/2025/10/10/after-all-those-doge-cuts-federal-spending-still-increased-by-300-billion/?nab=1
Trump Won’t Invoke the Insurrection Act—As Long As He Can Use the National Guard However He Wants
Trump Won’t Invoke the Insurrection Act—As Long As He Can Use the National Guard However He Wants
https://reason.com/2025/10/10/trump-wont-invoke-the-insurrection-act-as-long-as-he-can-use-the-national-guard-however-he-wants/?nab=1
Hear what Trump says he told Putin about Tomahawk missiles during call
Trump seems easily manipulated by Putin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47XITR7MLXU
Republican Socialism: The Trump Administration Buys a Stake in Yet Another Company
“Not even shutting down the government can stop Republicans from forcing their way into corporate boardrooms these days.
The federal government is, at the moment, incapable of completing its most basic and routine task—passing a budget—and yet it is simultaneously expanding its portfolio to include a 10 percent ownership stake in an Alaskan mining company.”
https://reason.com/2025/10/07/republican-socialism-the-trump-administration-buys-a-stake-in-yet-another-company/?nab=1