A federal judge in Massachusetts on Thursday issued an injunction blocking the Trump administration from dismantling the Department of Education and ordering that fired employees be reinstated. read more
Guam is home to more than 170,000 Americans and several military installations. Protecting this U.S. territory from missile attack is a Department of Defense priority. As of March 2025, the defense system in Guam included six missile launchers and one radar. DOD is planning to deploy additional systems. But it has yet to determine how many personnel are needed to operate the systems, when those personnel would be deployed, and more. DOD needs this information to, for example, ensure it has enough time to also build military housing and other supporting facilities.
Another view ...
From Star Wars to Golden Dome: Trump Pushes US Missile Shield Despite Funding and Technology Hurdles
www.military.com
... Sitting in the Oval Office on Tuesday alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a four-star Space Force general and several lawmakers, President Donald Trump made it clear: He's setting out to finish what former President Ronald Reagan started.
Reagan's 1980s-era proposal for a space-based defense shield against nuclear missiles, dubbed "Star Wars," fizzled. Now, decades later, Trump has announced a proposal he calls "Golden Dome," envisioned as a state-of-the-art missile defense system covering the U.S. that could shoot down ballistic, hypersonic and nuclear missiles -- even drones -- from land and outer space.
Trump said during the White House gathering this week that his Golden Dome would take only three years to complete, be "very close to 100%" effective, and cost only $175 billion. The promises face skepticism from experts and would require big military trade-offs, including possible troop reductions in the Army.
"We will truly be completing the job that President Reagan started 40 years ago, forever ending the missile threat to the American homeland," Trump said this week.
However, defense policy experts who spoke to Military.com aren't so sure.
They said that, while the immediate fate of the nationwide shield is tied to short-term funding working through Congress, it may ultimately require a long-term commitment of more defense dollars or strategic trade-offs, such as cutting the size of the Army to deliver the ambitious vision being pitched to the American people. ...
... So, as predicted by Trump and other - the manufacturers and middle men eat the tariffs and the tariffs ARE NOT paid by the US consumers. ...
No, what was actually said by Pres Trump was that the foreign Countries, e.g. China, pay the tariffs.
Not Americans consumers or American companies or American middle men.
Fact check: Trump and Vance keep falsely describing how tariffs work September 2024)
www.cnn.com
... Former President Donald Trump and Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance continue to falsely describe how one of their major policy proposals, across-the-board tariffs, would work.
Trump has falsely, and repeatedly, claimed that China " not US importers " pay the tariff.
At a rally in Arizona in mid-August, he claimed that Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent, is lying when she refers to his tariff plan as a "Trump tax."
"She is a liar. She makes up crap ... I am going to put tariffs on other countries coming into our country, and that has nothing to do with taxes to us. That is a tax on another country," Trump said.
In September, he repeated the claim during an interview with Fox News: "It's not a tax on the middle class. It's a tax on another country."
And he said again during a rally in Wisconsin Saturday that "it's not going to be a cost to you, it's going to be a cost to another country."
Vance said in late August that as a result of tariffs Trump imposed during his presidency, "prices went down for American citizens."
"They went up for the Chinese but they went down for our people," Vance added.
But that's not true. ...
Many links in that article.
But the gist is, Pres Trump and VP Vance lied to the American people about who pays tariffs.
Vampire Weekend - Unbelievers (2013)
www.youtube.com
(lyrics in the video)
(btw, good exercise for a subwoofer around 2:30 into the song ...)
(but I digress ...)
@#3 ... They were dead on last year. ...
Let's check ...
2024 Atlantic hurricane season
en.wikipedia.org
... The 2024 Atlantic hurricane season was a very active and extremely destructive Atlantic hurricane season that became the third-costliest on record, behind only 2017 and 2005. The season featured 18 named storms, 11 hurricanes, and 5 major hurricanes; it was also the first since 2019 to feature multiple Category 5 hurricanes. ...
And NOAA's forecast ...
NOAA forecasts extraordinarily busy Atlantic hurricane season (May 2024)
www.axios.com
... By the numbers: The NOAA is forecasting the season will bring 85% odds of an above normal season, with 17"25 named storms of tropical storm intensity or greater, eight to 13 of which will become hurricanes, and four to seven major hurricanes of Category 3 or greater.
- - - This is the most aggressive hurricane season outlook that NOAA has ever issued for its May outlook, Spinrad said.
- - - The numbers are well above the 1991"2020 average of 14 named storms, seven hurricanes and three major hurricanes each season. ...
OpEd: Attack of the Sadistic Zombies
paulkrugman.substack.com
... Republicans in Congress, taking their marching orders from Donald Trump, are on track to enact a hugely regressive budget " big tax giveaways to the wealthy combined with cruel cuts in programs that serve lower-income Americans. True, the legislation suffered a setback last week, initially failing to make it out of committee. But that was largely because some right-wing Republicans didn't think the benefit cuts were vicious enough.
OK, news at 11.
Isn't this what Republicans always do? But this reconciliation bill -- that is, legislation structured in such a way that it can't be filibustered and may well pass with no Democratic votes -- is different in both degree and kind from what we've seen before: Its cruelty is exceptional even by recent right-wing standards.
Furthermore, the way that cruelty will be implemented is notable for its reliance on claims we know aren't true and policies we know won't work -- what some of us call zombie ideas.
And it's hard to avoid the sense that the counterproductive viciousness is actually the point.
Think of what we're seeing as the attack of the sadistic zombies. ...
@#4
OK, my first question, why is Pres trump suddenly seeming to associate himself with fmr Pres Regan?
Is he realizing his apparent weakness in this area and is trying to paint himself as a Reagan-accolade?