SINCERETALK

President Donald Trump is failing both with managing the American economy and prosecuting his war against Iran — and a top political strategist, one who advised the previous Republican president, characterized the current situation as that of a “lost war led by a fool.” “The economy is in free fall — it's in a state of collapse,” Steve Schmidt, who advised President George W. Bush but is critical of Trump, posted on X on Tuesday . “There are fuel shortages all over the world, and diesel is $7 a gallon. In California, there will be food shortages because fertilizer can't make it through the Strait of Hormuz, and neither can hydrogen or helium, or dozens of other precursor agents that are necessary to sustain the global economy.” He concluded, “This is a lost war led by a fool.” Schmidt is an outspoken critic of Trump, frequently describing him as far to the right of the Republican Party that Schmidt worked for during the Bush administration. Earlier in April he described t...

Republican strategist and President Donald Trump supporter Scott Jennings managed to muddle his signals during a CNN panel discussion over voter apathy, arguing that voters are weary of partisan attacks on the other side while simultaneously attacking liberals as anti-American. CNN anchor Kasie Hunt ticked off survey numbers at the panel table revealing that only 36 percent of people feel the United States is the greatest country and 41 percent believing it is only one of the world’s greatest nations. But 23 percent of people proclaimed flatly that “we're not one of the greatest countries.” After a table discussion on divided U.S. politics, Jennings put Democrats in the 23 percent. “If you look at the splits on that by politics … on how people feel about America, the promise of America, if you look at whether they're proud of their country or not … Republicans and conservatives are proud to be Americans, and it's Democrats and liberals who are not,” Jennings told the ...

Now in its eighth week, President Donald Trump is increasingly responding to pressure to wrap up his “little excursion” in Iran, with the clearest sign that he’s feeling that urgency being his own insistence that he is “under no pressure whatsoever.” But as the world grapples with the stark economic consequences of the war, including skyrocketing gas prices, Republicans are coming to terms with the “inconvenient truth” that there’s little they can do to avoid the electoral fallout at the November midterms. While Trump and his allies have scrambled for ways to manipulate gas prices or at least distract from the increase, repeatedly suggesting that the cost hike is only temporary, Energy Secretary Chris Wright has let it slip that it “could be next year” before numbers creep back down at the pump. He and even Trump have now admitted that prices could climb “a little bit higher” before November, and Republicans are starting to face the fact that they’re going to pay for it at the poll...

A third woman is leaving President Donald Trump’s Cabinet in roughly a month: first Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, then Attorney General Pam Bondi — and now Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer. “Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer will be leaving the administration to take a position in the private sector,” White House spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement . “She has done a phenomenal job in her role by protecting American workers, enacting fair labor practices, and helping Americans gain additional skills to improve their lives.” Cheung added Deputy Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling will take her place. Unlike Noem and Bondi, Chavez-DeRemer was not explicitly fired, but rather had her departure merely announced without reference to a predicating incident. Yet there were a number of controversies surrounding DeRemer: she is accused of sending personal messages and requests to young staff members, with some of her family and top aides doing likewise; of us...

In the face of sinking economic growth forecasts across the world, tourism can lean against the trend, writes Busisiwe Mavuso. from News24 News24/TopStories/rss https://ift.tt/wvfHsI4 via sinceretalk

In light of Trump’s increasingly cruel and bonkers behavior — toward Iran, toward the pope, his posts, his bottomless vengeance, his continuing ICE raids, his continuing use of the Justice Department to target his enemies, his shameless corruption — many of you want to know: “What can I do now ?” Here are 10 recommendations, in rough order of importance. 1. Protect the decent and hardworking members of your communities who are most vulnerable. This is an urgent moral call to action. As Trump’s ICE and Border Patrol continue their roundups and deportations, many of our neighbors and friends are endangered. They and their families are understandably frightened. Trump’s executive orders allow ICE to arrest undocumented immigrants at or near schools, places of worship, health care sites, shelters, and relief centers — thereby deterring them from sending their kids to school or getting help they need. If you trust your mayor or city manager, check in with their offices to see what the...