Former Vice President Mike Pence urged President Donald Trump to reverse course on the sweeping tariffs he announced in April.
In an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, Pence wrote that “economic warning signs are flashing” as he criticized Trump’s tariffs as a “massive policy misstep.”
Former Vice President Mike Pence urged President Donald Trump to reverse course on the sweeping tariffs he announced in April.
In an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, Pence wrote that “economic warning signs are flashing” as he criticized Trump’s tariffs as a “massive policy misstep.”
President Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, former real estate attorney and investor Steve Witkoff, has left administration insiders distressed by his approach to negotiating with two of America’s greatest adversaries.
Witkoff, who has become Trump’s de facto personal ambassador to Russian President Vladimir Putin in addition to taking on the Middle East portfolio, takes part in high-level meetings alone — and is said to have even occasionally leaned on Kremlin translators — in a break with longstanding diplomatic procedure, multiple sources told The Post.
Ahead of Witkoff’s most recent meeting with Putin this past Friday, the New York native greeted the Kremlin tyrant like an old friend — with no sign of the usual coterie of advisers, experts and military officers who typically accompany US officials conducting negotiations.
US President Donald Trump’s suggestion that Ukraine should recognize Russia’s control over Crimea, the southern Ukrainian peninsula that Moscow annexed more than a decade ago, is threatening to upend international law and order.
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Is this legal?
No. If the Trump administration was to somehow recognize Russian sovereignty over Crimea, it would be breaching international law as well as multiple declarations and agreements made by the United States, including by the first Trump White House.
“In terms of international law, such a pronouncement would be null and void,” said Sergey Vasiliev, an international law expert and professor at the Open University in the Netherlands.
“That territorial acquisitions that result from the use of force shall not be recognized as legal is basically one of the bedrock principles of international law,” Vasiliev told CNN.
Recognizing Crimea as part of Russia would put the Trump administration in breach of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, in which the US made a commitment to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and borders, in exchange for Kyiv giving up its nuclear weapons.
In 2018, during the first Trump administration, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a statement reaffirming the US’ refusal to recognize the Kremlin’s claims of sovereignty over Crimea.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/25/world/trump-ukraine-crimea-explainer-intl
While Hegseth threatens to have his underlings prosecuted, he can’t keep his own house in order:
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had an internet connection that bypassed the Pentagon’s security protocols set up in his office to use the Signal messaging app on a personal computer, two people familiar with the line told The Associated Press.
The existence of the unsecured internet connection is the latest revelation about Hegseth’s use of the unclassified app and raises the possibility that sensitive defense information could have been put at risk of potential hacking or surveillance.
Known as a “dirty” internet line by the IT industry, it connects directly to the public internet where the user’s information and the websites accessed do not have the same security filters or protocols that the Pentagon’s secured connections maintain.
Other Pentagon offices have used them, particularly if there’s a need to monitor information or websites that would otherwise be blocked.
https://apnews.com/article/hegseth-signal-chat-dirty-internet-line-6a64707f10ca553eb905e5a70e10bd9d
The many contradictions of the vice-president should not distract from his ambition
It was inevitable that memes about JD Vance would surface the moment Pope Francis passed away. “It’s good to see you in better health,” the US vice-president told the pope on Sunday. The pontiff died on Monday.
As Donald Trump’s chief attack dog — though not yet his heir apparent — Vance is a prime target of ridicule on liberal social media. But he is also a master troller himself. Vance knows that the surest path to Maga hearts and Trump’s approval is to enrage liberals. The question is whether he means anything by it.
The answer is unclear. Vance has gone from being a never-Trumper who saw Trump as “America’s Hitler” to an arch-Trumper who sees his boss as part of God’s plan. That is as dramatic a political conversion as can happen. Rather than search for an intellectual key, Vance’s shift can be put down to ambition. The better question is whether there are any limits to his ambition. Judging by his performance so far, the answer is not really.
As more develops about the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, and his repeated disclosures of sensitive military intelligence in unsecured Signal group chats, there are growing concerns his behavior has weakened the Pentagon in the eyes of its foreign adversaries and made him and his entourage a top espionage target.
Allies, already concerned by Donald Trump’s aggressive tariffs, have also begun to see the US as an intelligence-sharing liability. There are fears that the mounting firings and leak inquiries in Hegseth’s orbit, along with his inability to manage these internal crises, exposes the entire global US war footing – especially, if a geopolitical and external crisis comes across his desk.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/23/pete-hegseth-pentagon-espionage
Mohsen Mahdawi was arrested outside his naturalization interview in Vermont. He was on track to become a U.S. citizen. ICE decided otherwise.
https://www.facebook.com/FearAndLoathingCloserToTheEdge/posts/665054132830559
Alireza Doroudi, an Iranian PhD student at the University of Alabama, was picked up by ICE without charge. No one will say why. He’s still gone.
https://www.facebook.com/FearAndLoathingCloserToTheEdge/posts/665054132830559
Rümeysa Öztürk was a Fulbright scholar at Tufts University. ICE agents in masks and hoodies grabbed her off the street, shoved her into an unmarked car, and vanished her into a Louisiana detention center. Her crime? Writing an op-ed critical of Israel’s actions in Gaza.
https://www.facebook.com/FearAndLoathingCloserToTheEdge/posts/665054132830559
