Perhaps it's time fredthebear posted his victories over perfidubious, even things up a little bit.>

You won <nothing> from me in the end, which is why you are reduced to passive-aggressive swipes and innumerable lies for the rest of your miserable existence.

Don't call FTB out and then expect me not to respond, schmucks.>

Isn't one of your Ten Commandments about not lying?

<Donald Trump once again acknowledged that his foolish trade wars will disrupt the economy, potentially causing a recession. But the president still spoke about the impending tariffs on Mexico and Canada as if they are paid by the exporting country rather than the American companies importing goods, who then pass the cost on to American customers.

During an interview with Fox News' Maria Bartiromo that aired Sunday, the host asked Trump, "Are you expecting a recession this year?"

"I hate to predict things like that. There is a period of transition because what we're doing is very big," Trump said.

But he admitted that an economic "disruption" is possible.

"There could be a little disruption. Look, what I have to do is build a strong country," the president said when discussing the recent fall in the stock market. "You can't really watch the stock market. If you look at China, they have a 100 year perspective. We go by quarters. And you can't go by that."

In his first term, Trump often used the stock market as proof of his success. "Highest stock market EVER," Trump boasted on social media in July 2017. But now he seems to be saying that we'll need to wait 100 years to see the benefits of his policies.

Expect ‘volatility’ in financial markets amid confusion over Trump’s tariffs: Analyst Trump also threatened to raise tariffs - currently set at 25 percent. Trump recently announced the implementation of tariffs would be delayed until April 2. But that did not stop the stock market sell off.

"We're a big, big country, and they do a lot of their business with us, whereas in our case it's much less significant," Trump said of Canada. "We do very little with Canada by comparison, and I wanted to help the American carmakers until April 2."

"The tariffs could go up as time goes by, and they may go up," Trump said.

"We may go up with some tariffs. I don't think we'll go down, but we may go up," he added.

"For years, globalists have been ripping off the United States. They've been taking money away from the United States, and all we're doing is getting some of it back, and we're going to treat our country fairly," Trump said. "This country has been ripped off from every nation in the world, every company in the world. We've been ripped off at levels never seen before, and what we're going to do is get it back."

To "get it back," Americans will bear the burden of increased prices, rising inflation, and an economic slump.>

<Pro-Palestinian activists said Saturday they have vandalized one of U.S. President Donald Trump's golf resorts in Scotland in response to his proposal to empty the Gaza Strip of its Palestinian population.

Activists targeted Trump’s Turnberry golf course and hotel in southwest Scotland overnight, painting “Gaza Is Not For Sale” in giant letters on the lawn and using red spray paint on the club house's exterior wall.

The group Palestine Action said it “rejects Donald Trump’s treatment of Gaza as though it were his property to dispose of as he likes.”

“To make that clear, we have shown him that his own property is not safe from acts of resistance," it said in a statement.

Police Scotland said it received a report of damage to the golf course in the early hours of Saturday, and that inquiries are ongoing.

Trump Turnberry called the activism a “childish, criminal act” and said it will ensure it does not affect its business.

The future of Gaza is uncertain as the first phase of a ceasefire that paused the 15-month war between Israel and Hamas ended with no clarity on what would come next because the agreement’s second phase has not yet been hammered out.

Meanwhile, Trump has called for Gaza’s population to be resettled elsewhere permanently so that the United States can take over the territory and develop it for others. Palestinians have roundly rejected calls to leave.

Turnberry is one of 10 courses on the rotation to host the British Open, the oldest of the four major championships in men’s golf.

However, it hasn’t staged the event since Trump bought the course in 2014 and renovated several holes.

In November, Martin Slumbers, who at that time was the chief executive of British Open organizer the R&A, said there were no immediate plans for the event to return to Turnberry.>

Pity it came true for he who sang the song, the hardest of hard ways:

<Who is Humphrey’s Executor and why should you care?

Humphrey’s Executor was the plaintiff in a 1930s court case. Mr. Humphrey, a Federal Trade Commissioner, had passed away, and the executor of his will wanted to recover the salary he was due for his work as a commissioner from October 8, 1933, to the time of his death on February 14, 1934. The problem was that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had fired Humphrey, who refused to resign, after FDR told him, “I do not feel that your mind and my mind go along together on either the policies or the administering of the Federal Trade Commission, and, frankly, I think it is best for the people of this country that I should have a full confidence.”

The issue on appeal was whether the president had the power to fire Humphrey. The Supreme Court ruled that he didn’t. They reasoned that the law passed by Congress that established and regulates the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) set a fixed term of office for commissioners and provided that they could only be removed by the president for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office. The Court held that Congress intended to restrict the power of removal to those situations and that presidents are not free to fire appointees like Humphrey just because they are of different minds on policy.

The Supreme Court’s decision implies that their ruling applies beyond the FTC. The Court focused on “the character of the Commission,” which they noted is “an independent, nonpartisan body of experts, charged with duties neither political nor executive, but predominantly quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative.” That means their decision should apply to all congressionally created commissions of similar nature. The Court wrote that “When Congress provides for the appointment of officers whose functions, like those of the Federal Trade Commissioners, are of Legislative and judicial quality, rather than executive, and limits the grounds upon which they may be removed from office, the President has no constitutional power to remove them for reasons other than those so specified.”

That clearly doesn’t make Trump happy. The Trump administration is in the process of trying to upend the division of power under the Constitution. It is trying to assume congressional power for the executive branch and undercut the legitimacy of the judiciary while exposing individual judges to threats. That’s why Humphrey’s Executor, long considered firmly established precedent, is under attack by the administration, which views its ability to fire those it views as disloyal, or perhaps merely as inconveniently occupying seats they would prefer to see others in, is newly relevant. The concern is that the Trump administration will take a case to the Supreme Court that will lead the Court to reverse or rein in that precedent, expanding Trump’s power further at the expense of Congress.

The administration will presumably argue Humphrey’s Executor is inconsistent with Article II, Section I of the Constitution, which provides that “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” While Article II powers are vested in a single person, the president, the nature and extent of his power is less clear. On one end of the spectrum are those who view it as creating a benevolent administrator. On the other end of the spectrum is Trump who, along with his Project 2025 buddies, has adopted what’s called the unitary executive approach, which assigns all power to the president, eroding long held norms that support a balance of power, for instance, the post-Watergate separation between the White House and the Oval Office on considerations of who gets prosecuted and who doesn’t.

Currently, the unitary executive theory is being used as an attack on the rule of Humphrey’s Executor. There are a number of cases pending involving appointees whom Trump has fired. Like the case involving Gwynne Wilcox, a Black woman and coincidentally (or perhaps not) the first member of the National Labor Relations Board to be removed since the board was established in 1935. By law, members of the Board can only be removed for negligence or misconduct, but Trump fired her without either of those. And there are consequences even before a replacement is announced. Her removal leaves the Board with just two members so that it lacks the three-person quorum necessary to make a decision about cases before it. The NLRB’s assigned role is protecting employees’ freedom of association, including the right to organize, seek improved working conditions, and choose whether to have a representative negotiate on their behalf, or refrain from doing any of the above. Now, they can’t do that.>

<....District Judge Beryl Howell, in the District of Columbia, ruled on Thursday that Trump lacked the ability to fire Wilcox and that she should be immediately reinstated. The administration has appealed. The framers of the Constitution “made clear that no one in our system of government was meant to be king – the President included – and not just in name only,” Judge Howell wrote. She ruled that Trump’s effort to fire Wilcox was a “blatant violation” of the law, concluding that “A president who touts an image of himself as a ‘king’ or a ‘dictator,’ perhaps as his vision of effective leadership, fundamentally misapprehends the role under Article II of the US Constitution.”

Now, the D.C. Circuit and perhaps, ultimately, the Supreme Court will have a chance to review her decision. Judge Howell defined the role of a president in a manner that is inconsistent with the all-powerful role assigned by the unitary executive theory. She says the Constitution creates a president as “conscientious custodian of the law, albeit an energetic one, to take care of effectuating his enumerated duties, including the laws enacted by the Congress and as interpreted by the Judiciary,” but not as a person entitled to assume Congressional power for himself. The Trump administration says her firing, along with others it has made, were justified because “these were far-left appointees with radical records of upending longstanding labor law, and they have no place as senior appointees in the Trump administration.” That sort of political rationale falls squarely within the type of excuse the Supreme Court said in Humphrey’s Executor is impermissible.

But Trump has continued to assert aggressive control over hiring and firing, as well as the work done in quasi-independent bipartisan offices established by Congress. Trump issued an executive order on February 18 entitled “Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies,”

In that order, Trump goes beyond the power to hire and fire, assuming the power to direct every agency in every detail, including, most dangerously, in Section 7, to decide what laws mean if there is any dispute.

The open question is whether the Supreme Court will reverse its own precedent and sign on to Trump’s view. The unitary executive theory, previously a fringe view, has gained traction with mainstream conservatives during Trump’s tenure. Former attorney general Bill Barr was one of the first to sign on, but support has continued to grow. As Marc Elias has noted, “In more recent opinions [than Humphrey’s Executor], justices have maintained precedent set by previous rulings while at the same time expanding the president’s authority to remove other types of federal officials and giving him increased control over the executive branch.

My former U.S. Attorney colleague Harry Litman explained the importance of this development to me like this, “So much of the administrative state as we know it is guided by so-called independent agencies, to whom Congress has given a measure of insulation so that they can apply specialized or technical expertise free from raw political control. If the Administration’s position prevails, all of that would be out the window if a new President felt like cleaning house.” If Trump has his way, all of those agencies will work for him, not for the American people.

Whether it is probationary federal employees or key appointees to Congressionally created board, there is little doubt Trump is committed to firing federal employees who he thinks could be in his way. He fired Inspectors Generally illegally, without the 30-days notice he is required to give Congress, when he could, with just a little delay, have done it lawfully. It’s part of the power grab we’re watching him make throughout government.

What will the Supreme Court do? Ominous signs came from the notorious ruling last summer granting ex-presidents wide immunity from accountability to criminal law. That case did not rely on the unitary executive theory, but Chief Justice John Roberts could not help but sing the tune. The president is “the only person who alone composes a branch of government,” he wrote.

In her dissent in Trump v. United States, following Chief Justice Roberts’ capitulation to Trump’s demands for immunity from criminal prosecution, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, “In every use of official power the President is now a king above the law.” That is certainly his goal. And, at least in this respect, it’s up to the courts to hold the line. The question is whether precedent will trump politics, or whether a conservative majority on the Supreme Court will continue to turn over the keys to the kingdom to the president.>

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 d6 3.Nc3 e5 4.Nf3 Nbd7 5.e4 Be7 6.Be2 O-O 7.O-O exd4 8.Nxd4 Nc5 9.Qc2 Re8 10.b4 Ne6 11.Nf5 Bf8 12.Nd5 c6 13.Nxf6+ Qxf6 14.Bb2 Qg6 15.f4 Nc7 16.Rf3 Bxf5 17.exf5 Qh6 18.Raf1 d5 19.c5 Qh5 20.Rg3 Qh4 21.Rh3 Qd8 22.f6 g6 23.f5 Re4 24.fxg6 hxg6 25.Bf3 Rxb4 26.Qxg6+ fxg6 27.Bxd5+ 1/2-1/2>

1.e4 Nf6 2.Nc3 d5 3.e5 Nfd7 4.d4 c5 5.f4 cxd4 6.Nb5 e6 7.Nf3 Nc6 8.Nbxd4 Nc5 9.c3 Bd7 10.Be2 Rc8 11.O-O Be7 12.Be3 a6 13.Nxc6 Bxc6 14.Nd4 O-O 15.f5 Bg5 16.Qc1 Bxe3+ 17.Qxe3 exf5 18.Nxf5 Ne6 19.Rad1 Qc7 20.Bd3 Ba4 21.b3 Bb5 22.Bxb5 axb5 23.Rxd5 Qxc3 24.Ne7+ Kh8 25.Rd3 Qc7 26.Nxc8 Rxc8 27.Rfd1 Nc5 28.Rd5 b6 29.b4 Na4 30.Rd7 1-0>

Do tell, <fredthestalker>: how did I do it? Did I also create all these 'fake' players? Jaysus, every time you launch into one of those rages you come off sounding more and more puerile.

<[Event "59th New England Open"] [Site "Boxborough Mass"]
[Date "1999.09.05"]
[Round "3"]
[White "Terrie, Henry L"]
[Black "Polizoti, Geoffrey"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[ECO "A16"]
[WhiteElo "2263"]
[BlackElo "2084"]

<Republican Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds on Wednesday thanked the Iowa House Health and Human Services (HHS) Committee for passing the state’s Medicaid Work Requirements bill.

According to Iowa HHS, there are “over 100,000 able-bodied adult Medicaid recipients in Iowa [who] are not working.” Reynolds is pushing for a federal waiver to require able-bodied adults on Medicaid to work in order to received benefits, “with common sense exemptions.” (Medicaid provides health insurance for children and for disabled, elderly, and low-income individuals.)

As seen below, Reynolds wrote to her constituents on X: “If you can work, you should. It's time to refocus Iowa's Medicaid program on its core population-aged, disabled, and children.” Note: Reynolds omitted “low-income individuals” from the core population of recipients of Medicaid.

One able-bodied adult replied to Reynolds: “While I'm physically able to work I have paid in to SS and M/M for 45 years. If Elon takes the waste, fraud and abuse out of the system no Iowan should ever have to work their golden years. Make government efficient again please and thank you.”

Others were not as polite after learning that another bill advanced in the Statehouse this week would give Reynolds a $100,000 raise (a 77% increase) and also increase the salaries of state lawmakers by $20,000 in 2027. According to the Des Moines Register, Reynolds currently makes $130,000 a year.

One angry constituent replied: “Everyone in the Republican Party said no Medicaid cuts and now see what they r doing! Hmmmmm! Farmers want to know about the USDA cuts!!! Kim's more interested in asking for a 77 per cent increase to her pay which equals an extra 100,000 dollars in her pocket!!!”

Note: If passed by the State Government Committee, the pay increases for Iowan lawmakers will not take effect until January 2027, after the 2026 election. Asked at a press conference in February if she was seeking reelection– it would be her third term — Reynolds said: “Stay tuned. There might be some news coming, just not today.”>