Will Trump's war on immigrants tank the US economy in ways he didn't even see coming?

The "full faith and credit of the United States" isn't what it use to be. 

Donald Trump changed all of that, and now even the bond markets have begun to notice. Hence, Wednesday's White House panic, and Trump's rescinding of many of his "permanent" tariffs—again.

The United States has long been seen as one of the most stable countries in the world. Because of that, most of the world has been willing to put their trust in us. That together with the eminence size of the US, and its vast economic resources, has made it the center of world economic activity, and the U$D the currency of international trade.

The paradox is that although the US regularly changes governments every four or eight years, it is seen as more stable, more reliable, than any country that has had the same head of state for decade after decade. That is because while the US government may regularly swing between Democratic and Republican, or some mix of them, each successive administration has largely stood behind the deals and promises made by previous administrations. That's the real meaning of full faith and credit of the United States.

Like so many issues in dispute these day, "full faith and credit" is rooted in the US Constitution. The "Full Faith and Credit Clause" in Article IV, Section 1 mandates that each state respect the laws and governments of every other state.  It has also been taken to mean each successive US administration will honor treaties, deals, and promises made by those that came before. US treasury bonds have become the "gold standard" of money reserves precisely because they are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States.

Donald Trump doesn't see a need to abide by the Constitution, let alone honor deals made by previous administrations, even if that previous administration was him—as in the case of the USMCA deal with Mexico and Canada. 

And especially in his psychotic quest to rid the country of black and brown people, he has been willing to violate decades old norms on how the US government has treated immigrants. After all the lies about how "we just want people to come in the right way," he has been secretly ripping up their green cards, and ordering his masked thugs to kidnapped and imprison them with no due process. 

Just hours before lifting tariffs he tells his followers to buy.

He has rescinded the temporary protected status of hundred of thousands of legal immigrants, so that they can be deport, or even imprisoned in a country they have no connection to. Now he is demanding that the IRS turn over data on immigrant tax payers to DHS, after decades of promising they would never do that. And he is demanding that SSA turn over the social security numbers of immigrants in contradiction to long standing policy. And he's clearly manipulating the financial markets—there's some insider trading going on.

Did he really think that the securities market would fail to notice that the "full faith and credit of the United States" isn't what it use to be? This could get really ugly.

Clay Claiborne

10 April 2025

We, the People, must be the Judiciary's enforcement arm

In the United States, we've recently had a lot of talk about the relationships between the three branches of government of our constitutional democracy. Article I of that Constitution establishes Congress, with the powers to make laws, control spending, and declare wars. Article II establishes the Presidency with executive powers over law enforcement and the military. Article III establishes the Supreme Court, and the federal judiciary, with the power to interpret federal laws, and apply the Constitution to all laws and government actions.

The relationship between these three branches has become the topic of so many conversations because President Trump is trying to aggregate all power to himself regardless of constitutional separations of power, or prohibitions. So far Congress has been feckless in resisting his drive to power. The reasons are Republican subservience and Democratic cowardice. The judiciary has been the one branch of government that has acted most vigorously to stay Trump's drive to power, with many federal judges ordering the Trump administration to stop many of its worst actions, and undo many of its worst harms.

The clear and present danger to our democracy is that Trump will start defying these court orders. So far, there's little evidence that he's really complying with many of these court orders, and we are hearing defiant rhetoric from Trump and his minions along the lines of Trump-hero President Andrew Jackson  “[Chief Justice] John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.”

One flaw in our Constitution that Trump is seeking to exploit is that the judiciary has no independent enforcement apparatus, it depends on the coercive powers of the state held exclusively by the executive branch. Our system depends on the executive abiding by the rulings of the judiciary and enforcing them. It wasn't built for a bad president who fills the executive branch with his sycophants intent on grabbing power far beyond what the Constitution allows, and taunting the nation with his threats to completely ignore judicial rulings and rule as a dictator.

Under these circumstances, it is We, the People, that must become the enforcement arm of the judiciary. We must take to the streets in our millions for every offense to the Constitution, and especially any violation of a federal court order. We must treat each violation as the emergency it really is and take to the streets in such numbers as to make business as usual impossible until the law is complied with. We must also take to the streets, and pack the town halls to give Congress some backbone.  We can make so much "good trouble" that they'll think twice about violating another court order.  We can encourage judges to make the right rulings and demand compliance. This is the only way we can save our democracy.

No one is coming to save us but us.       

Clay Claiborne

6 April 2025

Houthi kids were murdered during the Houthi PC small group chat

The Trump cabal is telling us that it was a perfect mission. That means there was no collateral damage—even though children died!

"The real story here is the overwhelming success of President Trump's decisive military action against Houthi terrorists"  - Karoline Leavitt, WH Press Sec.

"It was a very successful mission."    - Pam Bondi, Attorney General

An image taken from video provided by the US Navy shows an aircraft launching from the USS Harry S Truman in the Red Sea before conducting air strikes in Sanaa, Yemen [US Navy via AP Photo]

There was no pressing reason for the US to attack when it did. Although the Houthis hadn't exactly backed down from their threat to shipping in the Red Sea so long as Israel maintained its siege of Gaza, they hadn't carried out any new attacks on shipping since Trump took office. In fact, early in the chat, JD Vance argued for delaying the attack for a month, saying "I think we are making a mistake," but in the end he agreed "to support the consensus of the team." So, the (war) games began. It seems likely, from the following messages that this 1st Strike hit a residential building somewhere in Yemen.

All this just to kill one guy?

A man gestures as he searches in the rubble of a house hit by a US attack in Saada, Yemen, March 16, 2025 [Naif Rahma/Reuters]

This second strike may have been timed to hit the first responders to the first strike. Hitting the rescue workers from an initial raid is a tactic the US has used in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq...Israel does this too.

.

A man holds a fragment of a missile at the site of a US strike in Saada, Yemen March 16, 2025 [Naif Rahma/Reuters]

Don't worry JD, the United States is the richest country on the planet, and has very sophisticated air assault weapons, including armed drones. Yemen is the poorest country in the Middle East, and has almost no air defenses.
Victory is assured!

Everyone can see that Waltz is making these messages disappear in 4 weeks, and all here know, or should know, that is a violation of FIOA laws, making them all a party to this crime.

"Top missile guy." Would that be a military or civilian guy, an aeronautical engineer perhaps? Are they now legit targets for both sides? And how sure are you that you've got the right guy? After all, mistakes happen. You're the guy that added Jefferey Goldberg to this chat, and you left your Venmo contact list public. I hope you're not the official that signed off on killing this guy, and his girlfriend, and anybody that happened to live in her building.

Earlier in this chat, Ratcliffe, the CIA guy, suggested that if they delayed the strikes a month, they might be able to target someone higher up the food chain than "top missile guy."

If saying you're mobilizing CIA assets for an ongoing military operation doesn't qualify as classified information, I don't know what does. But, hey, who am I to argue with the Director of Central Intelligence?

A girl injured by the US strikes lies on stretcher at a hospital in Saada, Yemen 15 Mar 2025 [Naif Rahma/Reuters]

On the Saturday attack, Reuters reported:

WASHINGTON/ADEN, Yemen, March 15 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump launched large-scale military strikes against Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis on Saturday over the group's attacks against Red Sea shipping, killing at least 31 people at the start of a campaign expected to last many days.

and Al Jazeera reported:

Houthis say children among 32 killed after US fighter jets bomb Yemen

The US raids come after Trump warned that ‘hell will rain down’ if Houthis attacked ships in the Red Sea.

And what about the girlfriend? Is she a legitimate target? Does she even know her boyfriend is a top missile guy? You bombed her building. It sounds like you bombed an apartment building and it's now collapsed. Do you even know how many people you just killed? Do you even care?

Reports say that 32 people were killed that night, including 4 children. Another 101 were injured. JD Vance's response is "Excellent." 

And now the congratulations begin:

By the time the weekend campaign was over AP was reporting:

This weekend’s strikes killed at least 53 people, including children, and wounded others.

As Pete Hegseth said, this was never about the Houthis. They are only pawns in a much larger game.

+ Biden made them do it.

As VD Vance said, this was about sending a message. That's why these people had to died. This is why their children had to die. Because they are the terrorists, and we are the good guys. Besides, as Jesse Walters said on Fox News:

"Nobody even knows what a Houthi is"

---

"I'm quite proud, quite proud, about what CENTCOM did in that initial series of very devastating strikes." Pete Hegseth said today in the Philippines, where he's talking about "freedom of navigation" and "re-establishing deterrence" in the South China Sea. I wonder how many innocent people will have to die to accomplish that.

Clay Claiborne

28 March 2025

Complete Signal Houthi PC small group chat transcript

See also:

Signal chat fiasco reveals a cabinet of dilettantes

Is Signal secure?

Is Signal secure?

 Actually, the most important question is: Were they using Signal on secure devices?

Because it doesn't matter how well Signal, or any other secure communications app, encrypts your data, if there is an agent on your device that can read your keystrokes before they are encrypted and read your screen messages after they have been decrypted. This can be the case if the device is compromised by a software agent or spyware that is designed to do just that.

That is also the case with these AI chatbots like X's Grok, Microsoft's Copilot, or Google's Gemini, that are increasingly being pushed on to our smartphones and other computing devices. They typically ask for an "all access" pass to our devices so that they can "see what we see, and hear what we hear" as Microsoft bragged about its Copilot, and see what we type, and then send it all up to the cloud—unencrypted. This is becoming a big problem for privacy and security that no communications app, no matter how secure, can protect us from. 

That's why it's essential to know what devices members of the Houthi PC small group chat were using Signal on, and what other software, not just spyware, but also AI chatbots, they had running on the same device. 

Meredith Whittaker, the president of Signal, the company that makes the app, warned about this very problem at SXSW earlier this month, saying that these AI agents tended to break the "blood-brain barrier" that the privacy apps depend on:

"If a messaging app like Signal were to integrate with AI agents, it would undermine the privacy of your messages," she said.

So, this "agent" aspect of the Signal Houthi PC small group chat question is actually two questions in one:

1. Were any of the devices in this chat infected by spyware put there by malicious actors?
2. Were any of these devices running AI agents, such as Grok or Copilot, that the owner gave permission to read messages and send copies to the clouds via unencrypted channels?

Just asking.....

Signal is secure in more ways than one. Not only does the app offer end-to-end encryption for a thread, which still allows for you to read it, as well as any agent installed on your end, but it has another feature that allows for the deletion of a message on every device after a timer runs out—auto-deletion. They call it "Disappearing Messages." Of course, using that feature would be in complete violation of FOIA public records laws, and if this outlaw regime is using Signal to avoid document archive. public record, and disclosure laws, that maybe the most important revelation to come out of this whole fiasco. If that turns out to be the case, we are going to need to know a lot more about what they are using Signal for.

Clay Claiborne
26 March 2025

See also: Signal chat fiasco reveals a cabinet of dilettantes

Other things to worry about:

toxonix on slashdot writes: The Kremlin is actively targeting Signal accounts and exploiting their device linking feature to get copied on any conversation on a compromised device. I'm not sure any of these guys on the conversation are savvy enough to know the difference between a QR code from a Kremlin account and a legit one from Signal.

Famous last words:

Pete Hegseth on Fox News in 2016 [x.com]: “How damaging is it to your ability to recruit or build allies with others when they are worried that our leaders may be exposing them because of their gross negligence or their recklessness in handling information?”

Signal chat fiasco reveals a cabinet of dilettantes

What were they all doing on that Signal Houthi PC small group chat in the first place? I don't think that question has received near enough attention. I mean, why did Suzy Wiles, Trump's chief of staff, Joe Kent, Tulsi Gabbard's chief of staff, and Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary, need to know that an F-18 was about to attack a specific target in Yemen 30 minutes ahead of time? Why, really?

Even if I had not read the Tom Clancy books, and only seen a few of the movies, I would still know that rule #1 of operational security is: Information is distributed on a need to know basis.

IF YOU DON'T NEED TO KNOW, YOU DON'T NEED TO KNOW!   

I don't care whether you call them war plans, attack plans, operations plans, or a recipe for disaster, you don't go blabbing all over the place what you plan to do and when you plan to do it unless you are a fool. You don't start bragging to the girl you want to impress just because she has a security clearance. Just because they have the credentials to know that doesn't mean they have the need to know. 

Whenever you are planning an attack or other secret mission, operational details should be limited to those that need them for the success of the operation, and then only those details that that individual or unit needs to know for the success of the operation. That's how you keep your people and operations safe. Anything else is malpractice. 

And people have been killed by these attacks on the poorest country in the Middle East, and not just terrorists. On the US strike on Yemen the following Monday, the BBC writes:

Updating an earlier death toll, Houthi health ministry spokesperson Anis al-Asbahi posted on X that 53 people had been killed including "five children and two women", and that 98 people had been wounded.

So, this is serious business. So, let us be serious, the Houthi PC small group had not been assembled to consult on this operation, or make any real-time decisions about its execution. They had been assembled by Mike Waltz to watch and be entertained. They were there as dilettantes, not as government workers essential to the success of a life and death mission.

They wanted to play a scene like these guys in the Tom Clancy movie "Patriot Games" only they were too lazy to all assemble in a War Room, so they did it over Signal.

Patriot Games - watching SF raid in Libya

Patriot Games - same scene, different angle

Those hoping to understand how Jeffrey Goldberg was able to publish such sensitive operational communications in the Atlantic, must begin by understanding what was really going on here. Only then can they asked the right question:

Why was Jeffrey Goldberg invited to the party? 

Clay Claiborne

26 March 2025

See also: Is Signal secure?