Friday, February 7, 2025
USAID was not just great in the opinion of the old Marco Rubio, both Melania Trump and Ivanka Trump thought so too, deploying millions of its dollars for their pet projects under Trump I lololol
A bunch of phony baloney plastic banana good time rock 'n rollas, but I repeat myself.
Melania and Ivanka Trump used thousands of dollars from USAID to fund pet projects during Trump's first term it's been revealed as the agency's spending comes under scrutiny from the president.
The president has gone scorched-earth against the USAID this week, berating its use of tax-payer dollars and saying it had to be 'corrupt' in its spending.
But despite Donald's disdain for the aid agency, it has maintained close ties with his wife and daughter for years by investing in their government ventures.
USAID helped fund Melania Trump's Be Best program and Ivanka Trump's Women's Global Development and Prosperity Initiative during the first Trump term.
And each woman traveled with the agency on separate trips to Africa, where they praised the investments it was making on the continent.
Ivanka Trump travelled with then-USAID administrator Mark Green to Africa in April 2019, where they met with women entrepreneurs in Ethiopia and rural cocoa farmers on the Ivory Coast.
USAID oversaw $265 million per year in spending Ivanka Trump's women's business initiative and an associated antipoverty program.
Melania Trump partnered with the agency on her 2018 trip to Ghana, Malawi, Kenya and Egypt.
In Malawi, the first lady promoted USAID's national reading program, which was donating on Trump's behalf 1.4 million textbooks to the more than 5,600 primary schools in the poverty-stricken nation.
'I am so proud of the work this administration is doing through USAID and others,' the first lady said at the time, 'and look forward to the opportunity to take the message of my Be Best campaign to many of the countries, and children, throughout Africa.'
In his first term, Trump heavily cut funding for the aid agency but it still found money to invest into his family's government ventures.
Ivanka Trump used USAID for her program to promote women in business, claiming 12 million women around the world had been helped by it.
She travelled with the agency to Colombia in September 2019 to run a workshop for women entrepreneurs.
That same year, she also used over $11,000 from the agency to buy video recording and reproducing equipment for a White House event, its records show.
Meanwhile, USAID was one of the first agencies to name an ambassador to Melania Trump's Be Best initiative.
When Melania Trump first announced her signature program in May 2018, she asked government agencies to name a liaison to her group. USAID immediately did so.
At her one-year anniversary celebration in May, Melania acknowledged the agency and thanked it for naming the first Be Best ambassador.
'For the first time in history, the United States Agency for International Development has appointed a Be Best ambassador,' she said.
'On this one year anniversary of my initiative, I call on all of our partner agencies to appoint a be best ambassador who will serve as a liaison between my office and their respective agency to better highlight and promote the programs and services offered to parents and children on behalf of the US government,' she added.
Donald Trump was sitting in the audience listening.
Neither the East Wing, the West Wing, nor Ivanka Trump's office responded to DailyMail.com's request for comment.
USAID delivers billions of dollars in humanitarian aid overseas.
The Trump administration is threatening to shut it down or bring the independent agency under the umbrella of the State Department.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is now acting director of the agency it's been announced this week.
Hundreds of USAID contractors were placed on unpaid leave and some were terminated. Elon Musk, who is running Trump's Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE program, said the agency would be eliminated.
Its Washington D.C. office is closed and employees were either put on leave or told to work from home.
Trump has said of the agency: 'It's been run by a bunch of radical lunatics, and we're getting them out.'
He also claims it 'had to be corrupt' to approve certain initiatives.
The president has berated the agency for its spending practices, including having a subscription to Politico Pro, a service that tracks legislation and other government news.
And his press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, gave a blistering account of USAID's spending. Speaking to reporters at the White House last week, she held up a sheet of paper giving details of the astonishing ways in which taxpayers' money had been doled out.
It was an apparent reference to a story in Daily Mail, which first outlined the shocking expenditures related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), on which President Trump has ordered a crackdown.
'I don't know about you. But as an American taxpayer, I don't want my dollars going toward this crap. And I know the American people don't either. And that's exactly what Elon Musk has been tasked by President Trump to do. To get the fraud, waste and abuse out of the federal government,' Leavitt said.
The legal system is about to be clogged with multiple battles over Trump's second and imperial presidency, which has deployed Elon Musk as the embodiment of the line-item veto which it does not possess
It's a strange day when I find myself agreeing with Ed Markey.
. . . “The courts, if they interpret the Constitution correctly, are going to stop Musk, are going to stop Trump,” Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Ed Markey told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Thursday.
“Article One is the Congress. Article Two is the president, Article Three is the judiciary. There is not an Article 3.5 where Elon Musk gets to do whatever he wants to do,” Markey said. “They are trying to rewrite constitutional law in this country.” . . .
Three weeks in, the growing storm of lawsuits means some of this young administration’s most extraordinary applications of unilateral presidential power could be reined in. But the litigation also conjures a scenario that no one wants to think about: what would happen if the administration refused to recognize court rulings — even one handed down by the Supreme Court?
This is a particularly acute matter because it’s the Justice Department, which is now operating under Trump’s firm hand, that’s responsible for enforcing the law. The constitutional remedy for a president who breaks the law is impeachment, but Republicans have twice shown that they will not hold Trump to account in such trials, making moot this key check on power envisioned by the founders.
“That is the doomsday scenario,” Ryan Goodman, a former Defense Department special counsel and NYU law professor, told CNN’s Burnett. “So far, they are complying with all the court orders, but what happens come the day that they do lose at the Supreme Court?” Goodman asked.
“If they really want to push it, we are in a real constitutional crisis.”
From the story here.
January 2025 is the fifth consecutive January with full time employment not as good as in January 2020 when 49.85% of civilian population usually worked full time
January 2020: 49.85%
January 2021: 47.42%
January 2022: 49.29%
January 2023: 49.32%
January 2024: 49.16%
January 2025: 49.22%
Thursday, February 6, 2025
Judge George O’Toole Jr. pauses Trump's federal employee buyout nationwide, says he will consider arguments on the legality of the buyout on Monday
. . . O’Toole’s order Thursday is the latest in a series of judicial
rulings pausing implementation of key policy initiatives of President Donald Trump.
Kinda like a libertarian convention
. . . fiscal hawks said they could not support the massive package without more spending cuts. ...
Welcome to end stage libertarianism: The executive branch of the United States does not possess a line-item veto power
What Trump is doing will be challenged all the way to the Supreme Court, which already ruled the 1996 version of the line item veto unconstitutional.
Trump is a renegade.
Imagine a Democrat president simply canceling programs Republicans passed and firing all the people in them. That's what this is. And that's what the future will bring if Trump gets away with any of this.
It's anarchy, and it's unconstitutional, however much you may agree with the cuts. The Court will set this straight or the federal government is finished as an institution.
Despite record highs in stocks in 2024, real return since the last secular peak in August 2000 still significantly lags previous periods of peak-to-peak returns
During four months in 2021, real return since August 2000 briefly hit the 5s: 5.06% in August, 5.02% in September, 5.17% in November, and 5.15% in December.
Real return swooned after that, as low as 3.63% in October 2022, making it seem like 2021 might have been a secular turning point.
But by October 2024 real return since August 2000 had recovered to 5.11%, and 5.2% in November, and 5.24% in December.
Is this the new secular peak?
Return might suggest, No, seeing how low it still is.
Valuation might suggest, Yes.
The annual average of the S&P 500 divided by GDP in trillions hit 186 in 2024, a level not seen since 1930 (228) on an annualized basis.
That ratio never got above 139 (2000) between 1937 (165) and 2020 (151).
And this ratio was 180 in 2021, 158 in 2022, and 155 in 2023, all unprecedented for the post-war.
But 186 in 2024 really takes the cake.
The price of the market is really, really rich for the return you get.
Wednesday, February 5, 2025
Gold prices continued their record run on Wednesday
... Spot gold was up 0.8% at $2,865.61 per ounce by 01:59 p.m. ET (1859
GMT), after hitting a record high of $2,882.16 earlier in the session. ... Spot silver rose 0.8% to $32.36 per ounce . . ..
-- CNBC
One nutball era ends, another begins, Wednesday edition
He's the Gentrifier in Chief lol, move the poor out, let the wealthy take over:
Tuesday, February 4, 2025
Gold hits record high as investors flock to safe-haven amid tariff war
Spot gold gained 1.1% to $2,843.06 per ounce after hitting a record high of $2,845.14 earlier in the session. ... Spot silver rose 1.9% to $32.15 per ounce.
-- CNBC
The revenge of the bond vigilantes
The Fed started cutting the Federal Funds Rate last September (DFF 5.33 then, 4.33 now), and average yields for notes and bonds started climbing and haven't stopped lol.
Monday, February 3, 2025
Banana Republican Donald Trump hastily makes Elon Musk a special government employee AFTER THE FACT of allegations of impropriety since January 20
White House says Elon Musk serving as a ‘special government employee’
There is nothing in this story indicating that Musk or his employees have undergone the standard background checks.
Unvetted individuals are working with the most sensitive personal data of hundreds of thousands of federal employees and contractors.
Reminds me of nothing so much as Bill and Hillary Clinton possessing the FBI's files on government employees.
More tariff theatre: Trump announces 25% tariffs on Canada on Saturday, reverses himself before dinner on Monday lol
Trump pauses tariffs on Canada imports for 30 days after doing the same for Mexico
... Trudeau said Canada had made new commitments “to appoint a Fentanyl Czar.” 😉😉
“Canada
is implementing our $1.3 billion border plan — reinforcing the border
with new choppers, technology and personnel, enhanced coordination with
our American partners, and increased resources to stop the flow of
fentanyl,” the prime minister wrote. “Nearly 10,000 frontline personnel
are and will be working on protecting the border.” ...
In 2024, more than 21,100 pounds of fentanyl was seized by U.S.
authorities on the border with Mexico, compared to only about 43 pounds
seized at the Canadian border. ...
Clueless Marco Rubio appoints Taiwan surrender monkey Darren J. Beattie to State Department job
As if the nine-dash line doesn't even exist.
Beattie is a total suck-up, just like Rubio.
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