Evidence of 'white genocide' in South Africa that President Trump showed to its president, Cyril Ramaphosa, contained images from Democratic Republic of Congo, and other images that were false or misleading (per The Guardian).
•ALSO: Read the full 1,082-page One Big Beautiful Bill Act HERE.
MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND 2025
UPDATE: Federal Judge Allison D. Burroughs, in Boston, has issued a temporary restraining order against the Trump administration edict that revoked Harvard University's ability to enroll foreign students (scroll down for story with the trackbar to the right). The judge agreed with Harvard's lawsuit filed Friday morning that the edict's implementation would cause "immediate and irreparable injury" to the university (per The New York Times).
•••
Tariff Watch – President Trump Friday morning threatened a blanket 50% tariff on the 27 countries of the European Union, saying they have been difficult to deal with and negotiations have gone nowhere, The Hill reports.
On Truth Social … “The European Union, which was formed for the primary purpose of taking advantage of the United States on TRADE, has been very difficult to deal with. Their powerful Trade Barriers, Vat Taxes, ridiculous Corporate Penalties, Non-Monetary Trade Barriers, Monetary Manipulations, unfair and unjustified lawsuits against Americans Companies, and more, have led to a Trade Deficit with the U.S. of more than $250,000,000 a year, a number which is totally unacceptable.”
On Truth Social Too … Trump also threatened Friday morning to apply a 25% tariff on Apple if CEO Tim Cook does not move manufacturing to the US.
“I have long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhone’s that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else,” Trump wrote, with the usual number of (sic)s. “If that is not the case, a Tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple to the U.S. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
•••
Harvard v. Trump – Thursday there were reports of Harvard’s international students and faculty scrambling to figure out how to stay in the US, after the Trump White House revoked the university’s eligibility to enroll foreign students.
Friday, Harvard University sued the Trump administration, saying the move was retaliation for its refusal to give in to the president’s other policy demands. Harvard registered more than 6,700 international students last fall, about 27% of its student body, according to Politico.
The university released this statement by its president, Alan Garber: “It imperils the futures of thousands of students and scholars across Harvard and serves as a warning to countless others at colleges and universities throughout the country who have come to America to pursue their education and fulfill their dreams.”
•••
This President for Hire – Inside the ballroom of Trump National Golf Course in suburban Washington, D.C., crypto billionaire Justin Sun led the president’s VIP as the largest holder of $TRUMP coins. Retired Los Angeles Laker and Keeping Up With the Kardashians star Lamar Odom, who recently launched his own memecoin, was in the VIP line, too.
Trump -- and presumably his sons, who got the president to flip his position on crypto between terms – invited the 220 largest $TRUMP coin holders to the baldfaced pay-to-play black-tie dinner on behalf of the Trump Organization in April. The 25 biggest coin holders got to line up for a short VIP reception with Donald J. Trump before sitting down to dine, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Austin, Texas-based crypto currency investor Kendall Davis told ABC News that he “came here to advocate for things to be done right in the crypto space.”
Does doing crypto right mean replacing the US dollar with the Ponziesque high-tech coins as the new global currency?
Outside the Trump National Golf Course ballroom, protesters including Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) chanted that the dinner was “the Mount Everest of Corruption,” WSJ reports, citing video clips on X-Twitter.
WSJ also cites blockchain analytics firm Inca Digital as reporting that investors purchased approximately $148 million worth of $TRUMP in order to win spots at the dinner.
•••
No Charter for Catholic School – The US Supreme Court upheld the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s decision blocking St. Isadore of Seville, a Catholic virtual charter school, from becoming the first publicly funded religious school in the US, by 4-4 vote, per SCOTUSblog. Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself from the decision and did not cite a reason. Though the order didn’t indicate how the eight SCOTUS justices voted, it would be a good guess that Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court’s three Democratic appointees in voting to uphold the Oklahoma Supreme Court.
--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa
_____________________________________________
House Passes Bx3
THURSDAY 5/22/25
Early Thursday morning … The House passed, 215-214 with one Republican voting “present” President Trump’s Big, Beautiful Bill of a budget that extends Trump 45’s approximately $3.8 trillion in tax cuts from 2017, no taxes on tips or overtime, work requirements for Medicaid and reforms for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), NPR’s Morning Edition reports. The 1,000-page+ legislation also lifts the cap on the state and local tax deduction (SALT) to $40,000 for married couples with incomes up to $500,000.
And, perhaps most importantly, it lifts the federal debt ceiling by $4 trillion.
“Today the House has passed generational, truly nation-shaping legislation to reduce spending and permanently lower taxes for families and job creators, secure the border, unleash American energy dominance, restore peace through strength and make government work more efficiently and effectively for all Americans,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said after the vote. “House Democrats voted against all of that.”
Bx3 faces some Republican skepticism, if not all-out opposition, in the Senate, where the GOP holds a 53-47 majority and can pass the bill without Democratic filibuster.
•••
D.C. Embassy Shooting – A gunman shot and killed Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and Sarah Milgrim, 26, at a reception for young diplomats being held by the American Jewish Committee at the Capital Jewish Museum about 9 p.m. Wednesday in Washington, D.C. Lischinsky had just purchased an engagement ring for Milgrim, The New York Times reports.
Elias Rodriguez, 30, of Chicago, was identified by the Washington Metropolitan Police Department as the only suspect, and chanted, “free, free Palestine” as he was taken into custody, Chief Pamela Smith said.
•••
It Is Happening Again -- Fans of the late director David Lynch will recognize context for the words a very tall character actor named Cavel Struycken repeated in an apparition to FBI Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle McLaughlin) in Twin Peaks: “It is happening again.”
President Trump’s Zelenskyyesque treatment of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office Wednesday isn’t so much something that happened but more something that is happening. It’s an ongoing rewriting of foreign relations rules as the administration bounces from receiving pull-out-all-the-stops red carpet treatment of Trump on his Arab Gulf tour (replete with the gift from Qatar of a $400 million Boeing 747) to ambushes of and confrontations with the leaders of countries who need our help.
In a scene worthy of The Apprentice (the television show, not the 2024 movie), Trump called for a television to be wheeled into the Oval Office as Ramaphosa looks on. The US president showed video of a purported burial site along an open road, said to contain “a thousand” white farmers. The soft-spoken Ramaphosa attempts to disabuse Trump of the conspiracy theories he is repeating and questions the location in the video, to no avail.
Like Trump, Ramaphosa was obviously ready for this, and brought along white South African golfers Ernie Els and Retief Goosen, two men Trump ought to relate to, if not outright admire.
“It didn’t work,” The New York Times reports.
Unlike Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Oval Office Ambush I, Ramaphosa kept an Agent Cooper-style cool and stuck around for lunch. And, in preparation for OOAII, he was wearing a tailored suit.
NPR’s Mara Liason tells All Things Considered Trump has argued for years that white Afrikaners are the victims of reverse discrimination, even genocide. Never mind that South Africa is 7% white and 72% of commercially farmable land is owned by white South Africans.
The whole affair is reminiscent of Trump 45’s lament that the US doesn’t get more immigrants from countries like Norway rather than “shitholes” like Haiti and the African continent.
But don’t forget that Elon Musk, who is said to be retrenching from DOGE and his work in Washington, was in the Oval Office with Trump and Ramaphosa Wednesday. A native of Pretoria, Musk has been even more vocal about the so-called plight of the white minority in South Africa.
--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa
_____________________________________________
WEDNESDAY 5/21/25
One Party Under Trump
By Todd Lassa
Let us all now praise the vinyl record album-style revival of print magazines. President Trump’s recent surprise, pop-up interview with The Atlantic the other week, having been swamped newswise first by his Arab Gulf trip and then by his stiff-arm lobbying for his Big, Beautiful Bill, has been preserved for history in the magazine's June 2025 print issue.
The print version of The Atlantic never went away, but now it could revive the Monthly part of its name, because it’s back up from 10 issues a year. And the June 2025 issue reminds us that in the pop-up interview, Trump said this: “I run the country and the world.”
All that work running the globe and our own patch of it between the Atlantic and the Pacific hasn’t diminished Trump’s ability to sweat the details. On Tuesday Trump took to the House of Representatives in the Capitol to lobby Republicans to get his Big, Beautiful budget reconciliation Bill passed through Congress. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) wants it passed and out of his chamber by Memorial Day weekend.
Bollocksing up the House GOP’s three-vote margin is Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX, pictured), who leads a group of budget hawks who do not want to encourage Trump’s propensity for multiplying the deficit.
Speaker Johnson has a three-Republican margin for passing the Trump budget reconciliation bill along party lines. Roy leads a group of four Freedom Caucus members who do not want to add the $3.8 trillion to $5.3 trillion the Council of Economic Advisors say Bx3 will add to the federal deficit in the next decade.
After his visit to the Hill, Trump is now threatening to primary Roy for his intransigence on his budget, per The Hill. Trump will have to wait a while. Roy was re-elected just last year, which means he’s next up in 2030.