Salvador Dali Bacchanale 1939
Bessent
Treasury Secretary Bessent just revealed that President Trump laid a trap and China fell into it.
"This was driven by the president's strategy… You might even say that he goaded China into a bad position. They responded. They have shown themselves to the world to be the bad… pic.twitter.com/JNjiMzemG9
— George (@BehizyTweets) April 9, 2025
iPhone
https://twitter.com/LangmanVince/status/1909565870818328873
SSN
Crazy https://t.co/3GTJgtLJZB
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 8, 2025
Turley
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 10, 2025
Takedown
Former WSJ reporter @AsraNomani and her Pearl Project names who are actually paying for the attacks…pic.twitter.com/NIHr6HgDWQ https://t.co/4SQicsGf0d
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) April 8, 2025
Gracias
“I have worked closely with Elon for over 20 years. His heart is pure, and his sole mission is to help humanity. During the darkest moments, he has shown me the path to choose courage and compassion over fear and hate.”
– Antonio Gracias, member of DOGE pic.twitter.com/OaassSwj6f
— ELON FACTS (@ElonFactsX) April 9, 2025
Banks
For too long, financial policy has served large institutions, sometimes at the expense of smaller ones.
No more.
This administration aims to give all banks the chance to succeed and get capital to Americans who need it most. pic.twitter.com/fk1SRVviwk
— Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent (@SecScottBessent) April 9, 2025
VDH
Victor Davis Hanson: Elon Musk is a Renaissance man, a Da Vinci of our age—and Democrats hate that.
“Elon Musk represents everything [Democrats] are not. He's a Renaissance man of the 21st century. He reinvented social media. He's saving NASA from itself. He created the whole EV… pic.twitter.com/cTkZoTgSlT
— ELON CLIPS (@ElonClipsX) April 9, 2025
Proud
.@POTUS: “I’m proud to be the President for the workers, not the outsourcers; the President who stands up for Main Street, not Wall Street; who protects the middle class, not the political class; and who defends America, not trade cheaters all over the globe.” pic.twitter.com/pdek33v7PF
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) April 9, 2025
Things moved and changed so fast through yesterday, there issn’t even a trend visible anymore. We are all over the place. Some of today’s Debt Rattle articles will overlap.
• Trump Hikes China Tariff To 125% (RT)
US President Donald Trump has raised the tariffs on Chinese goods to 125% in response to retaliatory measures imposed by Beijing earlier on Wednesday. In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump wrote that “based on the lack of respect that China has shown to the World’s Markets, I am hereby raising the Tariff charged to China by the United States of America to 125%, effective immediately.” He expressed hope that Beijing would realize that “ripping off the U.S.A., and other Countries, is no longer sustainable or acceptable.” The move came hours after China’s Finance Ministry announced a tariff hike of its own, which brought tariffs levied on American imports to a total of 84%, thus mirroring Washington’s previous increase by 50%.
The continual tit-for-tat escalation of the trade war between the world’s two top economies was set in motion when Trump imposed a 20% tariff on all Chinese goods in March. Last week, he added an additional 34%, to which Beijing responded in kind. Writing on Truth Social, the US president also announced a 90-day pause and a “substantially lowered Reciprocal Tariff during this period, of 10%, also effective immediately” granted to the multitude of other nations that Washington has recently imposed sweeping tariffs on. Trump cited calls made by “more than 75 countries” to the Departments of Commerce, Treasury, and the Office of the United States Trade Representative. According to the president, these nations expressed willingness to discuss trade barriers, tariffs, currency manipulation, and non-monetary tariffs. Trump also pointed out that, unlike China, “these Countries have not, at my strong suggestion, retaliated in any way, shape, or form against the United States.”
DOGE turned off all of the credit cards to see what subscriptions we really needed.
Trump turned up tariffs to separate friend from foe.
Now we know. https://t.co/Wl8XRjwf3h
— Cernovich (@Cernovich) April 9, 2025
Keep it simple?! Why deal with 100 diffferent countries if you can focus on one?
• Trump “Pauses” Reciprocal Tariffs For 90 Days On Every Nation -Except China (ZH)
Update (1320ET): And President Trump finds an off-ramp for non-retaliating countries. The President wrote on his Truth Social account:
“Based on the lack of respect that China has shown to the World’s Markets, I am hereby raising the Tariff charged to China by the United States of America to 125%, effective immediately. At some point, hopefully in the near future, China will realize that the days of ripping off the U.S.A., and other Countries, is no longer sustainable or acceptable. Conversely, and based on the fact that more than 75 Countries have called Representatives of the United States, including the Departments of Commerce, Treasury, and the USTR, to negotiate a solution to the subjects being discussed relative to Trade, Trade Barriers, Tariffs, Currency Manipulation, and Non Monetary Tariffs, and that these Countries have not, at my strong suggestion, retaliated in any way, shape, or form against the United States, … …I have authorized a 90 day PAUSE, and a substantially lowered Reciprocal Tariff during this period, of 10%, also effective immediately. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
• The result is a massive surge in US equity markets (up 7-9%)…
• …cutting losses post-Liberation Day in half…
• Bitcoin is also soaring…
• Oil prices are also spiking…
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called China, “the biggest source of US trade problems,” adding that he seeing Japan, Vietnam, India, and South Korea today for negotiations. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick added:. “Scott Bessent and I sat with the President while he wrote one of the most extraordinary Truth posts of his Presidency. The world is ready to work with President Trump to fix global trade, and China has chosen the opposite direction.” Bessent also confirmed that both Mexico and Canada are included in the ‘pause’ (despite what appeared to be retaliation). No mention of Europe yet, which also retaliated. Additionally, Bessent said that the bond market meltdown did not impact this decision… sure!
Four-year low oil prices. And then yesterday they spiked. Hard to keep up.
• Trump Tariff Shock Sends Oil To Four-Year Low (RT)
Oil prices have dropped to their lowest point in over four years, with losses deepening on Wednesday as markets respond to fears of recession and slowing energy demand. Brent crude, the global benchmark, fell to about $61 per barrel, while US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) dropped to around $58, both reaching their lowest levels since February 2021. The slide began after US President Donald Trump announced a round of sweeping tariffs on most imports last week. Since then, prices have tumbled around 16%, as concerns grow that a global trade war could damage growth and reduce fuel consumption. The situation escalated on Wednesday when Trump’s tariffs took effect. While energy imports were exempt, the markets reacted sharply.
The new round of tariffs brings the rate on Chinese goods to 104%, up from the 34% initially announced. China had responded with a matching 34% tariff, prompting the White House to raise the stakes. China’s Commerce Ministry vowed to respond decisively, raising fears of a broader economic slowdown. Analysts worry that prolonged tensions between the two top economies could drag down trade and stifle investment. OPEC and its allies, including Russia, added pressure to the market by announcing a 411,000 barrel-per-day production increase for May. Analysts say this could lead to oversupply and deepen price drops.
“Crude oil has been in free-fall ever since President Trump unveiled fresh tariffs on US imports Wednesday evening,” Trade Nation senior market analyst David Morrison said in a note seen by Business Insider. He added the OPEC+ production boost was a “double whammy.” Morrison said oil prices may stabilize within a narrow range, as investors anticipate weaker demand and strong supply. He noted this trend supports Trump’s goal of providing cheap energy to strengthen manufacturing. The White House has pushed to bring crude prices down to $50 or lower, according to J.P. Morgan. Trump reinforced this goal on Monday, writing on Truth Social: “Oil prices are down, interest rates are down,” while highlighting the benefits of his trade strategy.
Russia was left out of the new tariffs. The White House explained that the existing sanctions already “preclude any meaningful trade,” making further restrictions unnecessary. However, Russia’s central bank warned that the collapse in oil prices and the expanding trade conflict could harm its economy. “If the escalation of the tariff wars continues, this usually leads to a decline in global trade and the global economy, and possibly, demand for our energy resources,” central bank head Elvira Nabiullina said on Tuesday. Russia’s Urals crude also dropped sharply, briefly nearing the $50-per-barrel mark for the first time in almost two years, before recovering to around $67.
“The president has paused new tariffs on dozens of countries for 90 days and raised levies on Chinese goods to 125 percent.”
These politicians get 1000 calls a day from worried voters. They’re looking for some quiet. They don’t want to get the blame.
People don’t like change. They’ll only admit change is needed when it’s too late.
• House Republicans Block Democratic Bid to Force Vote on Tariffs (ET)
House Republicans blocked on April 9 an effort by Democrats to force a vote on halting the reciprocal tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump, which are currently paused for three months. The maneuver was done through a rule, which the House of Representatives must vote on to advance to votes on measures. The House Rules Committee advanced the rule 9-3 on April 9, which mainly deals with the unrelated budget resolution to unlock the reconciliation process to pass Trump’s signature legislative agenda. The rule punts the vote on the resolution to September. The disapproval resolution would block the emergency authority that allowed Trump to enact the tariffs, which were announced on April 2. The reciprocal tariffs took effect at 12:01 a.m. ET on Wednesday.
The resolution was introduced by Reps. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), Rick Larsen (D-Wash.), and Richard Neal (D-Mass.). It has an additional 23 co-sponsors. “By implementing these tariffs, Trump has now imposed the largest and most regressive tax in modern history, sent the stock market into its worst plunge since COVID, and is risking a global recession,” they said in a statement. “These tariffs are nothing more than a sales tax on American families, driving up prices on everything from groceries to cars.” Disapproval resolutions force a vote in the House and Senate, where a simple majority is needed for passage as opposed to being subject to the 60-vote filibuster threshold. The Senate passed a resolution last week to block Trump’s 25 percent and 10 percent tariffs on Canadian goods and energy, respectively. All Democrats and four Republicans voted in favor of it. The House is not expected to take it up, and the president is expected to veto it should it pass Congress. House Republicans blocked a similar disapproval resolution last month through a rule.
Trump announced on Wednesday a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs for dozens of countries and retained a baseline 10 percent tariff for all countries, except China. The president increased tariffs to 125 percent on China, after Beijing announced 85 percent retaliatory tariffs on the United States. “At some point, hopefully in the near future, China will realize that the days of ripping off the U.S.A., and other Countries, is no longer sustainable or acceptable,” posted Trump on Truth Social, announcing the pause. The president said he paused most reciprocal tariffs because more than 75 countries have reached out to the administration, requesting trade negotiations.
Congressional Republicans have largely expressed support for Trump’s tariffs. Rep. August Pfluger (R-Texas) told reporters that the president is “making good on a campaign promise to shake things up, to reorder the world system whether it’s trade or whether it’s alliances or military organizations.” Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.) told reporters that the tariffs finally put China on notice. “If China needs our market more than we need their market, because they already put unfair tariffs and regulations and restrictions on us, they’re going to suffer way more from this than we are in a trade war,” he said. “If the rest of the world’s going to come to the table, why shouldn’t China too?” he added.
“..a little bit yippy, a little bit… afraid..”
“I was watching the bond market. The bond market is very tricky. I was watching it. But if you look at it now, it’s… it’s beautiful..”
• Trump Admits He Reacted To Stock Market Plunge (RT)
President Donald Trump has admitted that his decision to delay further tariff hikes was driven in part by a sharp downturn in US financial markets, saying he was closely monitoring investor sentiment as people grew too “yippy” and “afraid” before announcing a 90-day freeze. On Wednesday morning, Trump urged Americans to “be cool” and told investors that “this is a great time to buy,” after US markets lost more than $1.5 trillion in capitalization the day before. The sell-off came ahead of the implementation of a 104% tariff on Chinese imports and sweeping new levies on dozens of other countries. Just hours later, the president announced his decision to keep most tariffs at a “baseline” 10 percent – except for China, which saw its rate raised even further to 125 percent. Speaking to reporters later that day, Trump said he had been tracking the markets closely before taking action.
“I was watching the bond market. The bond market is very tricky. I was watching it. But if you look at it now, it’s… it’s beautiful,” he said. “But, yeah, I saw last night where people were getting a little queasy.” I thought that people were jumping a little bit out of line. They were getting yippy, you know? They were getting a little bit yippy, a little bit… afraid. Trump’s announcement triggered a historic rally on US stock markets. The S&P 500 closed up 9.5 percent – its biggest gain since 2008. The Dow Jones rose 7.9 percent, marking its best day since 2020, while the Nasdaq soared 12 percent, its largest single-day increase in 24 years. While Wednesday’s surge added over $5 trillion in market value, US markets have yet to fully recover losses sustained since the president launched the tariff war last week. Still, Trump insisted his “reciprocal” trade actions marked a turning point.
“The big move wasn’t what I did today. The big move was what I did on Liberation Day. We had Liberation Day in America. We were liberated from all of the horrible trade deals that were made,” he said. Asked whether certain American companies could be granted exemptions during the 90-day period, Trump said the administration would evaluate requests on a case-by-case basis. “Some [companies] get hit a little bit harder, and we’ll take a look at that – just instinctively, more than anything else,” he said. “You almost can’t take a pencil to paper. It’s really more of an instinct.” Trump also cautioned that the situation remains fluid, adding that “nothing is over yet,” with dozens of countries – including China – now seeking to secure “fair” deals with the United States to avoid the full impact of the levies.
“If China starts devaluing, then that is a tax on the rest of the world, and everyone will have to keep raising their tariffs to offset the devaluation..”
• Chinese Companies Could Be Removed From US Stock Markets – Bessent (RT)
Washington is considering delisting Chinese companies from US markets amid the escalating tariff war, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said. Speaking to Fox Business on Wednesday, Bessent described China’s latest move to raise its tariffs on American goods to a total of 84% as “unfortunate.” The measure was announced after US President Donald Trump increased the tariffs on all Chinese imports to 104% earlier this week. “I think it’s unfortunate that the Chinese actually don’t want to come and negotiate because they are the worst offenders in the international trading system,” Bessent claimed, suggesting that the US could end up imposing even higher tariffs. “If China starts devaluing, then that is a tax on the rest of the world, and everyone will have to keep raising their tariffs to offset the devaluation. So I would urge them not to do that and to come to the table,” he said.
Asked whether Washington is considering delisting Chinese companies from US stock exchanges, Bessent stated that all options are on the table and that it’s up to the president to do so. Currently, 286 Chinese companies, including Alibaba, one of the world’s largest retailers and e-commerce operators, are listed on US stock exchanges. “That will be Trump’s decision,” he said. The new threats come after China introduced an additional 50% tariff – due to take effect on Thursday – on all American goods. The measure comes on top of the previously imposed 34% tariff, China’s Finance Ministry announced earlier on Wednesday. “The US’ practice of escalating tariffs on China is a mistake on top of a mistake, which seriously infringes on China’s legitimate rights and interests and seriously damages the rules-based multilateral trading system,” the ministry said in a statement.
Earlier this week, Beijing vowed to fight the trade war with the US “to the end” and “firmly defend its interests.” Apart from cranking up tariffs, China has filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization against the US over its practices, as well as placing certain American businesses on its ‘unreliable entity’ list or subjecting them to export controls. The escalating trade war comes amid Trump’s efforts to straighten out America’s import-export balance, which involves the introduction of massive retaliatory tariffs on most countries. In March, Trump imposed a 20% tariff on Chinese imports. Last week, he added an additional 34%, bringing the total to 54%. Beijing retaliated in kind, introducing a 34% tariff on US goods – after which Trump added another 50%, bringing the total to 104%.
“I do business in China. They don’t play by the rules,” he added. “They’ve been in the WTO for decades, they have never abided by any of the rules they agreed to when they came in.”
• Bessent Responds to China Raising Tariffs on US Goods to 84% (Barkoukis)
China said it is raising tariffs on U.S. imports from 34 percent to 84 percent starting Thursday, an announcement that came hours after President Trump’s tariffs went into effect. “If the U.S. insists on further escalating its economic and trade restrictions, China has the firm will and abundant means to take necessary countermeasures and fight to the end,” the Ministry of Commerce wrote in a document, reports USA Today. The latest tariffs on the U.S.’s trading partners includes a 104 percent tax on Chinese goods. “It was a mistake for China to retaliate,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday. “When America is punched, [the president] punches back harder, and that’s why there will be 104% tariffs going into effect on China tonight at midnight.”
BESSENT: “This escalation is a loser for [China] … They are the surplus country. Their exports to the U.S. are 5x our exports to China. So they can raise their tariffs, but so what?”pic.twitter.com/6WiXZrFBTN
— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) April 9, 2025
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called the escalation a “loser” for China. “I think it’s unfortunate that the Chinese actually don’t want to come and negotiate because they are the worst offenders in the international trading system,” he said. “And I can tell you that this escalation is a loser for them.” He seemed unfazed by China’s response. “They can raise their tariffs, but so what?” Some argue a 104 percent tariff on Chinese goods doesn’t go far enough. “I’m advocating 400 percent,” Shark Tank star and investor Kevin O’Leary said on CNN’s Laura Coates Live. “I do business in China. They don’t play by the rules,” he added. “They’ve been in the WTO for decades, they have never abided by any of the rules they agreed to when they came in. For decades. They cheat, they steal, they steal IP. I can’t litigate in their courts. They take product technology, they steal it, they manufacture it and sell it back here.”
When Coates followed up, O’Leary doubled down. “I want [President] Xi [Jinping] on an airplane to Washington to level the playing field,” he said. “This is not about tariffs anymore. Nobody has taken on China yet. Not the Europeans. No administration for decades. As someone who actually does business there, I’ve had enough. I speak for millions of Americans who have IP that have been stolen by the Chinese. I have nothing against the Chinese people. They brought great literacy, art and tech to the world. The government cheats and steals and finally an administration — you may not like Trump, you may not like his style or his rhetoric — finally, an administration that puts up and says ‘Enough! 400% tariffs tomorrow morning!’
“I’ll tell you why,” he continued. “Xi can only stay the Supreme Leader if people are employed. If we wipe out any business there because we are still 39 percent of all consumables on Earth and 25 percent of the world’s GDP. America is the No. 1 economy on earth with all the cards. We will not have that forever. It’s time to squeeze Chinese heads into the wall now!”
https://twitter.com/MAGAVoice/status/1909838439253786943?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1909838439253786943%7Ctwgr%5Edf272215fdbe810e37320439d0f7ba2cd4470e8b%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftownhall.com%2Ftipsheet%2Fleahbarkoukis%2F2025%2F04%2F09%2Fchina-tariffs-n2655238
“None of these other countries, not even China, not all of them combined, can replace what the U.S. can do for them and has been doing for generations.”
• The EU Is Aligning With China? (CTH)
The EU is aligning with China? Yes, and I think “D One” nails it here. “The time for polite pretending is over.” ….”This all makes perfect sense now. Von der Leyen and the rest of the Eurocrat leadership are desperate to avert the Trump tariffs. They cannot do it on their own and do not care who they have to sidle up with to get it done. If it came down to it, they would even ditch Ukraine and align with Russia to make it happen. This is because the money the EU has been getting from the old arrangement of one-sided tariffs and other one-sided trade restrictions is the money they are using to keep the EU in existence. Not just to keep it functioning, but to keep it in power. To keep it in their power.
The internal contradictions and old resentments and national and ethnic differences and animosities are too much to be held down by good will and appeals to altruism alone. It takes money and a lot of it. Consider what happened starting in 2009 with the Greek debt crisis. The northern Europeans (in particular the Germans) believed the Greeks caused the crisis through their own incompetence and mismanagement and they really hated the idea that they had to save the Greeks by bailing them out with their own money. The news reports back then were full of explanations about how the northern European economies had to carry the southern European economies. Stories about how unfair it all was that the harder-working and more frugal northern Europeans were having to face bailing out the easier-going and less diligent southern Europeans, and so on.
Many of you probably remember those reports. I think it gets to the crux of what is going on now regarding the fright and desperation that von der Leyen and the other Eurocrat leaders are now experiencing. What was it that finally smoothed over everything between northern Europe and bailing out and pacifying the Greeks and other struggling countries in southern Europe? It was the access to American dollars that the old trade arrangements provided that allowed them to make the Greek crisis go away without having to hit German and other northern European bank accounts and slow down their economies. Those old trade arrangements were what they relied upon every time there was an internal threat to the stability of the EU. And the whole EU is even weaker now, due in no small part to their stupid green policies and other decisions, than it was in 2009.
Now that Trump is threatening that ability to tamp down their internal contradictions with U.S. money, the next internal crisis may well blow the EU apart for good, and with it the good life of the Eurocrats would disappear. That is why they will side with anyone, even the Chinese, to get the U.S. to back off and let them continue on as they have. Trump has the upper hand with the EU. I think he can pretty much demand anything he wants from them, and they will end up giving it to him. None of these other countries, not even China, not all of them combined, can replace what the U.S. can do for them and has been doing for generations.”
That was only yesterday morning.
• China Vows to “Fight to the End” in Economic War with America (CTH)
Full dragon, no panda mask. Beijing begins using war terminology to discuss the trade conflict with the United States. Through a series of cumulative trade tariffs, President Trump has now placed Chinese imports into the USA in a position of 104% tariffs. 104%! In response Beijing has devalued their currency and dumped treasuries, but no amount of subsidy, devaluation or use of their sovereign wealth fund is going to compensate for 104% taxes on Chinese products. Very soon all purchase orders from the USA for Chinese manufactured products will stop. The Beijing dragon is looking at the future through a zero-sum position. Now, they vow to fight to the death.
BEIJING, April 9 (Xinhua) — With firm will and abundant means, China will resolutely take countermeasures and fight till the end if the United States insists on further escalating economic and trade restrictive measures, China’s Ministry of Commerce said Wednesday. “I want to emphasize that there is no winner in a trade war, and China does not want a trade war, but the Chinese government will by no means sit by when the legitimate rights and interests of its people are being hurt and deprived,” said an official with the ministry. The official made the remarks when responding to media questions regarding a white paper released Wednesday by the State Council Information Office on China’s position on some issues concerning China-U.S. economic and trade relations.”
Noting that the successes of China and the United States are opportunities rather than threats for each other, the official said that China hopes the United States will immediately remove its unilateral imposition of tariffs, and work with China to strengthen dialogue, manage differences, and promote cooperation. China is willing to communicate with the U.S. side on key bilateral economic and trade issues, address their respective concerns through dialogue and consultations on an equal footing, and jointly advance the steady, healthy and sustainable development of China-U.S. economic and trade relations, the official noted.
“The objective was to give all nations’ time to absorb the impact while reducing the reverberation noise.”
• Scott Bessent Provides More Details on Global Trade Reset Strategy (CTH)
Appearing 4/8/25 on CNBC, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent outlined some of the specifics within the negotiation strategy of President Trump as it pertains to the ongoing global trade reset. Bessent notes at the request of President Trump, all administration officials were to pull back from commentary following the “liberation day” tariff announcement. The objective was to give all nations’ time to absorb the impact while reducing the reverberation noise. After a few days, President Trump then began to assess the inbound communication from various country leaders and their request for renegotiation. The priority schedule permits the honest trade allies to come first in the queue to the office of U.S. Trade Representative Jamison Greer, as approved by President Trump.
Japan and South Korean delegations and trade representatives will be the first trade teams engaged; not coincidently both of those ASEAN nations have pre-positioned manufacturing investment in the USA, the truest measure of a trade partnership. The outcome of these first agreements will form the baseline for every nation thereafter. Both Japan and South Korea have North American manufacturing systems in place; however, it is likely more investment in U.S jobs and products being created in mainland USA will remain a top priority. Additionally, for these nations the largest element of their “reciprocity” will come from a commitment to reduce the trade deficit with better terms and bigger contracts for U.S. product imports.
Bessent
“Under the Biden administration, so many employment documents were issued to immigration parolees (without congressional authorization), asylum applicants, and other temporary aliens that DHS could not keep up with renewing the authorizations..”
• DOGE Exposed Our Immigration Asylum Disaster. The Tip of the Iceberg (Ries)
Elon Musk, Antonio Gracias, and the Department of Government Efficiency team recently exposed how rampant immigration fraud and government corruption became under the Joe Biden administration. Specifically, they showed how aliens “getting” asylum can receive work authorization and, with it, an automatic Social Security number, which enables them to obtain driver’s licenses, commit voter fraud, and receive other benefits. This already sounds alarming. But the truth is even worse. Under current U.S. regulations, asylum applicants can apply for a work authorization document with the Department of Homeland Security five months after their asylum application is filed (rather than five months after it’s granted). There’s no filing fee for asylum applications—meaning there is literally no cost involved in applying.
This creates a huge incentive for inadmissible aliens to file fraudulent asylum applications to gain U.S. work authorization. And while adjudicating the asylum application can take DHS or the Justice Department years to complete, DHS prioritizes granting employment authorization applications, averaging mere months to complete such applications. In other words, individuals can fraudulently apply for asylum and then receive work authorization shortly after, safe in the knowledge that their asylum application may not be decided for years. Asylum was created to protect the persecuted. But this system means it’s more prone to be exploited by inadmissible aliens as a way to get work authorizations, Social Security numbers, driver’s licenses, and other government benefits.
As a result, the system is being flooded. Under the Biden administration, so many employment documents were issued to immigration parolees (without congressional authorization), asylum applicants, and other temporary aliens that DHS could not keep up with renewing the authorizations. To “solve” the problem, Biden’s DHS finalized a rule in December 2024 to permanently increase the automatic extension period for expiring employment authorization from six months to 18 months. That is, DHS chose to automatically extend work authorization without ever considering whether the aliens should continue to have it. According to one chart (shown by DOGE’s Gracias at a recent Wisconsin town hall), 270,000 new aliens were issued Social Security numbers in fiscal year 2021. That number rose to 590,000 in fiscal year 2022, 964,000 in fiscal year 2023, and approximately 2.1 million in fiscal year 2024.
According to Gracias, the Social Security Administration automatically mails aliens Social Security numbers—without requiring them to prove their identity or complete an interview. Gracias says, “The defaults in the system from Social Security to all the benefit programs have been set to max inclusion, max pay for these people. And minimum collection.” During its investigations, DOGE found 1.3 million aliens who were already receiving Medicaid. It also found among the millions a subset who were registered to vote—and some who did indeed vote. All this is the result of broad administrative state abuse of alien work authorization—something Congress needs to end by reclaiming its own constitutional authority and by returning asylum (our nation’s second-most important immigration benefit, after U.S. citizenship) back to its intended role of protecting people from persecution.
Specifically, Congress should legislate the principle that immigration benefit applicants (including those receiving asylum) may not receive work authorization until the underlying benefit (e.g., asylum) is granted, not just filed. While waiting for their applications to be adjudicated, applicants should fund their stay in the U.S. via a sponsor responsible for their financial well-being. Congress should also enact anti-fraud asylum measures, which would significantly decrease the number of fraudulent asylum applications—and, by extension, would decrease the yearslong wait for DHS and DOJ to adjudicate legitimate asylum applications. DOGE can also step in and examine immigration benefit applications at DHS and DOJ to identify fraudulent applications and remove them from the 9.4 million and nearly 3.7 million respective agency backlogs. This would decrease the processing times for the remaining valid applications and restore integrity to our lawful immigration process.
Finally, DOGE should set automatic notifications across the benefits lifecycle so that when a non-citizen is denied an immigration benefit, downstream systems and parties are likewise notified to terminate their respective benefits. Under this system, if an alien’s asylum application or employment authorization application were denied or terminated, the alien’s employer, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Social Security Administration, the Internal Revenue Service, and the alien’s state(s) of residence would be notified to ensure the alien was no longer working, receiving benefits or voting—and, ultimately, that he was removed from the country. By acting now, DOGE and Congress can decrease the deportable alien population, ensure U.S. taxpayer benefits go to Americans first, and incentivize better compliance with our generous immigration laws.
“Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on “Face the Nation” Sunday: “We don’t make medicine in this country anymore. We don’t make ships,” he said. “We don’t have enough steel and aluminum to fight a battle, right?”
• To Team Trump, Tariffs Are a National Security Issue (Saunders)
“Don’t be a PANICAN,” President Donald Trump cautioned on social media. Critics have questioned the universal tariffs he unleashed last week, and Americans have had to steel themselves before checking the balance of their 401(k)s. The Trump tariffs came fast and larger than expected. The markets responded. Now Republicans and Wall Street big shots find themselves defending an economic approach that was anathema to them not long ago. But the world has changed. “Their export-based economy is, I think, beginning to hit the end of its course,” Chuck DeVore of the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation opined over the phone Monday. After years of manufacturers quitting the USA, tariffs could be good for national security. My favorite sound bite in favor of Trump’s tariffs came from Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on “Face the Nation” Sunday.
“We don’t make medicine in this country anymore. We don’t make ships,” he said. “We don’t have enough steel and aluminum to fight a battle, right?” Lutnick’s right, and the beneficiaries have been college-educated voters like me, as the offshoring of manufacturing offered cheaper goods, but also fewer jobs for non-college graduates—who, coincidentally, voted for Trump. Trump is the rare U.S. politician who wants to do something about the working class. Wall Street is coming to the same table. JPMorganChase CEO Jamie Dimon is a hardcore capitalist. But in his annual shareholder letter, Dimon acknowledged the downside of tariffs when he wrote, “Whether or not the menu of tariffs causes a recession remains in question, but it will slow down growth.” Even still, on CNBC, Dimon remarked, “If it’s a little inflationary, but it’s good for national security, so be it. I mean, get over it.”
“You’ve got Wall Street caterwauling and wanting the government to back off,” DeVore told me. But: “The president is serious about applying what he sees as medicine to this economy.” Trump used the same term on Air Force One on Sunday when he said, “Sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something.” Confession time: I’m not a huge fan of tariffs. On the one hand, they’re a tax hike that is spooking the markets and costing some people their jobs. Last week, Stellantis laid off 900 U.S. workers as the automaker assesses the impact of Trump’s move.
On the other hand, Trump campaigned telling voters he would raise tariffs, and he won the election. The elephant in this room is China. “The Chinese believe that the United States are a great power in inevitable decline,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio argued during his confirmation hearing, “and that they are in inevitable rise.” DeVore warned, “The last thing you want to do at this point is show weakness.”
In short: 4 (more) years of Biden admin. That’s what it would take.
• What Would It Take to Destroy the United States? (Victor Davis Hanson)
Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. I was looking at the news this week and I thought of an experiment. What if you really wanted to destroy the United States? What if you’d had ill intention for America? What would you do? What agenda would you pursue? And then I started thinking of civilizations. What was the stuff of civilizations that made them work? And it’s basic: their borders, their finances, their unity, their fuel, their food. So, if you really wanted to, in civilizational terms, destroy the United States, the first thing I would do if I were an enemy of the United States is I would destroy the borders. In other words, I would just let anybody come across our version of the Rhine or the Danube, as they happened in fifth century. And that’s pretty much what we have done the last 40 years, but particularly, the last four years.
We talked about comprehensive immigration reform as needed to stop the influx, but President Donald Trump, before the Biden administration and after the Biden administration, had no such recourse. He just simply stopped it, temporarily. And he has now. But what was behind all that? Former President Joe Biden, apparently, thought that if he let in 12 million people, without audits or background checks—would it alter the demography? Would it give him new constituencies for big government? What was the thinking about it? But it’s caused billions of dollars in increased expenses. It’s really damaged the inner city. It’s damaged the Rio Grande Valley. It’s damaged the San Joaquin Valley. We have all of this crime spike. Was it deliberate?
If you also wanted to hurt the United States, you know what I would do if I had nefarious intent? I would keep printing money. And I would call that, in fact, “Build Back Better.” And the more inflationary it got, I would say it was going to be the “Inflationary Reduction Act.” And in that process, I would borrow maybe $7 trillion within four years, maybe $8 trillion, and add to an existing $38 trillion in national debt, $37 trillion, so that the interest per day would be $3 billion. That would really hurt the United States. You know what I’d also do? If I looked at the United States and I said, “Oh my gosh, they’ve got almost limitless supplies of natural gas, they’ve got almost more coal than any European country, they’ve got all of this oil. They once had a vibrant—they were the nuclear energy, they were the founders of nuclear power. They have all these dams of hydroelectric,” I know what I’ll do.
I will castigate all of that and say it makes either the environment too hot, global warming, or it ruins the natural landscape with dams. Or it will kill us all through radiation. Whatever particular complaint I’d have, I would stop it as much as I could. Dismantle nuclear power plants. Cut back on natural gas. Stop full drilling, fracking. Blow up dams rather than build them. And I’m talking about California, for example, where the result would be 40 cents a kilowatt. Would make it unaffordable. That way, if you did all of that, a quarter of all the people who paid their power bills would default. And that model would sweep across the United States.
The third thing that I would do—and I think it’s besides debt and borders and fuel—I would sow disunity. And I would say that the content of our character is not as important as the color of our skin. And I would go back and reinterpret all of the hard-won progress of the civil rights movement and sort of get rid of it. I would just say the color of our skin matters more than anything and so we’re going to hire on the basis of superficial appearance. We’re gonna have reparations to go back eight generations and adjudicate who might have had an ancestor that owned a slave and who didn’t. And then I would say I’m gonna predicate graduations, dorms—who gets to go into a dorm, who gets to go into a library, a safe space—oh, on the basis of race. But I’m not gonna call it racism or segregation. I’m gonna call it diversity, equity, and inclusion and mainstream it.
If I also wanted to create disunity, I would just say, from now on, after 7,000 years of civilization, there are three sexes, not two. And women’s sports must include biological males. Not that it was an important topic, but it would create enormous tension and disunity. What am I getting at? It seems to me that in the last four years, if you had an agenda that was designed to hurt the United States, in terms of an influx of 12 million foreigners that were unaudited, an unprotected border, a repression on energy, a desire to print money rather than to cut expenses and save money and go toward a balanced budget, and a way to divide the people—if you wanted to do all that, you couldn’t have done a better job than what we have seen from 2021 to 2025.
Will the whole story ever surface?
• Biden White House Secured Trump’s Phone For FBI in Jan. 6 Probe (JTN)
Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley and Senator Ron Johnson published new emails from FBI whistleblowers showing that President Joe Biden’s then-Deputy White House Counsel Jonathan Su personally assisted the FBI in securing President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence’s cell phones to assist the nascent “Arctic Frost” investigation over January 6. The new whistleblower emails also show that a future member of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team and an anti-Trump FBI agent were closely involved in the origins of the FBI probe. Operation Arctic Frost formed the basis of former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s false elector case under which former President Donald Trump was later charged with a conspiracy to defraud the United States for his campaign’s attempts to assemble alternate slates of electors under claims that the 2020 election had been stolen.
The new emails are contained in a letter the senators sent to Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel urging cooperation with their requests for all information related to the FBI probe. “Overall, these newly disclosed emails show the extensive collaboration between and among select FBI agents from the Washington Field Office and prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office – Washington D.C. to plan, approve and execute Arctic Frost,” Grassley and Johnson wrote. “The emails also provide further support that ASAC Thibault played a central role in advancing its approval to a full field criminal investigation when other agents had concerns the supporting evidence only allowed for a preliminary investigation.”
“Lastly, the emails illustrate the Biden White House’s personal involvement in providing former President Trump and former Vice President Pence’s phones to the FBI at their request when neither of them was a subject of the investigation at that point in time,” they added. The emails turned over to the committee by whistleblowers show that the U.S. Attorney’s Office Criminal Chief John Crabb emailed Su at the White House on May 2, 2022 and copied Assistant Special Agent in Charge Timothy Thibault.
“Jonathan, Would you please coordinate with Tim Thibault (who’s copied on this email) about picking up the telephones,” Crabb wrote. “Thanks John. Tim, it is good to meet you, and please let me know what works for you in terms of timing the next couple days,” Su replied. By May 4, other committee records show, the FBI had successfully obtained both President Trump and Vice President Pence’s official phones from the Biden White House, even though then-former President Trump had not yet become a criminal subject of the Arctic Frost probe.
“I think she’s the reason there are directions on a shampoo bottle..”
• Sen. Kennedy Goes Absolutely Savage on AOC (Margolis)
Once again, Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) has proven that he’s the king of political zingers. He appeared on Sean Hannity’s show last night with several other Republican senators, where he delivered what might be the most savage takedown of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) we’ve heard yet. Kennedy has a gift for cutting through the nonsense with his signature southern wit. “What do you think of the new leadership: Jasmine, AOC, and Bernie?” Hannity asked. “I consider Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez to be the leader of the Democratic Party,” Kennedy said. “She’s entitled to her opinion. I’m entitled to mine.” And then he went for the jugular. “As I’ve said about her before, I think she’s the reason there are directions on a shampoo bottle,” he said. That’s it. Game over.
https://twitter.com/charliekirk11/status/1909803276528501103
To really drive the point home, he added, “Our plan for dealing with her is called Operation Let Her Speak.” Last month, after Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) voted to let the continuing resolution advance in the Senate, Kennedy described the backlash against the Senate Minority Leader in a similarly savage manner. “Among them right now, we’ve all seen the news, he’s about as popular as chlamydia,” he said. Kennedy nailed it when he said, “The loon wing of the Democratic Party is firmly in control,” which perfectly summed up the radical circus the Democrats have become, especially with their denial of basic biological truths. “These people are deeply weird,” he added, which might be putting it mildly. “Our Republican secret plan for dealing with the Democrats is called Operation Let Them Speak.”
Kennedy didn’t shy away from the hard truth behind the Democrats’ downward spiral, saying, “That’s good for our party, but it’s bad for America.” He’s right. Democrats have become so unhinged that while it makes the GOP look better, having such a radical political party as one of the two mainstream parties in the country isn’t a good thing. Kennedy’s ability to dismantle the Democrats is nothing short of masterful. His barbs aren’t just accurate; they’re downright hilarious. With his trademark folksy sharpness, he slices through the progressive façade and lays bare the intellectual emptiness at its core.
So yes, as he wisely says: let them speak. Let AOC keep pitching her latest plan to wreck the economy. Let Jasmine Crockett keep proving she’s wildly unqualified to hold public office. Let Bernie Sanders continue playing the role of elder statesman for a party that’s lost its grip on reality. Frankly, we couldn’t have picked better representatives for the left if we tried. Sometimes the smartest move is to step back and let the radicals do what they do best: implode.
“The forgetting of history, their spiritual and moral values, their roots, if you like, all this has become one of the main reasons for what we are now seeing in Ukraine..”
• Ukraine ‘Betrayed’ Its History – Lavrov (RT)
Ukraine has “betrayed” its own history by allowing the West to bring a Nazi regime to power in Kiev, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said. In an interview for the TASS Children project released on Wednesday, the diplomat said the West’s actions were deliberate, aimed at bringing about a “strategic defeat” of Russia. “The forgetting of history, their spiritual and moral values, their roots, if you like, all this has become one of the main reasons for what we are now seeing in Ukraine,” he said, referring to the ongoing conflict, which he described as one that pitted the authorities against their own people from the outset. Lavrov accused the West of trying to rewrite history by “instilling oblivion of Russian roots” and promoting ideas in Ukrainian society that led to what he called “social amnesia.”
“This was used by the Americans and Europeans to bring an openly Russophobic Nazi regime to power in Ukraine that declared war against its own people, seizing power through an illegal coup d’etat, calling those who disagreed with this coup terrorists, and starting a real war against them,” he said. Lavrov noted that among European countries, there are two views on confronting their own history with Nazism – some seek to “quickly erase the pages of their national shame,” while others see Nazi ideology as a “tool for maintaining their positions on the European political scene.” He pledged that Russia would continue to fight both trends. “Our ambition is to ensure that this sacred memory never leaves history, never leaves the memory of all generations, that it remains unchanged. And we are convinced of our historical, moral and human rectitude,” he concluded.
Commemorations of World War II-era nationalist figures with ties to Nazi Germany have been common in Ukraine. Ukrainians hold annual torchlight marches in honor of Stepan Bandera, a leader in the militant Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), which collaborated with Nazi Germany and was involved in the massacre of more than 100,000 Poles, Jews, Russians, and Soviet-aligned Ukrainians. Less than two months ago, the Ukrainian city of Rivne marked the 120th birthday of Ulas Samchuk, a Nazi collaborator and anti-Semitic propagandist who welcomed the mass killings of Jews during the war. Moscow has repeatedly warned of a Nazi revival in Ukraine, citing “denazification” as a central aim of its military operation against Kiev. Western officials and media, however, have largely downplayed such concerns, often dismissing the allegations as “Russian propaganda.”
“After all… all global tragedies began with aggressive actions by Europeans: The Napoleonic Wars, World War I, and World War II..”
• ‘European Aggression’ Behind All Global Tragedies – Lavrov (RT)
Western European countries have once again “taken up arms” against Russia, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said, commenting on the increasingly hostile stance of many governments toward Moscow. Addressing the constant calls to prepare for a presumed Russian attack – a notion which Moscow has dismissed as baseless – Lavrov said all previous global conflicts were sparked by similar aggressive actions from Europe. “We are witnessing another wave in which Europe is taking up arms against Russia, and by the looks on some faces, even growling at Russia. After all… all global tragedies began with aggressive actions by Europeans: The Napoleonic Wars, World War I, and World War II,” he said in an interview for the TASS Children project released on Wednesday. Lavrov added that during World War II, nearly all “neutral” European countries, in addition to those officially aligned with Nazi Germany, fought alongside Germany – including France.
“They did have a resistance movement, but like most other European countries, the official authorities in Paris meekly surrendered to the will of the victors… and French troops fought battles on the side of Hitler’s Germany, taking part in a number of punitive operations,” he said, adding that “there were many examples of this.” Lavrov went on to say that France and the UK are “obsessed” with “defeating Russia on the battlefield,” as evidenced by the billions they have spent on Kiev’s war effort and recent discussions about deploying troops to Ukraine, supposedly in a peacekeeping role. He accused the West, including Washington, of installing what he called an “openly Russophobic Nazi regime” in Ukraine as part of its goal of defeating Russia. “Some want to quickly and finally erase from history the pages of their national shame, collaborationism, connivance with the Nazis,” he said.
“While others see in Nazi ideology some new instrument for maintaining their positions on the European political scene.” Lavrov added that Russia has long tried to warn the West against rewriting history. “Consigning history to oblivion, one’s spiritual and moral values, one’s roots, if you will, all this has become one of the main reasons for what we are now seeing in Ukraine,” he said, in reference to the authorities in Kiev who honor World War II Nazi collaborators as national heroes and “undermine and denigrate” the role of the Soviet Union in defeating Nazi Germany. “We will fight against this,” Lavrov said, expressing hope that “not everyone has forgotten the lessons of history.” “Many leaders… are beginning to understand the dead end and catastrophic consequences,” he said, referring to attempts to defeat Russia.
All of southern Europe. Who will stop them? The EU?
• Kiev Targeting Russian Gas Supplies To Southern Europe – Moscow (RT)
The Ukrainian military has launched multiple drone attacks overnight, targeting a a Russian gas pumping station which supplies fuel to southern Europe via the TurkStream pipeline, the Defense Ministry in Moscow has said. The ministry has accused Kiev of continued violations of an energy ceasefire agreed by Russia, the US and Ukraine last month. On Wednesday, the Russian military announced that it intercepted eight Ukrainian drones targeting the energy facility near the town of Korenovsk in the southern Krasnodar Region. The attack on Tuesday night was detected by defenses and caused no damage, as all aircraft were successfully intercepted, the report stated.
“This was a deliberate attack by the Kiev regime against an international energy site,” the ministry emphasized, adding that since Russia accepted a US-proposed moratorium on strikes targeting energy infrastructure, Ukrainian forces have not paused such attacks “for a single day.” Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an immediate suspension of strikes on Ukrainian energy sites following a phone conversation with US President Donald Trump in mid-March. Moscow maintains it is observing the partial ceasefire, despite Ukrainian violations, in a bid to foster goodwill with Washington.
The Korenovskaya compressor station targeted by Kiev is part of the Pochinki-Anapa pipeline, which entered service in July 2022 to enhance supplies for the TurkStream link under the Black Sea. The ground section of the pipeline has a maximum capacity of 63 billion cubic meters of gas per year, though the Defense Ministry noted it is currently functioning at about half that flow rate. TurkStream is one of the primary export routes for Russian natural gas directly to Türkiye, facilitating further supplies to Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Greece. In late February Hungary accused Kiev of threatening its sovereignty by jeopardizing its energy supplies, after a Ukrainian drone raid targeted the Russkaya gas compressor station, which feeds fuel into TurkStream.
“Moscow will employ all tools at its disposal against what it perceives as an existential threat. Ukraine and its Western supporters have dismissed the Russian leader’s statements as “nuclear blackmail.”
• US ‘Just Lost A War With Russia’ – Tucker Carlson (RT)
American policymakers are too arrogant to acknowledge that they have “lost a war with Russia” over Ukraine, US journalist Tucker Carlson has said. Russian officials perceive the Ukraine conflict as a NATO proxy war – a notion that some Western politicians, including US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, have openly agreed with. In an interview with Alex Jones published on Wednesday, Carlson accused those perpetuating the hostilities of ignoring that Russia has emerged victorious. ”We just lost a war with Russia,” the former Fox News host declared. “The US was running that war – the US military, the Pentagon, State Department, CIA – running the war against Russia. It was not… was never about Ukraine.”
Tucker Carlson on the reasons for the conflict in Ukraine:
"We just lost a war with Russia. The US was waging this war. The military, the State Department, the CIA, and the Pentagon are fighting a war against Russia.
This was never about Ukraine. No one in Washington cares about… pic.twitter.com/iRCBPOnAnR— Victor vicktop55 commentary (@vick55top) April 10, 2025
Carlson expressed concern that “nobody will say that out loud – that we’re overstating our power.” He likened the US to a divorced 60-year-old man attempting to woo a 25-year-old woman, oblivious to how absurd and humiliating he appears. “That’s called hubris and that’s how empires get destroyed and populations vaporized,” Carlson warned. “Maybe we should readjust our expectations a little bit.” Jones argued that many advocating for unconditional support of Kiev are “militarily ignorant,” mentioning actor Sean Penn’s dismissal of nuclear escalation risks with Russia. He emphasized that the scenario of major nuclear conflict is termed ‘Mutually Assured Destruction’ for a reason.
In response, Carlson referenced a Pentagon assessment indicating that at one point the risk of the Ukraine conflict escalating to nuclear war reached 50%, arguing that any policymaker comfortable with such odds belongs “in prison for the criminally insane.” Senior Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, have publicly asserted that Moscow will employ all tools at its disposal against what it perceives as an existential threat. Ukraine and its Western supporters have dismissed the Russian leader’s statements as “nuclear blackmail.”
One
https://twitter.com/toobaffled/status/1909741736924155971
Cancer
https://twitter.com/VigilantFox/status/1909597411627986982
Hugo
This is Hugo. He is facing off in an epic battle against his toy ball. Just waiting for his opponent to make the first move. 12/10 pic.twitter.com/C2AnutZIrF
— WeRateDogs (@dog_rates) April 8, 2025
EarthVenus
https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1909522433242968229
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