The Common Ills: The Snapshot

Friday, April 11, 2025

The Snapshot

Friday, April 22, 2025. Democrats angling for the 2028 presidential nomination need to stop undoing the work that the rest of the party has put so much time into, Chump's destruction of the economy leads to questions regarding his sanity and much more.

Before we get to anything else let's start with these two videos.

That's from last night's THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW on MSNBC. As noted before many times, especially during the Obama years, I know Eric Holder -- going back to the 90s -- and I like Eric Holder. He is not a snap decision person. He is calm and deliberate. Which makes what he says in the above videos all the more important about who we are as a country and what we need to do to protect and fight for the democracy that we have. So if you haven't already streamed Rachel and Eric's discussion, please make a point to. Grasp that Eric comes at these issues not just as a former Attorney General of the United States or as an attorney, he's also been a judge. His knowledge base is vast and, again, he's not a snap-judgment person. When he speaks, he's given it a lot of thought beforehand.

Rachel and he are discussing very important topics. And I was going to pull something in regarding Dan Abrams later in the snapshot but let's move that around. Zachary Leeman (MEDIAITE) reports:

Mediaite founder Dan Abrams marveled at the “left-wing” media’s fumbling of numerous scandals involving President Donald Trump while arguing that “right-wing media” milks controversies for all they’re worth.

“Have you noticed how quickly Signalgate has faded from the news? It was a really big story for about a week. And then it just seemingly disappeared,” Abrams said on his SiriusXM show, which airs on the POTUS Channel. Had the same scandal occurred under [a] President Kamala Harris, Abrams argued, it would be an endless story on conservative media networks like Fox News and Newsmax.

“This would still be all over right-wing media, potentially for months, with investigations and demands, and it just makes you realize that they are so much better than the left at milking a scandal,” he said.

Abrams noted that scandals involving Hillary Clinton and Hunter Biden are still hot topics in right-wing media circles, while Signalgate and its central figures like Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz get a fraction of the attention.

He said:

They did it with President Biden for months, years, trying in any way possible to link him to his family’s shady business dealings. Last week on Fox News, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth got mentioned 30 times. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz got mentioned 24 times. Those were the two principal figures in the Signal Chat scandal. And when they were mentioned, it was usually in the context of other national security stories. And yet, Hunter Biden, in that same time period on Fox News, mentioned 60 times, about nine mentions a day. One mention every couple of hours, more than Pete Hegseth and Mike Waltz combined.

Abrams then ran through a list of issues that would likely be bigger issues if a Democrat were president, including Peter Navarro, Trump’s trade advisor, being a convicted felon. Navarro was convicted in 2023 of contempt of Congress. He spent four months behind bars.

And Dan (another I've known for years) is right. It's appalling how so many either ignore real stories or give them a quick nod and then rush off to more garbage.

In "Media: Stop the insanity," Ava and I were addressing this topic:

What were they thinking when they served up this slop?

It's a question you can also ask of Zac and Gavin, the hosts of THE VANGUARD who give Socialists a bad name with their fact-free commentary and contradictory assertions that, on a good week, sometimes manage not to completely reveal the depth of their hypocrisy.

It's good that they have such deep hypocrisy since everything else about them is shallow.

November 5th, Convicted Felon Donald Chump was re-elected president. And how have you used your time since then?

If you're Zac and Cody of THE VANGUARD, you've pulled on your cock in public and that's about it.

THE VANGUARD is sort of like two Taylor Lorenzes instead of one. Two vapid and uneducated gossip queens instead of just one.

There have been 129 posted segments of THE VANGUARD since November 8th (three days after the election). And surely the two Socialists have been all over Donald Chump, right?

Wrong.

53 segments found the boyz sucking up to Kyle Kulinski, Krystal Ball, Glenn Greenwald and others in their circle jerk instead of addressing anything remotely resembling a real issue or need.

You know what's worse than that?

76.

That's the number of segments Silly & Billy have done attacking THE YOUNG TURKS.

Now hosts Cenk and Ana were Socialists once upon a time -- back when Silly and Billy praised TYT. Back then, the DSA Bible JACOBIN even let Ana host their podcast. And, of course, back then Cenk and Kyle Kulinski decided the best way to get Socialists elected into Congress was to form Justice Democrats as a cover for Justice Socialists. And of course, they were backed by the notorious Trumper Peter Thiel. This really does matter and it goes to The Politics of Destruction and how political extremists can easily flip from left to right. But VANGUARD boyz never impart any important lessons like that. No, they just provide gossip.

So the 76 segments THE VANGUARD did gas bagging over TYT served no real purpose other than gossip.

Most of the recent segments about TYT was gossip revolving around or deriving from Francesca Fiorentini. For months, she's been THE VANGUARD top topic due to making statements such as stating she was afraid of Cenk. And other gossip.

Gossip.

Not news.

Nothing political either -- not even if you cite the old adage: The personal is political. Just gossip.

During this 76 segment period, Francesca finally got fired by TYT. That wasn't surprising, but being kind, we posted her video talking about that at THE COMMON ILLS.

One video.

One video was sufficient.

Why are Zac and Cody obsessed with TYT? More to the point, as alleged adults, why aren't they concerned with anything else?

[. . .]

And Zac and Cody, how pathetic are they?

People are being deported from this country, Chump is purging our education systems and museums of Black history and women's history and LGBTQ+ history. He is talking like a madman of seizing the land of foreign countries. He is refusing to follow court orders. He's carrying out a ton of crazy and illegal activities.

And where is THE VANGUARD?

Serving up another year's worth of segments telling viewers Cenk and Ana are bad bosses!'

At this late date, how is that even news?

We need to build a better media! We need our own Joe Rogan! We need! We need! We need!

We need to do our damn jobs.

As Stan noted last night, "And those two stunted White boys of THE VANGUARD -- Zac and Gavin. Yuck. They just reek White privilege and entitlement, don't they? They're so deeply stupid about everything whether it's politics or their pretense to know pop culture. I don't think -- left, right whatever -- there are two bigger idiots on YOUTUBE than those two. "

Doing your job is not Kyle talking about how his balls feel in certain underwear and calling that a YOUTUBE segment for the left or Silly and Billy doing the one milliionth take down of THE YOUNG TURKS.

I'm not a YOUNG TURKS fan. I've never praised Cenk and Ana, I've never confused them with anything but fraud's and tricksters because I've always known the deal with the devil they made to get that money. I have nothing but contempt for them. But at this late date, after they've embraced transphobia and racism and people have left TYT for that and told their stories, there's really no need for 76 segments since the election telling us how awful Cenk and Ana are to work for.

There are many other things that are not being covered. SignalGate being only one.

They fan boy over nonsense and that's true of so many YOUTUBERS.

In this country a big issues has become the fact that Republicans in the House are refusing to go home and hold townhalls in their districts and talk with their constituents.

They don't want the feedback.

And the feedback comes with the job.

Some elected officials in Congress have underscored this by going to nearby districts or even to out of state for them districts to hold a townhall. And that's good and that underscores that the GOP is not listening and they are not doing their jobs.

Some hacks like Zac and Cody tear away at what's being accomplished with their fluff pieces on Tim Walz.

From last night, that's Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Tim Walz: Circuit Rider Governor"

and it addresses the reality that Zac and Gavin and all the other dim bulbs won't: Tim is not helping anyone with his nonsense tour.

He is the governor of Minnesota. He does not need to be holding town halls in Houston, Texas or various cities in Iowa or Ohio or California or . . .

He is an elected governor who is now spending weeks on the road to criticize the GOP for ignoring their own constituents, the people who elected them.

Tim is on the road doing this, on the road out of his state doing this.

The hypocrisy is appallling.

Now he's doing it not to help anyone, he's trying to lay groundwork for the party's presidential nomination in 2028. It's not happening, Tim. You lied non-stop and you can't come back from that in the mainstream press. You also delivered the worst, the absolute worst, debate performance in the lifetime of televised vice presidential debates. The absolute worst.

DSA may or may not have delivered the vice presidential nomination to you last August -- Democratic Socialists of America claimed they did back in August in a series of Tweets that we've highlighted many times before.

They won't be able to help you in 2028. Their rat f**kery of the election, their work to defeat Kamala, did not escape the attention of the party. It's why their one time asset James Zogby now has his face pressed against the glass and when he tries to call friends in the party who once took his calls, he's told that they're unavailable or that they'll call him back (and then they don't).

Elections do have consequences. The DSA will find that out the hard way.

But Tim's too busy trying to promote himself and angle for his future.

In doing so, he's defeating all the work that people have put in underscoring how the GOP is not serving the people who voted them into office.

And all Tim's really accomplishing is sporting his sexism and racism.

Slamming Kamala?

Walter Mondale never slammed Jimmy Carter. John Edwards didn't slam John Kerry. Lloyd Bensen didn't slam Michael Dukakis. Not even Joe Lieberman slammed Al Gore.

But White Tim thinks it's okay to go around slamming Kamala?

He needs to own the fact that his record of non-stop lies and his lousy debate performance negatively impacted the campaign.

But he doesn't want to talk about what he did wrong, does he?

He needs to get his ass back to his home state and stop giving the GOP an opening to shoot back, "Well Tim Walz is a governor and he's all over the country doing town halls -- everywhere except his own state."

He and the hideous Gretch The Wretch Whitmer have done real damage to the party this week and a functioning left media would have been addressing this.

We don't need a Joe Rogan. We just need YOUTUBERS who will do actual work. MEIDAS TOUCH does, TABITHA SPEAKS POLITICS does, Coach D and some others do.

But the DSAers on YOUTUBE -- all of whom are too scared to tell their streaming audience that they're Socialists -- waste our time day after day and week after week.

Now let's get to what we were going to start with. SignalGate, tariffs, wrongful deportations, it's not been a good time for the Convicted Felon. Alex Henderson notes:

President Donald Trump claims that U.S. manufacturing slowed down during former President Joe Biden's four years in the White House, and he insists that his tariff-driven trade policy will lead to a renaissance in manufacturing jobs.

But according to Cleanview Energy founder Michael Thomas, Biden — not Trump — is the one with the stronger record on manufacturing jobs.

In a Thursday, April 10 post on X, formerly Twitter, Thomas posts, "The manufacturing boom that started under the Biden administration is grinding to a halt under Trump." And Thomas backs it up with a chart.

The chart, using U.S. Census Bureau figures, shows data on manufacturing jobs between 2016 (when Barack Obama was still president) and 2025 (when Trump returned to the White House). Altogether, the chart offers data spanning four presidential administrations.

U.S. manufacturing jobs, according to the chart, declined slightly during Trump's first presidency — before surging during Biden's four years as president. The chart shows the number of manufacturing jobs continuing to climb under Biden, peaking in 2024 before starting to decrease under Trump.

Right about now nearly the entire country's joining hands and swaying back and forth as Tiffany sings "Could've Been." And we all know what could have been.

Instead, we got the disaster that is Chump. Chump's semi-paused tariff scheme. Jamie Ross and Hannah Jewell (WASHINGTON POST) ponder the sudden semi-pause, "Why did he change his mind? Allies and world leaders told Trump he risked sparking a global crisis. His advisers say the pause is strategic -- a claim undercut by Trump himself." Andrew Feinberg (INDEPENDENT) quotes Chump declaring, "We're working with a lot of different countries, and it's all going to work out very well. I think it's going to work out really, very well. But we're in good shape." Sounds like someone trying to convince themselves -- someone really, really trying to convince themselves.

He might succeed in fooling himself; however, the non-delusional will not be so easy to trick. Gustaf Kilander (INDEPENDENT) delivers the harsh reality:

As President Donald Trump’s back-and-forth on trade policies creates chaos in the financial markets, some fund managers are questioning the rationality of his decisions.

“In the last few days, we have had many conversations with macro fund managers,” Tom Lee, the head of research at the financial analysis firm FSInsights, wrote on Wednesday morning, before Trump backed down from most of his tariffs on U.S. trading partners.

“And their concern is that the White House is not acting rationally, but rather on ideology. And some even fear that this may not even be ideology,” he added. “A few have quietly wondered if the President might be insane.”

Brian Karem (SALON) shares, that a Republican told him, "I'm not saying he’s insane. But his administration is the most sloppy, unprofessional, arrogant and stupid group of people ever assembled in government." And Karem also shares, "Others, however, are saying he’s insane." Samantha Nungesser (DECIDER) quotes THE VIEW's Ana Navarro stating, "If they're saying that this was all strategic, then he is a sadist,” she fumed. “Because what kind of government leader puts his people through this kind of distress and sadness and anxiety for a week just for giggles? His supporters always say that he plays fourth-dimensional chess. I think he should be in a padded room playing with his own drool because the things he does are just simply lunacy. And we're not out of this. We're not out of this by any means. [. . .] Let's not underestimate the result on consumer confidence of the havoc he has wreaked for the last 11 weeks. We have antagonized our allies yet again."

Bertrand Benoit and Kim Mackrael (WALL STREET JOURNAL) point out, "Economists stressed that a high degree of uncertainty remained despite the 90-day pause, which would negatively affect investment, growth and inflation expectations going forward" while Carlos Segovia (EL MUNDO) explains, "From the 3.95% demanded by investors days before, it jumped to 4.6%, a huge increase in an asset usually calm with few surprises. Several factors had come together for such an increase: the need for liquidity by traders due to the stock market crash and the growing sense that the safest US financial asset is no longer so due to the absolute legal uncertainty sown by the White House." Economist Paul Krugman (SUBSTACK) walks us through the land of reality:

Will crazy be an excuse if some were gaming the system? What if crazy isn't the only c-word involved in this administration effort? What if the other c-word is corruption? Simon Walter (INDEPENDENT) explores that notion:

The Democrats, led by California senator Adam Schiff, are calling for an investigation into insider trading. Even Trump himself seemed muddled over when he decided to make this change, telling reporters in the same sentence that it was “over the last few days” and “fairly early this morning”.

The turmoil caused by his chaotic tariff antics may not lead to his resignation, as Watergate did for Nixon, but the stain on Trump’s personal and political reputation and credibility could be as permanent.

After Watergate, Nixon could never escape the brutal truth that he was a crook and a liar. After Tariffgate, Trump will never escape the brutal truth that he has been exposed as unfit to run America’s economy – and that when he was found out, he claimed (preposterously) that it was all part of his “strategy”.

However, if claims that some used the wild fluctuation in stock market prices to make a killing turn out to be true, and crucially, that this was directly or indirectly aided and abetted by those in Trump’s White House, it will take more than his usual bluster to shrug it off.

Nixon tried to shift the blame for Watergate, claiming it was all the fault of others. It didn’t work. Time will tell whether Trump tries to blame others for Tariffgate. However, as with Watergate, there can be no denying that only one person was responsible: the US president.

Trump’s humiliating climbdown on tariffs has striking similarities with Liz Truss’s downfall as prime minister.

As in her case, it was the bond market response by hard-headed financiers – who, unlike Truss and Trump, understand economics as opposed to political fantasies – that forced him to confront reality.

Tommy Christopher (MEDIAITE) wonders if stock manipulation was taking place:

After a disastrous week in the stock market, Trump tried to calm fears Wednesday morning by posting a message telling investors to relax and “BE COOL” — hours before he announced a 90-day “pause” on most of the tariffs that caused the market to tank.

While Trump aides and supporters chalked the episode up to a masterful negotiating strategy, Trump told reporters he made the move because “I thought that people were jumping a little bit out of line. They were getting yippy, you know, they were getting a little bit yippy, a little bit afraid.”

But along with his earlier plea for investors to “BE COOL,” Trump also sent a message that looked very suspicious to some people in hindsight. At 9:37 AM on Truth Social, Trump wrote ““THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT”.

Rep. Steve Horsford (D-NV) and other Democrats have accused Trump of market manipulation and suggested his message was meant to tip off his supporters. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) made a similar accusation Wednesday.

“If people are pissed about insider trading here at the House, look at what’s happening at the White House right now and with the Republican Party,” AOC said to Spectrum News.

Trump was confronted about the accusations at the end of a 73-minute cabinet meeting Thursday afternoon as reporters were being ushered out. Trump did not answer, but appeared to have a delayed reaction with raised eyebrows and a shake of the head[.]

The doubts, the erratic nature of Chump, the corruption and stupidity? It's all impacting the way Americans seen The Orange Menace. Martha McHardy (NEWSWEEK) reports:

President Donald Trump is facing a sharp decline in approval ratings following the announcement of new tariffs that rattled markets and sparked backlash from consumers.

Trump's sliding approval over tariffs highlights growing voter dissatisfaction with his economic policies, particularly as inflation-weary Americans feel the pinch of higher prices.

The tariffs' popularity and impact on the economy will be crucial to the outcome of the 2026 midterm elections. The economy is always close to the forefront of voters' minds, and Democrats believe higher prices caused by the duties could spark a backlash against Trump.

Let's wind down with this from THE BLACK COMMENTATOR:

The Black Commentator Issue #1036 is now Online

April 10, 2025