War and peace

 

This July 4 is our country's 250th anniversary. Folks are already arriving 

at the nation's capital to celebrate our country and its history. Let's celebrate peace now, not war.  

The Center Square : Poll: Majority of Americans believe country not adhering to founding ideals

    Americans are concerned about the Iran war and really want it ended, and ended right now!

    They never wanted to start it to begin with.

    

                       Is the Iran war, wilfully and deliberately launched by Trump at Netanyahu's sly urging,                           actually over by now? Bibi had wanted to delay his corruption trial and his trial has now

                       been delayed. A very suggestible Donald Trump had agreed to help him out, then

                       did so by attacking Iran for no reason. So now can we just stop the war? Nobody really                                      wants it. 

                      

                       What will happen then to Netanyahu? Will he ever go to trial? Or has the whole                                       world forgotten about him? (He certainly hopes so,)

                            Donald Trump still has the Iran war on his mind, as he really wants to end it..

                    So time now to make peace with Iran, with the US midterms coming up very soon. 

(Bloomberg) -- The Trump administration's effort to unwind decades of sanctions as part of a deal to end the war with Iran has created a head-spinning situation for governments, banks and other companies as they contemplate a shifting patchwork of new permissions and old restrictions.

   Iranians have been out celebrating the peace. Will it hold? 

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Venezuela earthquakes live updates: At least 1,400 dead as rescuers save 9-month-old baby amid hunt for survivors

• 
  

20m ago

Death Toll Tops 1,700 in Venezuela as Hopes Fade of Finding Quake Survivors

• At funerals, Venezuela’s wounded families and friends unite in grief.

  4h ago

• The scale of Venezuela’s death toll could take weeks to emerge.

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Trump rape accuser E. Jean Carroll is celebrating a victory. Will she ever collect?

Wash. Post, Justices let stand $5M civil verdict against Trump in E. Jean Carroll Case

The 3 justices appointed by Trump don't always decide in his favor, as he seems to expect them to always do. Nor did they all actually side with him 100% on this particular case.

You can read all about it on line. Of course, if Trump had actually been convicted of rape, he probably wouldn't be our sitting president right now. The justices have just turned away Trump's appeal while avoiding ruling on the merits of that particualr cae.

US Supreme Court rebuffs Trump's appeal in E. Jean Carroll case

WASHINGTON, June 29 - The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear President Donald Trump's bid to overturn a $5 million verdict in favor of E. Jean Carroll in a case in which a jury found ‌him liable for sexually abusing the former magazine columnist and then defaming her. The justices turned away Trump's appeal after a ‌lower court upheld the 2023 jury verdict and rejected Trump's arguments that the trial was unfair because the judge impermissibly let jurors hear evidence of his alleged ​past sexual misconduct.

Trump has been battling Carroll, a former advice columnist for Elle magazine, ever since she published an excerpt from her memoir in 2019 in which she alleged that Trump had raped her around 1996. rf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan. Trump denied Carroll's claims and asserted that she lied about the accusations...Trump expressed disappointment in the Supreme Court's decision not to hear the appeal and called Carroll's lawsuit "a Fake Case."...

"This woman is not my type!" Trump added in the post.

Supreme Court Lets $5 Million Sex Abuse Verdict Against Trump...

The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com › U.S. › Politics

Supreme Court Lets $5 Million Sex Abuse Verdict Against Trump Stand. President Trump had asked the justices to intervene after a jury found he had abused Carroll. 

Here next is a case that Trump actually won. 

 

Wash. Post, Supreme Court expands Trump’s power over independent agencies

The justices allowed the president to fire a Democratic member of the Federal Trade Commission, striking down a nearly century-old precedent intended to insulate independent agencies from political influence by the executive

Donald Trump was successful in firing the FTC's Rebecca Slaughter, firing her because she was appointed by Democrats. The Suprme Court majority is allowing him to fire heads of independent agencies, even for having Democratics ties, although there is no precedence for doing that. Trump is breaking new ground by being partisan wherever he can be. 

Rebecca Slaughter was fired. Her firing stands.

But Trump can't win them all. 

Wash. Post, Mail-in ballots arriving after Election Day can be counted, justices say

Yahoo News, President Donald Trump on Monday slammed the Supreme Court for handing him a "tremendous loss" after five of the conservative-led court's nine justices said federal law did not preempt Mississippi's law allowing mail-in ballots received after Election Day to count if postmarked before Election Day

 Black Democrats are registering to vote and most won't be voting for Trump.

People Pete Hegseth Blocks Black and Female Navy Officers from Receiving Promotions: Report

Facebook, Army Gen. Chris Donahue, commander of U.S. Army Europe and Africa, is the latest example of Hegseth’s disastrous leadership.

Donahue was a legendary Delta Force commander and the last American service member to leave Afghanistan during the chaotic withdrawal in 2021. He is an exemplary officer who was respected by those he has led and expected to eventually serve as Army chief of staff or even chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But CBS News, citing multiple sources, reported that Donahue had “earned the ire of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth” and was forced to retire prematurely.

Anyone more experienced, reliable, and capable than himself earns Hegseth's envy and his  ire. Trump promoted him way beyond his meager capacities. 

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AP News, Naomi Osaka wows the crowd at Wimbleton. 

Trump Administration Pays Duke Energy $129 Million to Halt Offshore Wind Farm

It was the fourth such deal struck by the administration to get companies to forfeit their offshore wind leases. Wind blows for free and doesn't affect the environment, but Trump and his supportes want us to pay them for burning their oil and gas.  

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Now here are excerpts from a column by a Cuban-American associate living in Florida.

Jose Azel

joeazel@50202473.mailchimpapp.com

How Mao Zedong Helped Reduce Poverty

 From 1820 to 2015, the percentage of the world population living in extreme poverty has declined from 90 percent to 10 percent. Almost half of that decline has occurred in the last thirty-five years.

Mao Zedong helped reduce poverty in 1976 simply by dying, as Jose Azel slyly asserts, because when he died, his successor Deng Xiaoping introduced China's free-market reforms. Other centralized economies followed suit. "From 1820 to 2015, the percentage of the world population living in extreme poverty has declined from 90 percent to 10 percent. Almost half of that decline has occurred in the last thirty-five years," Azel declares. Read Jose Azel's entire post and see what you think. You can respond to him there and also to me here.

Here's another article I'd recommend, co-authored by my friend Nina Shea. 

https://www.realclearreligion.org/articles/2026/06/26/america_must_face_chinas_continuing_medical_atrocity_1191120.html

 

America Must Face China’s Continuing Medical Atrocity

 By Nina Shea and Ethan Gutmann *

This article implies that Chinese authorities remove organs for transplant before a person is actually or  totally dead. Shea has made this accusation before. How can she prove it? Chinese doctors supporting these claims are certainly not going to speak out,