Musk's Starbase is Fracturing a Small Texas Town

The arrival of SpaceX has brought good business to Eddie Reyes and his family. Since the establishment of Starbase, Elon Musk's company town in south Texas, his charter boat business has picked up ‌as space fans flock to the area for a glimpse of launches. Reyes' nephew works at SpaceX as a welder, driving a Tesla Cybertruck.  But the same rockets Reyes sees lifting his family's fortunes are also shaking his mother's home. Shockwaves from launches are cracking the ceiling, ‌loosening window seals and sinking the foundation. She's among dozens of residents now suing Musk's company for damage.

While SpaceX's rapid expansion is bringing jobs, visitors and global attention, it is also fueling lawsuits, environmental concerns and a growing divide among the 1.4 million residents of the Rio Grande Valley. "This company is literally shaking the earth," said Tino Villarreal, city commissioner of Brownsville, a city of 185,000 people that borders Starbase. "By the amount of workforce it wants to produce, by the actual wavelengths that are shaking our soil."

Some local Rio Grande Valley residents initially welcomed SpaceX. Maria Pointer lived in the region for ​almost two decades when she sold her home to SpaceX in 2020 after meeting ​with Musk. "We were excited," she said. "I really felt, at the time, that we deserved the moon as the gas station to wherever all the Elons of the world wanted to go in interstellar space."  Over time, Pointer has become less optimistic, saying the town has become less friendly. In April, she went to Starfactory to film an interview with an Italian news crew, beneath a huge "X" near the entrance to the building, where her kitchen once stood. A security guard approached and instructed them to leave. "It was very military," she said.

Other residents of neighboring towns – Laguna ​Vista, Port Isabel and South Padre Island – claim the Starship launches are damaging their homes, according to a class-action ‌lawsuit filed in April against SpaceX.  One plaintiff, who declined to speak on the record at her attorney's direction, showed Reuters her Port Isabel home. Cabinets sit unevenly, doors no longer close, and chipboard covers warped flooring she said was damaged by mold after a ​shower pipe burst following a rocket launch. She estimates foundation repairs at about $100,000, more than half the home's value.  "They're wanting to get to Mars," she said. "But what about us that are here? I'm here now. And nobody is thinking about us."

 

List of Missing/Dead Scientists Linked to American Secrets Grows

The ominous web of U.S. scientists and lab employees who have died or gone missing continues to grow as two more cases have been linked to the disturbing trend. 

NASA scientist Frank Maiwald died on July 4, 2024 in Los Angeles at the age of 61, but the cause of death has never been made public and officials confirmed that an autopsy was never performed.  Maiwald had been a prominent researcher at the space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) since 1999 and worked on multiple projects tied to advanced satellite technology that could scan Earth and other planets.

In June 2023, just 13 months before his death, Maiwald was the lead researcher on a breakthrough that could help future space missions detect clear signs of life on other worlds, including Jupiter's moon Europa, Saturn’s moon Enceladus, or the dwarf planet Ceres.  Despite Maiwald being a JPL Principal, an award given to scientists 'making outstanding individual contributions' in their fields, NASA has never commented publicly on the scientist's death, and the only public record marking his passing was an obituary posted online.  The online obituary set up for Maiwald did not mention any health issues before the 61-year-old's death, and NASA JPL would neither confirm nor deny that Maiwald had been employed there for decades despite records of his achievements listed on their website. 

Keystone Kash Using FBI resources to Go After Trump's Enemies

Keystone Kash Patel (still stumbling and bumbling at the FBI)  is pressing to release a decade-old investigative file involving Rep. Eric Swalwell and a Chinese intelligence operative, recently dispatching agents in the bureau’s San Francisco office to quickly redact the files before they are released publicly despite no evidence of wrongdoing by Swalwell.  

The potential release is part of the Trump administration’s aggressive push to smear Swalwell, a vocal critic of convicted felon Donald Trump and a leading Democratic candidate for California governor. It is highly unusual for the FBI to release case files tied to a probe that did not result in criminal charges.

As FBI director, Patel has focused on trying to bring a criminal case against the outspoken Democrat, reassigning multiple agents in San Francisco to work on the matter, the current and former officials said. FBI leaders have even discussed sending agents to China to talk to the suspected intelligence operative, believing she could have damaging information about Swalwell.

The Chinese woman at issue is Christine Fang, who reportedly helped with fundraising for Swalwell’s 2014 reelection campaign and even helped place an intern in his congressional office. When federal agents conveyed their concerns about Fang to Swalwell around 2015, he reportedly cut off ties with her and said he helped investigators.  Swalwell was not accused of any wrongdoing when the FBI investigated his relationship with Fang a decade ago. In 2023, the Republican-led House Ethics Committee closed a two-year investigation into the congressman, deciding to “take no further action.” 

Despite that, FBI leaders have recently suggested that the government could try to arrange for Fang to get a U.S. visa in exchange for speaking with FBI agents, according to the three people with knowledge of Patel’s efforts. It would be highly unorthodox to grant a visa to a person suspected of being an intelligence agent for a foreign superpower.   In addition, bringing a known Chinese spy back into the U.S. represents a major security risk.

The push to publicly release the investigative files strongly suggests that the FBI has struggled to so far to build a criminal case against Swalwell. Even if there is no incriminating evidence in the files, an extensive case file could contain revealing and personal details about Swalwell and his campaign operations.

The lengths that Patel’s circle is going to in the bid to pursue a political foe of the president have raised alarms within the bureau, where some officials fear that releasing the files (even with redactions) could compromise law enforcement sources and investigatory methods, making it harder for the FBI to gain trust with potential witnesses.

They also said they feared the repercussions of sending agents to the territory of an adversarial nation to dig up information on a sitting congressman. Such an interview, legal experts said, would be impossible without Chinese interference, and Fang would be considered an unreliable witness.

 

Alarming Rise of Kidnapping of Foreigners in Western Region of Africa

When Marin Petrović arrived in Mali in early September last year, he was elated.  Petrović enjoyed the sights and sounds of Bamako's markets, busy roads, schools, and even sampled some local beers, according to a social media post.

"The next day I set off for Mopti, known for its 100-year-old mud mosque," he continued, referring to the Grand Mosque of Mopti, a 15-meter tall architectural feat made from mud bricks. But before Petrović could continue his dream of exploring Mali's ancient treasures, his trip took an unexpected turn.

"An armed attack takes place on the road between Bla and San," he said in the same Instagram post.  "Six motorbikes with two long-bearded terrorists, each armed with Kalashnikovs, surround the vehicle and drag me into the bushes, along non-existent paths through the undergrowth, through swamps, far from the main road… I was kidnapped by al-Qaeda jihadists!!!"  Petrović had become the latest victim of a concerning trend for foreign travelers and expatriate workers in West Africa's Sahel region.

U.S. Government is Accelerating Coral Reef Collapse

Widely referred to as the “tip of the spear” in the American arsenal, Guam—which is smaller than New York City but home to a military community of nearly 23,000—is a dichotomy of majestic nature and military might.  But the real powerhouse of the Pacific exists not on land but just below the water’s surface in its biological resilience, which is now threatened by the Pentagon’s quest for strategic deterrence. The weapons that miss their target on the testing range will soon find a different one, sinking down to the most diverse coral reef of any U.S. jurisdiction. A battle between the two is now emerging.

The U.S. government is accelerating coral reef collapse around Guam, alleges a team of international researchers in a letter released this month in Science. They warn administration pressures to prioritize national security—through dredging projects, increased military infrastructure and live firing ranges—will cause harm to endangered habitats.

Additionally, a fundamental misunderstanding of coral taxonomy in the Endangered Species Act (ESA) is exacerbating the ecological harm to fisheries and reefs. Without intervention, these Pacific habitats now risk the same “functional extinction” experienced in Florida.

Taxpayers Pay for Keystone Kash Boondoggle in Milan

FBI Spokesman Ben Williamson spent days trying to discredit reports by MS NOW’s Ken Dilanian and others who reported Patel would be attending the Winter Olympics in Milan.  “Your rag outlet wrote that [Patel] went to hang out at the Olympics on the taxpayer dime – even when provided information that your theory was false. When you’re ready to correct that let me know. Won’t hold my breath,” Williamson posted on social media in response to a reporter.

But social media junkie Keystone Kash himself made a liar out of the FBI spokesman, when he posted pictures of himself in Milan, pathetically celebrating with the USA men's hockey team.  Even Steve Baker, reporter for the pro-Trump outlet The Blaze called out Patel’s spokesman, writing, “Ummm…what was that you said, @_WilliamsonBen?”

Reporters and social media users immediately began calling out Patel's "meetings with law enforcement" as the lamest of cover stories, and immediately began asking how much taxpayer money was spent on the boondoggle. Patel is not related to anyone on the team, and is not a donor or supporter of USA Hockey organization.  It is believed that he used his political position to force his way into the locker room.

Plenty of critics piled on to accuse the FBI director of wasting taxpayer money when they felt Patel should have been solving crimes in the U.S. The FBI’s highest profile case currently is weeks-old disappearance of Today Show host Savannah Guthrie's mother Nancy.  During Patel's shenanigans, a would-be assailant was shot dead on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.  At the same time, global tensions are increasing because Trump has been threatening military action against Iran. Such an attack could lead to violence against U.S. citizens via retaliation in the form of terrorism or other means.  On top of all that, Americans living in Mexico were being warned by the federal government to shelter in place in response to increased drug gang violence after the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel was killed by the Mexican army. 

But Keystone Kash has to get in his party time!  Patel has previously come under fire for using the FBI’s private jet to attend a wrestling event, and to see his country singer girlfriend perform at State College, PA. Patel also provided her with government security.  To make things worse for "KK" Patel, critics dug up a 2023 quote from the pint-sized showboat, who (at the time) criticized the FBI Director's use of jets: “I’m just saying [FBI Director] Chris Wray doesn’t need a government funded G5 jet to go to vacations. Maybe we ground that plane. $15,000 every time it takes off. Just a thought.”

Observers point out that the office of the FBI Director carries symbolic weight and that perception shapes how power is received. The FBI director does not operate as a personality. And yet Patel seems more committed to acting like a wannabe Instagram influencer than the nation’s top cop. 

 

Trump Shows Off His Grade-School United Nations

President Donald Trump held his first meeting of his “Board of Peace” this week, and the event was most notable for the absence of major world powers and highlighted Trump’s inability to lead on the global stage.

The group of world leaders included figures who have been close to Trump, including Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orbán and Argentina’s Javier Milei—who Trump has spent billions bailing out.  More importantly, major world powers like the United Kingdom, France, and Norway were absent. Additionally, the Vatican did not attend Trump’s event. Cardinal Pietro Parolin of the Vatican said in remarks on Tuesday that the main issue the “Board of Peace” had ostensibly assembled to discuss, the future of Gaza, was an issue for the United Nations.  “One concern is that at the international level it should above all be the UN that manages these crisis situations. This is one of the points on which we have insisted,” Parolin said.  The world leaders that did choose to attend were forced to stand around with Trump for a photo op accompanied by music from Guns N’ Roses.

Contrary to the event's objective for world peace, Trump threatened military action against Iran in his remarks, noting, “You’re going to be finding out probably over the next 10 days.”  Trump also forgot the names of the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan in his remarks, flogged his wife’s poorly reviewed movie, and once again complained about not winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

Trump named himself chairman for life of the “Board of Peace” but failed to outline who would lead the organization after his term as president is over. Also member states are given a three-year membership (for free), but are encouraged to contribute $1 billion within the first year for permanent membership. Details are of course unclear on where that money would go and Trump has a long history of corruption and financial impropriety.

Currently the “Board of Peace” is housed in the former location of the U.S. Institute of Peace, a building which Trump illegally had renamed after himself (as he did with the Kennedy Center.) And despite the fate of Gaza purportedly being central to the board, it has no Palestinian representation. 

In reality, the “Board of Peace” is widely regarded as a vehicle for Trump to avoid the United Nations, where he has consistently given poorly received speeches that failed to rally international support to his positions. Trump’s most notable U.N.-related moments have had more to do with ranting about malfunctioning escalators than achieving international cooperation.  Trump cannot even work productively alongside regional partners like Canada and Mexico—but he thinks his pathetic “Board of Peace” can supplant the U.N. Fat chance!

 

ICE Barbie and Her Boyfriend In a Mess Over at DHS

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem capriciously fired a pilot for an exceedingly petty reason but was forced to immediately reinstate him so she could fly home.

The Wall Street Journal took a deep dive into the chaos and dysfunction inside the Department of Homeland Security, where multiple sources complained on and off the record about Noem and her top adviser and purported romantic partner Corey Lewandowski.  "Lewandowski and Noem, who are both married, have publicly denied the reports of the affair, but people said they do little to hide their relationship inside the department," the newspaper reported.  "The pair have lately been using a luxury 737 MAX jet, with a private cabin in back, for their travel around the country, according to people familiar with the matter," the report added. "DHS is leasing the plane but is in the process of acquiring it for approximately $70 million"

Noem and Lewandowski frequently berate senior staffers, demand polygraph tests for employees they don't trust and routinely fire employees for dubious reasons – such as one incident where Lewandowski fired a U.S. Coast Guard pilot after Noem’s blanket was left behind on a plane, according to sources familiar with that incident.  "In the blanket incident, Noem had to switch planes after a maintenance issue was discovered, but her blanket wasn’t moved to the second plane, according to the people familiar with the incident," the Journal reported. "The Coast Guard pilot was initially fired and told to take a commercial flight home when they reached their destination. They eventually reinstated the pilot because no one else was available to fly them home."

Lewandowski, who was Trump’s first campaign manager in the 2016 election, has also been illegally working as a special government employee well beyond the statutory 130-day limit and has an outsize presence in the department. "In an incident last year that rankled some senior staff at the agency, Lewandowski made it known to top ICE officials that he wanted to be issued a law-enforcement badge and a federally issued gun, according to people familiar with his push," the Journal reported. "Officials are typically only issued a badge and a gun after undergoing law-enforcement training."

Lewandowski passed over a former Immigration and Customs Enforcement official for the top job in that agency after he declined to issue him a badge and gun, and an ICE lawyer was demoted and moved to the Federal Emergency Management Agency after he also declined to sign off.  "Lewandowski eventually persuaded other lawyers to sign off," the Journal reported. "The ICE director’s autopen was used to sign the paperwork, the people said."

 

The Olympics Are in Italy-- and of Course, There is Drama

The 2026 Winter Olympics are underway in Italy, after an opening ceremony that featured a strange performance from Mariah Carey.  Of course, there were many controversies overshadowing the run-up to the event.

To start with, it must be said that the 2026 Olympics are the most geographically widespread Games in history-- the first to span multiple regions and two host cities: Milan and Cortina, which are about 250 miles apart from each other by road.  The action is divided among four main clusters across northern Italy: Milan, Cortina d'Ampezzo, Valtellina and Val di Fiemme. Athletes will live in one of six Olympic Villages throughout the region: Milan, Cortina, Anterselva, Bormio, Livigno and Predazzo.  The competition venues span an area covering some 8,495 square miles. Getting between towns could take more than a few hours by car — especially on remote, wintery roads.  Sarah Hirshland, CEO of the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee, says spectators hoping to attend events in person should be realistic about the time and distance required to get between venues and should plan accordingly.

In the lead-up to the games, Italian prosecutors investigated corruption, forgery, and abuse of public office in construction tenders, including the Olympic Village and other key infrastructure, leading to raids, arrests, and 74 individuals under scrutiny.

There are a couple of major venues whose completion are going down to the wire.  The Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics sliding center and the ice hockey stadium are almost complete, but work is going down to the wire, so they can be ready in time for those events.

Feed the Beast and He Will Come Back for More

Whether one is for or against billion-dollar giveaways to wealthy sports team owners, one thing is for sure-- the lopsided deals in Washington, DC and Kansas will likely boost efforts by other team owners looking to update their facilities, according to Neil deMause, a journalist who has written extensively about stadium subsidies.

“For whatever reason, we’re in a moment where team owners feel entitled to demand a lot more billions of dollars than anybody else has,” he said. “And the more they get away with that, the more their fellow owners are going to be emboldened to ask for the same thing.”

In Illinois, lawmakers have discussed for years an effort to relocate the NFL’s Chicago Bears from Soldier Field to a new site along Lake Michigan in Chicago or in the suburb of Arlington Heights. For decades, the team has been primarily owned by the McCaskey family. Recently, Bears President and CEO Kevin Warren cited a lack of “legislative partnership” in announcing the team would explore a potential stadium in neighboring Indiana.  That news received an icy reception from Illinois lawmakers, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

“I don’t believe it’s a real threat,” said Illinois state Rep. Kam Buckner, a Democrat whose district includes parts of Chicago’s South Side. Buckner said lawmakers have been pushing the team to provide a more detailed proposal before approving a package of taxpayer-funded site and infrastructure improvements.

Buckner said lawmakers in Springfield watched the Kansas stadium deal closely, but are determined not to follow a similar route.  “What happened in Kansas is exactly what Illinois should not do,” he said. “Kansas is preparing to hand billions of public dollars to one of the wealthiest ownership families in professional sports history — not for schools, not for transit, not for housing, but to subsidize a stadium for a team that’s already printing money.”

Buckner said his constituents have a long list of legislative priorities — ranging from health care to affordability issues — ahead of professional sports.  A devout Bears fan, Buckner said he won’t be drawn into a “hostage negotiation” with the team.  “It’s about panic. It’s about fear,” he said. “It’s about this system that we’ve created, where, if you don’t overpay, a billionaire might just take his toys and leave town, and folks are scared of that.”

 

Commanders' Josh Harris is Also the Recipient of a Billionaire Giveaway

Geoffrey Propheter, who studies stadium deals as an associate professor in the School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado Denver, thought that last year's deal between Washington DC and the Commanders would stand out for years to come “for how ludicrous it was.”  The team is primarily owned by Josh Harris, an investor with a net worth above $11 billion who also owns majority stakes in the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers and the NHL’s New Jersey Devils.

The D.C. Council  finalized a plan to dedicate more than $1 billion in public funds to move the Commanders some 7 miles from a suburb in Maryland to a new facility planned for the old RFK Stadium site.  The city will retain ownership of the stadium, with the Commanders leasing it for $1 per year-- shifting a significant amount of risk from the team to the city.

While D.C. would pay for a large chunk of the costs, it would get 0% of stadium revenues: The team would receive all “stadium operating revenues, including from naming rights, sponsorship, advertising (both interior and exterior), premium seating, ticket proceeds, merchandise, food and beverage, and parking for both NFL and non-NFL events.” 

The deal exempts the Commanders from all property taxes on the stadium and the surrounding development. The deals also exempts the Commanders from sales taxes on personal seat licenses and parking. The city gave the Commanders the exclusive right to develop housing and retail around the stadium (at the low price of $1 per year) and it gave the Commanders rent-free use of 24 acres of city-controlled land for a period of 26 years. 

The Commanders would be responsible for keeping both the stadium and the garages in state-of-the-art shape, so at least D.C. wouldn’t be on the hook for those upgrades.  But team owner Josh Harris has his ass covered on that one-- sales taxes on anything  sold at the stadium would get poured into an “RFK Campus Reinvestment Fund” which would be available to pay for “maintenance and repairs and capital expenses.”

In addition to the $2-3 billion in public subsidies, the deal requires the city to give the team free riverfront land and exclusive development rights-- which means the district could forgo between $6 billion and $25 billion in revenue over time, Propheter said.  Josh Harris gets to pay only $1 a year in rent for a huge tax-free swath of public land, while keeping all revenues from the stadium and other development he builds there, even as the district pays to build everything from parking garages to the stadium’s foundation.

By Propheter's calculations, that makes the planned Commanders stadium project the most valuable package ever awarded to a sports team. 

 

NFL's Hunt Family Takes Kansas to the Cleaners

The Kansas City Chiefs deal announced in December (which would move the Chiefs from Missouri to the state of Kansas) is poised to surpass the $1.48 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars awarded to Montreal’s Olympic Stadium (opened in 1976) marking it as the costliest outlay ever in the U.S. and Canada, said J.C. Bradbury, a Kennesaw State University economics professor who researches stadium subsidies.

Kansas officials pushed aggressively to lure the Chiefs some 20 miles from their longtime home at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri. Officials maintained the new stadium would spur billions of dollars in economic activity despite serious questions from experts and local officials about taxpayers’ ability to cover the massive new debt. “Quite frankly, I believe [it is] the biggest economic win we’ll ever have in the state of Kansas,” Republican state House Speaker Dan Hawkins said last month.

But officials also acknowledged the pursuit was about more than economics: Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly said landing the NFL team would make Kansas a tourist destination, help retain young people and defy stereotypes of Kansas as a flyover state. “And what could be cooler than being home to the Kansas City Chiefs?” she said.

The Chiefs are owned by the Hunt family of Texas, one of the nation’s wealthiest families, estimated by Forbes to be worth nearly $25 billion.  

As both the Chiefs and MLB’s Kansas City Royals — also in Missouri — openly weighed new stadiums in 2024, lawmakers in Topeka passed legislation amplifying an already lucrative tax incentive program to lure a pro sports team across State Line Road.

To fund Kansas’ expected $1.8 billion share of the new Chiefs stadium, state officials will divert sales taxes from a wide swath of the metropolitan area to pay back stadium debt. Officials say that won’t cause tax increases, but those tax diversions could cut deep into other city and state spending priorities.

Neil deMause, a journalist who has written extensively about stadium subsidies, said Kansas was effectively “negotiating against itself,” since Missouri was not prepared to offer such a lucrative deal. The same situation was true in Washington, he said, as it became clear that Maryland and Virginia, which were also vying for the new stadium, would not offer billions in free land and other benefits.

The new Chiefs stadium will be owned by the state, meaning the team won’t be subject to property taxes, a lucrative perk. The Chiefs will pay rent, but those funds will go into an account that can be used for ongoing facility maintenance and security. The state will also contribute millions to that fund every year.

The Chiefs will keep all revenue from ticket sales, parking and concessions, including for nonfootball events such as concerts and Final Four basketball games.

In Missouri, the Chiefs had previously committed $126 million in funding for education, transportation, health care and other community benefits over a 40-year period. But no such arrangement has been announced in Kansas.

In a nonbinding 33-page term sheet released by the state, the team agreed to set aside $3 million per year for a community impact fund. That fund, though, is controlled by the Chiefs, who can spend it on charitable endeavors or on profit-generating, team-branded ventures like fitness clubs. Kansas will receive some access to its stadium for events including graduation ceremonies and free concerts, but those are subject to team-determined availability, and the state must cover all costs. State officials are guaranteed one stadium suite for most events. But the term sheet notes that state officials must pay for their own food, except for free soda and water.

“They could have at least held out for free jerseys or something,” deMause said.

 

NFL Stadium Deals in the News

With the Super Bowl coming up this weekend, I thought it might be a good time to look at some recent mega-stadium deals within the NFL.  These kind of deals always stir up controversy over whether the public investment is actually beneficial to taxpayers.

When Washington, D.C., agreed to hand over billions in land and tax breaks for a new Commanders football stadium, experts thought it would long remain an outlier in sweetheart deals for sports teams.

But just months later, attention turned to Kansas, where officials in December announced plans to fund 60% of a new stadium for the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs. The state committed to spending up to $1.8 billion — the largest-ever professional sports subsidy.

The stadium deals in Washington and Kansas — both involving relocations within the same metropolitan area — have set separate records for taxpayer subsidies to sports teams. They serve as further evidence that public officials are uninterested in curbing giveaways to billionaire team owners, despite decades of research suggesting stadiums are a wasteful use of limited tax dollars. 

Adjusted to 2024 dollars, the median stadium subsidy for projects that opened in the 2010s was about $400 million. That increased to $605 million for projects slated to open in the 2020s. Already, 2030s-era projects have reached a median of $825 million, he said.

“There are many different ways we can measure these deals,” he said, “but by any metric, the recent Chiefs and Commanders deals are historically high.”

Trump Now Having a Tantrum Over His "Board of Peace"

Convicted felon Donald Trump is now acting like a spoiled 8-year-old that no one wants to play with.  Trump has threatened to slap a hefty 200 percent tariff on French wine and champagne if France refuses his invitation to join the newly formed "Board of Peace." The board, ostensibly created to supervise the reconstruction of war-ravaged Gaza, seems to have a much wider remit of maintaining global order - with Trump at the head, according to its founding charter.

Trump's tariff threat is a response to French President Emmanuel Macron's apparent hesitation to participate in the initiative. "I'll put a 200 percent tariff on his wines and champagnes. And he'll join. But he doesn't have to join," Trump stated, referring to the French president.

The Orange man added, "No-one wants him because he's going to be out of office very soon." Macron's term ends in May 2027. A source close to Macron said that France "does not intend to answer favorably" to the invitation, pointing out that the board's charter "goes beyond the sole framework of Gaza." The board, which will cost $1 billion to join and is chaired by Trump, has been attacked by critics as an attempt by the US president to create a rival United Nations, with himself at the head. 

The threat of a French wine tariff is just one facet of a larger diplomatic disagreement revolving around Greenland, which Trump has repeatedly claimed the U.S. must control for strategic reasons.  Trump has threatened to impose tariffs of up to 25% on eight European countries, including Denmark, France, Germany and the UK, unless Greenland is ceded to U.S. control. European leaders have firmly condemned Trump's tariff threats, with German and French finance ministers stating that Europe will not be intimidated by such measures. They described the actions as "unacceptable" and are preparing retaliatory responses.

Macron denounced the tariff threats as having "no place in this context", pledging that Europeans will respond "in a united and coordinated manner" to protect sovereignty and uphold legal standards. 

 

Using Your Credit Card May Get More Complicated

A settlement between Visa, Mastercard and U.S. merchants has been announced, which could usher in a new era of tiered pricing at the register and give businesses more power to charge fees depending on the credit card you use. The agreement comes after a two-decade antitrust battle over interchange fees, the charges banks collect from merchants every time a customer pays with plastic.

The settlement still needs court approval, and is likely to be contested by some merchant groups, which have disagreed over the fees and other terms in the past. A deal last year fell apart after lawyers for some merchants objected.

Merchants have always had the right to refuse to do business with a payment network entirely.  Costco, for example, only accepts Visa credit cards in stores. But current network rules say that if a store accepts one Visa credit card, it has to accept all Visa credit cards. The settlement could change that practice by allowing merchants to pick and choose which categories of cards to accept within a network. The settlement doesn’t affect debit cards.

A more likely outcome is that people will start to see more fees, according to analysts. Some merchants already tack on small fees when customers pay with a credit card instead of cash, but those tend to apply broadly across credit cards. The settlement would go a step further, allowing different surcharges depending on the category the card falls into. A basic, no-frills credit card, for instance, might come with a surcharge of 2.5% of the transaction amount, versus 3% for a rewards card.

The settlement would require banks to add clear visual markers to cards to help consumers and merchants determine what category a card falls into, but that could take years to update, analysts said.  For merchants, adding a surcharge would help offset their costs, but it also risks alienating customers. A recent survey commissioned by TD Cowen found that roughly two-thirds of consumers would switch payment methods if faced with a 3% to 4% surcharge.

The settlement also requires an average 0.1 percentage-point reduction in interchange fees phased in over five years. The banking industry has long argued that limiting interchange fees would threaten rewards for consumers. Analysts, however, say that the reductions spelled out in the settlement aren’t enough to result in sweeping changes to card rewards or annual fees. That means the travel points, cash-back bonuses, and lounge access that have come to define rewards and premium cards are likely to stay put.

 

Trump Does His Best Marie Antoinette Impression for Halloween

Hours before he was set to shut off food stamp benefits to more than 40 million low-income Americans, convicted felon Donald Trump hosted a lavish Great Gatsby-themed Halloween party at his Mar-a-Lago resort in posh Palm Beach, Florida, producing some of the most tone-deaf images ever captured of an American president. Video and photos show a smiling Trump sitting at a table while scantily clad women in glittery 1920s flapper outfits dance around his table.

Trump chats with a guest  dressed in a prison costume at the Mar-a-Lago Gatsby-themed party

Meanwhile, despite two federal judges clearly ordering Trump to continue to fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program—better known as food stamps—Trump said it was still unclear to him whether he had the authority to fund the program, and thus he was not yet releasing the funds.  It’s just the latest time Trump has defied court orders to do cruel things.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which runs the SNAP program, also sent a letter to grocery stores that accept SNAP over the weekend saying those stores cannot provide discounts to food stamp recipients to help them pay for their groceries during the lapse in funding.  It shows the Trump administration is okay with following the law—so long as it hurts people they don’t care about.

Just hours before food stamp funding was set to expire, Trump also posted a series of images of a bathroom renovation at the White House, which was refitted with lavish marble and gold fixtures.  Trump also decided that the middle of a government shutdown (when millions of federal workers are being furloughed and worry they won’t be able to feed their families) was a great time to begin construction on a $300 million ballroom at the White House where he can host more of his rich pals for lavish affairs funded by taxpayer dollars. 

Ultimately, the images of Trump at a lavish party while he purposefully cut off food stamps is an absolute gift for Democrats, whose whole message during the month-long government shutdown has been that Trump is more concerned with taking care of himself and his rich pals than the millions of hardworking Americans who are struggling with the cost of living.

 

ICE Recruitment Process is a Hot Mess

NBC News is out with a report about ICE’s current training regime (or lack thereof) and it’s tough to figure out what part is worst!  How about the part where new recruits are starting training before DHS has finished vetting them, a thing that seems out of place for law enforcement jobs? How about the part where ICE only figures out mid-training that recruits have failed drug tests, have criminal backgrounds, or can’t meet the physical and academic requirements?  Or is it the part where recruits don’t submit their fingerprints for background checks even though ICE requires that as part of the hiring process?

the administration is doing everything it can to smooth the path forward for wannabe fascists, but how much more can they do? Training had been slashed from 13 weeks to eight, and is now down to six weeks. The fitness requirements are startlingly low-key for a job that ostensibly requires you to be able to chase people down, but more than a third of the new recruits couldn’t do the required 15 push-ups, 32 sit-ups, and run 1.5 miles in 14 minutes. 

Almost half of the new recruits who arrived for training in the last three months were sent home because they couldn’t pass an open-book written exam on the Immigration and Nationality Act and the Fourth Amendment! To be fair, it isn’t like the administration cares if any of these people follow the law, but presumably they have to go through this fiction.   

Also, no more pesky age limits! “Border czar” and bribe aficionado Tom Homan says age is only a number, so ICE is pulling out all the stops to woo back ICE and Border Patrol retirees with the promise of up to a $50,000 hiring bonus.  

The administration wants more agents because it is convinced that part of the bottleneck in hitting the 3,000/day arrest goal set by Chief White House Nazi Stephen Miller is a lack of staff.  Meanwhile, any federal law enforcement that isn’t about hurting immigrants is on hold, as the administration froze all other training at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers, preventing dozens of other federal law enforcement agencies from training.

New Pentagon Press Corps is a Joke

The Trump administration has announced that a group of far-right media outlets have been given press access to the Pentagon.  The announcement comes a week after actual journalists staged a walkout and refused to sign on to new rules that require all reporting to be pre-approved by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Even Fox News stood against the new rules.

Among the Pentagon’s new pool of outlets is Timcast, conspiratorial racist Tim Pool’s podcast, on which he has claimed that “multiculturalism” is behind mass shootings and that women should face public shame for how many sexual partners they’ve had.  Pool has been given Pentagon access even though he was among a group of right-wing influencers paid by the Russian government to spread disinformation. He received payments from the Russian Tenet Media to make politically divisive videos to weaken the U.S. government and its opposition to Russia.  Russia likely had no idea that one of its paid stooges would be given a front-row seat to the inner workings of the U.S. military.

Similarly, MyPillow founder and election conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell’s outlet, LindellTV, will now regurgitate Hegseth’s nonsense to the public. Lindell was among the Trump sycophants who have falsely insisted that Trump won the 2020 election.

Gateway Pundit, the conservative blog founded and operated by Jim Hoft, also received Pentagon credentials. Hoft, once described by the media watchdog group Media Matters for America as the “dumbest man on the internet,” has spent decades promoting debunked right-wing conspiracy theories and other falsehoods.  More recently, Gateway Pundit paid out a settlement in a 2024 defamation lawsuit brought by two Georgia election workers after it falsely accused them of rigging the 2020 election results. 

Pentagon reporting is of dire importance at the moment.  The Trump administration is engaged in warfare in South America, which some experts say is illegal. Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin has ignored Trump’s halfhearted attempt to end Russia’s war on Ukraine, which has most recently included the bombing of a kindergarten with children present. And in the Middle East, Israel’s conflict with Hamas has continued despite Trump’s claims that he secured a “peace deal.”

The Pentagon’s new right-wing press corps is beyond ill-equipped to handle independent reporting. But when it comes to producing stories that get Hegseth’s approval, it’ll pass with flying colors.

 

 

Other Notes on the Egyptian Peace Conference

As he sat alongside the Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah el-Sisi yesterday, Trump returned to one of his favorite topics to discuss: crime.  During an impromptu bilateral meeting, Trump called el-Sisi “very powerful” and noted that there is “no crime” in Egypt.

“They have very little crime, you know. Because they don’t play games,” Trump said, adding: “Because they don’t play games like we do in the United States, with governors that have no idea what they’re doing.”   Later, Trump again remarked on the crime levels in Egypt and said el-Sissi “puts it out very quickly.”  “Some people think that’s not nice, but I think it’s great because people don’t want to be mugged and smashed, and they don’t want to be stupid people,” Trump said.

Egypt, home to over 115 million people, does in fact face crime, particularly the harassment of women. However, its police use heavy-handed tactics, including torture.

Actually, Egypt is ranked 92nd out of 193 countries based on its criminality score from the Global Initiative.  Egypt is is ranked 29th out of 54 countries in Africa, and ranked 2nd out of 6 countries in Northern Africa.  

There were also reports that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan launched a diplomatic initiative to prevent Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from attending the summit in Egypt.  An official, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, said Netanyahu ultimately decided not to participate after Turkey’s effort gained support from several other nations.  There were also other reports that Erdogan’s plane circled above the Red Sea as the president threatened to boycott the meeting, and that it only landed once it was clear Netanyahu would not be present.   Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, also threatened to withdraw from the summit if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu participated. 

 

Cruelty to Elderly Nuns in Austria Knows No Bounds

Three Austrian nuns in their 80's ran away from the retirement home where they were placed and went back to their former convent.  Sister Bernadette, 88, Sister Regina, 86, and Sister Rita, 82, are the last three nuns at the Kloster Goldenstein convent in Elsbethen, just outside Salzburg.

They regained access with the help of former students and a locksmith.  Church authorities are not happy - but the nuns are.  "I am so pleased to be home," Sister Rita said. "I was always homesick at the care home. I am so happy and thankful to be back."  The trio say they were taken out of the convent against their will in December 2023.  "We weren't asked," Sister Bernadette said. "We had the right to stay here until the end of our lives and that was broken."

The three nuns have spent much of their lives at Schloss Goldenstein, a castle which has been a convent and a private girls' school since 1877. The school, which started accepting boys in 2017, is still functioning.  Sister Bernadette attended the school herself, arriving as a teenager in 1948. One of her fellow students was the Austrian film actress Romy Schneider. Sister Regina arrived at the convent in 1958, and Sister Rita four years later.  All three went on to work at the school as teachers for many years. Sister Regina was headmistress.  But the numbers of nuns dwindled.

In 2022, the building was taken over by the Archdiocese of Salzburg and the Reichersberg Abbey, an Augustinian monastery. Provost Markus Grasl from the abbey became the nuns' superior.  The community was officially dissolved at the beginning of 2024, and the remaining nuns were granted lifelong right of residence, as long as their health and mental capacity allowed.

In December 2023, the decision was made to transfer them to a Catholic care home, where they were unhappy.  At the beginning of September, Sister Bernadette, Sister Rita and Sister Regina moved back, helped by a group of former students.  "I have been obedient all my life, but it was too much," Sister Bernadette said.  They packed up a few belongings and came back to the convent. The locks to their former apartments had been changed so a locksmith was called.