Last Call For Can You Hear Me Now?

Somebody's secretly eavesdropping on cell phones in the nation's capital, and nobody seems to know who it is.

The Department of Homeland Security has detected in the Washington area what appears to be the unauthorized use of a controversial technology that allows for the surreptitious surveillance of people’s cellphones — though it has not been able to pinpoint who or what is causing it, the department revealed in a letter released Tuesday. 

The technology, a cell-tower simulator commonly known as a StingRay, has been deployed for years by federal and local law enforcement to pinpoint suspects’ locations, though its unauthorized use in the Washington area raises fears that foreign adversaries might also be taking advantage of it to spy on U.S. citizens. 

The simulators work by tricking cellphones nearby to register with them, rather than normal cell towers. Once the device finds the phone it is seeking, it can pinpoint the phone’s location. Some versions of the technology can also be used to eavesdrop on calls. 

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) had asked the DHS whether it had detected foreign governments using the devices in the national capital region and elsewhere. The department’s revelation came in response to his request, though it had not “validated or attributed such activity to specific entities or devices,” officials said. It also did not provide any details on what was detected, other than to say it was “activity” consistent with the cell-tower simulator devices. 

The development was first reported by the Associated Press.

The odds of DHS not knowing who this is is approximately zero, I can't imagine a foreign government wouldn't want these all over the DC area. Hell, the problem is there's dozens of countries who are probably running StingRay tech out of their embassies just like we are in our diplomatic outposts around the world, so this may very well be a case of too many suspects and more than one actual culprit.

I mean hell this could be DC police doing this or some government security contractor.  It's like Clue, everyone in the room has a motive for offing Mr. Boddy.  I'd be shocked if DHS wasn't detecting such activity.

The real reason is why this would be admitted by DHS.  This isn't just a can of worms to be opened, this is an entire worm farm with a baker's dozen special on giant annelids the size of tie ropes.  DHS could have said "That's classified as hell" and moved on but they actually admitted it.

We'll see where this goes, again, nobody should have been surprised at this.  StingRay tech has been around for a decade or so.

Begun, These Trade Wars Have, Con't

I talked earlier this week about Trump's Trade War™ with China and what it meant to Ohio, and Greg Sargent at the Washington Post backs up the general notion that Trump country voters are the ones who will pay first.

According to multiple reports, people in agricultural communities are on edge over President Trump’s trade war with China. Now that China has retaliated against Trump’s tariffs by announcing its own tariffs on more than 100 American products, fears of a serious escalation are becoming more real by the moment, with stocks sliding and companies registering their objections over Trump’s actions to the White House.

New data supplied to me by the Brookings Institution show that agricultural communities are right to worry about what’s happening. But that’s not all: The data also show that other targeted industries should be worried as well. And it reveals that those who are vulnerable to negative impacts from these trade tensions are mostly concentrated in counties carried by Trump, though a lot of them are in counties carried by Hillary Clinton as well. 

The Brookings data constitute a granular geographic look at what Trump’s trade war with China might mean. It breaks down the numbers of jobs in the seven industries producing the products targeted by China’s retaliatory actions, which include fresh and dried fruit and nut farming, stainless steel pipes, pork products, modified ethanol, scrap aluminum and wineries.

It's gonna hurt rural voters the most, period.  Not all are in Trump states, but a lot did vote for him.

The Brookings analysis — which is based on proprietary EMSI and Bureau of Labor Statistics data — shows that the largest sum of vulnerable jobs is in fruit and nut farming, with the majority concentrated in Trump counties. Most of the jobs in hog and pig farming and pipe production are also concentrated in Trump country. It’s only in wineries where Clinton counties have the most jobs.

Trump has flatly dismissed any worries over an escalation, claiming that trade wars are “easy to win” even as he rails nonsensically about trade deficits as a form of national humiliation. Trump views his tariffs as weapons in a zero-sum struggle for dominance, with little regard to the real world impact such a battle could have.

The big losers: rural Oregon and Washington State, Iowa, Michigan's lake counties, and California wine country.

But remember, that was the $3 billion in tariffs the Chinese announced on Monday.  Today, the Chinese went all in with $50 billion in tariffs to call Trump's bluff once again.

China said it would levy an additional 25 percent tariff on imports of 106 U.S. products including soybeans, automobiles, chemicals and aircraft, in response to proposed American duties on its high-tech goods.

Matching the scale of proposed U.S. tariffs announced the previous day, the Ministry of Commerce in Beijing said the charges will apply to around $50 billion of U.S. imports. Officials signaled that the implementation of the proposed measures will depend on when the U.S. applies its own after a period of public consultation.

The step ratchets up tension in a brewing trade war between the world’s two largest trading nations, with the Trump administration’s latest offensive based on alleged infringements of intellectual property in China. In targeting high-tech sectors that Beijing is openly trying to promote, the U.S. has provoked furious rhetoric from Beijing and stronger threats of retaliation than many had anticipated.

"China’s response was tougher than what the market was expecting -- investors didn’t foresee the country levying additional tariffs on sensitive and important products such as soybeans and airplanes," said Gao Qi, Singapore-based strategist at Scotiabank. "Investors believe a trade war will hurt both countries and their economies eventually."

More tariffs on both sides are coming.  Remember: Trump wants to eliminate nearly all of our $110 billion yearly trade deficit with China.   That's a lot of exports that will be harmed, and if you think inflation and the retail apocalypse is an issue now, wait until we're paying 25% higher prices on $50 billion plus in Chinese goods.

Bunker up, folks.  The economic disaster is coming.  If these tariffs go into effect on both sides, a lot of US jobs will go away in 2018, and it'll only be the beginning.

The Blue Wave Rises, Con't

Don't look now, but Beto O'Rourke just might actually be able to beat Ted Cruz in November in Texas, and now we know O'Rourke already has got the money to do it.

U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke, D-El Paso, raised over $6.7 million for his U.S. Senate bid in the first quarter of 2018, according to his campaign, a staggering number that poses a new category of threat to Republican incumbent Ted Cruz. 

The haul is easily O'Rourke's biggest fundraising quarter yet, more than double his next-closest total for a three-month period. It also is more than any Democratic Senate candidate nationwide took in last quarter, O'Rourke's campaign said. 

Cruz has not released his first-quarter fundraising numbers yet, but O'Rourke's $6.7 million total is on a different level than his previous hauls, which ranged from $1.7 million to $2.4 million. Those alone were good enough to outraise Cruz for three of the last four reporting periods. 

Furthermore, the $6.7 million total came from more than 141,000 contributions — another record-busting number for O'Rourke.

Ted Cruz has got to be terrified at this point.  He knows that he's in for the fight of his life, and he could actually lose.

"Campaigning in a grassroots fashion while raising more than $6.7 million from 141,000 contributions, we are the story of a campaign powered by people who are standing up to special interests, proving that we are more than a match and making it clear that Texans are willing to do exactly what our state and country need of us at this critical time," O'Rourke said in a statement.

O'Rourke's campaign released the fundraising statistics Tuesday morning ahead of the April 15 deadline to report it to the Federal Election Commission. Cruz has not offered any numbers for the full quarter, though he disclosed raising $803,000 through the first 45 days of the year — a fraction of O'Rourke's $2.3 million for the same timeframe. 

On Tuesday morning, O'Rourke's team did not volunteer its cash-on-hand figure, but the $6.7 million raised is likely to go a long way toward closing his deficit with Cruz in money to spend. As of mid-February, O'Rourke had $4.9 million in the bank to Cruz's $6 million. 

O'Rourke unveiled the $6.7 million figure on the second day of a three-day, 12-city trip by Cruz to mark the official start of his re-election campaign. O'Rourke is also hitting the road — he plans to hold town halls in 15 cities over the next six days.

At this point, Cruz's seat is in play.  It's something the Democrats absolutely need to win if they have any chance of taking the Senate in a year where they need two pickups while having to defend ten Trump state Senate seats, and again, tens of millions of dollars are going to be spent by the GOP to knock out Jon Tester, Heidi Heitkamp, Claire McCaskill, Joe Manchin, and Joe Donnelly.

But guess what?  Ted Cruz is far from the only big name Republican in trouble whose Democratic challenger is raising big bucks to take them on.

The top Democrat challenging Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) raised $2.1 million during the first quarter of 2018, his campaign announced on Monday. 

Randy Bryce’s campaign said it has raised $4.75 million since last June and has nearly $2.3 million in cash on hand. 

The campaign also said it added 45,000 new donors since the beginning of the year.

Bryce’s bid to unseat Ryan in Wisconsin's 1st District began last June with a fundraising campaign that netted more than $100,000 in its first 24 hours. 

The ironworker raised $1 million in the third quarter of 2017 and had raised approximately $2.7 million by the end of 2017, according to the Federal Election Commission.

Randy Bryce has a much tougher battle than O'Rourke does, if you can believe that a Democrat in Texas has a better shot of winning than a Wisconsin one.  But Paul Ryan is the most prolific fundraiser in DC.  He raised an obscene $44 million last year and gave most of it to the RNC.  He's fighting Bryce with his pocket change and leftovers, and that's still tens of million of dollars.

Randy's going to need your help too. 

It's great if they win, but it can't come at the expense of the seats we already have in hand.  If we can hold the line here, we can finish off the GOP in 2020 and 2022.  Let's make sure we can keep the seats we do have in the House and Senate.

StupidiNews!

• Police in San Bruno, California say a 39-year-old woman named Nasim Aghdam attacked staffers at YouTube's headquarters yesterday afternoon and injured three before taking her own life.
• Donald Trump says Saudi Arabia needs to pay for troops in Syria as he plans to withdraw the US military from the country and post National Guard troops long-term on the US-Mexico border.
• China is matching Donald Trump's proposed $50 billion in tariffs on Chinese tech products with proposed 25% duties on US cars, aircraft, soybeans and chemicals as a full-scale trade war brews.
• Embattled electric automaker Tesla's first quarter sales numbers finally find the Model 3 as America's best-selling electric car, but that still leaves the company well behind planned 2018 sales numbers.
• Maryland GOP Gov. Larry Hogan has settled an ACLU lawsuit over blocking constituent critics and removing comments on his official Facebook account.

Last Call For It's Mueller Time, Con't

The question rattling around Washington is who Mueller's next big indictment will be, and while I still believe the next major link in the chain is Jared Kushner, you can make the case that Roger Stone is now directly in Mueller's crosshairs too.

Special counsel Robert Mueller is looking into claims made by Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone that he met with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday. 

WikiLeaks released thousands of documents during the 2016 campaign that U.S. intelligence agencies believe came from Russian operatives and were aimed to hurt Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. 

In an email to fellow former Trump adviser Sam Nunberg dated Aug. 4, 2016, Stone claims that he “dined with Julian Assange last night,” according to the Journal.
Nunberg told The Washington Post earlier this month that investigators working for Mueller asked him to describe his conversation with Stone about meeting with Assange.
Stone has said that the email was a joke and that he never spoke with Assange.

Mueller’s team investigating Russia's election meddling has asked about the email during testimony before a grand jury, a source familiar with the matter told the Journal.

Stone said he was flying out to Los Angeles the night before he sent the email. The Journal confirmed that a flight from Miami to Los Angeles matches a screenshot of the flight information Stone provided, but could not confirm he was on it. 

Stone has been inconsistent about any contact he has had with Assange and WikiLeaks. He previously stated that he communicated with Assange but told the Journal on Friday that was not the case.

The Roger Stone/Julian Assange connection is bad news for Trump, and at this point Stone has lied so many times about it that he's not sure which story he has to keep straight anymore in order to avoid Mueller.  You can bet Stone's already been contacted, and Sam Nunberg has already given Stone up.

There's no real doubt that WikiLeaks is being used as a Russian front for intelligence laundering at this point, and since we now know that the Guccifer 2.0 hack was a product of Russian intelligence as well, the release of John Podesta's emails in order to attack the Clinton campaign was no accident.

But that was just the warm-up.  We now know why Trump has been attacking Amazon and its CEO Jeff Bezos on Twitter, Bezos owns the Washington Post, and the paper just dropped this bombshell this evening.

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III informed President Trump’s attorneys last month that he is continuing to investigate the president but does not consider him a criminal target at this point, according to three people familiar with the discussions.

In private negotiations in early March about a possible presidential interview, Mueller described Trump as a subject of his investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. Prosecutors view someone as a subject when that person has engaged in conduct that is under investigation but there is not sufficient evidence to bring charges.

The special counsel also told Trump’s lawyers that he is preparing a report about the president’s actions while in office and potential obstruction of justice, according to two people with knowledge of the conversations.

Mueller reiterated the need to interview Trump — both to understand whether he had any corrupt intent to thwart the Russia investigation and to complete this portion of his probe, the people said.

Mueller’s description of the president’s status has sparked friction within Trump’s inner circle as his advisers have debated his legal standing. The president and some of his allies seized on the special counsel’s words as an assurance that Trump’s risk of criminal jeopardy is low. Other advisers, however, noted that subjects of investigations can easily become indicted targets — and expressed concern that the special prosecutor was baiting Trump into an interview that could put the president in legal peril.

John Dowd, Trump’s top attorney dealing with the Mueller probe, resigned last month amid disputes about strategy and frustration that the president ignored his advice to refuse the special counsel’s request for an interview, according to a Trump friend.

Trump’s chief counsel, Jay Sekulow, and Dowd declined to comment for this report. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders referred questions to White House attorney Ty Cobb.

“Thank you, but I don’t discuss communications with the president or with the Office of Special Counsel,” Cobb said Tuesday.

If you want to know the reason for "Trump's war on Amazon" it's because of this story, 99.997% chance.  Trump actually wants this interview, his ego won't allow him not to talk to Mueller, and his lawyers know full well if he does he's going to be screwed.

The problem is of course is if he doesn't, he's still screwed.

Stay tuned.  I told you things were moving quickly and they are.

Bibi's Big Deal Breaks Down

In a sign of just how precarious the political situation of Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu is right now as he faces a massive bribery and corruption scandal and calls for resignation as well as growing international pressure after Israel's deadly response to Gaza protests in the last few days, it's no surprise then that a deal with the UN to resettle African migrants in order to prevent the deportation of tens of thousands has collapsed hours after being announced when Netanyahu's own party made it very clear that such a deal would lead to his ouster.

In a head-spinning turnaround, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel announced on Monday that he had reached an extraordinary deal with the United Nations refugee agency to resettle thousands of African asylum seekers in Western countries. Within hours Mr. Netanyahu suspended the deal after coming under heavy criticism from his coalition partners.

The flip-flop appeared to reflect Mr. Netanyahu’s fear of losing support from those partners or from his right-wing constituency, who call the asylum seekers infiltrators and want them gone. His opponents on the left described the prime minister’s behavior as an embarrassing and cowardly surrender under pressure.

Mr. Netanyahu, who is battling for his political future under the cloud of multiple corruption scandals and faces possible charges of bribery, had apparently failed to consult with most of his own conservative Likud Party colleagues or coalition allies before announcing the migrant deal.

If the deal with the United Nations refugee agency bought Israel some international good will, diverting attention from Friday’s flare-up along the border with Gaza when Israeli forces killed at least 15 Palestinians and wounded many more, the effect was short-lived.

The agreement with the United Nations was meant to replace a contentious Israeli plan that had offered the migrants a stark choice: forced deportation to Africa or prison. That plan fell through after Rwanda, the African country meant to receive the deportees, announced that it would accept only those who left Israel voluntarily.

In the afternoon, in a televised news conference, Mr. Netanyahu triumphantly announced the new deal, under which the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees committed to persuading countries in the West to take at least 16,250 migrants over five years, while Israel would grant official status as temporary residents to most who remained.

Estimates of the population of African asylum seekers in Israel, mostly from Eritrea and Sudan, range from 35,000 to 39,000.

But the agreement to let many stay in Israel drew harsh criticism from some of Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition allies, who were taken by surprise. Naftali Bennett, the education minister and leader of the far-right Jewish Home party, said the deal would “turn Israel into an infiltrator’s paradise.”

Mr. Netanyahu backtracked.

In a late-night Facebook post he said he was “attentive” to critics and wanted to explain the sequence of events. Rwanda, he said, had withdrawn from its agreement with Israel under pressure from the New Israel Fund — a nonprofit organization that promotes liberal democracy in Israel and is loathed by the right wing here — and “elements in the European Union.”

He said he was suspending the deal with the United Nations refugee agency pending a meeting on Tuesday morning with the veteran residents of south Tel Aviv, where many of the African migrants are concentrated, and that he would then review the understandings reached with the agency.

I'm no trained expert on Israeli politics, but given the situation it's painfully obvious that Netanyahu was given an ultimatum by the right wing of his coalition that he drop the deal or his government was over.  Given the embarrassing speed of his retreat after signing the deal, Netanyahu may have used up the last of his political capital here and could now be in an untenable position.

We'll see where this goes, as now the equally important question as to Bibi's fate is the fate of the tens of thousands of African refugees in the country, but my guess is the clock may finally be up on Netanyahu's term and soon.  No matter what he does at this point, he's in a corner and any action he takes will only lead to calls for his head.

Don't rule out anything at this point, including major military action in Gaza and/or the West Bank.

Meanwhile In Bevinstan...

As the final days of the 2018 legislative session come to a close, Kentucky Republicans are passing major new tax legislation and nobody knows exactly what's in the damn bill.

House and Senate Republicans unveiled the most significant changes to Kentucky’s tax code in more than a decade Monday in attempts to provide funding in a tight budget year.
The full bill is not yet available to the public. House Speaker Pro Tempore David Osborne and House Majority Leader Jonathan Shell declined to speak to the Herald-Leader. 

“The whole way this was done is unconscionable,” said Rep. Jim Wayne, D-Louisville. “It’s heavy handed, it’s done by an elite and it’s done behind closed doors without any opportunity for the public to voice opinions or to vet these ideas.” 

The Senate passed the budget and tax bill after hours of discussion on Monday afternoon. The tax bill passed without the support of seven Republicans, while only two Republicans voted against the budget. 

Despite Republicans having complete control of the budget process for the first time in recent history, the bill did not win the support of Kentucky’s Republican Governor, Matt Bevin. 

“I am very concerned that the current proposals from the General Assembly may not meet these basic standards of fiscal responsibility,” Bevin said in a prepared statement. “It is our obligation to ensure that any budget and tax changes put Kentucky on a stronger financial foundation.”

We do know part of what's in the bill however: a massive tax cut for corporations and the wealthy by reducing both to 5% across the board, and a major new tax hike on Kentucky consumers by adding sales taxes to multiple goods and services that weren't taxed before.

The bill cuts the individual and corporate tax code to a flat 5 percent tax. Currently, anyone who makes more than $8,000 pays 5.8 percent on their individual income tax. Those who make more than $75,000 pay 6 percent. 

The income tax changes cost the state $114.1 million over the next two years, while the corporate tax changes cost the state $80 million over the next two years. Some of the changes are cuts, while others are increases like removing the $10 individual income tax credit. 

The Legislative Research Commission analysis of the revenue bill does not contain a breakdown of how much the tax cuts would cost the state. 

“We all agree we need comprehensive tax reform,” Rep. Steven Rudy, R-Paducah, told the budget committee. “This is the step to move Kentucky way up the ladder of competitiveness. 

The bulk of the new revenue comes from the tax on select services. While the bill avoided levying taxes on any of the large services in Kentucky—attorneys, accountants and hospitals in particular—through a series of taxes on smaller services, the state estimates it will bring in $436.3 million in revenue. 

The state will also bring in $244.7 million over the two-year budget with a 50 cent increase to the cigarette tax and a 15 percent tax on electronic cigarettes.

Even if GOP Gov. Matt Bevin vetoes the bill, the legislature most likely has the votes to override it, and it's going to take Kentucky down the road that destroyed Kansas's economy. Most K-12 education funding has been spared, and I mean most because there's still no money for textbooks (it was zeroed out) while colleges and universities and basically every other state department is getting Bevin's 6.25% axe.

The goal is to fund Kentucky's pension system, the reality is that the draconian state function cuts and tax increases are going to pay for the state's massive new corporate tax cut.  And all this happened under the cover of the teacher protests in Frankfort.  Oh, and there's no such thing as tenure in Kentucky's universities now, they're the first to go in order to make ends meet.

I hope Kentucky voters are paying attention in 2018 to vote out the massive sales and cig tax increase we're about to get and in 2019 when Bevin's up for re-election.

We'll see.  It's not the full Brownback here, but it's close.

StupidiNews!

• Mexico is pushing back against Donald Trump's latest Twitter tirade on immigration, saying it doesn't promote illegal crossing into the US and that it isn't responsible for US immigration policy.
• Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a DoJ lawsuit against California's new state law preventing the sale of national park lands to corporations.
• After a massive outcry from both the media and his political opposition, Indian PM Narendra Modi dropped plans to punish journalists for "fake news" in less than 24 hours.
• The Villanova Wildcats easily pulled away in the second half to beat the Michigan Wolverines 79-62 for their second national men's basketball title in three years.
• Power utility FirstEnergy has filed for Chapter 11 and is asking the Trump regime for a massive bailout as cheap natural gas from fracking continues to put coal plants out of business.

Last Call For Trump's Emission Mission

Scott Pruitt and the Trump EPA just killed those Obama-era fuel efficiency standards for cars and light trucks, and want to force all states to comply with the new lower standards, including California.

Setting up its most aggressive clash yet with California over environmental standards, the Trump administration signaled Monday it may revoke the state's ability under the Clean Air Act to impose stricter standards for vehicle emissions.

The announcement came as the administration confirmed it is tearing up landmark fuel economy rules pushing auto-makers to manufacture cleaner burning cars and SUVs.

"Cooperative federalism doesn't mean that one state can dictate standards for the rest of the country," Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt said in a statement. "EPA will set a national standard for greenhouse gas emissions that allows auto manufacturers to make cars that people both want and can afford – while still expanding environmental and safety benefits of newer cars. It's in everyone's best interest to have a national standard, and we look forward to working with all states, including California, as we work to finalize that standard."

Pruitt said that the administration will abandon the federal goal of having the vehicles average 55 miles per gallon by 2025. That target will be replaced with a weaker fuel economy standard that the administration will settle on at a later date.

The action sets up the administration for a confrontation with California and a dozen other states that have authority under federal law to continue pursuing the Obama era target. Those states met the administration's action with defiance.

The current national fuel economy targets, which were championed by California, represent the single biggest action the federal government has taken to curb greenhouse gases. They are crucial to California and other states to meeting their goals for climate action and reducing smog and other air pollution. The targets are also essential to an effort led by Gov. Jerry Brown and others to carry the country toward meeting the obligations in the Paris Accord on climate change that the Trump administration is refusing to honor.

The administration's action, which came at the behest of automakers, could have little use to them if California succeeds in holding out. The state has unique authority under the Clean Air Act to impose standards tougher than the EPA, and other states are permitted under federal law to embrace the California rules. A dozen states have. They are poised to join California in fighting the administration.

Automakers were counting on electric cars tipping the scales for their fleet averages enough to get those numbers up to 55 MPG by 2025, but sales aren't going so well (ask Tesla.)  Chevy and Nissan are doing well enough with their electric offerings, but other automakers are struggling, even with the electric car tax credit.

But now the Trump regime is going after the Clean Air Act and this will certainly end up in front of the Supreme Court again, the same Supreme Court that ruled that Obama-era power plant emissions curbs were unconstitutional.  We'll see where this goes, but I expect California to lose, and I expect the standards to be dropped significantly from 55 MPG to something far less.

Good thing we didn't elect that Hillary bitch though, things might have gotten really bad for the environment, I'm sure.

Begun, These Trade Wars Have

To paraphrase Yoda in the Star Wars prequels there, appropriate because our current government is a fantasy with strange-colored puppets and doesn't make a lot of sense.  Despite the notion last month of Beijing coming to the negotiating table in response to Trump's belligerence, China has instead gone full bore on trade retaliation that will quickly begin to harm US farmers and growers and is calling Trump's bluff completely.

China says it's rolling out new tariffs on U.S. meat, fruit and other products as retaliation against taxes approved by President Trump on imported steel and aluminum.

The Chinese finance ministry says in a statement that the new tariffs begin Monday.

The announcement follows through on warnings Chinese officials have made for several weeks in an escalating trade dispute with the United States.

China's Customs Tariff Commission is increasing the tariff rate on eight imported U.S. products, including pork, by 25 percent. It's also imposing a new 15 percent tariff on 120 imported U.S. commodities, including fruits.

The tariffs mirror Mr. Trump's 25 percent charge on imported steel and 15 percent hike on aluminum. Mr. Trump's tariffs are partly a response to complaints that Beijing steals or pressures foreign companies to hand over technology.

Again, agriculture in Trump states are going to be hurt the most.  Right now the damage is limited to about $3 billion a year, but remember that Trump already wants $50-60 billion in yearly sanctions against China and there will be more coming in the months ahead.  It's a full-scale trade war if Trump continues, and Republicans will pay dearly for it in November.

Meanwhile, Beijing is hitting us where it really counts: Chinese real estate investment has all but vanished in West Coast states.

Chinese companies have been among the biggest commercial real estate investors in the Los Angeles area in the last five years, spending more than $5 billion to buy property in the region during that time, according to brokerage Cushman and Wakefield. That includes the sites of billion-dollar condominium, hotel and retail complexes being built downtown and large airport-area hotels that have been upgraded by their Chinese owners.

But they are withdrawing from some high-profile ventures as leaders in Beijing constrict the flow of money out of the country. In August, China's State Council laid down new regulations on outbound investments to reduce the risk of runaway debt and to blunt capital flight.

Also dramatically on the wane is Chinese investment through the federal EB-5 program, which allows foreigners to apply to become legal U.S. residents in exchange for investing $500,000 or more in a business that creates or preserves at least 10 jobs.

Millions of dollars raised by individual Chinese investors angling for green cards in past years have paid for such major projects as the trendy Dream Hotel complex in Hollywood and the Courtyard Los Angeles L.A. Live in downtown Los Angeles.

"There has been a huge fall-off in EB-5 funding," said Los Angeles attorney Jim Butler, who helps arrange investments from overseas through the program.

China can definitely make our lives far more miserable than we can theirs right now.  We import over $100 billion from China a year and Trump wants that to essentially end.

When it does, it's going to take a lot of jobs with it, particularly retail, agriculture, and manufacturing. I've been saying for a while now that Trump's tax cuts in addition to a Chinese trade war and the housing bubble means a guaranteed recession on the horizon, and soon.  Should that include a shooting war too in Iran or North Korea, very much a possibility now, and you have the recipe for an American economic disaster that will make the last one look like a walk in the park.

Immigration Nation, Con't

Meanwhile in the absence of Republicans who control Congress actually doing anything, America's immigration policy is now being directed by an angry 71-year-old FOX News viewer who keeps screaming at the TV.

President Trump said Sunday that there would be no deal to legalize the status of millions of “dreamers,” undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children, and directed congressional Republicans to pass tough new anti-immigration legislation.

Trump also criticized Mexican authorities as being too lax about border security, saying the U.S.-Mexico border was “getting more dangerous.” He threatened to “stop” the North American Free Trade Agreement if Mexico does not “stop the big drug and people flows.”

In fiery Sunday morning tweets, sent an hour after he wished Americans a “HAPPY EASTER” and minutes before he attended a church service here, Trump vowed, “NO MORE DACA DEAL.”

As he walked into an Episcopal service at the Church of Bethesda-by-the-Sea with first lady Melania and daughter Tiffany, Trump elaborated on his position on immigration to the traveling pool of reporters. He accused congressional Democrats of stymieing a potential deal to protect dreamers, after Trump canceled the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in the fall.

“A lot of people are coming in because they want to take advantage of DACA,” Trump said. “They had a great chance. The Democrats blew it.”

The president added, “Mexico has got to help us at the border ... They flow right through Mexico; they send them into the United States. It can't happen like that way anymore.”

In his first of three immigration-related tweets, Trump wrote, “Border Patrol Agents are not allowed to properly do their job at the Border because of ridiculous liberal (Democrat) laws like Catch & Release. Getting more dangerous. ‘Caravans’ coming. Republicans must go to Nuclear Option to pass tough laws NOW. NO MORE DACA DEAL!”

The DACA program was begun during the Obama administration to provide temporary protection to dreamers. Trump canceled DACA in the fall but said he would like to reach a deal with Congress to protect the dreamers from deportation in exchange for funding to build his long-promised wall at the U.S.-Mexico border.

He, however, went on to reject immigration proposals from congressional Democrats.

Trump's Sunday tweets may have been in response to commentary on Fox News Channel, which he is known to watch regularly. Fox aired a segment earlier in the morning with the headline: “CARAVAN OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS HEADED TO U.S.”

So at this point the best way to reach Trump on taking executive action is to run a story about it on Fox and Friends in the morning.  That makes them one of the most politically powerful players in DC.

And that should scare the pants off you.

StupidiNews!

• British authorities are now saying that the poisoning of ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal had to have been carried out with Kremlin approval due to the rare Russian nerve agent used.
• Botswana President Ian Khama stepped down over the weekend, leaving his office after a decade, saying that the country must preserve its democracy by holding regular elections.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit Turkey this week to meet with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to launch Turkey's first nuclear power station.
• Ticketmaster is pushing back against reports that the company is anti-competitive as new antitrust investigations from the DoJ were reported over the weekend.
• China's Tiangong-1 space station burnt up over the Pacific Sunday night after engineers lost control over the station's engines 18 months ago, the station was last used in 2013.

Last Call For Teaching Them A Lesson

Following a successful teacher's wildcat strike in West Virginia that shut down schools for nine days, Oklahoma teachers are following suit with a strike of their own starting Monday.

Craig Troxell steps precariously across a customer's roof, marking hail damage from yet another Oklahoma storm. He still smells of the freshly cut grass from the swanky side of town, where he had just mowed lawns to make a few extra dollars. 

But Troxell, 50, isn't a landscaper nor roof salesman by trade. He's a full-time high school science teacher who works four jobs to make ends meet. 

"Teacher morale gets worse every year," said Troxell, who also drives a school bus before and after school. "I've heard a lot of my (teacher) acquaintances walk away and get a different job. They don't want to do it anymore." 

Oklahoma is among the bottom three states for teacher salaries, where educators often work about 10 years before reaching the $40,000 salary mark. And they haven't gotten a raise from the state in 10 years. 

While educators nationwide have seen slight paycheck bumps over the past decade, when adjusted for inflation, teachers have actually lost 3% of their income from 2006 to 2016, according to the National Education Association. 

Recently, the Oklahoma teachers' union called for $10,000 teacher raises, $5,000 raises for support staff and more than $200 million for education funding. 

Lawmakers agreed on an average teacher raise of $6,100, $1,250 for support staff and a $50 million increase in education funding -- a measure Gov. Mary Fallin signed into law Thursday. 

But many teachers say it's not enough. So on Monday, Troxell and thousands of other teachers will walk out -- prompting some schools to shut down indefinitely. 

"We're at the end of the rope," Troxell said. 

He's far from alone. Several teachers told CNN they're working multiple jobs in food delivery, retail, rideshare driving, restaurants and even surrogate pregnancy to pay the bills. Some now rely on a food bank to feed their own children. 

You have to go into it for the love of the job and kids, because you'll never do the job for the money.  We live in a nation where we value education as the great equalizer, and then make sure the men and women providing it are themselves college graduates and are making less money than retail store managers or kitchen managers.

Then we constantly attack them as greedy agents of a manipulative conspiracy to destroy our kids' minds and cut their salaries as a result.  Ten years ago in the last recession thousands of teachers were laid off and tens of thousands more saw their benefits dismantled by states.

It's gotten so bad that even here in Bevinstan, teachers are taking to the streets this week too.

Multiple school systems in Kentucky were forced to close Friday, as teacher absences soared amid growing protest over legislation that educators say would strike a blow to pension plans.

Teachers from across the state descended on the capitol in Frankfort, outraged about what they described as a surprise move to pass legislation their union said Friday would mean existing employees pay more for pension benefits and new hires don’t get the same plan that previous generations relied on.

The protesters hung a sprawling banner from a capitol balcony — “Kentucky deserves better” — as hundreds converged, according to the Louisville Courier Journal. A rally is planned for Monday, when lawmakers return to the Capitol and most teachers are on spring break, union officials said.

The action in Kentucky came as the latest flash point over pay and benefits for the nation’s teachers. In West Virginia,educators closed schools for nine days as they held out for a 5 percent raise, which they won for teachers and all state workers in March.

More recently Arizona teachers, among the nation’s lowest-paid, threatened to strike over raises and funding cuts to school programs. Oklahoma teachers are planning a walkout Monday if they don’t get what they want before then.

In Kentucky, the teacher absences touched off school closings in the state’s largest school systems, in Louisville and Lexington. School officials in Lexington said more than one-third of school employees did not show up Friday, and they did not have enough substitutes to compensate.

The Courier Journal found more than 20 counties announcing school closures Friday, as tensions flared. Kentucky has 173 school systems, located in 120 counties.

The state teachers’ union, the Kentucky Education Association, with a membership of 45,000, had not called on teachers to skip the workday but issued a sharply worded statement about the legislative action.

“This kind of backroom dealing is shameful,” the statement said. “Pitting government interests against the interests of current and future educators is cowardly.”

The walkout here in Kentucky is expected to continue tomorrow with a major protest in Frankfort with thousands of teachers coming in from across the state.

Arizona will most likely be next.

Hold on, folks.  We're seeing something work this time.

Bibi Wags The Dog

Facing an increasingly growing bribery and corruption scandal involving payoffs to the media, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu is struggling to keep his government afloat as calls for his resignation are getting louder and louder.  As a result, the Israeli military went into Gaza on Friday as Palestinians living there marched to protest the ongoing blockade and opened fire on Palestinians, killing at least 15 and injuring hundreds in the resulting bloodbath.

Israel will target militant groups inside Gaza if violence along the territory’s border with Israel drags on, the chief military spokesman warned on Saturday, a day after 15 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire in the area’s deadliest violence in four years.

The violence significantly diminished Saturday as just small groups of Palestinians threw stones in several areas near the border fence, drawing Israeli fire that injured 25 people, the Gaza Health Ministry said.

Friday’s mass marches were largely led by Gaza’s ruling Hamas group and touted as the start of a six-week-long protest campaign against a stifling decade-old blockade of the territory.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel congratulated soldiers Saturday for allowing the rest of the country to celebrate the Passover holiday safely.

“Israel is acting determinedly and decisively to protect its sovereignty and the security of its citizens,” he said.

Palestinian health officials said 15 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire and more than 750 hit by live rounds Friday, making it the bloodiest day in Gaza since the 2014 cross-border war between Israel and Hamas.

Naturally, the Trump regime is providing full cover for the attack. CNN reports even higher numbers for the dead and wounded.

The US blocked a United Nations Security Council statement Saturday morning, which called for an independent inquiry into Friday's violence in Gaza that left at least 17 Palestinians dead and more than 1,400 injured, two UN diplomats tell CNN. 

Following Friday's escalated confrontations, Kuwait drafted a statement asking the Security Council to take action. 

It is unclear if other countries would have also objected, UN diplomats tell CNN. If one country objects, then the statement cannot be adopted. 

But Israel's UN Ambassador Danny Danon lodged a complaint with the United Nations Security Council for holding an emergency session on the first night of Passover -- a major Jewish holiday -- according to a statement released by Israel's UN Mission on Sunday. 

Danon claimed Kuwait intentionally called for the session as Israel's UN Mission was observing Passover, thus barring their participation while they observed a religious holiday. 

He said the move "exploited procedural rules" and is "antithetical to the spirit of the UN," according to the Israeli Mission statement. 

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had called for an independent inquiry into Friday's violence. 

Guterres made his comments late Friday before the emergency UN Security Council meeting to address the issue. UN spokesman Farhan Haq relayed his statement to the media. 

"This tragedy underlines the urgency of revitalizing the peace process aiming at creating the conditions for a return to meaningful negotiations for a peaceful solution that will allow Palestinians and Israelis to live side by side peacefully and in security," Guterres was reported as saying.

Netanyahu is promising more military action if the protests are not stopped.  It will come anyway, and of course we can't possibly change horses in midstream like this when there's a war going on...

Wag the dog.

The Rise Of Trump's State Media

The running joke for years is that FOX News has been the propaganda arm of the GOP and in many ways it has been, replete with attacks on Democrats and liberals for well over a decade, but here in the Trump era there's a far more sinister attack on on the nation's free press, and it isn't coming from cable news at all.

Rather it's coming from your local network news affiliate, and those affiliates are increasingly owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, a conservative far-right media conglomerate that has been quietly buying up the news stations that you've watched and trusted for years.  I've talked about Sinclair before as they moved to buy dozens of local TV stations in markets across the country and then forced those stations to run pro-Trump segments on their local news broadcasts and "terror alert" segments that attack immigrants and especially Muslims.

Now Sinclair is forcing their local anchors to attack non-Sinclair stations as "fake news".

Seattle-based ABC affiliate KOMO-TV says its owner, the conservative-leaning Sinclair Broadcast Group, is forcing its reporters to air pre-scripted segments about fake news media, in an attempt to undermine non-Sinclair stations.

Sinclair has long produced “must-run” segments for its stations, dispersing them to its various subsidiaries and requiring the local stations to run controversial, typically conservative commentary promos alongside their regular news coverage. However, in recent weeks, it’s begun turning its sights on the competition, throwing in mentions of “fake news,” among other things.

“The promos, which began airing on the station last week, are part of a Sinclair campaign that forces local anchors to read Sinclair-written scripts warning of the dangers of ‘one-sided news stories plaguing our country,'” the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported on Thursday.

The Post-Intelligencer published one of the scripts this week; in it, the authors lament the “trend of irresponsible, one sided news stories” and the “sharing of biased and false news,” referencing President Trump’s preferred term for the press, “fake news.”

These Sinclair stations are literally being given scripts to read, because they are Trump state media stations now.

(A) But we’re concerned about the troubling trend of irresponsible, one sided news stories plaguing our country. The sharing of biased and false news has become all too common on social media.

(B) More alarming, some media outlets publish these same fake stories… stories that just aren’t true, without checking facts first.

(A) Unfortunately, some members of the media use their platforms to push their own personal bias and agenda to control ‘exactly what people think’…This is extremely dangerous to a democracy.

Don't believe me?  Here's video of Sinclair station anchors all over the country in the last couple of weeks reading this exact script.

How America's largest local TV owner turned its news anchors into soldiers in Trump's war on the media: https://t.co/iLVtKRQycL pic.twitter.com/dMdSGellH3

— Deadspin (@Deadspin) March 31, 2018

This would be cute if Sinclair wasn't so obviously sinister.  And yes, these are all Sinclair stations in America.

Sinclair regularly runs disinformation segments favorable to President Trump: one of its staples is a recurring pre-taped segment featuring Sinclair’s chief political analyst, Russian-born former Trump adviser Boris Epshteyn. As ThinkProgress previously reported, those segments frequently include misleading talking points and misinformation from the Trump administration, packaged as actual political analysis and news coverage.

Another previously recurring segment, “Behind the Headlines” with Mark Hyman, Sinclair’s vice president for corporate relations, frequently parroted administration talking points on controversial subjects like health care, immigration, free speech, and extremism, functioning as right-wing and white nationalist propaganda.

More recently, Sinclair pushed a must-run segment featuring former Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka complaining about the existence of the so-called “Deep State,” and unelected group of government officials who are supposedly manipulating policy and controlling the public narrative. The segment was reportedly produced by Sinclair national correspondent Kristine Frazao, who previously worked at Russian state-run media outlet RT.

If you're getting your news from one of these stations, be aware they are Sinclair-owned and producing pro-Trump propaganda on a regular basis.  They have been for years now.  Here in Cincy they run the CBS and CW affiliate, WKRC, the area's most popular local news station, where you get happy stories like this about the "Deep State".

Welcome to the era of the regime's state-run media.  You're living in it, and odds are increasingly goo that you and your family are getting their local news from it too.