Real Gross Domestic Product grew at an annual rate of 3% in the first quarter of the year, which appears to be really good news for President Trump and his Independence Day last April 2. This follows a drop in Real GDP of 0.5% for the first quarter. The big jump in Q2 reflects a decrease in imports coming into the US, which the Bureau of Economic Analysis counts as a subtraction in its GDP calculation formula. In other words, this drop in imports added to GDP growth. Consumer spending also jumped up in Q2 (perhaps a rush to purchase goods imported in Q1?), contributing to the growth, the BEA says. Last quarter’s growth was also partially offset by a decrease in investment and exports.
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UK to Recognize Palestinian State – As images of starving children in Gaza stun world leaders including President Trump, UK Prime Minister Kier Starmer announced Tuesday his country will join France in recognizing a Palestinian state by September if there is no Israeli-Hamas ceasefire or starvation relief by then (per The New York Times). France made its announcement it would recognize a Palestinian state, at the United Nations General Assembly last week.
Starmer made his remarks after concluding his meeting in Scotland with Trump, who said he is not taking a position in the matter.
“I don’t mind him taking a position. I’m looking to getting people fed right now. That’s the number one position, because you have a lot of starving people,” Trump said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not budge, saying Starmer is rewarding “Hamas’ monstrous terrorism,” reports the UK’s Independent.
However, Netanyahu’s hardline position on Palestine has reignited opposition in his own country.
“This government led us from the most justified war in the world to a diplomatic disaster,” opposition leader Yair Lapid wrote in a Hebrew-language tweet, reports The Times of Israel. “One failure after another. A prime minister who has vanished from the diplomatic arena, a useless foreign minister and ministers who endanger [Israeli Defense Force] soldiers every time they open their mouths.”
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Step to SCOTUS? – The Senate has confirmed by 50-49 vote former personal attorney to Donald J. Trump and Justice Department official since January, Emil Bove (pictured), to a lifetime appointment as US Circuit Court judge for the Third Circuit, serving Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and the Virgin Islands, Roll Call reports. This despite a whistleblower allegation he defied court orders that would stop planned deportations of undocumented aliens.
Bove also dropped a corruption case against Eric Adams of New York City over the Democratic mayor’s support of Trump’s immigration policies.
The vote came after Democratic senators gave floor speeches arguing Bove was not fit for a lifetime appointment to the court.
Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Susan Collins (R-ME) joined Democrats voting against Bove’s confirmation, according to the Roll Call report.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), called Bove’s nomination “an alarming departure” from Trump 45’s nominees.
“Mr. Bove’s primary qualification appears to be his blind loyalty to this president,” Durbin said.
But Bove’s appointment to the Third Circuit may not last his lifetime. There is much speculation that Bove (who is either 43 or 44, according to Wikipedia) is Trump’s next nominee to the US Supreme Court.
On Tuesday, Time magazine reported that White House officials and a “close circle” of conservative attorneys are preparing for Trump’s next SCOTUS appointee. Trump has three-and-a-half years left in his term. Makeup of the Senate after next year’s midterms could potentially alter that timeline.
SCOTUS’ three Democratic president appointees will not step down voluntarily before 2029, so that leaves Chief Justice John Roberts, 70, and Associate Justices Clarence Thomas, 77, and Samuel Alito, 75. --TL
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Trump in Scotland
TUESDAY 7/29/25
Genocide? – Death toll in Gaza has topped 60,000, the Hamas-run health ministry reports, according to Haaretz. The Times of London reports Tuesday that Palestinian activist Odeh Hadalin, who appeared in last year’s Oscar-winning documentary, No Other Land was killed in his West Bank village, “apparently after being shot by an Israeli settler.”
This comes as outrage continues to build against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israeli government as it disputes myriad reports that its military is causing starvation of Palestinians in Gaza.
Appearing with UK Prime Minister Kier Starmer in Turnberry, Scotland, Monday, President Trump said that he has seen “real starvation” in Gaza on television and that the US will set up “food centers” there.
There is “no starvation in Gaza,” Netanyahu maintains.
But Sen. Angus King (I-ME) says he will oppose “any” support for Israel so long as there is a hunger crisis in Gaza, The Hill reports.
“I cannot defend the indefensible,” King said on his website. “Israel’s actions in the conduct of the war in Gaza, especially its failure to address the unimaginable humanitarian crisis now unfolding, is an affront to human decency. What appears to be a deliberately-induced famine among a civilian population — including tens of thousands of starving children — can never be an acceptable military strategy.
“While clearly justified in responding to the horrific attack by Hamas on innocent Israeli citizens, that tragic event cannot in turn justify the enormous toll on Palestinian civilians caused by Israel’s relentless bombing campaign and its indifference to the current plight of those trapped in what’s left of Gaza.”
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Trump and Epstein and Maxwell – Three days after meeting with Deputy Attorney Gen. Todd Blanche in Florida, Ghislaine Maxwell has filed an appeal with the US Supreme Court to overturn her 2020 conviction for engaging in sex trafficking minors for Jeffrey Epstein, per Axios. A longtime companion of Epstein, Maxwell, who is serving 20 years in a federal prison says she was unlawfully prosecuted in the case.
At an earlier press conference in Scotland Trump said he is "allowed" as president to pardon Maxwell for her sex trafficking conviction.
No island for auld friend … Fresh off his press conference with European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, President Trump faced Scottish reporters in Turnberry who dogged him about the Epstein case. Trump explained his break-up with Epstein way back in 2004 and how he avoided any trips to Epstein’s private islands thusly – from The New York Times and video of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Monday:
“That’s such old history. Very easy to explain. But I don’t want to waste your time by explaining it.
“For years, I wouldn’t talk to Jeffrey Epstein. He did something that was inappropriate. He hired help. And I said, ‘don’t do that again.’ He stole people that worked for me. And I threw him out of the place. Persona non grata.
“By the way, I never went to the island. And Bill Clinton went there, supposedly, uh, 28 times. I never had the privilege of going to his island. And, uh, I did turn it down.”
Epstein owned Little St. James and Great St. James islands in the Caribbean, according to the NYT, which reported a response from an aide to Bill Clinton, Monday, who said it has been 20 years since the former president had contact with Epstein – about the same cut-off date between Epstein and Trump.
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‘Cage Match’ – Key architect of Project 2025 Paul Dans says he plans to launch a campaign to challenge Sen. Lindsey Graham’s Republican primary in South Carolina next year, The Washington Post reports.
“This is ultimately a steel-cage match for the future of MAGA,” Dans says. --TL
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It Could Have Been Worse
MONDAY 7/28/25
Deal With the EU – President Trump and European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen reached a deal in Turnberry, Scotland, over the weekend for a 15% baseline tariff on goods coming to the US, with 0% on US goods heading eastbound. Von der Leyen said the tariffs will apply chiefly to cars and other items, according to The Wall Street Journal, which helpfully lays out details as we know them about the deal, which will not be finalized before the Trump White House’s August 1 – Friday – deadline:
•Exemptions with zero tariffs would apply to some “strategic” equipment such as aircraft and semiconductor equipment.
•The EU will buy $750 billion worth of US energy products (instead of Russian gas and oil) with “significant purchases of US LNG (liquid natural gas), oil and nuclear fuels, over a three-year span (the WSJ buried this at the end of its synopsis, so take that for what you think it means).
•EU officials say tariffs would be cut for some US imports, including some farms and industrial goods, though not immediately.
•EU officials believe tariffs for drugs and computer chips will be capped at 15%, while Trump’s decision on global pharmaceuticals (largely made in Europe) “are on a different sheet of paper,” according to van der Leyen.
•Trump indicated his 50% tariff on global steel and aluminum “will be cut,” with a new quota system.
•The EU agreed to invest $600 billion in the US, according to Trump, though EU officials say that’s an assessment of European companies’ investment plans and not public initiatives – so as with much of foreign investment in the US previously announced by Trump, this is private investment already planned.
•The EU will buy an unspecified amount of artificial intelligence chips from the US, and according to Trump “a vast amount of military equipment.” This is not part of the tariff deal, but part of NATO’s previously announced spending pledge, according to the WSJ.
Hold your applause … Or, at least, muffle it with a golf tournament applause. A separate WSJ headline says, “Companies Welcome EU-US Trade Deal as Least-Bad Outcome.”
The gist of the analysis piece is that it’s better than the 30% base tariff Trump was set to impose on the EU beginning Friday, and the global trade war it would certainly trigger.
So, aside from that, how did you enjoy the play, Mrs. Lincoln? … “For the EU, today’s agreement is probably almost as good as it could get,” ING Bank economist Carsten Brzeski told the WSJ.
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Stop That, Sooner – On July 14, President Trump gave Russian dictator/President Vladimir Putin 50 days to reach a ceasefire with Ukraine upon penalty of economic sanctions. That gave Putin 50 days to increase his attacks on Ukraine so he could claim that much more territory to keep from such a ceasefire agreement.
In a press conference with UK Prime Minister Kier Starmer Monday Trump said he plans to shorten that 50-day timeline for Russian compliance, The Hill reports.
“I’m going to reduce that 50 days I gave him to a lesser number, because I think I already know the answer to what’s going to happen,” Trump told reporters.
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In Memoriam: Tom Lehrer – The erstwhile musical satirist famous for such songs as The Vatican Rag, A Song for World War III (performed in 1965 by Steve Allen on NBC-TV’s That Was the Week That Was), The Elements, The Wild West Is Where I Want to Be and Poisoning Pigeons in the Park died Saturday at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was 97.
Lehrer performed his songs live in the 1950s, then again from 1965-67 before leaving the music biz altogether to teach at Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California, as well as serving a stint on the Atomic Energy Commission.
His song, Wernher von Braun “celebrated” the Nazi-turned-NASA scientist thusly: “Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?/’That’s not my department,’ says Wernher von Braun.”
Lehrer relinquished rights to all his songs, except for melodies that used his words against others’ music, according to his New York Times obituary. Lehrer also announced he would shut down his website, but as of Monday, it was still up and included his eulogy. –Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa
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FRIDAY 7/25/25
Blame Canada? – The Federal Communications Commission has approved Paramount’s $8 billion merger with Skydance, days after Paramount announced a $1.5 billion streaming deal with South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Chair Brendan Carr said the FCC approved the deal “after reaching assurances from Skydance that the new company would be committed to unbiased journalism and would not establish programs related to diversity, equity and inclusion,” according to The New York Times. South Park celebrated with the opener for Season 27 with President Trump begging the devil for sex. But why did the show depict Trump as a Canadian? Is the US aboot to become the 11th province?*
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Maxwell Grilled – Deputy Attorney Gen. Todd Blanche convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell Thursday in Tallahassee, Florida, where he had planned further questioning of Jeffrey Epstein’s ex-girlfriend Friday. An attorney representing Maxwell, David Oscar Markus, told reporters Thursday’s meeting was a “productive” session, in which Maxwell answered all questions “truthfully, honestly and to the best of her ability,” The Wall Street Journal reports.
Connecting the dots … Legal analysts find it curious that the Justice Department would send its second-highest ranking attorney to Florida for the interview, rather than a much lower-level staffer. The Hill has reported that Blanche and Markus are old friends. Blanche last year represented Donald J. Trump in his New York criminal trial for falsifying business records in connection with pre-2016 presidential election hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels. Trump was found guilty on all 34 counts.
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Meanwhile, in Scotland – President Trump was off to Scotland Friday morning, where he will meet with British Prime Minister Kier Starmer and Scottish First Minister John Swinney, NPR’s Morning Edition reports. Trump will “further refine” his trade deal with the UK on a “working visit” where he also will play a lot of golf.
The Trump Organization owns two courses in Scotland, with plans to open a third.
It won’t be all haggis and Diet Coke, though, as extensive protests are expected, just as they were delivered during Trump’s last visit as president to his mother’s homeland, in 2018.
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*Shatner’s Counterproposal – New York magazine’s July 14-27 cover story, “You Have No Idea How Furious the Canadians Are,” says Star Trek’s original Captain Kirk, Canadian-born William Shatner, has been publicly workshopping a counter proposal to President Trump’s “51st state” campaign for our neighbors to the north.
“Canada should say to President Trump, ‘You are the head of a rambunctious country, very difficult to govern at this point,” Shatner tells author Simon van Zuylen-Wood. “We can ease your pain. Canada is calm, settled, successful. Clean air, clean water, pleasant people. Why don’t you become the 11th province?” –Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa