Ad Orientem

Why Trump's "Trade Deals" are Worthless

2026-05-04T23:07:00.000-04:00

When President Donald Trump struck a trade deal with the European Union in July, officials on both sides stressed how it would ensure long-term stability to trans-Atlantic trade.

The Trump administration called the deal a "generational modernization of the transatlantic alliance." European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said it "restores stability and predictability" by locking in 15 percent tariffs on most European goods exported to the U.S., while most American imports to Europe would be exempt from tariffs.

In other words, Trump got what he wanted out of that deal: A reduction in tariffs on American exports and the establishment of a new, permanent baseline tariff on European goods. European leaders also felt like they'd won something: the 15 percent tariff was lower than the 25 percent tariff Trump had threatened, and the deal would stop Trump from hiking tariffs the next time he was in a bad mood.

So much for that.

On Friday, Trump announced that he would raise tariffs on European-made cars to 25 percent. (Those tariffs are authorized by Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, so they are not affected by the Supreme Court's ruling in February that limited some of the president's power to impose tariffs unilaterally.)

Those higher tariffs could cost automakers $4 billion this year.

Read the rest here.

1896: People Leaving Mass at Cologne Cathedral

2026-05-04T12:26:00.005-04:00

Trump has lost control of the conspiracy theories

2026-05-02T23:34:00.002-04:00

Conspiracy theories have been central to Donald Trump’s political rise. He was a leading promoter of the “birther” conspiracy theory targeting then-President Barack Obama, embraced outlandish theories about a “deep state” in the government and still pushes false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

But conspiracy theories, and the people who support them, are unpredictable and hard to control. Now, Trump is increasingly the subject of conspiracy theories on both the left and the right, with many of his onetime supporters viewing him with growing skepticism.

This new dynamic played out immediately after Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner with conspiracy theories and false claims flooding social media, questioning whether the assassination attempt was “staged” for Trump’s benefit. There is no evidence suggesting that is the case.

Some of those who circulated that idea were once among Trump’s most vocal backers.

“Was The Trump Whitehouse Corespondents Dinner Shooting Staged??” posted the right-wing conspiracist Alex Jones, who has recently broken with Trump over the war with Iran. Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who similarly broke with Trump over Iran and his handling of the release of information about the late disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, questioned why the suspect’s writing was released “almost immediately.” On the left, prominent progressive podcasters Jennifer Welch and Angie Sullivan released an episode on Monday headlined: “Major False Flags Revealed In Trump Shooting Aftermath, He’s Hiding From the Public?”

Read the rest here.

Trump's 2nd Bogus Indictment of James Comey

2026-04-29T12:22:00.007-04:00

If it’s possible, the Trump Justice Department’s new indictment of former FBI Director James Comey is even more absurd than the previous indictment. That one failed to state a crime. This one fabricates a crime.

The new charges, which have not been released as this is written, reportedly stem from an Instagram post Comey moronically published last year, showing seashells arranged to form the message “86 47.” Even more moronically, the Trump administration interpreted the message as a threat to assassinate the 47th president.

The number “86” is sometimes used in organized crime or gang circles to suggest killing; in more common parlance, however, it connotes getting rid or something, tossing something in the trash, etc. It is not even clear that Comey himself arranged the seashells in his photo, but the claim that, by posting what he’d observed, he was calling for Trump to be assassinated is ridiculous. In the United States, where political speech is protected by the First Amendment, the government may not criminalize the expression of opinion that the incumbent president should be removed or otherwise rejected. (I won’t try to count the number of times Trump did it while Biden was president.)

After uproar generated by the administration, Comey took down the post and publicly asserted that he opposes violence and meant no such suggestion. He also voluntarily submitted to interviews with the Secret Service — which proceeded to drop what should never have been a criminal investigation. There was not a threat of violence against the president, much less an unambiguous call for his assassination. Nor would it be remotely possible, on the known evidence, to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Comey intended violence.

Read the rest here.

Trump is Going After ABC (again)

2026-04-28T20:06:00.006-04:00

The Federal Communications Commission has directed Walt Disney Co. to file early license renewal applications for its ABC television stations, citing an ongoing investigation, a day after President Trump called on the company to fire comedian Jimmy Kimmel.

The FCC said in its order that it is investigating ABC stations for "possible violations" of the Communications Act of 1934 and the agency's prohibition on unlawful discrimination. An FCC official told CBS News that the order is related to the agency's investigation into Disney's diversity, equity and inclusion practices, which the official said has been ongoing since March 2025.

In a statement to CBS News, Disney said it has received the FCC's order for an accelerated review of its ABC-owned television stations.

"ABC and its stations have a long record of operating in full compliance with FCC rules and serving their local communities with trusted news, emergency information, and public‑interest programming," a Disney spokesperson said. "We are confident that the record demonstrates our continued qualifications as licensees under the Communications Act and the First Amendment and are prepared to show that through the appropriate legal channels."

The ABC licenses were originally scheduled for renewal between 2028 and 2031. The company owns eight TV stations, including WABC-TV in New York and KABC-TV in Los Angeles.

Read the rest here.

Jamie Dimon warns of ‘some kind of bond crisis’

2026-04-28T19:55:00.002-04:00

CEO Jamie Dimon on Tuesday warned that rising government debt levels could trigger a crisis in the bond market, urging policymakers to act before markets force their hand.

Dimon’s statement was in response to a question about whether he was worried about rising levels of government debt “around the world and in your country.”

“The way it’s going now, there will be some kind of bond crisis, and then we’ll have to deal with it,” Dimon said at an investment conference held by Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the largest in the world.

“I’m not that worried we’ll be able to deal with it,” Dimon said. “I just think maturity should say you should deal with it, as opposed to let it happen.”

Dimon, who runs the world’s largest bank by market cap, said history has shown that today’s growing mix of risks could combine in unpredictable ways. While the timing is uncertain, failing to address those pressures increases the odds that adjustment comes after upheaval rather than deliberate policy moves.

Read the rest here.

The First Royal Visit to the US (1939)

2026-04-28T19:46:00.006-04:00

Meanwhile... The White House posted a picture of President Trump and King Charles III with the caption “two Kings” amid the monarch’s visit to the U.S. on Tuesday.

Suing the Pope? An Aggressive Class Action Presents First Amendment Problems

2026-04-28T19:33:00.005-04:00

...The class action, O’Connell v. Conference of Catholic Bishops, threatens to violate the Constitution’s church autonomy principle. The lawsuit started several years ago with Peter’s Pence, a special collection that since the Middle Ages has been taken up by the Roman Catholic Church. It goes directly to the papacy to support the projects and activities of the pope. Lead plaintiff David O’Connell donated to the Peter’s Pence collection after being invited to make the offering during Mass. But he now complains that he was misled. He says that he thought that the church was going to use this for charitable purposes, which he understood to be direct aid to the needy. Only later, he says, did he learn that a substantial part of the Peter’s Pence collection went into long-term investments and supported church infrastructure. And so he decided that he would seek the return of his money by bringing a lawsuit, claiming that he was deceived into thinking that his donations supported charity.

The case was filed in federal court seeking the recovery not only of O’Connell’s donations, but all donations from a class of people who also claimed to be confused about the uses to which Peter’s Pence donations would be put. This class action lawsuit was aggressive; it was creative, but the church thought that it had a strong counter-argument: the church autonomy doctrine. If a court is to decide what counts as a charitable contribution, it would have to take positions on matters of church doctrine and governance. It would have to second-guess the internal decision-making of church leadership on how best to utilize the funds of the Roman Catholic Church and of the papacy in particular.

Read the rest here.

James Comey indicted over seashell photo

2026-04-28T19:28:00.002-04:00

The Justice Department secured an indictment Tuesday charging former FBI Director James Comey with threatening the life of President Donald Trump by posting a photo of seashells on Instagram.

The two-count indictment, posted Tuesday afternoon, alleges that a reasonable person would interpret the image of the shells, arranged to spell out “86 47,” as “a serious expression of an intent to do harm to the President of the United States."

Justice Department attorneys sought the indictment in the Eastern District of North Carolina, where Comey has a beach house and where he posted the beach scene photo. The Department of Homeland Security previously investigated Comey, who has long been a Trump target, over the May Instagram post, even subjecting him to questioning by the Secret Service.

Comey had deleted the post, saying it never occurred to him that it would be interpreted as being violent. "Eighty-six" is a term commonly used in restaurants when an item is sold out, and it's also informally used to mean "cancel" or "get rid of."

In a subsequent Instagram post in May, Comey said that he assumed the shells he saw on a beach walk were "a political message" and that he "didn't realize some folks associate those numbers with violence," adding that he opposed violence "of any kind."

Comey said in a video posted after his indictment that he was innocent, that he was not afraid and that he still believed in the independent judiciary.

"They're back," he said of the Trump administration. "This time about a picture of seashells on a North Carolina beach a year ago. And this won't be the end of it."

Read the rest here.

The Rise of Ukraine (and Decline of the US) as the Defender of Freedom

2026-04-27T20:58:00.005-04:00

A remarkable thing has happened on the world’s battlefields. Ukraine — a nation that was supposed to dissolve within days of a Russian invasion — has fought Russia to a stalemate, revolutionizing land warfare in the process. It has become an indispensable security partner in the Western alliance, including in the war against Iran.

Now, Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, is taking the next step, one that would have been unthinkable even as recently as 2024. By word and deed, he’s showing Europe and the world how the post-American free world can preserve its liberty and independence. This is what happens when, as Phillips Payson O’Brien wrote in a piece for The Atlantic, “Kyiv appears to have given up on the United States.”

If that is true — and it looks as though it is — it may be worse news for the United States than it is for Ukraine.

Events on the ground and in world capitals are moving so quickly that it’s hard to keep up. First, the strategic situation in the Ukraine war seems to have changed. Last week, Mick Ryan, a retired Australian major general and one of the most astute analysts of the war, wrote that Ukraine has largely stabilized the frontline in eastern Ukraine, deepened its coalition, isolated Russia diplomatically and developed an indigenous arms industry that makes it less dependent on external support.

It’s no longer accurate to think of Ukraine as a desperate underdog; it’s becoming an independent power. Even as it fights for its life against Russia, it’s reportedly reaching defense deals with the Gulf states and with the United States — and this time it’s Ukraine that’s providing military assistance.

In February 2025, President Trump mocked Zelensky in the Oval Office. “You’re not in a good position. You don’t have the cards right now,” Trump said. In April 2026, Ukraine has enough cards left that it’s sharing them.

This might be difficult for many readers to grasp — given our nation’s longstanding military supremacy — but the largest and most battle-hardened land force in the Western world may well be the Ukrainian Army. While the precise numbers are classified, the Atlantic Council estimated in 2025 that Ukraine had roughly a million men and women under arms, the vast majority of whom serve in the ground forces.

America’s total force is larger than Ukraine’s, but to put the size of Ukrainian land forces in perspective, the combined size of the U.S. Army and Marine Corps is around 620,000. It’s also worth noting that the U.S. forces have much less combat experience than Ukraine forces — especially when it comes to combat with a great power.

No one should minimize Ukraine’s manpower issues (more recent estimates place its total number of active troops well below the million-body peak) or the fact that it has no nuclear weapons and Russia has thousands. But its army is still vast, and its military is the only Western force that has fully adapted to modern drone warfare. Indeed, Ukraine is arguably the world’s leader in drone warfare.

Rapid change isn’t occurring just in Ukraine. Other developments across the Western alliance show that European nations are working with shocking speed to free themselves from dependence on America.

Read the rest here.

The Economic Risks From Trump's War Are Real and Growing

2026-04-25T20:17:00.005-04:00

Trump's War is Dangerously Depleting US Military Weapons and Ordinance

2026-04-24T00:13:00.000-04:00

Since the Iran war began in late February, the United States has burned through around 1,100 of its long-range stealth cruise missiles built for a war with China, close to the total number remaining in the U.S. stockpile. The military has fired off more than 1,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles, roughly 10 times the number it currently buys each year.

The Pentagon used more than 1,200 Patriot interceptor missiles in the war, at more than $4 million a pop, and more than 1,000 Precision Strike and ATACMS ground-based missiles, leaving inventories worrisomely low, according to internal Defense Department estimates and congressional officials.

The Iran war has significantly drained much of the U.S. military’s global supply of munitions, and forced the Pentagon to rush bombs, missiles and other hardware to the Middle East from commands in Asia and Europe. The drawdowns have left these regional commands less ready to confront potential adversaries like Russia and China, and it has forced the United States to find ways to scale up production to address the depletions, Trump administration and congressional officials say.

The conflict has also underscored the Pentagon’s overreliance on excessively expensive missiles and munitions, especially air-defense interceptors, as well as concerns about whether the defense industry can develop cheaper arms, especially attack drones, far more quickly.

Read the rest here.

For Frustrated G.O.P., Redistricting Fight Turns to Florida and the Courtroom

2026-04-23T16:33:00.005-04:00

Frustrated Republicans looked Wednesday to rebound from another setback in a nationwide redistricting chess match, as the high-stakes contest turned to Florida and the courtroom.

A Democratic victory on Tuesday in Virginia, where voters approved a change to the state’s House map that could give the party up to four more seats in the midterms, left Republicans with little to show for a tit-for-tat they started last year in Texas at the urging of President Trump.

Republicans are holding out hope that Virginia’s top court might reverse Tuesday’s result. And they are eying a chance to gain ground by redrawing the House map in Florida, where they control the governor’s office and hold supermajorities in the Legislature. But there is growing doubt in the party about its broader strategy.

“The two sides spent hundreds of millions dollars to get back to where they started, and in general, it’s turned out to be a net loser for Republicans,” said C. Stewart Verdery Jr., a Republican consultant.

Read the rest here.

Pew Research: Trends in religious conversions

2026-04-23T16:10:00.007-04:00

Christianity has experienced some of the largest losses from religious switching of any faith group around the world, according to our 2024 surveys. Religious switching refers to when people identify with a different religion in adulthood than they were raised in as a child.

Within Christianity, however, religious switching has affected the two largest subgroups – Catholicism and Protestantism – differently:

*Catholicism has lost more people than it’s gained in nearly all countries that we surveyed.

*Protestantism has seen a net gain from switching in nearly as many places as it has seen a net loss.

Here we take a closer look at religious switching into, out of, and between Catholicism and Protestantism, based on Pew Research Center surveys in 24 countries...

Read the rest here.

Are you ready for universal Trump pardons?

2026-04-23T16:00:00.000-04:00

President Trump has reportedly told his staff “I’ll pardon everyone who has come within 200 feet of the Oval [Office].” Should we believe his boast, that he will issue pre-emptive presidential pardons to hundreds, if not thousands, of administration staff and officials who may or may not have committed or even been charged with a federal crime?

Although Trump often claims he can or will take certain questionable actions he may have no intention of taking, there are reasons to take this boast seriously.

Could a president issue what amounts to universal administration pardons? Perhaps.

Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution says the president “shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.”

The Supreme Court has generally held that this power is unlimited with respect to federal crimes, but it does not apply to impeachment or crimes charged by state and local law enforcement. And there are other limitations — for example, a president cannot pardon someone for a future crime.

Read the rest here.

Being a Mets fan...

2026-04-20T17:06:00.005-04:00

...is just God's way of preparing me for eventual martyrdom.

The Bizarre and Corrupt World of Prediction Markets

2026-04-18T17:08:00.003-04:00

This is an excellent overview of the latest fad in online gambling.

ICE Is Determined To Unmask a Reddit User Whose Only Crime Seems To Be Criticizing ICE

2026-04-16T01:37:00.000-04:00

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is trying to unmask an anonymous Reddit user whose only crime seems to be criticizing the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. Last month, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which is part of DHS, withdrew an administrative subpoena demanding information about the Reddit account "Tired_Thumb" after facing a legal challenge in the Northern District of California, where Reddit is headquartered. But as The Intercept reported last week, federal prosecutors in Washington, D.C., now seem intent on obtaining information about the ICE critic from Reddit via a grand jury subpoena.

"Government critics are not suspects and free speech is not a crime," says Will Creeley, legal director of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). "The First Amendment protects our right to criticize the government anonymously—an American tradition that dates back to the founding. So far, the government hasn't been able to point to a single Reddit post [by Tired_Thumb] that's not protected by the First Amendment. Not one. By putting the administration's feelings above the First Amendment, government agents are sending a deliberate message to each of us: Don't criticize us—or else."

Read the rest here.

Hungary Is a Laboratory for Illiberal Nationalism. The Results Are In.

2026-04-14T21:14:00.003-04:00

Last month, Donald Trump offered Viktor Orban his “complete and total endorsement” in a video message ahead of Hungary’s April 12 election. The statement continued the president’s habit of boldly weighing in on the internal politics of other nations. But in this case, he would have been wise to first check the sell-by date of the prime minister and his creaking project of illiberalism.

After repeatedly winning reelection since 2010, Orban and his ruling party, Fidesz, now face a genuine electoral challenge from Peter Magyar and his center-right Tisza Party, which has led in the polls for more than a year while running on an anti-corruption platform. The result will allow the world to gauge Hungarians’ discontent with Orban’s brand of politics. It will also provide an answer to whether it’s possible for an opposition with broad support to win after 16 years under a government that rewrote election laws to its benefit while bringing much of the media under its influence.

The president’s interest in Orban’s political survival is certainly due in part to their rapport, but there’s a deeper nexus, too. Many of Trump’s supporters and allies — including Vice President JD Vance — see Hungary as a bastion of conservative and Christian values in a liberal and secular European Union.

For them, the election carries added significance. Hungary has served as a laboratory for policies promoted by many self-described national conservatives in the United States who want government to positively promote conservative values.

But regardless of the outcome, Orban has already shown that his vision of illiberal nationalism is a dead end that made Hungary poorer and less free.

Read the rest here.

It's time to talk about the 25th amendment.

2026-04-13T18:27:00.005-04:00

Donald Trump attacks the pope online. He claims that it was he (Trump) who got the pope elected. And then he posts an image of himself as Jesus Christ.

Mr. Trump is a pathological liar. He is the most corrupt and incompetent president in US history. He appears to be functionally illiterate. His behavior is becoming more erratic by the day. And yes, he has the nuclear launch codes.

It's time for the country to have an adult conversation about a man who is, on top of all of his other "issues," very probably mentally ill.

Hungarian Strongman Victor Orban Concedes Election

2026-04-12T15:56:00.003-04:00

After sixteen years in power, the pro-Kremlin ruler was ousted in parliamentary elections.

Christ is Risen!

2026-04-12T15:51:00.002-04:00

Reports: Pentagon officials menaced Vatican envoy over papal criticism

2026-04-09T14:54:00.001-04:00

Briefly interrupting a blog break for Holy Week to report a potentially significant development in relations between the Catholic Church and the Trump Administration.

I'm not sure what to make of this. On the one hand, as of this post the big boys in the press/media world are not reporting on the alleged incident. However, it is getting widespread coverage in what might be called the second tier of the press. Clearly there was a meeting. Why would the Vatican's envoy be summoned to the Pentagon? The Pentagon says the meeting was respectful but have offered no other details. Some reports have gone so far as to claim that the Pope has indefinitely postponed a planned trip to the US. Conspicuously, the Holy See is thus far keeping quiet.

Hmm...

Meanwhile, the Democrats...

2026-04-01T15:02:00.001-04:00

In California Democrats could lock themselves out of the ballot for the governor's race.

And in New York, they are playing dirty in the governor's race.

Ten Years Ago Donald Trump Promised to Eliminate the National Debt. It Has Doubled.

2026-03-31T19:44:00.000-04:00

Ten years ago today, Donald Trump said he would pay off the national debt in the span of just eight years.

That did not happen. Instead, the gross national debt has doubled since that day—from about $19 trillion to over $39 trillion. Much of that additional borrowing has taken place during Trump's five-plus years in the White House.

The gap between Trump's outlandish promise and the brutal fiscal reality of the past decade is not just a political gotcha. It's also an apt illustration of how far and how fast the debt has spiraled. And it's a painful reminder of a missed opportunity that Americans will be facing for a long, long time. The bill for these 10 years of fiscal profligacy will be coming due long after Trump has finally departed from the political scene.

But it's a story that starts, as everything in politics seems to these days, with Trump.

Read the rest here.