Cryptocurrency, Investing, Money, Economy, Business, and Debt:
Mortgage rates fall again as economy cools further
Crypto Exchange Kraken Preparing for IPO in 2026
Bundesbank proposes debt reform that could add 220 bln euros to spending
Coronavirus News, Analysis, and Opinion:
U.S. Judge Finds China Liable for Covid Missteps, Imposes $24 Billion Penalty
Politics:
Trump’s Own Declaration of Independence
Trump jokingly declared himself a sovereign last month, while his advisers distributed AI-generated photos of him wearing a crown and an ermine robeto celebrate his order to end congestion pricing in New York City. “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” he’d decreed a few days earlier, using a phrase sometimes attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, the emperor of the French.
But the president has also asked advisers in recent days about moving the Declaration of Independence into the Oval Office, according to people familiar with the conversations who requested anonymity to describe the planning.
Trump’s request alarmed some of his aides, who immediately recognized both the implausibility and the expense of moving the original document. Displayed in the rotunda at the National Archives Building, in Washington, D.C., it is perhaps the most treasured historical document in the U.S. government’s possession.
The original is behind heavy glass in an oxygen-free, argon-filled case that can retract into the wall at night for security. Because of light damage to the faded animal-skin parchment, the room is kept dimly lit; restrictions have been placed on how often the doors can even be opened.
But to the relief of aides, subsequent discussions appear to have focused on the possibility of moving one of the historical copies of the document, not the original.
For decades a core objective of the Soviet Union was to “decouple” the United States from Europe. Decoupling, as it was called, would break the Western alliance that kept Soviet tanks from rolling across the Prussian plains.
Now, in weeks, President Trump has handed Moscow the gift that eluded it during the Cold War and since.
Europe, jilted, is in shock. The United States, a nation whose core idea is liberty and whose core calling has been the defense of democracy against tyranny, has turned on its ally and instead embraced a brutal autocrat, President Vladimir Putin of Russia. Gripped by a sense of abandonment, alarmed at the colossal rearmament task before it, astonished by the upending of American ideology, Europe finds itself adrift.
Trump’s Embrace of Putin Has Germany Thinking of Nuclear Weapons
…Trump’s embrace of Russia is causing Europeans to rethink their security and giving currency to an idea the U.S. has long sought to avoid: a nuclear-armed Germany.
Friedrich Merz, who is poised to become Germany’s next chancellor, said Berlin should start talks about expanding the French and British nuclear deterrents to cover Europe, according to an interview the conservative politician did with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung weekly.
Asked if Germany should pursue its own arsenal, Merz didn’t rule it out, saying there ‘there is no need for this today.’
We live in the stupidest timeline: Donald Trump Jr. Considering a Run For President in 2028
Marco Rubio Melts Down at Elon Musk
Marco Rubio blew up at Elon Musk at a closed-door Cabinet meeting after the DOGE head accused the secretary of state of failing to slash his staff.
Musk, the world’s richest man, told the secretary of state, who was seated next to Donald Trump at the meeting on Thursday, that he had fired ‘nobody.’ He sarcastically added that the one person Rubio had perhaps fired was an employee of Musk’s DOGE.
Rubio has been privately livid at Musk since he tore apart an agency supposedly under the secretary’s control: the U.S. Agency for International Development, which Musk has effectively eliminated in his bid to take a chainsaw to federal spending.
Democrats Are Busy Fighting Over What to Fight Over
Their diverging strategy perspectives reflect a schism inside the party over Democrats’ most promising pathway back to power. Progressives want constant action and are urging core supporters to flood town hall meetings and congressional phone lines to demand an aggressive response to Trump. Moderates say that approach risks turning off centrist voters in highly competitive districts—such as Suozzi’s—who dislike partisan politics and vote their pocketbooks.
The moderates are operating under two assumptions that may well be false: that they can wait two years to reign in Trump’s power grabs and that there are likely to be free and fair elections two years from now.
While every FBI director since J. Edgar Hoover has taken pains to keep the White House at arms length, the new Trump administration has taken the opposite tack, working to bring the traditionally independent ethos of the FBI and Justice Department firmly within the president’s grasp.
Patel’s determination to keep in close contact with President Trump himself is an arrangement outside the traditional chain of command in which the FBI director reports to the deputy attorney general, and the president usually talks only to the attorney general.
