In the latest surprising announcement to emerge from the Trump White House, the WSJ reports that the Trump administration is considering changing the way the U.S. trade deficit is calculated, a shift that would make America's trade gap appear even greater than it has been in recent years, potentially making future trade skirmishes and wars with America's export-heavy trade partners far more likely.
While vocal critics of Donald Trump, many of them members of the media, saw in Trump's Thursday news conference, Friday tweet in which he claimed the press was the "enemy of the American people", and subsequent Saturday campaign speech, a combative, thin-skinned chief executive who continues to blame the media for the controversies roiling his administration, his supporters saw something else entirely: a champion of Middle America who is taking on the establishment and making good on his campaign promises to put the country first.
Child rapist Roman Polanski says he plans to return to the United States as long as the government assures him that he will not have to serve jail time for his crimes. The award-winning director has asked the U.S. government, via his attorney Harland Braun, to confirm that he will not have to serve prison time for unlawfully having sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977. Yahoo News reports: Braun has written to Los Angeles County Superior Court judge Scott Gordon to unseal a secret transcript of the testimony of the prosecutor in the Polanski case, which he believes will confirm the deal.
The 'Deep State' has one simple rule - "do it my way... or else!"
Source: Ben Garrison
And on the heels of Dennis Kucinich's warnings, The Intercept's Glenn Greenwald, who opposes Trump for a variety of reasons, warns that siding with the evidently powerful Deep State in the hopes of undermining Trump is dangerous. As TheAntiMedia's Carey Wedler notes, Greenwald asserted in an interview with Democracy Now, published on Thursday, that this boils down to a fight between the Deep State and the Trump administration.
Two weeks ago, Goldman analysts were stunned when they noted that in recent weeks gasoline demand in the US has collapsed to levels that suggest not all is well with the economy. In fact, as the bank's oil expert Damien Courvalin said "to achieve the 5.9% decline suggested by the weekly data, our model requires PCE to contract 6%, in other words, a recession."