Latest news with #Bouie
The Herald Scotland
3 days ago
- Business
- The Herald Scotland
Trump's sledgehammer politics are now wreaking havoc in every sphere
Bouie of course was speaking about US president Donald Trump and his MAGA political movement's current onslaught within almost every sphere of American life and politics. Casting an eye across the wider global geopolitical landscape this weekend, it would be hard to disagree with Bouie's assessment, and in fact fair to say that almost everywhere you look right now Trump's combative and confrontational kind of politics are leaving their mark. Just last Friday Trump moved to reignite his global trade war laying bare the administration's bubbling frustration with resistance from both corporations and foreign countries unwilling to rapidly kowtow to Washington's demands. It was last month that the US president unleashed his so-called 'liberation day' tariffs on many of America's trade partners. What then followed was a period of relative calm as Trump tried to reassure uneasy markets, but once again the US leader has come out shooting, targeting the European Union with new 50 percent tariffs and declaring that he was no longer interested in reaching a trade deal following days of sluggish negotiations. 'It's time that we play the game the way I know how to play the game,' Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. 'I'm not looking for a deal. We've set the deal - it's at 50 percent.' It's hard to overstate the impact such tariffs might have, delivering as they would a resounding blow to key manufacturing sectors from cars to chemicals aerospace and other goods. According to figures from the European Commission, the US is the EU's largest single trade partner, accounting for just over 20 % of goods exports worth more than €530bn in 2024. Germany, Ireland, Italy and France are the leading exporters by country. This includes more than €200bn of machinery and vehicles, €160bn of chemicals and €25bn of food and drink. I wouldn't be inaccurate to say that Friday's tariff threat from Trump caught many European officials off guard not least given it came following comparatively cordial talks with the US at last week's G7 finance minister summit in Banff in the Canadian Rockies. (Image: Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) at the opening bell on May 23, 2025) Trade gauntlet The US was 'treating us like friends again', one European official was quoted by the Financial Times (FT) as saying, but now once again the EU is having to think again about the US president's laying down of the economic and trade gauntlet. Not content with locking economic horns with the EU, Trump also had Apple and other smartphone manufacturing giants like Samsung in his crosshairs demanding they make their phones in the United States or face a 25% tariff. 'I have long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhone's that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else,' Trump posted Friday morning on Truth Social. 'If that is not the case, a Tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple to the U.S.' Trump met with Cook in Riyadh at the beginning of the president's Middle East trip recently. In Qatar, he called out Cook for his plan to build US-bound iPhones in India. 'I had a little problem with Tim Cook,' Trump said while in Qatar. 'I said to him, 'Tim, you're my friend. I treated you very good. You're coming in with $500 billion.' But now I hear you're building all over India. I don't want you building in India.'' If the EU had been lulled into a false sense of security, then Apple CEO Cook more than likely saw Trump's tariff challenge coming after their recent Qatar encounter. But time and again it seems the leaders of other nations, trade blocs, heads of businesses and other organisations and institutions continue to find themselves blindsided by the US president. READ MORE: David Pratt: How a Russian attack could play out if diplomacy fails over Ukraine DAVID PRATT ON THE WORLD: Truth is already the first casualty in war of words over Ukraine David Pratt in Ukraine: It's hard to comprehend this level of destruction Trump's capacity to turn on a political sixpence and his ever increasing willingness to adopt a confrontational approach to policy and negotiations is well established but still it continues to wreak havoc. This after all is a man who has turned diplomacy into a combination of bitter spectator sport and smackdowns, the chosen arena for such events almost invariably the Oval Office. Few can forget that infamous recent encounter between Trump, US Vice president J.D Vance and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Last week saw a near rerun with South Africa's president Cyril Ramaphosa being the latest victim of an attempted 'diplomatic' mugging in the Oval Office. Broadcast on live television it no doubt brought delight to Trump's MAGA faithful who believe the white race to be under siege. Trump's notion of 'genocide' against white Afrikaners as implied by him, will help fuel MAGA's extreme paranoias that the same might happen were the US to relax its border controls. As a FT editorial rightly pointed out, 'for the neutral observer - and potential tourist or investor - South Africa's reputation was ritually trashed in prime time.' To his credit, Ramaphosa a veteran of the bitter days of resistance to apartheid rule remained unflappable. As the FT also observed 'the entire optics of the event, in which Trump deferred to white golfers over a Black president and cabinet ministers, evoked nasty echoes of apartheid'. (Image: US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem speaks to staff for the first time) White genocide lie No one doubts that South Africa has its serious problems especially with crime, but Trump's accusation of a 'white genocide' is both untrue and his onslaught in the Oval Office yet another reminder that everything and anything is open to attack. This say some observers should not be seen as individual challenges, but more significantly part of a wider concerted strategy. That very point was recently made by the US political and cultural commentator David Brooks. 'So far, we have treated the various assaults of President Trump and the acolytes in his administration as a series of different attacks. In one lane they are going after law firms. In another they savaged U.S.A.I.D. In another they're attacking our universities. On yet another front they're undermining NATO and on another they're upending global trade,' observed Brooks in the NYT last month. 'But that's the wrong way to think about it,' Brooks continued. 'These are not separate battles. This is a single effort to undo the parts of the civilisational order that might restrain Trump's acquisition of power. And it will take a concerted response to beat it back,' Brooks then went on to warn. That attack on American universities was again in the forefront of Trump's political assault these past few days. Last Thursday Secretary of US homeland security Kristi Noem sent a letter to Harvard telling its administration that the university's student and exchange visitor programme certification had been revoked, 'effective immediately'. The decision is widely seen as part of a deepening crackdown in recent months by Trump on elite institutions which he accuses of promoting 'woke' ideology and failing to tackle antisemitism. In a post on the social media platform X that published her letter, Noem wrote: 'It is a privilege, not a right, for universities to enrol foreign students and benefit from their higher tuition payments to help pad their multibillion-dollar endowments. 'Let this serve as a warning to all universities and academic institutions across the country.' But by Friday a US judge temporarily blocked the move providing at least temporary relief to thousands of international students who were faced with being forced to transfer under a policy that the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based university called a 'blatant violation' of the US Constitution and other federal laws, and said would have an 'immediate and devastating effect' on the university and more than 7,000 visa holders. (Image: Harvard Yard, the centre of the Harvard campus, April 24, 2025 in Cambridge, Massachusetts) Students' concern The move by the Trump administration underscored rising concerns and sparked greater criticism from university and academic bodies and networks representing international students. Elsewhere, far from the United States other education institutions sought to take advantage of Harvard's predicament, with the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology launching an invitation to Harvard's current and future international students to enrol with it instead. That in itself highlighted another danger some point to about Trump's policies which are creating a 'brain drain' in the US. For many academics and researchers the US under Trump's rule is losing its allure, the most obvious reason is money, or the looming lack of it. According to the Economist, Trump's administration has cancelled thousands of research grants since January, when he took office. Grant Watch, a website, calculates that at least $2.5bn-worth have been rescinded so far, leaving researchers without salaries and unable to pay expenses. The White House's budget for 2026 also aims to slash science spending. Since Trump's return to office, somewhere in the region of $8bn has been cancelled or withdrawn from scientists or their institutions, equivalent to nearly 16% of the yearly federal grant budget for higher education. A further $12.2bn was rescinded but has since been reinstated by courts says The Economist. 'Most cancellations have hit research that Trump and his team do not like, including work that appears associated with diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and research on climate change, misinformation, covid-19 and vaccines. Other terminations have targeted work conducted at elite universities,' The Economist report detailed. For some American citizens Trump's reshaping of the country and its relations overseas is proving too much. This is borne out in one example by the number of Americans applying for UK citizenship which rose to the highest on record last year following Trump's return to power and UK tax changes contributing to a surge in applications by US citizens in Britain. Over 6,100 US citizens applied last year, the most since records began two decades ago and 26 per cent more than in 2023. Applications by US citizens surged in the last quarter of 2024 in particular, rising 40 per cent year on year to about 1,700, according to data published by the Home Office. Poor polling In the US itself, Trump's actions are also impacting polls. A recent Economist/YouGov polling across the US, completed on May 9-12, shows 51% think the country is on the wrong track, while only 45% have a favourable impression of his job as president .Only on the issue of border security does polling favour Trump. On inflation and prices in the shops, only 35% approve of his handling of this policy. The president also seems to be scoring particularly badly with young voters. Around 62% of young people (18 to 29s) have an unfavourable opinion of the president, compared with 53% of the over-65. The unease in America with his presidency has left many influential publications and commentators question the future of America under the MAGA 'vision.' It also has some stressing the importance of seeing what Trump is doing in terms not of isolated attacks, but something that collectively threatens American democracy and therefore requires a collective response. 'Trumpism is threatening all of that. It is primarily about the acquisition of power - power for its own sake. It is a multifront assault to make the earth a playground for ruthless men, so of course any institutions that might restrain power must be weakened or destroyed,' argued NYT columnist David Brooks in his pull-no-punches article entitled: What's Happening Is Not Normal: America Needs an Uprising That Is not Normal. In his piece Brooks make the case that 'Trumpism is about ego, appetite and acquisitiveness and is driven by a primal aversion to the higher elements of the human spirit - learning, compassion, scientific wonder, the pursuit of justice.' An increasing number of commentators share such a view, but whether Trump listens to such criticism is altogether another matter. Both America and the world meanwhile watch and wait for what directive comes next from the White House. Nothing it seems is beyond targeting if perceived to be in the interests of the president.
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Yahoo
Cabana Live shooting: Florida teen sentenced to 10 years for firing into crowd at party venue, injuring 10
The Brief Christopher Bouie, now 17, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for opening fire at a Seminole County event venue in 2024, injuring 10 people, including NFL player Tank Dell. He pleaded no contest to multiple felony charges and has filed a notice of appeal following his sentencing. ORLANDO, Fla. - The teenager who open-fired inside a Sanford event venue and injured 10 people has been sentenced to 10 years in prison, exactly one year after the incident, according to new court records. The backstory Shortly after midnight on April 28, 2024, deputies, who were patrolling in the nearby area, responded to Cabana Live, an events venue and restaurant, after hearing multiple gunshots appearing to come from the back of the establishment, according to the Seminole County Sheriff's Office. When they arrived on scene they witnessed crowds of people running out of the venue. According to court paperwork, witnesses said the shooting started as a fight inside the venue. Then Christopher Bouie, who was 16-years-old at the time, turned around, pulled out a 9mm gun, and started shooting toward a crowd of people. According to deputies, a 20-year-old from Tallahassee was identified as the second person to open fire in the venue. However, he was not named a suspect, arrested, or charged with a crime in the shooting. A security guard at the venue tackled Bouie to disarm him and a second security guard placed him in handcuffs until Seminole County deputies arrived. A total of 10 people, including NFL player Tank Dell, were taken to the hospital with gunshot wounds, mostly to their legs, the sheriff's office said. In May 2024, a judge issued an Order of Transfer, shifting the prosecution of Bouie from Juvenile Court to the adult Circuit Court. What we know On Monday, April 28, 2025, exactly one year after the shooting, Bouie, who is now 17-years-old, was sentenced to 10 years in prison. The 10-year sentence was paired with five years' probation and the requirement to undergo mental health treatment, according to new court documents. Bouie pleaded no contest and was found guilty on the following charges: 3 counts | Attempted second-degree murder while discharging firearm 3 counts | Criminal attempt to solicit or conspire to commit a capital felony 3 counts | Committing a first-degree felony with a weapon 1 count | Possession of a firearm by a minor under the age of eighteen According to court records, after his sentencing Monday, Bouie filed a notice of appeal. He has been assigned a public defender and the state has filed an acknowledgment of the notice of appeal. STAY CONNECTED WITH FOX 35 ORLANDO: Download the FOX Local app for breaking news alerts, the latest news headlines Download the FOX 35 Storm Team Weather app for weather alerts & radar Sign up for FOX 35's daily newsletter for the latest morning headlines FOX Local: Stream FOX 35 newscasts, FOX 35 News+, Central Florida Eats on your smart TV The Source The information in this article comes from the Seminole County Clerk of Courts, court documents filed between April 28, 2025, and May 1, 2025, and previous reporting from FOX 35 News.
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Yahoo
Teen pleads guilty, then appeals in Seminole County club mass shooting
A now-17-year-old boy has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for bringing a gun into a crowded Seminole County club last April and opening fire. 10 people were injured during the Cabana Live shooting, including when a second person shot back. One of those injured was Houston Texans Wide Receiver Tank Dell. On Tuesday, court records show Christopher Bouie pleaded guilty to attempted murder, to which the judge sentenced him to the minimum mandatory, plus five years of probation. Records had previously shown the two sides were attempting to reach a deal as prosecutors struggled to get witnesses to cooperate. Channel 9 showed up in court Tuesday morning expecting to watch Bouie plead, but attorneys huddled with the judge out of earshot and then left the court room. A source said Bouie had not yet formally signed off on the deal. Apparently, all he needed was a few hours. Records did not specify why Bouie decided to appeal his own plea. In past cases, defendants claim their counsel was ineffective or forced them into making the agreement. Records show Bouie immediately parted ways with his attorney before appealing. The attorney, James Crock, did not respond to a request for comment. Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Yahoo
17-year-old Sanford club shooter appeals 10-year prison sentence after ‘no contest' plea
The teen who shot up the Cabana Live club in Sanford last year was sentenced to 10 years in state prison after pleading no contest this week to multiple counts of attempted murder. As part of his plea agreement, Christopher Bouie, now 17, also was handed five years of probation and required to undergo mental health treatment in addition to the prison bid. The plea was filed in Seminole County court Monday, exactly one year after the shooting that injured 10 people and a week before jury selection was set to begin for his trial. But on Wednesday, Bouie filed a notice to appeal his sentence in state court, which will draw out his case as he sits behind bars. Bouie was charged as an adult in the shooting, which took place at an event hosted by Cabana Live called the 'Nobody Leaves Sober Pool Party,' which the Orlando Sentinel previously reported was likely held without proper permits. Surveillance video showed a crowd of more than 200 people scattering as gunfire erupted seconds after a fight broke out inside the club. Houston Texans wide receiver Tank Dell was among those injured in the shooting before a security guard tackled Bouie and disarmed him. The incident was among 502 mass shootings reported in 2024, according to the Gun Violence Archive, with Florida the site of 32 of them. It's not clear what prompted the fight or how the teen was allowed inside. Months later, the Seminole County Sheriff's Office named a second shooter who fired back inside the club but court records show prosecutors never brought charges against him. In addition to Bouie's criminal charges the shooting refocused attention on Cabana Live's past run-ins with law enforcement. Sheriff Dennis Lemma said deputies were called 85 times in the year before the incident for reports ranging from fights to crowd overflows in the parking lot. The club has faced a number of lawsuits filed by the shooting victims claiming inadequate security that night resulted in the incident. Those lawsuits are ongoing.
Yahoo
06-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
"Not fit to have a job": Trump victim-blames veterans, workers for his war on the economy
It's starting to look like Donald Trump is deliberately wrecking the economy. As Robert Kuttner at the American Prospect wrote this week, "no other president has gone out of his way to create a collapse," but there's no other way to interpret Trump's actions. Pointless tariffs will only jack up inflation. Illegally shutting down much of the federal government and laying off thousands at random will suck money out of the economy, forcing a recession. Both consumer confidence and the stock market are diving and a likely surge in unemployment — driven in no small part by Elon Musk recklessly firing federal workers without regard for law or necessity — will make it worse. And if all these federal cuts lead, as expected, to people not getting Social Security checks or health coverage, the disaster will likely spiral. Kuttner can't decide if Trump wants the economy to crash or if his actions are "based on sheer ignorance and impulsivity." Trump, however, indicated malicious intent during his seemingly endless speech in front of Congress on Tuesday night. Trump mocked the fears over imminent inflation by sneering that it's merely "a little disturbance." It's a familiar rhetorical move of his to paint his victims as whiners. In this case, however, his victims include most Americans, who aren't independently wealthy and can't simply afford rising costs and massive job losses. It's an understatement to call it "unprecedented" to have a president who hates most Americans, including his own voters, and wants them to suffer. But, as Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times persuasively argued Wednesday, Trump's psychology makes it explicable. Trump's "every executive function exists to satisfy his ego," Bouie wrote. He continues to whine on a near-daily basis about losing the 2020 election. "[I]t stands to reason that Trump would want revenge against the public," Bouie concluded, adding that Trump is now undergoing "a retribution campaign against the American people." Thomas Edsall of the New York Times spoke with psychologists who confirmed Bouie's layman understanding of Trump's disordered mental state. They affirmed that Trump suffers from "a congenital sense of entitlement," whose personality is like that of "street toughs, bullies, abusive husbands and hate-crime perpetrators." Even in the 2024 election, he didn't get over 50% of the vote. It makes sense that, after nearly a decade of most Americans rejecting him, a malignant narcissist like Trump would detest Americans categorically, and wish nothing more than to punish them all. As for his supporters, there's good reason Trump enjoys hurting them, as well. One of his favorite moves is to humiliate people who are dumb enough to fawn over him. Even during Tuesday's speech, he reminded us he loves to kick someone in the face after they bent to kiss his feet. After congratulating Marco Rubio for getting the secretary of state job — for which Rubio had to repeatedly prostrate himself — Trump threatened him. "Good luck, Marco. Now we know who to blame if anything goes wrong," Trump said, relishing one more bit of public shaming of a man who has done so much to flatter most abusers, Trump's go-to move when challenged is to blame his victims. Unlike most abusers, however, Trump has a small army of spinmeisters and apologists who will echo his victim-blaming rhetoric. As the economic damage starts to balloon out, the number of people who will be told that they brought this on themselves will grow — likely until most Americans are being blamed for what Trump inflicted on them. "Perhaps they're not fit to have a job at this moment," argued Trump's lawyer, Alina Habba, when asked by a reporter Tuesday about veterans who are being fired in Musk's sweeping layoffs of federal workers. An estimated one-third of federal workers are veterans. Habba did offer some throat-clearing about "we care about veterans," but was focused mainly on painting veterans as lazy, claiming they're "not willing to come to work." This is straight-up gaslighting. All reporting shows the federal layoffs are indiscriminate, without performance review or auditing. Musk and his "Department of Government Efficiency" (DOGE) keep mass-firing people, only to freak out and beg them to come back when it's revealed their jobs were not, in fact, inessential. This happened to people who maintain nuclear weapons. On Tuesday, 180 fired CDC workers were ordered to return to work. In other cases, Musk admits the jobs were essential — such as with people who prevent Ebola transmission — but "forgets" to restore the funding. Many fired federal workers have produced years of stellar performance reviews. Many were fired right after a promotion. Not that Trump's minions care if their victim-blaming makes sense. Trump's Agriculture Secretary, Brooke Rollins, raised eyebrows this week when she suggested that the solution to soaring egg prices is for Americans to buy backyard chickens. "We've got chickens in our backyard," she told Fox News. "People are sort of looking around and thinking, 'Wow, maybe I could get a chicken in my backyard. And it's awesome!" This wasn't just a one-off statement, either. In the Wall Street Journal, Rollins wrote an op-ed arguing, "We also want to make it easier for families to raise backyard chickens." In reality, it's not government regulations preventing most Americans from setting up a chicken farm in their backyard. Most people don't want to do that or don't have the room. But it would be foolish to regard Rollins' suggestion as a good-faith idea. Instead, this should be seen as more victim-blaming. The implication is that if $8 for a dozen eggs is too expensive for you, it's your fault for not having the foresight to set up your own chicken coop — one that's magically immune, no less, from bird flu. The foundation for the victim-blaming administration was laid most thoroughly during Robert Kennedy's confirmation hearing to be secretary of Health and Human Services. Throughout, Kennedy repeatedly blamed not the health insurance companies or failing infrastructure for soaring health care costs, but patients themselves. He insisted both that "chronic illness" was the sole cause of excessive health care spending and that most chronic illnesses were based on people's personal failures. He especially focused on the idea that his esoteric diet ideas — which include consuming a lot of fried foods, which doctors definitely don't recommend — will fix it all, with the implication that no other medical interventions are needed. Kennedy's victim-blaming attitude looks increasingly like it will be the standard response of the Trump administration to all their failures, especially the economic disaster that Trump is inducing. Most alarming so far is how Trump teed up an excuse to take away Social Security checks from elderly people on Tuesday night. He went on an extended rant falsely accusing millions of recipients of defrauding the government, claiming that the system shows millions of people over 110 years old are drawing checks. This lie, which Musk also likes to repeat, has been thoroughly and repeatedly debunked. But it also doesn't make sense. If you were going to defraud the Social Security Administration, why would you pretend to be 120 years old? Wouldn't a fraudster come up with a fake identity that's more likely to pass notice, such as a 75-year-old? As usual, however, making sense is not the point. The Social Security lie was concocted for a sole and obvious reason: as an excuse when people's Social Security checks stop showing up. The threat of this is not a distant one, either. Musk has heavily targeted Social Security offices for closures, and Democrats are warning that, when you "don't have people to write the checks," the checks won't come. Former Social Security chief Martin O'Malley told CNBC he worries that, within the next few months, the U.S. is "going to see the system collapse and an interruption of benefits." The myth of millions of "fake" people on the rolls suggests Musk and Trump anticipate this collapse, too. They're already teeing up their excuse when payments disappear, which is that the recipients were "frauds" and needed to be cut. Victim-blaming comes naturally to Trump, especially in response to the over two dozen women who have accused him of sexual abuse. In that case, it often works for him, because there's so much sexism in American society that people are ready to believe a woman who allows herself to be alone with a man deserves whatever violence he inflicts on her. But there may be limits to American tolerance for victim-blaming, especially when the victim pool encompasses the vast majority of Americans. Economic collapse is especially hard to blame on the little guys, instead of the person in charge, especially one like Trump, who rejected all sound advice like "tariffs cause inflation" and "mass unemployment is bad." Personally, I think Trump is tanking the economy on purpose, because he's a narcissist who has decided to punish Americans for failing to show him the deference he feels he deserves. But even if one chalks his behavior up to stupidity instead of malice, the outcome is the same. The economy is likely to crash and, when it does, Trump will blame anyone but himself. How many people believe him is the only question left outstanding.
