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PBC News & Comment: Cost of Trump’s Trade Wars Climbs Past $400 Billion

IMF, big promoter of predatory capitalism and free trade, says “self-inflicted wounds” cost $455 billion worldwide, tells Trump to stop….–IMF boss Christine Lagarde lectures Trump, as Fed chair Powell tips rescue plans if Trump’s arbitrary tariffs lead to recession

–hints that Trump is just bluffing about new, escalating tariffs on Mexican imports surface as VP Pence meets with Mexico’s foreign minister

–Mexico has already buckled to Trump’s bullying, deporting 80,000 migrants since January, and accepting 9,000 people who await asylum decisions

–citing budget strain, Trump administration cuts education, exercise and legal visits for unaccompanied child migrants

–in Honduras, protests continue against president accused of corruption; Juan Hernandez was installed by Obama and Clinton after 2009 coup took down Zelaya

–protesters in Prague object to appointment of justice minister they expect to block investigation of billionaire prime minister Babis

–Trump’s meddling in British prime minister succession is compared to The Apprentice

–Trump tells his buddy Piers Morgan—who was a winner on The Apprentice—the he prefers talking with Iran over military action

–Pelosi’s latest dodge is that people confuse impeachment with removal

NY Times posts draft impeachment documents, cut and pasted from Nixon and Clinton episodes

–responding to Buzzfeed FOIA lawsuit, Justice Dept. refuses to remove more redactions from Mueller report

–at Shadowproof, Kevin Gosztola reports that FBI has not adequately tested facial recognition systems and can’t estimate error rates

–and in a Medium post yesterday, Gosztola explains how Chelsea Manning is trying to abolish US grand jury system in her refusal to testify

–at ConsortiumNews, Joe Lauria reports on alarming Australian crackdowns on journalists, and cites pattern since Assange was arrested

–déjà vu: Joe Biden blames staffers for plagiarizing climate change plan, as the candidate fends off questions about incarceration and the Hyde Amendment

–tech giants gang up on Amazon in fight over $10 billion Pentagon contract

–Mrs. Mitch McConnell wants to make pipeline protesting a federal crime, using ALEC draft bill with 20-year sentence

–after NY Times and New York Magazine smeared Bernie Sanders for supporting the Sandinistas in the 1980’s, journalist Jonathan Katz exposes bias, ignorance

–channeling Chevy Chase, we report that Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead, still buried in same tomb