The Dispatch
New York Post
The reasons to be optimistic about these Giants
Right
There is no reason to dwell on the negative and every reason to believe better days are ahead for the Giants.
Compare Perspectives
Found 8 stories
Alternet.org
The real reason that Trump keeps sabotaging his own agenda
Economics and politics columnist John Cassidy thinks he knows why President Donald Trump keeps throwing a wrench in the plans of his own administration.Writing for the New Yorker on Monday, Cassidy said that he thinks Trump has lost touch with the financial realities of the average American. Last week, Trump was set to sign a bipartisan housing bill that would have been the perfect combination to help both homebuilders and homebuyers. "Although the bill seemed unlikely to have much immediate impact on the housing crisis, affordable-housing advocates and business groups alike said that it could have a significant impact over the longer term. In political terms, the message would be sent to voters that Washington isn’t oblivious to their concerns," wrote Cassidy. All Trump had to do was sign it. He even declared June "National Homeownership Month."Republicans were excited, patting themselves on the back during a press conference, not knowing that Trump had just blown up their legislation in a Truth Social post. But as Cassidy explained, it's part of a pattern with Trump in his second term. He is growing increasingly detached from the issues that matter to most Americans while being more focused on symbolic fights, loyalty tests and short-term political theater. So, instead of taking the "win" of a bipartisan success, he torpedoed it in another example of self-sabotage. "The larger context is that the President seems to be losing the plot," Cassidy said. "This year, he’s been confronted by a series of political setbacks and disasters — the Supreme Court striking down his blanket tariffs; widespread revulsion at ICE’s actions in Minnesota and elsewhere; a furor over the delayed release of the Epstein files; an ill-conceived war in the Middle East that caused gas prices to surge; and, lately, an algae-infested reflecting pool, which sends the message that he’s not even an effective builder. The obvious response to Trump’s woes — one that some of his aides have been urging upon him since last year — is to focus relentlessly on the issue that got him reelected: the affordability crisis."There are a few cases in which Trump's populism peeks out, like the accusation that oil companies were price gouging Americans by jacking up fuel prices and refusing to cut them when crude oil fell. "But consistency and focus seem to be beyond him," bashed the columnist. He recalled that in December, Trump mocked the "affordability crisis" as nothing more than a Democratic "hoax." Earlier this month, he cheered, "I love inflation!" So, refusing to sign a housing affordability bill that he supported only "demonstrate[s] anew his inability to maintain a constant course and present[s] another gift to his political rivals."Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said he would send the bill to Trump on Monday. It starts the clock on the ten-day rule. If a bill isn't signed in ten days and Congress remains in session, then the bill automatically becomes law. If Trump vetoes it, he runs the risk of having a veto-override vote that would pit his own GOP members against him and against their constituents.
Left
WorldNetDaily
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito warns mail-in-ballot ruling leaves giant opening for voter fraud
'May further undermine Americans' faith in the integrity of this country's elections'
Far Right
BizPac Review
Samuel Alito warns mail-in-ballot ruling leaves giant opening for voter fraud
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito warned Monday that the Court’s ruling on mail-in ballots opens the floodgates for potential voter fraud opportunities. In a 5-4 decision authored by […]
Far Right
Truthout
Taking on the Rich Is Possible. Our Illinois Coalition Won a Tax on Tech Giants.
Our campaign won a digital advertising revenue tax that may generate over $1.1 billion annually for the state’s budget.
Far Left
Alternet.org
Behind the sinister reason the Trump admin is blocking promotions at the Pentagon
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth just hijacked more promotions of high-ranking service members, this time blocking career professionals with exemplary records who were on track to become one-star generals and admirals. Not only is Hegseth’s behavior unusual, there is no clear legal authority for what he is doing. Congress entrusted military promotions largely to the respective promotion boards and Secretaries of the Military Departments, not the Secretary of Defense. Although 10 U.S.C. § 629 empowers the President with removal authority, a longstanding executive order limits the Secretary of Defense’s removal authority to grades below colonel or captain, not the general or admiral promotions Hegseth has blocked. The Pentagon’s own regulations restrict grounds for removing an officer from a promotions list to specific circumstances like moral, mental, or professional deficiencies, none of which were present in Hegseth’s removals.It’s obvious that a disproportionate number of Hegseth’s blocked, delayed, or demoted officers are women and people of color. However, while mainstream headlines suggest Hegseth is motivated by race and gender animus, an even worse—and more dangerous— likelihood is that he is weeding out those he deems “ideologically incompatible” with how he and Trump plan to use the military.Hegseth likes to emphasize that “every officer serves at the pleasure of the president,” arguing that Trump’s policy goals require removing commanders “tied to the culture” of previous administrations. He argues that past promotions were based on race and gender instead of qualifications, but military records dispute those claims, and there is no evidence that any promotions he blocked were attributable to anything other than merit.An unqualified hack defends his ownHegseth, a former Fox News bobble head, is notoriously unqualified to serve as Secretary of Defense, which seems to have been Trump’s point in naming him. He was a mid-level National Guard officer, had no senior leadership role in the military, and had no experience anywhere that qualified him to oversee three million personnel and an annual budget of $800 billion. More dangerous than his lack of qualifications is his bloodlust. As a media commentator, he lobbied aggressively for presidential pardons for service members convicted or accused of notorious war crimes, including Army Lt. Clint Lorance, convicted of murdering two Afghan civilians, and Maj. Matt Golsteyn, who admitted during an interview for the CIA that he and another soldier took an alleged Taliban bomb-maker off base in 2010, shot him, and buried his remains. Trump granted full pardons to both.In Iraq, Hegseth’s own unit was nicknamed “Kill Company” and he kept a ‘kill board’ that tallied kills, including dead civilians, expressing daring contempt for the military's strict rules of engagement. It’s anyone’s guess what gruesome deeds he got up to. Today, he barks a constant mantra about “war fighters” and “lethality” and sees violence and unrestrained power as a distinct virtue.Ineptitude with a platitude chaserHegseth’s tenure has been marred by a series of high-profile blunders, including the SignalGate security breach, his ‘dirty line’ Pentagon internet setup, and unforced diplomatic errors such as upbraiding NATO allies without understanding the subject matter. Just as Trump governs by spectacle over substance, Hegseth manages by platitude. His attempts to project authority through chest thumping—“Maximum lethality not tepid legality”— like his sophomoric speech to the Generals at Quantico, routinely fall flat and inspire parody. Hegseth’s embrace of violence over circumspection (“Lethality is our calling card”) while rejecting what he calls ‘stupid rules of engagement’ reveals an almost pathological immaturity. While pushing back against operational restraints, i.e., military rules of engagement, and weeding out generals who don’t suit him, he insists that, under him, there will be “No politically correct wars.” What he’s really weeding out are legal protocols in order to elevate ‘maximum lethality’ in pursuit of politically incorrect and illegal wars: Trump’s.History is clear on why the military should never be politicizedThroughout history, authoritarian regimes have tried to put professional militaries under the direct control of their own political movements. Recognizing that an independent officer corps poses an existential threat to one-party rule, in Nazi Germany, Hitler systematically dismantled the autonomy of the traditional Wehrmacht, and required all soldiers to swear a personal oath of loyalty to him rather than to the state or constitution. In the former Soviet Union, Stalin subjected the Red Army to the Communist Party's political commissar system, embedding party officials at every level of command to monitor ideological conformity.
Left
Alternet.org
Inside the real reason Republicans are finally telling Trump to pound sand
Dispatch writer David M. Drucker dropped some truth on MS NOW’s “The Weekend” show on Saturday, explaining exactly why Republican leaders in the Senate are finally defying President Donald Trump by refusing to pass the SAVE Act.Passing the act, which critics say will severely constrict voter access, will require unprecedented moves in the Senate, including the dismantling of the Senate filibuster and the removal of the Senate parliamentarian. Neither of that’s going to happen, however, because Republicans in the Senate can see the future whereas Trump — who is pushing 80 — sees very little future at all.“What I find silly about this, but it kind of shows you where the President's head is at — which is the same place it's always at —,” he said suggestively, “is that what Republicans do unto you today, Democrats can do unto you tomorrow.”“So go ahead and fire the parliamentarian, go ahead and scrap the filibuster. Democrats are going to be in power again sometime soon. Look at the past 25 years. This goes back and forth. And they will trash this bill. They'll [install] universal mail-in balloting. They'll do all these things that will force Texas and Florida and Idaho and all these red states to govern elections the way they want. We just played ping-pong doing this. So, the whole thing is just ridiculous,” Drucker said.Drucker added that Trump’s time would be much better spent helping his party focus on economic issues to smooth Republicans' slide into the midterms — only that’s not going to happen, he said.Outgoing Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kent.), who Trump had removed in the Republican primaries for daring to release the Epstein files, said on Thursday that Republicans can expect “an absolute shellacking” in November because “we’re wasting the opportunity that voters gave us.”Drucker agreed on Tuesday, writing that Republicans hoping for Trump to pivot to the economy would be better off spending their time hunting “proof” of the “tooth fairy.” The very next day, Trump stomped a Congressional effort to pass a housing bill that would make home ownership for affordable.“I am prescient, man,” Drucker told the MS NOW panel. “[Trump] is … a complicated political figure, but not a complicated man. He is singularly focused on his things that interest him and his grievances.”“[H]e is approaching this presidency doing everything that he ever dreamed he might want to do from the very beginning,” Drucker added. “He never had any use for Congress from the very beginning. He never took well to criticism from voters, and so this is how he has been, and this is how he will be to finish out his last two and a half years.” - YouTube youtu.be
Left
TIME
‘He Doesn’t Score Ugly Goals’: Ex-Coach of U.S. Soccer Has Reason to Cheer This World Cup
Gregg Berhalter hoped to be coaching at this tournament. Instead, his son Sebastian is making his own case on the field.
Center Left