Trump's a fuckin' idiot. And anybody still supporting him is a fuckin' idiot too.
US Trade Deficit Widens, Capping One of Biggest Since 1960
The US trade deficit widened in December, capping a turbulent year of erratic tariff policy.
The goods and services trade gap expanded from the prior month to $70.3 billion, Commerce Department data showed Thursday. The shortfall culminated in a full-year deficit of $901.5 billion, still one of the largest in data back to 1960.
The December deficit reflected a 3.6% increase in the value of imports. Exports of goods and services declined 1.7%. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for a $55.5 billion overall shortfall.
The trade data were notably volatile in 2025 on a month-to-month basis as US importers reacted to a persistent drumbeat of tariff announcements from President Donald Trump. Gold and pharmaceutical imports were particularly choppy as companies raced to beat higher duties.
The increase in goods imports in December included gains in computer accessories and motor vehicles. The decline in exports largely reflected fewer outbound shipments of gold, according to the trade report.
The latest trade data will help economists firm up their estimates for fourth-quarter gross domestic product, which will be released on Friday. Before the figures, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s GDPNow forecast net exports would add about 0.6 percentage point to fourth-quarter growth, now estimated at 3.6%.
After adjusting for changes in prices, which filters into the real GDP measurement, the merchandise trade deficit widened to $97.1 billion in December, the most since July. Trade in gold, unless used for industrial purposes such as in the production of jewelry, is excluded from the government’s GDP calculation.
Trump has leaned on tariffs as part of his strategy to reduce reliance on foreign goods, encourage domestic investment and correct decades of declines in manufacturing employment. He and his economic team have criticized research concluding that Americans have borne the costs of tariffs.
Hassett Attacks NY Fed for Study on Tariffs Hurting US Companies
National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said a study from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York showing US companies bear most of the tariff burden “is an embarrassment” and the people associated with it should be “disciplined.”
“What they’ve done is they put out a conclusion which has created a lot of news that’s highly partisan, based on analysis that wouldn’t be accepted in a first semester econ class,” Hassett said Wednesday on CNBC.
Hassett said US consumers will be made better off by tariffs.
The paper published last week by the New York Fed found that nearly 90% of the economic burden from tariffs in 2025 was borne by US companies and consumers. The New York Fed did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Firm Tied to Kristi Noem Secretly Got Money From $220 Million DHS Ad Contracts
The company is run by the husband of Noem’s chief DHS spokesperson and has personal and business ties to Noem and her aides. DHS invoked the “emergency” at the border to skirt competitive bidding rules for the taxpayer-funded campaign.
On Oct. 2, the second day of the government shutdown, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem arrived at Mount Rushmore to shoot a television ad. Sitting on horseback in chaps and a cowboy hat, Noem addressed the camera with a stern message for immigrants: “Break our laws, we’ll punish you.”
Noem has hailed the more than $200 million, taxpayer-funded ad campaign as a crucial tool to stem illegal immigration. Her agency invoked the “national emergency” at the border as it awarded contracts for the campaign, bypassing the normal competitive bidding process designed to prevent waste and corruption.
The Department of Homeland Security has kept at least one beneficiary of the nine-figure ad deal a secret, records and interviews show: a Republican consulting firm with long-standing personal and business ties to Noem and her senior aides at DHS. The company running the Mount Rushmore shoot, called the Strategy Group, does not appear on public documents about the contract. The main recipient listed on the contracts is a mysterious Delaware company, which was created days before the deal was finalized.
No firm has closer ties to Noem’s political operation than the Strategy Group. It played a central role in her 2022 South Dakota gubernatorial campaign. Corey Lewandowski, her top adviser at DHS, has worked extensively with the firm. And the company’s CEO is married to Noem’s chief spokesperson at DHS, Tricia McLaughlin.
The Strategy Group’s ad work is the first known example of money flowing from Noem’s agency to businesses controlled by her allies and friends.
Government contracting experts said the depth of the ties between DHS leadership and the Strategy Group suggested major potential violations of ethics rules.
“It’s corrupt, is the word,” said Charles Tiefer, a leading authority on federal contract law and former member of the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan. He said that the Strategy Group’s role should prompt investigations by both the DHS inspector general and the House Oversight Committee.
“Hiding your friends as subcontractors is like playing hide the salami with the taxpayer,” Tiefer added.
Federal regulations forbid conflicts of interest in contracting and require that the process be conducted “with complete impartiality and with preferential treatment for none.”
“It’s worthy of an investigation to ferret out how these decisions were made, and whether they were made legally and without bias,” said Scott Amey, a contracting expert and general counsel at the watchdog group Project on Government Oversight.
The revelations come as the amount of money at Noem’s disposal has skyrocketed. The so-called Big Beautiful Bill granted DHS more than $150 billion, and Noem has given herself an unusual degree of control over how that money is spent. This summer, she began requiring that she personally approve any payment over $100,000.
Asked about the Strategy Group’s work for DHS, McLaughlin, the agency spokesperson, said in an interview, “We don’t have visibility into why they were chosen.”
“I don’t know who they’re a subcontractor with, but I don’t work with them because I have a conflict of interest and I fully recused myself,” she said. “My marriage is one thing and work is another. I don’t combine them.” Her husband, Strategy Group CEO Ben Yoho, didn’t respond to questions.
In a written statement, DHS said, “DHS has no involvement with the selection of subcontractors.” They added that the Strategy Group does not have a direct contract with the agency, saying “DHS cannot and does not determine, control, or weigh in on who contractors hire.”
Contracting experts said that agencies can and do sometimes require that subcontractors be approved by officials. It’s not clear how much the Strategy Group has been paid.
This is not the first time that the Strategy Group has gotten public money through a Noem contract. As governor of South Dakota in 2023, her administration set off a scandal by hiring the Ohio-based company to do a different ad campaign, paying it $8.5 million in state funds. While the state said the contract was done by the book, a former Noem administration official told ProPublica that Noem quietly intervened to ensure the Strategy Group got the deal. ProPublica granted some people anonymity to discuss the deals because of their sensitivity.
The firm also paid up to $25,000 to one of Noem’s closest advisers in South Dakota, previously unreported records show. (The adviser, 28-year-old Madison Sheahan, now serves at DHS as the second-in-command of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Sheahan didn’t respond to questions about why she was paid.)
The DHS ad that the company filmed at Mount Rushmore has aired during “Fox & Friends” in recent days. Executives from the Strategy Group traveled to the shoot and hired subcontractors to fill out the film crew, according to records and a person involved in the campaign. The ad’s aesthetic sits somewhere between a political campaign ad and a Jeep commercial as Noem tells would-be immigrants to “come here the right way.”
“From the cowboys who tamed the West to the titans who built our cities,” Noem says, as images of Trump Tower in Chicago and Trump raising his fist after the assassination attempt last year flash on the screen, “America has always rewarded vision and grit.” Noem continues: “You cross the border illegally, we’ll find you.”
The ad is the latest in a campaign that Noem debuted in February, just a few weeks after she took charge of DHS. “Any delay in providing these critical communications to the public will increase the spread of misinformation, especially misinformation by smugglers,” the agency wrote, explaining why it was skipping the competitive bidding process normally required for government contracts. The initial ads featured Noem thanking Trump for securing the border.
The contracts total $220 million so far, leading the DHS ad budget to triple in the most recent fiscal year, according to Bloomberg. The lion’s share of ad contracts is typically used to buy TV airtime or spots on social media. Advertising firms make money by taking an often-hefty commission. Federal records show the contracts have gone to two firms. One is a Republican ad company in Louisiana called People Who Think, which has been awarded $77 million.
But the majority of the money — $143 million — has gone to a mysterious LLC in Delaware. The company was created just days before it was awarded the deal.
Little is known about the Delaware company, which is called Safe America Media and lists its address as the Virginia home of a veteran Republican operative, Michael McElwain. McElwain has long had his own advertising company (separate from the Delaware one), but there’s little evidence that firm could handle a nine-figure federal contract on its own: It reported just five employees when it received COVID-19 relief money a few years ago.
How, where and to whom Safe America Media doled out the $143 million is unknown. Any subcontractors hired to do work on the DHS ads are not disclosed in federal contracting databases.
The office funding the ad contracts is listed as the DHS Office of Public Affairs, which is run by McLaughlin, contract records show. McLaughlin married Yoho, the Strategy Group CEO, earlier this year.
In its statement, DHS said the agency does its contracting “by the book” and the process is run by career officials. “It is very sad that Pro Publica would seek to defame these public servants,” DHS added.
Asked about why the agency chose Safe America Media, DHS said, “The results speak for themselves: the most secure border in American history and over 2 million illegal aliens exiting the United States.” McElwain and People Who Think didn’t respond to questions.
Yoho was still in college when he first served as campaign manager for a U.S. congressman. Now, at 38 years old, he’s a national player in the cutthroat industry of political advertising. Federal election records show tens of millions in payments to his firm during the 2024 election cycle, coming from dozens of Republican congressional candidates. And Noem has proved a particularly lucrative client.
Lewandowski brought Yoho into Noem’s inner circle back in South Dakota, according to two people familiar with the matter, putting the young consultant in charge of the ad side of her 2022 gubernatorial reelection campaign. Noem had a more than $5 million advertising budget for the race, records show. After she won in a landslide, Yoho, who has called Noem a friend, came to South Dakota to attend her inauguration ceremony. He sat off to the side of the stage, next to Lewandowski. (Lewandowski didn’t respond to a request for comment.)
By then, Yoho’s next big project with Noem was already in the works. In late 2022, Noem was quietly preparing to launch another sprawling ad campaign — only this time, the money would come from state coffers. The stated goal was to encourage workers to move to South Dakota. The upcoming contract opportunity wasn’t public yet, but Yoho was already involved in planning the campaign, according to records first reported by Sioux Falls Live.
Then on Jan. 12, 2023, Yoho’s company registered to do business in South Dakota under the name Go West Media. The next day, the contract opportunity went live.
Seven companies submitted proposals for the project. Then the pressure from above set in, according to a former Noem administration official involved in the process.
The former official said a top Noem aide told them the governor would be angry if Yoho’s company didn’t win the contract. “He was very direct: ‘She wants to do it,’” they said. Contemporaneous text messages reviewed by ProPublica corroborate that senior Noem administration officials pushed for Yoho to get the contract. Eventually, he did. (In its statement, DHS denied that Noem influenced the process.)
Noem starred in Yoho’s ads herself, dressing up as a dentist, a plumber and a state trooper as she touted her state’s growing economy. Exactly how much Yoho and the Strategy Group made off the $8.5 million deal is unclear. Some of the money was used to purchase spots on Fox News, including one during a Republican presidential debate. Some of the money appears to have gone back to South Dakota — into the bank account of another of Noem’s top advisers.
Sheahan, now the second-in-command at ICE, was paid up to $25,000 by Go West in 2023 for “consulting,” according to a financial disclosure document Sheahan later filed. At the time, Sheahan was serving as both the operations director for Noem as governor and the political director for Noem’s campaign work, according to a copy of her 2023 resume obtained by ProPublica. Her responsibilities included coordinating “daily logistics and operations” for Noem and her team, the resume said. She also managed the “relationship with high level donors” to American Resolve, Noem’s network of outside political groups.
As his firm received millions from the South Dakota state government, Yoho separately continued to work for Noem in other capacities. He worked under Lewandowski on the publicity campaign for Noem’s 2024 memoir, according to a person familiar with the matter. (The book became famous for including an anecdote about Noem shooting her dog.)
The Strategy Group also received a stream of payments for social media consulting and media production work over the last few years from Noem’s American Resolve PAC. Federal election records show the PAC made its last payment to Yoho’s company this February, a couple weeks after Noem took her post as the head of DHS.
Kinda pisses me off that we have to go abroad to find a little traction on this Epstein shit - especially when I have to go to a news outlet sponsored by people who'd just as soon see us all fry. But here we are.
UN panel says Epstein abuses may constitute ‘crimes against humanity’
Experts say newly recently released documents show the need for an independent investigation into Epstein’s sex-trafficking ring.
A group of United Nations experts have suggested that abuses carried out by convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein could meet the definition of crimes against humanity.
On Tuesday, the independent experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) released a statement in response to the millions of files released by the United States government related to criminal investigations into Epstein.
They explained that the records tell a story of dehumanisation, racism and corruption.
“So grave is the scale, nature, systematic character, and transnational reach of these atrocities against women and girls, that a number of them may reasonably meet the legal threshold of crimes against humanity,” the experts wrote.
The UNHRC panel called for an investigation into allegations around Epstein and his associates, who include prominent figures in global politics, business, science and culture.
They added that the revelations from the files suggest a “global criminal enterprise”.
“All the allegations contained in the ‘Epstein Files’ are egregious in nature and require independent, thorough, and impartial investigation, as well as inquiries to determine how such crimes could have taken place for so long,” the experts said.
The latest condemnation follows the January 30 release of 3.5 million pages of files from the US government’s records on Epstein.
The files were required to be released as part of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, a bipartisan piece of legislation signed into law in November.
The act gave the US government 30 days to publish all of its Epstein-related documents in a searchable format, obscuring information only to protect victims’ privacy.
But the 30-day deadline came and went, with only a partial release of the files. Even the January 30 publication has been criticised as incomplete, with reports indicating that there could be more than 6 million files in the government’s possession.
The newly released documents have revealed new details about Epstein’s relationships with influential figures, but few have faced accountability.
Critics have argued that Epstein himself faced scant legal consequences for the sex crimes he perpetuated. He reached a plea deal in Florida in 2008, wherein he pleaded guilty to soliciting a child for prostitution and sex trafficking, but he only served 13 months in custody.
He was in jail in 2019, facing federal charges, when he died by suicide in his cell.
Epstein’s ex-girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, has been sentenced to more than 20 years for her role in the sex trafficking scheme.
In Tuesday’s statement, the experts on the UN panel slammed the heavy redactions in the Epstein files that appear to shield the identities of powerful figures.
“The reluctance to fully disclose information or broaden investigations, has left many survivors feeling retraumatized and subjected to what they describe as ‘institutional gaslighting’,” the UN experts said.
Their criticism echoes similar accusations in the US. Lawmakers there have argued that the administration of President Donald Trump, a former friend of Epstein, has defied the November law by redacting documents beyond the guidelines set out by Congress.
The experts also noted that there appeared to be “botched redactions that exposed sensitive victim information”. They added that more must be done to ensure justice for the survivors.
“Any suggestion that it is time to move on from the ‘Epstein files’ is unacceptable. It represents a failure of responsibility towards victims,” they said.
About the only thing this Trump bunch is good at is lacing up their shoes and stepping on each other's dicks.
And the Kicker? They put Kimberly Guilfoyle out front on this one.
Trump’s erratic trade policy blamed for US gas auction flop in Eastern Europe
Greece’s energy minister said U.S.-EU tensions had scared off potential buyers of American LNG.
ATHENS — Washington's ambition to replace Russia as Eastern Europe's dominant gas supplier has hit a surprise hurdle: European buyers, it seems, don't want it.
Two months ago U.S. government officials descended on Athens to declare themselves the big new energy player in the Mediterranean.
New and revamped terminals in Greece would receive shiploads of American liquefied natural gas, which would then be carried up to neighboring countries from Bulgaria to Ukraine by way of the "Vertical Corridor" network of pipes. The aim, they said, was to replace “every last molecule of Russian gas.”
“What we see for the future of Greece and the United States is Greece being an energy hub and showing this energy dominance that both of our countries can experience and work together cooperatively to achieve tremendous outcomes,” U.S. Ambassador Kimberly Guilfoyle said at the time.
But when the Greek government on Monday asked energy companies to bid for access to these gas pipelines, the auctions were a flop. They attracted almost zero interest from energy companies, prompting warnings from analysts that U.S. President Donald Trump's unpredictable trade policy is undermining his own energy export ambitions.
The scale of the flop was striking. Out of nearly 72 gigawatt-hours of pipeline capacity offered to companies across three different entry routes, a minuscule 48 megawatt-hours — less than 0.1 percent of the total on offer — were eventually booked. A similar auction in December was even more of a flop, attracting no bids at all.
Some blamed the embarrassing result on high transport charges and weak gas demand in countries along the corridor. But others, including the Greek government itself, cited deteriorating EU-U.S. relations, which have reached an historic low in recent weeks.
“The auctions did not go well at all, and this was a result of the conflict that existed and still exists [between the EU and the U.S.],” Greek Energy Minister Stavros Papastavrou told local Open TV on Tuesday.
Had the auctions gone well, gas traders would have been seen as confident both that the U.S. would reliably deliver the LNG, and that there was strong demand for the new source of gas in end markets. The poor result suggests companies weren't willing to take that bet.
“There are all of these uncertainties introduced by Trump's position and his relationship with Europe and everybody seems to be sort of holding back to seeing how things develop,” said Charles Ellinas, a senior fellow at the Global Energy Center of the Atlantic Council.
“The initiative that the U.S. pushed via Greece is important to the U.S., but for that to happen, the relationship between the U.S. and Europe must become clearer. If Trump continues being erratic and continues doing what he did at Davos, nobody will want to invest or take or bring new initiatives until they know where these things are going," said Ellinas.
Analysts warn that in any case, the EU's growing reliance on imports of U.S. LNG create a new potentially high-risk geopolitical dependency.
“One serious challenge for the EU is that it seems to be replacing one dependency (Russia) with another (US),” said Harry Tzimitras, director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo Cyprus Centre.
“Given the unpredictable, or even outright openly threatening stance of the U.S. administration, this could potentially be dangerous. The EU seems to be repeating past mistakes, belatedly looking for alternatives to diversify its energy providers' base,” he said.
The lack of interest was also blamed on the fact that alternative routes remain more competitive with lower transit tariffs. Demand from Ukraine remains low, as it prefers other routes, mainly through Poland and Lithuania. These routes include energy from the U.S. but at a lower cost and without regulatory uncertainties.
Greece is also blaming the ambiguous stance of the EU, which has cut off supplies of Russian natural gas without fixing regulatory issues to open new supply routes.
Papastavrou, the Greek energy minister, noted that the European Commission has yet to fully endorse the design of the products offered via the Vertical Corridor, arguing they don't entirely align with the EU’s regulatory framework.
No idea what happens in a bad storm (I'm assuming somebody's thinking about that), but yeah - let's at least give it shot, so we're not completely knuckling under as The Dirty Fuels Cartel tries to maintain control over our lives.
The prices we're paying are tied directly to the combination of tariffs, plus the exporting country's inflation rate.
You want a new rug for the kitchen? A year ago it was $100. In April 2025, Trump hit the country where it's made with a 50% tariff. And that tariff smacked that country's economy badly enough that its inflation rate popped up into the low double digits - say 12%.
Your new 100-dollar kitchen rug will now cost you about $170.
