Weekend Open Thread
[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
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.
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
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
