The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

 

The good:

When NPR sued Donald Trump Tuesday, it had an easy argument to go with. Normally, in First Amendment retaliation cases against the government, you have to pull together a bunch of disparate strands to prove the retaliatory intent of the actions. But as NPR noted in its filing, and as Justice Scalia once wrote about obvious constitutional violations: “this wolf comes as a wolf.” Trump’s executive order cutting public media funding doesn’t even pretend to hide its retaliatory nature — it literally calls NPR and PBS “biased media” in the title.

Republicans have been gunning for public media for decades, but historically, every time Congress tries to cut funding, outcry from their constituents is so overwhelming that nothing ever happens. It turns out tons of people (including Republican voters) actually like NPR and PBS. But Trump skipped Congress entirely and simply declared that public media wouldn’t be receiving any more federal funding — because he thinks their coverage hurts his feelings.

Federal funding for public media is already a bit confusing because very little of it actually goes directly to NPR and PBS. The funding mostly goes to local affiliates, many of which then do use it to purchase syndicated programming from NPR and PBS.

NPR’s complaint is refreshingly straightforward: this is textbook viewpoint discrimination that violates the First Amendment, separation of powers, and due process. As the lawsuit notes, the Supreme Court made clear just last year (in the Moody v. NetChoice case) that “it is no job for government to decide what counts as the right balance of private expression — to ‘un-bias’ what it thinks biased.”  [snip]

What makes this case so obvious is that Trump hasn’t even tried to hide the retaliatory motive (because he doesn’t realize it’s unconstitutional and doesn’t much care about that)...

In a sane America, the many legal actions brought by the Malignant Fascist, and those brought opposing them, would never have made it to paper, much less into court.  This should be a slam dunk, but ...

The bad:

For some small businesses, the last week brought even more twists and turns to the past two months of President Donald Trump’s chaotic tariffs.

The situation was already confusing, with stops and starts of tariffs at different levels. Then on Wednesday, a US court said Trump overstepped his authority in imposing most of those import levies – only for an appeals court on Thursday to pause the previous court’s ruling.

The confusion has made it challenging for some small companies to plan, business owners told CNN. In certain cases, they have had to consider changing their product strategy, looking into shifting their supply chains, reducing staff hours or delaying products.

“My fear is, if this continues, there’s going to be like the mass extinction of small businesses,” Julie Robbins, CEO of Ohio-based guitar pedal maker EarthQuaker Devices, told CNN.

Trump announced blanket tariffs across the globe on April 2, and since then, his plans have changed on a regular basis.

In early April, he issued a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs almost everywhere except China. Then, after ratcheting up total tariffs on Chinese imports to 145%, he declared smartphones and certain other electronics would be exempt from the reciprocal tariffs. The US and China agreed in May to roll back reciprocal tariffs for 90 days. And in late May, he threatened smartphone makers like Apple with 25% tariffs if they don’t make their phones in the US. He also agreed to push back levies on imports from the European Union until July 9. 

Those are only some of his changes, which can come at any time of day via the White House, social media posts or other avenues...

With the stinging "TACO" epithet ringing in his head, the Malignant Fascist will be more likely to double down on his destructive tariffs and tariff threats than he will be to back off.  Count on seeing a lot of small businesses -- representing nearly half of the American workforce -- to close as the MF continues to line the pockets of his crime family and associated oligarchs, with more to come should his "Big, Beautiful Bill" pass.

The ugly:

Conservative Karol Nawrocki won Poland’s weekend presidential runoff election, according to the final vote count on Monday. Nawrocki won 50.89% of votes in a very tight race against liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski, who received 49.11%.

The close race had the country on edge since a first round two weeks earlier and through the night into Monday, revealing deep divisions in the country along the eastern flank of NATO and the European Union.

An early exit poll released Sunday evening suggested Trzaskowski was headed to victory before updated polling began to reverse the picture hours later.

The outcome indicates that Poland can be expected to take a more nationalist path under its new leader, who was backed by U.S. President Donald Trump...

Just when we thought the tide was turning in Europe...  Nawrocki's election will seriously complicate politics in Poland, specifically Prime Minister Donald Tusk's reformist agenda and relations with the EU.