Would appreciate your thoughts on this: Rethinking Trade: A Blueprint for a Just and Thriving Global Economy https://t.co/8aGH1Vh2WL Topic: global trade.
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) July 23, 2025
Yes, it's true. The US had trade surpluses until 1970, but recorded its first 20th-century deficit in 1971 (-$2.3B), the year Nixon ended gold convertibility. Deficits grew significantly thereafter, exacerbated by the shift to floating rates. (Sources: US BEA, historical…
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) July 23, 2025
Vermont (everything) lol but seriously it’s like a city spread over a large rural area but we have everything from biotech/life sciences, R1 uni, precision manufacturing, space tech, aero stuff and we make chips, a couple types :)
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) July 23, 2025
“A child's life taken every ten minutes. Israel claims to act in self-defense. Carpet bombing civilians, collective punishment, massacring children in their thousands is not defense...”
Mary Lou McDonald delivers a powerful, unmissable speech breaking her silence on Gaza! pic.twitter.com/Aaf9qlfA8W
Six Months In, Trump Has Too Many Failures To Count | Opinion Six months into the second Trump administration, not only is the president's agenda failing on its own terms—we have already witnessed a series of policy fiascos that would have completely upended any pre-Trump presidency. President Donald Trump's careless personnel decisions, slapdash executive orders, whiplash-inducing policy pivots, and general malevolence have combined to make this among the most disruptive yet least successful first six months of any presidency in American history. ........... So far, the president's two signature policy initiatives have been disasters. His "Liberation Day" tariffs triggered a financial and bond market meltdown so catastrophic that the White House was forced to reverse course within days. All of his antics, threats, promises, and claims have produced a handful of nebulous trade "agreements" with the United Kingdom, Vietnam, and Indonesia. The tariffs have already led to a fresh round of inflation that will only get worse if the U.S. doesn't back down, and have damaged America's reputation so thoroughly that other countries are working together to build a new trade regime without us. The 90-day "pause" is up and we're left with an effective tariff rate that is higher than it was when markets panicked during the first two weeks of April. ................ Trump's mass deportation fixation just led Congress to pass one of the most regressive budget packages in American history, funneling hundreds of billions of dollars away from food pantries, rural hospitals, and working Americans to erect an un-American internal detention gulag filled by masked ICE agents terrorizing hard-working people at farms, Home Depots, and schools. The ugliness of this wasteful, inane operation has instantly turned the American public against the president and his party on his signature issue of immigration. ............. Even if you believe this insanity is necessary (to be clear: I do not), it would take decades to remove all of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants from the United States at our current pace. We are spending enormous stacks of money on a toy shovel to scoop water out of the Titanic. But because it satisfies the far right's bottomless lust for inflicting human suffering, it goes on. ........... If only the disasters ended there. But Trump's liquidation of the federal government has also led to unimaginable catastrophe. His decision to begin shuttering the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) had already resulted in an understaffed, demoralized organization that would be incapable of properly responding to disasters. The chaos at FEMA left Texans to fend for themselves amid catastrophic floods on July 4 that left at least 134 people dead. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem waited an unconscionable 72 hours to authorize the deployment of FEMA Urban Search and Rescue teams to help flood victims, in large part because of an arbitrary rule that requires her personal sign-off on any expenditure over $100,000. .............. Let's not forget the seemingly daily parade of MAGA-driven calamities like the biggest measles outbreak in three decades, exacerbated by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the brain-wormed anti-vaxxer that the Senate inexplicably confirmed as secretary of Health and Human Services. Rather than encouraging his credulous followers to take the miraculous vaccine that had virtually eliminated the disease, Kennedy announced in May that he would look for new treatments and encouraged people to try cod liver oil. His reign of error is just beginning, with thousands likely to die this fall because the administration has dramatically limited access to Covid boosters, interfered with the once-routine rollout of annual flu shots, and halted work on a bird flu vaccine. ............... Documenting the mistakes this administration has already made could fill entire volumes—condemning millions to death by withholding international food aid, demoralizing federal workers, presiding over the worst domestic air travel catastrophe in 16 years, collapsing the consumer sentiment index with erratic economic leadership, generating negative real GDP growth, launching an unprovoked war against Iran and then forgetting about it 48 hours later, striking out humiliatingly in diplomatic mediation efforts between Russia and Ukraine, and on and on and on. ............ The worst is very much yet to come. A hollowed-out government will be incapable of responding to the next real crisis (as opposed to the ones Trump generates himself) or delivering the services that Americans apparently took so thoroughly for granted that they elected people explicitly promising to destroy them. ..........
In six short months, President Trump has made Americans poorer, less secure, less healthy, and more isolated while carrying out morally depraved policies and further degrading the rule of law.
.... The scariest part might be that he has 41 more months to make this mess even worse. Neither a complacent, neutered Congress nor a Supreme Court controlled by lifelong GOP partisan operatives appear willing or able to stop it.
'Our goals are clear' — Kremlin unwilling to compromise on demands ahead of proposed 3rd round of peace talks Moscow appears unwilling to shift from its maximalist demands in ending its war with Ukraine, as Russian President Vladimir Putin remains focused on achieving his goals on the battlefield, a Kremlin spokesperson said on July 20. ............ "The main thing for us is to achieve our goals. Our goals are clear," Peskov added. .......... The remarks reflect Moscow's growing list of maximalist demands presented in its so-called "peace memorandum" during recent negotiations with Ukraine in Istanbul on June 2. ......... The document calls for Ukraine to recognize Russia's annexation of Crimea and four partially occupied regions — Kherson, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Luhansk — and demands full Ukrainian troop withdrawal and demobilization. The Kremlin has also insisted that Ukraine dismantle and destroy all Western-supplied weapons as part of any ceasefire deal. ........... President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on July 19 that Ukraine has proposed a new round of peace talks with Russia for next week. The proposed talks, which will likely focus predominantly on prisoner exchanges, come as Russia has continued to reject a ceasefire in Ukraine. .......... Despite previous deadlock in negotiations, Zelensky stressed the need to increase the pace of negotiations, calling for urgent steps to achieve a ceasefire. Russia has not yet agreed to a third round of peace talks, but has signalled that talks may resume in Istanbul in the near future ......... ....Russia's refusal to hold credible peace talks has angered U.S. President Donald Trump in recent weeks. ........... After months of stalled progress, Trump appeared to significantly shift his policy towards arming Kyiv by announcing on July 14 that he will send weaponry and Patriot missile defense systems to Ukraine through NATO. Trump also threatened Moscow with 100% tariffs unless a deal on ending the war is achieved within 50 days. .......... Despite Trump's tariff threats, three sources close to the Kremlin told Reuters on July 15 that Putin remains determined to continue the war against Ukraine until the West agrees to peace on his terms. ....... Ukraine and Russia held two rounds of bilateral peace talks earlier this year in Istanbul, first on May 16 and again on June 2 — after more than three years without direct negotiations. The meetings resulted in significant prisoner exchanges, but no significant steps toward a ceasefire.
Which discount store have you found? Elsewhere it is up more.
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) July 21, 2025
Gideon Levy: "Israel is doing things which the Germans did in the early years of the third reich.. the extermination of the Jews.. started with evacuating people.. people like Katz can suggest all kind of crazy ideas which are a copy of Nazi ideas & don't see the connection" pic.twitter.com/n5N70tOyuR
I will never forget the moment I saw this for the first time. I had bought a newspaper and hid heartbroken in the kitchen of a restaurant I waited tables at just staring at it. Images like this have had the power to change things in history. But it’s Palestine so nothing did. https://t.co/feDFPCJD53
Palestinian man walks calmly in Hebron with his arms raised. The Israeli soldiers shoots him in the back.
This happens all the time for a simple reason: The impunity the US & Europe provide Israel not only enables this, it encourages the steady increase of Israeli war crimes. pic.twitter.com/NmSuhcjvuk
Trump team repeating the Biden team strategy: leaking to the press to complain about Netanyahu while constantly rewarding him with money, arms, and total impunity https://t.co/31qm2BJltp
