[guest post by Dana]

Let’s go!

First news item

Court denies DOJ appeal:

A federal appeals court has rejected an effort by the justice department to halt a judge’s investigation into whether the Trump administration violated court orders to “facilitate” the release of Kilmar Ábrego García, the Maryland man wrongly deported to El Salvador.

In its order on Thursday, the court said the Trump administration’s request to bar US district judge Paula Xinis from opening her inquiry was “both extraordinary and premature”.

We shall not micromanage the efforts of a fine district judge attempting to implement the supreme court’s recent decision,” the order states.

“It is difficult in some cases to get to the very heart of the matter. But in this case, it is not hard at all,” it continues.

The order can be found here. Take the time read it in its entirety.

The Abrego-Garcia case is a perfect litmus test for whether a person understands and is truly committed to the rule of law. If you can’t admit the plain error here, you are captured and, through either tribal loyalty or blind trust, are losing touch with an important part of what…

— Heath Mayo (@HeathMayo) April 18, 2025

Second news item

Jewish governor’s home firebombed:

The attack occurred hours after the Shapiro family hosted more than two dozen people for the first night of Passover.

The fire was reported at about 2 a.m. ET Sunday and the family was safely evacuated.

Investigators have not released a motive for the attack, but the search warrant represents the most direct indication of why Balmer allegedly hopped a fence at the governor’s mansion, broke windows and hurled Molotov cocktails police said he made from beer bottles and gasoline.

Balmer called 911 less than an hour after the attack, identified himself and told the call-taker that he will not take part in Shapiro’s plans “for what he wants to do to the Palestinian people,” the warrant said. Balmer added Shapiro needed to “stop having my friends killed.”

There has been no decision made yet whether the accused will have a hate crime added to the charges he currently faces. It’s hard to see how that wouldn’t happen, given that the suspect selected the Jewish governor’s home and criticized Shapiro for how he treats the Palestinians.

Then there is this obvious bit of reasoning:

“[Shapiro] has absolutely nothing to do with the war in Gaza. He has absolutely nothing to do with Israel’s policymaking. And the only reason that he was attacked is because he’s Jewish. And it’s one of the repulsive beliefs that a lot of these pro-Palestinian, pro-terrorist activists hold is that all Jews everywhere in the world are somehow legitimate targets for their expressed displeasure with the policies of Israel.”

Spot on.

Third news item

DOGE whistleblower:

In the first days of March, a team of advisers from President Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency initiative arrived at the. . . headquarters of the National Labor Relations Board.

The DOGE employees. . .appeared to have their sights set on accessing the NLRB’s internal systems. They’ve said their unit’s overall mission is to review agency data for compliance with the new administration’s policies and to cut costs and maximize efficiency.

But according to an official whistleblower disclosure shared with Congress and other federal overseers that was obtained by NPR, subsequent interviews with the whistleblower and records of internal communications, technical staff members were alarmed about what DOGE engineers did when they were granted access, particularly when those staffers noticed a spike in data leaving the agency. It’s possible that the data included sensitive information on unions, ongoing legal cases and corporate secrets — data that four labor law experts tell NPR should almost never leave the NLRB and that has nothing to do with making the government more efficient or cutting spending.

Meanwhile, according to the disclosure and records of internal communications, members of the DOGE team asked that their activities not be logged on the system and then appeared to try to cover their tracks behind them, turning off monitoring tools and manually deleting records of their access — evasive behavior that several cybersecurity experts interviewed by NPR compared to what criminal or state-sponsored hackers might do.

Fourth news item

Marco Rubio ready to walk away from peace talks with Ukraine:

So, we’ve talked about outlines with both sides. I thought we had positive meetings yesterday. Obviously, the Ukrainians have to go back home, they have to run it by their president, they have to take into account their views on all of this. And we hope to hear back from them very soon. But we need to figure out here now, within a matter of days, whether this is doable in the short term. Because if it’s not, then I think we’re just going to move on, from our perspective. The president feels very strongly about that. He has dedicated a lot of time and energy to this, and there are a lot of things going on in the world right now that we need to be focused on.

So, this is important, but there are a lot of other really important things going on that deserve just as much if not more attention. So we want to do everything we can to be helpful. We had a good meeting yesterday. I thought the French, the British, the Germans were very constructive, were very helpful. We thanked them for hosting this, and hopefully we’ll have another meeting early next week at some point where we’ll have some more definitive answers about how close we are to actually making progress. But this isn’t going to go on forever.

It’s so ridiculous. Clearly, Russia doesn’t want peace or a CD ceasefire. If they did, they could’ve had it at any time simply by NOT ATTACKING UKRAINE! But they don’t because they don’t want peace. They want Ukraine. All of it.

So the U.S. plan is apparently to give Russia what it wants and screwing Ukraine:

The US has proposed a plan to its allies aimed at ending Russia’s war against Ukraine, reportedly including provisions to ease sanctions on Moscow and allow Russian-occupied territories to remain under Putin’s control.

Contra to Rubio, JD Vance is feeling optimistic about bringing the war to a close.

Have a good weekend.

—Dana

[guest post by Dana]

I’m guessing that a number of her Republican colleagues who are not MAGA, can relate to Lisa Murkowski:

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski told a room full of Alaska nonprofit leaders that the tumult of tariffs, executive orders, court battles, and cuts to federal services under the Trump administration are exceptionally concerning.

“We are all afraid,” Murkowski said, taking a long pause. “It’s quite a statement. But we are in a time and a place where I certainly have not been here before. And I’ll tell ya, I’m oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation is real. And that’s not right.”

Anyway, last I checked, Murkowski has a few years left before she faces re-election. So, what’s she afraid of? If it’s Trump and his administration and his crazy policies, you have to ask yourself, then why is she still a Republican? She knows precisely what today’s new Republican Party is about. Imagine supporting a political party whose very real retaliation you’re actually afraid of! Why subject yourself to that?

And what does it say about the Republican Party that its own members are afraid of retaliation? It says that they’ve chosen a bully to be in the White House. And knowing Trump, they do have reason to be afraid. Clearly, the little autocrat has his minions reporting any misstep a member of Congress might make (anything that goes against Trump or is in disagreement with him).

But I say this to Murkowski: Buck up! Now is not the time to cave to fear. Now is the time to stand strong against this unfolding tyranny and assault against the rule of law. I bet if she did make a stand, there would surely be others who would join her. It’s hard to be courageous by oneself, but in a group where everyone is convinced of the same worthy cause, increased strength and courage comes. As someone once said, “Without courage, all other virtues lose their meaning”.

Anyway, not being re-elected is what she is ultimately afraid of. But if she took heart from other Republican members of Congress who chose to hold onto their integrity, honor their oath to protect the Constitution, and valued the rule of law while speaking out against the authoritarian lawbreaker in the Oval, then lost their seats as a result, she would know that it wouldn’t be the end of the world. Let’s face it, if was bold and stuck to her guns, she probably wouldn’t get re-elected. Not in a state where 54% went for Trump in 2024. But if she didn’t get re-elected because she did what was necessary to preserve her own integrity, including disagreeing with Trump and his pushing back against his lawlessness, then that should be seen as a badge of honor.

PS I’m also mindful that perhaps there is an underlying fear that an angry Trump might try to mess with the personal life of a Congressmember who pushes back against him. But if that’s the case, all the more reason to get him out of office ASAP.

—Dana

[guest post by Dana]

This isn’t a little problem, not by a long shot. The fact that it’s a Trump “Stop the Steal” organizer who believes that the 2020 election was a “hoax” who is now Trump’s choice for U.S. attorney for D.C., is expected. But there’s far more to be concerned about with Ed Martin:

Hours before President Donald Trump announced U.S. missile strikes on Syria in response to a chemical attack that killed 90 civilians in April 2017, Ed Martin said on the Russian state television network RT America that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad might not be to blame. Instead, Martin told viewers, the situation was “engineered” in Washington “by the people that want war in Syria.”

In early 2022, Martin told an interviewer on the same arm of RT’s global network that “there’s no evidence” of a Russian military buildup on Ukraine’s borders, criticizing U.S. officials as warmongering and ignoring Russia’s security concerns. Russia invaded nine days later, igniting a war that continues today.

Martin is now interim U.S. attorney for D.C. and Trump’s pick to serve full time in the role. But as a conservative activist and former Missouri Republican official, he appeared more than 150 times on RT and Sputnik — networks funded and directed by the Russian government — as a guest commentator from August 2016 to April 2024, according to a search of their websites and the Internet Archive’s database of television broadcasts.

The report goes on to say that Martin declined to disclose his appearances on a questionnaire for the Senate Judiciary Committee. Come to find out, he went on RT and Sputnik far more than any other media outlet during that time period.

Additionally, the report says that national security analysts are troubled by Martin’s friendliness with Russian media. But, why? Trump is simply putting someone forward who is a Russian apologist like he is. But according to said experts, “[Martin] has even moved beyond disinformation to engage in covert influence activities aimed at undermining democracies worldwide for President Vladimir Putin’s regime.” Yeah, that’s a serious problem.

Here’s the thing though: If Americans are not bothered by Trump’s betrayal of our country and its ideals, and his lack of respect for the Constitution, and his open defiance to the courts, along with a determined dismissal of the rule of law, then why would they be concerned about Martin and his Russia-love? After all, our president has now allied America with Russia (and made us the enemy of Ukraine).

—Dana

[guest post by Dana]

Yet again:

Donald Trump has again blamed Volodymyr Zelensky for starting the war with Russia – a day after a major Russian attack killed 35 people and injured 117 others in the Ukrainian city of Sumy.

The US president said Ukraine’s leader shared the blame with Russian President Vladimir Putin for the “millions of people dead” in the conflict.

“You don’t start a war against someone 20 times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles,” he said at the White House on Monday.

More of his false claims:

“Millions of people dead because of three people,” Trump had said. “Let’s say Putin number one, let’s say Biden who had no idea what the hell he was doing, number two, and Zelensky.”

Questioning Zelensky’s competence, he said the Ukrainian leader was “always looking to purchase missiles”.

“When you start a war, you got to know you can win,” the US president said.

Trump further argued on Monday that “Biden could have stopped it and Zelensky could have stopped it, and Putin should have never started it. Everybody is to blame”.

Trump has repeatedly lied about President Zelensky and who started the war Ukraine. We already know that the President of the United States has aligned himself with Russia. We already know that he has repeatedly criticized Zelensky, while remaining mostly silent about Putin. Additionally, Trump told the G7 this week that the U.S. would not support the G7’s joint statement condemning the massacre in Sumy on Palm Sunday, which left 35 dead and 119 injured. Trump claimed that if the U.S. supported the statement, ongoing negotiations with Russia would be disrupted.

The masks were barely there, but it's time for everyone to stop pretending Trump wants anything other than whatever Putin wants. "He just wants the war to end" & "upsetting negotiations" are idiotic things to say when he's condemning Zelenskyy & Biden instead of Putin.

— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) April 15, 2025

None of this is surprising, but it is a good reminder that the president is not to be trusted. Remarkably, he has made us Russia’s ally, and also the enemy of Ukraine. Imagine, the leader of the freest nation on earth allying with Russia – a terrorist state run by an evil, murderous thug who despises the West and the freedom it represents. And while Ukraine’s President Zelensky has worked tirelessly to protect his country from the onslaught of invading and occupying Russian troops, he is the one that Trump holds responsible for the war, blames for the lead up up to the war, and blames for the deaths of soldiers and civilians.

Trump and his administration have been all too eager to support our nation’s enemy. A despicable betrayal. Trump is a walking disgrace, a traitor to this nation and its ideals. For all his kowtowing to Putin, he seems to not realize that Putin owns him, and that he is a laughingstock on the world stage. So be it.

But let’s be very clear. Contrary to the lies that we are being told by Trump about the war in in Ukraine:

1) Putin invaded Ukraine. A ruthless dictator ordered the invasion of a sovereign nation.

2) Putin has had three years to stop the war, and has consistently chosen not to because he doesn’t want to end the war. He wants to wholly subsume Ukraine and make it part of his imagined empire, and then move on to the next country.

3) Putin is responsible for the deaths of Russian soldiers and civilians, as well as the deaths of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians. If he had not invaded, Zelensky and his people would not have been forced defend themselves. There is a distinct difference between invading murderers and victims defending themselves.

4) Everybody is not to blame for the war. But we know who is to blame.

5) Putin is also responsible for the lives of 19,000+ kidnapped children. He could have ordered them returned at any time, but hasn’t.

6). Trump has enabled an evil regime to continue in its thirst for more domination. He has chosen to indulge his worst urges – you know, that particular one where he wants to be seen as a strongman in the eyes of the world’s most notorious strongmen.

7) One last thing: Trump also said that Russia’s Palm Sunday massacre was a “mistake”. It wasn’t. And he never condemned Russia for it.

Mr. Swift, you were so right:

Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it. . .

—Dana

[guest post by Dana]

Yep, this is what a whole lot of us thought might happen when we learned that administration officials used the Signal app to discuss classified information.

Via Kyle Cheney:

CIA confirms that when it scanned Director Ratcliffe’s phone for Signalgate messages, they were gone.

From the Supplemental Declaration of the CIA’s chief data officer:

. . .because the screenshot does not show substantive messages from the Signal chat; rather, it captures the name of the chat: “Houthi PC small group,” and reflects administrative notifications from 26 March and 28 March relating to changes in participants’ administrative settings in the group chat, such as profile names and message settings.

—Dana

[guest post by Dana]

What?? An American president told El Salvador’s President Bukele that our “homegrown” criminals should be deported to his prisons and that Bukele will need to build five additional prisons because what he has isn’t going to be enough:

Trump to Bukele: "Home-growns are next. The home-growns. You gotta build about five more places. It's not big enough." pic.twitter.com/o20thGNK9e

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 14, 2025

REPORTER: Are you considering deporting American citizens to El Salvador?

TRUMP: Yeah that includes them, you think they're a special type of people or something?

pic.twitter.com/XGwuWD5oEj

— Maine (@TheMaineWonk) April 14, 2025

To be clear, an American president is suggesting that we start renditioning Americans to prisons in foreign countries. If the foreign nationals, who were here legally, yet were picked up and sent to CECOT, didn’t get their due process, do you really think the “homegrown” (Americans) that some Trump loyalist decides they need to go, will get their due process? The whole thing is just unbelievable, un-American, and illegal. Does this mean that American citizenship is provisional now? Are we all going to share this particular brand of vulnerability, being subject to the whims of a corrupt president and his corrupt administration?

Now I know some of you are going to tell me, stop overreacting, he was just joking. Oh really? This is the same administration that decided to have Salvadoran Kilmar Abrego Garcia deported to El Salvador, despite an immigration court order against him being sent there because of the risk of persecution. This is the same administration that sent a gay hairdresser who was not a gang member to that hellhole. This is also the same administration that made the decision to pay El Salvador $6 million a year to take Venezuelan deportees and alleged (Tren de Aragua and MS-13) gang members to CECOT. Some of whom had never been convicted or even charged with a felony. Why would anyone think laws would be followed given what has happened?

Which reminds me: As you know the Supreme Court last week ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” the return of Abrego Garcia. The administration believes it has no legal obligation to return Abrego Garcia. So, today, during the Oval Office meeting, Bukele said he is not asking for Abrego Garcia to be returned to the U.S., thus he couldn’t be returned. What?? Read the crazy rationalization below.

First, the set up:

The Justice Department has conceded in court documents that Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador due to an “administrative error.” The Supreme Court said last week that the U.S. must “facilitate” his release.

That simply means that if El Salvador asks to send him back, the U.S. has to help, administration officials argued today — not that the U.S. has to do anything proactive to rectify its error.

“If they wanted to return him, we would facilitate it, meaning provide a plane,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in the Oval Office.

What happened today:

El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, said he’s not asking.

“The question is preposterous,” Bukele said at the White House today. “How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? I don’t have the power to return him to the United States.”

Finally:

The two leaders have created a circular logic in which no one has the ability to do what the Supreme Court said must be done.

The Justice Department is also arguing in legal filings that courts don’t have the power to dictate specific steps to the executive branch. So, effectively, no one can initiate this process.

This is utterly preposterous. And it’s not rocket science. Remember that $6 million dollars Trump is paying Bukele? If Trump was seriously interested in following the Court’s order, he could easily threaten to cut off the millions of dollars until Bukele returns Abrego Garcia to the U.S. I’m pretty sure Bukele would find a way to get it done asap.

This is happening right in front of us, without fear or shame or concern about legalities. And without accountability for defying a court order.

Bukele has already sent back 9 people to the United States that the Trump admin insists are gang members.

So why can’t he send back Abrego-Garcia? https://t.co/UXT1HCGuDY pic.twitter.com/lp2Ffmh0c9

— John McCormack (@McCormackJohn) April 14, 2025

—Dana

[guest post by Dana]

What a week. Trump has only been in the Oval for 91 82 days, but my gosh, it feels like a lifetime.

Anyway, let’s go!

First news item

Is everyone okay with this?:

NASDAQ call volume spiked minutes before the 90 day tariff pause was announced.

Not a good look at all. pic.twitter.com/SeF7Hfn2SM

— Spencer Hakimian (@SpencerHakimian) April 10, 2025

Details:

In the wake of President Donald Trump’s announcement Wednesday afternoon that he was pausing country-by-country tariffs by 90 days, some experts. . .are raising questions about a statement he posted earlier in the day that may have indicated the massive sell-off in stocks in recent days was coming to an end.

Not long after trading opened at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, Trump took to his Truth Social platform and wrote:

“BE COOL! Everything is going to work out well. The USA will be bigger and better than ever before!”

Four minutes later, he wrote:

“THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT”

Just before 1:30 p.m., Trump announced the pause, sending stocks soaring. The tech-heavy Nasdaq index had its biggest one-day gain since 2008, rising nearly 12%, while the S&P 500 climbed 9.5% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 8%, or about 2,800 points.

Richard Painter, chief ethics lawyer for former G.W. Bush, and now teaches government ethics and security regulation, sums up the problem:

Painter said the incident could result in investigations “into who knew what and when before [Trump] announced he was going to postpone the tariffs on all the countries except for China.”

“This was a terrible idea to make those posts,” Painter said of Trump’s suggestion that it was “a great time to buy.”

Painter further admonished Trump, saying, “I would hope that he would focus on doing his job — and try to calm the markets and have a predictable trade policy and let the markets do their thing without the White House giving what appears to be investment advice.”

Second news item

Good news:

The Trump administration must take steps to return a Maryland resident who was mistakenly deported from the U.S., the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday.

. . .

The high court in an unsigned order with no dissenting votes said the lower court judge “properly requires the Government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.”

Making plain sense:

Justice Sonia Sotomayor said in an opinion that fellow liberal Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson signed onto “the proper remedy is to provide Abrego Garcia with all the process to which he would have been entitled had he not been unlawfully removed to El Salvador.”

How hard do you think the administration will work to make sure the order is followed and they actually ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s return?

Note:

Yes, the Rule of Law means that allegedly very bad guys–indeed, even indisputably very bad guys–are entitled to proper legal process.

UPDATE:

The Trump administration confirmed Saturday that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man illegally deported to El Salvador, is alive but confined in a notorious anti-terrorism prison under the control of the Salvadoran government.

“He is alive and secure in that facility. He is detained pursuant to the sovereign, domestic authority of El Salvador,” Michael Kozak, a top State Department official, said in a two-page, written declaration submitted to a judge under penalty of perjury.

The minimal information Kozak provided fell well short of the details demanded by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, who had ordered the Trump administration to update her not only on Abrego Garcia’s whereabouts but on any steps it had taken to facilitate his return to the United States.

Kozak’s update, submitted 10 minutes after a court-ordered deadline Saturday, included just 49 words on Abrego Garcia’s location and no information about what officials had already done or planned to do to correct their error.

Sounds like Trump is making the excuse that the United States is unable to do anything about bringing Abrego-Garcia back to the U.S. because of El Salvador’s “sole” authority.

Third news item

Wow:

Federal officials have begun contacting University of California faculty members for an antisemitism probe after the school complied with a subpoena from the Trump administration seeking the personal information of around 900 faculty members, two UC employees with knowledge of the situation told POLITICO.

The employees, who were granted anonymity to speak candidly, said federal officials have begun reaching out and speaking with faculty members last week, raising concern from faculty that the federal government is trying to pit them against each other as President Donald Trump continues to cut funding from top universities around the country.

Fourth news item

Just stop with the bullshit:

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called for people to get the measles vaccine while in the same breath falsely claiming it hasn’t been “safety tested” and its protection is short-lived.

. . .

Kennedy also suggested that measles cases are inevitable in the United States because of ebbing immunity from vaccines — a notion doctors say is false.

“We’re always going to have measles, no matter what happens, as the vaccine wanes very quickly,” Kennedy said.

Why does Kennedy even have this job?

Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said two doses of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine offer lifelong protection. That’s because the vaccine stimulates the production of memory cells, he said, which can recognize the virus over a lifetime.

“We eliminated measles from this country. That could never happen if immunity waned,” said Offit, who serves on an independent vaccine advisory committee for the FDA.

Instead of casting doubt upon an effective vaccine, shouldn’t – at the very least – the Health and Human Services Secretary be extolling a proven vaccine and encouraging people to get it? It’s an incredible privilege to have this vaccine readily available in the United States, so why look the gift horse in the mouth.

Fifth news item

First teacher to lose job for breaking Florida’s new rules concerning addressing students:

At the start of the 2023-2024 school year, Florida began requiring educators to get parental permission before calling a student by an alternative to their legal name. Less than two years later, a teacher didn’t comply — and lost her job.

Melissa Calhoun, a teacher at Satellite High School in Brevard County, will not have her contract renewed for the 2025-2026 school year after calling a student by a preferred name without getting a signed form, according to Brevard Public Schools Spokesperson Janet Murnaghan.

Seventh news item

President Zelensky doing what he has to do:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Wednesday that his country is ready to spend up to $50 billion for more US air defenses and aid.

Speaking to local reporters, Zelenskyy framed such a deal as a potential long-standing security arrangement with the US instead of Washington donating stock to Kyiv.

. . .

Zelenskyy previously dismissed the idea of Ukraine retroactively paying for weapons sent in the past.

“But if that issue is raised in the minerals agreement, we will not be taking on old debts,” Zelenskyy said in March. “If it’s about new support, then the United States may impose certain conditions.”

“We understand that this administration won’t do anything for free,” he added.

Note: It’s been one month since Ukraine accepted Trump’s demand for an unconditional ceasefire with Russia. Meanwhile, Russia has repeatedly made it clear, by its endless missile and drone attacks on Ukraine civilian populations, that it never had any intention of agreeing to a ceasefire, let alone abiding by its conditions.

Eighth news item

Paging DOGE!

A Wall Street Journal analysis of daily financial statements issued by the Treasury Department found government spending since the inauguration is $154 billion more than in the same period in 2024 during the administration of former President Joe Biden.

Have a great weekend.

—Dana

[guest post by Dana]

Every day there is something new. One can’t keep up. I sure hope no one is planning on an actual full 90 day pause because we know that Trump is mentally unstable, flip-flops constantly, and doesn’t understand or care about the negative impacts his impulsive decisions have on the American people. It would be foolish to count on this happening (until it actually happens!):

Based on the lack of respect that China has shown to the World’s Markets, I am hereby raising the Tariff charged to China by the United States of America to 125%, effective immediately. At some point, hopefully in the near future, China will realize that the days of ripping off the U.S.A., and other Countries, is no longer sustainable or acceptable. Conversely, and based on the fact that more than 75 Countries have called Representatives of the United States, including the Departments of Commerce, Treasury, and the USTR, to negotiate a solution to the subjects being discussed relative to Trade, Trade Barriers, Tariffs, Currency Manipulation, and Non Monetary Tariffs, and that these Countries have not, at my strong suggestion, retaliated in any way, shape, or form against the United States, I have authorized a 90 day PAUSE, and a substantially lowered Reciprocal Tariff during this period, of 10%, also effective immediately. Thank you for your attention to this matter!

But for the moment:

Dow surges 1,800 points after Trump signals a 90-day pause on tariffs https://t.co/eUeVIYf4hM

— CNBC (@CNBC) April 9, 2025

—Dana

[guest post by Dana]

Trump has always been vainglorious, and unable to see his own hypocrisy or read a room, so this is unsurprising. He had dreams of a large, flashy military parade during his first term, too, but the costs were so high, that he had to cancel his dreams. So, what better time to plan another elaborate military parade than when Americans are suffering financially as a result of Trump’s tariffs:

The Trump administration started planning a military-style parade in the D.C. area for the president’s birthday. . . The Trump administration has been contacting local leaders in the D.C. area about having a parade. The size and scope of the parade is unclear.

June 14 will be the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army. It’s also Trump’s 79th birthday, a celebration that could include a parade. . .

About the costs that compelled Trump to cancel his plans last time:

[Mayor] Bowser cautioned that a true military parade with heavy equipment like tanks would come with a cost.

“Military tanks on our streets would not be good,” she said. “If military tanks were used, they should be accompanied with many millions of dollars to repair the roads.”

. . .

Infrastructure like the 14th Street Bridge would have to be tested to see if it could support the parade, officials said.

. . .

“The military leaders said it would cost too much, nearly $90 million; Mayor Bowser. . . said it would cost us $20 million just for public safety. . . “So, he canceled it — angrily canceled it. But this time around, it doesn’t sound like he is gonna cancel.”

Given that it’s several years later, one can reasonably assume that costs have only gone up, thus that would still be a vexing problem for Trump. Additionally, the optics of spending a massive amount of (taxpayer?) money during a shaky economy would be awful. I don’t think that Trump, personally, would be bothered by this, but one hopes that his chief of staff and advisors would press the point.

Mostly though, because Trump is basically a toddler who, when he wants something, has to have it, he will ignore reasonable warnings and do what he wants to do. One-time compliance was enough. After all, if his friends are doing it, why can’t he??!!

—Dana

[guest post by Dana]

This is one of those things that makes me shudder. Do we really think that nothing will go wrong with this?:

The dire wolf once roamed an American range that extended as far south as Venezuela and as far north as Canada, but not a single one has been seen in over 10,000 years, when the species went extinct. Plenty of dire wolf remains have been discovered across the Americas, however, and that presented an opportunity for a company named Colossal Biosciences.

Relying on deft genetic engineering and ancient, preserved DNA, Colossal scientists deciphered the dire wolf genome, rewrote the genetic code of the common gray wolf to match it, and, using domestic dogs as surrogate mothers, brought Romulus, Remus, and their sister, 2-month-old Khaleesi, into the world during three separate births last fall and this winter—effectively for the first time de-extincting a line of beasts whose live gene pool long ago vanished.

The same company has now “copied mammoth DNA to create a woolly mouse, a chimeric critter with the long, golden coat and the accelerated fat metabolism of the mammoth”.

When presented with concerns about their endeavors, Colossal scientists explained that this knowledge could help endangered animals from going extinct, and that they could use the information about the woolly mouse to “engineer” elephants vigorous enough to survive the impacts of climate change. They also claim that what they learned in replicating the dire wolf can also be used to prevent certain wolves from extinction. Additionally:

“We are an evolutionary force at this point,” says Beth Shapiro, Colossal’s chief science officer, speaking of humanity as a whole. “We are deciding what the future of these species will be.”

And that is what makes me weary: a group of really intelligent scientists, armed with the power and ability to pick and choose what will happen to various species. Do we think that such knowledge will be used wisely and without an adverse outcome? After all, is there anything wrong with letting extinct animals remain just that?

-—Dana