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Trump 2.0

Back to Trumps determination to declare who ever he wants to "ILLEGAL,CRIMINAL, MURDERING GANG MEMBERS" and then deport them overnight to high security prison run by another of his fascist brothers arms.

And then of course to create a filmed spectacle of these stripped, manacled and degraded human beings as a warning to anyone else - period.

What are the consequences -for this criminal administration when it turns out a huge chunk of these people were never "ILLEGAL ALIENS" in the first place ? Not to mention the ones who had zero connection with Venezuelan gangs ? SFA

What will happen to people so abused ? Redemption? Reparation? Return to their grieving families in the US ? SFA.. again.


At least 50 migrants sent to El Salvador prison entered US legally, report finds

At least 50 Venezuelan men sent by the Trump administration to a prison in El Salvador had entered the United States legally, according to a review by the Cato Institute, a libertarian thinktank.

The report, published today, analyzed available immigration data for only a portion of the men who were deported, and focuses on the cases where records could be found.

“The government calls them all ‘illegal aliens.’ But of the 90 cases where the method of crossing is known, 50 men report that they came legally to the United States, with advanced US government permission, at an official border crossing point,” Cato said in its report.

This number aligns with broader trends among Venezuelan migrants, many of whom entered the country either as refugees or through a Biden-era parole program that granted two-year work permits to those with US-based sponsors.

“The proportion isn’t what matters the most: the astounding absolute numbers are,” reads the report. “Dozens of legal immigrants were stripped of their status and imprisoned in El Salvador.”

Cato’s analysis goes against the Trump administration’s justification for sending the men to El Salvador, saying that only undocumented immigrants were deported.


The report says that 21 men were admitted after presenting themselves at a port of entry, 24 were granted parole, four were resettled as refugees, and one entered the US on a tourist visa.

To date, the Trump administration has not released complete records for the more than 200 Venezuelans transferred to El Salvador. Cato’s review includes information for 174 men whose cases have some degree of public documentation.

The Trump administration has accused many of the deported Venezuelan men of gang involvement, but in many cases, those claims appear to hinge largely on their tattoos.

Many of the tattoos cited as evidence have no connection to gang activity. The markings reflect, in many cases, personal or cultural references.

Cato uses the example of Andry José Hernández Romero, a makeup artist, who has crown tattoos on his arms that reference the Three Kings Day celebrations in his Venezuelan hometown.


50+ Venezuelans Imprisoned in El Salvador Came to US Legally, Never Violated Immigration Law​

Shortly after the US government illegally and unconstitutionally transported about 240 Venezuelans to be imprisoned in El Salvador’s horrific “terrorism” prison on March 15, CBS News published their names. A subsequent CBS News investigation found that 75 percent of the men on that list had no criminal record in the United States or abroad. Less attention has been paid to the fact that dozens of these men never violated immigration laws either.

 
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Cato Institute - Bias and Credibility - Media Bias/Fact Check

6 days agoThe Cato Institute is funded by various organizations, including the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Charles Koch Foundation, and Sarah Scaife Foundation. Analysis / Bias In review, The Cato Institute is a right-leaning Libertarian think tank that advocates for privatizing many aspects of

 
US Propaganda still going strong




And they all posted similar headlines within 2 hours of each other​
 
Even those who constantly derided Trumps tariffs, are starting to see some reasoning.


From the article:
Tariff walls are going up around the world to try to head off an anticipated surge of low-value Chinese exports seeking to offset the impact of Donald Trump’s new tariff regime.

In Europe, the UK and Japan, governments are considering imposing new levies on shipments of small parcels now subject to “de minimis” (too small to matter) exemptions from their normal customs duties and tariffs.

The topic of how to respond to a prospective increase in what is already a flood of low-value exports from China was even raised at this week’s G7 meeting of the finance ministers in Canada, where de minimus imports were discussed as part of a broader conversation about how to co-ordinate the responses to the over-capacity and non-market practices of Chinese exporters.

In the sights of the major economies are, particularly Shein and Temu, which have exploited the de minimus exemptions to flood markets with their ultra-cheap fashion and consumer products with direct-to-consumer models built to exploit exemptions that are common to most advanced economies.

In early February, the US announced via a Trump executive order that it was removing the exemption from duties for goods worth less than $US800 ($1240).

However, within the 90-day pause in the wider tit-for-tat tariff war between the US and China, the tariff rate was reduced to 54 per cent with the $US100 flat fee remaining.

The US actions caused Shein and Temu to increase their prices to US consumers and to rethink their business models, diversifying their supply chains to source products from countries facing lower tariffs. Temu halted its direct shipping model and scrambled to find US suppliers.

The European Union has proposed levying a flat fee of €2 ($A3.50) per parcel on small packages. Europe is already a major and fast-growing destination for low-value exports from China, with 4.6 billion parcels attracting de minimis status last year, 90 per cent of them from China.

The EU’s draft proposal says the new fee will apply to parcels sent directly to consumers. If they are sent to a warehouse, they would attract a fee of only €0.50. It is easier and less costly to process goods and collect revenue from a warehouse than it is from individual parcels at the border.

The de minimis exemptions common to most advanced economies reflect the cost and complexity of imposing and collecting revenue from small parcel imports. Indeed, that was the original rationale for the exemption which dates back to 1938 in the US.

With the costs and effort of applying and collecting duties seen as greater than the revenue that might be raised, the parcels were regarded as too insignificant to bother about – until the volumes began soaring in the past few years.

Japan has convened a panel of tax experts to consider removing its exemption from duties for parcels worth less than 10,000 yen ($108). It is contemplating applying its sales tax of around 10 per cent to small parcels.

It’s not just the use of what has been exploited as a loophole in tariff and duty arrangements by mainly Chinese exporters that is concerning legislators. Small parcel imports, which aren’t inspected, have become a route for illegal drug imports, counterfeit goods and products that don’t meet the receiving countries’ safety standards.

There’s also concern about the impact the rapidly growing influx of cheap products from China (and some very sophisticated circumvention of local sales and income tax regimes) is having on domestic manufacturers and retailers.
In the US, even the retail behemoth Amazon was so concerned about the impact of Shein and Temu on its business that it copied them and set up its own direct-to-consumer model, shipping directly from warehouses in China to US consumers.
Shein and Temu are the most visible and largest of China’s small parcel exporters, so the walls that are being erected to slow or halt their tide of cheap products threaten their businesses.
They are not, of course, the only Chinese companies exploiting the de minimis loophole, and it’s not just that exemption that is causing concern in other economies.

With China’s domestic economy stuttering and domestic demand weak, its factories have been deploying their significant excess capacity into export markets. Even as the volume of exports has surged, export prices have been falling.
That tide of cheap exports – factory-gate prices have been sliding steadily for more than two years – some of them from industries subsidised, directly or indirectly, by various levels of China’s governments, is seen as a threat to advanced economies and their domestic manufacturers.

Even without Trump’s aggressive trade war on everyone, the rest of the world has been starting to consider how to avoid being overwhelmed by the threatened flood of cheap products.
They want to avoid the experience of the 1990s, when the initial impact of China’s emergence as the world’s manufacturing base wiped out large swathes of Western industry and jobs.
China’s manufacturing base is now far larger, with a global manufacturing output share above 30 per cent. It now produces and exports goods of higher value and in more strategic sectors than it did in the 1990s. Unrestricted imports from China would do considerable domestic economic damage to the rest of the world.
Those exports exploiting the de minimis exemption are elements within a larger picture, but not insignificant given their sheer volume and startling growth rates.

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Temu, for instance, racked up more than $1 billion of sales in Australia last year and has been a source of pressure on local online and physical retailers. It, along with Shein, has been cited as an influence in the demise of Wesfarmers’ online marketplace, Catch.

Australia abolished nearly 500 “nuisance” tariffs last year because they were too small to matter and too costly to collect.
When it comes to our de minimis exemption for parcels valued at less than $1000, that philosophy might now have to be reconsidered, given that the walls being erected by governments elsewhere could make this open economy even more attractive to Chinese manufacturers.
 
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As a rule the bond market doesn't guess that's generally left to stock markets.
Well it will be interesting to see how accurate they are, because the economic settings that are forming, are not normal.

Therefore the outcomes aren't a given.

The other issue is, very few know exactly what outcome the U.S wants, but one thing for sure the U.S will want to come out on top as usual.

The U.S started the globalisation ball rolling, now it is getting away from them and they want to start a new paradigm, what it is remains to be seen IMO.
 
Well it will be interesting to see how accurate they are, because the economic settings that are forming, are not normal.

Therefore the outcomes aren't a given.

The other issue is, very few know exactly what outcome the U.S wants, but one thing for sure the U.S will want to come out on top as usual.

The U.S started the globalisation ball rolling, now it is getting away from them and they want to start a new paradigm, what it is remains to be seen IMO.
The bond history shows that the bonds were around this level during the inflation spike post covid. But this is different obviously.

They can't afford the tax cuts. Federal debt will increase.
 
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Finally got to the computer, the 30 year bond yield certainly doesn't look in panic mode, yet.

Screenshot 2025-05-23 074502.jpg


Federal debt would increase anyway, at least Trump has acknowledged the debt, that's a good start. None of the previous Presidents made much of an effort to address it, from memory.

From the trajectory of this graph, it certainly looks like debt was moving along quite well. ;)

Screenshot 2025-05-23 075052.jpg


What I'm having a problem understanding, is why people say Trump is crazy for trying to address the debt, IMO it would be crazy of the U.S to keep going on the same path.
But I guess I'm old school and believe that you get nothing for nothing. Unlike the new school, who think as long as it keeps going, let the good times roll. 🤣

IMO anyone who thinks that exponential increase in debt is fine, needs their heads read and anyone who thinks it can be turned around easily should be on medication. 🤣
The U.S is a bit like Victoria, it isn't overly endowed with raw materials that it can sell to pay its way, its main source of income is from what it produces and exports.

For the non believers, that's what Trump is trying to address and like Victoria is finding, it ain't easy. :xyxthumbs


Screenshot 2025-05-23 075650.jpg




 
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The Beautiful Big Bill has many extra surprises.

A very BIG hidden one is removing the capacity of the Courts to take action on Contempt charges against government lawyers.
That effectively takes away the last capacity of the Courts to challenge any Government actions.
The Supreme Court would become purely an Advisory Body.

'Hidden' provision in Trump's big bill could disarm US Supreme Court​


A provision "hidden" in the sweeping budget bill that passed the U.S. House on Thursday seeks to limit the ability of courts—including the U.S. Supreme Court—from enforcing their orders.

"No court of the United States may use appropriated funds to enforce a contempt citation for failure to comply with an injunction or temporary restraining order if no security was given when the injunction or order was issued," the provision in the bill, which is more than 1,000 pages long, says.

The provision "would make most existing injunctions—in antitrust cases, police reform cases, school desegregation cases, and others—unenforceable," Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the University of California Berkeley School of Law, told Newsweek. "It serves no purpose but to weaken the power of the federal courts."

Why It Matters

The provision would prohibit courts from enforcing contempt citations for violations of injunctions or temporary restraining orders—the main types of rulings that have been used to rein in President Donald Trump's administration—unless the plaintiffs have paid a bond, something that rarely happens when someone sues the government.

 
Finally got to the computer, the 30 year bond yield certainly doesn't look in panic mode, yet.


. 🤣

IMO anyone who thinks that exponential increase in debt is fine, needs their heads read and anyone who thinks it can be turned around easily should be on medication. 🤣
I agree. Let's see what happens. I don't reckon Congress will approve the bill in its present form. Just too much debt.

inflation was going down the last 30 years and I think that has ended which partially explains the rise in interest rates. Losing the AAA rating also doesn't help.
 
Is it a surprise to see that Donald Trump used footage from a massacre in the Congo to berate the South African PM that these were South African farmers ?

These days the lies, the stupidities and the poison this creature spews on a hourly basis is seen as the new normal.


Trump's image of dead 'White farmers' from Reuters footage in Congo, not South Africa


JOHANNESBURG – President Donald Trump showed a screenshot of a Reuters video taken in the Democratic Republic of Congo as part of what he falsely presented on Wednesday as evidence of mass killings of white South Africans.

"These are all white farmers that are being buried," said Trump, holding up a printout of an article accompanied by the picture during a contentious Oval Office meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.

In fact, the video, published by Reuters on February 3 and subsequently verified by the news agency's fact-check team, showed humanitarian workers lifting body bags in the Congolese city of Goma. The image was pulled from Reuters footage shot following deadly battles with Rwanda-backed M23 rebels.

The blog post that Trump showed Ramaphosa during the White House meeting was published by American Thinker, a conservative online magazine, about conflict and racial tensions in South Africa and Congo.

The post did not caption the image but identified it as a "YouTube screen grab" with a link to a video news report about Congo on YouTube, which credited Reuters.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment. Andrea Widburg, managing editor at American Thinker and the author of the post in question, wrote in reply to a Reuters query that Trump had "misidentified the image."

 
Is it a surprise to see that Donald Trump used footage from a massacre in the Congo to berate the South African PM that these were South African farmers ?

These days the lies, the stupidities and the poison this creature spews on a hourly basis is seen as the new normal.


Trump's image of dead 'White farmers' from Reuters footage in Congo, not South Africa


JOHANNESBURG – President Donald Trump showed a screenshot of a Reuters video taken in the Democratic Republic of Congo as part of what he falsely presented on Wednesday as evidence of mass killings of white South Africans.

"These are all white farmers that are being buried," said Trump, holding up a printout of an article accompanied by the picture during a contentious Oval Office meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.

In fact, the video, published by Reuters on February 3 and subsequently verified by the news agency's fact-check team, showed humanitarian workers lifting body bags in the Congolese city of Goma. The image was pulled from Reuters footage shot following deadly battles with Rwanda-backed M23 rebels.

The blog post that Trump showed Ramaphosa during the White House meeting was published by American Thinker, a conservative online magazine, about conflict and racial tensions in South Africa and Congo.

The post did not caption the image but identified it as a "YouTube screen grab" with a link to a video news report about Congo on YouTube, which credited Reuters.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment. Andrea Widburg, managing editor at American Thinker and the author of the post in question, wrote in reply to a Reuters query that Trump had "misidentified the image."

Takes a lot to surprise me now, Bas.
 
Takes a lot to surprise me now, Bas.
That's the trouble isn't it ? For all our lives we believed that was some some sort of integrity ? fairness? Rule of law ? in the USA.

Of course we knew there was dodgy dealings. But overall we (I at least ) felt that the guardrails of The Constitution, Media scrutiny and independent judiciary was a counter balance to inclinations of corruption, authoritarianism and outright political lying.

Donald Trump is destroying all of these guardrails. This is a brand new world of a blatantly self serving President bending the entire political, legal and Media systems to his own end.
 
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