SINCERETALK

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump's newest tariffs are slated to go into effect on various imported goods from multiple countries. But the big question that has yet to be answered is how other countries will respond — and how that response could impact Americans . During a Monday night interview with CNN host Kaitlan Collins, Tom Vilsack, who was the secretary of agriculture under former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, elaborated on how American farmers could be put in a particularly stressful position depending on how the United States' tariffs are received around the world. Vilsack theorized that if countries that purchase American agricultural products want to apply pressure to the Trump administration to reconsider its tariffs, they may consider importing food from elsewhere. And he cautioned that if they did so, it could cause permanent harm to the farming economy. "Agriculture is one of our principal export opportunities. [Trading partners] recognize t...

There could soon be a battle brewing between House and Senate Republicans as the two chambers propose their own competing bills aimed at codifying major parts of President Donald Trump's legislative agenda. The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that the Republican majority in the U.S. Senate is deciding to punt the more contentious parts of a budget-related bill down the road to instead focus its efforts solely on extending Trump's tax cuts for another 10-year stretch. This means that elements of the House Republican bill, like cutting Medicaid by roughly $880 billion and slashing federal spending by approximately $1.5 trillion, will be excluded from the Senate's framework. Journal reporter Richard Rubin reported that this strategy puts the upper chamber of Congress "in immediate conflict with the House," as many Republicans who make up the GOP's razor-thin majority (like the far-right House Freedom Caucus) have previously insisted that steep spendi...

Less than three months into his second term in the White House, President Donald Trump has begun floating the idea of running for the presidency a third time. Conservative attorney George Conway said that while the concept may seem outlandish, there's a sect of the legal world that believes he may be able to do so. During a Monday interview with MSNBC host Michael Steele, Conway — the former spouse of ex-Trump senior advisor Kellyanne Conway – cautioned that Trump's suggestion that he may seek yet another four-year term despite the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution's explicit term limits for presidents should be taken seriously. That amendment, which was ratified after former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt served four consecutive terms, prohibits anyone from being elected president who has already been elected to the office twice. But Conway alluded to one loophole in the amendment's language that Trump could exploit. "[The 22nd Amendment] doesn...

One Republican state representative in Idaho was recently caught off-guard when a far-right political activist had Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents sent to her potato farm. According to Newsweek , Rep. Stephanie Mickelsen — who is serving her second term in Idaho house district 32A — is now publicly railing against Ada County, Idaho Republican Party vice chairman Ryan Spoon in an op-ed. Mickelsen recalled in a recent essay for the Idaho Statesman that Spoon had ICE agents deployed to her farm, which resulted in them arresting one farm worker roughly a week after Spoon tweeted at President Donald Trump's border czar, Tom Homan. She didn't mention Spoon by name but referred to him as "someone working remotely for an insurance company who thinks he knows Idaho values and the [agriculture] business better than you do." "Could you please send some illegal immigration raids to the businesses owned by Idaho state Rep. Stephanie Mickelson," Spoo...

A Mpumalanga school principal has been sitting at home with full pay for almost six years after community members expressed serious concerns over his alleged poor performance. from News24 News24/TopStories/rss https://ift.tt/IFqXpgR via sinceretalk

South Africa and Rwanda are currently at loggerheads regarding this country’s participation in the peace-keeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The children of 1994 are at war. from News24 News24/TopStories/rss https://ift.tt/ZNixYKE via sinceretalk

I remember the day I walked through the V&A Waterfront five years ago and it was completely empty. This week, I took the same walk and the same pictures, and the sight of life breathed back into it reminds me how far we’ve come, writes Paul Herman. from News24 News24/TopStories/rss https://ift.tt/bTHZFvX via sinceretalk

President Donald Trump has recently issued a wave of executive orders targeting law firms that represented some of his political opponents, along with firms where his opponents previously worked. But some of those firms are fighting back, and scoring big wins against the Trump administration in court. The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that the law firms Jenner & Block and WilmerHale both sued Trump over his executive orders, which stripped their attorneys of security clearances, barred them from government buildings and directed federal agencies to cancel active contracts with the firms. In the case of WilmerHale, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon (who was appointed by former President George W. Bush) granted the firm a temporary restraining order on Friday blocking Trump's executive order from going into effect. "The injuries to [WilmerHale] would be severe and spill over to its clients and the justice system at large," Judge Leon wrote. READ MORE: '...

One Republican member of Congress was met with a rowdy crowd of several hundred people at a town hall in her normally solid-red district who frequently booed and shouted her down — particularly when she defended President Donald Trump's most controversial policies. Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.) held a town hall meeting on Friday in Westfield, Indiana, which is in reliably conservative Hamilton County. According to WIRED reporter Jake Lahut , Trump won the county by a 51-45 margin in November, and Spartz defeated her Democratic opponent by 18 percentage points. Politico national political correspondent Adam Wren tweeted that there were approximately 500 people present at the event. Roughly an hour into the stream of the town hall posted by the Indianapolis Star , one man stood up and asked Spartz about "all the immigrants who are being rounded up and deported," which drew loud applause from attendees. READ MORE: 'Blatant felony': Internet celebrates as Wisco...

Tender tycoon Vusimusi Cat Matlala, who scored a R360 million police health services deal, cannot deliver on the tender and faces liquidation while struggling to pay his staff and suppliers. from News24 News24/TopStories/rss https://ift.tt/hwqtP3c via sinceretalk

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was seen with a new tattoo earlier this week while visiting U.S. troops in Hawaii. And it's causing a stir among the Muslim community due to what some view as an implied message. The Daily Beast reported Thursday that Hegseth first showed off the new tattoo on his left bicep when training with sailors at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickman on Tuesday. Hegseth's tattoo is known as a "kafir (كافر)," which translates to "infidel" or "disbeliever" in Arabic. Journalist Tam Hussein, who is Muslim, observed that the kafir tattoo is directly under his "Deus Vult" tattoo , which is a slogan from the Crusades that translates to "God wills it." "To the Muslim world the tattoo will be seen as an open declaration of Hegseth’s enmity towards them," Hussein tweeted. READ MORE: 'Why would you want to do that?' Top GOP senator sides with Dems against Trump on key issue However, journalist Dil...

President Donald Trump's support among the Senate Republican Conference may be eroding as he attempts to solidify his control over a specific power the Constitution exclusively grants to Congress. The New York Times reported Thursday that Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, is now siding with her Democratic colleagues as Trump attempts to wrest control of spending authority. Collins co-signed a letter to Trump with ranking member Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) protesting Trump's refusal to disburse $2.9 billion in funding already approved by Congress. Collins took issue with Trump not freeing up $750 million in international disaster assistance, $750 million in migration and refugee assistance, $234 million for the National Science Foundation, $100 million for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and $115 million for international narcotics control and enforcement, among other funds not disbursed. That money was part of...

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk recently doubled down on his attack against Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) in which he called the former astronaut and Naval officer a "traitor." During a Thursday interview with Fox News host Bret Baier, Musk said he still viewed Arizona's senior U.S. senator as a "traitor" because of his support for helping Ukraine defend itself against Russia's invasion. The South African centibillionaire argued Kelly should "care about the interests of the United States above the interests of another country." CNN host Erin Burnett invited Kelly onto her show on Thursday to let the senator respond to Musk's attack. The decorated military veteran said that while he feels that Musk doesn't necessarily deserve a response, he did take the opportunity to establish that his own background and motivation for government service was different than that of the tech magnate, who he described as an "unelected billionaire." ...

One man granted clemency by President Donald Trump for laying siege to the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 is now hoping that his pardon will be extended to a separate charge for possession of child pornography. Politico legal correspondent Kyle Cheney tweeted Wednesday that the legal counsel for 37 year-old David Paul Daniel of North Carolina is now arguing in federal court that his client's child pornography charge should be thrown out based on what he admitted was an "unprecedented legal question." In the 14-page filing submitted to U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, attorney William Terpening asserted that Trump's January 20 executive order pardoning the approximately 1,500 people charged in connection with January 6 also covers Daniel's alleged possession of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) due to how it was obtained by law enforcement. According to Terpening, when police executed a search warrant on Daniel's property ...

Some of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's former colleagues at Fox News bristled at the mention of the Pentagon chief's alcoholism when Democratic lawmakers brought it up in relation to his sharing of highly sensitive information on an unsecured messaging app. On Wednesday, the Daily Beast reported that Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) questioned whether Hegseth's decision to accidentally leak the details of an airstrike on Houthi rebels in Yemen was in any way influenced by alcohol consumption. The Defense Secretary's confirmation battle in the Senate earlier this year was especially fraught after some of his former coworkers told NBC News that Hegseth frequently showed up to work hung over and reeking of alcohol during his previous job as a part-time weekend host on Fox & Friends. "To your knowledge, do you know whether Pete Hegseth had been drinking before he leaked classified information?" Gomez asked Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and...

The Johannesburg Magistrate's Court became the unlikely venue of a million-rand heist when a "prisoners' friend" appears to have been a bit too friendly with prisoners' fines. from News24 News24/TopStories/rss https://ift.tt/yo65EB9 via sinceretalk

On Tuesday, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee convened a hearing on what they refer to as the " censorship-industrial complex. " One of the witnesses Democrats called delivered a fiery takedown of Republicans' complaints about censorship. Judiciary Committee Republicans wrote on their website that the hearing was about "uncovering the Biden-Harris Administration's unconstitutional censorship campaign," and that their witness testimony would "examine upcoming threats to free speech including from AI and foreign governments." One Republican testimony was from Benjamin Weingarten — a contributor to far-right news site The Federalist — who maintained that President Donald Trump's pardon of January 6 rioters was a step in the right direction to end " the war on wrongthink. " However, George Washington University law professor Mary Anne Franks argued that the most egregious acts of censorship were being committed in real tim...

One high-ranking House Democrat recently shared his own theory as to why he believes Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth chose to share sensitive details on a group text thread using the encrypted messaging app Signal. The Hill reported Tuesday that Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.), who has been in Congress since he was first elected in 2008, thinks Hegseth may have felt compelled to disclose what is normally highly classified information to a group of senior-level officials in President Donald Trump's administration due to his own "personal inadequacies." Garamendi told NewsNation's Laura Ingle that the former Fox News part-time weekend host may have seen the sharing of mission details as an opportunity to look tough. "What in the hell are you guys doing? And why are you doing that on a commercial chat platform? Makes absolutely no sense. And it’s, in fact, extraordinarily dangerous," Garamendi said. "And then you bring in the Secretary of Defense — and ...

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump issued a new executive order targeting voter eligibility and voting by mail. Various experts, journalists and commentators are now concerned that Trump may be attempting to put his thumb on the scale ahead of next year's midterm elections. According to the Washington Post , the order "could prevent millions of Americans from voting" if it passes legal muster. Notably, the order mandates that states require voters provide a "government-issued documentary proof of citizenship" upon registering to vote, and that only Real ID drivers' licenses and passports are accepted, whereas birth certificates alone are not sufficient. The order would also ban states from counting mailed ballots that arrive after Election Day, which would be a significant curtailing of voting by mail (states allowing vote-by-mail typically count ballots after Election Day provided that they were postmarked on or before Election Day). SiriusXM host Dean...

Agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recently attempted to arrest and deport a 21 year-old legal permanent resident who has been in the United States since she was a child. She's now suing President Donald Trump's administration over the attempted arrest. The New York Times reported Monday that Yunseo Chung, whose family emigrated to the U.S. when she was seven years old, is suing Trump and other top administration officials like Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, among others after federal agents raided her Columbia University dormitory on March 13. The lawsuit describes how ICE agents "executed search warrants" between 9 PM and 10 PM under the so-called "harboring" statute, looking for documents regarding her affiliation with Columbia, lease agreements and any immigration paperwork. Attorneys for Chung, who was a valedictorian at her high school, argue that the...

Earlier this month, a journalist was inadvertently included on a group text with more than a dozen Cabinet-level officials in President Donald Trump's administration. He's now carefully sharing some of the more scandalous revelations that were shared before he removed himself from the chat. On Monday, Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg wrote an article explaining how we was invited to a group text thread on the encrypted text messaging app Signal by White House National Security Advisor Mike Waltz. He recalled how the top national security officials like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and CIA Director John Ratcliffe shared highly classified operational details about airstrikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen. Goldberg then told MSNBC host Jen Psaki that as a longtime reporter in the national security field, he was floored by the lack of operational security exercised by those on the chat. He noted that it seemed "unbelievable" for people with the highest-level ...

Several high-profile officials in President Donald Trump's administration were recently caught in a scandal after text messages discussing classified war plans made their way to a journalist. Now, their past remarks over a different scandal involving classified information are coming to light. The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg wrote an article on Monday entitled: " The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans ," which set off a firestorm of criticism over the information security practices of the administration's senior-level officials. In the group text that inadvertently made its way to Goldberg, several Trump Cabinet officials like National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, among others, are seen discussing details involving airstrikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen. The texts were sent on the messaging app Signal, whi...

The national Health Department says that the controversial National Health Insurance Act will not affect how provinces will run state-owned hospitals. from News24 News24/TopStories/rss https://ift.tt/TdONYvD via sinceretalk

The SAAF is unable to perform any combat operations due to the grounding of more than 330 planes for lack of money for spares. from News24 News24/TopStories/rss https://ift.tt/LDHnjSZ via sinceretalk

The king has set a date for when he intends to make Princess Sihle Mdluli his wife. He has sent a delegation to Mpumalanga. from News24 news24/TopStories/rss https://ift.tt/NSBs9W6 via sinceretalk

The Trump cult will not reverse course on South Africa. But let’s also not make it easy for them, starting with dropping this renaming of Sandton Drive nonsense. from News24 news24/TopStories/rss https://ift.tt/h6YHXmG via sinceretalk

President Donald Trump recently invoked a centuries-old law to justify the deportations of hundreds of Venezuelan immigrants to a maximum security mega-prison in El Salvador without due process. But one former federal prosecutor now believes Trump may have backed himself into a legal corner . During a Friday night segment on CNN, host Kaitlan Collins recalled how Trump said earlier in the day that he didn't sign a proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 (which hasn't been used since World War II) to deport alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang, even though he stood by the decision to remove them from the United States. The president also said that "other people handled it," mentioning Secretary of State Marco Rubio without prompting by assembled reporters. Trump made the remark in response to a reporter asking him for a response to U.S. District Judge James Boasberg accusing the administration of signing the proclamation "in the dark of night...

Even though he has Republican majorities in both chambers of Congress and Democrats are in the midst of an apparent leadership crisis, President Donald Trump's second term has so far been a massive failure, according to one columnist. In a Friday op-ed for the Daily Beast , columnist David Rothkopf argued that the second Trump administration is already letting down both the MAGA faithful and America at large in five different ways. Rothkopf pointed out that Trump has so far failed to curb inflation, address the federal deficit, root out "waste, fraud and abuse" in federal agencies, end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours or "make America healthy again." "It is early days. But it is clear that Trump has not just failed to achieve those things. He has failed spectacularly," Rothkopf wrote. READ MORE: (Opinion) Here's why Trump supporters can't see through his lies When he was campaigning, Trump repeatedly bemoaned "Bidenomics" and the...

President Donald Trump's administration has lately been ramping up scrutiny of all foreign nationals in the United States, rather than just focusing on undocumented immigrants. This has prompted concern among experts, including some former top officials in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The New York Times reported Friday on the aggressive approach the Trump administration has taken against noncitizens in recent weeks. A 35 year-old Canadian woman said she was placed "in chains" and detained for 12 days at the San Ysidro border crossing (one of the nation's busiest). Two German tourists at that same border crossing were also detained and eventually deported after being kept in custody for multiple weeks. One French scientist who visited the U.S. earlier this month for a conference in the Houston, Texas area was subjected to so-called "enhanced vetting" procedures before eventually being turned away . Customs officials conducting "enhanc...

Sparking an outcry reminiscent of the Peck's Anchovette and Lay's Salt & Vinegar sagas, Lipton Ice Tea announced this week that it was discontinuing its peach ice tea flavour. The only problem: It wasn't true. from News24 News24/TopStories/rss https://ift.tt/eSti4vD via sinceretalk

South African centibillionaire Elon Musk — one of President Donald Trump's closest advisors — is now reportedly scheduled to receive a top-secret briefing involving the United States' top-secret plans in the event the nation goes to war with China. The New York Times reported Thursday evening that the Tesla and SpaceX CEO will be visiting the Pentagon on Friday to get "access to some of the nation’s most closely guarded military secrets." Those war plans are detailed in "20 to 30 slides" that reveal exactly how the U.S. would plan to fight a war against the world's most populous nation and second-largest economy. The Times Julian E. Barnes, Maggie Haberman, Eric Lipton, Ryan Mac and Eric Schmitt noted that the briefing comes despite Musk having "extensive financial interests in China." "If a foreign country was to learn how the United States planned to fight a war against them, it could reinforce its defenses and address its weakness...