Thursday, April 17, 2025

David Cronenberg


In David Cronenberg’s The Shrouds, emotions manifest themselves through changes to the body. A man bleeds because he’s nervous. Grief rots the teeth. And love, in one of the film’s more startling images, seems to mimic the effects of a late-stage terminal disease. There is talk of religion, but the film’s protagonist, Vincent Cassel’s Karsh Relikh, made up to look like Cronenberg himself, insists that he’s an atheist. But he does believe in an afterlife. Or, maybe more accurately, an afterdeath: Karsh has developed a technology that will allow him to watch his beloved late wife’s body decay in the grave, and he wants to share it with the world.
That’s the “shroud” of the title: a nifty piece of engineered cloth outfitted with many tiny X-ray cameras that is placed in the deceased’s coffin, allowing their loved ones to watch them slowly rot away. It was born out of Karsh’s anguished desire to enter his wife Bekka’s (Diane Kruger) coffin and be buried alongside her, but now it’s part of his funereal tech empire. Someone asks him about the Shroud of Turin early on; he reminds them that the ancient relic that purported to capture the face of Jesus was a fake. But Relikh’s shrouds are real. As someone who doesn’t believe in a spiritual concept of the self, maybe this is his answer to religion: If our emotions are our bodies, then perhaps, in watching our bodies decompose, we can truly reveal a secular version of the soul.,

The Shrouds is clearly a very personal film for Cronenberg, who has spoken openly of the pain of losing his wife to cancer several years ago. But then again, Cronenberg makes personal films. Movies like A Dangerous Method and Crimes of the Future don’t happen because someone wants to make a quick buck. I will admit to not being a fan of the director’s later efforts (I prefer the earlier, funnier ones), but it feels like a gift to the world that he keeps making them, pursuing his own twisted muse no matter where it takes him.

Cronenberg has always been fascinated by control, and The Shrouds really goes to town on the idea. Early in the film, Karsh goes on a blind date with a woman who tells him she lives in a house designed by her architect ex-husband. The date itself was “engineered” (I’m pretty sure that’s the word used) by Karsh’s dentist. But of course, Karsh has one-upped them all: He owns the restaurant where they’re meeting, which also happens to be in a cemetery that is also partly his. Later, Karsh’s mess of a brother-in-law, Maury (a very funny Guy Pearce), who seems to be both financially and emotionally adrift in the wake of his divorce from Bekka’s sister, Terry (also Kruger), will attempt to exert his own power over the narrative. Kruger also shows up as the voice of Hunny, an artificially intelligent avatar placed inside Karsh’s phone, who seems able to playfully change attitudes and shapes based on how Karsh is feeling — but is he controlling her, or is she controlling him? And when Karsh finally begins to experience something resembling love again, questions hang in the air: Who made this happen? Was this affection also engineered? You see, even we atheists wrestle with the question of free will.


That's a taste of a review of David Cronenberg's new film.

And that's a review worth highlighting.  I love good writing, real writing.  An exploration.  I might see the film and disagree with the reviewer on its merits but a real review doesn't bother me if it's negative or positive.  It's the nonsense reviews that bother me.  You know they've looked around to see what everyone else is writing about the film.  It's run with the pack mentality. 


The Water Cooler Set, as Ava and C.I. have dubbed those types.

Ava and C.I. wrestle with topics, explore art and they're great writers because of it.  Pauline Kael was a great writer.  I think Bilge Ebiri is as well.  

A hack reviewer is someone I'm going to call out every time.  But someone who truly explores and grapples?  I don't care if they liked the film (or TV show) or not, if they've put the work in and they've got talent and critical skills, I'm going to enjoy reading what they wrote._


I love David Cronenberg's films.  I've seen SCANNERS too many times to count but, over the weekend, when I saw it was on MAX, I ended up streaming it again.  I think my all time favorite is EXISTENZ.  The twists and turns still surprise me.  I saw it at the movies because I always buy a ticket to Cronenberg films.  It's also the first film I ever bought on DVD.   Jude Law and Jennifer Jason Leigh were both amazing and the whole world that Cronenberg created in that film was just thrilling.

I love all of his films but my favorites besides those two would be VIDEODROME, THE BROOD, DEAD RINGERS, CRASH (this is the Holly Hunter film, not the one with Sandra Bullock, Thandie Newton and Matt Dillon), A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, SCANNERS, THE FLY and CRIMES OF THE FUTURE.

 
Rebecca's "white lotus season 3" is part one.  She's planning at least one more post on season three.  


Going out with C.I.'s "The Snapshot:"


Thursday, April 16, 2025. Senator Chris Van Hollen goes to El Salvador, David Hogg has a new advocacy plan, Chump continues to destroy the economy, and much more.


Let's start this morning with THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW's interview last night with Senator Chris Van Hollen.



Kilmar Abrego Garcia is in El Salvador still.  This despite the fact that the Supreme Court has ordered the White House to facilitate Kilmar's return home to the United States.  Kilmar is one of the senator's constituents.  He traveled yesterday to El Salvador and requested to meet with Kilmar but was denied.

US Embassy staff told Senator Van Hollen that they were not working in any way on this issue, that no one in the administration had told them to.  As the senator explained to Rachel, "It's pretty clear that the Trump administration has not lifted a finger to implement that court order."

The senator met with the vice president of El Salvador but he was not allowed to meet with Kilmar.

Rachel had noted the GOP Congress members and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had been able to get into the prison and do photo ops that they then post and circulate to the media "and make social media content" and she's right but what stood out to me when she was noting these Abu Ghraib type photos were the faces.

Why are their faces exposed?

I'm not talking about the MAGA trash.  I'm talking about the prisoners.  And since Kristi is posing for them with an inane grin on her face -- in what could be photographic evidence in an international trial for War Crimes,  these are apparently some of the 300 Venezuelans that Chump tossed out of the country even when the courts had ordered that these people could not be removed from the country, that they had a right to due process. 

So what's the excuse for MAGA trash like Kristi to be posting these people's faces online? 

The senator was not allowed to even speak with Kilmar over the phone.  

The corrupt government of El Salvador denied him any access at all to his constituent. He's not the first to be denied.  The War Criminal in charge of El Salvador also refused to allow the UN access in January of last year.

 
Let's pause for just a moment here.  Yesterday's snapshot noted Rachel Maddow's interview with a whistleblower Tuesday night.  And we noted that MSNBC hadn't posted it on YOUTUBE -- this despite all the praise the segment received on BLUESKY and despite the importance of the interview.  An e-mail to the public account passed on that MSNBC hadn't posted it but someone else has.


Daniel Berulis risked a great deal to come forward and inform our Congress and We The People about suspicious activity that DOGE has carried out and how someone with a Russia IP address repeatedly tried to log on to a new account just created by DOGE -- the person had the user name and the password and, were it not for their IP address being in Russia -- they would've gotten into the system.  This is a major story.  If you haven't already caught Rachel's interview, please stream it now.




Klaus Marre (WHO WHAT WHERE) reports on Harvard University's refusal to scrape and bow before Chump:


In a letter to the administration, the university’s attorneys note that these demands not only violate the First Amendment but also require “unsupported and disruptive remedies for alleged harms that the government has not proven through mandatory processes established by Congress and required by law.”
In addition, the letter also objects to the government’s coercive tactics.

“No less objectionable is the condition, first made explicit in the letter of March 31, 2025, that Harvard accede to these terms or risk the loss of billions of dollars in federal funding critical to vital research and innovation that has saved and improved lives and allowed Harvard to play a central role in making our country’s scientific, medical, and other research communities the standard-bearers for the world,” they write.

Predictably, the administration almost immediately froze $2 billion in federal funds for Harvard.

But Trump didn’t stop there.

In true mobster-like fashion, he also threatened the university with revoking its tax-exempt status and taxing it as a “Political Entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting “Sickness.”
What does it mean? Who knows; but it is clearly a threat.

But why are we telling you this? After all, it’s not exactly news when Trump tries to blackmail or coerce someone to get what he wants.

That’s right, and this article isn’t actually about that.

Instead, it is about Trump not coercing someone… and that someone is El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele.

If the US president had any interest in bringing Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man his administration illegally deported to El Salvador, back to the US, then he could surely compel his counterpart to produce him.

Exactly.  And he could certainly do something as simple as stop payment on the $6 million US tax payers are having to fork over to El Salvador for the 300 people Chump sent there.  On that money,  Ariana Figueroa (BALTIMORE SUN) reports: 

The U.S. State Department is paying El Salvador $6 million to house hundreds of immigrants deported from the United States in an immense and brutal prison there, Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT.

But a U.S. law bars the department’s financial support of “units of foreign security forces” — which can include military and law enforcement staff in prisons —  facing credible allegations of gross human rights violations. That has led those who wrote what’s known as the Leahy Law and enforced it for years to question the legality of the $6 million payment made as President Donald Trump carries out his campaign of mass deportation.

The Trump administration on March 15 sent 261 men to CECOT, after invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to apply to Venezuelan nationals 14 and older who are suspected members of the gang Tren de Aragua.

On March 30, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said an additional 17 nationals from El Salvador were sent to CECOT, again alleging gang ties. On Sunday, Rubio said 10 more men were sent to the prison in El Salvador, and noted how “the alliance between” the U.S. and El Salvador “has become an example for security and prosperity in our hemisphere.”

Tim Rieser, the main author of the Leahy Law while a longtime foreign policy aide to former U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, said the $6 million payment for those migrants’ incarceration for up to a year is likely a violation of the law.

“Sending migrants who have not been charged or convicted of any crime to the maximum-security terrorism prison in El Salvador, where they have no access to lawyers or their families, where they have no rights of due process, and with no idea if they will ever be released, held in cruel and shockingly degrading conditions, would certainly appear to violate the Leahy Law,” Rieser told States Newsroom.




Against the backdrop of President Nayib Bukele’s official visit to the White House on 14 April, Amnesty International released a public statement warning of the deepening human rights crisis in El Salvador and the complicit stance now taken by the United States by partaking in repressive practices that violate international law.

In the light of the recent arbitrary expulsion of Venezuelan nationals from the United States to CECOT, a Salvadoran mega prison, which has not only worsened the human rights situation in El Salvador, but also sets an alarming precedent of repressive cooperation between governments leading to the enforced disappearance of 261 individuals, Ana Piquer, Americas director at Amnesty International, said:

“El Salvador is implementing a systematic state policy of massive and arbitrary deprivation of liberty. After three years, more than 85,000 individuals remain behind bars without sufficient admissible evidence, the victims of a judicial system now transformed into a tool for collective punishment and widespread repression. Attempts to export this policy to the situation of Venezuelan migrants and refugees in the United States highlights the lack of protection and the risk that hundreds of thousands of people now face of having their human rights violated by not one, not two, but three different states.

“This repressive cooperation has now led to the enforced disappearance of more than 200 Venezuelan nationals arbitrarily deported to El Salvador’s CECOT. This situation further entrenches the vulnerability of the victims, who have been deliberately deprived of their right to a defence, to due process and contact with their relatives and lawyers, causing deep distress to both those detained and their families. Cooperation between states must be centred on improving the living conditions of the population, not on dismantling their human rights.”

Amnesty International called on the Salvadoran and US authorities to bring an immediate end to these actions, ensure full respect for human rights, restore due process, guarantee the right to asylum and the principle of non-refoulement, and effectively protect all detainees from torture, incommunicado detention and enforced disappearance.

Piquer concluded: “We remind the authorities in El Salvador and the United States of America that the rights to freedom, a fair trial, asylum, legal defence and protection against torture and enforced disappearance are not privileges, but rather obligations that their governments must uphold at all times. Security cannot be built on the ashes of justice, nor can models that replace the violence of criminal organizations with institutional violence be considered a success.“


Human Rights Watch covers El Salvador and the War Criminal leading the nation here and we'll note this from it:

Local and international human rights groups have documented mass arbitrary detention, torture, and, in some cases, sexual violence against women and girls in detention, and enforced disappearances. Authorities have not reported charging, indicting or convicting any police or military officers in connection with these abuses. In a September report, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), found “reports” of “widespread and systematic human rights violations” and urged authorities to “end the state of emergency.”

Many detainees have no apparent connections to gang-related violence. Arrests often appear to be based on the detainees’ appearance and anonymous complaints, rather than on evidence. Security forces routinely fail to present warrants or provide reasons for arrests. Many detentions appear to have been driven by a policy of “quotas” imposed by commanders of the National Civil Police.

Mass imprisonment has raised El Salvador’s prison population to an estimated 108,000 detainees, exceeding the prison capacity by 38,000, and worsening already poor prison conditions. An alarming 1.7 percent of the country’s population is now detained.

At least 261 detainees have died in prison during the state of emergency, Cristosal, a human rights group, reported in July. Attorney General Rodolfo Delgado said in June 2023 that 142 investigations into deaths in custody had been closed.

In January, El Salvador rejected a request for a visit by the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances.



Grasp that Chump sent those 300 Venezuelans to a country where checks and balances have been destroyed, where the War Criminal just won re-election despite the law barring him from legally running, where prison abuse is rampant and where the prisons are overcrowded.

Dirty MAGA freaks, you feeling good about Chump now?  Still pretending to be Christians, though, right?

If you missed it, Ava and I addressed the Chump supporters Christian Nationalist 'movement' in "MEDIA: YOUR FRIENDS & NEIGHBORS and your non-friends too!" and we noted that the reason they're lying about Jesus and empathy is because you can't be MAGA and have empathy.  So they lie and distort while pretending to be disciples of the Christian faith.  In other times, they perverted Christianity for greed.  

That's the thing about Chump and his chumps, there is no compassion, there is only evil and hate.  That's what they run on.  They are The Politics of Destruction and they will destroy this country if they are not reigned in and if they do not receive strong pushback. 



The recent raid by federal agents on two homes owned by a China-born cybersecurity professor has shocked his community and struck fear through fellow academics.

Xiaofeng Wang had been questioned by his employers at Indiana University in December about alleged undisclosed payments from China for a project that also received U.S. federal research grants, and though he hasn't been charged with any crimes, he was fired on the same day as the raids in an apparent violation of the school's own policy, reported The Guardian.

[. . .]

Other Asian American academics fear that Trump is taking aim against them.

“[It] brings chills to our spines," said Gang Chen, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “What is particularly troubling in this case is that Indiana University fired him and his wife without due process, presuming guilt instead of innocence."

Chen, who has dual American and Chinese nationality, was charged by the DOJ in January 2021, during the final weeks of Trump's first term, for allegedly failing to disclose links to Chinese organizations on a grant application for a federally funded project, but those charges were dismissed a year later.

“The investigations on Professor Wang and his firing creates huge fear among researchers of Chinese descent, especially students and postdoctorates from China," Chen said. "It is clear that such events, together with legislation and hostile rhetoric, are driving out talents. I learned that many Chinese students and postdoctorates here are considering leaving the U.S.”


No one is safe.  And it's just getting worse.  We have got to speak out, we have got to push back.  At THE ALANTIC, Nick Mirnoff notes in "We’re About to Find Out What Mass Deportation Really Looks Like:"


The Trump administration is working hard to convince the public that its mass-deportation campaign is fully under way. Over the past several weeks, federal agents have seized foreign students off the streets, raided worksites, and shipped detainees to a supermax prison in El Salvador using wartime powers adopted under the John Adams administration.
The tactics have spread fear and created a showreel of social-media-ready highlights for the White House. But they have not brought U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement much closer to delivering the “millions” of deportations President Donald Trump has set as a goal.

“We need more money,” Tom Homan, Trump’s “border czar,” told me in an interview. “We won’t fail if we get the resources we need.”

Using the budget-reconciliation process, Republican lawmakers are now preparing to lavish ICE with a colossal funding increase—enough to pay for the kind of social and demographic transformation of the United States that immigration hard-liners have long fantasized about achieving.
Although GOP factions in the House and Senate have squabbled over the contours of the bill, spending heavily on immigration enforcement has bicameral support. The reconciliation bill in the Senate would provide $175 billion over the next decade. A House version proposes $90 billion.
To put those sums in perspective, the entire annual budget of ICE is about $9 billion.


Didn't have to be this way.

But you had the Rashida Tlaibs working overtime, posing as Democrats on garbage like DEMOCRACY NOW!, and trashing Kamala Harris.  There are things every day that I could write about.  Sometimes I don't because I want to see first if anyone else does.  Chump inferred in the only debate with Kamala that she was a whore.  And I waited and waited to see who was going to step forward, what lefty media or MSM, and call it out.  None did.

It was sexist and it was racist.  But too many on the left were indulging in their own sexism and racism to notice what Chump was doing.  

'A Black woman?  Oh, that's not happening' -- that was the attitude.  The way that they savaged her -- I'm talking about people on the left, Socialists and Gaza Freaks among others -- that had never been done to a man before nor was it done to any woman -- not even Hillary in 2016.  But a Black woman, that was too much for them.  That Black woman wasn't going to do what she wanted, she wasn't go to do what she proposed, no, she was going to do what they said or they would destroy her.

You need to grasp that.

This was a visceral reaction for some people because they can't have a Black woman in charge.  They don't respect and they're not going to recognize.  The hatred spewed at her?  

Look, I supported John Kerry -- and I know John -- but, honestly, I supported him in part because he was bland but electable.  The Iraq War?  John was all over the map -- he supported it before he didn't ("I was for the Iraq War before I was against it." -- did we tell him do this, do that, have this speaker, have that or we're not voting for you!

No, we didn't.  And we had boots on the ground in Iraq.  And Iraqis were dying not because the US shipped some weapons but because the US declared war on Iraq.  When Barack ran he said troops home in ten months but then he waffled on it.  And everyone looked the other way -- including Tom Hayden -- we had a huge fight over that.  

I can provide many other examples.

No male candidate for president on the Dem side has ever faced what Kamala had to face from the left.  No one. 

We did it to her, we didn't do it to any of the hims.  As a country, we wouldn't presume to speak to a man that way.  Which, by the way, continues to this day as evidenced by the fact that genocide isn't a charge CODESTINK and the others want to make against Donald though they were happy to happy to make it against Kamala who wasn't the president.  

They would never treat a man the way they treated Kamala.

And even now, when their panic should have subsided since they got what they wanted (the scary Black woman's not in the Oval Office), they won't acknowledge that they held her to a different standard and treated her differently because as a woman and as Black person, they didn't feel the need to respect her and they damn well couldn't see her as the boss of this country.  It was just too much for them -- and, again, we're talking about the left.

I've pointed out Tim Walz's b.s. of trashing Kamala.  John Edwards didn't do that to John Kerry.  No v.p. nominee has attacked the top of the ticket. 

But fat ass Tim thought he could.

We're all supposed to pretend that this break with convention has nothing to do with the fact that Kamala's a woman and a woman of color?

The left is not free of racism.  You'll find lots of on the fringes.  That's how a Matt Taibbi or Aaron Mate, for example, is able to move from the far left over to the right-wing.  
 

You couldn't see a Black woman in the ultimate position of power in the US.  Your racism was too great -- again, I'm talking about the left right now.  

So you put Chump in the White House and now you want to pretend like you didn't and you want to pretend like we didn't see your racism and sexism.  

We saw. We witnessed.  It's why so many Black women have chosen to sit out protests.

I do not blame them and there are so many days when I'm tempted to do the same.

Like when a fat ass Tim Walz -- in all his fat Whiteness -- thinks he can attack Kamala for the 'crime' of saying she told you so.

She did tell everyone so.

You know who else did?  Taraji P. Henson.  She, more than anyone, put Project 2025 on the minds of Americans.  But she was attacked for it -- by the right?  Yeah, but I'm talking about the left. Or are we all supposed to ignore that Nina Turner -- who reads White -- attacked Taraji for that.

Now I'm not Taraji's biggest fan.  She should have shut her damn mouth about money ahead of the release of THE COLOR PURPLE. That was not going to help her (and it didn't) and it wasn't going to help the film (it harmed the film).  Brenda Russell's work alone deserved a wider audience.  And most of us, most Black people in the entertainment field, are fully aware of what happens when Black people are the leads in a big budget film and it doesn't reach a certain mark.  That film becomes an excuse for the studios -- which really don't want to make films with a large cast of Black people to begin with.  So Taraji never should have talked about that until, if she had to talk about it, after the film left theaters.

So don't think I'm some huge Taraji-does-no-wrong person.

But her standing on that stage and talking Project 2025 was major and important and she deserved only applause for that.

She didn't get much of it from the left.  Again, like Kamala, Taraji's a woman and she's Black. 

I don't know how much disrespect Tim Walz and others think we're going to endure, Black women, before we just say "F**k you all" and turn on our heels and walk?

I don't need it, I don't want it.  I'm not going to put up with it.  Or with the continued attacks on Kamala (make a point to read Betty's "Kamala for governor of California? Absolutely!" and grasp that even when the polling data is on Kamala's side, she's being attacked and told not to run for governor.)


It's really funny how the left so often tries to use us as props and they utter praise that they don't really mean.  How many times has Socialist Laura Flanders cited us and encouraged others to be like us?  But there was Laura ripping into Kamala Harris. I don't think we came up with the phrase "Vote Like A Black Woman" but some on the left did.  So it was vote like a Black woman -- as a dictate -- up until a Black woman was running.

'We can never get over the scars and shame of slavery' -- insist some White leftists.  They'll tell us 'I support reparations.'  Really?  Because voting for a qualified Black woman to be president -- especially when she's running against a convicted felon who you know is a danger to the planet? -- to me that's where you start with reparations -- putting the qualified Black woman into the Oval Office. 






Let's move over to the topic of Chump's disastrous economy.   Lori Aratani (WASHINGTON POST) reports:

Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner jet is a multinational concoction, made of parts from around the globe. Wings from Japan. Doors from France. Portions of the fuselage are built in Italy before they are shipped to the United States to be assembled by workers in South Carolina.

It’s an arrangement made possible by a nearly 50-year-old trade agreement that allowed Boeing and other players in the U.S. aerospace industry to sell airplanes and buy parts from anywhere in the world, duty-free.
Now President Donald Trump’s global tariffs threaten to disrupt this interlocking supply chain. For the first time in nearly half a century, Boeing will pay a levy to import those wings, doors and other components. For now, there is a new 10 percent tax on most imports. But that levy could rise depending on what the president decides during a 90-day reprieve he declared before stiffer tariffs land on most countries.

While Trump has said his sweeping protective tariffs will reduce the U.S. trade deficit, the levies on Boeing’s parts supply line will tax a company that is America’s biggest exporter of goods. About 80 percent of Boeing’s multimillion-dollar planes are shipped to overseas customers.

“These tariffs and trade restrictions have unleashed chaos in the global aerospace and airline industry,” said Ken Quinn, a partner at Clyde & Co and former general counsel at the Federal Aviation Administration. “It’s only harmful and destructive.”

Need more examples of how Chump's tanking the US economy?  Rob Wile (NBC NEWS) reports, "Stocks sank Wednesday after computer chipmaker Nvidia announced it was recording a $5.5 billion charge to comply with a new Trump administration rule on tech-related exports. Shares of Nvidia fell more than 5% soon after markets opened, causing the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell as much as 1.7%. The S&P 500 declined as much 1%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell as much as 0.4% or about 150 points."  Jonathan J. Cooper (AP) notes, "Trump was elected with a promise to improve the economy, lower taxes and control inflation, addressing voters who said overwhelmingly that the economy was the top issue facing the country. But for retirees like [Susan] Hemphill, the Republican president's economic stewardship has been defined by the roller coaster of the stock market and fears his tariffs will lead to higher inflation."   Rachel Siegel (WASHINGTON POST) reports:


President Donald Trump’s tariffs are “highly likely” to spur a temporary rise in inflation, Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome H. Powell said Wednesday, cautioning that those effects could end up being longer-lasting — prompting markets to slide and extend day-long losses.

Speaking before the Economic Club of Chicago, Powell said more persistent risks to inflation depend on how much tariffs end up affecting the economy and how long it takes trade policy to pass through to prices. Investors grew nervous throughout Powell’s remarks, especially because there is so much uncertainty around how long the inflation could last, triggering a market sell-off.

By market close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down roughly 700 points, or 1.7 percent, and the S&P 500 had fallen 2.2 percent. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index, which has born the weight of the trade war in particular, was down 3 percent. Chipmakers Nvidia and AMD said in company filings that Trump’s recent executive orders would result in major write-downs of the value of chips. Nvidia and AMD both saw their share prices fall roughly 7 percent in trading.

At what point does even the most extreme of Chumps for Chump have to admit just what a destructive force Donald is?  Will Travis Gettys (RAW STORY) report do it:


President Donald Trump's social media company is marketing "America First" accounts that would allow him to personally benefit from the tariffs that have been roiling the stock market and lopping value off the dollar.

Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), the parent company of the social media platform Truth Social, announced Tuesday that it was marketing a series of actively managed investment accounts to allow investment in companies that benefit from the president's agenda, and independent journalist Judd Legum reported that his tariff policies could be used to manipulate the value of those accounts.

"TMTG said the new investment accounts would 'offer investors access to curated, thematic investment strategies rooted in American values and priorities,'" Legum wrote on his Popular Information newsletter. "Among the themes are 'Made in America,' which presumably would focus on companies that would benefit from tariffs on competitors who make goods abroad and import them to the United States."

At what point is the corruption and destruction just too much?

We've been covering the way Chump's destroying tourism -- see Tuesday and Wednesday's snapshots -- and Lauren Peacock (IRISH STAR) reports:


The United States economy is projected to lose $90 billion in revenue this year given President Donald Trump's behavior and polices as president.

The billions lost are expected to come from lost tourism and export revenue, including the boycotting of American products, according to Goldman Sachs. Bloomberg reports that many internationals are avoiding taking a trip to the United States given Donald Trump's newest policies as the 47th President of the United States.
Tourists are worried about coming into the country due to potential problems at the border given the Trump administration's strict crackdown on immigration while others are simply boycotting America and it's product to protest Donald Trump's newest tariffs, his treatment of international allies, and more. It comes after Trump suffered a mental collapse after a 'senile' moment last week and came up with a ludicrous way to make himself look taller.



 
Other damage he's doing?  The United States makes a lot of money from foreigners traveling here for various events, conventions and sight seeing journeys.  Dallas, TX?  A magnet for people around the world who want to remember President John F. Kennedy.  And a ton of people do because President Kennedy was a monumental and historical figure -- unlike his nephew Tiny Balls Junior who is an embarrassment.  Florida?  The incredible beaches.  Key Largo, Key West.  DISNEY WORLD, UNIVERSAL STUDIOS FLORIDA THEME PARK, Daytona Beach, The Dahil Museum, etc, etc.  California?  DISNEYLAND Park, the wineries, the film studios, the Golden Gate Bridge, Golden Gate Park, Alcatraz Island, Pier 39, the beaches, the San Diego Zoo, Catalina Island, Big Sur, Joshua Tree, Big Basin Redwoods State Park, Hollywood Walk of Fame, Santa Monica Pier, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Mission San Juan Bautista . . .  New York has the Statue of Liberty, the Museum Of Modern Art, Central Park, Empire State Building, Time Square, Grand Central Terminal . . .  That's just a few things in a few states.  Most of the states have major tourist attractions.  And tourists from outside the US coming here accounts for a lot of money each year. 

Do you get how much money that is?  How many industries that impacts?  You've got the airline industry, you've got the car industry if the visitors rent a car, you've got taxis and Ubers, you've got hotels and motels, you've got eateries, you've got bars, many of the points of interest have fees visitors have to pay, you've got the clothing industry since travelers often purchase an outfit or two (or a t-shirt or two) in addition to what they've packed, you've got shops -- souvenir and regular shops.

Or it did.

Do we grasp how much money Chump's running off?

In 2023, international travelers poured an estimated $213 billion -- billion -- into the US economy.  That amounted to approximately $584 million a day.

And now Chump's making us pariah around the world.  See, sending people to a gulag in El Salvador doesn't really argue for freedom and democracy.  And since Chump declares these deportations and imprisonments require no trials, if you're in Paris, you really think Las Vegas or whatever is worth seeing when, while you're visiting the US, you might accidentally get caught up in one of Chump's dragnets and end up being taken not back to France but a to prison -- one where the are no rules or guidelines and people are tortured.



Chris Hayes covered the topic last night on his MSNBC show.




We've got one more issue we need to squeeze in.  David Hogg.  WBUR reports:


Democratic National Committee vice chair David Hogg says he wants to fund primary challenges against Democratic lawmakers who he feels are “asleep at the wheel” and not fighting President Trump hard enough.

“What we're looking for are people who are effective leaders to fight back against Donald Trump,” Hogg, the founder of Leaders We Deserve, said. “And I think good examples of what that looks like are like what our senator from Maryland is doing by going to El Salvador to say we need to do something about the fact that Donald Trump is disappearing people, members of families, for example, and taking them to El Salvador. And what we're trying to do right now is make sure that we rally our base and that we make sure that we have effective Democrats in our solid seats and we want to help win majorities as well in Congress, which is why we're not challenging people in more competitive races.”


Many people are in a panic and many people are thrilled.  

David might need to step down from his DNC post.  I'm not saying he has to but I'm saying he might need to consider that because this does come off as a conflict.

I'm not saying not to pursue his desired action.  I see the need for it but it does seem in conflict with DNC rules and guidelines.  

Some are slamming him and saying he's too young and doesn't know this and doesn't know that.

They are right about one thing: He is young. 

And we need young blood in the party.  And we need to be open to fresh ideas.

He also needs to be open to sharing.

"Progressive."  You mean Socialists?  You're not going to find a lot of support for that after DSA rat-f**ked the Democratic Party in 2024.  Their campaing against Kamala will not be forgotten nor forgiven.

"Progressive."  You damn well better define it.  

Because that's the only guidance you've provided.  What is progressive?  You have to define it.  Is it supporting Medicare For All, for example?

What is it?

We don't need an airy label that so many have hidden behind.  

You're announcing you're doing this, then you need to explain exactly what this is.

And if this not about actual Democrats getting into office, you need to resign your post.  

I'm fine with him pursuing his advocacy and holding his post -- unless this is a move that intendes to push Democrats out of office to replace them with non-Democrats.  If that's the case, he doesn't need to part of the DNC.

I think he has every right to explore this topic and to do his advocacy.  And if it's not in opposition to the Democratic Party, no problem he should be able to do both the advocacy and hold DNC office.

I think a conversation should have been started about this and not an announcement.  It's too late for that now, so we're left with it being out of order timeline wise but we still need the conversation.

That includes how this could help the party -- and it could.

It also includes noting things like Joe Lieberman.

We wanted him out.  He was a War Hawk.  We donated to Ned Lamont who primaried Joe.  Ned won the primary.  Joe then ran in the general election as an independent.  And Joe remained in the Senate.

What are the aims of David's proposal?

What do we think the cost of a heated primary that might leave somone David objects to still on the ballot but deeply wounded ahead of the general election?

There's a lot to talk about.  The discussion needs to be had.

I support David as long as this is about Democrats and not about we-all-pretend-Socialist-Rashida-is-a-Democrat and we oust an actual Democrat from office.  

He's put this option on the table.  He needs to address it at length.  He needs to comment and others need to comment back to create a real and honest conversation.

Some are already screaming for his head.  I am not.  I think this is a needed conversation and I hope he goes into greater detail what he's attempting.


The following sites updated:

Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)