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Delusions of monarchy coupled with fundamental ineptitude define Trump’s first 100 days

Delusions of monarchy coupled with fundamental ineptitude define Trump’s first 100 days

David Smith writes: He has blinged it with gold cherubim, gold eagles, gold medallions, gold figurines and gilded rococo mirrors. He has crammed its walls with gold-framed paintings of great men from US history. In 100 days Donald Trump has turned the Oval Office into a gilded cage. The portraits of Andrew Jackson, Ronald Reagan and other past presidents gaze down from a past that the 47th seems determined to erase. Trump is seeking to remake the US in his…

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Trump’s first 100 days show him dictating the terms of press coverage − following Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán’s playbook for media control

Trump’s first 100 days show him dictating the terms of press coverage − following Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán’s playbook for media control

President Donald Trump shakes hands with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán during a meeting in the Oval Office on May 13, 2019 in Washington, DC. Mark Wilson/Getty Images By Adam G. Klein, Pace University Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stood before a captivated audience of conservative activists from the U.S. and laid out his vision for American politics. The Western media, he declared at a May 2022 special meeting of the Conservative Political Action Committee in Budapest, are “the root…

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Tree-ring records suggest that drought played a role in Roman Britain’s decline

Tree-ring records suggest that drought played a role in Roman Britain’s decline

Molly Glick writes: Roman Britain collapsed into chaos in the spring of 367 A.D.—the rival Picts attacked by land and sea, while the Scotti barged in from the west and Saxons from the south. Anarchy ensued in an event that’s now known as the Barbarian Conspiracy: The invaders captured and murdered senior commanders, and some Roman soldiers may have even joined in. It’s considered a pivotal event in the abandonment of Roman Britain. Historians have surmised some of the potential…

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Agriculture isn’t nearing trade war tariffs crisis, ‘it is full blown crisis already’ farmers report

Agriculture isn’t nearing trade war tariffs crisis, ‘it is full blown crisis already’ farmers report

CNBC reports: The clock is ticking on trade deals that the U.S. will need to strike with many nations, most notably China, to avoid what Trump’s Treasury Secretary has described as an “unsustainable” tariffs war. But in the U.S. farming sector, the damage has already been done and the economic crisis already begun. U.S. agriculture exporters say the global backlash to President Trump’s tariffs is punishing them, especially a decline in Chinese buying of U.S. farm products, leading to cancelled…

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DOGE operatives gain accounts on classified networks holding nuclear secrets

DOGE operatives gain accounts on classified networks holding nuclear secrets

NPR reports: Two members of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency have been given accounts on classified networks that hold highly guarded details about America’s nuclear weapons, two independent sources tell NPR. Luke Farritor, a 23-year-old former SpaceX intern, and Adam Ramada, a Miami-based venture capitalist, have had accounts on the computer systems for at least two weeks, according to the sources who also have access to the networks. Prior to their work at DOGE, neither Farritor nor Ramada appear…

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Musk’s Doge conflicts of interest worth $2.37bn, Senate report says

Musk’s Doge conflicts of interest worth $2.37bn, Senate report says

The Guardian reports: Elon Musk and his companies face at least $2.37bn in legal exposure from federal investigations, litigation and regulatory oversight, according to a new report from Senate Democrats. The report attempts to put a number to Musk’s many conflicts of interest through his work with his so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge), warning that he may seek to use his influence to avoid legal liability. The report, which was published on Monday by Democratic members of the Senate…

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Did ‘Vatican diplomacy’ change Trump’s mind on Ukraine? Three reasons for being skeptical

Did ‘Vatican diplomacy’ change Trump’s mind on Ukraine? Three reasons for being skeptical

Orysia Lutsevych writes: Hope can lift the spirit, but it’s not a good strategy. Trump’s second term has torpedoed the world order, in a manner that is especially dangerous for Ukraine and the rest of Europe. Three factors make the diplomatic efforts to defend Europe and achieve a good outcome in Ukraine precarious. First, the disturbing alignment in worldview between the White House and the Kremlin. Both Trump and Putin believe the world is a superpowers’ playground, where the powerful…

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Hegseth more focused on managing his image than running the Pentagon, says former top adviser

Hegseth more focused on managing his image than running the Pentagon, says former top adviser

Politico reports: A former top adviser to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth described a head office gripped by paranoia and more focused on photo ops than leadership, the latest in a series of brutal accusations about the inner workings of the Pentagon. Colin Carroll, who was fired this month from his post as chief of staff to the deputy Defense secretary, told the Megyn Kelly podcast that Hegseth was obsessed with the spread of leaks and spent half his time investigating…

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‘I’m having a lot of fun,’ Trump says, as ‘I run the country and the world’ (into the ground)

‘I’m having a lot of fun,’ Trump says, as ‘I run the country and the world’ (into the ground)

Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer write: We asked the president if his second term felt different from his first. He said it did. “The first time, I had two things to do—run the country and survive; I had all these crooked guys,” he said. “And the second time, I run the country and the world.” For weeks, we’d been hearing from both inside and outside the White House that the president was having more fun than he’d had in his…

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‘Fragile, impermanent things’: Joseph Tainter on what makes civilizations fail

‘Fragile, impermanent things’: Joseph Tainter on what makes civilizations fail

Jessica McKenzie writes: In the introduction to his seminal 1988 book, The Collapse of Complex Societies, anthropologist and historian Joseph Tainter explained that lost civilizations have a vise-like hold on the human imagination because of the implications their histories hold for our own, modern civilization. Untangling how and why civilizations fall could, in theory, help humanity avoid a future calamitous collapse. “The reason why complex societies disintegrate is of vital importance to every member of one, and today that includes…

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An American panopticon of databases

An American panopticon of databases

Ian Bogost and Charlie Warzel write: If you were tasked with building a panopticon, your design might look a lot like the information stores of the U.S. federal government—a collection of large, complex agencies, each making use of enormous volumes of data provided by or collected from citizens. The federal government is a veritable cosmos of information, made up of constellations of databases: The IRS gathers comprehensive financial and employment information from every taxpayer; the Department of Labor maintains the…

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Gaza on brink of catastrophe as aid runs out and prices soar, groups warn

Gaza on brink of catastrophe as aid runs out and prices soar, groups warn

The Guardian reports: Soaring prices of basic foodstuffs, diminishing stocks of medical supplies and sharp cuts to aid distribution threaten newly catastrophic conditions across Gaza, Palestinians and international aid officials in the battered territory are warning. Humanitarian organisations including the World Food Programme and Unwra, which supplies food and services to more than 2 million Palestinians across Gaza, have now distributed the last of their stocks of flour and other foodstuffs to the dozens of community kitchens in the territory…

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Rising up from a collective silence, universities organize to resist Trump

Rising up from a collective silence, universities organize to resist Trump

The New York Times reports: The Trump administration’s swift initial rollout of orders seeking more control over universities left schools thunderstruck. Fearing retribution from a president known to retaliate against his enemies, most leaders in higher education responded in February with silence. But after weeks of witnessing the administration freeze billions in federal funding, demand changes to policies and begin investigations, a broad coalition of university leaders publicly opposing those moves is taking root. The most visible evidence yet was…

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