They're leaving the dogs, they're leaving the cats . . .

 ICE raids are leaving some L.A. cats and dogs homeless

... Pets belonging to people who are deported or flee are being left in empty apartments, dumped into the laps of unprepared friends and dropped off at overcrowded shelters, The Times found.

"Unless people do take the initiative [and get the pets out], those animals will starve to death in those backyards or those homes," said Yvette Berke, outreach manager for Cats at the Studios, a rescue that serves L.A. ... 

"Pets are like the collateral damage to the current political climate,” said Jennifer Naitaki, vice president of programs and strategic initiatives at the Michelson Found Animals Foundation. ...

Trump's stupid bullying of Jerome Powell is analogous to his stupid bullying of Canada's Justin Trudeau and now Mark Carney

Jerome Powell doesn't set interest rates.

 

The Federal Open Market Committee sets interest rates. That's why the release of the committee's prior meeting minutes is always keenly awaited and is by itself a major market mover. Powell's is one vote among many on the FOMC:

 

Where interest rates should be today, and when they should be reduced, is already a topic of debate inside the Fed, a decision, it should be noted, that cannot be made unilaterally by the chair. Powell’s leadership and professionalism does not appear to be a concern within the halls of the central bank. Certainly, none of his colleagues, present or past, have made the case that he is incompetent. 

 

 

Similarly the Canadian Prime Ministers' control over trade decisions is also muted, deferring as they must to provincial and territorial authorities.

 

Trump bullies people like this who cannot make unilateral changes to policy in order to make himself look like an assertive leader to his equally stupid followers.

 

That's why people like Larry Kudlow disgust me. He knows what I am writing is true, but he joins in on the pig pile nonetheless. 

 

Greater things are at stake in this than interest rate policy. Trump is playing with fire. 

  

Now the disgusting Larry Kudlow piles on Jay Powell

 

Can Jay Powell Make It Through the Weekend?

Larry Kudlow, New York Sun

The New York Times eulogizes one of its sources from the past with contempt, David Gergen, who has succumbed to Lewy body dementia at age 83

 

 ... Years later, he expressed contempt for President-elect Donald J. Trump. “A bully — mean, nasty and disrespectful of anyone in his way,” he wrote in a 2021 column for CNN. ...

Mr. Gergen wore his 6-foot-5 frame comfortably and was graced with an easygoing manner, verbal quickness and a ready laugh that made him popular with many White House reporters. He also leaked information often enough to be labeled “the Sieve” by some of them. 

That reputation fed speculation that he was Deep Throat, the shadowy figure who provided The Washington Post with insights into the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s. That source, however, was confirmed in 2005 to have been W. Mark Felt, the No. 2 official at the F.B.I. ...

The spin “had nothing to do with ideas,” Mr. Gergen said. “It had nothing to do with anything that was real. Eventually, it became selling the sizzle without the steak. There was nothing connected to it. It was all cellophane. It was all packaging.” ...

Mr. Gergen was the author of a best-selling book, “Eyewitness to Power: The Essence of Leadership, Nixon to Clinton” (2000). The book offered lessons for would-be leaders that tended to be little more than bromides, advising them to develop “a capacity to persuade” and “an ability to work within the system.” He revisited the topic in a 2022 book, “Hearts Touched With Fire: How Great Leaders Are Made.” ...

More.

Republican David Gergen was on the wrong side, you see, even if he was a centrist.