TV News LIES

Donald Trump made a surprise announcement doubling tariffs on imported steel and aluminum from 25% to 50% during a speech in Pittsburgh celebrating a deal between US Steel and Japan’s Nippon Steel Corporation.

The exact nature of the US Steel deal Trump blessed remained unclear. Although the president insists that it is “a partnership”, Nippon Steel has never withdrawn its bid to buy and control US Steel as a wholly owned subsidiary. The US Steel website still describes the deal as “US Steel’s agreement to be acquired by NSC”.

If the deal is a purchase of US Steel by its Japanese rival, Trump would be breaking a campaign promise to block any such sale.

Trump held a bizarre press conference in the Oval Office with Elon Musk, during which the billionaire said farewell to his role as a special government employee and the president repeated false claims about government spending his donor-turned-aide had stopped.

More...

Donald Trump says he is firing the first female director of the National Portrait Gallery, which contained a caption that referenced the attack on the US Capitol that his supporters carried out in early 2021.

The president announced the termination on Friday in a post on his social media platform that accused Sajet – born in Nigeria, raised in Australia and a citizen of the Netherlands – of being “a strong supporter” of diversity initiatives that his administration opposes as well as “highly partisan”. He cited no evidence for either claim.

Legal experts, including Eric Columbus, a former litigator for the January 6 select committee, suggested Trump does not have the power to fire Sajet, since the gallery is part of the Smithsonian, which is not run by the executive branch.

More...

Now, when Israel is executing a “final solution” in Gaza, when it is far too late for dissent to make any difference, the tide is slowly starting to turn. Now that Gaza is flattened, turned into mass graves and rubble, people who have kept quiet for the past 19 months are slowly starting to speak up. Now that Israel and the US are not even trying to pretend that they aren’t intent on emptying Gaza and the West Bank of Palestinians, of “taking control” of all of the land, some criticism has started to trickle in.

Over in the UK, they’ve pulled out the “e” word. After 19 months of genocidal violence and almost three months of a starvation campaign the UK has decided to describe the situation as egregious. The UK, along with France and Canada, has threatened – and I’m sure Israel’s leaders are quaking in their boots over this – that there might be a “concrete” response if the mass killing and starvation continues.

Meanwhile, there’s been a slight shift in the media coverage. Instead of just parroting the Israeli government’s talking points, major media figures such as Piers Morgan are starting to challenge Israeli spokespeople about why the international media has not been freely allowed into Gaza to see what is happening for themselves.

Elon Musk arrived in Washington, D.C., with high hopes. He left with a literal and reputational black eye.

President Donald Trump marked the end of Musk's tenure as a government employee with an event in the Oval Office May 30, where he thanked the billionaire for his work leading the Department of Government Efficiency and gave him a golden key.

“Elon’s delivered a colossal change in the old ways of doing business in Washington,” Trump declared.

The Supreme Court on May 30 said the Trump administration can revoke for now the temporary legal status of hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans living in the United States.

Two of the court’s three liberal justices – Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor – dissented.

Jackson wrote that the court "plainly botched" its assessment of whether the government or the 532,000 migrants would suffer the greater harm if their legal status ends while the administration's mass termination of that status is being litigated.

Jackson said the majority undervalued "the devastating consequences of allowing the Government to precipitously upend the lives and livelihoods of nearly half a million noncitizens while their legal claims are pending."

More...

Colombian President Gustavo Petro's government officially appointed Jorge Ivan Ospina as the country’s first ambassador to the State of Palestine on Monday.

The move formalizes Colombia's diplomatic presence with an embassy established in Ramallah.

Ospina, the former mayor of Cali, the third most populous city in Colombia, publicly acknowledged his appointment on his X account.

In his post, he thanked President Petro and Foreign Minister Laura Sarabia and outlined his commitment to "denouncing the genocide that the Palestinian people are suffering today" and working toward the "freedom of those who live there."

The appointment, signed by Foreign Minister Sarabia, marks a significant step in building on Colombia's official recognition of the State of Palestine in 2018. Previously, relations with Palestine were primarily conducted through multilateral organizations.

More...